Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

Ubilast (the Legless)

The inn commanding the southeast corner of old Daru Street held no more than half a dozen patrons, most of them visitors to the city who, like Gruntle, were now trapped. The Pannion armies surrounding Capustan's walls had done nothing for five days and counting. There had been clouds of dust from beyond the ridgeline to the north, the caravan captain had heard, signalling … something. But that had been days ago and nothing had come of it.

What Septarch Kulpath was waiting for, no-one knew, though there was plenty of speculation. More barges carrying Tenescowri had been seen crossing the river, until it seemed that half the empire's population had joined the peasant army. 'With numbers like that,' someone had said a bell earlier, 'there'll be barely a mouthful of Capan citizen each.' Gruntle had been virtually alone in appreciating the jest.

He sat at a table near the entrance, his back to the rough-plastered, double-beamed door-frame, the door itself on his right, the low-ceilinged main room before him. A mouse was working its way along the earthen floor beneath the tables, scampering from shadow to shadow, slipping between the shoes or boots of whatever patron its path intersected. Gruntle watched its progress with low-lidded eyes. There was still plenty of food to be found in the kitchen — or so its nose was telling it. That bounty, Gruntle well knew, would not last if the siege drew out.

His gaze flicked up to the smoke-stained main truss spanning the room, where the inn's cat slept, limbs dangling from the crossbeam. The feline hunted only in its dreams, for the moment at least.

The mouse reached the foot-bar of the counter, waddled parallel to it towards the kitchen entrance.

Gruntle took another mouthful of watered wine — more water than wine after almost a week's stranglehold on the city by the Pannions. The six other patrons were each sitting alone at a table or leaning up against the counter. Words were exchanged among them every now and then, a few desultory comments, usually answered by little more than a grunt.

Over the course of a day and night, the inn was peopled by two types, or so Gruntle had observed. The ones before him now virtually lived in the common room, nursing their wine and ale. Strangers to Capustan and seemingly friendless, they'd achieved a kind of community none the less, characterized by a vast ability to do nothing together for long periods of time. Come the night the other type would begin to assemble. Loud, boisterous, drawing the street whores inside with their coins which they tumbled onto the tabletops with no thought of tomorrow. Theirs was a desperate energy, a bluff hail to Hood. We're yours, you scything bastard, they seemed to say. But not till the dawn!

They'd churn like a foaming sea around the immovable, indifferent rocks that were the silent, friendless patrons.

The sea and the rocks. The sea celebrates in the face of Hood as soon as he looms close. The rocks have stared the bastard in the eye for so long they're past budging, much less celebrating. The sea laughs uproariously at its own jokes. The rocks grind out a terse line that can silence an entire room. A Capan mouthful.

Next time, I'll keep my tongue to myself.

The cat rose on the crossbeam, stretching, its banded black stripes rippling across its dun fur. Cocked its head downward, ears pricking.

The mouse was at the edge of the kitchen entrance, frozen.

Gruntle hissed under his breath.

The cat looked his way.

The mouse darted into the kitchen and out of sight.

With a loud creak, the inn door swung inward. Buke stepped inside, crossed Gruntle's view then sank down into the chair beside him.

'You're predictable enough,' the old man muttered, gesturing for two of the same when he caught the barkeep's eye.

'Aye,' Gruntle replied. 'I'm a rock.'

'A rock, huh? More like a fat iguana clinging to one. And when the big wave comes-'

'Whatever. You've found me, Buke. Now what?'

'Just wanted to thank you for all the help, Gruntle.'

'Was that subtle irony, old man? A little honing-'

'Actually, I was almost serious. That muddy water you made me drink — Keruli's concoction — it's done wonders.' His narrow face revealed a slightly secretive smile. 'Wonders …'

'Glad to hear you're all better. Any more earth-shattering news? If not …'

Buke leaned back as the barkeep delivered the two tankards, then said after the man shambled away, 'I've met with the elders of the Camps. At first they wanted to go straight to the prince-'

'But then they came to their senses.'

'With a little prodding.'

'So now you've got all the help you need in keeping that insane eunuch from playing doorman to Hood's gate. Good. Can't have panic in the streets, what with a quarter-million Pannions laying siege to the city.'

Buke's eyes thinned on Gruntle. 'Thought you'd appreciate the calm.'

'Now that's much better.'

'I still need your help.'

'Can't see how, Buke. Unless you want me to kick down the door and separate Korbal Broach's head from his shoulders. In which case you'll need to keep Bauchelain distracted. Set him on fire or something. I only need a moment. Of course, timing's everything. Once the walls have been breached, say, and there's Tenescowri mobbing the streets. That way we can all go hand in hand to Hood singing a merry tune.'

Buke smiled behind his tankard. 'That'll do,' he said, then drank.

Gruntle drained his own cup, reached for the new one. 'You know where to find me,' he said after a moment.

'Until the wave comes.'

The cat leapt down from the crossbeam, pounced forward, trapping a cockroach between its paws. It began playing.

'All right,' the caravan captain growled after a moment, 'what else do you want to say?'

Buke shrugged offhandedly. 'I hear Stonny has volunteered. Latest rumours have it the Pannions are finally ready for the first assault — any time now.'

'The first? Likely they'll only need the one. As for being ready, they've been ready for days, Buke. If Stonny wants to throw away her life defending the indefensible, that's her business.'

'What's the alternative? The Pannions won't take prisoners, Gruntle. We'll all have to fight, sooner or later.'

That's what you think.

'Unless,' Buke continued after a moment as he raised his tankard, 'you plan on switching sides. Finding faith as a matter of expedience-'

'What other way is there?'

The old man's eyes sharpened. 'You'd fill your belly with human flesh, Gruntle? Just to survive? You'd do that, would you?'

'Meat is meat,' Gruntle replied, his eyes on the cat. A soft crunch announced that it had finished playing.

'Well,' Buke said, rising, 'I didn't think you were capable of shocking me. I guess I thought I knew you-'

'You thought.'

'So this is the man Harllo gave his life for.'

Gruntle slowly raised his head. Whatever Buke saw in his eyes made him step back. 'Which Camp are you working with right now?' the caravan captain calmly asked.

'Uldan,' the old man whispered.

'I'll look in on you, then. In the meantime, Buke, get out of my sight.'

The shadows had retreated across most of the compound, leaving Hetan and her brother, Cafal, in full sunlight. The two Barghast were squatting on a worn, faded rug, heads bowed. Sweat — blackened with ash — dripped from them both. Between them was a broad, shallow brazier, perched on three hand-high iron legs and filled with smouldering coals.

Soldiers and court messengers flowed around them on all sides.

Shield Anvil Itkovian studied the siblings from where he stood near the headquarters entrance. He had not known the Barghast as a people enamoured of meditation, yet Hetan and Cafal had done little else, it seemed, since their return from the Thrall. Fasting, uncommunicative, inconveniently encamped in the centre of the barracks compound, they had made of themselves an unapproachable island.