The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (268 page)

A mounted messenger approached from the northwest, horse leaping the mounds of bodies littering the avenue, slowing as it neared the Mortal Sword’s companies.

Brukhalian gestured with his blade and the young Capan woman reined in before him.

‘Sir!’ she gasped. ‘I bring word from Rath’Fener! A message, passed on to me by an acolyte!’

‘Let us hear it, then, sir.’

‘The Thrall is assailed! Rath’Fener invokes the Reve’s Eighth Command. You are to ride with all in your company to his aid. Rath’Fener kneels before the hooves – you are to be the Twin Tusks of his and Fener’s shadow!’

Brukhalian’s eyes narrowed. ‘Sir, this acolyte managed to leave the Thrall in order to convey his priest’s holy invocation. Given the protective sorcery around the building, how was this managed?’

The young woman shook her head. ‘I do not know, sir.’

‘And your path across the city, to arrive here, was it contested?’

‘None living stood before me, sir.’

‘Can you explain that?’

‘No, sir, I cannot. Fener’s fortune, perhaps…’

Brukhalian studied her a moment longer. ‘Recruit, will you join us in our deliverance?’

She blinked, then slowly nodded. ‘I would be honoured, Mortal Sword.’

His reply was a gruff, sorrowful whisper that only deepened her evident bewilderment, ‘As would I, sir.’ Brukhalian lowered the visor, swung to his followers. ‘Eleventh Mane to remain with the Destriant and his cutters!’ he commanded. ‘Remaining companies, we march to the Thrall! Rath’Fener has invoked the Reve, and to this we must answer!’ He then dismounted and handed the reins of his warhorse to the messenger. ‘My mind has changed,’ he rumbled. ‘You are to remain here, sir, to guard my destrier. Also, to inform the Shield Anvil of my disposition once he awakens.’

‘Your disposition, sir?’

‘You will know it soon, recruit.’ The Mortal Sword faced his troops once more. They stood in ranks, waiting, silent. Four hundred Grey Swords, perhaps the last left alive. ‘Sirs,’ Brukhalian asked them, ‘are you in full readiness?’

A veteran officer grated, ‘Ready to try, Mortal Sword.’

‘Your meaning?’ the commander asked.

‘We are to cross half the city, sir. We shall not make it.’

‘You assume our path to the Thrall will be contested, Nilbanas. Yes?’

The old soldier frowned, said nothing.

Brukhalian reached for his shield, which had waited at his side in the hands of an aide. ‘I shall lead us,’ he said. ‘Do you follow?’

Every soldier nodded, and the Mortal Sword saw in those half-visored faces the emergence of an awareness, a knowledge to which he had already arrived. There would be no return from the journey to come. Some currents, he knew, could not be fought.

Readying the large bronze-plated shield on his left arm, adjusting his grip on his holy sword, Brukhalian strode forward. His Grey Swords fell in behind him. He chose the most direct route, not slowing even as he set across open, corpse-strewn squares.

The murmuring rumble of humanity was on all sides. Isolated sounds of battle, the collapse of burning buildings and the roar of unchecked fires, streets knee-deep in bodies – scenes of Hood’s infernal pit rolled past them as they marched, as of two unfurling tapestries woven by a mad, soul-tortured artisan.

Yet their journey was uncontested.

As they neared the aura-sheathed Thrall, the veteran increased his pace to come alongside Brukhalian. ‘I heard the messenger’s words, sir—’

‘Of that I am aware, Nilbanas.’

‘It cannot be really from Rath’Fener—’

‘But it is, sir.’

‘Then the priest betrays us!’

‘Yes, old friend, he betrays us.’

‘He has desecrated Fener’s most secret Reve! By the Tusks, sir—’

‘The words of the Reve are greater than he is, Nilbanas. They are Fener’s own.’

‘Yet he has twisted them malign, sir! We should not abide!’

‘Rath’Fener’s crime shall be answered, but not by us.’

‘At the cost of our lives?’

‘Without our deaths, sir, there would be no crime. Thus, no punishment to match.’

‘Mortal Sword—’

‘We are done, my friend. Now, in this manner, we choose the meaning of our deaths.’

‘But … but what does he gain? Betraying his own god—’

‘No doubt,’ Brukhalian said with a private, grim smile, ‘his own life. For a time. Should the Thrall’s protective sorcery be sundered, should the Council of Masks be taken, he will be spared the horrors that await his fellow priests. He judges this a worthwhile exchange.’

