Every throne is an arrow-butt.

Kellanved

 

Beneath the whirlwind's towering spire was a lower billowing of dust as the massive army decamped. Borne on wayward gusts, the ochre clouds spread out from the oasis, settling here and there among the weathered folds of ruins. The air was lit gold on all sides, as if the desert had at last unveiled its memories of wealth and glory, only to reveal them for what they truly were.

Sha'ik stood on the flat roof of a wooden watchtower near the palace concourse, the scurrying efforts of an entire city beneath her almost unnoticed as she stared into the opaqueness to the south. The young girl she had adopted kneeled close by, watching her new mother with sharp, steady eyes.

The ladder below creaked incessantly to someone's laboured ascent, Sha'ik slowly realized, and as she turned she saw Heboric's head and shoulders emerge through the trap. The ex-priest clambered onto the platform and laid an invisible hand on the girl's head before turning to squint at Sha'ik.

'L'oric's the one to watch,' Heboric said. 'The other two think they're subtle, but they're anything but.'

'L'oric,' she murmured, returning her gaze to the south. 'What is your sense of him?'

'You've knowledge that surpasses mine, lass—'

'Nevertheless.'

'I think he senses the bargain.'

'Bargain?'

Heboric moved to stand beside her and leaned his tattooed forearms on the thin wooden railing. 'The one the goddess made with you. The one that proves that a rebirth did not in truth occur—'

'Did it not, Heboric?'

'No. No child chooses to be born, no child has any say in the matter. You had both. Sha'ik has not been reborn, she has been re-made. L'oric may well seize on this, believing it to be a gap in your armour.'

'He risks the wrath of the goddess, then.'

'Aye, and I don't think he's ignorant of that, lass, which is why he needs to be watched. Carefully.'

They were silent for a time, both staring out into the south's impenetrable shroud. Eventually Heboric cleared his throat. 'Perhaps, with your new gifts, you can answer some questions.'

'Such as?'

'When did Dryjhna choose you?'

'What do you mean?'

'When did the manipulation begin? Here in Raraku? Skullcup? Or on a distant continent? When did the goddess first cast her gaze upon you, lass?'

'She never did.'

Heboric started. 'That seems—'

'Unlikely? Yes, but it is the truth. The journey was mine, and mine alone. You must understand, even goddesses cannot foresee unexpected deaths, those twists of mortality, decisions taken, paths followed or not followed. Sha'ik Elder had the gift of prophecy, but such a gift, when given, is no more than a seed. It grows in the freedom of a human soul. Dryjhna was greatly disturbed by Sha'ik's visions. Visions that made no sense. A hint of peril, but nothing certain, nothing at all. Besides,' she added with a shrug, 'strategy and tactics are anathema to the Apocalypse.'

Heboric grimaced. 'That doesn't bode well.'

'Wrong. We are free to devise our own.'

'Even if the goddess did not guide you, someone or something did. Else Sha'ik would never have been given those visions.'

'Now you speak of fate. Argue that with your fellow scholars, Heboric. Not every mystery can be unravelled, much as you believe otherwise. Sorry if that pains you ...'

'Not half as sorry as I am. But it occurs to me that even as mortals are but pieces on a gameboard, so too are the gods.'

'"Elemental forces in opposition,"' she said, smiling.

Heboric's brows rose, then he scowled. 'A quote. A familiar one—'

'It should be. It's carved into the Imperial Gate in Unta, after all. Kellanved's own words, as a means to justify the balance of destruction with creation – the expansion of the Empire, in all its hungry glory.'

'Hood's breath!' the old man hissed.

'Have I sent your mind spinning in other directions, Heboric?'

'Aye.'

'Well, save your breath. The subject of your next treatise – no doubt that handful of obscure old fools will dance in excitement.'

'Old fools?'

'Your fellow scholars. Your readers, Heboric'

'Ah.'

They were silent again for some time, until the ex-priest spoke once more. 'What will you do?' he asked softly.

'With what has happened out there?'

'With what's still happening. Korbolo Dom reaping senseless slaughter in your name—'

'In the name of the goddess,' she corrected, hearing the brittle anger in her own voice. She'd already exchanged sharp words with Leoman on this subject.

