‘Ulshun Pral is a wise leader,’ Rud answered with another smile.
‘I’m still a ghost,’ Hedge said.
‘Are you?’
The sapper frowned. ‘Well, I ain’t gonna cut myself to find out one way or the other.’
‘Because you intend to leave this place, eventually. Of course, I understand.’
‘Sounds like you do at that,’ Hedge snapped. ‘So, maybe you live with these Bentract Imass, Rud Elalle, but that’s about as far as this kinship thing goes. So, who are you?’
‘A friend,’ the man replied with yet another smile.
Aye, and if you knew how 1 felt about friendly people.
‘You have given me your names, and so now I welcome you among the Bentract Imass. Come, Ulshun Pral is eager to meet you.’
He set off.
They followed. With hand signals, Hedge drew Quick Ben closer to his side and they dropped back a bit from the others. The sapper spoke in very low tones. ‘That furry tree’s standing on the ruins of a dead city, Quick, like he was its Hood-damned prince.’
A Meckros City,’ the wizard murmured.
Aye, I guessed as much. So where’s the ocean? Glad I never saw the wave that carried it here.’
Quick Ben snorted. ‘Gods and Elder Gods, Hedge. Been here kicking pieces around, I’d wager. And, just maybe, a Jaghut or two. There’s a real mess of residual magic in this place-not just Imass. More Jaghut than Imass, in fact. And… other stuff.’
‘Quick Ben Delat, lucid as a piss-hole.’
‘You really want to know why Cotillion sent us here?’
‘No. Just knowing snares me in his web and I ain’t gonna dance for any god.’
‘And I do, Hedge?’
The sapper grinned. ‘Aye, but you dance, and then you dance.’
‘Rud has a point, by the way.’
‘No, he has a club.’
‘About you bleeding.’
‘Hood above, Quick-’
‘Oh, now that’s a giveaway, Hedge. What’s Hood doing “above”? Just how deep was that hole you crawled out of? And more important, why?’
‘My company soured already? I liked you least, you know. Even Trotts-’
‘Now who’s dancing?’
‘Better we know nothing about why we’re here, is what I’m trying to say.’
‘Relax. I have already figured you out, Hedge, and here’s something that might surprise you. Not only do I have no problem with you being here-neither does Cotillion.’
‘Bastard! What-you and Cotillion sending pigeons back and forth on all this?’
‘I’m not saying Cotillion knows anything about you, Hedge. I’m just saying that if he did, he’d be fine. So would Shadowthrone-’
‘Gods below!’
‘Calm down!’
‘Around you, Quick, that’s impossible. Always was, always will be! Hood, I’m a ghost and I’m still nervous!’
‘You never were good at being calm, were you? One would think dying might have changed you, some, but I guess not.’
‘Funny. Ha ha.’
They were now skirting the ruined city, and came within sight of the burial mounds. Quick Ben grunted. ‘Looks like the Meckros didn’t survive the kick.’
‘Dead or no,’ Hedge said, ‘you’d be nervous too if you was carrying a sack of cussers on your back.’
‘Damn you, Hedge-that was a cusser in your hand back there! When the dragon-’
‘Aye, Quick, so you just keep them kitties away from me, lest I jump back and turn an ankle or something. And stop talking about Shadowthrone and Cotillion, too.’
‘A sack full of cussers. Now I am nervous-you may be dead, but I’m not!’
‘Just so.’
‘I wish Fid was here, too. Instead of you.’
‘That’s not a very nice thing to say! You’re hurting my feelings. Anyway. What I was wanting to tell you was about that T’lan Imass I was travelling with, for a time.’
‘What happened to it? Let me guess, you tossed it a cusser.’
‘Damned right I did, Quick. She was trailing chains, big ones.’
‘Crippled God?’
‘Aye. Everyone wants in on this game here.’
‘That’d be a mistake,’ the wizard asserted as they walked towards a series of rock outcroppings behind which rose thin tendrils of hearth smoke. ‘The Crippled God would find himself seriously outclassed.’
‘Think highly of yourself, don’t you? Some things never change.’
‘Not me, idiot. I meant the dragon. Menandore. Rud Halle’s mother.’
Hedge dragged the leather cap from his head and pulled at what was left of his hair. ‘This is what drives me mad! You! Things like that, just dropped out like a big stinking lump of-ow!’ He let go of his hair. ‘Hey, that actually hurt!’
‘Tug hard enough to bleed, Hedge?’
Hedge glared across at the wizard, who was now smirking. ‘Look, Quick, this would all be fine if I was planning on building a homestead here, planting a few tubers and raising emlava for their cuddly fur or something. But damn it, I’m just passing through, right? And when I come out the other side, well, I’m back being a ghost, and that’s something I need to get used to, and stay used to.’
Quick Ben shrugged. ‘Just stop pulling your hair and you’ll be fine, then.’
The emlava cubs had grown and were now strong enough to pull Trull Sengar off balance as they strained on their leather leashes, their attention fixed yet again on the Malazan soldier named Hedge, for whom they had acquired a mindless hate. Trull leaned forward to drag the beasts along-it always worked better when the sapper walked ahead, rather than lagging back as he was doing now.
Onrack, noting his struggles, turned and quickly clouted both cubs on their flat foreheads. Suitably cowed, the two emlava ceased their efforts and padded along, heads lowered.
‘Their mother would do the same,’ Onrack said.
‘The paw of discipline,’ Trull said, smiling. ‘I wonder if we might believe the same for our guide here.’
Rud Elalle was ten paces ahead of them-perhaps he could hear, perhaps not.
‘Yes, they share blood,’ Onrack said, nodding. ‘That much was clear when they were standing side by side. And if there is Eleint blood in the mother, then so too in the son.’
‘Soletaken?’
‘Yes.’
‘I wonder if he anticipated this complication?’ Trull meant Cotillion when saying he.
‘Unknown,’ Onrack replied, understanding well enough. ‘The task awaiting us grows ever less certain.
Friend Trull, I fear for these Imass. For this entire realm.’
‘Leave the wizard and his sapper to address our benefactor’s needs, then, and we will concern ourselves with protecting this place, and your kin who call it home.’
The Imass glanced across with narrowed eyes. ‘You say this, with such ease?’
‘The wizard, Onrack, is the one who needs to be here. His power-he will be our benefactor’s hand in what is to come. You and me, we were but his escort, his bodyguards, if you will.’
‘You misunderstand me, Trull Sengar. My wonder is in your willingness to risk your life, again. This time for a people who are nothing to you. For a realm not your own.’
‘They are your kin, Onrack.’
‘Distant. Bentract.’
‘If it had been, say, the Den-Ratha tribe of the Edur to gain supremacy among our tribes, Onrack, instead of my own Hiroth, would I not give my life to defend them? They are still my people. For you it is the same, yes? Logros, Bentract-just tribes-but the same people.’
‘There is too much within you, Trull Sengar. You humble me.’
‘Perhaps there lies your own misunderstanding, friend. Perhaps all you see here is my search for a cause, for something to fight for, to die for.’
‘You will not die here.’
‘Oh, Onrack-’
‘I may well fight to protect the Bentract and this realm, hut they are not why I am here. You are.’
Trull could not meet his friend’s eyes, and in his heart there was pain. Deep, old, awakened.
The son,’ Onrack said after a moment, ‘seems… very young.’