With a bellow she crushed the warrior’s skull.
In her mind, Sister Freedom shouted commands to her officers. ‘Charge the enemy – break through and encircle them! Kill every damned one of them! Leave these bone-bags to me!’ The T’lan Imass with the crumpled forehead came towards her again. Snarling, she flung herself at him.
Blistig could feel the desperate rage growing in him, and as the enemy ranks suddenly seemed to build like a rising wave and rush howling towards him, he screamed his own fury.
The collision lifted soldiers from their feet, shoved them into the air. Blood misted, weapons hammered down, and the front ranks of the Malazans recoiled, and then stiffened. The clamour was deafening – weapons and shrieks – and the world was crazed before the Fist’s eyes, frantic with motion, the flash of faces, teeth bared, sudden gushes of blood from mouths and gaping throats. Bodies pushing up against his shins. Staggering, flaying with his sword, buffeted by repeated blows against his shield, Blistig fought with the ferocity of a rabid dog.
He was going to die. They wanted to kill him – every damned one of them wanted to kill him, drag him down, trample his corpse. His life wasn’t supposed to end like this. He would fight, and fight. This was not going to be the end – he wouldn’t let it. I will not let it!
Chaos spun wild around him and the soldiers pressing against his sides.
They were pushed back another step.
Lostara Yil moved up alongside the Adjunct, drawing her swords. Another dance. All I can do. The dance of the world – this fucking, miserable, murderous world. She saw Ruthan Gudd take Tavore’s other flank, and behind her she could hear Henar Vygulf – the fool was singing some damned Bluerose sea shanty.
Ahead, advancing now, leaning forward and striding on stiff legs like a madman, came the Forkrul Assail. His eyes were feral and they were fixed on the Adjunct.
When he roared, the sound hammered them back.
Blood sprayed into the air and Lostara staggered, blinded. Whose blood? What— And now it was pouring down her cheeks and she saw Henar thump down, turning to her a shredded face. Oh, gods, it’s my blood – we’re all—
Impossibly, the Adjunct straightened against that devastating onrush of wordless sound, drew her sword round, and sought to close.
The Forkrul Assail was still almost forty paces away.
We can’t do this. Even Tavore – we can’t—
Ruthan Gudd reached the Adjunct’s side in his armour of ice – but that too was riven with cracks, breaking away in a hail of shards. He seemed to be reaching for her, as if to drag her back – away from this – but no retreat was far enough.
The Assail roared again.
Lostara Yil’s own scream was lost even to her own ears.
She felt her body skidding across the broken, tortured ground.
Against this – we are done with. Not even the Adjunct. Not even Ruthan Gudd. He slays us. Cotillion—
But not even a god could hear her prayers now.
Fifty paces behind, driven to his knees by the power of Akhrast Korvalain, Banaschar wiped blood from his eyes. He had tried to get closer – tried to move up and join with the Adjunct and her companions – but he had failed.
Failure. I know that word – spent many a night sitting at its table—
A figure stepped past him.
Badalle hummed softly to herself, and that gentle sound pushed away all that the Quisitor flung at her. Ahead, she could see how the power was hurting Mother – even with all her magic-deadening blood, her extraordinary will, Mother was being torn apart.
She gave words to her wordless song. Simple words, three to find the fourth, when the fourth was all that mattered. ‘Opals gems diamonds shards. Opals gems diamonds shards.’ You have forgotten so much. Until only hunger and pain remains. I know those two things. I know them well. We have shared them, you and I.
‘Opals gems diamonds shards. Opals gems diamonds shards.’
I sent you away once. I told you to take your hurt and your hunger away from us. Because we deserved neither.
Someone hurt you long ago. Someone hurt Rutt long ago. Someone hurt Saddic, and Held, and all the others. Someone must have hurt me, too.
‘Opals gems diamonds shards. Opals gems diamonds shards.’
I sent you away. Now, I summon you. See the bringer of pain. See the deliverer of hunger. The Quisitor. I know him. I remember him. He came among my people. He told them they had to die. To answer ancient crimes.
Perhaps he was right.
But that did not mean he had the right.
‘Opals gems diamonds shards. Opals gems diamonds shards.’
Do you know his kind? I think you do. Do you awaken now to ancient hurts? I think you do. I summon you. They like their justice. Now, my friend, deliver it.
‘Opals gems diamonds shards. Opals gems diamonds Shards!’
And above the Forkrul Assail, the sky darkened.
Banaschar stared as the swarm of locusts descended – where they had come from, how they had been summoned, he knew not. Their sound was a seething whisper, and then a swarming, howling cacophony. He saw the Forkrul Assail cease his attack, saw the man look up.
And then the swarm plunged down in an enveloping cloud, a storm of wings that suddenly blossomed crimson.
Brother Aloft screamed, and as he screamed the locusts crawled into his mouth, poured inside, mandibles slashing. Blood soaked the creatures, helped them slide down his throat. Choking, blinded and deafened, he fell to his knees. They chewed inside – his windpipe, and now his stomach. They blocked his nostrils, fought to enter his ears. Their bites cut through his eyelids and burst the eyes behind them. They swarmed into the sockets.
The god of the Forkrul Assail was coming home.
The locusts formed a seething pillar, which fell as the body it shrouded toppled to one side. Flashes of red gristle, of pink bone, and then the creatures were lifting away on their wings, rushing into the Kolansii infantry – but those soldiers, well armoured, their shields up before their faces, pushed through and the locusts spun, the whirr of their wings reaching a higher pitch, as if giving voice to their frustration.
Abruptly the swarm lifted, swirled into the air overhead.
Badalle could feel their need – it was without end – and she knew that if they remained in this place she would lose control of them – they would devour everyone.
Go now. You cannot stay.
The roar reached a pitch that shivered the air – a scream of impotence – and then the whirling cloud spun away.
Just beyond the bones of the Forkrul Assail, the Kolansii infantry advanced, and before them stood four figures sheathed in blood.
Mother, when this is done – when you and all your children have fallen – I shall with my last breath summon them again. To deliver our revenge.
Warleader Gall sat on his horse, eyes on the heavy infantry pushing past the embattled female Forkrul Assail. Their ranks were disordered, broken by the steep pitch of the hillside on their right, crowding to avoid the hill where fought their commander and the T’lan Imass. Large stones that had long ago rolled down from the summit further slowed their advance.
He could see the flank of Malazans turning to ready for the inward attack – but he could also see that the intention of the enemy was to win through to the rear of the defenders.