That night Kyle sat on the steps with Stoop who smoked his pipe. High broken clouds moved raggedly across the face of the moon. A weak wind stirred the limbs of the birch and spruce. ‘What of the ship?’ Kyle asked.
‘They'll wait while we scout out this town upriver.’
‘Then what?’
‘Well, we'll see, won't we? If there's no Malazan garrisons like the man says, then we'll just move right in.’
‘But this isn't Quon Tali.’
‘No.’ Stoop took the pipe from his mouth, knocked the embers in a shower of sparks to the wet ground and gave Kyle a wink. ‘But we're real close now, lad. We just have to reach out, and it's ours.’
Somehow Kyle didn't think it would be so easy.
Stoop slipped the pipe into a pocket. ‘I'm off for sleep. These old bones don't take to cold bivouacs no more. Did you know that not one of these roofs don't leak?’
‘Try the one across the way.’
The old saboteur eyed the canted, sunken-roofed ruin. ‘Thanks a lot.’
Kyle sat for a time in the dark. These last few nights he'd hardly slept at all. That feeling of being watched that Twisty blamed on spirits wouldn't leave him. Sometimes he thought he'd heard voices whispering in the night. He even felt as if he'd heard his name called once or twice.
A walk might do him good. Too little action recently; too much waiting. First the agonizing ocean crossing and now this strange non-event of an arrival. Where was everyone? It was an unnerving land. As his feet took him on to a forest path he realized that, for all its foreignness, it was also eerily familiar. He'd felt something just like this land's haunted presence when his clan had ventured on to the northernmost high plateau of their territory. His uncle had gestured to the misty lowlands north of them saying that there they never ventured: those were Assail lands. Just studying them from the distance Kyle had sensed their eerie alienness.
When his feet brushed cut stones, he stopped. A set of stairs overgrown by vines and layered in moss led up to the clifftop fortress, Haven. More of a tower, really, than a full-sized fort. Since it was plain by now that there was no one but his blade around, he decided to climb.
The steps brought him to a dark humid tunnel that opened on to a central court. Saplings had pushed up through the flags and vines gripped the mottled walls. Kyle studied the grounds and it was clear that no one ever came up here. He crossed to another set of stairs along one wall that led up to the battlements. On his way the pale smear of aged ivory caught his eye and he knelt. A skull grinned up at him, helmet fused to it with age and green verdigris. Nearby lay a corroded sword overgrown by moss. Small animals had foraged the carcass, but no larger beasts. Not even humans had scavenged here it seemed, unless swords and armour used to be as common as weeds. No, this soldier still lay where he fell, arms and all. Question was: which army? Was this a fallen brother? Or one of those Malazans? There was no telling now; time and the gnawing teeth of scavengers had rendered them akin.
Straightening from the remains, Kyle wondered at the meanderings of his strange thoughts. Never before had he given a body a second thought. Was this lofty perspective taught by travel? He started up the stairs. Halfway, he paused as the steps ahead seemed to shimmer in the tatters of moonlight. Empty night appeared to be gliding down towards him, engulfing the steps one by one in some dark tide. Then the clouds passed and the shadows dispersed. Kyle felt at the stairs and his hand came away dust dry. An omen? But of what?
From the battlements ragged moonlight painted the Sea of Chimes a mottled blue and silver. Not one light was visible along all the shore. Was this the land the Guard had fled so long ago? Where was everyone? He leant against the gritty stones and let the evening breeze cool him. It was surprisingly quiet but for the wind hissing through the trees and the flutter of night insects. But standing there Kyle slowly became aware of another noise — that hushed whispering called from the night once again and he slowly turned. The patchy shadows of the derelict courtyard seemed to flicker and shift. He thought he could almost see shapes within them — was this why no one was supposed to come up here? Some kind of haunting? He wished Trench had been more plain about the dangers. He wondered if he was now stuck up there all night. It might just be the murmuring of the surf far below, but he imagined he could almost hear a multitude of soft voices down there.
A fresh wind brushed his cheek, this one crossways to the sea-breeze. It was hot and thick and smelled not of the sea but of some other place. From a corner turret came a whirlwind of leaves and with them something iridescent in the moonlight. Puzzled, he knelt. A scattering of gold and pink flower petals. Soft and fresh. The wind out of the turret picked up and the stink of rot filled Kyle's nostrils. He backed away. The whispering from the courtyard rose to an eager susurration louder than the wind through the trees then abruptly cut off as if swept away.
A heavy step sounded from the turret, the stamp of iron on stone. Kyle's hand went to his tulwar. Another heavy step and a figure emerged. Layered iron armour that glittered darkly in the silver light encased it head to toe. A tall closed helm accented the man's great height and his hands in articulated gauntlets rested on the grip of a greatsword belted at his waist. Kyle dreaded that he faced one of those nightmares from his people's legends, a Jhag. It waved an arm, seeming to dismiss him.
‘The ships await, brother,’ it announced in Talian. ‘Go now. Kellanved and his lackeys are close. We are agreed on the Diaspora.’
Wonder clenched Kyle's throat. His hand was slick on his tulwar that seemed oddly warm to his touch.
The helm turned and regarded him more closely. Kyle now saw that flower petals dusted the man's surcoat, which was of a dark, almost black, shimmering cloth.
‘Go! Dancer has taken too many of our mages, though Cowl made him pay for it. We can counter Tayschrenn no longer. Flee while you may. I will delay them.’
Still Kyle could not move. Was this an apparition? A ghost reliving its last moments in the moonlight? Perhaps its skull was the one below.
The figure seemed to have found its doubts as well for its gauntleted hands returned to the long grip of its sword. ‘Who are you, brother? Name yourself. What blade?’
Kyle struggled to find his voice. ‘Kyle,’ he managed, weakly. ‘The Ninth.’
‘You lie!’ The sword sprang from its sheath.
‘Skinner!’ someone shouted and Kyle spun to see Stoop at the stairs. ‘Skinner! Damn, you're a sight for these old eyes.’ Stoop stepped past Kyle while at the same time pushing him away. ‘Welcome back. You gave me ‘n’ the lad here quite the start.’
The helmed head inclined ever so slightly. ‘Stoop… You are here? Shimmer's command has already departed.’
Stoop gave a loud exaggerated laugh. ‘Why, we've returned, man. We're back. Near a century's passed an’ we're back.’
The apparition, if it was indeed this Skinner that Kyle had heard so much of, stilled for a time, sword raised to strike. ‘Returned? But… Malazan columns in the forest…’
‘Gone, man. Long gone. Just us Guardsmen now.’
A hand went to the helm. ‘Yes, of course. I too escaped. Yet, returning, it is as if…’ Skinner sheathed his blade.
Kyle was relieved to see that sword safely put away. The glimpse he had of it made him recoil. The blade had been mottled black in corrosion and something told him that its slightest touch would be unhealthy.
‘Yes,’ Skinner continued, his voice firming. ‘Now we will crush them.’ He raised a gauntleted hand, clenching a fist, iron grating upon iron. ‘The last time I nearly had Kellanved but for Dassem's intervention and now I am returned far more than I was then.’
‘That so?’ said Stoop. ‘Thought you looked… different.’
A laugh from Skinner. ‘Different? More than you imagine, Stoop.’
The old saboteur gestured to the surcoat whose heraldry was too dark to make out in this light. ‘And these colours?’
‘Heraldry of our Patron, Queen Ardata.’
‘Never heard of her. You been with her all this time?’
‘She has been very generous to us.’
‘Us? How many of our brothers and sisters do you speak for, Skinner?’
The Guard champion shifted to look out over the court. Kyle had noted that the whispering had returned. Its
