The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (312 page)

‘So you know what your enemy knows of you,’ Humbrall nodded.

‘More or less.’

‘You Malazans,’ the Barghast said, shaking his head, ‘play a complicated game.’

‘Sometimes,’ Whiskeyjack conceded. ‘At other times, we’re plain simple.’

‘One day, your armies will march to the White Face Range.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Why not?’ Humbrall Taur demanded. ‘Are we not worthy enough foes, Commander?’

‘Too worthy, Warchief. No, the truth is this. We have treated with you, and the Malazan Empire takes such precedents seriously. You will be met with respect and offers to establish trade, borders and the like – if you so desire. If not, the envoys will depart and that will be the last you ever see of the Malazans, until such time as you decide otherwise.’

‘Strange conquerors, you foreigners.’

‘Aye, we are at that.’

‘Why are you on Genabackis, Commander?’

‘The Malazan Empire? We’re here to unify, and through unification, grow rich. We’re not selfish about getting rich, either.’

Humbrall Taur thumped his coin-threaded hauberk. ‘And silver is all that interests you?’

‘Well, there’s more than one kind of wealth, Warchief.’

‘Indeed?’ The huge warrior’s eyes had narrowed.

Whiskeyjack smiled. ‘Meeting the White Face clans of the Barghast is one such reward. Diversity is worth celebrating, Humbrall Taur, for it is the birthplace of wisdom.’

‘Your words?’

‘No, the Imperial Historian, Duiker.’

‘And he speaks for the Malazan Empire?’

‘In the best of times.’

‘And are these the best of times?’

Whiskeyjack met the warrior’s dark eyes. ‘Perhaps they are.’

‘Will you two be quiet!’ Hetan growled behind them. ‘I am about to die.’

Humbrall Taur swung about to study his daughter where she crouched against the barrels of grain. ‘A thought,’ he rumbled.

‘What?’

‘Only that you might not be seasick, daughter.’

‘Really! Then what—’ Hetan’s eyes went wide. ‘Spirits below!’

Moments later, Whiskeyjack was forced to lean unceremoniously, feet first, over the barge’s gunnel, the current tugging at his boots, the flowing water giving them a thorough cleansing.

*   *   *

A seastorm had struck Maurik some time since its desertion, toppling ornamental trees and heaping seaweed-tangled dunes of sand against building walls. The streets were buried beneath an unmarred, evenly rippled white carpet of sand, leaving no bodies or other detritus visible.

Korlat rode alone down the port city’s main thoroughfare. Squat, sprawling warehouses were on her left, civic buildings, taverns, inns and trader shops on her right. Overhead, hauling ropes linked the upper floors of the warehouses to the flat rooftops of the trader shops, festooned now with seagrasses as if decorated for a maritime festival.

Apart from what came with the warm wind’s steady sigh, there was no movement down the length of the street, nor in the alleys intersecting it. Windows and doorways gaped black and forlorn. The warehouses had been stripped bare, their wide sliding doors facing onto the street left open.

She approached the westernmost reaches of the city, the smell of the sea behind her giving way to a sweeter taint of freshwater decay from the river beyond the warehouses on her left.

Caladan Brood, Kallor and the others had elected to ride round Maurik, inland, on their way to the flats, Crone flying overhead for a time, before once more winging away. Korlat had never known the Matron Great Raven to be so rattled. If indeed the loss of contact meant that Anomander Rake and Moon’s Spawn had been destroyed, then Crone had lost both her master and her murder’s roost. Unpleasant notions, both. More than enough to crook the Great Raven’s wings with despair as she continued on, south once more.

Korlat had decided to ride alone, taking a route longer than the others – through the city. There was no need for haste, after all, and anticipation had a way of drawing out any stationary wait – better, then, to lengthen the approach at a controlled pace. There was much to think about, after all. If her Lord was well, then she would have to stand before him and formally sever her service – ending a relationship that had existed for fourteen thousand years, or, rather, suspending it for a time.
For the remaining years of a mortal man’s life.
And if some calamity had befallen Anomander Rake, then Korlat would find herself the ranking commander to the dozen Tiste Andii who, like her, had remained with Brood’s army. She would make that responsibility shortlived, for she had no wish to rule her kin. She would free them to decide their own fates.

