The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (766 page)

But Laseen's done this before. With Dujek Onearm and the Host. And that time, the deal involved the annihilation of the Bridgeburners – at least that's how it looks. So…why not?

What would have happened if we'd just marched into the city? Killing every damned fool who got in our way? If we'd gone in strength with Tavore up to Mock's Hold?

Civil war. He knew that to be the answer to those questions. Nor could he see a way out, even after months and months of second-guessing.

No wonder, then, that all of this was eating at Keneb's guts, and he knew he was not alone in that. Blistig believed in nothing any more, beginning with himself. His eyes seemed to reflect some spectre of the future that only he could see. He walked as a man already dead – the body refusing what the mind knew to be an irrevocable truth. And they'd lost Tene Baralta and his Red Blades, although perhaps that was not quite as tragic.
Well, come to think on it, Tavore's inner circle is pretty much gone. Carved out. Hood knows I never belonged there anyway – which is why I'm here, in this damned dripping swamp of a forest.

‘We're assembled and waiting, Fist.'

Blinking, Keneb saw that his captain had arrived.
Standing – waiting – how long?
He squinted up at the greying sky.
Shit
. ‘Very well, we'll head inland until we find some dry ground.'

‘Aye.'

‘Oh, Captain, have you selected out the mage you want?'

Faradan Sort's eyes narrowed briefly, and in the colourless light the planes of her hard face looked more angular than ever. She sighed and said, ‘I believe so, Fist. From Sergeant Gripe's squad. Beak.'

‘Him? Are you sure?'

She shrugged. ‘Nobody likes him, so you'll not rue the loss.'

Keneb felt a flicker of irritation. In a low tone he said, ‘Your task is not meant to be a suicide mission, Captain. I am not entirely convinced this sorcerous communication system is going to work. And once the squads start losing mages, it will all fall apart. You will probably become the only link among all the units—'

‘Once we find some horses,' she cut in.

‘Correct.'

He watched as she studied him for a long moment, then she said, ‘Beak has tracking skills, Fist. Of a sort. He says he can smell magic, which will help in finding our soldiers.'

‘Very good. Now, it's time to move inland, Captain.'

‘Aye, Fist.'

A short time later, the forty-odd soldiers of Keneb's command platoon were fighting their way through a bog of fetid, black water, as the day's heat grew. Insects swarmed in hungry clouds. Few words were exchanged.

None of us are sure of this, are we? Find the Tiste Edur – this land's oppressors – and cut them down. Free the Letherii to rebel. Aye, foment a civil war, the very thing we fled the Malazan Empire to avoid.

Odd, isn't it, how we now deliver upon another nation what we would not have done to ourselves.

About as much moral high ground as this damned swamp. No, we're not happy, Adjunct. Not happy at all.

 

Beak didn't know much about any of this. In fact, he would be the first to admit he didn't know much about anything at all, except maybe weaving sorcery. The one thing he knew for certain, however, was that no-one liked him.

Getting tied to the belt of this scary captain woman would probably turn out to be a bad idea. She reminded him of his mother, looks-wise, which should have killed quick any thoughts of the lustful kind. Should have, but didn't, which he found a little disturbing if he thought about it, which he didn't. Much. Unlike his mother, anyway, she wasn't the type to browbeat him at every turn, and that was refreshing.

‘I was born a stupid boy to very rich noble-born parents.' Usually the first words he uttered to everyone he met. The next ones were: ‘That's why I became a soldier, so's I could be with my own kind.' Conversations usually died away shortly after that, which made Beak sad.

He would have liked to talk with the other squad mages, but even there it seemed he couldn't quite get across his deep-in-the-bone love of magic. ‘Mystery,' he'd say, nodding and nodding, ‘mystery, right? And poetry. That's sorcery.
Mystery and poetry
, which is what my mother used to say to my brother when she crawled into his bed on the nights Father was somewhere else. “We're living in mystery and poetry, my dear one,” she'd say – I'd pretend I was asleep, since once I sat up and she beat me real bad. Normally she never did that, with her fists I mean. Most of my tutors did that, so she wouldn't have to. But I sat up and that made her mad. The House healer said I almost died that night, and that's how I learned about poetry.'

