And another truth, one I keep pushing away. She's haunting me. Seeking my thoughts. But I'm not ready for her. Not yet, not with my stomach aflame…
It was no doubt madness—a delusion—but Paran believed that the pain would relent—all would be well once more—as soon as he delivered to the world the violence trapped within him. Folly or not, he clung to that belief. Only then will these pressures relent. Only then.
He was not ready to fail.
'Call up the Bridgeburners, then,' Paran muttered. 'We can be at the north gate inside of a bell.'
Trotts grunted. 'All thirty-odd of us.'
'Well, damn if we can't shame these Barghast into some haste—'
'This is your hope?'
Paran glanced over at the man. 'Hood take us all, Trotts, you were the one who asked Taur to grant you leave. Do you expect the thirty-seven of us to retake Capustan all on our own? With an unconscious mage in tow?'
The Barghast, eyes thinned to slits as he studied the city ahead, rolled his shoulders and said, 'We leave Quick Ben behind. As for retaking the city, I mean to try.'
After a long moment, the captain grinned. 'Glad to hear it.'
The march of the White Face Barghast had been slow, torturous. Early on, during the southward journey across the high plains, sudden duels brought the clans to a halt a half-dozen times a day. These were, finally, diminishing, and Humbrall Taur's decision to assign entire clans to specific tasks in the upcoming battle would effectively remove the opportunity in the days to come. For all that every warchief had bowed to the single cause—the liberation of their gods—longstanding enmities persisted.
Trotts's new role as warchief of the Bridgeburners had proved something of a relief for Paran. He'd hated the responsibility of command. The pressure that was the well-being of every soldier under him had been a growing burden. As second-in-command, that pressure had diminished, if only slightly—but it was, for now, enough. Less pleasant was the fact that Paran had lost his role as representative of the Bridgeburners. Trotts had taken on the task of attending the war councils, leaving the captain out of the picture.
In the strictest sense, Paran remained in command of the Bridgeburners. But the company had become a tribe, insofar as Humbrall Taur and the Barghast were concerned, and tribes elected warchiefs, and that role belonged to Trotts.
The tree-studded hills behind them, the company of Bridgeburners moved down to the muddy verges of a seasonal stream that wound its way towards the city. Smoke from Capustan's fires obscured the stars overhead, and the rain of the past few days had softened the ground underfoot, lending it a spongy silence. Armour and weapons had been strapped tight; the Bridgeburners padded forward through the darkness without a sound.
Paran was three paces behind Trotts, who still held to his old role in Whiskeyjack's squad—that of taking point. Not the ideal position for the commander, but one that complemented the Barghast role of warchief. The captain was not happy with it. Worse, it showed Trotts's stubborn side all too clearly. A lack of adaptability that was disturbing in a leader.
An invisible presence seemed to settle on his shoulder, the touch of a distant, familiar mind. Paran grimaced. His link with Silverfox was growing stronger. This was the third time she had reached out to him this week. A faint brush of awareness, like the touching of fingers, tip to tip. He wondered if that made her able to see what he saw, wondered if she was reading his thoughts. Given all that he held within himself, Paran was beginning to instinctively recoil from her contact. His secrets were his own. She had no right to plunder them, if that was what she was doing. Even tactical necessity could not justify that to his mind. His frown deepened as her presence lingered. If it is her. What if—
Ahead, Trotts stopped, settling into a crouch, one hand raised. He gestured twice.
Paran and the soldier immediately behind him moved to join the Barghast warrior.
They had reached the Pannions' north pickets. The encampment was a shambles, bereft of organization, sloppily prepared and seriously undermanned. Litter cluttered the trodden paths between trenches, pits, and the ragged sprawl of makeshift tents. The air was redolent with poorly placed latrines.
The three men studied the scene for a moment longer, then withdrew to rejoin the others. The squad sergeants slipped forward. A huddle was formed.
Spindle, who had been the soldier accompanying Paran, was the first to speak. 'Medium infantry on station,' he whispered. 'Two small companies by the pair of standards—'
'Two hundred,' Trotts agreed. 'More in the tents. Sick and wounded.'
