The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (1144 page)

Could he reach him in time?

Captain Skanarow kicked at one of her soldiers, pushing the idiot back into the shallow trench. ‘Keep digging!’ she snarled, and then returned her attention to that gleaming figure riding out towards the lizards.
You stupid lying bastard! A Stormrider? Impossible—they live in the damned seas.

Ruthan, please, what are you doing?

______

Seeing the first line of the nearest phalanx level their bizarre clubs, Ruthan Gudd gritted his teeth.
This Stormrider crap had better work. But gods below, it does hurt to wear.
He wheeled his mount to face the Nah’ruk, and then raised high his sword.

Sunlight flashed through the ice.

A rider was coming up from behind and to his left.
Poor bastard. That’s what you get for taking orders.
Without a backward glance, he drove his spurs into the flanks of his mount. Sparks flashed from the ice. The beast lunged forward.

You sorry Malazans. Watch me, and then ask yourself: How deep can you dig?

Fiddler cocked his crossbow, carefully inserted a sharper-headed quarrel. Now that it was happening, he felt fine. Nothing more to be done, was there? Everything was alight, cut clear, the colours of the world suddenly saturated, beautiful beyond belief. He could taste it. He could taste it all. ‘Everybody loaded?’

Grunts and nods from his squad, all of them crouched down in the trench.

‘Keep your heads right down,’ Fiddler told them again. ‘We’ll hear the charge, count on it. Nobody pokes up for a look until my say so, understood?’

He saw, a few squads down, Balgrid edging up for a look. The healer shouted, ‘Gudd’s charging them!’

Along the entire line of marines, helmed heads sprung up like mushrooms.

Fuck!

Crump was on his hands and knees, a clutch of sharpers set like black-turtle eggs in a shallow pit pushed into the stony floor of the trench.

Ebron stared in horror. ‘Have you lost your mind? Spread ’em down the line, you idiot!’

Crump looked up, eyes widening. ‘Can’t do that, mage. They’re mine! All I got left!’

‘Someone could step on them!’

But Crump was shaking his head. ‘I’m protecting them, mage!’

Ebron swung round. ‘Cord! Sergeant! It’s Crump! He’s—’

The wire-bound clubs in the front line seemed to ignite like torches. Lightning arced from the blunt heads, two serpentine tendrils snaking into the air. From each weapon, one of the bolts twisted and spun to sink into one of the strange ceramic packs—a dozen such arcs for each pack. The second crackling tongue of white fire seemed to throb for an instant, and then as one they lashed out, a score or more converging on the charging, ice-clad rider and horse.

The detonation engulfed Ruthan Gudd and his mount, tore gouts of earth and stone from the ground in a broad, ragged crater.

An instant before the explosion, other front lines had awakened their own weapons, and even as the flash erupted, hundreds of bolts snapped out to strike the front trench.

On his way back to the squad, Bottle was thrown down into the trench, the impact punching the breath from his lungs. Gaping, his head tilted to one side, he saw a row of bodies lifted into the air along the entire length of the berm—all those who had climbed up to watch Ruthan’s charge. Marines, most of them headless or missing everything above their rib cages, twisted amidst dirt and rocks and pieces of armour and weapons.

Still unable to breathe, he saw a second wave of the sorcery lance directly over his trench. The ground shook as ranks behind him were struck. The blue of the sky vanished behind thick clouds. Bodies sailed in and out of those churning clouds.

Bottle writhed, deaf, his lungs howling. He felt the muted impacts of sharpers, too close, too random—

A hand reached down out of the sudden gloom and closed on his chest harness. He was dragged out from the slumped side of the collapsed trench.

Bottle coughed out a mouthful of earth, hacked agonizing breaths, his throat afire. Tarr’s spattered face was above him, shouting—but Bottle could hear nothing. No matter, he pushed Tarr back, nodding.
I’m all right. No, honest. I’m fine—where’s my crossbow?

Keneb had come too close. The detonation caught him and his horse and literally ripped them both to pieces. Chunks of flesh sprayed outward. Ebron, leaning hard over the berm, saw part of the Fist’s upper torso—a shoulder, a stub of the arm and a few splayed ribs—cartwheel skyward, lifted on a column of dirt.

Even as the mage stared, disbelieving, a sorcerous bolt caught him dead centre on his sternum. It tore through him, disintegrating his upper chest, shoulders and head.

Limp howled as one of Ebron’s arms flopped down across his thighs.

But no one heard him.

