The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (819 page)

Another mouthful. Just got worse, this stuff. Who would come up with a drink like that?

She set out. Was halfway there or maybe just halfway along when a hundred or so Tiste Edur appeared thirty or so paces down the main street. So she threw the clay bottle away and planted her feet to meet the charge. Was what rearguard did, right? Hold 'em back.

The first row, about ten of them, halted and raised their lances.

‘Not fair!' Hellian shouted, pulling her shield up and getting ready to duck behind it – oh, this wasn't a shield at all. It was the lid of an ale cask, the kind with a handle. She stared at it. ‘Hey, I wasn't issued this.'

 

Three straight days and nights on the run from the river bank and now the sounds of fighting somewhere ahead. Since he'd lost his corporal two nights past – the fool fell down an abandoned well, one moment there at his side, the next gone. Went through a net of roots at least most of the way, until he jammed his head and pop went the neck and wasn't it funny how Hood never forgot since it'd been join the marines or dance the gibbet for the corporal and now the fool had done both. Since Badan Gruk lost his corporal, then, he now dragged Ruffle with him – not quite a promotion, Ruffle was not the promoting type, but she kept a cool eye when she wasn't busy eating everything in sight.

And now it was with a wheeze that Ruffle settled down beside Badan Gruk, 5th Squad sergeant, 3rd Company, 8th Legion, and lifted her pale rounded face up to his with that cold grey regard. ‘We're kind of tired, Sergeant.'

Badan Gruk was Dal Honese, but not from the north savanna tribes. He had been born in the south jungle, half a day from the coast. His skin was as black as a Tiste Andii's, and the epicanthic folds of his eyes were so pronounced that little more than slits of white were visible; and he was not a man to smile much. He felt most comfortable on moonless nights, although Skim always complained about how their sergeant just damn disappeared, usually when he was needed the most.

But now here they were, in bright daylight, and oh how Badan Gruk wished for the gloom of the tropical rainforest of his homeland. ‘Stay here, Ruffle,' he now said, then turned and scrabbled back to where Sergeant Primly crouched with the rest of the marines. Primly's squad, the 10th, was also but one short, while the 4th was down two, including Sergeant Sinter and that sent yet another pang through Badan Gruk. She'd been from his own tribe, after all. Damn, she'd been the reason he'd joined up in the first place. Following Sinter had always been way too easy.

Drawing close, Badan Gruk waved Primly over and the Quon noble's corporal, Hunt, tagged along. The three settled a short distance from the others. ‘So,' Badan breathed, ‘do we go round this?'

Primly's long ascetic face soured, which is what it always did whenever anyone spoke to him. Badan wasn't too sure of the man's history, beyond the obvious, which was that Primly had done something bad, once – bad enough to get him disowned and maybe even on the run. At least he'd left the highborn airs behind. To Badan's whispered question, Corporal Hunt snorted, then looked away.

‘You're here,' Badan said to the Kartoolii, ‘so talk.'

Hunt shrugged. ‘We been running since the river, Sergeant. Ducking and dodging till all three of our mages are used up and worse than walking dead.' He nodded northwards. ‘Those are marines up there, and they're in a fight. We're only down one heavy and one sapper—'

‘And a sergeant and a corporal,' Badan added.

‘Seventeen of us, Sergeant. Now, I seen what your heavies can do, and both me and Sergeant Primly can tell you that Lookback, Drawfirst and Shoaly are easy matches to Reliko and Vastly Blank. And Honey's still got three cussers and half again all the sharpers since Kisswhere left 'em behind when she and Sinter went and—'

‘All right,' Badan cut in, not wanting to hear again what had happened to Sinter and Kisswhere, since it had been Kisswhere who had been the reason for Sinter's joining. Nothing good following a woman who was following another woman with worship in her eyes – even a sister – but that had been that and they were both gone now, weren't they? ‘Primly?'

The Quon rubbed at what passed for a beard on his face – gods, showed just how young the poor bastard was – and cast a searching gaze back on the waiting soldiers. Then he smiled suddenly. ‘Look at Skulldeath, Badan. Here we got a soldier that Toothy himself named first day on Malaz Island, and I still don't know – was it a joke? Skulldeath's yet to draw a drop of blood, barring mosquitoes and that blood was his own. Besides, Badan Gruk, you've got what looks like some kind of Dal Honese grand council here and you moonless nightshades seem to put holy terror in the Edur, like you were ghosts or something and sometimes I start wondering myself, the way you all manage to vanish in the dark. In any case, there's you, Nep Furrow, Reliko and Neller and Strap Mull and Mulvan Dreader's halfway there besides, and, well, we've come to fight, haven't we? So let's fight.'

