‘It’s Skulldeath, you see. He’s announced that he’s given his heart to you-’
‘His what? Listen, you go an’ tell Hearty Death that he can have his skull back cause I don’t wannit, but I’ll take his cock once we’re done killing all these bassards or maybe even before then if there’s a chance, but in the meantime, drag Urb here because I’m ‘sponsible for ‘im, you see, for letting’
‘im kick in that temple door.’
‘Sergeant, he won’t-’
‘How come your voice keeps changin’?’
‘So,’ said the commander of the Letherii forces arrayed along the ridge, ‘there they are. What do you judge, Sirryn Kanar? Under a thousand? I would believe so. All the way from the coast. Extraordinary.’
‘They have survived thus far,’ Sirryn said, scowling, ‘because they are unwilling to stand and fight.’
‘Rubbish,’ the veteran officer replied. ‘They fought the way they needed to, and they did it exceptionally well, as Hanradi and his Edur would attest. Under a thousand, by the Errant. What I could do with ten thousand such soldiers, Finadd. Pilott, Korshenn, Descent, T’roos, Isthmus
– we could conquer them all. Two campaign seasons, no more than that.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Sirryn said, ‘we’re about to kill them all, sir.’
‘Yes, Finadd,’ the commander sighed. ‘So we are.’ He hesitated, then cast Sirryn an oddly sly glance. ‘I doubt there will be much opportunity to excessively bleed the Tiste Edur, Finadd. They have done their task, after all, and now need only dig in behind these Malazans-and when the poor fools break, as they will, they will be routing right into Hanradi’s Edur spears, and that will be the end of that.’
Sirryn Kanar shrugged. ‘I still do not understand how these Malazans could have believed a thousand of their soldiers would be enough to conquer our empire. Even with their explosives and such.’
‘You forget their formidable sorcery, Finadd.’
‘Formidable at stealth, at hiding them from our forces. Naught else. And now, such talents have no use at all. We see our enemy, sir, and they are exposed, and so they will die.’
‘Best we get on with it, then,’ the commander said, somewhat shortly, as he turned to gesture his mages forward.
Below, on the vast plain that would be the killing field for this invading army-if it could even be called that-the Malazan column began, with alacrity, reforming into a defensive circle. The commander grunted. ‘They hold to no illusions, Finadd, do they? They are finished and they know it. And so, there will be no rout, no retreat of any sort. Look at them! There they will stand, until none stand.’
Gathered now into their defensive circle, in very nearly the centre of the killing field, the force suddenly seemed pathetically small. The commander glanced at his seven mages, now arrayed at the very crest of the ridge and beginning the end of their ritual-which had been a week in the making. Then back to the distant huddle of Malazans. ‘Errant bless peace upon their souls,’ he whispered.
It was clear that Atri-Preda Bivatt, impatient as she no doubt was, had at the last moment decided to draw out the beginning of battle, to let the sun continue its assault on the mud of the seabed. Alas, such delay was not in Redmask’s interest, and so he acted first.
The Letherii mages each stood within a protective ring of soldiers carrying oversized shields. They were positioned beyond arrow range, but Bivatt well knew their vulnerability nonetheless, particularly once they began their ritual summoning of power.
Toc Anaster, seated on his horse to permit him a clearer view, felt the scarring of his missing eye blaze into savage itching, and he could feel how the air grew charged, febrile, as the two mages bound their wills together. They could not, he suspected, maintain control for very long. The sorcery would need to erupt, would need to be released. To roll in foaming waves down into the seabed, blistering their way across the ground to crash into the Awl lines. Where warriors would die by the hundreds, perhaps by the thousands.
Against such a thing, Redmask’s few shamans could do nothing. All that had once given power to the plains tribe was torn, very nearly shredded by displacement, by the desecration of holy grounds, by the deaths of countless warriors and elders and children. The Awl culture, Toe now understood, was crumbling, and to save it, to resurrect his people, Redmask needed victory this day, and he would do anything to achieve it.
Including, if need be, the sacrifice of his K’Chain Che’Malle.
Beneath their strange armour, beneath the fused swords at the end of the K’ell Hunter’s arms, beneath their silent language and inexplicable alliance with Redmask of the Awl, the K’Chain Che’Malle were reptiles, and their blood was cold, and deep in their brains, perhaps, could be found ancient memories, recollections of a pre-civilized existence, a wildness bound in the skein of instincts. And so the patience of a supreme predator coursed in that chill blood.
Reptiles. Damned lizards.
Thirty or so paces from where stood the mages and their guardian soldiers, the slope reached down to the edge of the ancient sea, where the mud stretched out amidst tufts of smeared, flattened grasses, and where run-off had pooled before slowly ebbing away into the silts beneath.
The K’Chain Che’Malle had wallowed down into that mud, quite possibly even as the rains continued to thrash down in darkness. Huge as they were, they had proved skilled at burying themselves so that no sign was visible of their presence-no sign at least to a casual viewer. And after all, who could have imagined such enormous beasts were capable of simply disappearing from sight?
And Redmask had guessed more or less correctly where the mages would position themselves; indeed, he had invited such placements, where waves of magic would converge to maximum effect against his waiting warriors. Neither Sag’Churok nor Gunth Mach rose to find themselves too far away for that sudden, devastating rush upslope.
Screams of terror as the flat clay seemed to erupt at the old shoreline, and then, mud cascading from their backs, the demonic creatures were racing upslope, each closing in on one of the mages.
Panicked retreat-flight from the guards, flinging shields and swords away-exposing the hapless mages, both of whom sought to unleash their sorcery-
– no time, as Sag’Churok’s twin blades slashed out and the first mage seemed to vanish in a bloom of blood and meat-
– no time, as Gunth Mach leapt high in the air then landed with splayed talons directly atop the second, cowering mage, crushing him in a snap of bones-
And then the beasts wheeled, racing back in zigzag patterns as flights of arrows descended. Those that struck bounced or, rarely, penetrated the thick scaled hide enough to hold fixed in place, until the creature’s motion worked them loose.
In the wake of this sudden honor, the Letherii horns sounded like cries of rage, and all at once the wedges were moving down the slope, and some battle song lifted skyward to set cadence-but it was a shrill sound, erupting from the throats of shaken soldiers-
As easily as that, Toc Anaster reflected, this battle begins.
Behind him, Torrent was dancing in gleeful frenzy.
Shouting: ‘Redmask! Redmask! Redmask!’
The wedges edged out onto the seabed and visibly sagged as momentum slowed. Between them milled the archers, skirmishers and some medium infantry, and Toc saw soldiers slipping, falling, boots skidding out as they sought purchase to draw bowstrings-chaos. The heavy infantry in front were now sinking to their knees, while those at the back stumbled into those before them, as the rhythm broke, then utterly collapsed.
A second set of horns sounded as soon as each entire wedge was on the flat, and all forward motion ceased. A moment of relative silence as the wedges reformed, then a new song emerged from the soldiers, this one deeper, more assured, and carrying a slower cadence, a drawn-out beat that proved the perfect match to an advance of one step at a time, with a settling pause between it and the next.
Toc grunted in admiration. That was impressive control indeed, and it looked to be working.
They will reach the Awl lines intact. Still, no solid footing to fix shields or swing weapons with strength. Gods, this is going to be bloody.
