The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  They rejoined the army five leagues from Brans Keep, and received Hannan Mosag’s report that contact had been established with the K’risnan in the other two armies, and all were approaching the fated battlefield, where, shadow wraiths witnessed, the Letherii forces awaited them.

  Details, the trembling skein of preparation, Udinaas was indifferent to them, the whisper of order in seeming chaos. An army marched, like some headless migration, each beast bound by instinct, the imperatives of violence. Armies marched from complexity into simplicity. It was this detail that drove them onward. A field waited, on which all matters could be reduced, on which dust and screams and blood brought cold clarity. This was the secret hunger of warriors and soldiers, of governments, kings and emperors. The simple mechanics of victory and defeat, the perfect feint to draw every eye, every mind lured into the indulgent game. Focus on the scales. Count the measures and mull over balances, observe the stacked bodies like stacked coins and time is devoured, the mind exercised in the fruitless repetition of the millstone, and all the world beyond was still and blurred for the moment…so long as no-one jarred the table.

  Udinaas envied the warriors and soldiers their simple lives. For them, there was no coming back from death. They spoke simply, in the language of negation. They fought for the warrior, the soldier, at their side, and even dying had purpose—which was, he now believed, the rarest gift of all.

  Or so it should have been, but the slave knew it would be otherwise. Sorcery was the weapon for the battle to come. Perhaps it was, in truth, the face of future wars the world over. Senseless annihilation, the obliteration of lives in numbers beyond counting. A logical extension of governments, kings and emperors. War as a clash of wills, a contest indifferent to its cost, seeking to discover who will blink first—and not caring either way. War, no different an exercise from the coin-reaping of the Merchants’ Tolls, and thus infinitely understandable.

  The Tiste Edur and their allies were arraying themselves opposite the Letherii armies, the day’s light growing duller, muted by the hovering wave of suspended dust. In places sorcery crackled, shimmered the air, tentative escapes of the power held ready by both sides. Udinaas wondered if anyone, anyone at all, would survive this day. And, among those who did, what lessons would they take from this battle?

  Sometimes the game goes too far.

  She was standing beside him, silent and small and wrapped in a supple, undyed deerhide. She had said nothing, offered no reason for seeking him out. He did not know her mind, he could not guess her thoughts. Unknown and profoundly unknowable.

  Yet now he heard her draw a shuddering breath.

  Udinaas glanced over. ‘The bruises are almost gone,’ he said.

  Feather Witch nodded. ‘I should thank you.’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘Good.’ She seemed to falter at her own vehemence. ‘I should not have said that. I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘About what?’

  She shook her head. ‘About what, he asks. For Errant’s sake, Udinaas, Lether is about to fall.’

  ‘Probably. I have looked long and hard at the Letherii forces. I see what must be mages, standing apart here and there. But not the Ceda.’

  ‘He must be here. How could he not be?’

  Udinaas said nothing.

  ‘You are no longer an Indebted.’

  ‘And that matters?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They fell silent. Their position was on a rise to the northwest of the battlefield. They could make out the facing wall of Brans Keep itself, a squat, formidable citadel leaning up against a cliff carved sheer into a hillside. Corner towers flanked the wall, and on each stood large fixed mangonels with their waiting crews. There was also a mage present on each tower, arms raised, and it was evident that a ritual was under way binding the two on their respective perches. Probably something defensive, since the bulk of the King’s Battalion was positioned at the foot of the keep.

  To the west of that battalion a ridge reached out from the hills a short distance, and on its other side were positioned elements of the king’s heavy infantry, along with the Riven Brigade. West of that waited companies of the Snakebelt Battalion with the far flanking side protected by the Crimson Rampant Brigade, who were backed to the westernmost edge of the Brans Hills and to the course of the Dissent River to the south.

  It was more difficult to make out the array of Letherii forces east of the King’s Battalion. There was an artificial lake on the east side of the keep, and north of it, alongside the battalion, was the Merchants’ Battalion. Another seasonal river or drainage channel wound northeast on their right flank, and it seemed the Letherii forces on the other side of that intended to use the dry ditch as a line of defence.

