Push it on, lad,' he said.
'You,' the boy said. 'I heard you. I listened.'
'And you was all right, wasn't you?'
'Yes.'
'I'll teach it to you. For the next time.'
'Yes.'
Someone had shouted back instructions, cutting through the frenzy of terror, and people had responded, stripping away whatever could be used as a rope. Chilled beneath a gritty layer of sweat, Tarr settled his forehead onto the stones under him, smelling dust mingled with the remnants of his own fear. When the bundle reached him he drew it forward, then struggled out of what was left of his own harness and added it to the pathetic collection.
Now, at least, they had a reason to wait, they weren't stopped because Bottle had run out of places to crawl.
Something to hold onto. He prayed it would be enough.
Behind him, Balgrid whispered, 'I wish we was marching across the desert again. That road, all that space on both sides…'
'I hear you,' Tarr said. 'And I also remember how you used to curse it. The dryness, the sun-'
'Sun, hah! I'm so crisp I'll never fear the sun again. Gods, I'll kneel in prayer before it, I swear it. If freedom was a god, Tarr…
If freedom was a god. Now that's an interesting thought…
'Thank Hood all that screaming's stopped,' Balm said, plucking at whatever was tingling against all his skin, tingling, prickling like some kind of heat rash. Heat rash, that was funny'Sergeant,' Deadsmell said, 'it was you doing all that screaming.'
'Quiet, you damned liar. Wasn't me, was the kid ahead of me.'
'Really? I didn't know he spoke Dal Honese-'
'I will skewer you, Corporal. Just one more word, I swear it. Gods, I' m itchy all over, like I been rolling in Fool's pollen-'
'You get that after you been panicking, Sergeant. Fear sweat, it's called. You didn't piss yourself too, did you? I'm smelling-'
'I got my knife out, Deadsmell. You know that? All I got to do is twist round and you won't be bothering me no more.'
'You tossed your knife, Sergeant. In the temple-'
'Fine! I'll kick you to death!'
'Well, if you do, can you do it before I have to crawl through your puddle?'
'The heat is winning the war,' Corabb said.
'Aye,' answered Strings behind him, his voice faint, brittle. 'Here.'
Something was pushed against Corabb's feet. He reached back, and his hand closed on a coil of rope. 'You were carrying this?'
'Was wrapped around me. I saw Smiles drop it, outside the temple – it was smouldering, so that's not a surprise…'
As he drew it over him, Corabb felt something wet, sticky on the rope.
Blood. 'You're bleeding out, aren't you?'
'Just a trickle. I'm fine.'
Corabb crawled forward – there was some space between them and the next soldier, the one named Widdershins. Corabb could have kept up had he been alone back here, but he would not leave the Malazan sergeant behind. Enemy or no, such things were not done.
He had believed them all monsters, cowards and bullies. He had heard that they ate their own dead. But no, they were just people. No different from Corabb himself. The tyranny lies at the feet of the Empress. These – they're all just soldiers. That's all they are. Had he gone with Leoman… he would have discovered none of this. He would have held onto his fierce hatred for all Malazans and all things Malazan.
But now… the man behind him was dying. A Falari by birth – just another place conquered by the empire. Dying, and there was no room to get to him, not here, not yet.
'Here,' he said to Widdershins. 'Pass this up.'
'Hood take us, that's real rope!'
'Aye. Move it along fast now.'
'Don't order me around, bastard. You're a prisoner. Remember that.'
Corabb crawled back.
The heat was building, devouring the thin streams of cool air sliding up from below. They couldn't lie still for much longer. We must move on.
From Strings: 'Did you say something, Corabb?'
'No. Nothing much.'
From above came sounds of Cuttle making his way down the makeshift rope, his breath harsh, strained. Bottle reached the rubble-filled base of the fissure. It was solidly plugged. Confused, he ran his hands along both walls. His rat? Ah, there – at the bottom of the sheer, vertical wall his left hand plunged into air that swept up and past. An archway. Gods, what kind of building was this? An archway, holding the weight of at least two – maybe three – storeys' worth of stonework. And neither the wall nor the arch had buckled, after all this time. Maybe the legends are true. Maybe Y'Ghatan was once the first Holy City, the greatest city of all. And when it died, at the Great Slaughter, every building was left standing – not a stone taken.
Standing, to be buried by the sands.
He lowered himself to twist feet-first through the archway, almost immediately contacting heaps of something – rubble? – nearly filling the chamber beyond. Rubble that tipped and tilted with clunking sounds, rocked by his kicking feet.
Ahead, his rat roused itself, startled by the loud sounds as Bottle slid into the chamber. Reaching out with his will, he grasped hold of the creature's soul once more. 'All right, little one. The work begins again…' His voice trailed away.
He was lying on row upon row of urns, stacked so high they were an arm's reach from the chamber's ceiling. Groping with his hands, Bottle found that the tall urns were sealed, capped in iron, the edges and level tops of the metal intricately incised with swirling patterns.
The ceramic beneath was smooth to the touch, finely glazed. Hearing Cuttle shouting that he'd reached the base behind him, he crawled in towards the centre of the room. The rat slipped through another archway opposite, and Bottle sensed it clambering down, alighting on a clear, level stone floor, then waddling ahead.
Grasping the rim of one urn's iron cap, he strained to pull it loose.
The seal was tight, his efforts eliciting nothing. He twisted the rim to the right – nothing – then the left. A grating sound. He twisted harder. The cap slid, pulled loose from its seal. Crumbled wax fell away. Bottle pulled upward on the lid. When that failed, he resumed twisting it to the left, and quickly realized that the lid was rising, incrementally, with every full turn. Probing fingers discovered a canted, spiralling groove on the rim of the urn, crusted with wax. Two more turns and the iron lid came away.
