‘But we’ll be blind then.’

  ‘That’s probably their intention.’

  ‘Who are “they”?’

  ‘Some sort of beasts. Large wolves, apparently. Perhaps whoever’s out there breeds them.’

  Tayschrenn opened his mouth to ask another question but the Fist had turned away, dismissing him; which, he reflected, was understandable. The man was quite busy after all.

  Later that afternoon he came across Nightchill walking alone. He hadn’t seen her for some time. She was dressed as always in a plain dirty shirt and trousers; her bare feet were blackened in dirt. She could almost be mistaken for some poor ragged camp follower and Tayschrenn wondered if perhaps some unlucky trooper had done so – and where he, or she, was now. Joining her he did not bother to ask where she’d been, or what she’d been doing, as she never gave a straightforward answer. Instead he began, ‘Have you heard the news?’

  ‘What news?’ she responded, uninterested.

  ‘Some sort of large beasts are attacking our scouts and foraging parties.’

  She nodded absently to this. ‘I sense the Beast Hold.’

  ‘The Hold? So, not normal wolves.’

  ‘A mere distraction.’ She raised her chin to where the plume of black and grey smoke marred the sky. ‘We mustn’t be diverted.’

  He murmured, ‘I don’t think our esteemed commander will agree.’

  ‘We shall see.’

  Tayschrenn had nothing to add to that and so they walked in silence for some time. Towards dusk the main column halted and preparations began to establish camp. A messenger ran up to him and saluted. ‘The Fist bids you come – we have a corpse to examine.’

  Tayschrenn cast a glance to Nightchill who shook her head, uninterested. Bowing slightly, he turned for the command tent which had been raised and glowed now with multiple lanterns.

  Within, he found Fist Dujek, captains Ullen and Orosé, Dassem Ultor, Hairlock and Sialle, plus Dujek’s staff and usual personal guards. They stood, or lounged in the case of Hairlock, round a central table upon which lay an unusual corpse. Dujek gestured to it. ‘Cadre mages, if you would …’

  Tayschrenn bent to the hacked body. It was a man, who, despite the cold and snow, wore only a tattered and dirty loincloth. He was extremely hairy; Tayschrenn lifted one shoulder and peered beneath: he bore a thick ridge of hair down his back. Sialle lifted a hand, examined it, and nodded to herself; she showed a finger to Tayschrenn. The nail was thick and extended, more like an animal’s claw or talon. Hairlock pulled back the lips and grunted his surprise. Tayschrenn peered closer: far oversized teeth, canines upper and lower very robust, without molars to speak of: all rear teeth ridged and sharp for tearing.

  Tayschrenn turned to Dujek. ‘A shapeshifter. A type of Soletaken.’

  ‘The ritual?’ Dujek asked. ‘Then why didn’t you sense it?’

  Sialle shook her head. ‘No. A true beast-human. In the blood. Born. The Jhekal, Jhek, or Jhall. They have many names.’

  Now Tayschrenn was nodding. ‘Ah. There are reports of enclaves on other continents and such. Just not here. That they’ve managed to remain hidden is a testament to how desolate and untravelled this region is.’

  ‘Can they be negotiated with?’ Dujek asked. ‘Bought off?’

  ‘Not from everything I’ve heard,’ Tayschrenn answered. ‘They are territorial, aggressive. Do not back down.’

  ‘I agree,’ Sialle added.

  ‘They are very fierce fighters,’ Dassem said from where he stood aside, his arms crossed. ‘Stronger and faster than any man or woman. Our regulars do not stand a chance against them individually.’

  Dujek nodded at that while eyeing the Champion; some sort of understanding passed between them and he turned to his staff. ‘Pull everyone back. We move in column ready for any attack.’

  Captain Ullen saluted, but hesitated, saying, ‘We are still very low on stores …’

  ‘We’ll just have to tough it out for a time.’

  The captain saluted once more, but looked grim as he exited.

  The Fist stared after him and ran his hand over his balding scalp, sighing. ‘The lad’s right. We are damnably low on provisions.’

  Dassem nodded his assent. ‘Let’s hope we do not have to wait long.’

  Dujek looked to Tayschrenn and the other mages. ‘Thank you for your help, cadre. And be ready to defend if we are attacked.’