  In any case, Rhulad’s own army would present the western body of the Edur advance. Central was Fear’s army, and further to the east, beyond an arm of lesser hills and old lake beds, approached the army of Tomad and Binadas Sengar, on their way down from the town of Five Points.

  The rise Udinaas and Feather Witch stood on was ringed in shadow wraiths, and it was clear to Udinaas that protective sorcery surrounded them. Beyond the rise, out of sight of the facing armies, waited the Edur women, elders and children. Mayen was somewhere among them, still cloistered, still under Uruth Sengar’s direct care.

  He looked once more at Feather Witch. ‘Have you seen Mayen?’ he asked.

  ‘No. But I have heard things…’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘She is not doing well, Udinaas. She hungers. A slave was caught bringing her white nectar. The slave was executed.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Bethra.’

  Udinaas recalled her, an old woman who’d lived her entire life in the household of Mayen’s parents.

  ‘She thought she was being kind,’ Feather Witch continued. Then shrugged. ‘There was no discussion.’

  ‘I imagine not.’

  ‘One cannot be denied all white nectar,’ she said. ‘One must be weaned. A gradual diminishment.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But they are concerned for the child she carries.’

  ‘Who must be suffering in like manner.’

  Feather Witch nodded. ‘Uruth does not heed the advice of the slaves.’ She met his eyes. ‘They have all changed, Udinaas. They are as if…fevered.’

  ‘A fire behind their eyes, yes.’

  ‘They seem unaware of it.’

  ‘Not all of them, Feather Witch.’

  ‘Who?’

  He hesitated, then said, ‘Trull Sengar.’

  ‘Do not be deceived,’ she said. ‘They are poisoned one and all. The empire to come shall be dark. I have had visions…I see what awaits us, Udinaas.’

  ‘One doesn’t need visions to know what awaits us.’

  She scowled, crossed her arms. Then glared skyward. ‘What sorcery is this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Udinaas replied. ‘New.’

  ‘Or…old.’

  ‘What do you sense from it, Feather Witch?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It belongs to Hannan Mosag,’ Udinaas said after a moment. ‘Have you seen the K’risnan? Those from Fear Sengar’s army are…malformed. Twisted by the magic they now use.’

  ‘Uruth and the other women cling to the power of Kurald Emurlahn,’ Feather Witch said. ‘They behave as if they are in a war of wills. I don’t think—’

  ‘Wait,’ Udinaas said, eyes narrowing. ‘It’s beginning.’

  Beside him, Ahlrada Ahn bared his teeth. ‘Now, Trull Sengar, we stand in witness. And this is what it means to be an Edur warrior today.’

  ‘We may do more than wait,’ Trull said. We may also die.

  The dark dust was spiralling upward in thick columns now, edging forward towards the killing field between the armies.

  Trull glanced behind him. Fear stood in the midst of Hiroth warriors. Two K’risnan were before him, one a mangled, hunched survivor from High Fort, the other se
nt over from Rhulad’s army. Grainy streams of what seemed to be dust were rising from the two sorcerors, and their faces were twisted in silent pain.

  The crackle of lightning came from the other side of the killing field, drawing Trull’s attention round once more. Coruscating waves of blinding white fire were building before the arrayed Letherii mages, wrought through with flashes of lightning that arced among them.

  Far to the right, Rhulad began moving the mass of his warriors forward, forming a broad wedge formation at the very edge of the killing field. Trull could see his brother, a hazy, blurred figure of gold. Further right was Hannan Mosag and his companies, and beyond them, already moving south alongside the basin’s edge, were thousands of Soletaken Jheck and at least a dozen Kenryll’ah, each leading a score of their peasant subjects. The route they were taking had been noted, and the flanking Crimson Rampant Brigade was manoeuvring round to face the threat.

  There would be nothing subtle in this battle. No deft brilliance displayed by tactical geniuses. The Letherii waited with their backs to the steep hills. The Tiste Edur and their allies would have to come to them. Such were the simple mechanics, seemingly incumbent, and inevitable.

