'The man lies,' Smiles said. 'Besides, Bottle, why did you volunteer to go wandering with the captain's orders?'
'Because I'm not stupid.'
'Yeah?' Tarr said. 'Well, you're back now, aren't you?'
'I thought they'd be finished by now.' He waved a fly away that had been buzzing in front of his face, then walked over to sit downwind of the hearth. 'So, Sergeant, what do you figure the captain's got to say?'
'Sappers and shields,' Cuttle said in a growl.
'Shields?'
'Aye. We scurry in hunched low and the rest of you shield us from all the arrows and rocks until we're done planting the mines, then whoever's left runs back out, as fast as they can and it won't be fast enough.'
'A one-way trip, then.'
Cuttle grinned.
'It'll be more elaborate than that,' Strings said. 'I hope.'
'She goes straight in, that's what she does.'
'Maybe, Cuttle. Maybe not. She wants most of her army still breathing when the dust's settled.'
'Minus a few hundred sappers.'
'We're getting rare enough as it is,' Strings said. 'She won't want to waste us.'
'That'd be a first for the Malazan Empire;'
The sergeant looked over at Cuttle. 'Tell you what, why don't I just kill you now and be done with it?'
'Forget it. I want to take the rest of you sorry humpers with me.'
Nearby, Sergeant Gesler and his squad had appeared and were making their camp. Corporal Stormy, Bottle noted, wasn't with them. Gesler strode over. 'Fid.'
'Kalam and Quick back, too?'
'No, they went on, with Stormy.'... 'On? Where?'
Gesler crouched opposite Strings. 'Let's just say I'm actually glad to see your ugly face, Fid. Maybe they'll make it back, maybe they won't. I'll tell you about it later. Spent the morning with the Adjunct. She had lots of questions.'
'About what?'
About the stuff I'll tell you about later. So we've got a new captain.'
'Faradan Sort.'
'Korelri?'
Strings nodded. 'Stood the Wall, we think.'
'So she can probably take a punch.'
'Then punch back, aye.'
'Well that's just great.'
'She wants all the sergeants for a meeting tonight.'
'I think I'll go back and answer a few more of the Adjunct's questions.'
'You can't avoid meeting her for ever, Gesler.'
'Oh yeah? Watch me. So, where did they move Captain Kindly to?'
Strings shrugged. 'To some company that needs pulling into shape, I'd imagine.'
'And we don't?'
'Harder terrifying us than most in this army, Gesler. I think he'd already given up on us, in any case. I'm not sorry to see the miserable bastard on his way. This meeting tonight will likely be about what we'll be doing in the siege. Either that or she just wants to waste our time with some inspiring tirade.'
'For the glory of the empire,' Gesler said, grimacing.
'For vengeance,' Koryk said from where he sat tying fetishes onto his baldric.
'Vengeance is glorious, so long as it's us delivering it, soldier.'
'No it's not,' said Strings. 'It's sordid, no matter how you look at it.'
'Ease up, Fid. I was only half serious. You're so tense you'd think we was heading into a siege or something. Anyway, why ain't there a few hands of Claw to do the dirty work? You know, infiltrate the city and the palace and stick a knife in Leoman and be done with it. Why do we have to get messed up with a real fight? What kind of empire are we, these days?'
No-one spoke for a time. Bottle watched his sergeant. Strings was testing the pull on the crossbow, but Bottle could see that he was thinking.
Cuttle said, 'Laseen's pulled 'em in. Close and tight.'
The regard Gesler fixed on the sapper was level, gauging. 'That the rumour, Cuttle?'
'One of 'em. What do I know? Maybe she caught something on the wind.'
'You certainly have,' Strings muttered as he examined the case of quarrels.
'Only that the few veteran companies still on Quon Tali were ordered to Unta and Malaz City.'
Strings finally looked up. 'Malaz City? Why there?'
'The rumour weren't that specific, Sergeant. Just the where, not the why. Anyway, there's something going on.'
'Where'd you catch all this?' Gesler asked.
'That new sergeant, Hellian, from Kartool.'
