The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (674 page)

‘Fist Rythe Bude, see the Host turned round. And Noto Boil, find me Ormulogun.'

‘Again?' the healer asked.

‘Go.'

Yes, again. I think I need a new card. I think I'll call it Salvation. At the moment it is in the House of Chains' sphere of influence. But something tells me it will claw free of that eventually. Such a taint will not last. This card is an Unaligned. In every sense of the word. Unaligned, and likely destined to be the most dangerous force in the world.

Damn, I wish I was more ruthless. That Sha'ik Reborn, and all her twisted followers – I should ride up there and slaughter them all – which is precisely what Mathok wanted me to do.

To do what he himself couldn't –
we're the same in that. In our…weakness.

No wonder I already like the man.

 

As Hurlochel led his horse alongside Mathok, back up towards the desert warriors on the ridge, the outrider glanced over at the new Fist. ‘Sir, when you spoke of Sha'ik Reborn, you said something…about barely recognizing her…'

‘I did. She was one of Sha'ik's adopted daughters, in Raraku. Of course, as Leoman and I well knew, even that one was…not as she seemed. Oh, chosen by the Whirlwind Goddess, well enough, but she was not a child of the desert.'

‘She wasn't?'

‘No, she was Malazan.'

‘
What?
'

The commander's companion grunted and spat. ‘Mezla, yes. And the Adjunct never knew – or so we heard. She cut down a helmed, armoured woman. And then walked away. The corpse then vanished. A Mezla killing a Mezla – oh how the gods must have laughed…'

‘Or,' said Hurlochel in a low voice, ‘wept.' He thought to ask more questions regarding this new Sha'ik Reborn, but a succession of tragic images, variants on that fated duel at Raraku, before the seas rose from the desert, raced through his mind. And so he rode in silence up the slope, beside the warriors, and before long was thoroughly consumed with the necessities of reorganizing Mathok's horse-warriors.

So preoccupied, he did not report his conversation to the High Fist.

Three leagues from the City of the Fallen, Paran turned the Host away, and set them on their path for distant Aren. The road that would take them from Seven Cities.

Never to return.

Saur Bathrada and Kholb Harat had walked into an upland village four leagues inland from the harbour city of Sepik. Leading twenty Edur warriors and forty Letherii marines, they had gathered the enslaved degenerate mixed-bloods, ritually freeing the uncomprehending primitives from their symbolic chains, then chaining them in truth for the march back to the city and the Edur ships. Following this, Saur and Kholb had driven the Sepik humans into a sheep pen where a bonfire was built. One by one, mothers were forced to throw their babes and children into the roaring flames. Those women were then raped and, finally, beheaded. Husbands, brothers and fathers were made to watch. When they alone remained alive, they were systematically dismembered and left, armless and legless, to bleed out among bleating, blood-splashed sheep.

A scream had been birthed that day in the heart of Ahlrada Ahn, and it had not ceased its desperate, terrible cry. Rhulad's shadow covered the Tiste Edur, no matter how distant that throne and the insane creature seated upon it. And in that shadow roiled a nightmare from which there could be no awakening.

That scream was echoed in his memories of that day, the shrieks wrung from the throats of burning children, the writhing forms in their bundled flames, the fires reflected on the impassive faces of Edur warriors. Even the Letherii had turned away, overcome with horror. Would that Ahlrada Ahn could have done the same, without losing face. Instead he stood, one among the many, and revealed nothing of what raged inside. Raged, breaking…everything.
Within me
, he told himself that night, back in Sepik where the sounds of slaughter continued beyond the room he had found,
within me, nothing is left standing
. On that night, for the first time ever, he considered taking his own life.

A statement of weakness. The others would have seen it in no other way – they could not afford to – so, not a protest, but a surrender, and they would line up to spit upon his corpse. And warriors like Saur Bathrada and Kholb Harat would draw their knives and crouch down, and with pleasure in their eyes they would disfigure the senseless body. For these two Edur had grown to love blood and pain, and in that they were not alone.

