A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

for that, Fear Sengar, and you will understand, finally, how grief is but a mirror, held close to one's own face.
    And every tear springs from the choices we ourselves did not make.
    When I grieve, Fear, I cannot even see the bloom of my own breath – what does that tell you?
    They resumed walking. Silent.
    A hundred paces above the group, Clip spun his chain and
rings. 'What was all that about?' he asked.
    'You have lived in your tidy cave for too long,' the white-skinned
Tiste Andii said.
    'Oh, I get out often enough. Carousing in Bluerose – the
gods know how many bastards have been brewed by my
seed. Why—'
    'One day, Mortal Sword,' Silchas Ruin interrupted, 'you
will discover what cuts deeper than any weapon of iron.'
    'Wise words from the one who smells still of barrows and
rotting cobwebs.'
    'If the dead could speak, Clip, what would they tell you?'
    'Little, I expect, beyond complaints about this and that.'
    'Perhaps, then, that is all you deserve.'
    'Oh, I lack honour, do I?'
    'I am not sure what you lack,' Silchas Ruin replied, 'but
I am certain I will comprehend before we are done.'
    Rings and chain snapped taut. 'Here they come. Shall we
continue onward and upward?'
    There was so much that Toc the Younger – Anaster,
Firstborn of the Dead Seed, the Thrice-blinded, Chosen by
the Wolf Gods, the Unlucky – did not wish to remember.
His other body for one; the body he had been born into, the
first home to his soul. Detonations against Moon's Spawn
above the doomed city of Pale, fire and searing, blazing
heat – oh, don't stand there . Then that damned puppet,
Hairlock, delivering oblivion, wherein his soul had found a
rider, another force – a wolf, one-eyed and grieving.
    How the Pannion Seer had lusted for its death. Toc
recalled the cage, that spiritual prison, and the torment as
his body was broken, healed, then broken yet again, a procession
seemingly without end. But these memories and
pain and anguish persisted as little more than abstract
notions. Yet, mangled and twisted as that body had been, at least it was mine .
    Strip away years, course sudden in new blood, feel these
strange limbs so vulnerable to cold. To awaken in another's
flesh, to start against muscle memories, to struggle with
those that were suddenly gone. Toc wondered if any other
mortal soul had ever before staggered this tortured path.
Stone and fire had marked him, as Tool once told him. To
lose an eye delivers the gift of preternatural sight. And
what of leaving a used-up body for a younger, healthier
one? Surely a gift – so the wolves desired, or was it Silverfox?
    But wait. A closer look at this Anaster – who lost an eye, was given a new one, then lost it yet again. Whose mind – before it was broken and flung away – was twisted with terror, haunted by a mother's terrible love; who had lived the life of a tyrant among cannibals – oh yes, look closely at these limbs, the muscles beneath, and remember – this body has grown with the eating of human flesh. And this mouth, so eager with its words, it has tasted the succulent juices of its kin – remember that?
    No, he could not.
    But the body can. It knows hunger and desire on the battlefield – walking among the dead and dying, seeing the split flesh, the jutting bones, smelling the reek of spilled blood – ah, how the mouth waters.
    Well, everyone had his secrets. And few are worth sharing. Unless you enjoy losing friends.
    He rode apart from the train, ostensibly taking an outrider
flank, as he had done as a soldier, long ago. The Awl
army of Redmask, fourteen thousand or so warriors, half
again as many in the trailing support train – weaponsmiths,
healers, horsewives, elders, old women, the lame and the
once-born children, and, of course, twenty or so thousand
rodara. Along with wagons, travois, and almost three
thousand herd dogs and the larger wolf-hunters the Awl
called dray. If anything could trigger cold fear in Toc it was
these beasts. Too many by far, and rarely fed, they ranged in
packs, running down every creature on the plains for
leagues around.
    But let us not forget the K'Chain Che'Malle. Living,
breathing ones. Tool – or perhaps it was Lady Envy – had
told him that they had been extinct for thousands of years
– tens, hundreds of thousands, even. Their civilization was
dust. And wounds in the sky that never heal; now there's a detail worth remembering, Toc. The huge creatures provided Redmask's bodyguard at the
head of the vanguard – no