him to one side just two nights earlier and had whispered in his
9
ear, ‘Don’t give up on her, Prav. I know my sister, you see, and there’s a look growing in her eyes when she glances your way… so, don’t give up…’
Both gone, and that, as Badan repeated again and again when he thought no-one else was close enough to hear him, is that. And that is that.
Sergeant Primly came up then and slapped Pravalak on one shoulder. ‘Ready, Corporal? Good. Lead your squad, just like Sinter would’ve done. Lead ‘em, Prav, and let’s go gut some Edur.’
Skulldeath, whose name had once been Tribole Futan, last surviving male of the Futani royal line of the Gilani tribe of southeast Seven Cities, slowly straightened as he watched the heavies work their way up the slope towards the sounds of fighting.
He readied his two Gilani tulwars, which had once belonged to a Falah’dan champion-his great-uncle-who had fallen to an assassin’s poison three years before the Malazan invasion, when Tribole had been a child not yet cast out onto the mortal sands. Weapons he had inherited as last of the line in a family shattered by a feud, such as were common throughout all of Seven Cities before the conquest. The tulwars seemed large in his hands, almost oversized for his wrists-but he was Gilani and his tribe were a people characterized by bodies virtually devoid of fat. Muscles like ropes, long, gracile and far stronger than they appeared.
The softness of his feminine eyes did not change as he studied the tulwars, remembering when he had been a very young child and these weapons, if balanced on their curved tips, could be made to stand if he set the silver pommels into his armpits, and, gripping the handles just above the hilts, he would pitch himself round the camp like an imp with but one leg. Not long after that, he was using weighted sticks carved to match these tulwars of his great-uncle’s. Working the patterns in the Gilani style, both afoot and atop a desert horse where he learned to perch ori the balls of his feet and practise the lishgar efhanah, the leaping attack, the Edged Net. Many a night with bruised shoulders, then, until he learned how to roll clean after the mid-air attack was done, the three stuffed-grass dummies each sliced into pieces, the wind plucking at those golden grasses as they drifted in the dusty air. And he, rolling, upright once more, weapons at the ready.
He was not tall. He was not outspoken and his smile-rare as it was-was as shy as a young maiden’s. Men wanted him in their beds. So did women. But he was of the royal line, and his seed was the last seed, and one day he would give it to a queen, perhaps even an empress, as befitted his true station. In the meantime, he would let men use him as they would, and even find pleasure in that, harmless as it was. But he refused’ to spill his seed.
He stood now, and when the signal was given, he moved forward, light on his feet.
Skulldeath was twenty-three years old. Such was his discipline that he had not spilled seed once, not even in his sleep.
As the squad mage Mulvan Dreader would say later, Skulldeath was truly a man about to explode.
And a certain Master Sergeant on Malaz Island had got it right. Again.
Urb ran back from the Factor’s house as fast as he could, angling his shield to cover his right shoulder. The damned woman! Standing there with a damned cask lid with a flight of lances about to wing her way. Oh, her soldiers worshipped her all right, and so blind was that worship that not one of them could see all that Urb did just to keep the fool woman alive. He was exhausted and a nervous wreck besides and now-this time-it looked as if he would be too late.
Five paces from Hellian and out went a half-dozen lances, two winging to intercept Urb. Skidding as he pivoted round behind his shield, he lost sight of her.
One lance darted past a hand’s width from his face. The other struck true against the shield, the iron head punching through to impale his upper arm, pinning it to his side. The impact spun Urb round and he staggered as the lance pulled at him, and, grunting, he slid down on his knees, the hard cobbles driving shocks up his legs. He slammed his sword-hand down-still clutching the weapon-to keep from pitching forward, and heard a knuckle crack.
At that instant, the world exploded white.
Four lances speeding Hellian’s way came close to sobering her up. Crouching, she lifted her flimsy, undersized shield, only to have it hammered from her hand in a splintering concussion that sent it spinning, the snapped foreshafts of two lances buried deep in the soaked, heavy, wonderful-smelling wood. Then her helm was torn from her head with a deafening clang, even as she was struck a glancing blow on her right shoulder that ripped away the leather shingles of her armour. That impact turned her right round so that she faced up the street, and, upon seeing the clay bottle she had thrown away moments earlier, she dived towards it.
Better to die with one last mouthful-
The air above her whistled as she sailed through the air and she saw maybe a dozen lances flit overhead.
She slammed chest-first on the dusty cobbles, all breath punched from her lungs and stared, bug-eyed, as the bottle leapt of its own accord into the air. Then she was lifted by her feet and flipped straight over to thump hard on her back, and above her the blue sky was suddenly grey with dust and gravel, stone chips, red bits, all raining down.
She could not hear a thing, and that first desperate breath was so thick with dust that she convulsed in a fit of coughing. Twisting onto her side, she saw Urb maybe six paces away. The idiot had got himself skewered and looked even more stunned than usual. His face was white with dust except the blood on his lips from a tooth gash, and he was staring dumbly down the street to where all the Edur were-might be they were charging them now so she’d better find her sword-
She’d just sat up when a hand slapped her shoulder and she glared up at an unfamiliar face-a Kanese woman frowning intently at her. With a voice that seemed far away she said, ‘Still with us, Sergeant? You shouldn’t ever be that close to a cusser, you know.’
And then she was gone.
Hellian blinked. She squinted down the street and saw an enormous crater where the Edur had been. And body parts, and drifting dust and smoke.
And four more marines, two of them Dal Honese, loosing quarrels into a side street then scattering as one of them threw a sharper in the same direction.
Hellian crawled over to Urb.
He’d managed to pull the lance Out of his arm which had probably hurt, and there was plenty of blood now, pooling beneath him. His eyes had the look of a butchered cow though maybe not as dead as that but getting there.
Another marine arrived, another stranger. Black-haired, pale skin. He knelt down beside Urb.
‘You,’ Hellian said.
The man glanced over. ‘None of your wounds look to kill you, Sergeant. But your friend here is going fast, so let me do my work.’
‘What squad, damn you?’
‘Tenth. Third Company.’
A healer. Well, good. Fix Urb right up so she could kill him. ‘You’re Nathii, aren’t you?’
‘Sharp woman,’ he muttered as he began weaving magic over the huge torn hole in Urb’s upper arm. ‘Probably even sharper when you’re sober.’
‘Never count on that, Cutter.’
‘I’m not really a cutter, Sergeant. I’m a combat mage, but we can’t really be picky about those things any more, can we? I’m Mulvan Dreader.’
‘Hellian. Eighth Squad, the Fourth.’
He shot her a sudden look. ‘Really. You one of the ones crawled out under Y’Ghatan?’
‘Yeah. Urb’s gonna live?’
The Nathii nodded. ‘Be on a stretcher for a while, though. All the lost blood.’ He straightened and looked round. ‘Where are the rest of your soldiers?’
