Never bargain with a man who has nothing to lose.
Sayings of the Fool
Thenys Bule Leoman of the Flails staggered from the inner sanctum, a sheen of sweat on his face. In a hoarse voice he asked, 'Is it night yet?'
Corabb rose quickly, then sat back down on the bench as blackness threatened to engulf him – he had been sitting too long, watching Dunsparrow attempt to pace a trench in the stone floor. He opened his mouth to reply, but the Malazan woman spoke first.
'No, Leoman, the sun rides the horizon.'
'Movement yet from the Malazan camps?'
'The last runner reported half a bell ago. Nothing at that time.'
There was a strange, triumphant gleam in Leoman's eyes that troubled Corabb, but he had no time to ask as the great warrior strode past. '
We must hurry. Back to the palace – some final instructions.'
The enemy was attacking this very night? How could Leoman be so certain? Corabb stood once again, more slowly this time. The High Priestess had forbidden witnesses to the ritual, and when the Queen of Dreams manifested, even the High Priestess and her acolytes had left the chamber with discomfited expressions, leaving Leoman alone with the goddess. Corabb fell in two steps behind his leader, prevented from drawing closer by that damned woman, Dunsparrow.
'Their mages will make detection difficult,' the Third was saying as they headed out of the temple.
'No matter,' Leoman snapped. 'It's not like we have any worthy of the name anyway. Even so, we need to make it look as if we're trying.'
Corabb frowned. Trying? He did not understand any of this. 'We need soldiers on the walls!' he said. 'As many as can be mustered!'
'We can't hold the walls,' Dunsparrow said over her shoulder. 'You must have realized that, Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas.'
'Then – then, why are we here?'
The sky overhead was darkening, the bruise of dusk only moments away.
Through empty streets, the three of them rushed along. Corabb's frown deepened. The Queen of Dreams. Goddess of divination and who knew what else. He despised all gods, except, of course, for Dryjhna the Apocalyptic. Meddlers, deceivers, murderers one and all. That Leoman would seek one out… this was troubling indeed.
Dunsparrow's fault, he suspected. She was a woman. The Queen's priesthood was mostly women – at least, he thought it was – there'd been a High Priestess, after all, a blurry-eyed matron swimming in the fumes of durhang and likely countless other substances. Just to stand near her was to feel drunk. Too seductive by far. Nothing good was going to come of this, nothing at all.
They approached the palace and, finally, some signs of activity.
Warriors moving about, weapons clanking, shouts from the fortifications. So, the outer walls would be breached – no other reason for all this preparation. Leoman expected a second siege, here at the palace itself. And soon.
'Warleader!' Corabb said, shouldering Dunsparrow aside. 'Give me command of the palace gates! We shall hold against the Malazan storm in the name of the Apocalypse!'
Leoman glanced back at him, considering, then he shook his head. 'No, friend. I need you for a far more important task.'
'What will that be, Great Warrior? I am equal to it.'
'You'd better be,' Leoman said.
Dunsparrow snorted.
'Command me, Commander.'
This time she laughed outright. Corabb scowled at her.
Leoman replied, 'Your task this night is this, my friend. Guard my back.'
'Ah, we shall be leading the fight, then, in the very frontmost ranks!
Glorious, we shall deliver unto the Malazan dogs a judgement they shall never forget.'
Leoman slapped him on the shoulder. 'Aye, Corabb,' he said. 'That we shall.'
They continued on, into the palace.
Dunsparrow was still laughing.
Gods, how Corabb hated her.
Lostara Yil swept back the tent-flap and marched inside. She found Pearl lounging on looted silk pillows, a hookah of wine-flavoured durhang settled like a bowl in his lap. Through the smoke haze, he met her fury with a lazy, fume-laden regard, which of course made her even angrier.
'I see you've planned out the rest of this night, Pearl. Even as this damned army prepares to assault Y'Ghatan.'
He shrugged. 'The Adjunct doesn't want my help. I could have snuck into the palace by now, you know – they have no mages to speak of. I could be at this very moment sliding a knife across Leoman's throat.
But no, she won't have it. What am I to do?'
'She doesn't trust you, Pearl, and to be honest, I'm not surprised.'
His brows lifted. 'Darling, I am offended. You, more than anyone else, know the sacrifices I have made to protect the Adjunct's fragile psyche. Needless to say,' he added, pausing for a lungful of the cloying smoke, 'I have of late been tempted to shatter that psyche with the truth about her sister, just out of spite.'
'Your restraint impresses me,' Lostara said. 'Of course, if you did something as cruel as that, I'd have to kill you.'
'What a relief, knowing how you endeavour to protect the purity of my soul.'
'Purity is not the issue,' she replied. 'Not yours, at least.'
He smiled. 'I was attempting to cast myself in a more favourable light, my sweet.'
'It is clear to me, Pearl, that you imagined our brief romance – if one could call it that – as indicative of genuine feelings. I find that rather pathetic. Tell me, do you plan on ever returning me to my company in the Red Blades?'
'Not quite yet, I'm afraid.'
'Has she given us another mission?'
'The Adjunct? No, but as you may recall, what we did for Tavore was a favour. We work for the Empress.'
'Fine. What does our Empress command?'
His eyes were heavy-lidded as they studied her for a moment. 'Wait and see.'
'She commands us to wait and see?'
'All right, since you insist, you are temporarily detached from me, a notion that should give you untold satisfaction. Go join the marines, or the sappers, or whoever in Hood's name is attacking tonight. And if you get a limb lopped off don't come crawling back to me – gods, I can't believe I just said that. Of course you can come crawling back to me, just be sure to bring the limb along.'
'You don't possess High Denul, Pearl, so what point in bringing back the limb?'
'I'd just like to see it, that's all.'
'If I do come crawling back, Pearl, it will be to stick a knife in your neck.'
'With those cheery words you can go now, dear.' She wheeled and marched from the tent.
Fist Keneb joined Tene Baralta in the mustering area just inside the north pickets. Moths and biting flies were swarming in the crepuscular air. Heaps of rocky earth rose like modest barrows where the soldiers had dug their trenches. As yet, few squads had assembled, so as not to reveal the army's intentions too early, although Keneb suspected that Leoman and his warriors already knew all that needed to be known. Even so, the Fist noted as he stared at the distant, uneven wall, topmost among the tiers of earth and rubble, there seemed to be no activity.
Y'Ghatan was deathly quiet, virtually unlit as darkness spread its cloak.
Tene Baralta was in full armour: scaled vest, chain skirt and camail, greaves and vambraces of beaten bronze rimmed with iron. He was adjusting the straps of his helm as Keneb came to his side.
'Blistig is not happy,' Keneb said.
Baralta's laugh was low. 'Tonight belongs to you and me, Keneb. He only moves in if we get in trouble. Temul was wondering… this plan, it matches his own. Did you advise the Adjunct?'
'I did. Inform Temul that she was pleased that his strategy matched her own in this matter.'
'Ah.'
'Have your company's mages begun?' Keneb asked.
A grunt, then, 'They say there's no-one there, no-one waiting to counter them. Nil and Nether have made the same discovery. Could Leoman have lost all his mages, do you think?'
'I don't know. Seems unlikely.'
'I trust you've heard the rumours, Keneb.'
'About what?'
'Plague. From the east. It has swept through Ehrlitan. If we fail tonight and find ourselves bogged down outside this city…'
Keneb nodded. 'Then we must succeed, Tene Baralta.'
A rider was galloping on the road behind and to their right, fast approaching. Both men turned as the pounding hoofs reverberated through the ground at their feet. 'An urgent message?' Keneb wondered, squinting to make out the grey-cloaked figure, face hidden by a hood.
A longsword at his side, the scabbard banded in white enamel. 'I do not recog-'
The rider rode straight for them. Bellowing in anger, Tene Baralta leapt to one side. Keneb followed, then spun as the rider flew past, his white horse reaching the trenches, and launching itself over. The picket guards shouted. A crossbow discharged, the quarrel striking the stranger on the back, then caroming off into the night. Still riding at full gallop, the figure now leaning forward over the horse's neck, they sailed over the narrow inside trench, then raced for the city.
Where a gate cracked open, spilling muted lantern light.
'Hood's breath!' Tene Beralta swore, regaining his feet. 'An enemy rides right through our entire army!'
'We've no exclusive claim on bravery,' Keneb said. 'And I admit to a grudging admiration – I am glad to have witnessed it.'
'A rider to bring word to Leoman-'
'Nothing he doesn't already know, Tene Baralta. Consider this a lesson, a reminder-'
'I need none, Keneb. Look at this, my helm's full of dirt. Light grey cloak, white horse and white-banded sword. A tall bastard. I will find him, I swear it, and he will pay for his temerity.'
'We've enough concerns ahead of us this night,' Keneb said. 'If you go off hunting one man, Tene Baralta…'
He emptied the dirt from the helm. 'I hear you. Pray to Treach, then, that the bastard crosses my path one more time this night.'
Treach, is it? Fener… gone so quickly from men's minds. A message no god would dare to heed, I think.
Lieutenant Pores stood with Captain Kindly and the Korelri Faradan Sort, within sight of their respective companies. Word of a spy in the army's midst, boldly riding into Y'Ghatan, had everyone more on edge than they already were, given that at any moment would come the order to move. Sappers in the lead, of course, disguised within gloomy magic.
Magic. It's all gloomy. Worse than sappers, in fact. In combination, well, this night was headed straight into the Abyss, as far as Pores was concerned. He wondered where old Ebron was, and if he was participating in the rituals – he missed his old squad. Limp, Bell, and that new lass, Sinn – now there was a scary creature. Well, maybe he didn't miss them all that much. Dangerous, one and all, and mostly to each other.
Captain Kindly had been trying to take the measure of the woman standing beside him – a choice of phrase that brought a small smile to the lieutenant's mouth. Take her measure. But ain't nobody's got that close, from what I hear. In any case, it was frustrating being unable to get a sense of a fellow officer. Cold iron, probably – you don't stand the Wall long enough to survive without something icy, brutal and calculated wrapped round the soul – but this one was cold in every other way besides. Rarest of all, a woman of few words. He smiled again.
'Wipe that grin off your face, Lieutenant,' Kindly said, 'or I'll conclude you've lost your mind and promote you.'
'Apologies, Captain, I promise I won't do it again. Please don't promote me.'
'You two are idiots,' Faradan Sort said.
Well, that's one way to halt a conversation.
Sergeant Hellian looked on the wavering scene, comforted by an overwhelming sense of propriety, although the way everyone was swaying was making her nauseous. Corporal Urb separated himself from the squad and came up to her.
'You ready for this, Sergeant?'
'Ready for what?' she demanded. Then scowled, all sense of propriety vanishing. 'If that bastard hadn't disappeared the way he did, I wouldn't be trading my sword for a jug of that local rot, would I?'
She reached down for the weapon, her hand groping as it found only air, then the empty scabbard. 'Why didn't you stop me, Urb? I mean, it was my sword, after all. What am I s'posed to use?'
He shifted nervously, then leaned closer. 'Get a new one from the armoury, Sergeant.'
'And that'll get back to the captain and we'll get shipped off somewhere even worse.'
'Worse? Where is worse than this, Sergeant?'
'Korel. Theftian Penins'la. Black Coral, under the empty eyes of the Tiste Andii. The Wreckers' Coast on North Assail-'
'Ain't no Malazan forces there.'
'No, but it's worse than this.'
'One story from some addled sailor in Kartool and you're now convinced that Hood himself strides the shadows-'
'He's stridin' our shallows – shadows, I mean.'
'Listen, Sergeant, we're about to head into battle-'
'Right, where's that jug?' She looked round, found it lying on its side near somebody's bedroll. 'Hey, who in my squad ain't packed up their kit?'
'That's yours, Sergeant,' Urb said.
'Oh.' Collecting the jug, she gave it a shake and was pleased at the sloshing sounds within. She glanced over to stare at her… squad.
There were two soldiers. Two. Some squad. Captain had said something about a few newcomers on the way. 'Well, where are they?'
'Who?' Urb asked. 'Your squad? They're right in front of you.'
'Touchy and Brethless.'
'That's right.'
'Well, where are the rest? Didn't we have more?'
'Had four marching with us the last day, but they were reassigned.'
'So my squad is a corporal and two soljers.'
'Twins, Sergeant,' Touchy said. 'But I'm older, as I'm sure you can tell.'
'And mentally underdeveloped, Sergeant,' Brethless said. 'Those last few minutes were obviously crucial, as I'm sure you can tell.'
Hellian turned away. 'They look the same to me, Urb. All right, has the word come yet? We s'posed to be mustering somewhere right now?'
'Sergeant, you might want to pass that jug around – we're about to get in a fight and I don't know about you and them two, but I joined the local city guard so's I wouldn't have to do any of this. I been to the latrines four times since supper and I'm still all squishy inside.'
At Urb's suggestion Hellian clutched the jug tight to her chest. '
Getyerown.'
'Sergeant.'
'All right, a couple mouthfuls each, then I get the rest. I see anybody take more'n two swallows and I cut 'em down where they stand.'
'With what?' Urb asked as he pulled the jug from her reluctant hands.
Hellian frowned. With what? What was he talking about? Oh, right. She thought for a moment, then smiled. 'I'll borrow your sword, of course.' There, what a pleasing solution.
Sergeant Balm squatted in the dirt, studying the array of pebbles, stone discs and clay buttons resting on the elongated Troughs board.
He muttered under his breath, wondering if this was a dream, a nightmare and he was still asleep. He glanced across at Sergeant Moak, then looked back down at the game-board.
Something was wrong. He could make no sense of the pieces. He'd forgotten how to play the game. Straws, discs,buttons, pebbles – what were they all about? What did they signify? Who was winning? 'Who's playing this damned game?' he demanded.
'You and me, you Dal Honese weasel,' Moak said.
'I think you're lying. I never seen this game before in my life.' He glared round at all the faces, the soldiers all looking down to watch, all looking at him now. Strange expressions – had he ever seen any of them before? He was a sergeant, wasn't he? 'Where's my damned squad?
I'm supposed to be with my damned squad. Has the call come? What am I doing here?' He shot upright, making sure one foot toppled the gameboard. Pieces flew, soldiers jumping back.
'Bad omen!' one hissed, backing away.
Growling, Moak rose, reaching for the knife at his belt. 'Swamp scum, you'll pay for that. I was winning-'
'No you weren't! Those pieces were a mess! A jumble! They didn't make sense!' He reached up and scratched at his face. 'What – this is clay!
My face is covered in clay! A death mask! Who did this to me?'
A familiar but musty-smelling man stepped close to Balm. 'Sergeant, your squad's right here. I'm Deadsmell-'
'I'll say.'
'Corporal Deadsmell. And that's Throatslitter, and Widdershins, Galt and Lobe-'
'All right, all right, be quiet, I ain't blind. When's the call coming? We should've heard something by now.'
Moak closed in. 'I wasn't finished with you – that was a curse, what you did, Balm, on me and my squad – since I was winning the game. You cursed us, you damned warlock-'
'I did not! It was an accident. Come on, Deadsmell, let's make our way to the pickets, I'm done waiting here.'
'You're headed the wrong way, Sergeant!'
'Lead on, then! Who designed this damned camp, anyway? None of it makes any sense!'
Behind them, Sergeant Moak made to step after them, but his corporal, Stacker, pulled him back. 'It's all right, Sergeant. I heard about this from my da. It's the Confusion. Comes to some before a battle.
They lose track – of everything. It should settle down once the fighting starts – but sometimes it don't, and if that's the case with Balm, then it's his squad that's doomed, not us.'
'You sure about all that, Stacker?'
'Yeah. Remember Fist Gamet? Listen. It's all right. We should check our weapons, one last time.'
Moak sheathed his knife. 'Good idea, get them on it, then.'
Twenty paces away, Deadsmell fell in step alongside his sergeant. '
Smart, all that back there. You was losing bad. Faking the Confusion, well, Sergeant, I'm impressed.'
Balm stared at the man. Who was he again? And what was he blathering on about? What language was the fool speaking, anyway?
'I got no appetite,' Lutes said, tossing the chunk of bread away. A camp dog closed in, collected the food and scampered off. 'I feel sick,' the soldier continued.
'You ain't the only one,' Maybe said. 'I'm in there first, you know.
Us sappers. Rest of you got it easy. We got to set charges, meaning we're running with cussers and crackers over rough ground, climbing rubble, probably under fire from the walls. Then, down at the foot of the wall and Hood knows what's gonna pour down on us. Boiling water, oil, hot sand, bricks, offal, barrack-buckets. So it's raining down.
Set the munitions. Acid on the wax – too much and we all go up right there and then. Dozens of sappers, and any one of 'em makes a mistake, or some piece of rock drops smack onto a munition. Boom! We're as good as dead already, if you ask me. Bits of meat. Tomorrow morning the crows will come down and that's that. Send word to my family, will you? Maybe was blown to bits at Y'Ghatan, that's all. No point in going into the gory details – hey, where you going? Gods below, Lutes, do your throwing up outa my sight, will you? Hood take us, that's awful. Hey, Balgrid! Look! Our squad healer's heaving his guts out!'
Gesler, Strings, Cuttle, Truth and Pella sat around the dying coals of a hearth, drinking tea.
'They're all losing their minds with this waiting,' Gesler said.
'I get just as bad before every battle,' Strings admitted. 'Cold and loose inside, if you know what I mean. It never goes away.'
'But you settle once it's begun,' Cuttle said. 'We all do, 'cause we' ve done this before. We settled, and we know we settle. Most of these soldiers, they don't know nothing of the sort. They don't know how they'll be once the fighting starts. So they're all terrified they'll curl up into cringing cowards.'
'Most of them probably will,' Gesler said.
'I don't know about that, Sergeant,' Pella said. 'Saw plenty of soldiers just like these ones at Skullcup. When the rebellion hit, well, they fought and they fought well, all things considered.'
'Outnumbered.'
'Yes.'
'So they died.'
'Most of them.'
'That's the thing with war,' Gesler said. 'Ain't nearly as many surprises, when all's said and done, as you might think. Or hope.
Heroic stands usually end up with not a single hero left standing.
Held out longer than expected, but the end was the same anyway. The end's always the same.'
'Abyss below, Gesler,' Strings said, 'ain't you a cheery one.'
'Just being realistic, Fid. Damn, I wish Stormy was here, now it's up to me to keep an eye on my squad.'
'Yes,' Cuttle said, 'that's what sergeants do.'
'You suggesting Stormy should've been sergeant and me corporal?'
'Now why would I do that?' the sapper asked. 'You're both just as bad as each other. Now Pella here…'
'No thanks,' Pella said.
Strings sipped his tea. 'Just make sure everybody sticks together.
Captain wants us on the tip of the spear, as fast and as far in as we can get – the rest will just have to catch up. Cuttle?'
'Once the wall's blown I'll pull our sappers together and we meet you inside the breach. Where's Borduke right now?'
'Went for a walk. Seems his squad got into some kind of sympathetic heaves. Borduke got disgusted and stormed off.'
'So long as everybody's belly is empty by the time we get the call,'
Cuttle said. 'Especially Maybe.'
'Especially maybe,' Gesler said, with a low laugh. 'That's a good one.
You've made my day, Cuttle.'
'Believe me, it wasn't intentional.'
Seated nearby, hidden from the others in a brush-bordered hollow, Bottle smiled. So that's how the veterans get ready for a fight. Same as everyone else. That did indeed comfort him. Mostly. Well, maybe not. Better had they been confident, brash and swaggering. This – what was coming – sounded all too uncertain.
He had just returned from the mage gathering. Magical probes had revealed a muted presence in Y'Ghatan, the priestly kind, for the most part, and what there was of that was confused, panicked. Or strangely quiescent. For the sappers' advance, Bottle would be drawing upon Meanas, rolling banks of mist, tumbling darkness on all sides. Easily dispelled, if a mage of any skill was on the wall, but there didn't seem to be any. Most troubling of all, Bottle would need all his concentration to work Meanas, thus preventing him from using spirit magic. Leaving him as blind as those few enemy soldiers on the wall.
He admitted to a bad run of nerves – he hadn't been nearly so shaky at Raraku. And with Leoman's ambush in the sandstorm, well, it was an ambush, wasn't it – there'd been no time for terror. In any case, he didn't like this feeling.
Rising into a crouch, he moved away, up and out of the hollow, straightening and walking casually into the squad's camp. It seemed Strings didn't mind leaving his soldiers alone for a while before things heated up, letting them chew on their own thoughts, then – hopefully – reining everyone in at the last moment.
Koryk was tying yet more fetishes onto the various rings and loops in his armour, strips of coloured cloth, bird bones and chain-links to add to the ubiquitous finger bones that now signified the Fourteenth Army. Smiles was flipping her throwing-knives, the blades slapping softly on the leather of her gloves. Tarr stood nearby, shield already strapped on his left arm, short sword in his gauntleted right hand, most of his face hidden by his helm's cheek-guards.
Turning, Bottle studied the distant city. Dark – there seemed not a single lantern glowing from that squat, squalid heap. He already hated Y'Ghatan.
A low whistle in the night. Sudden stirring. Cuttle appeared. '
Sappers, to me. It's time.'
Gods below, so it is.
Leoman stood in the Falah'd's throne room. Eleven warriors were arrayed before him, glassy-eyed, their leather armour webbed in harnesses with straps and loops dangling. Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas studied them – familiar faces one and all, yet now barely recognizable beneath the blood and strips of skin. Deliverers of the Apocalypse, sworn now to fanaticism, sworn not to see the coming dawn, bound to death this night. The very sight of them, with their drug-soaked eyes, chilled Corabb.
'You know what is asked of you this night,' Leoman said to his chosen warriors. 'Leave now, my brothers and sisters, under the pure eyes of Dryjhna, and we shall meet again at Hood's Gate.'
They bowed and headed off.
Corabb watched until the last of them vanished beyond the great doors, then faced Leoman. 'Warleader, what is to happen? What have you planned? You spoke of Dryjhna, yet this night you have bargained with the Queen of Dreams. Speak to me, before I begin to lose faith.'
'Poor Corabb,' Dunsparrow murmured.
Leoman shot her a glare, then said, 'No time, Corabb, but I tell you this – I have had my fill of fanatics, through this lifetime and a dozen others, I have had my fill-'
Boots sounded on the floor in the hallway beyond, and they turned as a tall, cloaked warrior strode in, drawing his hood back. Corabb's eyes widened, and hope surged through him as he stepped forward. 'High Mage L'oric! Truly, Dryjhna shines bright in the sky tonight!'
The tall man was massaging one shoulder, wincing as he said, 'Would that I could have arrived within the damned city walls – too many mages stirring in the Malazan camp. Leoman, I did not know you had the power to summon – I tell you, I was headed elsewhere-'
'The Queen of Dreams, L'oric.'
'Again? What does she want?'
Leoman shrugged. 'You were part of the deal, I'm afraid.'
'What deal?'
'I will explain later. In any case, we need you this night. Come, we climb to the South Tower.'
Another surge of hope. Corabb knew he could trust Leoman. The Holy Warrior possessed a plan, a diabolical, brilliant plan. He had been a fool to doubt. He set off in the wake of Dunsparrow, High Mage L'oric and Leoman of the Flails.
Loric. Now we can fight the Malazans on equal terms. And in such a contest, we can naught but win!
In the dark, beyond the rough ground of the pickets, Bottle crouched a few paces away from the handful of sappers he had been assigned to protect. Cuttle, Maybe, Crump, Ramp and Widdershins. Nearby was a second group being covered by Balgrid: Taffo, Able, Gupp, Jump and Bowl. People he knew from the march, now revealed as sappers or wouldbe sappers. Insane. Never knew there were so many in our company.
Strings was in neither group; he would be leading the rest of the squads into the breach before the smoke and dust settled.
Y'Ghatan's walls were a mess, tiered with older efforts, the last series Malazan-built in the classic sloping style, twenty paces thick at its base. As far as anyone knew, this would be the first time the sappers would challenge the engineering of imperial fortifications – he could see the gleam in their eyes.
