A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

his face, feeling slightly drunk.
    'Itkovian's.'
    'Of course you didn't. The Grey Swords—'
'Possessed a Shield Anvil, yes, but they were not unique
in that. It's an ancient title. Are we the dark mirror to
such people?' Then he shook his head. 'Probably not. That
would be a grand conceit.'
    'I agree,' Seerdomin said in a slurred growl.
    'I love her.'
    'So you claimed. And presumably she will not have
you.'
    'Very true.'
    'So here you sit, getting drunk.'
    'Yes.'
    'Once I myself am drunk enough, Spinnock Durav, I will
do what's needed.'
    'What's needed?'
    'Why, I will go and tell her she's a damned fool.'
    'You'd fail.'
    'I would?'
    Spinnock nodded. 'She's faced you down before. Unflinchingly.'
    Another stretch of silence. That stretched on, and on.
    He was drunk enough now to finally shift his gaze, to fix
his attention on Seerdomin's face.
    It was a death mask, white as dust. 'Where is she?' the
man asked in a raw, strained voice.
    'On her way back out to the barrow, I should think. Seerdomin,
I am sorry. I did not lie when I said I was a fool—'
    'You were,' and he rose, weaving slightly before steadying
himself with both hands on the back of his chair. 'But not
in the way you think.'
    'She didn't want my help,' Spinnock Durav said.
    'And I would not give her mine.'
    'Your choice—'
    'You should not have listened, my friend. To her. You
should not have listened to her!'
    Spinnock stood as Seerdomin spun round and marched
for the door. He was suddenly without words, numbed,
stunned into confusion. What have I done?
    What have I not done?
    But his friend was gone.
    In her irritation, Samar Dev discovered traits in herself
that did not please. There was no reason to resent the
manner in which her two companions found so much
pleasure in each other's company. The way they spoke
freely, unconstrained by decorum, unaffected even by
the fact that they barely knew one another, and the way
the subjects flowed in any and every direction, flung on
whims of mood, swirling round heady topics like eddies
round jagged rocks. Most infuriating of all, they struck
on moments of laughter, and she well knew – damn the
gods, she was certain – that neither man possessed such
ease of humour, that they were so far removed from that
characterization that she could only look on in stunned
disbelief.
    They spoke of their respective tribes, traded tales of
sexual conquests. They spoke of weapons and neither
hesitated in handing over his sword for the other to
examine and, indeed, try a few experimental swings and
passes with. Traveller told of a friend of old named Ereko,
a Tartheno of such pure, ancient blood that he would have
towered over Karsa Orlong had the two been standing side
by side. And in that story Samar Dev sensed deep sorrow,
wounds of such severity that it was soon apparent that
Traveller himself could not venture too close, and so his
tale of Ereko reached no conclusion. And Karsa Orlong
did not press, revealing his clear understanding that a soul
could bleed from unseen places and often all that kept a
mortal going depended on avoiding such places.
    He reciprocated in his speaking of the two companions
who had accompanied him on an ill-fated raid into the
settled lands of humans, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord.
Whose souls, Karsa blithely explained, now dwelt within
the stone of his sword.
    Traveller simply grunted at that detail, and then said,
'That is a worthy place.'
    By the second day of this, Samar Dev was ready to
scream. Tear her hair from her head, spit blood and curses
and teeth and maybe her entire stomach by the time she
was done. And so she held her silence, and held on to her
fury, like a rabid beast chained to the ground. It was absurd.
Pathetic and ridiculous, this crass envy she was feeling.
Besides, had she not learned more about both men since
their fateful meeting than she had ever known before? Like
a tickbird flitting between two bull bhederin, her attention
was drawn to first one, then the other. While the peace
lasted it would do to say nothing, to make no commotion
no matter how infuriated she happened to be.
    They rode on, across the vast plain, along a worn
caravan track angling into the Cinnamon Wastes. Those
few merchant trains they met or overtook were singularly
taciturn, the guards edgy, the traders unwelcoming. Just
before dusk last night, four horsemen had passed close by
their camp, and, after a long look, had ridden on without
a word ventured.
    Karsa had sneered and said, 'See that,