She eyed him steadily, wondering at his sudden ... humanity. Maybe dying did away with the usual games, the pretences of the living dance. Maybe she just wasn't prepared to see the mortal man in Hairlock finally showing itself. Tattersail prised her arms from the dreadful, aching hug she had wrapped around herself, and sighed shakily. 'You're right. It's not the time for façades, is it? I never liked you, Hairlock, but I'd never question your courage – I never will.' She studied him critically, a part of her astonished that the horror of his wound didn't so much as make her flinch. 'I don't think even Tayschrenn's arts are enough to save you, Hairlock.'
Something cunning flashed in his eyes and he barked a pained laugh. 'Dear girl,' he gasped, 'your naivety never fails to charm me.'
'Of course,' she snapped, stung at falling for his sudden ingenuousness. 'One last joke on me, just for old times' sake.'
'You misunderstand—'
'Are you so certain? You're saying it isn't over yet. Your hatred of our High Mage is fierce enough to let you slip Hood's cold grasp, is that it? Vengeance from beyond the grave?'
'You must know me by now. I always arrange a back door.'
'You can't even crawl. How do you plan on getting to it?'
The wizard licked his cracked lips. 'Part of the deal,' he said softly. 'The door comes to me. Comes even as we speak.'
Unease coiled around her insides. Behind her, Tattersail heard the crunch of armour and the rattle of iron, the sound arriving like a cold wind. She turned to see the four soldiers appear on the summit. Three men, one woman, mud-smeared and crimson-streaked, their faces almost bone-white. The sorceress found her eyes drawn to the woman, who hung back like an unwelcome afterthought as the three men approached. The girl was young, pretty as an icicle and looking as warm to the touch. Something wrong there. Careful.
The man in the lead – a sergeant by the torque on his arm – came up to Tattersail. Set deep in a lined, exhausted face, his dark grey eyes searched hers dispassionately. 'This one?' he asked, turning to the tall, thin black-skinned man who came up beside him.
This man shook his head. 'No, the one we want is over there,' he said. Though he spoke Malazan, his harsh accent was Seven Cities.
The third and last man, also black, slipped past on the sergeant's left and for all his girth seemed to glide forward, his eyes on Hairlock. His ignoring Tattersail made her feel somehow slighted. She considered a well-chosen word or two as he stepped around her, but the effort seemed suddenly too much.
'Well,' she said to the sergeant, 'if you're the burial detail, you're early. He's not dead yet. Of course,' she continued, 'you're not the burial detail. I know that. Hairlock's made some kind of deal – he's thinking he can survive with half a body.'
The sergeant's lips grew taut beneath his grizzled, wiry beard. 'What's your point, Sorceress?'
The black man beside the sergeant glanced back at the young girl still standing a dozen paces behind them. He seemed to shiver, but his lean face was expressionless as he turned back and offered Tattersail an enigmatic shrug before moving past her.
She shuddered involuntarily as power buffeted her senses. She drew a sharp breath. He's a mage. Tattersail tracked the man as he joined his comrade at Hairlock's side, striving to see through the muck and blood covering his uniform. 'Who are you people?'
'Ninth squad, the Second.'
'Ninth?' The breath hissed from her teeth. 'You're Bridgeburners.' Her eyes narrowed on the battered sergeant. 'The Ninth. That makes you Whiskeyjack.'
He seemed to flinch.
Tattersail found her mouth dry. She cleared her throat. 'I've heard of you, of course. I've heard the—'
'Doesn't matter,' he interrupted, his voice grating. 'Old stories grow like weeds.'
She rubbed at her face, feeling grime gather under her nails. Bridgeburners. They'd been the old Emperor's elite, his favourites, but since Laseen's bloody coup nine years ago they'd been pushed hard into every rat's nest in sight. Almost a decade of this had cut them down to a single, undermanned division. Among them, names had emerged. The survivors, mostly squad sergeants, names that pushed their way into the Malazan armies on Genabackis, and beyond. Names, spicing the already sweeping legend of Onearm's Host. Detoran, Antsy, Spindle, Whiskeyjack. Names heavy with glory and bitter with the cynicism that every army feeds on. They carried with them like an emblazoned standard the madness of this unending campaign.
