Yet I do. Oh, Korlat, your friendship for me has blinded you. I am in danger indeed. From myself. 'Protectors. Who? What?'
Korlat drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. 'Silverfox asked that I say nothing to you of them. I could not understand why, yet I acquiesced. I realize now that to do so was wrong. Wrong to you, Mhybe. A conspiracy, and I shall not be party to it. Your daughter's protectors were wolves. Ancient, giant beasts-'
Terror ripped through the Mhybe. Snarling, she flung a hand at Korlat's face, felt her nails tear through skin. 'My hunters!' she screamed as the Tiste Andii flinched away. 'They want to kill me! My daughter-' My daughter! Plaguing my dreams! Spirits below, she wants to kill me!
Coll and Murillio had leapt onto the wagon, were shouting in alarm even as Korlat hissed at them to calm down, but the Mhybe ceased hearing them, ceased seeing anything of the world surrounding her at that moment. She continued thrashing, nails clawing the air, betrayal searing through her chest, turning her heart into ashes. My daughter! My daughter!
And my voice, it whimpers.
And my eyes, they plead.
And that knife is in her hands, and in her gaze there is naught but cold, cold intent.
Whiskeyjack's half-smile vanished when he turned upon Korlat's arrival, to see that her eyes were as white hot iron, to see as she stalked through the tent's entrance four parallel slashes on her right cheek, wet with blood that had run down to the line of her jaw and now dripped onto the rushes covering the floor.
The Malazan almost stepped back as the Tiste Andii strode towards him. 'Korlat, what has happened?'
'Hear my words, lover,' the woman grated in an icy voice. 'Whatever secrets you have withheld from me — about Tattersail reborn, about those damned T'lan Ay, about what you've instructed those two marines guarding the child to say to the Mhybe — you will tell me. Now.'
He felt himself grow cold, felt his face twitch at the full thrust of her fury. 'Instructions?' he asked quietly. 'I have given them no instructions. Not even to guard Silverfox. What they've done has been their own decision. What they might have said, that it should lead to this — well, I shall accept responsibility for that, for I am their commander. And I assure you, if punishment is required-'
'Stop. A moment, please.' Something had settled within her, and now she trembled.
Whiskeyjack thought to take her in his arms, but held back. She needed comfort, he sensed, but his instincts told him she was not yet ready to receive it. He glanced around, found a relatively clean hand-cloth, soaked it in a basin, then held it out to her.
She had watched in silence, the shade of her eyes deepening to slate grey, but she made no effort to accept the cloth.
He slowly lowered his hand.
'Why,' Korlat asked, 'did Silverfox insist that her mother not learn of the T'lan Ay?'
'I have no idea, Korlat, beyond the explanation she voiced. At the time, I thought you knew.'
'You thought I knew.'
He nodded.
'You thought that I had been keeping from you … a secret. Something to do with Silverfox and her mother …'
Whiskeyjack shrugged.
'Were you planning to confront me?'
'No.'
Her eyes widened on him. Silence stretched, then, 'For Hood's sake, clean my wounds.'
Relieved, he stepped closer and began, with the gentlest of touches, to daub her cuts. 'Who struck you?' he asked quietly.
'The Mhybe. I think I have just made a dreadful mistake, for all my good intentions …'
'That's often the case,' he murmured, 'with good intentions.'
Korlat's gaze narrowed searchingly. 'Pragmatic Malazans. Clear-eyed indeed. Why do we keep thinking of you as just soldiers? Brood, Rake, Kallor … myself, we all look upon you and Dujek and your army as something … ancillary. A sword we hope to grasp in our hands when the need arrives. It seems now that we're all fools. In fact, not one of us has come to realize the truth of how things now stand.'
He frowned. 'And how do they now stand?'
'You have become our backbone. Somehow, you are what gives us our strength, holds us together. Oh, I know you possess secrets, Whiskeyjack-'
He smiled wryly. 'Not as many as you seem to think. I will tell you the biggest one. It's this. We feel outmatched. By you — by Rake, by Caladan Brood, by Kallor. By the Tiste Andii army and that of the Rhivi and the Barghast. Hood, even that mob of mercenaries accompanying you makes us nervous. We don't have your power. We're just an army. Our best wizard isn't even ranked. He's a squad mage, and right now he's very far away and, I suspect, feeling like a fly in a web. So, come the battles, we know we'll be the spear's head, and it's going to cost us dear. As for the Seer himself, and whatever hides behind him, well, we're now hoping you'll deal with that. Same goes for the Crippled God. You're right, Korlat, we're just soldiers. Tired ones, at that. If we're this combined army's backbone, then Hood help us, it's a bowed, brittle one.'
