K’azz studied them in turn, nodding to many. ‘This attack is against my wishes. Who leads this invasion?’
Hissed from hundreds of indistinct throats: ‘Skinner.’
A nod from K’azz, who’d known all along. ‘Obey no more orders from him. He is expelled from our company. He is disavowed.’ The Brethren inclined their heads in acquiescence.
‘Not so easy, I suspect,’ Stalker whispered aside to Kyle.
‘Now, give my regards to those defending the bridge and ask if they can hold much longer. And send word to all – I am returned.’
The Brethren bowed and as one they bent to a knee. Then, to Kyle’s eye they seemed to slowly disperse, disappearing as a haze in the sun. All but one: the shade of a short thin man with one hand – Stoop – who approached, smiling. ‘Well done, lad. Well done. Knew you’d pull it off.’
To this outrageous claim Kyle could only shake his head.
A shade materialized next to K’azz. ‘Cole sends his welcome and asks how many days you require.’
A tight grin from K’azz. ‘Tell Cole I’ll send relief as soon as I can.’
The shade remained. K’azz, who had started for the road, stopped short. ‘Yes?’
‘The truth is they are badly wounded and may not last much longer.’
The Crimson Guard commander spun, faced the bridge – glanced back to the north where battle-magics glowed like auroras brought to earth and combat shook the ground.
Kyle glanced between the two as well. Gods, what a choice! He faced Stoop. ‘What do you think?’
The shade examined the bridge and the thousands behind. He scratched his chin. ‘Don’t know what’s goin’ on up north but we can’t let them through.’
‘I agree,’ K’azz said, making Kyle jump – he didn’t think him close enough to overhear. ‘Thank you, Kyle.’ To Stoop: ‘Tell Cole I’m coming.’
‘Queen forgive me,’ Kyle breathed. Beside him, Badlands sent an entreating look to the sky as if asking – why me, Hood? Why me?
Ullen was in the north-west when word came of the attack and complete slaughter of the field hospital. He stared for a time wordlessly to the north, numb of all feeling. What had he not done that he should’ve? A larger rearguard? More messengers? A tighter distribution of the command? I’ve failed my soldiers. The men and women who look to me to protect them. Standing before him, the pallid-faced messenger cleared his throat. ‘Sir?’
Ullen blinked, confused. ‘Yes?’
‘Your…orders, sir?’
He raised his weak, newly healed right arm to wipe his brow, found it slick with sweat. ‘Relocate the field hospital closer to the reserves.’
‘The only reserves are those with us, sir.’
Ullen looked up. ‘Only my legion?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then…move it…closer to the field.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The messenger saluted, departed.
Ullen studied the south. He would not, could not, face his staff. He clasped his sweaty hands at his back to quell the urge to wipe them on his uniform. The darker smear of night, empty of all stars, still hung over the redoubt in the east – bless that mage whoever he was – he’d saved that flank. Now, if he could only salvage some order out of the west. He could not understand the Guard’s reluctance out there on that flank. They could have routed them if they’d pressed their advantage. A phalanx marched now up the middle, standard in prominence, making an obvious effort to lay claim to overall control of the field. And what did they have left to throw against them? Nothing. If they could not be stopped then the Guard would have effectively won. His lines would have been cut in half.
A young girl came running up to his position, one of the Untan irregulars. His guards grabbed hold of her leather hauberk to yank her back. She fought the man, punching him. ‘Commander Ullen!’ she shouted. He waved her through. The oversized crossbow on her back rolled side to side as she came. ‘The Guard, sir – they’re fallin’ apart!’
He studied her, disbelieving. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Units are breakin’ up. Crimson Guardsmen runnin’ this way and that. Some even fightin’ each other. I heard Avowed even attacking Avowed.’
‘But that’s incredible. Why…?’ he glanced around, searching for confirmation. ‘Who else says so?’
‘I saw it with my own eyes, sir.’
‘Fist D’Ebbin approaching, sir,’ a lieutenant called out. Ullen dismissed the girl then jogged ahead to meet the Fist. He found the short, round commander surrounded by his bodyguard. All had seen fighting. The Fist’s armour was hacked, a cheek and his lips swollen from a blow. The man pulled off his helmet and gauntlets to wipe his face.
