Early in Kellanved's reign, cults proliferated among the Imperial armies, particularly among the Marines. It should be remembered that this was also the time of Dassem Ultor, First Sword and Supreme Commander of the Malazan forces ... a man sworn to Hood ...

Malazan Campaigns, vol. II
Duiker

 

Beneth sat at his table in Bula's, cleaning his nails with a dagger. They were immaculate, making the habit an affectation. Felisin had grown familiar with his poses and what they betrayed of his moods. The man was in a rage, shot through with fear. Uncertainties now plagued his life; like bloodily larvae they crawled beneath his skin, growing as they gnawed on his flesh.

His face, his forehead and his thick, scarred wrists all glistened with sweat. The pewter mug of chilled Saltoan wine sat untouched on the battered tabletop, a row of flies marching round and round the mug's rim.

Felisin stared at the tiny black insects, memories of horror returning to her. Hood's acolyte, who was not there. A man-shaped swarm of Death's sprites, the buzz of wings shaping words...

'There's light in your eyes again, lass,' Beneth said. 'Tells me you're realizing what you've become. An ugly light.' He pushed a small leather pouch across the table until it sat directly before her. 'Kill it.'

Her hand trembled as she reached for the bag, loosened the ties and removed a button of durhang.

He watched her crumbling the moist pollen into her pipe bowl.

Six days, and Baudin was still missing. Captain Sawark had called in Beneth more than once. Skullcup was very nearly dismantled during the search, patrols on Beetle Road up on the rim were doubled – round and round – and Sinker Lake was dredged. It was as if the man had simply vanished.

Beneth took it personally. His control of Skullcup was compromised. He'd called her back to his side, not out of compassion, but because he no longer trusted her. She knew something – something about Baudin – and worse, he knew she was more than she pretended to be.

Beneth and Sawark have spoken, Heboric said the day she'd left – when his ministrations had done enough to allow her to fake a well-being sufficient to justify her leaving. Be careful, lass. Beneth is taking you back, but only to personally oversee your destruction. What was haphazard before is now precise, deliberate. He's been given guidelines.

How do you know any of this?

True, I'm just guessing. But Baudin's escape has given Beneth leverage over Sawark, and he's likely to have used it to get the inside story on you. Sawark's granted him more control – there won't be another Baudin – neither man can afford it. Sawark has no choice but to give Beneth more control. . . more knowledge . . .

The durhang tea had given her relief from the pain of her fractured ribs and her swollen jaw, but it had not been potent enough to dull her thoughts. Minute by minute, she'd felt her mind drag her ever closer to desperation. Leaving Heboric had been a flight, her journey back to Beneth a panicked necessity.

He smiled as she set flame to the durhang.

'Baudin wasn't just a dockside thug, was he?'

She frowned at him through a haze of smoke.

Beneth set the dagger down and gave it a spin. They both watched the blade's flashing turns. When it ceased, the point faced Beneth. He scowled, spun it a second time. As the point slowed to face him again he picked up the dagger and slid it back into the sheath at his belt, then reached for the pewter mug.

The flies scattered as he raised the mug to his lips.

'I don't know anything about Baudin,' Felisin said.

His deep-set eyes studied her for a long moment. 'You haven't figured anything out about anything, have you? Which makes you either thick ... or wilfully ignorant.'

She said nothing. A numbness was spreading through her.

'Was it me, lass? Was it so much of a surrender becoming mine? I wanted you, Felisin. You were beautiful. Sharp – I could see that in your eyes. Am I to blame for you, now?'

He saw her glance down at the pouch on the table and offered up a wry smile. 'Orders are orders. Besides, you could have said no.'

'At any time,' she said, looking away.

'Ah, not my fault, then.'

'No,' she replied, 'the faults are all mine, Beneth.'

Abruptly he rose. 'There's nothing pleasant in the air tonight. The She'gai's begun – the hot wind – all your suffering until now has just been a prelude, lass. Summer begins with the She'gai. But tonight...' He stared down at her but did not finish the sentence, simply taking her by the arm and pulling her upright. 'Walk with me.'

Beneth had been granted the right to form a militia, consisting of his chosen slaves, each now armed with a clout. Throughout the night they patrolled the makeshift streets of Skullcup. The curfew's restriction would now be punctuated with beating followed by execution for anyone caught out in the open after nightfall. The guards would handle the execution – Beneth's militia took their pleasure in the beating.

Beneth and Felisin joined the patrol squad, half a dozen men she knew well, as Beneth had bought their loyalty with her body. 'If it's a quiet night,' he promised them, 'we'll take time for some relaxation come the dawn.' The men grinned at that.

They walked the littered aisles of sand, watchful but seeing no-one else. Coming opposite a gambling establishment called Suruk's, they saw a crowd of Dosii guardsmen. The Dosii captain, Gunnip, was with them. Their night-hooded gazes followed the patrol as it continued on.

Beneth hesitated, as if of a mind to speak with Gunnip, then, with a loud sigh through his nostrils, resumed walking. One hand reached up to rest on the pommel of his knife.

Felisin became dully aware of something, as if the hot wind breathed a new menace into the night air. The chatter of the militiamen, she noted, had fallen away, and signs of nervousness were evident. She extracted another button of durhang and popped it into her mouth, where it rested cool and sweet between cheek and gum.

'Watching you do that,' Beneth muttered, 'reminds me of Sawark.'

She blinked. 'Sawark?'

'Aye. The worse things get, the more he shuts his eyes.'

Her words came out slurred. 'And what things are getting worse?'

As if in answer, a shout followed by harsh laughter sounded behind them, coming from the front of Suruk's. Beneth halted his men with a gesture, then walked back to the crossroads they had just passed. From there he could see Suruk's – and Gunnip's soldiers.

Like a wraith rising up and stealing through Beneth, tension slowly filled the man's posture. As she watched, vague alarms rang in Felisin's skull. She hesitated, then turned to the militiamen. 'Something's happened. Go to him.'

They were watching as well. One of them scowled, one hand sliding skittish along his belt to the clout. 'He ain't gived us no orders,' he growled. The others nodded, fidgeting as they waited in the shadows.

'He's standing alone,' she said. 'Out in the open. I think there's arrows trained on him—'

'Shut your face, girl,' the militiaman snapped. 'We ain't going out there.'

Beneth almost backed up a step, then visibly steeled himself.

'They're coming for him,' Felisin hissed.

Gunnip and his Dosii soldiers wandered into view, closing a half-circle around Beneth. Cocked crossbows resting on forearms pointed towards him.

Felisin spun to the militiamen. 'Back him up, damn you!'

'Hood take you!' one of the men spat back. The patrol was scattering, slipping back into the shadows and then into the dark alleyways beyond.

'You all alone back there, lass?' Captain Gunnip called out. His soldiers laughed. 'Come join Beneth here. We're just telling him some things, that's all. No worry, lass.'

Beneth turned to speak to her. A Dosii guardsman stepped up and struck him across the face with a gauntleted hand. Beneth staggered, swearing as he brought his hands up to his shattered nose.

Felisin stumbled backward, then twisted and ran, even as crossbows thudded. Quarrels whipped past her on either side as she plunged into an alley mouth. Laughter echoed behind her.

She ran on, the alley paralleling Rust Ramp. A hundred paces ahead waited Darkhall and the barracks. She was out of breath when she stumbled into the open area surrounding the two Malazan buildings, her heart hammering in her chest as if she was fifty years old, not fifteen. Slowly, the shock of seeing Beneth struck down spread through her.

Voices shouted from behind the barracks. Horse hooves pounded. A score of slaves appeared, running towards where Felisin stood with a half-hundred mounted Dosii soldiers behind them. Lances took some men in the back, driving them down into the dust. Unarmed, the slaves tried to flee, but the Dosii had now completed the encirclement. Belatedly, Felisin realized that escape had been denied her as well.

I saw Beneth bleed. From that thought followed another. Now we die.

The Dosii horses trampled men and women. Tulwars swung down. In hopeless silence, the slaves were dying. Two riders closed in on Felisin. She watched, wondering which of them would reach her first. One gripped a lance, angled down to take her in the chest. The other held his wide-bladed sword high, readied for a downward chop. In their faces she saw flushed joy and was surprised at the inhumanity of the expression.

When they were both but moments away, quarrels thudded into their chests. Reeling, both men toppled from the saddles. Felisin turned to see a troop of Malazan crossbowmen advancing in formation, the front line kneeling to reload while the second line slipped a few paces ahead, took aim, then as one loosed quarrels into the milling Dosii horsemen. Animals and men screamed in pain.

A third volley broke the Dosii, scattering them back into the darkness beyond the barracks.

A handful of slaves still lived. A sergeant barked an order and a dozen soldiers moved forward, checking the bodies littering the area, then pushing the survivors back towards the troop's position.

'Come with me,' a voice hissed beside Felisin.

She blinked, slow to recognize Pella's face. 'What?'

'We're quartering the slaves at the stables – but not you.' He gently took her arm. 'We're badly outnumbered. Defending slaves isn't a high priority, I'm afraid. Sawark wants this mutiny crushed. Tonight.'

She studied his face. 'What are you saying?'

The sergeant had pulled his troop into a more defensible position at an alley mouth. The twelve detached soldiers were pushing the slaves down the side street that led to the stables. Pella guided Felisin in the same direction. Once out of sight of the sergeant, he addressed the other soldiers. "Three of you, with me.'

One replied, 'Has Oponn stirred your brains, Pella? I don't feel safe as it is, and you want to split the squad?'

Another growled, 'Let's just get rid of these damned slaves and get back, afore the sergeant marches to rejoin the captain.'

'This is Beneth's woman,' Pella said.

'I don't think Beneth is still alive,' Felisin said dully.

'He was not five minutes ago, lass,' Pella said, frowning. 'Bloodied a bit, nothing more. He's rallying his militia right now.' He swung to the others. 'We'll need Beneth, Reborid, never mind Sawark's bluster. Now, three of you – we're not going far.'

With a scowl, the one named Reborid gestured to two others.

 

A fire had been started in Skullcup's western arm – somewhere on Spit Row. Unchecked, it was spreading fast, throwing a lurid orange glow up against the underbellies of billowing smoke.

As Pella dragged Felisin along, Reborid talked unceasingly. 'Where in Hood's name is the Be'thra Garrison? You think they can't see the flames? There were Malazan squads up patrolling Beetle Road – a rider would have been sent – the troop should be here by now, dammit.'

There were bodies in the streets, huddled, motionless shapes. The small party went around them without pause.

'Hood knows what Gunnip's thinking,' the soldier went on. 'Sawark will see every damn Dosii within fifty leagues of here gutted and left out under the sun.'

