A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

blind grievers raise you high, honouring all
you never were and what rots sealed inside follows you
to the grave
    I stand now among the mourners, displeased
by my suspicions as the vessel's dust drifts—
oh how I despise funerals.
    The Secrets of Clay
Panith Fanal
     
    H is eyes opened in the darkness. Lying motionless, he waited until his
    mind separated the sounds that had awakened him. Two sources, Barathol decided.
    One distant, one close at hand. Caution dictated he concentrate on the latter.
    Bedclothes rustling, pulled and tugged by adjusting
hands, a faint scrape of sandy gravel, then a muted murmur.
A long exhaled breath, then some more shifting of
positions, until the sounds became rhythmic, and two sets
of breathing conjoined.
    It was well. Hood knew, Barathol wasn't the one with a
chance of easing the haunted look in the Daru's eyes. He
then added another silent prayer, that Scillara not damage
the man with some future betrayal. If that happened, he
suspected Cutter would retreat so far from life there would
be no return.
    In any case, such matters were out of his hands, and that,
too, was well.
    And so ... the other, more distant sound. A susurration,
more patient in its rhythm than the now quickening lovemaking
on the opposite side of the smouldering firepit. Like
wind stroking treetops ... but there were no trees. And no
wind.
    It is the sea.
    Dawn was approaching, paling the eastern sky. Barathol
heard Scillara roll to one side, her gasps low but long in
settling down. From Cutter, a drawing up of coverings, and
he then turned onto one side and moments later fell into
sleep once more.
    Scillara sat up. Flint and iron, a patter of sparks, as she
awakened her pipe. She had used the last of her coins to
resupply herself with rustleaf the day before, when they
passed a modest caravan working its way inland. The meeting
had been sudden, as the parties virtually collided on a
bend in the rocky trail. An exchange of wary looks, and
something like relief arriving in the faces of the traders.
    The plague was broken. Tanno Spiritwalkers had so
pronounced it, lifting the self-imposed isolation of the
island of Otataral.
    But Barathol and his companions were the first living
people this troop had encountered since leaving the small,
empty village on the coast where their ship had delivered
them. The merchants, transporting basic staples from
Rutu Jelba, had begun to fear they were entering a ghost
land.
    Two days of withdrawal for Scillara had had Barathol
regretting ever leaving his smithy. Rustleaf and now lovemaking
– the woman is at peace once more, thank Hood.
    Scillara spoke: 'You want I should prepare breakfast,
Barathol?'
    He rolled onto his back and sat up, studied her in the
faint light.
    She shrugged. 'A woman knows. Are you upset?'
    'Why would I be?' he replied in a rumble. He looked over
at the still motionless form of Cutter. 'Is he truly asleep
once more?'
    Scillara nodded. 'Most nights he hardly sleeps at all –
nightmares, and his fear of them. An added benefit to a roll
with him – breaks loose his exhaustion afterwards.'
    'I applaud your altruism,' Barathol said, moving closer to
the firepit and prodding at the dim coals with the point of
his cook-knife. From the gloom to his right, Chaur
appeared, smiling.
    'You should at that,' Scillara said in reply to Barathol's
comment.
    He glanced up. 'And is that all there is? For you?'
    She looked away, drew hard on her pipe.
    'Don't hurt him, Scillara.'
    'Fool, don't you see? I'm doing the opposite.'
    'That's what I concluded. But what if he falls in love
with you?'
    'He won't. He can't.'
    'Why not?'
    She rose and walked over to the packs. 'Get that fire
going, Barathol. Some hot tea should take away the chill in
our bones.'
    Unless that's all you have in them, woman.
    Chaur went to Scillara's side, crouching to stroke her
hair as, ignoring him, she drew out wrapped foodstuffs.
    Chaur watched, with avid fascination, every stream of
smoke Scillara exhaled.
    Aye, lad, like the legends say, some demons breathe fire.
     
    They let Cutter sleep, and he did not awaken until midmorning
– bolting into a sitting position with a confused,
then guilty expression on his face. The sun was finally
warm, tempered by a pleasantly cool breeze coming in from
the east.
    Barathol watched as Cutter's scanning gaze found
Scillara, who sat with her back to a boulder, and the Daru
flinched slightly at her greeting wink and blown kiss.
    Chaur was circling the camp