The Rite (26 page)

Other dragons stared at him in amazement. Abandoning Ishenalyr’s corpse, Malazan glided forward. Was anger still making her sweat gore? Her wounds were bleeding so profusely, it was impossible to tell. For some reason, that seemed funny, too, and Chatulio guffawed, not trying to hold the mirth in anymore. It was too late anyway.

“Reveal yourself,” Malazan hissed, and the words wormed their way into his mind.

For a moment, it seemed natural to do as she asked, and he dissolved his skull wyrm disguise.

“A copper!” someone snarled.

“Not just any copper,” Chatulio replied. “The copper who manufactured the feud that divided your force. I was hoping

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all you idiot newts would slaughter each other, but I’ll settle for what I got.”

He whirled, spitting his breath on the nearest wyrms to make them sluggish, spread his wings, and sprang into the air. He knew he couldn’t escape, but that was no reason not to make them work for the kill.

Malazan snarled words of power. Another glowing net sprang into existence around Chatulio, binding his wings. He fell back to earth, and the chromatics stalked toward him.

Perhaps he could have managed one more blast of his breath, or a swipe of his talons, before the end, but he realized he could put the time to better use. He rattled off a spell, and the entire mountaintop rang with peals of disembodied laughter, to mock his enemies as they ripped him apart.

When Kara heard the disembodied laughter, she quickly surmised it had something to do with the vanished Chatulio. The bright gods knew, he was the one person of her acquaintance who could see something comical in every situation, even a nightmare like the siege.

The echoing sound led her upward through the cellars before it faded to silence. Since she didn’t encounter the copper along the way, nor anyone who had, she wondered if the laughter had actually originated out under the open sky.

It was difficult to see how, though. The attacking wyrms were in possession of the mountaintop. Chatulio would have had better sense than to fly into the midst of them, wouldn’t he?

Perhaps not, if frenzy had consumed his mind, and she suspected that fear of such a calamity was what had prompted him to run away, so he wouldn’t harm his friends. She hurried to the narrow spiral staircase Raryn used to sneak up and scout the surface. The shaft was too cramped for any of the evil dragons to negotiate, and so far as the defenders could tell, their foes hadn’t even noticed the steps where they rose to their summit in one of the monastery’s outbuildings.

She found Dorn and Raryn at the lower terminus of the stairs. Grimy, bruised, and haggard, the half-golem was fully armed. Apparently he’d been standing watch. Raryn had his ice-axe, but not his bow, white fur-covered armor, or the rest of his gear. He’d probably been off duty, and come running without taking the time to equip himself in full.

Dorn frowned when he saw Kara.

“You’re not coming,” he said.

“I am,” she replied.

“If you get yourself killed up top, who’ll pull the old elves’ secrets out of the archives?”

“I fight the chromatics when they make an assault.” “That’s necessary. This isn’t.”

“It is for me. Chatulio is my friend.”

Raryn looked up at Dorn. “You aren’t going to change her mind,” said the burly dwarf.

Dorn grunted. “Then let’s get this done.”

As they climbed the stairs, Raryn leading, Dorn following, and Kara bringing up the rear, she strained her senses for any warning sign that they were headed into a trap. She didn’t detect any, but she did hear snarling, and smell the tang of blood. Because of the Rage, the odor made her head swim, her mouth water, and her guts twist with self-loathing.

Nothing lay in wait for them in the outbuilding. Like the rest of the structures comprising the monastery, it was a fine example of the stonemason’s craft, pleasingly shaped of creamy stone and adorned with intricate round stained glass windows, even though it was, in its essence, simply a gardener’s shed, with hoes and pruning shears hanging on pegs, flowerpots stacked in the corner, and sacks of fertilizer tingeing the air with a dungy scent. Still struggling against frenzy, Kara wished the stink was potent enough to mask the unsettling, arousing aroma of gore.

She and her companions crept to the doorway and peeked out. She caught her breath. The growling came from several

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dragons devouring the body of another. So eager were the wyrms to rip their meal apart and gobble down the shreds that much of it was already unrecognizable. But Kara could still make out some coppery scales glinting in the sunlight.

