A strange burbling sound spat out from Could Howl.
Ffan shot the Semk a look. ‘That’s some laugh you got there.’
They arrived like a whirlwind, into the front line of the Kolansii. Swords were a blur in the hands of the dancer, and, where they touched, blood sang forth and bodies tumbled back. The ice-clad soldier waded in, blows bouncing from him unnoticed, and cut deep into the ranks, his sword seemingly everywhere. The tall soldier on the dancer’s left was bellowing as he beat down the Kolansii in front of him, shield-slamming another and knocking the two men off their feet, where they fouled those coming up behind them. And the commander fought with breathtaking precision, every motion either evading a thrust or dealing death, on her face an expression that struck ice through Trissin’s heart.
And then the other soldiers arrived, four coming up around the commander, three of them howling like demons, the fourth with his mouth horribly sewn tight. They struck in a manic frenzy, driving the Kolansii back.
She saw a huge soldier collide with the heavies who had swung round the ice-bound man, somehow knocking three of them to the ground. His short sword lashed down, seemingly little more than touching each Kolansii on the side of the neck – and from three throats blood sprayed out.
‘Surround them!’ screamed Trissin from three ranks behind the fighting. ‘Cut them—’
A ball of flames engulfed the Kolansii commander, raging wild, and from the cloudless sky above lightning crashed down, the impact thundering, flinging soldiers to the ground, the strike creating a vast hole in the ranks. Burnt flesh and parts of bodies rained down.
Three demons clawed up from the ground beneath the burning woman, their bodies covered in protruding mouths filled with dagger-length fangs, the talons on the ends of their fingers long as sabres, their heads swarming with coal-red eyes. Roaring, they lunged into the raging flames, tearing the commander to pieces.
Seeing all this, Grid Ffan shot a wild look back at his mages – saw them convulsed with laughter. Fucking illusionists! ‘Tone it down, you fools! You want t’give it all away?’
Gill Slime and Asp Slither looked up, suddenly straight-faced.
‘Got anything else?’ Ffan demanded.
Both shook their heads.
‘Then get up here and fight!’
The Kolansii had recovered, were now pushing to close once again. And more were swinging round on the far side, forcing Sample and Hare Ravage to back up.
Swearing, Ffan worked up close to the Adjunct.
‘Sir! We need to fall back into the phalanx! Adjunct!’
When she did not reply – or even seem to hear him – he cursed and said to the sergeant beside him, ‘Grey, listen. We come up and around her, either side – we make us a wall so she can’t get past us. Shipwreck, go there – and you, Semk, right here – we’re going to force her back and into the ranks, understood?’
‘It’s the battle lust, sir!’ shouted Shipwreck, staggering drunkenly as was his way in moments of high excitement, when his damaged inner ear started acting up.
‘I know what the fuck it is, idiot. Now, let’s do this!’
Lostara Yil was being pulled away from the Adjunct’s flank – Henar Vygulf was hard pressed, now defending himself from attackers on two sides. The sudden arrival of the regulars had eased the threat, but only momentarily – there were simply too many of the bastards.
Sobbing, bearing countless wounds, Lostara Yil drew closer to her love.
Don’t die. Please. Don’t die.
A sword blade clipped Henar’s head. He staggered, stunned.
Lostara screamed, now fighting blind to the threats pressing in around her, her gaze fixed on Henar.
The two regulars collapsed in to fend off the blows rushing down towards Henar. A woman and a man, the former Nathii, the latter Seven Cities – she had never seen them before, but they fought the attackers to a standstill above her love, who’d dragged off his cracked helm, blood gushing down from a scalp wound, and was trying to regain his feet.
Lostara hacked down a Kolansii on her left, leapt over his crumpling form. The grace was gone now. Only brutal savagery remained. She opened another man’s throat.
The Nathii woman shrieked, a sword driven through her chest. Dropping her weapon she took hold of the arm gripping that sword, and pulled her attacker down as she fell. Her companion’s short sword licked out, cut through half his neck; the man was shouting, trying to drag Henar back to his feet, until an axe crushed the back of the regular’s head, through helm and bone, and flung him forward, limbs flopping. But Henar was on his feet once more – and Lostara reached his side. Just beyond, a row of faces: Malazan regulars, shouting from their line on the flank, screaming and beckoning. Close! Hurry! Come to us!
Lostara spun round, blades whipping out. ‘Henar! To the ranks! Go!’
She saw the other regulars spilling back, all of them arrayed protectively round the Adjunct as they forced her towards the ranks. Ruthan Gudd and one huge regular were fighting to prevent the group from getting cut off, enveloped, but even they were being pushed back.
Take me, Cotillion! Please, I beg you! Take me!
But from her patron god … nothing. She twisted to her left, marched ahead to hold the enemy.
A dozen Kolansii rushed her.
The Khundryl had pushed as deep as they could into the press of heavy infantry. They had gone farther than Warleader Gall had thought possible. But now the horses were all dead, and so too the last of his warriors. But the advance had been blocked – bodies alone were enough to prevent the enemy from swinging round the Malazan wing – so now they were simply pushing inward, forcing the regulars into an ever-contracting formation.
A sword had ripped open everything below his ribcage. He was lying on his back, on the corpses of strangers and kin, his intestines spilled out and tangled round his legs.
Something was pulsing in the air – he could not be certain if it came from outside or from somewhere deep inside him. No. Outside. Voices, rising in rhythm, but he could not quite make out the word. Again and again, the sound rising and falling, coming from somewhere off to his right.
He found the pounding of his heart falling into that pulse, and warmth flowed through him, though he knew not the reason for it.
Darkness was drawing close.
That sound. That sound … voices. They are voices. Rising from the Malazans. What are they saying? What do they shout, again and again?
Abruptly, thick blood crackled in one ear, opened a way through, and he could at last hear the endlessly repeated cry.
‘Khundryl! Khundryl! Khundryl!’
A word for his fading heart, a song for his ending life. Coltaine, I shall stand before you. We shall ride with your Wickans. I see crows over the Ancestral Hills—
Sister Freedom strode forward as the huge Imass toppled. She kicked him on to his back, plunged her battered hands down, closed her fingers through torn, papery skin and ripped sinews, and took hold of his spine. She paused a moment, glaring at the one with the flint-studded harpoon who was rising yet again a few paces away.
The Forkrul Assail was a mass of wounds and broken bones, but she was far from dead. Bellowing, she lifted the T’lan Imass from the ground and broke his spine like a branch, twisting it amidst snapping, grinding sounds. Flinging the corpse away, she advanced on the last undead warrior.
‘This ends now!’
The female warrior backed away.
They were both down from the rise, down among heaps of bodies – cold flesh and thick, cooling blood underfoot, limbs that flopped away with each step.
Fury filled Freedom. At the murder of Brother Aloft. At the pathetic audacity and stubbornness of these T’lan Imass. At this army of foreigners who refused to break, who did nothing but die where they stood, killing her soldiers and killing yet more of them.