The Malazan Empire, page 256
‘Another Seerdomin!’ Quick Ben screamed, dragging Paran to the ground.
Sorcery leapt from the second line of Beklites, ripped straight for the two men.
Quick Ben twisted onto his side, cursing. ‘Hold on, Captain!’
A warren opened around them.
And they were suddenly under water, armour pulling them down into darkness.
Grey light streaked wild and savage directly above, a thundering concussion visibly descending towards the two men.
Water exploded on all sides, hard roots cracking against Paran’s ribs. Coughing, gasping, he clawed at mud.
A hand closed round a strap of his harness, began dragging him across the sodden forest floor. ‘Where’s your damned sword?’
Paran managed to pull his legs under him, stumbled upright. ‘Sword? You bastard! I was drowning!’
‘Damn!’ the wizard swore. ‘You’d better hope that bird’s still stunned.’
A murderous glance revealed Quick Ben’s sorry state – blood streamed from the man’s ears, nose and mouth. His leather armour had split along every seam. Paran looked down to see that his own banded armour was similarly mangled. He wiped at his mouth – his gauntlet came away smeared red.
‘I’ve still got my pig-sticker.’
‘Pull it out, I think we’re close…’
Ahead, between the trees, broken branches littered the floor. Smoke drifted from the ground.
Then Paran saw it – Quick Ben’s warning grip on the captain’s arm indicated that the wizard, too, had detected the black mass in the shadows off to one side, a mass that glistened as it moved.
The flash of a pale grey neck, the glimmer of a hooked beak. Tendrils of sorcery, dancing, building.
Paran hesitated no longer, rushing past the wizard, knife sliding from its scabbard.
The creature was huge, its body the size of a female bhederin, the neck rising from hunched shoulders like a snake. Black, slimy head with nightmare eyes swinging towards him.
Something whipped past Paran from behind – a wraith, clawed hands reaching for the condor.
The creature hissed, recoiling, then the head snapped out.
Sorcery flashed.
The wraith was gone.
Paran twisted away from the condor’s head. Drove the sticker’s long blade down, deep into its back. He felt the blade deflect from the spine and cursed.
A shrill scream, a flash of black motion, and Paran found himself engulfed in black, oily, smothering feathers. Hooked beak scored lashing pain along his temple, ripping down to take his ear – he felt the grisly snip, the spray of hot blood down onto his neck.
Awareness fragmented to an explosion of bestial rage, rising within him—
Ten paces away, on his knees – too battered to do more than simply watch – Quick Ben stared, disbelieving, as the two figures thrashed in battle. Paran was almost invisible within a writhing, shadow-woven Hound. Not a Soletaken – not a veering. These are two creatures – man and beast – woven together … somehow. And the power behind it – it’s Shadow. Kurald Emurlahn.
The Hound’s massive jaws and finger-long canines ripped into the condor, chewing a path up the creature’s shoulders towards the neck. The demon, in turn, tore again and again into the beast – its flanks ribboned and spurting all too real blood.
The earth shook beneath the two beasts. A wing shot up to hammer into a tree. Bone and wood snapped as one. The condor screamed.
The tree’s broken base – knee-high – punched out and then down, pinning the flailing wing, then grinding through the limb as it toppled back, away from the two contestants, crashing in a storm of branches and bark.
Hound’s jaws closed on condor’s neck.
Vertebrae crunched.
The creature’s head flopped back to thud onto the churned forest floor.
The shadows of the triumphant Hound flickered – then the beast vanished.
Paran rolled from the dead bird’s body.
Quick Ben could barely see the man beneath the shredded flesh and blood. The wizard’s eyes widened as the ghastly figure slowly climbed to its feet. The skin along his right temple hung down, away from the bone. Half the ear on that side was gone, cut in a curved line that streamed blood.
Paran lifted his head, met the wizard’s gaze. ‘What happened?’
Quick Ben pushed himself to his feet. ‘Come with me, Captain. We’re taking a warren to a healer.’
‘A healer?’ Paran asked. ‘Why?’
