Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

'You must make the pronouncement, Summoner,' Okral Lorn said.

'Yes,' she replied, still glaring at Kruppe.

'Your words,' Pran Chole added, 'can shatter the Ritual's bindings.'

Her head snapped round. 'So easily? Yet-' She faced the Daru once more, and scowled. 'Kruppe, you force into the open an unpleasant truth-'

'Aye, Silverfox, but not the same truth as that which you seem to see. No, Kruppe has unveiled a deeper one, far more poignant.'

She crossed her arms. 'And that is?'

Kruppe studied the sea of undead figures, narrowed his gaze on the shadowed sockets of countless eyes. After a long moment, he sighed, and it was a sigh ragged with emotion. 'Ah, my dear, look again, please. It was a pathetic deceit, not worth condemnation. Understand, if you will, the very beginning. The First Gathering. There was but one enemy, then. One people, from whom tyrants emerged. But time passes, aye? And now, dominators and tyrants abound on all sides — yet are they Jaghut? They are not. They are human, for the most part, yes?

'The truth in all its layers? Very well. Silverfox, the T'lan Imass have won their war. Should a new tyrant emerge from among the few hidden Jaghut, he or she will not find the world so simple to conquer as it once was. There are gods to oppose the effort; nay, there are mere ascendants! Men such as Anomander Rake, women such as Korlat — have you forgotten the fate of the last Jaghut Tyrant?

'The time has passed, Silverfox. For the Jaghut, and thus, for the T'lan Imass.' Kruppe rested a hand on her shoulder and looked up into her eyes. 'Summoner,' he whispered, 'these indomitable warriors are … weary. Weary beyond all comprehension. They have existed for hundreds of thousands of years, for one sole cause. And that cause is now … a farce. Pointless. Irrelevant. They want it to end, Silverfox. They tried to arrange it with Kellanved and the First Throne, but the effort failed. Thus, they gave shape to you, to what you would become. For this one task.

'Redeem them. Please.'

Pran Chole spoke, 'Summoner, we shall destroy the Jaghut who hides within this Pannion Domin. And then, we would ask for an end. It is as Kruppe has said. We have no reason to exist, thus we exist without honour, and it is destroying us. The renegades Logros T'lan Imass hunts are but the first. We shall lose more of our kin, or so we fear.'

Kruppe saw that Silverfox was trembling, but her words were tightly controlled as she addressed the antlered shaman. 'You create me as the first flesh and blood Bonecaster in almost three hundred thousand years. The first, and, it seems, the last.'

'Do as we ask, Summoner, and the remainder of your life is yours.'

'What life? I am neither Rhivi nor Malazan. I am not even truly human. It is what all of you do not grasp!' She jabbed a finger at Kruppe and the two marines to complete an all-encompassing gesture. 'None of you! Not even Paran, who thinks — no, what he thinks I will deal with in my own time — it is not for any of you. T'lan Imass! I am your kin, damn you! Your first child in three hundred thousand years! Am I to be abandoned again?'

Kruppe stepped back. Again? Oh, gods below - 'Silverfox-'

'Silence!'

But there was no silence. Instead, a rustling and creaking whispered through the air, and Silverfox and Kruppe swung to the sound.

To see tens of thousands of T'lan Imass lowering themselves to their knees, heads bowing.

Olar Ethil was the last standing. She spoke. 'Summoner, we beg you to release us.' With those words, she too settled onto the ground.

The scene twisted a knife in Kruppe's very soul. Unable to speak, barely able to breathe, he simply stared out at the broken multitude in growing horror. And when Silverfox gave answer, the Daru's heart threatened to burst.

'No.'

In the distance, on all sides, the undead wolves began to howl.

'Hood's breath!' one of the marines swore.

Aye, theirs is a voice of such unearthly sorrow, it tears at the mortal mind. Oh, K'rul, what are we to do now?

'One assumes a lack of complexity in people whose lives are so short.'

Whiskeyjack grinned sourly. 'If that's meant to be an apology, you'll have to do better, Korlat.'

The Tiste Andii sighed, ran a hand through her long black hair in a very human gesture.

'Then again,' the Malazan continued, 'from you, woman, even a grunt will do.'

Her eyes flashed. 'Oh? And how am I to take that ?'

'Try the way it was meant, lass. I've not enjoyed the last few days much, and I'd rather we were as before, so I will take what I can get. There, as simple as I can make it.'

She leaned in her saddle and laid a hand against his chain-clothed arm. 'Thank you. It seems I am the one needing things simple.'

'To that, my lips are sealed.'

'You are a wise man, Whiskeyjack.'

The plain before them, at a distance of two thousand paces and closing, swarmed with Tenescowri. There was no order to their ranks, barring the lone rider who rode before them, a thin, gaunt youth, astride a spine-bowed roan dray. Immediately behind the young man — whom Whiskeyjack assumed to be Anaster — ranged a dozen or so women. Wild-haired, loosing random shrieks, there was an aura of madness and dark horror about them.

'Women of the Dead Seed, presumably,' Korlat said, noting his gaze. 'There is sorcerous power there. They are the First Child's true bodyguard, I believe.'

Whiskeyjack twisted in his saddle to examine the Malazan legions formed up behind him fifty paces away. 'Where is Anomander Rake? This mob could charge at any moment.'

'They will not,' Korlat asserted. 'Those witches sense my Lord's nearness. They are made uneasy, and cry out caution to their chosen child.'

'But will he listen?'

'He had bett-'

A roaring sound shattered her words.

The Tenescowri were charging, a surging tide of fearless desperation. A wave of power from the Women of the Dead Seed psychically assailed Whiskeyjack, made his heart thunder with a strange panic.

Korlat hissed between her teeth. 'Resist the fear, my love!'

Snarling, Whiskeyjack drew his sword and wheeled his horse round to face his troops. The sorcerous assault of terror had reached them, battering at the lines. They rippled, but not a single soldier stepped back. A moment later, his Malazans steadied.

"Ware!' Korlat cried. 'My Lord arrives in his fullest power!'

The air seemed to descend on all sides, groaning beneath a vast, invisible weight. The sky darkened with a palpable dread.

Whiskeyjack's horse stumbled, legs buckling momentarily before the animal regained its balance. The beast screamed.

A cold, bitter wind whistled fiercely, flattening the grasses before the commander and Korlat, then it struck the charging mass of Tenescowri.

The Women of the Dead Seed were thrown back, staggering, stumbling, onto the ground where they writhed. Behind them, the front runners in the mob tried to stop and were overrun. Within a single heartbeat, the front ranks collapsed into chaos, figures seething over others, bodies trampled or pushed forward in a flailing of limbs.

The silver-maned black dragon swept low over Whiskeyjack's head, sailing forward on that gelid gale.

The lone figure of Anaster, astride his roan horse that had not even flinched, awaited him. The front line of the Tenescowri was a tumbling wall behind the First Child.

Anomander Rake descended on the youth.

Anaster straightened in his saddle and spread his arms wide.

Huge talons snapped down. Closed around the First Child and plucked him from the horse.

The dragon angled upward with its prize.

Then seemed to stagger in the air.

Korlat cried out. 'Gods, he is as poison!'

The dragon's leg whipped to one side, flinging Anaster away. The young man spun, cartwheeling like a tattered doll through the air. To plunge into the mob of Tenescowri on the far right, where he disappeared from view.