'I know, Spindle, which is why I want you to set aside the cussers and burners—I want these tunnels rigged. If we have to scramble, we leave this strongpoint nothing but mud and ashes.'
The sapper gaped. 'Captain, without them cussers and burners, the Seer won't need to send anybody after this company—it'll take us clean out!'
'Assuming there's enough of them left to regroup and come up the main ramp. In other words, Spindle, pull the sappers together and cook up the messiest stew you can for those three hidden trails. If we can make it seem like the whole Malazan army's up here… better yet, if we can make sure not one soldier in this company gets out alive, we'll have purchased the time we need. The less certain we leave the Seer the safer we'll be. So, close that mouth and find Hedge and the rest. Your moment of glory's arrived, Spindle—go.'
Muttering, the man scrambled out of the chamber.
Paran faced the others. 'A Seerdomin sorceror, you said. All right, he needs to drop fast once the fun starts. What do you have in mind, gentlemen?'
Shank grinned. 'My idea, Captain. It's classic, deadly—especially because it's so unexpected. I've already completed the ritual, left it primed—all Quick Ben needs to do is tell me when he's spotted the bastard.'
'What kind of ritual, Shank?'
'The ingenious kind, Captain—Bluepearl loaned me the spell, but I can't describe it, can't write it down and show you, neither. Words and meanings hang around in the air, you know, seep into suspicious minds and trigger gut instinct. There's nothing to blocking it if you know it's coming—it only works when you don't.'
Scowling, Paran turned to Quick Ben.
The wizard shrugged, 'Shank wouldn't cough himself to the front of the line if he wasn't sure of this, Captain. I'll sniff the Seerdomin out as he's asked. And I'll have a few back-ups in case it goes sour.'
Bluepearl added, 'Spindle will hold back on a sharper, Captain, with the mage's name on it.'
'Literally,' Toes threw in, 'and that makes all the difference, Spin being a wizard and all.'
'Yes? And how often has it made the difference in the past, Toes?'
'Well, uh, there's been a bad string of, uh, mitigating circumstances—'
'Abyss below,' Paran breathed. 'Quick Ben, if we don't knock that sorceror out we'll be feeding roots a drop at a time.'
'We know, Captain. Don't worry. We'll stamp him out before he sparks.'
Paran sighed. 'Toes, find me Picker—I want all these longbows trundled out and issued to everyone without a munition or spell in hand, twenty arrows each, and I want them to have pikes as well.'
'Aye, sir.' Toes climbed to his feet. He reached for one large, mummified toe strung around his neck and kissed it. Then he headed out.
Bluepearl spat onto the ground. 'I feel sick every time he does that.'
A bell and a half later, the captain lay alongside Quick Ben, looking down on the middle stepped trail, where the glint of helms and weapons appeared in the late afternoon's dull light.
The Pannions had not bothered to send scouts ahead, nor was their column preceded by a point. A degree of overconfidence that Paran hoped would prove fatal.
In the soft earth before Quick Ben, the wizard had set a half-dozen twigs, upright, in a rough line. Faint sorcery whispered between them that the captain's eyes could only register peripherally. Twenty paces behind the two men, Shank sat hunched over his modest, pebble-ringed circle of ritual; six twigs from the same branch that Quick Ben had used, jabbed into the moss before the squad mage, surrounding a bladder filled with water. Beads of condensation glistened from these twigs.
Paran heard Quick Ben's soft sigh. The wizard reached out, hovered an index finger over the third twig, then tapped it.
Shank saw one of his twigs twitch. He grinned, whispered the last word of his ritual, releasing its power. The bladder shrivelled, suddenly empty.
Down on the trail, the Seerdomin sorceror, third in the line, buckled, water spraying from his mouth, lungs filled, clawing at his own chest.
Shank's eyes closed, his face funnelled in sweat as he swiftly added binding spells to the water that filled the Seerdomin's lungs, holding it down against their desperate, spasming efforts to expel the deadly fluid.
Soldiers shouted, gathered around the writhing mage.
Four sharpers sailed into their midst.