Anomander Rake had unified these Tiste Andii by strength of personality – a quality Korlat well knew she did not share. The disparate causes in which he chose to engage himself and his people were, she had always assumed, each a reflection upon a single theme – but that theme and its nature had ever eluded Korlat. There were wars, there were struggles, enemies, allies, victories and losses. A procession through centuries that seemed random not just to her, but to her kin as well.

A sudden thought came to her, twisting like a dull knife in her chest Perhaps Anomander Rake was equally lost.
Perhaps this endless succession of causes reflects his own search. I had all along assumed a simple goal – to give us a reason to exist, to take upon ourselves the nobility of others … others for whom the struggle meant something. Was that not the theme underlying all we have done? Why do I now doubt? Why do I now believe that, if a theme does indeed exist, it is something other?

Something far less noble …

She attempted to shake off such thoughts, before they dragged her towards despair.
For despair is the nemesis of the Tiste Andii. How often have I seen my kin fall on the field of battle, and have known – deep in my soul – that my brothers and sisters did not die through an inability to defend themselves? They died, because they had chosen to die. Slain by their own despair.

Our gravest threat.

Does Anomander Rake lead us away from despair – is that his only purpose, his only goal? Is his a theme of denial? If so, then, dear Mother Dark, he was right in seeking to confound our understanding, in seeking to keep us from ever realizing his singular, pathetic goal. And I – I should never have pursued these thoughts, should never have clawed my way to this conclusion.

Discovering my Lord’s secret holds no reward. Curse of the Light, he has spent centuries evading my questions, discouraging my desire to come to know him, to pierce through his veil of mystery. And I have been hurt by it, I have lashed out at him more than once, and he has stood before my anger and frustration. Silent.

To choose not to share … what I had seen as arrogance, as patronizing behaviour of the worst sort – enough to leave me incensed … ah, Lord, you held to the hardest mercy.

And if despair assails us, it assails you a hundredfold …

She knew now she would not release her kin. Like Rake, she could not abandon them, and like Rake, she could voice no truth when they begged – or demanded – justification.

And so, should that moment come soon, I must needs find strength – the strength to lead – the strength to hide the truth from my kin.

Oh, Whiskeyjack, how will I be able to tell you this? Our desires were … simplistic. Foolishly romantic. The world holds no paradise for you and me, dear lover. Thus, all I can offer is that you join me, that you stay at my side. And I pray to Mother Dark, how I pray, that it will, for you, be enough …

The city’s outskirts persisted along the river’s edge in a straggly, ramshackle ribbon of fisher huts, smokeshacks and drying nets, storm-battered and rubbish-strewn. The settlement reached upriver to the very edge of the flats, and indeed a half-score shacks on stilts connected by raised causeways encroached upon the reedy sweep of mud itself.

Twin lines of poles on this side of the river marked out the wide underwater trench that had been excavated, leading to the edge of the flats, where broad, solid platforms had been built. River Maurik’s mouth to the east was impassable to all but the most shallow-draughted craft, for its bed constantly shifted beneath the clash of tide and current, raising hidden bars of sand in the span of a few bells, then sweeping them away to create others elsewhere. Supplies brought downriver off-loaded west of the mouth – here at the flats.

The warlord, Kallor, Outrider Hurlochel and Korlat’s second, Orfantal, stood on the platform, their horses tethered on the road at the platform’s inland edge.

All four men faced upriver.

Korlat guided her horse onto the causeway linking the city and the platform. As she reached the slightly higher elevation of the raised road, she saw the first of the Malazan barges.

Sorcery had aided in their construction, she concluded. They were solid, sound craft, flat-bottomed and broad. Massive, untrimmed logs framed the hulls. Tarpaulins roofed at least half of each deck. She saw no fewer than twenty of them from her vantage point.
Even with sorcery, building these must have been a huge undertaking. Then again, to have completed them so quickly …

Ah, is this what the Black Moranth were up to all this time? If so, then Dujek and Whiskeyjack had planned for this from the very beginning.

Great Ravens circled the flotilla, their shrieks audibly derisive.

Soldiers, Barghast and horses were visible on the lead barge. At the inland edge of the platform, Korlat reined in beside the greeting party’s horses, dismounted. A Rhivi collected the reins. She nodded her thanks and strode the length of the platform to come alongside Caladan Brood.

