flickered muted lanternlight. Then… gone.
'And there!'
Another building, another flash of light.
'Another! More, they are all in place! Fanatics! Damned fools! Dryjhna take us, this is going to work!'
Work? Corabb frowned, then scowled. He caught Dunsparrow's gaze on him – she mouthed a kiss. Oh how he wanted to kill her.
Heaps of rubble, broken pots, a dead, bloated dog, and animal bones, there wasn't a single stretch of even ground at the base of the wall.
Bottle had followed on the heels of the sappers, up the first tier, brick fragments spilling away beneath their boots, then cries of pain and cursing as someone stumbled over a wasp nest – darkness alone had saved them from what could have been a fatal few moments – the wasps were sluggish – Bottle was astonished they had come out at all, until he saw what the soldier had managed. Knocking over one rock, then thumping his entire foot down the nest's maw.
He'd momentarily relinquished Meanas, then, to slip into the swarming soul-sparks of the wasps, quelling their panic and anger. Devoid of disguising magic for the last two tiers, the sappers had scrambled like terrified beetles – the rock they had hidden under suddenly vanishing – and made the base of the wall well ahead of the others.
Where they crouched, unlimbering their packs of munitions.
Bottle scampered up to crouch at Cuttle's side. 'The gloom's back,' he whispered. 'Sorry about that – good thing they weren't black wasps – Maybe'd be dead by now.'
'Not to mention yours truly,' Cuttle said. 'It was me who stepped in the damned thing.'
'How many stings?'
Two or three, right leg's numb, but that's better than it was fifteen heartbeats ago.'
'Numb? Cuttle, that's bad. Find Lutes fast as you can once we're done here.'
'Count on it. Now, shut up, I got to concentrate.'
Bottle watched him lift out from his pack a bundle of munitions – two cussers strapped together, looking like a pair of ample breasts.
Affixed to them at the base were two spike-shaped explosives – crackers. Gingerly setting the assemblage on the ground beside him, Cuttle then turned his attention to the base of the wall. He cleared bricks and rocks to make an angled hole, large and deep enough to accommodate the wall-breaker.
That was the easy part, Bottle reminded himself as he watched Cuttle place the explosive into the hole. Now comes the acid on the wax plug.
He glanced up and down the length of wall, saw other sappers doing the very same thing Cuttle had just done. 'Don't get ahead of the rest,'
Bottle said.
'I know what needs knowing, mage. Stick to your spells and leave me alone.'
Miffed, Bottle looked away again. Then his eyes widened. 'Hey, what's he doing – Cuttle, what's Crump doing?'
Cursing, the veteran glanced over. 'Gods below-'
The sapper from Sergeant Cord's squad had prepared not one wallbreaker, but three, the mass of cussers and crackers filling his entire pack. His huge teeth were gleaming, eyes glittering as he wrestled it loose and, lying on his back, head closest to the wall, settled it on his stomach and began crawling until there was the audible crunch of the back of his skull contacting the rearing stonework.
Cuttle scrambled over. 'You!' he hissed. 'Are you mad? Take those damned things apart!'
The man's grin collapsed. 'But I made it myself!'
'Keep your voice down, idiot!'
Crump rolled and shoved the mass of munitions up against the wall. A small glittering vial appeared in his right hand. 'Wait till you see this!' he whispered, smiling once more.
'Wait! Not yet!'
A sizzle, threads of smoke risingCuttle was on his feet, and, dragging a leg, he began running. And he began screaming. 'Everyone! Back! Run, you fools! Run!'
Figures pelting away on all sides, Bottle among them. Crump raced past as if the mage had been standing still, the man's absurdly long legs pumping high and wild, knobby knees and huge boots scything the air.
Munitions had been left against the wall but unset, others remained a pace or more back. Sacks of sharpers, smokers and burners left behind – gods below, this is going to be badShouts from atop the wall, now, voices raised in alarm. A ballista thumped as a missile was loosed at the fleeing sappers. Bottle heard the crack and skitter as it struck the ground.
Faster – He glanced over his shoulder, and saw Cuttle hobbling along in his wake. Hood take us! Bottle skidded to a halt, turned and ran back to the sapper's side.
'Fool!' Cuttle grunted. 'Just go!'
'Lean on my shoulder-'
'You've just killed yourself-'
Cuttle was no lightweight. Bottle sagged with his weight as they ran.
'Twelve!' the sapper gasped.
The mage scanned the ground ahead in growing panic. Some cover'Eleven!'
A shelf of old foundation, solid limestone, there, ten, nine paces'Ten!'
Five more paces – it was looking good – a hollow on the other side'Nine!'
Two paces, then down, as Cuttle screamed: 'Eight!'
The night vanished, flinging stark shadows forward as the two men tumbled down behind the shelf of limestone, into a heap of rotting vegetation. The ground lifted to meet them, a god's uppercut, driving the air from Bottle's lungs.
Sound, like a collapsing mountain, then a wall of stone, smoke, fire, and a rain filled with flames**** The concussion threw Lostara Yil from her feet moments after she'd stared, uncomprehending, at the squads of marines arrayed beyond the picket line – stared, as they were one and all flattened, rolling back before an onrushing wave – multiple explosions now, rapid-fire, marching along the wall to either side – then she was hammered in the chest, flung to the ground amidst other soldiers.
Rocks arrived in an almost-horizontal hail, fast as sling-stones, cracking off armour, thudding deep into exposed flesh – bones snapping, screams-the light dimmed, wavered, then contracted to a knot of flames, filling an enormous gap in Y'Ghatan's wall, almost dead-centre, and as Lostara – propped on one elbow, braving the hail of stones – watched, she saw the flanks of that huge gap slowly crumble, and, beyond, two three-storey tenements folding inward, flames shooting up like fleeing soulsAmong the slowing rain, now, body-parts.
Atop the palace tower, Corabb and the others had been thrown down – the guard who had accompanied them cartwheeling over the platform's low wall and vanishing with a dwindling scream, barely heard as the tower swayed, as the roar settled around them like the fury of a thousand demons, as huge stones slammed into the tower's side, others ricocheting off to crash among the buildings below, and, now, a terrible cracking, popping sound that sent Corabb clawing across the pavestones towards the hatch.
'It's going down!' he screamed.
Two figures reached the hatch before him – Leoman and Dunsparrow.
Cracking, sagging, the platform starting its inexorable pitch. Clouds of choking dust. Corabb reached the hatch and pulled himself into it headfirst, joining Leoman and the Malazan woman as they slithered like snakes down the winding steps. Corabb's left heel connected with a jaw and he heard L'oric's grunt of pain, then cursing in unknown languages.
That explosion – the breach of the wall – gods below, he had never seen anything like it. How could one challenge these Malazans? With their damned Moranth munitions, their gleeful disregard of the rules of honourable
