The girl nodded, her gaze steady and cool and fixed on Aragan.
The recruiter's expression tightened. Damn, she can't be more than twelve or thirteen. If this was my daughter ...
What's got her eyes looking so bloody old? The last time he'd seen anything like them had been outside Mott Forest, on Genabackis – he'd been marching through farmland hit by five years' drought and a war twice as long. Those old eyes were brought by hunger, or death. He scowled. 'What's your name, girl?'
'Am I in, then?' she asked quietly.
Aragan nodded, a sudden headache pounding against the inside of his skull. 'You'll get your assignment in a week's time, unless you got a preference.'
'Genabackan campaign,' the girl answered immediately. 'Under the command of High Fist Dujek Onearm. Onearm's Host.'
Aragan blinked. 'I'll make a note,' he said softly. 'Your name, soldier?'
'Sorry. My name is Sorry.'
Aragan jotted the name down on his tablet. 'Dismissed, soldier. The corporal will tell you where to go.' He looked up as she was near the door. 'And wash all that mud off your feet.' Aragan continued writing for a moment, then stopped. It hadn't rained in weeks. And the mud around here was half-way between green and grey, not dark red. He tossed down the stylus and massaged his temples. Well, at least the headache's fading.
Gerrom was a league and a half inland along the Old Kan Road, a pre-Empire thoroughfare rarely used since the Imperial raised coast road had been constructed. The traffic on it these days was mostly on foot, local farmers and fishers with their goods. Of them only unravelled and torn bundles of clothing, broken baskets and trampled vegetables littering the track remained to give evidence of their passage. A lame mule, the last sentinel overseeing the refuse of an exodus, stood dumbly nearby, ankle-deep in a rice paddy. It spared Paran a single forlorn glance as he rode past.
The detritus looked to be no more than a day old, the fruits and green-leaved vegetables only now beginning to rot in the afternoon heat.
His horse carrying him at a slow walk, Paran watched as the first outbuildings of the small trader town came into view through the dusty haze. No one moved between the shabby mudbrick houses; no dogs came out to challenge him, and the only cart in sight leaned on a single wheel. To add to the uncanny scene, the air was still, empty of birdsong. Paran loosened the sword in its scabbard.
As he neared the outbuildings he halted his mount. The exodus had been swift, a panicked flight. Yet he saw no bodies, no signs of violence beyond the haste evident in those leaving. He drew a deep breath, slowly released it, then clicked his horse forward. The main street was in effect the town's only street, leading at its far end to a T intersection marked by a single two-storey stone building: the Imperial Constabulary. Its tin-backed shutters were closed, its heavy banded door shut. As he approached Paran held his eyes on the building.
He dismounted before it, tying his mare to the hitching rail then looking back up the street. No movement. Unsheathing his blade, Paran swung back to the Constabulary door.
A soft, steady sound from within stopped him, too low to be heard from any distance but now, as he stood before the huge door, he could hear a liquid murmuring that raised the hairs on his neck. Paran reached out with his sword and set its point under the latch. He lifted the iron handle upward until it disengaged, then pushed open the door.
Movement rippled in the gloom within, a flap and soft thumping of air carrying to Paran the redolent stench of putri-fying flesh. Breathing hard and with a mouth dry as old cotton, he waited for his eyes to adjust.
He stared into the Constabulary's outer room, and it was a mass of movement, a chilling soft sussuration of throats giving voice. The chamber was filled with black pigeons cooing in icy calm. Uniformed human shapes lay in their midst, stretched haphazardly across the floor amid droppings and drifting black down. Sweat and death clung to the air thick as gauze.
He took a step inside. The pigeons rustled but otherwise ignored him. None made for the open doorway.
Swollen faces with coin-dull eyes stared up from the shadows; the faces were blue, as of men suffocated. Paran looked down at one of the soldiers. 'Not a healthy thing,' he muttered, 'wearing these uniforms these days.'
A conjuring of birds to keep mocking vigil. Dark humour's not to my liking any more, 1 think. He shook himself, walked across the room. The pigeons tracked away from his boots, clucking. The door to the captain's office was ajar. Musty light bled through the shuttered windows' uneven joins. Sheathing his sword, Paran entered the office. The captain still sat in his chair, his face bloated and bruised in shades of blue, green and grey.
