I saw the sun's bolt
arc an unerring path
to the man's forehead.
As it struck, the crows
converged like night
drawing breath.

Dog Chain
Seglora

 

Faint ripples licked the garbage-studded mud beneath the docks. Night insects danced just beyond the water's reach, and the bank itself seethed in the egg-laying frenzy of some kind of eels. In their thousands, black and gleaming, the small creatures writhed beneath the dancing insects. This silent breaching of the harbour's shore had for generations passed almost unnoticed by human eyes – a mercy granted only because the eels were wholly unpalatable.

From the darkness beyond came the sound of cascading water. The ripples that reached shore from that commotion were larger, more agitated, the only indication that a stranger had arrived to disturb the scene.

Kalam stumbled ashore, collapsing onto mud that swarmed beneath him. Warm blood still leaked between the fingers of his right hand where it pressed against the knife wound. The assassin wore no shirt, and his chain armour was even now settling somewhere in the mud bottom of Malaz Bay behind him, leaving him with only buckskin leggings and moccasins.

In clambering out of the armour during his sudden plunge into the deep, he had been forced to pull off his belt and knife harness. In his desperate need to return to the surface, to draw air into his lungs, he'd let everything slip from his grasp.

Leaving him now unarmed.

Somewhere out in the bay a ship was being torn apart, the savage noises drifting across the water. Kalam wondered at that, but only briefly. He had other things on his mind.

Faint nips told him that the eels were resenting his intrusion. Struggling to slow his breathing, he squirmed farther up the slimy bank. Broken crockery dug into his flesh as he made his way onto the first of the stone breakwaters. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the seaweed-bearded underside of the pier. A moment later he closed his eyes, began concentrating.

The bleeding in his side slowed to a thin trickle, then ceased.

A few minutes later he sat up and began pulling off the eels that clung like leeches, flinging them out into the darkness where he could hear the skittering of the harbour's rats. The creatures were closing in, and the assassin had heard enough whispered tales to know he was anything but safe from the fearless hordes in this underworld.

Kalam could wait no longer. He pushed himself up into a crouch, eyeing the ragged piles that rose beyond the breakwater. If the tide had been in, the massive bronze rings bolted three-quarters of the way up those wooden boles would have been within reach. Black pitch coated the piles except where ships had been thrown against them, leaving gaping dents of raw, water-soaked wood.

Only one way up, then . . .

The assassin made his way along the base of the barrier until he stood opposite a merchant trader. The wide-bellied ship lay canted on its side in the mud. A thick hemp rope stretched from its bow to one of the brass rings high on the pile.

Under normal circumstances the climb would have been a simple one, but even with the inner discipline that was part of a Claw's training, Kalam could not prevent fresh blood welling from the wound in his side as he made his way up the rope. He felt himself weakening as he worked his way closer to the ring, and when he reached it he paused, limbs shaking, while he sought to recover his strength.

There had been no time for thought since Salk Elan had pitched him over the side, and none now. Cursing his own stupidity was a waste of time. Killers awaited him in Malaz City's dark, narrow streets and alleys. His next few hours would, in all likelihood, be his last this side of Hood's Gates.

Kalam had no intention of being easy prey.

Crouched against the huge ring, he worked to slow his breathing once more, to still the seep of blood from his side and the countless leech-wounds.

Eyes on the warehouse roofs with sorcery-enhanced vision, and I've not even a shirt to hide my body's heat. They know I'm wounded, a challenge to the higher disciplines – I doubt even Surly in her prime could manage a cooling of flesh in these straits. Can I?

Once more he closed his eyes. Draw the blood from the surface, draw it down to hide within muscle, close to bone. Every breath must be ice, every touch upon cobble and stone a matching of temperature. No residue in passage, no bloom in movement. What will they expect of a wounded man?

Not this.

He opened his eyes, released one hand from the ring and pressed his forearm against the pitted metal. It felt warm.

Time to move.

The top of the pile was within easy reach. Kalam straightened, slowly pulling himself onto the guano-crusted surface. Front Street stretched out before him. Cargo carts crowded the locked warehouse doors facing onto the street, the nearest one less than twenty paces away.

To run would be to invite death, because his body could not adjust to changes in temperature fast enough and the bloom would be unmissable.

One of those eels has crawled too far, and is about to crawl farther still. Flat on his belly, Kalam edged forward onto the damp cobblestones, his face against them as he sent his breath down beneath him.

Sorcery makes a hunter lazy, tuned only to what they expect will be obvious, given their enhanced senses. They forget the game of shadows, the play of darkness, the most subtle telltale signs ... I hope.

He could not look up, but he knew that he was in truth completely exposed, like a worm crossing a flagstone path. A part of his mind threatened to shriek its panic, but the assassin crushed it down. Higher discipline was a ruthless master – of his own mind, his own body, his own soul.

His greatest dread was a break in the overcast sky above the city. The moon had become his enemy, and should it awaken, even the laziest of watchers could not fail to see the shadow Kalam would throw across the cobbles.

Minutes passed as he slid his agonizingly slow way across the street. The city beyond was silent, unnaturally so. A hunters' maze, prepared for him should he manage to reach it. A thought slipped through – I've been spotted already, but why spoil the game? This hunt's to be a protracted pleasure, something to satisfy the brotherhood's thirst for vengeance. After all, why prepare a maze if you kill your victim before he can even reach it?

The bitter logic of that was like a hot dagger in his chest, threatening to shatter his camouflage more thoroughly than anything else could. Yet he managed to slow his rise from the street, drawing and holding his breath before looking up.

He was beneath the cart, the top of his head brushing the flatbed's underside.

