‘And the breath they give back,’ said the warlord, ‘that burns if touched. I am fortunate, I think,’ he continued, ‘that I have no appreciation for irony.’
‘It is a false gift, for with it we claim ownership. Like crooked merchants, every one of us. We give so that we can then justify taking it back. I have come to believe that this exchange is the central tenet of our relationship. . with everything in the world. Any world. Human, Andii, Edur, Liosan. Imass, Barghast, Jaghut-’
‘Not Jaghut,’ cut in Caladan Brood.
‘Ah,’ said Endest Silann. ‘I know little of them, in truth. What then was their bargain?’
‘Between them and the world? I don’t even know if an explanation is possible, or at least within the limits of my sorry wit. Until the forging of the ice — defending against the Imass — the Jaghut gave far more than they took. Excepting the Tyrants, of course, which is what made such tyranny all the more reprehensible in the eyes of other Jaghut.’
‘So, they were stewards.’
‘No. The notion of stewardship implies superiority. A certain arrogance.’
‘An earned one, surely, since the power to destroy exists.’
‘Well, the illusion of power, I would say, Endest. After all, if you destroy the things around you, eventually you destroy yourself. It is arrogance that asserts a kind of separation, and from that the notion that we can shape and reshape the world to suit our purposes, and that we can use it, as if it was no more than a living tool composed of a million parts.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘See? Already my skull aches.’
‘Only with the truth, I think,’ said Endest Silann. ‘So, the Jaghut did not think of themselves as stewards. Nor as parasites. They were without arrogance? I find that an extraordinary thing, Warlord. Beyond comprehension, in fact.’
‘They shared this world with the Forkrul Assail, who were their opposites. They were witnesses to the purest manifestation of arrogance and separation.’
‘Was there war?’
Caladan Brood was silent for so long that Endest began to believe that no answer was forthcoming, and then he glanced up with his bestial eyes glittering in the ebbing flames of the hearth. ‘“Was”?’
Endest Silann stared across at his old friend, and the breath slowly hissed from him. ‘Gods below, Caladan. No war can last that long.’
‘It can, when the face of the army is without relevance.’
The revelation was. . monstrous. Insane. ‘Where?’
The warlord’s smile was without humour. ‘Far away from here, friend, which is well. Imagine what your Lord might elect to do, if it was otherwise.’
He would intervene. He would not be able to stop himself.
Caladan Brood rose then. ‘We have company.’
A moment later the heavy thud of wings sounded in the fading darkness above them, and Endest Silann looked up to see Crone, wings crooked now, riding shifting currents of air as she descended, landing with a scatter of stones just beyond the edge of firelight.
‘I smell fish!’
‘Wasn’t aware your kind could smell at all,’ Caladan Brood said.
‘Funny oaf, although it must be acknowledged that our eyes are the true gift of perfection — among many, of course. Why, Great Ravens are plagued with excellence — and do I see picked bones? I do, with despondent certainty — you rude creatures have left me nothing!’
She hopped closer, regarding the two men with first one eye and then the other. ‘Grim conversation? Glad I interrupted. Endest Silann, your Lord summons you. Caladan Brood, not you. There, messages delivered! Now I want food!’
Harak fled through Night. Old tumbled streets, the wreckage of the siege picked clean save for shattered blocks of quarried stone; into narrow, tortured alleys where the garbage was heaped knee-high; across collapsed buildings, scrambling like a spider. He knew Thove was dead. He knew Bucch was dead, and a half-dozen other conspirators. All dead. Killers had pounced. Tiste Andii, he suspected, some kind of secret police, penetrating the cells and now slaughtering every liberator they could hunt down.
He’d always known that the unhuman demon-spawn were far from the innocent, benign occupiers they played at, oh, yes, they were rife with deadly secrets. Plans of slavery and oppression, of tyranny, not just over Black Coral, but beyond, out to the nearby cities — wherever humans could be found, the Tiste Andii cast covetous eyes. And now he had proof.
Someone was after him, tracking with all the deliberate malice of a hunting cat — he’d yet to spy that murderer, but in a world such as Night that was not surprising. The Tiste Andii were skilled in their realm of Darkness, deadly as serpents.
He needed to reach the barrow. He needed to get to Gradithan. Once there, Harak knew he would be safe. They had to be warned, and new plans would have to be made. Harak knew that he might well be the last one left in Black Coral.
He stayed in the most ruined areas of the city, seeking to circle round or, failing that, get out through the inland gate that led into the forested hills — where the cursed Bridgeburners had made a stand, killing thousands with foul sorcery and Moranth munitions — why, the entire slope was still nothing more than shattered, charred trees, fragments of mangled armour, the occasional leather boot and, here and there in the dead soil, juttlng bones. Could he reach that, he could find a path leading into Daylight and then, finally, he would be safe.
This latter option became ever more inviting — he was not too far from the gate, and these infernal shadows and the endless gloom here was of no help to him — the Tiste Andii could see in this darkness, after all, whilst he stumbled about half blind.
He heard a rock shift in the rubble behind him, not thirty paces away. Heart pounding, Harak set his eyes upon the gate. Smashed down in the siege, but a path of sorts had been cleared through it, leading out to the raised road that encircled the inland side of the city. Squinting, he could make out no figures lingering near that gate.
Twenty paces away now. He picked up his pace and, once on to the cleared avenue, sprinted for the opening in the wall.
Were those footfalls behind him? He dared not turn.
Run! Damn my legs — run!
On to the path, threading between heaps of broken masonry, and outside the city!
Onward, up the slope to the raised road, a quick, frantic scamper across it, and down into the tumbled rocks at the base of the ruined slope. Battered earth, makeshift grave mounds, tangled roots and dead branches. Whimpering, he clambered on, torn and scratched, coughing in the dust of dead pine bark.
And there, near the summit, was that sunlight? Yes. It was near dawn, after all. Sun — blessed light!
A quick glance back revealed nothing — he couldn’t make out what might be whispering through the wreckage below.
He was going to make it.
Harak scrambled the last few strides, plunged into cool morning air, shafts of golden rays — and a figure rose into his path. A tulwar lashed out. Harak’s face bore an expression of astonishment, frozen there as his head rolled from his shoulders, bounced and pitched back down the slope, where it lodged near a heap of bleached, fractured bones. The body sank down on to its knees, at the very edge of the old trench excavated by the Bridgeburners, and there it stayed.
Seerdomin wiped clean his blade and sheathed the weapon. Was this the last of them? He believed that it was. The city. . cleansed. Leaving only those out at the barrow. Those ones would persist for a time, in ignorance that everything in Black Coral had changed.
He was weary — the hunt had taken longer than he had expected. Yes, he would rest now. Seerdomin looked about, studied the rumpled trenchwork the sappers had managed with little more than folding shovels. And he was impressed. A different kind of soldier, these Malazans.
But even this the forest was slowly reclaiming.