A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

'I don't smell anything ...'
    The Toblakai drew his stone sword. 'A beast has laired
here, nearby, I think. A hunter, a killer. And I think it is
close ...'
    Eyes widening, Samar Dev scanned the area, her heart
pounding hard in her chest. 'You may be right. There are
no spirits here ...'
    He grunted. 'Fled.'
    Fled. Oh.
     
    Like a mass of iron filings, the sky was slowly lowering on
all sides, a heavy mist that was dry as sand. Not that that
made any sense, Kalam Mekhar allowed, but this was what
came of sustained terror, the wild pathetic conjurations of a
beleaguered imagination. He was clinging with every part of
his body that was capable of clinging to the sheer, battered
underside of a sky keep, the wind or whatever it was moaning
in his ears, a trembling stealing the strength from his limbs as
he felt the last of Quick Ben's magic seep away.
    Unanticipated, this sudden repudiation of sorcery – he
could see no otataral, nothing veined through this brutal,
black basalt. No obvious explanation. Leather gloves cut
through, blood slicking his hands, and above, a mountain
to climb, with this dry silver mist closing in around him.
Somewhere far below crouched Quick Ben and Stormy, the
former wondering what had gone wrong and, hopefully, trying
to come up with an idea for dealing with it. The latter
likely scratching his armpits and popping lice with his
fingernails.
    Well, there was no point in waiting for what might not
come, when what was going to come was inevitable.
Groaning with the effort, Kalam began pulling himself
along the rock.
    The last sky keep he had seen had been Moon's Spawn,
and its pocked sides had been home to tens of thousands of
Great Ravens. Fortunately, this did not seem to be the case
here. A few more man-heights' worth of climbing and he
would find himself on a side, rather than virtually upside-down
as he was now. Reach there, he knew, and he would
be able to rest.
    Sort of.
    That damned wizard. That damned Adjunct. Damned
everybody, in fact, since not one of them was here, and of
course they weren't, since this was madness and nobody
else was this stupid. Gods, his shoulders were on fire, the
insides of his thighs a solid ache edging towards numbness. And that wouldn't be good, would it?
    Too old for this by far. Men his age didn't reach his age
falling for stupid plans like this one. Was he getting soft? Soft-brained.
    He pulled himself round a chiselled projection, scrabbled
with his feet for a moment, then edged over, drew himself
up and found ledges that would take his weight. A whimper
escaped him, sounding pathetic even to his own ears, as he
settled against the stone.
    A while later, he lifted his head and began looking
round, searching for a suitable outcrop or knob of rock that
he could loop his rope over.
    Quick Ben's rope, conjured out of nothing. Will it even work
here, or will it just vanish? Hood's breath, I don't know enough
about magic. Don't even know enough about Quick, and I've
known the bastard for bloody ever. Why isn't he the one up here?
    Because, if the Short-Tails noticed the gnat on their
hide, Quick was better backup, even down there, than
Kalam could have been. A crossbow quarrel would be spent
by the time it reached this high – you could just pluck it out
of the air. As for Stormy – a whole lot more expendable than
me, as far as I'm concerned – the man swore he couldn't
climb, swore that as a babe he never once made it out of his
crib without help.
    Hard imagining that hairy-faced miserable hulk ever
fitting into a crib in the first place.
    Regaining control of his breathing, Kalam looked down.
    To find Quick Ben and Stormy nowhere in sight. Gods
below, now what? The modest features of the ash-laden
plain beneath offered little in the way of cover, especially
from this height. Yet, no matter where he scanned, he saw
no-one. The tracks they had made were faintly visible,
leading to where the assassin had left them, and at that
location there was ... something dark, a crack in the
ground. Difficult to determine scale, but maybe ... maybe
big enough to swallow both of the bastards.
    He resumed his search for projections for the rope. And
could see none. 'All right, I guess it's time. Cotillion,
consider this a sharp tug on your rope. No excuses, you
damned god, I need your help here.'
    He waited. The moan of the wind, the slippery chill of
the mist.
    'I don't like this warren.'
    Kalam turned his head to find Cotillion alongside him,
one hand and one foot