The wonder that was sorcery was his greatest love, maybe his only one, so far, though he was sure he'd meet his perfect mate one day. A pretty woman as stupid as he was. In any case, the other mages usually just stared at him while he babbled on, which was what he did when getting nervous. On and on. Sometimes a mage would just up and hug him, then walk away. Once, a wizard he was talking to just started crying. That had frightened Beak.

The captain's interview of the mages in the platoon had ended with him, second in line.

‘Where are you from, Beak, to have you so convinced you're stupid?'

He wasn't sure what that question meant, but he did try to answer. ‘I was born in the great city of Quon on Quon Tali in the Malazan Empire, which is an empire ruled by a little Empress and is the most civilized place in the world. All my tutors called me stupid and they should know. Nobody didn't agree with them, either.'

‘So who taught you about magic?'

‘We had a Seti witch in charge of the stables. In the country estate. She said that for me sorcery was the lone candle in the darkness. The lone candle in the darkness. She said my brain had put out all the other candles, so this one would shine brighter and brighter. So she showed me magic, first the Seti way, which she knew best. But later, she always found other servants, other people who knew the other kinds.
Warrens.
That's what they're called. Different coloured candles for each and every one of them. Grey for Mockra, green for Ruse, white for Hood, yellow for Thyr, blue for—'

‘You know how to use Mockra?'

‘Yes. Want me to show you?'

‘Not now. I need you to come with me – I am detaching you from your squad, Beak.'

‘All right.'

‘You and I, we are going to travel together, away from everyone else. We're going to ride from unit to unit, as best we can.'

‘Ride, on horses?'

‘Do you know how?'

‘Quon horses are the finest horses in the world. We bred them. It was almost another candle in my head. But the witch said it was different, since I'd been born into it and riding was in my bones like writing in black ink.'

‘Do you think you'll be able to find the other squads, even when they're using sorcery to hide themselves?'

‘Find them? Of course. I smell magic. My candle flickers, then leans this way and whatever way the magic's coming from.'

‘All right, Beak, you are now attached to Captain Faradan Sort. I've chosen you, over all the others.'

‘All right.'

‘Grab your gear and follow me.'

‘How close?'

‘Like you were tied to my sword-belt, Beak. Oh, and how old are you, by the way?'

‘I've lost count. I was thirty but that was six years ago so I don't know any more.'

‘The warrens, Beak – how many candles do you know about?'

‘Oh, lots. All of them.'

‘All of them.'

‘We had a half-Fenn blacksmith for my last two years and he once asked me to list them, so I did, then he said that was all of them. He said: “That's all of them, Beak.”'

‘What else did he say?'

‘Nothing much, only he made me this knife.' Beak tapped the large weapon at his hip. ‘Then he told me to run away from home. Join the Malazan Army, so I wouldn't get beaten any more for being stupid. I was one year less than thirty when I did that, just like he told me to, and I haven't been beaten since. Nobody likes me but they don't hurt me. I didn't know the army would be so lonely.'

She was studying him the way most people did, then she asked, ‘Beak, did you never use your sorcery to defend yourself, or fight back?'

‘No.'

‘Have you ever seen your parents or brother since?'

‘My brother killed himself and my parents are dead – they died the night I left. So did the tutors.'

‘What happened to them?'

‘I'm not sure,' Beak admitted. ‘Only, I showed them my candle.'

‘Have you done that since, Beak? Showed your candle?'

‘Not all of it, not all the light, no. The blacksmith told me not to, unless I had no choice.'

‘Like that last night with your family and tutors.'

‘Like that night, yes. They'd had the blacksmith whipped and driven off, you see, for giving me this knife. And then they tried to take it away from me. And all at once, I had no choice.'

So she said they were going away from the others, but here they were, trudging along with the rest, and the insects kept biting him, especially on the back of his neck, and getting stuck in his ears and up his nose, and he realized that he didn't understand anything.

