Memories of Ice

The horn sounded a second time.

Faces turned. The deadly grenados disappeared once more beneath rain-capes and cloaks.

'Stand at ease!' Paran growled as he reached them. In a lower voice, he snapped, 'Hold fast, you damned fools! Nobody counted on a Hood-damned draw! Keep your wits. Corporal Aimless, go to Mulch and find out what in Fener's name he did with that flickblade — and get the bad news on Trotts — I know, I know, he looked done for. But so's the lad. Who knows, maybe it's a question of who dies first-'

'Captain,' one of the sergeants cut in. 'They were gonna have at us, sir, that's all. We wasn't planning on nothing — we was waitin' for your signal, sir.'

'Glad to hear it. Now keep your eyes open, but stay calm, while I go confer with Humbrall Taur.' Paran swung round and headed towards the Circle.

The Barghast warchief 's face was grey, his gaze returning again and again to the small figure now ominously motionless on the stained ground a dozen paces away. A half-dozen minor chiefs clustered around Humbrall, each shouting to make himself heard above his rival. Taur was ignoring them one and all.

Paran pushed through the crowd. A glance to his right showed Aimless crouched down beside Mulch. The healer had a hand pressed tight against the wound in Trotts's left arm and seemed to be whispering under his breath, his eyes closed. Slight movement from Trotts revealed that the Bridgeburner still lived. And, the captain realized, he had ceased his thrashing around. Somehow, Mulch had given him a means of drawing breath. Paran shook his head in disbelief. Crush a man's throat and he dies. Unless there's a High Denul healer nearby. and Mulch isn't, he's a cutter with a handful of cantrips at his disposal — the man's pulled off a miracle.

'Malazan!' Humbrall Taur's small, flat eyes were fixed on Paran. He gestured. 'We must speak, you and I.' He switched from Daru to bellow at the warriors crowding him. They withdrew, scowling, casting venomous glares towards the captain.

A moment later Paran and the Barghast warchief stood face to face. Humbrall Taur studied him for a moment, then said, 'Your warriors think little of you. Soft blood, they say.'

Paran shrugged. 'They're soldiers. I'm their new officer.'

'They are disobedient. You should kill one or two of them, then the others will respect you.'

'It's my task to keep them alive, not kill them, Warchief.'

Humbrall Taur's eyes narrowed. 'Your Barghast fought in the style of you foreigners. He did not fight as kin to us. Twenty-three duels, my unnamed son. Without loss, without so much as a wound. I have lost one of my blood, a great warrior.'

'Trotts lives still,' Paran said.

'He should be dead. Crush a man's throat and the convulsions take him. He should not have been able to swing his sword. My son sacrificed a hand to kill him.'

'A valiant effort, Warchief.'

'In vain, it seems. Do you claim that Trotts will survive his wounds?'

'I don't know. I need to confer with my healer.'

'The spirits are silent, Malazan,' Humbrall Taur said after a moment. 'They wait. As must we.'

'Your council of chiefs might not agree with you,' Paran observed.

Taur scowled. 'That is a matter for the Barghast. Return to your company, Malazan. Keep them alive … if you can.'

'Does our fate rest on Trotts's surviving, Warchief?'

The huge warrior bared his teeth. 'Not entirely. I am done with you, now.' He turned his back on the captain. The other chiefs closed in once again.

Paran pulled away, fighting a resurgence of pain in his stomach, and strode to where Trotts lay. Eyes on the Barghast warrior, he crouched down beside the healer, Mulch. There was a hole between Trotts's collar bones, home to a hollow bone tube that whistled softly as he breathed. The rest of his throat was crumpled, a mass of green and blue bruising. The Barghast's eyes were open, aware and filled with pain.

Mulch glanced over. 'I've healed the vessels and tendons in his arm,' he said quietly. 'He won't lose it, I think. It'll be weaker, though, unless Mallet gets here soon.'

Paran pointed at the bone tube. 'What in Hood's name is that, healer?'

'It ain't easy playing with warrens right now, sir. Besides, I ain't good enough to fix anything like that anyway. It's a cutter's trick, learned it from Bullit when I was in the 6th Army — he was always figuring ways of doing things without magic, since he could never find his warren when things got hot.'

'Looks … temporary.'

'Aye, Captain. We need Mallet. Soon.'

'That was fast work, Mulch,' Paran said, straightening. 'Well done.'

'Thanks, sir.'

'Corporal Aimless.'

'Captain?'

'Get some soldiers down here. I don't want any Barghast getting too close to Trotts. When Mulch gives the word, move him back to our camp.'

'Aye, sir.'

Paran watched the soldier hurry off, then he faced south and scanned the sky. 'Hood's breath!' he muttered with plaintive relief.

Mulch rose. 'You sent Twist to find 'em, didn't you, sir? Look, he's got a passenger. Probably Quick Ben, though …'

Paran slowly smiled, squinting at the distant black speck above the ridgeline. 'Not if Twist followed my orders, Healer.'

Mulch looked over. 'Mallet. Fener's hoof, that was a good play, Captain.'

Paran met the healer's gaze. 'Nobody dies on this mission, Mulch.'

The old veteran slowly nodded, then knelt once again to tend to Trotts.

Picker studied Quick Ben as they trudged up yet another grass-backed hillside. 'You want us to get someone to carry you, Mage?'

Quick Ben wiped the sweat from his brow, shook his head. 'No, it's getting better. The Barghast spirits are thick here, and getting thicker. They're resisting the infection. I'll be all right, Corporal.'

'If you say so, only you're looking pretty rough to me.' And ain't that an understatement.

'Hood's warren is never a fun place.'

'That's bad news, Mage. What have we all got to look forward to, then?'

Quick Ben said nothing.

Picker scowled. 'That bad, huh? Well, that's just great. Wait till Antsy hears.'

The wizard managed a smile. 'You tell him news only to see him squirm, don't you?'

'Sure. The squad needs its entertainment, right?'

The summit revealed yet another set of small cairns, scattered here and there on its weathered expanse. Tiny, long-legged grey birds hopped from their path as the soldiers marched on. Few words were wasted — the heat was oppressive, with half a day of sunlight remaining. Buzzing flies kept pace.

The squad had seen no-one since Twist's visit at dawn. They knew the duel had taken place by now, but had no idea of its outcome. Hood, we could walk in to our own execution. Spindle and Quick Ben were next to useless, unable and unwilling to test the taste of their warrens, pallid and shaky and uncommunicative. Hedge's jaw was too swollen for him to manage anything more than grunts, but the looks he cast at Detoran's back as she walked point hinted at plans of murderous vengeance. Blend was scouting somewhere ahead, or behind — or maybe in my Hood-damned shadow — she glanced over her shoulder to check, but the woman wasn't there. Antsy, taking up the rear, kept up a private conversation with himself, his ceaseless mumbling a steady accompaniment to the droning flies.

The landscape showed no life beyond the grasses cloaking the hills and the stunted trees occasionally visible in the valleys where seasonal streams hoarded water beneath the soil. The sky was cloudless, not a bird in sight to mar the blue vastness. Far to the north and east rose the white peaks of the Barghast Range, jagged in their youth and forbidding.