Someone approached from his right and Bottle squinted through the gloom as the man arrived to crouch down beside him. 'Ebron, isn't it?'
'Aye, Ashok Regiment.'
Bottle smiled. 'They don't exist no more, Ebron.'
He tapped his chest, then said, 'You got a squad-mate of mine in your group.'
'The one named Crump.'
'Aye. Just thought you should know – he's dangerous.'
'Aren't they all?'
'No, this one especially. He was tossed out of the Mott Irregulars back on Genabackis.'
'Sorry, that don't mean nothing to me, Ebron.'
'Too bad. Anyway, consider yourself warned. Might think about mentioning it to Cuttle.'
'All right, I will.'
'Oponn's pull on you this night, lad.'
'And on you, Ebron.'
The man vanished into the darkness once more.
More waiting. No lights visible along the city's wall, nor the flanking corner bastions. No movement among the battlements.
A low whistle. Bottle met Cuttle's eyes, and the sapper nodded.
Meanas, the warren of shadows, illusion and deception. He fashioned a mental image of the warren, a swirling wall before him, then began focusing his will, watched as a wound formed, lurid red at first, then a hole burning through. Power poured into him. Enough! No more. Gods, why is it so strong? Faint sound, something like movement, a presence, there, on the other side of the warren's wall…
Then… nothing.
Of course there was no wall. That had been simply a construct, a fashioning in Bottle's mind to manifest an idea into something physical. Something that he could then breach.
Simple, really. Just incredibly dangerous. We damned mages must be mad, to play with this, to persist in the conceit that it can be managed, shaped, twisted by will alone.
Power is blood.
Blood is power.
And this blood, it belongs to an Elder God…
A hiss from Cuttle. He blinked, then nodded as he began shaping the sorcery of Meanas. Mists, shot through with inky gloom, spreading out across the rough ground, snaking among the rubble, and the sappers set out, plunged into it, and moved on, unseen.
Bottle followed a few paces behind. The soldiers hiding in that magic could see. Nothing of the illusion confounded their senses. Illusions were usually one- or at best two-sided; seen from the other sides, well, there was nothing to see. True masters, of course, could cheat light in all directions, could fashion something that looked physically real, that moved as it should, casting its own shadow, even scuffing up illusional dust. Bottle's level of skill was nowhere near that. Balgrid had managed it – barely, it was true, but still… impressive.
But I hate this kind of sorcery. Sure, it's fascinating. Fun to play with, on occasion, but not like tonight, not when it's suddenly life and death.
They threw wagon-planks across the narrow moat Leoman's soldiers had dug, then drew closer to the wall.
Lostara Yil came to Tene Baralta's side. They were positioned at the picket line, behind them the massed ranks of soldiery. Her former commander's face revealed surprise as he looked upon her.
'I did not think to see you again, Captain.'
She shrugged. 'I was getting fat and lazy, Commander.'
'That Claw you were with is not a popular man. The decision was made that he was better off staying in his tent – indefinitely.'
'I have no objection to that.'
Through the gloom they could see swirling clouds of deeper darkness, rolling ominously towards the city's wall.
'Are you prepared, Captain,' Baralta asked, 'to bloody your sword this night?'
'More than you could imagine, Commander.'
Waves of vertigo rippled through Sergeant Hellian, nausea threatening as she watched the magics draw ever closer to Y'Ghatan. It was Y'
Ghatan, wasn't it? She turned to the sergeant standing beside her. '
What city is that? Y'Ghatan. I know about that city. It's where Malazans die. Who are you? Who's undermining the walls? Where are the siege weapons? What kind of siege is this?'
'I'm Strings, and you look to be drunk.'
'So? I hate fighting. Strip me of my command, throw me in chains, find a dungeon – only, no spiders. And find that bastard, the one who disappeared, arrest him and chain him within reach. I want to rip out his throat.'
The sergeant was staring at her. She stared back – at least he wasn't weaving back and forth. Not much, anyway.
'You hate fighting, and you want to rip out someone's throat?'
'Stop trying to confuse me, Stirrings. I'm confused 'nough as it is.'
'Where's your squad, Sergeant?'
'Somewhere.'
'Where is your corporal? What is his name?'
'Urb? I don't know.'
'Hood's breath.'
Pella sat watching his sergeant, Gesler, talking with Borduke. The sergeant of the Sixth Squad had only three soldiers left under his command – Lutes, Ibb and Corporal Hubb – the others either magicking or sapping. Of course, there were only two left to Gesler's Fifth Squad – Truth and Pella himself. The plan was to link up after the breach, and that had Pella nervous. They might have to grab anyone close by and to Hood with real squads.
Borduke was tugging at his beard as if he wanted to yank it off. Hubb stood close to his sergeant, a sickly expression on his face.
Gesler looked damn near bored.
Pella thought about his squad. Something odd about all three of them.
Gesler, Stormy and Truth. Not just that strangely gold skin, either…
Well, he'd stick close to Truth – that lad still seemed too wide-eyed for all of this, despite what he'd already gone through. That damned ship, Silanda, which had been commandeered by the Adjunct and was now likely north of them, somewhere in the Kansu Sea or west of it. Along with the transport fleet and a sizeable escort of dromons. The three had sailed it, sharing the deck with still-alive severed heads and a lot worse below-decks.
Pella checked his sword one more time. He'd tied new leather strapping round the grip's tang – not as tight as he would have liked. He hadn't soaked it yet, either, not wanting the grip still wet when he went into battle. He drew the crossbow from his shoulder, kept a quarrel in hand, ready for a quick load once the order came to advance.
Bloody marines. Should've volunteered for plain old infantry. Should' ve gotten a transfer. Should've never joined up at all. Skullcup was more than enough for me, dammit. Should've run, that's what I should' ve done.
Night wind whistling about them, Corabb, Leoman, L'oric, Dunsparrow and a guard stood on the gently swaying platform atop the palace tower. The city spread out in all directions, frighteningly dark and seeming lifeless.
'What are we here to see, Leoman?' L'oric asked.
'Wait, my friend – ah, there!' He pointed to the rooftop of a distant building near the west wall. On its flat top flickered muted lanternlight. Then… gone.
'And there!'
Another building, another flash of light.
'Another! More, they are all in place! Fanatics! Damned fools! Dryjhna take us, this is going to work!'
Work? Corabb frowned, then scowled. He caught Dunsparrow's gaze on him – she mouthed a kiss. Oh how he wanted to kill her.
Heaps of rubble, broken pots, a dead, bloated dog, and animal bones, there wasn't a single stretch of even ground at the base of the wall.
Bottle had followed on the heels of the sappers, up the first tier, brick fragments spilling away beneath their boots, then cries of pain and cursing as someone stumbled over a wasp nest – darkness alone had saved them from what could have been a fatal few moments – the wasps were sluggish – Bottle was astonished they had come out at all, until he saw what the soldier had managed. Knocking over one rock, then thumping his entire foot down the nest's maw.
He'd momentarily relinquished Meanas, then, to slip into the swarming soul-sparks of the wasps, quelling their panic and anger. Devoid of disguising magic for the last two tiers, the sappers had scrambled like terrified beetles – the rock they had hidden under suddenly vanishing – and made the base of the wall well ahead of the others.
Where they crouched, unlimbering their packs of munitions.
Bottle scampered up to crouch at Cuttle's side. 'The gloom's back,' he whispered. 'Sorry about that – good thing they weren't black wasps – Maybe'd be dead by now.'
'Not to mention yours truly,' Cuttle said. 'It was me who stepped in the damned thing.'
'How many stings?'
Two or three, right leg's numb, but that's better than it was fifteen heartbeats ago.'
'Numb? Cuttle, that's bad. Find Lutes fast as you can once we're done here.'
'Count on it. Now, shut up, I got to concentrate.'
Bottle watched him lift out from his pack a bundle of munitions – two cussers strapped together, looking like a pair of ample breasts.
Affixed to them at the base were two spike-shaped explosives – crackers. Gingerly setting the assemblage on the ground beside him, Cuttle then turned his attention to the base of the wall. He cleared bricks and rocks to make an angled hole, large and deep enough to accommodate the wall-breaker.
That was the easy part, Bottle reminded himself as he watched Cuttle place the explosive into the hole. Now comes the acid on the wax plug.
He glanced up and down the length of wall, saw other sappers doing the very same thing Cuttle had just done. 'Don't get ahead of the rest,'
Bottle said.
'I know what needs knowing, mage. Stick to your spells and leave me alone.'
Miffed, Bottle looked away again. Then his eyes widened. 'Hey, what's he doing – Cuttle, what's Crump doing?'
Cursing, the veteran glanced over. 'Gods below-'
The sapper from Sergeant Cord's squad had prepared not one wallbreaker, but three, the mass of cussers and crackers filling his entire pack. His huge teeth were gleaming, eyes glittering as he wrestled it loose and, lying on his back, head closest to the wall, settled it on his stomach and began crawling until there was the audible crunch of the back of his skull contacting the rearing stonework.
Cuttle scrambled over. 'You!' he hissed. 'Are you mad? Take those damned things apart!'
The man's grin collapsed. 'But I made it myself!'
'Keep your voice down, idiot!'
Crump rolled and shoved the mass of munitions up against the wall. A small glittering vial appeared in his right hand. 'Wait till you see this!' he whispered, smiling once more.
'Wait! Not yet!'
A sizzle, threads of smoke risingCuttle was on his feet, and, dragging a leg, he began running. And he began screaming. 'Everyone! Back! Run, you fools! Run!'
Figures pelting away on all sides, Bottle among them. Crump raced past as if the mage had been standing still, the man's absurdly long legs pumping high and wild, knobby knees and huge boots scything the air.
Munitions had been left against the wall but unset, others remained a pace or more back. Sacks of sharpers, smokers and burners left behind – gods below, this is going to be badShouts from atop the wall, now, voices raised in alarm. A ballista thumped as a missile was loosed at the fleeing sappers. Bottle heard the crack and skitter as it struck the ground.
Faster – He glanced over his shoulder, and saw Cuttle hobbling along in his wake. Hood take us! Bottle skidded to a halt, turned and ran back to the sapper's side.
'Fool!' Cuttle grunted. 'Just go!'
'Lean on my shoulder-'
'You've just killed yourself-'
Cuttle was no lightweight. Bottle sagged with his weight as they ran.
'Twelve!' the sapper gasped.
The mage scanned the ground ahead in growing panic. Some cover'Eleven!'
A shelf of old foundation, solid limestone, there, ten, nine paces'Ten!'
Five more paces – it was looking good – a hollow on the other side'Nine!'
Two paces, then down, as Cuttle screamed: 'Eight!'
The night vanished, flinging stark shadows forward as the two men tumbled down behind the shelf of limestone, into a heap of rotting vegetation. The ground lifted to meet them, a god's uppercut, driving the air from Bottle's lungs.
Sound, like a collapsing mountain, then a wall of stone, smoke, fire, and a rain filled with flames**** The concussion threw Lostara Yil from her feet moments after she'd stared, uncomprehending, at the squads of marines arrayed beyond the picket line – stared, as they were one and all flattened, rolling back before an onrushing wave – multiple explosions now, rapid-fire, marching along the wall to either side – then she was hammered in the chest, flung to the ground amidst other soldiers.
Rocks arrived in an almost-horizontal hail, fast as sling-stones, cracking off armour, thudding deep into exposed flesh – bones snapping, screams-the light dimmed, wavered, then contracted to a knot of flames, filling an enormous gap in Y'Ghatan's wall, almost dead-centre, and as Lostara – propped on one elbow, braving the hail of stones – watched, she saw the flanks of that huge gap slowly crumble, and, beyond, two three-storey tenements folding inward, flames shooting up like fleeing soulsAmong the slowing rain, now, body-parts.
Atop the palace tower, Corabb and the others had been thrown down – the guard who had accompanied them cartwheeling over the platform's low wall and vanishing with a dwindling scream, barely heard as the tower swayed, as the roar settled around them like the fury of a thousand demons, as huge stones slammed into the tower's side, others ricocheting off to crash among the buildings below, and, now, a terrible cracking, popping sound that sent Corabb clawing across the pavestones towards the hatch.
'It's going down!' he screamed.
Two figures reached the hatch before him – Leoman and Dunsparrow.
Cracking, sagging, the platform starting its inexorable pitch. Clouds of choking dust. Corabb reached the hatch and pulled himself into it headfirst, joining Leoman and the Malazan woman as they slithered like snakes down the winding steps. Corabb's left heel connected with a jaw and he heard L'oric's grunt of pain, then cursing in unknown languages.
That explosion – the breach of the wall – gods below, he had never seen anything like it. How could one challenge these Malazans? With their damned Moranth munitions, their gleeful disregard of the rules of honourable war.
Tumbling, rolling, sprawling out onto a scree of rubble on the main floor of the palace – chambers to their left had vanished beneath the section of tower that had broken off. Corabb saw a leg jutting from the collapsed ceiling, strangely unmarred, free even of blood or dust.
Coughing, Corabb clambered upright, eyes stinging, countless bruises upon his body, and stared at Leoman, who was already on his feet and brushing mortar dust from his clothes. Near him, L'oric and Dunsparrow were also pulling themselves free of bricks and shards of wood.
Glancing over, Leoman of the Flails said, 'Maybe the tower wasn't such a good idea after all. Come on, we need to saddle our horses – if they still live – and ride to the Temple!'
The Temple of Scalissara? But- what- why?
The rattle of gravel, the thump of larger chunks, and gusts of smoky, dusty heat. Bottle opened his eyes. Sebar husks, hairy and leathery, crowded his vision, his nose filling with the pungent overripe scent of sebar pulp. The fruit's juice was considered a delicacy – the reek was nauseating – he knew he'd never be able to drink the stuff again.
A groan from the rubbish somewhere to his left. 'Cuttle? That you?'
'The numb feeling's gone. Amazing what a shot of terror can do to a body.'
'You sure the leg's still there?'
'Reasonably.'
'You counted down to eight!'
'What?'
'You said eight! Then – boom!'
'Had to keep your hopes up, didn't I? Where in Hood's pit are we, anyway?'
Bottle began clawing his way free, amazed that he seemed uninjured – not even a scratch. 'Among the living, sapper.' His first view of the scene on the killing ground made no sense. Too much light – it had been dark, hadn't it? Then he saw soldiers amidst the rubble, some writhing in pain, others picking themselves up, covered in dust, coughing in the foul air.
The breach on Y'Ghatan's south wall ran a full third of its length, fifty paces in from the southwest bastion to well beyond the centre gate fortifications. Buildings had collapsed, whilst those that remained upright, flanking the raging flames of the gap, were themselves burning, although it seemed that most of that had come from the innumerable burners among the sapper-kits left behind. The fires danced on cracked stone as if seeking somewhere to go before the fuel vanished.
The light cast by the aftermath of the detonation was dimming, shrouded by descending dust. Cuttle appeared at his side, plucking scraps of rotted fruit from his armour. 'We can head into that gap soon – gods, when I track down Crump-'
'Get in line, Cuttle. Hey, I see Strings… and the squad…'
Horns sounded, soldiers scrambling to form up. Darkness was closing in once more, as the last of the fires dwindled in the breach. The rain of dust seemed unending as Fist Keneb moved to the rally position, his officers drawing round him and bellowing orders. He saw Tene Baralta and Captain Lostara Yil at the head of a narrow column that had already begun moving.
The sappers had messed up. That much was clear. And some of them had not made it back. Damned fools, and they weren't even under fire.
He saw the fires guttering out in the gap, although webs of flame clung stubbornly to the still-upright buildings to either side. '
First, second and third squads,' Keneb said to Captain Faradan Sort. '
The heavies lead the way into the breach.'
'The marines are already through, Fist.'
'I know, Captain, but I want backup close behind them if things get hairy. Get them moving.'
'Aye, Fist.'
Keneb glanced back to the higher ground on the other side of the road and saw a row of figures watching. The Adjunct, T'amber, Nil and Nether. Fist Blistig and Warleader Gall. Fist Temul was likely out with his horse-warriors, ranging round the city on the other sides.
There was always a chance Leoman would leave his followers to their grisly fate and attempt to escape on his own. Such things were not unknown.
'Sergeant Cord!'
The soldier strolled up. Keneb noted the sigil of the Ashok Regiment on the man's battered leather armour, but elected to ignore it. For now. 'Lead the mediums in, seventh through twelfth squads.'
'Aye, Fist, we're dogging the heavies' heels.'
'Good. This will be street and alley fighting, Sergeant, assuming the bastards don't surrender outright.'
'I'd be surprised if they did that, Fist.'
'Me too. Get going, Sergeant.'
Finally, some motion among the troops of his company. The waiting was over. The Fourteenth was heading into battle. Hood look away from us this night. Just look away.
Bottle and Cuttle rejoined their squad. Sergeant Strings carried his lobber crossbow, a cusser quarrel slotted and locked.
'There's a way through the flames,' Strings said, wiping sweat from his eyes, then spitting. 'Koryk and Tarr up front. Cuttle to the rear and keep a sharper in your hand. Behind the front two, me and Smiles.
You're a step behind us, Bottle.'
'You want more illusions, Sergeant?'
'No, I want your other stuff. Ride the rats and pigeons and bats and spiders and whatever in Hood's name else is in there. I need eyes you can look through into places we can't see.'
'Expecting a trap?' Bottle asked.
'There's Borduke and his squad, dammit. First into the breach. Come on, on their heels!'
They sprinted forward across the uneven, rock-littered ground.
Moonlight struggled through the dust haze. Bottle quested with his senses, seeking life somewhere ahead, but what he found was in pain, dying, trickling away beneath mounds of rubble, or stunned insensate by the concussions. 'We have to get past the blast area,' he said to Strings.
'Right,' the sergeant replied over a shoulder. 'That's the idea.'
They reached the edge of the vast, sculpted crater created by Crump's munitions. Borduke and his squad were scrambling up the other side, and Bottle saw that the wall they climbed was tiered with once-buried city ruins, ceilings and floors compressed, cracked, collapsed, sections of wall that had slid out and down into the pit itself, taking with them older layers of floor tiles. He saw that both Balgrid and Maybe had survived the explosion, but wondered how many sappers and squad mages they had lost. Some gut instinct told him Crump had survived.
Borduke and his squad were having a hard time of it.
'To the right,' Strings said. 'We can skirt it and get through before them!'
Borduke heard and twisted round from where he clung to the wall, three quarters of the way up. 'Bastards! Balgrid, get that fat butt of yours moving, damn you!'
Koryk found a way round the crater, clambering over the rubble, and Bottle and the others followed. Too distracted for the moment by the effort of staying on his feet, Bottle did not attempt to sense the myriad, minuscule life beyond the blast area, in the city itself. Time for that later, he hoped.
The half-blood Seti's progress halted suddenly, and the mage looked up to see that Koryk had encountered an obstacle, a broad crack in a sharply angled, subterranean floor, a man's height below ground-level.
Dust-smeared tiles revealed the painted images of yellow birds in flight, all seeming to be heading deep underground with the slanting pitch of the floor.
Koryk glanced back at Strings. 'Saw the whole slab move, Sergeant. Not sure how solid our footing will be.'
'Hood take us! All right, get the ropes out, Smiles-'
'I tossed 'em,' she said, scowling. 'On the run in here. Too damned heavy-'
'And I picked them up,' Cuttle interjected, tugging the coils from his left shoulder and flinging them forward.
Strings reached out and rapped a knuckle against Smiles's chin – her head snapped back, eyes widening in shock, then fury. 'You carry what I tell you to carry, soldier,' the sergeant said.
Koyrk collected one end of the rope, backed up a few paces, then bolted forward and leapt over the fissure. He landed clean, although with very little room to spare. There was no way Tarr or Cuttle could manage such a long jump.
Strings cursed, then said, 'Those who can do what Koryk just did, go to it. And nobody leave gear behind, either.'
Moments later both Bottle and Smiles crouched at Koryk's side, helping anchor the rope as the sergeant, twin sacks of munitions dangling from him, crossed hand over hand, the bags swinging wild but positioned so that they never collided with one another. Bottle released the rope and moved forward to help, once Strings found footing on the edge.
Cuttle followed. Then Tarr, with the rope wrapped about himself, made his way down onto the slanted floor and was dragged quickly across as it shifted then slid away beneath his weight. Armour and weapons clanking, the rest of the squad pulled the corporal onto level ground.
'Gods,' Cuttle gasped. 'The man weighs as much as a damned bhederin!'
Koryk re-coiled the rope and handed it, grinning, to Smiles.
They set off once more, up over a ridge of wreckage from some kind of stall or lean-to that had abutted the inner wall, then more rubble, beyond which was a street.
And Borduke and his squad were just entering it, spread out, crossbows at the ready. The bearded sergeant was in the lead, Corporal Hubb on his right and two steps behind. Ibb was opposite the corporal, and two paces behind the pair were Tavos Pond and Balgrid, followed by Lutes, with the rear drawn up by the sapper Maybe. Classic marine advance formation.
The buildings to the sides were dark, silent. Something odd about them, Bottle thought, trying to work out what it might be… no shutters on the windows – they're all open. So are the doors… every door, in fact- 'Sergeant-'
The arrows that suddenly sped down from flanking windows, high up, were loosed at the precise moment that a score of figures rushed out from nearby buildings, screaming, spears, scimitars and shields at the ready. Those arrows had been fired without regard to the charging warriors, and two cried out as iron-barbed points tore into them.
Bottle saw Borduke spin round, saw the arrow jutting from his left eye socket, saw a second arrow transfixing his neck. Blood was spraying as he staggered, clawing and clutching at his throat and face. Behind him, Corporal Hubb curled up round an arrow in his gut, then sank to the cobbles. Ibb had taken an arrow in the left shoulder, and he was plucking at it, swearing, when a warrior rushed in on him, scimitar swinging to strike him across the side of his head. Bone and helm caved in, a gush of blood, and the soldier fell.
Strings's squad arrived, intercepting a half-dozen warriors. Bottle found himself in the midst of a vicious exchange, Koryk on his left, the half-Seti's longsword batting away a scimitar, then driving point first into the man's throat. A screaming visage seemed to lunge at Bottle, as if the warrior was seeking to tear into his neck with bared teeth, and Bottle recoiled at the madness in the man's eyes, then reached in with his mind, into the warrior's fierce maelstrom of thoughts – little more than fractured images and black rage – and found the most primitive part of his brain; a burst of power and the man's coordination vanished. He crumpled, limbs twitching.
Cold with sweat, Bottle backed away another step, wishing he had a weapon to draw, beyond the bush-knife in his right hand.
Fighting on all sides. Screams, the clash of metal, snapping of chain links, grunts and gasps.
And still arrows rained down.
One cracked into the back of Strings's helm, pitching him down to his knees. He twisted round, lifting his crossbow, glaring at the building opposite – its upper windows crowded with archers.
Bottle reached out and grasped Koryk's baldric. 'Back! Fid's cusser!
Everyone! Back!'
The sergeant raised the crossbow to his shoulder, aimed towards an upper windowThere were heavy infantry among them now, and Bottle saw Taffo, from Mosel's squad, wading into a crowd of warriors, now ten paces from the building – from Strings's target-as the crossbow thunked, the misshapen quarrel flying out, up, into the maw of the window.
Bottle threw himself flat, arms covering his headThe upper floor of the building exploded, huge sections of wall bulging, then crashing down into the street. The cobbles jumped beneath Bottle.
Someone rolled up against him and he felt something flop heavy and slimy onto his forearm, twitching and hot. A sudden reek of bile and faeces.
The patter of stones, piteous moans, the lick of flames. Then another massive crash, as what remained of the upper poor collapsed into the level below. The groan of the nearest wall preceded its sagging dissolution. Then, beyond the few groans, silence.
Bottle lifted his head. To find Corporal Harbyn lying beside him. The lower half of the soldier's body was gone, entrails spilled out.