Multiple, snapping explosions, at least one of them triggering the row of sharpers buried along the length of the trail, these ones in turn triggering the crackers at the base of the flanking trees, which began toppling inward onto the milling soldiers.
Smoke, the screams of the wounded and dying, figures sprawled, pinned beneath trees and trapped by branches.
Paran saw Hedge and four other sappers, Spindle included, plunging down the slope to one side of the trail. Munitions flew from their hands.
The fallen trees—wood and branches liberally drenched in lantern oil—lit up in a conflagration as the first of the burners exploded. Within the span of a heartbeat, the trail and the entire company trapped upon it were in flames.
Abyss below, we're not a friendly bunch, are we? Down at the bottom, well behind the last of the Pannions, Picker and her squads had emerged from cover, bows in hand, and were—Paran hoped—taking down those of the enemy who had managed to avoid the ambush and were attempting to flee.
At the moment, all the captain could hear were screams and the thunderous roar of the fire. The gloom of approaching night had been banished from the trail, and Paran could feel the heat gusting against his face. He glanced over at Quick Ben. The wizard's eyes were closed.
Faint movement on the man's shoulder caught the captain's attention—a tiny figure of sticks and twine—Paran blinked. It was gone, and he began to wonder if he'd seen anything at all… the wild flaring and ebb of firelight, the writhing shadows… ah, I must be imagining things. Not enough sleep, the horror that is this dance of light, heightened senses—those damned screams…
Were fading now, and the fire itself was losing its raging hunger, unable to reach very far into the rain-soaked forest beyond. Smoke wreathed the trail, drifted through the surrounding boles. Blackened bodies filled the path, plates of armour rainbow-burnished, leather curled and peeling, boots blistered and cracking open with terrible sizzling sounds.
If Hood has reserved a pit for his foulest servants, then the Moranth who made these munitions belong in it. And us, since we've used them. This was not battle. This was slaughter.
Mallet slid down to Paran's side. 'Captain! Moranth are dropping out of the sky on the entrenchments—Dujek's arrived, the first wave with him. Sir, our reinforcements are here.'
Quick Ben scraped a hand across his little row of twigs. 'Good. We'll need them.'
Aye, the Seer won't yield these entrenchments without a fight. 'Thank you, Healer. Return to the High Fist and inform him I will join him shortly.'
'Yes, sir.'
Chapter Twenty-Four
Some tides move unseen. Priests and priestesses of the twin cults of Togg and Fanderay had for so long presided over but a handful of adherents in their respective temples, and those temples were few and far between. A shortlived expansion of the cults swept through the Malazan armies early in Laseen's reign, but then seemed to wither of its own accord. In retrospect, that flurry might be interpreted as being only marginally premature, anticipating by less than a decade the reawakening that would bring the ancient cults to the fore. The first evidence of that reawakening occurred on the very edges of the Empire's borders [strictly speaking, not even close, tr.], in the recently liberated city of Capustan, where the tide revealed its power for all to see…
Cults of Resurrection
Korum T'bal
(Translated by Illys of Darujhistan)
THE TWO MASKED FIGURES, ANCIENT AND SHRUNKEN, SLOWLY hobbled towards the low, wide entrance of Hood's temple. Coll had been seeing to the Mott horses in the courtyard and now stood silent in the shadows of the wall, watching as the figure closest to him
—a woman—raised a cane and rapped it sharply against the door.
Distant drums still sounded, indicating that the coronation of Prince Arard was dragging on. Given that the ceremony was under the guidance of the Mask Council, Coll was more than a little curious to see these two council members here, clearly intent on paying an unofficial, private visit. He was also suspicious, since he'd assumed that no-one had known of the reoccupancy of Hood's temple.
He started at a low voice close beside him: 'What good will come of this, do you think?'
Another masked priest was standing in the shadows beside the Daru, strangely indistinct, hooded, gloved hands folded over the bulge of a pot-belly—though the rest of the man appeared to be stick-thin.
'Where did you come from?' Coll hissed, his heart thudding in his chest.
'I? I was here before you! This is my shadow, you fool! Look at that torchlight—where we stand should be bathed in it. Are all the nobles of Darujhistan as stupid as you?'