  Tayschrenn simply inclined his head, and exited. Outside, he fell in with Hairlock who walked in his usual swinging swagger. ‘What do you think about all this?’ Tayschrenn asked.

  ‘’Bout what?’

  ‘These Jhek.’

  The burly mage cut a hand through the air. ‘Faugh. We’ll annihilate them.’

  Tayschrenn happened to glance aside to Sialle and was surprised to see her watching the Seven Cities mage with a slit-eyed glare that could only be described as disgust.

  * * *

  When the great doors to the temple were thrown open and in strode the wolf-clan leader Looris accompanied by his picked warriors, Ullara knew exactly what the man was going to say; after all, she’d been watching everything. As she thought, the chieftain was clearly elated. His broad toothy grin was almost creamy in its self-satisfaction.

  ‘So much for your dreaded Malazan soldiers,’ he announced. ‘They die like any other man or woman beneath our nails and teeth.’

  ‘I know,’ she answered tightly, ‘I saw.’

  He nodded, not the least bit troubled. ‘Good! Then you saw how they fled from us.’

  ‘They’ve withdrawn, Looris. That is altogether different from fleeing.’

  He waved her misgivings aside. ‘They’ve clumped together like fearful sheep. We will fall upon them soon.’

  Ullara surged to her feet. ‘Do not attack that main body, Looris. I forbid it.’

  The clan-chief’s look turned condescending. ‘This is a matter for warriors, Priestess. Keep to your birds.’

  She raised a finger to the roof and the circling birds. ‘Through eyes like these I have watched countless engagements and battles all across the lands to the south. And believe me, war-chief, that main column will be your ruin. Those soldiers you attacked – did they carry shields?’

  He shook his head, bemused. ‘No. No such things.’

  ‘Well, you will meet those who do and they will repel you.’ She softened her voice, ‘Please. I beg of you, do not do this.’

  Now his gaze hardened. He snorted, ‘Begging. Clearly you carry no warrior’s heart. Begging only wins you contempt.’ And he turned away.

  ‘You are making a terrible mistake, Looris,’ she called after him. ‘Remember my words!’

  The doors boomed shut behind him and the birds sent up a squall of complaint.

  After sitting for a time Ullara headed to the doors. She pushed one open a crack only to see two wolf-warriors on guard. ‘What is this?’ she demanded.

  The young warrior would not meet her gaze. ‘Apologies, Priestess. Orders from the clan-leader. You are to be kept safe within.’

  ‘Imprisoned, you mean!’

  The young fellow blushed his embarrassment. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Well, at least send Athan to me. You can do that, can’t you?’

  ‘I am sorry, Priestess, but he is in the field.’

  ‘Ursana then?’

  The two exchanged uncertain glances then this one nodded. ‘I will send for her.’

  Ullara straightened, raised her chin, and said coldly, ‘My thanks.’

  Back in her seat she let her head fall to her hands and wept again, shuddering, in an agony of dread. Later that afternoon the doors opened and in lumbered the bear-warrior Ursana. The huge warrior knelt to one knee before her, saying, ‘You sent for me, Priestess?’

  ‘Yes. Can you stop this insanity? Stop any further attacks against this foreign army?’

  The bear-woman slowly shook her head. ‘No. I am sorry. Looris is war-chief. I am bound by honour to follow his commands.’

  It was all Ullara could do to stop herself from screaming at the woman. She reached out, clasped a hairy forearm. ‘Then at least do this for me. Be ready. Ready to withdraw. Salvage all that you can when the battle turns. Will you do that for me? Promise?’

  The warrior was clearly troubled. She nodded, rumbling, ‘I will keep your warning in mind, Priestess.’

  Ullara would’ve kissed the woman, could she reach so high. She gave the broad muscular forearm a squeeze. ‘My thanks. The priestess of your people thanks you.’

  Ursana bowed her head and withdrew.

  Alone, in the fading light, Ullara couldn’t stop the tears from returning. She let her head fall back, staring sightlessly, roving from eyes to eyes: watching the implacable advance of the Malazan infantry, watching the smoke plume of the K’Chain Che’Malle mountain thicken and darken, watching her poor foolish people in their preparations to encircle the Malazan force, watching a stream cut a new channel through the wreckage of Eagle Summit Pass, watching—

  She nearly fell as she surged to her feet, gasping her disbelief.