He paused. They were expecting a contest of subtlety, but sleight of hand was only one of Kalam's talents. Always an advantage, those other, unexpected ones . . . The assassin slipped forward, cleared the first wagon, then the next three before coming to the warehouse doors.

The cargo entrance was of course huge, two sliding palisade-like panels, now chained together with a massive padlock. To one side of them, however, was a smaller side door, also padlocked.

Kalam darted to it and flattened himself against the weathered wood. Both hands closed on the padlock.

There was nothing subtle in the brute strength the assassin possessed. While the padlock itself resisted the twisting force he delivered, the fittings that held it could not. His body pressing against the lock and latch muffled the splintering sounds.

Lock and fittings came away in his hands. Cradling them, Kalam reached out and pulled the door back just enough to let him slip through into the darkness beyond.

A rapid search through the main chamber led him to a large tool rack. He collected a pair of pick-tongs, a hatchet, a burlap sack of cloth-tacks, and a barely serviceable work-knife, its tip broken and its edge heavily nicked. He found a blacksmith's leather workshirt and slipped it on. In the backroom, he discovered a door that opened onto the alley behind the warehouse.

The Deadhouse, he judged, was about six streets away. But Salk Elan knows – and they'll be waiting for me. I'd have to be an idiot to make straight for it – and they know that, as well.

Slipping his various makeshift weapons into the shirt's tool-loops, Kalam unlatched the door, edged it open a crack and peered out. Seeing no movement, he pushed it open a few inches more, scanning the nearest rooftops, then the sky.

No-one, and the clouds were a solid cloak. Faint light bled from a few shuttered windows, which had the effect of deepening the gloom everywhere else. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.

He stepped outside and padded down one edge of the crate-littered alley.

A pool of deeper darkness occupied an alcove near the alley mouth ahead. Kalam's eyes found it, locked on it. He pulled out his knife and hatchet and without pause swept straight for it.

The darkness poured its sorcery over him as he plunged into the alcove, his attack so sudden, so unexpected, that the two figures within had no time to draw weapons. The brutal blade of the work-knife tore out one man's throat. The hatchet chopped down to crush a clavicle and snap ribs. He released that weapon and slapped the palm of his left hand over the man's mouth as he drove the head back to crunch against the wall. The other Claw – a woman – slid down with a wet gurgling sound.

A moment later Kalam was searching their bodies, collecting throwing stars, throwing knives, two braces of short, wide-bladed stickers, a garrotte and the most cherished prize of all, a ribless Claw crossbow, screw-loaded, compact and deadly – if only at close range. Eight quarrels accompanied it, each one with an iron head that glistened with the poison called White Paralt.

Kalam appropriated the thin, black cloak from the man's corpse, pulling up its hood with its gauze vents positioned over his ears. The projecting cowl was also of gauze, ensuring peripheral vision.

The sorcery was fading as he completed his accoutrements, revealing that at least one of his victims had been a mage. Damned sloppy – Topper's letting them get soft.

He emerged from the alcove, raised his head and sniffed the air. A Hand's link had been broken – they would know that trouble had arrived, and would even now be slowly, cautiously closing in.

Kalam smiled. You wanted a quarry on the run. Sorry to disappoint you.

He set out into the night, hunting Claw.

 

The Hand's leader cocked his head, then stepped into the clear. A moment later two figures emerged from the alley and closed to confer.

'Blood's been spilled,' the leader murmured. 'Topper shall be—'

A soft clicking made him turn. 'Ah, now we learn the details,' the man said, watching their cloaked companion approach.

'The killer has arrived,' the newcomer growled.

'I am about to pluck Topper's strand—'

'Good, it's time he understood.'

'What—'

Both of the leader's companions fell to the cobbles. An enormous fist connected with the leader's face. Bone and cartilage crunched. The leader blinked unseeing eyes that filled with blood. With septum lodged in his forebrain, he crumpled.

Kalam crouched down to whisper in the dead man's ear. 'I know you can hear me, Topper. Two Hands left. Run and hide – I'll still find you.'

He straightened, retrieved his weapons.

The corpse at his feet gurgled a wet laugh and the assassin looked down as a spectral voice emerged from the dead man's lips. 'Welcome back, Kalam. Two Hands, you said? Not any more, old friend—'

'Scared you, did I?'

'Salk Elan appears to have let you off too easily. I shall not be as kind, I'm afraid—'

'I know where you are, Topper, and I'm coming for you.'

There was a long silence, then the corpse spoke one last time. 'By all means, my friend.'

 

The Imperial Warren was holed like cheesecloth that night, as Hand after Hand of Claw pushed through into the city. One such portal opened directly in a lone man's path – and the five figures announced their arrival with gasping breaths and splashed blood, the swift and as swiftly done noises of dying. Not one had managed more than a step onto the slick cobbles of Malaz City before their flesh began cooling in the gentle night.

Screams echoed down streets and alleys as denizens foolish enough to brave the open paid for their temerity with their lives. The Claw took no more chances.

The game that Kalam had turned, turned yet again.

 

The mosaic at their feet was endless, the multicoloured stones creating a pattern that defied comprehension, the strange floor stretching away to every horizon. The echo of their boots was muted and faintly sonorous.

Fiddler hitched his crossbow over one shoulder, with a shrug. 'We'd see trouble from a league away,' he said.

