The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  Bivatt watched in fury as her cavalry sought to wheel to meet the attack, whilst others responded to her command – and so lost all momentum.

  ‘Sound the withdrawal for those lancers!’

  Too late.

  The Awl horse-warriors swept through scattered skirmishers of the Crimson Rampant, then slammed into the Bluerose companies.

  She heard animals scream, felt the impact tremble through the ground – enough to make her mount sidestep – and then dust obscured the scene. ‘Advance the heavies at the double!’

  ‘Which heavies, Atri-Preda?’

  ‘Harridict and Merchants’, you fool! And same command for the Crimson Rampant medium! Quickly!’

  She saw riders and riderless horses plunge into view from the roiling dust clouds. Her lancers had been shattered – were the Awl pursuing? Their blood must be high – oh, let them lose control, let them meet the fists of my heavies!

  But no, there they were, rising up the far slope, waving weapons in the air to announce their triumph.

  She saw the Awl skirmishers reappearing on the ridge line, in blocks with avenues in between to let the riders pass through – but those light infantry were transformed. Equipped now with rectangular, copper-sheathed shields and bearing long spears, they closed ranks after the last horse-warriors were through, and steadied their line at the very edge of the ridge.

  On the valley floor, dust climbed skyward, slowly revealing the devastating effects of that flank charge into the Bluerose companies. Errant below, they’ve been wiped out. Hundreds of dead and dying skirmishers covered the grounds to either side of that fateful impact.

  Her right advance had been deeply wounded – not yet mortal, even so – ‘Advance the medium and the two heavies across the valley – order to engage that line on the ridge. Wedge formations!’ Those skirmishers are too thinly arrayed to hold.

  ‘Atri-Preda!’ called an aide. ‘Movement to the north side!’

  She cantered her horse to the very edge of the rise and scanned the scene below and to her left. ‘Report!’

  ‘Bluerose lancers in retreat, Atri-Preda – the valley floor beyond the chokepoint is theirs—’

  ‘What? How many damned horse-archers does he have?’

  The officer shook her head. ‘Wardogs, sir. Close on two thousand of the damned things – moving through the high grasses in the basin – they were on the lancers before they knew it. The horses went wild, sir—’

  ‘Shit!’ Then, upon seeing the messenger’s widening eyes, she steeled herself. ‘Very well. Move the reserve medium to the north flank of the knoll.’ Seven hundred and fifty, Merchants’ Battalion – I doubt they’d try sending dogs against that. I can still advance them to retake the chokepoint’s debouch, when the time comes.

  As she thought this, she was scanning the array before her. Directly opposite, the thousand Harridict skirmishers had crossed the riverbed, even as the Crimson Rampant sawtooth advance moved onto level ground.

  And Redmask’s five wedges of warriors were marching to meet them. Excellent. We’ll lock that engagement – with ballistae enfilade to weaken their north flank – then down come the Crimson Rampant medium, to wheel into their flank.

  Surprisingly the Awl wedges more or less held to their formations, although they were each maintaining considerable distance from their flanking neighbours – once the space drew tighter, she suspected, the wedges would start mixing, edges pulled ragged. Marching in time was the most difficult battlefield manoeuvre, after all. Between each of them, then, could be found the weak points. Perhaps enough to push through with the saw’s teeth and begin isolating each wedge.

  ‘Wardogs on the knoll!’

  She spun at the cry. ‘Errant’s kick!’ Frenzied barking, shrieks from the weapon crews – ‘Second reserve legion – the Artisan! Advance on the double – butcher those damned things!’

  Obscurely, she suddenly recalled a scene months ago – wounded but alive, less than a handful of the beasts on a hill overlooking an Awl camp, watching the Letherii slaughtering the last of their masters. And she wondered, with a shiver of superstitious fear, if those beasts were now exacting ferocious vengeance. Dammit, Bivatt – never mind all that.

  The Awl spear-heads were not drawing together, she saw – nor was there need to, now that she’d temporarily lost her ballistae. Indeed, the two northernmost of those wedges were now angling to challenge her Crimson Rampant medium. But this would be old-style fighting, she knew – and the Awl did not possess the discipline nor the training for this kind of steeled butchery.