Beneath the helm's ridge, eyes stared sightlessly. Pulling away, Bottle leaned back on his hands and crabbed across the rock-strewn street. Where Taffo had been fighting a mob of warriors, there was now nothing but a heap of rubble and a few dust-sheathed limbs jutting from beneath it, all motionless.
Koryk moved past him, stabbing down at stunned figures with his sword.
Bottle saw Smiles cross the half-Seti's path, her two knives already slick with blood.
Bodies in the street. Figures slowly rising, shaking their heads, spitting blood. Bottle twisted round onto his knees, dipped his head, and vomited onto the cobbles.
'Fiddler – you bastard!'
Coughing, but stomach quiescent for the moment, Bottle looked over to see Sergeant Mosel advancing on Strings.
'We had them! We were rushing the damned building!'
'Then rush that one!' Strings snapped, pointing at the tenement on the other side of the street. 'They just been knocked back, that's all – any moment now and another rain of arrows-'
Cursing, Mosel gestured at the three heavies left – Mayfly, Flashwit and Uru Hela – and they lumbered into the building's doorway.
Strings was fitting another quarrel into his crossbow, this one loaded with a sharper. 'Balgrid! Who's left in your squad?'
The portly mage staggered over. 'What?' he shouted. 'I can't hear you!
What?'
'Tavos Pond!'
'Here, Sergeant. We got Maybe, uhm, Balgrid – but he's bleeding out from his ears. Lutes is down, but he should live – with some healing.
We're out of this-'
'To Hood you are. Pull Lutes clear – there's a squad coming up – the rest of you are with me-'
'Balgrid's deaf!'
'Better he was mute – we got hand signals, remember? Now remind the bastard of that! Bottle, help Tarr out. Cuttle, take Koryk to that corner up ahead and wait there for us. Smiles, load up on quarrels – I want that weapon of yours cocked and your eyes sharp on everything from rooftops on down.'
Bottle climbed to his feet and made his way to where Tarr was struggling to clamber free of rubble – a part of the wall had fallen on him, but it seemed his armour and shield had withstood the impact.
Lots of swearing, but nothing voiced in pain. 'Here,' Bottle said, ' give me your arm-'
'I'm fine,' the corporal said, grunting as he kicked his feet clear.
He still gripped his shortsword, and snagged on its tip was a hairy piece of scalp, coated in dust and dripping from the underside. 'Look at that,' he said, gesturing up the street with his sword, 'even Cuttle's shut up now.'
'Fid had no choice,' Bottle said. 'Too many arrows coming down-'
'I ain't complaining, Bottle. Not one bit. See Borduke go down? And Hubb? That could've been us, if we'd reached here first.'
'Abyss take me, I hadn't thought of that.'
He glanced over as a squad of medium infantry arrived – Sergeant Cord' s – Ashok Regiment and all that. 'What in Hood's name happened?'
'Ambush,' Bottle said. 'Sergeant Strings had to take a building down.
Cusser.'
Cord's eyes widened. 'Bloody marines,' he muttered, then headed over to where Strings crouched. Bottle and Tarr followed.
'You formed up again?' Cord asked their sergeant. 'We're bunching up behind you-'
'We're ready, but send word back. There'll be ambushes aplenty. Leoman means us to buy every street and every building with blood. Fist Keneb might want to send the sappers ahead again, under marine cover, to drop buildings – it's the safest way to proceed.'
Cord looked round. 'Safest way? Gods below.' He turned. 'Corporal Shard, you heard Fid. Send word back to Keneb.'
'Aye, Sergeant.'
'Sinn,' Cord added, speaking to a young girl nearby, 'put that knife away – he's already dead.'
She looked up, even as her blade cut through the base of the dead warrior's right index finger. She held it up for display, then stuffed it into a belt pouch.
'Nice girl you got there,' Strings said. 'Had us one of those, once.'
'Shard! Hold back there! Send Sinn with the message, will you?'
'I don't want to go back!' Sinn shouted.
'Too bad,' Cord said. Then, to Strings: 'We'll link up with Mosel's heavies behind you.'
Strings nodded. 'All right, squad, let's try out the next street, shall we?'
Bottle swallowed back another surge of nausea, then he joined the others as they scrambled towards Koryk and Cuttle. Gods, this is going to be brutal.
Sergeant Gesler could smell it. Trouble in the night. Unrelieved darkness from gaping windows, yawning doorways, and on flanking streets, where other squads were moving, the sounds of pitched battle.
Yet, before them, no movement, no sound – nothing at all. He raised his right hand, hooked two fingers and made a downward tugging motion.
Behind him he heard boots on the cobbles, one padding off to his left, the other to his right, away, halting when the soldiers reached the flanking buildings. Truth on his left, Pella on his right, crossbows out, eyes on opposite rooftops and upper windows.
Another gesture and Sands came up from behind to crouch at his side. '
Well?' Gesler demanded, wishing for the thousandth time that Stormy was here.
'It's bad,' Sands said. 'Ambushes.'
'Right, so where's ours? Go back and call up Moak and his squad, and Tugg's – I want those heavies clearing these buildings, before it all comes down on us. What sappers we got with us?'
'Thom Tissy's squad's got some,' Sands said. 'Able, Jump and Gupp, although they just decided to become sappers tonight, a bell or so ago.'
'Great, and they got munitions?'
'Aye, Sergeant.'
'Madness. All right. Get Thom Tissy's squad up here, too. I heard one cusser go off already – might be the only way to do this.'
'Okay, Sergeant. I'll be right back.'
Under-strength squads and a night engagement in a strange, hostile city. Had the Adjunct lost her mind?
Twenty paces away, Pella crouched low, his back against a mud-brick wall. He thought he'd caught movement in a high window opposite, but he couldn't be certain – not enough to call out the alarm. Might well have been a curtain or something, plucked by the wind.
Only… there ain't much wind.
Eyes fixed on that particular window, he slowly raised his crossbow.
Nothing. Just darkness.
Distant detonations – sharpers, he guessed, somewhere to the south.
We're supposed to be pushing in hard and fast, and here we are, bogged down barely one street in from the breach. Gesler's gotten way too cautious, I think.
He heard the clank of weapons, armour and the thud of footfalls as more squads came up. Flicking his gaze away from the window, he watched as Sergeant Tugg led his heavies towards the building opposite. Three soldiers from Thom Tissy's squad padded up to the doorway of the building Pella was huddled against. Jump, Gupp and Able. Pella saw sharpers in their hands – and nothing else. He crouched lower, then returned his attention to the distant window, cursing under his breath, waiting for one of them to toss a grenado in through the doorway.
On the other side of the street, Tugg's squad plunged into the building – there was a shout from within, the clang of weapons, sudden screamsThen more shrieking, this time from the building at Pella's back, as the three sappers rushed inside. Pella cringed – no, you fools! You don't carry them inside – you throw them!
A sharp crack, shaking dust from the wall behind Pella, grit raining down onto the back of his neck, then screams. Another concussion – ducking still lower, Pella looked back up at the opposite windowTo see, momentarily, a single flash-to feel the shock of surprise-as the arrow sped at him. A hard, splintering cracking sound. Pella's head was thrown back, helm crunching against the wall. Something, wavering, at the upper edge of his vision, but those edges were growing darker. He heard his crossbow clatter to the cobbles at his feet, then distant pain as his knees struck the stones, the jolt peeling skin away – he'd done that once, as a child, playing in the alley. Stumbling, knees skidding on gritty, filthy cobblesSo filthy, the murk of hidden diseases, infections – his mother had been so angry, angry and frightened. They'd had to go to a healer, and that had cost money – money they had been saving for a move. To a better part of the slum. The dream… put away, all because he'd skinned his knees.
Just like now. And darkness closing in.
Oh Momma, I skinned my knees. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I skinned my knees…
As mayhem was exploding in the buildings to either side, Gesler crouched lower. He glanced over to his right and saw Pella. An arrow was jutting from his forehead. He was on his knees for a moment, his weapon falling, then he sank down to the side.
Sharpers going off in that building, then something worse – a burner, the flare of red flame bursting through the ground-floor windows.
Shrieks – someone stumbled outside, wreathed in flames – a Malazan, running, arms waving, slapping – straight for Moak and his squad'Get away!' Gesler bellowed, rising and raising his crossbow.
Moak had pulled out his rain-cape – the soldiers were rushing towards the burning man – they didn't see – the satchel – the munitionsGesler fired his crossbow. The quarrel caught the sapper in the midsection, even as the munitions went off.
Flung back, punched in the chest, Gesler sprawled, rolled, then, came to his feet.
Moak, Stacker, Rove. Burnt, Guano and Mud. All gone, all pieces of meat and shattered bone. A helm, the head still in it, struck a wall, spun wildly for a moment, then wobbled to a halt.
'Truth! To me!' Gesler waved as he ran towards the building the heavies had entered, and where the sounds of fighting had grown fiercer. 'You see Sands?' he demanded as he reloaded his crossbow.
'N-no, Sergeant. Pella-'
'Pella's dead, lad.' He saw Thom Tissy and what was left of his squad – Tulip and Ramp – heading towards the doorway after Tugg and his heavies. Good, Thom's thinking clearThe building that had swallowed Able, Jump and Gupp was a mass of flames, the heat pouring out like scalding liquid. Gods, what did they set off in there?
He darted through the doorway, skidded to a halt. Sergeant Tugg's fighting days were over – the soldier had been speared through just below the sternum. He had thrown up a gout of bloody bile before dying. At the inner doorway opposite, leading into a hall, lay Robello, his head caved in. Beyond, out of sight, the rest of the heavies were fighting.
'Hang back, Truth,' Gesler said, 'and use that crossbow to cover our backs. Tissy, let's go.'
The other sergeant nodded, gesturing towards Tulip and Ramp.
They plunged into the hallway.
Hellian stumbled after Urb, who suddenly halted – it was like hitting a wall – she bounced off, fell on her behind. 'Ow, you bloody ox!'
All at once there were soldiers around them, pulling back from the street corner, dragging fallen comrades.
'Who? What?'
A woman dropped down beside her. 'Hanno. We lost our sergeant. We lost Sobelone. And Toles. Ambush-'
One hand leaning hard on Hanno's shoulder, Hellian pulled herself upright. She shook her head. 'Right,' she said, something cold and hard straightening within her, as if her spine had turned into a sword, or a spear, or whatever else won't bend, no, it'll bend, maybe, but not break. Gods, I feel sick. 'Join up with my squad. Urb, what squad are we?'
'No idea, Sergeant.'
'Don't matter, then, you're with us, Hanno. Ambush? Fine, let's go get the bastards. Touchy, Brethless, pull out those grenados you stole-'
The twins faced her – innocence, indignation, both dreadful efforts, then the two pulled out munitions. 'They're smokers, Sergeant, and one cracker,' Touchy said. 'That's all-'
'Smokers? Perfect. Hanno, you're going to lead us into the building the bastards attacked from. Touchy, you throw yours ahead of her.
Brethless, pick the open flank and do the same. We ain't gonna stand around – we ain't even going in slow and cautious. I want fast, you all got that? Fast.'
'Sergeant?'
'What is it, Urb?'
'Nothing. Only, I'm ready, I guess.'
Well that makes one of us. I knew I'd hate this city. 'Weapons out, soldiers, it's time to kill people.'
They set off.
'We done left everybody behind,' Galt said.
'Shut that whining,' Sergeant Balm snapped, wiping sweat arid mud from his eyes. 'We just made it easier for the rest of 'em.' He glared at the soldiers in his squad. Breathing hard, a few cuts here and there, but nothing serious. They'd carved through that ambush quick and dirty, like he'd wanted it.
They were on a second floor, in a room filled with bolts of cloth – a fortune's worth of silks. Lobe had said they'd come from Darujhistan, of all places. A damned fortune's worth, and now most of it was soaked with blood and bits of human meat.
'Maybe we should check the top floor,' Throatslitter said, eyeing the nicks in his long-knives. 'Thought I heard some scuffing, maybe.'
'All right, take Widdershins. Deadsmell, go to the stairs-'
'Leading up? It's a ladder.'
'Fine, the Hood-damned fucking ladder, then. You're backup and mouthpiece, got it? Hear any scrapping upstairs and you join it, but not before letting us know about it. Understood?'
'Clear as piss, Sergeant.'
'Good, the three of you go. Galt, stay at the window and keep looking at what's opposite you. Lobe, do the same at that window. There's more crap waiting for us and we're gonna carve right through all of it.'
A short while later, the sound of footfalls padding back and forth from above ceased and Deadsmell called out from the hallway that Throatslitter and Widdershins were coming down the ladder. A dozen heartbeats later and all three entered the silk room. Throatslitter came close to Balm's side and crouched. 'Sergeant,' he said, his voice near a whisper.
'What?'
'We found something. Don't much like the looks of it. We think you should take a look.'
Balm sighed, then straightened. 'Galt?'
'They're there, all right, all three floors.'
'Lobe?'
'Same here, including on the roof, some guy with a hooded lantern.'
'Okay, keep watching. Lead on, Throatslitter. Deadsmell, back into the hallway. Widdershins, do some magic or something.'
He followed Throatslitter back to the ladder. The floor above was lowceilinged, more of an attic than anything else. Plenty of rooms, the walls thick, hardened clay.
Throatslitter led him up to one such wall. At his feet stood huge urns and casks. 'Found these,' he said, reaching down behind one cask and lifting into view a funnel, made from a gourd of some sort.
'All right,' Balm said, 'what about it?'
His soldier kicked one of the casks. 'These ones are full. But the urns are empty. All of 'em.'
'Okay…'
'Olive oil.'
'Right, this city's famous for it. Go on.'
Throatslitter tossed the funnel aside, then drew a knife. 'See these damp spots on these walls? Here.' He pointed with the knife-tip, then dug into the patch. 'The clay's soft, recently plugged. These walls, they're hollow.'
'For Fener's sake, man, what are you going on about?'
'Just this. I think these walls – the whole building, it's filled with oil.'
'Filled? With… with oil?'
Throatslitter nodded.
Filled with oil? What, some kind of piping system to supply it downstairs? No, for Hood's sake, Balm, don't be an idiot. '
Throatslitter, you think other buildings are rigged like this? Is that what you're thinking?'
'I think, Sergeant, that Leoman's turned Y'Ghatan into one big trap.
He wants us in here, fighting in the streets, pushing in and in-'
'But what about his followers?'
'What about them?'
But… that would mean… He thought back – the faces of the enemy, the fanaticism, the gleam of drugged madness. 'Abyss take us!'
'We got to find Fist Keneb, Sergeant. Or the captains. We got-'
'I know, I know. Let's get out of here, before that bastard with the lantern throws it!'
It had begun messy, only to get messier still. Yet, from that initial reeling back, as ambushes were unveiled one after another, mauling the advance squads of marines, Fist Keneb's and Fist Tene Baralta's companies had rallied, regrouped, then pushed inward, building by building, street by street. Somewhere ahead, Keneb knew, what was left of the marines was penetrating still further, cutting through the fanatic but poorly armed and thoroughly undisciplined warriors of Leoman's renegade army.
He had heard that those warriors were in a drug-fuelled frenzy, that they fought without regard to injury, and that none retreated, dying where they stood. What he had expected, truth be told. A last stand, a heroic, martyred defence. For that was what Y'Ghatan had been, what it was, and what it would always be.
They would take this city. The Adjunct would have her first true victory. Bloody, brutal, but a victory nonetheless.
He stood one street in from the breach, smouldering rubble behind him, watching the line of wounded and unconscious soldiers being helped back to the healers in camp, watching fresh infantry filing forward, through the secured areas, and ahead to the battle that was the closing of the Malazan fist around Leoman and his followers, around the last living vestiges of the rebellion itself.
He saw that Red Blade officer of Tene Baralta's, Lostara Yil, leading three squads towards the distant sounds of fighting. And Tene himself stood nearby, speaking with Captain Kindly.
Keneb had sent Faradan Sort ahead, to make contact with the advance squads. There was to be a second rendezvous, near the palace itself, and hopefully everyone was still following the battle plan.
Shouts, then cries of alarm – from behind him. From outside the breach! Fist Keneb spun round, and saw a wall of flame rising in the killing field beyond – where the narrow, deep trench had been dug by Leoman's warriors. Buried urns filled with olive oil began exploding from the trench, spraying burning liquid everywhere. Keneb saw the line of retreating wounded scatter apart near the trench, figures aflame. Shrieks, the roar of fireHis horrified gaze caught motion to his right, up on the nearest building's rooftop, where it faced onto the rubble of the breach. A figure, lantern in one hand, flaring torch in the other – bedecked in web-slung flasks, surrounded by amphorae, at the very edge of the roof, arms outstretched, kicking over the tall clay jars – ropes affixed between them and his ankles, the weight then plunging the figure over the side.
Down into the rubble of the breach.
He struck, vanished from view, then a sudden flaring of flames, rushing out in sheetsAnd Keneb saw, upon other rooftops, lining the city's walls, more figures – flinging themselves down. Down, then the glow of raging fire, rising up, encircling – from the bastions, more flames, billowing out, spreading wild like a flood unleashed.
Heat rushed upon Keneb, driving him back a step. Oil from shattered casks, beneath the wreckage of fallen wall and collapsed buildings, suddenly caught flame. The breach was closing, demonic fire lunging into sight.
Keneb looked about, horror rising within him, and saw the half-dozen signallers of his staff huddled near a fragment of rubble. Bellowing, he ran to them. 'Sound the recall! Damn you, soldiers, sound the recall!'
Northwest of Y'Ghatan, Temul and a company of Wickans rode up the slope to the Lothal road. They had seen no-one. Not a single soul fleeing the city. The Fourteenth's horse-warriors had fully encircled it. Wickans, Seti, Burned Tears. There would be no escape.
Temul had been pleased, hearing that the Adjunct's thinking had followed identical tracks with his own. A sudden strike, hard as a knife pushed into a chest, straight into the heart of this cursed rebellion. They had heard the munitions go off – loud, louder than expected, and had seen the flame-shot black clouds billowing upward, along with most of Y'Ghatan's south wall.
Reining in on the road, seeing beneath them the signs of the massive exodus that had clogged this route only days earlier.
A flaring of firelight, distant rumbling, as of thunder, and the horse-warriors turned as one to face the city. Where walls of flame rose behind the stone walls, from the bastions, and the sealed gates, then, building after building within, more flames, and more.
Temul stared, his mind battered by what he was seeing, what he now understood.
A third of the Fourteenth Army was in that city by now. A third.
And they were already as good as dead.
Fist Blistig stood beside the Adjunct on the road. He felt sick inside, the feeling rising up from a place and a time he had believed left behind him. Standing on the walls of Aren, watching the slaughter of Coltaine's army. Hopeless, helpless'Fist,' the Adjunct snapped, 'get more soldiers filling in that trench.'
He started, then half-turned and gestured towards one of his aides – the woman had heard the command, for she nodded and hurried off. Douse the trench, aye. But… what's the point? The breach had found a new wall, this one of flames. And more had risen all round the city, beginning just within the tiered walls, buildings bursting, voicing terrible roars as fiery oil exploded out, flinging mud-bricks that were themselves deadly, burning missiles. And now, further in, at junctures and along the wider streets, more buildings were igniting.
One, just beyond the palace, had moments earlier erupted, with geysers of burning oil shooting skyward, obliterating the darkness, revealing the sky filling with tumbling black clouds.
'Nil, Nether,' the Adjunct said in a brittle voice, 'gather our mages – all of them – I want the flames smothered in the breach. I want-'
'Adjunct,' Nether cut in, 'we have not the power.'
'The old earth spirits,' Nil added in a dull tone, 'are dying, fleeing the flames, the baking agony, all dying or fleeing. Something is about to be born…'
Before them, the city of Y'Ghatan was brightening into day, yet a lurid, terrible day.
Coughing, staggering, wounded soldiers half-carried, half-dragged through the press – but there was nowhere to go. Keneb stared – the air burning his eyes – at the mass of his soldiers. Seven, eight hundred. Where were the others? But he knew.
Gone. Dead.
In the streets beyond, he could see naught but fire, leaping from building to building, filling the fierce, hot air, with a voice of glee, demonic, hungry and eager.
He needed to do something. Think of something, but this heat, this terrible heat – his lungs were heaving, desperate despite the searing pain that blossomed with each strained breath. Lungful after lungful, yet it was as if the air itself had died, all life sucked from it, and so could offer him nothing.
His own armour was cooking him alive. He was on his knees, now, with all the others. 'Armour!' he rasped, not knowing if anyone could hear him. 'Get it off! Armour! Weapons!' Gods below, my chest – the pain**** A blade-on-blade parry, holding contact, two edges rasping against each other, then, as the warrior pushed harder with his scimitar, Lostara Yil ducked low, disengaged her sword downward, slashing up and under, taking him in the throat. Blood poured out. Stepping past, she batted aside another weapon thrusting at her – a spear – hearing splinters from the shaft as she pushed it to one side. In her left hand was her kethra knife, which she punched into her foe's belly, twisting as she yanked it back out again.
Lostara staggered free of the crumpling warrior, a flood of sorrow shooting through her as she heard him call out a woman's name before he struck the cobbles.
The fight raged on all sides, her three squads now down to fewer than a dozen soldiers, whilst yet more of the berserk fanatics closed in from the flanking buildings – market shops, shuttered doors kicked down and now billowing smoke, carrying out into the street the reek of overheated oil, spitting, crackling sounds – something went thump and all at once there was fireEverywhere.
Lostara Yil cried out a warning, even as another warrior rushed her.
Parrying with the knife, stop-thrusting with her sword, then kicking the impaled body from her blade, his sagging weight nearly tugging the weapon from her hand.
Terrible shrieks behind her. She whirled.
A flood of burning oil, roaring out from buildings to either side, sweeping among the fighters – their legs, then clothes – telaba, leathers, linens, the flames appearing all over them. Warrior and soldier, the fire held to no allegiance – it was devouring everyone.
She staggered away from that onrushing river of death, stumbled and fell, sprawling, onto a corpse, clambered onto it a moment before fiery oil poured around her, swept past her already burning island of torn fleshA building exploded, the fireball expanding outward, plunging towards her. She cried out, throwing up both arms, as the searing incandescence reached out to take herA hand from behind, snagging her harnessPain – the breath torn from her lungs – then… nothing.
'Stay low!' Balm shouted as he led his squad down the twisting alley.
After his bellowed advice, the sergeant resumed his litany of curses.
They were lost. Pushed back in their efforts to return to Keneb and the breach, they were now being herded. By flames. They had seen the palace a short while earlier, through a momentary break in the smoke, and as far as Balm could determine they were still heading in that direction – but the world beyond had vanished, in fire and smoke, and pursuing in their wake was the growing conflagration. Alive, and hunting them.
'It's building, Sergeant! We got to get out of this city!'
'You think I don't know that, Widdershins? What in Hood's name do you think we're trying to do here? Now be quiet-'
'We're gonna run out of air.'
'We are already, you idiot! Now shut that mouth of yours!'
They reached an intersection and Balm halted his soldiers. Six alleymouths beckoned, each leading into tracks as twisted and dark as the next. Smoke was tumbling from two of them, on their left. Head spinning, every breath growing more pained, less invigorating, the Dal Honese wiped hot sweat from his eyes and turned to study his soldiers.
Deadsmell, Throatslitter, Widdershins, Galt and Lobe. Tough bastards one and all. This wasn't the right way to die – there were right ones, and this wasn't one of them. 'Gods,' he muttered, 'I'll never look at a hearth the same again.'
'You got that right, Sergeant,' said Throatslitter, punctuating his agreement with a hacking cough.
Balm pulled off his helm. 'Strip down, you damned fools, before we bake ourselves. Hold on to your weapons, if you can. We ain't dying here tonight. You understand me? All of you listen – do you understand me?'
'Aye, Sergeant,' Throatslitter said. 'We hear you.'
'Good. Now, Widdershins, got any magic to make us a path? Anything at all?'
