Memories of Ice

'Well, maybe that's the wrong name for them. Warlocks might be better. Swamp-snuffling warlocks. With bits of bark in their hair. Get them into a forest and you won't find them unless they want you to. Those Bole brothers, they're the worst of the lot, though I've heard that there's a lone sister among them who you wouldn't want to meet, ever.'

Paran shook his head.

Kilava had departed their company immediately after their arrival. She had offered the two men a simple word of thanks, which Paran sensed was in itself an extraordinary lowering of her guard, then had slipped into the gloom of the forest.

The captain and the wizard reached the trader track and could see it straightening and climbing towards the ridge that faced the killing field and the city beyond. Moon's Spawn hung almost directly above them, shedding misty rain. A few fires still lit Coral, but it seemed that the darkness that was Kurald Galain was somehow smothering them.

He could not push the recent events from his mind. He was unused to being the hand of … redemption. The deliverance of the Jaghut child from the wounded portal of Morn had left him numb.

So long ago, now. outside Pale. I'd felt her, felt this child, trapped in her eternal pain, unable to comprehend what she had done to deserve what was happening to her. She had thought she was going to find her mother — so Kilava had told her. She had been holding her brother's hand-And then it had all been torn away.

Suddenly alone.

Knowing only pain.

For thousands of years.

Quick Ben and Talamandas had done something to the child, had worked their sorcery to take from her all memory of what had happened. Paran had sensed Hood's direct involvement in that — only a god could manage such a thing, not a simple blocking of memories, but an absolute taking away, a cleansing of the slate.

Thus. The child had lost her brother. Had found an uncle instead.

But not a kindly one. The Seer carries his own wounds, after all.

And now Burn's realm had found new denizens. Was now home to an ancient warren.

'Memories,' Quick Ben had said, 'of ice. There is heat within this chaotic poison — heat enough to destroy these servants. I needed to find a way to slow the infection, to weaken the poison.

'I'd warned the Crippled God, you know. Told him I was stepping into his path. We've knocked him back, you know. '

Paran smiled to himself at the recollection. The ego of gods was as nothing to Quick Ben's. Even so, the wizard had earned the right to some fierce satisfaction, hadn't he? They had stolen the Seer from under Anomander Rake's nose. They had seen an ancient wrong righted, and were fortunate enough to have Kilava present, to partake of the redemption. They had removed the threat of the Seer from this continent. And, finally, through the preservation of Omtose Phellack, they had slowed the Crippled God's infection to a turgid crawl.

And we gave a child her life back.

'Captain,' Quick Ben murmured, a hand reaching up to touch his shoulder.

Ahead, beyond the last of the trees, a mass of figures, covering the slopes of a broad, flat-topped hill. Torches like wavering stars.

'I don't like the feel of this,' the wizard muttered.

When the darkness dissipated, the bodies were gone, those on the hilltop and those on the bed of the wagon that Picker and her soldiers had guided onto the side of the road below. There had been nothing elaborate to the interment. The disposition of the fallen within the massive, floating edifice was left to the Tiste Andii, to Anomander Rake himself.

Gruntle turned and looked up to study Moon's Spawn. Leaning drunkenly, it drifted seaward, blotting the brightening stars that had begun painting the land silver. The night's natural darkness would soon swallow it whole.

As Moon's Spawn drew its shadow after it, there was revealed, on the ridge on the other side of the trader road, a small gathering of soldiers, positioned in a half-circle around a modest bier and a pile of stones.

It was a moment before Gruntle understood what he was seeing. He reached out and drew Stonny closer to him. 'Come on,' he whispered.

She did not protest as he led her from the hill, down the slope, through silent, ghostly ranks that parted to let them pass. Over the road, across the shallow ditch, then onto the slope leading to the ridge.

Where the remaining hundred or so Grey Swords stood to honour the man who had once been Fener's Shield Anvil.

Someone was following at a distance behind Gruntle and Stonny, but neither turned to see who it was.

They reached the small gathering.

Uniforms had been scrubbed clean, weapons polished. Gruntle saw, in the midst of the mostly Capan women and gaunt Tenescowri recruits, Anaster, still astride his horse. The Mortal Sword's feline eyes thinned on the strange, one-eyed young man. No, he is not as he was. No longer. empty. What has he become, that he now feels like my. rival?

The Destriant stood closest to the still form on the bier, and seemed to be studying Itkovian's death-pale face. On the other side of the bier a shallow pit had been excavated, earth heaped on one side, boulders on the other. A modest grave awaited Itkovian. Finally, the Capan woman turned.

'We mark the death of this man, whose spirit travels to no god. He has walked through Hood's Gate, and that is all. Through. To stand alone. He will not relinquish his burden, for he remains in death as he was in life. Itkovian, Shield Anvil of Fener's Reve. Remember him.'

As she made to gesture for the interment to begin, someone stepped round Gruntle and Stonny, and approached the Destriant.

A Malazan soldier, holding a cloth-wrapped object under one arm. In halting Daru, he said, 'Please, Destriant, I seek to honour Itkovian…'

'As you wish.'

'I would do … something else, as well.'

She cocked her head. 'Sir?'

The Malazan removed the cloth to reveal Itkovian's helm. 'I–I did not wish to take advantage of him. Yet — he insisted that he fared better in the exchange. Untrue, Destriant. You can see that. Anyone can. See the helm he wears — it was mine. I would take it back. He should be wearing his own. This one …'

The Destriant swung round, looked down at the body once more, said nothing for a long moment, then she shook her head. 'No. Sir, Itkovian would refuse your request. Your gift pleased him, sir. None the less, if you have now decided that the helmet you gave to him is indeed of greater value, then he would not hesitate in returning it to …' She was turning as she spoke, and, her gaze travelling to the now weeping soldier, then past to something beyond them all, her words trailed away to silence.

Gruntle saw the young woman's eyes slowly widen.

The Grey Swords' Shield Anvil suddenly pivoted in a soft clatter of armour, then, a moment later, the other soldiers followed suit.

As did Gruntle and Stonny.

The lone Malazan had been but the first. Beneath the silver starlight, every surviving soldier of Dujek's Host had marched to position themselves at the base of the ridge's slope, forming ranks. Flanked by Tiste Andii, Rhivi, Barghast, Black Moranth — a vast sweep of figures, standing silent-and then Gruntle's scan continued eastward, down to the killing field, and there, once more, were the T'lan Imass, and they too were coming forward.

Silverfox stood off to the far side, watching.

The Grey Swords, stunned into silence, slowly parted as the first of the T'lan Imass reached the ridge.

A Bonecaster came first, holding in one hand a battered seashell hanging from a leather thong. The undead creature halted and said to the Destriant, 'For the gift this mortal has given us, we shall each offer one in turn. Together, they shall become his barrow, and it shall be unassailable. If you refuse us this, we will defy you.'

The Destriant shook her head. 'No, sir,' she whispered. 'There will be no refusal.'

The Bonecaster walked up to Itkovian, laid the shell down on the man's chest.