A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

nothing's
actually coming out, if you understand me.'
    'Good.' Good.
    Oh, Hood. Did you truly mean it?
    Gods, me and my promises ...
     
    Night to the east was a lurid, silent storm. Standing near
the Adjunct, with Nil and Nether a few strides off to one
side, Fist Keneb shivered beneath his heavy cloak, despite
the peculiar, dry sultriness of the steady wind. He could not
comprehend what had happened beyond that eastern
horizon, not before, not now. The descent of green-flamed
suns, the raging maelstrom. And, for a time there, a
pervasive malaise enshrouding everyone – from what was
coming, it had seemed, there would be no reprieve, no
escape, no hope of survival.
    Such a notion had, oddly enough, calmed Keneb. When
struggle was meaningless, all pressure simply drained away.
It struck him, now, that there was something to be said for
holding on to such sentiments. After all, death was itself
inevitable, wasn't it? Inescapable – what point scratching
and clawing in a doomed effort to evade it?
    The comfort of that was momentary, alas. Death took
care of itself- it was in life, in living, that things mattered.
Acts, desires, motives, fears, the gifts of joy and the bitter
taste of failure – a feast we must all attend.
    At least until we leave.
    Stars wavered overhead, streaks of cloud clung to the
north, the kind that made Keneb think of snow. And yet
here I stand sweating, the sweat cooling, this chill fashioned not
by night or the wind, but by exhaustion. Nether had said
something about this wind, its urgency, the will behind it.
Thus, not natural. A god, then, manipulating us yet again.
    The fleets of Nemil patrolled a vast stretch of this coast.
Their war biremes were primitive, awkward-looking, never
straying far from the rocky shoreline. That shoreline
traditionally belonged to the Trell, but there had been wars,
generations of wars, and now Nemil settlements dotted the
bays and inlets, and the Trell, who had never been seafarers,
had been driven far inland, into the hills, a
dwindling enclave surrounded by settlers. Keneb had seen
mixed-bloods among the Nemil crews in the trader ships
that sailed out with supplies.
    Belligerent as the Nemil were towards the Trell, they
were not similarly inclined when facing a huge Malazan
fleet entering their territorial waters. Sages among them
had foretold this arrival, and the lure of profit had triggered
a flotilla of merchant craft setting forth from the harbours,
accompanied by a disorganized collection of escorts, some
private, others royal. The resupply had resembled a feeding
frenzy for a time there, until, that is, the eastern sky
suddenly burst into savage light.
    Not a single Nemil ship remained now, and that coastline
had been left behind, as the second bell after midnight
tolled dully at the sand-watcher's hand – the sound taken
up by nearby ships, rippling outward through the imperial
fleet.
    From a Nemil captain, earlier in the day, had come interesting
news, and it was that information that, despite the
lateness, the Adjunct continued to discuss with her two
Wickan companions.
    'Are there any details from Malazan sources,' Nether was
asking Tavore, 'of the peoples beyond the Catal Sea?'
    'No more than a name,' the Adjunct replied, then said to
Keneb, 'Fist, do you recall it?'
    'Perish.'
    'Yes.'
    'And nothing more is known of them?' Nether asked.
    There was no answer forthcoming from the others. And
it seemed that the Wickans then waited.
    'An interesting suggestion,' the Adjunct said after a
moment. 'And, given this near-gale, we shall discover for
ourselves soon enough what manner of people are these
Perish.'
    The Nemil captain had reported – second-hand – that
another Edur fleet had been sighted the day before. Well to
the north, less than a score of ships, struggling eastward
in the face of this unceasing wind. Those ships were in a
bad way, the captain had said. Damaged, limping. Struck by
a storm, perhaps, or they had seen battle. Whatever the
cause, they were not eager to challenge the Nemil ships,
which in itself was sufficient matter for comment – apparently,
the roving Edur ships had been preying on Nemil
traders for nearly two years, and on those instances when
Nemil escorts were close enough to engage, the results had
been disastrous for the antiquated biremes.
    Curious news. The Adjunct had pressed the Nemil
captain on information regarding the Perish, the inhabitants
of the vast, mountain-girdled peninsula on the
western side of the