suspect, being of equal intelligence, that they might well discover it. Hence this mission, my fluttery friend.» He waggled his brows. «Otataral in the hands of a swordmaster of the Empire. A T'lan Imass lurking in the vicinity-»
«What?» Murillio exploded, his eyes wide. He made to turn his mule around, but the beast complained and planted its hoofs. He struggled with it, cursing. «Coll's all cut up and he's got a Malazan killer out there and an Imass! You've lost your mind, Kruppe!»
«But, dear Murillio,» Kruppe crooned, «Kruppe would have thought you eager, nay, desperate to return to Darujhistan as quickly as possible!» That stopped the man. He rounded on Kruppe, face darkening. «Come on,» he gritted, «out with it, then.»
Kruppe's brows rose. «Out with what?»
«You've been hinting about something, poking me with it. So if you think you know something about whatever, let's hear it. Otherwise, we turn round right now and head back to Coll.» Seeing Kruppe's eyes dart, Murillio grinned. «Hah, you thought to distract me, didn't you? Well, it's not going to work.»
Kruppe raised his hands palm up. «No matter whose brain was responsible for your scheme to return Coll to his rightful title, Kruppe can do naught but eagerly applaud!»
Murillio's jaw dropped. How in Hood's name did Kruppe:?
The man continued, «But all that is inconsequential when faced with the fact of Crokus, and the grave danger he is presently in. More, if this young girl was indeed possessed, as Coll suspects, the risks are frightening to behold! Was she the only hunter for the lad's frail, unprotected life? What of the thousand gods and demons who would eagerly confound Oponn at the first opportunity? Thus, would Murillio, friend of long standing with Crokus, so callously abandon the child to the fates? Is Murillio a man to succumb to panic, to what-ifs, to a host of imagined nightmares slinking about within the shadows of his overwrought imagination-?»
«All right!» Murillio barked. «Now hold your tongue and let's ride.»
Kruppe gave a brusque nod at this wise remark.
An hour later, as dusk clambered up the hillsides and ever westward to the dying sun, Murillio started and threw Kruppe a furious glare that was lost in the gloom. «Damn him,» he whispered, «I said I wasn't about to let him distract me. So what's the first thing he does? Distract me.»
«Murillio murmurs something?» Kruppe asked.
Murillio massaged his forehead. «I'm having dizzy spells,» he said.
«Let's find a camp. Crokus and the girl won't make it to the city before tomorrow anyway. I doubt he's in any danger on the road, and we'll find him easily enough before tomorrow's sunset. They should be fine in the daytime-hell, they'll be with Mammot, right?»
«Kruppe admits to his own weariness. Indeed, a camp should be found, and Murillio can construct a small fire, perhaps, and so prepare dinner while Kruppe ponders vital thoughts and such.»
«Fine.» Murillio sighed. «Just fine.»
It came to Captain Paran a couple days after his encounter with the Tiste And? and the events within the lord's sword that Rake had not suspected him to be a Malazan soldier. Or he'd be dead. Oversights blessed him, it seemed. His assassin in Pale should have checked twice-and now the Son of Darkness, snatching him from the jaws of the Hounds, had in turn let him walk free. Was there a pattern to this? It had Oponn's flavour, yet Paran didn't doubt Rake's assertion.
Then did his luck indeed lie in his sword? And had these mercies of fortune marked pivotal moments-moments that would come back to haunt those who'd spared him? For his own well-being, he hoped not.
His was no longer the Empire's road. He'd walked that path of blood and treachery for too long. Never again. What lay before him, then, was the singular effort to save the lives of Whiskeyjack and the squad. If he managed that, he would not begrudge his own death as a consequence.
Some things went beyond a single man's life, and maybe justice existed outside the minds of humanity, beyond even the hungry eyes of gods and goddesses, a thing shining and pure and final. Some philosophers he'd read during his schooling in the Malazan capital, Unta, had asserted what seemed to him then an absurd position. Morality was not relative, they claimed, nor even existing solely in the realm of the human condition. No, they proclaimed morality as an imperative of all life, a natural law that was neither the brutal acts of beasts nor the lofty ambitions of humanity, but something other, something unassailable.
Just another hunt for certainty. Paran scowled and stiffened in his saddle, his eyes fixed on the trader track winding before him through low, rounded hills. He recalled discussing this with Adjunct Lorn, at a time when neither had been compelled by the outside world. Just another hunt for certainty, she'd said, in a voice brittle and cynical, putting an end to the discussion as clearly as if she'd driven a knife into the winestained table between them.
For such words to have come from a woman no older than him, Paran suspected then, as he did now, that her particular view had been no more than an easy, lazy mimicry of Empress Laseen's. But Laseen had a right to it and Lorn did not. At least, in Paran's mind. If anyone had a right to world-weary cynicism, it was the Empress of the Malazan Empire.
Truly had the Adjunct made herself Laseen's extension. But at what cost? He'd seen the young woman behind the mask just once-as they'd looked out over a road carpeted with dead soldiers then proceeded to pick their way through them. The pale, frightened girl that was Lorn had shown herself in a single frail moment. He couldn't remember what had triggered the return of the mask- likely it had been something he'd said, something he'd tossed off in his own guise as a hardened soldier.
Paran sighed deeply. Too many regrets. Lost chances-and with each one passing the less human we all became, and the deeper into the nightmare of power we all sank.
Was his life irretrievable? He wished he had an answer to that question.
Movement in the south caught his attention, and with it he became aware of a rumbling sound, rising up from the earth around him. He rose in the saddle. A wall of dust curled over the ridge of land directly ahead.
