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February 19 - March 6, 2014
‘We should all live a life of hobbies. Doing only what gives us pleasure, only what rewards us in secret, private ways.’
‘You can’t steer anyone away from the path they’re going to take. You can show ’em that there’s plenty of other paths – you can do that much – but past that? They’ll go where they go.’
Well, not quite. If it was a good order, a smart order, they’d step up smart. If it was a stupid order, an order that would see soldiers die for no good reason, well, the choice was not doing it and getting hammered for insubordination, or quietly arranging a tragic battlefield casualty.
There is nothing more dangerous than a man without a sense of humour.
‘I feel another bout of laziness coming on, sir. Isn’t it time you ordered me to do something?’ Blinking, Kindly faced Pores. Then shocked him with a hand on his shoulder. ‘Not today.’ And he walked back into camp.
‘Storm! Five Ancients – now seven!’ ‘Eloth greets you, betrayers! Telorast Anthras! Kerudas Karosias!’
ogre with scorpion tails at the end of every finger, and a big one on his cock for added measure? Breathing fire outa his arse, too.’
‘Aye, Sergeant. Listen all of you! I can taste it in the air!’ ‘That’d be Widdershins.’ ‘No! It is glory, my friends. Glory!’ Koryk said, ‘If that’s the smell of glory, Corabb, I knew an anaemic cat that was queen of the world.’ Corabb frowned at him. ‘I don’t get it. Was it named Glory?’
And now everyone here’s looking to me. If only they knew, the fools. I’m as lost as they are.
‘In the time when I was nothing but pain, when all that came from me was spite, and the hunger to hurt this world, I saw you Malazans as no better than all the rest. Children of your cruel gods. Their tools, their weapons.’ He paused, drew a rattling breath. ‘I should have sensed that you were different – was it not your emperor’s champion who defied Hood at the last Chaining? Did he not cry out that what they sought was unjust? Did he not pay terribly for his temerity?’ Fiddler shook his head. ‘I know nothing about any of that, Lord.’ ‘When he came to me – your emperor – when he offered me a
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Feels
‘It was Kellanved – all of this. Him and Dancer. They used Tavore Paran from the very start. They used all of us, Hedge.’ ‘That’s what gods do, aye. So you don’t like it? Fine, but listen to me. Sometimes, what they want – what they need us to do – sometimes it’s all right. I mean, it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes, it makes us better people.’ ‘You really believe that?’ ‘And when we’re better people, we make better gods.’
A stone turned underfoot and Fiddler’s left ankle gave way in a stab of pain. Cursing, he stumbled.
His attacker had pushed his spear right through Bottle’s right thigh, pinning him down, but Bottle had replied with a sword through the stomach, and as the Kolansii sagged back voicing terrible screams the marine decided he’d come away the winner of the argument.
Reaching inside, she drew out a necklace – a simple leather string and an eagle’s talon of brass or gold. Then she turned to the captain. ‘Would you tie this for me, please?’ But Lostara simply stared at the talon. ‘Captain.’ She looked up, met Tavore’s eyes. The Adjunct sighed. ‘I am a child of the Emperor – what more is there for you to understand, Lostara Yil?’
‘Bonehunters. Yield only in death on this day.’
We shall find you in the Ancestral Hills, beneath a warm sun, and the desert flowers will fill our eyes with the colours of spring.’
Gall reached down, took hold of a handful of his intestines, just under his ribcage and tore it free. He groped, slicing open the palm of his hand on a discarded sword – a Kolansii blade, straight and tipped for thrusting. A child’s toy. Not like my tulwar. But it will have to do. He climbed to his feet, almost folded as a weight slipped behind his ribs and sternum – with his free hand he reached in, to hold everything up. Turning, he found himself staring at the back of the Forkrul Assail. Beyond her stood a T’lan Imass, the one he knew to be named Nom Kala. Her left thigh had been shattered,
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Eyes were upon her now, but she saw them not. Tavore’s mouth opened, and the cry of anguish that tore from it held nothing human. It rang across the field of battle. It pushed past the witnessing Bonehunters, reached out and caressed countless corpses. It fought with the dust, rising up to vanish in the lurid green hue of the sky’s fading light. When her voice gave out, all could see that cry continuing in the stretched contortion of her face. Silent now, she gave nothing to the sky, and in that nothing, there was everything.
‘I lost her! Oh, Ganoes, I lost her!’
Ow haha
And then a Malazan slammed down beside them in a clatter of armour – a man if anything shorter than Reliko, yet pale and thin, his ears protruding from the sides of his narrow head. He faced them and offered up a yellow, snaggle-toothed smile. ‘Got your backs, sirs. Get on wi’yee now!’ Fiddler stared at the man. ‘Who in Hood’s name are you?’ The soldier gave him a hurt look. ‘I’m Nefarias Bredd, sir! Who else would I be? Now, get back up there – I’ll cover yee, aye?’