Paran swept damp feathers from the desktop, rummaged through the scroll work. The papyrus sheets fell apart under his touch, the leaves rotten and oily between his fingers.
A thorough eliminating of the trail.
He turned away, walked swiftly back through the outer room until he stepped into the warm light. He closed the Constabulary door as, no doubt, the villagers had.
The dark bloom of sorcery was a stain few cared to examine too closely. It had a way of spreading.
Paran untethered his mare, climbed into the saddle and rode from the abandoned town. He did not look back.
The sun sat heavy and bloated amid a smear of crimson cloud on the horizon. Paran fought to keep his eyes open. It had been a long day. A horrific day. The land around him, once familiar and safe, had become something else, a place stirred with the dark currents of sorcery. He was not looking forward to a night camped in the open.
His mount plodded onward, head down, as dusk slowly enveloped them. Pulled by the weary chains of his thoughts, Paran tried to make sense of what had happened since morning.
Snatched out from the shadow of that sour-faced, laconic captain and the garrison at Kan, the lieutenant had seen his prospects begin a quick rise. Aide to the Adjunct was an advancement in his career he could not have even imagined a week ago. Despite the profession he had chosen, his father and his sisters were bound to be impressed, perhaps even awed, by his achievement. Like so many other noble-born sons and daughters, he'd long since set his sights on the Imperial military, hungry for prestige and bored with the complacent, static attitudes of the noble class in general. Paran wanted something more challenging than co-ordinating shipments of wine, or overseeing the breeding of horses.
Nor was he among the first to enlist, thus easing the way for entrance into officer training and selective postings. It had just been ill-luck that saw him sent to Kan, where a veteran garrison had been licking its wounds for nigh on six years. There'd been little respect for an untested lieutenant, and even less for a noble-born.
Paran suspected that that had changed since the slaughter on the road. He'd handled it better than many of those veterans, helped in no small part by the superb breeding of his horse. More, to prove to them all his cool, detached professionalism, he'd volunteered to lead the inspection detail.
He'd done well, although the detail had proved ... difficult. He'd heard screaming while crawling around among the bodies, coming from somewhere inside his own head. His eyes had fixed on details, oddities – the peculiar twist of this body, the inexplicable smile on that dead soldier's face – but what had proved hardest was what had been done to the horses. Crusted foam-filled nostrils and mouths – the signs of terror – and the wounds were terrible, huge and devastating. Bile and faeces stained the once-proud mounts, and over everything was a glittering carpet of blood and slivers of red flesh. He had nearly wept for those horses.
He shifted uneasily on the saddle, feeling a clamminess come to his hands where they rested on the ornate horn. He'd held on to his confidence through the whole episode; yet now, as his thoughts returned to that horrid scene, it was as if something that had always been solid in his mind now stuttered, shied, threatening his balance; the faint contempt he'd shown for those veterans in his troop, kneeling helpless on the roadside racked by dry-heaves, returned to him now with a ghoulish cast. And t
he echo that came from the Constabulary at Gerrom, arriving like a late blow to his already bruised and battered soul, rose once again to pluck at the defensive numbness still holding him in check.
Paran straightened with an effort. He'd told the Adjunct his youth was gone. He'd told her other things as well, fearless, uncaring, lacking all the caution his father had instilled in him when it came to the many faces of the Empire.
From a great distance in his mind came old, old words: live quietly. He'd rejected that notion then; he rejected it still. The Adjunct, however, had noticed him. He wondered now, for the first time, if he was right to feel pride. That hard-bitten commander of so many years ago, on the walls of Mock's Hold, would have spat at Paran's feet, with contempt, had he now stood before him. The boy was a boy no longer, but a man. Should've heeded my words, son. Now look at you.
His mare pulled up suddenly, hoofs thumping confusedly on the rutted road. Paran reached for his weapon as he looked uneasily around in the gloom. The track ran through rice paddies, the nearest shacks of the peasants on a parallel ridge a hundred paces from the road. Yet a figure now blocked the road.
