Stonewielder (31 page)

He pushed through to the marching grounds where a knot of trainees –
gods, could they even be called that? –
milled into each other, their tall spears clattering. They squinted like befuddled children at a fellow red-faced from cursing them. Ivanr pulled a hand down his sweat-grimed face as if to wipe the vision from his sight.
Gods protect us all. This will not do. They ought to be given
some
chance
.

He cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘Halt!’

A great banging of hafts as half the trainees stopped.

The red-faced fellow gaped, then gathered himself. ‘Who in the name of the Lady of Lies are you?’

‘Temporary replacement.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Talk to the lieutenant here.’

From then on Ivanr kept his back to the man and addressed the gathered infantry.
Some hundred young lads and lasses, gap-toothed oldsters. The lad could be among them. Still, most are here because they want to be; not the impressed near-prisoners of the Imperial infantry. Well, first things first
. ‘Who here knows his or her right hand?’ he bellowed, taking full advantage of his great Thel lung capacity and presence.

A few right arms rose timorously.

‘Very good! Some of you actually got that correct! Now, take that arm and extend it out straight from your shoulder – that’s right, move over! I want an arm’s length between everyone. Let’s go.’

The majority of the crowd just stared back, uncomprehending.

He took a great breath and roared: ‘
Now!
’

A forest of rattling as everyone ran into everyone else.

Ivanr turned to the lieutenant, who quickly swapped his stifled laughter for a look of sombre attention. The red-faced would-be drillmaster was nowhere in evidence. ‘Lieutenant Carr.’

‘Sir?’

‘I will have need of a drum, or some sort of drummer lad.’

‘Aye, sir.’

*    *    *

The identity of the man strapped and immobilized on the table was irrelevant to Ussü. A serum distilled from oil of durhang rendered the subject insensate while, most important, in no way inhibiting the fleshly systems. The body may as well be that of a dog or a sheep. Indeed, he had begun his experimentation with such animals. But – as he had discovered – for his purposes the human essence provided by far the greatest efficacy. He rested a hand upon the naked chest, felt the pounding of the heart. Strong. Excellent. Not the usual sickened or starved prisoner. Perhaps this one will last long enough …

He nodded to his apprentices. One, Yurgen, made a last circuit of the tower chamber, checking the iron shutters, the barred iron door, then drew his sword and readied his shield. Such experimentation can summon the most alarming manifestations. Ussü once almost lost an arm to an entity that took possession of the corpse of a great boarhound. His two other apprentices, Temeth and Seel, stood at his elbows.

He extended a hand and Seel gave over a knife of keen knapped obsidian, the handle leather-wrapped. Ussü felt down along the ribs of the subject – yes, just between these – and made an incision up over the barrel of the torso, beginning at the side and ending at the sternum.

Before he came to Korel none of these elaborate preparations would have been necessary. Indeed, he would have been repulsed by the idea. One merely had to reach out and there would be the Warren at one’s fingertips. Yet here he and all the other lesser Malazan practitioners had been rendered impotent. Some had been driven
mad; others had killed themselves, directly or indirectly, through concoctions or drugs meant to facilitate access.

He held out the knife and Temeth took it away and another instrument was placed in his hand: a tool of wooden wedges and metal screws. Ussü eased the slim leading tips of the wooden wedges into the incision between the ribs. Seel daubed at the blood welling up.

‘Gently here,’ he warned the two, who nodded and leaned forward to peer more closely. He began working the screws, one by one. The wedges parted. Turn by turn, a hair’s-breadth at a time, Ussü created a cavity at the body’s side where the ribs curved.

He, however, had chosen a different path …

Power existed here in the Korelri subcontinent. The followers of the Lady had access. And the source of that potential, he had discovered, lay in …
sacrifice
.

When he judged the opening large enough he nodded and Seel took hold of the spacer. Leaning forward over the subject, almost hugging him, Ussü slipped his hand into the gap at the side. Gently, reverently almost, he eased inward, fingers straight. He felt his way around organs, slipped past ligaments, parted layers of fat, until the tips of his fingers brushed the vibrating, quivering, seat of life. With one last push he cradled the heart and with his other hand he reached out for his Warren.

