Ian Esslemont - Stonewielder

‘Orjin?’ he hissed. ‘Orjin?’ Movement from the shadows. A figure staggered into the pale light, sword held slack and low in one hand. Great Harrier preserve us! What’s happened? He ran to him, grunted as the man’s extraordinary weight sagged on him. ‘What’s happened? Are you wounded?’

Something banged from Kyle’s head, sloshing. He snatched an earthenware jug from Orjin’s hand. ‘What’s this?’

‘No more of your talk!’ the man bellowed hotly in his ear. ‘Keep your contracts and writs! Dare to face me like a man, Dead Poliel take you!’

‘Oh for Hood’s sake!’ Kyle pushed him away. He should’ve smelled it, but the last months spent sitting in a common room had blunted his nose.

Tottering, Orjin swung the slim Darujhistan epee, almost cutting Kyle. ‘Come on! Arm yourself! We’ll settle this the old-fashioned way!’ He crossed to a weapon rack and heaved it over in a ringing clatter of ironmongery. ‘Take your pick! As you see — there’s plenty!’

‘Orjin… Greymane…’

The man blinked, weaving. ‘What’s that? Greymane? Greymane?’ His head sank chin to chest and for a time he seemed to study all the fallen swords glowing silver in the moonlight. ‘That man is dead.’

‘Orjin… I heard someone’s coming. Someone from elsewhere — that can only mean the Malazans. They’ve found you.’ He stepped closer. ‘Now come on. Let’s go. There’s nothing for us here. I hate this place. These people would bend over for donkeys if they had gold. Let’s go.’

Orjin breathed out a noisy wet sigh and eased himself down amid the blades. He hung his head. His long unkempt mane shone just as bright as the tangled iron. ‘No. I’m finished. Let them come.’ He waved broadly to encompass the surroundings. ‘This was always my dream, you know, Kyle. Retire. Open a fighting college. Teach something of what I’ve learned.’ At random, he picked up a longsword, a heavy northern Genabackan weapon; sighted down the blade. ‘But no one really wants to know what a bellyful of war teaches.’

Looking down at the man, Kyle considered trying to wrench him up but didn’t think he’d be able to budge his bulk. He knelt to his haunches. ‘Listen, Orjin. Hood take these merchants and gangsters. They’re no different from each other. Let’s just go! Hire on to the first ship we come to in the harbour — who cares where it’s headed.’

‘No, no. That’s a young man’s game. I’m too old. You go.’

‘No one’s after me.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’

‘I’m here because-’ A small sound, the scuff of a foot on sand, turned Kyle’s head. Four figures emerged from the gloom of the entrance tunnel. All were dressed alike in dark leathers and bore two blades at their sides, one long, one short. Kyle straightened, taking up the nearest weapon as he did so, a sturdy heavy-bladed cutlass. ‘Who are you?’

‘Whoever you are,’ one answered, waving him away, ‘stand aside.’

The accent was not Malazan. It didn’t resemble any accent Kyle had ever heard in all his travels. At the voice, however, Orjin’s head snapped up, and he said to Kyle, his words suddenly stone-cold sober, ‘Go, now. Leave us.’

‘Go? Who are these guys? Hired killers?’

‘Killers, yes.’ Orjin stood, gathering up a long slim blade in each hand. ‘But not for gold or treasure — hey, Cullel?’ A gleaming bright hungry grin from the spokesman answered Orjin. ‘You kill for something else, don’t you? For religious faith alone.’

‘We exterminate heretics,’ Cullel assented, his voice a low purr. The four slowly spread out, walking the perimeter of the practice floor.

‘Where in the Abyss are these lunatics from?’ Kyle demanded.

‘They are Korelri. Veterans of the Stormwall. They’ve been given special dispensation to hunt me down. Yes, Cullel?’

‘Hunt you down?’ Kyle asked.

Orjin shifted to put his back to Kyle’s. ‘Yes.’

‘But I thought the Malazans wanted you.’

‘Ah… well… them too.’

‘Wonderful.’

The four now occupied each of the sides of the practice yard. As one they drew their weapons, the long and the short blades.

‘Get rid of that and use your fancy blade,’ Orjin told Kyle.

‘I… don’t have it.’

‘You don’t-’ Orjin sent an exasperated look over his shoulder. ‘Why in the Abyss not?’

‘Gentlemen…’ Cullel called softly.

‘It was stolen from my room.’

‘Stolen?’

‘Gentlemen!’

‘Well, we’re in a right fix now, thanks to you,’ Orjin grumbled.

‘Thank you,’ Cullel said. ‘Now, before we execute our duty it is my obligation to inform you, Greymane, that you have been tried in absentia by the High Council of the Chosen, Defenders of the Lands of Korel and All Greater Fist and Beyond, and have been found guilty of making pacts with the enemy. And that you did enter into said pacts and covenants with the daemonic Riders wilfully, and of your own cognizance.’

‘Pacts?’ Kyle whispered to Orjin.

The man gave a beefy shrug of acquiescence. ‘I talked to them.’

‘Them — the Riders? You really cut a deal with the Stormriders?’

‘Gentlemen! Decorum, if you please. The discharge of justice is a solemn responsibility.’

‘Justice?’ Kyle barked, offended by the idea. ‘You’re damned up yourself, aren’t you?’

Distaste twisted the man’s blade-narrow face. ‘Very well. Judgement has been delivered. And now, the sentence…’ He nodded to his fellows.

They advanced together, blades raised. So much for justice, Kyle decided — four against two. Entering the moonlight, the four Korelri suddenly blazed as the slanting rays revealed that their armour, fittings and scabbards were all studded and filigreed with thin curving traceries of the finest silver.

It chanced that Kyle faced Cullel. Shifting his sandalled foot, Kyle kicked a scarf of sand for cover and parried the other Korelri. Instantly, he knew he faced the best swordsmen he’d ever met. He could barely deflect their attacks. Light cuts welled blood on his forearms. A thrust tore into his thigh and he almost fell. They even worked as a team: he could only watch while they coordinated their attacks to draw him out and expose his side — Wind take it! There is nothing I can do! He sensed Orjin, behind, going down to one knee. Hit already?

Then Greymane was up and the two swordsmen facing Kyle flinched, seeing something beyond him. One of the Korelri behind Kyle snarled his pain while the other flew into view, tumbling loosely over the sand as if tossed by a ferocious blow. Then Orjin stepped in front of Kyle, swinging a two-handed dull-grey blade that Kyle had only seen once before. Cullel parried, but his sword blade shattered like brittle bronze and Orjin’s swing continued on to smash into his side, crumpling him. The last remaining Defender yelled ferociously and leapt, only to be impaled on the thick blade. Orjin kicked the man from the coarse, gritty-looking weapon, and shook the blood from its length.

Kyle took in the four fallen men, then Orjin’s ragged, two-handed sword. ‘Where by all the Queen’s Mysteries did that come from?’

A wet laugh sounded from where Cullel lay. It raised Kyle’s hackles. He squeezed the bloody cut in the leathers over his thigh and limped over.

‘What’s that? You have even more to say?’

‘So it is true…’ the man gasped. Blood welled up with the word. ‘The claims are true. Stonewielder… He betrayed all humanity for that artefact.’

‘Bullshit!’

The man’s eyes widened with a fevered light. ‘No. His reward. Ask him, though he’ll no doubt lie.’ He fought to say more but blood now filled his mouth and he gasped in a coughing fit, straining for breath. His body clenched rigid then slowly eased, relaxing, falling limp.