A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

in
the harbour. Sensing fell kin somewhere in the city and,
annoyed, giving much thought to what she would do about
it. If anything, anything at all. Something was coming,
however, and was she not cursed with curiosity?
    An ironmonger held a conversation with his latest
investor, who was none other than a noble Councillor and
reputedly the finest duellist in all Darujhistan, and therein
it was decided that young and most ambitious Gorlas
Vidikas would take charge of the iron mines six leagues to
the west of the city.
    A rickety wagon rocked along the road well past
Maiten yet still skirting the lake, and in its bed amidst
filthy blankets was the small battered form of a child, still
unconscious but judged, rightly so, that he would live. The
poor thing.
    This track, you see, led to but one place, one fate. The
old shepherd had done well and had already buried his
cache of coins beneath the stoop behind the shack where
he lived with his sickly wife, who had been worn out by
seven failed pregnancies, and if there was bitter spite in
the eyes she fixed upon the world is it any wonder? But
he would do good by her in these last tired years, yes, he
would, and he set to one side one copper coin that he
would fling to the lake spirits at dusk – an ancient, black-stained
coin bearing the head of a man the shepherd didn't
recognize – not that he would, for that face belonged to the
last Tyrant of Darujhistan.
    The wagon rolled on, on its way to the mines.
    Harllo, who so loved the sun, was destined to wake in
darkness, and mayhap he was never again to see the day's
blessed light.
    Out on the lake the water glittered with golden tears.
    As if the sun might relinquish its hard glare and, for just
this one moment, weep for the fate of a child.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    When can he not stand alone
Where in darkness no shadows are cast
Whose most precious selves deny the throne
While nothing held in life will last a moment longer
Than what's carved into the very bones
But this is where you would stand
In his place and see all bleak and bridled
An array of weapons each one forged
For violence
    When can he not stand alone
Where darkness bleeds into the abyss so vast
Whose every yearning seeks a new home
While each struggle leaves the meek to the stronger
And the fallen lie scattered like stones
But this is the life you would take in hand
To guide him 'cross the path so broken so riddled
Like the weapon of your will now charged
In cold balance
    When can he not stand alone
Where in darkness every shadow is lost
Whose weary selves cut away and will roam
While nothing is left but this shielded stranger
Standing against the wind's eternal moans
But this is your hero who must stand
Guarding your broken desires the ragged flag unfurled
Rising above the bastion to see your spite purged
In his silence
    Anomandaris, Book III, verses 7–10
Fisher kel Tath
    The swath of ground where all the grasses had been
worn away might have marked the passing of a herd
of bhederin, if not for the impossibly wide ruts left
behind by the enormous studded wheels of a wagon, and
the rubbish and occasional withered corpse scattered to
either side. Vultures and crows danced among the detritus.
    Traveller sat slouched in the Seven Cities saddle atop
the piebald gelding. Nearby, at the minimum distance that
his horse would accept, was the witch, Samar Dev, perched
like a child above the long-legged, gaunt and fierce Jhag
horse whose name was, she had said, Havok. The beast's
true owner was somewhere ahead, perhaps behind the
Skathandi and the Captain's monstrous carriage, or beyond
it. Either way, she was certain a clash was imminent.
    'He dislikes slavers,' she had said earlier, as if this explained
everything.
    No demon, then, but a Toblakai of true blood, a detail
that sent pangs of regret and pain through Traveller, for
reasons he kept to himself – and though she had seen
something of that anguish in his face it appeared she
would respect his privacy. Or perhaps feared its surrender,
for Samar Dev was a woman, he suspected, prone to plunging
into vast depths of emotion.
    She had, after all, travelled through warrens to find the
trail of the one ahead of them on this plain, and such an
undertaking was not embraced on a whim. All to deliver a
horse. He knew enough to leave it at that, poor as it might
be as justification for such extremity. The Kindaru had
accepted the reason with sage nods, seeing nothing at all
unusual in any of it – the horse was a sacred