The mage shook his head. 'Wish I did. Maybe soon, though.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean a fire elemental's being born here, I think. A fire spirit, a godling. We got a firestorm on the way, and that will announce its arrival – and that's when we die if we ain't dead already. But an elemental is alive. It's got a will, a mind, damned hungry and eager to kill. But it knows fear, fear because it knows it won't last long – too fierce, too hot – days at best. And it knows other kinds of fear, too, and that's where maybe I can do something – illusions. Of water, but not just water. A water elemental.' He stared round at the others, who were all staring back, then shrugged. 'Maybe, maybe not. How smart is an elemental? Got to be smart to be fooled, you see. Dog-smart, at least, better if it was smarter. Problem is, not everybody agrees that elementals even exist. I mean, I'm convinced it's a good theory-'
Balm cracked him across the head. 'All this on a theory? You wasted all that air on that? Gods below, Widdershins, I'm minded to kill you right now.' He rose. 'Let's get going, while we can. To Hood with the damned palace – let's take the alley opposite and when the theoretical elemental arrives we can shake its hand and curse it to the nonexistent Abyss. Come on – and you, Widdershins, not another word, got it?'
The soldier returned, wreathed in flames. Running, running from the pain, but there was nowhere to go. Captain Faradan Sort aimed the crossbow and loosed a quarrel. Watched the poor man fall, grow still as the flames leapt all over him, blackening the skin, cracking open the flesh. She turned away. 'Last quarrel,' she said, tossing the weapon to one side.
Her new lieutenant, with the mouthful name of Madan'Tul Rada, said nothing – a characteristic Faradan was already used to, and of which she was, most of the time, appreciative.
Except now, when they were about to roast. 'All right,' she said, ' scratch that route – and I'm out of scouts. No back, no forward, and, from the looks of it, no left and no right. Any suggestions?'
Madan'Tul Rada's expression soured, jaw edging down as tongue probed a likely rotted molar, then he spat, squinted in the smoke, and unslung his round shield to study its charred face. Looked up again, slowly tracking, then: 'No.'
They could hear a wind above them, shrieking, whirling round and round over the city, drawing the flames up, spinning tails of fire that slashed like giant swords through the convulsing smoke. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.
The lieutenant's head lifted suddenly, and he faced the wall of flame up the street, then rose.
Faradan Sort followed suit, for she could now see what he had seen – a strange black stain spreading out within the flames, the tongues of fire flickering back, dying, the stain deepening, circular, and out from its heart staggered a figure shedding charred leathers, clasps and buckles falling away to bounce on the street.
Stumbling towards them, flames dancing in the full head of hair – dancing, yet not burning. Closer, and Faradan Sort saw it was a girl, a face she then recognized. 'She's from Cord's Ashok squad. That's Sinn.'
'How did she do that?' Madan'Tul Rada asked.
'I don't know, but let's hope she can do it again. Soldier! Over here!'
An upper level had simply sheared away, down, crashing in an explosion of dust and smoke onto the street. Where Bowl had been crouching. He had not even seen it coming, Hellian suspected. Lucky bastard. She looked back at her squad. Blistered, red as boiled lobsters. Armour shed, weapons flung away – too hot to hold. Marines and heavies.
Herself the only sergeant. Two corporals – Urb and Reem – their expressions dulled. Red-eyed all of them, gasping in the dying air, damn near hairless. Not much longer, I think. Gods, what I would do for a drink right now. Something nice. Chilled, delicate, the drunk coming on slow and sly, peaceful sleep beckoning as sweet as the last trickle down my ravaged throat. Gods, I'm a poet when it comes to drink, oh yes. 'Okay, that way's blocked now. Let's take this damned alley-'
'Why?' Touchy demanded.
'Because I don't see flames down there, that's why. We keep moving until we can't move no more, got it?'
'Why don't we just stay right here – another building's bound to land on us sooner or later.'
'Tell you what,' Hellian snarled. 'You do just that, but me, I ain't waiting for nothing. You want to die alone, you go right ahead.'
She set off.
Everyone followed. There was nothing else to do.
Eighteen soldiers – Strings had carried them through. Three more skirmishes, bloody and without mercy, and now they crouched before the palace gates – which yawned wide, a huge mouth filled with fire. Smoke billowed above the fortification, glowing in the night. Bottle, on his knees, gasping, slowly looked round at his fellow soldiers. A few heavies, the whole of Strings's squad, and most of Sergeant Cord's, along with the few marines surviving from Borduke's squad.
They had hoped, prayed, even, to arrive and find other squads – anyone, more survivors, defying this damned conflagration… this far.
Just this far, that's all. It would have been enough. But they were alone, with no sign anywhere that any other Malazans had made it.
If Leoman of the Flails was in the palace, he was naught but ashes, now.
'Crump, Maybe, Cuttle, over to me,' Strings ordered, crouching and setting down his satchel. 'Any other sappers? No? Anyone carrying munitions? All right, I just checked mine – the wax is way too soft and getting softer – it's all gonna go up, and that's the plan. All of it, except the burners – toss those – the rest goes right into the mouth of that palace-'
'What's the point?' Cord demanded. 'I mean, fine by me if you're thinking it's a better way to go.'
'I want to try and blow a hole in this growing firestorm – knock it back – and we're heading through that hole, for as long as it survives – Hood knows where it'll lead. But I don't see any fire right behind the palace, and that'll do for me. Problems with that, Cord?'
'No. I love it. It's brilliant. Genius. If only I hadn't tossed my helm away.'
A few laughs. Good sign.
Then hacking coughs. Bad sign.
Someone shrieked, and Bottle turned to see a figure lumbering out from a nearby building, flasks and bottles hanging from him, another bottle in one hand, a torch in the other – heading straight for them. And they had discarded their crossbows.
A bellowing answer from a soldier in Cord's squad, and the man, Bell, rushed forward to intercept the fanatic.
'Get back!' Cord screamed.
Sprinting, Bell flung himself at the man, colliding with him twenty paces away, and both went down.
Bottle dropped flat, rolled away, bumping up against other soldiers doing the same.
A whoosh, then more screams. Terrible screams. And a wave of heat, blistering, fierce as the breath of a forge.
Then Strings was swearing, scrambling with his collection of satchels.
'Away from the palace! Everyone!'
'Not me!' Cuttle growled. 'You need help.'
'Fine. Everyone else! Sixty, seventy paces at least! More if you can!
Go!'
Bottle climbed upright, watched as Strings and Cuttle ran crab-like towards the palace gates. Then he looked round. Sixty paces? We ain't got sixty paces – flames were devouring buildings in every direction he could see, now.
Still, as far away as possible. He began running.
And found himself colliding with someone – who gripped his left arm and spun him round.
Gesler. And behind him Thom Tissy, then a handful of soldiers. 'What are those fools doing?' Gesler demanded.
'Blow – a hole – through the storm-'
'Puckered gods of the Abyss. Sands – you still got your munitions?'
'Aye, Sergeant-'
'Damned fool. Give 'em to me-'
'No,' said Truth, stepping in between. 'I'll take them. We've gone through fire before, right, Sergeant?' With that he snatched the satchel from Sands's hands and ran towards the palace gatesWhere Strings and Cuttle had been forced back – the heat too fierce, the flames slashing bright arms out at them.
'Damn him!' Gesler hissed. 'That was a different kind of fire-'
Bottle pulled loose from the sergeant's grip. 'We got to get going!
Away!'
Moments later all were running – except Gesler, who was heading towards the sappers outside the gate. Bottle hesitated. He could not help it. He had to seeTruth reached Cuttle and Strings, tugged their bags away, slung them over a shoulder, then shouted something and ran towards the palace gates.
Both sappers leapt to their feet, retreating, intercepting Gesler – who looked determined to follow his young recruit – Cuttle and Strings dragged the sergeant back. Gesler struggled, turning a ravaged face in Truth's directionBut the soldier had plunged into the flames.
Bottle ran back, joined with the two sappers to help drag a shrieking Gesler away.
Away.
They had managed thirty paces down the street, heading towards a huddled mass of soldiers shying from a wall of flames, when the palace blew up behind them.
And out, huge sections of stone flung skyward.
Batted into the air, tumbling in a savage wind, Bottle rolled in the midst of bouncing rubble, limbs and bodies, faces, mouths opened wide, everyone screaming – in silence. No sound – no… nothing.
Pain in his head, stabbing fierce in his ears, a pressure closing on his temples, his skull ready to implodeThe wind suddenly reversed, pulling sheets of flame after it, closing in from every street. The pressure loosed. And the flames drew back, writhing like tentacles.
Then the air was still.
Coughing, staggering upright, Bottle turned.
The palace's heart was gone, split asunder, and naught but dust and smoke filled the vast swath of rubble.
'Now!' Strings shrieked, his voice sounding leagues away. 'Go!
Everyone! Go!'
The wind returned, sudden, a scream rising to a wail, pushing them onward – onto the battered road between jagged, sagging palace walls.
Dunsparrow had been first to the temple doors, shoving them wide even as explosions of fire lit up the horizon, all round the city… all within the city walls.
Gasping, heart pounding and something like a knife-blade twisting in his gut, Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas followed Leoman and the Malazan woman into the Temple of Scalissara, L'oric two paces behind him.
No, not Scalissara – the Queen of Dreams. Scalissara the matron goddess of olive oil would not have… no, she would not have allowed this. Not… this.
And things had begun to make sense. Terrible, awful sense, like chiselled stones fitting together, raising a wall between humanity… and what Leoman of the Flails had become.
The warriors – who had ridden with them, lived with them since the rebellion first began, who had fought at their side against the Malazans, who even now fought like fiends in the streets – they were all going to die. Y'Ghatan, this whole city, it's going to die.
Hurrying down the central hallway, into the nave, from which gusted a cold, dusty wind, wind that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Reeking of mould, rot and death.
Leoman spun to L'oric. 'Open a gate, High Mage! Quickly!'
'You must not do this,' Corabb said to his commander. 'We must die, this night. Fighting in the name of Dryjhna-'
'Hood take Dryjhna!' Leoman rasped.
L'oric was staring at Leoman, as if seeing him, understanding him, for the first time. 'A moment,' he said.
'We've no time for that!'
'Leoman of the Flails,' the High Mage said, unperturbed, 'you have bargained with the Queen of Dreams. A precipitous thing to do. That goddess has no interest in what's right and what's wrong. If she once possessed a heart, she flung it away long ago. And now you have drawn me into this – you have used me, so that a goddess may make use of me in turn. I do not-'
'The gate, damn you! If you have objections, L'oric, raise them with her!'
'They are all to die,' Corabb said, backing away from his commander, ' so that you can live.'
'So that we can live, Corabb! There is no other way – do you think that the Malazans would ever leave us be? No matter where or how far we fled? I thank Hood's dusty feet the Claw hasn't struck already, but I do not intend to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder!
I was a body-guard, damn you – it was her cause, not mine!'
'Your warriors – they expected you to fight at their sides-'
'They expected nothing of the sort. The fools wanted to die. In Dryjhna's name.' He bared his teeth in contempt. 'Well, let them! Let them die! And best of all, they are going to take half the Adjunct's army with them. There's your glory, Corabb!' He advanced on him, pointing towards the temple doors. 'You want to join the fools? You want to feel your lungs searing with the heat, your eyes bursting, skin cracking? You want your blood to boil in your veins?'
'An honourable death, Leoman of the Flails, compared to this.'
He voiced something like a snarl, spun back to L'oric. 'Open the way – and fear not, I made no promises to her regarding you, beyond bringing you here.'
'The fire grows into life outside this temple, Leoman,' L'oric said. '
I may not succeed.'
'Your chances diminish with each moment that passes,' Leoman said in a growl.
There was panic in the man's eyes. Corabb studied it, the way it seemed so… out of place. There, in the features he thought he knew so well. Knew every expression possible. Anger, cold amusement, disdain, the stupor and lidded eyes within the fumes of durhang. Every expression… except this one. Panic.
Everything was crumbling inside, and Corabb could feel himself drowning. Sinking ever deeper, reaching up towards a light that grew ever more distant, dimmer.
With a hissed curse, L'oric faced the altar. Its stones seemed to glow in the gloom, so new, the marble unfamiliar – from some other continent, Corabb suspected – traced through with purple veins and capillaries that seemed to pulse. There was a circular pool beyond the altar, the water steaming – it had been covered the last time they had visited; he could see the copper panels that had sealed it lying against a side-wall.
The air swirled above the altar.
She was waiting on the other side. A flicker, as if reflected from the pool of water, then the portal opened, engulfing the altar, edges spreading, curling black, then wavering fitfully. L'oric gasped, straining beneath some invisible burden. 'I cannot hold this long! I see you, Queen!'
From the portal came a languid, cool voice, 'L'oric, son of Osserc. I seek no geas from you.'
'Then what do you want?'
A moment, during which the portal wavered, then: 'Sha'ik is dead. The Whirlwind Goddess is no more. Leoman of the Flails, a question.' A new tone to her voice, something like irony. 'Is Y'Ghatan – what you have done here – is this your Apocalypse?'
The desert warrior scowled, then said, 'Well, yes.' He shrugged. 'Not as big as we'd hoped…'
'But, perhaps, enough. L'oric. The role of Sha'ik, the Seer of Dryjhna, is… vacant. It needs to be filled-'
'Why?' L'oric demanded.
'Lest something else, something less desirable, assume the mantle.'
'And the likelihood of that?'
'Imminent.'
Corabb watched the High Mage, sensed a rush of thoughts behind the man's eyes, as mysterious implications fell into place following the goddess's words. Then, 'You have chosen someone.'
'Yes.'
'Someone who needs… protecting.'
'Yes.'
'Is that someone in danger?'
'Very much so, L'oric. Indeed, my desires have been anticipated, and we may well have run out of time.'
'Very well. I accept.'
'Come forward, then. You, and the others. Do not delay – I too am sorely tried maintaining this path.'
His soul nothing but ashes, Corabb watched the High Mage stride into the portal, and vanish within the swirling, liquid stain.
Leoman faced him one more time, his voice almost pleading as he said, 'My friend…'
Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas shook his head.
'Did you not hear? Another Sha'ik – a new Sha'ik-'
'And will you find her a new army as well, Leoman? More fools to lead to their deaths? No, I am done with you, Leoman of the Flails. Take your Malazan wench and be gone from my sight. I choose to die here, with my fellow warriors.'
Dunsparrow reached out and grasped Leoman's arm. 'The portal's crumbling, Leoman.'
The warrior, last commander of Dryjhna, turned away, and, the woman at his side, strode into the gate. Moments later it dissolved, and there was nothing.
Nothing but the strange, swirling wind, skirling dust-devils tracking the inlaid tile floor.
Corabb blinked, looked round. Outside the temple, it seemed the world was ending, voicing a death-cry ever rising in timbre. No… not a death-cry. Something else…
Hearing a closer sound – from a side passage – a scuffle – Corabb drew his scimitar. Approached the curtain barring the corridor. With the tip of his blade, he swung the cloth aside.
To see children. Crouching, huddled. Ten, fifteen – sixteen in all.
Smudged faces, wide eyes, all looking up at him. 'Oh gods,' he murmured. 'They have forgotten you.'
They all have. Every single one of them.
He sheathed his weapon and stepped forward. 'It's all right,' he said.
'We shall find us a room, yes? And wait this out.'
Something else… Thunder, the death of buildings, the burgeoning wails of fire, howling winds. This is what is outside, the world beyond, this… spirits below, DryjhnaOutside, the birth-cries of the Apocalypse rose still higher.
'There!' Throatslitter said, pointing.
Sergeant Balm blinked, the smoke and heat like broken glass in his eyes, and could just make out a half-score figures crossing the street before them. 'Who?'
'Malazans,' Throatslitter said.
From behind Balm: 'Great, more for the clam-bake, what a night we're going to have-'
'When I said be quiet, Widdershins, I meant it. All right, let's go meet them. Maybe they ain't as lost as us.'
'Oh yeah? Look who's leading them! That drunk, what's her name? They' re probably trying to find a bar!'
'I ain't lying, Widdershins! One more word and I'll skewer you!'
Urb's huge hand landed on her arm, gripping hard, turning her round, and Hellian saw a squad stumbling towards them. 'Thank the gods,' she said in a ravaged voice, 'they got to know where they're going-'
A sergeant approached in a half-crouch. Dal Honese, his face patchy with dried mud. 'I'm Balm,' he said. 'Wherever you're headed, we're with you!'
Hellian scowled. 'Fine,' she said. 'Just fall in and we'll all be rosy in no time.'
'Got us a way out?'
'Yeah, down that alley.'
'Great. What's down there?'
'The only place not yet burning, you Dal Honese monk-rat!' She waved at her troop and they continued on. Something was visible ahead. A huge, smudgy dome of some kind. They were passing temples now, the doors swinging wide, banging in the gusting, furnace-hot wind. What little clothes she was still wearing had begun smoking, thready wisps stretching out from the rough weave. She could smell her own burning hair.
A soldier came up alongside her. He was holding twin long-knives in gloved hands. 'You ain't got no cause to curse Sergeant Balm, woman.
He brought us through this far.'
'What's your name?' Hellian demanded.
'Throatslitter-'
'Nice. Now go and slit your own throat. Nobody's gotten through nowhere, you damned idiot. Now, unless you got a bottle of chilled wine under that shirt, go find someone else to annoy.'
'You was nicer drunk,' he said, falling back.
Yeah, everyone's nicer drunk.
At the far edge of the collapsed palace, Limp's left leg was trapped by a sliding piece of stonework, his screams loud enough to challenge the fiery wind. Cord, Shard and a few others from the Ashok squad pulled him free, but it was clear the soldier's leg was broken.
Ahead was a plaza of some sort, once the site of a market of some kind, and beyond it rose a huge domed temple behind a high wall.
Remnants of gold leaf trickled down the dome's flanks like rainwater.
A heavy layer of smoke roiled across the scene, making the dome seem to float in the air, firelit and smeared. Strings gestured for everyone to close in.
'We're heading for that temple,' he said. 'It likely won't help – there's a damned firestorm coming. Never seen one myself, and I'm wishing that was still the case. Anyway,' he paused to cough, then spit, 'I can't think of anything else.'
'Sergeant,' Bottle said, frowning, 'I sense… something. Life. In that temple.'
'All right, maybe we'll have to fight to find a place to die. Fine.
Maybe there's enough of 'em to kill us all and that ain't so bad.'
No, Sergeant. Nowhere close. But never mind.
'All right, let's try and get across this plaza.'
It looked easy, but they were running out of air, and the winds racing across the concourse were blistering hot – no cover provided by building walls. Bottle knew they might not make it. Rasping heat tore at his eyes, poured like sand into his throat with every gasping breath. Through blurred pain, he saw figures appear off to his right, racing out of the smoke. Ten, fifteen, then scores, spilling onto the concourse, some of them on fire, others with spears- 'Sergeant!'
'Gods below!'
The warriors were attacking. Here, in this square, this… furnace.
Burning figures fell away, stumbling, clawing at their faces, but the others came on.
'Form up!' Strings bellowed. 'Fighting retreat – to that temple wall!'
Bottle stared at the closing mass. Form up? Fighting retreat? With what?
One of Cord's soldiers appeared beside him, and the man reached out, gesturing. 'You! A mage, right?'
Bottle nodded.
'I'm Ebron – we got to take these bastards on – with magic – no other weapons left-'
'All right. Whatever you got, I'll add to it.'
Three heavy infantry, the women Flashwit, Mayfly and Uru Hela, had drawn knives and were forming up a front line. A heartbeat later, Shortnose joined them, huge hands closed into fists.
The lead score of attackers closed to within fifteen paces, and launched their spears as if they were javelins. In the momentary flash of the shafts crossing the short distance, Bottle saw that the wood had ignited, spinning wreaths of smoke.
Shouted warnings, then the solid impact of the heavy weapons. Uru Hela was spun round, a spear transfixing her left shoulder, the shaft scything into Mayfly's neck with a cracking sound. As Uru Hela stumbled to her knees, Mayfly staggered, then straightened. Sergeant Strings sprawled, a spear impaling his right leg. Swearing, he pulled at it, his other leg kicking like a thing gone mad. Tavos Pond staggered into Bottle, knocking him down as the soldier, one side of his face slashed away, the eye dangling, stumbled on, screaming.
Moments before the frenzied attackers reached them, a wave of sorcery rose in a wall of billowing, argent smoke, sweeping out to engulf the warriors. Shrieks, bodies falling, skin and flesh blackening, curling away from bones. Sudden horror.
Bottle had no idea what kind of magic Ebron was using, but he unleashed Meanas, redoubling the smoke's thickness and breadth – illusional, but panic tore into the warriors. Falling, tumbling out of the smoke, hands at their eyes, writhing, vomit gushing onto the cobbles. The attack shattered against the sorcery, and as the wind whipped the poisonous cloud away, they could see nothing but fleeing figures, already well beyond the heap of bodies.
Bodies smouldering, catching fire.
Koryk had reached Strings, who had pulled the spear from his leg, and began stuffing knots of cloth into the puncture wounds. Bottle went to them – no spurting blood from the holes, he saw. Still, lots of blood had smeared the cobbles. 'Wrap that leg!' he ordered the half-Seti. '
We've got to get off this plaza!'
Cord and Corporal Tulip were attending to Uru Hela, whilst Scant and Balgrid had chased down and tackled Tavos Pond to the ground. Bottle watched as Scant pushed the dangling eye back into its socket, then fumbled with a cloth to wrap round the soldier's head.
'Drag the wounded!' Sergeant Gesler yelled. 'Come on, you damned fools! To that wall! We need to find us a way in!'
Numbed, Bottle reached down to help Koryk lift Strings.
He saw that his fingers had turned blue. He was deafened by a roaring in his head, and everything was spinning round him.
Air. We need air.
The wall rose before them, and then they were skirting it. Seeking a way in.
Lying in heaps, dying of asphyxiation. Keneb pulled himself across shattered stone, blistered hands clawing through the rubble. Blinding smoke, searing heat, and now he could feel his mind, starving, disintegrating – wild, disjointed visions – a woman, a man, a child, striding out from the flames.
Demons, servants of Hood.
Voices, so loud, the wail endless, growing – and darkness flowed out from the three apparitions, poured over the hundreds of bodiesYes, his mind was dying. For he felt a sudden falling off of the vicious heat, and sweet air filled his lungs. Dying, what else can this be? I have arrived. At Hood's Gate. Gods, such blessed reliefSomeone's hands pulled at him – spasms of agony from fingers pressing into burnt skin – and he was being rolled over.
Blinking, staring up into a smeared, blistered face. A woman. He knew her.
And she was speaking.
We're all dead, now. Friends. Gathering at Hood's Gate'Fist Keneb! There are hundreds here!'
Yes.
'Still alive! Sinn is keeping the fire back, but she can't hold on much longer! We're going to try and push through! Do you understand me! We need help, we need to get everyone on their feet!'
What? 'Captain,' he whispered. 'Captain Faradan Sort.'
'Yes! Now, on your feet, Fist!'
A storm of fire was building above Y'Ghatan. Blistig had never seen anything like it. Flames, twisting, spinning, slashing out long tendrils that seemed to shatter the billowing smoke. Wild winds tore into the clouds, annihilating them in flashes of red.
The heat- Gods below, this has happened before. This Hood-damned city…
A corner bastion exploded in a vast fireball, the leaping gouts writhing, climbingThe wind that struck them from behind staggered everyone on the road.
In the besiegers' camp, tents were torn from their moorings, flung into the air, then racing in wild billows towards Y'Ghatan. Horses screamed amidst curtains of sand and dust rising up, whipping like the fiercest storm.
Blistig found himself on his knees. A gloved hand closed on his cloak collar, pulled him round. He found himself staring into a face that, for a moment, he did not recognize. Dirt, sweat, tears, and an expression buckled by panic – the Adjunct. 'Pull the camp back!
Everyone!'