The wizard looked into the captain’s eyes and saw no sign of awareness at all. ‘All right.’ Quick Ben took Paran’s arm. ‘Here we go…’
* * *
Picker pushed her way through the boughs until she came within sight of the forest floor below. No-one in sight. Muddy tracks were all that remained of the Beklites who had passed beneath them half a bell past. She could hear fighting upslope, along the embankment and perhaps beyond.
The explosions of sorcery that had struck the legions at the base of the ramp had not continued – a cause for worry. They’d had a worse scare with the avalanche, but its path had missed them by a hundred paces or more. As if Quick Ben had known where we were. Somehow. Even more incredible, that damned wizard also managed to control the descent of a third of the mountainside. Maybe if a dozen High Mages had showed up to give him a hand, I might believe it.
Or a god …
With that chilling thought, she began to make her way down the tree.
There had been condors in the sky earlier, and at least one had attacked the Malazan defences. Briefly. Where the others had gone, she had no idea.
Not here, thank Hood …
She dropped the last man’s height to land on the ground in a jangle and clank of armour.
‘That was subtle.’
Picker spun. ‘Damn you, Blend—’
‘Shh … uh, sir.’
‘Do you know where the others are?’
‘More or less. Want me to collect them?’
‘That would be useful.’
‘Then what?’
Damned if I know, woman. ‘Just get them, Blend.’
‘Aye, sir.’
* * *
Paran awoke to the stench of vomit, which he realized, from the stale taste in his mouth, was his own. Groaning, he rolled onto his side. It was dark. Muted voices conversed nearby. He sensed, but could not quite see, that others lay in the trench he’d found himself in.
Other … casualties …
Someone approached, a wide, burly shape.
Paran reached up to his temple, winced as his fingertips touched knotted gut. He tentatively traced the wound’s length, down to a mass of damp bandages covering his ear.
‘Captain?’
‘That you, Mallet?’
‘Aye, sir. We only just made it back.’
‘Picker?’
‘The squad’s still breathing, sir. Had a couple of scrapes on the way up, but nothing to slow us much.’
‘Why’s it so dark?’
‘No torches, sir. No lanterns. Dujek’s order – we’re assembling.’
Assembling. No, ask that later. ‘Is Quick Ben still breathing? The last I remember, we were closing in on a downed condor…’
‘Aye, though from what I hear, it was you plucking the goose, Captain. He brought you here and the cutters put you back together … more or less. Mostly superficial, you’ll be glad to hear – I’ve come to make your face pretty again.’
Paran slowly sat up. ‘There’s plenty of soldiers around me who need your healing touch more than I do, Mallet.’
‘True enough, sir, only Dujek said—’
‘I’ll carry my scars, Healer. See what you can do with these wounded. Now, where will I find the High Fist and Quick Ben?’
‘Headquarters, Captain. That big chamber—’
‘I know it.’ Paran rose, stood for a moment until the spinning nausea passed. ‘Now, a more important question – where am I?’
‘Main trench, sir. Head left, straight down.’
‘Thanks.’
The captain slowly threaded through the rows of wounded marines. The fight, he saw, had been bad – but not as bad as it might have been.
Dujek’s Untan bodyguard commanded the tunnel’s entrance. By their kit, they’d yet to draw blades. Their officer waved the captain past without a word.
Thirty paces later, Paran reached the chamber.
High Fist Dujek, Quick Ben and Lieutenant Picker were seated at the map table, a small lantern hanging from the wood-beamed ceiling above them. All three turned in their chairs as the captain entered.
Dujek scowled. ‘Didn’t Mallet find you?’
‘He did, High Fist. I am fine.’
‘You’ll be seamed with scars, lad.’
Paran shrugged. ‘So, what has happened? The Beklites don’t like fighting at night?’
‘They’ve withdrawn,’ Dujek replied. ‘And before you ask, no, it wasn’t because we were too hard – they could’ve pushed, and if they had we’d be doubletiming through the woods right now – those few of us still able to draw breath, that is. Only one of those condors came after us, as well. We’ve been sitting here, Captain, trying to figure out why we got off so easy.’
‘Any possible answers to that, sir?’
