Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(167)

Something shifted nearby and he straightened, damning himself. Speaking of stupid …

He turned. A man had emerged from the tall green grasses. He was burly, in a torn hide shirt, wide leather wrist-guards, moccasins, and leather leggings up over buckskin trousers. ‘Should’ve run when you saw the bodies, lowlander,’ the fellow growled.

Kyle stared. That voice. The wild mane of kinky black hair – the hair all over, actually.

The man charged, long-knives flashing. Kyle rapidly backed off while trying to get the name out. He swung and Kyle fell into the water to avoid the blade.

‘Badlands!’ he managed, half stuttering in his amazement.

But the Lost brother splashed after him as if in a bloodlust fury – this was not the laughing, easy-going Badlands he knew! He lunged in, thrusting. Kyle drew to cut across his front, hacking off Badlands’ blade in a loud screech of tempered iron.

Badlands flinched away, blinking his disbelief. Kyle rose to a crouch, the frigid water dripping from him. ‘It’s me, Kyle,’ he said.

Badlands retreated another step; frowned as if half-comprehending. ‘Kyle, lad?’

‘Yes, it’s me. I’ve come to find you and Coots and Stalker!’

Now real confusion wrinkled his hairy brow and he waved the shorn weapon in his hand. ‘But you was in Korel!’

Kyle sheathed the white sword back under his arm, eased out a long breath. ‘I was. Greymane died.’

Badlands dropped his gaze. ‘Yeah. I heard the stories.’ He let out a hiss, dropped the ruined weapon and squeezed his thumb. ‘You cut off the end of my blasted thumb, dammit!’

‘Sorry.’ Kyle fumbled to find a rag or a piece of cloth to tear.

‘Never mind!’ The Lost brother surged forward and clasped Kyle’s shoulders. ‘Look at you now! All growed up. No more the scrawny steppe wolf-pup old Stoop bought from the slave-pen! You look like a damned brigand! Didn’t even recognize you with the moustache ’n’all.’

He squeezed Badland’s forearm. ‘Glad to have found you. How’s Coots and Stalker?’

The Lost brother dropped his grin. He half turned away. ‘Coots didn’t make it.’

Coots? How could Coots not make it? He’d always seemed so … indestructible. All Kyle could manage was an unbelieving, ‘I’m sorry.’ Badlands gave a shake of his shoulders as if to brush the topic aside. ‘And Stalker?’

‘Stalk’s his same grim old self. Only more so.’

Kyle didn’t comment that Badlands struck him as very different from his old self. The old Badlands he knew would never have murdered a gang of dirt-poor barely armed prospectors. But then, his brother was dead and his land was being stolen from him; and his culture – his people – were being swept from the face of the world. Understandable, one might say.

The Lost’s thoughts must have run along lines similar to Kyle’s as he clapped him on the shoulder and urged him along. ‘Still – great to see you, lad. Just like old times, hey?’ And he laughed, but rather crazily – or so it sounded to Kyle. ‘Remember ol’ Greymane’s face when we showed up after that big Malazan fracas? He sure wasn’t expecting us.’

Kyle laughed as well, thought not nearly so wildly. ‘Yes. He probably thought we were Claws come for him at last.’

Badlands led him north. He sucked on his wounded thumb and glanced back, looking him up and down. An amused, speculative light came into his eyes. ‘So,’ he announced. ‘You are the White-blade, then.’

Kyle dropped his gaze, shrugging. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well, well. Ain’t that somethin’?’ He chuckled. ‘We can probably hold off all these damned invaders now.’

The remark annoyed Kyle, as if Badlands had somehow enlisted him into something he might not agree with. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean not only are you Whiteblade, but we all was Crimson Guard together. And damn the old Oddsmaker if that ain’t the oddest thing …’

Now Kyle was thoroughly perplexed. In fact, he wondered about the man’s state of mind. ‘Just what are you getting at?’

‘I mean remember that talk we heard of the missing Fourth Company?’

Kyle remembered hearing how the Guard, after barely repulsing a Malazan expeditionary army sent to Stratem to destroy them, had divided itself into four companies to pursue contracts around the world. Eventually, those contracts brought the First Company, under Shimmer, to southern Assail where he, along with the Lost cousins, had joined. Long before then, though, the Guard had lost contact with the Fourth and none knew of its whereabouts, or fate. ‘What of it?’ he asked.

Badlands laughed. His mirth did not reassure Kyle. Before, the man’s laughter had been of the most innocent, teasing sort. Now, it sounded as dark as a hangman’s welcome. ‘Well … who do you think Stalk found camped on the mountainside, every sword against them? None other than Cal-Brinn and his Fourth!’

Kyle was amazed. The Fourth found? Here of all places? Yet why not? The First, under Shimmer, was in the south. Plenty of warfare and potential patrons up here. ‘How many?’

Badlands nodded at the question. ‘Ah! Just the sole survivors of years of fighting. Sixteen of their Avowed.’

Sixteen Avowed! No wonder the Lost Greathall still stood! Then the thought came: what of the rest in Stratem? ‘We should get word of this to K’azz.’