A sudden streak of grey assaulted his eyes, and he heard Korlat hiss: We are assailed even here—the Crippled God's poison seeps deep, Whiskeyjack. This does not bode well.'
He cleared his throat. 'No doubt Anomander Rake has recognized the threat, and if so, do you know what he plans to do about it?'
'One thing at a time, dear lover. He is the Knight of Darkness, the Son. Mother Dark's own champion. Not one to shy from a confrontation.'
'I'd never have guessed,' he replied wryly. 'What's he waiting for, then?'
'We're a patient people, us Tiste Andü. The true measure of power lies in the wisdom to wait for the propitious moment. When it comes, and he judges it to be so, then Anomander Rake will respond.'
'Presumably the same holds for unleashing Moon's Spawn on the Pannion Domin.'
'Aye.'
And, somehow, Rake's managed to hide a floating fortress the size of a mountain… 'You've considerable faith in your Lord, haven't you?'
He felt her shrug through the hand clasped in his. 'There is sufficient precedent to disregard notions of faith, when it comes to my Lord. I am comforted by certainty.'
'Glad to hear it. And are you comfortable with me, Korlat?'
'Devious man. The answer to every facet of that question is yes. Would you now have me ask in kind?'
'You shouldn't have to.'
'Tiste Andü or human, when it comes to males, they're all the same. Perhaps I shall force the words from you none the less.'
'You won't have to work hard. My answer's the same as yours.'
'Which is?'
'Why, the very word you used, of course.'
He grunted at the jab in his ribs. 'Enough of that. We've arrived.'
The portal opened to painful light—the interior of Dujek's command tent, shrouded in the gloom of late afternoon. They stepped within, the warren closing silently behind them.
'If all this was just to get me alone—'
'Gods, the ego!' She gestured with her free hand and a ghostly figure took form in front of Whiskeyjack. A familiar face—that smiled.
'What a charming sight,' the apparition said, eyeing them. 'Hood knows, I can't recall the last time I had a woman.'
'Watch your tongue, Quick Ben,' Whiskeyjack growled, disengaging his hand from Korlat's. 'It's been a while, and you look terrible.'
'Why, thanks a whole lot, Commander. I'll have you know I feel even worse. But I can traverse my warrens, now, more or less shielded from the Fallen One's poison. I bring news from Capustan—do you want it or not?'
Whiskeyjack grinned. 'Go ahead.'
'The White Faces hold the city.'
'We'd guessed that much, once Twist delivered the news of your success with the Barghast, and once the Pannion army stumbled into our laps.'
'Fine. Well, assuming you've taken care of that army, I'll add just one more thing. The Barghast are marching with us. South. If you and Dujek found things tense dealing with Brood and Kallor and company—your pardon, Korlat—now you've got Humbrall Taur to deal with as well.'
Whiskeyjack grunted at that. 'What's he like, then?'
'Too clever by half, but at least he's united the clans, and he's clear-eyed on the mess he's heading into.'
'I'm glad one of us is. How fare Paran and the Bridgeburners?'
'Reportedly fine, though I haven't seen them in a while. They are at the Thrall—with Humbrall Taur and the survivors of the city's defenders.'
Whiskeyjack's brows rose. 'There are survivors?'
'Aye, so it seems. Non-combatants still cowering in tunnels. And some Grey Swords. Hard to believe, isn't it? Mind you, I doubt there's much fight left in them. From what I've heard about Capustan's streets…' Quick Ben shook his head. 'You'll have to see it to believe it. So will I, in fact, which is what I'm about to do. With your leave, that is.'
'With caution, I trust.'
The wizard smiled. 'No-one will see me unless I want them to, sir. When do you anticipate reaching Capustan?'
Whiskeyjack shrugged. 'We've the Tenescowri to deal with. That could get complicated.'
Quick Ben's dark eyes narrowed. 'You're not intending to parley with them, are you?'
'Why not? Better than slaughter, Wizard.'
'Whiskeyjack, the Barghast are returning with stories… of what happened in Capustan, of what the Tenescowri did to the defenders. They have a leader, those Tenescowri, a man named Anaster, the First Child of the Dead Seed. The latest rumour is he personally skinned Prince Jelarkan, then served him up as the main course of a banquet—in the prince's own throne room.'