'Word of the "rebirth" has probably reached him—'

'No, it has not. I have sealed Raraku, Heboric. The storm raised around us can scour flesh from bones. Not even a T'lan Imass could survive the passage.'

'Yet you have made an announcement,' the old man said. 'The Whirlwind.'

'Which has raised in Korbolo Dom doubts. And fears. He is very eager to complete the task he's chosen. He's still unfettered, and so is free to answer his obsessions—'

'And so, what will you do? Aye, we can march, but it will take months to reach the Aren Plain, and by then Korbolo will have given Tavore all the justification she needs to deliver a ruthless punishment. The rebellion was bloody, but your sister will make what's already happened seem like a scratch on the backside.'

'You assume she is my superior, Heboric, don't you? In tactics—'

'There's precedent for how far your sister will go in cruelty, lass,' he growled. 'Witness you standing here ...'

'And there lies my greatest advantage, old man. Tavore believes she will face a desert witch whom she has never met. Ignorance will not sway her contempt for such a creature. Yet I am not ignorant of my enemy ...'

A subtle change had come to the distant roar of the Whirlwind towering behind them. Sha'ik smiled. Heboric's sense of that change came moments later. He turned. 'What is happening?'

'It will not take us months to reach Aren, Heboric. Have you not wondered what the Whirlwind is?'

The ex-priest's blind eyes widened as he faced that pillar of dust and wind. Sha'ik wondered how the man's preternatural senses perceived the phenomenon, but his next words made it clear that whatever he saw was true. 'By the gods, it's toppling!'

'Dryjhna's Warren, Heboric, our whirling road to the south.'

'Will it take us there in time, Fel— Sha'ik? In time to stop Korbolo Dom's madness?'

She did not answer, for it was already too late.

 

As Duiker rode in through the gates, gauntleted hands reached out to grasp the halter and reins, dragging his mare to a stuttering halt. A smaller hand closed on the historian's wrist, tugging with something like desperation. He looked down, and saw in Nether's face a sickly dread that poured ice into his veins.

'To the tower,' she pleaded. 'Quickly!'

A strange murmuring was building from Aren's walls, a sound of darkness that filled the dusty air. Sliding down from the saddle, Duiker felt his heart begin to thunder. Nether's hand pulled him through the crowd of Garrison Guards and refugees. He felt other hands reach out, touch lightly as if seeking a blessing or conferring one, then slip past.

An arched doorway suddenly yawned before him, leading to a gloomy landing with stone steps rising along the inside of the tower wall. The sound from the city walls was building to a roar, a wordless cry of outrage, horror and anguish. It echoed with mad intent within the tower, and rose in timbre with each step that the warlock and the historian climbed.

On the middle landing she swept him past the T-shaped arrow slits, edging them both behind the pair of bowmen pressed against the narrow windows, then on, up the worn stairs. Neither archer even so much as noticed them.

As they neared the shaft of bright light directly beneath the roof hatch, a quavering voice reached down.

'There's too many ... I can do nothing, no, the gods forgive me – too many, too many ...'

Nether ascended the shaft of light, Duiker following. They emerged onto the broad platform. Three figures stood at the outer wall. The one on the left Duiker recognized as Mallick Rel – the adviser he had last seen in Hissar – his silks billowing in the hot wind. The man beside him was probably High Fist Pormqual, tall, wiry, slope-shouldered and wearing clothes that would beggar a king, his pale hands skittering across the top of the battlement like trapped birds. To his right stood a soldier in functional armour, a tore on his left arm denoting his commander's rank. He held his burly arms wrapped around himself, as if trying to crush his own bones. The stress bound within him seemed about to explode.

Near the hatch sat Nil, a disarrayed jumble of limbs. The young warlock swung a grey, aged face towards Duiker. Nether swept down to wrap her brother in a fierce hug that she seemed unwilling or unable to relax.

The soldiers lining the walls to either side were screaming now, a sound that cut the air like Hood's own scythe.

The historian went to the wall beside the commander. Duiker's hands reached out to grip the sun-baked stone of the merlon. Following the rapt gaze of the others, he could barely draw breath. Panic surged through him as his eyes took in the scene on the slope of the closest burial mound.

