Battling wits with bhok'arala and the whisperings of a god most hold as himself insane…'
'Yet there is power here, Mappo,' Icarium said in a low voice.
'Aye,' the Trell agreed as he approached the rope. 'A warren opened in the cave when the mule entered.'
'Then why does the High Priest not use it?'
'I doubt we'll find easy answers to Iskaral Pust, friend.'
'Best hold tight, Mappo.'
'Aye.'
Icarium reached out suddenly, rested a hand on Mappo's shoulder. 'Friend.'
'Aye?'
The Jhag was frowning. 'I am missing an arrow, Mappo. More, there is blood on my sword, and I see upon you dreadful wounds. Tell me, did we fight? I recall… nothing.'
The Trell was silent a long moment, then he said, 'I was beset by a leopard while you slept, Icarium. Made some use of your weapons. I did not think it worthy of mention.'
Icarium's frown deepened. 'Once again,' he slowly whispered, 'I have lost time.'
'Nothing of worth, friend.'
'You would tell me otherwise?' There was a look of desperate pleading in the Jhag's grey eyes.
'Why would I not, Icarium?'
CHAPTER THREE
The Red Blades were, at this time, pre-eminent among those pro-Malazan organizations that arose in occupied territories. Viewing themselves as progressive in their embrace of the values of imperial unification, this quasi-military cult became infamous with their brutal pragmatism when dealing with dissenting kin …
Hem Trauth
Felisin lay unmoving beneath Beneth until, with a final shudder, he was done. He pushed himself off and grabbed a handful of her hair. His face was flushed under the grime and his eyes gleamed in the lamp glow. 'You'll learn to like it, girl,' he said.
The edge of something savage always rose closer to the surface immediately after he'd lain with her. She knew it would pass. 'I will,' she said. 'Does he get a day of rest?'
Beneth's grip tightened momentarily, then relaxed. 'Aye, he does.' He moved away, began tying up his breeches. 'Though I don't much see the point. The old man won't last another month.' He paused, his breath harsh as he studied her. 'Hood's breath, girl, but you're beautiful. Show me some life next time. I'll treat you right. Get you soap, a new comb, lousebane. You'll work here in Twistings, that's a promise. Show pleasure, girl, that's all I ask.'
'Soon,' she said. 'Once it stops hurting.'
The day's eleventh bell had sounded. They were in the third reach off Twistings Far shaft. The reach had been gouged out by the Rotlegs and was barely high enough to crawl for most of its quarter-mile length. The air was close and stank of Otataral dust and sweating rock.
Virtually everyone else would have reached Nearlight by now, but Beneth moved in Captain Sawark's shadow and could do as he pleased. He had claimed the abandoned reach as his own. It was Felisin's third visit. The first time had been the hardest. Beneth had picked her within hours of her arrival at Skullcup, the mining camp in the Dosin Pit. He was a big man, bigger than Baudin and though a slave himself he was master of every other slave, the guards' inside man, cruel and dangerous. He was also astonishingly handsome.
Felisin had learned fast on the slave ship. She had nothing but her body to sell, but it had proved a valuable currency. Giving herself to the ship guards had been repaid with more food for herself, Heboric and Baudin. By opening her legs to the right men she had managed to get herself and her two companions chained on the keel ramp rather than in the sewage-filled water that sloshed shin-deep beneath the hold's walkway. Others had rotted in that water. Some had drowned when starvation and sickness so weakened them that they could not stay above it.
Heboric's grief and anger at the price she paid had at first been difficult to ignore, filling her with shame. But it had paid for their lives, and that was a truth that could not be questioned. Baudin's only reaction had been — and continued to be — a regard without expression. He watched her as would a stranger unable to decide who or what she was. Yet he had held to her side, and now stood close to Beneth as well. Some kind of arrangement had been made between them. When Beneth was not there to protect her, Baudin was.
On the ship she had learned well the tastes of men, as well as those of the few women guards who'd taken her to their bunks. She'd thought she'd be prepared for Beneth, and in most ways she was.
Wincing, Felisin pulled on her slave tunic.
Beneth watched her, his high cheekbones harsh ridges beneath his eyes, his long, curly black hair glistening with whale oil. 'I'll give the old man Deepsoil if you like,' he said.
'You'd do that?'
He nodded. 'For you I'll change things. I won't take any other woman. I'm king of Skullcup, you'll be my queen. Baudin will be your personal guard — I trust him.'
'And Heboric?'
Beneth shrugged. 'Him I don't trust. And he's not much use. Pulling the carts is about all he can do. The carts, or a plough at Deepsoil.' His gaze flickered at her. 'But he's your friend, so I'll find something for him.'
Felisin dragged her fingers through her hair. 'It's the carts that are killing him. If you've sent him to Deepsoil just to pull a plough, it's not much of a favour-'
Beneth's scowl made her wonder if she'd pushed too far. 'You've never pulled a cart full of stone, girl. Pulled one of those up through half a league of tunnels, then going back down and pulling another one, three, four times a day. Compare that to dragging a plough through soft, broken soil? Dammit, girl, if I'm to move the man off the carts, I've got to justify it. Everyone works in Skullcup.'
'That's not the whole story, is it?'
He turned his back on her in answer, and began crawling up the reach. 'I've Kanese wine awaiting us, and fresh bread and cheese. Bula's made a stew for the guards and we've got a bowl each.'
Felisin followed. The thought of food made her mouth water. If there was enough cheese and bread she could save some for Heboric, though he insisted that it was fruit and meat that was needed. But both were worth their weight in gold, and just as rare in Skullcup. He'd be grateful enough for what she brought him, she knew.
It was clear that Sawark had received orders to see the historian dead. Nothing so overt as murder — the political risks were too great for that — rather, the slow, wasting death of poor diet and overwork. That he had no hands gave the Pit Captain sufficient reason to assign Heboric to the carts. Daily he struggled at his harness, hauling hundreds of pounds of broken rock up the Deep Mine to the shaft's Nearlight. In every other harness was an ox. The beasts each hauled three carts, while Heboric pulled but one: the only acknowledgement the guards made to his humanity.
Beneth was aware of Sawark's instructions, Felisin was certain of that. The 'king' of Skullcup had limits to his power, for all his claims otherwise.
Once they reached the main shaft, it was four hundred paces to Twistings' Nearlight. Unlike Deep Mine, with its thick, rich and straight vein of Otataral running far under the hills, Twistings followed a folded vein, rising and diving, buckling and turning through the limestone.
Unlike the iron mines on the mainland, Otataral never ran down into true bedrock. Found only in limestone, the veins ran shallow and long, like rivers of rust between compacted beds filled with fossil plants and shellfish.
