‘Better than rising up under our feet and cutting us to pieces.’
‘Aye, much better. What do you think, Stormy? We got ourselves unexpected allies?’
‘Pity the Assail if we have.’
Gesler spat. ‘This ain’t the day for pity. Sag’Churok! Don’t do anything stupid like attacking it, all right?’
They slowed to a walk thirty paces from the lone T’lan Imass. At fifteen the K’ell Hunter halted and planted the tips of his swords in the ground. Gesler and Stormy continued on, halting five paces from the undead warrior.
Gesler called out, ‘What clan?’
For a moment it seemed the T’lan Imass would ignore the question, but then, in a heavy, rasping voice, the warrior said, ‘Logros, Malazan. I am Onos T’oolan.’
‘Onos—’ Gesler began, then snapped his mouth shut.
Stormy muttered a curse. ‘Can’t be. The First Sword? How many cronies of that long-dead rat-faced Emperor are involved in this?’
More T’lan Imass were coming down from the hill, ragged and slow, like the grinding of stones, and Gesler sensed something wretched in this scene, something … appalling. What are they doing here?
Onos T’oolan spoke. ‘Logros’s banishment of me was without meaning, Malazan. I knelt before a mortal human on the Throne of Bones, and there is none other whom I shall serve. This is what Olar Ethil did not comprehend. Bound once more to the Ritual of Tellann, I am returned to the shadow of the Emperor.’
Gesler felt sick inside. He knew he was getting only a taste of what all this meant, but it was already breaking his heart. ‘He sent you, First Sword?’
‘I am invited to my own death, Malazan. The manner of it remains to be decided. If the One upon the Throne could see into my soul, he would know that I am broken.’
‘Broken, you say?’ Stormy interrupted. ‘Now that’s an interesting fact, Onos T’oolan.’
The ancient warrior tilted his head. ‘I do not understand your meaning.’
Stormy pointed north. ‘See that spire of rock, First Sword? Right up top of that, there’s something else – something just as broken as you are. The Forkrul Assail are guarding it – but we mean to take it from them. You say Kellanved ordered you here – so we got to know, First Sword, are you here to fight? And if you are, will it be against us or at our side?’
‘You are Malazans.’
‘The army behind us ain’t.’
Onos T’oolan was silent for a time, and then he said, ‘The K’Chain Che’Malle hunted Imass, from time to time.’
‘Just like you hunted bhederin, or elk, or whatever. What of it?’
‘When we were mortal, we had cause to fear them.’
‘And elk will run when it sees you. But then, you’re not mortal any more, are you?’
‘I am here, Malazans, seeking a war. And yet only now do I realize that I have walked in shadow, all this time, since I first rose from the dust outside the city of Pale. I thought I was abandoned. And each time I sought a new path, that shadow followed me. That shadow found me, as it must. I am the First Sword of the T’lan Imass, and from this there is no escape.’
Gesler cleared his throat, blinked to work the water from his eyes. ‘First Sword, am I understanding you? Are you placing yourselves under our command – just because we happen to have come from the Malazan Empire? Before you answer, you’ve got to understand – Kellanved is long dead, and that empire has since outlawed us. We’re not here because of any damned throne, and we’re not at the beckoning of anyone who’s sitting in it either.’
‘Tell me, then, human, why are you here?’
Gesler looked up, studied the hundreds of T’lan Imass crowding the hillside, spilling out into the streets and avenues of the village. Lifeless faces were turned to him, and their regard was a crushing weight. Gods below. ‘It sounds … stupid, you know,’ he said, now eyeing Stormy, ‘when you just out and say it.’
‘Go on,’ growled Stormy, his face reddening as emotions rose within the huge man – Gesler could see it, and he was experiencing the same thing. The air itself seemed to swirl with feelings of appalling force. ‘Go on, Gesler, and if it makes us fools … well, we can live with that, can’t we?’
Sighing, he faced Onos T’oolan. ‘Why are we here? The truth is, we’re not even sure. But … we think we’re here to right an old wrong. Because it’s the thing to do, that’s all.’
Silence, stretching.
Gesler turned back to Stormy. ‘I knew it’d sound stupid.’
Onos T’oolan spoke. ‘What do you seek on that spire, Gesler of the Malazans?’
‘The heart of the Crippled God.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Stormy replied, ‘we want to free him.’
‘He is chained.’
‘We know.’
Onos T’oolan said nothing for a moment, and then: ‘You would defy the will of the gods?’
‘Fast as spit,’ Stormy said.
‘Why do you wish to free the Fallen One?’
When Stormy hesitated, Gesler shifted in the scaled saddle and said, ‘Hood take us. We want to send him home.’
Home. The word very nearly drove Onos T’oolan to his knees. Something was roaring in his skull. He had believed it to be the sound of his own rage – but now he could sense a multitude of voices in that cacophony. More than the unfettered thoughts of the T’lan Imass following him; more than the still distant conflagration that was the Otataral Dragon and the Eleint; no, what deafened him here was the unceasing echoes of terrible pain – this land, all the life that had once thrived here, only to falter and suffer and finally vanish. And there, upon that tower of rock, that cracked spire that was the core of a restless volcano – where the earth’s blood coursed so close to the surface, in serpentine tracks round its fissured, hollowed base – another broken piece of a broken, shattered god, a being that had been writhing in torment for thousands of years. No different from the T’lan Imass. No different from us.
The shadow of a throne – is that not a cold, frightening place? And yet, Kellanved … do you truly offer succour? Dare you cast a shadow to shield us? To protect us? To humble us in the name of humanity?
I once called you our children. Our inheritors. Forgive my irony. For all the venal among your kind … I had thought – I had thought … no matter.
In his mind, he reached among his followers, found the one he sought. She was close – almost behind him. ‘Bonecaster Bitterspring, of the Second Ritual, do you hear me?’
‘I do, First Sword.’
‘You are named a seer. Can you see what awaits us?’
‘I have no true gift of prophecy, First Sword. My talent was in reading people. That and nothing more. I have been an impostor for so long I know no other way of being.’
‘Bitterspring, we are all impostors. What awaits us?’
‘What has always awaited us,’ she replied. ‘Blood and tears.’
In truth, he’d had no reason to expect anything else. Onos T’oolan drew his flint sword round, dragging a jagged furrow through dirt and stones. He lifted his gaze to the Malazans. ‘Even the power of Tellann cannot penetrate the wards raised by the Forkrul Assail. We cannot, therefore, rise in the midst of the enemy in their trenches. This will have to be a direct assault.’
‘We know that,’ the one named Gesler said.
‘We shall fight for you,’ Onos T’oolan said, and then he was silent, confused at seeing the effect of his words on these two men. ‘Have I distressed you?’
Gesler shook his head. ‘No, you greatly relieve us, First Sword. It is not that. It’s just …’ and he shook his head. ‘Now it’s my turn to ask. Why?’