The king of Sepik was the last to die. He had been made to witness the obliteration of his cherished people. It was said that he was a benign ruler –
oh how the Edur despised that statement, as if it was an insult, a grievous, vicious insult
. That wretched man collapsing between two warriors who struggled to hold him upright, grasping his grey hair to force his head up, to
see
. Oh, how he'd shrieked and wailed. Until Tomad Sengar wearied of those cries and ordered the king flung from the tower. And, as he fell, his wail became a sound filled with relief.
He looked upon those cobbles, rising fast to meet him, as salvation. And this is our gift. Our only gift.

Ahlrada Ahn drew out his Merude cutlasses once again, studied their deadly sharp edges. The grips felt good, felt proper, nestled in his large hands. He heard a stirring among the warriors gathered on the deck and looked up to see the one named Taralack Veed pushing through the crowd, at his side Atri-Preda Yan Tovis and in their wake the Jhag known as Icarium.

Taller than most Edur, the silent, sad-faced warrior carried naught but his old, single-edged sword. No bow, no scabbard for the weapon in his right hand, no armour of any kind. Yet Ahlrada Ahn felt a chill whisper through him.
Is he in truth a champion? What will we see this day, beyond the gate?

Two hundred Edur warriors, the Arapay warlock Sathbaro Rangar – now dragging his malformed hulk on a route that would intercept Icarium – and sixty Letherii archers. All ready, all eager to begin the killing.

The warlock squinted up at the Jhag, who halted before him – not out of deference or even much in the way of attentiveness; rather, because the twisted old man blocked his path. ‘I see,' Sathbaro Rangar said in a rasp, ‘in you…nothing. Vast emptiness, as if you are not even here. And your companion claims you to be a great warrior? I think we are deceived.'

Icarium said nothing.

The human named Taralack Veed stepped forward, pausing to spit on his hands and sweep them back through his hair. ‘Warlock,' he said in passable trader's tongue, ‘when the fight begins, you shall see the birth of all that waits within him. This I promise. Icarium exists to destroy, exists to fight, I mean to say, and that is all—'

‘Then why does he weep at your words?' Tomad Sengar asked from behind Ahlrada Ahn.

Taralack Veed turned, then bowed low. ‘Preda, he grieves for what is lost within him, for all that your warlock perceives…the absence, the empty vessel. It is no matter.'

‘
It is no matter
.' Ahlrada Ahn did not believe that. He could not.
You fools! Look at him! What you see, Sathbaro Rangar, is nothing more than
loss.
Do none of you grasp the significance of that? What do we invite among us?
And this Taralack Veed, this foul-smelling savage,
see how nervous he looks, as if he himself dreads what is coming – no, I am not blind to the eager light in his eyes, but I see fear there, too. It cries out in his every gesture
.

What are we about to do here?

Tomad Sengar said, ‘Warlock, prepare the path.'

At that, everyone readied their weapons. Saur Bathrada and Kholb Harat would lead, followed by Sathbaro Rangar himself, and then Taralack and his charge, with the bulk of the Edur behind them, and the Letherii appearing last, arrows nocked.

This would be Ahlrada Ahn's first foray against the guardians of the throne. But he had heard enough tales. Battle without quarter. Battle as vicious as any the Edur had experienced. He adjusted his grip on the cutlasses and moved into position, in the front line of the main body. Low-voiced greetings reached him – every Edur warrior emboldened by Ahlrada Ahn's presence in their ranks.
Spearbreaker. Fearless, as if eager for death
.

Oh yes, I am that indeed. Death. My own.

And yet…do I not still dream of going home?

He watched the ragged gate blister the air, then split wide, limned in grey flames, its maw nothing but blurred darkness.