'Mostly sick, I'd say,' Spindle replied. 'Dysentery, I'd guess, by the smell. These Pannion officers ain't worth dung. Them sick ones won't be in the fighting no matter what we do. Guess everyone else is in the city.'
'The gates beyond,' Trotts growled.
Paran nodded. 'Lots of bodies before it. A thousand corpses, maybe more. No barricades at the gates themselves, nor could I see any guard. The overconfidence of victors.'
'We gotta punch through them medium infantry,' Sergeant Antsy muttered. 'Spindle, how are you and the rest of the sappers for Moranth munitions?'
The small man grinned. 'Found your nerve again, eh, Antsy?'
The sergeant scowled. 'This is fightin', ain't it? Now answer my question, soldier.'
'We got plenty. Wish we had a few of them lobbers Fiddler makes, though.'
Paran blinked, then recalled the oversized crossbows Fiddler and Hedge used to extend the range of cussers. 'Doesn't Hedge have one?' he asked.
'He broke it, the idiot. No, we'll prime some cussers but that'll be just for sowing. Sharpers, tonight. Burners would make too much light—let the enemy see how few of us there really are. Sharpers. I'll gather the lads and lasses.'
'I thought you were a mage,' Paran muttered as the man turned towards the waiting squads.
Spindle glanced back. 'I am, Captain. And I'm a sapper, too. Deadly combination, eh?'
'Deadly for us,' Antsy retorted. 'That and your damned hairshirt—'
'Hey, the burnt patches are growing back—see?'
'Get to it,' Trotts growled.
Spindle started tagging off squad sappers.
'So we just punch right through,' Paran said. 'With the sharpers that should be no problem, but then the ones on the outside flanks will sweep in behind us—'
Spindle rejoined them in time to grunt and say, 'That's why we'll sow cussers, Captain. Two drops on the wax. Ten heartbeats. The word's "run", and when we shout it that's what you'd better do, and fast. If you're less than thirty paces away when they go up, you're diced liver.'
'You ready?' Trotts asked Spindle.
'Aye. Nine of us, so expect just under thirty paces wide, the path we carve.'
'Weapons out,' the Barghast said. Then he reached out and gripped Spindle's hairshirt and dragged him close. Trotts grinned. 'No mistakes.'
'No mistakes,' the man agreed, eyes widening as Trotts clacked his sharpened teeth inches from his face.
A moment later, Spindle and his eight fellow sappers were moving towards the enemy lines, hooded and shapeless in their rain-capes.
The presence brushed Paran's awareness once again. He did all he could in his mind to push it away. The acid in his stomach swirled, murmuring a promise of pain. He drew a deep breath to steady himself. If swords clash … it will be my first. After all this time, my first battle…
The enemy medium infantry were huddled in groups, twenty or more to each of a row of hearths on the encampment's only high ground—what used to be a cart track running parallel to the city wall. Paran judged that a path thirty paces wide would take out most of three groups.
Leaving well over a hundred Pannions capable of responding. If there were any capable officers among them, this could get ugly. Then again, if there were any capable officers there the squads wouldn't be clumped up the way they are…
The sappers had gone to ground. The captain could no longer see them. Shifting his grip on his sword, h
e checked back over a shoulder to scan the rest of the Bridgeburners. Picker was at the forefront, a painful expression on her face. He was about to ask her what was wrong when detonations cracked through the night. The captain spun round.
Bodies writhed in the firelight of the now scattered hearths. Trotts loosed a quavering warcry.
The Bridgeburners sprinted forward.
More sharpers exploded, out to the sides now, dropping the mobbed, confused soldiers around adjacent hearths.
Paran saw the dark forms of the sappers, converging directly ahead, squatting down amidst dead and dying Pannions.
Crossbows thunked in the hands of the dozen or so Bridgeburners who carried them.
Screams rang.
Trotts leading the way, the Bridgeburners reached the charnel path, passed around the crouching sappers who were one and all readying the larger cussers. Two drops of acid to the wax plug sealing the hole in the clay grenado.
A chorus of muted hisses.
'Run!'
Paran cursed. Ten heartbeats suddenly seemed no time at all. Cussers were the largest of the Moranth munitions. A single one could make the intersection of four streets virtually impassable. The captain ran.
