A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

'An old friend, come to say hello.'
    The enkar'al heaved and landed heavily on its side, snapping the bones of one of its wings in the process. Tail lashing, legs kicking, talons spasming open and shut, head thumping repeatedly against the ground.
    'Remember my name, Demon,' Kalam continued, crawling up to the beast's head. He drew his knees under him, then raised the knife in both hands. The point hovered over the writhing neck, rose and fell until in time with its motion. 'Kalam Mekhar ... the one who stuck in your throat.' He drove the knife down, punching through the thick pebbled skin, and the blood of a severed jugular sprayed outward.
    Kalam reeled back, barely in time to avoid the deadly fount, and dropped into another roll.
    Three times over, to end finally on his back once more. Paralysis stealing through him once again.
    He stared upward at the spinning stars ... until the darkness devoured them.
     
    In the ancient fortress that had once functioned as a monastery for the Nameless Ones, but had been old even then – its makers long forgotten – there was only darkness. On its lowermost level there was a single chamber, its floor rifted above a rushing underground river.
    In the icy depths, chained by Elder sorcery to the bedrock, lay a massive, armoured warrior. Thelomen Toblakai, pure of blood, that had known the curse of demonic possession, a possession that had devoured its own
sense of self – the noble warrior had ceased to exist long, long ago.
    Yet now, the body writhed in its magical chains. The demon was gone, fled with the outpouring of blood – blood that should never have existed, given the decayed state of the creature, yet existed it had, and the river had swept it to freedom. To a distant waterhole, where a bull enkar'al – a beast in its prime – had been crouching to drink.
    The enkar'al had been alone for some time – not even the spoor of others of its kind could be found anywhere nearby. Though it had not sensed the passage of time, decades had in fact passed since it last encountered its own kind. Indeed, it had been fated – given a normal course of life – to never again mate. With its death, the extinction of the enkar'al anywhere east of the Jhag Odhan would have been complete.
    But now its soul raged in a strange, gelid body – no wings, no thundering hearts, no prey-laden scent to draw from the desert's night air. Something held it down, and imprisonment was proving a swift path to mindless madness.
    Far above, the fortress was silent and dark. The air was motionless once more, barring the faint sighs from draughts that flowed in from the outer chambers.
    Rage and terror. Unanswered, except by the promise of eternity.
    Or so it would have remained.
    Had the Beast Thrones stayed unoccupied.
    Had not the reawakened wolf gods known an urgent need ... for a champion.
    Their presence reached into the creature's soul, calmed it with visions of a world where there were enkar'al in the muddy skies, where bull males locked jaws in the fierce heat of the breeding season, the females banking in circles far above. Visions that brought peace to the ensnared soul – though with it came a deep sorrow, for the body that now clothed it was ... wrong.
    A time of service, then. The reward – to rejoin its kin in the skies of another realm.
    Beasts were not strangers to hope, nor unmindful of such things as rewards.
    Besides, this champion would taste blood ... and soon.
    For the moment, however, there was a skein of sorcerous bindings to unravel...
     
    Limbs stiff as death. But the heart laboured on.
    A shadow slipping over Kalam's face awakened him. He opened his eyes.
    The wrinkled visage of an old man hovered above him, swimming behind waves of heat. Dal Honese, hairless, jutting ears, his expression twisted into a scowl. 'I was looking for you!' he accused, in Malazan. 'Where have you been? What are you doing lying out here? Don't you know it's hot?'
    Kalam closed his eyes again. 'Looking for me?' He shook his head. 'No-one's looking for me,' he continued, forcing his eyes open once more despite the glare lancing up from the ground around the two men. 'Well, not any more, that is—'
    'Idiot. Heat-addled fool. Stupid – but maybe I should be crooning, encouraging even? Will that deceive him? Likely. A change in tactics, yes. You! Did you kill this enkar'al? Impressive! Wondrous! But it stinks. Nothing worse than a rotting enkar'al, except for the fact that you've fouled yourself.