Until he first met Kisswhere, who had but laughed at his attempts, as smooth and honed as they had become by then. And it was this rejection that stole his heart for all time.
Yet what haunted him now was, perhaps surprisingly, not all of that unrequited adoration. It was what he had seen, or maybe but imagined, in that dark night on the river, after the blinding flash of the munitions and the roar that shook the water, that one black-skinned hand, reaching up out of the choppy waves, the spinning swirl of the current awakening once more in the wake of the tumult, parting round the elegant wrist-and then that hand slipped away, or was simply lost to his straining sight, his desperate, anguished search in the grainy darkness-the hand, the skin, the dark, dark skin that so defeated him that night…
Oh, he wanted to die, now. To end his misery. She was gone. Her sister was gone, too-a sister who had drawn him to one side just two nights earlier and had whispered in his ear, ‘Don’t give up on her, Prav. I know my sister, you see, and there’s a look growing in her eyes when she glances your way… so, don’t give up…’
Both gone, and that, as Badan repeated again and again when he thought no-one else was close enough to hear him, is that. And that is that.
Sergeant Primly came up then and slapped Pravalak on one shoulder. ‘Ready, Corporal? Good. Lead your squad, just like Sinter would’ve done. Lead ‘em, Prav, and let’s go gut some Edur.’
Skulldeath, whose name had once been Tribole Futan, last surviving male of the Futani royal line of the Gilani tribe of southeast Seven Cities, slowly straightened as he watched the heavies work their way up the slope towards the sounds of fighting.
He readied his two Gilani tulwars, which had once belonged to a Falah’dan champion-his great-uncle-who had fallen to an assassin’s poison three years before the Malazan invasion, when Tribole had been a child not yet cast out onto the mortal sands. Weapons he had inherited as last of the line in a family shattered by a feud, such as were common throughout all of Seven Cities before the conquest. The tulwars seemed large in his hands, almost oversized for his wrists-but he was Gilani and his tribe were a people characterized by bodies virtually devoid of fat. Muscles like ropes, long, gracile and far stronger than they appeared.
The softness of his feminine eyes did not change as he studied the tulwars, remembering when he had been a very young child and these weapons, if balanced on their curved tips, could be made to stand if he set the silver pommels into his armpits, and, gripping the handles just above the hilts, he would pitch himself round the camp like an imp with but one leg. Not long after that, he was using weighted sticks carved to match these tulwars of his great-uncle’s. Working the patterns in the Gilani style, both afoot and atop a desert horse where he learned to perch ori the balls of his feet and practise the lishgar efhanah, the leaping attack, the Edged Net. Many a night with bruised shoulders, then, until he learned how to roll clean after the mid-air attack was done, the three stuffed-grass dummies each sliced into pieces, the wind plucking at those golden grasses as they drifted in the dusty air. And he, rolling, upright once more, weapons at the ready.
He was not tall. He was not outspoken and his smile-rare as it was-was as shy as a young maiden’s. Men wanted him in their beds. So did women. But he was of the royal line, and his seed was the last seed, and one day he would give it to a queen, perhaps even an empress, as befitted his true station. In the meantime, he would let men use him as they would, and even find pleasure in that, harmless as it was. But he refused’ to spill his seed.
He stood now, and when the signal was given, he moved forward, light on his feet.
Skulldeath was twenty-three years old. Such was his discipline that he had not spilled seed once, not even in his sleep.
As the squad mage Mulvan Dreader would say later, Skulldeath was truly a man about to explode.
And a certain Master Sergeant on Malaz Island had got it right. Again.
Urb ran back from the Factor’s house as fast as he could, angling his shield to cover his right shoulder. The damned woman! Standing there with a damned cask lid with a flight of lances about to wing her way. Oh, her soldiers worshipped her all right, and so blind was that worship that not one of them could see all that Urb did just to keep the fool woman alive. He was exhausted and a nervous wreck besides and now-this time-it looked as if he would be too late.
Five paces from Hellian and out went a half-dozen lances, two winging to intercept Urb. Skidding as he pivoted round behind his shield, he lost sight of her.
One lance darted past a hand’s width from his face. The other struck true against the shield, the iron head punching through to impale his upper arm, pinning it to his side. The impact spun Urb round and he staggered as the lance pulled at him, and, grunting, he slid down on his knees, the hard cobbles driving shocks up his legs. He slammed his sword-hand down-still clutching the weapon-to keep from pitching forward, and heard a knuckle crack.