‘My compliments, Fist,’ said Ullen, and he meant it.
D’Ebbin gave a small wave as if to say it was of no great importance. ‘Been some kind of falling out among the Guard. Two camps appear to be organizing. One is firming up around the standard with the phalanx. The other is pulling together out of the Blades facing us. That phalanx, though, looks like it’s determined to take control of the field.’
‘We have to meet it.’
A curt nod of his bullet-head. ‘Understood.’
‘How many can you spare?’
‘We have to keep the main group contained.’
‘Reinforcements will come once the Kanese have broken through. They should some time soon.’
His hairless bony brows rose. ‘In truth? Then when they come we’ll swing east.’
‘Done.’
‘You’ll wait?’
Ullen shook his head. ‘We can’t leave the challenge unanswered. It would look like capitulation. The men will break.’
‘I understand. The column numbers about two thousand. But you know, my people estimate there are some forty Avowed among them?’
Forty Avowed? How could any force meet such a potent body? Still, there were twenty thousand Kanese on their way – enough to keep them pinned down, surrounded. Grind them down one by one. But how long will it take them to break through? He had to hold until the Kan forces arrived. ‘I have four thousand Malazan regulars with me, Fist. The commander’s, Anand’s, reserve. I will meet them.’
The Fist drew his gauntlets on. ‘I ask that you wait. The day is within your grasp. You have done a masterful job. I commend you. Do not throw it away.’
Ullen saluted. ‘I go now to save it, Fist.’
‘D’Ebbin nodded his assent, saluted. His face settled into grim resignation. ‘For sceptre and throne, Lieutenant-commander.’
‘Sceptre and throne.’ Fist D’Ebbin jogged away. Ullen turned back to his staff. ‘Relay my orders. We march to meet the Crimson Guard standard. We must keep them engaged until the Kanese arrive. Now is our turn to bloody our swords.’
‘We are with you sir,’ said the Imperial lieutenant, and Ullen was surprised and pleased to hear the support in his voice.
‘Very good. Order the march.’ His officers saluted and ran to their commands.
‘Is this the truth?’ asked an astonished Shimmer.
The Brethren shade before her, once Lieutenant Shirdar, bowed. ‘We offer no excuse. We were…blinded…commander. The Vow—’
‘Damn the Vow!’ Shimmer grated. ‘Cowl used your damned fixation to manipulate you!’
The shade wavered, fading, then reasserting its presence as if attempting to go but being held against its wishes. ‘It is yours too,’ it murmured.
Shimmer raised a gauntleted hand as if she would strike it. ‘Gather the Brethren. There are second and third investiture soldiers abandoned in the field, alone, beleaguered. Find them, protect them, guide them here!’
‘And K’azz?’
‘We will be—’ She cast about, pointed to a hill in the west. ‘There. Our rallying point.’
Shirdar bowed his head. ‘As you order.’
‘Yes! As I order. Now go!’
The shade disappeared. ‘Avowed!’ Shimmer yelled, raising her arms and turning full circle. ‘There ar
e soldiers abandoned in the field! Our brothers and sisters! Go! Find them! Bring them to me! The Brethren will guide you!’
A great shout answered her call, arms raised. The Avowed spread out for the field. Smoky, Shell and Bower paused to eye Shimmer – she waved them on. Even Greymane bowed, obviously meaning to go. She cocked a brow. ‘Where are you going? The Brethren will not talk to you.’
The man’s thick lips turned up in a one-sided smile. His eyes now laughed with some hidden joke. ‘Skinner, you say, has been cast out. Very good. I go now to do what should’ve been done some time ago.’
Her breath caught. ‘I forbid it!’
The smile broadened with the hidden joke. ‘As you have constantly reminded me, Shimmer, I am no Avowed.’ And he bowed, leaving.
You fool! There are too many! He is not alone.
‘Commander,’ a Guardsman sergeant, Trench, asked.
‘Yes?’
‘The rallying point?’