  But sorcery spoke with a different voice.

  The spiralling pillars of dust towered into the sky, each one keening, the wind shrieking so loud that Edur and Letherii alike began to cower.

  The Letherii white fire surged upward, forming its own standing wall of bridled mayhem.

  Trull was finding it difficult to breathe. He saw a hapless raven that had made the mistake of flying over the killing field tumble and flutter to the ground, the first casualty of the day. It seemed a pathetic harbinger to his mind. Rather a thousand. Ten thousand ravens, caterwauling through the sky.

  The pillars leaned, staggered, lurched forward.

  And began toppling.

  A rush of wind from behind battered Trull and his fellow warriors, blessedly rich and humid, in the wake of the advancing columns of dust. Faint shouts on all sides, as weapons were readied.

  The spiralling pillars were a long time in coming down.

  Shadow wraiths were suddenly flowing across the ground, a dark, low flood. Udinaas could feel their terror, and the dread compulsion that drove them forward. Fodder. It was too early to launch an attack. They would be beneath the clash of sorcery.

  As the columns toppled, the wave of Letherii fire rose to meet them.

  Feather Witch hissed. ‘The Empty Hold. The purest sorcery of the Letherii. Errant, I can feel it from here!’

  ‘Not enough,’ Udinaas muttered.

  Positioned with the King’s Battalion, Preda Unnutal Hebaz saw the day’s light fade as the shadows of the falling pillars swept over the soldiers. She saw her men and women screaming, but could not hear them, as the roar of the dust thundered ever closer.

  The Letherii ritual was suddenly released, the spitting, hissing fire sweeping over the heads of the cowering ranks, the tumbling froth surging upwards to meet the descending pillars.

  Rapid concussions, shaking the earth beneath them, tearing fissures up the hillsides, and from Brans Keep a dull groaning. Unnutal spun round even as she was pushed to the ground. She saw, impossibly, the lake beside the keep lift in a mass of muddy water and foam. Saw, as the front wall of the keep bowed inward, pulling away from the flanking towers, dust shooting outward like geysers, and vanishing back into a billowing cloud.

  Then the east tower swayed, enough to pitch from the edge the mangonel atop it, taking most of the crew with it. And the mage, Jirrid Attaract. All, plunging earthward.

  The west tower leaned back. Its enormous foundation stones pushed outward, and suddenly it vanished into a cloud of its own rubble. The mage Nasson Methuda disappeared with it.

  Twisting, Unnutal glared skyward.

  To see the white fire shattering, dispersing. To see the pillars plunge through, sweeping the Letherii sorcery aside.

  One struck the centre of the Merchants’ Battalion, the dark dust billowing out to the sides and rolling up against the hill.

  For a moment, she could see nothing, then the pillar began to re-form. Yet not as it had been. Now it was not dust that began spiralling upward, but living soldiers.

  Whose flesh blackened like rot even as she watched.

  They were screaming as they were lifted skyward, screaming as their flesh peeled away. Screaming—

  The shadow above Unnutal Hebaz deepened. She looked up.

  And closed her eyes.

  Whirling in a frenzy, a huge fragment of Letherii sorcery slanted off the side of a collapsing pillar, plunged down and tore a bloody swath through the core of the Merude warriors a thousand paces to Trull’s left.

  The warriors died where they stood, in red mist.

  The white fire, now stained pink, rolled through the press towards the K’risnan on that side. The young sorceror raised his hands at the last moment, then the magic devoured him.

  When it dwindled, wavered, then vanished, the K’risnan was gone, as were those Edur who had been standing too close. The ground was blackened and split.

  On the other side of the killing field, columns were rising once more filled with spinning bodies. Higher, the mass of writhing flesh dimming into a muddy hue, then giving way to white bone and polished iron. The pillars rose still higher, devouring more and more soldiers, entire companies torn from the entrenchments and dragged into the twisting maw.

  Ahlrada Ahn reached out and pulled Trull close. ‘He must stop this!’

  Trull pulled savagely away, shaking his head. ‘This is not Rhulad! This is the Warlock King!’ Hannan Mosag, do you now vie for insanity’s throne?

