The name was the best Fisher could parse out of the ancient lays and hero-songs that had come down to him from Tiste-influenced sources. It translated, roughly, as one-who-comes-from-the-sea. He thought it appropriate, descriptive, and poetic. The man simply took it on without question and was, from then onward, Jethiss.

He was kitted out from among the Malazan party, and so he wore thick sailor-style trousers tucked into tall leather moccasins that were bound by wrapped cloth and leather. He was given a faded gambeson of quilted linen and hide and a leather hauberk to pull over it sewn with iron rings and lozenges. A scuffed belt and worn gloves completed his accoutring. He was offered a battered iron pot-helmet, but turned it down, preferring instead to go bareheaded, his long hair loose.

The only thing missing was a weapon. After much cadging and harassing, Fisher was able to wheedle a set of Wickan long-knives out of a sympathetic veteran. The man had them at the bottom of his kit as souvenirs of an old campaign. The curved knives were wrapped in oiled cloth but were badly corroded none the less. Jethiss selected a flat rock and scraped the blades as he walked along through the days.

The party ascended winding mountain trails. The way was rocky, the slopes bare, and Fisher wondered if perhaps it was this feature of the landscape that lay behind the name the Bone Peninsula. He wondered, but was not convinced. Marshal Teal and his Letherii soldiers led the column. Malle and her Malazan guard followed. Enguf and his Genabackan pirates came bringing up the rear, puffing and sweating, unaccustomed as they were to any long overland march.

Fisher and Jethiss walked with Malle’s guard of twenty Malazan veterans. The Gris matriarch still rode her donkey, as sure-footed as any of its kind. Its hooves clicked and clattered over the stones as they climbed. At times the Cawn mage Holden walked with Fisher, but most of the time the mage walked alone, taking notes and making sketches – all for his hobby of natural philosophy, or so he claimed. Fisher wished he would simply drop the pretence, as he believed he knew what the man was doing. Especially as he once came quietly upon the fellow and heard him counting his steps as he paced along.

It was no surprise to him that the Malazans would be taking an interest in the interior of Assail, although if he’d been consulted he would have advised them not to get involved; in his opinion it was a pit that would swallow any entity foolish enough to jump in.