She pulled her gaze reluctantly from the back of the renegade as he jogged into the fire-dotted night. ‘Yes. This way. We withdraw to that hill.’
A Brethren shade appeared before her. ‘The Claw comes.’
Shimmer pushed Trench from her. ‘Go! Assemble. Go on.’ And she backed away. The man hesitated, hand going to his sword. ‘I order you to go!’ Grimacing his unwillingness, the sergeant turned and ran.
Shimmer continued backing away. She unsheathed her whipsword and it flexed before her, almost invisible in profile so thin was it. Darker shapes arose in the field around her. She turned, counting. Ten. Two Hands. She flicked the blade, weaving it, and she turned, spinning. Slowly at first, then quickening, the blade nearly invisible. And so the dance, Shimmer heard again the dry voice of her old instructress lashing her. The sword-dance of spinning cuts. Beautiful – but oh so deadly.
The Claws closed, knives out, crouched. Thrown weapons glanced from the twisting blade. Training of a lifetime refined over a further century flicked out the tempered blade to lick arms, legs and heads as she spun. Claws flinched away, gasping at razor cuts that sawed through flesh to scrape bone, sever wrists, lacerate faces and slit throats.
A second wave challenged, ducking, probing. The blade licked whipping through them all, extending suddenly to its full length. Shimmer spun, twisting and leaping. The blade’s razor edge flicked, kissing all remaining, and she landed, arms extended, panting.
She stilled, weapon extended before her, quivering, blood running from its length. All ten were down, some weeping, holding faces, bloodied stumps. Three more stood a few paces off, their eyes huge. Shimmer saw them and at the same instant each raised a crossbow. Damn – no momentum.
Then another jumped among them, kicking, rolling, and they rocked backwards to fall, immobile, felled by blows of feet and hands. This new figure strode up to her – female, slim and wiry, wrapped head to foot in dark cloth strips. Those strips wet with blood at her feet and torn away from her bloodied hands by the ferocity of her blows. Shimmer inclined her head in greeting. ‘I could have handled them.’
‘Perhaps.’ Only dark, calculating eyes were visible in her face and these shifted away. She raised her chin to the retreating Guardsmen. ‘You are withdrawing.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then go with my permission and never return to these lands.’
Shimmer’s brows rose. ‘And you are?’
The female Claw ignored the question.
Another Claw came running out of the dark, this one a man with a pinched rat’s face, dark mussed hair and an unsettling crazy grin. Shimmer recognized him from briefings on the Claw – Possum, Clawmaster. He crouched behind the woman as if guarding her back. The Master of the Claws following around a woman like a pet dog? Then this must be…Shimmer froze in shock. Gods! It’s her! Of course, Mistress of the Claw, once rival of Dancer himself!
Trench with a full Blade was running their way. Shimmer raised a hand to forestall them.
Unconcerned, the woman motioned aside, to the east. ‘And those?’
Shimmer knew who she meant. ‘Disavowed. Disgraced. Stricken from our ranks.’
‘I see. May I ask the reason for this falling out?’
She doesn’t know! ‘Skinner exceeded his authority.’ All too true.
‘How depressingly familiar…’ Musing, still gazing away, the woman – Laseen in truth? – spoke. ‘Very well. We are done here. Go! Return and you will be hunted down and slain. Accepted?’
Shimmer offered a shallow bow. ‘Accepted.’
The woman turned away, paused before the Clawmaster, who bowed profoundly on one knee. ‘Come, Possum. We have much to discuss – now.’ And she walked off into the dark, and, after a courtly mocking bow – that grin, unbalanced – Possum followed.
Trench jogged up. ‘Who was that?’
‘A…Claw officer. We have struck a truce.’
‘A truce? What of Skinner?’
‘I don’t believe he’s interested in any truces.’
Trench adjusted his hauberk. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Come, Sergeant, we’ve a defensive perimeter to build. No sense trusting to the Empire’s good graces, yes?’
‘Aye, Commander.’