They had seen Quick Ben, but had elected to ignore him. He flinched as the first waves of lightning ploughed into the defences along the ridge. Thunder rattled the ground and the entire facing side of the Bonehunter army vanished inside churning clouds of dirt, stone, and dismembered bodies.

He saw the nodes recharging on the shoulders of the drones. How long? ‘No idea,’ he whispered. ‘Little acorns, listen. Go for the drones—the ones with the packs. Forget the rest . . . for now.’

Then he set out, walking down towards the nearest phalanx.

The Nah’ruk front was less than a hundred paces away.

They had seen him and now they took note. Lightning blistered all along the front line.

Horse clambering drunkenly from the crater, Ruthan Gudd shook his head, readying his blazing weapon. Dirt streamed down his back beneath his smeared, steaming armour. He spat grit.

That wasn’t so bad now.

Directly in front of him, twenty paces away, looming huge, the front line. Their eyes glittered like diamonds within the shadows beneath the rims of their ornate helms. The fangs lining their snouts glistened like shards of iron.

He had an inkling that they had not expected to see him again. He rode over to say hello.

‘Crossbows at the ready!’ Fiddler yelled. ‘Go for the nodes!’

‘The what?’

‘The lumpy ones! That’s where the magic’s coming from!’

Koryk scrambled to crouch beside Fiddler. The man was sheathed in bloody mud. ‘Who pops up for a look, Fid?’

‘I will,’ said Corabb, surging upward and clawing up the berm. ‘Gods below! That captain’s still alive! He’s in their ranks—’

As Corabb made to clamber out of the trench—clearly intending to join Gudd and charge the whole damned phalanx, Tarr reached out and dragged the fool back down.

‘Stay where you are, soldier! Get that crossbow—no, that one there! Load the fucker!’

‘Range, Corabb?’ Fiddler asked.

‘Forty and slowed, Sergeant—that captain’s carving right through ’em!’

‘Won’t matter much. I don’t care if he’s got Oponn’s poker up his ass, he’s only one man.’

‘We should help him!’

‘We can’t, Corabb,’ Fiddler said. ‘Besides, that’s the last thing he’d want—why d’you think he went out there on his own? Leave him, soldier. We got our own trouble come knocking. Koryk, you take the next look, count of ten. Nine, eight, seven—’

‘I ain’t getting my head blasted off!’

Fiddler swung his crossbow round to point at Koryk’s chest. ‘Four, three, two, one—up you go!’

Snarling, Koryk scrambled upward. Then was back down almost instantly. ‘Shit. Twenty-five and picking up speed!’

Fiddler raised his voice. ‘Everyone ready! The nodes! Hold it—hold it—
NOW!
’

______

Hedge led his Bridgeburners just to the rear of the last trenches. ‘I don’t care what Quick thinks, he’s always had backup, he never went it alone. Ever. So that’s us, soldiers—keep up there, Sweetlard! Look at Rumjugs, she ain’t even breathing hard—’

‘She’s forgotten how!’ Sweetlard gasped.

‘Remember what I said,’ Hedge reminded them, ‘Bridgeburners have faced worse than a bunch of stubby lizards. This ain’t nothing, right?’

‘We gonna win, Commander?’

Hedge glanced over at Sunrise. And grinned. ‘Count on it, Sergeant. Now, everyone, check your munitions, and remember to aim for the lumpy ones. We’re about to pull into the open—’

A concussion shook the very air, but it came from the Nah’ruk lines. A billowing black cloud rose like a stain of spilled ink.

‘Gods, what was that?’

Hedge’s grin broadened. ‘That, soldiers, was Quick Ben.’

Lightning arced out from hundreds of clubs, from multiple phalanxes to either side of the one he had attacked. The bolts snapped towards him, then slanted off as Quick Ben flung them aside.
And I ain’t Tayschrenn and this ain’t Pale. Got no one behind me, so keep throwing them my way, y’damned geckos. Use it all up!

The first dozen or so ranks of the phalanx he’d struck were down, a few writhing or feebly struggling to rise with crushed limbs and snapped bones. Most were motionless, their bodies boiled from the inside out. As he walked towards those who remained, he saw them regrouping, forming a line to face him once more.

The huge falchions and halberds lifted in readiness.

Quick Ben extended his senses, until he could feel the very air around the creatures, could follow currents of that air as they slipped through gills into reptilian lungs. He reached out to encompass as many of them as possible.

And then he set the air on fire.

