Memories of Ice

  They strode through the shattered gate, began picking their way through the corpses on the ramp, then in the street beyond. Uncontested by the living, this would nevertheless prove a long journey. Nor would it be a journey without battle. Assailing them now were what their eyes saw, what their noses smelled, and what they could feel underfoot.

  A battle that made shields and armour useless, that made flailing swords futile. A soul hardened beyond humanity was the only defence, and for Itkovian that price was too high. I am the Shield Anvil. I surrender to what lies before me. Thicker than smoke, the grief unleashed and now lost, churning this lifeless air. A city has been killed. Even the survivors huddling in the tunnels below—Fener take me, better they never emerge … to see this.

  Their route took them between the cemeteries. Itkovian studied the place where he and his soldiers had made a stand. It looked no different from anywhere else his eye scanned. The dead lay in heaps. As Brukhalian had promised, not one pavestone had gone uncontested. This small city had done all it could. Pannion victory might well have been inevitable, but thresholds nevertheless existed, transforming inexorable momentum into a curse.

  And now the White Face clans of the Barghast had announced their own inevitability. What the Pannions had delivered had been in turn delivered upon them. We are all pushed into a world of madness, yet it must now fall to each of us to pull back from this Abyss, to drag ourselves free of the descending spiral. From horror, grief must be fashioned, and from grief, compassion.

  As the company entered a choked avenue at the edge of the Daru district, a score of Barghast emerged from an alley mouth directly ahead. Bloodied hook-swords in hands, white-painted faces spattered red. The foremost among them grinned at the Shield Anvil.

  'Defenders!' he barked in harshly-accented Capan. 'How sits this gift of liberation?'

  Itkovian ignored the question, 'You have kin at the Thrall, sir. Even now I see the protective glow fading.'

  'We shall see the bones of our gods, aye,' the warrior said, nodding. His small, dark eyes scanned the Grey Swords. 'You lead a tribe of women.'

  'Capan women,' Itkovian said. 'This city's most resilient resource, though it fell to us to discover that. They are Grey Swords, now, sir, and for that we are strengthened.'

  'We've seen your brothers and sisters everywhere,' the Barghast warrior growled. 'Had they been our enemies, we would be glad they are dead.'

  'And as allies?' the Shield Anvil asked.

  The Barghast fighters one and all made a gesture, back of sword-hand to brow, the briefest brush of leather to skin, then the spokesman said, 'The loss fills the shadows we cast. Know this, soldier, the enemy you left to us was brittle.'

  Itkovian shrugged. 'The Pannions' faith knows not worship, only necessity. Their strength is a shallow thing, sir. Will you accompany us to the Thrall?'

  'At your sides, soldiers. In your shadow lies honour.'

  Most of the structures in the Daru district had burned, collapsing in places to fill the streets with blackened rubble. As the Grey Swords and Barghast wound their way through the least cluttered paths, Itkovian's eyes were drawn to one building still standing, off to their right. A tenement, its walls were strangely bowed. Banked fires had been built against the side facing him, scorching the stones, but the assault of flame had failed for some reason. Every arched window Itkovian could see looked to have been barricaded.

  At his side, the Barghast spokesman growled, 'Your kind crowd your barrows.'

  The Shield Anvil glanced at the man. 'Sir?'

  The warrior nodded towards the smoke-hazed tenement and went on with his commentary, 'Easier, aye, than digging and lining a pit outside the city, then the lines passing buckets of earth. You like a clear view from the walls, it seems. But we do not live among our dead in the manner of your people…'

  Itkovian turned back to study the tenement, now slightly to the rear on the right. His eyes narrowed. The barricades blocking the windows. Once more, flesh and bone. Twin Tusks, who would build such a necropolis? Surely, it cannot be the consequence of defence?

  'We wandered close,' the warrior at his side said. 'The walls give off their own heat. Jellied liquid bleeds between the cracks.' He made another gesture, this one shuddering, hilt of his hook-sword clattering against the coin-wrought armour covering his torso. 'By the bones, soldier, we fled.'

  'Is that tenement the only one so… filled?'

  'We've seen no other, though we did pass one estate that still held -enlivened corpses stood guard at the gate and on the walls. The air stank of sorcery, an emanation foul with necromancy. I tell you this, soldier, we shall be glad to quit this city.'

