On the third hill overlooking the fallen city of Pale, Tattersail stood alone. Scattered around the sorceress the curled remains of burnt armour-greaves, breastplates, helms and weapons-lay heaped in piles. An hour earlier there had been men and women wearing that armour, but of them there was no sign. The silence within those empty shells rang like a dirge in Tattersail's head.
Her arms were crossed, tight against her chest. The burgundy cloak with its silver emblem betokening her command of the 2nd Army's wizard cadre now hung from her round shoulders stained and scorched.
Her oval, fleshy face, usually parading an expression of cherubic humour, was etched with deep-shadowed lines, leaving her cheeks flaccid and pale.
For all the smells and sounds surrounding Tattersail, she found herself listening to a deeper silence. In some ways it came from the empty armour surrounding her, an absence that was in itself an accusation. But there was another source of the silence. The sorcery that had been unleashed here today had been enough to fray the fabric between the worlds. Whatever dwelt beyond, in the Warrens of Chaos, felt close enough to reach out and touch.
She'd thought her emotions spent, used up by the terror she had just been through, but as she watched the tight ranks of a legion of Moranth Black marching into the city a frost of hatred slipped over her heavylidded eyes.
Allies. They're claiming their hour of blood. At the end of that hour there would be a score thousand fewer survivors among the citizens of Pale. The long savage history between the neighbouring peoples was about to have the scales of retribution balanced. By the sword.
Shedunul's mercy, hasn't there been enough?
A dozen fires raged unchecked through the city. The siege was over, finally, after three long years. But Tattersail knew that there was more to come. Something hid, and waited, in the silence. So she would wait as well. The deaths of this day deserved that much from her-after all, she had failed in all the other ways that mattered.
On the plain below, the bodies of Malazan soldiers covered the ground, a rumpled carpet of dead. Limbs jutted upward here and there, ravens perching on them like overlords. Soldiers who had survived the slaughter wandered in a daze among the bodies, seeking fallen comrades.
Tattersail's eyes followed them achingly.
«They're coming,» said a voice, a dozen feet to her left. Slowly she turned. The wizard Hairlock lay sprawled on the burnt armour, the pate of his shaved skull reflecting the dull sky. A wave of sorcery had destroyed him from the hips down. Pink, mud-spattered entrails billowed out from under his ribcage, webbed by drying fluids. A faint penumbra of sorcery revealed his efforts at staying alive.
«Thought you were dead,» Tattersail muttered.
«Felt lucky today.»
«You don't look it.»
Hairlock's grunt released a gout of dark thick blood from below his heart. «They're coming,» he said. «See them yet?»
She swung her attention to the slope, her pale eyes narrowing. Four soldiers approached. «Who are they?»
The wizard didn't answer.
Tattersail faced him again and found his hard gaze fixed on her, intent in the way a dying person achieves in those last moments. «Thought you'd take a wave through the gut, huh? Well, I suppose that's one way to get shipped out of here.»
His reply surprised her. «The tough fa?ade ill fits you, «Sail. Always has.» He frowned and blinked rapidly, fighting off darkness, she supposed. «There's always the risk of knowing too much. Be glad I spared you.» He smiled, unveiling red-stained teeth. «Think nice thoughts. The flesh fades.»
She eyed him steadily, wondering at his sudden: humanity. Maybe dying did away with the usual games, the pretences of the living dance.
Maybe she just wasn't prepared to see the mortal man in Hairlock finally showing itself. Tattersail prised her arms from the dreadful, aching hug she had wrapped around herself, and sighed shakily. «You're right. It's not the time for facades, is it? I never liked you, Hairlock, but I'd never question your courage-I never will.» She studied him critically, a part of her astonished that the horror of his wound didn't so much as make her flinch. «I don't think even Tayschrenn's arts are enough to save you, Hairlock.»
Something cunning flashed in his eyes and he barked a pained laugh.
«Dear girl,» he gasped, «your naivete never fails to charm me.»
«Of course,» she snapped, stung at falling for his sudden ingenuousness. «One last joke on me, just for old times sake.»
«You misunderstand.»
«Are you so certain? You're saying it isn't over yet. Your hatred of our High Mage is fierce enough to let you slip Hood's cold grasp, is that it? Vengeance from beyond the grave?»
«You must know me by now. I always arrange a back door.»
«You can't even crawl. How do you plan on getting to it?»
The wizard licked his cracked lips. «Part of the deal,» he said softly. «The door comes to me. Comes even as we speak.»
Unease coiled around her insides. Behind her, Tattersail heard the crunch of armour and the rattle of iron, the sound arriving like a cold wind. She turned to see the four soldiers appear on the summit. Three men, one woman, mud-smeared and crimson-streaked, their faces almost bone-white. The sorceress found her eyes drawn to the woman, who hung back like an unwelcome afterthought as the three men approached.
The girl was young, pretty as an icicle and looking as warm to the touch.
Something wrong there. Careful.
The man in the lead-a sergeant by the torque on his arm-came up to Tattersail. Set deep in a lined, exhausted face, his dark grey eyes searched hers dispassionately. «This one?» he asked, turning to the tall, thin black-skinned man who came up beside him.
This man shook his head. «No, the one we want is over there,» he said.
Though he spoke Malazan, his harsh accent was Seven Cities.
The third and last man, also black, slipped past on the sergeant's left and for all his girth seemed to glide forward, his eyes on Hairlock. His ignoring Tattersail made her feel somehow slighted. She considered a well-chosen word or two as he stepped around her, but the effort seemed suddenly too much.
«Well,» she said to the sergeant, «if you're the burial detail, you're early. He's not dead yet. Of course,» she continued, «you're not the burial detail. I know that. Hairlock's made some kind of deal-he's thinking he can survive with half a body.»
The sergeant's lips grew taut beneath his grizzled, wiry beard. «What's your point, Sorceress?»
The black man beside the sergeant glanced back at the young girl still standing a dozen paces behind them. He seemed to shiver, but his lean face was expressionless as he turned back and offered Tattersail an enigmatic shrug before moving past her.
She shuddered involuntarily as power buffeted her senses. She drew a sharp breath. He's a mage. Tattersail tracked the man as he joined his comrade at Hairlock's side, striving to see through the muck and blood covering his uniform. «Who are you people?»
«Ninth squad, the Second.»
«Ninth?» The breath hissed from her teeth. «You're Bridgeburners.» Her eyes narrowed on the battered sergeant. «The Ninth. That makes you Whiskeyjack.»
He seemed to flinch.
Tattersail found her mouth dry. She cleared her throat. «I've heard of you, of course. I've heard the.»
«Doesn't matter,» he interrupted, his voice grating. «Old stories grow like weeds.»
She rubbed at her face, feeling grime gather under her nails.
Bridgeburners. They'd been the old Emperor's elite, his favourites, but since Laseen's bloody coup nine years ago they'd been pushed hard into every rat's nest in sight. Almost a decade of this had cut them down to a single, under-manned division. Among them, names had emerged. The survivors, mostly squad sergeants, names that pushed their way into the Malazan armies on Genabackis, and beyond. Names, spicing the already sweeping legend of Onearm's Host. Detoran, Antsy, Spindle, Whiskeyjack. Names heavy with glory and bitter with the cynicism that every army feeds on. They carried with them like an emblazoned standard the madness of this unending campaign.