A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

footsteps on the stairs.
    Gesler collected the wine jug from the table and slowly
refilled the cups. No-one had touched the bread.
    Thumping steps coming up the corridor. Scraping,
dragging.
    Halting before the Master Sergeant's door.
    Then a heavy, splintering knock, like claws gouging the
wood.
    Gesler rose and walked over.
    Fiddler watched as the sergeant opened the door, stood
motionless for a long moment, staring at whoever was in
the corridor, then Gesler said, 'Stormy, it's for you.'
    The huge man slowly rose as Gesler turned about and
walked back to his chair.
    A shape filled the entrance. Broad-shouldered, wearing
tattered, dripping furs. A flat face, the skin betel brown and
stretched taut over robust bones. Pits for eyes. Long arms
hanging to the sides. Fiddler's brows rose. A T'lan Imass.
    Stormy cleared his throat. 'Legana Breed,' he said, his
voice oddly high.
    The reply that rasped from the apparition was like the
grating of barrow stones. 'I have come for my sword,
mortal.'
    Gesler collapsed into his chair and collected his cup. 'A
long, wet walk, was it, Breed?'
    The head swivelled with a creak, but the T'lan Imass said
nothing.
    Stormy collected the flint sword and walked over to
Legana Breed. 'You been scaring a lot of people below,' he
said.
    'Sensitive souls, you mortals.'
    The marine held the sword out, horizontally. 'Took your
time getting out of that portal.'
    Legana Breed grasped it. 'Nothing is ever as easy as it
seems, Shield Anvil. Carry the pain in your heart and know
this: you are far from finished with this world.'
    Fiddler glanced across at Braven Tooth. Shield Anvil?
The Master Sergeant simply shook his head.
    Legana Breed was studying the weapon in his skeletal
hands. 'It's scratched.'
    'What? Oh, but I – oh, well—'
    'Humour is extinct,' the T'lan Imass said, turning back to
the doorway.
    Gesler suddenly straightened. 'A moment, Legana
Breed!'
    The creature paused.
    'Stormy did all that you asked of him. Now, we need repayment.'
    Sweat sprang out on Fiddler's skin. Gesler!
    The T'lan Imass faced them again. 'Repayment. Shield
Anvil, did not my weapon serve you well?'
    'Aye, well enough.'
    'Then there is no debt—'
    'Not true!' Gesler said in a growl. 'We saw you take that
Tiste Andii head with you! But we told your fellow T'lan
Imass nothing – we kept your secret, Legana Breed! When
we could have bargained with it, gotten ourselves right out
of that damned mess we were in! There is a debt!'
    Silence from the ancient undead warrior, then, 'What do
you demand of me?'
    'We – me, Stormy and Fiddler here – we need an escort.
Back to our ship. It could mean a fight.'
    'There are four thousand mortals between us and the
docks,' Legana Breed said. 'One and all driven into madness
by chaotic sorcery.'
    'And?' Gesler sneered. 'Are you afraid, T'lan Imass?'
    'Afraid.' A declarative statement. Then the head
cocked. 'Humour?'
    'So what's the problem?'
    'The docks.' Hesitation, then, 'I just came from there.'
    Fiddler began collecting his gear. 'With answers like
that one, Legana Breed,' he said, 'you belong in the
marines.' He glanced over at Braven Tooth. 'Well met, old
friend.'
    The Master Sergeant nodded. 'And with you. The three
of you. Sorry about punching you in the gut, Fid.'
    'Like Hood you are.'
    'I didn't know it was you—'
    'To Hood you didn't.'
    'All right, I heard you come in. Heard cloth against
fiddle strings. Smelled Moranth munitions. Not hard with
all that.'
    'So you punched me anyway?'
    Braven Tooth smiled. The particular smile that gave the
bastard his name.
    Legana Breed spoke: 'You are all marines?'
    'Aye,' Fiddler said.
    'Tonight, then, I too am a marine. Let us go kill people.'
     
    Throatslitter clambered up the gangplank, stumbled down
onto the deck. 'Fist,' he gasped, 'we need to call more in –
we none of us can hold much longer—'
    'No, soldier,' Keneb replied, his gaze fixed on the vicious
fighting on the concourse before them, the ever-contracting
Perish lines, the ever-growing mass of frenzied attackers
pouring in from every street and alley mouth between warehouse
buildings. Don't you see? We commit more and we get
pulled deeper into this mess, deeper and deeper – until we cannot
extricate ourselves. There's too much sorcery out there – gods
below, my head feels ready to explode. He so wanted to
explain all of this to the desperate marine, but that was not
what a commander did.
    Just like the Adjunct. You want to, gods how you want to, if
only to