Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #3)

by Steven Erikson

The fissure to the north of the encampment still bled Burn’s fouled blood.

She could see despite the darkness, and the sharply defined spine of a basaltic mountain range loomed where no mountains belonged, here at the heart of the Catlin plain. And the sorcery emanating from the blood of the Sleeping Goddess – it, too, Crone recognized. The touch of the Crippled God. Within Burn’s veins, a transformation was taking place. The Fallen One was making her blood his own. And that is a taste I know well, for it was as mother’s milk to me, so very long ago. To me, and to my kin. Changes had come to the world below, and Crone revelled in changes. Her soul and that of her kin had been stirred once more to acute wakefulness. She had never felt more alive.

‘The Seer wages a war to the south.’ Brood’s head snapped up. ‘Aye,’ Crone nodded. ‘My children have seen Domin armies, routed and retreating north. To Outlook itself. The Seer has unleashed formidable sorceries against the unknown enemy. Rivers of ice, walls of ice. Blistering cold, winds and storms – it has been a long time since we have witnessed said particular warren unveiled.’ ‘Omtose Phellack. The warren of the Jaghut.’

‘Of a war to the south, I am indeed surprised, Crone.’ He rose, drawing a fur blanket about his shoulders, and began pacing. ‘Of Omtose Phellack … no, I am not surprised.’ ‘Thus. The Seer is not as he seems.’ ‘Evidently not. Rake and I had suspicions …’

‘Not entirely mundane. Aye, mortal birds are little more than feathered lizards, but these particular condors were more lizard than most.’ ‘The Seer’s own eyes?’

No weariness weighed down his arms or dulled his acuity. His breathing remained steady, only slightly deeper than usual. His forearms showed a strange pattern of blood stains, barbed and striped, the blood blackening and seeming to seep into his skin. He was indifferent to it.

Blackened stripes spread away from his eyes and bearded cheeks. Tawny amber streaked the beard itself. His eyes were the colour of sun-withered prairie grass.

as if all this time his soul had been hunkered down within him, hidden, silent, whilst an unknown, implacable force now ruled his limbs, rode the blood that pumped through him.

She was broken still, the bravado torn away to reveal a human visage, painfully vulnerable, profoundly wounded in its heart.

He knew he had entered a place devoid of sanity. Knew, somehow, that he and the rest of the militia now existed more within the mind of Gruntle than they did in the real world. They fought with skills they had never before possessed. They did not tire. They did not shout, scream, or even so much as bark commands or rallying cries. There was no need for rallying cries – no-one broke, no-one was routed. Those that died fell where they had stood, silent as automatons.

His master’s striped arms glistened, the blades of his cutlasses were yellowed white – fangs in truth, now – and he swung a savagely feline visage to the Lestari.

His body had begun its irreversible surrender. Bruises marked the joints of his arms, the elbows, the wrists, the fingers. Within him, his veins and arteries were becoming as cheesecloth, and the seepage of blood into muscle and cavity would only grow more profound. Denul’s flow was disintegrating all that it flowed through – the body of the priest himself.

The Mortal Sword was a hard man. The fate of his friends was a knowledge bereft of emotion. It was as it had to be.

‘Our god shall not be the one to deliver the punishment, Nilbanas. You are right, he could not do so in fullest conscience, for this is a betrayal that wounds him deeply, leaves him weakened and vulnerable to fatal consequence, sir.’

Another set of eyes was sharing Itkovian’s inner vision, eyes that he knew well. And in the Shield Anvil’s mind there came a cold satisfaction, and in his mind he addressed the other witness and knew, without doubt, that his words were heard. I have you, Rath’Fener. You are mine, betrayer. Mine.

And there, lit on all sides from below, the walls wept. Not water, but blood.

Karnadas was at his side, collapsed onto his haunches, folded and motionless, the pale, wrinkled pate of his bowed head level with Itkovian’s eyes. The hand gripping his was all bone and deathly dry skin, icy cold.

