Brys turned to his signaller. ‘Sound the charge! Sound the charge!’
Horns blared.
The legions broke into a dog-trot, pikes levelled.
The sappers were running, swinging to the left and out from the gap between the two forces. They might just make it clear in time.
At six paces, the Letherii ranks surged forward, voices lifting in a savage roar.
The teeth of the saw bit deep, one, three rows, four. The Nah’ruk phalanx buckled. And then the two forces ground to a halt. Pikes were held in place, infighters armed with axes and stabbing swords pushing between the front line to begin their vicious close work. Falchions flashed high, and then descended.
Brys gestured. Another messenger came up alongside him.
‘The onager and arbalest units are to draw up on the hill to the east. Begin enfilade. Cavalry to provide initial screen until they commence firing.’
The man saluted and rode off.
Brys looked southeastward. Miraculously, some remnant of the mounted horse-warriors had survived the sorcerous salvos-he could see riders emerging from the dust and smoke, hammering wildly into the front ranks of the Nah’ruk. They struck with inhuman ferocity and Brys was not surprised-to have come through that would have stripped the sanity of any warrior.
He breathed a soft prayer for them in the name of a dozen long-lost gods.
A messenger reined in on his right. ‘Commander! The west legions have engaged the enemy.’
‘And?’
The man wiped the sweat from his face. ‘Knocked ’em back a step or two, but now…’
Seeing that he could not go on, seeing that he was near tears, Brys simply nodded. He turned to study what he could see of the Malazan position.
Nothing but armoured lizards, weapons lifting and descending, blood rising in a mist.
But, as he stared, he noticed something.
The Nah’ruk were no longer advancing.
You stopped them? Blood of the gods, what manner of soldiers are you?
The heavy infantry stood. The heavy infantry held the trench. Even as they died, they backed not a single step. The Nah’ruk clawed for purchase on the blood-soaked mud of the berm. Iron chewed into them. Halberds slammed down, rebounded from shields. Reptilian bodies reeled back, blocking the advance of rear ranks. Arrows and quarrels poured into the foe from positions behind the trench.
And from above, Locqui Wyval descended by the score, in a frenzy, to tear and rend the helmed heads of the lizard warriors. Others quickly closed to do battle with their kin, and the sky rained blood.
Bottle’s soul leapt from body to body, grasped tight the souls of Locqui Wyval, and flung them down upon the Nah’ruk. As each one was pulled down to the slaughter, he tore himself free to enslave yet another. He had reached out, taking as many as he could-dozens of the creatures-the stench of blood and all that they saw had driven them mad. He needed only crush the tatters of their restraint, loose them upon the nearest beasts that were not wyval.
When kin attacked, he did not resist-the more dead and dying wyval, the better.
But he felt himself being torn apart. He felt his mind shredding away. He could not do much more of this. Yet Bottle did not relent.
Tarr stumbled into a knot of marines. Glared round. ‘Limp-where’s your-’
‘Dead,’ Limp said. ‘Just me an’ Crump-’
‘Ruffle?’
The round-faced woman shook her head. ‘Got separated. Saw Skim die, that’s all-’
‘So what are you doing sitting here? On your feet, marine-those heavies are dying where they stand. And we’re going to join them. You, Reliko! Pull Vastly on his feet there-you’re all coming with me!’
Silent, without a single word of protest, the marines clambered to their feet. They were bleeding. They were exhausted.
They gathered up their weapons, and, Tarr in the lead, set out for the trench.
Nearby, Urb plucked away the shattered fragments of his shield. Hellian crouched beside him, breathing hard, her face streaked with blood and puke, with more of both drenching her chest. She’d said she didn’t know whose blood it was. Glancing at her, he saw her hard eyes, her hard expression. Other soldiers were drawn up behind them.
Urb turned. ‘We do what Tarr says, soldiers. Back into it. Now.’
Hellian almost pushed past him on the way to the trench.
Henar Vygulf reined in beneath the hill-he could see fallen horses and sprawled, scorched bodies where the Adjunct’s command post had been. He slipped down from his horse, drew his two swords and jogged up the slope.
Reaching the summit, he saw four Nah’ruk arriving on the opposite ridge.
Lostara Yil and the Adjunct were lying almost side by side. Likely dead, but he needed to make sure. If he could.
He charged forward.
The clash of iron woke her. Blinking, Lostara stared into the sky, trying to recall what had happened. Her head ached and she could feel dried blood crusting her nostrils, crackling in her ears. She turned her head, saw the Adjunct lying beside her.
Chest slowly rising and falling.
Ah, good.
Someone grunted as if in pain.
She sat up. In time to see Henar Vygulf stagger back, blood spraying from a chest wound. Three Nah’ruk closed.
Henar fell on to his back almost at Lostara’s feet.
She rose, drawing her blades.
He saw her, and the anguish in his eyes took her breath away.
‘I’m sorry-’
‘You’re going to live,’ she told him, stepping past. ‘Prop yourself up, man-that’s an order!’
He managed to lift himself on one elbow. ‘Captain-’
She glanced at the Nah’ruk. Almost upon her, slowed by wounds. Behind them, a dozen more appeared. ‘Just remember, Henar, I don’t do this for just anybody!’
‘Do what?’
She stepped forward, blades lifting. ‘Dance.’
The old forms returned, as if they had but been awaiting her, awaiting this one moment when at last she awoke-possibly one last time-no matter. For you, Henar. For you.
The Shadow Dance belonged to this.
Here.
Now.
Henar watched her, and his eyes slowly widened.
A league to the southeast, Kisswhere dragged herself from her fallen horse. A badger burrow, the den mouth of a fox, something. Her horse thrashed, front legs shattered, its screams shrill in the air.
Kisswhere’s left leg was bent in four places. The stub of bone thrust through her leggings. She drew a knife and twisted round to study the horse, eyes fixing on a pulsing artery in its neck.
Didn’t matter. They were all dead. Even if she could have reached the Mortal Sword and that mad red-haired Queen, it wouldn’t have mattered.
She glanced up. The sky was flesh, and that flesh was rotting before her eyes.
Sinter. Badan.
Bonehunters-Adjunct, are you happy? You killed them all.
You killed us all.
Chapter Twenty-Four
On this dawn they lined the banks of the ancient river, a whole city turned out, near a hundred thousand, as the sun lifted east of the mouth that opened to the deep bay. What had brought them there? What ever brings the multitudes to a moment, a place, an instant when a hundred thousand bodies become one body?
As the red waters spilled into the bay’s salty tears, they stood, saying little, and the great ship pyre took hold of the fires and the wind took hold of the soaked sails, and the sky took hold of the black column of smoke.
Ehrlitan’s great king was dead, the last of the Dessimb line, and the future was blowing sands, the storm’s whisper was but a roar of strife made mercifully distant, a thing of promise drawing ever closer.