Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(148)

Each time he returned he’d encountered the same festering blood-feuds and vendettas, the same blind hatreds and stupid bigotries, and each time he’d vowed never to return again.

Yet here he was once more. For the last time, he suspected, as he had seen this same tragic story of invasion and obliteration play out before in many lands. Any subsistence society, even one that is small-scale horticultural, cannot possibly compete against the invasion of a full-scale agricultural society. The inequity in numbers is simply too great. The locals find themselves swamped every time. If not in one generation, then in two or three. Such has been the story for every region of human migration and settlement. Even regions that boast of themselves as ‘pure’ or ‘native’ stand upon the bones of forgotten predecessors.

But he was a bard – he could not forget, nor would he.

Now the same inexorable story had finally reached his homeland. Long though the region might have withstood this historical process, it had finally arrived on its shores. And here he would witness the playing out of its final chapter – and upon his own people, as the fates would have it.

Poetic, that. Something for him, as a bard, to relish.

Walking the pine and birch forest, he reflected that the singing of this song would wring his heart.

Badlands led them onward through rough untrammelled forest and up steep valleys to a slope so high that snow still lingered in the shadows behind boulders and fallen logs. Here they found the Lost Greathall.

It was raining that afternoon; a cold downpour from clouds so low one might name them fog. Wild woods surrounded the hall. Any fields that might have once been cultivated around it had long since fallen back to the woods’ encroachment. One ancient white spruce, as fat about as his arm-span, grew next to its moss-covered log walls. Its roof was a tangle of live growing brush and grasses. Its front entrance gaped open. Rainwater pooled on beaten bare earth.

Badlands tramped onward up the huge length of the hall. Birds flew overhead to perch on murky rafters. A long table stood across the far rear wall. Embers glowed within a massive stone hearth and this flickering orange light a single occupant sat at the table’s centre, a conical helmet next to him, a bowl before him.

Badlands halted and ducked his head. ‘Stalker,’ he murmured.

Stalker Lost pushed himself back from the table, brushed his long hanging moustache, and eyed his brother with a gaze that seemed to glow brighter than the embers. ‘How’d it happen?’ he grated.

Badlands flinched beneath the harsh glare. ‘Arrow fire.’

Stalker simply shook his head. ‘Damned fool.’

Fisher stepped forward. ‘He saved the people in Antler Fort.’

The Lost’s narrowed hazel gaze shifted. ‘This doesn’t involve you, Fisher.’

‘It involves all of us, I fear.’

Stalker grunted at that, picked up his wooden spoon, and ate another mouthful. ‘Yeah, well. You got a point there.’ He raised his voice, shouting, ‘Ain’t that so, Cal?’

Badlands, Fisher and Jethiss turned. Figures had entered the hall behind them. Two men and a woman. The lead figure was very dark, of Dal Hon extraction, Fisher recognized. Older, his kinked hair greying, in leather armour stained a deep blood red; the rainwater that dripped from him appeared almost as dark as blood itself. The other two wore banded armour, with shields at their backs, longswords at their sides. The tattered remains of a red cloth tabard hung from the woman and upon it Fisher could just make out an undulating line of silver.

His breath eased from him in a long exhalation of wonder and he turned to Stalker. ‘These are Crimson Guard.’

Stalker nodded, eyeing his brother. ‘Yeah. Funny that, hey? We was joined up for a time with the Guard. Then I come home and who do I find out in the woods? Cal’s troop here. All hands raised against ’em. Fighting everyone on all sides. So I offer them a place so long as they pledge to defend the Holding. And there you are.’ He raised a hand to Badlands. ‘We got us hearthguards.’

Fisher turned to the one he assumed to be Cal. ‘Why did you remain, then? You could’ve made the coast.’

The wiry old Dal Hon looked him up and down. ‘That’s our business.’

Stalker chuckled while he ate. ‘Same old answer. Cal here claims the Guard has a stake here in this region. Though what he means by that I got no idea. Still …’ He brushed his moustache again. ‘We do keep running into each other, don’t we? It’s like fate, maybe, hey?’ And he laughed.

He motioned for Fisher to sit. ‘Welcome. And you are?’

Fisher almost jumped – so quiet had his companion been, he’d almost forgotten his presence.

‘Jethiss,’ the Andii said.

Stalker nodded, his gaze lazy. ‘Can’t say as we’ve ever had an Andii visit these parts. What brings you here?’

‘As you said. Fate.’

Stalker snorted a laugh. He spooned up a last portion from the bowl. ‘Guess I asked for that. Anyway, sit, everyone. Eat. We have boiled mountain goat. I recommend it as it’s all there is.’

Badlands scooped up a bowlful and sat heavily to lean hunched over the table. Fisher spooned out a portion and offered it to Jethiss, who shook his head. He sat with it instead. The Crimson Guard bowed and exited – as hearthguards they could not sit with the Icebloods and their guests in the Greathall. They would eat later at the hirelings’ table.