Coll grimaced. 'All right, shadow-priest, you've been spying—on what? What state secrets have you learned watching me groom these horses?'
'Only that they hate you, Daru. Every time your back was turned, they got ready to nip you—only you always seemed to step away at precisely the right moment—'
'Yes, I did, since I knew what they were intending. Each time.'
'Is this pride I hear? That you outwitted two horses?'
'Another remark like that, priest, and I will toss you over this wall.'
'You wouldn't dare—oh, all right, you would. Come no closer. I will be civil. I promise.'
Both turned at the sound of the temple doors squealing open.
'Aai!' Rath'Shadowthrone whispered. 'Who is that?'
'My friend, Murillio.'
'No, you idiot—the other one!'
'The one with the swords, you mean? Ah, well, he works for Hood.'
'And is Rath'Hood aware of this?'
'You're asking me?'
'Well, has he paid a visit?'
'No.'
'The brainless idiot!'
Coll grunted. 'Is that a quality all your acquaintances share?'
'So far,' Rath'Shadowthrone muttered.
'Those two,' Coll said, 'what kind of masks are they wearing under those cowls?'
'You mean, do I recognize them? Of course I do. The old man's Rath'Togg. The older woman's Rath'Fanderay. On the Council we use them as bookends—in all my years in the Thrall, I don't think I've heard either one say a word. Even more amusing, they're lovers who've never touched each other.'
'How does that work?'
'Use your imagination, Daru. Ho, they're being invited inside! What bubbles in this cauldron?'
'Cauldron? What cauldron?'
'Shut up.'
Coll smiled. 'Well, I'm having too much fun. Time to go inside.'
'I'm going with you.'
'No, you're not. I don't like spies.' With that, Coil's fist connected with the priest's jaw. The man dropped in a heap.
The shadows slowly dissolved to flickering torchlight.
Coll rubbed at his knuckles, then set off for the temple.
He closed the door behind him. Murillio, the warrior and the guests were nowhere to be seen. He strode to the entrance to the chamber of the sepulchre. One of the doors had been left slightly ajar. Coll nudged it open and stepped through.
Murillio sat close to where they had laid out a cot for the Mhybe—the burial pit remained empty, despite the undead warrior's constant instructions to place the old woman within it. The sword-wielding servant of Hood stood facing the two masked councillors, the pit between them. No-one was speaking.
Coll approached Murillio. 'What's happened?' he whispered.
'Nothing. Not a word, unless they're jabbering in their heads, but I doubt it.'
'So… they're all waiting, then.'
'So it seems. Abyss take us, they're worse than vultures…'
Coll studied his friend for a long moment, then said, 'Murillio, were you aware you're sitting on a corner of Hood's altar?'
The land beyond Coral's north wall was forested parkland, glades divided by stands of coppiced trees that had not been trimmed for at least three seasons. The trader road wound like a serpent through the parkland, straightening as it reached a two-hundred-pace-wide killing field, then rising in a narrow stone bridge over a steep, dry moat just before the wall. The gate was a massive construction, the track through barely the width of a wagon and overhung with abutments. The doors were sheeted bronze.
Lieutenant Picker blinked sweat from her eyes. She had brought Antsy and his squad as close as possible, lying flat along the edge of an overgrown woodcutter's path thirty or forty paces up the mountain-side's east-facing flank. Coral's high walls were to their right, southeasterly; the killing field directly opposite and the parkland to their left. Packed ranks of Pannion Beklites had assembled in the killing field, were arranged to face the mountain—and the entrenchments now held by Dujek and six thousand of Onearm's Host.
The sergeant lying beside her grunted. 'There, coming through the gate. That's some kind of standard, and that clump of riders… sitting too tall…'
'A Septarch and his officers,' Picker agreed. 'So, Antsy, does your count match mine?'
'Twenty-five, thirty thousand,' the man muttered, tugging on his moustache.
'But we've the high ground—'
'Aye, only those trenches and tunnels weren't meant to be defended—they were hiding places. Too many straight lines, no cul-de-sacs, no funnels, no chance for an enfilade—and too many Hood-damned trees!'
'The sappers are—'
'They ain't got the time!'
