beyond the map table, looking like a pack of water-rats who'd just taken over a beaver's lodge.
The captain glanced down at the large painted hide pinned to the tabletop as he strode past, on which the Pannions had conveniently mapped out the entire maze of tunnels and entrenchments, the location of supplies and what kind, the approaches and retreats.
'All right,' Paran said as he joined the mages, 'what do you have?'
'Someone's got wise in Coral,' Quick Ben said, 'and realized that this place should have a company holed up here, as a guard — Trotts was keeping an eye on the city and watched them file out. They'll reach us in a bell.'
'A company,' Paran scowled. 'What's that in Pannion terms?'
'Four hundred Beklites, twenty Urdomen, four Seerdomin, one of them ranking and likely a sorcerer.'
'And which approaches do you think they'll use?'
'The three stepped ones,' Spindle replied, reaching to scratch under his hairshirt. 'They go under trees all the way, lots of switchbacks, meaning the poor bastards will have a hard time rushing our positions once we let loose.'
Paran turned back to study the map. 'Assuming they're flexible, what will they choose as an alternative?'
'The main ramp,' Quick Ben said, rising to join the captain. He tapped a finger on the map. 'The one they'd planned on using for the downward march to launch the ambush. No cover for them, but if they can lock shields out front and turtle … well, there's only forty of us …'
'Munitions?'
The wizard looked back at Spindle, who made a sour face and said, 'We're short. Maybe if we use 'em right, we'll squash this company — but then the Seer will know what's up, and he'll send twenty thousand up this mountainside. If Dujek doesn't show soon, we'll have to pull out, Captain.'
'I know, Spindle, which is why I want you to set aside the cussers and burners — I want these tunnels rigged. If we have to scramble, we leave this strongpoint nothing but mud and ashes.'
The sapper gaped. 'Captain, without them cussers and burners, the Seer won't need to send anybody after this company — it'll take us clean out!'
'Assuming there's enough of them left to regroup and come up the main ramp. In other words, Spindle, pull the sappers together and cook up the messiest stew you can for those three hidden trails. If we can make it seem like the whole Malazan army's up here … better yet, if we can make sure not one soldier in this company gets out alive, we'll have purchased the time we need. The less certain we leave the Seer the safer we'll be. So, close that mouth and find Hedge and the rest. Your moment of glory's arrived, Spindle — go.'
Muttering, the man scrambled out of the chamber.
Paran faced the others. 'A Seerdomin sorcerer, you said. All right, he needs to drop fast once the fun starts. What do you have in mind, gentlemen?'
Shank grinned. 'My idea, Captain. It's classic, deadly — especially because it's so unexpected. I've already completed the ritual, left it primed — all Quick Ben needs to do is tell me when he's spotted the bastard.'
'What kind of ritual, Shank?'
'The ingenious kind, Captain — Bluepearl loaned me the spell, but I can't describe it, can't write it down and show you, neither. Words and meanings hang around in the air, you know, seep into suspicious minds and trigger gut instinct. There's nothing to blocking it if you know it's coming — it only works when you don't.'
Scowling, Paran turned to Quick Ben.
The wizard shrugged, 'Shank wouldn't cough himself to the front of the line if he wasn't sure of this, Captain. I'll sniff the Seerdomin out as he's asked. And I'll have a few back-ups in case it goes sour.'
Bluepearl added, 'Spindle will hold back on a sharper, Captain, with the mage's name on it.'
'Literally,' Toes threw in, 'and that makes all the difference, Spin being a wizard and all.'
'Yes? And how often has it made the difference in the past, Toes?'
'Well, uh, there's been a bad string of, uh, mitigating circumstances-'
'Abyss below,' Paran breathed. 'Quick Ben, if we don't knock that sorcerer out we'll be feeding roots a drop at a time.'
'We know, Captain. Don't worry. We'll stamp him out before he sparks.'
Paran sighed. 'Toes, find me Picker — I want all these longbows trundled out and issued to everyone without a munition or spell in hand, twenty arrows each, and I want them to have pikes as well.'
'Aye, sir.' Toes climbed to his feet. He reached for one large, mummified toe strung around his neck and kissed it. Then he headed out.
Bluepearl spat onto the ground. 'I feel sick every time he does that.'
A bell and a half later, the captain lay alongside Quick Ben, looking down on the middle stepped trail, where the glint of helms and weapons appeared in the late afternoon's dull light.
The Pannions had not bothered to send scouts ahead, nor was their column preceded by a point. A degree of overconfidence that Paran hoped would prove fatal.
In the soft earth before Quick Ben, the wizard had set a half-dozen twigs, upright, in a rough line. Faint sorcery whispered between them that the captain's eyes could only register peripherally. Twenty paces behind the two men, Shank sat hunched over his modest, pebble-ringed circle of ritual; six twigs from the same branch that Quick Ben had used, jabbed into the moss before the squad mage, surrounding a bladder filled with water. Beads of condensation glistened from these twigs.
Paran heard Quick Ben's soft sigh. The wizard reached out, hovered an index finger over the third twig, then tapped it.
Shank saw one of his twigs twitch. He grinned, whispered the last word of his ritual, releasing its power. The bladder shrivelled, suddenly empty.
Down on the trail, the Seerdomin sorcerer, third in the line, buckled, water spraying from his mouth, lungs filled, clawing at his own chest.
Shank's eyes closed, his face runnelled in sweat as he swiftly added binding spells to the water that filled the Seerdomin's lungs, holding it down against their desperate, spasming efforts to expel the deadly fluid.
Soldiers shouted, gathered around the writhing mage.
Four sharpers sailed into their midst.
Multiple, snapping explosions, at least one of them triggering the row of sharpers buried along the length of the trail, these ones in turn triggering the crackers at the base of the flanking trees, which began toppling inward onto the milling soldiers.
Smoke, the screams of the wounded and dying, figures sprawled, pinned beneath trees and trapped by branches.
Paran saw Hedge and four other sappers, Spindle included, plunging down the slope to one side of the trail. Munitions flew from their hands.
The fallen trees — wood and branches liberally drenched in lantern oil — lit up in a conflagration as the first of the burners exploded. Within the span of a heartbeat, the trail and the entire company trapped upon it were in flames.
Down at the bottom, well behind the last of the Pannions, Picker and her squads had emerged from cover, bows in hand, and were — Paran hoped — taking down those of the enemy who had managed to avoid the ambush and were attempting to flee.
At the moment, all the captain could hear were screams and the thunderous roar of the fire. The gloom of approaching night had been banished from the trail, and Paran could feel the heat gusting against his face. He glanced over at Quick Ben.
The wizard's eyes were closed.
Faint movement on the man's shoulder caught the captain's attention — a tiny figure of sticks and twine — Paran blinked. It was gone, and he began to wonder if he'd seen anything at all… the wild flaring and ebb of firelight, the writhing shadows …
Were fading now, and the fire itself was losing its raging hunger, unable to reach very far into the rain-soaked forest beyond. Smoke wreathed the trail, drifted through the surrounding boles. Blackened bodies filled the path, plates of armour rainbow-burnished, leather curled and peeling, boots blistered and cracking open with terrible
