A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

said.
    Sighing, Brukhalian sheathed his sword and faced the T'lan Imass Bonecasters. 'Your arrival has left me disappointed, sirs.'
    'We understand this, Mortal Sword. You were doubtless well matched. Yet our hunt for this Jaghut demanded our ... interruption. His talent for escaping us is undiminished, it seems, even to the point of bending a knee in the service of a god. Your defiance of Hood makes you a worthwhile companion.'
    Brukhalian grimaced. 'If only to improve your chances of closing with this Jaghut, I take it.'
    'Indeed.'
    'So we are understood in this.'
    'Yes. It seems we are.'
    He stared at the three creatures for a moment, then turned away. 'I think we can assume the Herald will not be returning to us this evening. Forgive my curtness, sirs, but I wish solitude once again.'
    The T'lan Imass each bowed, then disappeared.
    Brukhalian walked to the hearth, drawing his sword once more. He set the blunt end amongst the cold embers, slowly stirred the ashes. Flames licked into life, the coals burgeoning a glowing red. The spatters and streaks of Jaghut blood on the blade sizzled black, then burned away to nothing.
    He stared down at the hearth for a long time, and despite the unveiled power of the sanctified sword, the Mortal Sword saw before him nothing but ashes.
     
    Up from the darkness, a clawing, gasping struggle. Explosive blooms of pain, like a wall of fire rising behind his eyes, the shivering echoes of wounds, a tearing and puncturing of flesh – his own flesh.
    A low groan escaped him, startled him into an awareness – he lay propped at an angle, taut skins stretched beneath him. There had been motion, a rocking and bumping and scraping, but that had ceased. He opened his eyes, found himself in shadow. A stone wall reared to his left, within reach. The air smelled of horses and dust and, much closer, blood and sweat.
    Morning sunlight bathed the compound to his right, glimmered off the blurred figures moving about there. Soldiers, horses, impossibly huge, lean wolves.
    Boots crunched on gravel and the shadow over him deepened. Blinking, Gruntle looked up.
    Stonny's face was drawn, spattered with dried blood, her hair hanging in thick, snarled ropes. She laid a hand on his chest. 'We've reached Capustan,' she said in a ragged voice.
    He managed a nod.
    'Gruntle—'
    Pain filled her eyes, and he felt a chill sweep over him.
    'Gruntle ... Harllo's dead. They – they left him, buried under rocks. They left him. And Netok – Netok, that dear boy . . . so wide-eyed, so innocent. I gave him his manhood, Gruntle, I did that, at least. Dead – we lost them both.' She reeled away then, out of the range of his vision, though he heard her rushed footsteps, dwindling.
    Another face appeared, a stranger's, a young woman, helmed, her expression gentle. 'We are safe now, sir,' she said, her accent Capan. 'You have been force-healed. I grieve for your losses. We all do – the Grey Swords, that is. Rest assured, sir, you were avenged against the demons ...'
    Gruntle stopped listening, his eyes pulling away, fixing on the clear blue sky directly overhead. I saw you, Harllo. You bastard. Throwing yourself in that creature's path, between us. I saw, damn you.
    A corpse beneath rocks, a face in the darkness, smeared in dust, that would never again smile.
    A new voice. 'Captain.'
    Gruntle turned his head, forced words through the clench of his throat. 'It's done, Keruli,' he said. 'You've been delivered. It's done. Damn you to Hood, get out of my sight.'
    The priest bowed his head, withdrew through the haze of Gruntle's anger; withdrew, then was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.
    Dancer
     
    The bones formed hills, stretching out on all sides. Clattering, shifting beneath Gethol as the Jaghut struggled for purchase against the slope. The blood had slowed its flow down his ruined face, though the vision of one eye was still obscured – blocked by an upthrust shard that glimmered pink-white – and the pain had dulled to a pulsing throb.
    'Vanity,' he mumbled through scabbed lips, 'is not my curse.' He gained his balance, straightened, tottering, on the hillside. 'No predicting mortal humans – no, not even Hood could have imagined such ... insolence. But ah! The Herald's visage is now broken, and that which is broken must be discarded. Discarded ...'
    Gethol looked around. The endless hills, the formless sky, the cool, dead air. The bones. The Jaghut's undamaged eyebrow lifted.