The veteran was shaking his head. ‘And so Fener allows his own words to assume the weight of betrayal. How noble his Bestial Mien when he finally corners Rath’Fener?’

‘Our god shall not be the one to deliver the punishment, Nilbanas. You are right, he could not do so in fullest conscience, for this is a betrayal that wounds him deeply, leaves him weakened and vulnerable to fatal consequence, sir.’

‘Then,’ the man almost sobbed, ‘then who shall be our vengeful hand, Brukhalian?’

If anything, the Mortal Sword’s smile grew grimmer. ‘Even now, the Shield Anvil no doubt regains consciousness. And is moments from hearing the messenger’s report. Moments from true comprehension. Nilbanas, our vengeful hand shall be Itkovian’s. What is your countenance now, old friend?’

The soldier was silent for another half-dozen paces. Before them was the open concourse before the gate to the Thrall. ‘I am calmed, sir,’ he said, his voice deep and satisfied. ‘I am calmed.’

Brukhalian cracked his sword against his shield. Black fire lit the blade, sizzled and crackled. ‘They surround the concourse before us. Shall we enter?’

‘Aye, sir, with great joy.’

The Mortal Sword and his four hundred followers strode into the clearing, not hesitating as the streets and alley mouths on all sides swiftly filled with Septarch Kulpath’s crack troops, his Urdomen, Seerdomin and Betaklites, including the avenue they had just quitted. Archers appeared on the rooftops, and the hundreds of Seerdomin lying before the Thrall’s gate, feigning death, now rose, readying weapons.

At Brukhalian’s side, Nilbanas snorted. ‘Pathetic.’

The Mortal Sword grunted a laugh that was heard by all. ‘The Septarch deems himself clever, sir.’

‘And us stupid with honour.’

‘Aye, we are that indeed, are we not, old friend?’

Nilbanas raised his sword and roared triumphantly. Blade whirling over his head, he spun in place his dance of delighted defiance. The Grey Swords locked shields, ends curling to enclose the Mortal Sword as they readied their last stand in the centre of the concourse.

The veteran remained outside it, still spinning, still roaring, sword high in the air.

Five thousand Pannions and the Septarch himself looked on, in wonder, disbelieving, profoundly alarmed by the man’s wild, bestial stamping on the cobbles. Then, with a silent snarl, Kulpath shook himself and raised one gauntleted hand.

He jerked it down.

The air of the concourse blackened as fifteen hundred bows whispered as one.

*   *   *

Eyes snapping open, Itkovian heard that whisper. He saw, with a vision filling his awareness, to the exclusion of all else, as the barbed heads plunged into the shielded turtle that was the Grey Swords. Shafts slipped through here and there. Soldiers reeled, fell, folded in on themselves.

Nilbanas, pierced through by a hundred arrows or more, whipped round one last time in a haze of blood droplets, then collapsed.

In roaring masses, the Pannion foot soldiers surged into the concourse. Crashed against the locked shields of the surviving Grey Swords even as they struggled to close the gaps in their ranks. The square was shattered, ripped apart. Battle turned to slaughter.

Still standing, the Mortal Sword’s whirling blade raged with black fire. Studded with arrow shafts, he stood like a giant amidst feral children.

And fought on.

Pikes drove into him from all sides, lifted him off his feet. Sword arm swinging down, he chopped through the shafts, landed amidst writhing bodies.

Itkovian saw as a double-bladed axe separated Brukhalian’s left arm from his body, at the shoulder, where blood poured unchecked as the severed, shield-laden arm fell away, frenziedly contracting at the elbow as would an insect’s dismembered limb.

The huge man folded to his right.

More pikes jabbed, ripping into his torso.

The grip on the sword did not falter. The burning blade continued to spread its devouring flame outward, incinerating as it went. Screams filled the air.

Urdomen closed in with their short, heavy blades. Began chopping.

The Mortal Sword’s intestines, snagged on a sword tip, unravelled like a snake from his gut. Another axe crashed down on Brukhalian’s head, splitting the heavy black-iron helm, then the skull, then the man’s face.

The burning sword exploded in a dark flash, the shards cutting down yet more Pannions.

The corpse that was Fener’s Mortal Sword tottered upright a moment longer, riven through, almost headless, then slowly settled to its knees, back hunching, a scarecrow impaled by a dozen pikes, countless arrows.