He could barely hear her, yet he nodded, turned into the wind and fought his way down from the road. Something is about to be born, Nil said. Something…
The Adjunct was shouting. More commands. Blistig, reaching the edge of the road, dragged himself down onto the back slope. Nil and Nether moved past him, towards where the Adjunct still stood on the road.
The initial blast of wind had eased slightly, this time a longer, steadier breath drawn in towards the city and its burgeoning conflagration.
'There are soldiers!' the Adjunct screamed. 'Beyond the breach! I want them out!'
The child Grub clambered up the slope, flanked by the dogs Bent and Roach.
And now other figures were swarming past Blistig. Khundryl. Warlocks, witches. Keening voices, jabbering undercurrents, a force building, rising from the battered earth. Fist Blistig twisted round – a ritual, magic, what were they doing? He shot a glance back at the chaos of the encampment, saw officers amidst scrambling figures – they weren't fools. They were already pulling backNil's voice, loud from the road. 'We can feel her! Someone! Spirits below, such power!'
'Help her, damn you!'
A witch shrieked, bursting into flames on the road. Moments later, two warlocks huddled near Blistig seemed to melt before his eyes, crumbling into white ash. He stared in horror. Help her? Help who?
What is happening? He pulled himself onto the road's edge once more.
And could see, in the heart of the breach, a darkening within the flames.
Fire flickered round another witch, then snapped out as something rolled over everyone on the road – cool, sweet power – like a merciful god's breath. Even Blistig, despiser of all things magic, could feel this emanation, this terrible, beautiful will.
Driving the flames in the breach back, opening a swirling dark tunnel.
From which figures staggered.
Nether was on her knees near the Adjunct – the only person on the road still standing – and Blistig saw the Wickan girl turn to Tavore, heard her say, 'It's Sinn. Adjunct, that child's a High Mage. And she doesn' t even know it-'
The Adjunct turned, saw Blistig.
'Fist! On your feet. Squads and healers forward. Now! They're coming through – Fist Blistig, do you understand me? They need help!'
He clambered to his knees, but got no further. He stared at the woman.
She was no more than a silhouette, the world behind her nothing but flames, a firestorm growing, ever growing. Something cold, riven through with terror, filled his chest.
A vision.
He could only stare.
Tavore snarled, then turned to the scrawny boy standing nearby. 'Grub!
Find some officers down in our camp! We need-'
'Yes, Adjunct! Seven hundred and ninety-one, Adjunct. Fist Keneb. Fist Tene Baralta. Alive. I'm going to get help now.'
And then he was running past Blistig, down the slope, the dogs padding along in his wake.
A vision. An omen, yes. I know now, what awaits us. At the far end. At the far end of this long, long road. Oh gods…
She had turned about, now, her back to him. She was staring at the burning city, at the pathetic, weaving line of survivors stumbling through the tunnel. Seven hundred and ninety-one. Out of three thousand.
But she is blind. Blind to what I see.
The Adjunct Tavore. And a burning world.
The doors slammed open, pulling in an undercurrent of smoke and heat that swept across Corabb's ankles, then up and round, the smoke massing in the dome, pulled and tugged by wayward currents. The warrior stepped in front of the huddled children and drew out his scimitar.
He heard voices – Malazan – then saw figures appearing from the hallway's gloom. Soldiers, a woman in the lead. Seeing Corabb, they halted.
A man stepped past the woman. His blistered face bore the mangled traces of tattooing. 'I am Iutharal Galt,' he said in a ragged voice.
'Pardu-'
'Traitor,' Corabb snapped. 'I am Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas, Second to Leoman of the Flails. You, Pardu, are a traitor.'
'Does that matter any more? We're all dead now, anyway.'
'Enough of this,' a midnight-skinned soldier said in badly accented Ehrlii. 'Throatslitter, go and kill the fool-'
'Wait!' the Pardu said, then ducked his head and added: 'Sergeant.
Please. There ain't no point to this-'
'It was these bastards that led us into this trap, Galt,' the sergeant said.
'No,' Corabb said, drawing their attention once more. 'Leoman of the Flails has brought us to this. He and he alone. We – we were all betrayed-'
'And where's he hiding?' the one named Throatslitter asked, hefting his long-knives, a murderous look in his pale eyes.
'Fled.'
'Temul will have him, then,' Iutharal Galt said, turning to the sergeant. 'They've surrounded the city-'
'No use,' Corabb cut in. 'He did not leave that way.' He gestured behind him, towards the altar. 'A sorcerous gate. The Queen of Dreams – she took him from here. Him and High Mage L'oric and a Malazan woman named Dunsparrow-'
The doors opened once again and the Malazans whirled, then, as voices approached – cries of pain, coughing, cursing – they relaxed. More brethren, Corabb realized. More of the damned enemy. But the Pardu had been right. The only enemy now was fire. He swung back to look upon the children, flinched at their terror-filled eyes, and turned round once more, for he had nothing to say to them. Nothing worth hearing.
As he stumbled into the hallway, Bottle gasped. Cold, dusty air, rushing past him – where? how? – and then Cuttle pushed the doors shut once more, swearing as he burned his hands.
Ahead, at the threshold leading into the altar chamber, stood more Malazans. Balm and his squad. The Kartoolian drunk, Hellian. Corporal Reem and a few others from Sobelone's heavies. And, beyond them in the nave itself, a lone rebel warrior, and behind him, children.
But the air – the air…
Koryk and Tarr dragged Strings past him. Mayfly and Flashwit had drawn their meat-knives again, even as the rebel flung his scimitar to one side, the weapon clanging hollowly on the tiled floor. Gods below, one of them has actually surrendered.
Heat was radiating from the stone walls – the firestorm outside would not spare this temple for much longer. The last twenty paces round the temple corner to the front facade had nearly killed them – no wind, the air filled with the crack of exploding bricks, buckling cobblestones, the flames seeming to feed upon the very air itself, roaring down the streets, spiralling upward, flaring like huge hooded snakes above the city. And the sound – he could hear it still, beyond the walls, closing in – the sound… is terrible. Terrible.
Gesler and Cord strode over to Balm and Hellian, and Bottle moved closer to listen in on their conversation.
'Anybody here worship the Queen of Dreams?' Gesler asked.
Hellian shrugged. 'I figure it's a little late to start. Anyway, Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas – our prisoner over there – he said Leoman's already done that deal with her. Of course, maybe she ain't into playing favouritesA sudden loud crack startled everyone – the altar had just shattered – and Bottle saw that Crump, the insane saboteur, had just finished pissing on it.
Hellian laughed. 'Well, scratch that idea.'
'Hood's balls,' Gesler hissed. 'Someone go kill that bastard, please.'
Crump had noticed the sudden attention. He looked round innocently. '
What?'
'Want a word or two with you,' Cuttle said, rising. ''Bout the wall-'
'It weren't my fault! I ain't never used cussers afore!'
'Crump-'
'And that ain't my name neither, Sergeant Cord. It's Jamber Bole, and I was High Marshall in the Mott Irregulars-'
'Well, you ain't in Mott any more, Crump. And you ain't Jamber Bole either. You're Crump, and you better get used to it.'
A voice from behind Bottle: 'Did he say Mott Irregulars?'
Bottle turned, nodded at Strings. 'Aye, Sergeant.'
'Gods below, who recruited him?'
Shrugging, Bottle studied Strings for a moment. Koryk and Tarr had carried him to just within the nave's entrance, and the sergeant was leaning against a flanking pillar, the wounded leg stretched out in front of him, his face pale. 'I better get to that-'
'No point, Bottle – the walls are going to explode – you can feel the heat, even from this damned pillar. It's amazing there's air in here…' His voice fell away, and Bottle saw his sergeant frown, then lay both hands palm-down on the tiles. 'Huh.'
'What is it?'
'Cool air, coming up from between the tiles.'
Crypts? Cellars? But that would be dead air down there.. 'I'll be back in a moment, Sergeant,' he said, turning and heading towards the cracked altar. A pool of water steamed just beyond. He could feel that wind, now, the currents rising up from the floor. Halting, he settled down onto his hands and knees.
And sent his senses downward, seeking life-sparks.
Down, through layers of tight-packed rubble, then, movement in the darkness, the flicker of life. Panicked, clambering down, ever down, the rush of air sweeping past slick fur – rats. Fleeing rats.
Fleeing. Where? His senses danced out, through the rubble beneath, brushing creature after creature. Darkness, sighing streams of air.
Smells, echoes, damp stone…
'Everyone!' Bottle shouted, rising. 'We need to break through this floor! Whatever you can find – we need to bash through!'
They looked at him as if he'd gone mad.
'We dig down! This city – it's built on ruins! We need to find a way down – through them – damn you all – that air is coming from somewhere!'
'And what are we?' Cord demanded. 'Ants?'
'There's rats, below – I looked through their eyes – I saw! Caverns, caves – passages!'
'You did what?' Cord advanced on him.
'Hold it, Cord!' Strings said, twisting round where he sat. 'Listen to him. Bottle – can you follow one of those rats? Can you control one?'
Bottle nodded. 'But there are foundation stones, under this temple – we need to get through-'
'How?' Cuttle demanded. 'We just got rid of all our munitions!'
Hellian cuffed one of her soldiers. 'You, Brethless! Still got that cracker?'
Every sapper in the chamber suddenly closed in on the soldier named Brethless. He stared about in panic, then pulled out a wedge-shaped copper-sheathed spike.
'Back off him!' Strings shouted. 'Everyone. Everyone but Cuttle.
Cuttle, you can do this, right? No mistakes.'
'None at all,' Cuttle said, gingerly taking the spike from Brethless's hand. 'Who's still got a sword? Anything hard and big enough to break these tiles-'
'I do.' The man who spoke was the rebel warrior. 'Or, I did – it's over there.' He pointed.
The scimitar went into the hands of Tulip, who battered the tiles in a frenzy that had inset precious stones flying everywhere, until a rough angular hole had been chopped into the floor.
'Good enough, back off, Tulip. Everybody, get as close to the outer walls as you can and cover your faces, your eyes, your ears-'
'How many hands you think each of us has got?' Hellian demanded.
Laughter.
Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas stared at them all as if they'd lost their minds.
A reverberating crack shuddered through the temple, and dust drifted down. Bottle looked up with all the others to see tongues of fire reaching down through a fissure in the dome, which had begun sagging.
'Cuttle-'
'I see it. Pray this cracker don't bring it all down on us.'
He set the spike. 'Bottle, which way you want it pointing?'
'Towards the altar side. There's a space, two maybe three arm-lengths down.'
'Three? Gods below. Well, we'll see.'
The outer walls were oven-hot, sharp cracking sounds filling the air as the massive temple began settling. They could hear the grate of foundation stones sliding beneath shifting pressures. The heat was building.
'Six and counting!' Cuttle shouted, scrambling away.
Five… four… three…
The cracker detonated in a deadly hail of stone-chips and tile shards.
People cried out in pain, children screamed, dust and smoke filling the air – and then, from the floor, the sounds of rubble falling, striking things far below, bouncing, tumbling down, down…
'Bottle.'
At Strings's voice, he crawled forward, towards the gaping hole. He needed to find another rat. Somewhere down below. A rat my soul can ride. A rat to lead us out.
He said nothing to the others of what else he had sensed, flitting among life-sparks in the seeming innumerable layers of dead, buried city below – that it went down, and down, and down – the air rising up stinking of decay, the pressing darkness, the cramped, tortured routes. Down. All those rats, fleeing, downward. None, none within my reach clambering free, into the night air. None.
Rats will flee. Even when there's nowhere to go.
Wounded, burned soldiers were being carried past Blistig. Pain and shock, flesh cracked open and lurid red, like cooked meat – which, he realized numbly, was what it was. The white ash of hair – on limbs, where eyebrows had once been, on blistered pates. Blackened remnants of clothing, hands melted onto weapon grips – he wanted to turn away, so desperately wanted to turn away, but he could not.
He stood fifteen hundred paces away, now, from the road and its fringes of burning grass, and he could still feel the heat. Beyond, a fire god devoured the sky above Y'Ghatan – Y'Ghatan, crumbling inward, melting into slag – the city's death was as horrible to his eyes as the file of Keneb and Baralta's surviving soldiers.
How could he do this? Leoman of the Flails, you have made of your name a curse that will never die. Never.
Someone came to his side and, after a long moment, Blistig looked over. And scowled. The Claw, Pearl. The man's eyes were red – durhang, it could be nothing else, for he had remained in his tent, at the far end of the encampment, as if indifferent to this brutal night.
'Where is the Adjunct?' Pearl asked in a low, rough voice.
'Helping with the wounded.'
'Has she broken? Is she on her hands and knees in the blood-soaked mud?'
Blistig studied the man. Those eyes – had he been weeping? No.
Durhang. 'Say that again, Claw, and you won't stay alive for much longer.'
The tall man shrugged. 'Look at these burned soldiers, Fist. There are worse things than dying.'
'The healers are among them. Warlocks, witches, from my company-'
'Some scars cannot be healed.'
'What are you doing here? Go back to your tent.'
'I have lost a friend this night, Fist. I will go wherever I choose.'
Blistig looked away. Lost a friend. What of over two thousand Malazan soldiers? Keneb has lost most of his marines and among them, invaluable veterans. The Adjunct has lost her first battle – oh, the imperial records will note a great victory, the annihilation of the last vestiges of the Sha'ik rebellion. But we, we who are here this night, we will know the truth for the rest of our lives.
And this Adjunct Tavore, she is far from finished. I have seen. 'Go back to the Empress,' Blistig said. 'Tell her the truth of this night-'
'And what would be the point of that, Fist?'
He opened his mouth, then shut it again.
Pearl said, 'Word will be sent to Dujek Onearm, and he in turn will report to the Empress. For now, however, it is more important that Dujek know. And understand, as I am sure he will.'
'Understand what?'
'That the Fourteenth Army can no longer be counted on as a fighting force on Seven Cities.'
Is that true? 'That remains to be seen,' he said. 'In any case, the rebellion is crushed-'
'Leoman escaped.'
'What?'
'He has escaped. Into the Warren of D'riss, under the protection of the Queen of Dreams – only she knows, I suppose, what use he will be to her. I admit, that part worries me – gods are by nature unfathomable, most of the time, and she is more so than most. I find this detail… troubling.'
'Stand here, then, and fret.' Blistig turned away, made for the hastily erected hospital tents. Hood take that damned Claw. The sooner the better. How could he know such things? Leoman… alive. Well, perhaps that could be made to work in their favour, perhaps his name would become a curse among the people of Seven Cities as well. The Betrayer. The commander who murdered his own army.
But it is how we are. Look at High Fist Pormqual, after all. Yet, his crime was stupidity. Leoman's was… pure evil. If such a thing truly exists.
The storm raged on, unleashing waves of heat that blackened the surrounding countryside. The city's walls had vanished – for no humanbuilt wall could withstand this demon's fury. A distant, pale reflection was visible to the east. The sun, rising to meet its child.
His soul rode the back of a small, insignificant creature, fed on a tiny, racing heart, and looked through eyes that cut into the darkness. Like some remote ghost, tethered by the thinnest of chains, Bottle could feel his own body, somewhere far above, slithering through detritus, cut and scraped raw, face gone slack, eyes straining. Battered hands pulled him along – his own, he was certain – and he could hear soldiers moving behind him, the crying of children, the scrape and catch of buckles, leather straps snagging, rubble being pushed aside, clawed at, clambered over.
He had no idea how far they had gone. The rat sought out the widest, highest passages, following the howling, whistling wind. If people remained in the temple, awaiting their turn to enter this tortured tunnel, that turn would never come, for the air itself would have burst aflame by now, and soon the temple would collapse, burying their blackened corpses in melting stone.
Strings would have been among those victims, for the sergeant had insisted on going last, just behind Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas. Bottle thought back to those frantic moments, before the dust-clouds had even cleared, as chunks of the domed ceiling rained down…
'Bottle!'
'I'm looking!' Questing down, through cracks and fissures, hunting life. Warm-blooded life. Brushing then closing in on the muted awareness of a rat, sleek, healthy – but overheating with terror.
Overwhelming its meagre defences, clasping hard an iron control about its soul – that faint, flickering force, yet strong enough to reach beyond the flesh and bones that sheltered it. Cunning, strangely proud, warmed by the presence of kin, the rule of the swarm's master, but now all was in chaos, the drive of survival overpowering all else.
Racing down, following spoor, following the rich scents in the airAnd then it turned about, began climbing upwards once more, and Bottle could feel its soul in his grasp. Perfectly still,, unresisting now that it had been captured. Observing, curious, calm. There was more, he had always known – so much more to creatures. And so few who understood them the way he did, so few who could reach out and grasp such souls, and so find the strange web of trust all tangled with suspicion, fear with curiosity, need with loyalty.
He was not leading this morsel of a creature to its death. He would not do that, could not, and somehow it seemed to understand, to sense, now, a greater purpose to its life, its existence.
'I have her,' Bottle heard himself saying.
'Get down there, then!'
'Not yet. She needs to find a way up – to lead us back down-'
'Gods below!'
Gesler spoke: 'Start adopting children, soldiers. I want one between everyone behind Cuttle, since Cuttle will be right behind Bottle-'
'Leave me to the last,' Strings said.
'Your leg-'
'That's exactly right, Gesler.'
'We got other injured – got someone guiding or dragging each of 'em.
Fid-'
'No. I go last. Whoever's right ahead of me, we're going to need to close up this tunnel, else the fire'll follow us down-'
'There are copper doors. They covered the pool.' That was Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas. 'I will stay with you. Together, we shall use those panels to seal our retreat.'
'Second to last?' someone snarled. 'You'll just kill Fid and-'
'And what, Malazan? No, would I be allowed, I would go last. I stood at Leoman's side-'
'I'm satisfied with that,' Strings said. 'Corabb, you and I, that will do.'
'Hold on,' said Hellian, leaning close to Bottle. 'I ain't going down there. Someone better kill me right now-'
'Sergeant-'
'No way, there's spiders down there-'
The sound of a fist cracking into a jaw, then a collapsing body.
'Urb, you just knocked out your own sergeant.'
'Aye. I known her a long time, you see. She's a good sergeant, no matter what all of you think.'
'Huh. Right.'
'It's the spiders. No way she'd go down there – now I got to gag her and tie her arms and feet – I'll drag her myself-'
'If she's a good sergeant, Urb, how do you treat bad ones?'
'Ain't had any other sergeant, and I mean to keep it that way.'
Below, the broad crevasse that Bottle had sensed earlier, his rat scrambling free, now seeking to follow that wide but shallow crack – too shallow? No, they could scrape through, and there, beneath it, a tilted chamber of some kind, most of the ceiling intact, and the lower half of a doorway – he sent the rat that way, and beyond the doorway… 'I have it! There's a street! Part of a street – not sure how far-'
'Never mind! Lead us down, damn you! I'm starting to blister everywhere! Hurry!'
All right. Why not? At the very least, it'll purchase us a few more moments. He slithered down into the pit. Behind him, voices, the scrabble of boots, the hissing of pain as flesh touched hot stone.
Faintly: 'How hot is that water in that pool? Boiling yet? No? Good, those with canteens and skins, fill 'em now-'
Into the crevasse… while the rat scurried down the canted, littered street, beneath a ceiling of packed rubble…
Bottle felt his body push through a fissure, then plunge downward, onto the low-ceilinged section of street. Rocks, mortar and potsherds under his hands, cutting, scraping as he scrabbled forward. Once walked, this avenue, in an age long past. Wagons had rattled here, horse-hoofs clumping, and there had been rich smells. Cooking from nearby homes, livestock being driven to the market squares. Kings and paupers, great mages and ambitious priests. All gone. Gone to dust.
The street sloped sharply, where cobbles had buckled, sagging down to fill a subterranean chamber – no, an old sewer, brick-lined, and it was into this channel his rat had crawled.
Pushing aside broken pieces of cobble, he pulled himself down into the shaft. Desiccated faeces in a thin, shallow bed beneath him, the husks of dead insects, carapaces crunching as he slithered along. A pale lizard, long as his forearm, fled in a whisper into a side crack. His forehead caught strands of spider's web, tough enough to halt him momentarily before audibly snapping. He felt something alight on his shoulder, race across his back, then leap off.
Behind him Bottle heard Cuttle coughing in the dust in his wake, as it swept over the sapper on the gusting wind. A child had been crying somewhere back there, but was now silent, only the sound of movement, gasps of effort. Just ahead, a section of the tunnel had fallen in.
The rat had found a way through, so he knew the barrier was not impassable. Reaching it, he began pulling away the rubble.
Smiles nudged the child ahead of her. 'Go on,' she murmured, 'keep going. Not far now.' She could still hear the girl's sniffles – not crying, not yet, anyway, just the dust, so much dust now, with those people crawling ahead. Behind her, small hands touched her blistered feet again and again, lancing vicious stabs of pain up her legs, but she bit back on it, making no outcry. Damned brat don't know any better, does he? And why they got such big eyes, looking up like that?
Like starving puppies. 'Keep crawling, little one. Not much farther…'
The child behind her, a boy, was helping Tavos Pond, whose face was wrapped in bloody bandages. Koryk was right behind them. Smiles could hear the half-Seti, going on and on with some kind of chant. Probably the only thing keeping the fool from deadly panic. He liked his open savannah, didn't he. Not cramped, twisting tunnels.
None of this bothered her. She'd known worse. Times, long ago, she'd lived in worse. You learned to only count on what's in reach, and so long as the way ahead stayed clear, there was still hope, still a chance.
If only this brat of a girl wouldn't keep stopping. Another nudge. 'Go on, lass. Not much more, you'll see…'
Gesler pulled himself along in pitch darkness, hearing Tulip's heavy grunts ahead of him, Crump's maddening singing behind him. The huge soldier whose bare feet Gesler's outstretched hands kept touching was having a hard time, and the sergeant could feel the smears of blood Tulip left behind as he squeezed and pulled himself through the narrow, twisting passage. Thick gasps, coughing – no, not coughing'Abyss take us, Tulip,' Gesler hissed, 'what's so funny?'
'Tickling,' the man called back. 'You. Keep. Tickling. My. Feet.'
'Just keep moving, you damned fool!'
Behind him, Crump's idiotic song continued.
'and I says oh I says them marsh trees got soft feet, and moss beards all the way down and they sway in the smelly breeze from that swamp water all yella'n brown oh we was in the froggy toady dawn belly-down in the leeches and collectin spawn 'cause when you give those worms a squeeze the blue pinky ropes come slimin downand don't they taste sweet! and don't they taste sweet! sweet as peat, oh yes sweet as peat-'
Gesler wanted to scream, like someone up ahead was doing. Scream, but he couldn't summon the breath – it was all too close, too fetid, the once cool sliding air rank with sweat, urine and Hood knew what else.
Truth's face kept coming back to him, rising in his mind like dread accusation. Gesler and Stormy, they'd pulled the recruit through so much since the damned rebellion. Kept him alive, showed him the ways of staying alive in this Hood-cursed world.
And what does he do? He runs into a burning palace. With a half-dozen cussers on his back. Gods, he was right on one thing, though, the fire couldn't take him – he went, way in, and that's what's saved us… so far. Blew that storm back. Saved us…
Soldiers all round him were blistered, burned. They coughed with every breath drawn into scorched lungs. But not me. He could sense that godling, within that firestorm. Could sense it, a child raging with the knowledge that it was going to die all too soon. Good, you don't deserve nothing more. Fire couldn't hurt him, but that didn't mean he had to kneel before it in prayer, did it? He didn't ask for any of this. Him and Stormy and Truth – only, Truth was dead, now. He'd never expected…
'and I says oh I says that ole bridge got feeta stone, and mortar white as bone and the badgers dangle from the ledge swingin' alla day alla way home oh we was pullin vines from you know where and stuffin our ears with sweety sweet loam jus t'get them badgers flyin' outa there inta them cook pots in the hearthy homeand don't they taste sweet! and don't they taste sweet! sweet as peat, oh yes sweet as peat-'
When he got out of here, he was going to wring Crump's scrawny neck.
