‘Guard our flank? With what?’ He angled his mount round, lurched as it staggered. ‘Ah, shit, my Ve’Gath’s finished.’ He pulled his boots from the scale stirrups, slid down from the beast’s slathered back. Landing, his knees buckled and he fell to one side. Fighting to regain his breath, he stared up at the strange – and strangely crowded – sky. ‘All right. Listen, Kalyth. Draw the K’ell back and send them over there, all of them. Tell Sag’Churok – I’m sending him the T’lan Imass.’ He forced himself to his feet. ‘Did you hear all that?’ He flinched as his Ve’Gath fell over, legs flailing, half its guts hanging out in thick ropes. He saw the life empty from its eyes.
‘Yes. Gu’Rull says you must hurry. There is little time.’
‘That damned rhizan’s finally come back, has it?’
‘Gu’Rull says there is a storm coming, Gesler. He says you called it.’
‘Like Hood I have!’ He looked around, but Stormy was nowhere to be seen. A storm? What’s she going on about? Whatever it is, it’s probably that red-bearded bastard’s fault.
Cursing, the Mortal Sword set off to find Onos T’oolan. His forearms, he saw with faint alarm, were sweating beads of blood.
Onos T’oolan cut diagonally in a downward chop, through the torso of the Kolansii opposite him, dragging his blade free as he stepped over the crumpling body. An axe head slammed into his ribs on his left side, bounced off, and he turned and slashed through his attacker’s neck, watched the head roll off the shoulders. Two more strides and he was atop the fourth berm, his warriors coming up alongside him.
Looking down into the trench, he stared at a mass of upturned faces – all twisted with inhuman hatred – and weapons lifted as he prepared to descend into the press.
‘First Sword!’
Onos T’oolan paused, stepped back and turned round.
The Malazan named Gesler was stumbling towards him.
‘Gesler,’ said Onos T’oolan, ‘there are but two more tiers left – and the number of enemy in those positions is sorely diminished. We shall prevail. Draw your Ve’Gath into our wake—’
‘First Sword – we are about to be flanked to the west. I have sent what remains of my K’ell Hunters there, but they are not enough.’
Onos T’oolan lowered his sword. ‘I understand.’
‘We will push on here without you,’ Gesler said. ‘You’ve split the defences in two, and when all is said and done, the Ve’Gath can out-climb and out-run humans – we will fight to the foot of the stairs. We will assault the Spire.’
‘Akhrast Korvalain is wounded now, Mortal Sword. Tellann is awake – Olar Ethil is near. It seems that this shall be a day of ancient powers. Malazan, beware the voice of the Pure who awaits you atop the Spire.’
The man revealed red-stained teeth. ‘Once I get up there, she won’t have time to get a single damned word out.’
‘I wish you success, Mortal Sword. Tell the K’Chain Che’Malle, we are honoured to have fought at their side this day.’
Onos T’oolan reached out to his followers, and as one they fell to dust.
Sister Reverence could hear the grinding ascent of the ice against the Spire off to her left, while before her she saw the K’Chain Che’Malle carve their way ever closer to the base of the stairs. The T’lan Imass had vanished, but she knew where they were going – and High Watered Festian will have to face them. He will have to find a way to encircle them, to win past and strike the K’Chain Che’Malle.
Then she looked skyward, where enormous dark clouds were building almost directly overhead, forming huge, towering columns bruised blue and green. She saw flashes of lightning flaring from their depths – and the blinding light was slow to fade. Two remained, burning luridly, and instead of diminishing, it seemed that those actinic glares were growing stronger, deepening in hue.
All at once, she realized what she was seeing.
There is a god among us. A god has been summoned!
The eyes blazed with demonic fire, and the clouds, ever massing, found form, a shape so vast, so overwhelming, that Sister Reverence cried out.
The argent gleam of tusks, the clouds curling into swirls of dark fur. Towering, seething, building into a thing of muscle and terrible rage, the eyes baleful as twin desert suns. Dominating the entire sky above the Spire, Fener, the Boar of Summer, manifested.
This is no sending. He is here. The god Fener is here!
With dawn paling the grey sky overhead and water running in streams along the gutters, Karsa Orlong looked down at the peaceful face of the old man cradled in his lap. He slipped a hand under that head and lifted it slightly, and then moved away, settling it once more on the hard cobbles of the street.
It was time.
He rose, taking hold of his sword. Fixing his eyes on the temple opposite, he walked towards the barred door.
The city was awakening. Early risers out on the street paused upon seeing him crossing their path. And those who could see his face backed away.
He reached for the heavy brass latch, grasped hold of it, and tore it away from the wooden door. Then he kicked, shattering the door’s planks like kindling, the sound of the impact like thunder, its echoes tumbling down the passageway within. Voices shouted.
Karsa entered the temple of Fener.
Down a once-opulent corridor, past the flanking braziers – two priests appearing with the intent of blocking his passage, but when they saw him they shrank from his path.
Into the altar chamber. Thick smoke sweetly redolent with incense, a heat rising from the very stones underfoot, and to either side the paint of the murals was crackling, bubbling, and then it began to blacken, curling away from the walls, devouring the images.
Priests were wailing in terror and grief, but the Toblakai ignored them all. His eyes were on the altar, a block of rough-hewn stone on which rested a jewel-studded boar tusk.
Closing on the altar, Karsa raised his stone sword.
‘Upon his heart.’
When the blade descended, it smashed through the tusk and then continued on, cracking the altar stone with the sound of thunder, shattering the block in half.
Onos T’oolan could hear weeping, but this was the sound of something unseen, something long hidden in the souls of the T’lan Imass. He had never expected it to awaken, had never expected to feel it again. In his mind he saw a child, clothed in mortal flesh, lifting a face to the heavens, and that face was his own – so long ago now. There had been dreams, but even as they faded the child boy wept with shuddering convulsions.
Things die. Dreams fall to dust. Innocence bleeds out to soak the ground. Love settles in cold ashes. We had so much. But we surrendered it all. It was … unforgivable.
He rose again, on a broad, level stretch of land where a village had once stood. It had been made mostly of wood and that wood had been taken away to build engines of war. Now only the foundation stones remained. The raised road that ran into it sloped until it was level with the cobbled street at the village’s edge.
His kin rose around him and they moved out to present a broad front facing on to that road, there to await the army they could now see to the west. The sound of thousands of marching boots on cobbles was a solid roar underfoot.
We shall fight here. Because the fighting and the killing goes on for ever. And the child will shed his tears until the end of time. I remember so many loves, so many things lost. I remember being broken. Again and again. There need be no end to it – there is no law to say that one cannot break one more time.