Lightning shunted from the High Mage, careened off into the sky and out to the sides.

Sergeant Sunrise shrieked as one bolt twisted and spun straight for Hedge. He flung himself forward, three paces that seemed to tear every muscle in his back and legs. He was a Bridgeburner. He was the man he had always wanted to be; he’d never stood taller, never walked straighter.

And all because of Hedge.

See me? Sunrise—

He was smiling as he flung himself into the lightning’s path.

Hedge’s sergeant erupted, blinding white, and then where he had been was nothing but swirling ashes. His soldiers were screaming behind him. Spinning,
Hedge shouted, ‘Everyone down to the ground! We’ll wait it out—we wait it out!’

Fuck you, Quick—this ain’t Pale, you know! And you ain’t Tayschrenn!

Ruthan Gudd slashed down to either side, but the damned things were pressing in—they’d halted his forward progress. Heavy iron blades cracked and skittered against his horse, his thighs. The armour was showing cracks, but after each blow those fissures healed. His sword cut through helms and skulls, necks and limbs, but the Nah’ruk did not relent, closing tighter and tighter about him.

He heard concussions somewhere to his left, caught the stench of howling warrens being forced to do unspeakable things—
Quick Ben, how much longer can you hide?
Well, Ruthan knew he’d not be around to witness any revelations. They were taking him down with their sheer weight. His horse staggered, head thrashing and flinching with every savage downward strike of falchions.

The rest of the phalanx had moved past the knot trapping him, were ascending the ridge, only moments from reaching the first trench. He caught flashes of other phalanxes marching past.

Four blades struck him simultaneously, lifting him from the saddle with a splintering explosion of ice shards. Cursing, he twisted, lashing out even as he plunged into the maelstrom of reptilian limbs and iron weapons. And then taloned feet, slashing, stamping down. A blow to the face stunned him. White, and then blessed darkness.

Twelve paces. The surviving marines rose as one from the foremost trench. Crossbows thudded. Sharpers cracked and burners ignited. Directly before Fiddler, he saw his bolt glance off a node and then explode immediately behind the lizard’s head. The helm went spinning, whipping fragments of brain and bone in a wild cavorting tail of gore. The node blackened, and then exploded.

The concussion threw Fiddler back, down into the trench. Pieces of hide and meat rained down.

Half-winded, he struggled to reload his lobber. One last cusser—
gotta get rid of it, before it goes up like those sharpers down the line—gods, we’ve been chewed up—

Shadows swept over the trench.

He looked up.

The Nah’ruk had arrived.

Corabb had managed to reload. Lifting his head, he saw a giant lizard rising above the berm, maw tilting down as if grinning at him.

His quarrel vanished into its soft throat, punched out through the back of its skull. The creature wobbled. Flinging away the crossbow, Corabb drew his sword
and scrambled to his feet. He swung at the nearest shin. The impact nearly broke his wrist and the weapon’s edge bit deep into bone and jammed there.

Still the creature stood, twitches rippling through its massive body.

Corabb struggled to pull loose his sword.

To either side, Nah’ruk clambered over the berm, leapt down into the trench.

The backswing lifted Sergeant Primly into the air, and he rode the iron blade, his blood spilling down as if from a bucket. Shrieking, Neller flung himself on to the lizard’s left arm, pulled himself higher and then forced the sharper down between the enamel chest-plate and the greasy hide. Jaws snapped, closed on his face. Phlegm like acid splashed his eyes and skin. Howling, Neller tightened his grip on the sharper and then drove the fist of his other hand against the armour, directly opposite the munition.

Mulvan Dreader, driving a spear into the lizard’s belly, caught the blast as the creature’s chest exploded. Ceramic shrapnel shredded Mulvan’s neck, punching red gore into the air behind him. Neller was flung back, his right arm gone, his face a slashed, melting horror.

Primly’s corpse landed five paces away, a flopping thing painted crimson.

The lizard toppled.

Two more appeared behind it, falchions lifting.

Stumbling, Drawfirst set her shield and readied her sword. As Skulldeath leapt past her, landing in between the two Nah’ruk.

A bolt sizzled close to her horse’s head. Its muzzle and mane burst into flame. Skin peeled and cracked from mouth to shoulders. The animal collapsed. Lostara Yil managed to roll clear. The heat had flashed against her face and she could smell the stench of scorched hair. Staggering to her feet, she looked over to see a dozen staff riders down, roasted in their armour. The Adjunct was lifting herself from the carnage, her otataral sword in one hand.