Fury swelled inside her. She hated the chromatics for desecrating the body of her friend, almost as much as she despised herself for craving a portion of the feast. She had to make Sammaster’s minions pay for the atrocity. She focused her mind to trigger the shift from human to draconic form.

Somehow—perhaps he noticed a change in her posture— Dorn sensed her intent, took her by the forearm, and turned her around to look her in the eyes.

“No,” he whispered.

For an instant, she fully intended to strike him down for interfering with him, but then resentment gave way to shame.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s all right,” Dorn replied, gruff and awkward as always when trying to give comfort or reassurance.

“The madness is so close to the surface now,” she said, “all the time.”

“You’ll beat it,” he said.

“Look beyond Chatulio,” Raryn murmured.

She tried. The knot of squirming, lunging dragons in the foreground largely blocked her view, but by craning and ducking, she caught a glimpse of the portion of the garden on the far side of them.

Torn by fang and claw, the immense hidecarved green lay dead on the ground. Nobody was eating him yet, perhaps because his slayer had reserved the body for herself. Said killer was surely the ancient red—Kara had heard her underlings call her Malazan—commanding the attacking force. Burned and blistered, nearly as mangled and bloody as her vanquished foe, she lay in a bed of purple blossoms. Two smaller dragons, who evidently possessed priestly powers, crawled around her, hissing charms to close her wounds and renew her strength.

“Now,” said Raryn, “back down the stairs. We’ve lingered long enough.”

When they reached the vaults, Kara said, “Somehow, Chatulio tricked Malazan and the green into dueling. I’m sure of it.”

The dwarf nodded. “I think so, too, which means he won a victory before the enemy laid him low.”

“He eliminated one of their two most powerful fighters,” said Dorn, “and sorely hurt the other. Even with healers tending her, she won’t be fit to lead another attack for a while. The copper bought us some extra time.”

I’ll make the time count, Kara thought. I promise you, Chatulio.

As if to mock her pledge, a picture of all the tomes and loose parchments she had still to examine—shelf upon shelf, rack upon rack, chamber after chamber—rose up unbidden in her mind.

In Thar, the infrequent trees were runtish growths twisted and gnarled by the wind. Still, the specimen on the benighted hilltop was substantial enough to support the naked corpse of an orc. Dangling from rawhide lashings, its eye sockets emptied by some hungry bird, reeking Like the carrion it was, the goblinkin with its piggish face bore multiple cuts on its chest and belly. No doubt one of them had been the death of it. Above the marks of combat, someone had carved a crude representation of a horned, leering face with crossed scimitars beneath. Pavel reckoned it was the emblem of a rival orc tribe, who’d likely killed the creature for entering their territory, then hung it there as a warning to other would-be trespassers.

“Well,” said Will, “are we ready for this?”

He stood with his hand on the pommel of his hornblade. They’d found the curved, enchanted hunting

sword in the grip of a dead ogre, and Pavel’s sun amulet among Yagoth’s possessions, after the flight of greens moved on. In the priest’s opinion, that was about the last piece of good fortune that had come their way.

In the time since the extermination of the ogre troupe, the two searchers had tried to make their way back toward Thentia, but without horses, progress was slow. Time and again, they had to deviate from their course to avoid marauding dragons, or encounters with orcs and giantkin.

He wished he and Will had traveled in the company of one of Kara’s rogues. How glorious it would be to soar straight out of that wasteland on the wings of a dragon. But the Great Gray Land was just to the north of Thentia. He’d never imagined it would be so difficult to journey from one to the other, and thus it had made sense to employ all their flying allies to explore more distant sites.

Finally, desperate to make some headway, he and the halfling had resolved to sneak across orc territory under cover of night. The problem, of course, was that goblin kin could see in the dark. But not as far as a man could see in the daylight, so it was possible the hunters’ woodcraft would see them through.

“I’m ready,” Pavel said.

“Want to cast a spell of silence?” asked Will.

Pavel shook his head. “If something’s sneaking up on me, I want a chance of hearing it. I can creep quietly without enchantment helping me.”

Will snorted. “You ‘creep’ like a three-legged ox, but have it your way. I’ll lead. You keep ten paces behind me, unless I wave for you to close it up.”