A cold breath swirled lazily past, pinning back the mare's ears and widening her nostrils as she flinched.
The figure – a man by his height – was swathed in shades of green: cloaked, hooded, wearing a faded tunic and linen leggings above green-dyed leather boots. A single long-knife, the weapon of choice among Seven Cities warriors, was slung through a thin belt. The man's hands, faintly grey in the afternoon light, glittered with ring's, rings on every finger, above and below the knuckles. He raised one now, holding up a clay jug.
'Thirsty, Lieutenant?' The man's voice was soft, the tone strangely melodic.
'Have I business with you?' Paran asked, his hand remaining on the grip of his longsword.
The man smiled, pulling back his hood. His face was long, the skin a lighter shade of grey, the eyes dark and strangely angled. He looked to be in his early thirties, though his hair was white. 'The Adjunct asked of me a favour,' he said. 'She grows impatient for your report. I am to escort you ... with haste.' He shook the jug. 'But first, a repast. I have a veritable feast secreted in my pockets – far better fare than a browbeaten Kanese village can offer. Join me, here on the roadside. We can amuse ourselves in conversation and idle watching of peasants toiling endlessly. I am named Topper.'
'I know that name,' Paran said.
'Well, you should,' Topper replied. 'I am he, alas. The blood of a Tiste Andii races in my veins, seeking escape, no doubt, from its more common human stream. Mine was the hand that took the life of Unta's royal line, king, queen, sons and daughters.'
'And cousins, second cousins, third—'
'Expunging all hope, indeed. Such was my duty as a Claw of unsurpassed skill. But you have failed in answering my question.'
'Which was?'
'Thirsty?'
Scowling, Paran dismounted. 'I thought you said the Adjunct wished for haste.'
'Hasten we shall, Lieutenant, once we've filled our bellies, and conversed in civil fashion.'
'Your reputation puts civility far down your list of skills, Claw.'
'It's a most cherished trait of mine that sees far too little opportunity for exercise these fell days, Lieutenant. Surely you'd grant me some of your precious time, since I'm to be your escort?'
'Whatever arrangement you made with the Adjunct is between you and her,' Paran said, approaching. 'I owe you nothing, Topper. Except enmity.'
The Claw squatted, removing wrapped packages from his pockets, followed by two crystal goblets. He uncorked the jug. 'Ancient wounds. I was led to understand you've taken a different path, leaving behind the dull, jostling ranks of the nobility' He poured, filling the goblets with amber-coloured wine. 'You are now one with the body of Empire, Lieutenant. It commands you. You respond unquestioningly to its will. You are a small part of a muscle in that body. No more. No less. The time for old grudges is long past. So,' he set down the jug and handed Paran a goblet, 'we now salute new beginnings, Ganoes Paran, lieutenant and aide to Adjunct Lorn.'
Scowling, Paran accepted the goblet.
The two drank.
Topper smiled, producing a silk handkerchief to dab against his lips. 'There now, that wasn't so difficult, was it? May I call you by your chosen name?'
'Paran will do. And you? What title does the commander of the Claw hold?'
Topper smiled again. 'Laseen still commands the Claw. I assist her. In this way I too am an aide of sorts. You may call me by my chosen name, of course. I'm not one for maintaining formalities beyond a reasonable point in an acquaintance.'
Paran sat down on the muddy road. 'And we've passed that point?'
'Indeed.'
'How do you decide?'
'Ah, well.' Topper began unwrapping his packages, revealing cheese, fistbread, fruit and berries. 'I make acquaintances in one of two ways. You've seen the second of those.'
'And the first?'
'No time for proper introductions in those instances, alas.'
Wearily Paran unstrapped and removed his helm. 'Do you wish to hear what I found in Gerrom?' he asked, running a hand through his black hair.
Topper shrugged. 'If you've the need.'
'Perhaps I'd better await my audience with the Adjunct.'
The Claw smiled. 'You have begun to learn, Paran. Never be too easy with the knowledge you possess. Words are like coin – it pays to hoard.'