  Yet, Redmask is not waging this battle in the Awl fashion, is he? No, this is something else. He’s treating this like a plains engagement in miniature – the way those horse-archers wheeled, reformed, then reformed again – a hit and run tactic, all on a compacted scale.

  I see now – but it will not work for much longer.

  Once his warriors locked with her mailed fist.

  The Awl spear-heads were now nearing the flat of the riverbed – the two sides would engage on the hardpacked sand of the bed itself. No advantage of slope to either side – until the tide shifts. One way or the other – no, do not think—

  A new reverberation trembled through the ground now. Deeper, rolling, ominous.

  From the dust, between the Awl wedges, huge shapes loomed, rumbled forward.

  Wagons. Awl wagons, the six-wheeled bastards – not drawn, but pushed. Their beds were crowded with half-naked warriors, spears bristling. The entire front end of each rocking, pitching wagon was a horizontal forest of oversized spears. Round-shields overlapped to form a half-turtleshell that encased the forward section.

  They now thundered through the broad gaps between the wedges – twenty, fifty, a hundred – lumbering yet rolling so swiftly after the long descent into the valley that the masses of burly warriors who had been pushing them now trailed in their wake, sprinting to catch up.

  The wagons plunged straight into the face of the Crimson Rampant heavy infantry.

  Armoured bodies cartwheeled above the press as the entire saw-tooth formation was torn apart – and now the bare-chested fanatics riding those wagons launched themselves out to all sides, screaming like demons.

  The three wedges facing the heavy infantry then thrust into the chaotic wake, delivering frenzied slaughter.

  Bivatt stared, disbelieving, then snapped, ‘Artisan heavy, advance down at the double, crescent, and prepare to cover the retreat.’

  The aide beside her stared. ‘Retreat, Atri-Preda?’

  ‘You heard me! Signal general withdrawal and sound the Crimson Rampant to retreat! Quickly, before every damned one of them is butchered!’

  Will Redmask follow? Oh, I’ll lose heavily if he does – but I’ll also hit back hard – on the plain. I’ll see his bones burst into flames—

  She heard more wagons, this time to her right. My other advance – ‘Sound general withdrawal!’

  Horns blared.

  Shouts behind her. ‘Attack on the baggage camp! Attack—’

  ‘Quiet! Do you think the Edur cannot deal with that?’ She prayed Brohl Handar could. Without supplies this campaign was over. Without supplies, we’ll never make it back to Drene. Errant fend, I have been outwitted at every turn—

  And now the sound behind her was rising to challenge that in the valley below. With sick dread, she tugged her horse round and rode back, past the signallers’ platform.

  Her remaining reserve units had all wheeled round, reversing their facing. Seeing an officer riding between two of the squares, Bivatt spurred to catch him.

  ‘What in the Errant’s name is happening over there?’ she demanded. Distant screams, the reek of smoke, thunder—

  The helmed head swung round, the face beneath it pale. ‘Demons, Atri-Preda! The mages pursue them—’

  ‘They what? Recall them, damn you! Recall them now!’

  Brohl Handar sat astride his horse in the company of eight Arapay war leaders, four warlocks and the Den-Rath
a K’risnan. The two thousand foot soldiers – Tiste Edur warriors, categorized in Letherii military terms as medium to light infantry – were arranged into eight distinct blocks, fully caparisoned in armour and awaiting the word to march.

  The supply train’s camp was sprawled on a broad, mostly level hill fifteen hundred paces to the west, the corralled beasts of burden milling beneath dust and slowly drifting dung-smoke. The Overseer could see hospital tents rising along the near side, the canvas sides bright in the morning light. Above another hill, north of the train’s camp, wheeled two hawks or perhaps eagles. The sky was otherwise empty, a span of deep blue slowly paling as the sun climbed higher.

  Butterflies flitted among small yellow flowers – their wings matched precisely the colour of the petals, Brohl realized, surprised that he had not noted such a detail before. Nature understands disguise and deceit. Nature reminds us what it is to survive. The Tiste Edur had well grasped those truths – grey as the shadows from which they had been born; grey as the boles of the trees in the murky forests of this world; grey as the shrouds of dusk.