The warlock stepped to one side, and Saur and Kholb lunged into it, vanished into the gloom. Sathbaro Rangar followed, then Taralack and Icarium. And it was Ahlrada Ahn's turn. He pushed himself forward, into the void—

—and stumbled onto crackling loam, the air sweet with forest scents. As with the world they had just left, it was late afternoon. Continuing to move forward, Ahlrada Ahn looked around. They were alone, unopposed.

He heard Icarium ask, ‘Where are we?'

And the Arapay warlock turned. ‘Drift Avalii, warrior. Where resides the Throne of Shadow.'

‘And who guards it?' Taralack Veed demanded. ‘Where is this fierce enemy of yours?'

Sathbaro Rangar lifted his head, as if sniffing the air, then he grunted in surprise. ‘The demons have fled. They have fled! Why? Why did they yield us the throne? After all those battles? I do not understand.'

Ahlrada Ahn glanced over at Icarium.
Demons…fleeing
.

‘I do not understand this,' the warlock said again.

Perhaps I do. Oh Sisters, who now walks among us?

He was startled, then, by a faint whispering sound, and he whirled, weapons lifting.

But it was naught but an owl, gliding away down the wide path before them.

He saw a flicker of motion among the humus, and the raptor's talons snapped down. The owl then flapped upward once more, a tiny broken form clutched in its reptilian grip.

‘No matter,' the Arapay warlock was saying. ‘Let us go claim our throne.' And he set off, hobbling, dragging one bent leg, down the trail.

 

Baffled, Taralack Veed faced Icarium. ‘What do you sense? Of this place?'

The eyes that regarded him were flat. ‘The Shadow demons left with our arrival. There was…someone…a man, but he too is gone. Some time past. He is the one I would have faced.'

‘Skilled enough to unleash you, Icarium?'

‘Skilled enough, perhaps, to kill me, Taralack Veed.'

‘Impossible.'

‘Nothing is impossible,' Icarium said.

They set off after the half-dozen Edur who had hastened ahead to join Sathbaro Rangar.

Fifteen paces down the path they came upon the first signs of past battle. Bloated bodies of dead aptorians and azalan demons. They would not have fallen easily, Taralack Veed knew. He had heard of egregious losses among the Edur and, especially, the Letherii. Those bodies had been recovered.

A short distance beyond rose the walls of an overgrown courtyard. The gate had been shattered. Icarium trailing a step behind, Taralack Veed followed the others into the compound, then the Jhag reached out and halted the Gral. ‘No further.'

‘What?'

There was an odd expression on Icarium's face. ‘There is no need.'

 

Ahlrada Ahn, along with Saur and Kholb, accompanied the Arapay warlock into the shadowy, refuse-filled chamber of the throne room. The Seat of Shadow, the soul of Kurald Emurlahn, the throne that needed to be claimed, before the sundered realm could be returned to what it once was, a warren whole, seething with power.

Perhaps, with this, Rhulad could break the—

Sathbaro Rangar cried out, a terrible sound, and he staggered.

Ahlrada Ahn's thoughts fell away. He stared.

The Throne of Shadow, there on a raised dais at the far end of the room…

It has been destroyed.

Smashed to pieces, the black wood splintered to reveal its blood-red heartwood.
The demons yielded us…nothing. The Throne of Kurald Emurlahn is lost to us.

The warlock was on his knees, shrieking at the stained ceiling. Saur and Kholb stood, weapons out, yet seemingly frozen in place.

Ahlrada Ahn strode up to Sathbaro Rangar and grasped the warlock by the collar, then pulled him onto his feet. ‘Enough of this,' he said. ‘Gather yourself. We may be done here, but we are not done – you know this. The warriors will be thirsting for slaughter, now. You must return to the gate – there is another throne to be won, and those defending it will not flee as these ones have done here. Attend to yourself, Sathbaro Rangar!'

‘Yes,' the warlock gasped, tugging free from Ahlrada Ahn's grip. ‘Yes, you speak truth, warrior. Slaughter, yes, that is what is needed. Come, let us depart – ah, in the name of Father Bloodeye, let us
leave this place
!'