Kneeling, now motionless, in the deepening shadow of the Thrall, as the Pannions slowly withdrew on all sides – their battle-rage gone and something silent and dreadful in its stead – staring at the hacked thing that had been Brukhalian … and at the tall, barely substantial apparition that took form directly before the Mortal Sword. A figure shrouded in black, hooded, hands hidden within the tattered folds of broad sleeves.

Hood. King of High House Death … come to greet this man’s soul. In person.

Why?

A moment later and the Lord of Death was gone. Yet no-one moved.

It began to rain. Hard.

Kneeling, watery blood staining the black armour, making the chain’s iron links gleam crimson.

Another set of eyes was sharing Itkovian’s inner vision, eyes that he knew well. And in the Shield Anvil’s mind there came a cold satisfaction, and in his mind he addressed the other witness and knew, without doubt, that his words were heard.

I have you, Rath’Fener.

You are mine, betrayer.

Mine.

*   *   *

The sparrowhawk twisted through the wind-whipped rain clouds, felt the drops like nails as they battered its wings, its splayed tail Lurid flames glimmered in the city below amidst the grey, blackening buildings.

The day was drawing to a close, but the horror did not relent. Buke’s mind was numb with all that he had witnessed, and the distance afforded him by his Soletaken form was no release. These eyes were too sharp, too sharp by far.

He banked hard directly over the estate that was home to Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. The gate was a mass of bodies. The mostly ornamental corner towers and the walkways along the compound’s walls were occupied by silent sentinels, dark and motionless in the rain.

Korbal Broach’s army of animated corpses had grown. Hundreds of Tenescowri had breached the gate and poured into the compound earlier. Bauchelain had greeted them with waves of deadly sorcery – magic that blackened their flesh, cracked it, then made it curl away in strips from their bones. Long after they were dead, the spell continued its relentless work, until the cobbles were ankle-deep in charred dust.

Two more attempts had been made, each more desperate than the last Assailed by sorcery and the implacable savagery of the undead warriors, the Tenescowri had finally reeled back, fleeing in terror. A company of Beklites fared no better later in the afternoon. Now, as dusk swept in behind the rain, the streets surrounding the estate held only the dead.

On wearying wings, Buke climbed higher once more, following the Daru District’s main avenue westward.

Gutted tenement buildings, smoke billowing from rubble, the fitful lick of flames. Seething mobs of Tenescowri, huge bonfires where spitted human flesh roasted. Roving squads and companies of Scalandi, Beklites and Betaklites, Urdomen and Seerdomin.

Bewildered, enraged, wondering where Capustan’s citizens have gone. Oh, you have the city, now, yet you feel cheated none the less.

His acute vision was failing with the fading light. To the southeast, hazy with rain and smoke, rose the prince’s palace towers. Dark, seemingly inviolate. Perhaps its inhabitants held out still. Or perhaps it was, once more, a lifeless edifice home only to ghosts. Returned to the comfort of silence, such as it had known for centuries before the coming of the Capan and Daru.

Turning his head back, Buke caught a glimpse of a single tenement building just off to his left. Fires surrounded it, but it seemed the squat structure defied the flames. In the glow of the banked bonfires, he saw red-limned, naked corpses. Filling the surrounding streets and alleys.

No, that must be a mistake. My eyes deceive. Those dead are lying on rubble. They must be. Gods, the tenement’s ground level isn’t even visible. Buried. Rubble. There cannot be naught but bodies, not piled that high … oh … depthless Abyss!

The building was where Gruntle had taken a room.

And, assailed by flames, it would not burn.

And there, lit on all sides from below, the walls
wept.

Not water, but blood.

Buke wheeled closer, and the closer he flew, the more horrified he became. He could see windows, shutterless, on the first visible floor. Packed with bodies. The same on the next floor, and on the one above that, directly beneath the roof.

The entire building was, he realized, virtually solid. A mass of flesh and bone, seeping from the windows tears of blood and bile. A giant mausoleum, a monument to this day.

He saw figures on the roof. A dozen, huddled here and there beneath makeshift awnings and lean-to shelters. And one, standing apart, head bowed as if studying the horror in the street below. Tall, hulking. Broad, sloping shoulders. Strangely barbed in shadows. A cutlass hung heavy in each gauntleted hand, stripped and gleaming like bone.

A dozen paces behind him a standard had been raised, held upright by bundles that might be food packs, such as the Grey Swords issued. Sodden, yellow stained with dark bars of blood, a child’s tunic.