Maybe you came to fight, Primly. I'm just trying to stay alive.
Badan Gruk studied the two men beside him for a moment longer, then he rose to his full height, coming to very nearly Primly's shoulder, and drew out the two-handed sickle sword from its deer-hide harness on his broad back. Adjusting his grip on the ivory handle, he eyed the two thin otataral blades inset on both sides of the curved and carved tusk.
Vethbela
, the weapon was called in his own language,
Bonekisser
, the blades not deep enough to do more than touch the long bones of a normal warrior's legs, since those femurs were prized trophies, to be polished and carved with scenes of the owner's glorious death – and any warrior seeking the heart of a woman needed to place more than a few at the threshold of her family's hut, as proof of his prowess and courage.

Never did manage to use this thing properly, did I? Not a single thigh bone to show Sinter.
He nodded. ‘Time to collect some trophies, then.'

 

Fifteen paces away, Honey nudged Skim. ‘Hey, beloved, looks like we get to toss sharpers today.'

‘Stop calling me that,' the other sapper replied in a bored tone, but she watched as Badan Gruk headed back up to where Ruffle hid, and she watched as Corporal Hunt went back down-trail to collect the 4th Squad's corporal, Pravalak Rim, who had been guarding their butts with Shoaly and Drawfirst. And pretty soon something less than whispered was dancing through every soldier and she saw weapons being drawn, armour straps tightened, helms adjusted, and finally she grunted. ‘All right, Honey – Hood take me, how I hate saying that – looks like you've sniffed it just right—'

‘Just let me prove it—'

‘You're never prying my legs apart, Honey. Why don't you get that?'

‘What a miserable attitude,' the 10th's sapper complained as he loaded his crossbow. ‘Now Kisswhere, she was—'

‘So tired of your advances, Honey, that she went and blew herself up – and took her sister with her, too. And now here I am wishing I'd been with them in that scull.' With that she rose and scrabbled over to Nep Furrow.

The old Dal Honese mage lifted one yellowy eye to squint at her, then both eyes opened wide when he saw the sharper she held in each hand. ‘Eggit'way fra meen, tit-woman!'

‘Relax,' she said, ‘we're heading into a fight. You got anything left in that bent reed of yours?'

‘Wha'?'

‘Magicks, Nep, magicks – comes from the bleckers in men. Every woman knows that,' and she winked.

‘You teasin' tit-woman you! Eggit'way fra meen!'

‘I'm not eggitin' away from you, Nep, until you bless these two sharpers here.'

‘Bliss 'em clay balls? Ya mad, tit-woman? Less time I done that—'

‘They blew up, aye. Sinter and Kisswhere. Into pieces but nice and quick, right? Listen, it's my only way to escape Honey's advances. No, seriously, I want one of your blissin' curses or cursed blissin's. Please, Nep—'

‘Eggit'way fra meen!'

 

Reliko, who was half a hand shorter even than his sergeant and therefore, by Toothy's own assertion, the smallest heavy infantry soldier in the history of the Malazan Empire, grunted upright and drew out his shortsword as he swung his shield into position. He glanced over at Vastly Blank. ‘Time again.'

The oversized Seti warrior, still sitting on the bed of wet moss, looked up. ‘Huh?'

‘Fighting again.'

‘Where?'

‘Us, Vastly. Remember Y'Ghatan?'

‘No.'

‘Well, won't be like Y'Ghatan. More like yesterday only harder. Remember yesterday?'

Vastly Blank stared a moment longer, then he laughed his slow
ha ha ha
laugh and said, ‘Yesterday! I remember yesterday!'

‘Then pick up your sword and wipe the mud off it, Vastly. And take your shield – no, not mine, yours, the one on your back. Yes, bring it round. That's it – no, sword in the other hand. There, perfect. You ready?'

‘Who do I kill?'

‘I'll show you soon enough.'

‘Good.'

‘Seti should never breed with bhederin, I think.'

‘What?'