High Marshal? Gods below 'and I says oh I says that warlock's tower-'
Corporal Tarr pulled on Balgrid's arms, ignoring the man's squeals.
How the mage had managed to stay fat through that endless march was baffling. And now, all too likely to prove deadly. Mind you, fat could be squeezed, when muscled bulk couldn't. That was something, at least.
Balgrid shrieked as Tarr dragged him through the crevasse. 'You're tearing my arms off!'
'You plug up here, Balgrid,' Tarr said, 'and Urb behind you's gonna take out his knife-'
A muted voice from the huge man behind Balgrid: 'Damn right. I'll joint you like a pig, mage. I swear it.'
The darkness was the worst of all – never mind the spiders, the scorpions and centipedes, it was the darkness that clawed and chewed on Tarr's sanity. At least Bottle had a rat's eyes to look through.
Rats could see in the dark, couldn't they? Then again, maybe they couldn't. Maybe they just used their noses, their whiskers, their ears. Maybe they were too stupid to go insane.
Or they're already insane. We're being led by an insane rat'I'm stuck again, oh gods! I can't move!'
'Stop yelling,' Tarr said, halting and twisting round yet again.
Reaching out for the man's arms. 'Hear that, Balgrid?'
'What? What?'
'Not sure. Thought I heard Urb's knives coming outa their sheaths.'
The mage heaved himself forward, kicking, clawing.
'You stop moving again,' Balm snarled to the child in front of him, ' and the lizards will get you. Eat you alive. Eat us all alive. Those are crypt lizards, you damned whelp. You know what crypt lizards do?
I'll tell you what they do. They eat human flesh. That's why they're called crypt lizards, only they don't mind if it's living flesh-'
'For Hood's sake!' Deadsmell growled behind him. 'Sergeant – that ain' t the way-'
'Shut your mouth! He's still moving, ain't he? Oh yes, ain't he just.
Crypt lizards, runt! Oh yes!'
'Hope you ain't nobody's uncle, Sergeant.'
'You're getting as bad as Widdershins, Corporal, with that babbling mouth of yours. I want a new squad-'
'Nobody'll have you, not after this-'
'You don't know nothing, Deadsmell.'
'I know if I was that child ahead of you, I'd shit right in your face.'
'Quiet! You give him ideas, damn you! Do it, boy, and I'll tie you up, oh yes, and leave you for the crypt lizards-'
'Listen to me, little one!' Deadsmell called out, his voice echoing. '
Them crypt lizards, they're about as long as your thumb! Balm's just being a-'
'I'm going to skewer you, Deadsmell. I swear it!'
Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas dragged himself forward. The Malazan in his wake was gasping – the only indication that the man still followed.
They had managed to drop one of the copper panels over the pit, burning their hands – bad burns, the pain wouldn't go away – Corabb's palms felt like soft wax, pushed out of shape by the stones they gripped, the ledges they grasped.
He had never felt such excruciating pain before. He was sheathed in sweat, his limbs trembling, his heart hammering like a trapped beast in his chest.
Pulling himself through a narrow space, he sank down onto what seemed to be the surface of a street, although his head scraped stone rubble above. He slithered forward, gasping, and heard the sergeant slip down after him.
Then the ground shook, dust pouring down thick as sand. Thunder, one concussion after another, pounding down from above. A rush of searing hot air swept over them from behind. Smoke, dust'Forward!' Strings screamed. 'Before the ceiling goes-'
Corabb reached back, groping, until he clasped one of the Malazan's hands – the man was half-buried under rubble, his breath straining beneath the settling weight. Corabb pulled, then pulled harder.
A savage grunt from the Malazan, then, amidst clattering, thumping bricks and stones, Corabb tugged the man clear.
'Come on!' he hissed. 'There's a pit ahead, a sewer – the rest went down there – grab my ankles, Sergeant-'
The wind was beating back the roiling heat.
Corabb pitched headfirst into the pit, dragging Strings with him.
The rat had reached a vertical shaft, rough-walled enough so that she could climb down. The wind howled up it, filled with rotted leaves, dust and insect fragments. The creature was still descending when Bottle pulled himself up to the ledge. The detritus bit at his eyes as he peered down.
Seeing nothing. He pulled free a piece of rubble and tossed it downward, out from the wall. His soul, riding the rat's own, sensed its passage. Rodent ears pricked forward, waiting. Four human heartbeats later there was a dull, muted crack of stone on stone, a few more, then nothing. Oh gods…
Cuttle spoke behind him. 'What's wrong?'
'A shaft, goes straight down – a long away down.'
'Can we climb it?'
'My rat can.'
'How wide is it?'
'Not very, and gets narrower.'
'We got wounded people back here, and Hellian's still unconscious.'
Bottle nodded. 'Do a roll call – I want to know how many made it. We also need straps, rope, anything and everything. Was it just me or did you hear the temple come down?'
Cuttle turned about and started the roll call and the request for straps and rope, then twisted round once more. 'Yeah, it went down all right. When the wind dropped off. Thank Hood it's back, or we'd be cooking or suffocating or both.'
Well, we're not through this yet…
'I know what you're thinking, Bottle.'
'You do?'
'Think there's a rat god? I hope so, and I hope you're praying good and hard.'
A rat god. Maybe. Hard to know with creatures that don't think in words. 'I think one of us, one of the bigger, stronger ones, could wedge himself across. And help people down.'
'If we get enough straps and stuff to climb down, aye. Tulip, maybe, or that other corporal, Urb. But there ain't room to get past anyone.'
I know. 'I'm going to try and climb down.'
'Where's the rat?'
'Down below. It's reached the bottom. It's waiting there. Anyway, here goes.' Drawing on the Thyr Warren to pierce the darkness, he moved out to the very edge. The wall opposite looked to be part of some monumental structure, the stones skilfully cut and fitted. Patches of crumbling plaster covered parts of it, as did sections of the frieze fronting that plaster. It seemed almost perfectly vertical – the narrowing of the gap was caused by the wall on his side – a much rougher facing, with projections remaining from some kind of elaborate ornamentation. A strange clash of styles, for two buildings standing so close together. Still, both walls had withstood the ravages of being buried, seemingly unaffected by the pressures of sand and rubble. 'All right,' he said to Cuttle, who had drawn up closer, 'this might not be so bad.'
'You're what, twenty years old? No wounds, thin as a spear…'
'Fine, you've made your point.' Bottle pushed himself further out, then drew his right leg round. Stretching it outward, he slowly edged over, onto his stomach. 'Damn, I don't think my leg's long-'
The ledge he leaned on splintered – it was, he suddenly realized, nothing but rotted wood – and he began sliding, falling.
He spun over, kicking out with both legs as he plummeted, throwing both arms out behind and to the sides. Those rough stones tore into his back, one outcrop cracking into the base of his skull and throwing his head forward. Then both feet contacted the stone of the wall opposite.
Flinging him over, headfirstOh HoodSudden tugs, snapping sounds, then more, pulling at him, resisting, slowing his descent.
Gods, websHis left shoulder was tugged back, turning him over. He kicked out again and felt the plastered wall under his foot. Reached out with his right arm, and his hand closed on a projection that seemed to sink like sponge beneath his clutching fingers. His other foot contacted the wall, and he pushed with both legs until his back was against rough stone.
And there were spiders, each as big as an outstretched hand, crawling all over him.
Bottle went perfectly still, struggling to slow his breathing.
Hairless, short-legged, pale amber – but there was no light – and he realized that the creatures were glowing, somehow lit from within, like lantern-flame behind thick, gold-tinted glass. They had swarmed him, now. From far above, he heard Cuttle calling down in desperate, frightened tones.
Bottle reached out with his mind, and immediately recoiled at the blind rage building in the spiders. And flashes of memory – the rat – their favoured prey – somehow evading all their snares, climbing down right past them, unseeing, unaware of the hundreds of eyes tracking its passing. And now… this.
Heart thundering in his chest, Bottle quested once more. A hive mind, of sorts – no, an extended family – they would mass together, exchange nutrients – when one fed, they all fed. They had never known light beyond what lived within them, and, until recently, never known wind.
Terrified… but not starving, thank Hood. He sought to calm them, flinched once more as all motion ceased, all attention fixed now on him. Legs that had been scrambling over his body went still, tiny claws clasping hard in his skin.
Calm. No reason to fear. An accident, and there will be more – it cannot be helped. Best go away now, all of you. Soon, the silence will return, we will have gone past, and before long, this wind will end, and you can begin to rebuild. Peace… please.
They were not convinced.
The wind paused suddenly, then a gust of heat descended from above.
Flee! He fashioned images of fire in his mind, drew forth from his own memory scenes of people dying, destruction all aroundThe spiders fled. Three heartbeats, and he was alone. Nothing clinging still to his skin, nothing but strands of wiry anchor lines, tattered sheets of web. And, trickling down his back, from the soles of his feet, from his arms: blood.
Damn, I'm torn up bad, I think. Pain, now, awakening… everywhere.
Too much – Consciousness fled.
From far above: 'Bottle!'
Stirring… blinking awake. How long had he been hanging here? 'I'm here, Cuttle! I'm climbing down – not much farther, I think!'
Grimacing against the pain, he started working his feet downward – the space was narrow enough, now, that he could straddle the gap. He gasped as he pulled his back clear of the wall.
Something whipped his right shoulder, stinging, hard, and he ducked – then felt the object slide down the right side of his chest. The strap of a harness.
From above: 'I'm climbing down!'
Koryk called behind him, 'Shard, you still with us?' The man had been gibbering – they'd all discovered an unexpected horror. That of stopping. Moving forward had been a tether to sanity, for it had meant that, somewhere ahead, Bottle was still crawling, still finding a way through. When everyone had come to a halt, terror had slipped among them, closing like tentacles around throats, and squeezing.
Shrieks, panicked fighting against immovable, packed stone and brick, hands clawing at feet. Rising into a frenzy.
Then, voices bellowing, calling back – they'd reached a shaft of some kind – they needed rope, belts, harness straps – they were going to climb down.
There was still a way ahead.
Koryk had, through it all, muttered his chant. The Child Death Song, the Seti rite of passage from whelp into adulthood. A ritual that had, for girl and boy alike, included the grave log, the hollowed-out coffin and the night-long internment in a crypt of the bloodline.
Buried alive, for the child to die, for the adult to be born. A test against the spirits of madness, the worms that lived in each person, coiled at the base of the skull, wrapped tight about the spine. Worms that were ever eager to awaken, to crawl, gnawing a path into the brain, whispering and laughing or screaming, or both.
He had survived that night. He had defeated the worms.
And that was all he needed, for this. All he needed.
He had heard those worms, eating into soldiers ahead of him, soldiers behind him. Into the children, as the worms raced out to take them as well. For an adult to break under fear – there could be no worse nightmare for the child that witnessed such a thing. For with that was torn away all hope, all faith.
Koryk could save none of them. He could not give them the chant, for they would not know what it meant, and they had never spent a night in a coffin. And he knew, had it gone on much longer, people would start dying, or the madness would devour their minds, completely, permanently, and that would kill everyone else. Everyone.
The worms had retreated, and now all he could hear was weeping – not the broken kind, but the relieved kind – weeping and gibbering. And he knew they could taste it, could taste what those worms had left behind, and they prayed: not again. No closer, please. Never again.
'Corporal Shard?'
'W-what, damn you?'
'Limp. How is he? I keep kicking at him, hitting what I think is an arm, but he's not moving. Can you climb ahead, can you check?'
'He's knocked out.'
'How did that happen?'
'I crawled onto him and pounded his head against the floor until he stopped screaming.'
'You sure he's alive?'
'Limp? His skull's solid rock, Koryk.'
He heard movement back there, asked, 'What now?'
'I'll prove it to you. Give this broke leg a twist-'
Limp shrieked.
'Glad you're back, soldier,' Shard said.
'Get away from me, you bastard!'
'Wasn't me who panicked. Next time you think about panicking, Limp, just remind yourself I'm here, right behind you.'
'I'm going to kill you someday, Corporal-'
'As you like. Just don't do it again.'
Koryk thought back to the babbling noises he'd heard from Shard, but said nothing.
More scuffling sounds, then a bundle of rope and leather straps – most of them charred – was pushed into Koryk's hands. He dragged it close, then shoved it out ahead to the small boy huddled behind Tavos Pond. '
Push it on, lad,' he said.
'You,' the boy said. 'I heard you. I listened.'
'And you was all right, wasn't you?'
'Yes.'
'I'll teach it to you. For the next time.'
'Yes.'
Someone had shouted back instructions, cutting through the frenzy of terror, and people had responded, stripping away whatever could be used as a rope. Chilled beneath a gritty layer of sweat, Tarr settled his forehead onto the stones under him, smelling dust mingled with the remnants of his own fear. When the bundle reached him he drew it forward, then struggled out of what was left of his own harness and added it to the pathetic collection.
Now, at least, they had a reason to wait, they weren't stopped because Bottle had run out of places to crawl.
Something to hold onto. He prayed it would be enough.
Behind him, Balgrid whispered, 'I wish we was marching across the desert again. That road, all that space on both sides…'
'I hear you,' Tarr said. 'And I also remember how you used to curse it. The dryness, the sun-'
'Sun, hah! I'm so crisp I'll never fear the sun again. Gods, I'll kneel in prayer before it, I swear it. If freedom was a god, Tarr…
If freedom was a god. Now that's an interesting thought…
'Thank Hood all that screaming's stopped,' Balm said, plucking at whatever was tingling against all his skin, tingling, prickling like some kind of heat rash. Heat rash, that was funny'Sergeant,' Deadsmell said, 'it was you doing all that screaming.'
'Quiet, you damned liar. Wasn't me, was the kid ahead of me.'
'Really? I didn't know he spoke Dal Honese-'
'I will skewer you, Corporal. Just one more word, I swear it. Gods, I' m itchy all over, like I been rolling in Fool's pollen-'
'You get that after you been panicking, Sergeant. Fear sweat, it's called. You didn't piss yourself too, did you? I'm smelling-'
'I got my knife out, Deadsmell. You know that? All I got to do is twist round and you won't be bothering me no more.'
'You tossed your knife, Sergeant. In the temple-'
'Fine! I'll kick you to death!'
'Well, if you do, can you do it before I have to crawl through your puddle?'
'The heat is winning the war,' Corabb said.
'Aye,' answered Strings behind him, his voice faint, brittle. 'Here.'
Something was pushed against Corabb's feet. He reached back, and his hand closed on a coil of rope. 'You were carrying this?'
'Was wrapped around me. I saw Smiles drop it, outside the temple – it was smouldering, so that's not a surprise…'
As he drew it over him, Corabb felt something wet, sticky on the rope.
Blood. 'You're bleeding out, aren't you?'
'Just a trickle. I'm fine.'
Corabb crawled forward – there was some space between them and the next soldier, the one named Widdershins. Corabb could have kept up had he been alone back here, but he would not leave the Malazan sergeant behind. Enemy or no, such things were not done.
He had believed them all monsters, cowards and bullies. He had heard that they ate their own dead. But no, they were just people. No different from Corabb himself. The tyranny lies at the feet of the Empress. These – they're all just soldiers. That's all they are. Had he gone with Leoman… he would have discovered none of this. He would have held onto his fierce hatred for all Malazans and all things Malazan.
But now… the man behind him was dying. A Falari by birth – just another place conquered by the empire. Dying, and there was no room to get to him, not here, not yet.
'Here,' he said to Widdershins. 'Pass this up.'
'Hood take us, that's real rope!'
'Aye. Move it along fast now.'
'Don't order me around, bastard. You're a prisoner. Remember that.'
Corabb crawled back.
The heat was building, devouring the thin streams of cool air sliding up from below. They couldn't lie still for much longer. We must move on.
From Strings: 'Did you say something, Corabb?'
'No. Nothing much.'
From above came sounds of Cuttle making his way down the makeshift rope, his breath harsh, strained. Bottle reached the rubble-filled base of the fissure. It was solidly plugged. Confused, he ran his hands along both walls. His rat? Ah, there – at the bottom of the sheer, vertical wall his left hand plunged into air that swept up and past. An archway. Gods, what kind of building was this? An archway, holding the weight of at least two – maybe three – storeys' worth of stonework. And neither the wall nor the arch had buckled, after all this time. Maybe the legends are true. Maybe Y'Ghatan was once the first Holy City, the greatest city of all. And when it died, at the Great Slaughter, every building was left standing – not a stone taken.
Standing, to be buried by the sands.
He lowered himself to twist feet-first through the archway, almost immediately contacting heaps of something – rubble? – nearly filling the chamber beyond. Rubble that tipped and tilted with clunking sounds, rocked by his kicking feet.
Ahead, his rat roused itself, startled by the loud sounds as Bottle slid into the chamber. Reaching out with his will, he grasped hold of the creature's soul once more. 'All right, little one. The work begins again…' His voice trailed away.
He was lying on row upon row of urns, stacked so high they were an arm's reach from the chamber's ceiling. Groping with his hands, Bottle found that the tall urns were sealed, capped in iron, the edges and level tops of the metal intricately incised with swirling patterns.
The ceramic beneath was smooth to the touch, finely glazed. Hearing Cuttle shouting that he'd reached the base behind him, he crawled in towards the centre of the room. The rat slipped through another archway opposite, and Bottle sensed it clambering down, alighting on a clear, level stone floor, then waddling ahead.
Grasping the rim of one urn's iron cap, he strained to pull it loose.
The seal was tight, his efforts eliciting nothing. He twisted the rim to the right – nothing – then the left. A grating sound. He twisted harder. The cap slid, pulled loose from its seal. Crumbled wax fell away. Bottle pulled upward on the lid. When that failed, he resumed twisting it to the left, and quickly realized that the lid was rising, incrementally, with every full turn. Probing fingers discovered a canted, spiralling groove on the rim of the urn, crusted with wax. Two more turns and the iron lid came away.
A pungent, cloying smell arose.
I know that smell… honey. These things are filled with honey. For how long had they sat here, stored away by people long since dust? He reached down, and almost immediately plunged his hand into the cool, thick contents. A balm against his burns, and now, an answer to the sudden hunger awakening within him.
'Bottle?'
'Through here. I'm in a large chamber under the straight wall. Cuttle, there's urns here, hundreds of them. Filled with honey.' He drew his hands free and licked his fingers. 'Gods, it tastes fresh. When you get in here, salve your burns, Cuttle-'
'Only if you promise we're not going to crawl through an ant nest anywhere ahead.'
'No ants down here. What's the count?'
'We got everybody.'
'Strings?'
'Still with us, though the heat's working its way down.'
'Enough rope and straps, then. Good.'
'Aye. So long as they hold. Seems Urb's proposing to carry Hellian down. On his back.'
'Is the next one on their way?'
'Aye. How do these lids come off?'
'Turn them, widdershins. And keep turning them.'
Bottle listened as the man worked on one of the lids. 'Can't be very old, this stuff, to still be fresh.'
'There's glyphs on these lids, Cuttle. I can't see them, but I can feel them. My grandmother, she had a ritual blade she used in her witchery – the markings are the same, I think. If I'm right, Cuttle, this iron work is Jaghut.'
'What?'
'But the urns are First Empire. Feel the sides. Smooth as eggshell – if we had light I'd wager anything they're sky-blue. So, with a good enough seal…'
'I can still taste the flowers in this, Bottle.'
'I know.'
'You're talking thousands and thousands of years.'
'Yes.'
'Where's your favourite rat?'
'Hunting us a way through. There's another chamber opposite, but it's open, empty, I mean – we should move in there to give the others room…'
'What's wrong?'
Bottle shook his head. 'Nothing, just feeling a little… strange. Cut my back up some… it's gone numb-'
'Hood's breath, there was some kind of poppy in that honey, wasn't there? I'm starting to feel… gods below, my head's swimming.'
'Yeah, better warn the others.'
Though he could see nothing, Bottle felt as if the world around him was shuddering, spinning. His heart was suddenly racing. Shit. He crawled towards the other archway. Reached in, pulled himself forward, and was falling.
The collision with the stone floor felt remote, yet he sensed he'd plunged more than a man's height. He remembered a sharp, cracking sound, realized it had been his forehead, hitting the flagstones.
Cuttle thumped down on top of him, rolled off with a grunt.
Bottle frowned, pulling himself along the floor. The rat – where was she? Gone. I lost her. Oh no, I lost her.
Moments later, he lost everything else as well.
Corabb had dragged an unconscious Strings down the last stretch of tunnel. They'd reached the ledge to find the rope dangling from three sword scabbards wedged across the shaft, and vague sounds of voices far below. Heat swirled like serpents around him as he struggled to pull the Malazan up closer to the ledge.
Then he reached out and began drawing up the rope.
The last third of the line consisted of knots and straps and buckles – he checked each knot, tugged on each strand, but none seemed on the verge of breaking. Corabb bound the Malazan's arms, tight at the wrists; then the man's ankles – one of them sheathed in blood, and, checking for bandages, he discovered none remaining, just the ragged holes left by the spear – and from the rope at the ankles he made a centre knot between the sergeant's feet. With the rope end looped in one hand, Corabb worked the man's arms over his head, then down so that the bound wrists were against his sternum. He then pushed his own legs through, so that the Malazan's bound feet were against his shins.
Drawing up the centre-knotted rope he looped it over his head and beneath one arm, then cinched it into a tight knot.
He worked his way into the shaft, leaning hard for the briefest of moments on the wedged scabbards, then succeeding in planting one foot against the opposite wall. The distance was a little too great – he could manage only the tips of his feet on each wall, and as the weight of Strings on his back fully settled, the tendons in his ankles felt ready to snap.
Gasping, Corabb worked his way down. Two man-heights, taken in increasing speed, control slipping away with every lurch downward, then he found a solid projection on which he could rest his right foot, and the gap had narrowed enough to let his left hand reach out and ease the burden on that leg.
Corabb rested.
The pain of deep burns, the pounding of his heart. Some time later, he resumed the descent. Easier now, the gap closing, closing.
Then he was at the bottom, and he heard something like laughter from his left, low, which then trailed away.
He searched out that side and found the archway, through which he tossed the rope, hearing it strike a body a little way below.
Everyone's asleep. No wonder. I could do with that myself.
He untied Strings, then clambered through, found his feet balancing on tight-packed, clunking jars, the sounds of snoring and breathing on all sides and a sweet, cloying smell. He pulled Strings after him, eased the man down.
Honey. Jars and jars of honey. Good for burns, I think. Good for wounds. Finding an opened jar, Corabb scooped out a handful, crawled over to the sergeant and pushed the honey into the puncture wounds.
Salved the burns, on Strings and on himself. Then he settled back.
Numbing bliss stole through him.
Oh, this honey, it's Carelbarra. The God Bringer. Oh…
Fist Keneb tottered into the morning light, stood, blinking, looking round at the chaotic array of tents, many of them scorched, and all the soldiers – stumbling, wandering or standing motionless, staring across the blasted landscape towards the city. Y'Ghatan, blurred by waves of rising heat, a misshapen mound melted down atop its ragged hill, fires still flickering here and there, pale orange tongues and, lower down, fierce deep red.
Ash filled the air, drifting down like snow.
It hurt to breathe. He was having trouble hearing – the roar of that firestorm still seemed to rage inside his head, as hungry as ever. How long had it been? A day? Two days? There had been healers. Witches with salves, practitioners of Denul from the army itself. A jumble of voices, chanting, whispers, some real, some imagined.
He thought of his wife. Selv was away from this accursed continent, safe in her family estate back on Quon Tali. And Kesen and Vaneb, his children. They'd survived, hadn't they? He was certain they had. A memory of that, strong enough to convince him of its truth. That assassin, Kalam, he'd had something to do with that.
Selv. They had grown apart, in the two years before the rebellion, the two years – was it two? – that they had been in Seven Cities, in the garrison settlement. The uprising had forced them both to set aside all of that, for the children, for survival itself. He suspected she did not miss him; although his children might. He suspected she would have found someone else by now, a lover, and the last thing she would want was to see him again.
