Gods help us all
.
Pulling Stormy on to the blood-soaked embankment of the third trench, he looked back upslope.
She was walking alone towards the massed Kolansii. Little more than a child, stick-thin, looking undernourished. Pathetic.
When Gesler saw her raise her hands, he flinched.
With a terrible roar a wall of fire engulfed the highest trench. Scalding winds erupted in savage gusts, rolling back down the slope – Gesler saw the corpses nearest the girl crisp black, limbs suddenly pulling, curling inward in the heat’s bitter womb.
And then Sinn began walking, and, as she did so, she marched the wall of fire ahead of her.
Kalyth stumbled to her knees beside Gesler. ‘You must call her back! She can’t just burn them all alive!’
Gesler sagged back. ‘It’s too late, Kalyth. There’s no stopping her now.’
Kalyth screamed – a raw, breaking sound, her hands up at her face – but even she could not tear her eyes from the scene.
The fire devoured the army crouched against the base of the Spire. Bodies simply exploded, blood boiling. Thousands of soldiers burst into flames, their flesh melting. Everything within the fire blackened, began crumbling away. And still the firestorm raged.
Gunth Mach was crouched down over Stormy, oil streaming from her clawed hands and sealing the wound on his leg, but he was already pushing those hands away. ‘Gesler – we got to reach those stairs—’
‘I know,’ he said.
Through fire. Well, of course it has to be us
.
‘She won’t stop,’ Stormy said, pushing himself to his feet, swaying like a drunk. ‘She’ll take it for herself – all that power.’
‘I know, Stormy!
I know, damn you!
’ Gesler forced himself to his feet. He squinted inland. ‘Gods below – what is that?’
‘A ghost army,’ Kalyth said. ‘The Matron says they simply came down from the sky.’
‘Send the Ve’Gath that way – all of them, Kalyth! Do you understand – you need to get them as far away from this as possible. If Sinn reaches the heart, that fire’s likely to consume the whole fucking land for leagues around!’
She pulled at him. ‘Then you can do nothing. Don’t you see – you can’t—’
Gesler took her face in his hands and kissed her hard on the lips. ‘Teach these lizards, Kalyth, only the best in us humans.
Only the best
.’ He turned to Stormy. ‘All right, let’s go. Forget any weapons – they’ll get too hot in our hands. We can tear off this armour on the way.’
‘Stop ordering me around!’
Side by side, the two old marines set out.
They climbed across greasy bodies, over ground that steamed, and through air hot as the breath of a smithy’s forge.
‘Can’t believe you, Ges,’ gasped Stormy. ‘You called on Fener!’
‘I wasn’t the only one, Stormy! I heard you—’
‘Not me – must’ve been someone else. You called him and someone fucking killed him! Gesler, you went and killed our god!’
‘Go to Hood,’ Gesler growled. ‘Who crossed his finger bones when he swore off that cult? Wasn’t that you? I think it was.’
‘You told me you did the same!’
‘Right, so let’s just forget it – we both killed Fener, all right?’
Five more strides and there could be no more words – every breath scalded, and the leathers they now wore as their only clothing had begun to blacken.
Now it’s going to get bad
.
But this is Telas. I can feel it – we’ve been through this before
. He looked for Sinn, but could not see her anywhere.
Walked out of the flames at Y’Ghatan. Walked into them here. It’s her world in there, it always was. But we knew that, didn’t we?
I swear I can hear her laughing
.
The two men pushed forward.
Kalyth cried out when Gesler and Stormy vanished into the flames. She did not understand. She had looked on in disbelief as they had stepped over bodies reduced to black ash – she had seen their tunics catch fire.
‘Matron – what gift is this? What power do they possess?’
‘
Destriant, this surpasses me. But it is now clear to me – as it is to all of us – that you chose most wisely. If we could, we would follow these two humans into the firestorm itself. If we could, we would follow them to the edge of the very Abyss. You ask what manner of men are these – Destriant, I was about to ask this very same question of you
.’
She shook her head, shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. Malazans.’
The flames drove him back. And this was a source of fury and anguish. He tried again and again, but his beloved master was beyond his reach. Howling, he raced back and forth along the third berm, the foul stench of his own burnt hair acrid in his nostrils
.
And then he saw the pup – the one of tangled hair and piercing voice, the pup that never grew up – running towards the cold, towards the frozen sea
.
Had the pup found a way round this burning air?
The Wickan cattledog with the scarred face tore off in pursuit
.
There would be a way round – he would find his master again. To fight at his side. There was, for Bent, no other reason to exist
.
The base around the Spire had been reduced to scorched bedrock – not a scrap of armour remained, nothing but molten streaks of iron tracking the slopes of the blackened stone.
Yet Gesler and Stormy walked through the conflagration. Their leathers had melted on to their bodies, hard and brittle as eggshells, and as the two marines pushed closer to the stairs the clothing’s remnants cracked, made crazed patterns like a snake’s shedding skin.
Gesler could see the stairs – but she wasn’t there. His gaze tracked upward.
Shit
. She was already a quarter of the way up. He punched at Stormy’s shoulder and pointed.
They reached the base, set foot on the baked, crumbling stone.
Stormy edged into Gesler’s path and began gesturing – the hand language of the marines. ‘
Leave her to me – I’ll slow her up, hold her back, whatever. You go past. You go fast as you can – get to the top
.’
‘
Listen – this was almost too much, even for us. She’ll cook you down to bones
—’
‘
Never mind that. I’ll hold her back – just don’t fuck up up there, Ges! Throw the hag off the edge. Get that damned heart!