  ‘What have we forgotten?’ he murmured.

  An Arapay war leader – a Preda – turned his helmed head, the scarred face beneath its jutting rim hidden in shadow. ‘Overseer? We are positioned as you commanded—’

  ‘Never mind,’ Brohl Handar cut in, inexplicably irritated by the veteran’s attention. ‘What is the guard at the camp?’

  ‘Four hundred mixed infantry,’ the warrior replied, then shrugged. ‘These Letherii are ever confident.’

  ‘Comes with overwhelming superiority,’ another Arapay drawled.

  The first Preda nodded. ‘I do well recall, old friend, the surprise on their faces the day we shattered them outside Letheras. As if, all at once, the world revealed itself to be other than what they had always believed. That look – it was disbelief.’ The warrior grunted a laugh. ‘Too busy with their denial to adapt when it was needed most.’

  ‘Enough of this,’ Brohl Handar snapped. ‘The Atri-Preda’s forces have engaged the Awl – can you not hear?’ He twisted on his saddle and squinted eastward. ‘See the dust.’ He was silent for a dozen heartbeats, then he turned to the first Arapay Preda. ‘Take two cohorts to the camp. Four hundred Letherii are not enough.’

  ‘Overseer, what if we are called on to reinforce the Atri-Preda?’

  ‘If we are, then this day is lost. I have given you my order.’

  A nod, and the Preda spurred his horse towards the arrayed Edur warriors.

  Brohl Handar studied the K’risnan at his side for a moment. The bent creature sat hunched in his saddle like a bloated crow. He was hooded, no doubt to hide the twisted ravaging of his once-handsome features. A chief’s son, transformed into a ghastly icon of the chaotic power before which the Tiste Edur now knelt. He saw the figure twitch. ‘What assails you?’ the Overseer demanded.

  ‘Something, nothing.’ The reply was guttural, the words misshaped by a malformed throat. It was the sound of pain, enduring and unyielding.

  ‘Which?’

  Another twitch, passing, Brohl realized, for a shrug. ‘Footfalls on dead land.’

  ‘An Awl war-party?’

  ‘No.’ The hooded head pivoted until the shadow-swallowed face was directed at the Overseer. ‘Heavier.’

  All at once Brohl Handar recalled the enormous taloned tracks found at the destroyed homestead. He straightened, one hand reaching for the Arapay scimitar at his side. ‘Where? Which direction?’

  A long pause, then the K’risnan pointed with a clawed hand.

  Towards the supply camp.

  Where sudden screams erupted.

  ‘Cohorts at the double!’ Brohl Handar bellowed. ‘K’risnan, you and your warlocks – with me!’ With that he spurred his horse, kicking the startled beast into a canter, then a gallop.

  Ahead, he saw, the Arapay Preda who had been escorting the two cohorts had already commanded them into a half-jog. The warrior’s helmed head turned and tracked the Overseer and his cadre of mages as they pounded past.

  Ahead, the braying of terrified oxen and mules rose, mournful and helpless, above the sounds of slaughter. Tents had gone down, guide-ropes whipping into the air, and Brohl saw figures now, fleeing the camp, pelting northward—

  —where a perfect Awl ambush awaited them. Rising from the high grasses. Arrows, javelins, sleeting through the air. Bodies sprawling, tumbling, then the savages, loosing war-cries, rushing to close with spears, axes and swords.

  Nothing to be done for them – poor bastards. We need to save our supplies.

  They reached the faint slope and rode hard towards the row of hospital tents.

  The beast that burst into view directly before them was indeed a demon – an image that closed like talons in his mind – the shock of recognition. Our ancient enemy – it must be – the Edur cannot forget –

  Head thrust forward on a sinuous neck, broad jaw open to reveal dagger fangs. Massive shoulders behind the neck, long heavily muscled arms with huge curved blades of iron strapped where hands should have been. Leaning far forward as it ran towards them on enormous hind legs, the huge tail thrust straight back for balance, the beast was suddenly in their midst.