'You are all betraying the Azath,' Iskaral Pust hissed, pacing in circles around the group. 'The Jhag belongs beneath a root-webbed mound. That was the deal, the agreement, the scheme...' His voice fell away briefly, then resumed in a different tone. 'What agreement? Did Shadowthrone receive any answers to his query? Did the Azath reveal its ancient, stony face? No. Silence was the reply – to all. My master could have pronounced his intention to defecate on the House's portal and still the reply would not have changed. Silence. Well, it certainly seemed there was a consensus. No objections were voiced, were they? No, not at all. Certain assumptions were necessary, oh yes, very necessary. And in the end, there was a sort of victory, was there not? All but for that Jhag there in the Trell's arms.' He stopped, panting as he regained his breath. 'Gods, we are walking for ever!'

'We should begin our journey,' Apsalar said.

'I'm for that,' Fiddler muttered. 'Only, which direction?'

Rellock had knelt down to study the mosaic tiles. They were the only source of light – overhead was pitch black. Each tile was no larger than a hand's width. The glow they cast pulsed in a slow but steady rhythm. The old fisherman now grunted.

'Father?'

'The pattern here—' He pointed to one tile in particular. 'That mottled line ...'

Fiddler crouched down and studied the floor. 'If that's a track or something, it's a crooked one.'

'A track?' The fisherman looked up. 'No, here, along this side. That's the Kanese coastline.'

'What?'

The man ran one blunt fingertip down the ragged line. 'Starts on the Quon coast, down to Kan, then up to Cawn Vor – and there, that's Kartool Island, and southeast, there, in the tile's centre, that's Malaz Island.'

'You're trying to tell me that here, on this one tile at our feet, is mapped most of the Quon Tali continent?' Yet even as he asked, the pattern resolved itself, and before him was indeed what Apsalar's father had claimed. 'Then what,' he asked softly, 'is on the rest of them?'

'Well, they ain't consistent, if that's what you're wondering. There's breaks – other maps of other places, I guess. It's all jumbled, but I'd say the scale was the same on all of them.'

Fiddler slowly straightened. 'But that means ...' His voice trailed into silence, as he looked out upon this endless floor, stretching for leagues in every direction. Every god in the Abyss! Are these all the realms? Every world – every place home to a House of the Azath? Queen of Dreams, what power is this?

'Within the warren of the Azath,' Mappo said, his tone one of awe, 'you could go ... anywhere.'

'Are you sure of that?' Crokus asked. 'Here are the maps, yes, but –' he pointed down at the tile displaying the continent of Quon Tali – 'where's the gate? The way in?'

No-one spoke for a long moment, then Fiddler cleared his throat. 'You got an idea, lad?'

The Daru shrugged. 'Maps are maps – this one could be sitting on a tabletop, if you see my point.'

'So what do you suggest?'

'Ignore it. The only thing these tiles signify is that every House, in every place, is part of a pattern, a grand design. But even knowing that doesn't mean we can actually make sense of it. The Azath is beyond even the gods. We can end up getting lost in suppositions, in a mental game that takes us nowhere.'

'That's true enough,' the sapper grunted. 'And we're nowhere closer to figuring out which direction to walk in.'

'Perhaps Iskaral Pust has the right idea,' Apsalar said. Her boots grated on the tiles as she turned. 'Alas, he seems to have disappeared.'

Crokus spun around. 'Damn that bastard!'

The High Priest of Shadow, who had been ceaselessly circling them, was indeed nowhere to be seen. Fiddler grimaced. 'So he figured it out and didn't bother explaining before taking his leave—'

'Wait!' Mappo said. He set Icarium down, then took a dozen paces. 'Here,' he said. 'Hard to make out at first but now I see it clearly.'

The Trell seemed to be staring at something at his feet. 'What have you found?' Fiddler asked.

'Come closer – almost impossible to see otherwise, though that makes little sense ...'

The others approached.

A gaping hole yawned, a ragged gap where Iskaral Pust had simply fallen through and vanished. Fiddler knelt, edging closer to the hole. 'Hood's breath!' he groaned. The tiles were no more than an inch thick. Beneath them was not solid ground. Beneath them there was ... nothing.

'Is that the way out, do you think?' Mappo asked behind him.

The sapper edged back, the slick tiles suddenly feeling like the thinnest ice. 'Damned if I know, but I don't plan on jumping in and finding out.'

'I share your caution,' the Trell rumbled. He turned back to where Icarium lay and gathered his companion once again in his arms.

'That hole might spread,' Crokus said. 'I suggest we get moving. Any direction, just away from here.'

Apsalar hesitated. 'And Iskaral Pust? Perhaps he's lying unconscious on a ledge or something?'

'Not a chance,' Fiddler replied. 'From what I saw, the poor man's still falling. One look and every bone in me screamed oblivion. I think I'll trust my instincts on this one, lass.'

'A sad demise,' she said. 'I had grown almost fond of him.'

Fiddler nodded. 'Our very own pet scorpion, aye.'

Crokus took the lead as they moved away from the hole. Had they waited a few minutes longer, they would have seen a dull yellow mist rise from the gaping darkness, thickening until it was opaque. The mist remained for a time, then it began to dissipate, and when it finally vanished, so too had the hole – as if it had never been. The mosaic was complete once more.

 

Deadhouse. Malaz City, the heart of the Malazan Empire. There is nothing for us there. More, an explanation that made sense would challenge even my experienced inventiveness. We must, I fear, take our leave.

Somehow.

But this is far beyond me-this warren – and worse, my crimes are like wounds that refuse to close. I cannot escape my cowardice. In the end – and all here know it, though they do not speak of it – my selfish desires made a mockery of my integrity, my vows. I had a chance to see the threat ended, ended for ever.

How can friendship defeat such an opportunity? How can the comfort of familiarity rise up like a god, as if change itself had become something demonic? I am a coward – the offer of freedom, the sighing end to a lifetime's vow, proved the greatest terror of all.

