He pulled free of the column.
A seething line had appeared along a ridge of hills to the southeast.
The thunder rolled on, drawing ever closer. Iron glittered as if tipped with diamond shards, like teeth gnawing through the summits of those hills. The swarming motion pained his eyes.
He saw riders peeling out from the vanguard. Parley flags whipping from upended spears. Closer to hand, foot-soldiers staring at him and his damned weapon, others stumbling from the bitter cold streaming in his wake. His own armour-clad thighs and the back of his horse were rimed in frost.
She answers-as she has never answered before. Gods below, spawn of the Azath-I smell-oh, gods no-
‘Form up! Marines form up! First line on the ridge-skirmishers! Get out of there, withdraw!’ Fiddler wasn’t waiting, not for anything. He couldn’t see the captain but it didn’t matter. He felt as if he’d swallowed a hundred caltrops. The air stank. Pushing past a confused Koryk and then a white-faced Smiles, he caught sight of the squad directly ahead.
‘Balm! Deadsmell-awaken your warrens! Same for Widdershins-where’s Cord, get Ebron-’
‘Sergeant!’
He twisted back, saw Faradan Sort forcing her horse through the milling soldiers.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. ‘It’s some foreign army out there-we’ve sent emissaries. You’re panicking the soldiers-’
Fiddler caught Tarr’s level gaze. ‘See they’re formed up-toss the word out fast as it can go, you understand, Corporal?’
‘Aye sir-’
‘Sergeant!’
Fiddler pushed his way to the captain, reached up and dragged her down from the saddle. Cursing, she flailed, unbalanced. As her full weight caught him, Fiddler staggered and then went down, Sort on top of him. In her ear he said, ‘Get the fuck off that horse and stay off it. Those emissaries are already dead, even if they don’t know it. We need to dig in, Captain, and we need to do it now.’
She lifted herself up, face dark with anger, and then glared into his eyes. Whatever she saw in them was hard and sharp as a slap. Sort rolled to one side and rose. ‘Someone get this horse out of here. Where’s our signaller? Flags up: prepare for battle. Ridge defence. Foot to dig in, munitions spread second trench-get on it, damn you!’
Most of the damned soldiers were doing nothing but get in the way. Snarling and cursing, Bottle forced through the press until he reached the closest supply wagon. He scrambled on to it, pulling himself by the rope netting until he was atop the heaped bales. Then he stood.
A half-dozen of the Adjunct’s emissaries were cantering towards that distant army.
The sky above the strangers swarmed with… birds? No. Rhinazan… and some bigger things. Bigger… enkar’al? Wyval? He felt sick enough to void his bowels. He knew that smell. It had soaked into his brain ever since he’d crawled through a shredded tent. That army isn’t human. Adjunct, your emissaries-
Something blinding arced out from the foremost line of one of the distant phalanxes. It cut a ragged path above the ground until it struck the mounted emissaries. Bodies burst into flames. Burning horses reeled and collapsed in clouds of ash.
Bottle stared. Hood’s holy shit.
Sinter ran as fast as she could, cutting between ranks of soldiers. They were finally digging in, while the supply train-the wagons herded like enormous beasts between mounted archers and lancers-had swung northward, forcing, she saw, the Letherii forces to divide almost in half to permit the retreating column through their ranks.
That wasn’t good. She could see the chaos rippling out as the huge wagons plunged into the narrow avenue. Pikes pitched and wavered to either side, the press making figures stumble and fall.
Not her problem. She looked ahead once again, saw the vanguard, saw the Adjunct, Captain Yil, Fists Blistig and Keneb and a score or so honour guard and mounted staff. Tavore was issuing commands and riders were winging out to various units. There wasn’t much time. The distant hills had been swallowed by marching phalanxes, a dozen in sight and more coming-and each formation looked massive. Five thousand? Six? The thunder was the measure of their strides, steady, unceasing. The sky behind them was the colour of bile, winged creatures swarming above the rising dust.
Those soldiers. They aren’t people. They aren’t human-gods below, they are huge.
She reached the vanguard. ‘Adjunct!’
Tavore’s helmed head snapped round.
‘Adjunct, we must retreat! This is wrong! This isn’t-’
‘Sergeant,’ Tavore’s voice cut through like a blade’s edge. ‘There is no time. Furthermore, our obvious avenue of retreat happens to be blocked by the Letherii legions-’
‘Send a rider to Brys-’
‘We have done so, Sergeant-’
‘They aren’t human!’
Flat eyes regarded her. ‘No, they are not. K’Chain-’
‘They don’t want us! We’re just in their fucking way!’
Expressionless, the Adjunct said, ‘It is clear they intend to engage us, Sergeant.’
Wildly, Sinter turned to Keneb. ‘Fist, please! You need to explain-’
‘Sinter,’ said Tavore, ‘K’Chain Nah’ruk.’
Keneb’s face had taken on the colour of the sickly sky. ‘Return to your squad, Sergeant.’
Quick Ben stood wrapped in his leather cloak, thirty paces on from the Malazan vanguard. He was alone. Three hundred paces behind him the Letherii companies were wheeling to form a bristling defensive line along the ridge on which the column had been marching. They had joined their supply train and herds to the Bonehunters’ and it seemed an entire city and all its livestock was wheeling northward in desperate flight. Brys intended to defend that retreat. The High Mage understood the logic of that. It marked, perhaps, the last rational moment of this day.
Ill luck. Stupid, pathetic, miserable mischance. It was absurd. It was sickening beyond all belief. Which gods had clutched together to spin this madness? He had told the Adjunct all he knew. As soon as the warren’s mouth had spread wide, as soon as the earth trembled to the first heavy footfall of the first marching phalanx. We saw their sky keeps. We knew they weren’t gone. We knew they were gathering.
But that was so far away, and so long ago now.
The reek of their oils was heavy on the wind that still poured out from the warren. Beyond the ochre veil he could see a deepness, a darkness that did not belong.
They have come here, to the Wastelands.
They have been this way before.
Ambitions and desires spun like ash from a pyre. All at once, it was clear that nothing was important, nothing beyond this moment and what was about to begin. Could anyone have predicted this? Could anyone have pierced the solid unknown of the future, carving through to this scene?
There were times, he knew, when even the gods staggered back, reeled with bloodied faces. No, the gods didn’t manage this. They could not guess the Adjunct’s heart, that wellspring so full with all she would reveal to none. We were ever the shaved knuckle, but in whose hand would we be found? None knew. None could even dream…
He stood alone, warrens awake and seething within him. He would do what he could, for as long as he was able. And then he would fall, and there would be no one left but a score of squad mages and the Atri-Ceda.
On this day, we shall witness the death of friends. On this day, we may well join them.
The High Mage Adaephon Ben Delat drew from a pouch a handful of acorns and flung them to the ground. He squinted once more at the deepness beyond the veil, and then down to the Nah’ruk legions. Monstrous in their implacability-steal one away and it’s damned near mindless. Gather them in their thousands, and their will becomes one… and that will is… gods below… it is so very cold…