‘Only one. We think Whiskeyjack and Brood are closing fast. The Seer doesn’t want his forces tangled up with us when they arrive. He also doesn’t want to risk any more of his damned condors.’
‘One was more than enough,’ Quick Ben muttered.
The wizard’s exhaustion left the man looking aged, almost bent as he leaned on the table with both arms, bleary, red-webbed eyes fixed on the table’s scarred surface.
Numbed by the sight, Paran pulled his gaze away, back to the High Fist. ‘Mallet said we were assembling, sir. Since Lieutenant Picker is here, I assume you have something in mind for the Bridgeburners.’
‘We do. We were just waiting for you, Captain.’
Paran nodded, said nothing.
‘These trenches are indefensible,’ Dujek growled. ‘We’re too exposed up here. Two or three more of those condors will finish us – and the Black Moranth. And I won’t risk sending any more Moranth messengers back to Whiskeyjack – the Seer’s birds cut the last ones down before they’d gone a tenth of a league from the mountainside. This close to Coral, it seems they’re willing to fly at night. Nor is Quick Ben in any shape to try to magically contact Whiskeyjack. So, we’re not waiting.’
We’re going into Coral. From the night sky, straight down into the damned streets. ‘Understood, High Fist. And the Bridgeburners are the first in, sir?’
‘First in…’ Dujek slowly nodded.
And last out.
‘You’re to strike straight for that keep. Knock a hole in the wall of its compound. The Black Moranth will take you in as close as they can.’
‘Sir,’ Paran said, ‘if Brood and Whiskeyjack aren’t as close as you think…’
Dujek shrugged. ‘As I said earlier, Captain, this ain’t the place to be waiting for one or the other. We’re all going in – my first wave will be half a bell behind you.’
This could drop us into a viper’s nest … ‘The lieutenant and I had better ready the squads, then.’
‘Aye. You’ll have Quick Ben with you, and the mages – his cadre – are back with their respective squads. Hedge and the rest of the sappers have six cussers between them, ten crackers and twenty sharpers – you’re to breach that wall, then pull back to us. Don’t go after the Seer yourselves, understood?’
‘Understood, High Fist.’
‘All right, you three, get going.’
* * *
Dawn still almost two bells away, the mists drifted grey and low through the parkland north of Coral, reaching tendrils out onto the plain beyond.
Korlat rode to where Whiskeyjack had halted beneath the tree-lined crest that marked the beginning of the coppiced parkland, and drew rein alongside him.
The Malazan wasted no time, ‘What did he say?’
‘All rather peculiar, Whiskeyjack. Formal apologies from himself and from Brood. He humbly offers both his sword and his, as he called it, tactical prowess. I admit, it leaves me … uneasy.’
Whiskeyjack shrugged. ‘I’d welcome any advice Kallor might provide.’
He noted but chose to ignore Korlat’s wry disbelief at this statement
After a moment, the Malazan continued, ‘Follow me.’ He nudged his horse forward, down the wide trader road as it wound between groves and across gently humped glades.
Their horses stumbled often, heads drooping as they trotted through the dark. A short while later they approached another ridge, this one cleared of trees. Beyond it, rising slowly as they drew nearer, was the city of Coral, climbing in tiers revealed by dull reflections of torchlight from the streets. The dark mass of the keep was an indistinct presence hunched above the last visible tier.
They reached the ridge and halted.
Korlat studied the lie of the land before them. The killing ground before the city’s wall was a sixth of a league across, a single stone bridge spanning a ditch close to the wall. Half a league to the west loomed a forested mountain, the flank facing them wreathed in mist or smoke.
‘Aye,’ Whiskeyjack said, following her gaze, ‘that’s where the flashes of sorcery came from. It’s where I would have positioned an army to break the siege, were I the Seer.’
‘And Dujek has fouled their plans.’
‘He’s there, I suspect. Likely driven back or surrounded – that magic we saw lighting the sky was mostly Pannion. Quick Ben must have been overwhelmed. I think Dujek’s taken a beating, Korlat. We need to draw the Seer’s attention away from that mountain, buy the High Fist time to regroup.’
She faced him, was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Your soldiers are dead on their feet, Whiskeyjack.’ As you are, my love.