And so, the simple truth . . . the tracks we have walked in for so long become our lives, in themselves a prison—

 

Apsalar leapt forward, her fingertips touching shoulder, then braids, then nothing. Her momentum took her forward, into the place where Mappo and Icarium had been a moment earlier. She fell towards a yawning darkness.

Crying out, Crokus grasped her ankles. He was pulled momentarily along the tiles towards the gaping hole before a fisherman's strong hands closed on him and anchored him down.

Together, the two men dragged Apsalar from the pit's edge. A dozen paces beyond it stood Fiddler – the Daru's cry had been the first intimation of trouble.

'They're gone!' Crokus shouted. 'They fell through – there was no warning, Fid! Nothing at all!'

The sapper softly cursed, lowering himself into an uneasy crouch. We're intruders here . . . He'd heard rumours of warrens that were airless, that were instant death to mortals who dared enter them. There was an arrogance in assuming that every realm in existence bowed to human needs. Intruders – this place cares nothing for us, nor are there any laws demanding that it accommodate us.

Mind you, the same could be said for any world.

He hissed, slowly straightened, fighting against the sudden welling of grief at the loss of two men he had come to consider friends. And which of us is next? 'To me,' he growled. 'All three of you – carefully.' He unslung his pack, set it down and rummaged inside until he found a coiled length of rope. 'We're tying ourselves together – if one goes, either we save him or her, or we all go. Agreed?'

Relieved nods answered him.

Aye, the thought of wandering alone in this warren is not a pleasant one.

They quickly attached the rope between them.

The four travellers had walked another thousand paces when the air stirred – the first wind they had felt since entering the warren – and they ducked as one beneath the passage of something enormous directly overhead.

Scrabbling for his crossbow, Fiddler twisted around to look skyward. 'Hood's breath!'

But the three dragons were already past, ignoring the humans entirely. They flew in triangular formation like a flight of geese, and were of a kind, ochre-scaled, their wing-spans as far across as five wagons end to end. Long, sinuous tails stretched back behind them.

'Foolish to think,' Apsalar muttered, 'that we're the only ones to make use of this realm.'

Crokus grunted. 'I've seen bigger ...'

A faint grin cracked Fiddler's features. 'Aye, lad, I know you have.'

The dragons were almost at the edge of their vision when they banked as one, plunged down towards the ground and broke through the tiles, vanishing from sight.

No-one spoke for a long minute, then Apsalar's father cleared his throat and said, 'I think that just told us something.'

The sapper nodded. 'Aye.' You go through when you get to where you're going – even if you don't exactly plan on it. He thought back to Mappo and Icarium. The Trell would have had no reason to accompany them all the way to Malaz City. After all, Mappo had a friend to heal, to coax back to consciousness. He'd be looking for a safe place to do that. As for Iskaral Pust... Probably at the cliffs foot right now, screaming up at the bhok'arala for a rope . . .

'All right,' Fiddler said, straightening. 'Seems we've just got to keep moving .. . until the time and place arrives.'

'Mappo and Icarium are not lost, not dead,' Crokus said in obvious relief as they began walking again.

'Nor is the High Priest,' Apsalar added.

'Well,' the Daru muttered, 'I suppose we have to take the bad with the good.'

Fiddler briefly wondered about those three dragons – where they had gone, what tasks awaited them – then he shrugged. Their appearance, their departure and, in between and most importantly, their indifference to the four mortals below was a sobering reminder that the world was far bigger than that defined by their own lives, their own desires and goals. The seemingly headlong plunge this journey had become was in truth but the smallest succession of steps, of no greater import than the struggles of a termite.

The worlds live on, beyond us, countless unravelling tales.

In his mind's eye he saw his horizons stretch out on all sides, and as they grew ever vaster he in turn saw himself as ever smaller, ever more insignificant.

We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again . . .

 

Korbolo Dom's warriors celebrated their triumph through the hours of darkness after the Fall of Coltaine. The sounds of that revelry drifted over Aren's walls and brought a coldness to the air that had little to do with the physical reality of the sultry night.

Within the city, facing the north gates, was a broad concourse, generally used as a caravan staging area. This open space was now packed with refugees. The task of billeting would have to await the more pressing needs of food, water and medical attention.

Commander Blistig had set his garrison to those efforts, and his soldiers worked tirelessly, displaying extraordinary compassion, as if answering their own need to respond to the enemy's triumph beyond the walls. Coltaine, his Wickans and the Seventh had given their lives for those the guard now tended. Solicitude was fast becoming an overwhelming gesture.

Yet other tensions rode the air.

The final sacrifice was unnecessary. We could have saved them, if not for the coward commanding us. Two powerful honours had clashed – the raw duty to save the lives of fellow soldiers, and the discipline of the Malazan command structure – and from that collision ten thousand living, breathing, highly trained soldiers now stood broken.

Down in the concourse, Duiker wandered aimlessly through the crowds. Figures loomed before him every now and then, blurred faces murmuring meaningless words, offering information that they each believed – hoped – would soothe him. The Wickan youths had claimed Nil and Nether and now protected them with a fierceness that none dared challenge. Countless refugees had been retrieved from the very edge of Hood's Gates, each one a source of savage defiance – a pleasure revealed in glittering eyes and bared teeth. Those few for whom the final flight – and perhaps the release of salvation itself – had proved too much for their broken, riven flesh, were fought for in unyielding desperation. Hood had to reach for those failing souls, reach for, grasp and drag them into oblivion, with the healers employing every skill they possessed to defeat the effort.

