A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

he should have let go of the damned reins,' Quell
said in a growl. 'And now I got to do healing and that
takes time. That's just great – how am I supposed to fix the
carriage? Why can't anybody else do anything useful round
here? You, Witch – go and heal Glanno—'
    'I can't do that! Oh, I can set splints and spit on wounds
to chase infection away, but it's sounding as if he needs a
whole lot more than that. Right, Gruntle?'
    The tattooed warrior shrugged. 'Probably.'
    'Don't even try,' she snarled at him, and then stalked
into the tavern.
    Gruntle stared after her. 'What did she mean? Try
what?'
    'Getting under her skirt,' said Quell.
    'But she doesn't wear—'
    'That's not the point,' the wizard cut in. 'You're thinking
like a man. That's your mistake. It's all our mistakes,
in fact. It's why we're standing out here, three men, no
women. If we'd gone and said, why, Precious, we wouldn't
even think of it, you know what she'd say then? "What's
wrong with me? Am I too ugly or something?" and we'd be
in trouble all over again!'
    Gruntle glanced bemusedly at Mappo, who, rather cryptically,
simply nodded.
    Quell straightened his still-wet clothes. 'Lead me to him,
then, Gruntle.'
    At one end of the corral there was a stable and next to it,
a loading platform built of weathered planks that marked
one end of a huge, solidly built warehouse. Jula and Amby
had helped Glanno sit up, and Cartographer, cut loose
from the wheel, was staggering in circles as he plucked and
scraped manure off his face, neck, and rotted clothes.
    Glanno had reached the eleventh love of his life, some
woman named Herboo Nast, '. . . who wore a fox round her
neck – not just its fur, you understand, the actual animal,
paws trussed up in berbraided silk, gamuzzled in leather, but
it was the beast's eyes I remember most – that look. Panic,
like it'd just realized it was trapped in its worst nightlymare.
Not that she wasn't good-looking, in that goat-like
way of hers – you know, those long curly hairs that show up
under their chin after a certain age – did I mention how I
liked my women experientialled? I do. I most certainly do.
I wanna see decades and decades of miserable livin' in their
eyes, so that when I arrive, why, it's like a fresh spring rain
on a withered daisy. Which one was I talking about? Fox,
goat, panic, trussed up, right, Herboo Nast—'
    He stopped then, so abruptly that neither Jula nor
Amby noticed the sudden, ominous silence, and just
kept on with the smiles and nods with which they had
accompanied Glanno's monologue, and they were still
smiling and nodding when the figure that had appeared
on the warehouse loading platform – the one whose arrival
had so thoroughly stunned Glanno Tarp's flapping tongue
– walked up to halt directly in front of all three, as the
horses bolted for the most distant corner of the corral in a
drum-roll of hoofs.
    *
    'No losses so far and that's good,' said Quell as he and
Gruntle walked towards the corral.
    'I didn't know you were a practitioner of Denul,' Gruntle
said.
    'I'm not, not really, I mean. I have elixirs, unguents, salves,
and some of those are High Denul, for emergencies.'
    'Like now.'
    'Maybe. We'll see.'
    'Broken legs—'
    'Doesn't need legs to drive the carriage, does he? Besides,
he might decline my services.'
    'Why would he do that?'
    'Healing expenses cut into his share. He could come out
of this owing the Guild rather than the other way round.'
He shrugged. 'Some people refuse.'
    'Well,' said Gruntle, 'he said to get you, so I don't think
he's going to refuse, Master Quell.'
    They reached the low stone wall and then halted.
    'Who in Hood's name is that?' Gruntle asked, squinting
at the tall ragged figure standing with the Bole brothers.
    Quell grunted, and then said, 'Well, and it's just a guess,
mind you, but I'd say that that's the Provost's wife.'
    'He's married to a Jaghut?'
    'Was, until he buried her, but then the yard collapsed
into the sea, taking her with it. And now she's back and
I'd wager a trip's profit she's not in the best of moods.' And
then he smiled up at Gruntle. 'We can work all this out.
Oh, yes, we can work all this out, now.'
    This confidence was shattered when Jula and Amby
Bole suddenly took it upon themselves to attack the
Jaghut. Bellowing, they flung themselves at her, and all
three figures lurched about as they struggled, clawed,
scratched and bit, until finally they lost their footing and
toppled in a multi-limbed mass that slopped heavily in