They skulked forward, keeping to high ground but not the crests of the low hills. They didn’t want to silhouette themselves against the sky.

In that sky, Selűne and the stars floated unseen above a layer of cloud, though a bit of their light suffused through to keep the night from being entirely black. The wind whistled, colder than by day. It made Pavel’s leg ache. Though Will

had done a good job of straightening the limb, the priest walked with a slight hitch, and suspected he always would. Well, perhaps the ladies would think it heroic and therefore alluring.

He and Will skulked along for perhaps an hour. Then the one-time thief raised his hand signaling a halt, and scurried back to join his human comrade.

“What?” Pavel whispered.

“Orcs, I think. A hunting party, maybe. I can’t see them yet, just hear them. They’re over there—” he pointed—”and headed in this direction.”

Pavel listened intently, and heard nothing but the moaning of the breeze. Still, he was sure Will was correct. The halfling’s ears were keener than his.

“So we hide and wait for them to pass by?” Pavel asked. “Yes.” Will pulled the warsling from his belt. And fight if they spot us. Come on.”

They crouched behind a clump of brush. Heart beating faster, reviewing the spells he carried ready for the casting, Pavel kept trying to detect some sign of the approaching orcs. It came abruptly: a fierce baying, followed immediately by a clamor of brutish voices.

“You didn’t tell me they had dogs,” Pavel said.

“I didn’t know,” Will said. “Until the beasts picked up our scent, they didn’t make any noise. We’re in for it, pretty boy. Try not to wet yourself.”

He placed a stone in the pocket of his sling.

“Let me enchant that, you larcenous flea,” said the cleric.

Pavel murmured a prayer, flourished his pendant, and touched it to the rock, which then glowed with a red-gold light. The halfling rose and let the stone fly.

When the glow illuminated the oncoming orcs and the several huge dogs bounding ahead of them, Pavel winced. Maybe, as Will had assumed, they’d set forth as a hunting party, but if so, it was a large and well-armed one. Pavel thought it more likely they were raiders who embarked at first to attack a neighboring clan, but then grew more intent on prey discovered closer to home.

Will slung a stone, and one of the hounds fell, its momentum tumbling it head over heels. Rattling off an incantation, Pavel thrust out his arm. A ray of light leaped from his hand to burn another dog to ash.

Javelins flew out of the dark. One of them missed Pavel by inches and made him yearn for his enchanted brigandine, damaged by the squamous spewers, then destroyed utterly when Yagoth tore away what remained.

He could conjure a form of magical armor for both Will and himself, but decided that before he attempted the spell, they needed to finish neutralizing the dogs. Big, shaggy brutes, the four who survived had nearly closed the distance separating them from their prey.

Will hurled stones and dropped two more. Pavel conjured tingling, crackling power into his hand. A rod of congealed crimson phosphorescence shimmered into being in his grasp. When a hound lunged into range, he snapped his arm as if he held the butt of a whip, and a lash of red lightning blazed into being to strike the canine. The dog convulsed and collapsed, stinking of burned meat.

The remaining beast sprang in, and Pavel had to leap aside to avoid its slavering jaws. He lashed it with the sizzling whip, and it too went down.

The orcs charged.

Will hurled more stones. Pavel chanted, brandishing his amulet. When it glowed red-gold, he touched it to the halfling’s shoulder. The light leaped to Will’s body to surround him with a shimmering aura that would help deflect a blade. Pavel just had time to repeat the operation and provide himself with the same protection before the first orcs scrambled into striking distance.

Pavel and Will fought back to back, so no foe could attack either from behind. The lightning whip would last a few more heartbeats before the spell ran out of power, so for the time being, the priest struck with that, using the mace in his off

hand as a shield to bat away thrusting spear points and slashing scimitars.

He killed one foe, then another. He assumed Will was faring at least as well. But more orcs kept coming, swarming around them, and he wondered if he and the halfling would be overwhelmed. What a bitter joke it would be if they, who’d survived encounters with scores of creatures commonly accounted more dangerous, fell to goblin kin.

As he battled on, he silently prayed to Lathander for succor. Until something swept over the combatants on the ground, momentarily blocking the moonlight that leaked through the clouds and plunging them all into deeper gloom.