  ‘Gwynn?’ she yelled to the empty hall.

  * * *

  In the mountain’s main control chamber Hessa stood waiting with Turnagin. ‘You sense nothing?’ she asked of the mage again.

  He gave a grimace of assent. ‘Nothing. These alien energies play havoc with my abilities. Also, I dare not strengthen my attempts as Singer would probably detect them.’

  Hessa just shook her head; it would all be so much easier if Turnagin could simply use his talents. But they would have to make do. She straightened then, at the sound of running footsteps.

  Hyde appeared round the towering plinths and instruments. ‘Yeah,’ he called, panting, ‘he’s long gone down below.’

  She jerked a nod. ‘Good. Keep a lookout. Call if you see him.’

  Turnagin cleared his throat. ‘You do not have to do this …’

  ‘I know. But perhaps I should – I don’t know.’

  The mage just clenched his lips, lowering his gaze.

  Hessa turned and jogged for the one ramp that rose from this chamber – the one Singer forbade them entering. Its dimensions were gigantic, tall and broad. Its walls the bare heart-rock of the mountain, but smoothed as if by great heat. She started up it at a lope, to find it gently spiralled like a circular stairway.

  Some turns later, panting, she cursed: she’d not expected such a long way. She kept telling herself: just the next turn. See what’s round the next curve. But so far it had been just more of the same. The heat was intensifying, however. It was like breathing inside a kiln.

  Finally, the sloping rise levelled off. She spurred herself to more speed. A broad hall of rock ran straight ahead. To either side opened alcoves, or caves, each sealed by some sort of soft waxen barrier. Within lay immense K’Chain Che’Malle shapes, but different somehow. It was hard to tell through the obscuring barriers, but these ones appeared to have more limbs and be longer and leaner than the other ones, more serpentine.

  The hall ended in another alcove, the full width wall to wall, where the largest shape yet lay curled up, dark and blurred behind its soft barrier. This wall, waxen, or some such material, was not solid and unmarred like the others. A hole had been cut in it, one large enough for a hand – a rather large hand.

  She knelt at the hole, peering within. She saw nothing but darkness, though the Che’Malle dry stink was pungent here. After a time, it wasn’t what she saw that made her flinch away; it was what she heard.

  A single long and low rasping breath – as of a long slow exhalation.

  She turned and ran.

  Exhausted, dragging her feet, she finally arrived back down at the ramp’s base. Here she found Turnagin and the twins, Hyde and Ayal, waiting. None spoke as she approached, but Ayal glanced aside in a significant stare. Hessa felt her shoulders drop. Damn.

  Singer stepped out from round the wall. He crossed his arms. ‘So … as you suspected, no?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He gave a shrug. ‘Then this changes nothing.’ He waved them to follow. ‘Come. Let us see about raising the energy levels.’

  Turnagin fell in step with her. ‘The Matron?’ he hissed.

  ‘Alive. Sleeping, maybe?’

  The mage nodded. ‘Hibernating. As all these should be. This Jaghut has—’

  ‘Enough whispering, little mice,’ Singer called to them.

  Hessa mouthed, Later.

  They crossed the broad, maze-like chamber with its rows of plinths and standing gears and chains, and Hessa was surprised to smell that strong Che’Malle stink that had filled the uppermost hall. She raised her hand to her nose and realized, It’s me.

  She also remembered another time she’d smelled something similar – when she’d happened to be quite close to Singer.

  * * *

  Blues lay flat out on the slushy snow and mud, chilled to the bone, hands numb, and tried to catch sight of the Malazan scouting party they’d been shadowing all morning.

  ‘This is stupid,’ he hissed to Black, ‘we’re too far away!’

  ‘Have to be – you and Gwynn move like great hairy bhederin.’

  Blues glanced back to where Gwynn and Jacinth waited, crouched in a slight hollow. ‘Ha! Very funny.’

  They were wary because twice already they’d come across scenes of slaughter where Malazan light foragers, scouts and hunters lay scattered, literally torn limb from limb, throats savaged and abdomens ripped open. Black believed it some sort of pack of hunting beasts, perhaps set upon the invaders by whoever, or whatever, lay to the north.