Coltaine.

Above a contracting mass of less than four hundred soldiers, three standards waved: the Seventh's; the polished, articulated dog skeleton of the Foolish Dog Clan; the Crow's black wings surmounting a bronze disc that flashed in the sunlight. Defiant and proud, the bearers continued to hold them high.

On all sides, pressing in with bestial frenzy, were Korbolo Dom's thousands, a mass of footsoldiers devoid of all discipline, interested only in slaughter. Mounted companies rode past them along both visible edges, surging into the gap between the city's walls and the mound – though not riding close enough to come within bow range from Aren's archers. Korbolo Dom's own guard and, no doubt, the renegade Fist himself had moved into position atop the mound behind the last one, and a platform was being raised, as if to ensure a clear view of the events playing out on the nearer barrow.

The distance was not enough to grant mercy to the witnesses on the tower or along the city's wall. Duiker saw Coltaine there, amidst a knot of Mincer's engineers and a handful of Lull's marines, his round shield a shattered mess on his left arm, his lone long-knife snapped to the length of a short sword in his right hand, his feather cloak glistening as if brushed with tar. The historian saw Commander Bult, guiding the retreat towards the hill's summit. Cattle-dogs surged and leapt around the Wickan veteran like a frantic bodyguard, even as arrows swept through them in waves. Among the creatures one stood out, huge, seemingly indomitable, pin-cushioned with arrows, yet fighting on.

The horses were gone. The Weasel Clan was gone. The Foolish Dog warriors were but a score in number, surrounding half a dozen old men and horsewives – the very last of a dwindled, cut-away heart. Of the Crow, it was clear that Coltaine and Bult were the last.

Soldiers of the Seventh, few with any armour left, held themselves in a solid ring around the others. Many of them no longer raised weapons, yet stood their ground even as they were cut to pieces. No quarter was given, every soldier who fell with wounds was summarily butchered – their helmets torn off, their forearms shattered as they sought to ward off the attacks, their skulls crumpling to multiple blows.

The stone beneath Duiker's hands had gone slick, sticky. Iron lances of pain shot up his arms. He barely noticed.

With a wrenching effort, the historian pulled back, reaching out red fingers to grip Pormqual—

The garrison commander blocked him, held him back.

The High Fist saw Duiker, flinched away. 'You do not understand!' he screamed. 'I cannot save them! Too many! Too many!'

'You can, you bastard! A sortie can drive right to that mound – a cordon, damn you!'

'No! We'll be crushed! I must not!'

The commander's low growl reached Duiker. 'You're right, Historian. But he won't do it. The High Fist won't let us save them—'

Duiker struggled to free himself of the man's grip but was pushed back.

'For Hood's sake!' the commander snapped. 'We've tried – we've all tried—'

Mallick Rel stepped close, said softly, 'My heart weeps, Historian. The High Fist cannot be swayed—'

'This is murder!'

'For which Korbolo Dom shall pay, and dearly.'

Duiker spun around, lurched back to the wall.

They were dying. There, almost within reach – no, within a soldier's reach. Anguish closed a black fist in the historian's gut. I cannot watch.

Yet I must.

He saw fewer than a hundred soldiers still upright, but it had become a slaughter – the only battle that remained was among Korbolo's forces for the chance of delivering fatal blows and raising grisly trophies with triumphant shrieks. The Seventh were falling, and falling, using naught but flesh and bone to shield their leaders – the ones who had led them across a continent, to die now, almost within the shadow of Aren's high walls.

And on those walls was ranged an army, ten thousand fellow soldiers to witness this, the greatest crime ever committed by a Malazan High Fist.

How Coltaine had managed to get this far was beyond Duiker's ability to comprehend. He was seeing the end of a battle that must have run without cessation for days – a battle that had ensured the survival of the refugees – and this is why that dust cloud was so slow to approach.

The last of the Seventh vanished beneath swarming bodies. Bult stood with his back to the standard bearer, a Dhobri tulwar in each hand. A mob closed on him and drove lances into the veteran, sticking him as they would a cornered boar. Even then he tried to rise up, slashing out with a tulwar to chop into the leg of a man – who reeled back howling. But the lances stabbed deep, pushed the Wickan back, pinned him to the ground. Blades flashed down on him, hacking him to death.

