Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

No-one spoke.

Dread swept through Whiskeyjack. He swung about, locked gazes with Dujek, saw in the old man's face a mirror to his own growing horror. Gods below, we are heading to our deaths. An unseen enemy — but one we've known about for a long time, one we knew was coming, sooner or later, one that — by the Abyss — makes the T'lan Imass recoil.

'Such palpable distraughtness!' Kruppe cried. 'Distraughtness? Is there such a word? If not, then among Kruppe's countless talents we must add linguistic invention! My friends! Attend! Hark! Listen! Take heart, one and all, in the knowledge that Kruppe has placed himself, feet square and ample girth firm, in the path of said — yet unmentioned — formidable enemy of all existence! Sleep calm at night in this knowledge. Slumber as babes in your mother's arms, as each of you once did — even Kallor, though the image shocks and dismays-'

'Dammit!' Caladan Brood roared, 'what in Hood's name are you talking about, little man? You claim to stand in the path of the Crippled God ? By the Abyss, you are mad! If you do not,' he continued in a low tone as he swung down from his horse, 'give instant proof of your efficacy' — he strode towards Kruppe, one hand reaching for the wrapped handle of his hammer — 'I will not predict the extremity of my temper.'

'I wouldn't do that, Brood,' Silverfox murmured.

The warlord twisted to face her, teeth bared. 'You now extend your protection to this arrogant, fat toad?'

Her eyes widened and she looked to the Daru. 'Kruppe, do you make such a request?'

'Absurd! No offence, dear, in that expostulation, Kruppe sweetly assures you!'

Whiskeyjack stared, disbelieving, as the round little man in his food-and drink-stained clothes drew himself up as straight as he was able and fixed small, glittering eyes on Caladan Brood. 'Threaten Kruppe of Darujhistan, will you? Demand an explanation, do you? Fondling that hammer, are you? Baring those fa-'

'Silence!' the warlord bellowed, struggling to control his anger.

Gods below, what is Kruppe up to?

'Kruppe defies all threats! Kruppe sneers at whatever demonstration bristling warlord would attempt-'

The hammer was suddenly in Brood's hands, a smudged blur as it swung through the air, a downward arc, to strike the earth almost at Kruppe's feet.

The detonation threw horses down, sent Whiskeyjack and the others flying. A thunderous concussion cracked the air. The ground seemed to leap up to meet the Malazan commander, the impact like a fist when he struck, rolled, then tumbled his way down the boulder-strewn slope.

Above him, horses were screaming. A wind, hot, shrieking, shot dust and earth skyward.

The scree of boulders was moving beneath Whiskeyjack, flowing, sliding down into the valley at an ever quickening pace with a rumbling, growing roar. Rocks clanged against his armour, rapped into the helm on his head, leaving him stunned. He caught a flashing glimpse, through a jagged tear in the dustcloud, of the line of hills on the other side the valley. Impossibly, they were rising, fast, the bedrock splitting the grassy hide, loosing gouts of dust, rock-shards and smoke. Then the swarming dust swallowed the world around him. Boulders bounced over him, tumbling. Others struck him solid, painful blows that left him gasping, coughing, choking as he rolled.

Even now, the ground continued to heave beneath the sliding scree. Distant detonations shook the air, trembled through Whiskeyjack's battered bones.

He came to a rest, half buried in gravel and rocks. Blinking, eyes burning, he saw before him the Rhivi scouts — dodging, leaping from the path of bounding boulders as if in some bizarre, deadly game. Beyond, black, steaming bedrock towered, the spine of a new mountain range, still growing, still rising, lifting and tilting the floor of the valley where the Malazan now lay. The sky behind it churned iron-grey with steam and smoke.

Hood take me. poor Kruppe . Groaning, Whiskeyjack twisted round as far as he could. He was covered in scrapes, could feel the tender birth of huge bruises beneath his dented, torn armour, but his bones were, amazingly, intact. He strained his watering eyes to the hilltop behind him.

The scree was gone, leaving a gaping, raw cliff-face. Most of the mesa's summit was simply no longer there, obliterated, leaving a small, flat-topped island. where Whiskeyjack now saw figures moving, rising. Horses scrambling upright. Faintly, came the brazen complaint of a mule.

To the north, cutting a path down along the side of a distant valley, then through distant hills, a narrow, steaming crack was visible, a fissure in the earth that seemed depthless.

Whiskeyjack painfully pulled himself clear of the rubble, slowly straightened.

He saw Caladan Brood, hammer hanging down from his hands, motionless … and standing before the warlord, on an island of his own, was Kruppe. Brushing dust from his clothes. The crack that had been born where the hammer had struck the earth, parted neatly around the short, fat Daru, joining again just behind him.

Whiskeyjack struggled to hold back a laugh, knowing how desperate, how jarring it would sound. So, we have seen Brood's fury. And Kruppe, that preposterous little man, has stood it down. Well, if proof was ever needed that the Daru was not as he appeared to be … He then frowned. A demonstration indeed — directed towards whom, I wonder?

A cry of dismay cut through his thoughts.

Korlat. She faced north, her posture somehow contracted, drawn in on itself.

The fissure, Whiskeyjack now saw — all amusement gone — was filling with blood.

Fouled blood, rotten blood. Beru fend, the Sleeping Goddess. Burn sleeps the sleep of the dying, the poisoned. And this, he realized, was the day's final, most terrible revelation. Diseased. the hidden hand of the Crippled God.

The Mhybe's eyes snapped open. The wagon rocked and pitched. Thunder shook the ground. The shouts of Rhivi were on all sides, a wailing chorus of alarm and consternation. Her bones and muscles protested as she was thrown about in the cataclysm, but she would not cry out. She wanted only to hide.

The rumbling faded, replaced by the distant lowing of the bhederin and, closer by, the soft footpads of her kin as they rushed past the wagon. The herd was close to panic, and a stampede was imminent.

Bringing ruin to us all. Yet that would be a mercy. An end to the pain, to my nightmares.

In her dreams she was young once more, but those dreams held no joy. Strangers walked the tundra landscape where she invariably found herself. They approached. She fled. Darting like a snow hare. Running, always running.

Strangers. She did not know what they wanted, but they were seeking her — that much was clear. Tracking her, like hunters their quarry. To sleep was to awaken exhausted, limbs trembling, chest heaving with agonized breaths.

She had been saved from the Abyss, from those countless tattered souls lost in eternal, desperate hunger. Saved, by a dragon. To what end? Leaving me in a place where I am hunted, pursued without surcease?

Time passed, punctuated by the herders' calming words to the frightened bhederin. There would be no stampede after all. Rumbles still trembled through the earth, in diminishing ripples that grew ever farther apart.

The Mhybe moaned softly to herself as the wagon rocked once more, this time to the arrival of the two Daru, Coll and Murillio.

'You've awakened,' the councillor noted. 'It's no surprise.'

'Leave me be,' she said, drawing the hides around her shivering body and curling away from the two men. It's so cold …

'Any idea what's happened up ahead?' Murillio asked Coll.

'Seems Brood lost his temper.'