The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (247 page)

Quick Ben wiped the sweat from his brow, shook his head. ‘No, it’s getting better. The Barghast spirits are thick here, and getting thicker. They’re resisting the infection. I’ll be all right, Corporal.’

‘If you say so, only you’re looking pretty rough to me.’
And ain’t that an understatement.

‘Hood’s warren is never a fun place.’

‘That’s bad news, Mage. What have we all got to look forward to, then?’

Quick Ben said nothing.

Picker scowled. ‘That bad, huh? Well, that’s just great. Wait till Antsy hears.’

The wizard managed a smile. ‘You tell him news only to see him squirm, don’t you?’

‘Sure. The squad needs its entertainment, right?’

The summit revealed yet another set of small cairns, scattered here and there on its weathered expanse. Tiny, long-legged grey birds hopped from their path as the soldiers marched on. Few words were wasted – the heat was oppressive, with half a day of sunlight remaining. Buzzing flies kept pace.

The squad had seen no-one since Twist’s visit at dawn. They knew the duel had taken place by now, but had no idea of its outcome.
Hood, we could walk in to our own execution.
Spindle and Quick Ben were next to useless, unable and unwilling to test the taste of their warrens, pallid and shaky and uncommunicative. Hedge’s jaw was too swollen for him to manage anything more than grunts, but the looks he cast at Detoran’s back as she walked point hinted at plans of murderous vengeance. Blend was scouting somewhere ahead, or behind –
or maybe in my Hood-damned shadow
– she glanced over her shoulder to check, but the woman wasn’t there. Antsy, taking up the rear, kept up a private conversation with himself, his ceaseless mumbling a steady accompaniment to the droning flies.

The landscape showed no life beyond the grasses cloaking the hills and the stunted trees occasionally visible in the valleys where seasonal streams hoarded water beneath the soil. The sky was cloudless, not a bird in sight to mar the blue vastness. Far to the north and east rose the white peaks of the Barghast Range, jagged in their youth and forbidding.

By Twist’s estimate, the Barghast gathering was in a valley four leagues to the north. They’d arrive before sunset, if all went well.

Striding at her side, Quick Ben voiced a soft grunt, and the corporal turned in time to see a score of dirt-smeared hands closing around the wizard’s legs. The earth seemed to foam beneath Quick Ben’s boots, then he was being dragged down, stained, bony fingers clutching, tugging, gnarled forearms reaching upward to wrap themselves about the wizard’s struggling form.

‘Quick!’ Picker bellowed, flinging herself towards him. He reached for her, a look a dumb amazement on his face as the soil heaved around his waist. Pounding footsteps and shouts closed in. Picker’s hand clamped on the wizard’s wrist.

The earth surged to his chest. The hands reappeared to grasp Quick Ben’s right arm and drag it down.

Her eyes met his, then he shook his head. ‘Let me go, Corporal—’

‘Are you mad—’

‘Now, before you get my arm torn off—’ His right shoulder was yanked beneath the soil.

Spindle appeared, flinging himself forward to wrap an arm around Quick Ben’s neck.

‘Let him go!’ Picker yelled, releasing the wizard’s wrist.

Spindle stared up at her. ‘What?’

‘Let him go, damn you!’

The squad mage unlocked his arm and rolled away, cursing.

Antsy burst among them, his short-handled shovel already in his hands as Quick Ben’s head vanished beneath the earth. Dirt began flying.

‘Ease off there, Sergeant,’ Picker snapped. ‘You’ll end up taking off the top of his damned head!’

The sergeant stared at her, then leapt back as if standing on coals. ‘Hood!’ He raised his shovel and squinted at the blade. ‘I don’t see no blood! Anybody see any blood? Or – gods! – hair! Is that hair? Oh, Queen of Dreams—’

‘That ain’t hair,’ Spindle growled, pulling the shovel from Antsy’s hands. ‘That’s roots, you idiot! They got ‘im. They got Quick Ben.’

‘Who has?’ Picker demanded.

‘Barghast spirits. A whole horde of ’em! We was ambushed!’

‘What about you, then?’ the corporal asked.

‘I ain’t dangerous enough, I guess. At least’ – his head snapped as he looked around – ‘I hope not I gotta get off this damned barrow, that’s what I gotta do!’

Picker watched him scamper away. ‘Hedge, keep an eye on him, will you?’

The swollen-faced sapper nodded, trudged off after Spindle.

‘What do we do now?’ Antsy hissed, his moustache twitching.

‘We wait a bell or two, then if the wizard ain’t managed to claw his way back out, we go on.’