The standard bearer left his position – the standard itself propped up between corpses – and leapt forward in a desperate effort to reach his commander. A blade neatly decapitated him, sending his head toppling back to join the bloody jumble at the standard's base, and thus did Corporal List die, having experienced countless mock deaths all those months ago at Hissar.

The Foolish Dog's position vanished beneath a press of bodies, the standard toppling moments later. Bloody scalps were lifted and waved about, the trophies spraying red rain.

Surrounded by the last of the engineers and marines, Coltaine fought on. His defiance lasted but a moment longer before Korbolo Dom's warriors killed the last defender, then swallowed up Coltaine himself, burying him in their mindless frenzy.

A huge arrow-studded cattle-dog darted to where Coltaine had gone down, but then a lance speared the beast, raising it high. It writhed as it slid down the shaft, and even then the creature delivered one final death to the enemy gripping the weapon, by tearing out the soldier's throat.

Then it too was gone.

The Crow standard wavered, leaned to one side, then pitched down, vanishing in the press.

Duiker stood unmoving, disbelieving.

Coltaine.

A high-pitched wail rose behind the historian. He slowly turned. Nether still held Nil as if he were a babe, but her head was tilted back, raised heavenward, her eyes wide.

A shadow swept over them.

Crows.

And to Sormo the Elder warlock, there on the wall of Unta, there came eleven crows – eleven – to take the great man's soul, for no single creature could hold it all. Eleven.

The sky above Aren was filled with crows, a black sea of wings, closing from all sides.

Nether's wail grew louder and louder still, as if her own soul was being ripped out through her throat.

Shock jolted through Duiker. It's not done – it's not over— He spun round, saw the cross being raised, saw the still living man nailed to it.

'They'll not free him!' Nether screamed. She was suddenly at his side and staring out at the barrow. She tore at her hair, clawed at her own scalp, until blood streamed down her face. Duiker grasped her wrists – so thin, so childlike in his hands – and pulled them away before she could reach her own eyes.

Kamist Reloe stood on the platform, Korbolo Dom at his side. Sorcery blossomed – a virulent, wild wave that surged up and crashed against the approaching crows. Black shapes spun and tumbled from the sky—

'No!' Nether shrieked, writhing in Duiker's arms, seeking to fling herself over the wall.

The cloud of crows scattered, reformed, sought to approach once again.

Kamist Reloe obliterated hundreds more.

'Release his soul! From the flesh! Release it!'

Beside them, the garrison commander turned and called to one of his aides in a voice of ice, 'Get me Squint, Corporal. Now!'

The aide did not bother darting down the stairs – he simply went to the far wall, leaned out and screamed, 'Squint! Up here, damn you!'

Another wave of sorcery swept more crows from the sky. In silence, they regrouped once again.

The roar from Aren's walls had stilled. Now only silence held the air.

Nether had collapsed against the historian, a child in his arms. Duiker could see Nil curled and motionless on the platform near the hatch – either unconscious or dead. He had wet himself, the puddle spreading out around him.

Boots thumped on the stairs.

The aide said to the commander, 'He's been helping the refugees, sir. I don't think he has any idea what's going on...'

Duiker turned again to look out at the lone figure nailed to the cross. He still lived – they would not let him die, would not free his soul, and Kamist Reloe knew precisely what he was doing, knew the full horror of his crime, as he methodically destroyed the vessels for that soul. On all sides, screaming warriors pressed close, seething on the barrow like insects.

Objects started striking the figure on the cross, leaving red stains. Pieces of flesh, gods – pieces of flesh, – what's left of the army – this was a level of cruelty that left Duiker cowering inside.

'Over here, Squint!' he heard the commander growl. A figure pushed to Duiker's side, short, squat, grey-haired. His eyes, buried in a nest of wrinkles, were fixed on that distant figure. 'Mercy,' he whispered.

'Well?' the commander demanded.

'That's half a thousand paces, Blistig—'

'I know.'

'Might take more than one shot, sir.'