The breath hissed from Korlat.
Grimacing, Whiskeyjack said, 'If such crimes can be laid with certainty at the feet of this Anaster—or of any Tenescowri—then Malazan military law will prevail.'
'Simple execution grants them a mercy not accorded their victims.'
'Then they will be fortunate that Onearm's Host captured them, and none other.'
Quick Ben still looked troubled. 'And Capustan's surviving citizens, the defenders and the priests of the Thrall—will they have no say in the disposition of the prisoners? Sir, troubled times might await us.'
'Thank you for the warning, Wizard.'
After a moment, Quick Ben shrugged, then sighed. 'See you in Capustan, Whiskeyjack.'
'Aye.'
The apparition faded.
Korlat turned to the commander. 'Malazan military law.'
He raised his brows. 'My sense of Caladan Brood is that he's not the vengeful type. Do you anticipate a clash?'
'I know what Kallor will advise.' A hint of tension was present in her tone.
'So do I, but I don't think the warlord's inclined to listen. Hood knows, he hasn't thus far.'
'We have not yet seen Capustan.'
He released a long breath, drew off his gauntlets. 'Horrors to answer in kind.'
'An unwritten law,' she said in a low voice. 'An ancient law.'
'I don't hold to it,' Whiskeyjack growled. 'We become no better, then. Even simple execution…' He faced her. 'Over two hundred thousand starving peasants. Will they stand about like sheep? Not likely. As prisoners? We couldn't feed them if we tried, nor have we sufficient soldiers to spare guarding them.'
Korlat's eyes were slowly widening. 'You are proposing we leave them, aren't you?'
She's leading up to something here. I've caught glimmers before, the whisper of a hidden wedge, poised to drive itself between us. 'Not all of them. We'll take their leaders. This Anaster, and his officers—assuming there are any. If the Tenescowri walked a path of atrocity, then the First Child led the way.' Whiskeyjack shook his head. 'But the real criminal awaits us within the Domin itself—the Seer—who would starve his followers into cannibalism, into madness. Who would destroy his own people. We'd be executing the victims—his victims.'
The Tiste Andü frowned. 'By that token, we should absolve the Pannion armies as well, Whiskeyjack.'
The Malazan's grey eyes hardened. 'Our enemy is the Seer. Dujek and I agree on this—we're not here to annihilate a nation. The armies that impede our march to the Seer, we will deal with. Efficiently. Retribution and revenge are distractions.'
'And what of liberation? The conquered cities—'
'Incidental, Korlat. I'm surprised at your confusion on this. Brood saw it the same as we did—at that first parley when tactics were discussed. We strike for the heart—'
'I believe you misunderstood, Whiskeyjack. For over a decade, the warlord has been waging a war of liberation—from the rapacious hunger of your Malazan Empire. Caladan Brood has now shifted his focus—a new enemy—but the same war. Brood is here to free the Pannions—'
'Hood's breath! You can't free a people from themselves! '
'He seeks to free them from the Seer's rule.'
'And who exalted the Seer to his present status?'
'Yet you speak of absolving the commonalty, even the soldiers of the Pannion armies, Whiskeyjack. And that is what is confusing me.'
Not entirely. 'We speak at cross-purposes here, Korlat. Neither I nor Dujek will willingly assume the role of judge and executioner—should we prove victorious. Nor are we here to put the pieces back together for the Pannions. That's for them to do. That responsibility will turn us into administrators, and to effectively administrate, we must occupy.'
She barked a harsh laugh. 'And is that not the Malazan way, Whiskeyjack?'
'This is not a Malazan war!'
'Isn't it? Are you sure?'
He studied her through slitted eyes. 'What do you mean? We're outlawed, woman. Onearm's Host is…' He fell silent, seeing a flatness come to Korlat's gaze, then realized—too late—that he had just failed a test. And with that failure had ended the trust that had grown between them. Damn, I walked right into it. Wide-eyed stupid.
She smiled then, and it was a smile of pain and regret. 'Dujek approaches. You might as well await him here.' The Tiste Andü turned and strode from the tent. Whiskeyjack stared after her, then, when she'd left, he flung his gauntlets on the map table and sat down on Dujek's cot. Should I have told you, Korlat? The truth? That we've got a knife at our throats. And the hand holding it—on Empress Laseen's behalf—is right here in this very camp, and has been ever since the beginning.
