A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

then he smiled a
chilling, ghastly smile, the flaking lips splitting in twin rows
of red, glistening fissures. 'Aye,' he said in a rasp, 'we went
hunting ... through the bones of the damned city. And
then, with the captain's help, we crawled outa that grave.'
    The Adjunct's gaze left the ragged man, travelled slowly
along the line, the gaunt faces, the deathly eyes staring out
from dust-caked faces, the naked, blistered skin.
'Bonehunters in truth, then.' She paused, as Pores led his
healers forward with their waterskins, then said, 'Welcome
back, soldiers.'

BOOK FOUR

THE BONEHUNTERS

Who will deny that it is our nature to believe the very
worst in our fellow kind? Even as cults rose and indeed
coalesced into a patronomic worship – not just of
Coltaine, the Winged One, the Black Feather, but too
of the Chain of Dogs itself – throughout Seven Cities,
with shrines seeming to grow from the very wastes along
that ill-fated trail, shrines in propitiation to one dead
hero after another: Bult, Lull, Mincer, Sormo E'nath,
even Baria and Mesker Setral of the Red Blades; and to
the Foolish Dog clan, the Weasel clan and of course the
Crow and the Seventh Army itself; while at Gelor
Ridge, in an ancient monastery overlooking the old
battle site, a new cult centred on horses was born – even
as this vast fever of veneration gripped Seven Cities, so
certain agents in the heart of the Malazan Empire set
loose, among the commonry, tales purporting the very
opposite: that Coltaine had betrayed the empire; that he
had been a renegade, secretly allied with Sha'ik. After all,
had the countless refugees simply stayed in their cities,
accepting the rebellion's dominion; had they not been
dragged out by Coltaine and his bloodthirsty Wickans;
and had the Seventh's Mage Cadre leader, Kulp, not so
mysteriously disappeared, thus leaving the Malazan Army
vulnerable to the sorcerous machinations and indeed
manipulations of the Wickan witches and warlocks – had
not all this occurred, there would have been no slaughter,
no terrible ordeal of crossing half a continent exposed to
every predating half-wild tribe in the wastes. And, most
heinous of all, Coltaine had then, in league with the
traitorous Imperial Historian, Duiker, connived to effect
the subsequent betrayal and annihilation of the Aren
Army, led by the naive High Fist Pormqual who was the
first victim of that dread betrayal. Why else, after all,
would those very rebels of Seven Cities take to the
worship of such figures, if not seeing in Coltaine and
the rest heroic allies ...
    ... In any case, whether officially approved or otherwise,
the persecution of Wickans within the empire
flared hot and all-consuming, given such ample fuel ...
    The Year of Ten Thousand Lies
Kayessan

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    What is there left to understand? Choice is an illusion.
Freedom is conceit. The hands that reach out to guide
your every step, your every thought, come not from
the gods, for they are no less deluded than we – no,
my friends, those hands come to each of us ... from each
of us.
    You may believe that civilization deafens us with tens
of thousands of voices, but listen well to that clamour,
for with each renewed burst so disparate and myriad, an
ancient force awakens, drawing each noise ever closer,
until the chorus forms but two sides, each battling the
other. The bloody lines are drawn, fought in the turning
away of faces, in the stoppering of ears, the cold denial,
and all discourse, at the last, is revealed as futile and
worthless.
    Will you yet hold, my friends, to the faith that change
is within our grasp? That will and reason shall overcome
the will of denial?
    There is nothing left to understand. This mad
whirlpool holds us all in a grasp that cannot be broken;
and you with your spears and battle-masks; you with
your tears and soft touch; you with the sardonic grin
behind which screams fear and self-hatred; even you
who stand aside in silent witness to our catastrophe of
dissolution, too numb to act – it is all one. You are all
one. We are all one.
    So now come closer, my friends, and see in this
modest cart before you my most precious wares. Elixir of
Oblivion, Tincture of Frenzied Dancing, and here, my
favourite, Unguent of Male Prowess Unending, where I
guarantee your soldier will remain standing through
battle after battle ...
    Hawker's Harangue,
recounted by Vaylan Winder,
Malaz City, the year the city overflowed with sewage (1123
Burn's Sleep)
     
     
    R ivulets of water,