Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

'Excuses are easy enough to come by. I well recall that.'

'Aye, they are and no doubt you do.' He glanced down at the sorry state of his clothes. 'I need a bath — where are my weapons?'

'Stonny took care of them. And most of your coin as well. You're paid up — no debts — so you can put your back to all that.'

'And walk.'

'And walk. I'll join you, to the barracks, at least-'

'In case I get lost,' Gruntle said wryly.

Buke nodded.

'Well, it's a few bells yet before the shakes.'

'Aye. The Destriant might help with that, if you ask kindly.'

They turned south, skirting the battered tenement block, and approached the wide avenues between the high-walled, circular Camps. Few citizens were in the streets, and those that were moved furtively, as if skating a thin patina of panic. A city surrounded, awaiting the first drawing of blood.

Gruntle spat into a gutter. 'What are your masters up to, Buke?'

'They have taken possession of a recently abandoned estate. Settled in.'

The sudden tension in Buke's voice raised the hairs on Gruntle's neck. 'Go on.'

'That's why I … went to you. Partly. A Gidrath Watch found the first body last night, not a hundred paces from our estate. Disembowelled. Organs… missing.'

'Inform the prince, Buke. Make no hesitation — a cancer at the heart of a besieged city …'

'I cannot.' He stopped and gripped Gruntle's arm. 'We must not. You haven't seen what they can do when their backs are against a wall-'

'They need to be driven out, Buke. Let the Pannions embrace their company, with pleasure. Just cut yourself loose, first. And maybe that old manservant, Reese, too.'

'We can't.'

'Yes you can-'

Buke's grip tightened painfully. 'No,' he hissed, 'we can't!'

Scowling, Gruntle glanced up the avenue, trying to think.

'They'll start knocking down walls, Gruntle. Outer walls. They'll wipe out hundreds of soldiers — unleash demons, raise the corpses and fling them back in our faces. They'll level Capustan for the Pannions. But there's more to it than all that. Consider another possibility. If it's the Pannions who get them annoyed. '

'They'll let loose on them,' Gruntle sighed, nodding. 'Aye. In the meantime, however, the murder victims start piling up. Look around, Buke, these people are close enough to panic. What do you think it will take to push 'em over the edge? How many more victims? The Camps are kin-bound communities — every neighbourhood is knit together by blood and marriage. This is a fine line to walk…'

'I can't do it alone,' Buke said.

'Do what?'

'Shadow Korbal Broach. When he goes out at night. If I can foul his hunting. yet remain unseen, undiscovered-'

'You've lost your mind!' Gruntle hissed. 'He's a Hood' damned sorcerer, old man! He'll sniff you out the first time!'

'If I'm working alone, you're right…'

Gruntle studied the man at his side, searched the worn, lean face, the hard eyes above the grey, tangled beard. Old burn scars painted Buke's forearms, from when he clawed through coals and embers the morning after the fire in some frenzied, insane faith that he would find them… find his family alive somewhere in the rubble.

Buke's gaze dropped beneath that steady examination. 'I've no cunning, friend,' the old man said, releasing Gruntle's arm. 'I need someone to think of a way to do this. I need someone with the brains to outwit Korbal Broach-'

'Not Broach. Bauchelain.'

'Aye, only he's not the one going out at night. Bauchelain tolerates Korbal's … peculiar interests. Broach has the mind of a child — an unfettered, malign child. I know them, now, Gruntle. I know them.'

'How many other fools have tried to outwit Bauchelain, I wonder?'

'Cemeteries full, I'd guess.'

Gruntle slowly nodded. 'All to achieve what? Save a few lives … so that they can get slaughtered and devoured by the Tenescowri?'

'A more merciful demise even so, friend.'

'Hood take me, Buke. Let me think on this.'

'I'll come by this evening, then. At the barracks. Stonny-'

'Stonny can't know a damn thing about it. If she catches on, she'll go after Broach herself, and she won't be subtle-'

'And they'll kill her. Aye.'

'Gods, my head's about to explode.'

Buke grinned. 'What you need is a priest.'

'A priest?'

'A priest with the powers to heal. Come on, I know just the man.'

Shield Anvil Itkovian stood by the barracks gate, fully armoured and gauntleted, his helm's visor raised though the cheek-guards remained in place. The afternoon's first bell had tolled a hundred heartbeats ago. The others were late, but that was nothing new; nor was Itkovian's punctuality. He'd grown long accustomed to awaiting Brukhalian and Karnadas, and it seemed that the two Barghast who were to join them for the meeting held a similar disregard.

The Mask Council would greet them all seething from the apparent insult — and not for the first time.

The contempt is mutual, alas. Dialogue has degraded. No-one wins in such a situation. And poor Prince Jelarkan. positioned directly between two parties exchanging mutual loathing.

The Shield Anvil had spent the morning on Capustan's walls, surveying the measured settling of the Domin's besieging army. He judged that Septarch Kulpath had been given command of fully ten legions of Beklites, the red-and gold-clad, peak-helmed regular infantry that was the heart of the Domin's forces — half of the famed Hundred Thousand, then. Kulpath's Urdomen — elite heavy infantry — numbered at least eight thousand. When the breach occurred, it would be the Urdomen who pushed through into the city. In addition to these arrayed forces were various augmented divisions: Betaklites, medium infantry; at least three Betrullid Wings, light cavalry; as well as a division of Desandi — sappers and engineers — and Scalandi skirmishers. Perhaps eighty thousand soldiers in all.

Beyond the impressively organized camps of the Septarch's army, the landscape was a seething mass of humanity, reaching down to the banks of the river to the south, and to the cobbled beaches of the coast to the east — the Tenescowri, the peasant army, with their wild-haired Women of the Dead Seed and their shrieking feral offspring; the scavenging parties — hunters of the weak and old among their own kind, and, soon, among the hapless citizens of Capustan. A starving horde, and seeing them crumbled the professional detachment with which Itkovian had viewed Kulpath's legions. He had left the walls, shaken for the first time in his life.

There were a hundred thousand Tenescowri, with more arriving on overloaded barges with every bell, and Itkovian was staggered by the waves of their palpable hunger.

The prince's Capanthall soldiers manning the battlements were pale as corpses, silent and virtually motionless. Upon arriving on the walls, the Shield Anvil had been dismayed by their fear; by the time he made his descent, he shared it, a cold knife lodged in his chest. The companies of Gidrath in the outside redoubts were the fortunate ones — their deaths were imminent, and would come beneath the blades of professional soldiers. Capustan's fate, and the fate of those defending it, was likely to be far more horrifying.

The soft slither of coin armour announced the approach of the two Barghast warriors. Itkovian studied the woman in the lead. Hetan's face was smeared in ash, as was her brother Cafal's. The mourning visage would remain for as long as they chose, and the Shield Anvil suspected he would not live to see its removal. Even sheathed in grey, there is a brutal beauty to this woman.

'Where is the hill bear and his scrawny pup?' Hetan demanded.

'Fener's Mortal Sword and the Destriant have just emerged from the building behind you, Hetan.'