The sun was warm that day. Do you remember?
Greasy stones were lifted from the sacks, rolled in hands around the circle of laughing youths, while the cooked meat was drawn forth and everyone gathered to feast. It was, with these gentle scenes, a day like any other.
The call from the edge of camp was not unduly alarming. Three strangers approaching from the south.
One of the other clans, familiar faces, smiles to greet kin.
The second shout froze everyone.
I went out with the others. I held my finest spear in my hand, and with my warriors all about me I felt sure and bold. Those who drew near were not kin. True strangers. If necessary, we would drive them off.
There was this moment – please, you must remember with me. We stood in a row, as they came to within six paces of us, and we looked into their faces.
We saw ourselves, yet not. Subtle the alterations. They were taller, thinner-boned. Strewn with fetishes and shells and beads of amber. Their faces did not possess the rounded comfort of Imass faces. Features had sharpened, narrowed. The bones of their jaw beneath the mouth jutted under dark beards. We saw their weapons and they confused us. We saw the fineness of their skins and furs and leggings, and we felt diminished.
Their eyes were arrogant, the colour of earth, not sky.
With gestures, these three sought to drive us away. This was their land to hunt now. We were the intruders. Do you remember how that felt? I looked into their faces, into their eyes, and I saw the truth.
To these tall strangers, we were ranag, we were bhederin, we were pran’ag.
Killing them made no difference, and the blood on our weapons weakened us with horror. Please, I am begging you, remember this. It was the day the world began to die. Our world.
Tell me what you remember, you who stood facing these roughened savages with their blunt faces, their squat selves, their hair of red and blond. Tell me what you felt, your indignation when we did not cower, your outrage when we cut you down.
You knew you would come again, in numbers beyond imagining. And you would hunt us, chase us down, drive us into cold valleys and cliff caves above crashing seas. Until we were all gone. And then, of course, you would turn on each other.
If you dare to remember this, then you will understand. I am the slayer of children – your children – no! Show me no horror! Your hands are red with the blood of my children! You cannot kill us any more, but we can kill you, and so we shall. We are the sword of ancient memories. Memories of fire, memories of ice, memories of the pain you delivered upon us. I shall answer your crime. I shall be the hand of your utter annihilation. Every last child.
I am Onos T’oolan and once, I was an Imass. Once, I looked upon flowers dancing in the wind.
See my army? It has come to kill you. Seek out the cold valleys. Seek out the caves in the cliffs over crashing seas. It will not matter. As these shelters failed us, so they will fail you.
I see well this truth: you never expected our return.
Too bad.
Yes, he would have liked these thoughts, this blistering, righteous pronouncement that vengeance was deserved and so meted out. And that the innocence of the young was a lie, when they become the inheritors, when they grow fat on the evil deeds of their ancestors.
They were, he knew, the thoughts of Olar Ethil, whispered into the secret places of his soul. He well understood her. He always had.
The Barghast deserved their fate. They had slain his wife, his children. And he remembered the arrogance in the eyes of his family’s slayers – but how had he seen that? It was impossible. He’d already been dead. She creeps inside me. Olar Ethil, you are not welcome. You want me to serve you. You want – yes, I know what you want, and you dare to call it healing.
There is a dead seedling in you, Bonecaster. A shrunken, lifeless thing. In others, it lives on, sometimes frail and starving, sometimes thriving with sweet anguish. That seedling, Olar Ethil, has a name, and even the name would twist sour upon your lips. The name is compassion.
One day I will stand before you, and I will kiss you, Olar Ethil, and give you a taste of what you never possessed. And I will see you choke. Spit in bitter fury. And even then, to show you its meaning, I will weep for you.
We have fled from it for too long. Our people, our blessed, doomed people. Can you not shed a tear for them, Bonecaster? Your putative children? They lived well in their slow failing, well enough – show me the scene I never saw, the moment I never knew, when I stood before the first humans. Tell me of the blood I spilled, to echo my latest crime, to fuse the two together, as if righteousness was a mask to be worn again and again.
Do you think me a fool?