Sergeant Whiskeyjack was studying the wreckage on the hill. Tattersail watched him piece together what had happened. A muscle in his cheek twitched. He looked at her with new understanding, a hint of softening behind his grey eyes that almost broke Tattersail then and there. 'Are you the last left in the cadre?' he asked.
She looked away, feeling brittle. 'The last left standing. It wasn't skill, either. Just lucky.'
If he heard her bitterness he gave no sign, falling silent as he watched his two Seven Cities soldiers crouching low over Hairlock.
Tattersail licked her lips, shifted uneasily. She glanced over to the two soldiers. A quiet conversation was under way. She heard Hairlock laugh, the sound a soft jolt that made her wince. 'The tall one,' she said. 'He's a mage, isn't he?'
Whiskeyjack grunted, then said, 'His name's Quick Ben.'
'Not the one he was born with.'
'No.'
She rolled her shoulders against the weight of her cloak, momentarily easing the dull pain in her lower back. 'I should know him, Sergeant. That kind of power gets noticed. He's no novice.'
'No,' Whiskeyjack replied. 'He isn't.'
She felt herself getting angry. 'I want an explanation. What's happening here?'
Whiskeyjack grimaced. 'Not much, by the looks of it.' He raised his voice. 'Quick Ben!'
The mage looked over. 'Some last-minute negotiations, Sergeant,' he said, flashing a white grin.
'Hood's Breath.' Tattersail sighed, turning away. The girl, she saw, still stood at the hill's crest and seemed to be studying the Moranth columns passing into the city. As if sensing Tattersail's attention, her head snapped around. Her expression startled the sorceress. Tattersail pulled her eyes away. 'Is this what's left of your squad, Sergeant? Two desert marauders and a blood-hungry recruit?'
Whiskeyjack's tone was flat: 'I have seven left.'
'This morning?'
'Fifteen.'
Something's wrong here. Feeling a need to say something, she said, 'Better than most.' She cursed silently as the blood drained from the sergeant's face. 'Still,' she added, 'I'm sure they were good men, the ones you lost.'
'Good at dying,' he said.
The brutality of his words shocked her. Mentally reeling, she squeezed shut her eyes, fighting back tears of bewilderment and frustration. Too much has happened. I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready for Whiskey jack, a man buckling under his own legend, a man who's climbed more than one mountain of the dead in service to the Empire.
The Bridgeburners hadn't shown themselves much over the past three years. Since the siege began, they'd been assigned the task of undermining Pale's massive, ancient walls. That order had come straight from the capital, and it was either a cruel joke or the product of appalling ignorance: the whole valley was a glacial dump, a rock pile plugging a crevice that reached so far underground even Tattersail's mages had trouble finding its bottom. They've been underground three years running. When was the last time they saw the sun?
Tattersail stiffened suddenly. 'Sergeant.' She opened her eyes to him. 'You've been in your tunnels since this morning?'
With sinking understanding, she watched anguish flit across the man's face. 'What tunnels?' he said softly, then moved to stride past her.
She reached out and closed her hand on his arm. A shock seemed to run through him. 'Whiskeyjack,' she whispered, 'you've guessed as much. About – about me, about what happened here on this hill, all these soldiers.' She hesitated, then said, 'Failure's something we share. I'm sorry.'
He pulled away, eyes averted. 'Don't be, Sorceress.' H
e met her gaze. 'Regret's not something we can afford.'
She watched him walk to his soldiers.
A young woman's voice spoke directly behind Tattersail. 'We numbered fourteen hundred this morning, Sorceress.'
Tattersail turned. At this close range, she saw that the girl couldn't be more than fifteen years old. The exception was her eyes, which held the dull glint of weathered onyx – they looked ancient, every emotion eroded away into extinction. 'And now?'
The girl's shrug was almost careless. 'Thirty, maybe thirty-five. Four of the five tunnels fell in completely. We were in the fifth and dug our way out. Fiddler and Hedge are working on the others, but they figure everybody else's been buried for good. They tried to round up some help.' A cold, knowing smile spread across her mud streaked face. 'But your master, the High Mage, stopped them.'
'Tayschrenn did what? Why?'
The girl frowned, as if disappointed. Then she simply walked away, stopping at the hill's crest and facing the city again.
