A blow and the iron band at his neck was yanked away. Someone supporting him. He clasped his throat, gasping for air. Borun, arm round him, sword bared and bloody. Ussu looked down: the woman’s torso, headless.
‘Speak,’ the Moranth commander demanded.
Ussu was massaging his throat. His apprentices all lay fallen round the table as if slain where they stood. Stiffly, he knelt beside Yurgen, turned the youth’s head to peer into his eyes. Not lifeless. Alive. But blank. The mind wiped clean. Perhaps, as they say, Mockra is a child of High Thyr. Perhaps, as they whisper, the Enchantress knows no boundaries. ‘The bridge, Commander,’ he said, still kneeling. ‘I heard… water.’
‘Guards!’ the Moranth bellowed, storming from the tent.
Ussu could not look away from those empty orbs. What was your last sight, Yurgen? Who did this? Was it truly the Enchantress? Perilous indeed is my… research. Yet I am helpless without it. What am I to do? Betrayer to both sides? In the end, is there to be no sanctuary, no refuge, for me?
*
The first Suth knew of any trouble was a change in tone within the general noise of the Roolian forces. Traffic over the bridge grated to a halt. Then a great many footsteps came thumping over the bed. Along the river’s shores a crowd of soldiers pressed down to the silt and gravel bars. He noted with a sick feeling that they all carried bows.
Then pointing, yells, bows raised, fired. A storm of arrows flew to the tops of the most shoreward piers. ‘We’re spotted, lads and lasses,’ Twofoot called — just to make it official.
No fucking kidding. Suth felt that his backside was now very exposed and very fat.
‘We gonna go for a dive?’ Fish called.
Twofoot frowned a negative. ‘Naw — we’d all just get shot.’
Scraping sounded once more high among the timber bracings and a black-armoured figure appeared, sword out, rope snaking up from its shoulders. Everyone stared, amazed. A Black Moranth?
‘Get the fucker!’ Twofoot bellowed.
Suth launched himself up, only to be yanked backwards by the rope at his waist. He flailed like an upturned beetle, almost falling off the timber. Fish and the others of the 6th made for the Moranth while he, or she, scrambled hunched among the crossbeams for the saboteurs.
Before any of the 6th could close, a crossbow bolt took the Moranth in the chest and it slipped from its perch to fall swinging and spinning from its rope. Lorr raised his crossbow from his shoulder, regarded the emptied weapon, then, with a shrug, dropped it to the milky-blue water below.
‘Ain’t you two finished yet?’ one of the 6th yelled.
‘Shut your Hood-damned mouth,’ Thumbs answered.
Suth slit the rope at his waist, readied his weapon. Arrows pecked at the timbers around them. They were hiding amid the under-structure and it was a difficult shot for the archers as they had to aim high to make the distance. ‘Now what?’ he shouted to Twofoot. The 6th’s sergeant ignored him.
Someone was yanking on the Black Moranth’s rope, attempting to raise it. But the body just kept banging upwards into a horizontal beam. After a few goes whoever was trying must’ve given up as the rope suddenly slithered hissing through the maze of timbers and the body plunged to disappear into the Ancy.
‘Boats,’ Fish noted laconically, and he raised his chin upriver.
Suth shifted his seat. Sure enough, a whole flotilla of boats was being readied upriver on both shores. Archers were pouring into them. All my homeland gods damn them! Now what? They were completely trapped! Couldn’t go up. Couldn’t go down. Couldn’t stay. Whose bloody plan was this anyway?
Thumbs swung free of the timber he’d been lying prone upon. A fat sack hung from his waist and a big grin was pasted on his broad face. ‘We’d better-’ An arrow appeared at his side, driven all the way up to the fletching. He grunted, peered at it amazed. ‘Just my friggin’ luck.’
Lorr lunged for him but he let go and fell, looking up at them all, his face a pale oval. He disappeared into the opaque turbulence around the pier’s base.
‘Damn!’ Twofoot snarled. ‘Things are gettin’ discomfortable.’
There’s an understatement. ‘Should we just jump?’ Suth called.
Twofoot chewed on that. ‘You could jump on to one of the boats an’ sink it like the big sack of shit you are. Now keep your mouth shut!’
Funny bastard. Wait till we get out of this. I’ll find you. And to think I didn’t even bring my shield!
Everyone tried to scramble even higher into the crossbeams to find cover from the bow-fire. Suth was shifting sideways to another bracing when the entire bridge jumped. The blast knocked him from the top of the timber. He clung on, swinging. Through the roaring in his ears he just made out a scream as someone fell. Pieces of shattered equipment and timber splashed into the river below.
After a brief stunned silence Twofoot bellowed: ‘Up and at ’em!’
Up! Up? A charge? What about me? Suth managed to hook a foot over the brace. The 6th was climbing to the edges of the under-framing, headed over the top. Wait for me, damn you!
*
From the hillside Rillish saw as well as everyone the surge of black figures charging the bridge; the wave of archers darkening the shores on both sides of the Ancy. The flight of bow-fire merely confirmed it. He straightened and beckoned an aide to him. ‘Last report on Greymane?’
‘Sometime tonight is the best estimate, Fist,’ the woman answered. Her eyes remained fixed on the distant bright ribbon of river. Then she swung her gaze to him, entreating. I was once so young; so eager. Now it is only the costs I think of. Would it be worth it? The maths is unforgiving: there are only some fifty of them, after all.
But — as always — there is so much more than mere numbers at stake.
Turning, he nodded to Captain Peles at his side. Then, to the aide: ‘Order the charge. We strike straight to the shore, cut south to the bridge.’
The woman was already dashing off.
‘We’ll hold,’ Peles said, securing her wolf-visored helm.
‘We have no choice now.’
*
From his tent Ussu was watching the attack while sipping a restorative glass of hot tea boiled from a rare poppy found on the foothills of the Ebon range. He dropped the glass in shock when a blast shot smoke and debris blossoming over the bridge. Human figures, carts and equipment flew pinwheeling to splash soundlessly into the river.
Damn the Lady! Was that them or us? Deliberate, or accidental?
As the smoke cleared he could see that the explosion hadn’t completely severed that length of the bridge: a few thick braces still spanned the section. Accidental perhaps — not where it was meant. That, or we Malazans built damned well. Borun came jogging up. Beyond him, fighting had broken out all over the bridge. The rats driven up from cover. Can’t be too many of them.
‘Not us,’ the Moranth commander announced.
‘Unintentional.’
‘For those holding it — undoubtedly.’
Hooves shook the ground as one of the Envoy’s entourage came thundering over to them and brought his mount to a savage halt. It was one of the self-styled Roolian noblemen: a Duke Kurran, or Kherran. The man pointed to Borun. ‘What treachery is this? You had your orders!’
‘We are not the only ones with munitions,’ Borun pointed out, his hoarse voice bland.
‘It is hardly in their interests to demolish the bridge!’
‘They would strand the forces on the far shore,’ Ussu observed. ‘With their retreat cut off they may surrender and we will have lost a third of our army.’
The Duke glared as if Ussu had suggested that very plan to the enemy. Through clenched teeth he ground out: ‘The Overlord will deal with you.’ He yanked the horse’s reins around.
‘We shall be blamed no matter what,’ Borun said, his gaze on the retreating noble.
A Black Moranth runner sped to Borun, spoke to him. The commander turned to Ussu, who was straining another glass of tea. ‘The advance force on the far shore is attacking.’