  Blues returned his attention to the rolling wasteland to the north where the Malazan scouting party appeared to have gone to ground, or moved at speed too far off. He opened his mouth to complain to Black once more but silenced himself, for the fighter lay frozen, tensed. Then he felt it too. Company.

  He held a hand out to the side in a sign: contact. The two rose slowly and casually rejoined their compatriots. Blues, Jacinth and Black then straightened in a tight circle around Gwynn, hands on weapons.

  Their company closed from all sides. Even the north; which soured Blues’s mood as he’d just been scanning it. Scrawny they seemed, all wiry naked hairy limbs. They moved low, sometimes on all fours.

  ‘Shapeshifters. Soletaken!’ Gwynn warned. ‘The very beast-humans of old accounts.’

  ‘Just passing through!’ Blues called out. None answered, as he’d expected.

  They closed just like a pack: one darting in quickly then retreating, drawing attention, then another darting in from the opposite side. But he and Jacinth and Black held their tight circle, weapons bared, waiting for the full rush.

  After more baiting and a number of false charges, at some signal the full numbers fell upon them. Blues knocked aside raking slashes of nailed hands, stop-thrust snarling mouths, gut-thrust leaps. One beast-woman clamped a hand on his forearm and even through the leather armour he felt the inhuman strength of the grip as the fingers and nails gouged deeply. He twisted his stave between their arms and wrenched, snapping the creature’s wrist.

  Then it was over. Black and Jacinth stood over the dead, their scavenged Malazan shortswords bloodied to the hilts.

  ‘I’d give anything for my old longsword,’ Jacinth complained, and she cleaned her blades on the thick pelts of their attackers.

  ‘They were strong,’ Black observed, impressed.

  ‘And fast,’ Jacinth added. ‘The lights never stood a chance.’

  ‘We should move,’ Gwynn observed. Jacinth grunted her agreement and sheathed her blades. They jogged north-east, following the slight depression between spare hills.

  After a few moments a white blur shot across the trampled mud of the skirmish. A long pale body that twisted nimbly. It rose up on its hind legs, sniffed the air with its pink nose, then blurred. An instant later a young woman in a plain jerkin and trousers bearing a wild and thick mane of pure white hair stood among the dead. She examined the wounds of the fallen, then the footprints that told the story of the engagement, then she looked to the north-east for some time, a thoughtful expression upon her pale oval face.

  * * *

  The residents of Deep Cove on War Isle were now deeply worried. Just as they had gotten used to the presence of a foreigner – a Seven Cities native no less – five more such foreigners arrived in a hired boat to climb the stone stairs to the single tavern of the town and sit at the first’s table.

  There they sat, speaking in their guttural uncouth tongue, which every resident understood as it was a dialect close to their own.

  ‘Imanaj,’ a newcomer said as he sat down.

  ‘Kor’th,’ the first foreigner responded. ‘Legor … Cresh … Sethen … and L’Orth,’ he lastly greeted a large and alarmingly burly woman.

  The one greeted as Kor’th – a bearded and very hairy and large fellow bearing twinned axes at his belt – peered about the tavern, his distaste and disapproval obvious. ‘Imanaj,’ he grunted, ‘just what are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting.’

  ‘Do not play coy,’ snapped the one named Legor. Skeletal he was, with a sharp hatchet-like face, in leathers, with twinned hook-knives at his belt. ‘You ran – but you did not run far enough.’

  ‘I hit a rock. Stove in my boat.’

  ‘Imanaj,’ sighed the third, named Cresh, in a loose dark cotton shirt over trousers, long thin blades at his belt, ‘you may be a great champion, but you are obviously no sailor.’

  Imanaj tilted his head in agreement. ‘Few of us desert-dwellers are.’

  ‘You abandoned your place, your Holy duty and obligations,’ said the fourth, named Sethen, in leather armour, a long two-handed blade at his side.

  ‘Another will arise to take my place.’

  ‘In the meantime Aren is defenceless!’ cut in the last, the woman L’Orth, in heavy leathers with shortswords at her belt.

  ‘Do the great sea-walls still stand?’ Imanaj asked. She nodded, grudgingly. ‘Do the great gates remain guarded?’

  She looked away, grimacing. ‘A city may challenge – what then will we do without a champion?’

 

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