Steady pressure on the heart brought to his summoning a tenuous ghost-image of Mockra. He eased his grip tighter; the heart laboured, pulsed in his fist like a terrified animal. He sought out a vision at the limits of the Warren’s divinatory potential –
of prescience
.

Grant me a vision of what is to come!

And he saw – he saw … desolation. Shores scoured clean by a tidal wave invasion of the sea-borne demon Riders. The land poisoned, lifeless. Cities inundated, corpses lolling in the surf in numbers beyond comprehension
.

Annihilation
.

No! How could this be?

A mere hand’s breadth from his face the eyes of the subject snapped open. The apprentices flinched away, yelping their terror. Yurgen charged forward.

‘Halt!’ Ussü returned the corpse’s dead stare, for dead it was, the organ immobile in his hand. ‘Greetings, Lady.’

A smile, the eyes rolling all white. ‘I have tolerated your heresies, Ussü,’ the corpse barely mouthed, ‘because I sense in you a great potential. Set aside your disbelief. Cleave to the True Path.’

‘They are coming, Blessed Lady. New Imperial forces are on their way. We must …’ he wet his lips, ‘join forces.’

‘You have seen this? How strong you are, Ussü. Stand at my side.’

She knows nothing of our prisoner. She is not omniscient
.

Again the dead smile. ‘I allowed you Malazans to land because you brought a renewed vitality to the true faith. You have strengthened me in so many ways. There is nothing like a challenge to inspire and confirm a faith. And so I welcome you again.’

‘Yet the true enemy awaits. What of the Riders?’

The lips twisted, snarling. ‘I have no vision of them.
She
stymies me yet. That Queen bitch has ever stood in my way!’ The body eased beneath Ussü, the fit seeming to pass. ‘Kneel before me, Ussü. Embrace me as your Goddess.’

The corpse raised its head to whisper at his ear, intimately close: ‘Let me touch
your
heart.’

Revolted, Ussü threw himself from the body. Yurgen swung, the blade passing through the neck to slam into the table. Ussü pushed aside Seel and Temeth to stand swaying, his heart hammering as if brushed by ghostly fingers.
Hood preserve them!
What were they dealing with here? He crossed to a washbasin and rubbed the gore from his arms. Temeth passed him a towel and he dried himself then rolled down his sleeves.

He eyed the three. ‘A gag will be the order of the day, next time, Yurgen.’

All nodded, faces pale as snow.

*    *    *

They had been at sea for two weeks when Sergeant Goss came down to the jammed quarters below decks and crouched amid the hammocks. It was the beginning of their squad’s sleeping shift and some were bedding down while others were watching games of troughs and dice. Len gestured the squad close. Suth was lying in his hammock and he folded an arm under his head. Wess was snoring above him.

‘Guess you been hearing the rumours,’ Goss said when most had gathered round.

‘Which rumours? There’s been nothin’ but all this time,’ Pyke said.

Suth agreed. There was a plague of rumours aboard: that they would yet strike east for Genabackis; that they were headed for
Stratem to pursue some mercenary company; that the expedition could not possibly succeed because the Empire had run out of cadre mages; that Greymane was commanding and he was bad luck; that the Emperor had struck a pact with the Stormriders; that Mare vessels had been sighted shadowing them and the sea would take them all. For his part Suth was unperturbed. To him this was just a particularly obvious example of how all talk was, in point of fact, useless.

‘First, it’s about Greymane. It’s official. He has command.’

‘Oponn’s luck!’ said Pyke. ‘Where’d they dig him up? I heard the man was so incompetent his own officers got rid of him. We’re better off without
him
.’

‘That’s not what I heard,’ Len growled. ‘The old veterans spoke well of him.’

‘Nothing we can do about it,’ Yana said from where she knelt, steadying herself on a hammock.

That observation struck Suth as extraordinarily wise and he nodded his sombre agreement.

‘The other’s about fighting alongside the Blues,’ Goss went on.

