‘They are, Faint,’ Aranict replied. ‘They simply have no need of cookfires, or lanterns.’
And now Faint made out a darker stain covering the low hills before them, and the dull gleam here and there of iron, or maybe reptilian eyes. Another shiver rippled through her. ‘How confident are you in these allies?’ She could see massive, elongated heads lifting now, eyes fixing upon them. She could see serrated rows of fangs.
‘They are commanded by three humans, Faint, and two of them were once soldiers in the Bonehunters.’
Precious Thimble muttered something under her breath, probably a curse.
Aranict glanced at the young sorceress, and then over at Faint. ‘Do you share your colleague’s mistrust of Malazans, Faint?’
‘Well, they tried conquering Darujhistan once. But then they turned round and crushed the Pannion Domin — and the Pannions were headed towards Darujhistan, with bad intentions.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t see them as any better or worse than anyone else.’ Turning to Precious, she said, ‘Besides, I visited One-Eye Cat before it got conquered, and that place was a hole.’
‘But at least it was
‘Did you just say-’
‘Oh, be quiet, will you? You know what I meant!’
The prince and the Atri-Ceda said nothing and managed to hold their expressions — at least as far as Faint could discern in the heavy gloom.
Thirty paces ahead, at the mouth of an avenue between ranks of silent, motionless K’Chain Che’Malle stood two men and a woman. The woman knelt and lifted the shutters on an oversized lantern, bathing the area in light.
As the riders drew closer, Faint studied these … commanders. The men were the soldiers, clad in the uniforms of Malazan marines, and though at first Faint took them to be Falari — with that red and yellow hair — there seemed to be a strange hue to their skin, somewhere between bronze and gold, almost lit from within. The woman was a tribal of some sort. Like the Rhivi, only bigger-boned, her face broad, slightly flat, her eyes dark and glittering like obsidian.
Prince Brys dismounted, followed by Aranict and then Faint. Precious remained seated on her horse, glowering at the Malazans.
‘Sergeant Gesler,’ Brys began, and then stopped. ‘Are you certain you prefer that modest rank? As Mortal Sword to the-’
‘Forgive me for interrupting, Commander,’ Gesler said, ‘but Stormy insists. He won’t even talk to me otherwise. Leave all the fancy titles to other people-’
‘He got busted down for good reasons,’ Stormy cut in. ‘And he ain’t fixed none of those that I can see. In fact, he’s gotten worse. If he showed up in a recruiting line right now I’d send him to the cook staff, and if they was feeling generous they might let him scrub a few pots. As it is, though, he’s a sergeant, and I’m a corporal.’
‘Commanding seven thousand K’Chain Che’Malle,’ Aranict observed, lighting a stick of rustleaf from a small ember-box.
Stormy shrugged.
Sighing, Brys resumed, ‘Sergeant Gesler. Your message — I take it she is awake.’
‘Aye, and she’s not particularly happy. Commander, she’s got something to say, something she needs to tell you.’
‘I see. Well then, lead on, Sergeant.’
As they made their way through the camp, with Gesler out front and Stormy carrying the lantern a few paces behind, Faint found herself walking alongside the tribal woman.
‘You are the Destriant.’
‘Kalyth, once of the Elan. And you are one of the strangers who found the Letherii army.’
‘Faint, of the Trygalle Trade Guild. That miserable girl riding behind us is Precious Thimble. She doesn’t like Malazans.’
‘From her,’ Kalyth said, ‘the flavour is one of fear.’
‘With good reason,’ Precious retorted.
‘It’s this war we can’t make any sense of,’ Faint said. ‘The Malazans fight when and where it suits them. They’re a damned empire, after all. It’s all about conquest. Expansion. They don’t fight for noble causes, generally. Even taking down the Pannions was politically expedient. So we’re finding it hard to work out what they’re up to. From all that we’ve heard, Kolanse is not worth the effort. Especially with a bunch of Forkrul Assail laying claim to it now.’
Those dark eyes fixed on Faint’s. ‘What do you know of the Forkrul Assail?’
‘Not much,’ she admitted. ‘An ancient race — back in Darujhistan, where I come from, most people think of them as, well, mythical. Ruling in an age when justice prevailed over all the world. We’ve long since fallen from that age, of course, and much as people might bemoan our state no one wants it back, if you know what I mean.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because then we’d actually be taken to task for all the terrible stuff we do. Besides, being fallen excuses our worst traits. We’re not what we once were, too bad, but that’s just how it is. Thank Hood and all the rest.’
Kalyth was slowly nodding. ‘Then is it your belief that we can be no better than who and what we are now?’
‘Something like that.’
‘What if I were to tell you that the Malazans seek to change that? That they seek to rise higher, taller? That, once fallen, they now wish to stand? One more time. Perhaps the last time. And not just for themselves, but for all of us.’
A snort from Precious.
Faint frowned, and then shook her head. ‘Then why fight the Forkrul Assail?’
‘Because the Forkrul Assail have judged us — they came among my people, so this I know all too well. And in that judgement, they have decided that we must all die. Not just in Kolanse, not just on the Plains of Elan. But everywhere.’
‘Given our history, that’s not too surprising.’
‘But, Faint of the Trygalle Trade Guild, the Forkrul Assail are in no position to judge. I have tasted the ancient flavours of the K’Chain Che’Malle, and it is as if that history was now my own. The Age of Justice — and the time of the Forkrul Assail — ended not at the hand of enemies, or foreign races, but at the hands of the Forkrul Assail themselves.’
‘How?’
‘They judged their own god, and found him wanting. And for his imperfections, they finally killed him.’
Ahead was a large tent, and the prince, Aranict, and the Malazans entered, taking the lantern’s light with them. Faint held back in the darkness, Kalyth at her side. Behind them, Precious Thimble reined in, but still did not dismount.
Kalyth continued, ‘There was war. Between the K’Chain Che’Malle and the Assail. The causes were mundane — the hunger for land, mostly. The Forkrul Assail had begun wars of extermination against many other races, but none had the strength and will to oppose them as did the K’Chain Che’Malle. When the war began to turn against the Assail, they turned on their own god, and in the need for yet more power they wounded him. But wounding proved not enough. They took more and more from him.
‘The K’Chain Che’Malle nests began to fall one by one, until the last surviving Matron, in her desperation, opened a portal to the heart of chaos and set her back against it, hiding its presence from the advancing Assail. And when at last she stood facing them, when the tortured god’s power rushed to annihilate her and all her kind, she surrendered her life, and the gate, which she had sealed with her own body, her own life force, opened. To devour the Assail god’s soul.
‘He was too wounded to resist. What remained of him, in this realm, was shattered, mindless and lost.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘You have seen the Glass Desert. That is where all that remains of that god now lives. If one could call it a life.’
‘What happened to the Assail, Kalyth?’
The woman shrugged. ‘Their power spent, they were broken. Though they blamed the Matron for the loss of their god, it was by their judgement that he was wielded as would one wield a weapon, a thing to be used, a thing not worthy of anything else. In any case, they had not the strength to exterminate the K’Chain Che’Malle. But the