Toc, my brother, sent me away. But I think, now, he was compelled. I think now, Olar Ethil, you held him fast. I have lost a brother and I know he will never return. For his fate, I would weep.
If I only could.
Forces were gathering, to a place in the east. The ancient warren of Tellann was a thing of raging fire, like the plains lit in flames on every horizon. He could feel the heat, could taste the bitter smoke. Elsewhere – not far – Omtose Phellack churned awake with the thunder of riven ice. Seas cracked and valleys groaned. And closer to hand, the stench of the K’Chain Che’Malle rode the winds pungent as a serpent’s belly. And now … yes. Akhrast Korvalain. The pale ghosts of old once more walk the land. The Elder Warrens rise again. By all the spirits of earth and water, what has begun here?
Olar Ethil, in what comes, the T’lan Imass shall be as motes of dust in a maelstrom. And what you seek – no, the price is too high. It is too high.
Yet he marched, as if destiny still existed for his people, as if death itself was no barrier to the glory awaiting them. We have lost our minds. Toc Younger, what is this winter tide that so carries us forward? Ride to me, let us speak again, as we did once. Toc Younger, I forgive you. For the wounds you delivered, for all that you denied me, I cannot but forgive you.
One last journey into the storm, then. He would lead. His lost kin would follow. He understood that much. Less than dust motes they might be, but the T’lan Imass would be there. We shall not be forgotten. We deserve better than that.
We were you before you were born. Do not forget us. And in your memory, I beg of you, let us stand tall and proud. Leave to us our footprints in the sand, there to mark the trail you now tread, so that you understand – wherever you go, we were there first.
In the wake of Onos T’oolan, three thousand T’lan Imass followed. Orshayn, Brold, and a score more forgotten clans – those that fell in the Wars, those that surrendered to despair.
It was likely, Rystalle Ev suspected, that Onos T’oolan was unaware that he had opened his mind to them, that the terrible emotions warring in his soul rushed out to engulf them all. The ancient barriers had been torn down, and she and all the others weathered the storm in silence, wretched, beaten into numbness.
At the field of slaughter, his howls had echoed their own, but now the First Sword was binding them in grisly chains.
They would stand with him. They had no choice. And when at last he fell, as he must, so too would they.
This was … acceptable. It was, in fact, just. Slayers of children deserve no glory. The caves are emptied now, but we cannot dwell there. The air is thick with the blood we spilled. Even the flames from the hearth cannot warm us.
She sensed that Kalt Urmanal was no longer with them. She was not surprised, and although her own anguish at his absence clawed at her, the pain felt distant, drowned beneath the torments of the First Sword. Her love had always been a lost thing, and he had ever been blind to it.
All the jealousy she had once felt lingered, a poison suffusing her being, tainting her love for him. He had been broken by the K’Chain Che’Malle long ago, when they had slain his wife and children. Her love was for a memory, and the memory was flawed.
No, it is best that he is gone. That he decided he could not go on. The truth is, I admire the strength of
his will, that he could so defy the First Sword’s power. Had others remained behind? She did not know, but if they had, she prayed their presence would comfort Kalt Urmanal.
What is it, to lose a love you never had?
Ulag Togtil, who had come among the Orshayn Imass as a stranger, whose blood was thickened with that of the Trellan Telakai, now reeled in the First Sword’s wake, as if his limbs were under siege. There was a harshness to the Trellan that had stood him well on the day of the slaughter, but now it floundered in the depthless well that was the emotional torrent of the Imass.
To feel too deeply, oh, how the callous would mock this. Their regard, flat and gauging as a vulture’s upon a dying man. Something to amuse, but even trees will tremble to cold winds; are you so bereft, friend, that you dare not do the same?
Onos T’oolan gives us his pain. He is unaware of the gift, yet gift it is. We obeyed the command of the First Sword, knowing nothing of his soul. We’d thought we had found in him a tyrant to beggar the Jaghut themselves. Instead, he was lost as we are.
