Kevin's Watch

Fears for her Lord and her kin seemed almost inconsequential. If truly demanded, she could attempt her warren, reach him via the paths of Kurald Galain. But there was no urgency within her to do any such thing. This war would find its own path.

Her wants were held, one and all, in the eyes of a man. A mortal, of angled, edged nobility. A man past his youth, a soul layered in scars - yet he had surrendered it to her.

Whiskeyjack dismounted and handed the reins of his charger to an aide, then joined Korlat. He resisted an urge to draw her into his arms, and was disconcerted to see a glimmer of prescient knowledge in her eyes.

"Not in front of the troops, surely," she murmered.

He growled. "Lead me through, woman."

"Have you been contacted by Quick Ben?"

Whiskeyjack nodded. "He's in Capustan. Or should be by now."

"I am relieved. The assault on the warrens has made being a mage somewhat perilous. Even Kurald Galain has felt the poison's touch."

"I know."

Rake slowly turned to regard him. "I had not expected to find in her such...renewal. A heart I'd believed closed for ever. To see it flowering so..."

They reached level ground, approached the Malazan camp. Whiskeyjack and Korlat strode side by side and close, a half-dozen paces ahead.

"Now that," Quick Ben muttered, "is the most surprising revelation this day."

Korlat faced the barge - and met Whiskeyjack's gaze. He managed a drawn smile, revealing to her the pressure he had been feeling. But it was what she saw in his eyes that quickened her heart. Love and relief, tenderness...and raw anticipation.

Mother Dark, but these mortals live!

She continued on, beneath the gate's arch, her eyes fixing on the hilltop beyond the shattered corpses carpeting the killing field. Where I will find him. All that is left. His face, gift of memories, now grown cold. I saw the life flee his eyes. That moment of death, of dying. Withdrawing, away from those eyes, withdrawing, back and away. Leaving, leaving me.

Her steps slowed, the pain of loss threatening to overwhelm her.

Dear Mother Dark, do you look down upon me, now? Do you see me, your child? Do you smile, to see me so broken? I have, after all, repeated your fatal errors of old. Yielding my heart, succumbing to the foolish dream - Light's dance, you longed for that embrace, didn't you?

And were betrayed.

You left us, Mother...to eternal silence.

Yet...

Mother Dark, with this unveiling, I feel you close. Was it grief that sent you away, sent you so far from your children? When, in our deadly, young way - our appalling insensitivity - we cursed you. Added another layer to your pain.

These steps...you walked them once.

How can you help but smile?

Rain struck her brow, stung the ragged, open gash of her wound. She halted, looked up, to see Moon's Spawn directly overhead...weeping down upon her...

...and upon the field of corpses surrounding her, and, beyond and to the right, upon thousands of kneeling T'lan Imass. The dead, the abandoned, a wash of deepening colours, as if in the rain the scene, so softly saturated, was growing more solid, more real. No longer the faded tableau of a Tiste Andii's regard. Life, drawn short, to sharpen every detail, flush every colour, to make every moment an ache.

And she could hold back no longer. Whiskeyjack. My love.

Moments later, her own tears joined the salf-laden water running down her face.

Cameraman Jenn wrote:I thought the doinking Kruppe part was funny and it would be even funnier if Hetan WAS preggers and Kruppe was the baby daddy. Yeah, the doinking dead guys is grody but that's not the part that made me scream. It was a scream of anguish and not a scream of disgust.

an Carraig wrote:and that is why i'm also bettin' that KRUPPE will be the next major character to bite the proverbial dust.

The foreign god had been torn apart in his descent to earth. He had come down in pieces, in streaks of flame. His pain was fire, screams and thunder, a voice that had been heard by half the world. Pain, and outrage. And, K'rul reflected, grief. It would be a long time before the foreign god could begin to reclaim the remaining fragments of its life, and so begin to unveil its nature. K'rul feared that day's arrival. From such a shattering could only come madness.