'This is the place,' Pella said, tugging Felisin to a halt. 'Defensive position,' he ordered the others. 'I'll be but a moment.'

They were at Heboric's house. No light leaked from the shutters. The door was locked. Snorting with disgust, Pella kicked the flimsy barrier aside. His hand against her back, he pushed her into the darkness within, then followed.

'There's no-one here,' Felisin said.

Pella did not reply, still pushing her along, until they reached the cloth divider behind which was the ex-priest's bedroom. 'Pull it aside, Felisin.'

She did, stepping into the small room. Pella followed.

Heboric sat on his cot, staring up at them in silence.

'I wasn't sure,' Pella said in a low voice, 'if you still wanted her along.'

The ex-priest grunted. 'What of you, Pella? We might manage—'

'No. Take her instead. I've got to rejoin the captain – we'll crush this mutiny – but the timing's perfect for you ...'

Heboric sighed. 'Aye, that it is. Fener's grunt, Baudin, step out of them shadows. This lad's no risk to us,'

Pella started as a massive shape separated itself from behind the hanging. Baudin's narrow-set eyes glittered in the dimness. He said nothing.

Shaking himself, Pella stepped back to the entrance, gripping the grimy cloth with one hand. 'Fener guard you, Heboric'

'Thank you, lad. For everything.'

Pella gave a curt nod, then was gone.

Felisin frowned at Baudin. 'You're wet.'

Heboric rose. 'Is all ready?' he asked Baudin.

The big man nodded.

'Are we escaping?' Felisin asked.

'Aye.'

'How?'

Heboric scowled. 'You'll see soon enough.'

Baudin picked up two large leather packs from behind him, and tossed one effortlessly to Heboric, who trapped it deftly between his arms. The sound the pack made when the ex-priest caught it made it obvious to Felisin that it was in fact a sealed bladder, filled with air. 'We're going to swim Sinker Lake,' she said. 'Why? There's nothing but a sheer cliff on the other side.'

'There's caves,' Heboric said. 'You can reach them when the water level's low ... ask Baudin, since he's been hiding in one for a week.'

'We have to take Beneth,' Felisin pronounced.

'Now, lass—'

'No! You owe me – both of you! You wouldn't be alive to even do this, Heboric, if it wasn't for me. And for Beneth. I'll find him, meet you at the lakeshore—'

'No, you won't,' Baudin said. 'I'll get him.' He handed Felisin the bladder.

She watched him slip out through a back door she hadn't known was there, then slowly turned to regard Heboric. He was crouched down, examining the loose netting wrapped around the packs. 'I wasn't part of your escape plan, was I, Heboric?'

He glanced up, raised his brows. 'Until tonight, it seemed you'd made Skullcup your paradise. I didn't think you'd be interested in leaving.'

'Paradise?' For some reason the word shook her. She sat down on the cot.

Eyeing her, he shrugged. 'Beneth provided.'

She held his gaze until, after a long moment, he finally pulled away, hefting the pack as he rose with a grunt. 'We should get going,' he said gruffly.

'I'm not much in your eyes any more, am I, Heboric? Was I ever?' Felisin, House of Paran, whose sister was Adjunct Tavore, whose brother rode with Adjunct Lorn. noble-born, a spoiled little girl. A whore.

He did not reply, making his way to the gap in the back wall.

 

The western half of Skullcup was in flames, lighting the entire bowl a grainy, wavering red. Heboric and Felisin saw evidence of clashes as they hurried down Work Road towards the lake – downed horses, dead Malazan and Dosii guards. Bula's Inn had been barricaded, then the barriers breached. From the darkness of the doorway, as they passed, came a faint moaning.

Felisin hesitated, but Heboric hooked her arm. 'You don't want to go in there, lass,' he said. 'Gunnip's men hit that place early on, and hard.'

Beyond the town's edge, Work Road stretched empty and dark all the way to the Three Fates fork. Through the rushes on their left was the glimmer of Sinker Lake's placid surface.

The ex-priest led her down into the grasses, bade her crouch down, then did the same. 'We'll wait here,' he said, wiping sweat from his wide, tattooed forehead.

The mud under her knees was clammy, pleasantly cool. 'So we swim to the cave ... then what?'

'It's an old mineshaft, leading up beyond the rim, well past Beetle Road. There will be supplies left for us at the other end. From there, it's out across the desert.'

'Dosin Pali?'

He shook his head. 'Straight west, to the inside coast. Nine, ten days. There's hidden springs – Baudin has memorized their locations. We'll get picked up by a boat and taken across to the mainland.'

'How? Who?'

The ex-priest grimaced. 'An old friend with more loyalty than is probably good for him. Hood knows, I'm not complaining.'

'And Pella was the contact?'

'Aye, some obscure connection to do with friends of fathers and uncles and friends of friends or something like that. He first approached you, you know, but you didn't catch on. So he found me himself.'

'I don't remember anything like that.'

'A quote, attributed to Kellanved and recorded by the man arranging our escape – Duiker.'

'A familiar name ...'

'The Imperial Historian. He spoke on my behalf at the trial. Then, afterwards, arranged to be sent to Hissar by warren.' He fell silent, slowly shook his head. 'To save a bitter old man who more than once denounced his written histories as deliberate lies. If I live to stand face to face with Duiker, I think I owe the man an apology.'

A buzzing, frenzied sound reached them, coming from the smoky air above the town. The sound grew louder. Sinker Lake's smooth surface vanished beneath what seemed a spray of hailstones.

Felisin crouched lower in fear. 'What is it? What's happening?'

Heboric was silent a moment, then he hissed, 'Bloodflies! Drawn, then driven, by the fires. Quickly, lass, scoop up mud – cover yourself! And then me. Hurry!'

Glittering clouds of the insects swept into view, racing like gusts of fog.

Frantic, Felisin dug her fingers into the cool mud between the reed stems, slapping handfuls against her neck, arms, face. As she worked she crawled forward on her knees until she sat in the lake water, then she turned to Heboric. 'Come closer!'

He scrambled to her side. 'They'll dive through the water, girl – you need to get out of there – cover your legs in mud!'

'Once I'm done with you,' she said.

But it was too late. All at once the air was almost unbreathable as a cloud engulfed them. Bloodflies shot down into the water like darts. Pain lanced through her thighs.

Heboric pushed her hands away, then ducked down. 'Mind yourself, lass!'

The command was unnecessary, as all thoughts of helping Heboric had vanished with the first savage bite. Felisin leapt from the water, clawed gouges of mud free and slapped them down on her blood-smeared thighs. She quickly added more down to her calves, her ankles and feet. Insects crawled through her hair. Whimpering, she clawed them away, then covered her head with mud. Bloodflies rode her drawn gasps into her mouth, biting as she gagged and spat. She found herself biting down, crunching them, and their bitter juices burned like acid. They were everywhere, blinding her as they gathered in frenzied clumps around her eyes. Screaming, she scraped them away, then reached down and found more mud. Soothing darkness, yet her screaming did not stop, would not stop. The insects were at her ears. She filled them with mud. Silence.

Handless arms wrapped tight around her, Heboric's voice reaching her as if from a great distance away. 'It's all right, lass – it's all right. You can stop screaming, Felisin. You can stop.'

She had curled into a ball amidst the reeds. The pain of the bites was passing to numbness – on her legs, around her eyes and ears, and in her mouth. Cool, soft numbness. She heard herself fall silent.

'The swarm's passing,' Heboric said. 'Fener's blessing too fierce a touch for them. We're all right, lass. Wipe clear your eyes – see for yourself.'

She made no move. It was too easy to lie still, the numbness spreading through her.

'Wake up!' Heboric snapped. 'There's an egg in every bite, each secreting a poison that deadens, turns your flesh into something soft. And dead. Food for the larvae inside those eggs. You understanding me, lass? We need to kill those eggs – I've a tincture, in the pouch at my belt – but you'll need to apply it yourself, right? An old man without hands can't do it for you—'

She moaned.

'Wake up, damn you!'

He struck her, pushed, then kicked. Cursing, Felisin sat up. 'Stop it, I'm awake!' Her words slurred passing through her numbed mouth. 'Where is that pouch?'

'Here. Open your eyes!'

She could barely see through the puffed swelling, but a strange blue penumbra rising from Heboric's tattoos illuminated the scene. He was unbitten. Fener's blessing too fierce a touch.

He gestured at the pouch at his belt. 'Quickly, those eggs are about to hatch, then the larvae will start eating you – from the inside out. Open the pouch ... there, the black bottle, the small one. Open it!'

She removed the stopper. A bitter smell made her recoil.

'One drop, on your fingertip, then push that drop right into the wound, push it hard. Then the next one and the next—'

'I – I can't feel the ones around my eyes—'

'I'll guide you, lass. Hurry.'

The horror did not end. The tincture, a foul, dark-brown juice that stained her skin yellow, did not kill the emerging larvae, but drove them out. Heboric directed her hands to the ones around her eyes and ears as each sluggishly wriggled free, and she plucked them from the holes made by the bites, each larva as long as a nail clipping, limp with the soporific effect of the tincture. The bites she could see illustrated what was happening around her eyes and ears. In her mouth, the tincture's bitterness overrode the bloodfly larvae's poison, making her head spin and her heart beat alarmingly fast. The larvae fell like grains of rice onto her tongue. She spat them out.

'I'm sorry, Felisin,' Heboric said after she had done. He was examining the bites around her eyes, his expression filled with compassion.

A chill ran through her. 'What's wrong? Will I go blind? Deaf? What is it, Heboric!'

He shook his head, slowly sat back. 'Bloodfly bites ... the deadening poison kills the flesh. You'll heal, but there will be pockmarks. I'm so sorry, lass. It's bad around your eyes. It's bad.. .'

She almost laughed, her head reeling. Another shiver rippled through her and she hugged herself. 'I've seen those. Locals. Slaves. Here and there—'

'Aye. Normally, bloodflies don't swarm. It must have been the flames. Now listen, a good enough healer – someone with High Denul – can remove the scarring. We'll find ourselves such a healer, Felisin. I swear it, by Fener's tusks, I swear it.'

'I feel sick.'

'That's the tincture. Rapid heart, chills, nausea. It's the juice of a plant native to Seven Cities. If you drank down what's left in that tiny bottle you'd be dead in minutes.'

This time she did laugh, the sound shaky and brittle. 'I might welcome Hood's Gates, Heboric' She squinted at him. The blue glow was fading. 'Fener must be very forgiving.'

He frowned at that. 'I can make no sense of it, to be honest. I can think of more than one High Priest to Fener who'd choke at the suggestion that the boar god was ... forgiving.' He sighed. 'But it seems you're right.'