‘Yeah, we heard,’ Pyke said. ‘Some damn thing about volunteering to fight with them. Volunteer? What for? Not for damned honour ’n’ glory or any damned shit like that, I hope.’

‘Shut that anus you call a mouth,’ Yana murmured – she had less and less time for the man as the days wore on.

Unperturbed, Goss raised and let fall his shoulders. ‘There’s some as see it that way. But, no. This is for places on the Blues’ vessels that will lead the shore assault. So, you could say it’s a chance for some loot.’

‘Loot,’ Pyke snorted, scornful. ‘A gut full of iron more like.’

Fighting on land. To Suth that sounded preferable to fighting at sea. ‘How are they choosing? Do you just ask?’

Goss nodded, accepting the question. He leaned aside, clearing his throat into his fist. ‘Well, there’s to be what you might call tryouts. Them Blues is mighty selective. They won’t let just anybody on board.’

Lard looked up from juggling his dice. One eye was still black and his bald head still bruised from his last fit of brawling. ‘What’s that? Fighting?’

Pyke rolled his eyes. Goss rubbed the bristles at his cheeks, smiling. ‘Yeah. ’Gainst the Blues themselves.’

Blowing out a breath, Lard sat back down. Pyke’s laugh was a
sneer. ‘Hard lumps. And for what? A chance to get yourself killed? No, the rule is don’t volunteer for nothin’.’

But Kyle leaned back to stare at the sweat-stained canvas hammock above. He’d been watching these armoured Moranth. Clearly worthy opponents. And he’d been too long without testing himself against anyone.

Far too long.

When the
Lasana’s
turn came and the volunteering squads were called to ready themselves for the next morning, the 17th was one of five named. Pyke was furious. Below decks he first pinned Lard: ‘Was you, wasn’t it? You Hood-damned fat fool.’ Lard waved the man away. He turned on Dim next: ‘Or you – dimwit?’

Dim just looked confused.

‘Shut up,’ said Yana from nearby. ‘Look to your kit.’

‘My kit?
My
kit! There’s no way I’m turning out for this! No way.
You
lot are the fools.’ And he stormed off.

‘Good riddance,’ Lard called after him, and aside, to Dim: ‘Was it you?’

Dim blinked at the man. ‘Was it me what?’

Lard caught Suth’s eye and raised his glance to the timbers above. ‘Never mind.’

Every soul on board the
Lasana
jammed the decks that morning. The sailors hung in the rigging, arms crossed under their chins. It was overcast, and a strong cold wind was blowing off the Strait of Storms. Two squads of Moranth Blue marines had come over by launch. The five Malazan squads had the stern deck to ready themselves while amidships was being cleared. The sergeants huddled together to draw lots to determine order. The 17th picked second. When Goss came back with the news Suth leaned close to his ear.

‘Swap for last.’

Goss eyed him. ‘What if they don’t want no swap?’ ‘Tell them we need time, we’re short, whatever you must.’ The sergeant grunted his agreement; you could say they
were
short. Faro, Pyke and Wess hadn’t shown. And it was clear from their usual plain leather jerkins that Len and Keri weren’t planning on fighting.

Yana joined them. She stood even taller and broader in her full shirt of thick padded scale, boots, broadsword at her wide leather
belt, full helm under one arm. ‘Minimum is five,’ Goss said, as he rubbed his jaw and eyed the squads readying their arms. ‘If we can’t field five, we’re out.’

‘Where’s Pyke?’ Suth asked.

Goss’ jaws clenched. ‘Out. Says he fell down a companionway ladder. Twisted his knee.’

‘Dead-weight useless shit,’ Yana snarled. ‘We don’t need him. We have five with you anyway.’

‘No sergeants. Just regulars.’

‘Shit.’

‘And Wess?’ Suth asked.

‘I think
he’s
around here somewhere,’ Yana answered.

‘Dig him up – I’ll see what I can swing.’

Suth searched the crowds nearby. When he returned Goss was back. The sun was warming the decking and the wind had picked up. The sailors were busy trimming the canvas to steady the ship. ‘We’re fourth,’ Goss said.