But if there be unseen witnesses to this moment, if there be callous ones among them, ah, what is it that you fear to reveal? There in that tear, that low sob? You smile in superiority, but what is the nature of this triumph of yours? I wish to know. Your self-made chains draped so tight about you are nothing to be proud of. Your inability to feel is not a virtue.
And your smile has cracks.
Ulag had played this game all his life, and now he did so again, in the ashes of Tellann, in the swirling mad river of the First Sword’s path. Imagining his invisible audience, a sea of blurred faces, a host of unknown thoughts behind the veil of their eyes.
And he would speak to them, from time to time.
I am the wolf that would die of loneliness if cast from the pack. And so, even when I am alone, I choose to believe otherwise.
There was no true unity in the T’lan Imass, for we had surrendered the memories of our lives. Yet even then, I refused to be alone. Ah, I am a fool. My audience belongs to future’s judgement, and harsh it shall be, and when at last it speaks in that multitude of voices, I shall not be there to hear it.
Can you be at ease with that, Ulag? Can you hear the dry laughter of the Trellan? The jeering of humans?
But see how it bows you, even now. See how it batters you down.
Against the future, Ulag, you are helpless as a babe lying on a rock. And the eagle’s shadow slides across the tear-filled eyes, the soft face. The babe falls silent, knowing danger is near. But, alas, it has not even learned to crawl. And Mother’s hands are long gone.
For this fate, Onos T’oolan, we would all weep. If we could.
Shield Anvil Stormy picked himself up off the ground, blinking water from his eyes and probing his split cheek. ‘All right,’ he said, spitting blood, ‘I suppose I deserved that. At least,’ and he glared at Gesler, ‘that’s what you’re going to tell me right now. It is, isn’t it? Tell me it is, or so help me, Ges, I’m going to rip your head right off and throw it in the nearest cesspit I find.’
‘I needed to get your attention,’ the Mortal Sword replied. ‘With you, subtle don’t work.’
‘How would you know? You ain’t tried it yet. Not once, in all the years I’ve been cursed by your company.’
‘Well,’ said Gesler, squinting at the mass of Che’Malle Furies thumping past, ‘turns out I got a solution for that. An end to your curse.’
‘You can’t run away! You can’t leave me here—’
‘No, it’s you I’m sending away, Stormy.’
‘What?’
‘I’m the Mortal Sword. I can do things like that.’
‘Send me where?’
‘To her, to what’s left of her.’
Stormy looked away, south across the empty, dismal plain. He spat again. ‘You really don’t like me much, do you?’
‘We have to find out, Stormy. Aye, I could go myself, but you’re the Shield Anvil. There will be the souls of friends, hanging around like a bad smell. Will you just leave the ghosts to wander, Stormy?’
‘What am I supposed to do with them?’
‘How should I know? Bless them, I suppose, or whatever it is you have to do.’
Destriant Kalyth was riding back to where they’d dismounted. She was looking at each of them in turn, back and forth, frowning at the red welt and split cheek under Stormy’s left eye. She drew up her Ve’Gath mount. ‘Don’t you two ever just talk? Spirits below, men are all the same. What has happened?’
‘Nothing,’ Stormy replied. ‘I have to leave.’
‘Leave?’
‘It’s temporary,’ said Gesler, swinging himself back into the bone and scale saddle that was his mount’s back. ‘Like a mangy pup, he’ll show up again before too long.’
‘Where is he going?’ Kalyth demanded.
‘Back to where we came from,’ Gesler replied. ‘Back to the Bonehunters. They got hurt bad. We need to find out how bad.’
‘Why?’
Stormy glared up at Gesler, waiting for the bastard to come up with an answer to that question, but the Mortal Sword simply growled under his breath and kicked his charger into motion.
As he rode away, Kalyth fixed her attention on Stormy. ‘Well?’
He shrugged. ‘When there’s trouble ahead, Destriant, it’s good to know how your allies are faring.’
His reply clearly disturbed her, though she seemed unable to explain why. ‘You will need an escort.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Yes you will, Shield Anvil. Your Ve’Gath needs to eat. I will have Sag’Churok assign three K’ell Hunters to you, and two drones. When do you leave?’