He swung his mount westward and nudged it into a trot. Moments later he reined in. The curtains of dust hung in that direction as well.
Cursing, he spurred to the crest of a nearby rise. Dust. Dust on all sides.
A storm? No, the thunder is too regular. He rode down to the plain below and reined in again, wondering what to do. The dust wall rose, cresting the hill he faced. The deep rumbling grew. Paran squinted into the dust. Dark, massive shapes moved there, spreading out to either side, sweeping down on his position. In moments he was surrounded.
Bhederin. He'd heard tales of the huge shaggy creatures, moving across the inner plains in herds half a million strong. On all sides, Paran could see nothing but the humped reddish-brown, dust-caked backs of the beasts. There was nowhere he could lead his horse, no place of safety within sight. Paran leaned back in his saddle and waited.
Something flashed to his left, tawny and low to the ground. The captain half turned, just as something heavy hammered him from the right and clung, dragging him from the saddle. Cursing, Paran thumped heavily in the dust, grappling with wiry limbs, ragged black hair. He drove his knee up, connecting with a solid stomach. His attacker rolled to one side, gasping. Paran scrambled to his feet, found himself facing a youth in tanned hides. The boy sprang to close with the captain once again.
Paran sidestepped and clouted the boy on the side of the head. His attacker sprawled unconscious.
Piercing cries were sounding on all sides. The Bhederin were parting, moving away. Figures emerged, closing on Paran's position. Rhivi. Sworn enemies to the Empire, allied in the north with Caladan Brood and the Crimson Guard.
Two warriors came to the unconscious boy's side; each took an arm and dragged him off.
The herd had come to a stop.
Another warrior approached, striding boldly up to Paran. His duststreaked face was stitched with dyed threads, black and red, from high on the cheeks down to the jawline then up and around the mouth. A Bhederin hide rode the broad line of his shoulders. Stopping less than an arm's length in front of Paran, the warrior reached out and closed his hand on the grip of Chance. Paran struck away the hand. The Rhivi smiled, stepped back and loosed a high-pitched, ululating cry.
Figures rose on the backs of the surrounding Bhederin, lances balanced in one hand as they crouched on the shaggy backs. The huge animals beneath the warriors ignored them as if they were but tick-birds.
The two Rhivi who had taken the boy away now returned, joining the stitch-faced warrior, who said something to the one on his left. This man moved forward. Before Paran could react, he surged into motion, throwing a leg behind the captain then driving his shoulder into Paran's chest.
The warrior fell on top of him. A knife blade slid against the line of Paran's jaw, sliced through the helmet strap. The iron skullcap was pulled away and fingers snagged a handful of his hair. Dragging the warrior with him, Paran pushed himself upright. He'd had enough.
Death was one thing, death without dignity quite another. As the Rhivi's hand twisted, pulling his head up, the captain reached between the warrior's legs and found his own handful. He yanked hard.
The warrior shrieked, releasing Paran's hair. A knife appeared again, flashing at the captain's face. He ducked to one side, his free hand snapping up to grasp the wrist, pushing away the knife. He squeezed once more with his other hand. The Rhivi shrieked again, then Paran let go, twisted round and drove his armoured elbow into the man's face.
Blood spattered like rain in the dust. The warrior reeled back, crumpled to the ground.
A lance haft hammered a glancing blow along Paran's temple. He spun round with the impact. A second lance struck him in the hip, hard as a kick from a horse, numbing his leg. Something pinned his left foot to the ground.
Paran unsheathed Chance. The weapon was almost knocked from his hand with a ringing, pealing sound. He swung it upward and it was struck again. Half blinded with pain, sweat and dust, Paran reared upright, shifting to a two-handed grip and drawing Chance down to a centre guard position. The sword's blade was struck a third time, but he retained his grip.
There was silence. Gasping, blinking, Paran raised his head, looked around.
Rhivi surrounded him, but none moved. Their dark eyes were wide.
Paran flicked his gaze to his weapon, glared back up and around at the warriors, then his eyes returned to Chance. And stayed there.
Three iron lanceheads sprouted from the blade like leaves, each point split and jammed, the hafts shattered and gone, leaving only white wood jutting out from the sockets.
He looked down at his pinned foot. A lance had struck, through his boot, but the wide blade of the head was turned, its flat side pressing against his foot. Splintered wood surrounded him. Paran glanced at his hip, saw no wound. A jagged tear marred the leather of Chance's scabbard.
The Rhivi warrior with the smashed face lay motionless a few feet from where Paran stood. The captain saw that his mount and the packhorses were untouched and had not moved. The other Rhivi had pulled back. The encirclement now divided as a small figure approached.
A girl, perhaps no more than five years old. The warriors moved aside from her as if in awe, or fear, possibly both. She wore antelope skins tied with cord at the waist, and nothing on her feet.
There was something familiar about her, a way of walking, her stance as she stopped before him-something in her heavy-lidded eyes-that made Paran frown uneasily.
The girl stopped to regard him, her small round face slowly coming to mirror Paran's own frown. She raised one hand, as if reaching for him, then dropped it. The captain found he could not pull away his eyes from her. Child, do I know you?
As the silence between them lengthened, an old woman came up up behind the girl, rested a wrinkled hand on her shoulder. Looking worn, almost exasperated, the old woman studied the captain. The girl beside her said something, the quick lilting language of the Rhivi, surprisingly low-pitched for one so young. The old woman crossed her arms. The girl spoke again, insistently.
The old woman addressed Paran in Daru, «Five lances claimed you as our enemy.» She paused. «Five lances were wrong.»
«You've plenty more,» Paran said.
«So we have, and the god favouring your sword has no followers here.»