'Until you die on a bed of gold,' Paran said.
'Hungry? I hate eating alone.'
Paran accepted a chunk of fistbread. 'So, was the Adjunct truly impatient, or are you here for other reasons?'
With a smile, the Claw rose. 'Alas, genteel conversation is done. Our way opens.' He faced the road.
Paran turned to see a curtain in the air tear open on the road, spilling dull yellow light. A Warren, the secret paths of sorcery. 'Hood's Breath.' He sighed, fighting off a sudden chill. Within he could see a greyish pathway, humped on either side by low mounded walls and vaulted overhead by impenetrable ochre-hued mist. The air swept past into the portal like a drawn breath, revealing the pathway to be of ash as invisible currents stirred and raised spinning dust-devils.
'You will have to get used to this,' Topper said.
Paran collected his mare's reins and slung his helm on the saddlehorn. 'Lead on,' he said.
The Claw cast him a quick appraising glance, then strode into the Warren.
Paran followed. The portalway closed behind them, in its place a continuation of the path. Itko Kan had vanished, and with it all signs of life. The world they had entered was barren, deathly. The banked mounds lining the trail proved to be more ash. The air was gritty, tasting of metal.
'Welcome to the Imperial Warren,' Topper said, with a hint of mockery.
'Pleasant.'
'Carved by force out of... what was here before. Has such an effort ever been achieved before? Only the gods can say.'
They began walking.
'I take it, then,' Paran said, 'that no god claims this Warren. By this, you cheat the tolls, the gatekeepers, the guardians on unseen bridges, and all the others said to dwell in the Warrens in service to their immortal masters.'
Topper grunted. 'You imagine the Warrens as crowded as that? Well, the beliefs of the ignorant are ever entertaining. You shall be good company on this short journey, I think.'
Paran fell silent. The horizons beyond the banked heaps of ash were close, a vague blending of ochre sky and grey-black ground. Sweat trickled under his mail hauberk. His mare snorted heavily.
'In case you were wondering,' Topper said, after a time, 'the Adjunct is now in Unta. We will use this Warren to cross the distance – three hundred leagues in only a few short hours. Some think the Empire has grown too large, some even think their remote provinces are beyond the Empress Laseen's reach. As you have just learned, Paran, such beliefs are held by fools.'
The mare snorted again.
'I've
shamed you into silence, then? I do apologize, Lieutenant, for mocking your ignorance—'
'It's a risk you'll have to live with,' Paran said.
The next thousand paces of silence belonged to Topper.
No shifting of light marked the passing of hours. A number of times they came upon places where the ash embankments had been disturbed, as if by the passage of something large, shambling; and wide, slithery trails led off into the gloom. In one such place they found a dark encrusted stain and the scatter of chain links like coins in the dust. Topper examined the scene closely while Paran watched.
Hardly the secure road he'd have me believe. There're strangers here, and they're not friendly.
He was not surprised to find Topper increasing their pace thereafter. A short while later they came to a stone archway. It had been recently constructed, and Paran recognized the basalt as Untan, from the Imperial quarries outside the capital. The walls of his family's estate were of the same grey-black glittering stone. At the centre of the arch, high over their heads, was carved a taloned hand holding a crystal globe: the Malazan Imperial sigil.
Beyond the arch was darkness.
Paran cleared his throat. 'We have arrived?'
Topper spun to him. 'You answer civility with arrogance, Lieutenant. You'd do well to shed the noble hauteur.'
Smiling, Paran gestured. 'Lead on, escort.'
In a whirl of cloak Topper stepped through the arch and vanished.
The mare bucked as Paran pulled her closer to the arch, head tossing. He tried to soothe her but it was no use. Finally, he climbed into the saddle and gathered up the reins. He straightened the horse, then drove hard his spurs into her flanks. She bolted, leaped into the void.
Light and colours exploded outward, engulfing them. The mare's hoofs landed with a crunching thump, scattering something that might be gravel in all directions. Paran halted his horse, blinking as he took in the scene around them. A vast chamber, its ceiling glittering with beaten gold, its walls lined with tapestries, and a score of armoured guards closing in on all sides.