'You might want to offer thanks. A sacrifice.'

'I might,' he growled, looking away.

'It must have been a great offence that drove you from your god, Heboric.'

He did not reply. After a moment he rose, eyes on the flame-wracked town. 'Riders coming.'

She sat up straighter, still too dizzy to stand. 'Beneth?'

He shook his head.

Moments later a troop of Malazans rode up, halting directly opposite Heboric and Felisin. At the head was Captain Sawark. A Dosii blade had laid open one cheek. His uniform was wet and dark with blood. Felisin involuntarily shrank back from his cold lizard eyes as they fixed on her.

He finally spoke, 'When you're up on the rim . . . look south.'

Heboric cursed softly in surprise. 'You're letting us go? Thank you, Captain.'

His face darkened. 'Not for you, old man. It's seditious bastards like you that are the cause of all this. I'd rather spit you on a spear right now.' He made as if to say something more, his eyes finding Felisin once again, but instead he simply reined his mount around.

The two fugitives watched the troop ride back into Skullcup. They were heading for a battle. Felisin knew this instinctively. Another sourceless certainty told her, in a whisper, that they would all die. Captain Sawark. Pella. Every Malazan. She glanced over at Heboric. The man looked thoughtful as he watched the troop reach the edge of town, then vanish into the smoke.

A moment later Baudin rose from a bed of reeds nearby.

Felisin clambered to her feet and stepped towards him. 'Where's Beneth?'

'Dead, lass.'

'You – you...' Her words were drowned out in a flood of pain rising up within her, an anguish more thorough in shattering her than anything she'd yet suffered. She staggered back a step.

Baudin's small, flat eyes held steady on her.

Heboric cleared his throat. 'We'd best hurry. Dawn's not far off, and while I doubt our crossing the lake is likely to be noticed, there's no point in making our intentions obvious. After all, we're Malazan.' He strode down to the waiting bladders. 'The plan is to wait out the coming day at the other end of the reach, then set out after sunset. Less likely that any roving bands of Dosii will see us.'

Dully, Felisin followed the two men to the lake's edge. Baudin strapped one of the packs against Heboric's chest. Felisin realized she would have to share the other bladder with Baudin. She studied the big man as he checked the netting one last time.

Beneth's dead. So he says. He probably didn't even look for him. Beneth's alive. He must be. Nothing more than a bloodied face. Baudin's lying.

Sinker Lake's water washed the last of the mud and tincture from Felisin's skin. It was not nearly enough.

 

The cliff face bounced back the echoes of their harsh breaths. Chilled and feeling the water striving to pull her down, Felisin tightened her grip on the netting. 'I see no cave,' she gasped.

Baudin grunted. 'Surprised you can see anything at all,' he said.

She made no reply. The flesh around her eyes had swollen until only slits remained. Her ears felt like slabs of meat, heavy and huge, and the flesh inside her mouth had closed around her teeth. She was having difficulty breathing, constantly clearing her throat without effect. The discomforts left her feeling dislocated, as if she had no vanity left to sting, bringing an almost amused relief.

Surviving this is all that counts. Let Tavore see all the scars she's given me, the day we come face to face. I need say nothing, then, to justify my revenge.

'The opening is under the surface,' Heboric said. 'We need to puncture these bladders and swim down. Baudin will go first, with a rope tied to his waist. Hold on to that rope, lass, else you'll be pulled to the bottom.'

Baudin handed her a dagger, then laid the rope over the bobbing pack. A moment later he pushed himself towards the cliff wall and vanished beneath the lake's surface.

Felisin snatched at the rope, gripping it hard as she watched the coils play out. 'How far down?'

'Seven, eight feet,' Heboric said. 'Then about fifteen feet through the cave until you'll find your next breath. Can you manage it, lass?'

I will have to.

Faint screams drifted across the lake. The burning town's last, pitiful cries. It had happened so swiftly, almost quietly – a single night to bring Skullcup to a bloody end. It didn't seem real.

She felt a tug on the rope.

'Your turn,' Heboric said. 'Puncture the bladder, let it sink away from you, then follow the rope.'

She reversed her grip on the dagger and stabbed down. A gust of air whistled, the pack sagging. Like hands, the water pulled her down. She snatched a frantic breath before slipping under. In a moment the rope no longer led down, but up. She came up against the slick face of the cliff. The dagger fell away as she clutched the rope with both hands and pulled herself along.

The cave mouth was a deeper blackness, the water bitter cold. Already her lungs screamed for air. She felt herself blacking out, but savagely pushed the feeling away. A glimmer of reflected light showed ahead. Kicking out as her mouth filled with water, she clawed her way towards it.

Hands reached down to grip her tunic's hemmed collar and pulled her effortlessly up into air, into light. She lay on hard, cold stone, racked with coughs. An oil-wick lantern glowed beside her head. Beyond it, leaning against the wall, were two wood-framed travel packs and bladders swollen with water.

'You lost my damned knife, didn't you?'

'Hood take you, Baudin.'

He grunted his laugh, then focused his attention on reeling in the rope. Heboric's head broke the black surface moments later. Baudin pulled the ex-priest onto the rock shelf.

'Must be trouble up top,' the big man said. 'Our supplies were brought down here.'

'So I see.' Heboric sat up, gasping as he recovered his breath.

'Best you two stay here while I scout,' Baudin said.

'Aye. Off with you, then.'

As Baudin disappeared up the reach, Felisin sat up. 'What kind of trouble?'

Heboric shrugged.

'No,' she said. 'You've suspicions.'

He grimaced. 'Sawark said, "Look south."'

'So?'

'So just that, lass. Let's wait for Baudin, shall we?'

'I'm cold.'

'We spared no room for extra clothing. Food and water, a few weapons, a fire kit. There's blankets but best keep them dry.'

'They'll dry out soon enough,' she snapped, crawling over to one of the packs.

Baudin returned a few minutes later and crouched down beside Heboric. Shivering under a blanket, Felisin watched the two men. 'No, Baudin,' she said as he prepared to whisper something to the ex-priest, 'loud enough for all of us.'

The big man glanced at Heboric, who shrugged.

'Dosin Pali is thirty leagues away,' Baudin said. 'Yet you can see its glow.'

Heboric frowned. 'Even a firestorm wouldn't be visible at such a distance, Baudin.'

'True enough, and it's no firestorm. It's sorcery, old man. A mage battle.'

'Hood's breath,' Heboric muttered. 'Some battle!'

'It's come,' Baudin growled.

'What has?' Felisin asked.

'Seven Cities has risen, lass. Dryjhna. The Whirlwind's come.'

 

The hogg boat was all of thirteen feet in length. Duiker paused a long moment before clambering down into it. Six inches of water sloshed beneath the two flat boards that formed the craft's deck. Rags stoppered a score of minor leaks in the hull, with various degrees of efficacy. The smell of rotting fish was almost overwhelming.

Wrapped in his army-issue raincape, Kulp had not moved from where he stood on the dock. 'And what,' he asked tonelessly, 'did you pay for this ... boat?'

The historian sighed, glancing up at the mage. 'Can you not repair it? What was your warren again, Kulp?'

'Boat repair,' the man answered.

'Very well,' Duiker said, climbing back onto the dock. 'I take your point. To cross the Strait you will need something more seaworthy than this. The man who sold me this craft seems to have exaggerated its qualities.'

'A haral's prerogative. Better had you hired a craft.'

Duiker grunted. 'Who could I trust?'

'Now what?'

The historian shrugged. 'Back to the inn. This requires a new plan.'

They made their way up the rickety dock and entered the dirt track that passed for the village's main thoroughfare. The fisher shacks on either side displayed a paucity of pride common to small communities in the shadow of a large city. Dusk had fallen, and apart from a pack of three scrawny dogs taking turns rolling on the carcass of a fish, there was no-one about. Heavy curtains blotted out most of the light coming from the shacks. The air was hot, an inland wind holding at bay the sea breeze.

The village inn stood on stilts, a sprawling, single-storey structure of bleached wood frame, burlap walls and thatched roof. Crabs scuttled in the sand beneath it. Opposite the inn was the stone blockhouse of a Malazan Coastal Guard detachment – four sailors from Cawn and two marines whose appearance betrayed nothing of their origins. For them, the old national allegiances no longer held any relevance. The new Imperial breed, Duiker mused as he and Kulp entered the inn and returned to the table they'd occupied earlier. The Malazan Guards were crowded around another, close to the back wall where the burlap had been pulled aside, revealing the tranquil scene of withered grasses, white sand and glittering sea. Duiker envied the soldiers the fresh air that no doubt drifted in to where they sat.

They'd yet to approach, but the historian knew it was only a matter of time. In this village travellers would be rare, and one wearing the field cape of a soldier even rarer. Thus far, however, translating curiosity into action had proved too great an effort.

Kulp gestured to the barman for a jug of ale, then leaned close to Duiker. 'There's going to be questions. Soon. That's one problem. We don't have a boat. That's another. I'm a poor excuse for a sailor, that's a third—'

'All right, all right,' the historian hissed. 'Hood's breath, let me think in peace!'

His expression sour, Kulp leaned back.

Moths danced clumsily between the sputtering lanterns in the room. There were no villagers present, and the lone barman's attention seemed close to obsessive on the Malazan soldiers, holding his thin, dark eyes on them even as he set down the ale jug in front of Kulp.

Watching the barman leave, the mage grunted. 'This night's passing strange, Duiker.'

'Aye.' Where is everyone?

The scrape of a chair drew their attention to the ranking Malazan, a corporal by the sigil on his surcoat, who'd risen and now approached. Beneath the dull tin sigil was a larger stain, where the surcoat's dye was unweathered – the man had once been a sergeant.

To match his frame, the corporal's face was flat and wide, evincing north Kanese blood somewhere in his ancestry. His head was shaved, showing razor scars, some still blotted with dried blood. His gaze was fixed on Kulp.

The mage spoke first. 'Watch your tongue, lest you keep walking backwards.'

The soldier blinked. 'Backwards?'

'Sergeant, then corporal – you bucking for private now? You've been warned.'

The man seemed unaffected. 'I see no rank showing,' he growled.

'Only because you don't know what to look for. Go back to your table, Corporal, and leave our business to us.'

'You're Seventh Army.' He clearly had no intention of returning to his table. 'A deserter.'

Kulp's wiry brows rose. 'Corporal, you've just come face to face with the Seventh's entire Mage Cadre. Now back out of my face before I put gills and scales on yours.'

The corporal's eyes flicked to Duiker, then back to Kulp.