  Horses screamed. Brohl found himself to the demon’s right, almost within reach of those scything sword blades, and he stared in horror as that viper’s head snapped forward, jaws closing on the neck of a horse, closing, crunching, then tearing loose, blood spraying, its mouth still filled with meat and bone, the horse’s spine half ripping loose from the horrid gap left in the wake of those savage jaws. A blade cut in half the warlock astride that mount. The other sword slashed down, chopping through another warlock’s thigh, the saddle, then deep into the horse’s shoulder, smashing scapula, then ribs. The beast collapsed beneath the blow, as the rider – the severed stump of his leg gushing blood – pitched over, balanced for a moment on the one stirrup, then sprawled to land on the ground, even as another horse’s stamping hoof descended onto his upturned face.

  The Overseer’s horse seemed to collide with something, snapping both front legs. The animal’s plunging fall threw Brohl over its head. He struck, rolled, the scimitar’s blade biting into his left leg, and came to a stop facing his thrashing mount. The demon’s tail had swept into and through their path.

  He saw it wheel for a return attack.

  A foaming wave of sorcery rose into its path, lifting, climbing with power.

  The demon vanished from Brohl’s view behind that churning wave.

  Sun’s light suddenly blotted—

  —the demon in the air, arcing over the crest of the K’risnan’s magic, then down, the talons of its hind feet outstretched. One closing on another warlock, pushing the head down at an impossible angle into the cup between the man’s shoulders as the demon’s weight descended – the horse crumpling beneath that overwhelming force, legs snapping like twigs. The other raking towards the K’risnan, a glancing blow that flung him from the back of his bolting horse, the claws catching the horse’s rump before it could lunge out of reach, the talons sinking deep, then tearing free a mass of meat to reveal – in a gory flash – the bones of its hips and upper legs.

  The horse crashed down in a twisting fall that cracked ribs, less than three strides away from where Brohl was lying. He saw the whites of the beast’s eyes – shock and terror, death’s own spectre—

  The Overseer sought to rise, but something was wrong with his left leg – drained of all strength, strangely heavy, sodden in the tangled grass. He looked down. Red from the hip down – his own scimitar had opened a deep, welling gash at an angle over his thigh, the cut ending just above the knee.

  A killing wound – blood pouring out – Brohl Handar fell back, staring up at the sky, disbelieving. I have killed myself.

  He heard the thump of the demon’s feet, swift, moving away – then a deeper sound, the rush of warriors, closing now around him, weapons drawn. Heads turned, faces stretched as words were shouted – he co
uld not understand them, the sounds fading, retreating – a figure crawling to his side, hooded, blood dripping from its nose – the only part of the face that was visible – a gnarled hand reaching for him – and Brohl Handar closed his eyes.

  Atri-Preda Bivatt sawed the reins of her horse as she came between two units of her reserve medium infantry, Artisan on her right, Harridict on her left, and beyond them, where another Artisan unit was positioned, there was the commotion of fighting.

  She saw a reptilian monstrosity plunging into their ranks – soldiers seeming to melt from its path, others lifting into the air on both sides, in welters of blood, as the beast’s taloned hands slashed right and left. Dark-hued, perfectly balanced on two massive hind legs, the demon tore a path straight to the heart of the packed square—

  Reaching out, both hands closing on a single figure, a woman, a mage – plucking her flailing into the air, then dismembering her as would a child a straw doll.

  Beyond, she could see, the southernmost unit, seven hundred and fifty medium infantry of the Merchants’ Battalion, were a milling mass strewn with dead and dying soldiers.

  ‘Sorcery!’ she screamed, wheeling towards the Artisan unit on her right – seeking out the mage in its midst – motion, someone pushing through the ranks.

  Dust clouds caught her eye – the camp – the Edur legion was nowhere in sight – they had rushed to its defence. Against more of these demons?

  The creature barrelled free of the Artisan soldiers south of the now-retreating Harridict unit, where a second sorceror stumbled into view, running towards the other mage. She could see his mouth moving as he wove magic, adding his power to that of the first.

  The demon had spun to its left instead of continuing its attack, launching itself into a run, wheeling round the unit it had just torn through, placing them between itself and the sorcery now bursting loose in a refulgent tumult from the ground in front of the mages.