Dust of Dreams (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #9) 61

Who would forget, too, that it was Krin, firstborn son of Humbrall Taur’s own uncle, who was the first to fuck Hetan?

The thought hardened him. He stood above her, waiting until her wild eyes slanted across his own, and when that fevered gaze stuttered and then returned to lock with his, Krin smiled. He saw the shock, and then the hurt that was betrayal, and he nodded. ‘Allies, Hetan? You lost them all. When you proclaimed him as your husband. When you championed your father’s madness.’

Hega pushed back in. ‘Where are your children, Hetan? Shall I tell you? Dead and cold in the darkness-’

Krin backhanded her across the face. ‘Your time with her is over, widow! Go! Run and hide in your hut!’

Hega wiped blood from her lips, and then, eyes flashing, she wheeled, shouting, ‘Bavalt son of Krin! Tonight you are mine!’

Krin almost sent a knife her way as she pushed through the crowd. A knife, son, long before she wraps round you, long before you sink into that spider’s hole.

As the significance of Hega’s words worked through, there was laughter, and Krin was stung by the contempt he heard all round him. He looked down at Hetan-she was still staring up at him, eyes unwavering.

Shame flooded through him, stealing his hardness fast as a mother’s kiss.

‘Don’t think you can watch,’ he said in a growl, crouching to pull her on to her stomach. As he tugged down her leathers, excitement returned-awakened by anger as much as anything else. Oh, and triumph, for many men among the Senan had looked upon her with lust and desire, and they were even now arguing their turn with her. But I am the first. I will make you forget Onos Toolan. I will remind you of the manhood of the Barghast. He knelt, pushing with his knees to splay wide her legs. ‘Lift up to me, whore. Show them all how you accept your fate.’

Pain was a distant roar. Something cold and sharp now filled her skull, fixed like spears to her eyes, and every face she had looked upon since awakening once more had pierced her like lightning, arcing in from her eyes, igniting her brain. Faces-those expressions and all that they revealed-they were burned upon her soul now.

She had played with Hega’s younger sister-they had been so close-but that woman was somewhere in the crowd now, flat-eyed, walled-off. Jayviss had spun a fine horse blanket as a wedding gift, and Hetan remembered her bright, proud smile when Hetan singled her out in giving public thanks. Balamit, daughter of a shoulderwoman, had been her keeper on the Night of First Blood, when Hetan was barely twelve years old. She’d sat awake, holding her hand, until sleep finally took the child now a woman.

Yedin often played with the twins-

Husband, I have betrayed you! In my misery, in my pathetic self-pity-I knew, I knew this was coming, how could it not? My children-I have abandoned them.

They killed them, husband. They killed our children!

‘Lift up to meet me, whore.’

Krin, I used to laugh at your hunger for me, sick as it was. Does my father’s ghost wait for you, Krin? Does he witness this, and what you demand of me?

Does he understand my shame?

Krin now punishes me. He is only the first, but no matter how many there are, the punishment will never be enough.

Now… now I understand the mind of a hobbled woman. I understand.

And she lifted up to meet him.

The wretches saw him before he saw them, and they saw, too, the heavy knife in his hand.

None would deny that the twins were clever, nasty creatures, in the manner of newborn snakes, and so when they spun round and fled, Sathand Gril was not surprised. But one of them was burdened with a child, and that child was now screaming.

Oh, they might silence him in the only way possible-a suffocating hand over his mouth and nose, thus sparing Sathand the blood on his own hands-and he waited for that as he plunged in pursuit, but the shrieks went on.

He could run them down, and so he would, eventually. He was sure they knew that they were already dead. Well, if they would make it a game, he would play. One last gesture of childhood, before he took childhood away. Would they squeal when he caught them? An interesting question. If not immediately, then later, yes, later they would squeal indeed.

Scrabbling sounds ahead, at the slumped end of a rock-walled defile, and Sathand lumbered forward-yes, there was one of them, with that boy in her arms, trying to climb up the scree-

The boulder very nearly killed him, dropping down to hammer into his shoulder. He howled in pain, stumbled-caught the flash of the other twin up on the edge of the wall to his left. ‘You rotted piece of dung!’ he snarled. ‘You will pay for that!’

No longer a game. He would give them hurt for hurt, and then more. He would make them regret such stupid attempts.