He heard a horse thump to a halt outside the tent. A few moments later Dujek Onearm entered, his armour sheathed in dust. 'Ah, wondered where you'd got to—'
'Brood knows,' Whiskeyjack cut in, his voice low and raw.
Dujek paused but a moment. 'He does, does he? What, precisely, has he worked out?'
'That we're not quite as outlawed as we've made out to be.'
'Any further?'
'Isn't that enough, Dujek?'
The High Fist strode over to the side table where waited a jug of ale. He unstoppered it and poured two tankards full. 'There are… mitigating circumstances—'
'Relevant only to us. You and I—'
'And our army—'
'Who believe their lives are forfeit in the Empire, Dujek. Made into victims once again—no, it's you and I and no-one else this time.'
Dujek drained his tankard, refilled it in silence. Then he said, 'Are you suggesting we spread our hand on the table for Brood and Korlat? In the hopes that they'll do something about our… predicament?'
'I don't know—not if we're hoping for absolution for having maintained this deceit all this time. That would be a motive that wouldn't sit well with me, even if patently untrue. Appearances—'
'Will make it seem precisely that, aye. "We've been lying to you from the very beginning to save our own necks. But now that you know, we'll tell you…" Gods, that's insulting even to me and I'm the one saying it. All right, the alliance is in trouble—'
A thud against the tent flap preceded the arrival of Artanthos. 'Your pardon, sirs,' the man said, flat eyes studying the two soldiers in turn before he continued, 'Brood has called for a counsel.'
Ah, standard-bearer, your timing is impeccable…
Whiskeyjack collected the tankard awaiting him and drained it, then turned to Dujek and nodded.
The High Fist sighed. 'Lead the way, Artanthos, we're right behind you.'
The encampment seemed extraordinarily quiet. The Mhybe had not realized how comforting the army's presence had been on the march. Now, only elders and children and a few hundred rearguard Malazan soldiers remained. She had no idea how the battle fared; either way, deaths would make themselves felt. Mourning among the Rhivi and Barghast, bereft voices rising into the darkness.
Victory is an illusion. In all things.
She fled in her dreams every night. Fled and was, eventually, caught, only to awaken. Sudden, as if torn away, her withered body shivering, aches filling her joints. An escape of sorts, yet in truth she left one nightmare for another.
An illusion. In all things.
This wagon bed had become her entire world, a kind of mock sanctuary that reappeared each and every time sleep ended. The rough woollen blankets and furs wrapped around her were a personal landscape, the bleak terrain of dun folds startlingly similar to what she had seen when in the dragon's grip, when the undead beast flew high over the tundra in her dream, yielding an echo of the freedom she had experienced then, an echo that was painfully sardonic.
To either side of her ran wooden slats. Their patterns of grain and knots had become intimate knowledge. Far to the north, she recalled, among the Nathü, the dead were buried in wood boxes. The custom had been born generations ago, arising from the more ancient practice of interring corpses in hollowed-out tree trunks. The boxes were then buried, for wood was born of earth and to earth it must return. A vessel of life now a vessel of death. The Mhybe imagined that, if a dead Nathü could see, moments before the lid was lowered and darkness swallowed all, that Nathü's vision would match hers.
Lying in the box, unable to move, awaiting the lid. A body past usefulness, awaiting the darkness.
But there would be no end. Not for her. They were keeping it away. Playing out their own delusions of mercy and compassion. The Daru who fed her, the Rhivi woman who cleaned and bathed her and combed the wispy remnants of her hair. Gestures of malice. Playing out, over and over, scenes of torture.
The Rhivi woman sat above her now, steadily pulling the horn comb through the Mhybe's hair, humming a child's song. A woman the Mhybe remembered from her other life. Old, she had seemed back then, a hapless woman who had been kicked in the head by a bhederin and so lived in a simple world.
I'd thought it simple. But that was just one more illusion. No, she lives amidst unknowns, amidst things she cannot comprehend. It is a world of terror. She sings to fend off the fear born of her own ignorance. Given tasks to keep her busy.