'Wrong,' the mage sighed. 'I'm the entire cadre. This man's my guest.'

'Gills and scales, huh?' The corporal set his wide hands down on the tabletop and leaned close to Kulp. 'I get even a sniff of you opening a warren, you'll find a knife in your throat. This is my guardpost, magicker, and any business you got here is my business. Now, start explaining yourselves, before I cut those big ears off your head and add 'em to my belt. Sir.'

Duiker cleared his throat. 'Before this goes any further—'

'Shut your mouth!' the corporal snapped, still glaring at Kulp.

Distant shouting interrupted them. 'Truth!' the corporal bellowed. 'Go see what's happening outside.'

A young Cawn sailor leapt to his feet, checking a newly issued short sword scabbarded at his hip as he crossed to the door.

'We are here,' Duiker told the corporal, 'to purchase a boat—'

A startled curse came from just outside, followed by a frantic scrabbling of boots on the rickety inn steps. The recruit named Truth tumbled back inside, his face white. An impressive stream of Cawn dockside curses issued from the youth's mouth, finishing with: '- got an armed mob outside, Corporal, and they ain't interested in talking. Saw them split, about ten heading to the Ripath.'

The other sailors were on their feet. One addressed the corporal. 'They'll torch her, Gesler, then we'll be stuck on this stinking strip of beach—'

'Arms out and form up,' Gesler growled. He rose, turning to the other marine. 'Front door, Stormy. Find out who's leading that group out there and stick a quarrel between his eyes.'

'We have to save the boat!' the sailors' spokesman said.

Gesler nodded. 'That we will, Vered.'

The marine named Stormy took position at the door, his cocked assault crossbow appearing as if from nowhere. Outside, the shouting had grown louder, closer. The mob was working itself into the courage it needed to rush the inn. The boy Truth stood in the centre of the room, the short sword twitching in his hand, his face red with rage.

'Calm yourself, lad,' Gesler said. His eyes fell to Kulp. 'I'm less likely to cut off your ears if you open a warren now, Mage.'

Duiker asked, 'You've made enemies in this village, Corporal?'

The man smiled. 'This has been coming for some time. Ripath is fully provisioned. We can get you to Hissar... maybe ... we got to get out of this first. Can you use a crossbow?'

The historian sighed, then nodded.

'Expect some arrows through the walls,' Stormy said from the doorway.

'Found their leader yet?'

'Aye, and he's keeping his distance.'

'We can't wait – to the back door, everyone!'

The barman, who'd been crouching behind the small counter on one side of the room, now stepped forward, hunched crablike in expectation of the first flight of arrows through the burlap wall. 'The tab, Mezla – many weeks now. Seventy-two jakatas—'

'What's your life worth?' Gesler asked, gesturing for Truth to join the sailors as they slipped through the break in the rear wall.

The barman's eyes went wide, then he ducked his head. 'Seventy-two jakatas, Mezla?'

'About right,' the corporal nodded.

Cool, damp air, smelling of moss and wet stone, filled the room. Duiker looked at Kulp, who mutely shook his head. The historian rose. 'They've got a mage, Corporal—'

A roar rushed from the street outside and struck the front of the inn like a wave. The wooden frame bowed, the burlap walls bellying. Kulp loosed a warning shout, pitching from his chair and rolling across the floor. Wood split, cloth tore.

Stormy lunged away from the front, and all at once everyone left in the room was bolting for the rear exit. The floor lifted under them as the front stilts lost their footing, pitching everyone towards the back wall. Tables and chairs toppled, joining the headlong rush. Screaming, the barman vanished under a rack of wine jugs.

Tumbling through the rent, Duiker fell through the darkness to land on a heap of dried seaweed. Kulp landed on him, all knees and elbows, driving the breath from the historian's lungs.

The inn was still rising from the front as the sorcerous wave took hold of all it touched, and pushed.

'Do something, Kulp!' Duiker gasped.

In answer the mage pulled the historian upright, spun him around, then gave him a hard shove. 'Run! That's what we're going to do!'

The sorcery ravaging the inn abruptly ceased. Still balanced on its rear stilts, the building pitched back down. Cross-beams snapped. The inn seemed to explode, the wood frame shattering. The ceiling collapsed straight down, hitting the floor in a cloud of sand and dust.

Stumbling beside Duiker as they hurried down to the beach, Stormy grunted, 'Hood's just paid the barman's tab, eh?' The marine gestured with the crossbow he carried. 'I'm here to take care of you. Corporal's gone ahead – we're looking at a scrap getting to Ripath's dock.'

'Where's Kulp?' Duiker demanded. It had all happened so fast, he was feeling overwhelmed with confusion. 'He was here beside me—'

'Gone sniffing after that spell-caster is my guess. Who can figure mages, eh? Unless'n he's run away. Hood knows he ain't showed much so far, eh?'

They reached the strand. Thirty paces to their left Gesler and the sailors were closing in on a dozen locals who'd taken up positions in front of a narrow dock. A low, sleek patrol craft with a single mast was moored there. To the right the beach stretched in a gentle curve southward, to distant Hissar ... a city in flames. Duiker staggered to a halt, staring at the ruddy sky above Hissar.

Togg's teats!' Stormy hissed, following the historian's gaze. 'Dryjhna's come. Guess we won't be taking you to the city after all, eh?'

'Wrong,' Duiker said. 'I need to rejoin Coltaine. My horse is in the stables – never mind the damn boat.'

'They're pinching her flanks right now, I bet. Around here, people ride camels, eat horses. Forget it.' He reached out but the historian pulled away and began running up the strand, away from Ripath and the scrap that had now started there.

Stormy hesitated, then, growling a curse, set off after Duiker.

A flash of sorcery ignited the air above the front street, followed by an agonized shriek.

Kulp, Duiker thought. Delivering or dying. He stayed on the beach, running parallel to the village, until he judged he was opposite the stables, then he turned inward, scrabbling through the weeds of the tide line. Stormy moved up beside the historian.

'I'll just see you safe on your way, eh?'

'My thanks,' Duiker whispered.

'Who are you anyway?'

'Imperial Historian. And who are you, Stormy?'

The man grunted. 'Nobody. Nobody at all.'

They slowed as they slipped between the first row of huts, keeping to the shadows. A few paces from the street the air blurred in front of them and Kulp appeared. His cape was scorched, his face red from a fireflash.

'Why in Hood's name are you two here?' he demanded in a hiss. 'There's a High Mage out prowling around – Hood knows why he's here. Problem is, he knows I'm here, which makes me bad company to be around – I barely squeezed the last one—'

'That scream we heard was yours?' Duiker asked.

'Ever had a spell roll onto you? My bones have been rattled damn near out of their sockets. I shat my pants, too. But I'm alive.'

'So far,' Stormy said, grinning.

'Thanks for the blessing,' Kulp muttered.

Duiker said, 'We need to—'

The night blossomed around them, a coruscating, flame-lit explosion that flung all three men to the ground. The historian's shriek of pain joined two others as the sorcery seemed to claw into his flesh, clutch icy cold around his bones, sending jolts of agony up his limbs. His scream rose higher as the relentless pain reached his brain, blotting out the world in a blood-misted haze that seemed to sizzle behind his eyes. Duiker thrashed about and rolled across the ground, but there was no escape. This sorcery was killing him, a horrifyingly personal assault, invading every corner of his being.

Then it was gone. He lay unmoving, one cheek pressed against the cool, dusty ground, his body twitching in the aftermath. He'd soiled himself. He'd pissed himself. His sweat was a bitter stink.

A hand clutched the collar of his telaba. Kulp's breath gusted hot at his ear as the mage whispered, 'I slapped back. Enough to sting. We need to get to the boat – Gesler's—'

'Go with Stormy,' Duiker gasped. 'I'm taking the horses—'

'Are you mad?'

Biting back a scream, the historian pushed himself to his feet. He staggered as memories of pain rippled through his limbs. 'Go with Stormy, damn you – go!'

Kulp stared at the man, then his eyes narrowed. 'Aye, ride as a Dosii. Might work ...'

Stormy, his face white as death, plucked the mage's sleeve. 'Gesler won't wait for ever.'

'Aye.' With a final nod at Duiker, the mage joined the marine. They ran hard back down to the beach.

Gesler and the sailors were in trouble. Bodies lay sprawled in the churned-up sand around the dock – the first dozen locals and two of the Cawn sailors. Gesler, flanked by Truth and another sailor, were struggling to hold at bay a newly arrived score of villagers – men and women – who flung themselves forward in a spitting frenzy, using harpoons, mallets, cleavers, some with only their bare hands. The remaining two sailors – both wounded – were on Ripath, feebly attempting to cast off the lines.

Stormy led Kulp to within a dozen paces of the mob, then the marine crouched, took aim and fired a quarrel into the press. Someone shrieked. Stormy slung the crossbow over a shoulder and drew a short sword and gutting dagger. 'Got anything for this, Mage?' he demanded, then, without waiting for a reply, he plunged forward, striking the mob on its flank. Villagers reeled; none was killed, but many were horribly maimed as the marine waded into the press – the dead posed no burden; the wounded did.

Gesler now held the dock alone, as Truth was pulling a downed comrade back towards the boat. One of the wounded sailors on Ripath's deck had stopped moving.

Kulp hesitated, knowing that whatever sorcery he unleashed would draw down on them the High Mage. The cadre mage did not think it likely that he could withstand another attack. All his joints were bleeding inside, swelling the flesh with blood. By the morning he would not be able to move. If I survive this night. Even so, more subtle ploys remained.

Kulp raised his arms, voicing a keening shriek. A wall of fire erupted in front of him, then rolled, tumbling and growing, rushing towards the villagers. Who broke, then ran. Kulp sent the flame up the beach in pursuit. When it reached the banked sward, it vanished.

Stormy whirled. 'If you could do that—'

'It was nothing,' Kulp said, joining the men.

'A wall of—'

'I meant nothing! A Hood-blinked illusion, you fool! Now, let's get out of here!'

They lost Vered twenty spans from the shore, a harpoon-head buried deep in his chest finally gushing the last of his blood onto the slick deck. Gesler unceremoniously rolled the man over the side. Remaining upright in addition to the corporal were the youth Truth, Stormy and Kulp. Another sailor was slowly losing a battle with a slashed artery in his left thigh and was but minutes from Hood's Gate.

'Everyone stay quiet,' Kulp whispered. 'Show no lights – the High Mage is on the beach.'

Breaths were held, including a pitiless hand clamped down over the dying sailor's mouth until the man's moaning ceased.

With barely a storm-sail rigged, Ripath slipped slowly from the shallow bay, her keel parting water with a soft susurration.