Tattersail stared after her. The girl had thrown that last statement at her as if hunting for some particular response. Complicity? In any case, a clean miss. Tayschrenn's not making any friends. Good. The day had been a disaster, and the blame fell squarely at the High Mage's feet. She stared at Pale, then lifted her gaze to the smoke-filled sky above it.
That massive, looming shape she had greeted every morning for the last three years was indeed gone. She still had trouble believing it, despite the evidence of her eyes. 'You warned us,' she whispered to the empty sky, as the memories of the morning returned. 'You warned us, didn't you?'
She'd been sleeping with Calot the past four months: a little diversionary pleasure to ease the boredom of a siege that wasn't going anywhere. At least, that was how she explained to herself their unprofessional conduct. It was more than that, of course, much more. But being honest with herself had never been one of Tattersail's strengths.
The magical summons, when it came, awakened her before Calot. The mage's small but well-proportioned body was snug in the many soft pillows of her flesh. She opened her eyes to find him clinging to her like a child. Then he, too, sensed the calling and awoke to her smile.
'Hairlock?' he asked, shivering as he climbed out from under the blankets.
Tattersail grimaced. 'Who else? The man never sleeps.'
'What now, I wonder?' He stood, looking around for his tunic.
She was watching him. He was so thin, making them an odd combination. Through the faint dawn light seeping through the canvas tent walls, the sharp, bony angles of his body looked soft, almost child-like. For a man a century old, he carried it well. 'Hairlock's been running errands for Dujek,' she said. 'It's probably just an update.'
Calot grunted as he pulled on his boots. 'That's what you get for taking command of the cadre, 'Sail. Anyway, it was easier saluting Nedurian, let me tell you. Whenever I look at you, I just want to—'
'Stick to business, Calot,' Tattersail said, meaning it with humour though it came out with enough of an edge to make Calot glance at her sharply.
'Something up?' he asked quietly, the old frown finding its familiar lines on his high forehead.
Thought I'd got rid of those. Tattersail sighed. 'Can't tell, except that Hairlock's contacted both of us. If it was just a report, you'd still be snoring.'
In growing tension they finished dressing in silence. Less than an hour later Calot would be incinerated beneath a wave of blue fire, and ravens would be answering Tattersail's despairing scream. But, for the moment, the two mages were readying themselves for an unscheduled gathering at High Fist Dujek Onearm's command tent.
In the muddy path beyond Calot's tent, soldiers of the last watch huddled around braziers filled with burning horse dung, holding out hands to the heat. Few walked the pathways, the hour still too early. Row upon row of grey tents climbed the hills overlooking the plain that surrounded the city of Pale. Regimental standards ruffled sullenly in a faint breeze – the wind had turned since last night, carrying to Tattersail the stench of the latrine trenches. Overhead the remaining handful of stars dimmed into insignificance in the lightening sky. The world seemed almost peaceful.
Drawing her cloak against the chill, Tattersail paused outside the tent and turned to study the enormous mountain hanging suspended a quarter-mile above the city of Pale. She scanned the battered face of Moon's Spawn – its name for as long as she could remember. Ragged as a blackened tooth, the basalt fortress was home to the most powerful enemy the Malazan Empire had ever faced. High above the earth, Moon's Spawn could not be breached by siege. Even Laseen's own undead army, the T'lan Imass, who travelled as easily as dust on the wind, were unable, or unwilling, to penetrate its magical defences.
Pale's wizards had found a powerful ally. Tattersail recalled that the Empire had locked horns with the Moon's mysterious lord once before, in the days of the Emperor. Things had threatened to get ugly, but then Moon's Spawn withdrew from the game. No one still living knew why – just one of the thousand secrets the Emperor took with him to his watery grave.
The Moon's reappearance here on Genabackis had been a surprise. And this time, there was no last-minute reprieve. A half-dozen legions of the sorcerous Tiste Andii descended from Moon's Spawn, and under the command of a warlord named Caladan Brood they joined forces with the Crimson Guard mercenaries. Together, the two armies proceeded to drive back the Malaz 5th Army, which had been pushing eastward along the northern edge of Rhivi Plain. For the past four years the battered 5th had been bogged down in Blackdog Forest, forcing them to make a stand against Brood and the Crimson Guard. It was a stand fast becoming a death sentence.
But, clearly, Caladan Brood and the Tiste Andii weren't the only inhabitants of Moon's Spawn. An unseen lord remained in command of the fortress, bringing it here and sealing a pact with Pale's formidable wizards.