  Around them, the world was transformed into madness. Seething spheres of Letherii magic were thundering down here and there, tearing through ranks of Tiste Edur, devouring shadow wraiths by the hundreds. One landed in the midst of a company of demons and incinerated every one of them, including the Kenryll’ah commanding them.

  Another raced across the ground towards the rise to the west of the emperor’s forces. There was nothing to oppose it as it swept up the slope, and struck the encampment of the Edur women, elders and children.

  Trull staggered in that direction, but Ahlrada Ahn dragged him back.

  Letherii soldiers, nothing now but bones, spun in the sky above the hills. The Merchants’ Battalion. The Riven Brigade. The Snakebelt Battalion. The King’s Batallion. All those lives. Gone.

  And the columns had begun moving, each one on an independent path, eastward and westward, plunging into the panicked ranks of more soldiers. Devouring, the hunger unending, the appetite insatiable.

  War? This is not war—

  ‘We’re moving forward!’

  Trull stared at Ahlrada Ahn.

  The warrior shook him. ‘Forward, Trull Sengar!’

  Udinaas watched the deadly sorcery cut through the shadow wraiths, then roll towards the rise where he stood with Feather Witch. There was nowhere to run. No time. It was perfect—

  A cold wind swept over him from behind, an exhalation of shadows. Rushing forward, colliding with the Letherii magic twenty paces downslope. Entwining, the shadows closing like a net, trapping the wild fire. Then shadow and flame vanished.

  Udinaas turned.

  Uruth and four other Edur women were standing in a line fifteen paces back. As he stared, two of the women toppled, and Udinaas could see that they were dead, the blood boiled in their veins. Uruth staggered, then slowly sank to her knees.

  All right, not so perfect.

  He faced the battlefield once more. The emperor was leading his warriors across the blistered, lifeless basin. The enemy positions on the hillsides opposite looked virtually empty. To either side, however, the slave could see fighting. Or, rather, slaughter. Where the pillars had yet to stalk, Letherii lines had broken of their own accord, and soldiers were fleeing, even as Soletaken Jheck dragged them to the ground, as demons ran them down, and squads of Edur pursued with frenzied determination.
To the east, the dry river gully had been overrun. To the west, the Crimson Rampant Brigade was routed.

  Hannan Mosag’s terrible sorcery continued to rage, and Udinaas began to suspect that it was, like the Letherii magic, out of control. Pillars were spawning smaller kin. For lack of flesh, they began tearing up the ground, earth and stones spinning ever higher. Two bone-shot columns clashed near what was left of Brans Lake, and seemed to lock in mutual obliteration that sent thunderous concussions that visibly battered the hills beyond. Then they tore each other apart.

  The bases of many of the pillars broke contact with the ground, and this triggered an upward plunge that ended in their dissolution into white and grey clouds.

  All at once, even as ragged companies of Tiste Edur crossed the killing field, bones and armour began raining down. Limbs, polished weapons, helms, skulls, plummeting in murderous sweeps across the basin. Warriors died beneath the ghastly hail. There was panic, figures running.

  Sixty paces ahead and below, along the very edge of the slope, walked Hull Beddict. He held a sword in one hand. He looked dazed.

  A helm-wrapped skull, minus the lower jaw, thumped and bounded across Hull’s path, but it seemed he did not notice, as he stumbled on.

  Udinaas turned to Feather Witch. ‘For Errant’s sake,’ he snapped, ‘see what you can do for Uruth and the others!’

  She started, eyes wide.

  ‘They just saved our lives, Feather Witch.’ He added nothing more, and left her there, making his way down to Hull Beddict.

  Bones were still falling, the smaller pieces—fingers, rib fragments. Teeth rained down thirty paces ahead, covering the ground like hailstones, a sudden downpour, ending as quickly as it had begun.

  Udinaas moved closer to Hull Beddict.

  ‘Go no further, Hull!’ he shouted.

  The man halted, slowly turned, his face slack with shock. ‘Udinaas? Is that you? Udinaas?’