Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

Your sword-thrust words shall not cut to my heart.

I dare not accept your wisdom. I dare-

Whiskeyjack. You bastard.

The commander rode at a gentle canter through the dust until he reached the vanguard of the Malazan army. Here, he found Dujek, flanked by Korlat on one side and the Daru, Kruppe, on the other, the latter tottering uneasily on a mule, hands waving about at the swarming midges.

'A plague on these pernicious gnats! Kruppe despairs!'

'The wind will pick up soon enough,' Dujek growled. 'We're approaching hills.'

Korlat drew closer alongside Whiskeyjack. 'How does she fare, Commander?'

He grimaced. 'No better. Her spirit is as twisted and shrunken as her body. She has fashioned a vision of death that has her fleeing it in terror.'

'Tat- Silverfox feels abandoned by her mother. This leads to bitterness. She no longer welcomes our company.'

'Her too? This is turning into a contest of wills, I think. Isolation is the last thing she needs, Korlat.'

'In that she is like her mother, as you have just intimated.'

He let out a long sigh, shifted in his saddle. His thoughts began to drift; he was weary, his leg aching and stiff. Sleep had been eluding him. They had heard virtually nothing of the fate of Paran and the Bridgeburners. The warrens had become impassable. Nor were they certain if the siege of Capustan was under way, or of the city's fate. Whiskeyjack had begun to regret sending the Black Moranth away. Dujek and Brood's armies were marching into the unknown; even the Great Raven Crone and her kin had not been seen for over a week.

It's these damned warrens and the sickness now filling them.

'They're late,' Dujek muttered.

'And no more than that, Kruppe assures one and all. Recall the last delivery. Almost dusk, it was. Three horses left on the lead wagon, the others killed and cut from the traces. Four shareholders gone, their souls and earnings scattered to the infernal winds. And the merchant herself! Near death, she was. The warning was clear, my friends — the warrens have been compromised. And as we march ever closer to the Domin, the foulment grows ever more … uh, foul.'

'Yet you insist they'll make it through again.'

'Kruppe does, High Fist! The Trygalle Trade Guild honours its contracts. They are not to be underestimated. 'Tis the day of their delivery of supplies. Said supplies shall therefore be delivered. And, assuming Kruppe's request has been honoured, among those supplies will be crates of the finest insect repellent ever created by the formidable alchemists of Darujhistan!'

Whiskeyjack leaned towards Korlat. 'Where in the line does she walk?' he asked quietly.

'At the very rear, Commander-'

'And is anyone watching her?'

The Tiste Andii woman glanced over and frowned. 'Is there need?'

'How in Hood's name should I know?' he snapped. A moment later he scowled. 'Your pardon, Korlat. I shall seek her out myself.' He swung his mount around, nudged it into a canter.

'Tempers grow short,' Kruppe murmured as the commander rode away. 'But not as short as Kruppe, for whom all nasty words whiz impactless over his head, and are thus lost in the ether. And those darts aimed lower, ah, they but bounce from Kruppe's ample equanimity-'

'Fat, you mean,' Dujek said, wiping dust from his brow then leaning over to spit onto the ground.

'Ahem, Kruppe, equably cushioned, blithely smiles at the High Fist's jibe. It is the forthright bluntness of soldiers that one must bathe in whilst on the march leagues from civilization. Antidote to the snipes of gutter rats, a refreshing balm to droll, sardonic nobles — why prick with a needle when one can use a hammer, eh? Kruppe breathes deep — but not so deep as to cough from the dust-laden stench of nature — such simple converse. The intellect must needs shift with alacrity from the intricate and delicate steps of the court dance to the tribal thumping of boots in grunting cadence-'

'Hood take us,' Korlat muttered to the High Fist, 'you got under his skin after all.'

Dujek's answering grin was an expression of perfect satisfaction.

Whiskeyjack angled his horse well to one side of the columns, then drew rein to await the rearguard. There were Rhivi everywhere in sight, moving singly or in small groups, their long spears balanced on their shoulders. Brown-skinned beneath the sun, they strode with light steps, seemingly immune to the heat and the leagues passing under their feet. The bhederin herd was being driven parallel to the armies, a third of a league to the north. The intervening gap revealed a steady stream of Rhivi, returning from the herd or setting off towards it. The occasional wagon joined the to-and-fro, unladen on its way north, burdened with carcasses on the way back.

The rearguard came within sight, flanked by outriders, the Malazan companies in sufficient strength to blunt a surprise attack long enough for the main force to swing round and come to their relief. The commander lifted the water-bladder from his saddle and filled his mouth, eyes narrowed as he studied the disposition of his soldiers.

Satisfied, he urged his mount into a walk, squinting into the trailing clouds of dust at the rearguard's tail-end.

She walked in that cloud as if seeking obscurity, her stride so like Tattersail's that Whiskeyjack felt a shiver dance up his spine. Twenty paces behind her marched a pair of Malazan soldiers, crossbows slung over their shoulders, helms on and visors lowered.

The commander waited until the trio had passed, then guided his horse into their wake. Within moments he was alongside the two marines.

The soldiers glanced up. Neither saluted, following standard procedure for battlefields. The woman closest to Whiskeyjack offered a curt nod. 'Commander. Here to fill your quota of eating dust, are ya?'

'And how did you two earn the privilege?'

'We volunteered, sir,' the other woman said. 'That's Tattersail up there. Yeah, we know, she calls herself Silverfox now, but we ain't fooled. She's our Cadre Mage, all right.'

'So you've elected to guard her back.'

'Aye. Fair exchange, sir. Always.'

'And are the two of you enough?'

The first woman grinned beneath her half-visor. 'We're Hood-damned killers, me and my sister, sir. Two quarrels every seventy heartbeats, both of us. And when time's run out for that, why, then, we switch to longswords, one for each hand. And when they're all busted, it's pig-stickers-'

'And,' the other growled, 'when we're outa iron we use our teeth, sir.'

'How many brothers did you two grow up with?'

'Seven, only they all ran away as soon as they was able. So did Da, but Mother was better off without 'im and that wasn't just bluster when she said so, neither.'

Whiskeyjack edged closer, rolling up his left sleeve. He leaned down and showed the two marines his forearm. 'See those scars — no, these ones here.'

'A nice even bite,' the nearest woman observed. 'Pretty small, though.'

'She was five, the little banshee. I was sixteen. The first fight I ever lost.'

'Did the lass grow up to be a soldier, Commander?'

He straightened, lowering his sleeve. 'Hood, no. When she was twelve, she set off to marry a king. Or so she claimed. That was the last any of us ever saw or heard of her.'

'I'd bet she did just that, sir,' the first woman said. 'If she was anything like you.'

'Now I'm choking on more than just dust, soldier. Carry on.'

Whiskeyjack trotted ahead until he reached Silverfox.

'They'll die for you now,' she said as soon as he came alongside. 'I know,' she continued, 'you don't do it on purpose. There's nothing calculated when you're being human, old friend. That's what makes you so deadly.'

'No wonder you're walking here on your own,' he replied.