'Then get started, damn you.'

The old soldier, wearing a uniform that looked as if it had not been washed or repaired in decades, unslung the longbow from one shoulder. He gathered the string, stepped into the bow's plane, bent it hard over one thigh. His limbs shook as he edged the string's loop into its niche. Then he straightened up and studied the arrows in the quiver strapped to his hip.

Another wave of sorcery struck the crows.

After a long moment, Squint selected an arrow. 'I'll try for the chest. Biggest target, sir, and enough good hits and that'll do the poor soul.'

'Another word, Squint,' Blistig whispered, 'and I'll have your tongue.'

The soldier nocked the arrow. 'Clear me some space, then.'

Nether was limp in Duiker's arms as he dragged her back a step.

The man's bow, even strung, was as tall as he was. His forearms as he drew the string back were like hemp ropes, bundled and twisted and taut. The string brushed his stubbled jawline as he completed the draw, then locked it in place with a slow, even exhalation.

Duiker saw the man tremble suddenly, and his eyes widened, revealing themselves for the first time – black, small marbles in red-streaked nests.

Raw fear edged Blistig's voice. 'Squint—'

'That's got to be Coltaine, sir!' the old man gasped. 'You want me to kill Coltaine—'

'Squint!'

Nether raised her head and reached out one bloody hand in supplication. 'Release him. Please.'

The old man studied her a moment. Tears streamed down his face. The trembling stilled – the bow itself had not moved an inch.

'Hood's breath!' Duiker hissed. He's weeping. He can't aim – the bastard can't aim—

The bowstring thrummed. The long shaft cut through the sky.

'Oh, gods!' Squint moaned. 'Too high – too high!'

It rose, swept through the massed crows untouched and unwavering, began arcing down.

Duiker could have sworn that Coltaine looked up then, lifted his gaze to greet that gift, as the iron head impacted his forehead, shattered the bone, sank deep into his brain and killed him instantly. His head snapped back between the spars of wood, then the arrow was through.

The warriors on the barrow's slopes flinched back.

The crows shook the air with their eerie cries and plunged down towards the sagging figure on the cross, sweeping over the warriors crowding the slopes. The sorcery that battered at them was shunted aside, scattered by whatever force – Coltaine's soul? – now rose to join the birds.

The cloud descended on Coltaine, swallowing him entire and covering the cross itself – at that distance they were to Duiker like flies swarming a piece of flesh.

And when they rose, exploding skyward, the warleader of the Crow Clan was gone.

Duiker staggered, leaned hard against the stone wall. Nether slipped down through his motionless arms, her blood-matted hair hiding her face as she curled around his feet.

'I killed him,' Squint moaned. 'I killed Coltaine. Who took that man's life? A broken old soldier of the High Fist's army – he killed Coltaine ... Oh, Beru, have mercy on my soul...'

Duiker wrapped the old man in his arms and held him fiercely. The bow clattered on the platform's wooden slats. The historian felt the man crumpling against him as if his bones had turned to dust, as if centuries stole into him with each ragged breath.

Commander Blistig gripped the bowman by the back of the collar and yanked him upright. 'Before the day's through, you bastard,' he hissed, 'ten thousand soldiers will be voicing your name.' The words shook. 'Like a prayer, Squint, like a Hood-damned prayer.'

The historian squeezed his eyes shut. It had become a day to hold in his arms broken figures.

But who will hold me?

Duiker opened his eyes, raised his head. High Fist Pormqual's mouth was moving, as if in a silent plea for forgiveness. Shock was written on the man's thin, oiled face and, as he met the historian's gaze, a flash of raw fear.

Out on the barrow Korbolo Dom's army was stirring, like reeds in eddies, a restless, meaningless motion. The aftermath was now upon them. Voices rose, wordless cries, but they were too few to break the dreadful silence and its growing power.

The crows were gone, the crossed spars of wood stood empty, rising above the masses with their blood-streaked shafts.

Overhead, the sky had begun to die.

Duiker's gaze returned to Pormqual. The High Fist seemed to shrink into Mallick Rel's shadow. He shook his head as if to deny the day.

Thrice denied, High Fist.

Coltaine is dead. They are all dead.