  Itkovian was silent. He felt rent inside. The Reve of Fener voiced the truth of war. It spoke true of the cruelty that humanity was capable of unleashing upon its own kind. War was played like a game by those who led others; played in an illusory arena of calm reason, but such lies could not survive reality, and reality seemed to have no limits. The Reve held a plea for restraint, and insisted the glory to be found was not to be a blind one, rather a glory born of solemn, clear-eyed regard. Within limitless reality resided the promise of redemption.

  That regard was failing Itkovian now. He was recoiling like a caged animal cruelly prodded on all sides. Escape was denied to him, yet that denial was self-imposed, a thing born of his conscious will, given shape by the words of his vow. He must assume this burden, no matter the cost. The fires of vengeance had undergone a transformation within him. He would be, at the last, the redemption—for the souls of the fallen in this city.

  Redemption. For everyone else, but not for himself. For that, he could only look to his god. But, dear Fener, what has happened? Where are you? I kneel in place, awaiting your touch, yet you are nowhere to be found. Your realm… it feels… empty. Where, now, can I go?

  Aye, I am not yet done. I accept this. And when I am? Who awaits me? Who shall embrace me? A shiver ran through him. Who shall embrace me?

  The Shield Anvil pushed the question away, struggled to renew his resolve. He had, after all, no choice. He would be Fener's grief. And his Lord's hand of justice. Not welcome responsibilities, and he sensed the toll they were about to exact.

  They neared the plaza before the Thrall. Other Barghast were visible, joining in the convergence. The distant sounds of battle in Jelarkan Concourse, which had accompanied them through most of the afternoon, now fell silent. The enemy had been driven from the city.

  Itkovian did not think the Barghast would pursue. They had achieved what they had come here to do. The Pannion threat to the bones of their gods had been removed.

  Probably, if Septarch Kulpath still lived, he would reform his tattered forces, reassert discipline and prepare for his next move. Either a counterattack, or a westward withdrawal. There were risks to both. He might have insufficient force to retake the city. And his army, having lost possession of their camps and supply routes, would soon suffer from lack of supplies. It was not an enviable position. Capustan, a small, inconsequential city on the east coast of Central Genabackis, had become a many-sided curse. And the lives lost here signified but the beginning of the war to come. They emerged onto the plaza.

  The place where Brukhalian had fallen lay directly ahead, but all the bodies had been removed—taken, no doubt, by the retreating Pannions. Flesh for yet another royal feast. It doesn't matter. Hood came for him. In person. Was that a sign of honour, or petty gloating on the god's part?

  The Shield Anvil's gaze held on that stained stretch of flagstones for a moment longer, then swung to the Thrall's main gate.

  The glow was gone. In the shadows beneath the gate's arch, figures had appeared.

  Every approach to the plaza had filled with Barghast, but they ventured no further.

  Itkovian turned back to his company. His eyes found his captain—who had been the master-sergeant in charge of training the recruits—then Velbara. He studied their tattered, stained armour, their lined, drawn faces. 'The three of us, sir
s, to the centre of the plaza.'

  The two women nodded.

  The three strode onto the concourse. Thousands of eyes fixed on them, followed by a rumbling murmur, then a rhythmic, muted clashing of blade on blade.

  Another party emerged, from the right. Soldiers, wearing uniforms Itkovian did not recognize, and, in their company, figures displaying barbed, feline tattooing. Leading the latter group, a man Itkovian had seen before. The Shield Anvil's steps slowed.

  Gruntle. The name was a hammerblow to his chest. Brutal certainty forced his next thoughts. The Mortal Sword of Trake, Tiger of Summer. The First Hero is ascended.

  We… we are replaced.

  Steeling himself, Itkovian resumed his pace, then halted in the centre of the expanse.

  A single soldier in the foreign uniform had moved up alongside Gruntle. He closed a hand around the big Daru's striped arm and barked something back to the others, who all stopped, while the man and Gruntle continued on, directly towards Itkovian.

  A commotion from the Thrall's gate caught their attention. Priests and priestesses of the Mask Council were emerging, holding a struggling comrade among them as they hastened forward. In the lead, Rath'Trake. A step behind, the Daru merchant, Keruli.

  The soldier and Gruntle reached Itkovian first.

  Beneath the Daru's helm, Gruntle's tiger eyes studied the Shield Anvil. 'Itkovian of the Grey Swords,' he rumbled, 'it is done.'