The warlord’s face revealed no expression, whilst Kallor’s was twisted into an ugly sneer.

Orfantal moved to join Korlat, bowing his greeting. ‘Sister,’ he said in their native tongue, ‘was the ride through Maurik pleasing?’

‘How long have you been standing here, brother?’

‘Perhaps a bell and a half.’

‘Then I have no regrets.’

He smiled. ‘A
silent
bell and a half at that. Almost long enough to drive a Tiste Andii to distraction.’

‘Liar. We can stand around in silence for weeks, as you well know, brother.’

‘Ah, but that is without emotion, is it not? I know for myself, I simply listen to the wind, and so am not troubled.’

She glanced at him.
Without emotion? Now your lying is no jest.

‘And, I dare say,’ Orfantal continued, ‘the tension still rises.’

‘You two,’ Kallor growled, ‘speak a language we can understand, if you must speak at all. There’s been enough dissembling here to last a lifetime.’

Orfantal faced him and said in Daru, ‘Not
your
lifetime, surely, Kallor?’

The ancient warrior bared his teeth in a silent snarl.

‘That will do,’ Brood rumbled. ‘I’d rather the Malazans not see us bickering.’

Korlat could see Whiskeyjack now, standing near the broad, blunt bow of the lead barge. He was helmed, in full armour. Humbrall Taur stood beside him, his coin hauberk glittering. The Barghast was clearly enjoying the moment, standing tall and imperious, both hands resting on the heads of the throwing axes belted to his hips. The standard-bearer, Artanthos, hovered in the background, arms crossed, a half-smile on his lean face.

Soldiers were manning the sweeps, shouting to one another as they guided the craft between the poles. The manoeuvre was deftly done, as the huge barge slipped from the stronger currents and glided gently down the approach.

Korlat watched, her eyes on Whiskeyjack – who had in turn seen her – as the craft drew closer to the platform.

The crunch and grind as the barge came alongside the landing was muted. Soldiers with lines poured from the side onto the platform and made fast Out on the river, the other barges were each pulling towards the shore to make their own landing along the muddy strand.

Hetan appeared between her father and Whiskeyjack and pushed forward to leap onto the platform. There was no colour in her face and her legs almost buckled beneath her. Orfantal rushed forward to offer a supporting arm – which she batted away with a snarl before stumbling past them all towards the far end of the platform.

‘Well thought,’ Humbrall Taur boomed with a laugh. ‘But if you value your life, Tiste Andii, leave the lass to her gravid misery. Warlord! Thank you for the formal greeting! We’ve hastened the day to Coral, yes?’ The Barghast warchief stepped onto the platform, Whiskeyjack following.

‘Unless there’s another hundred barges upstream,’ Brood growled, ‘you’ve lost two-thirds of your forces. Now, how did that come to be?’

‘Three clans came for the float, Warlord,’ Humbrall Taur replied, grinning. ‘The rest elected to walk. Our spirit gods were amused, yes? Though, I grant you, sourly so!’

‘Well met, Warlord,’ Whiskeyjack said. ‘We’d not the watercraft to carry the entire force, alas. Thus, Dujek Onearm decided to split the army—’

‘And where in Hood’s name is he?’ Kallor demanded. ‘As if I need to ask,’ he added.

Whiskeyjack shrugged. ‘The Black Moranth are taking them—’

‘To Coral, yes,’ Kallor snapped. ‘To what end, Malazan? To conquer the city in the name of your empire?’

‘I doubt that is possible,’ Whiskeyjack replied. ‘But if it were, would you so dearly resent arriving at a pacified Coral, Kallor? If your bloodlust needs appeasing—’

‘I never thirst for long, Malazan,’ Kallor said, one gauntleted hand lifting towards the bastard sword strapped to his back.

‘It seems,’ Brood said, ignoring Kallor, ‘that there have been considerable changes to what we had agreed was a sound plan. Indeed,’ he continued, eyes shifting to the barge, ‘that plan was clearly created with deceit in your mind, from the very start.’

‘I disagree,’ Whiskeyjack said. ‘Just as you had Moon’s Spawn and whatever Rake intended to do with it as your own private plan, we concluded that we’d best fashion something similar. The precedent is yours, Warlord – so I do not think you are in a position to voice complaint.’