The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (1296 page)

 

Hedge fell against the hacked bodies of Sweetlard and Rumjugs. The trail just below where the two women had fought was jammed with corpses – but beyond them he could see more Kolansii soldiers, dragging the way clear. They'd be through in moments.

Too many. Fuck.

How long had they been fighting? He had no idea. How many waves of attacks? It seemed like hundreds, but that wasn't possible – they still had daylight above them. Dying daylight, aye, but still…

Eyes on the mass of enemy below, an enemy heaving ever closer, he drew round the satchel he had collected from the mound of gear close to the feet of the Crippled God. Drew out the cusser.
Always keep one. Always.

Sapper's vow. If you're going down, take the bastards with ya.

He lifted it high.

Behind him he heard Fiddler shriek his name.

Aw, shit. Sorry, Fid.

Hedge plunged down the trail, rushing the mob of Kolansii.

And then heard someone behind him, and whirled. ‘Fiddler, damn you! No! Go back!'

Instead, his friend tackled him. Both went down, the cusser flying from Hedge's hand.

Neither man ducked for cover, instead turning to watch the munition take its leisurely, curving path down to the press of soldiers – and all those bobbing iron helms.

It struck one of those helms clean as a coconut falling from a tree.

Burst open to spill insensate carmine powder.

The two sappers stared at each other, faces barely a hand's width apart, and in unison they cried, ‘Dud!'

And then a Malazan slammed down beside them in a clatter of armour – a man if anything shorter than Reliko, yet pale and thin, his ears protruding from the sides of his narrow head. He faced them and offered up a yellow, snaggle-toothed smile. ‘Got your backs, sirs. Get on wi'yee now!'

Fiddler stared at the man. ‘Who in Hood's name are you?'

The soldier gave him a hurt look. ‘I'm Nefarias Bredd, sir! Who else would I be? Now, get back up there – I'll cover yee, aye?'

Fiddler turned and dragged Hedge back on to his feet, pulling him up the trail. As they scrabbled to the edge, hands reached down and dragged them up. The faces of the marines now surrounding them – Tarr, Bottle, Smiles and Koryk – were the palest he had ever seen. Deadsmell arrived and fell to his knees beside the prone bodies of Rumjugs and Sweetlad, looked up and muttered something to Tarr.

Nodding, Sergeant Tarr pushed Hedge and Fiddler from the edge. ‘We got this breach taken care of, sirs.'

Fiddler grasped Hedge's arm, yanked him as he dragged him away.

‘Fid—'

‘Shut the fuck up!' He rounded on Hedge. ‘You thought to just do it all over again?'

‘It looked like we was finished!'

‘We ain't never finished, damn you! We drove 'em back again – you hearing me? They're pulling back – we drove them back
again
!'

Hedge's legs suddenly felt watery beneath him. He abruptly sat down. Gloom was settling round them. He listened to gasping breaths, cursing, ragged coughs. Looking about, he saw that the others within sight were also down on the ground, too tired for anything more. Heads fell back, eyes closed. His sigh was a rasp. ‘Gods, how many soldiers you got left, Fid?'

The man was now lying beside him, back propped against a tilted stone. ‘Maybe twenty. You?'

A shudder took Hedge and he looked away. ‘The sergeants were the last of 'em.'

‘They ain't dead.'

‘What?'

‘Cut up, aye. But just unconscious. Deadsmell figures it was heat prostration.'

‘Heat— Gods below, I told 'em to drink all they had!'

‘They're big women, Hedge.'

‘My last Bridgeburners.'

‘Aye, Hedge, your last Bridgeburners.'

Hedge opened his eyes and looked over at his friend – but Fid's own eyes remained shut, face towards the darkening sky. ‘Really? What you said?'

‘Really.'

Hedge settled back. ‘Think we can stop 'em again?'

‘Of course we can. Listen, you ain't hiding another cusser, are you?'

‘No. Hood take me, I been carrying that one for bloody ever. And all that time, it was a dud!'

 

Faces floated behind Fiddler's eyes. Stilled in death, when so many memories of each one gave them so much life – but that life was trapped now, inside Fiddler's own mind. And there they would remain, when in opening his eyes – which he was not yet ready to do – he would see only that stillness, the emptiness.

He knew which world he wanted to live in. But, people didn't have that choice, did they? Not unless they killed the spark inside themselves first. With drink, with the oblivion of sweet smoke, but those were false dreams and made mockery of the ones truly lost – the ones whose lives had passed.

Around him, the desperate gulps of breath were fading, the groans falling off as wounds were bound. Few soldiers had the strength to move, and he knew that they were now settled as he was, here against this stone. Too tired to move.

From the slope on all sides, the low cries and moans of wounded Kolansii lifted up, soft and forlorn, abandoned. The Malazans had killed hundreds, had wounded even more, and still the attackers would not relent, as if this hill had become the lone island in a world of rising seas.

But it's not that.

It's just the place we chose. To do what's right.

But then, maybe that alone gives reason to take us down, to destroy us.

Hedge was silent beside him, but not asleep – if he had been, his snores would have driven them all from this place, the Crippled God included, chains be damned. And from the army still surrounding them, down on the lower ground, nothing more than a sullen mutter of sound – soldiers resting, checking weapons and armour. Readying for the next assault.

The last assault.

Twenty-odd soldiers cannot stop an army.

Even these soldiers.

Someone coughed nearby, from some huddle of stones, and then spoke. ‘So, who are we fighting for again?'

Fiddler could not place the voice.

Nor the one that replied, ‘Everyone.'