His heart almost seized in his chest as he fixed his eyes on the gate directly ahead. The thousand corpses were stirring. Oh damn. Not dead at all. Sleeping. The bastards were sleeping!
'Down down down!'
The word was Malazan, the voice was Hedge's.
Paran hesitated only long enough to see Spindle, Hedge and the other sappers arrive among them… to throw cussers. Forward. Into the massing ranks of Tenescowri between them and the gates. Then they dived flat.
'Oh, Hood!' The captain threw himself down, slid across gritty mud, releasing his grip on his sword and clamping both hands to his ears.
The ground punched the breath from his lungs, threw his legs into the air. He thumped back down in the mud. On his back. He had time to begin his roll before the cussers directly ahead exploded. The impact sent him tumbling. Bloody shreds rained down on him.
A large object thumped beside Paran's head. He blinked his eyes open. To see a man's hips—just the hips, the concavity where intestines belonged yawning black and wet. Thighs were gone, taken at the joints. The captain stared.
His ears were ringing. He felt blood trickling from his nose. His chest ached. Distant screaming wailed through the night.
A hand closed on his rain-cape, tugged him upright.
Mallet. The healer leaned close to press the captain's sword into his hands, then shouted words Paran barely heard. 'Come on! They're all getting the Hood out of here!' A shove sent the captain stumbling forward.
His eyes saw, but his mind failed in registering the devastation to either side of the path they now ran down towards the north gate. He felt himself shutting down inside, even as he slipped and staggered through the human ruin… shutting down as he had once before, years ago, on a road in Itko Kan.
The hand of vengeance stayed cold only so long. Any soul possessing a shred of humanity could not help but see the reality behind cruel deliverance, no matter how justified it might have at first seemed. Faces blank in death. Bodies twisted in postures no-one unbroken could achieve. Destroyed lives. Vengeance yielded a mirror to every atrocity, where notions of right and wrong blurred and lost all relevance.
He saw, to the right and left, fleeing figures. A few sharpers cracked, hastening the rout.
The Bridgeburners had announced themselves to the enemy.
We are their match, the captain realized as he ran, in calculated brutality. But this is a war of nerves where no-one wins.
The unchallenged darkness of the gate swallowed Paran and his fellow Bridgeburners. Boots skidded as the soldiers halted their mad sprint. Dropping into crouches. Reloading crossbows. Not a word spoken.
Trotts reached a hand out and dragged Hedge close. The Barghast shook the man hard for a moment, then made to throw him down. A squeal from Spindle stopped him. Hedge, after all, carried a leather sack half full of munitions.
His face still a mass of bruises from Detoran's fond touch, Hedge cursed. 'Ain't no choice, you big ape!'
Paran could hear the words. An improvement. He wasn't sure who he sided with on this one, but the truth of it was, it no longer mattered. 'Trotts!' he snapped. 'What now? If we wait here—'
The Barghast grunted. 'Into the city, low and quiet.'
'Which direction?' Antsy asked.
'We head to the Thrall—'
'Fine, and what's that?'
'The glowing keep, you thick-skulled idiot.'
They edged forward, out from beneath the archway's gloom, onto the concourse immediately beyond. Their steps slowed as flickering firelight revealed the nightmare before them.
There had been vast slaughter, and then there had been a feast. The cobbles were ankle-deep in bones, some charred, others red and raw with bits of tendon and flesh still clinging to them. And fully two-thirds of the dead, the captain judged from what he could see of uniforms and clothing, belonged to the invaders.
'Gods,' Paran muttered, 'the Pannions paid dearly.' I think I should revise my estimation of the Grey Swords.
Spindle nodded. 'Even so, numbers will tell.'
'A day or two earlier…' Mallet said.
No-one bothered finishing the thought. There was no need.
'What's your problem, Picker?' Antsy demanded.
'Nothing!' the woman snapped. 'It's nothing.'
'Is that the Thrall, then?' Hedge asked. 'That glowing dome? There, through the smoke—'
'Let's go,' Trotts said.