The sergeant’s blue eyes widened. ‘We leave him?’ he whispered.

‘It’s either that or we level this damned hill. And we wouldn’t find him anyway – he’s been pulled into their warren. It’s here but it ain’t here, if you know what I mean. Maybe when Spindle finds his nerve he can do some probing.’

‘I knew that Quick Ben wasn’t nothing but trouble,’ Antsy muttered. ‘Can’t count on mages for nothing. You’re right, what’s the point of waiting around? They’re damned useless anyway. Let’s pack up and get going.’

‘It won’t hurt to wait a little while,’ Picker said.

‘Yeah, probably a good idea.’

She shot him a glance, then looked away with a sigh. ‘Could do with something to eat. Might want to fix us something special, Sergeant.’

‘I got dried dates and breadfruit, and some smoked leeches from that market south side in Pale.’

She winced. ‘Sounds good.’

‘I’ll get right on it.’

He hurried off.

Gods, Antsy, you’re losing it fast. And what about me? Mention dates and leeches and my mouth’s salivating …

*   *   *

The high-prowed canoes lay rotting in the swamp, the ropes strung between them and nearby cedar boles bearded in moss. Dozens of the craft were visible. Humped bundles of supplies lay on low rises, swathed in thick mould, sprouting toadstools and mushrooms. The light was pallid, faintly yellow. Quick Ben, dripping with slime, dragged himself upright spitting foul water from his mouth as he slowly straightened to look around.

His attackers were nowhere in sight. Insects flitted through the air in a desultory absence of haste. Frogs croaked and the sound of dripping water was constant. A faint smell of salt was in the air.
I’m in a long-dead warren, decayed by the loss of mortal memory. The living Barghast know nothing of this place, yet it is where their dead go – assuming they make it this far.
‘All right,’ he said, his voice strangely muted by the turgid, heavy air, ‘I’m here. What do you want?’

Movement in the mists alerted him. Figures appeared, closing in tentatively, knee-deep in the swirling black water. The wizard’s eyes narrowed. These creatures were not the Barghast he knew from the mortal realm. Squatter, wider, robustly boned, they were a mix of Imass and Toblakai.
Gods, how old is this place?
Hooded brow-ridges hid small, glittering eyes in darkness. Black leather strips stitched their way down gaunt cheeks, reaching past hairless jawlines where they were tied around small longbones that ran parallel to the jaw. Black hair hung in rough braids, parted down the middle. The men and women closing in around Quick Ben were one and all dressed in close-fitting sealskins decorated with bone, antler and shell. Long, thin-bladed knives hung at their hips. A few of the males carried barbed spears that seemed made entirely of bone.

A smaller figure skittered onto a rotted cedar stump directly in front of Quick Ben, a man-shaped bundle of sticks and string with an acorn head.

The wizard nodded. ‘Talamandas. I thought you were returning to the White Faces.’

‘And so I did, Mage, thanks solely to your cleverness.’

‘You’ve an odd way of showing your gratitude, Old One.’ Quick Ben looked around. ‘Where are we?’

‘The First Landing. Here wait the warriors who did not survive the journey’s end. Our fleet was vast, Mage, yet when the voyage was done, fully half of the canoes held only corpses. We had crossed an ocean in ceaseless battle.’

‘And where do the Barghast dead go now?’

‘Nowhere, and everywhere. They are lost. Wizard, your challenger has slain Humbrall Taur’s champion. The spirits have drawn breath and hold it still, for the man may yet die.’

Quick Ben flinched. He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘And if he does?’

‘Your soldiers will die. Humbrall Taur has no choice. He will face civil war. The spirits themselves will lose their unity. You would be too great a distraction, a source of greater divisiveness. But this is not why I have had you brought here.’ The small sticksnare gestured at the figures standing silent behind him. ‘These are the warriors. The army. Yet … our warchiefs are not among us. The Founding Spirits were lost long ago. Mage, a child of Humbrall Taur has found them. Found them!’

‘But there’s a problem.’

Talamandas seemed to slump. ‘There is. They are trapped … within the city of Capustan.’

The implications of that slowly edged into place in the wizard’s mind. ‘Does Humbrall Taur know?’

‘He does not. I was driven away by his shouldermen. The most ancient of spirits are not welcome. Only the young ones are allowed to be present, for they have little power. Their gift is comfort, and comfort has come to mean a great deal among the Barghast. It was not always so. You see before you a pantheon divided, and the vast schism between us is time – and the loss of memory. We are as strangers to our children; they will not listen to our wisdom and they fear our potential power.’

