Night of Knives

‘By the Powers, no. Not him. He’s chosen another path in any case. No, it’s someone else.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘I knew you wouldn’t,’ Agayla sighed. ‘In the meantime we must still resist.’

‘If I don’t like who you’ve asked, I’ll leave. I swear.’

‘Yes, Obo.’

As if caught in a sudden gust, Agayla wavered, took a step back to steady herself against an invisible pressure. She reached behind to a waist-high rock to brace herself and leaned against it, massaging her brow. ‘Gods above. I’ve never felt anything so strong.’

Nodding, Obo crossed his arms again. ‘Single-minded bastards, ain’t they?’

Temper opened his eyes to find himself once again at the siege of Y’Ghatan. It was his old nightmare. The one that he relived over and over, dreaming and awake. Yet it had been a long time since it had returned, and it troubled him that he should find himself here now once more.

He heard cloth lashing and snapping in the unrelenting wind, orders barked from somewhere nearby. The air stank of burnt leather and rotting flesh. His doubts and lingering sense of unease dispersed like a pan of water left out under the burning Seven Cities sun. Serried ranks of Malazan regulars stood, backs to him, before a flat field scoured by blowing sand. Bodies dotted the plain and a forest of spears and javelins jutted from the ground at sickening angles. Through the dust rose the dun walls of the first escarpment to the four levels of the ancient ruins. The fortifications looked to Temper like nothing more solid than simple rammed earth. Beyond, the jagged incisor- like ridges of the Thalas Mountains darkened the northern horizon.

Flags snapped in the strong wind. Orders carried, distorted by the wind’s own voice. Soldiers marched. Temper squinted into the dust, pushed back his helmet and hawked up grit. A canteen thumped against the chest of his scaled hauberk. He took it with a nod to the bearded and armoured man at his side. ‘Thanks, Point.’

‘What in Burn’s Wisdom are we doing in this god-forsaken waste?’ Point grumbled as he drew on his own helmet, an iron pot bearing cheek guards embossed to resemble the jaws of a roaring lion.

Temper said nothing. There was little to say. Point grumbled about everything; it was his way. Across the lines mixed Gral, Debrahl and Tregyn of the Y’Ghatan guard rode back and forth, shouting insults hoarse and unintelligible from this distance, clashing their swords against round bronze-faced shields. Temper turned to examine the rippling white walls of the command tent. ‘The last one, he says.’

Point snorted. ‘Not in this rat’s nest of a land. There’ll always be another, and another. These people will never face the truth.’

Temper watched the snapping cloth, the marines standing guard at the entrance, and his four brother bodyguards waiting next to them. ‘Maybe so. But he says it’s his last.’

Point glanced at him, his eyes narrow within the shade of his helm. ‘You don’t really believe that. He’s always sayin’ that.’

‘I don’t know. That Bloorgian priest, Lanesh — you’ve heard the things he’s been ranting.’

Point slapped the sword sheathed at his side. ‘That pig. He’s just eaten up that Dassem’s closer to Hood than he’ll ever be. Ferrule says we ought to gut him, and for once I agree with that murdering brute.’

Temper straightened as the tent flap was thrown back and officers filed out. ‘Here they come.’

Dassem stepped out, his horsehair-plumed helm under one arm. The four others of his ‘sword’ bodyguard met him there. Soldiers nearby in the ranks shouted, ‘Hail the Sword!’ Dassem raised a gauntleted hand in answer. A few of the mage cadre emerged: old man A’Karonys with a staff taller than he was; the giant Bedurian; the woman Nightchill; and the short bald walking stump of a man, Hairlock.

Point murmured, ‘I wish the old ogre was still around. He always kept that bitch in check.’

Temper grunted agreement. The bitch, Surly, remained hidden within the tent. Talian and Falaran Sub-Fists and commanders came out and headed to their posts. In their wake they left messengers running with last minute orders. From behind the city walls horns sounded distant alarm. After a last dust-ridden pass and javelin toss, the harrying Y’Ghatan cavalry withdrew.

