Gamet slowly straightened in his chair.
Admiral Nok was simply studying the Adjunct. He had stood against the wrath of the Empress, first with Cartheron Crust’s disappearance, then Urko’s and Ameron’s. Whatever answers he had given, he had done so long ago.
‘I do not speak for the Empress,’ Tavore said after a moment. ‘Nor am I interested in… details. What interests me is… a matter of personal… curiosity. I would seek to understand, Admiral, why they abandoned her.’
There was silence, filling the room, growing towards something like an impasse. Gamet leaned back and closed his eyes.
‘The answer to your question,’ the admiral said, ‘lies in what was both a strength and a flaw of the Emperor’s… family. The family that he gathered to raise an empire. Kellanved began with but one companion- Dancer. The two then hired a handful of locals in Malaz City and set about conquering the criminal element in the city-I should point out, that criminal element happened to rule the entire island. Their target was Mock, Malaz Island’s unofficial ruler. A pirate, and a cold-blooded killer.’
‘Who were these first hirelings, Admiral?’
‘Myself, Ameron, Dujek, a woman named Hawl-my wife. I had been First Mate to a corsair that worked the sea lanes around the Napan Isles-which had just been annexed by Unta and were providing a staging point for the Untan king’s planned invasion of Kartool. We’d taken a beating and had limped into Malaz Harbour, only to have the ship and its crew arrested by Mock, who was negotiating a trade of prisoners with Unta. Only Ameron and Hawl and I escaped. A lad named Dujek discovered where we were holed up and he delivered us to his new employers. Kellanved and Dancer.’
‘Was this before they were granted entry into the Deadhouse?’ Gamet asked.
‘Aye, but only just. Our residency in the Deadhouse rewarded us with-as is now clearly evident-certain gifts. Longevity, immunity to most diseases, and… other things. The Deadhouse also provided us with an unassailable base of operations. Dancer later bolstered our numbers by recruiting among the refugee Napans who’d fled the conquest: Cartheron Crust and his brother, Urko. And Surly-Laseen. Three more men were to follow shortly thereafter. Toc Elder, Dassem Ultor-who was, like Kellanved, of Dal Honese blood-and a renegade High Septarch of the D’rek Cult, Tayschrenn. And finally, Duiker.’ He half smiled at Tavore. ‘The family. With which Kellanved conquered Malaz Island. Swiftly done, with minimal losses…’
‘Yes, her.’ After a long moment, he shrugged and continued, ‘To answer you, Adjunct. Unknown to the rest of us, the Napans among us were far more than simple refugees. Surly was of the royal line. Crust and Urko had been captains in the Napan fleet, a fleet that would have likely repelled the Untans if it hadn’t been virtually destroyed by a sudden storm. As it turned out, theirs was a singular purpose-to crush the Untan hegemony-and they planned on using Kellanved to achieve that. In a sense, that was the first betrayal within the family, the first fissure. Easily healed, it seemed, since Kellanved already possessed imperial ambitions, and of the two major rivals on the mainland, Unta was by far the fiercest.’
‘Admiral,’ Tavore said, ‘I see where this leads. Surly’s assassination of Kellanved and Dancer shattered that family irrevocably, but that is precisely where my understanding falters. Surly had taken the Napan cause to its penultimate conclusion. Yet it was not you, not Tayschrenn, Duiker, Dassem Ultor or Toc Elder who… disappeared. It was…
‘Barring Ameron,’ Gamet pointed out.
The admiral’s lined face stretched as he bared his teeth in a humourless grin. ‘Ameron was half-Napan.’
‘So it was only the
Nok said nothing for a long time, then he sighed. ‘Shame is a fierce, vigorous poison. To now serve the new Empress… complicity and damnation. Crust, Urko and Ameron were not party to the betrayal… but who would believe them? Who could not help but see them as party to the murderous plot? Yet, in truth,’ his eyes met Tavore’s, ‘Surly had included none of us in her scheme-she could not afford to. She had the Claw, and that was all she needed.’
‘And where were the Talons in all this?’ Gamet asked, then cursed himself-
Nok’s eyes widened for the first time that night. ‘You’ve a sharp memory, Fist.’
Gamet clamped his jaws tight, sensing the Adjunct’s hard stare fixing on him.
The admiral continued, ‘I am afraid I have no answer to that. I was not in Malaz City on that particular night; nor have I made enquiries to those who were. The Talons essentially vanished with Dancer’s death. It was widely believed that the Claw had struck them down in concert with the assassinations of Dancer and the Emperor.’
The Adjunct’s tone was suddenly curt. ‘Thank you, Admiral, for your words this night. I will keep you no longer.’
The man bowed, then strode from the room.
Gamet waited with held breath, ready for her fiercest castigation. Instead, she simply sighed. ‘You have much work ahead of you, Fist, in assembling your legion. Best retire now.’
‘Adjunct,’ he acknowledged, pushing himself to his feet. He hesitated, then with a nod strode to the door.
‘Gamet.’
He turned. ‘Yes?’
‘Where is T’amber?’
‘She awaits you in your chambers, Adjunct.’
‘Very well. Goodnight, Fist.’
‘And to you, Adjunct.’
Buckets of salt water had been sloshed across the cobbled centre aisle of the stables, which had the effect of damping the dust and sending the biting flies into a frenzy, as well as making doubly rank the stench of horse piss. Strings, standing just within the doors, could already feel his sinuses stinging. His searching gaze found four figures seated on bound rolls of straw near the far end. Scowling, the Bridgeburner shifted the weight of the pack on his shoulder, then headed over.
‘Who was the bright spark missing the old smells of home?’ he drawled as he approached.
The half-Seti warrior named Koryk grunted, then said, ‘That would be Lieutenant Ranal, who then had a quick excuse to leave us for a time.’ He’d found a flap of hide from somewhere and was cutting long strands from it with a thin-bladed pig-sticker. Strings had seen his type before, obsessed with tying things down, or worse, tying things to their bodies. Not just fetishes, but loot, extra equipment, tufts of grass or leafy branches depending on the camouflage being sought. In this case, Strings half expected to see twists of straw sprouting from the man.
For centuries the Seti had fought a protracted war with the city-states of Quon and Li Heng, defending the barely inhabitable lands that had been their traditional home. Hopelessly outnumbered and perpetually on the run, they had learned the art of hiding the hard way. But the Seti lands had been pacified for sixty years now; almost three generations had lived in that ambivalent, ambiguous border that was the edge of civilization. The various tribes had dissolved into a single, murky nation, with mixed-bloods coming to dominate the population. What had befallen them had been the impetus, in fact, for Coltaine’s rebellion and the Wickan Wars-for Coltaine had clearly seen that a similar fate awaited his own people.
It was not, Strings had come to believe, a question of right and wrong. Some cultures were inward-looking. Others were aggressive. The former were rarely capable of mustering a defence against the latter, not without metamorphosing into some other thing, a thing twisted by the exigencies of desperation and violence. The original Seti had not even ridden horses. Yet now they were known as horse warriors, a taller, darker-skinned and more morose kind of Wickan.