‘None the less, I will have us lining this ridge come the dawn, the Ilgres Clan on our left, Taur and his White Faces on our right.’ He glanced at her. ‘I admit the thought of the other … form you can assume still leaves me, uh, alarmed. None the less, if you and Orfantal could take to the sky…’
‘My brother and I have already discussed it, Whiskeyjack. He would fly to Dujek. Perhaps his presence will give the Seer’s condors pause.’
‘More likely draw them like a lodestone, Korlat. With the two of you together, guarding each other…’
‘Even alone, we are not easily driven off. No, Dujek’s need is greater. I shall take my Soletaken form and guard your forces. Orfantal will strike for the mountain. At the very least, he will be able to determine the disposition of the High Fist and his army.’
She saw the muscles of his jaw bunching beneath the beard. Finally, he sighed and said, ‘I fear for you, Korlat – you will be alone above us.’
‘With, among your soldiers, my remaining kin – mages all, my love – I shall not be as alone as you imagine.’
Whiskeyjack gathered his reins. ‘Have you sensed anything at all of your Lord?’
She shook her head.
‘Does that trouble you? No, you’ve no need to answer that.’
True, it seems there is little I can disguise from you.
‘We’d best get back,’ Whiskeyjack continued.
Both swung their mounts round.
Had their conversation continued for another half-dozen heartbeats, Korlat – with her preternatural vision – would have seen the first flight of Black Moranth rise from the mountain’s forested slope, forty in all, and, flying low, wing hard and fast for the city.
A half-dozen heartbeats, within which Oponn’s coin spun …
A single, lazy turn …
From Lady to Lord.
* * *
Less than a man’s height beneath them, the city’s wall blurred past. Once past it, the Moranth swept their quorls still lower, slipped into an avenue between buildings, flying below the roof-lines. A sharp turn at an intersection directed the flight towards the keep.
Paran, struggling to ignore the fierce burning itch of the stitches threading the side of his face, risked a glance down. Feast-piles were visible in the street, many of them still glowing dull red and sheathed in smoke. The occasional torch mounted on building walls revealed cobbles cluttered with refuse. The city slept beneath them, it seemed – he saw not a single guard or soldier.
The captain returned his attention to the keep. Its outer wall was high, well fortified – if anything, stronger than the one enclosing the city. The main structure beyond it was as much raw rock as worked stone. The keep had been carved into a mountainside.
Monstrous gargoyles lined the ragged roof’s edge, black and hunched, barely visible as darker blots against the night sky.
Then Paran saw one move.
Condors. Oh, we’re in the Abyss now … He thumped on the Moranth’s shoulder, jabbed a gloved finger down to the street below. The officer nodded.
As one, the quorls carrying the Bridgeburners darted down, skimmed a dozen paces at waist-height over the street, then settled with a single tilt of wings.
Soldiers scrambled from the saddles, seeking shadows.
The Moranth and their quorls leapt skyward once more, wheeling for the return flight.
Crouched in a dark alley mouth, Paran waited for the squads to gather around him. Quick Ben was first to his side.
‘The keep’s roof—’
‘I saw,’ Paran growled. ‘Any ideas, Wizard?’
Antsy spoke up, ‘How ’bout finding a cellar and hiding, Captain?’
Quick Ben glared at the sergeant, then looked around. ‘Where’s Hedge?’
The sapper pushed forward, waddling beneath bulging leather sacks.
‘Did you see the damned sparrows?’ the wizard asked him, making a strange half-shrugging motion with his left shoulder.
‘Aye. We need sharpshooters atop the wall. I got twelve quarrels with sharpers instead of points. We do it right and we can take out that many—’
‘Raining bird-meat,’ Spindle cut in. ‘Burning feathers.’
‘Is that worse than burning hairshirt, Spin?’
‘Quiet,’ Paran snapped. ‘All right, get hooks on the wall and line our brilliant crossbow experts to the top. Hedge, find the right place to set the cusser-bundle and crackers, and do it fast – we’ve got to time this right. I want those birds knocked from their perches, not in the air. Dujek’s first wave is probably already on the way, so let’s move.’