'The drunk one?'
'That's her.'
'Surprised she noticed anything,' Strings observed. 'What got her shipped out here?'
'That she won't talk about. In the wrong place at the wrong time, I figure, from the way her face twists all sour on the subject. Anyway, she went to Malaz City first, then joined up with the transports at Nap, then on to Unta. She never seems so drunk she can't keep her eyes open.'
'You trying to get your hand on her thigh, Cuttle?'
'A bit too young for me, Fid, but a man could do worse.'
'A bleary-eyed wife,' Smiles said with a snort. 'That's probably the best you could manage, Cuttle.'
'When I was a lad,' the sapper said, reaching out to collect a grenado — a sharper, Bottle noted with alarm as Cuttle began tossing it up in the air and catching it one-handed — 'every time I said something disrespectful of my betters, my father'd take me out back and slap me half-unconscious. Something tells me, Smiles, your da was way too indulgent when it came to his little girl.'
'You just try it, Cuttle, and I'll stick a knife in your eye.'
'If I was your da, Smiles, I'd have long ago killed myself.'
She went pale at that, although no-one else seemed to notice, since their eyes were following the grenado up and down.
'Put it away,' Strings said.
An ironic lifting of the brows, then, smiling, Cuttle returned the sharper to the crate. 'Anyway, it looks like Hellian's got a capable corporal, which tells me she'd held onto good judgement, despite drinking brandy like water.'
Bottle rose. 'Actually, I forgot about her. Where are they camped, Cuttle?'
'Near the rum wagon. But she already knows about the meeting.'
Bottle glanced over at the crate of munitions. 'Oh. Well, I'm going for a walk in the desert.'
'Don't stray too far,' the sergeant said, 'could be some of Leoman's warriors out there.'
'Right.'
A short while later he came within sight of the intended meeting place. Just beyond the collapsed building was an overgrown rubbish heap, misshapen with tufts of yellow grass sprouting from the barrow-sized mound. There was no-one in sight. Bottle made his way towards the midden, the sounds of the encampment dwindling behind him. It was late afternoon but the wind remained hot as the breath of a furnace.
Chiselled wall and foundation stones, shattered idols, lengths of splintered wood, animal bones and broken pottery. Bottle clambered up the side, noting the most recent leavings — Malazan-style pottery, black-glazed, squat, fragmented images of the most common motifs: Dassem Ultor's death outside Y'Ghatan, the Empress on her throne, the First Heroes and the Quon pantheon. The local style, Bottle had seen from the villages they had passed through, was much more elegant, elongated with cream or white glazing on the necks and rims and faded red on the body, adorned with full-toned and realistic images. Bottle paused at seeing one such shard, a body-piece, on which had been painted the Chain of Dogs. He picked it up, wiped dust from the illustrated scene. Part of Coltaine was visible, affixed to the cross of wood, overhead a wild flurry of black crows. Beneath him, dead Wickans and Malazans, and a cattle-dog impaled on a spear. A chill whispered along his spine and he let the shard drop.
Atop the mound, he stood for a time, studying the sprawl of the Malazan army along the road and spilling out to the sides. The occasional rider wending through carrying messages and reports; carrion birds, capemoths and rhizan wheeling overhead like swarming flies.
He so disliked omens.
Drawing off his helm, Bottle wiped swe
at from his brow and turned to face the odhan to the south. Once fertile, perhaps, but now a wasteland. Worth fighting for? No, but then, there wasn't much that was. The soldier at your side, maybe — he'd been told that enough times, by old veterans with nothing left but that dubious companionship. Such bonds could only be born of desperation, a closing in of the spirit, down to a manageable but pitiful area containing things and people one could care about. For the rest, pure indifference, twisting on occasion into viciousness.
Gods, what am I doing here?