Loud enough, Kulp knew. He opened his warren, threw sounds in random directions, a muted voice here, a creak of wood there. He cast a shroud of gloom over the area, holding the power of his warren back, letting it trickle forth to deceive, not challenge.

Sorcery flashed sixty spans to their left, fooled by a thrown sound. The gloom swallowed the magic's light.

The night fell silent once again. Gesler and others seemed to grasp what Kulp was doing. Their eyes held on him, hopeful, with barely checked fear. Truth held the tiller, motionless, not daring to do anything but keep the sail ahead of the soft breeze.

It seemed they merely crawled on the water. Sweat dripped from Kulp – he was soaked through with the effort of evading the High Mage's questing senses. He could feel those deadly probes, only now realizing that his opponent was a woman, not a man.

Far to the south, Hissar's harbour was a glowing wall of black-smeared flames. No effort was made to angle towards it, and Kulp understood as well as the others that there would be no succour found there. Seven Cities had risen in mutiny.

And we're at sea. Is there a safe harbour left to us? Gesler said this boat was provisioned – far enough to take us to Aren? Through hostile waters at that... A better option would be Falar, but that was over six hundred leagues south of Dosin Pali.

Then another thought struck him, even as the questing of the High Mage faded, then finally vanished. Heboric light Touch — the poor bastard's heading for the rendezvous if all's gone as planned. Crossing a desert to a lifeless coast. 'Breathe easy now,' the mage said. 'She's abandoned the hunt.'

'Out of range?' Truth asked.

'No, just lost interest. I'd guess she has more important matters to attend to, lad. Corporal Gesler.'

'Aye?'

'We need to cross the strait. To the Otataral Coast.'

'What in Hood's name for, Mage?'

'Sorry, this time I'm pulling rank. Do as I command.'

'And what if we just push you over the side?' Gesler enquired calmly. 'There's dhenrabi out here, feeding along the edge of Sahul Shelf. You'd be a tasty morsel...'

Kulp sighed. 'We go to pick up a High Priest of Fener, Corporal. Feed me to a dhenrabi and no-one mourns the loss. Anger a High Priest and his foul-tempered god might well cock one red eye in your direction. Are you prepared for that risk?'

The corporal leaned back and barked a laugh. Stormy and Truth were grinning as well.

Kulp scowled. 'You find this amusing?'

Stormy leaned over the gunnel and spat into the sea. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then said, 'It seems Fener's already cocked an eye in our direction, Mage. We're Boar Company, of the disbanded First Army. Before Laseen crushed the cult, that is. Now we're just marines attached to a miserable Coastal Guard.'

'Ain't stopped us from following Fener, Mage,' Gesler said. 'Or even recruiting new followers to the warrior cult,' he added, nodding towards Truth. 'So just point the way – Otataral Coast, you said. Angle her due east, lad, and let's get this sail up and ready the spinnaker for the morning winds.'

Slowly, Kulp sat back. 'Anyone else need to wash out their leggings?' he asked.

 

Wrapped in his telaba, Duiker rode from the village. There were figures to either side of the coastal road, featureless in the faint moon's light. The cool desert air seemed to carry in it the residue of a sandstorm, a desiccating haze that parched the throat. Reaching the crossroads, the historian reined in. Southward the coastal road continued on, down to Hissar. A trader track led west, inland. A quarter-mile down this track was encamped an army.

There was no order evident. Thousands of tents were haphazardly pitched around a huge central corral shrouded in fire-lit clouds of dust. Tribal chants drifted across the sands. Along the track, no more than fifty long paces from Duiker's position, a hapless squad of Malazan soldiers writhed on what were locally called Sliding Beds – four tall spears each set upright, the victim set atop the jagged points, at the shoulders and upper thighs. Depending on their weight and their strength of will in staying motionless, the impaling and the slow slide down to the ground could take hours. With Hood's blessing, the morrow's sun would hasten the tortured death. The historian felt his heart grow cold with rage.

He could not help them, Duiker knew. It was challenge enough to simply stay alive in a countryside aflame with murderous lust. But there would come a time for retribution. If the gods will it.

Mage fires blossomed vast and – at this distance – silent over Hissar. Was Coltaine still alive? Bult? The Seventh? Had Sormo divined what was coming in time?

He tapped his heels against his mount's flanks, continued down the coastal road. The renegade army's appearance was a shock. It had emerged as if from nowhere, and for all the chaos of the encampment there were commanders there, filled with bloodthirsty intent and capable of achieving what they planned. This was no haphazard revolt. Kulp said a High Mage. Who else is out there? Sha'ik has had years in which to build her army of the Apocalypse, despatch her agents, plan this night – and all that will follow. We knew it was happening. Laseen should have stuck Pormqual's head on a spike long ago. A capable High Fist could have crushed this.

'Dosii kim'aral!'

Three cloaked shapes rose from the flood track on the inland side of the road. 'A night of glory!' Duiker responded, not slowing as he rode past.

'Wait, Dosii! The Apocalypse waits to embrace you!' The figure gestured towards the encampment.

'I have kin in Hissari Harbour,' the historian replied. 'I go to share in the riches of liberation!' Duiker reined in suddenly and pulled his horse around. 'Unless the Seventh has won back the city – is this the news you have for me?'

The spokesman laughed. 'They are crushed. Destroyed in their beds, Dosii! Hissar has been freed of the Mezla curse!'

'Then I ride!' Duiker kicked the horse forward again. He held his breath as he continued on, but the tribesmen did not call after him. The Seventh gone? Does Coltaine ride a sliding bed right now? It was hard to believe, yet it might well be true. Clearly the attack had been sudden, backed by high sorcery – with me dragging Kulp away, on this night of all nights, Hood curse my bones. For all the lives within him, Sormo E'nath was still a boy, his flesh hardly steeled to such a challenge. He might well have bloodied a few noses among the enemy's mages. To expect or hope for more than that was being unfair. They would have fought hard, every one of them. Hissar's price would have been high.

Nonetheless, Duiker would have to see for himself. The Imperial Historian could do no less. More, he could ride among the enemy and that was an extraordinary opportunity. Never mind the risks. He would gather all the information he could, anticipating an eventual return to the ranks of a Malazan punitive force, where his knowledge could be put to lethal use. In otter words, a spy. So much for objectivity, Duiker. The image of the Malazan soldiers lining the trader track, dying slowly on the sliding beds, was enough to sear away his detachment.

Magic flared in the fishing village half a mile behind him. Duiker hesitated, then rode on. Kulp was a survivor, and by the look of that Coastal Guard, he had veterans at his side. The mage had faced powerful sorcery before – what he could not defeat, he could escape. Duiker's soldiering days were long past, his presence more of an impediment than an asset – they were better off without him.

But what would Kulp do now? If there were any survivors among the Seventh, then the cadre mage's place was with them. What, then, of Heboric's fate? Well, I've done what I could for the old handless bastard. Fener guard you, old man.

There were no refugees on the road. It seemed the fanatic call to arms was complete – all had proclaimed themselves soldiers of Dryjhna. Old women, fisherwives, children and pious grandfathers. Nonetheless, Duiker had been expecting to find Malazans, or at the very least signs of their passage, scenes where their efforts to escape came to a grisly end. Instead, the raised military road stretched bare, ghostly in the moon's silver light.

Against the glare of distant Hissar appeared desert cape-moths, wheeling and fluttering like flakes of ash as broad across as a splayed hand as they crossed back and forth in front of the historian. They were carrion-eaters, and they were heading in the same direction as Duiker, in growing numbers.

Within minutes the night was alive with the silent, spectral insects, whirling past the historian on all sides. Duiker struggled against the chill dread rising within him. 'The world's harbingers of death are many and varied.' He frowned, trying to recall where he'd heard those words. Probably from one of the countless dirges to Hood, sung by the priests during the Season of Rot in Unta.

The first of the city's outlying slums appeared in the fading gloom ahead, a narrow cluster of shacks and huts clinging to the shelf above the beach. Smoke now rode the air, smelling of burning painted wood and scorched cloth. The smell of a city destroyed, the smell of anger and blind hatred. It was all too familiar to Duiker, and it made him feel old.

Two children raced across the road, ducking between shacks. One voiced a laugh that pealed with madness, too knowing by far to come from one so young. The historian rode past the spot, his skin crawling. He was astonished to feel the fear within him – afraid of children? Old man, you don't belong here.

The sky was lightening over the strait on his left. The cape-moths were plunging into the city ahead, vanishing inside the roiling clouds of smoke. Duiker reined in. The coastal road split here, the main track leading straight to become a main thoroughfare of the city. A second road, on the right, skirted the city and led to the Malazan barracks compound. The historian gazed down that road, squinting. Black columns of smoke rose half a mile away above the barracks, the columns bending high up where a desert wind caught hold and pushed them seaward.

Butchered in their beds? The possibility suddenly seemed all too real. He rode towards the barracks. On his right, as shadows appeared with the rising sun, the city of Hissar burned. Support beams were giving way, mudbrick walls tumbling, cut stone shattering explosively in the blistering heat. Smoke covered the scene with its deathly, bitter shawl. Every now and then a distant scream sounded from the city's heart. It was clear that the mutiny's destructive ferocity had turned on itself. Freedom had been won, at the cost of everything.

He reached the trampled earth where the trader encampment had once been – where he and the warlock Sormo had witnessed the divination. The camp had been hastily abandoned, possibly only hours earlier. A pack of dogs from the city now rooted through the rubbish left behind.

Opposite the grounds, and on the other side of the Faladhan road, rose the fortified wall of the Malazan compound. Duiker slowed his mount to a walk, then a halt. Streaks of black scarred the few sections of bleached stone remaining upright. The sorcery that had assailed the wall had breached it in four places that he could see, each one a sundering of stone wide enough to rush a phalanx through. Bodies crowded the breaches, sprawled amidst the tumbled blocks. None wore much in the way of armour, and the weapons Duiker saw scattered about ranged from antique pikes to butcher's cleavers.

The Seventh had fought hard, meeting their attackers at every breach; in the face of savage sorcery, they had cut down their attackers by the score. No-one had been caught asleep in his bed. The historian felt a trickle of hope seep into his thoughts.

He glanced down the road, down to where the nut trees lined the cobbled street. There had been a cavalry sortie of some kind, close to the compound's inner city gate. Two horses lay among dozens of Hissari bodies, but no lancers that he could see. Either they'd been lucky enough to lose no-one in the attack, or they'd had the time to retrieve their slain and wounded comrades. There was a hand of organization here, a strong one. Coltaine? Bult?