A long pause, and then, ‘No wonder we're losing.'

Six, a dozen heartbeats, before someone snorted. A rumbling laugh followed, and then someone else burst out in a howl of mirth – and all at once, from the dark places among the rocks of this barrow, laughter burgeoned, rolled round, bounced and echoed.

Fiddler felt his mouth cracking wide in a grin, and then he barked a laugh, and then another. And then he simply could not stop, pain clenching his side. Beside him, Hedge was suddenly hysterical, twisting over and curling up as the laughter poured out of him.

Tears now in Fiddler's eyes – wiping them frantically – but the laughter went on.

And on.

Smiles looked over at the others in her squad, saw them doubling over, saw faces flushed and tears streaming down. Bottle. Koryk. Even Tarr. And Smiles…smiled.

When her squad-mates saw that, they convulsed as if gut-stabbed.

 

Lying jammed in a crack between two stones a third of the way down the slope, half buried beneath Kolansii corpses, and feeling the blood draining away from the deep, mortal wounds in his chest, Cuttle heard that laughter.

And in his mind he went back, and back. Childhood. The battles they fought, the towering redoubts they defended, the sunny days of dust and sticks for swords and running this way and that, where time was nothing but a world without horizons – and the days never closed, and every stone felt perfect in the palm of the hand, and when a bruise arrived, or a cut opened red, why he need only run to his ma or da, and they would take his shock and indignation and make it all seem less important – and then that disturbance would be gone, drifting into the time of before, and ahead there was only the sun and the brightness of never growing up.

To the stones and sweat and blood here in his last resting place, Cuttle smiled, and then he whispered to them in his mind,
You should have seen our last stands. They were something.

They were something.

Darkness, and then brightness – brightness like a summer day without end. He went there, without a single look back.

 

Lying beneath the weight of the chains, the Crippled God, who had been listening, now heard. Long-forgotten, half-disbelieved emotions rose up through him, ferocious and bright. He drew a sharp breath, feeling his throat tighten.
I will remember this. I will set out scrolls and burn upon them the names of these Fallen. I will make of this work a holy tome, and no other shall be needed.

Hear them! They are humanity unfurled, laid out for all to see – if one would dare look!

There shall be a Book and it shall be written by my hand. Wheel and seek the faces of a thousand gods! None can do what I can do! Not one can give voice to this holy creation!

But this is not bravado. For this, my Book of the Fallen, the only god worthy of its telling is the crippled one. The broken one. And has it not always been thus?

I never hid my hurts.

I never disguised my dreams.

And I never lost my way.

And only the fallen can rise again.

He listened to the laughter, and suddenly the weight of those chains was as nothing.
Nothing.

 

‘They have resurr—' Brother Grave stopped. He turned, faced the dark hill.

Beside him, High Watered Haggraf's eyes slowly widened – and on all sides the Kolansii soldiers were looking up at the barrow, the weapons in their hands sagging. More than a few took a backward step.

As laughter rolled down to them all.

When Brother Grave pushed harshly through the soldiers, marching towards the corpse-strewn foot of the hill, Haggraf followed.

The Pure halted five paces beyond the milling, disordered ranks, stared upward. He flung Haggraf a look drawn taut with incredulity. ‘Who are these foreigners?'

The High Watered could only shake his head, a single motion.

Brother Grave's face darkened. ‘There are but a handful left – there will be no retreat this time, do you understand me? No retreat! I want them all cut down!'

‘Yes sir.'

The Forkrul Assail glared at the soldiers. ‘Form up, all of you! Prepare to advance!'

Suddenly, from the hill, deathly silence.

Brother Grave smiled. ‘Hear that? They know that it is over!'

A faint whistling in the air, and then Haggraf grunted in pain, staggering to one side – an arrow driven through his left shoulder.

Brother Grave spun to him, glared.

Teeth clenching, Haggraf tore the iron point from his shoulder, almost collapsing from the burst of agony as blood streamed down. Staring down at the glistening sliver of wood in his hand, he saw that it was Kolansii.

 

Snarling, Brother Grave wheeled and forced his way back through the press of soldiers. He would join this assault – he would ride his Jhag horse to the very top, cutting down every fool who dared stand in his way.

In his mind, seeping in from the soldiers surrounding him, he could hear whispers of dread and fear, and beneath that palpable bitterness there was something else – something that forced its way through his utter command of their bodies, their wills.

These were hardened veterans, one and all. By their hands they had delivered slaughter, upon foes armed and unarmed, at the command of the Forkrul Assail. They had been slaves for years now. And yet, like a black current beneath the stone of his will, Brother Grave sensed emotions that had nothing to do with a desire to destroy the enemy now opposing them.

They were in…
awe
.

The very notion infuriated him.

‘
Silence! They are mortal! They have not the wits to accept the inevitable! You will fight them, you will take them down, every last one of them!
' Seeing them wither before his command, a surge of satisfaction rushed through him and he moved on.

‘And I will claim the Crippled God,' he hissed under his breath, finally pushing clear of the troops, marching towards his hobbled horse. ‘I will wound him and Akhrast Korvalain shall be reborn, and then none will be able to oppose me. None!'

Motion off to his left caught his attention. He halted, squinted into the green-tinted gloom.

Someone was walking towards him across the plain.

What now?

At forty paces he saw the figure raise its arms.

The sorcery that erupted from him was a blinding, coruscating wave, argent as the heart of lightning. It tore across the ground between them, struck one edge of the Kolansii ranks, and scythed through them.

Bellowing in answer, Brother Grave threw up his hands a moment before the magic struck.