‘Was it Humbrall Taur’s hope that his child would find these Founding Spirits?’

‘He embraces a grave risk, yet he knows the White Face clans are vulnerable. The young spirits are too weak to resist the Pannion Domin. They will be enslaved or destroyed. When comfort is torn away, all that will be revealed is a weakness of faith, an absence of strength. The clans will be crushed by the Domin’s armies. Humbrall Taur reaches for power, yet he gropes blindly.’

‘And when I tell him that the ancient spirits have been found … will he believe me?’

‘You are our only hope. You must convince him.’

‘I freed you from the wards,’ Quick Ben said.

‘What do you ask in return?’

‘Trotts needs to survive his wounds. He must be recognized as champion, so that he can legitimately take his place among the council of chiefs. We need a position of strength, Talamandas.’

‘I cannot return to the tribes, Wizard. I will only be driven away once again.’

‘Can you channel your power through a mortal?’

The sticksnare slowly cocked his head.

‘We’ve a Denul healer, but like me, he’s having trouble making use of his warren – the Pannion’s poison—’

‘To be gifted with our power,’ Talamandas said, ‘he must be led to this warren, to this place.’

‘Well,’ Quick Ben said, ‘why don’t we figure out a way to achieve that?’

Talamandas slowly turned to survey his spirit kin. After a moment he faced the wizard once again. ‘Agreed.’

*   *   *

A rogue javelin arced up towards Twist as the Black Moranth and his passenger began their descent. The quorl darted to one side, then quickly dropped towards the Circle. Laughter and cursing voices rose from the gathered warriors, but no further gestures were made.

Paran cast one last scan over the squad standing guard around Trotts and Mulch, then jogged to where Twist and a blistered Mallet were dismounting amidst challenges and threatening weapons.

‘Clear them a path, damn you!’ the captain bellowed, thrusting a Senan tribesman aside as he pushed closer. The man righted himself with a growl, then showed his filed teeth in a challenge. Paran ignored it. Five jostling strides later, he reached Twist and Mallet.

The healer’s eyes were wide with alarm. ‘Captain—’

‘Aye, it’s heating up, Mallet. Come with me. Twist, you might want to get the Abyss out of here—’

‘Agreed. I shall return to Sergeant Antsy’s squad. What has happened?’

‘Trotts won the fight, but we might lose the war. Get going, before you get skewered.’

‘Yes, Captain.’

Taking the healer by one arm, Paran swung about and began pushing through the crowd. ‘Trotts needs you,’ he said as they walked. ‘It’s bad. A crushed throat—’

‘Then how in Hood’s name is he still alive?’

‘Mulch opened a hole above his lungs and the bastard’s breathing through that.’

Mallet frowned, then slowly nodded. ‘Clever. But Captain, I may not be much use to you, or Trotts—’

Paran’s head snapped around. ‘You’d better be. If he dies, so do we.’

‘My warren—’

‘Never mind the excuses, just heal the man, damn you!’

‘Yes, sir, but just so you know, it’ll probably kill me.’

‘Fener’s balls!’

‘It’s a good exchange, sir. I can see that. Don’t worry, I’ll heal Trotts – you’ll all get out of this, and that’s what matters right now.’

Paran stopped. He closed his eyes, fighting the sudden waves of pain from his stomach. Through clenched teeth, he said, ‘As you say, Mallet.’

‘Aimless is waving us over—’

‘Aye, go on, then, Healer.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Mallet disengaged his arm and headed over to the squad.

Paran forced open his eyes.

Look at the bastard. Not a falter in his step. Not a blink at his fate. Who – what are these soldiers?

*   *   *

Mallet pushed Mulch aside, knelt next to Trotts, met the warrior’s hard eyes and reached out a hand.

‘Mallet!’ Mulch hissed. ‘Your warren—’

‘Shut up,’ Mallet said, eyes closing as his fingers touched the collapsed, mangled throat.

He opened his warren, and his mind shrieked as virulent power rushed into him. He felt his flesh swelling, splitting, heard the blood spurt and Mulch’s shocked cry. Then the physical world vanished within a thrashing sea of pain.

Find the path, dammit! The mending way, the vein of order – gods! Stay sane, Healer. Hold on …

But he felt his sanity being torn away, devoured. His sense of self was being shredded to pieces before his mind’s eye, and he could do nothing. He drew on that core of health within his own soul, drew on its power, felt it pour through his fingertips to the ravaged cartilage of Trotts’s throat. But the core began to dissolve …