Before I had come along for her, this woman had helped prepare corpses. After all, the spirits worked through such childlike adults. Through her, the spirits could come close to the fallen, and so comfort them and guide them into the world of the ancestors.
It could be nothing other than malice, the Mhybe concluded, to have set this woman upon her. Possibly, she was not even aware that the subject of her attentions was still alive. The woman met no-one's eyes, ever. Recognition had fled with the kick of a bhederin's hoof.
The comb dragged back and forth, back and forth. The humming continued its ceaseless round.
Spirits below, I would rather even your terror of the unknown. Rather that, than the knowledge of my daughter's betrayal—the wolves she has set upon me, to pursue me in my dreams. The wolves, which are her hunger. The hunger, which has already devoured my youth and now seeks yet more. As if any thing's left. Am I to be naught but food for my daughter's burgeoning life? A final meal, a mother reduced to nothing more than sustenance?
Ah, Silverfox, are you every daughter? Am I every mother? There have been no rituals severing our lives—we have forgotten the meaning behind the Rhivi ways, the true reasons for those rituals. I ever yield. And you suckle in ceaseless demand. And so we are trapped, pulled deeper and deeper, you and I.
To carry a child is to age in one's bones. To weary one's blood. To stretch skin and flesh. Birthing splits a woman in two, the division a thing of raw agony. Splitting young from old. And the child needs, and the mother gives.
I have never weaned you, Silverfox. Indeed, you have never left my womb. You, daughter, draw far more than just milk.
Spirits, please, grant me surcease. This cruel parody of motherhood is too much to bear. Sever me from my daughter. For her sake. My milk is become poison. I can feed naught but spite, for there is nothing else within me. And I remain a young woman in this aged body—
The comb caught on a snarl, tugging her head back. The Mhybe hissed in pain, shot a glare up at the woman above her. Her heart suddenly lurched.
Their gazes were locked.
The woman, who looked at no-one, was looking at her.
I a young woman in an old woman's body. She, a child in a woman's body—
Two prisons, in perfect reflection.
Eyes l
ocked.
'Dear lass, you look weary. Settle here with magnanimous Kruppe and he will pour you some of this steaming herbal brew.'
'I will, thank you.'
Kruppe smiled, watching Silverfox slowly lower herself onto the ground and lean back against the spare saddle, the small hearth between them. The well-rounded curves of the woman were visible through the worn deer-leather tunic. 'So where are your friends?' she asked.
'Gambling. With the crew of the Trygalle Trade Guild. Kruppe, for some odd reason, has been barred from such games. An outrage.' The Daru handed her a tin cup. 'Mostly sage, alas. If you've a cough—'
'I haven't, but it's welcome anyway.'
'Kruppe, of course, never coughs.'
'And why is that?'
'Why, because he drinks sage tea.'
Her brown eyes slipped past his and settled on the wagon a dozen paces away. 'How does she fare?'
Kruppe's brows lifted. 'You might ask her, lass.'
'I can't. I can be nothing other than an abomination for my mother—her stolen youth, in the flesh. She despises me, with good reason, especially now that Korlat's told her about my T'lan Ay.'
'Kruppe wonders, do you now doubt the journey undertaken?'
Silverfox shook her head, sipped at the tea. 'It's too late for that. The problem persists—as you well know. Besides, our journey is done. Only hers remains.'
'You dissemble,' Kruppe murmured. 'Your journey is anything but done, Silverfox. But let us leave that subject for the moment, yes? Have you gleaned news of the dreadful battle?'
'It's over. The Pannion forces are no more. Barring a couple of hundred thousand poorly armed peasants. The White Faces have liberated Capustan—what's left of it, that is. The Bridgeburners are already in the city. More pressing: Brood has called a council—you might be interested in attending that.'
'Indeed, if only to bless the gathering with Kruppe's awesome wisdom. What of you—are you not also attending?'
Silverfox smiled. 'As you said earlier, Daru, my journey's not quite over.'
'Ah, yes. Kruppe wishes you well in that, lass. And dearly hopes he will see you again soon.'
The woman's eyes glanced once more at the wagon. 'You will, friend,' she replied, then drained her tea and rose with a soft sigh. Kruppe saw her hesitate. 'Lass? Is something wrong?'