Stumbling into ways of living didn't seem a worthy path to take. Barring Cuttle and the sergeant, the squad was made up of people no different from Bottle. Young, eager for a place to stand that didn't feel so isolated and lonely, or filling oneself with bravado to mask the fragile self hiding within. But all that was no surprise. Youth was headlong, even when it felt static, stagnant and stifling. It liked its emotions extreme, doused in fiery spices, enough to burn the throat and set flame to the heart. The future was not consciously rushed into — it was just the place you suddenly ended up in, battered and weary and wondering how in Hood's name you got there. Well. He could see that. He didn't need the echoes of his grandmother's ceaseless advice whispering through his thoughts.
Assuming, of course, that voice belonged to his grandmother. He had begun to suspect otherwise.
Bottle crossed the heap, moved down onto the south side. At the base here the desiccated ground was pitted, revealing much older leavings of rubbish — red-glazed sherds with faded images of chariots and stilted figures wearing ornate headdresses and wielding strange hook-bladed weapons. The massive olive-oil jars common to this region retained these old forms, clinging to a mostly forgotten antiquity as if the now lost golden age was any different from the present one.
His grandmother's observations, those ones. She'd had nothing good to say about the Malazan Empire, but even less about the Untan Confederacy, the Li Heng League and all the other despotic rulers of the pre-empire days on Quon Tali. She had been a child through all the Itko Kan-Cawn Por wars, the Seti Tide, the Wickan migrations, the Quon attempt at hegemony. All blood and stupidity, she used to say. All prod and pull. The old with their ambitions and the young with their eager mindless zeal. At least the Emperor put an end to all that — a knife in the back for those grey tyrants and distant wars for the young zealots. It ain't right but nothing ever is. Ain't right, as I said, but better than worst, and I remember the worst.
Now here he was, in the midst of one of those distant wars. Yet there had been no zeal in his motivations. No, something far more pathetic. Boredom was a poor reason to do anything. Better to hold high some raging brand of righteousness, no matter how misguided and lacking in subtlety.
Cuttle talks of vengeance. But he makes his trying to feed us something too obvious, and we're not swelling with rage like we're supposed to. He couldn't be sure of it, but this army felt lost. At its very core was an empty place, waiting to be filled, and Bottle feared it would wait for ever.
He settled down onto the ground, began a silent series of summonings. Before long, a handful of lizards scampered across the dusty earth towards him. Two rhizan settled down onto his right thigh, their wings falling still. An arch spider, big as a horse's hoof and the colour of green glass, leapt from a nearby rock and landed light as a feather on his left knee. He studied his array of companions and decided they would do. Gestures, the stroke of fingers, silent commands, and the motley servants hurried off, making one and all towards the sheep pen where the captain would address the sergeants.
It paid to know just how wide Hood's Gate was going to be come the assault.
And then something else was on its way.
Sudden sweat on Bottle's skin.
She appeared from the heat haze, moving like an animal — prey, not predator, in her every careful, watchful motion — fine-furred, deep brown, a face far more human than ape, filled with expression — or at least its potential, for the look she fixed upon him now was singular in its curiosity. As tall as Bottle, lean but heavy-breasted, belly distended. Skittish, she edged closer.
She is not real. A manifestation, a conjuration. A memory sprung from the dust of this land.
He watched her crouch to collect a handful of sand, then fling it at him, voicing a loud barking grunt. The sand fell short, a few pebbles bouncing off his boots.
Or maybe I am the conjured, not her. In her eyes the wonder of coming face to face with a god, or a demon. He looked past her, and saw the vista of a savannah, thick with grasses, stands of trees and wildlife. Nothing like it should have been, only what it once was, long ago. Oh, spirits, why won't you leave me alone?
She had been following. Following them all. The entire army. She could smell it, see the signs of its passing, maybe even hear the distant clack of metal and wooden wheels punching down the sides of stones in the road as they rocked along. Driven on by fear and fascination, she had followed, not understanding how the future could echo back to her world, her time. Not understanding? Well, he couldn't either. As if all is present, as if every moment co-exists. And here we two are, face to face, both too ignorant to partition our faith, our way of seeing the world — and so we see them all, all at once, and if we're not careful it will drive us mad.
But there was no turning back. Simply because back did not exist.