Duiker had found his own oblivion deep inside himself, and he had no desire to leave its numbing comfort. Within that place, pain could do naught but gnaw at the very edges, and those edges seemed to be growing ever more distant.

Words occasionally seeped through, as various officers and soldiers delivered details of things they clearly felt the historian should know. The caution in their voices was not necessary, for the information was absorbed stripped of feeling. Duiker was beyond hurting.

The Silanda, with its load of wounded soldiers, had not arrived, he learned from a Wickan youth named Temul. Adjunct Tavore's fleet was less than a week away. Korbolo Dom was likely to begin a siege, for Sha'ik was on her way from Raraku, leading an army twice the size of the renegade Fist's own force. Mallick Rel had led High Fist Pormqual back to the palace. A plan was now in the air, a plan to reap vengeance, and it was but hours away—

Blinking, Duiker tried to focus on the face before him, the face telling him this news in an urgent tone. But the first brush of recognition sent the historian reeling back in his mind. Too much pain was embedded in the memories that were so closely chained to that recognition. He stepped back.

The figure reached out a strong hand that closed on Duiker's ragged shirt and pulled the historian closer once again. The bearded mouth was moving, shaping words, demanding, angry words.

'—through to you, Historian! It's the assumptions, don't you see? Our only reports have come from that nobleman, Nethpara. But we need a soldier's assessment – do you understand? Damn you, it's almost dawn!'

'What? What are you talking about?'

Blistig's face twisted. 'Mallick Rel has got through to Pormqual. Hood knows how, but he has! We're going to strike Korbolo's army – in less than an hour's time, when they're still drunk, still exhausted. We're marching out, Duiker! Do you understand me?'

Cruel. . . so cruel—

'How many are out there? We need reliable estimates—'

'Thousands. Tens of thousands. Hundreds—'

'Think, damn you! If we can knock these bastards out ... before Sha'ik arrives—'

'I don't know, Blistig! That army grew with every Hood-cursed league!'

'Nethpara judges just under ten thousand—'

'The man's a fool.'

'He's also laying the deaths of thousands of innocent refugees at Coltaine's feet—'

'W— What?' The historian staggered, and if not for Blistig's grip would have fallen.

'Don't you see? Without you, Duiker, that version of what happened out there will win the day. It's already spread through the ranks and it's damned troubling. Certainty's crumbling – the desire for vengeance is weakening—'

It was enough. The historian felt a jolt. Eyes widening, he straightened. 'Where is he? Nethpara! Where—'

'He's been in with Pormqual and Mallick Rel for the past two bells.'

'Take me there.'

A succession of horns echoed behind them, the call for assembly. Duiker's gaze swept past the commander to the ranks contracting into formation. He stared skyward, saw the stars dimming in a lightening sky.

'Fener's tusk,' Blistig growled. 'It might be too late—'

'Take me to Pormqual – to Mallick Rel—'

'Follow me, then.'

The refugees were stirring as garrison soldiers moved among them, beginning the task of clearing the concourse to allow room for the High Fist's army.

Blistig pushed through the crowd, Duiker a step behind him. 'Pormqual's ordered my garrison out with them,' the commander said over his shoulder. 'Rearguard. That's in defiance of my responsibility. My task is to defend this city, yet the High Fist has been conscripting from my own soldiers, bleeding the companies. I'm down to three hundred now, barely enough to hold the walls. Especially with all the Red Blades under arrest—'

'Under arrest! Why?'

'Seven Cities blood – Pormqual doesn't trust them.'

'The fool! They're the most loyal soldiers of the Empire I've ever known—'

'I agree, Historian, but my opinion is worthless—'

'Mine had better not be,' Duiker said.

Blistig paused, turning. 'Do you support the High Fist's decision to attack?'

'Hood, no!'

'Why?'

'Because we don't know how many are out there. Wiser to wait for Tavore, wiser still to let Korbolo fling his warriors against these walls—'

Blistig nodded. 'We'd cut them to pieces. The question is, can you convince Pormqual of all you've just said?'

'You know him,' Duiker retorted. 'I don't.'

The commander grimaced. 'Let's go.'

The standards of the High Fist's army flanked a knot of mounted figures near the mouth of the main avenue leading off from the concourse. Blistig led the historian directly for them.

Duiker saw Pormqual seated atop a magnificent warhorse. The High Fist's armour was ornate, more decorative than functional. The jewelled hilt of a Grisian broadsword jutted from one hip; the helm bore a gold-threaded sunburst on the polished iron skullcap. His face looked sickly and bloodless.

Mallick Rel sat on a white horse beside the High Fist, silk-cloaked and weaponless, a sea-blue cloth wrapped about his head. Various officers, both mounted and on foot, surrounded them, and among that group Duiker saw Nethpara and Pullyk Alar.

A red mist descended on the scene as Duiker's stare fixed on the two noblemen. Increasing his pace, he pushed past Blistig, who snapped a hand out to drag the historian back.

'Leave that till later, man. You've got a more immediate responsibility to deal with first.'

Trembling, Duiker forced his rage back. He managed a nod.

'Come on, the High Fist has seen us.'

Pormqual's expression was cold as he looked down on Duiker. His voice was shrill as he said, 'Historian, your arrival is timely. We have two tasks before us this day, both of which require your presence—'

'High Fist—'

'Silence! Interrupt me again and I'll have your tongue cut out!' He paused, settled, then resumed his statement. 'First of all, you shall yourself accompany us in the battle to come. To witness the proper means of dealing with that rabble. The selling of the lives of innocent refugees is not a bargain I shall make – there shall be no repetition of earlier tragedies, earlier crimes of treason! The fools out there have only now settled to sleep – and they shall pay for that stupidity, I assure you.