’
Gesler’s legs ached with every step – he was too tired for this. A whole day of fighting. The strain of command. The seemingly endless slaughter. By the time he reached the top – assuming they even got past Sinn – he’d have nothing left. Weaponless, face to face with a damned Forkrul Assail.
Sinn had not looked back down, not once. She had no idea she was being pursued. Her steps were measured, relentless but slow, almost casual.
They had all climbed above the flames, which had at last begun dying below them.
The girl would hold it back now – saving it for the Forkrul Assail. Telas to wage war against the Assail’s warren.
Old old shit, all of this. Can’t they all just go away? Back into their forgotten graves. It’s not right, us having to fight in wars we didn’t even start – wars that have been going on for so long they don’t mean a thing any more
.
You took a foreign god’s wounded heart. I see the blood on your lips. It’s not right. It just isn’t
.
Adjunct. I know you ain’t dead. Well, no, I don’t. But I refuse to believe you failed. I don’t think there’s a thing in this world that can stop you. We’ll do our part. You’ll know that much – you’ll know it
.
Make this right. Make it all right
.
Stormy was one step up from Gesler. He saw his friend reaching out, saw his hand close about Sinn’s ankle.
And then, visibly snarling, Stormy tore her from the stairs, swung her out into the air behind him, and let go.
Gesler saw her plummet – saw her mouth open wide in shock, and then that visage darkened.
Now you got her mad, Stormy
.
But he was reaching now for Gesler, grasping his arm and lifting him past. ‘Go, Gesler! Climb your sorry arse off!’
A push that almost sent Gesler sprawling against the steps, but he recovered, and pulled himself upward, leaving Stormy in his wake.
Don’t look down – don’t look at him, Gesler. You know why – don’t
— Instead he paused, twisted round, met his friend’s eyes.
Their gazes locked.
And then Stormy nodded, and flashed a half-mad smile.
Gesler made a rude gesture, and then, before his heart could shatter, he turned back to the stone steps and resumed his ascent.
Hood pulled himself over a splintered ridge of ice and looked up once more. Not far now. The ice road was groaning, cracks spreading like lightning. He had felt the assault of Olar Ethil – her hatred of Omtose Phellack unleashing power that raked through him sharp as talons – and then it had vanished, and he knew that she was dead. But the damage had been done. There was the very real chance that he would not make it, that this spar of ice would shatter beneath him, sending him down to his death.
Death. Now, that was an interesting notion. One that, perhaps, he should have been more familiar with than any other being, but the truth was, he knew nothing about it at all. The Jaghut went to war against death. So many met that notion with disbelief, or confusion. They could not understand. Who is the enemy?
The enemy is surrender
. Where is the battlefield?
In the heart of despair
. How is victory won?
It lies within reach. All you need do is choose to recognize it. Failing that, you can always cheat. Which is what I did
.
How did I defeat death?
By taking its throne
.
And now the blood of a dying god had gifted him with mortal flesh – with a return to mortality. Unexpected. Possibly unwelcome. Potentially …
fatal. But then, who has a choice in these matters?
Ah, yes, I did
.
A rumble of laughter from deep in his chest followed the thought. He resumed his climb.
Ahead was a broad fissure cutting diagonally across his path. He would have to jump it. Dangerous and undignified. His moment of humour fell away.
He could sense the nearby unleashing of Telas – could see how the air around the Spire was grey with smoke, and the stench of burnt flesh swept over him on an errant gust of wind from inland.
This is not by the hand of an Imass. This is something … new. Foul with madness
.
This could defeat us all
.
He reached the fissure, threw himself over its span. His chest struck the edge, the impact almost winding him, and he clawed handholds in the rotted ice beyond. And then waited for a moment, recovering, before dragging himself from the crevasse. As he cleared it a solid shape flashed past on his left, landed with a crunch, claws digging into the crusted snow –
a dog
.
A dog?
He stared at it as it scrabbled yet higher, running like a fiend from the Abyss.
From behind him, on the other side of the fissure, Hood heard furious barking, and looking back he saw another dog – or, rather, some shrunken, hair-snarled mockery of a dog, rushing up to the edge only to pull back.
Don’t even try
—
And then, with a launching leap, the horrid creature was sailing through the air.
Not far enough—
Hood cursed as jaws clamped on his left foot, the teeth punching through the rotted leathers of his boot. Hissing in pain he swung his leg round, kicked to shake off the snarling creature. He caught a blurred glimpse of its horrid face – like a rat that had been slammed headfirst into a wall – as it shot past him, on the trail of the bigger animal.
He glared after it for a moment, and then the Jaghut picked himself up, and resumed climbing.
With a limp.
She had been hurt by the fall, Stormy saw, watching as she laboriously made her way back up the stairs. Her left arm was clearly broken, the shoulder dislocated, skin scraped off where she had struck the unyielding bedrock. Had they been a dozen steps higher, she would be dead now.
The marine swore under his breath, twisted round to glare up at Gesler. He’d reached some kind of rest platform, maybe twenty-five steps below the summit.
What’s he doing? Taking a damned breather? There’s no time for that, you idiot! Go!
‘I will kill you!’
At the shriek Stormy looked back down. Ten steps between him and Sinn. Her face was lifted towards him, made demonic by hatred and rage.
A billowing gust of scorching heat rushed up to buffet him. He backed up the steps. Two, three, five.
She climbed closer.
The air ignited around Sinn, red and orange flames, white-hot where her body had been. Yet from that raging, incandescent core, he could still see her eyes – fixed on him.
Gods below, she is not even human! Was she ever human? What manner of creature is this?