Hedge was silent beside him, but not asleep – if he had been, his snores would have driven them all from this place, the Crippled God included, chains be damned.
Smiles looked over at the others in her squad, saw them doubling over, saw faces flushed and tears streaming down. Bottle. Koryk. Even Tarr. And Smiles…smiled.
Darkness, and then brightness – brightness like a summer day without end. He went there, without a single look back.
I will remember this. I will set out scrolls and burn upon them the names of these Fallen. I will make of this work a holy tome, and no other shall be needed. Hear them! They are humanity unfurled, laid out for all to see – if one would dare look! There shall be a Book and it shall be written by my hand. Wheel and seek the faces of a thousand gods! None can do what I can do! Not one can give voice to this holy creation! But this is not bravado. For this, my Book of the Fallen, the only god worthy of its telling is the crippled one. The broken one. And has it not always been thus? I never hid
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This is it
There were others, once – they fell as I did, and so much was damaged, so much was lost. I see them still, trapped in jade, shaped to make a message to these mortal creatures – but that message was never understood, and the voices stayed for ever trapped within.
‘Heboric,’ said Mael of the Seas, ‘even gods of war will tire of war. It seems that only mortals will not. No matter. He has absolved you of all blame. His blood has brought life to dead lands. He deems it a worthy sacrifice.’
It’s fucking raining dragons.
The Crippled God smiled at him, with such love, such knowing. The shadow rising behind him was out of place – it could not belong inside those raging fires. Yet Koryk saw it lifting, taking form. He saw two arms rising from that shape, saw the raw, dull gleam of dagger blades. Shadow. Koryk’s scream of warning ripped raw his throat – he flung himself forward— Even as Cotillion’s knives plunged down. To sink into the Crippled God’s back. Shock took that otherworldly face – as if the smile had never been – and the head rocked back, the body arching in agony.
Mallet carefully set the instrument down, placing the bow beside it. The healer glanced up, almost shyly. ‘We all had a hand in its making, Fid. Us Bridgeburners.’ ‘Take it,’ ordered Whiskeyjack. ‘Fiddler, you were the best of us all. You still are.’
‘My life was blessed with fortune. It’s time,’ he said, drawing his horse round. He glanced across at Toc. ‘Ready, Bridgeburner?’ They set out side by side. And then Toc shot Whiskeyjack a startled look. ‘But I’m not a—’ ‘You say something, soldier?’ Mute, Toc shook his head. Gods below, I made it.
Ublala was ready to turn away when Icarium said, ‘Friend, I have remembered something.’
I travel seeking the best in us And one day it shall rise before me To bless this journey of mine, and this road I began upon long ago shall now end Where waits for all the best in us.
In fact, Korlat of the Tiste Andii, if Gesler and Stormy could, they’d be the first ones to loot their own grave goods.’ ‘And then bitch about how cheap we were,’ Fiddler said behind them. ‘We are here to see the barrow sealed,’ said the Adjunct. ‘And, if we can, get that Wickan demon to yield, before it starves to death.’
A sword’s tip is nothing without the length of solid steel backing it.’ She hesitated. ‘There have been many doubts to weather, but this is a weakness we all share.’
Limp says he saw him, there at the end – he’d blown his knee again, was looking over at the Crippled God – and there was Corabb, his face all lit with the glory of his last stand over the chained body of a god. Really, what could be more perfect than that? Well done, Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas.
Behind her, the strings drew a song into the night air. When she reached the road and saw her beloved standing on the hill before her, Korlat broke into a run.
Crokus took her face in his hands, studied her dark eyes. ‘I never liked that story,’ he said. ‘Which one?’ she asked. ‘The lover…lost on the moon, tending her garden alone.’
‘I think,’ he said, ‘the sadness just went away, Apsalar.’ ‘I think,’ she replied, ‘you are right.’
High above the harbour, the winds were brisk coming in from the sea. They struck and spun the old battered weathervane on its pole, as if the demon knew not where to turn. A sudden gust took it then, wrenched it hard around, and with a solid squeal the weathervane jammed. The wind buffeted it, but decades of decay and rust seemed proof to its will, and the weathervane but quivered. Like a thing in chains.
And now the page before us blurs. An age is done. The book must close. We are abandoned to history. Raise high one more time the tattered standard of the Fallen. See through the drifting smoke to the dark stains upon the fabric. This is the blood of our lives, this is the payment of our deeds, all soon to be forgotten. We were never what people could be. We were only what we were. Remember us.
I will.