'Then, when the renegades have been slaughtered, we shall attend to other responsibilities, primarily your arrest and that of the warlocks known as Nil and Nether – the last remaining "officers" of Coltaine's horrific command. And I assure you, the punishment following your conviction shall match the severity of your crimes.' He gestured and an aide led Duiker's mare forward. 'Alas, your beast is hardly fit for the company, but it shall suffice.

'Commander Blistig, prepare your soldiers for marching. We wish our rearguard to be no more and no less than three hundred paces behind us. I trust that is within your capabilities – if not, inform me now, and I shall happily place someone else in command of the garrison.'

'Aye, High Fist, the task is within my capabilities.'

Duiker's gaze swung to Mallick Rel, and the historian wondered at the satisfied flush in the priest's face, but only for a moment. Ah, of course, past slights. Not a man to cross, are you, Rel?

In silence, the historian walked to his horse and climbed into the saddle. He laid a hand on the mare's thin, ungroomed neck, then gathered the reins.

The lead companies of medium cavalry were assembled at the gate. Once out of the city, little time would be wasted, as the horsewarriors would immediately part in a sweeping manoeuvre intended to surround Korbolo's encampment, while the infantry poured out from the gate to assemble into solid phalanxes before marching on the enemy position.

Blistig had departed the scene without a backward glance. Duiker stared at the distant gate, scanned the troops gathered there.

'Historian.'

He turned his head, looked down at Nethpara.

The nobleman was smiling. 'You should have treated me with more respect. I suppose you see that now, although it's come too late for you.'

Nethpara did not notice Duiker slip his boot from the stirrup.

'For the insults you have committed upon my person ... for the laying of hands on me, Historian, you shall suffer—'

'No doubt,' Duiker cut in. 'And here's one last insult.' He kicked out, the toe of his boot driving into the nobleman's flabby throat, then up. Trachea crumpled inward, head snapped back with a crunching, popping sound, Nethpara pitched backward, thumped heavily on the cobblestones. His eyes stared up unseeing at the pale sky.

Pullyk Alar shrieked.

Soldiers closed in around the historian, weapons out.

'By all means,' Duiker said, 'I shall welcome an end to this—'

'You shall not be so fortunate!' Pormqual hissed, white with rage.

Duiker sneered at the man. 'You've already convicted me as an executioner. What's one more, you craven pile of dung?' He shifted his gaze to Mallick Rel. 'And as for you, Jhistal, come closer – my life's still incomplete.'

The historian did not notice – nor did anyone else – the arrival of a captain of Blistig's garrison. The man had been about to speak with Duiker, to inform him of the safe delivery of a child to a grandfather. But at the word 'Jhistal' he stiffened, then, eyes widening, he took a step back.

The gates opened just then, and the troops of cavalry poured through. Motion rippled through the legions of infantry as weapons were readied.

Keneb took another step back, that lone word echoing in his mind. He knew it from somewhere, but full awareness eluded him, even as alarms rang in his mind. A voice within was shouting that he needed to find Blistig – he did not yet know why, but it was imperative—

But he had run out of time.

Keneb stared out as the army surged towards the gate. The orders had been given, and the momentum was unstoppable.

The captain took another step back, his words to Duiker forgotten. He stumbled over Nethpara's body unnoticing, then spun about. And ran.

Sixty paces on, Keneb's mind was suddenly flooded with the memory of when he had last heard the word 'Jhistal'.

 

Duiker rode with the mounted officers out onto the plain.

Korbolo Dom's army looked to be in full panicked flight, though the historian noted that they still held on to their weapons even as they fled back over the mound and its facing slope. The High Fist's cavalry rode hard to either side, quickly outpacing the footsoldiers as they pushed to complete the encirclement. Both wings rode beyond line of sight, into the evenly distributed hills of the burial ground.

The High Fist's legions moved at double time, silent and determined. They had no hope of catching the fleeing army until the cavalry had completed the encirclement, closing off all avenues of escape.

'As you predicted, High Fist!' Mallick Rel shouted to Pormqual as they cantered along. 'They are routed!'

'But they shall not escape, shall they?' Pormqual laughed, pitching unevenly in his saddle.

Gods below, the High Fist can't even ride.

The pursuit took them up and over the first barrow, and they rode among the corpses of the Seventh and the Wickans. Those looted bodies spread northward in a wide swath, mapping the route of Coltaine's running battle, over the next barrow, then around the base of the one beyond. Duiker struggled to keep from scanning those corpses, seeking familiar faces in their unfamiliar expressions of death. He stared forward, studying the fleeing renegades.

Pormqual periodically slowed their pace to keep within the midst of the infantry. The wings of cavalry were somewhere ahead, and had not reappeared. In the meantime, the thousands of fleeing soldiers stayed ahead of the phalanxes, sweeping around the barrows, leaving booty behind as they went.

The High Fist and his army doggedly pursued, down into a vast basin, packed with the routed enemy who began pouring up the gently sloping sides. Dust ringed the crest to the east and west, and directly ahead.

'The encirclement is complete!' Pormqual cried. 'See the dust!'

Duiker frowned at that dust. Faintly, he heard the sounds of battle. A moment later those sounds began to diminish, while the rising dust thickened, deepened.

The infantry marched down into the basin.

Something's wrong . . .

The fleeing soldiers had reached the crests now on all sides but the south, but instead of continuing their panicked pace, they slowed, readied their weapons and turned about.

The curtain of dust climbed higher behind those warriors, then mounted figures appeared – not Pormqual's cavalry, but tribal riders. A moment later the ring of footsoldiers thickened, as rank after rank joined them.

