A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

Liberty mistress her pampered dog. Isn't that nice? And when I lift a leg and piss against you, Lobe, what then?
    These soldiers here did not frighten him. It was the other
squad, the one still up-island. The one with that scrawny
little mute girl. And she had a way of showing up as if from
nowhere. From a swirl of light – he wondered what the
Shake witches would make of that cute trick. All Lobe
needed to do – Lobe, or Masan Gilani, or Galt, any of them
– all they needed to do was call her name.
    Sinn.
    A real terror that one, and not a talon showing. He
suspected he'd need the whole coven to get rid of her.
Preferably with great losses. The coven had a way of crowding
the chosen rulers of the Shake. And they're on their way, like ravens to a carcass, all spit and cackle. Of course, they can't fly. Can't even swim. No, they'll need boats, to take them across the strait – and that's assuming the Reach isn't now a jumbled mass of ice, which is how it looks from here.
    The soldier named Galt rose from his chair, wincing at
some twinge in his lower back, then ambled over to what
had been the prefect's prize possession, a tapestry that
dominated an entire wall. Faded with age – and stained in
the lower left corner with dried spatters of the poor prefect's
blood – the hanging depicted the First Landing of the
Letherii, although in truth that was not the colonizers' first
landing. The fleet had come within sight of shore somewhere
opposite the Reach. Fent canoes had ventured out to
establish contact with the strangers. An exchange of gifts
had gone awry, resulting in the slaughter of the Fent men
and the subsequent enslavement of the women and
children in the village. Three more settlements had
suffered the same fate. The next four, southward down the
coast, had been hastily abandoned.
    The fleet had eventually rounded Sadon Peninsula on
the north coast of the Ouster Sea, then sailed past the
Lenth Arm and into Gedry Bay. The city of Gedry was
founded on the place of the First Landing, at the mouth of
the Lether River. This tapestry, easily a thousand years old,
was proof enough of that. The general belief these days was
that the landing occurred at the site of the capital itself,
well up the river. Strange how the past was remade to suit
the present. A lesson there Brullyg could use, once he was
king. The Shake were a people of failure, fated to know
naught but tragedy and pathos. Guardians of the shore, but
incapable of guarding it against the sea's tireless hunger. All
of that needed . . . revising.
    The Letherii had known defeat. Many times. Their
history on this land was bloody, rife with their betrayals,
their lies, their heartless cruelties. All of which were now
seen as triumphant and heroic.
    This is how a people must see itself. As we Shake must. A blinding beacon on this dark shore. When I am king . . .
    'Look at this damned thing,' Galt said. 'Here, that
writing in the borders – that could be Ehrlii.'
    'But it isn't,' Lobe muttered. He had dismantled one of
his daggers; on the table before him was the pommel, a few
rivets and pins, a wooden handle wrapped in leather, a
slitted hilt and the tanged blade. It seemed the soldier was
now at a loss on how to put it all back together again.
    'Some of the letters—'
    'Ehrlii and Letherii come from the same language,' Lobe
said.
    Galt's glare was suspicious. 'How do you know that?'
    'I don't, you idiot. It's just what I was told.'
    'Who?'
    'Ebron, I think. Or Shard. What difference does it make?
Somebody who knows things, that's all. Hood, you're
making my brain hurt. And look at this mess.'
    'Is that my knife?'
    'Was.'
    Brullyg saw Lobe cock his head, then the soldier said,
'Footsteps bottom of the stairs.' And with these words, his
hands moved in a blur, and even as Galt was walking
towards the door, Lobe was twisting home the pommel and
flipping the knife into Galt's path. Where it was caught
one-handed – Galt had not even slowed in passing.
    Brullyg settled back in his chair.
    Rising, Masan Gilani loosened from their scabbards the
vicious-looking long-bladed knives at her hips. 'Wish I was
with my own squad,' she said, then drew a step closer to
where Brullyg sat.
    'Stay put,' she murmured.
    Mouth dry, he nodded.
    'It's likely the ale delivery,' Lobe said from one side of the
door, while Galt unlocked it and pushed it out wide enough
to enable him to peer through the crack.
    'Sure, but those boots sound wrong.'
    'Not the usual drooling fart and his