A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

you must create it,' Redmask replied. 'Choose one
from among the Malazans. Something appropriate.'
    'Aye,' the man muttered, 'a dirge.'
    The white knife flashed again, and Redmask would
rather it had remained sheathed.

CHAPTER NINE
    Everywhere I looked I saw the signs of war upon the landscape.
There the trees had crested the rise, despatching
skirmishers down the slope to challenge the upstart low
growth in the riverbed, which had been dry as bone until
the breaking of the ice dams high in the mountains, where
the savage sun had struck in unexpected ambush, a siege
that breached the ancient barricades and unleashed
torrents of water upon the lowlands.
    And here, on this tuck and fold of bedrock, the old scars
of glaciers were vanishing beneath advancing mosses,
creeping and devouring colonies of lichen which were
themselves locked in feuds with kin.
    Ants flung bridges across cracks in the stone, the air
above swirling with winged termites, dying in silence
in the serrated jaws of rhinazan that swung and
ducked as they evaded yet fiercer predators of the
sky.
    All these wars proclaim the truth of life, of existence
itself. Now we must ask ourselves, are we to excuse all we
do by citing such ancient and ubiquitous laws? Or can we
proclaim our freedom of will by defying our natural urge to
violence, domination and slaughter? Such were my
thoughts – puerile and cynical – as I stood triumphant
over the last man I had slain, his lifeblood a dwindling
stream down the length of my sword-blade, whilst in my
soul there surged such pleasure as to leave me
trembling . . .
    King Kilanbas in the Valley of Slate
Third Letheras Tide – the Wars of Conquest
    The ruins of a low wall encircled the glade, the
battered rough-cut basalt dividing swaths of green
grasses. Just beyond rose a thin copse of young birch
and aspen, spring leaves bright and fluttering. Behind this
stand the forest thickened, darkened, grey-skinned boles of
pine crowding out all else. Whatever the wall had enclosed
had vanished beneath the soft loam of the glade, although
depressions were visible here and there to mark out cellar
pits and the like.
    The sunlit air seemed to spin and swirl, so thick were the
clouds of flying insects, and there was a taint of something
in the warm, sultry air that left Sukul Ankhadu with a
vague sense of unease, as if ghosts watched from the black
knots on the trees surrounding them. She had quested outward
more than once, finding nothing but minute
life-sparks – the natural denizens of any forest – and the low
murmurings of earth spirits, too weak to do much more
than stir restlessly in their eternal, dying sleep. Nothing to
concern them, then, which was well.
    Standing close to one of the shin-high walls, she glanced
back at the makeshift shelter, repressing yet another surge
of irritation and impatience.
    Freeing her sister should have yielded nothing but
gratitude from the bitch. Sheltatha Lore had not exactly
fared well in that barrow – beaten senseless by Silchas Ruin
and a damned Locqui Wyval, left near-drowned in a
bottomless bog in some memory pocket realm of the Azath,
where every moment stretched like centuries – so much so
that Sheltatha had emerged indelibly stained by those dark
waters, her hair a burnt red, her skin the hue of a betel nut,
as waxy and seamed as that of a T'lan Imass. Wounds gaped
bloodless. Taloned fingernails gleamed like elongated
beetle carapaces – Sukul had found her eyes drawn to them
again and again, as if waiting for them to split, revealing
wings of exfoliated skin as they dragged the fingers loose to
whirl skyward.
    And her sister was fevered. Day after day, raving with
madness. Dialogue – negotiation – had been hopeless thus
far. It had been all Sukul had managed, just getting her
from that infernal city out here to a place of relative
quietude.
    She now eyed the lean-to which, from this angle, hid the
recumbent form of Sheltatha Lore, grimly amused by
the sight. Hardly palatial, as far as residences were
concerned, and especially given their royal blood – if the
fiery draconean torrent in their veins could justify the
appellation, and why wouldn't it? Worthy ascendants were
few and far between in this realm, after all. Barring a handful
of dour Elder Gods – and these nameless spirits of stone
and tree, spring and stream. No doubt Menandore has fashioned for herself a more stately abode – ripe for appropriation. Some mountain fastness, spired and impregnable, so