Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

‘It doesn’t matter! Why are you being so thick? Oh, what a ridiculous question! Listen, Curdle, now we got ourselves a plan and that’s good. It’s a start. So let’s think some more. Vengeance against the Errant.’

‘The Elder God.’

‘Right.’

‘Who’s still around.’

‘Right.’

‘Stealing pets.’

‘Curdle-’

‘I’m just thinking out loud, that’s all!’

‘You call that thinking? No wonder we ended up torn to pieces and dead and worse than dead!’

‘Oh, and what are you thinking, then?’

‘I didn’t have any time to, since I had to answer all your questions!’

‘You always got an excuse, Telorast, did you know that? Always.’

‘And you’re it, Curdle, did you know that ?’

A voice croaked from the other side of the room, ‘What are you two whispering about over there?’

The two skeletons flinched. Then, tail lashing about, Telorast ducked a head in Banaschar’s direction. ‘Absolutely nothing, and that’s a fact. In fact, beloved pet, that’s the problem! Every time! It’s Curdle. She’s an idiot! She drives me mad! Drives you to drink, too, I bet.’

‘The Errant’s game is one of fate,’ Banaschar said, rubbing at his face. ‘He uses-abuses-proclivities, tendencies. He nudges, pushes over the edge.’ He blinked blearily at the two skeletons. ‘To take him down, you need to take advantage of that selfsame obsession. You need to set a trap.’

Telorast and Curdle hopped down from the sill and advanced on the seated man, tails flicking, heads low. ‘A trap,’ whispered Telorast. ‘That’s good. We thought you’d switched gods, that’s what we thought-’

‘Don’t tell him what we thought!’ Curdle hissed.

‘It doesn’t matter now-he’s on our side! Weren’t you listening?’

‘The Errant wants all he once had,’ said Banaschar. ‘Temples, worshippers, domination. Power. To do that, he needs to take down the gods. The High Houses… all in ruins. Smouldering heaps. This coming war with the Crippled God presents him with his chance-a few nudges on the battlefield-who’d notice? He wants spilled blood, my friends, that’s what he wants.’

‘Who doesn’t?’ asked Curdle.

The two creatures had reached Banaschar’s scuffed boots and were now bobbing and fawning. ‘The chaos of battle,’ murmured Telorast, ‘yes, that would be ideal.’

‘For us,’ nodded Curdle.

‘Precisely. Our chance.’

‘To do what?’ Banaschar asked. ‘Find yourselves a couple of thrones?’ He snorted. Ignoring them as they prostrated themselves at his feet, he held up his hands and stared at them. ‘See this tremble, friends? What does it truly signify? I will tell you. I am the last living priest of D’rek. Why was I spared? I lost all the privileges of worship within a temple. I lost a secular game of influence and power, diminished in the eyes of my brothers and sisters. In the eyes of everyone, I imagine. But I never gave up worshipping my god.’ He squinted. ‘I should be dead. Was I simply forgotten? Has it taken longer than D’rek thought? To hunt us all down? When will my god find me?’ After a moment longer he lowered his hands on to his thighs. ‘I just… wait.’

‘Our pet’s disenchanted,’ whispered Telorast.

‘That’s bad,’ Curdle whispered back.

‘We need to find him a woman.’

‘Or a child to eat.’

‘They don’t eat children, Curdle.’

‘Well, some other kind of treat, then.’

‘A bottle!’

‘A bottle, yes, that’s good!’

They went hunting.

Banaschar waited.

Koryk trained his crossbow on the back of the scout’s helmed head. His finger edged down to the iron press.

The point of a knife hovered into view opposite his right eye. ‘I got orders,’ whispered Smiles, ‘to kill you if you kill anyone.’

He drew his finger back. ‘Like Hood you have. Besides, it might be an accident.’

‘Oh, I saw that for sure, Koryk. Your trigger finger just accidentally slipping down like that. And then, oh, in went my knife point-another accident. Tragedies! We’ll burn you on a pyre Seti style and that’s a promise.’

He lowered the crossbow and rolled on to his side, out of sight of the clumsy scout on the track below. ‘Right, that makes perfect sense, Smiles. A pyre for the people who live on the grasslands. We like our funerals to involve, why, everyone. We burn down whole villages and scorch the ground for leagues in every direction.’

She blinked at him, and then shrugged. ‘Whatever you do with your dead, then.’

He worked his way down the slope, Smiles following.

‘My turn,’ she said when they reached the draw. ‘Get back up there.’

‘You waited till we got down here to say that?’

She grinned.

Leaving him to scrabble back into position, Smiles set off through the brush. It wasn’t that the Letherii scouts were especially bad. It was more the case that their tradition of warfare kept them trapped in the idea of huge armies clashing on open fields. Where scouts were employed simply to find the enemy encampments. The notion of a foe that could melt into the landscape the way the Malazans could, or even the idea that the enemy might split its forces, avoid direct clashes, and whittle the Letherii down with raids, ambushes and disrupted supply lines-none of that was part of their military thinking.

The Tiste Edur had been tougher by far. Their fighting style was much closer to the Malazan one, which probably explained why the Edur conquered the Letherii the first time round.

Of course, the Malazans could stand firm in a big scrap, but it made sense to have spent some time demoralizing and weakening their foe beforehand.

These Letherii had a lot still to learn. After all, one day the Malazans might be back. Not the Bonehunters, but the imperial armies of the Empress. A new kingdom to conquer, a new continent to subjugate. If King Tehol wanted to hold on to what he had, his brother had better be commanding a savvy, nasty army that knew how to face down Malazan marines, heavies, squad mages, sappers with munitions, and decent cavalry.

She quietly grunted as she approached the hidden camp. Poor Brys Beddict. They might as well surrender now.

‘If you was any less ugly,’ a voice said, ‘I’d a killed you for sure.’

She halted, scowling. ‘Took your time announcing yourself, picket.’

The soldier that edged into view was dark-skinned, barring a piebald blotch of pink disfiguring half his face and most of his forehead. The heavy crossbow in his hands was cocked but no quarrel rested in the slot.

Smiles pushed past him. ‘Talk about ugly-you live in my nightmares, Gullstream, you know that?’

The man stepped in behind her. ‘Can’t help being so popular with the ladies,’ he said. ‘Especially the Letherii ones.’

Despite the blotch, there was indeed something about Gullstream that made women take a second and third look. She suspected he might have some Tiste Andii blood in his veins. The almond-shaped eyes that never seemed to settle on any one colour; his way of moving-as if he had all the time in the world-and the fact that he was, according to rumour, well-hung. Shaking her head to clear away stupid thoughts, she said, ‘Their scouts have gone right past-staying on the track mostly. So the Fist can move us all up. We’ll fall on the main column screaming our lungs out and that will be that.’

As she was saying this, they entered the camp-a few hundred soldiers sitting or lying quietly amidst the trees, stumps and brush.

Seeing Keneb, Smiles headed over to make her report.

The Fist was sitting on a folding camp stool, using the point of his dagger to scrape mud from the soles of his boots. A cup of steaming herbal tea rested on a stump beside him. Sprawled on the ground a few paces away was Sergeant Fiddler, and just beyond him Sergeant Balm sat crosslegged, studying the short sword he was holding, his expression confused. A dozen heavies waited nearby, grouped together and seeming to be engaged in comparing their outthrust hands- counting knuckle hairs, I bet.