A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

Mathok's light cavalry were forming up on the flats to L'oric's right. The horses were jittery, the rows shifting uneven and restless. The High Mage could not see Mathok anywhere among them – nor, he realized with a chill, could he see the standards of the warleader's own tribe.
    He heard horses approach from behind and turned to see Leoman, one of his officers, and Toblakai riding up towards him.
    The Toblakai's horse was a Jhag, L'oric saw, huge and magnificent in its primal savagery, loping collected and perfectly proportionate to the giant astride its shoulders.
    And that giant was a mess. Preternatural healing had yet to fully repair the terrible wounds on him. His hands were a crimson ruin. One leg had been chewed by vicious, oversized jaws.
    Toblakai and his horse were dragging a pair of objects that bounced and rolled on the ends of chains, and L'oric's eyes went wide upon seeing what they were.
    He's killed the Deragoth. He's taken their heads.
    'L'oric!' Leoman rasped as he drew rein before him. 'Is she above?'
    'I don't know, Leoman of the Flails.'
    All three dismounted, and L'oric saw Toblakai favouring his mangled leg. A hound's jaws did that. And then he saw the stone sword on the giant's back. Ah, he is indeed the one, then. I think the Crippled God has made a terrible mistake . . .
    Gods, he killed the Deragoth.
    'Where is Febryl hiding?' Leoman asked as the four of them began the ascent.
    Toblakai answered. 'Dead. I forgot to tell you some things. I killed him. And I killed Bidithal. I would have killed Ghost Hands and Korbolo Dom, but I could not find them.'
    L'oric rubbed a hand across his brow, and it came away wet and oily. Yet he could still see his breath.
    Toblakai went on, inexorably. 'And when I went into Korbolo's tent, I found Kamist Reloe. He'd been assassinated. So had Henaras.'
    L'oric shook himself and said to Leoman, 'Did you receive Sha'ik's last commands? Shouldn't you be with the Dogslayers?'
    The warrior grunted. 'Probably. We've just come from there.'
    'They're all dead,' Toblakai said. 'Slaughtered in the night. The ghosts of Raraku were busy – though none dared oppose me.' He barked a laugh. 'As Ghost Hands could tell you, I have ghosts of my own.'
    L'oric stumbled on the trail. He reached up and gripped Leoman's arm. 'Slaughtered? All of them?'
    'Yes, High Mage. I'm surprised you didn't know. We still have the desert warriors. We can still win this, just not here and not now. Thus, we need to convince Sha'ik to leave—'
    'That won't be possible,' L'oric cut in. 'The goddess is coming, is almost here. It's too late for that, Leoman. Moments from being too late for everything—'
    They clambered over the crest.
    And there stood Sha'ik.
    Helmed and armoured, her back to them as she stared southward.
    L'oric wanted to cry out. For he saw what his companions could not see. I'm not in time. Oh, gods below — And then he leapt forward, his warren's portal flaring around him – and was gone.
     
    The goddess had not lost her memories. Indeed, rage had carved their likenesses, every detail, as mockingly solid and real-seeming as those carved trees in the forest of stone. And she could caress them, crooning her hatred like a lover's song, lingering with a touch promising murder, though the one who had wronged her was, if not dead, then in a place that no longer mattered.
    The hate was all that mattered now. Her fury at his weaknesses. Oh, others in the tribe played those games often enough. Bodies slipped through the furs from hut to hut when the stars fell into their summer alignment, and she herself had more than once spread her legs to another woman's husband, or an eager, clumsy youth.
    But her heart had been given to the one man with whom she lived. That law was sacrosanct.
    Oh, but he'd been so sensitive. His hands following his eyes in the fashioning of forbidden images of that other woman, there in the hidden places. He'd used those hands to close about his own heart, to give it to another – without a thought as to who had once held it for herself.
    Another, who would not even give her heart in return – she had seen to that, with vicious words and challenging accusations. Enough to encourage the others to banish her for ever.
    But not before the bitch killed all but one of her kin.
    Foolish, stupid man, to have given his love to that woman.
    Her rage had not died with the Ritual, had not died when she herself– too shattered to walk – had been severed from the Vow