The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (1130 page)

He knew of Olar Ethil, the bonecaster who had cursed them into eternal suffering. For her, he felt nothing. She was as stupid as the rest. As blind, as mistaken as all the other bonecasters who folded their power into the Ritual.
Will you fight her, First Sword? If so, then you will do it alone. We are nothing to you, and so you are nothing to us.

Do not let the eyes deceive. We are no army.

We are no army.

Nom Kala found the bonecaster Ulag Togtil at her side. He was, without question, the biggest warrior among the Imass she had ever seen. Trell blood. She wondered what he had looked like in the flesh. Frightening, no doubt, broad-mouthed and tusked, his eyes small as an ice boar’s. She had few memories of Trell—they were all but gone in her time, among the first to be driven from the face of the earth by the humans. Indeed, she was not even certain her memories were true ones, rather than something bled into her by the Orshayn.

Sour blood, that. A deluge of vicious sentiments, confused desires, depthless despair and pointless rage. She felt under assault—these Orshayn were truly tortured, spiritually destroyed. But neither she nor her kin had acquired any skill in fending off this incessant flood. They had never before experienced the like.

From the First Sword himself, however, there was nothing. Not a single wisp of thought escaped him, not a hint of emotion. Was he simply lifeless, there in his soul? Or was his self-command so absolute that even her most determined assaults upon his thoughts simply slid off, weak as rain on stone? The mystery that was Onos T’oolan dogged her.

‘A measure of mercy,’ Ulag said, intruding upon her thoughts.

‘What is, Bonecaster?’

‘You bleed as well, Nom Kala. We are all wayward. Bone trembles, darkness spins in what remains of our eyes. We believe we are the creators of our thoughts, our feelings, but I think otherwise.’

‘Do you?’

He nodded. ‘We roil in his wake. All this violence, this fury. It devours us, each one, and is shaped by what it eats. And so we believe each of us stands alone in our intent. Most troubling, Nom Kala. How soon before we turn upon one another?’

‘Then there is no measure of mercy,’ she replied.

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On how subtle is Onos T’oolan.’

‘Please, explain.’

‘Nom Kala, he has said he will not compel us to obedience. He will not be as a T’lan Imass. This is significant. Is he aware of the havoc wrought in his wake? I believe he is.’

‘Then, what purpose?’

‘We will see.’

‘Only if you are correct, and if the First Sword is then able to draw us to him—before it is too late. What you describe holds great risk, and the longer he waits, the less likely he will be able to gather us.’

‘That is true,’ he rumbled in reply.

‘You believe in him, don’t you?’

‘Faith is a strange thing—among the T’lan Imass, it is little more than a pale ghost of memory. Perhaps, Nom Kala, the First Sword seeks to awaken it in us once more. To make us more than T’lan Imass. Thus, he does not compel us. Instead, he shows us the freedom of mortality, which we’d all thought long lost. How do the living command their kin? How can a mortal army truly function, given the chaos within each soldier, these disparate desires?’

‘What value in showing us such things?’ Nom Kala asked. ‘We are not mortal. We are T’lan Imass.’

He shrugged. ‘I have no answer to that, yet. But, I think, he will show us.’

‘He had better not wait too long, Bonecaster.’

‘Nom Kala,’ Ulag was regarding her, ‘I believe you were beautiful once.’

‘Yes. Once.’

‘Would that I had seen you then.’

But she shook her head. ‘Imagine the pain now, had you done so.’

‘Ah, there is that. I am sorry.’

‘As am I, Bonecaster.’

‘Are we there yet? My feet hurt.’

Draconus halted, turned to observe the half-blood Toblakai. ‘Yes, perhaps we can rest for a time. Are you hungry?’

Ublala nodded. ‘And sleepy. And this armour chafes my shoulders. And the axe is heavy. And I miss my friends.’

‘There is a harness ring for your axe,’ Draconus said. ‘You don’t have to carry it at the ready. As you can see, no one can come upon us without our seeing them from some distance away.’

‘But if I see a rabbit or a chicken, I can run it down and then we can eat.’

‘That won’t be necessary—you have already seen that I am able to conjure food, and water.’

Ublala scowled. ‘I want to do my part.’

‘I see. I am sure you will, before too long.’

‘You see something?’ Ublala straightened, looked round. ‘Rabbit? Cow? Those two women over there?’