He saw no-one living down the length of the street. If battle continued, it had moved on. Duiker dismounted and approached one of the breaches in the compound wall. He clambered over the rubble, avoiding the stones slick with blood. Most of the attackers, he saw, had been killed by quarrels. Many bodies were virtually pincushioned with the stubby arrows. The range had been devastatingly short, the effect lethal. A frenzied, disorganized rush by a mob of ill-equipped Hissari stood no chance against such concentrated fire. Duiker saw no bodies beyond the ridge of tumbled stone.

The compound's training field was empty. Bulwarks had been raised here and there to establish murderous crossfire should the defence at the breaches fail – but there was no sign that that had occurred.

He stepped down from the ridge of shattered stone. The Malazan headquarters and the barracks had been torched. Duiker now wondered if the Seventh had not done it themselves. Announcing to all that Coltaine had no intention of hiding behind walls, the Seventh and the Wickans marched out, in formation. How did they fare?

He returned to his waiting horse. Back in the saddle he could see more smoke, billowing heavily from the Malazan Estates district. Dawn had brought a strange calm to the air. To see the city so empty of life made it all seem unreal, as if the bodies sprawled in the streets were but scarecrows left over from a harvest festival. The capemoths had found them, however, covering the forms completely, their large wings slowly fanning as they fed.

As he rode towards the Malazan Estates, he could hear the occasional shout and faint scream in the distance, barking dogs and braying mules. The roar of fires rose and fell like waves clawing a cliff face, carrying gusts of heat down the side streets hissing and rustling through the litter.

Fifty paces from the Estates Duiker found the first scene of true slaughter. The Hissari mutineers had struck the Malazan quarter with sudden ferocity, probably at the same time as the other force had hemmed in the Seventh at the compound. The merchant and noble houses had thrown their own private guards forward in frantic defence, but they were too few and, lacking cohesion, had been quickly and savagely cut down. The mob had poured into the district, battering down estate posterns, dragging out into the wide street Malazan families.

It was then, Duiker saw as his mount picked a careful path through the bodies, that madness had truly arrived. Men had been gutted, their entrails pulled out, wrapped around women – wives and mothers and aunts and sisters – who had been raped before being strangled with the intestinal ropes. The historian saw children with their skulls crushed, babies spitted on tapu skewers. However, many young daughters had been taken by the attackers as they plunged deeper into the district. If anything, their fates would be more horrific than those visited on their kin.

Duiker viewed all he saw with a growing numbness. The terrible agony that had been unleashed here seemed to remain coiled in the air, poised, ready to snatch at his sanity. In self-defence, his soul withdrew, deeper, ever deeper. His power to observe remained, however, detached completely from his feelings – the release would come later, the historian well knew: the shaking limbs, the nightmares, the slow scarification of his faith.

Expecting to see more of the same, Duiker rode towards the first square in the district. What he saw instead jarred him. The Hissari mutineers had been ambushed in the square and slaughtered by the score. Arrows had been used and then retrieved, but some shattered shafts remained. The historian dismounted to pick one up. Wickan. He believed he could now piece together what had occurred.

The barracks compound had been besieged. Whoever commanded the Hissari had intended to prevent Coltaine and his forces from striking out into the city, and, if the sorcery's level was any indication, had sought the complete annihilation of the Malazan army. In this the commander had clearly failed. The Wickans had sortied, broken through the encirclement, and had ridden directly to the Estates – where they well knew the planned slaughter would have already begun. Too late to prevent the first attack at the District Gates, they had altered their route, riding around the mob, and set up an ambush in the square. The Hissari, in their thirst for more blood, had plunged forward, crossing the expanse without the foresight of scouts.

The Wickans had then killed them all. There was no risk of reprisal to prevent them later retrieving their arrow shafts. The killing must have been absolute, every escape closed off, then the precise, calculated murder of every Hissari in the square.

Duiker swung about at the sound of approaching footsteps. A band of mutineers approached from the gates behind him. They were well armed, with pikes in their hands and tulwars at their hips. Chain vests glinted from beneath the red telaban they wore. On their heads were the peaked bronze helmets of the City Guard.

'Terrible slaughter!' Duiker wailed, drawing out the Dosii accent. 'It must be avenged!'

The sergeant leading the squad eyed the historian warily. 'You have the dust of the desert upon you,' he said.

'Aye, I have ridden down from the High Mage's forces to the north. A nephew, who dwelt in the harbour district. I seek to join him—'

'If he yet lives, old man, you shall find him marching with Reloe.'

'We have driven the Mezla from the city,' another soldier said. 'Outnumbered, already sorely wounded and burdened with ten thousand refugees—'

'Silence, Geburah!' the sergeant snapped. He narrowed his gaze on Duiker. 'We go to Reloe now. Come with us. All of Hissari shall be blessed in joining in the final slaughter of the Mezla.'

Conscription. No wonder there's no-one about. They're in the holy army whether they like it or not. The historian nodded. 'I shall. I have vowed to protect the life of my nephew, you see...'

'The vow to scourge Seven Cities of the Mezla is greater,' the sergeant growled. 'Dryjhna demands your soul, Dosii. The Apocalypse has come – armies gather all across the land and all must harken to the call.'

'Last night I joined in spilling the blood of a Mezla Coastal Guard – my soul was given to her keeping then, Hissari.' Duiker's tone held a warning to the young sergeant. Respect your elders, child.

The man answered the historian with an acknowledging nod.

Leading his horse by the reins, Duiker accompanied the squad as they made their way through the Estates. Kamist Reloe's army, the sergeant explained, was marshalling on the plain to the southwest of the city. Three Odhan tribes were maintaining contact with the hated Mezla, harrying the train of refugees and the too few soldiers trying to protect them. The Mezla were seeking to reach Sialk, another coastal city twenty leagues south of Hissar. What the fools did not know, the man added with a dark grin, was that Sialk had fallen as well, and even now thousands of Mezla nobles and their families were being driven up the north road. The Mezla commander was about to see a doubling of citizens he was sworn to defend.

Kamist Reloe would then encircle the enemy, his forces outnumbering them seven to one, and complete the slaughter. The battle was expected to take place in three days' time.

Duiker made agreeable noises through all this, but his mind was racing. Kamist Reloe was a High Mage, one believed to have been killed in Raraku over ten years ago, in a clash with Sha'ik over who was destined to lead the Apocalypse. Instead of killing her rival, it was now apparent that Sha'ik had won his loyalty. The hint of murderous rivalry, feuds and personality clashes had served Sha'ik well in conveying to the Malazans an impression of internal weaknesses plaguing her cause. All a lie. We were deceived, and now we are suffering the cost.

'The Mezla army is as a great beast,' the sergeant said as they neared the city's edge, 'wounded by countless strikes, flanks streaming with blood. The beast staggers onward, blind with pain. In three days, Dosii, the beast shall fall.'

The historian nodded thoughtfully, recalling the seasonal boar hunts in the forests of northern Quon Tali. A tracker had told him that among the hunters who were killed in such hunts, most met their fate after the boar had taken a fatal wound. An unexpected, final lashing out, a murderous lunge that seemed to defy Hood's grip on the beast. Seeing victory only moments away stripped caution from the hunters. Duiker heard something of that overconfidence in the mutineer's words. The beast streamed with blood, but it was not yet dead.

The sun climbed the sky as they travelled south.

 

The chamber's floor sagged like a bowl, carpeted in thick, feltlike drifts of dust. Almost a third of a league into the hill's stone heart, the rough-cut walls had cracked like glass, fissures reaching down from the vaulted roof. In the centre of the room lay a fishing boat resting on one flank, its lone mast's unreached sail hanging like rotted webbing. The dry, hot air had driven the dowels from the joins and the planks had contracted, splaying beneath the boat's own weight.

'This is no surprise,' Mappo said from the portal way.

Icarium's lips quirked slightly, then he stepped past the Trell and approached the craft. 'Five years? Not longer – I can still smell the brine. Do you recognize the design?'

'I curse myself for having taken no interest in such things,' Mappo sighed. 'Truly I should have anticipated moments like these – what was I thinking?'

'I believe,' Icarium said slowly, resting a hand on the boat's prow, 'this is what Iskaral Pust wished us to find.'

'I thought the quest was for a broom,' the Trell muttered.

'No doubt his broom will turn up of its own accord. It was not the goal of the search we were to value, but the journey.'

Mappo's eyes narrowed suspiciously on his friend, then his canines showed in an appreciative grin. 'That is always the way, isn't it?' He followed the Jhag into the chamber. His nostrils flared. 'I smell no brine.'

'Perhaps I exaggerated.'

'I'll grant you it does not look like it's been here for centuries. What are we to make of this, Icarium? A fishing boat, found in a room deep within a cliff in a desert thirty leagues from anything bigger than a spring. The High Priest sets before us a mystery.'

'Indeed.'

'Do you recognize the style?'

'Alas, I am as ignorant of water craft and other things of the sea as you, Mappo. I fear we have already failed in Iskaral Pust's expectations.'

The Trell grunted, watching Icarium begin examining the boat.

'There are nets in here, deftly made. A few withered things that might have been fish once ... ah!' The Jhag reached down. Wood clattered. He straightened, faced Mappo, in his hands the High Priest's broom.

'Do we now sweep the chamber?'

'I think our task is to return this to its rightful owner.'

'The boat or the broom?'

Icarium's brows rose. 'Now that is an interesting question, friend.'

Mappo frowned, then shrugged. If there had been anything clever in his query, it was there purely by chance. He was frustrated. Too long underground, too long inactive and at the whim of a madman's schemes. It was an effort to bend his mind to this mystery, and indeed he resented the assumption that it was worth doing at all. After a long moment, he sighed. 'Shadow swept down on this craft and its occupant, plucked them both away and delivered them here. Was this Pust's own boat? He hardly strikes me as from fisher bloodlines. I've not heard a single dockside curse pass his lips, no salty metaphors, no barbed catechisms.'

'So, not Iskaral Pust's craft.'

'No. Leaving...'

'Well, either the mule or Servant.'

Mappo nodded. He rubbed his bristled jaw. 'I'll grant you a mule in a boat dragging nets through shoals might be interesting enough to garner a god's curiosity, sufficient to collect the two for posterity.'

'Ah, but what would be the value without a lake or pond to complete the picture? No, I think we must eliminate the mule. This craft belongs to Servant. Recall his adept climbing skills—'

'Recall the horrid soup—'

'That was laundry, Mappo.'

'Precisely my point, Icarium. You are correct. Servant once plied waters in this boat.'

'Then we are agreed.'

'Aye. Hardly a move up in the world for the poor man.'

