Deadhouse Landing

Surly waved Nedurian to join them. He sat at the bow, wrapped in a blanket against the unusual chill of the night. A lantern next to him lit the waves and the five Napans: Surly, Shrift and Tocaras at the canvas-wrapped body, Urko and Grinner at the oars.

Once they were far out beyond the harbour, Surly and lean Tocaras lifted the body to the gunwale. Surly said a few words in benediction, or farewell, and together they let slip the corpse into the dark water and watched it sink from sight.

After a long silence, empty but for the slap of the waves and the far-off crash of the surf into the cliffs north of the city, Urko and Shrift began to power the small dory back to the glow of the distant lanterns of Malaz harbour. Nedurian addressed Tocaras. ‘So, a burial at sea…’

The tall, pole-slim fellow nodded sombrely. ‘Yes. Always a sea burial for us Napans. It’s a tradition.’ And he added, more softly, ‘But not for me.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘May I ask why not?’

Looking out across the dark waters, the fellow grimaced as if in distaste. ‘I hate it. The sea. It’s taken too many from me.’

Nedurian thought of so many of his old friends, gone now, and he nodded. ‘I can understand that.’

No more was said until they returned to Smiley’s. Nedurian, Surly and Urko took up posts to keep watch. The mage sat at one of the narrow windows, an eye on the gleaming cobbles of the nighttime street. Urko sat at the door, while Surly busied herself at the bar. A large fire cast an uneven amber glow over the common room.

Nedurian sipped his watered wine. He glanced about the quiet room, asked, ‘What about your local hires? Where are they?’

‘They’ll drag their sorry arses back once they’ve run out of coin,’ Surly said from behind the scarred wooden counter.

‘And what about you lot?’ he asked Urko, who sat on a tall stool with his hands and chin resting atop a short hardwood staff before him. His coarse features drew down in a scowl.

‘What about us?’

‘Why are you still here? Why not leave? You heard how King Tarel betrayed the fleet. Mock might order you arrested.’

Urko snorted his derision. ‘He can try.’

‘What I mean is, wouldn’t it be safer to head to the mainland, hire out as crew?’

The giant fellow’s gaze slid to Surly, his wide knotted hands clenched on the staff. ‘Can’t. We’re—’

‘That’s enough,’ Surly cut in. Her eyes were on Nedurian now, suspicious. ‘You’re asking a lot of questions.’

He raised his hands open in surrender. ‘You’re right. Never mind. None of my business. But I’ll let you know … I really don’t care if you’re wanted on the mainland.’

Urko just eyed Surly, saying nothing.

‘We’ll leave,’ Surly added, meditatively cleaning glasses, ‘when the Twisted returns.’

‘It’s overdue,’ Nedurian said, then wished he hadn’t.

Now Urko lowered his gaze, frowning even more deeply, his hands clenching as he thumped the staff to the hardwood floor.

*   *   *

Three nights later, Jull Solman, a fisherman out of Malaz City, sat in the dugout that his father had sat in all his life, and set his lines. His lantern wobbled and glowed in the night from its stand at the pointed bow.

Satisfied with his lines, he crouched and waited for the lantern to do its work of drawing the curious fish from the dark depths below. During these quiet moments he would think, and he reflected now that all his life he’d resented that he was still nothing more than a fisher like his father before him … while others, friends and cousins, had joined the raiders and become crew on Malazan freebooters.

That is, until this latest disastrous raid, what with near half the crews failing to return. Only now was he beginning to see the wisdom in his father’s words, and his demands that he follow in his footsteps and remain a fisher.

Perhaps he hadn’t been such a bitter, mean, stubborn, worthless old fool after all.

As to his father’s other claims and wild talk … well, some things were just too foolish to believe. That these raiders and pirates were just recent arrivals to the island and that its true occupants were the fisher folk themselves? Jull could only shake his head. What of it if it were true?

And that the island’s true guardian and protector was a common fisher just like them? He reached out and jiggled one of the lines. Nothing more than wishful thinking. Ridiculous old local legends and stories.

That hook, as the saying goes, was just too big to swallow.

It was then in his musings that he glimpsed a strange glow approaching from the south. Squinting, he sat up and stared, studying the eerie phenomenon. A patch of nightglow as can sometimes gyre atop the waves? A gathering of the bright deep-water fish? Or – and here the hair upon his neck stirred and prickled – the daemon Stormriders come to claim his spirit?