The Destriant’s face, as he lifted it into view, was skeletal, the skin mottled with deep bruises originating from the joints of his jaw; his red-webbed eyes sunken within charcoal-black pits.

‘I am the bearer of Fener’s grief,’ he intoned in a whisper. ‘I am my vow incarnate. This, and in all that follows. We are not yet done here. I am not yet done. Behold, I yield to nothing.’ He straightened, expressionless once more. His pain retreated. Soon, it would be irrelevant.

‘He is the Shield Anvil. Fener knows grief, so much grief that it is beyond his capacity to withstand it. And so he chooses a human heart. Armoured. A mortal soul, to assume the sorrow of the world. The Shield Anvil.

The First Child – within him there is naught but despair. Without it …’ He is as nothing.

As they closed in, to deliver … what was to be delivered … the quarry vanished. Shock, then despair. He and his kin would circle the spot where she’d lain. Heads lifted skyward, mournful howls issuing from their throats. Howling without surcease. Until Toc the Younger blinked awake, in the embrace of the Matron, the turgid air of the cave seeming to dance with the fading echoes of his howls. The creature would tighten her hold, then. Whimpering, prodding the back of his neck with a fanged snout, her breath like sugared milk.

Bitter winds tore at him, but the Matron held him tight. On the move. Swiftly. They travelled a warren, a path of riven ice. They were, he realized, fleeing Outlook, fleeing the fortress that had just been breached.

By Baaljagg. And Garath and Tool. Garath – those wounds—

The entire warren shook to distant thunder, the sound of vast ice … cracking, exploding in a conflagration of sorcery. Lady Envy. With us once more— The Seer screamed. Reptilian arms clenched Toc. Bones cracked, splintered. Pain shoved him over a precipice. My kin, my brothers—He blacked out.

They were armoured, but it was a ragtag collection of accoutrements. One and all, their faces and exposed skin were daubed in streaks and barbs. Like human tigers.

beast resides within him, an ancient spirit, reawakened. Power swirled around the Daru, but the captain sensed that it was born as much from a natural air of command as from the beast hiding within him – for that beast preferred solitude. Its massive strength had, somehow, been almost subsumed by that quality of leadership. Together, a formidable union.

‘Not my gift, Captain. Got Barghast spirits crowding me with this one, sir. Again. Don’t know why. Someone’s taken a personal interest, maybe. It may be too late anyway. We’ll see … all right?’

‘Aai,’ he finally whispered. ‘Layers here. Wounded flesh … wounded spirit. I shall need to mend both. So … will you help me?’ The captain realized the question was not being asked of him, and so made no reply. Mallet, eyes still closed, sighed. ‘You will sacrifice so many for this woman?’ He paused, eyes still closed, then frowned. ‘I can’t see these threads you speak of. Not her, nor Gruntle, nor the man at my side—’

The Barahn were the first to break. Witnessing the ensuing slaughter of their kin had solidified the resolve of the Ahkrata, and they held until midday, when Taur detached the Gilk from the drive into the city and sent the turtle-shell-armoured warriors to their aid.

plains clan whetted on interminable wars against mounted enemies, the Gilk locked horns with the Betrullid and became the fulcrum for a renewed offensive by the Ahkrata, shattering the Betaklites and seizing the pontoon bridges and barges.

Surviving elements of the Betrullid disengaged from the Gilk and retreated north along the coast to the marshlands – a fatal error, as their horses foundered in the salty mud. The Gilk pursued to resume a mauling that would not end until nightfall. Septarch Kulpath’s reinforcements had been annihilated.

She looked up, to see the red-haired woman Mallet had brought back from almost-dead.

Hood take us, it’s there in Gruntle’s followers – he ain’t the only one all dappled, is he? The man stood between the Pannions and you, and that was a solid enough thing to pull in all the others.