Draconus started, and then searched until he found the two figures, walking now towards them but still three hundred or so paces away. Coming up from the south, both on foot. ‘We shall await them,’ he said after a moment. ‘But, Ublala, there is no need to fight.’

‘No, sex is better. When it comes to women, I mean. I never touched that mule. That’s sick and I don’t care what they said. Can we eat now?’

‘Build us a fire,’ Draconus said. ‘Use the wood we gathered yesterday.’

‘All right. Where is it?’

Draconus gestured and a modest stack of broken branches appeared almost at Ublala’s feet.

‘Oh, there it is! Never mind, Draconus, I found the wood.’

The woman in the lead was young, her garb distinctly barbaric. Her eyes
shone from a band of black paint that possibly denoted grief, while the rest of her face was painted white in the pattern of a skull. She was well-muscled, her long braided hair the colour of rust. Three steps behind her staggered an old woman, barefoot, her hide tunic smeared with filth. Rings glittered on blackened fingers, a jarring detail in the midst of her dishevelled state.

The two stopped ten paces from Draconus and Ublala. The younger one spoke.

Ublala looked up from the fire he’d just sparked to life. ‘Trader tongue—I understand you. Draconus, they’re hungry and thirsty.’

‘I know, Ublala. You will find food in that satchel. And a jug of ale.’

‘Really? What satchel—oh, never mind. Tell the pretty one I want to have sex with her, but say it more nicely—’

‘Ublala, you and I speak the same trader tongue, more often than not. As we are doing now.’ He stepped forward. ‘Welcome, then, we will share with you.’

The younger woman, whose right hand had closed on a dagger at her belt as soon as Ublala made his desire plain, now shifted her attention back to Draconus. ‘I am Ralata, a Skincut of the Ahkrata White Face Barghast.’

‘You are a long way from home, Ralata.’

‘Yes.’

Draconus looked past her to the old woman. ‘And your companion?’

‘I found her, wandering alone. She is Sekara, a highborn among the White Faces. Her mind is mostly gone.’

‘She has gangrenous fingers,’ Draconus observed. ‘They must be removed, lest the infection spread.’

‘I know,’ said Ralata, ‘but she refuses my attentions. It’s the rings, I think. Her last claim to wealth.’ The Skincut hesitated, and then said, ‘My people are gone. Dead. The White Face Barghast are no more. My clan. Sekara’s. Everyone. I do not know what happened—’

‘Dead!’ shrieked Sekara, holding up her rotted hands. ‘Frozen! Frozen dead!’

Ublala, who’d jumped at the old woman’s cries, now edged closer to Draconus. ‘That one smells bad,’ he said. ‘And those fingers don’t work—someone’s going to have to feed her. Not me. She says awful things.’

Ralata resumed: ‘She tells me this a hundred times a day. I do not doubt her—I cannot—I see slaughter in her eyes. And in my heart, I know that we are alone.’

‘The infection has found her brain,’ said Draconus. ‘Best if you killed her, Ralata.’

‘Leaving me the last of the White Faces? I do not have the courage to do that.’

‘You give me leave to do so?’ Draconus asked.

Ralata flinched.

‘Ralata,’ said Draconus, ‘you two are not the last of your people. Others still live.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I saw them. At a distance, dressed little different from you. The same weapons. They numbered some five or six thousand, perhaps more.’

‘Where, when?’

Draconus glanced over at Ublala. ‘Before I found my Toblakai friend here. Six, seven days ago, I believe—my sense of time is not what it used to be. The very change of light still startles me. Day, night, there is so much that I had forgotten.’ He passed a hand over his face and then sighed. ‘Ralata, do you give me leave? It will be an act of mercy, and I will be quick. She will not suffer.’

The old woman was still staring at her blackened hands, as if willing them to move, but the swollen digits were curled into lifeless hooks. Her face twisted in frustration.

‘Will you help me raise her cairn?’

‘Of course.’

Ralata finally nodded.

Draconus walked up to Sekara. He gently lowered the woman’s hands, and then set his own to either side of her face. Her manic eyes darted and then suddenly fixed on his. At the last instant, he saw in them something like recognition. Terror, her mouth opening—

A swift snap to one side broke the neck. The woman slumped, still gaping, eyes holding on his even as he slowly lowered her to the ground. A few breaths later and the life left that accusing, horror-filled stare. Straightening, he stepped back, faced the others. ‘It is done.’

