House of Chains

‘A song,’ Nether cut in. ‘Of war, and warriors-’

‘New and old,’ her brother said. ‘So very new… and so very old. Battle and death, again and again-’

‘The land remembers every struggle played out on its surface, on all its surfaces, from the very beginning.’ Nether grimaced, then shivered, her eyes squeezed shut. ‘The goddess is as nothing to this power-yet she would… steal.’

The Adjunct’s voice was sharp. ‘Steal?’

‘The warren,’ Nil replied. ‘She would claim this fragment, and settle it upon this land like a parasite. Roots of shadow, slipping down to draw sustenance, to feed on the land’s memories.’

‘And the spirits will not have it,’ Nether whispered.

‘They are resisting?’ the Adjunct asked.

Both Wickans nodded, then Nil bared his teeth and said, ‘Ghosts cast no shadows. You were right, Adjunct. Gods, you were right!’

Right? Gamet wondered. Right about what?

‘And will they suffice?’ Tavore demanded.

Nil shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Only if the Talon Master does what you think he will do, Adjunct.’

‘Assuming,’ Nether added, ‘Sha’ik is unaware of the viper in her midst.’

‘Had she known,’ Tavore said, ‘she would have separated his head from his shoulders long ago.’

‘Perhaps,’ Nether replied, and Gamet heard the scepticism in her tone. ‘Unless she and her goddess decided to wait until all their enemies were gathered.’

The Adjunct returned her gaze to the distant officers. ‘Let us see, shall we?’

Both Wickans rose, then shared a glance unwitnessed by Tavore.

Gamet rubbed his uncut hand along his brow beneath the helm’s rim, and his fingers came away dripping with sweat. Something had used him, he realized shakily. Through the medium of his blood. He could hear distant music, a song of voices and unrecognizable instruments. A pressure was building in his skull. ‘If you are done with me, Adjunct,’ he said roughly.

She nodded without looking over. ‘Return to your legion, Fist. Convey to your officers, please, the following. Units may appear during the battle on the morrow which you will not recognize. They may seek orders, and you are to give them as if they were under your command.’

‘Understood, Adjunct.’

‘Have a cutter attend to your hand, Fist Gamet, and thank you. Also, ask the guards to return to me my sword.’

‘Aye.’ He wheeled his horse and walked it down the slope.

The headache was not fading, and the song itself seemed to have poisoned his veins, a music of flesh and bone that hinted of madness. Leave me in peace, damn you. I am naught but a soldier. A soldier…

Strings sat on the boulder, his head in his hands. He had flung off the helm but had no memory of having done so, and it lay at his feet, blurry and wavering behind the waves of pain that rose and fell like a storm-tossed sea. Voices were speaking around him, seeking to reach him, but he could make no sense of what was being said. The song had burgeoned sudden and fierce in his skull, flowing through his limbs like fire.

A hand gripped his shoulder, and he felt a sorcerous questing seep into his veins, tentatively at first, then flinching away entirely, only to return with more force-and with it, a spreading silence. Blissful peace, cool and calm.

Finally, the sergeant was able to look up.

He found his squad gathered around him. The hand fixed onto his shoulder was Bottle’s, and the lad’s face was pale, beaded with sweat. Their eyes locked, then Bottle nodded and slowly withdrew his hand.

‘Can you hear me, Sergeant?’

‘Faint, as if you were thirty paces away.’

‘Is the pain gone?’

‘Aye-what did you do?’

Bottle glanced away.

Strings frowned, then said, ‘Everyone else, back to work. Stay here, Bottle.’

Cuttle cuffed Tarr and the corporal straightened and mumbled, ‘Let’s go, soldiers. There’s pits to dig.’

The sergeant and Bottle watched the others head off, retrieving their picks and shovels as they went. The squad was positioned on the south-westernmost island, overlooking dunes that reached out to the horizon. A single, sufficiently wide corridor lay directly to the north, through which the enemy-if broken and fleeing-would come as they left the basin. Just beyond it lay a modest, flat-topped tel, on which a company of mounted desert warriors were ensconced, the crest dotted with scouts keeping a careful eye on the Malazans. ‘All right, Bottle,’ Strings said, ‘out with it.’

‘Spirits, Sergeant. They’re… awakening.’

‘And what in Hood’s name has that got to do with me?’

‘Mortal blood, I think. It has its own song. They remember it. They came to you, Sergeant, eager to add their voices to it. To… uh… to you.’

‘Why me?’

‘I don’t know.’

Strings studied the young mage for a moment, mulling on the taste of that lie, then grimaced and said, ‘You think it’s because I’m fated to die here-at this battle.’

Bottle looked away once more. ‘I’m not sure, Sergeant. It’s way beyond me… this land. And its spirits. And what it all has to do with you-’

‘I’m a Bridgeburner, lad. The Bridgeburners were born here. In Raraku’s crucible.’

Bottle’s eyes thinned as he studied the desert to the west. ‘But… they were wiped out.’

‘Aye, they were.’

Neither spoke for a time. Koryk had broken his shovel on a rock and was stringing together an admirable list of Seti curses. The others had stopped to listen. On the northern edge of the island Gesler’s squad was busy building a wall of rubble, which promptly toppled, the boulders tumbling down the far edge. Distant hoots and howls sounded from the tel across the way.

‘It won’t be your usual battle, will it?’ Bottle asked.

Strings shrugged. ‘There’s no such thing, lad. There’s nothing usual about killing and dying, about pain and terror.’

‘That’s not what I meant-’

‘I know it ain’t, Bottle. But wars these days are fraught with sorcery and munitions, so you come to expect surprises.’

Gesler’s two dogs trotted past, the huge cattle dog trailing the Hengese Roach as if the hairy lapdog carried its own leash.

‘This place is… complicated,’ Bottle sighed. He reached down and picked up a large, disc-shaped rock. ‘Eres’al,’ he said. ‘A hand-axe-the basin down there’s littered with them. Smoothed by the lake that once filled it. Took days to make one of these, then they didn’t even use them-they just flung them into the lake. Makes no sense, does it? Why make a tool then not use it?’

Strings stared at the mage. ‘What are you talking about, Bottle? Who are the Eres’al?’

‘Were, Sergeant. They’re long gone.’

‘The spirits?’

‘No, those are from all times, from every age this land has known. My grandmother spoke of the Eres. The Dwellers who lived in the time before the Imass, the first makers of tools, the first shapers of their world.’ He shook his head, fought down a shiver. ‘I never expected to meet one-it was there, she was there, in that song within you.’

‘And she told you about these tools?’

‘Not directly. More like I shared it-well, her mind. She was the one who gifted you the silence. It wasn’t me-I don’t have that power-but I asked, and she showed mercy. At least’-he glanced at Strings-‘I gather it was a mercy.’