The sergeant headed off but Shimmer lingered. She gazed back to where the two disappeared into the night. So, met at last. Is your word good, Empress? Shall you simply allow us to withdraw? Or will other voices, other councils, sway? I wonder…
The smearing, shifting land, spiralling sky and blurring, meteor-like stars forced Rillish to close his eyes else vomit or faint. He lowered his head into the smoky mane of his mount. He clenched his eyes, wondered just what it was they rode upon then wished he hadn’t. Gay laughter from ahead forced him to look – Nil and Nether sharing grins of victory, laughing their confidence, hair flying. As if they’d feared they all could’ve died immediately! He glanced back and wished he hadn’t. The land they rode upon was disappearing behind them as they passed, collapsing, falling away, revealing emptiness – Abyss – behind. Ye gods! Ride!
Overhead the great empty bowl of the night sky turned so fast the stars blurred like spun torches. A sun rose, fat and carmine – a bloated travesty of what he knew as the sun. Was it ill? Some peoples, he knew, worshipped the sun as a god. Its crimson light revealed that ahead lay…nothing. A dirt surface appeared before their column as if called into existence by the will of all the witches and warlocks bound to the twins. The surface supported them only to fall away once more into the miasma of the Abyss.
Ride, lads and lasses! Ride!
The glow of the horses’ eyes shocked him – all whites! Unconscious! But of course, what animal could endure such chaos? And so they ran, pulled along by the will of the warlocks. And he and all those who followed as well! He saw that at some point he’d unsheathed a sword, and, laughing, he awkwardly resheathed it. What use such a pathetic instrument?
Something moved upon the face of the unformed, churning sky – distant yet immense – wings outstretched, long tail lashing. A body of rib and spine only – a skeleton dragon? And why not? In such a place where everything yet nothing is possible. And farther yet, if such things as distance applied here, a great dark fortress. Static, brooding. Appearing to float upon nothing. What were these things? Hallucinations?
He glanced back and the hair on his neck and arms rose, charged. It was gaining! The land was falling away closer and closer upon their rear. Nothingness was overtaking them!
Ride, fools! Death’s reaching!
The twins pointed ahead where a dark smear stained the churning miasma ahead. Our gate? But so far! Rillish glanced back again and screamed. The rear ranks were slipping off the edge, hooves scrabbling, horses tumbling, men and women spinning backwards from sight. He kicked his mount savagely, almost weeping.
Ride to the Abyss!
Ullen ordered his legion into two arms, each of which would meet the Guard phalanx leading face at angles, hopefully to then wrap around and envelop. That was the best he could h
ope for. The Crimson Guard standard was held just a few ranks back from that face. The Avowed, he knew, would overcome any individual soldier who might oppose them, but eventually, if numbers should tell, they would find themselves beleaguered from all sides to be cut down by these stolid, grim Malazan and Talian heavy infantry veterans. Or so he told himself.
The two forces came marching towards one another out of the dark. The ruins of the Imperial pavilion smouldered just to the north. Ullen knew the Empress was nowhere nearby; yet for the Guard to march unopposed this far would be tantamount to victory, a tacit acknowledgement that the Imperial forces could no longer muster the wherewithal, or will, or spirit, to face them. The closest thing to defeat that becomes defeat in its realization.
When only a few paces separated the two lines Ullen raised his sword for the final charge. The Imperials sounded a low animal roar that swelled to a ferocious demanding invocation of rage, hate and battle-lust. They raised shields, leaning forward, the pressing shields of the ranks behind at their backs forcing them on. The two formations smashed together with a bone-breaking clash of shields smashing, blades probing, legs thrusting at the dirt. Line pushed against line; ranks slid across one another, mixing, milling. Men died but could not fall, so crushing was the press. The screaming cacophony melded into one undifferentiated rumble that punished Ullen’s ears into a ringing, oddly muted, din. He knew he was yelling but he could not hear his own voice.
Sword held awkwardly in his left hand, for his right remained too weak, he thrust savagely between shields. The ground beneath the grunting, scrabbling mass became glutinous with shed blood. Sandalled feet slipped, bodies fell. Men and women cursed fallen friends and enemies alike when they entangled their feet, tripping them. As the lines shifted back and forth these fallen became trampled down into the mulch of mud and gore.
The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire) Page 105