Tattersail's cadre had little hope of magically challenging such opposition. So the siege had ground to a halt, with the exception of the Bridgeburners who never relaxed their stubborn efforts to undermine the city's ancient walls.
Stay, she prayed to Moon's Spawn. Turn your face endlessly, and keep the smell of blood, the screams of the dying from settling on this land. Wait for us to blink first.
Calot waited beside her. He said nothing, understanding the ritual this had become. It was one of the many reasons why Tattersail loved the man. As a friend, of course. Nothing serious, nothing frightening in the love for a friend.
'I sense impatience in Hairlock,' Calot murmured beside her.
She sighed. 'I do, too. That's why I'm reluctant.'
'I know, but we can't dally too long, 'Sail.' He grinned mischievously. 'Bad form.'
'Hmmm, can't have them jumping to conclusions, can we?'
'They wouldn't have to jump very far. Anyway,' his smile faltered slightly, 'let's get going.'
A few minutes later they arrived at the command tent. The lone marine standing guard at the flap seemed nervous as he saluted the two mages. Tattersail paused and searched his eyes. 'Seventh Regiment?'
Avoiding her gaze, the guard nodded. 'Yes, Sorceress. Third Squad.'
'Thought you looked familiar. Give my regards to Sergeant Rusty.' She stepped closer. 'Something in the air, soldier?'
He blinked. 'High in the air, Sorceress. High as they come.'
Tattersail glanced at Calot, who had paused at the tent flap. Calot puffed out his cheeks, making a comical face. 'Thought I smelled him.'
She winced at this confirmation. The guard, she saw, was sweating under his iron helmet. 'Thanks for the warning, soldier.'
'Always an even trade, Sorceress.' The man snapped a second salute, this one sharper, and in its way more personal. Years and years of this. Insisting I'm family to them, one of the 2nd Army — the oldest intact force, one of the Emperor's own. Always an even trade, Sorceress. Save our skins, we'll save yours. Family, after all. Why, then, do 1 always feel so estranged from them? Tattersail returned the salute.
They entered the command tent. She sensed immediately the presence of power, what Calot called smell. It made his eyes water. It gave her a migraine headache. This particular emanation was a power she knew well, and it was anathema to her own. Which made the headaches all the worse.
Inside the tent, lanterns cast a dim smoky light on the dozen or so wooden chairs in the first compartment. A camp-table off to one side held a tin pitcher of watered wine and six tarnished cups that glistened with droplets of condensation.
Calot muttered beside her, 'Hood's Breath, 'Sail, I hate this.'
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Tattersail saw, through the opening that led into the tent's second compartment, a familiar robed figure. He leaned with long-fingered hands on Dujek's map-table. His magenta cloak rippled like water though he remained motionless. 'Oh, really now,' Tattersail whispered.
'Just my thought,' Calot said, wiping his eyes.
'Do you think,' she said, as they took their seats, 'it's a studied pose?'
Calot grinned. 'Absolutely. Laseen's High Mage couldn't read a battle map if his life depended on it.'
'So long as our lives don't depend on it.'
A voice spoke from a chair near them, 'Today we work.'
Tattersail scowled at the preternatural darkness enwreathing the chair. 'You're as bad as Tayschrenn, Hairlock. And be glad I didn't decide to sit in that chair.'
Dully, a row of yellow teeth appeared, then the rest of the mage took shape as Hairlock relinquished the spell. Beads of sweat marked the man's flat, scarred brow and shaved pate – nothing unusual there: Hairlock would sweat in an ice-pit. He held his head at an angle, achieving in his expression something like smug detachment combined with contempt. He fixed his small dark eyes on Tattersail. 'You remember work, don't you?' His smile broadened, further flattening his mashed, misaligned nose. 'It's what you were doing before you started rolling in the sack with dear Calot here. Before you went soft.'
Tattersail drew breath for a retort, but was interrupted by Calot's slow, easy drawl. 'Lonely, Hairlock? Should I tell you that the camp-followers demand double the coin from you?' He waved a hand, as if clearing away unsavoury thoughts. 'The simple fact is, Dujek chose Tattersail to command the cadre after Nedurian's untimely demise at Mott Wood. You may not like it, but that's just too bad. It's the price you pay for ambivalence.'