  Itkovian had no need to ask for elaboration. The truth was a knife in his heart.

  'No, it isn't,' the foreign soldier snapped. 'I greet you, Shield Anvil. I am Captain Paran, of the Bridgeburners. Onearm's Host.'

  'He is more than that,' Gruntle muttered. 'What he claims now—'

  'Is nothing I do willingly,' Paran finished. 'Shield Anvil. Fener has been torn from his realm. He strides a distant land. You—your company—you have lost your god.'

  And so it is known to all. 'We are aware of this, sir.'

  'Gruntle says that your place, your role, is done. The Grey Swords must step aside, for a new god of war has gained pre-eminence. But that doesn't have to be. A path for you has been prepared…' Paran's gaze went past Itkovian. He raised his voice. 'Welcome, Humbrall Taur. Your children no doubt await within the Thrall.'

  The Shield Anvil glanced back over his shoulder to see, standing ten paces behind him, a huge Barghast warchief in coin-threaded armour. 'They can wait a while longer,' Humbrall Taur growled. 'I would witness this.'

  Paran grimaced. 'Nosy bastard—'

  'Aye.'

  The Malazan returned his attention to Itkovian and made to speak, but the Shield Anvil interrupted him: 'A moment, sir.' He stepped past the two men.

  Rath'Fener jerked and twisted in the grip of his fellow priests. His mask was awry, wisps of grey hair pulled free of the leather strapping. 'Shield Anvil!' he cried upon seeing Itkovian's approach. 'In the name of Fener—'

  'In his name, aye, sir,' Itkovian cut in. 'To my side, Captain Norul. The Reve's law is invoked.'

  'Sir,' the grizzled woman replied, stepping forward.

  'You can't!' Rath'Fener screamed. 'For this, only the Mortal Sword can invoke the Reve!'

  Itkovian stood motionless.

  The priest managed to pull one arm forward to jab a finger at the Shield Anvil. 'My rank is as Destriant! Unless you've one to make claim to that title?'

  'Destriant Karnadas is dead.'

  'That man was no Destriant, Shield Anvil! An Aspirant, perhaps, but my rank was and remains pre-eminent. Thus, only a Mortal Sword can invoke the Reve against me, and this you know.'

  Gruntle snorted. 'Itkovian, Paran here told me there was a betrayal. Your priest sold Brukhalian's life to the Pannions. Not only disgusting, but ill-advised. So.' He paused. 'Will any Mortal Sword do? If so, I invoke the Reve.' He bared his teeth at Rath'Fener. 'Punish the bastard.'

  We are replaced. The Lord of Battle is transformed indeed.

  'He cannot!' Rath'Fener shrieked.

  'A bold claim,' Itkovian said to the masked priest. 'In order to deny this man's right to the title, sir, you must call upon our god. In your defence. Do so, sir, and you shall walk from here a free man.'

  The eyes within the mask went wide. 'You know that is impossible, Itkovian!'

  'Then your defence is over, sir. The Reve is invoked. I am become Fener's hand of justice.'

  Rath'Trake, who had been standing nearby in watchful silence, now spoke, 'There is no need for any of this, Shield Anvil. Your god's absence changes… everything. Surely, you understand the implications of the traditional form of punishment. A simple execution—not the Reve's law—'

  'Is denied this man,' Itkovian said. 'Captain Norul.'

  She strode to Rath'Fener, reached out and plucked him from the hold of the priests and priestesses. He seemed like a rag doll in her large, scarred hands as she swung him round and threw him belly down on the flagstones. She then straddled him, stretching his arms out forward yet side by side. The man shrieked with sudden comprehension.

  Itkovian drew his sword. Smoke drifted from the blade. 'The Reve,' he said, standing over Rath'Fener's outstretched arms. 'Betrayal, to trade Brukhalian's life for your own. Betrayal, the foulest crime to the Reve's law, to Fener himself. Punishment is invoked, in accordance with the Boar of Summer's judgement.' He was silent for a moment, then he said, 'Pray, sir, that Fener finds what we send to him.'

  'But he won't!' Rath'Trake cried. 'Don't you understand? His realm—your god no longer waits within it!'

  'He knows,' Paran said. 'This is what happens when it gets personal, and believe me, I'd rather have had no part in this.'

  Rath'Trake swung to the captain. 'And who are you, soldier?'