Icarium shook himself. He raised the broom like a standard. 'More questions for Iskaral Pust. Shall we begin the return journey, Mappo?'

 

Three hours later the two weary men found the High Priest of Shadow seated at the table in the library. Iskaral Pust was hunched over a Deck of Dragons. 'You're late,' he snapped, not looking up. 'The Deck keens with fierce energy. The world outside is in flux – your love of ignorance is not worthy of these precipitous times. Attend this field, travellers, or remain lost at your peril.'

Snorting his disgust, Mappo strode to where the jugs of wine waited on a shelf. It seemed even Icarium had been brought short by the High Priest's words, as he dropped the broom clattering on the floor and pulled back a chair opposite Iskaral Pust. The frustrated air about the Jhag did not make likely an afternoon of calm conversation. Mappo poured two cups of wine, then returned to the table.

The High Priest raised the Deck in both hands, closed his eyes and breathed a silent prayer to Shadowthrone. He began a spiral field, laying the centre card first.

'Obelisk!' Iskaral squealed, shifting nervously on his chair. 'I knew it! Past present future, the here, the now, the then, the when—'

'Hood's breath!' Mappo breathed.

The second card landed, its upper left corner overlapping Obelisk's lower right. 'The Rope – Shadow Patron of Assassins, hah!' Subsequent cards followed in swift succession, Iskaral Pust announcing their identities as if his audience were ignorant or blind. 'Oponn, the male Twin upright, the luck that pushes, ill luck, terrible misfortune, miscalculation, poor circumstance ... Sceptre ... Throne ... Queen of High House Life ... Spinner of High House Death ... Soldier of High House Light . .. Knight of Life, Mason of Dark ...' A dozen more cards followed, then the High Priest sat back, his eyes thinned to slits, his mouth hanging open. 'Renewal, a resurrection without the passage through Hood's Gates. Renewal...' He looked up, met Icarium's eyes. 'You must begin a journey. Soon.'

'Another quest?' the Jhag asked so quietly that Mappo's hackles rose in alarm.

'Aye! Can you not see, fool?'

'See what?' Icarium whispered.

Clearly ignorant that his life hung by a thread, Iskaral Pust rose, wildly gesturing at the field of cards. 'It's right here in front of you, idiot! As clear as my Lord of Shadow could make it! How have you survived this long?' In his frenzy, the High Priest snatched at the wispy patches of hair that remained on his head, yanking the tufts this way and that. He was fairly hopping in place. 'Obelisk! Can't you see? Mason, Spinner, Sceptre, Queens and Knights, Kings and fools!'

Icarium moved lightning fast, across the table, both hands closing around the High Priest's neck, snatching him into the air and dragging him across the tabletop. Iskaral Pust gurgled, his eyes bulging as he kicked feebly.

'My friend,' Mappo warned, fearing he would have to step in and pry Icarium's hands from his victim's neck before lasting damage was done.

The Jhag threw the man back down, shaken by his own anger. He drew a deep breath. 'Speak plainly, priest,' he said calmly.

Iskaral Pust writhed for a moment longer on the tabletop, scattering the wooden cards to the floor, then he stilled. He looked up at Icarium with wide, tear-filled eyes. 'You must venture forth,' he said in a ravaged voice. 'Into the Holy Desert.'

'Why?'

'Why? Why? Sha'ik is dead.'

 

'We have to assume,' Mappo said slowly, 'that the characteristic of never answering directly is bred into the man. As natural as breathing.'

They sat in the vestibule the Trell had been given as his quarters. Iskaral Pust had vanished only a few minutes after voicing his pronouncement, and of Servant there had been no sign since their return from the cavern housing the fishing boat.

Icarium was nodding. 'He spoke of a resurrection. It must be considered, for this sudden death of Sha'ik seems to defy every prophecy, unless indeed the "renewal" marks a return from Hood's Gates.'

'And Iskaral Pust expects us to attend this rebirth? How effortlessly has he ensnared us in his mad web. For myself, I am glad the witch is dead, and I hope she remains that way. Rebellion is ever bloody. If her death plucks this land back from the brink of mutiny, then to interfere would put us in great peril.'

'You fear the wrath of the gods?'

'I fear being unwittingly used by them, or their servants, Icarium. Blood and chaos is the wine and meat of the gods – most of them, anyway. Especially the ones most eager to meddle in mortal affairs. I will do nothing to achieve their desires.'

'Nor I, friend,' the Jhag said, rising from his chair with a sigh. 'Nonetheless, I would witness such a resurrection. What deceit has the power to wrest a soul from Hood's clasp? Every ritual of resurrection I have ever heard attempted inevitably resulted in a price beyond reckoning. Even as he relinquishes a soul, Hood ensures he wins in the exchange.'

Mappo closed his eyes, kneaded his broad, scarred brow. My friend, what are we doing here? I see your desperation, seeking every path in the hopes of revelation. Could I speak openly to you, I would warn you from the truth. 'This is an ancient land,' he said softly. 'We cannot guess what powers have been invested in the stone, sand and earth. Generation upon generation.' He glanced up, suddenly weary. 'When we wandered the edge of Raraku, Icarium, I always felt as if I was walking the narrowest strand, in a web stretching to every horizon. The ancient world but sleeps, and I feel its restless shifting – more now than ever before.' Do not awaken this place, friend, lest it awaken you.

'Well,' Icarium said after a long, thoughtful moment, 'I shall venture out in any case. Will you accompany me, Mappo Trell?'

His eyes on the heaved pavestones of the floor, Mappo slowly nodded.

 

The wall of sand rose seamlessly into the sky's ochre dome. Somewhere in that fierce, swirling frenzy was the Holy Desert Raraku. Fiddler, Crokus and Apsalar sat on their lathered mounts at the top of a trail that led down the slope of the hills, out onto the desert wastes. A thousand paces into Raraku and the world simply disappeared.

A faint, sibilant roar reached them.

'Not,' Crokus said quietly, 'your average storm, I assume.'

His spirits had been low since awakening in the morning to find that Moby had once again disappeared. The creature was discovering its wild instincts, and Fiddler suspected they wouldn't see it again.

'When I heard mention of the Whirlwind,' the Daru thief continued after a moment, 'I assumed it was ... well ... figurative. A state of being, I suppose. So tell me, do we now look upon the true Whirlwind? The wrath of a goddess?'

'How can a rebellion be born in the heart of that?' Apsalar wondered. 'It would be a challenge to even open one's eyes in that storm, much less orchestrate a continent-wide uprising. Unless, of course, it's a barrier, and beyond there is calm.'

'Seems likely,' Crokus agreed.

Fiddler grunted. 'Then we've no choice. We ride through.'

Their Gral hunters were less than ten minutes behind them, driving equally exhausted horses. They numbered at least a score, and even considering Apsalar's god-given skills, and the assortment of Moranth munitions in Fiddler's pack, the option of making a stand against the warriors was not a promising prospect.

The sapper glanced at his companions. Sun and wind had burned their faces, leaving white creases at the corners of the eyes. Chapped, peeling and split lips showed as straight lines, bracketed by deeper lines. Hungry, thirsty, weaving in their saddles with exhaustion – he was in as bad a shape, he well knew. Worse, given he had not the reserves of youth to draw upon. Mind you, Raraku marked me once before. Long ago. I know what's out there.

The other two seemed instinctively to understand Fiddler's hesitation, waiting with something like respect, even as the sound of thundering horse hooves rolled up the trail at their backs.

Apsalar finally spoke. 'I wish to know more ... of this desert. Its power...'

'You shall,' Fiddler growled. 'Wrap up your faces. We go to greet the Whirlwind.'

 

Like a wing sweeping them into its embrace, the storm closed around them. A savage awareness seemed to ride the spinning sand, reaching relentlessly past the folds of their telaban, a thousand abrasive fingers clawing paths across their skin. Loose cloth and rope ends spiked upward, whipping with urgent rhythm. The roar filled the air, filled their skulls.

Raraku had awakened. All that Fiddler had sensed the last time he rode these wastes, sensed as an underlying restlessness, the spectral promise of nightmares beneath the surface, was now unleashed, exultant with freedom.

Heads ducked, the horses plodded onward, buffeted by wayward gusts of sand-filled air. The ground underneath was hard-packed clay and rubble – the once deep cloak of fine white sand had been lifted from the surface, now sang in the air, and with it were stripped away the patient, all-covering centuries.

The group dismounted, hooded their mounts' heads, then led them on.

Bones appeared underfoot. Rusting lumps of armour, chariot wheels, remnants of horse and camel tack, pieces of leather, the humped foundation stones of walls – what had been a featureless desert now showed its bones, and they crowded the floor in such profusion as to leave Fiddler in awe. He could not take a step without something crunching underfoot.

A high stone-lined bank suddenly blocked their way. It was sloped, rising to well above their heads. Fiddler paused for a long moment, then he gathered his mount's reins and led the climb. Scrambling, stumbling against the steep bank, they eventually reached the top and found themselves on a road.

The paving stones were exquisitely cut, evenly set, with the thinnest of cracks visible between them. Bemused, Fiddler crouched down, trying to hold his focus as he studied the road's surface – a task made more difficult by the streams of airborne sand racing over the stones. There was no telling its age. While he imagined that, even buried beneath the sands, there would be signs of wear, he could detect none. Moreover, the engineering showed skill beyond any masonry he'd yet seen in Seven Cities.

To his right and left the road ran spearshaft-straight as far as his squinting eyes could see. It stood like a vast breakwater that even this sorcerous storm could not breach.

Crokus leaned close. 'I thought there were no roads in Raraku!' he shouted over the storm's keening wail.

The sapper shook his head, at a loss to explain.

'Do we follow it?' Crokus asked. 'The wind's not as bad up here—'

As far as Fiddler could judge, the road angled southwest-ward, deep into the heart of Raraku. To the northeast it would reach the Pan'potsun Hills within ten leagues – in that direction they would come to the hills perhaps five leagues south of where they had left them. There seemed little value in that. He stared again down the road to his right. The heart of Raraku. It is said an oasis lies there. Where Sha'ik and her renegades are encamped. How far to that oasis? Can water be found anywhere in between here and there? Surely a road crossing a desert would be constructed to intersect sources of water. It was madness to think otherwise, and clearly the builders of this road were too skilled to be fools. Tremorlor . . . If the gods will it, Ms track will lead us to that legendary gate. Raraku has a heart, Quick Ben said. Tremorlor, a House of the Azath.

Fiddler mounted the Gral gelding. 'We follow the road,' he yelled to his companions, gesturing southwestward.