Duiker spun in his saddle. Seven Cities cavalry lined the south skylines, closing the back door.

And so we ride into the simplest of traps. Leaving Aren defenceless . . .

'Mallick!' Pormqual shrieked, reining in. 'What is happening! What has happened?'

The priest's head was jerking in all directions, his jaw dropping. 'Treachery!' he hissed. He swung his white horse around, eyes fixing on Duiker. 'This is your doing, Historian! Part of the bargain Nethpara hinted at! More, I see the sorcery around you now – you have been communicating with Korbolo Dom! Gods, we were fools!'

Duiker ignored the man, his eyes squinting as he studied the scene to the south, and the tag-end elements of Pormqual's army as they wheeled about to face the threat now behind them. Clearly, the High Fist's cavalry wings had been annihilated.

'We are surrounded! They are in the tens of thousands! We shall be slaughtered!' The High Fist jabbed a finger at the historian. 'Kill him! Kill him now!'

'Wait!' Mallick Rel shouted. He turned to Pormqual. 'Please, High Fist, leave that to me, I beg you! Be assured that I shall exact a worthy punishment!'

'As you say, then, but—' Pormqual glared about. 'What shall we do, Mallick?'

The priest pointed to the north. 'There, riders approach under a white flag – let us see what Korbolo Dom proposes, High Fist! What have we to lose?'

'I cannot speak with them!' Pormqual gibbered. 'I cannot think! Mallick – please!'

'Very well,' the Jhistal priest acceded. He swung his mount around, jabbed spurred heels into the beast's flanks and rode through the milling ranks of the High Fist's trapped army.

Midway up the distant north slope, the converging riders met. The parley lasted less than a minute, then Mallick wheeled and rode back.

'If we push back we can break the elements to the south,' Duiker quietly said to the High Fist. 'A fighting withdrawal back to the city's gates—'

'Not another word from you, traitor!'

Mallick Rel arrived, his expression filled with hope. 'Korbolo Dom has had enough of bloodshed, High Fist! Yesterday's slaughter has left him sickened!'

'What does he propose, then?' Pormqual demanded, leaning forward.

'Our only hope, High Fist. You must command your army to lay down its arms – to pass them out to the edges, then withdraw into a compact mass in the centre of this basin. They shall be prisoners of war, and therefore treated with mercy. As for you and me, we shall be made hostages. When Tavore arrives, arrangements will be made for our honourable return. High Fist, we have no choice in the matter ...'

A strange lassitude seeped into Duiker as he listened. He knew he could say nothing to sway the High Fist. He slowly dismounted, reached under his mare and unhitched the girth.

'What are you doing, traitor?' Mallick Rel demanded.

'I'm freeing my horse,' the historian said reasonably. 'The enemy won't bother with her – too worn out to be of any use. She'll head back to Aren – it's the least I can do for her.' He removed the saddle, dropped it to the ground to one side, then pulled the bit from the mare's mouth.

The priest stared for a moment longer, a slight frown on his face, then he turned back to the High Fist. 'They await our reply.'

Duiker stepped close to his horse's head and laid a hand on the soft muzzle. 'Take care,' he whispered. Then he stepped back, gave the animal a slap on the rump. The mare sprang away, wheeled, then trotted southward – as Duiker knew she would.

'What choice?' Pormqual whispered. 'Unlike Coltaine, I must consider my soldiers . .. their lives are worth everything . .. peace will return to this land, sooner or later ...'

'Thousands of husbands, wives, and fathers and mothers will bless your name, High Fist. To fight now, to seek out that bitter, pointless end, ah, they will curse your name for all eternity.'

'I cannot have that,' Pormqual agreed. He faced his officers. 'Lay down arms. Deliver the orders – all weapons to go to the edges and left there, the ranks to withdraw to the centre of the basin.'

Duiker stared at the four captains who listened in silence to the High Fist's commands. A long moment passed, then the officers saluted and rode off.

Duiker turned away.

 

The disarmament took close to an hour, the Malazan soldiers yielding their weapons in silence. Those weapons were piled on the ground just beyond the phalanxes, then the soldiers made their way inward, forming up in tight, restless ranks in the basin's centre.

Tribal horsewarriors then rode down and collected the arms. Twenty minutes later an army of ten thousand Malazans crowded the basin, weaponless, helpless.

Korbolo Dom's vanguard detached from the forces on the north ridge and rode down towards the High Fist's position.

Duiker stared at the approaching group. He saw Kamist Reloe, a handful of war chiefs, two unarmed women who were in all likelihood mages, and Korbolo Dom himself, a squat half-Napan, all hair shaved from his body, revealing scars in tangled webs. He was smiling as he reined in with his companions before the High Fist, Mallick Rel and the other officers.

'Well done,' he growled, his eyes on the priest.

The Jhistal dismounted, stepped forward and bowed. 'I deliver to you High Fist Pormqual and his ten thousand. More, I deliver to you the city Aren, in Sha'ik's name—'

'Wrong,' Duiker chuckled.

Mallick Rel faced him.

'You've not delivered Aren, Jhistal.'

'What claims do you make now, old man?'

'I'm surprised you didn't notice,' the historian said. 'Too busy gloating, I guess. Take a close look at the companies around you, especially those to the south ...'

Mallick's eyes narrowed as he scanned the gathered legions. Then he paled. 'Blistig!'

'Seems the commander and his garrison decided to stay behind after all. Granted, they're only two or three hundred, but we both know that that will be enough – for the week or so until Tavore arrives. Aren's walls are high, well impregnated these days with Otataral, I believe – proof against any sorcery. Thinking on it, I would predict that there are Red Blades lining those walls now, as well as the garrison. You have failed in your betrayal, Jhistal. Failed.'

