Deadhouse Gates

Arrows rained down ceaselessly. One grazed the historian's cheek, another bounced from the leather- sheathed chain protecting his shoulder. He wished to every god that he had donned his helm instead of tying it at his belt — from which it had long since been torn free and lost.

The pressure on the rope was steady, relentless, dragging him through the mob, over people and under them. More than once he was pulled down under the water, only to rise again half a dozen paces later, choking and coughing. At one point, as he went over the top of the seething press, he caught the flash of sorcery from somewhere ahead, a thundering wave, then he was yanked back down, twisting his shoulder to slide roughly between two screaming civilians.

The journey seemed unending, battering him with surreal glimpses until he was numb, feeling like a wraith being pulled through the whole of human history, an endless procession of pain, suffering and ignoble death. Fate's cast of chance was iron-barbed, sky-sent, or the oblivion of all that waited below. There is no escape — another lesson of history. Mortality is a visitor never gone for long-

Then he was being dragged over wet, muddy corpses and blood-slicked clay. The arrows no longer descended from the sky but sped low over the ground, striking wood and flesh on all sides. Duiker rolled through a deep, twisting rut, then came up against the spoked wheel of a wagon.

'Let go the rope!' the marine commanded. 'We're here, Duiker-' Here.

He wiped the mud from his eyes, staying low as he looked around for the first time. Wickan horsewarriors, sappers and marines lay amidst dead and dying mounts, all so studded with arrows that the entire landing looked like a reed bed. The nobles' wagons had been cleared from the end of the ford and arrayed in a defensive crescent, although the fighting had pushed beyond them into the forest itself.

'Who?' Duiker gasped.

The woman lying beside him grunted. 'Just what's left of the sappers, the marines … and a few surviving Wickans.'

'That's it?'

'Can't get anyone else across — and besides, the Seventh and at least two of the clans are fighting in the rearguard. We're on our own, Duiker, and if we can't clear these woods…'

We will be annihilated.

She reached out to a nearby corpse, dragging it closer to remove the dead Wickan's helm. 'This one looks more your size than mine, old man. Here.'

'What are we fighting out there?'

'At least three companies. Mostly archers, though — I think Korbolo wasn't expecting any soldiers at the front of the column. The plan was to use the refugees to block our deployment and stop us from gaining this bank.'

'As if Korbolo knew Coltaine would reject the offer, but the nobles wouldn't.'

'Aye. The arrow fire's tailed off — those sappers are pushing them back — gods, they're mayhem! Let's find us some useful weapons and go join the fun.'

'Go ahead,' Duiker said. 'But here I stay — within sight of the river. I need to see …'

'You'll get yourself skewered, old man.'

'I'll risk it. Get going!'

She hesitated, then nodded and crawled off among the bodies.

The historian found a round shield and clambered up on the nearest wagon, where he almost stepped on a cowering figure. He stared down at the trembling man. 'Nethpara.'

'Save me, please!'

Ignoring the noble-born, Duiker turned his attention back to the river.

The stream of refugees who reached the south bank could not go forward; they began spreading out along the shoreline. Duiker saw a mob of them discover the rope crew for the upstream bridge, and descend on them with a ferocity that disregarded their lack of armour and weapons. The crew were literally torn apart.

The slaughter had turned the river downstream into a pink mass of stained insects and bodies, and still the numbers grew. Another flaw in Korbolo's plan was revealed as the flights of arrows from the upstream bridge dwindled — the archers had already spent their supply. The floating platform upstream had been allowed to drift, closing the gap until the pikemen finally came into contact with the unarmed civilians on the ford. But they had not accounted for the roaring rage that met them. The refugees had been pushed past fear. Hands were slashed as they closed on the pikeheads, but they would not let go. Others clambered forward in a rush to get to the archers behind the wavering line of pikemen. The bridge sagged beneath the weight, then tilted. A moment later the river was solid with flailing, struggling figures — refugees and Korbolo's companies both — as the bridge tipped and broke apart.

And over it all, the butterflies swarmed, like a million yellow-petalled flowers dancing on swirling winds.

Another wave of sorcery erupted, and Duiker's head turned at the sound. He saw Sormo, out in the centre of the mass, astride his horse. The power that rolled from him tumbled towards the bridge downstream, striking the rebel soldiers with sparks that scythed like barbed wire. Blood sprayed into the air, and above the bridge the butterflies went from yellow to red and the stained clouds fell in a fluttering blanket.

But as Duiker watched, four arrows struck the warlock, one driving through his neck. Sormo's horse whipped its head around, screaming at the half-dozen arrows embedded in it. The animal staggered, slewing sideways to the edge of the shallows, then into deep water. Sormo reeled, then slowly slid from the saddle, vanishing beneath the sludge. The horse collapsed on top of him.

Duiker could not draw breath. Then he saw a thin, lean arm thrust skyward a dozen yards downstream.

Butterflies mobbed that straining, yearning reach, even as it slowly sank back down, then disappeared. The insects were converging, thousands, then hundreds of thousands. On all sides it seemed that the battle, the slaughter, paused and watched.

Hood's breath, they've come for him. For his soul. Not crows, not as it should be. Gods below!

A quavering voice rose from beneath the historian. 'What has happened? Have we won?'

The breath that Duiker pulled into his lungs was ragged. The mass of butterflies was a seething, frenzied mound on the spot where Sormo had appeared, a mound as high as a barrow and swelling with every moment that passed, with every staggering beat of the historian's heart.

'Have we won? Can you see Coltaine? Call him here — I would speak to him-'

The moment when all stood still and silent was broken as a thick flight of Wickan arrows struck the soldiers on the downstream bridge. What Sormo had begun, his clan kin completed: the last of the archers and pikemen went down.

Duiker saw three squares of infantry dog-trot down the north slope, pulled from the rearguard action to enforce order on the crossing. Wickan horsewarriors of the Weasel Clan rode out from the flanking woods, voicing their ululating victory cries.

Duiker swung about. He saw Malazan soldiers backing away from cover to cover — a handful of marines and less than thirty sappers. The arrow fire was intensifying, getting closer. Gods, they've already done the impossible — do not demand more of them-

The historian drew a breath, then climbed up onto the wagon's high bench. 'Everyone!' he shouted to the milling refugees crowding the bank. 'Every able hand! Find a weapon — to the forest, else the slaughter begins again! The archers are retur-'

He got no further, as the air shook with a savage, bestial roar. Duiker stared down, watching hundreds of civilians rush forward, caring nothing for weapons, intent only on closing with the companies of archers, on answering the day's carnage with a vengeance no less terrible.

We are all gripped in madness. I have never seen the like nor heard of such a thing — gods, what we have become. .

The waves of refugees swept over the Malazan positions and, unwavering before frantic, devastating flights of arrows from the treeline, plunged into the forest. Shrieks and screams echoed eerily in the air.

Nethpara clambered into view. 'Where is Coltaine? I demand-'

Duiker reached down one-handed and gripped the silk scarf wound around the nobleman's neck. He dragged Nethpara closer. The man squealed, scratching uselessly at the historian's hand.

'Nethpara. He could have let you go. Let you cross. Alone. Under the shelter of Korbolo Dom's glorious mercy. How many have died this day? How many of these soldiers, how many Wickans,