The Bonehunters (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #6)

The Bonehunters (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #6) Page 325

Crouched nearby on the foredeck, Koryk and Tarr were playing a game of Bones that the former had found among the offerings in his kit. A sailor's version, the cribbed box deep to prevent the playing pieces bouncing out of the field, the underside made stable by iron-tipped eagle talons at each corner, sharp enough to bite into the wood of a galley bench or deck. Tarr had lost every game thus far – over twenty – both to Koryk and Smiles, yet he kept coming back. Bottle had never seen a man so willing to suffer punishment.

In the captain's cabin lounged Gesler, Stormy, Fiddler and Balm, their conversation sporadic and desultory. Deep in shadows beneath the elongated map-table huddled Y'Ghatan, Bottle's rat – my eyes, my ears… my aching teats.

No other rats on board, and without his control over Y'Ghatan and her brood, they would have flung themselves overboard long ago. Bottle sympathized. The sorcery engulfing this ship was foul, redolent with madness. It disliked anything alive that was not bound by its chaotic will. And it especially disliked… me.

Only… Gesler and Stormy, they seem immune to it. The bastards – forcing us to join them on this eerie, unwelcome floating barrow.

Bottle considered talking to Fiddler about it, then dismissed the idea. Fiddler was like Kalam, who was like Apsalar, who was like Quick Ben. All… evil.

All right, not evil, but something. I don't know. That stuff in Shadow – what were they up to? And Kalam, ready to stick his knives in Apsalar. And Apsalar, looking like she wanted just that. Then Quick Ben waking up, getting between the two as if this was all some old argument, old wounds ripped open.

Tavore had claimed Quick Ben, Kalam and Apsalar for her own retinue on the Adjunct's flagship, Froth Wolf – a Quon-built dromon, its workmanship Mapau, its keel and metalwork from somewhere else entirely. Fenn – can't be more than a handful of keel-carvers and blacksmiths left among the squalid remnants… but they made that keel and they made those fittings, and there's nothing insensate or inert about them. In any case, Bottle was glad they were on that ship riding the swells three reaches to starboard. Not quite far enough away for his comfort, but it would have to do. He could picture those two skeletal reptiles scurrying around in the hold below, hunting rats…

'So it was Grub who held onto that whistle?' Fiddler asked Gesler in the cabin.

Beneath the table, Y'Ghatan's tattered ears perked up.

'Aye. Keneb's lad. Now there's a strange one for ya. Said he knew we were coming. Now, maybe I believe that. Maybe I don't. But it was the first thing I got back.'

'Good thing, too,' Stormy said, audibly scratching his beard. 'I'm feeling right at home-'

'That's a joke,' Gesler cut in. 'Last time we was on this damned ship, Stormy, you spent most of the time cowering in a corner.'

'Just took a while getting used to it, that's all.'

Fiddler said, 'Look what some bright spark left in my loot.' Something thumped onto the table.

'Gods below,' Sergeant Balm muttered. 'Is it complete?'

'Hard to say. There are cards in there I've never seen before. One for the Apocalyptic – it's an Unaligned – and there's something called the House of War, showing as its ranked card a bone throne, unoccupied, flanked by two wolves. And in that House there's a card called the Mercenary, and another – done by a different hand – that I think is named something like Guardians of the Dead, and it shows ghostly soldiers standing in the middle of a burning bridge…'

A moment of silence, then Gesler: 'Recognize any faces, Fid?'

'Didn't want to look too closely at that one. There's the House of Chains, and the King of that House – the King in Chains – is sitting on a throne. The scene is very dark, swallowed in shadows, except I'd swear that poor bastard is screaming. And the look in his eyes…'

'What else?' Balm asked.

'Stop sounding so eager, you Dal Honese rock-toad.'

'All right, if you don't like your new present, Fiddler, give it to me.'

'Right, and you'd probably lay a field right here, on this ship.'

'So?'

'So, you want to open a door to this Tiste and Tellann nightmare of warrens? To the Crippled God, too?'

'Oh.'

'Anyway, there's more Unaligned. Master of the Deck, and aye, him I recognize. And Chain – a knot in the centre, with links stretching out in all directions. Don't like the look of that one.'

'Some gift, Fid.'

'Aye, like a rock thrown to a drowning sailor.'