'So it seems,' Picker agreed. 'Mind you, do you see any of those condors gathering to join in the assault?'
'No, but that don't mean—'
'What it means, Sergeant, is the Seer is holding them back. He knows we're not the main punch. We messed up his ambush and knocked out a company, and no doubt that's irritated him enough to send out, what, a third of his army? Maybe a cadre of mages to guard the Septarch? And if they find out we're a bear in a den, I doubt they'll push—'
'Unless the Seer decides that killing six thousand of the Host is worth a third of his army, Picker. If I was him—'
The lieutenant grimaced. 'Aye, me too.' I'd annihilate us, stamp us out before the rest arrive. 'Still, I don't think the Seer's that sharp—after all, what does he know of the Malazans? Distant tales of wars far to the north… an invasion that's bogged down. He'd have no reason to know what we're capable of.'
'Picker, you're fishing with a bare hook. The Seer knows we've somehow jumped onto his entrenchments. Knows we slipped past those condors without tickling a single beak. Knows we knocked flat an entire company using Moranth munitions. Knows we're sitting here, watching this army assemble, and we ain't running. Knows, too, we ain't got any support—not yet—and maybe, just maybe, we jumped in the slough before the shit's settled.'
Picker said nothing for a time. The Pannion legions had settled, officers dispersing to take positions at the head of each one. Drums rattled. Pikes lifted skyward. Then, before each arrayed legion, sorcery began to play.
Oh… 'Where's Blend?'
'Here.'
'Hightail it back to Dujek—'
'Aye, Lieutenant. We're in it, now.'
Squatting on the lead embankment above the slope, Quick Ben slowly straightened. 'Spindle, Bluepearl, Toes, Shank, to me, if you will.'
The four mages scrambled to his side and all were babbling. 'A dozen sorcerers!'
'Drawing from the same warren!'
'And it's clean and ugly!'
'They're weaving, Quick!'
'Working togeth—'
'Be quiet, all of you!'
'We're all going to die!'
'Dammit, Toes, shut up!'
He glared until the four men settled, surveyed the bleak expressions for a moment, then grinned. 'Twelve of the bastards, right? And who is this, standing here
before you? Quick Ben. Right? Ben Adaephon Delat. Now, if any of you has already filled his breeches, go change, then rejoin the companies you've been attached to—whatever gets through me is for you to handle. Any way you can.' Glancing over, he saw Dujek, Paran and Blend approaching, the latter looking winded and somewhat wild-eyed. 'All right, Cadre, dismissed.'
The mages scurried away.
Dujek was wearing his full armour—the first time Quick Ben had seen that in years. The wizard nodded in greeting.
Paran spoke, 'Quick Ben, Blend here's delivered some bad—'
'I know, Captain. I've split up my cadre, so we won't get taken out in a clump. I'll draw their attention to me, right here—'
'Hold on,' Dujek growled. 'That cadre ain't a cadre, and worse: they know it. Secondly, you're not a combat mage. If we lose you early…'
The wizard shrugged. 'High Fist, I'm all you've got. I'll keep 'em busy for a while.'
Paran said, 'I'll assign the Bridgeburners to guard you—we've re-supplied on munitions—'
'He's being generous,' Dujek cut in. 'Half a crate, and most of it close-in stuff. If the enemy gets near enough for them to have to use it, you're way too close to one stray arrow headed your way, Wizard. I'm not happy with this, not happy at all.'
'Can't say I am, either,' Quick Ben replied. He waited. He could hear the High Fist's molars grinding.
'Captain?' Dujek grunted.
'Aye, sir?'
'Are the cussers and crackers in place? Can we collapse this damned hillside?'
'Hedge says it's all rigged, High Fist. We can bury every tunnel and flatten every entrenchment.'
'So, we could just pull out and leave the Pannions to retake… a steaming mess of nothing.'
'We could, sir.'
'Meaning, we'll have travelled half the continent, only to retreat before our first engagement.'
'A temporary retreat, sir,' Paran pointed out.
'Or we can bloody their noses… maybe take out ten thousand Beklites, ten, twelve mages and a Septarch. At the possible cost of this army, including Quick Ben here. Gentlemen, is that a fair exchange?'