A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

ambush in
the orchard.'
    'They say he's the meanest Claw there ever was. Not
even Dancer wanted to mess with him.'
    'Enough of that. Go on, Sturtho, get down there and
give the lieutenant company and be sure to wipe up the
puddle around his feet while you're at it – wouldn't want
any of us to slip.'
    The one named Sturtho clambered onto the well.
     
    A short time later, Kalam emerged from the tunnel mouth.
T'amber, sitting with her back to a tree, looked up, then
nodded and began to rise. Blood had pooled in her lap and
now streaked down onto her thighs.
    'Which way ahead?' the Adjunct asked Kalam.
    'We follow the old orchard wall, west, until we hit Raven
Hill Road, then straight south to the hill itself – it's a wide
track, with plenty of barred or barricaded alleys. We'll skirt
the hill on the east side, along the Old City Wall, and then
across Admiral Bridge.' Kalam hesitated, then said, 'We've
got to move fast, at a run, never straight but never stopping
either. Now, there's mobs out there, thugs looking for
trouble – we need to avoid getting snagged up by those. So
when I say we move fast and keep moving that's exactly
what I mean. T'amber—'
    'I can keep up.'
    'Listen—'
    'I said I can keep up.'
    'You shouldn't even be conscious, damn you!'
    She hefted her sword. 'Let's go find the next ambush,
shall we?'
     
    Tears glistened beneath Stormy's eyes as the sorrow-filled
music born of strings filled the small room, and names and
faces slowly resolved, one after another, in the minds of the
four soldiers as the candles guttered down. Muted, from
the streets of the city outside, there rose and fell the sounds
of fighting, of dying, a chorus like the accumulated
voices of history, of human failure and its echoes reaching
them from every place in this world. Fiddler's struggle to
evade the grim monotony of a dirge forced hesitation into
the music, a seeking of hope and faith and the solid meaning
of friendship – not just with those who had fallen, but
with the three other men in the room – but it was a struggle
he knew he was losing.
    It seemed so easy for so many people to divide war from
peace, to confine their definitions to the unambivalent.
Marching soldiers, pitched battles and slaughter. Locked
armouries, treaties, fêtes and city gates opened wide. But
Fiddler knew that suffering thrived in both realms of
existence – he'd witnessed too many faces of the poor,
ancient crones and babes in a mother's arms, figures lying
motionless on the roadside or in the gutters of streets –
where the sewage flowed unceasing like rivers gathering
their spent souls. And he had come to a conviction, lodged
like an iron nail in his heart, and with its burning, searing
realization, he could no longer look upon things the way he
used to, he could no longer walk and see what he saw with
a neatly partitioned mind, replete with its host of judgements
– that critical act of moral relativity – this is less, that
is more. The truth in his heart was this: he no longer
believed in peace.
    It did not exist except as an ideal to which endless lofty
words paid service, a litany offering up the delusion that
the absence of overt violence was sufficient in itself, was
proof that one was better than the other. There was no
dichotomy between war and peace – no true opposition
except in their particular expressions of a ubiquitous
inequity. Suffering was all-pervasive. Children starved at
the feet of wealthy lords no matter how secure and unchallenged
their rule.
    There was too much compassion within him – he knew
that, for he could feel the pain, the helplessness, the
invitation to despair, and from that despair came the desire
– the need – to disengage, to throw up his hands and simply
walk away, turn his back on all that he saw, all that he
knew. If he could do nothing, then, dammit, he would see
nothing. What other choice was there?
    And so we weep for the fallen. We weep for those yet to fall,
and in war the screams are loud and harsh and in peace the wail
is so drawn-out we tell ourselves we hear nothing.
    And so this music is a lament, and I am doomed to hear its
bittersweet notes for a lifetime.
    Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
    Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that
embraces even non-believers and is not threatened by them.
    Show me a god who understands the meaning of peace. In
life, not in death.
    Show —
    'Stop,' Gesler said in a grating voice.
    Blinking, Fiddler