K’ess frowned, then remembered that he was naked. ‘Well … if you think it would help.’ He gave the captain a courtly nod and slammed the door shut. Facing the adzed wooden slats Captain Fal-ej let out a silent breath of awe and headed down the hall on weak knees.
Fist K’ess caught up with Fal-ej where the captain stood shouting commands to a bucket-brigade vainly tossing water on the burgeoning flames consuming the barracks. Studying the conflagration, a hand raised to shield his face from the heat, the Fist shouted: ‘Never mind! It’s a loss! Just try to stop it from spreading.’
Fal-ej saluted. ‘Yes, sir.’ She jogged off, shouting more commands.
After the captain had reorganized the soldiers K’ess waved her to him. ‘Anyone hurt?’
‘No, sir.’
A roar as the roof collapsed silenced any further talk and drove everyone back a step, coughing and covering their faces. Fist K’ess wiped a smear of some sort of air-borne grease from his face — the larders up in smoke.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘An accident?’ He asked but he didn’t believe it: the fire had spread far too swiftly. The shake of her head confirmed his suspicions.
He waved the captain further back to talk. ‘Any suspects?’
She’d pulled off her helmet and now ran a hand through her matted dark hair. K’ess noted how her features seemed to glow — a combination of sweat from the heat and the grease of the smoke. He realized she had a strange look in her eyes even as he studied them.
She glanced away, clearing her throat. ‘One of the kitchen staff, probably. Or one of the local servants.’
‘You have them?’
‘A few. They all claim innocence, of course. What do you want done with them? We could … send a message.’
‘I very much doubt that the one who set this hung about to get caught.’
‘I agree, Fist.’
‘So … let them know what we
Her thick black brows rose. ‘Let them … go?’
‘Yes. We’re soldiers, not executioners, or some sort of police. It’s subjugation that requires brutality, and I’m not willing to stoop to that yet. Do you understand, Captain?’
The woman’s face hardened as if struck. ‘I am from Seven Cities, Fist.’
K’ess cursed himself for his obvious misstep but kept his expression blank. He inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘My apologies — then you more than understand.’
A lieutenant arrived, rescuing the Fist from his discomfort. ‘A mob at the gates, sir. Blocking the exit.’
‘Armed?’
‘Haphazardly so. Though there may be veterans mixed in among ’em.’
K’ess turned to Fal-ej. ‘My apologies again, Captain. You were correct. Perhaps we should have withdrawn earlier. It seems we’re always underestimating Pale.’ He motioned to the lieutenant. ‘Have the entire command salvage what they can then form up before the gates. We’re evacuating.’
The lieutenant saluted. ‘Aye, sir.’ He ran off, bellowing.
‘North, sir?’ Fal-ej asked.
They flinched at another thundering reverberation accompanied by curtains of sparks from the collapsing barracks.
Their few horses, pulled from the stalls, began screaming their terror as the flames drew nearer the mustering square. ‘No, Captain. South. We’ll catch up with the Twenty-second.’
‘Aye. And the gates?’
‘I understand they’re designed to be unhinged, if need be.’
The Captain’s full lips drew up in a feral grin of anticipation. ‘I’ll see to it.’
‘Very good.’ K’ess saluted. Fal-ej jogged for the gates. He wiped his sweat-slick face.
A short time later, mounting amid the column, K’ess slapped his gauntlets against his cape to put out drifting sparks. Then he nodded to the bannerman, who dipped the black, grey and silver standard of the Fifth. At the gates Fal-ej oversaw the saboteurs who struck the hinges. At her wave, K’ess motioned that the banner be pointed forward and the entire garrison charged into the broad timber doors. For an instant the gates wavered, creaking, then shouts of alarm from beyond signalled their leaning outwards.
K’ess drew his longsword, bellowing, ‘Onward, Fifth!’
The entire column leaned forward, shields to backs, pressing. The gates groaned, gave, toppled. Screams sounded beyond. The broad timber leaves crashed down — but they did not lie flat — far from it, in truth. The front ranks stepped up on to the planks, ignoring the cries beneath. The garrison marched out, stamping over a good portion of the crushed mob while the rest fled. Even halfway back in the column, when K’ess urged his mount up on to the planking the flattened gate still settled slightly.
Watching from across the square, the Lord Mayor stared in utter horror at the slaughter done by the Malazans in one murderous gesture. He turned to the shadowy figure next to him. ‘This is unspeakable! What have we done?’
‘We?’ intoned the shade of Hinter. ‘As yet I have done nothing. This is all your doing, Lord Mayor.’
The man’s plump hands clasped the furred robes at his neck as if he were strangling himself. ‘What?’ he spluttered. ‘But you assured me …’
The shade made a gesture as if to remove dust from one translucent sleeve. ‘All I assured you was that you would be rid of the Malazans. And behold — am I not good to my word?’
‘But … these deaths!’
‘Not nearly so many as when they arrived, I understand.’
That comment, so calmly delivered, touched something in the Lord Mayor and he clenched his fists around the rich material. ‘You will fare no better! Darujhistan has no more army than we!’
The tall shade’s regard seemed to radiate an almost godlike disinterest. ‘We shall see. In any case, I suppose we do owe you our thanks for sending them off. Therefore — you are now on your own.’ The shimmering figure bowed mockingly, murmuring, ‘Better luck to come.’
The Lord Mayor’s eyes bulged. ‘You are … leaving? But what of the Rhivi raiders? Barghast war bands? The Moranth? You said you would protect us!’ The mayor, nearly breathless, ceased his objections when he saw he was alone; the shade had faded from view. He glanced, terrified, at the shadows surrounding him in the empty night, then quickly scuttled away.
*
The Malazans had not entirely abandoned southern Genabackis. After the crushing of the Pannion Seer Dujek embarked with the battered remnants of his Host for some distant continent, while Captain Paran collected his remaining columns and also departed. Not all elements withdrew, however. A small portion consisting mainly of the last under-strength legion of the Second Army was left behind. Its mandate, straight from Dujek, was to maintain order while the surviving inhabitants of the region rebuilt their lives, their cities, and their defences. Command of this garrison fell to a veteran who had risen through the logistics and supply side of campaigning. Her name was Argell Steppen and she was awarded the honorary rank of Fist.
What she was entrusted with some thought no honour. Many soldiers muttered that these last fragments of the Second, Fifth and Sixth armies were shattered, if not irrevocably broken. Whether the blunt-talking, short, and some thought rather unattractive woman agreed with this estimation she never said. What she did do was order a general withdrawal from the festering wrecks that were the one-time urban centres of the south — Bastion, Capustan and others — to a hillock near the headwaters of the River Eryn, close by the verges of the Cinnamon Wastes. And here she ordered a fortress built. Most of her command thought her mad to be constructing a redoubt in the middle of nowhere so far from the coast.
Then the raids began.
Bendan, son of Hurule, had grown up among the huts, open sewers and garbage heaps of the Gadrobi slums
