A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

time, all those centuries past,
and none had come to take the place of the slaughtered.
Perhaps some dark recollection held true, casting a haunted
pall upon the swamp. Perhaps the bubbling gases still
loosed ancient screams and shrieks and the boatmen from
the isles, passing close, made warding gestures before swinging
the tiller hard about.
    Fevered, weakening, Dejim Nebrahl wandered the rotted
landscape.
    Until a faint scent reached the D'ivers.
    Beast, and human. Vibrant, alive, and close.
    The T'rolbarahl, five shadow-thewed creatures of nightmare,
lifted heads and looked south, eyes narrowing. There,
just beyond the hills, on the crumbling track that had once
been a level road leading to Minikenar. The D'ivers set off,
as dusk settled on the land.
     
    Masan Gilani slowed her horse's canter when the shadows
thickened with the promise of night. The track was
treacherous with loose cobbles and narrow gullies formed
by run-off. It had been years since she'd last ridden wearing
so little – nothing more than a wrap about her hips – and
her thoughts travelled far back to her life on the Dal
Honese plains. She'd carried less weight back then. Tall,
lithe, smooth-skinned and bright with innocence. The
heaviness of her full breasts and the swell of her belly and
hips came much later, after the two children she'd left
behind to be raised by her mother and her aunts and uncles.
It was the right of all adults, man or woman, to take the
path of wandering; before the empire conquered the Dal
Honese, such a choice had been rare enough, and for the
children, raised by kin on all sides, their health tended by
shamans, midwives and shoulder-witches, the abandonment
of a parent was rarely felt.
    The Malazan Empire had changed all that, of course.
While many adults among the tribes stayed put, even in
Masan Gilani's time, more and more men and women had
set out to explore the world, and at younger ages. Fewer
children were born; mixed-bloods were more common,
once warriors returned home with new husbands or wives,
and new ways suffused the lives of the Dal Honese. For that
was one thing that had not changed over time – we ever
return home. When our wandering is done.
    She missed those rich grasslands and their young, fresh
winds. The heaving clouds of the coming rains, the thunder
in the earth as wild herds passed in their annual migrations.
And her riding, always on the strong, barely tamed crossbred
horses of the Dal Honese, the faint streaks of their
zebra heritage as subtle on their hides as the play of sunlight
on reeds. Beasts as likely to buck as gallop, hungry to bite
with pure evil in their red-rimmed eyes. Oh, how she loved
those horses.
    Apsalar's mount was a far finer breed, of course. Longlimbed
and graceful, and Masan Gilani could not resist
admiring the play of sleek muscles beneath her and the
intelligence in its dark, liquid eyes.
    The horse shied suddenly in the growing gloom, head
lifting. Startled, Masan Gilani reached for the kethra knife
she had slipped into a fold in the saddle.
    Shadows took shape on all sides, lunged. The horse
reared, screaming as blood sprayed.
    Masan Gilani rolled backward in a tight somersault,
clearing the rump of the staggering beast and landing
lightly in a half-crouch. Slashing the heavy knife to her
right as a midnight-limbed creature rushed her. She felt the
blade cut deep, scoring across two out-thrust forelimbs. A
bestial cry of pain, then the thing reared back, dropping to
all fours – and stumbling on those crippled forelimbs.
    Reversing grip, she leapt to close on the apparition, and
drove the knife down into the back of its scaled, feline
neck. The beast collapsed, sagging against her shins.
    A heavy sound to her left, as the horse fell onto its side,
four more of the demons tearing into it. Legs kicked
spasmodically, then swung upward as the horse was rolled
onto its back, exposing its belly. Terrible snarling sounds
accompanied the savage evisceration.
    Leaping over the dead demon, Masan Gilani ran into the
darkness.
    A demon pursued her.
    It was too fast. Footfalls sounded close behind her, then
ceased.
    She threw herself down into a hard, bruising roll, saw the
blur of the demon's long body pass over her. Masan Gilani
slashed out with the knife, cutting through a tendon on the
creature's right back leg.
    It shrieked, careening in mid-air, the cut-through leg
folding beneath its haunches as it landed and its hips twisting
round with the momentum.
    Masan Gilani