Well, there could be worse things in this life. He thought back on those soldiers he'd seen with the fiercest burns – gods how they had screamed their pain.
Keneb stared at the city. And hated it with all his soul.
The dog Bent arrived to lie down beside him. A moment later Grub appeared. 'Father, do you know what will come of this? Do you?'
'Come of what, Grub?'
The boy pointed at Y'Ghatan with one bare, soot-stained arm. 'She wants us to leave. As soon as we can.' He then pointed towards the morning sun. 'It's the plague, you see, in the east. So. We're marching west. To find the ships. But I already know the answer. To find what's inside us, you got to take everything else away, you see?'
'No, Grub. I don't see.'
The Hengese lapdog, Roach, scrambled into view, sniffing the ground.
Then it began digging, as if in a frenzy. Dust engulfed it.
'Something's buried,' Grub said, watching Roach.
'I imagine there is.'
'But she won't see that.' The boy looked up at Keneb. 'Neither will you.'
Grub ran off, Bent loping at his side. The lapdog kept digging, making snuffling, snorting sounds.
Keneb frowned, trying to recall what Grub had said earlier – was it the night of the breach? Before the fated order went out? Had there been a warning hidden in the lad's words? He couldn't remember – the world before the fire seemed to have burned away to nothing in his mind. It had been a struggle to conjure up the names of his wife, his children, their faces. I don't understand. What has happened to me?
In the command tent, the Adjunct stood facing Nil and Nether. Fist Blistig watched from near the back wall, so exhausted he could barely stand. Tavore had placed him in charge of the healing – setting up the hospitals, organizing the Denul healers, the witches and the warlocks.
Two days and one or maybe one and a half nights – he was not sure he could count the short chaotic time before the sun rose on the night of the breach. Without his officers that first night, he would have been relieved of command before dawn. His soul had been drowning in the pit of the Abyss.
Blistig was not yet certain he had climbed back out.
Nil was speaking, his voice a monotone, dulled by too long in the sorcery he had grown to hate. '… nothing but death and heat. Those who made it out – their agony deafens me – they are driving the spirits insane. They flee, snapping their bindings. They curse us, for this vast wound upon the land, for the crimes we have committed-'
'Not our crimes,' the Adjunct cut in, turning away, her gaze finding Blistig. 'How many did we lose today, Fist?'
'Thirty-one, Adjunct, but the witches say that few will follow, now.
The worst are dead, the rest will live.'
'Begin preparations for the march – have we enough wagons?'
'Provided soldiers pack their own food for a while,' Blistig said. '
Speaking of which, some stores were lost – we'll end up chewing leather unless we can arrange a resupply.'
'How long?'
'A week, if we immediately begin rationing. Adjunct, where are we going?'
Her eyes grew veiled for a moment, then she looked away. 'The plague is proving… virulent. It is the Mistress's own, I gather, the kiss of the goddess herself. And there is a shortage of healers…'
'Lothal?'
Nil shook his head. 'The city has already been struck, Fist.'
'Sotka,' said the Adjunct. 'Pearl has informed me that Admiral Nok's fleet and the transports have been unable to dock in any city east of Ashok on the Maadil Peninsula, so he has been forced around it, and expects to reach Sotka in nine days, assuming he can draw in for water and food in Taxila or Rang.'
'Nine days?' asked Blistig. 'If the plague's in Lothal already…'
'Our enemy now is time,' the Adjunct said. 'Fist, you have orders to break camp. Do it as quickly as possible. The Rebellion is over. Our task now is to survive.' She studied Blistig for a moment. 'I want us on the road tonight.'
'Tonight? Aye, Adjunct. I had best be on my way, then.' He saluted, then headed out. Outside, he halted, momentarily blinking, then, recalling his orders, he set off.
After Blistig's footsteps had trailed away, the Adjunct turned to Nether. 'The Mistress of Plague, Nether. Why now? Why here?'
The Wickan witch snorted. 'You ask me to fathom the mind of a goddess, Adjunct? It is hopeless. She may have no reason. Plague is her aspect, after all. It is what she does.' She shook her head, said nothing more.
'Adjunct,' Nil ventured, 'you have your victory. The Empress will be satisfied – she has to be. We need to rest-'
'Pearl informs me that Leoman of the Flails is not dead.'
Neither Wickan replied, and the Adjunct faced them once more. 'You both knew that, didn't you?'
'He was taken… away,' Nil said. 'By a goddess.'
'Which goddess? Poliel?'
'No. The Queen of Dreams.'
'The Goddess of Divination? What possible use could she have for Leoman of the Flails?'
Nil shrugged.
Outside the tent a rider reined in and a moment later Temul, dustsheathed and dripping blood from three parallel slashes tracking the side of his face, strode in, dragging a dishevelled child with him. '
Found her, Adjunct,' he said.
'Where?'
'Trying to get back into the ruins. She has lost her mind.'
The Adjunct studied the child, Sinn, then said, 'She had best find it again. I have need of High Mages. Sinn, look at me. Look at me.'
She gave no indication of even hearing Tavore, her head still hanging down, ropes of burnt hair hiding her face.
Sighing, the Adjunct said, 'Take her and get her cleaned up. And keep her under guard at all times – we will try this again later.'
After they had left, Nil asked, 'Adjunct, do you intend to pursue Leoman? How? There is no trail to follow – the Queen of Dreams could have spirited him to another continent by now.'
'No, we shall not pursue, but understand this, Wickan, while he yet lives there will be no victory in the eyes of the Empress. Y'Ghatan will remain as it always has been, a curse upon the empire.'
'It will not rise again,' Nil said.
Tavore studied him. 'The young know nothing of history. I am going for a walk. Both of you, get some rest.'
She left.
Nil met his sister's eyes, then smiled. 'Young? How easily she forgets.'
'They all forget, brother.'
'Where do you think Leoman has gone?'
'Where else? Into the Golden Age, Nil. The glory that was the Great Rebellion. He strides the mists of myth, now. They will say he breathed fire. They will say you could see the Apocalypse in his eyes.
They will say he sailed from Y'Ghatan on a river of Malazan blood.'
'The locals believe Coltaine ascended, Nether. The new Patron of Crows-'
'Fools. Wickans do not ascend. We just… reiterate.'
Lieutenant Pores was awake, and he lifted his good hand to acknowledge his captain as Kindly halted at the foot of the camp cot.
'They say your hand melted together, Lieutenant.'
'Yes, sir. My left hand, as you see.'
'They say they have done all they could, taken away the pain, and maybe one day they will manage to cut each finger free once again.
Find a High Denul healer and make your hand look and work like new again.'
'Yes, sir. And until then, since it's my shield hand, I should be able to-'
'Then why in Hood's name are you taking up this cot, Lieutenant?'
'Ah, well, I just need to find some clothes, then, sir, and I'll be right with you.'
Kindly looked down the row of cots. 'Half this hospital is filled with bleating lambs – you up to being a wolf, Lieutenant? We march tonight.
There's not enough wagons and, even more outrageous, not enough palanquins and no howdahs to speak of – what is this army coming to, I wonder?'
'Shameful, sir. How does Fist Tene Baralta fare, sir?'
'Lost that arm, but you don't hear him whining and fussing and moaning.'
'No?'
'Of course not, he's still unconscious. Get on your feet, soldier.
Wear that blanket.'
'I lost my arm torc, sir-'
'You got the burn mark where it was, though, haven't you? They see that and they'll know you for an officer. That and your ferocious comportment.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good, now enough of wasting my time. We've work to do, Lieutenant.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Lieutenant, if you remain lying there another heartbeat, I will fold that cot up with you in it, do you understand me?'
'Yes, sir!'
She sat unmoving, limbs limp as a doll's, while an old Wickan woman washed her down and another cut away most of her hair, and did not look up as Captain Faradan Sort entered the tent.
'That will do,' she said, gesturing for the two Wickans to leave. 'Get out.'
Voicing, in tandem, strings of what the captain took to be curses, the two women left.
Faradan Sort looked down on the girl. 'Long hair just gets in the way, Sinn. You're better off without it. I don't miss mine at all. You're not talking, but I think I know what is going on. So listen. Don't say anything. Just listen to me…'
The dull grey, drifting ash devoured the last light of the sun, while dust-clouds from the road drifted down into the cut banks to either side. Remnant breaths of the dead city still rolled over the Fourteenth Army – all that remained of the firestorm, yet reminder enough for the mass of soldiers awaiting the horn blasts that would announce the march.
Fist Keneb lifted himself into the saddle, gathered the reins. All round him he could hear coughing, from human and beast alike, a terrible sound. Wagons, burdened with the cloth-swathed wounded, were lined up on the road like funeral carts, smoke-stained, flameblackened and reeking of pyres. Among them, he knew, could be found Fist Tene Baralta, parts of his body burned away and his face horribly scarred – a Denul healer had managed to save his eyes, but the man's beard had caught fire, and most of his lips and nose were gone. The concern now was for his sanity, although he remained, mercifully, unconscious. And there were others, so many others…
He watched Temul and two riders cantering towards him. The Wickan leader reined in, shaking his head. 'Nowhere to be found, Fist. It's no surprise – but know this: we've had other desertions, and we've tracked them all down. The Adjunct has issued the command to kill the next ones on sight.'
Keneb nodded, looked away.
'From now on,' Temul continued, 'my Wickans will not accept counterorders from Malazan officers.'
The Fist's head turned back and he stared at Temul. 'Fist, your Wickans are Malazans.'
The young warrior grimaced, then wheeled his horse. 'They're your problem now, Fist. Send out searchers if you like, but the Fourteenth won't wait for them.'
Even as he and his aides rode away, the horns sounded, and the army lurched into motion.
Keneb rose in his saddle and looked around. The sun was down, now. Too dark to see much of anything. And somewhere out there were Captain Faradan Sort and Sinn. Two deserters. That damned captain. I thought she was… well, I didn't think she'd do something like this.
Y'Ghatan had broken people, broken them utterly – he did not think many would recover. Ever.
The Fourteenth Army began its march, down the western road, towards the Sotka Fork, in its wake dust and ash, and a destroyed city.
Her head was serpentine, the slitted, vertical eyes lurid green, and Balm watched her tongue slide in and out with fixed, morbid fascination. The wavy, ropy black tendrils of her hair writhed, and upon the end of each was a tiny human head, mouth open in piteous screams.
Witch Eater, Thesorma Raadil, all bedecked in zebra skins, her four arms lifting this way and that, threatening with the four sacred weapons of the Dal Hon tribes. Bola, kout, hook-scythe and rock – he could never understand that: where were the more obvious ones? Knife?
Spear? Bow? Who thought up these goddesses anyway? What mad, twisted, darkly amused mind conjured such monstrosities? Whoever it was – is – I hate him. Or her. Probably her. It's always her. 'She's a witch, isn't she? No, Witch Eater. Likely a man, then, and one not mad or stupid after all. Someone has to eat all those witches.
Yet she was advancing on him. Balm. A mediocre warlock – no, a lapsed warlock – just a soldier, now, in fact. A sergeant, but where in Hood' s name was his squad? The army? What was he doing on the savannah of his homeland? I ran from there, oh yes I did. Herd cattle? Hunt monstrous, vicious beasts and call it a fun pastime? Not for me. Oh no, not Balm. I've drunk enough bull blood to sprout horns, enough cow milk to grow udders – 'so you, Witch Eater, get away from me!'
She laughed, the sound a predictable hiss, and said, 'I'm hungry for wayward warlocks-'
'No! You eat witches! Not warlocks!'
'Who said anything about eating?'
Balm tried to get away, scrabbling, clawing, but there were rocks, rough walls, projections that snagged him. He was trapped. 'I'm trapped!'
'Get away from him, you rutting snake!'
A voice of thunder. Well, minute thunder. Balm lifted his head, looked round. A huge beetle stood within arm's reach – reared up on its hind legs, its wedge-shaped head would have been level with Balm's knees, could he stand. So, huge in a relative sense. Imparala Ar, the Dung God – 'Imparala! Save me!'
'Fear not, mortal,' the beetle said, antennae and limbs waving about.
'She'll not have you! No, I have need of you!'
'You do? For what?'
'To dig, my mortal friend. Through the vast dung of the world! Only your kind, human, with your clear vision, your endless appetite! You, conveyor of waste and maker of rubbish! Follow me, and we shall eat our way into the very Abyss itself!'
'Gods, you stink!'
'Never mind that, my friend – before too long you too-'
'Leave him alone, the both of you!' A third voice, shrill, descending from above and closing fast. 'It's the dead and dying who cry out the truth of things!'
Balm looked up. Brithan Troop, the eleven-headed vulture goddess. 'Oh, leave me alone! All of you!'
From every side, now, a growing clamour of voices. Gods and goddesses, the whole Dal Honese menagerie of disgusting deities.
Oh, why do we have so many of them?
It was her sister, not her. She remembered, as clearly as if it had been yesterday, the night of lies that lumbered into the Itko Kanese village when the seas had been silent, empty, for too long. When hunger, no, starvation, had arrived, and all the civil, modern beliefs – the stately, just gods – were cast off once again. In the name of Awakening, the old grisly rites had returned.
The fish had gone away. The seas were lifeless. Blood was needed, to stir the Awakening, to save them all.
They'd taken her sister. Smiles was certain of it. Yet, here were the rough, salt-gnawed hands of the elders, carrying her drugged, insensate body down onto the wet sands – the tide drawn far back and waiting patiently for this warm gift – whilst she floated above herself, looking on in horror.
All wrong. Not the way it had happened. They'd taken her twin sister – so much power in the Mirror Birth, after all, and so rare in the small village where she'd been born.
Her sister. That was why she'd fled them all. Cursing every name, every face glimpsed that night. Running and running, all the way to the great city to the north – and, had she known what awaited her there…
No, I'd do it again. I would. Those bastards. 'For the lives of everyone else, child, give up your own. This is the cycle, this is life and death, and that eternal path lies in the blood. Give up your own life, for the lives of all of us.'
Odd how those priests never volunteered themselves for that glorious gift. How they never insisted that they be the ones tied and weighted down to await the tide's wash, and the crabs, the ever hungry crabs.
And, if it was so damned blissful, why pour durhang oil down her throat, until her eyes were like black pearls and she couldn't even walk, much less think? Still less comprehend what was happening, what they were planning to do to her?
Drifting above the body of herself, Smiles sensed the old spirits drawing close, eager and gleeful. And, somewhere in the depths beyond the bay, waited the Eldest God. Mael himself, that feeder on misery, the cruel taker of life and hope.
Rage rising within her, Smiles could feel her body straining at the numbing turgid chains – she would not lie unmoving, she would not smile up when her mother kissed her one last time. She would not blink dreamily when the warm water stole over her, into her.
Hear me! All you cursed spirits, hear me! I defy you!
Oh yes, flinch back! You know well enough to fear, because I swear this – I will take you all down with me. I will take you all into the Abyss, into the hands of the demons of chaos. It's the cycle, you see.
Order and chaos, a far older cycle than life and death, wouldn't you agree?
So, come closer, all of you.
In the end, it was as she had known. They'd taken her sister, and she, well, let's not be coy now, you delivered the last kiss, dear girl.
And no durhang oil to soothe away the excuse, either.
Running away never feels as fast, never as far, as it should.
You could believe in whores. He had been born to a whore, a Seti girl of fourteen who'd been flung away by her parents – of course, she hadn't been a whore then, but to keep her new son fed and clothed, well, it was the clearest course before her.
And he had learned the ways of worship among whores, all those women knitted close to his mother, sharing fears and everything else that came with the profession. Their touch had been kindly and sincere, the language they knew best.
A half-blood could call on no gods. A half-blood walked the gutter between two worlds, despised by both.
Yet he had not been alone, and in many ways it was the half-bloods who held closest to the traditional ways of the Seti. The full-blood tribes had gone off to wars – all the young lance warriors and the women archers – beneath the standard of the Malazan Empire. When they had returned, they were Seti no longer. They were Malazan.
And so Koryk had been immersed in the old rituals – those that could be remembered – and they had been, he had known even then, godless and empty. Serving only the living, the half-blood kin around each of them.
There was no shame in that.
There had been a time, much later, when Koryk had come upon his own language, protecting the miserable lives of the women from whom he had first learned the art of empty worship. A mindful dialect, bound to no cause but that of the living, of familiar, ageing faces, of repaying the gifts the now unwanted once-whores had given him in his youth. And then watching them one by one die. Worn out, so scarred by so many brutal hands, the indifferent usage by the men and women of the city – who proclaimed the ecstasy of god-worship when it suited them, then defiled human flesh with the cold need of carnivores straddling a kill.
Deep in the sleep of Carelbarra, the God Bringer, Koryk beheld no visitors. For him, there was naught but oblivion. As for the fetishes, well, they were for something else. Entirely something else.
'Go on, mortal, pull it.'
Crump glowered, first at Stump Flit, the Salamander God, Highest of High Marshals, then at the vast, gloomy swamp of Mott. What was he doing here? He didn't want to be here. What if his brothers found him? 'No.'
'Go on, I know you want to. Take my tail, mortal, and watch me thrash about, a trapped god in your hands, it's what you all do anyway. All of you.'
'No. Go away. I don't want to talk to you. Go away.'
'Oh, poor Jamber Bole, all so alone, now. Unless your brothers find you, and then you'll want me on your side, yes you will. If they find you, oh my, oh my.'
'They won't. They ain't looking, neither.'
'Yes they are, my foolish young friend-'
'I ain't your friend. Go away.'
'They're after you, Jamber Bole. Because of what you did-'
'I didn't do nothing!'
'Grab my tail. Go on. Here, just reach out…'
Jamber Bole, now known as Crump, sighed, reached out and closed his hand on the Salamander God's tail.
It bolted, and he was left holding the end of the tail in his hand.
Stump Flit raced away, laughing and laughing.
Good thing too, Crump reflected. It was the only joke it had.
Corabb stood in the desert, and through the heat-haze someone was coming. A child. Sha'ik reborn, the seer had returned, to lead still more warriors to their deaths. He could not see her face yet – there was something wrong with his eyes. Burned, maybe. Scoured by blowing sand, he didn't know, but to see was to feel pain. To see her was… terrible.
No, Sha'ik, please. This must end, it must all end. We have had our fill of holy wars – how much blood can this sand absorb? When will your thirst end?
She came closer. And the closer she drew to where he was standing, the more his eyes failed him, and when he heard her halt before him, Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas was blind.
Yet not deaf, as she whispered, 'Help me.'
'Open your eyes, friend.'
But he didn't want to. Everybody demanded decisions. From him, all the time, and he didn't want to make any more. Never again. The way it was now was perfect. This slow sinking away, the whisperings that meant nothing, that weren't even words. He desired nothing more, nothing else.
'Wake up, Fiddler. One last time, so we can talk. We need to talk, friend.'
All right. He opened his eyes, blinked to clear the mists – but they didn't clear – in fact, the face looking down at him seemed to be made of those mists. 'Hedge. What do you want?'
The sapper grinned. 'I bet you think you're dead, don't you? That you' re back with all your old buddies. A Bridgeburner, where the Bridgeburners never die. The deathless army – oh, we cheated Hood, didn't we just. Hah! That's what you're thinking, yeah? Okay, then, so where's Trotts? Where are all the others?'
'You tell me.'
'I will. You ain't dead. Not yet, maybe not for a while either. And that's my point. That's why I'm here. You need a kicking awake, Fid, else Hood'll find you and you won't see none of us ever again. The world's been burned through, where you are right now. Burned through, realm after realm, warren after warren. It ain't a place anybody can claim. Not for a long time. Dead, burned down straight to the Abyss.'
'You're a ghost, Hedge. What do you want with me? From me?'
'You got to keep going, Fid. You got to take us with you right to the end-'
'What end?'
'The end and that's all I can say-'
'Why?'
''Cause it ain't happened yet, you idiot! How am I supposed to know?
It's the future and I can't see no future. Gods, you're so thick, Fid.
You always were.'
'Me? I didn't blow myself up, Hedge.'
'So? You're lying on a bunch of urns and bleeding out – that's better?
Messing up all that sweet honey with your blood-'
'What honey? What are you talking about?'
'You better get going, you're running outa time.'
'Where are we?'
'No place, and that's the problem. Maybe Hood'll find you, maybe noone will. The ghosts of Y'Ghatan – they all burned. Into nothing.
Destroyed, all those locked memories, thousands and thousands.
Thousands of years… gone, now. You've no idea the loss…'
'Be quiet. You're sounding like a ghost.'
'Time to wake up, Fid. Wake up, now. Go on…'
Wildfires had torn across the grasslands, and Bottle found himself lying on blackened stubble. Nearby lay a charred carcass. Some kind of four-legged grass-eater – and around it had gathered a half-dozen human-like figures, fine-furred and naked. They held sharp-edged stones and were cutting into the burnt flesh.
Two stood as sentinels, scanning the horizons. One of them was… her.
My female. Heavy with child, so heavy now. She saw him and came over.
He could not look away from her eyes, from that regal serenity in her gaze.
There had been wild apes on Malaz Island once. He remembered, in Jakatakan, when he was maybe seven years old, seeing a cage in the market, the last island ape left, captured in the hardwood forests on the north coast. It had wandered down into a village, a young male seeking a mate – but there were no mates left. Half-starved and terrified, it had been cornered in a stable, clubbed unconscious, and now it crouched in a filthy bamboo cage at the dockside market in Jakatakan.
The seven-year-old boy had stood before it, his eyes level with that black-furred, heavy-browed beast's own eyes, and there had been a moment, a single moment, when their gazes locked. A single moment that broke Bottle's heart. He'd seen misery, he'd seen awareness – the glint that knew itself, yet did not comprehend what it had done wrong, what had earned it the loss of its freedom. It could not have known, of course, that it was now alone in the world. The last of its kind.
And that somehow, in some exclusively human way, that was its crime.
Just as the child could not have known that the ape, too, was aged seven.
Yet both saw, both knew in their souls – those darkly flickering shapings, not yet solidly formed – that, for this one time, they were each looking upon a brother.
Breaking his heart.
Breaking the ape's heart, too – but maybe, he'd thought since, maybe he just needed to believe that, a kind of flagellation in recompense.
For being the one outside the cage, for knowing that there was blood on the hands of himself and his kind.
Bottle's soul, broken away… and so freed, gifted or cursed with the ability to travel, to seek those duller life-sparks and to find that, in truth, they were not dull at all, that the failure in fully seeing belonged to himself.
Compassion existed when and only when one could step outside oneself, to suddenly see the bars from inside the cage.
Years later, Bottle had tracked down the fate of that last island ape.
Purchased by a scholar who lived in a solitary tower on the wild, unsettled coast of Geni, where there dwelt, in the forests inland, bands of apes little different from the one he had seen; and he liked to believe, now, that that scholar's heart had known compassion; and that those foreign apes had not rejected this strange, shy cousin. His hope: that there had been a reprieve, for that one, solitary life.
His fear was that the creature's wired skeleton stood in one of the tower's dingy rooms, a trophy of uniqueness.
Amidst the smell of ash and charred flesh, the female crouched down before him, reached out to brush hard finger pads across his forehead.
Then that hand made a fist, lifting high, then flashing down**** He flinched, eyes snapping open and seeing naught but darkness. Hard rims and shards digging into his back – the chamber, the honey, oh gods my head aches… Groaning, Bottle rolled over, the shard fragments cutting and crunching beneath him. He was in the room beyond the one containing the urns, although at least one had followed him to shatter on the cold stone floor. He groaned again. Smeared in sticky honey, aches all over him… but the burns, the pain – gone. He drew a deep breath, then coughed. The air was foul. He needed to get everyone going – he needed'Bottle? That you?'