They voiced no complaints, turning to their mounts. They had bowed to his command, Fiddler realized, because both were lost in this land. They relied on him completely. Hood's breath, they think I know what I'm doing. Should I now tell them that the plan to find Tremorlor rests entirely on the faith that the fabled place actually exists? And that Quick Ben's suppositions are accurate, despite his unwillingness to explain the source of his certainty? Do I tell them we're more likely to die out here than anything else – if not from wasting thirst, then at the hands of Sha'ik's fanatical followers?

'Fid!' Crokus cried, pointing up the road. He spun around to see a handful of Gral warriors ascending the bank, less than fifty paces away. Their hunters had split up into smaller parties, as dismissive of the sorcerous storm as Fiddler's group had been. A moment later they saw their quarry and voiced faint war cries as they pulled their horses onto the flat top.

'Do we run?' Apsalar asked.

The Gral had remounted and were now unslinging their lances.

'Looks like they're not interested in conversation,' the sapper muttered. In a louder voice he said, 'Leave them to me! You two ride on!'

'What, again?' Crokus slid back down from his horse. 'What would be the point?'

Apsalar followed suit. She stepped close to Fiddler, her eyes meeting his. 'With you dead, what are our chances of surviving this desert?'

About as bad as with me leading you. He fought the temptation to give voice to his thought, simply shrugging in reply as he unlimbered his crossbow. 'I mean to make this a short engagement,' he said, loading a cusser quarrel into the weapon's slot.

The Gral had pulled their mounts into position on the road. Lances lowered, they kicked the horses into motion.

Despite himself, Fiddler's heart broke for those Gral horses, even as he aimed and fired. The quarrel struck the road three paces in front of the charging tribesmen. The detonation was deafening, the blast a bruised gout of flame that drove back the airborne sand and the wind carrying it, and flung the attackers and their mounts like a god's hand, backward onto the road and off the sides. Blood shot upward to pull sand down like hail. In a moment the wind swept the flames and smoke away, leaving nothing but twitching bodies.

A pointless pursuit, and now pointless deaths. I am not Gral. Would the crime of impersonation trigger such a relentless hunt? I wish I could have asked you, warriors.

'For all that they have twice saved us,' Crokus said, 'those Moranth munitions are horrible, Fiddler.'

Silent, the sapper loaded another quarrel, slipped a leather thong over the bone trigger to lock it, then slung the heavy weapon over a shoulder. Climbing back into the saddle, he gathered the reins in one hand and regarded his comrades. 'Stay sharp,' he said. 'We may ride into another party without warning. If we do, try to break through them.'

He lightly kicked the mare forward.

The wind came as laughter to his ears, the sound seemingly stained with pleasure at witnessing senseless violence. It was eager for more. The Whirlwind awakened – this goddess is mad, riven with insanity – who is there that can stop her? Fiddler's slitted eyes stared down the road, the featureless march of stones leading, ever leading, into an ochre, swirling maw. Into nothingness.

Fiddler growled an oath, pushing away the futility clawing at his thoughts. They would have to find Tremorlor, before the Whirlwind swallowed them whole.

 

The aptorian was a darker shade thirty paces on Kalam's left, striding with relentless ease through the sand-filled wind. The assassin found himself thankful for the storm – his every clear sighting of his unwanted companion scraped his nerves raw. He'd encountered demons before, on battlefields and in war-ravaged streets. Often they had been thrown into the fray by Malazan mages, and so were allies of a sort, even as they went about exacting the wills of their masters with apparent indifference to all else. On thankfully rarer occasions, he'd come face to face with a demon unleashed by an enemy. At such times survival was his only concern, and survival meant flight. Demons were flesh and blood, to be sure – he'd seen enough of one's insides once, after it had been blown apart by one of Hedge's cusser quarrels, to retain the unwelcome intimacy of the memory – but only fools would try to face down a demon's cold rage and singularity of purpose.

Only two kinds of people die in battle, Fiddler had once said, fools and the unlucky. Trading blows with a demon was both unlucky and foolish.

For all that, the aptorian grated strangely on Kalam's eyes, like an iron blade trying to cut granite. Even to focus too long on the beast was to invite a wave of nausea.

There was nothing welcome in Sha'ik's gift. Gift . . . or spy. She's unleashed the Whirlwind and now the goddess rides her, as certain as possession. That's likely to trim short the wick of gratitude. Besides, even Dryjhna would not so readily waste an aptorian demon on something so mundane as escort. So, friend Apt, I cannot trust you.

Over the past few days he'd tried losing the beast, departing camp silently an hour before dawn, plunging into the thickest twists of spinning wind. Outracing the creature was a hopeless task – it could outpace any earthly animal in both speed and endurance, and for all his efforts Apt held on to him like a well-heeled hound – although mercifully at a distance.

The wind scoured the rock-scabbed hills with a voracious fury, carving into cracks and fissures as if hungering to spring loose every last speck of sand. The smooth, humped domes of bleached limestone lining the ridges on either side of the shallow valley he rode along seemed to age before his eyes, revealing countless wrinkles and scars.

He'd left the Pan'potsun Hills behind six days earlier, crossing the seamless border into another sawbacked ridge of hills called the Anibaj. The territory this far south of Raraku was less familiar to him. He'd come close on occasion, following the well-travelled trader tracks skirting the eastern edge of the range. The Anibaj were home to no tribes, although hidden monasteries were rumoured to exist.

The Whirlwind had rolled out of Raraku the night before, a star-blotting tidal wave of sorcery that left Kalam shaken despite his anticipating its imminent arrival. Dryjhna had awakened with a hunger fierce enough to render the assassin appalled. He feared he would come to regret his role, and every sighting of Apt only deepened that fear.

The Anibaj were lifeless to Kalam's eyes. He'd seen no sign of habitation, disguised or otherwise. The occasional stronghold ruin hinted at a more crowded past, but that was all. If ascetic monks and nuns hid in these wastelands, the blessing of their deities kept them from mortal eyes.

And yet, as he rode hunched on his saddle, the wind pummelling his back, Kalam could not shake the sense that something was trailing him. The awareness had risen within him over the past six hours. A presence was out there – human or beast – beyond the range of his sight, following, somehow clinging to his trail. He knew his and his horse's scent only preceded them, driven south on the wind, and no doubt swiftly tattered apart before it had gone ten paces. Nor did any tracks his horse left last much beyond a few seconds. Unless the hunter's vision was superior to the assassin's – which he did not think likely – so that he was able to stay just beyond Kalam's own range, the only explanation he was left with was ... Hood-spawned sorcery. The last thing I need.

He glared to the left again and could make out Apt's vast shape, its strangely mechanical flow as it kept pace with him. The demon showed no alarm – mind you, how could one tell? – but rather than drawing comfort from it he felt instead a growing unease, a suspicion that the demon's role no longer included protecting him.

Abruptly the wind fell, the roar shifting to the hiss of settling sand. Grunting in surprise, Kalam reined in and looked back over his shoulder. The storm's edge was a tumbling, stationary wall five paces behind him. Sand rained from it forming scalloped dunes along a slightly curving edge that ran to the horizon's edge both east and west. Overhead the sky had lightened to a faintly burnished copper. The sun, hanging an hour above the western horizon, was the colour of beaten gold.

The assassin walked his horse on another dozen paces, then halted a second time. Apt had not emerged from the storm. A shiver of alarm took hold and he reached for the crossbow hanging from its strap on the saddlehorn.

A jolt of sudden panic took his horse and the beast shied sideways, head lifted and ears flattened. A strong, spicy smell filled the air. Kalam rolled from the saddle even as something passed swiftly through the air over him. Relinquishing his grip on the unloaded crossbow, the assassin unsheathed both long-knives even as his right shoulder struck the soft sand, his momentum taking him over and onto his feet in a low crouch. His attacker – a desert wolf of startling mass – had failed in clearing the sidestepping horse and was now scrambling for purchase athwart the saddle, its amber eyes fixed on Kalam.

The assassin lunged forward, thrusting with the narrow blade in his right hand. Another wolf struck him from the left, a writhing weight of thick muscle and snapping jaws, taking him to the ground. His left arm was pinned by the beast's weight. Long canines gouged into the mail links covering his shoulder. Rings popped and snapped, the teeth breaking through and pushing hard against his flesh.

Kalam reached around and drove the point of his right long-knife high into the animal's flank, the blade slipping under the spine just fore of the wolf's hip. The tightening jaws released his shoulder; jerking back, the animal kicked to pull away from him. As the assassin struggled to pull the blade free, he felt the edge bite bone. The Aren steel bent, then snapped.

Howling in pain, the wolf leapt away, back hunched, spinning as if chasing its tail in an effort to close its jaws on the jutting fragment of blade.

Spitting sand, Kalam rolled to his feet. The first wolf had been thrown from its purchase across the saddle by the horse's frenzied bucking. It had then taken a solid kick to the side of the head. The beast stood dazed half a dozen paces away, blood running from its nose.

There were others, somewhere behind the storm wall, their growls, yips and snarls muted by the wind. They battled something, it was obvious. Kalam recalled Sha'ik's mention of a D'ivers that had attacked the aptorian – inconclusively – some weeks earlier. It seemed the shapeshifter was trying again.

The assassin saw his horse bolt away down the trail, southward, bucking as it went. He spun back to the two wolves, only to find them gone, twin spattered paths of blood leading back to the storm. From within the Whirlwind all sounds of battle had ceased.

A moment later, Apt lumbered into view. Dark blood streamed from its flanks and dripped from its needle fangs, making the grin of its jawline all the more ghastly. It swung its elongated head and regarded Kalam with its black, knowing eye.

Kalam scowled. 'I risk enough without this damned feud of yours, Apt.'

The demon clacked its jaws, a snakelike tongue darting out to lick the blood from its teeth. He saw it was trembling – some of the puncture wounds near its neck looked deep.

Sighing, the assassin said, 'Treating you will have to await finding my horse.' He reached for the small canteen at his belt. 'But at the very least I can clean your wounds.' He stepped forward.

The demon flinched back, head ducking menacingly.

Kalam stopped. 'Perhaps not, then.' He frowned. There was something odd about the demon, standing on a low hump of bleached bedrock, its head turned as its slitted nostrils flared to test the air. The assassin's frown deepened. Something. . . After a long moment, he sighed, glancing down at the grip of the broken long-knife in his right hand. He'd carried the matched pair for most of his adult life, like a mirror to the twin loyalties within him. Which of the two have I now lost?

He brushed dust from his telaba, collected his crossbow, slinging it over a shoulder, then began the walk southward, down the trail towards the distant basin. Alongside him, and closer now, Apt followed, head sunk low, its single forelimb kicking up puffs of dust that glowed pink in the sun's failing light.