‘I’ll go find some stones,’ said Ublala. ‘I’m good at graves and stuff. And then, Ralata, I will show you the horse and you’ll be so happy.’

The woman frowned. ‘Horse? What horse?’

‘What Stooply the Whore calls it, the thing between my legs. My bucking horse. The one-eyed river eel. The Smart Woman’s Dream, what Shurq Elalle calls it. Women give it all sorts of names, but they all smile when they say them. You can give it any name you want and you’ll be smiling, too. You’ll see.’

Ralata stared after the Toblakai as he set off in search of stones, and then she turned to Draconus. ‘He’s but a child—’

‘Only in his thoughts,’ Draconus said. ‘I have seen him stripped down.’

‘If he tries—if either of you tries to rape me, I’ll kill you.’

‘He won’t. Nor will I. You are welcome to journey with us—we are travelling east—the same direction as the Barghast I saw. Perhaps indeed we will catch up to them, or at least cross their trail once more.’

‘What is that meat on the fire?’ she asked, drawing closer.

‘Bhederin.’

‘There are none in the Wastelands.’

Draconus shrugged.

Still she hesitated, and then she said, ‘I am hunting a demon. Winged. It murdered my friends.’

‘How are you able to track this winged demon, Ralata?’

‘It kills everything in its path. That’s a trail I can follow.’

‘I have seen no such signs.’

‘Nor I of late,’ she admitted. ‘Not for the past two days, since I found Sekara, in fact. But the path seems to be eastward, so I will go in that direction. If I find these other Barghast, all the better. If not, my hunt continues.’

‘Understood,’ he replied. ‘Now, will you join me in some ale?’

She spoke behind him as he crouched to pour the amber liquid into two pewter tankards. ‘I mean to bury her with those rings, Draconus.’

‘We are not thieves,’ he replied.

‘Good.’

She accepted the tankard he lifted to her.

Ublala returned with an armload of boulders.

‘Ublala,’ said Draconus, ‘save showing your horse for later.’

The huge man’s face fell, and then he brightened again. ‘All right. It’s more exciting in the dark anyway.’

Strahl had never desired to be Warleader of the Senan. It had been easier feeding himself ambitions he had believed for ever beyond reach, a simple and mostly harmless bolstering of his own ego, giving him a place alongside the other warriors opposed to Onos T’oolan, just one among a powerful, influential cadre of ranking Barghast. He had enjoyed that power and all the privileges it delivered. He had especially revelled in his hoard of hatred, a currency of endless value, and to spend it cost him nothing, no matter how profligate he was. Such a warrior was swollen, well protected behind a shield of contempt. And when shields locked, the wall was impregnable.

But now he was alone. His hoard had vanished—he’d not even seen the scores of hands reaching in behind his back. A warleader’s only wealth was the value of his or her word. Lies sucked the colour from gold. Truth was the hardest and purest and rarest metal of all.

There had been an instant, a single, blinding instant, when he’d stood before his tribe, raising high that truth, forged by hands grown cold. He had claimed it for his own, and in turn his kin had met his eyes, and they had answered in kind. But even then, in his mouth there had been the taste of ashes. Was he nothing more than the voice of the dead? Of fallen warriors who each in turn had been greater than Strahl could ever hope to be? He could voice their desire—and he had done precisely that—but he could not think their thoughts, and so they could not help him, not here, not now. He was left with the paltry confusions of his own mind, and it was not enough.

It had not taken long for his warriors to discover that. After all, where could he lead them? The people of the settled lands behind them sought their blood. The way ahead was ravaged, lifeless. And, as bold as the gesture had been, the Senan had fled a battle, leaving their allies to die. No one wanted the guilt of that. They gave it all to Strahl. Had he not commanded them? Had he not ordered their withdrawal?

He could not argue the point. He could not defend himself against the truths they spoke.
This belongs to me. This is my crime. The others died to give it to me, because they stood where I now stand. Their courage was purer. They led. I can only follow. If it had been any other way, I could have been their match.

He squatted, facing away from the few remaining fires of the camp stretched
out in a disorganized sprawl behind him. Stars spread a remote vista across the jade-soaked sky. The Talons themselves seemed much closer, as if moments from cleaving the heavens and slashing down to the earth itself. No clearer omen could be imagined.
Death comes. An age ends, and with it so end the White Face Barghast, and then their gods, who were freed only to be abandoned, given life only to die. Well, you bastards, now you know how it feels.