Deadhouse Gates

Duiker grunted. 'Belts, thick leather.'

'Just so.'

'What happened to Nil?'

'Caught unawares, he made use of that very knowledge we struggle to recall. As the sorcerous attack came, he retreated within himself. The attack pursued but he remained elusive, until the malevolent power spent itself. We learn.'

Into Duiker's mind arose the image of the other warlock's horrific death. 'At a cost.'

Sormo said nothing, but pain revealed itself for a moment in his eyes.

'We increase our pace,' Coltaine announced. 'One less mouthful of water for each soldier each day-'

Duiker straightened. 'But we have water.'

All eyes turned to him. The historian smiled wryly at Sormo. 'I understand Nil's report was rather … dry. The spirits made for us a tunnel through the bedrock. As the Captain can confirm, the rock weeps.'

Lull grinned. 'Hood's breath, the old man's right!'

Sormo was staring at the historian with wide eyes. 'For lack of asking the right questions, we have suffered long — and needlessly.'

A new energy infused Coltaine, culminating in a taut baring of his teeth. 'You have one hour,' the Fist told the warlock, 'to ease a hundred thousand throats.'

From bedrock that split the prairie soil in weathered outcroppings, sweet tears seeped forth. Vast pits had been excavated. The air was alive with joyous songs and the blessed silence of beasts no longer crying their distress. And beneath it all was a warm, startling undercurrent. For once, the spirits of the land were delivering a gift untouched by death. Their pleasure was palpable to Duiker's senses as he stood close to the north edge of the encampment, watching, listening.

Corporal List was at his side, his fever abated. 'The seepage is deliberately slow but not slow enough — stomachs will rebel — the reckless ones could end up killing themselves…'

'Aye. A few might.'

Duiker raised his head, scanning the valley's north ridge. A row of Tithansi horsewarriors lined its length, watching in what the historian imagined was fearful wonder. He had no doubt that Kamist Reloe's army was suffering, even though they had the advantage of seizing and holding every known waterhole on the Odhan.

As he studied them, his eyes caught a flash of white that flowed down the valleyside, then vanished beyond Duiker's line of sight. He grunted.

'Did you see something, sir?'

'Just some wild goats,' the historian said. 'Switching sides…'

The blowing sand had bored holes into the mesa's sides, an onslaught that began by sculpting hollows, then caves, then tunnels, finally passages that might well exit out of the other side. Like voracious worms ravaging old wood, the wind devoured the cliff face, hole after hole appearing, the walls between them thinning, some collapsing, the tunnels widening. The mantle of the plateau remained, however, a vast cap of stone perched on ever-dwindling foundations.

Kulp had never seen anything like it. As if the Whirlwind's deliberately attacked it. Why lay siege to a rock?

The tunnels shrieked with the wind, each one with its own febrile pitch, creating a fierce chorus. The sand was fine as dust where it spun and swirled on updraughts at the base of the cliff. Kulp glanced back to where Heboric and Felisin waited — two vague shapes huddled against the ceaseless fury of the storm.

The Whirlwind had denied them all shelter for three days now, ever since it had first descended upon them. The wind assailed them from every direction — as if the mad goddess has singled us out. The possibility was not as unlikely as it first seemed. The malevolent will was palpable. We're intruders, after all. The Whirlwind's focus of hate has always been on those who do not belong. Poor Malazan Empire, to have stepped into such a ready-made mythos of rebellion …

The mage scrambled back to the others. He had to lean close to be heard above the endless roar. 'There's caves! Only the wind's plunging down their throats — I suspect it's cut right through the hill!'

Heboric was shivering, beset since morning by a fever born of exhaustion. He was weakening fast. We all are. It was almost dusk — the unrelieved ochre dimming over their heads — and the mage estimated they had travelled little more than a league in the past twelve hours.

They had no water, no food. Hood stalked their heels.

Felisin clutched Kulp's tattered cloak, pulling him closer. Her lips were split, sand gumming the corners of her mouth. 'We try anyway!' she said.

'I don't know. That whole hill could come down-'

'The caves! We go into the caves!'

Die out here, or die in there. At least the caves offer us a tomb for our corpses. He gave a sharp nod.

They half dragged Heboric between them. The cliff offered them a score of options with its ragged, honeycombed visage. They made no effort to select one, simply plunging into the first cave mouth they came to, a wide, strangely flattened tunnel that seemed to run level — at least for the first few paces.

The wind was a hand at their backs, dismissive of hesitation in its unceasing pressure. Darkness swept around them as they staggered on, within a cauldron of screams.

The floor had been sculpted into ridges, making walking difficult. Fifteen paces on, they stumbled into an outcropping of quartzite or some other crystalline mineral that resisted the erosive wind. They worked their way around it and found in its lee the first surcease from the Whirlwind's battering force in over seventy hours.

Heboric sagged in their arms. They set him down in the ankle-deep dust at the base of the outcropping. 'I'd like to scout ahead,' Kulp told Felisin, yelling to be heard.

She nodded, lowering herself to her knees.

Another thirty paces took the mage to a larger cavern. More quartzite filled the space, reflecting a faint luminescence from what appeared to be a ceiling of crushed glass fifteen feet above him. The quartzite rose in vertical veins, the gleaming pillars creating a gallery effect of startling beauty, despite the racing wind's dust-filled stream. Kulp strode forward. The piercing shriek dimmed, losing itself in the vastness of the cavern.

Closer to the centre of the cavern rose a heap of tumbled stones, their shapes too regular to be natural. The glittering substance of the ceiling covered them in places — a single side of their vaguely rectangular forms, the mage realized after a moment's examination. Crouching, he ran a hand along one such side, then bent still lower. Hood's breath, it's glass in truth! Multicoloured, crushed and compacted …

He looked up. A large hole gaped in the ceiling, its edges glowing with that odd, cool light. Kulp hesitated, then opened his warren. He grunted. Nothing. Queen's blessing, no sorcery — it's mundane.

Hunching low against the wind, the mage made his way back to the others. He found them both asleep or unconscious. Kulp studied them, feeling a chill at the composed finality he saw in their dehydrated features.

Might be more merciful not to awaken them.

As if sensing his presence, Felisin opened her eyes. They filled with instant awareness. 'You'll never have it that easy,' she said.

'This hill's a buried city, and we're under what's buried.'

'So?'

'The wind's got into one chamber at least, emptied it of sand.'

'Our tomb.'

'Maybe.'

'All right, let's go.'

'One problem,' Kulp said, not moving. 'The way in is about fifteen feet over our heads. There's a pillar of quartzite, but it wouldn't be an easy climb, especially not in our condition.'

'Do your warren trick.'

'What?'

'Open a gate.'

He stared at her. 'It's not that simple.'

'Dying's simple.'