He walked to his mount. ‘Now.’
She hissed some Elan curse and kicked her Ve’Gath into motion.
Grinning, Stormy mounted up and set out. Classic Malazan military structure at work here, woman. Short, violent discussion and that’s it. We don’t wait around. And Gesler? I’m gonna bust your jaw.
Grub watched Stormy’s departure and scowled. ‘Something’s up.’
Sinn snorted. ‘Thanks. I was just falling asleep, and now you’ve woke me up again. Who cares where Stormy’s going?’
‘I do.’
‘They’re mostly dead,’ she said. ‘And he’s going to confirm that. You want to go with him, Grub? Want to look at Keneb’s corpse? Should I go with you? So I can see what the vultures have done to my brother? The truth is in your heart, Grub. You feel it just like I do. They’re dead.’
At her harsh words Grub hunched down, looked away. Rows of Che’Malle, Ve’Gath soldiers, their massive elongated heads moving in smooth rhythm, their hides coated in dust that dulled the burnished gold of the scales on their necks and backs. Weapons slung down from harnesses of drone-hide, swinging and rustling. Ornate helms hiding the soldiers’ eyes. But every soldier’s eyes look the same. Seen too much and more’s coming and they know it.
Uncle Keneb, it’s all over for you now. Finally. And you never really wanted any of it anyway, did you? Your wife left you. All you had was the army, and you died with it. Did you ever want anything else?
But he didn’t know the truth of any of that. He hadn’t lived enough of his own life. He tried getting into the heads of people like Keneb – the ones with so many years behind them – and he couldn’t. He could recite what he knew of them. Whirlwind. Slaughter and flight. Loves lost, but what do I know about that?
Keneb, you’re gone. I’ll never see your face again – your exasperation when you looked at me, and even then I knew you’d never abandon me. You just couldn’t, and I knew it. And that is what I have lost, isn’t it? I don’t even have a name for it, but it’s gone now, for ever gone.
He glanced over at Sinn. Her eyes were closed and she rolled in the Ve’Gath’s gait, chin settling on her breast bone. Your brother has died, Sinn. And you just sleep. The magic’s carved everything out of you, hasn’t it? You’re just wearing that girl’s face, her skin, and whatever you are,
there inside, it isn’t human at all any more, is it?
And you want me to join you.
Well, if it means an end to feeling pain, then I will.
Keneb, why did you leave me?
Eyes closed, her mind wandered into a place of dust and sand, where the sun’s fading light turned the cliffs into fire. She knew this world. She had seen it many times, had walked it. And somewhere in the hazy distances there were familiar faces. Figures seething in the hot markets of G’danisban, cooled corridors and the slap of bared feet. And then terror, servants with bloodied knives, a night of smoke and flames. And all through the city, screams pierced the madness.
Stumbling into a room, a most precious room – was that her mother? Sister? Or just some guest? The two stable boys and a handmaiden – who was always laughing, she recalled, and was laughing again, with her fist and most of her forearm pushed up inside Mother, while the boys held the battered woman down. Whatever the laughing girl was reaching for, she couldn’t seem to find it.
Blurred panic, flight, one of the boys setting off after her.
Bared feet slapping on stone, the ragged beat of hard breaths. He caught her in the corridor, and in the cool shadow he used something other than his fist on her, in the same place, and by his cries he found whatever it was he’d been looking for, a moment before a strange barrier inside her head was torn through, and sorcery rushed out to lift the boy straight up, until he was pressed awkwardly against the arched ceiling of the corridor. His eyes were bulging, face darkening, the thing between his legs shrivelling and turning black as blood vessels began bursting inside him.
She’d stared up, fixing on his swollen eyes, watched them begin spraying blood in fine jets. And still she pushed. His bones cracked, fluids spurted, his wastes splashing down on to her legs to mix with the blood pooling there. As he flattened, he spread out, until it seemed he was part of the stone, a ghastly image of something vaguely human, made of skin and plaster and oozing mud.
By then, she suspected, he’d been dead for some time.