A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

eyes were wide, unblinking.
    Paran looked away. 'Sorry. Some thoughts I'd do better
to keep to myself. It's a longstanding fault of mine, alas.'
    'Captain. For a moment there ... your eyes ... they ... flared. Like a beast's.'
    Paran studied the man. 'Did they now?'
    'I'd swear it with one heel on Hood's own foreskin,
Captain.'
    Ganoes Paran pushed himself to his feet. 'Relay these
orders to the officers. This army marches in four days. In
three days' time, I want them in full kit, dressed out with
weapons bared for inspection, ready at noon. And when we
depart, I want to leave this camp clean, every latrine filled
in, the refuse burned.' He faced Hurlochel. 'Get these
soldiers busy – they're rotting from the inside out. Do you
have all that, Hurlochel?'
    The outrider smiled, then repeated Paran's orders word
for word.
    'Good. Be sure to impress on the officers that these days
of lying round moping and bitching are at an end. Tell
them the order of march will place to the lead post the
most presentable company – everyone else eats their dust.'
    'Captain, where do we march?'
    'No idea. I'll worry about that then.'
    'What of the High Fist and the others in that tent?'
    'Chances are, they won't be up to much for a while. In
the meantime—'
    'In the meantime, you command the Host, sir.'
    'Aye, I do.'
    Hurlochel's sudden salute was sharp, then he pivoted and
strode from the tent.
    Paran stared after him. Fine, at least someone's damned
pleased about it.
    A short time later, he and Noto Boil sat atop their horses
at the camp's edge, looking downslope and across the flat
killing-ground to the city's walls, its bleached-limestone
facing a mass of scrawls, painted symbols, hand-prints,
skeletal figures. This close, there should have been sounds
rising from the other side of those walls, the haze of dust
and smoke overhead, and the huge gate should be locked
open for a steady stream of traders and hawkers, drovers
and work crews. Soldiers should be visible in the windows
of the gate's flanking square towers.
    The only movement came from flocks of pigeons lifting
into view then dipping back down, fitful and frantic as an
armada of kites rejected by storm-winds; and from the bluetinted
desert starlings and croaking crows lined up like
some nightmare army on the battlements.
    'Captain,' the cutter said, the fish spine once more
jutting from between his lips – the hole it had made earlier
just above those lips was a red, slightly puckered spot,
smeared like a popped pimple – 'you believe me capable of
assaulting all that is anathema to me?'
    'I thought you were disavowed,' Paran said.
    'My point precisely. I cannot even so much as call upon
Soliel for her benign protection. Perhaps your eyes are
blind to the truth, but I tell you, Captain, I can see the air
roiling up behind those walls – it is the breath of chaos.
Currents swirl, heave – even to look upon them, as I do
now, makes me ill. We shall die, you and I, not ten paces in
from the gate.'
    Paran checked the sword at his belt, then adjusted his
helm's strap. 'I am not as blind as you believe me to be,
cutter.' He studied the city for a moment, then gathered his
reins. 'Ride close to my side, Noto Boil.'
    'Captain, the gate looks closed, locked tight – we are not
welcome.'
    'Never mind the damned gate,' Paran said. 'Are you
ready?'
    The man turned wild eyes upon him. 'No,' he said in a
high voice, 'I am not.'
    'Let's get this over with,' Paran said, nudging his horse
into motion.
    Noto Boil spared one last look over his shoulder, and saw
soldiers standing, watching, gathered in their hundreds.
'Gods,' he whispered, 'why am I not among them right
now?'
    Then he moved to catch up to Captain Kindly, who had
once dangled an innocent man from a tower's edge. And
now does it all over again – to me!
     
    She had once been sent out to hunt down her younger
brother, tracking him through half the city – oh, he'd
known she was after him, known that she was the one
they'd send, the only one capable of closing a hand on
one scrawny ankle, dragging him back, then shaking him
until his brain rattled inside his skull. He'd led
her a wild trail that night. Ten years old and already
completely out of control, eyes bright as marbles
polished in a mouthful of spit, the white smile more wicked
than a wolf's snarl, all gangly limbs and cavorting malice.
    He had been collecting ... things. In secret. Strands of
hair, nail clippings, a rotted tooth. Something, it turned
out, from