Cuttle, lying nearby. 'Aye,' said Bottle. 'That honey-'
'Kicked hard, didn't it just. I dreamed… a tiger, it had died – cut to pieces, in fact, by these giant undead lizards that ran on two feet. Died, yet ascended, only it was the death part it was telling me about. The dying part – I don't understand. Treach had to die, I think, to arrive. The dying part was important – I'm sure of it, only… gods below, listen to me. This air's rotten – we got to get moving.'
Yes. But he'd lost the rat, he remembered that, he'd lost her. Filled with despair, Bottle sought out the creature-and found her. Awakened by his touch, resisting not at all as he captured her soul once more, and, seeing through her eyes, he led the rat back into the room.
'Wake the others, Cuttle. It's time.'
Shouting, getting louder, and Gesler awoke soaked in sweat. That, he decided, was a dream he would never, ever revisit. Given the choice.
Fire, of course, so much fire. Shadowy figures dancing on all sides, dancing around him, in fact. Night, snapped at by flames, the drumming of feet, voices chanting in some barbaric, unknown language, and he could feel his soul responding, flaring, burgeoning as if summoned by some ritual.
At which point Gesler realized. They were dancing round a hearth. And he was looking out at them – from the very flame itself. No, he was the flame.
Oh Truth, you went and killed yourself. Damned fool.
Soldiers were awakening on all sides of the chamber – shouts and moans and a chorus of clunking urns.
This journey was not yet done. They would go on, and on, deeper and deeper, until the passage dead-ended, until the air ran out, until a mass of rubble shook loose and crushed them all.
Any way at all, please, except fire.
How long had they been down here? Bottle had no idea. Memories of open sky, of sunlight and the wind, were invitations to madness, so fierce was the torture of recalling all those things one took for granted.
Now, the world was reduced to sharp fragments of brick, dust, cobwebs and darkness. Passages that twisted, climbed, dropped away. His hands were a battered, bloody mess from clawing through packed rubble.
And now, on a sharp down-slope, he had reached a place too small to get through. Feeling with his half-numbed hands, he tracked the edges.
Some kind of cut cornerstone had sagged down at an angle from the ceiling. Its lowermost corner – barely two hand's-widths above the rutted, sandy floor – neatly bisected the passage.
Bottle settled his forehead against the gritty floor. Air still flowed past, a faint stirring now, nothing more than that. And water had run down this track, heading somewhere.
'What's wrong?' Cuttle asked behind him.
'We're blocked.'
Silence for a moment, then, 'Your rat gone ahead? Past the block?'
'Yes. It opens out again – there's an intersection of some kind ahead, a hole coming down from above, with air pulling down from it and straight into a pit in the floor. But, Cuttle – there's a big cut stone, no way to squeeze past it. I'm sorry. We have to go back-'
'To Hood we do, move aside if you can, I want to feel this for myself.'
It was not as easy as it sounded, and it was some time before the two men managed to swap positions. Bottle listened to the sapper muttering under his breath, then cursing.
'I told you-'
'Be quiet, I'm thinking. We could try and break it loose, only the whole ceiling might come down with it. No, but maybe we can dig under, into the floor here. Give me your knife.'
'I ain't got a knife any more. Lost it down a hole.'
'Then call back for one.'
'Cuttle-'
'You ain't giving up on us, Bottle. You can't. You either take us through or we're all dead.'
'Damn you,' Bottle hissed. 'Hasn't it occurred to you that maybe there's no way through? Why should there be? Rats are small – Hood, rats can live down here. Why should there be a tunnel big enough for us, some convenient route all the way out from under this damned city?
To be honest, I'm amazed we've gotten this far. Look, we could go back, right to the temple – and dig our way out-'
'You're the one who doesn't understand, soldier. There's a mountain sitting over the hole we dropped into, a mountain that used to be the city's biggest temple. Dig out? Forget it. There's no going back, Bottle. Only forward; now get me a knife, damn you.'
Smiles drew out one of her throwing-knives and passed it up to the child ahead of her. Something told her that this was it – as far as they would go. Except maybe for the children. The call had come to send the urchins ahead. At the very least, then, they could go on, find a way out. All this effort – somebody had better live through it.
Not that they'd get very far, not without Bottle. That spineless bastard – imagine, depending on him. The man who could see eye to eye with rats, lizards, spiders, fungi. Matching wits, and it was a tough battle, wasn't it just.
Still, he wasn't a bad sort – he'd taken half the load that day on the march, after that bitch of a captain revealed just how psychotic she really was. That had been generous of him. Strangely generous. But men were like that, on occasion. She never used to believe that, but now she had no choice. They could surprise you.
The child behind Smiles was climbing over her, all elbows and knees and running, drippy, smearing nose. It smelled, too. Smelled bad.
Awful things, children. Needy, self-centred tyrants, the boys all teeth and fists, the girls all claws and spit. Gathering into snivelling packs and sniffing out vulnerabilities – and woe to the child not cunning enough to hide their own – the others would close in like the grubby sharks they were. Great pastime, savaging someone.
If these runts are the only ones here who survive, I will haunt them.
Every one of them, for the rest of their days. 'Look,' she snarled after an elbow in the nose, 'just get your smelly slimy hide out of my face! Go on, you little ape!'
A voice from behind her: 'Easy there. You was a child once, you know-'
'You don't know nothing about me, so shut it!'
'What, you was hatched? Hah! I believe it! Along with all the other snakes!'
'Yeah, well, whoever you are, don't even think of climbing past me.'
'And get that close? Not a chance.'
She grunted. 'Glad we're understood, then.'
If there was no way through – they'd all lose their minds. No doubt of that at all. Well, at least she had a couple knives left – anybody fool enough to come for her and they'd pay.
The children were squirming through – even as Cuttle dug into the floor with the knife – and then huddling on the other side. Weeping, clinging to each other, and Bottle's heart cried out for them. They would have to find courage, but for the moment, there seemed to be no hope of that.
Cuttle's grunts and gasps, then his curse as he broke the knife's point – not very promising sounds. Ahead, the rat circled the edge of the pit, whiskers twitching at the flow of warm air coming from the shaft. She could climb round to the other side, and Bottle was willing the creature to do so – yet it seemed his control was weakening, for the rat was resisting, her head tilted over the edge of the pit, claws gripping the pocked side, the air flowing up over her…
Bottle frowned. From the shaft above, the air had been coming down.
And from the pit, flowing up. Conjoining in the tunnel, then drifting towards the children.
But the rat… that air from below. Warm, not cool. Warm, smelling of sunlight.
'Cuttle!'
The sapper halted. 'What?'
'We've got to get past this! That pit – its edges, they've been cut.
That shaft, Cuttle, it's been mined, cut through – someone's dug into the side of the tel – there's no other possibility!'
The children's cries had ceased with Bottle's words. He went on, 'That explains this, don't you see? We ain't the first ones to use this tunnel – people have been mining the ruins, looking for loot-'
He could hear Cuttle moving about.
'What are you doing?'
'I'm gonna kick this block out of the way-'
'No, wait! You said-'
'I can't dig through the damned floor! I'm gonna kick this bastard outa the way!'
'Cuttle, wait!'
A bellow, then a heavy thump, dust and gravel streaming from above. A second thump, then thunder shook the floor, and the ceiling was raining down. Screams of terror through the dust-clouds. Ducking, covering his head as stones and sherds descended on him, Bottle squeezed his eyes shut – the dust, so brightBright.
But he couldn't breathe – he could barely move beneath the weight of rubble atop him.
Muted yells from behind, but the terrible hiss of rubble had ceased.
Bottle lifted his head, gasping, coughing.
To see a white shaft of sunlight, dust-filled, cutting its way down.
Bathing Cuttle's splayed legs, the huge foundation stone between them.
'Cuttle?'
A cough, then, 'Gods below, that damned thing – it came down between my legs – just missed my… oh Hood take me, I feel sick-'
'Never mind that! There's light, coming down. Sunlight!'
'Call your rat back – I can't see… how far up. I think it narrows.
Narrows bad, Bottle.'
The rat was clambering over the children, and he could feel its racing heart.
'I see it – your rat-'
'Take her in your hands, help her into the shaft over you. Yes, there' s daylight – oh, it's too narrow – I might make it, or Smiles maybe, but most of the others…'
'You just dig when you're up there, make it wider, Bottle. We're too close, now.'
'Can the children get back here? Past the block?'
'Uh, I think so. Tight, but yes.'
Bottle twisted round. 'Roll call! And listen, we're almost there! Dig your way free! We're almost there!'
The rat climbed, closer and closer to that patch of daylight.
Bottle scrambled free of the gravel. 'All right,' he gasped as he moved over Cuttle.
'Watch where you step!' the sapper said. 'My face is ugly enough without a damned heel print on it.'
Bottle pulled himself into the uneven shaft, then halted. 'I got to pull stuff away, Cuttle. Move from directly below…'
'Aye.'
Names were being called out… hard to tell how many… maybe most of them. Bottle could not afford to think about it now. He began tugging at outcrops, bricks and rocks, widening the shaft. 'Stuff coming down!'
As each piece thumped down or bounced off the foundation stone, Cuttle collected it and passed it back.
'Bottle!'
'What?'
'One of the urchins – she fell into the pit – she ain't making any sound – I think we lost her.'
Shit. 'Pass that rope ahead – can Smiles get over to them?'
'I'm not sure. Keep going, soldier – we'll see what we can do down here.'
Bottle worked his way upward. A sudden widening, then narrowing once more – almost within reach of that tiny opening – too small, he realized, for even so much as his hand. He pulled a large chunk of stone from the wall, dragged himself as close as he could to the hole.
On a slight ledge near his left shoulder crouched the rat. He wanted to kiss the damned thing.
But not yet. Things looked badly jammed up around that hole. Big stones. Panic whispered through him.
With the rock in his hand, Bottle struck at the stone. A spurt of blood from one fingertip, crushed by the impact – he barely felt it.
Hammering, hammering away. Chips raining down every now and then. His arm tiring – he was running out of reserves, he didn't have the strength, the endurance for this. Yet he kept swinging.
Each impact weaker than the one before.
No, damn you! No!
He swung again.
Blood spattered his eyes.
Captain Faradan Sort reined in on the ridge, just north of the dead city. Normally, a city that had fallen to siege soon acquired its scavengers, old women and children scrambling about, picking through the ruins. But not here, not yet, anyway. Maybe not for a long time.
Like a cracked pot, the steep sides of Y'Ghatan's tel had bled out – melted lead, copper, silver and gold, veins and pools filled with accreted stone chips, dust and potsherds.
Offering an arm, Sort helped Sinn slip down from the saddle behind her – she'd been squirming, whimpering and clutching at her, growing more agitated the closer the day's end came, the light failing. The Fourteenth Army had left the night before. The captain and her charge had walked their lone horse round the tel, not once, but twice, since the sun's rise.
And the captain had begun to doubt her own reading of the child Sinn, her own sense that this half-mad, now seemingly mute creature had known something, sensed something – Sinn had tried and tried to get back into the ruins before her arrest. There had to be a reason for that.
Or, perhaps not. Perhaps nothing more than an insane grief – for her lost brother.
Scanning the rubble-strewn base below the tel's north wall one more time, she noted that one scavenger at least had arrived. A child, smeared in white dust, her hair a matted snarl, was wandering perhaps thirty paces from the rough wall.
Sinn saw her as well, then began picking her way down the slope, making strange mewling sounds.
The captain unstrapped her helm and lifted it clear to settle it on the saddle horn. She wiped grimy sweat from her brow. Desertion. Well, it wasn't the first time, now, was it? If not for Sinn's magic, the Wickans would have found them. And likely executed them. She'd take a few with her, of course, no matter what Sinn did. People learned that you had to pay to deal with her. Pay in every way. A lesson she never tired of teaching.
She watched as Sinn ran to the city's cliff-side, ignoring the scavenger, and began climbing it.
Now what?
Replacing the helm, the sodden leather inside-rim momentarily cool against her brow, the strap feeling stretched as she fixed the clasp beneath her jaw, Faradan Sort collected the reins and guided her horse into a slow descent down the scree.
The scavenger was crying, grubby hands pressed against her eyes. All that dust on her, the webs in her hair – this was the true face of war, the captain knew. That child's face would haunt her memories, joining the many other faces, for as long as she lived.
Sinn was clinging to the rough wall, perhaps two man-heights up, motionless.
Too much, Sort decided. The child was mad. She glanced again at the scavenger, who did not seem aware that they had arrived. Hands still pressed against eyes. Red scrapes through the dust, a trickle of blood down one shin. Had she fallen? From where?
The captain rode up to halt her horse beneath Sinn. 'Come down now,' she said. 'We need to make camp, Sinn. Come down, it's no use – the sun's almost gone. We can try again tomorrow.'
Sinn tightened her grip on the broken outcrops of stone and brick.
Grimacing, the captain side-stepped the mount closer to the wall, then reached up to pull Sinn from her perch.
Squealing, the girl lunged upward, one hand shooting into a hole**** His strength, his will, was gone. A short rest, then he could begin again. A short rest, the voices below drifting away, it didn't matter.
Sleep, now, the dark, warm embrace – drawing him down, ever deeper, then a blush of sweet golden light, wind rippling yellow grasses-and he was free, all pain gone. This, he realized, was not sleep. It was death, the return to the most ancient memory buried in each human soul. Grasslands, the sun and wind, the warmth and click of insects, dark herds in the distance, the lone trees with their vast canopies and the cool shade beneath, where lions dozed, tongues lolling, flies dancing round indifferent, languid eyes…
Death, and this long buried seed. We return. We return to the world…
And she reached for him, then, her hand damp with sweat, small and soft, prying his fingers loose from the rock they gripped, blood sticking – she clutched at his hand, as if filled with fierce need, and he knew the child within her belly was calling out in its own silent language, its own needs, so demanding…
Nails dug into the cuts on his handBottle jolted awake, eyes blinking – daylight almost gone – and a small hand reaching through from outside, grasping and tugging at his own.
Help. 'Help – you, outside – help us-'
As she reached up yet further to tug the girl down, Sort saw Sinn's head snap around, saw something blazing in her eyes as she stared down at the captain.
'What now-' And then there came a faint voice, seemingly from the very stones. Faradan Sort's eyes widened. 'Sinn?'
The girl's hand, shoved into that crack – it was holding on to something.
Someone.
'Oh, gods below!'
Crunching sounds outside, boots digging into stone, then gloved fingers slipped round one edge beside the child's forearm, and Bottle heard: 'You, inside – who? Can you hear me?'
A woman. Accented Ehrlii… familiar? 'Fourteenth Army,' Bottle said.
'Malazans.' The child's grip tightened.
'Oponn's pull, soldier,' the woman said in Malazan. 'Sinn, let go of him. I need room. Make the hole bigger. Let go of him – it's all right – you were right. We're going to get them out.'
Sinn? The shouts from below were getting louder. Cuttle, calling up something about a way out. Bottle twisted to call back down. 'Cuttle!
We've been found! They're going to dig us out! Let everyone know!'
Sinn's hand released his, withdrew.
The woman spoke again. 'Soldier, move away from the hole – I'm going to use my sword.'
'Captain? Is that you?'
'Aye. Now, move back and cover your eyes – what? Oh, where'd all those children come from? Is that one of Fiddler's squad with them? Get down there, Sinn. There's another way out. Help them.'
The sword-point dug into the concreted brick and stone. Chips danced down.
Cuttle was climbing up from below, grunting. 'We gotta widen this some more, Bottle. That runt who dropped down the hole. We sent Smiles after her. A tunnel, angling back up – and out. A looter's tunnel. The children're all out-'
'Good. Cuttle, it's the captain. The Adjunct, she must have waited for us – sent searchers out to find us.'
'That makes no sense-'
'You're right,' Faradan Sort cut in. 'They've marched, soldiers. It's just me, and Sinn.'
'They left you behind?'
'No, we deserted. Sinn knew – she knew you were still alive, don't ask me how.'
'Her brother's down here,' Cuttle said. 'Corporal Shard.'
'Alive?'
'We think so, Captain. How many days has it been?'
'Three. Four nights if you count the breach. Now, no more questions, and cover your eyes.'
She chopped away at the hole, tugged loose chunks of brick and stone.
The dusk air swept in, cool and, despite all the dust, sweet in Bottle's lungs. Faradan Sort began work on one large chunk, and broke her sword. A stream of Korelri curses.
'That your Stormwall sword, Captain? I'm sorry-'
'Don't be an idiot.'
'But your scabbard-'
'Aye, my scabbard. The sword it belonged to got left behind… in somebody. Now, let me save my breath for this.' And she began chopping away with the broken sword. 'Hood-damned piece of Falari junk-' The huge stone groaned, then slid away, taking the captain with it.
A heavy thump from the ground beyond and below, then more cursing.
Bottle clawed his way into the gap, dragged himself through, then was suddenly tumbling down, landing hard, rolling, winded, onto his stomach.
After a long moment he managed a gasp of air, and he lifted his head – to find himself staring at the captain's boots. Bottle arched, raised a hand and saluted – briefly.
'You managed that better the last time, Bottle.'
'Captain, I'm Smiles-'
'You know, soldier, it was a good thing you assumed half the load I dumped on Smiles's back. If you hadn't done that, well, you likely wouldn't have lived this long-'
He saw her turn, heard a grunted snarl, then one boot lifted, moved out slightly to the side, hovered-above Bottle's rat-then stamped down – as his hand shot out, knocked the foot aside at the last moment. The captain stumbled, then swore. 'Have you lost your mind-'
Bottle rolled closer to the rat, collected her in both hands and held her against his chest as he settled down onto his back. 'Not this time, Captain. This is my rat. She saved our lives.'
'Vile, disgusting creatures.'
'Not her. Not Y'Ghatan.'
Faradan Sort stared down at him. 'She is named Y'Ghatan?'
'Aye. I just decided.'
Cuttle was clambering down. 'Gods, Captain-'
'Quiet, sapper. If you've got the strength left – and you'd better – you need to help the others out.'
'Aye, Captain.' He turned about and began climbing back up.
Still lying on his back, Bottle closed his eyes. He stroked Y'Ghatan's smooth-furred back. My darling. You're with me, now. Ah, you're hungry – we'll take care of that. Soon you'll be waddling fat again, I promise, and you and your kits will be… gods, there's more of you, isn't there? No problem. When it comes to your kind, there's never a shortage of food…
He realized Smiles was standing over him. Staring down.
He managed a faint, embarrassed smile, wondering how much she'd heard, how much she'd just put together.
'All men are scum.'
So much for wondering.
Coughing, crying, babbling, the soldiers were lying or sitting all around Gesler, who stood, trying to make a count – the names, the faces, exhaustion blurred them all together. He saw Shard, with his sister, Sinn, wrapped all around him like a babe, fast asleep, and there was something like shock in the corporal's staring, unseeing eyes. Tulip was nearby – his body was torn, shredded everywhere, but he'd dragged himself through without complaint and now sat on a stone, silent and bleeding.
Crump crouched near the cliff-side, using rocks to pry loose a slab of melted gold and lead, a stupid grin on his ugly, overlong face. And Smiles, surrounded by children – she looked miserable with all the attention, and Gesler saw her staring up at the night sky again and again, and again, and that gesture he well understood.
Bottle had pulled them through. With his rat. Y'Ghatan. The sergeant shook his head. Well, why not? We're all rat-worshippers right now.
Oh, right, the roll call… Sergeant Cord, with Ebron, Limp and his broken leg. Sergeant Hellian, her jaw swollen in two places, one eye closed up, and blood matting her hair, just now coming round – under the tender ministrations of her corporal, Urb, Tarr, Koryk, Smiles and Cuttle. Tavos Pond, Balgrid, Mayfly, Flashwit, Saltlick, Hanno, Shortnose and Masan Gilani. Bellig Harn, Maybe, Brethless and Touchy.
Deadsmell, Galt, Sands and Lobe. The sergeants Thom Tissy and Balm.
Widdershins, Uru Hela, Ramp, Scant and Reem. Throatslitter… Gesler's gaze swung back to Tarr, Koryk, Smiles and Cuttle.
Hood's breath.
'Captain! We've lost two!'
Every head turned.
Corporal Tarr shot to his feet, then staggered like a drunk, spinning to face the cliff-wall.
Balm hissed, 'Fiddler… and that prisoner! The bastard's killed him and he's hiding back in there! Waiting for us to leave!'
Corabb had dragged the dying man as far as he could, and now both he and the Malazan were done. Crammed tight in a narrowing of the tunnel, the darkness devouring them, and Corabb was not even sure he was going in the right direction. Had they been turned round? He could hear nothing… no-one. All that dragging, and pushing… they'd turned round, he was sure of it.
No matter, they weren't going anywhere.
Never again. Two skeletons buried beneath a dead city. No more fitting a barrow for a warrior of the Apocalypse and a Malazan soldier. That seemed just, poetic even. He would not complain, and when he stood at this sergeant's side at Hood's Gate, he would be proud for the company.
So much had changed inside him. He was no believer in causes, not any more. Certainty was an illusion, a lie. Fanaticism was poison in the soul, and the first victim in its inexorable, ever-growing list was compassion. Who could speak of freedom, when one's own soul was bound in chains?
He thought, now, finally, that he understood Toblakai.
And it was all too late. This grand revelation. Thus, I die a wise man, not a fool. Is there any difference? I still die, after all.
No, there is. I can feel it. That difference – I have cast off my chains. I have cast them off!
A low cough, then, 'Corabb?'
'I am here, Malazan.'
'Where? Where is that?'
'In our tomb, alas. I am sorry, all strength has fled. I am betrayed by my own body. I am sorry.'
Silence for a moment, then a soft laugh. 'No matter. I've been unconscious – you should have left me – where are the others?'
'I don't know. I was dragging you. We were left behind. And now, we're lost, and that's that. I am sorry-'
'Enough of that, Corabb. You dragged me? That explains all the bruises. For how long? How far?'
'I do not know. A day, maybe. There was warm air, but then it was cool – it seemed to breathe in and out, past us, but which breath was in and which was out? I do not know. And now, there is no wind.'
'A day? Are you mad? Why did you not leave me?'
'Had I done so, Malazan, your friends would have killed me.'
'Ah, there is that. But, you know, I don't believe you.'
'You are right. It is simple. I could not.'
'All right, that will do.'
Corabb closed his eyes – the effort making no difference. He was probably blind by now. He had heard that prisoners left too long without light in their dungeon cells went blind. Blind before mad, but mad, too, eventually.
And now he heard sounds, drawing nearer… from somewhere. He'd heard them before, a half-dozen times at least, and for a short while there had been faint shouting. Maybe that had been real. The demons of panic come to take the others, one by one. 'Sergeant, are you named Strings or Fiddler?'
'Strings for when I'm lying, Fiddler for when I'm telling the truth.'
'Ah, is that a Malazan trait, then? Strange-'
'No, not a trait. Mine, maybe.'
'And how should I name you?'
'Fiddler.'
'Very well.' A welcome gift. 'Fiddler. I was thinking. Here I am, trapped. And yet, it is only now, I think, that I have finally escaped my prison. Funny, isn't it?'
'Damned hilarious, Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas. What is that sound?'
'You hear it, too?' Corabb held his breath, listened. Drawing closerThen something touched his forehead.
Bellowing, Corabb tried to twist away.
'Wait! Damn you, I said wait!'
Fiddler called out, 'Gesler?'
'Aye, calm down your damned friend here, will you?'
Heart pounding, Corabb settled back. 'We were lost, Malazan. I am sorry-'
'Be quiet! Listen to me. You're only about seventy paces from a tunnel, leading out – we're all out, you understand me? Bottle got us out. His rat brought us through. There was a rock fall blocking you up ahead – I've dug through-'
'You crawled back in?' Fiddler demanded. 'Gesler-'
'Believe me, it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Now I know – or I think I know – what Truth went through, running into that palace. Abyss take me, I'm still shaking.'
'Lead us on, then,' Corabb said, reaching back to grasp Fiddler's harness once more.
Gesler made to move past him. 'I can do that-'
'No. I have dragged him this far.'
'Fid?'
'For Hood's sake, Gesler, I've never been in better hands.'