But she was right there, right at his side.

The platoon reached a kind of island in the swamp, moated in black water. It was circular, and as they scrambled onto it Beak saw moss-covered rubble.

‘Was a building here,' one of the soldiers said.

‘Jaghut,' Beak called out, suddenly excited. ‘Omtose Phellack. No flame, though, just the smell of tallow. The magic's all drained away and that's what made this swamp, but we can't stay here, because there's broken bodies under the rocks and those ghosts are hungry.'

They were all staring at him. He ducked his head. ‘Sorry.'

But Captain Faradan Sort laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘No need, Beak. These bodies – Jaghut?'

‘No. Forkrul Assail and Tiste Liosan. They fought on the ruins. During what they called the Just Wars. Here, it was only a skirmish, but nobody survived. They killed each other, and the last warrior standing had a hole in her throat and she bled out right where the Fist is standing. She was Forkrul Assail, and her last thought was about how victory proved they were right and the enemy was wrong. Then she died.'

‘It's the only dry land anywhere in sight,' Fist Keneb said. ‘Can any mage here banish the ghosts? No? Hood's breath. Beak, what are they capable of doing to us anyway?'

‘They'll eat into our brains and make us think terrible things, so that we all end up killing each other. That's the thing with the Just Wars – they never end and never will because Justice is a weak god with too many names. The Liosan called it Serkanos and the Assail called it Rynthan. Anyway, no matter what language it spoke, its followers could not understand it. A mystery language, which is why it has no power because all its followers believe the wrong things – things they just make up and nobody can agree and that's why the wars never end.' Beak paused, looking around at the blank faces, then he shrugged. ‘I don't know, maybe if I talk to them. Summon one and we can talk to it.'

‘I think not, Beak,' the Fist said. ‘On your feet, soldiers, we're moving on.'

No-one complained.

Faradan Sort drew Beak to one side. ‘We're leaving them now,' she said. ‘Which direction do you think will get us out of this the quickest?'

Beak pointed north.

‘How far?'

‘A thousand paces. That's where the edge of the old Omtose Phellack is.'

She watched Keneb and his squads move down from the island, splashing their way further inland, due west. ‘How long before they're out of this heading in that direction – heading west, I mean?'

‘Maybe twelve hundred paces, if they stay out of the river.'

She grunted. ‘Two hundred extra steps won't kill them. All right, Beak, north it is. Lead on.'

‘Aye, Captain. We can use the old walkway.'

She laughed then. Beak had no idea why.

 

There was a sound in war that came during sieges, moments before an assault on the walls. The massed onagers, ballistae and catapults were let loose in a single salvo. The huge missiles striking the stone walls, the fortifications and the buildings raised a chaotic chorus of exploding stone and brick, shattered tiles and collapsing rooftops. The air itself seemed to shiver, as if recoiling from the violence.

Sergeant Cord stood on the promontory, leaning into the fierce, icy wind, and thought of that sound as he stared across at the churning bergs of ice warring across the strait. Like a city tumbling down, enormous sections looming over where Fent Reach used to be were splitting away, in momentary silence, until the waves of concussion rolled over the choppy waves of the sea, arriving in thunder. Roiling silver clouds, gouts of foamy water—

‘A mountain range in its death-throes,' muttered Ebron at his side.

‘War machines pounding a city wall,' Cord countered.

‘A frozen storm,' said Limp behind them.

‘You all have it wrong,' interjected Crump through chattering teeth. ‘It's like big pieces of ice…falling down.'

‘That's…simply stunning, Crump,' said Corporal Shard. ‘You're a Hood-damned poet. I cannot believe the Mott Irregulars ever let you get away. No, truly, Crump. I cannot believe it.'

‘Well, it's not like they had any choice,' the tall, knock-kneed sapper said, rubbing vigorously at both sides of his jaw before adding, ‘I mean, I left when no-one was looking. I used a fish spine to pick the manacles – you can't arrest a High Marshal anyhow. I kept telling them. You can't. It's not allowed.'