He remained seated and she came closer, chattering now in some strange glottal tongue filled with clicks and stops. She gestured at her own belly, ran an index figure along it as if drawing a shape on the downy, paler pelt.
Bottle nodded. Yes, you carry a child. I understand that much. Still, what is that to me?
She threw more sand at him, most of it striking below his chest. He waved at the cloud in front of his stinging eyes.
A lunge forward, surprisingly swift, and she gripped his wrist, drew his arm forward, settled his hand on her belly.
He met her eyes, and was shaken to his very core. This was no mindless creature. Eres'al. The yearning in those dark, stunningly beautiful eyes made him mentally reel.
'All right,' he whispered, and slowly sent his senses questing, into that womb, into the spirit growing within it.
For every abomination, there must emerge its answer. Its enemy, its counterbalance. Here, within this Eres'al, is such an answer. To a distant abomination, the corruption of a once-innocent spirit. Innocence must be reborn. Yet... I can see so little... not human, not even of this world, barring what the Eres'al herself brought to the union. Thus, an intruder. From another realm, a realm bereft of innocence. To make them part of this world, one of their kind must be born... in this way. Their blood must be drawn into this world's flow of blood.
But why an Eres'al? Because... gods below... because she is the last innocent creature, the last innocent ancestor of our line. After her... the degradation of spirit begins. The shifting of perspective, the separation from all else, the carving of borders — in the ground, in the mind's way of seeing. After her, there's only... us.
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...
'No,' he said to the creature, shaking his head. 'You cannot pray to me. Must not. I'm not a god. I'm only a...'
Yet... to her I must seem just that. A vision. She is spirit-questing and she barely knows it. She's stumbling, as much as we all are, but within her there's a kind of... certainty. Hope. Gods... faith.
Humbled beyond words, filling with shame, Bottle pulled away, clawing up the slope of the mound, amidst the detritus of civilization, potsherds and fragments of mortar, rusted pieces of metal. No, he didn't want this. Could not encompass this... this need in her. He could not be her... her faith.
She drew yet closer, hands closing round his neck, and dragg
ed him back. Teeth bared, she shook him.
Unable to breathe, Bottle flailed in her grip.
She threw him down, straddled him, released his neck and raised two fists as if to batter him.
'You want me to be your god?' he gasped, 'Fine, then! Have it your way!' He stared up at her eyes, at the fists lifted high, framed by bright, blinding sunlight.
So, is this how a god feels?
A flash of glare, as if a sword had been drawn, an eager hiss of iron filling his head. Something like a fierce challenge—
Blinking, he found himself staring up at the empty sky, lying on the rough scree. She was gone, but he could still feel the echo of her weight on his hips, and the appalling erection her position had triggered in him.
****
Fist Keneb walked into the Adjunct's tent. The map-table had been assembled and on it was an imperial map of Y'Ghatan that had been delivered a week earlier by a rider from Onearm's Host. It was a scholar's rendition drawn shortly after Dassem's fall. Standing at Tavore's side was Tene Baralta, busy scrawling all over the vellum with a charcoal stick, and the Red Blade was speaking.
'... rebuilt here, and here, in the Malazan style of sunk columns and counter-sunk braces. The engineers found the ruins beneath the streets to be a maze of pockets, old rooms, half-buried streets, wells and inside-wall corridors. It should all have been flattened, but at least one age of construction was of a stature to rival what's possible these days. Obviously, that gave them problems, which is why they gave up on the fourth bastion.'
'I understand,' the Adjunct said, 'however, as I stated earlier, Fist Baralta, I am not interested in assailing the fourth bastion.'
Keneb could see the man's frustration, but he held his tongue, simply tossing down the charcoal stick and stepping away from the table.
Over in the corner sat Fist Blistig, legs sprawled out in a posture bordering on insubordination.
'Fist Keneb,' Tavore said, eyes still on the map, 'have you met with Temul and Warleader Gall?'
'Temul reports the city has been evacuated — an exodus of citizens on the road to Lothal. Clearly, Leoman is planning for a long siege, and is not interested in feeding anyone but soldiers and support staff.'