The Bridgeburners ranging out cautiously in the Barghast's wake, they set forth, across the grisly concourse, to a main avenue that seemed to lead directly towards the strangely illumined structure. The style of the houses and tenement blocks to either side—those that were still standing—was distinctly Daru to Paran's eyes. The rest of the city, he saw from fragmented glimpses down side alleys and avenues where fires still burned—was completely different. Vaguely alien. And, everywhere, bodies.
Further down the street, piles of still-fleshed corpses rose like the slope of a hill.
The Bridgeburners said nothing as they neared that slope. The truth before them was difficult to comprehend. On this street alone, there were at least ten thousand bodies. Maybe more. Sodden, already swollen, the flesh pale around gaping, blood-drained wounds. Concentrated mounds around building entrances, alley mouths, an estate's gate, the stepped approaches to gutted temples. Faces and sightless eyes reflected flames, making expressions seem to writhe in mocking illusion of animation, of life.
To continue on the street, the Bridgeburners would have to climb that slope.
Trotts did not hesitate.
Word arrived from the small company's rearguard. Tenescowri had entered through the gate, were keeping pace like silent ghosts behind them. A few hundred, no more than that. Poorly armed. No trouble. Trotts simply shrugged at the news.
They scrambled their way up the soft, flesh-laden ramp. Do not look down. Do not think of what is underfoot. Think only of the defenders, who must have fought on. Think of courage almost inhuman, defying mortal limits. Of these Grey Swords—those motionless, uniformed corpses in those doorways, crowding the alley mouths. Fighting on, and on. Yielding nothing. Cut to pieces where they stood. These soldiers humble us all. A lesson… for the Bridgeburners around me. This brittle, heart-broken company. We've come to a war devoid of mercy.
The ramp had been fashioned. There was an intention to its construction. It was an approach. To what?
It ended in a tumbled heap, at a level less than a man's height below the roof of a tenement block. Opposite the building there had been another just like it, but fire had reduced it to smouldering rubble.
Trotts stopped at the ramp's very edge. The rest followed suit, crouching down, looking around, trying to comprehend the meaning of all that they saw. The ragged end revealed the truth: there was no underly
ing structure to this ghastly construct. It was indeed solid bodies.
'A siege ramp,' Spindle finally said in a quiet, almost diffident tone. 'They wanted to get to somebody—'
'Us,' a low voice rumbled from above them.
Crossbows snapped up.
Paran looked to the tenement building's roof. A dozen figures lined its edge. Distant firelight lit them.
'They brought ladders,' the voice continued, now speaking Daru. 'We beat them anyway.'
These warriors were not Grey Swords. They were armoured, but it was a ragtag collection of accoutrements. One and all, their faces and exposed skin were daubed in streaks and barbs. Like human tigers.
'I like the paint,' Hedge called up, also in Daru. 'Scared the crap out of me, that's for sure.'
The spokesman, tall and hulking, bone-white black-barbed cutlasses in his mailed hands, cocked his head. 'It's not paint, Malazan.'
Silence.
Then the man gestured with a blade. 'Come up, if you like.'
Ladders appeared from the rooftop, slid down its edge.
Trotts hesitated. Paran stepped close. 'I think we should. There's something about that man and his followers—'
The Barghast snorted. 'Really?' He waved the Bridgeburners to the ladders.
Paran watched the ascent, deciding he would be the last to go. He saw Picker hanging back. 'Problem, Corporal?'
She flinched, massaging her right arm.
'You're in pain,' the captain said, moving to her side, studying her pinched face. 'Did you take a wound? Let's go to Mallet.'
'He can't help me, Captain. Never mind about it.'
I know precisely how you feel. 'Climb, then.'
As if approaching gallows, the corporal made her way to the nearest ladder.
Paran glanced back down the ramp. Spectral figures moved in the gloom at its far base. Well out of any kind of missile range. Unwilling, perhaps, to ascend the slope. The captain wasn't surprised at that. Fighting twinges, he began climbing.
The tenement's flat roof had the look of a small shantytown. Tarps and tents, hearths smouldering on overturned shields. Food packs, caskets of water and wine. A row of blanket-wrapped figures—the fallen, seven in all. Paran could see others in some of the tents, most likely wounded.