The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6)

by Steven Erikson

‘They’re escorting Quick and Kalam – they’ve gone ahead. So, your dreaded meeting with Quick is still some time off, you’ll be glad to know.’ ‘Gone ahead. By warren? They shouldn’t be doing that, you know. Not now. Not here—’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well. Because.’ ‘For the first time in my career as a soldier of the Malazan Empire, I truly want to strangle a fellow soldier.’ ‘Sorry.’ ‘Stop saying that name!’ ‘It’s not a name. It’s a word.’ The sergeant’s battered hands clenched into fists.

He retrieved the spyglass and walked over. She moved her chair to one side to give him room. ‘There is a falcon’s nest on the ledge of that tower, the copper-sheathed one.’ He held up the glass. Searched until he found the nest. ‘That is no falcon.’ ‘You are right. It’s a bokh’aral that found the abandoned nest to its liking. It carries up armfuls of rotting fruit and it spends the morning dropping them on people in the streets below.’ ‘It appears to be snarling…’ ‘That would be laughter. It is forever driven to bouts of hilarity.’ ‘Ah – no, that wasn’t fruit. It was a brick.’ ‘Oh, unfortunate. Someone will be sent to kill it, now. After all, only people are allowed to throw bricks at people.’ He

The realization – the recognition – was devastating. Bottle pulled his hand away. But it was too late. He knew too many things, now. The father…Tiste Edur. The child to come…the only pure candidate for a new Throne of Shadow – a throne commanding a healed realm. And it would have so many enemies. So many…

‘Fine. What does our Empress command?’ His eyes were heavy-lidded as they studied her for a moment. ‘Wait and see.’ ‘She commands us to wait and see?’ ‘All right, since you insist, you are temporarily detached from me, a notion that should give you untold satisfaction. Go join the marines, or the sappers, or whoever in Hood’s name is attacking tonight. And if you get a limb lopped off don’t come crawling back to me – gods, I can’t believe I just said that. Of course you can come crawling back to me, just be sure to bring the limb along.’ ‘You don’t possess High Denul, Pearl, so what point in bringing back the limb?’ ‘I’d just like to see it, that’s all.’

‘Sinn,’ Cord added, speaking to a young girl nearby, ‘put that knife away – he’s already dead.’ She looked up, even as her blade cut through the base of the dead warrior’s right index finger. She held it up for display, then stuffed it into a belt pouch. ‘Nice girl you got there,’ Strings said. ‘Had us one of those, once.’

‘Of course not, he’s still unconscious. Get on your feet, soldier. Wear that blanket.’ ‘I lost my arm torc, sir—’ ‘You got the burn mark where it was, though, haven’t you? They see that and they’ll know you for an officer. That and your ferocious comportment.’ ‘Yes, sir.’

Yet for all his ferocity, Karsa Orlong had proved an easy man to travel with, albeit somewhat taciturn and inclined to brooding – but whatever haunted him had nothing to do with her, nor was he inclined to take it out on her – a true virtue rare among men.

The man turned and made a reverent bow that stirred something within Samar Dev. ‘Your wisdom honours us, witch,’ he said. ‘Where,’ she asked, ‘is Iskar Jarak’s kingdom?’ Sudden tears in the man’s eyes. ‘An answer we yearn to find. It is lost—’ ‘In the unfound time.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Iskar Jarak was a Mezla.’ ‘Yes.’ Samar Dev opened her mouth for one more question, then realized that it wasn’t necessary. She knew its answer. Instead, she said, ‘Boatfinder, tell me, from the frozen time into the flowing time, is there a bridge?’ His smile was wistful, filled with longing. ‘There is.’ ‘But you cannot cross it.’ ‘No.’ ‘Because it’s burning.’ ‘Yes, witch, the bridge burns.’ King Iskar Jarak, and the unfound kingdom…

These new cults with their grisly icons, they did nothing to honour the Chain of Dogs. They were never intended to. Instead, they seemed to Keneb pathetic efforts to force a link with past greatness, with a time and a place of momentous significance. He had no doubt that the Last Siege of Y’Ghatan would soon acquire similar mythical status, and he hated the thought, wanted to be as far away from the land birthing and nurturing such blasphemies as was possible.

‘Have you a wife in your tribe?’ ‘I have victims, no wives.’ A brutal admission, she reflected. ‘Do you intend reparation, Karsa Orlong?’ ‘That would be seen as weakness.’ ‘Then the chains still bind you.’

Paran scanned the ranks. Not a sound from them, not even the rustle of armour. They stood like dusty statues. ‘And precisely how,’ he asked in a whisper, ‘am I to live up to this?’ ‘High Fist,’ Hurlochel murmured at his side, ‘you rode with one healer into G’danisban and then singlehandedly struck down a goddess. Drove her from this realm. You then forced the sister of that goddess to gift a dozen mortals with the power to heal—’ ‘That power will not last,’ Paran said. ‘Nonetheless. High Fist, you have killed the plague. Something even Dujek Onearm could not achieve. These soldiers are yours, Ganoes Paran. No matter what the Empress decides.’

We saw the path Rhulad would take. Saw it when the Emperor banished his own brother – Gods, I was there, in the Nascent. I was one of the ‘brothers’ of Rhulad, his new extended family of cowering fawners. May the Black Winged Lord preserve me, I watched as the one Edur I admired, the one Edur I respected, was broken down. No, I did more than watch. I added my voice to Rhulad’s ritual shorning of Trull. And Trull’s crime? Why, nothing more than yet one more desperate attempt to bring Rhulad home. Ah, by the Dark Mother herself…

‘My friend has seen better days,’ Trull Sengar said, reaching out to slap Onrack on the back. The thump the blow made was hollow, raising dust, and something clattered down within the warrior’s chest. ‘Oh,’ said the Tiste Edur, ‘did that do something bad?’ ‘No,’ Onrack replied. ‘The broken point of a spear. It had been lodged in bone.’ ‘Was it irritating you?’ ‘Only the modest sound it made when I walked. Thank you, Trull Sengar.’

All right, everybody had a look? Good, next one. The Hunter, and aye, that’s Treach—’ ‘What’s with the striped corpse in the foreground? That old man with no hands?’ ‘No idea, Gesler.’

‘You know,’ he said, and she saw tears trickle down his cheeks, ‘that’s what’s surprised me. Here, with these people – all of us, who came out from under the city – they’ve all said the same thing as you just did.’ ‘Shard,’ she said gently, ‘you still Ashok Regiment? You and the rest?’ He shook his head. ‘No. We’re Bonehunters now.’