  'Today. Right now. I am the Master of the Deck, priest. And it seems I am here to negotiate… on you and your god's behalf. Alas,' he added wryly, 'the Shield Anvil is proving admirably… recalcitrant…'

  Itkovian barely heard the exchange. Eyes holding on the priest pinned to the ground before him, he said, 'Our Lord is… gone. Indeed. So… best pray, Rath'Fener, that a creature of mercy now looks kindly upon you.'

  Rath'Trake whirled back to the Shield Anvil at those words, 'By the Abyss, Itkovian—there is no crime so foul to match what you're about to do! His soul will be torn apart! Where they will go, there are no creatures of mercy! Itkovian—'

  'Silence, sir. This judgement is mine, and the Reve's.'

  The victim shrieked.

  And Itkovian swung down the sword. Blade's edge cracked onto the flagstones. Twin gouts of blood shot out from the stumps of Rath'Fener's wrists. The hands… were nowhere to be seen.

  Itkovian jammed the flat of his blade against the stumps. Flesh sizzled. Rath'Fener's screams ceased abruptly as unconsciousness took him. Captain Norul moved away from the man, left him lying on the flagstones.

  Paran began speaking. 'Shield Anvil, hear me. Please. Fener is gone—he strides the mortal realm. Thus, he cannot bless you. With what you take upon yourself… there is nowhere for it to go, no way to ease the burden.'

  'I am equally aware of what you say, sir.' Itkovian still stared down at Rath'Fener, who was stirring to consciousness once more. 'Such knowledge is worthless.'

  'There's another way, Shield Anvil.'

  He turned at that, eyes narrowing.

  Paran went on, 'A choice has been… fashioned. In this I am but a messenger—'

  Rath'Trake stepped up to Itkovian. 'We shall welcome you, sir. You and your followers. The Tiger of Summer has need for you, a Shield Anvil, and so offers his embrace—'

  'No.'

  The eyes within the mask narrowed.

  'Itkovian,' Paran said, 'this was foreseen… the path prepared for… by Elder powers, once more awake and active in this world. I am here to tell you what they would have you do—'

  'No. I am sworn to Fener. If need be, I shall share his fate.'

  'This is an offer of salvation—not a betrayal!' Rath'Trake cried.

  'Isn't it? No more words, sir
s.' On the ground below, Rath'Fener had regained awareness. Itkovian studied the man. 'I am not yet done,' he whispered.

  Rath'Fener's body jerked, a throat-tearing scream erupting from him, his arms snapping as if yanked by invisible, unhuman hands. Dark tattoos appeared on the man's skin, but not those belonging to Fener—for the god had not been the one to claim Rath'Fener's severed hands. Writhing, alien script swarmed his flesh as the unknown claimant made its mark, claimed possession of the man's mortal soul. Words that darkened like burns.

  Blisters rose, then broke, spurting thick, yellow liquid.

  Screams of unbearable, unimaginable pain filled the plaza, the body on the flagstones spasming as muscle and fat dissolved beneath the skin, then boiled, breaking through.

  Yet the man did not die.

  Itkovian sheathed his sword.

  The Malazan was the first to comprehend. His hand snapped forward, closed on the Shield Anvil's arm. 'By the Abyss, do not—'

  'Captain Norul.'

  Face white beneath the rim of her helm, the woman settled a hand on the grip of her sword. 'Captain Paran,' she said in a taut, brittle voice, 'withdraw your touch.'

  He swung on her. 'Aye, even you recoil at what he plans—'

  'Nevertheless, sir. Release him or I will kill you.'

  The Malazan's eyes glittered strangely at that threat, but Itkovian could spare no thought for the young captain. He had a responsibility. Rath'Fener had been punished enough. His pain must end.

  And who shall save me?

  Paran relinquished his grip.

  Itkovian bent down to the writhing, barely recognizable shape on the flagstones. 'Rath'Fener, hear me. Yes, I come. Will you accept my embrace?'

  For all the envy and malice within the tortured priest, all that led to the betrayal, not just of Brukhalian—the Mortal Sword—but of Fener himself, some small measure of mercy remained in the man's soul. Mercy, and comprehension. His body jerked away, limbs skidding as he sought to crawl from Itkovian's shadow.

  The Shield Anvil nodded, then gathered the suppurating figure into his arms and rose.