The priest jerked forward, the back of his hand cracking against Duiker's face. The historian was spun around by the savage blow, and the rings on the man's hand raking through the flesh of one cheek burst the barely healed splits in his lips and chin. He fell hard to the ground and felt something shatter against his sternum.

He pushed himself up, the blood streaming down his lacerated face. Looking down at the ground beneath him, he expected to see tiny fragments of broken glass, but there were none. The leather thong around his neck now had nothing on it at all.

Hands pulled him roughly to his feet and dragged him around to face Mallick Rel once more.

The priest was trembling still. 'Your death shall be—'

'Silence!' Korbolo snapped. He eyed Duiker. 'You are the historian who rode with Coltaine.'

The historian faced him. 'I am.'

'You are a soldier.'

'As you say.'

'I do, and so you shall die with these soldiers, in a manner no different—'

'You mean to slaughter ten thousand unarmed men and women, Korbolo Dom?'

'I mean to cripple Tavore before she even sets foot on this continent. I mean to make her too furious to think. I mean to crack that façade so she dreams of vengeance day and night, poisoning her every decision.'

'You always fashioned yourself as the Empire's harshest Fist, didn't you, Korbolo Dom? As if cruelty's a virtue ...'

The pale-blue-skinned commander simply shrugged. 'Best join the others now, Duiker – a soldier of Coltaine's army deserves that much.' Korbolo then turned to Mallick. 'My mercy, however, does not extend to that one soldier whose arrow stole Coltaine from our pleasure. Where is he, Priest?'

'He went missing, alas. Last seen an hour after the deed – Blistig had his soldiers search everywhere, without success. Even if he has now found him, he is with the garrison, afraid to say.'

The renegade Fist scowled. 'There have been disappointments this day, Mallick Rel.'

'Korbolo Dom, sir!' Pormqual said, still bearing an expression of disbelief. 'I do not understand—'

'Clearly you do not,' the commander agreed, his face twisting in disgust. 'Jhistal, have you any particular fate in mind for this fool?'

'None. He is yours.'

'I cannot grant him the dignified sacrifice I have in mind for his soldiers. That would leave too bitter a taste in my mouth, I'm afraid.' Korbolo Dom hesitated, then sighed and made a slight gesture with one hand.

A war chief's tulwar flashed behind the High Fist, lifted the man's head clean from his shoulders and sent it spinning. The warhorse bolted in alarm and broke through the ring of soldiers. The beautiful beast galloped down among the unarmed soldiers, carrying its headless burden into their midst. The High Fist's corpse, Duiker saw, rode in the saddle with a grace not matched in life, weaving this way and that before hands reached up to slow the frightened horse, and Pormqual's body slid to one side, falling into waiting arms.

It may have been his imagination, but Duiker thought he could hear the harsh laughter of a god.

 

There was no shortage of spikes, yet it took a day and a half before the last screaming prisoner was nailed to the last crowded cedar lining Aren Way.

Ten thousand dead and dying Malazans stared down on that wide, exquisitely engineered Imperial road – eyes unseeing or eyes uncomprehending – it made little difference.

Duiker was the last, the rusty iron spikes driven through his wrists and upper arms to hold him in place high on the tree's blood-streaked bole. More spikes were hammered through his ankles and the muscles of his outer thighs.

The pain was unlike anything the historian had ever known before. Yet even worse was the knowledge that that pain would accompany his entire final journey down into eventual unconsciousness, and with it – an added trauma – were the images burned into him: almost forty hours of being driven on foot up Aren Way, watching each and every one of those ten thousand soldiers joined to the mass crucifixion in a chain of suffering stretching over three leagues, each link scores of men and women nailed to every tree, to every available space on those tall, broad trunks.

The historian was well beyond shock when his turn finally came, as the last soldier to close the human chain, and he was dragged to the tree, up the scaffolding, pushed against the ridged bark, arms forced outward, feeling the cold bite of the iron spikes pressed against his skin, and then, when the mallets swung, the explosion of pain that loosed his bowels, leaving him stained and writhing. The greatest pain arrived when the scaffolding dropped from under him, and his full weight fell onto the pinning spikes. Until that moment, he had truly believed he had gone as far into agony as was humanly possible.

He was wrong.

After what seemed like an eternity when the ceaseless shrieking of his sundered flesh had drowned out all else within him, a cool, calm clarity emerged, and thoughts, scattered and wandering, rose into his fading awareness.

The Jaghut ghost . . . why do I think of him now? Of that eternity of grief? What is he to me? What is anyone or anything to me, now? I await Hood's Gate at last – the time for memories, for regrets and comprehensions is past. You must see that now, old

man. Your nameless marine awaits you, and Bult and Corporal List, and Lull and Sulwar and Mincer. Kulp and Heboric, too, most likely. You leave a place of strangers now, and go to a place of companions, of friends.

So claim the priests of Hood.

It's the last gift. I am done with this world, for I am alone in it. Alone.

A ghostly, tusked face rose before his mind's eye, and though he had never before seen it, he knew that the Jaghut had found him. The gravest compassion filled that creature's unhuman eyes, a compassion that Duiker could not understand.

Why grieve, Jaghut? I shall not haunt eternity as you have done. I shall not return to this place, nor suffer again the losses a mortal suffers in life, and in living. Hood is about to bless me, Jaghut – no need to grieve . . .

Those thoughts echoed only a moment longer, as the Jaghut's ravaged face faded and darkness closed in around the historian, closed in until it swallowed him.

And with it, awareness ceased.