‘A joke, Vastly.'

‘Oh. Ha ha ha! Ha.'

‘Let's go join up with Lookback – we'll be on point.'

‘Lookback's on point?'

‘He's always on point for this kind of thing, Vastly.'

‘Oh. Good.'

‘Drawfirst and Shoaly at our backs, right? Like yesterday.'

‘Right. Reliko, what happened yesterday?'

 

Strap Mull stepped close to Neller and they both eyed their corporal, Pravalak Rim, who was just sending Drawfirst and Shoaly up to the other heavies.

The two soldiers spoke in their native Dal Honese. ‘Broke-hearted,' Strap said.

‘Broker than broke,' Neller agreed.

‘Kisswhere, she was lovely.'

‘Lovelier than lovely.'

‘Like Badan says, though.'

‘Like he says, yes.'

‘And that's that, is what he says.'

‘I know that, Strap, you don't need to tell me anything. You think Letheras will be like Y'Ghatan? We didn't do nothing in Y'Ghatan. And,' Neller suddenly added, as if struck by something, ‘we haven't done nothing here either, have we? Nothing not yet, anyway. If it's going to be like Y'Ghatan, though—'

‘We're not even there yet,' Strap Mull said. ‘Which sword you going to use?'

‘This one.'

‘The one with the broken handle?'

Neller looked down, frowned, then threw the weapon into the bushes and drew out another one. ‘This one. It's Letherii, was on the cabin wall—'

‘I know. I gave it to you.'

‘You gave it to me because it howls like a wild woman every time I hit something with it.'

‘That's right, Neller, and that's why I asked what sword you were going to use.'

‘Now you know.'

‘Now I know so I'm stuffing my ears with moss.'

‘Thought they already were.'

‘I'm adding more. See?'

 

Corporal Pravalak Rim was a haunted man. Born in a northern province of Gris to poor farmers, he had seen nothing of the world for most of his life, until the day a marine recruiter had come through the nearby village on the very day Pravalak was there with his older brothers, all of whom sneered at the marine on their way to the tavern. But Pravalak himself, well, he had stared in disbelief. His first sight of someone from Dal Hon. She had been big and round and though she was decades older than him and her hair had gone grey he could see how she had been beautiful and indeed, to his eyes, she still was.

Such dark skin. Such dark eyes, and oh, she spied him out and gave him that gleaming smile, before leading him by the hand into a back room of the local gaol and delivering her recruiting pitch sitting on him and rocking with exalted glee until he exploded right into the Malazan military.

His brothers had expressed their disbelief and were in a panic about how to explain to their ma and da how their youngest son had gone and got himself signed up and lost his virginity to a fifty-year-old demoness in the process – and was, in fact, not coming home at all. But that was their problem, and Pravalak had trundled off in the recruiter's wagon, one hand firmly snuggled between her ample legs, without a backward look.

That first great love affair had lasted the distance to the next town, where he'd found himself transferred onto a train of about fifty other Grisian farm boys and girls and marching an imperial road down to Unta, and from there out to Malaz Island for training as a marine. But he had not been as heartbroken as he would have thought, for the Malazan forces were crowded for a time with Dal Honese recruits – some mysterious population explosion or political upheaval had triggered an exodus from the savanna and jungles of Dal Hon. And he had soon realized that his worship of midnight skin and midnight eyes did not doom him to abject longing and eternal solitude.

Until he first met Kisswhere, who had but laughed at his attempts, as smooth and honed as they had become by then. And it was this rejection that stole his heart for all time.

Yet what haunted him now was, perhaps surprisingly, not all of that unrequited adoration. It was what he had seen, or maybe but imagined, in that dark night on the river, after the blinding flash of the munitions and the roar that shook the water, that one black-skinned hand, reaching up out of the choppy waves, the spinning swirl of the current awakening once more in the wake of the tumult, parting round the elegant wrist – and then that hand slipped away, or was simply lost to his straining sight, his desperate, anguished search in the grainy darkness – the hand, the skin, the dark, dark skin that so defeated him that night…

Oh, he wanted to die, now. To end his misery. She was gone. Her sister was gone, too – a sister who had drawn him to one side just two nights earlier and had whispered in his ear,
‘Don't give up on her, Prav. I know my sister, you see, and there's a look growing in her eyes when she glances your way…so, don't give up…'