Paran was a sick man, and sick people don’t think right. Gods, I had torcs biting my arm and I was losing it fast. Oh, ain’t I just stepped in a pile of dung. Swearing someone else’s to blame all the while, too.

Rage and indignation fanned white hot in Paran’s mind. Obliterating his pain. He felt himself mentally wheel round, to face that incessant, alien presence that had so hounded him. Felt himself open like an explosion.

In the sword Dragnipur … two Hounds of Shadow returned to the Warren of Darkness. Returned, Nightchill. Do you grasp my meaning? They were going home. And I can call them back, without doubt. Two souls of untamed Dark. Grateful souls, beloved spawn of destruction—

will do whatever I have to, Nightchill, to cut your strings. In your eyes, we mortals are weak. And you use our weakness to justify manipulating us. ‘The struggle we face is far vaster -far deadlier – than you realize.’ Explain it. All of it. Show me this vast threat of yours.

‘In time, I said. Grant us this small mercy, mortal. The struggle before us is no different from a military campaign – incremental engagements, localized contests. But the field of battle is no less than existence itself.

Small victories are each in themselves vital contributions to the pandemic war we have chosen to undertake—’ Who is ‘we’? ‘The surviving Elder Gods … and others somewhat less cognizant of their role.’ K’rul? The one responsible for Tattersail’s rebirth? ‘Yes. My brother.’ Your brother. But not the brother who forged Dragnipur. ‘Not him. At the moment, Draconus can do naught but act indirectly, for he is chained within the very sword he created. Slain by his own blade, at the hand of Anomander Rake.’

‘We shall not harm her, mortal. Even were we able, which we are not. There is honour within her. And integrity. Rare qualities, for one so powerful. Thus, we have faith—’

‘The void of lost faith is filled with your swollen self.’ Words from a long-dead Destriant.One does not yield, one replaces. Faith with doubt, scepticism, denial. I have yielded nothing. I have no horde of words crowding my inner defences. Indeed, I am diminished into silence. Emptied … as if awaiting renewal …

Suddenly, beyond the pain, a mutual awareness – an alien presence. Immense power. Not malign, yet profoundly … different. From that presence: storm-tossed confusion, anguish. Seeking to make of the unexpected gift of a mortal’s two hands … something of beauty. Yet that man’s flesh could not contain that gift.

None the less, the raptor drew no closer. Distance was all that kept it sane, was all that had been keeping it sane since the dawn.

Burned-out buildings. The tragic end of innocents. Wives, mothers, children. Desperation, horror and grief, the storms of destroyed lives— No closer. Wives, mothers, children. Burned-out buildings. No closer. Ever again.

There was pain in the gifts of the Elder Gods. But sometimes, there was mercy.

‘Ah, speak of the demon! And look, a moonstruck horse follows like a pup on a leash, and is it any wonder, when one looks upon my handsome, proud beast?’ Silverfox studied the saddled horse trailing the mule with narrowed eyes. ‘Tell me, Kruppe, who else will be witness to the Gathering through you?’ ‘Through Kruppe? Why, naught but Kruppe himself! He swears!’ ‘Not the mule, surely?’

‘Lass, the mule’s capacity for sleep – in no matter what the circumstances – is boundless, unaffected and indeed, admirable. I assure

No doubt, to dream.

‘Fener is lost to us,’ Rake said. ‘Lost? What do you mean?’ ‘Torn from his realm, now striding the mortal earth.’ ‘How?’ There was a grim smile in Rake’s tone as he explained. ‘By a Malazan. A once-priest of Fener, a victim of the Reve.’ ‘Which means?’ ‘His hands were ritually severed. The power of the Reve then sends those hands to the hooves of Fener himself. The ritual must be the expression of purest justice, but this one wasn’t Rather, there was a perceived need to reduce the influence of Fener, and in particular that High Priest, by agents of the Empire – likely the Claw. You