The assault lasted through the entire day. The thunder and roar of battle rose and fell as flank commanders probed the defences, searching for a weakness. Smoke and the stench of burnt flesh washed over Temper as A’Karonys lashed the walls with flames, only to be pushed back by what remained of the Holy Falah’d. Ranged around Dassem, Sword of the Empire and commander of the Imperial forces, Temper and his brethren watched and waited through the day’s punishing heat for the time when the Sword would commit itself to the field. Runners came and went, conveying intelligence to Dassem, relaying his orders. A company of saboteurs emerged from the churning winds. Caked in dust but grinning, they saluted Dassem. Somewhere, the defences had been breached.

Slowly, step by step, the regular infantry advanced. They scrambled up the first incline of the lowest terrace to the broached first ring of walls. Here the Imperial sappers had done their work, undermining and blasting entire sections. So far, the defenders held a death-grip on these breaches. Piled cask and timber barriers went up at night, while each day the Malazans tore them down. Scaling a siege ramp, Temper calculated that every footstep taken up the dusty rotten slope cost a thousand men. An impenetrable cloud of reddish dust obscured everything. Ahead, muted screams and the thundering clash of arms reached him through the gusting wind.

Temper scanned the next walls — no more than heaped sun-baked mud bricks. Why here at this pathetic backwater? Why had the surviving rag-ends of insurrectionist armies and a last few newly anointed Falah’d converged here? Prisoners boasted of its extraordinary antiquity and named it the hidden progenitor of all the Holy Cities themselves. A convenient claim now that all the rest had fallen, and a sad one too. It spoke of just how far a proud civilization had been reduced. The last undignified scrambling of a defeated people.

Dassem gestured to his signal corps and the messengers stopped coming; he had turned over the battle to the sub-commanders of the Third Army: Amaron, Choss, and Whiskeyjack.

Temper approached. ‘The last one then?’

Dassem glanced over, his dark eyes softening. ‘Aye. The last.’

Temper thought of all he had heard whispered from so many sources — of Pacts and Vows sworn to the Hooded One himself. Steeling himself, he ventured, ‘You can’t just walk away.’

Dassem slapped at the dust coating his long surcoat of burgundy and grey, the Imperial sceptre at its chest. ‘That’s the last of my worries, Temper. There are plenty of others all too eager to do his work. Lady knows, they’re practically lined up.’

‘It can’t be that easy.’

‘Easy!’ The First Sword’s black eyes blazed and Temper jerked back a step. Dassem passed one gauntleted hand across his eyes as if wiping away a vision of horror. His long black hair, plaited back and tied at his neck, lashed in the wind like the horsetail plume at the helmet under his arm. He shaded his gaze to scan the battle. ‘He made a mistake,’ he whispered aloud.

Temper wondered: was this meant to be overheard?

‘All that has ever mattered to me has been taken. I have nothing left to lose…’

Though he ached to take his commander’s shoulders and shout — But what of your own soul, Dassem? — Temper held his tongue.

He sensed he had pushed as far as he dared, had been given all that this man was prepared to give. Besides, what did he know of pacts made in his grandfather’s time? Or of Hood’s murky intentions, for that matter?

A roar went up from thousands of throats as the Malazan regulars of the Third Army pushed on through the next level of the layered defences.

’Soon, now. We’ll see Surgen soon,’ Dassem said under his breath. His lips drew back from his teeth, his features tensed, eager. Although they were the enemy, Temper found himself pitying the soldiers ranged against them. Dassem drew on his helm and started forward. Temper and the rest of the Sword-Point, Ferrule, Quillion, Hilt and Edge — fell in around him.

As they advanced, Temper kept a look ahead for Surgen-Surgen Ress, the man who claimed to be the last of the Holy City’s patroned and anointed champions. Never mind there were only seven Holy Cities and that all seven champions had fallen to Dassem’s sword. He gave life to Y’Ghatan’s claim to be the eighth Holy City, hidden, but the eldest. Temper wondered just how long such a pretence could last.

Wounded soldiers, some carried, others staggering, appeared out of the wind-lashed dust like summoned