‘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 bodies—
Yes, 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 relief—Someone’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, climbing—
The 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 back—
Nil’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 façade 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 favourites—’
A 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 clos
ed 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.’
The Malazan Empire Page 493