A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

walls – what had been a featureless desert now showed its bones, and they crowded the floor in such profusion as to leave Fiddler in awe. He could not take a step without something crunching underfoot.
    A high stone-lined bank suddenly blocked their way. It was sloped, rising to well above their heads. Fiddler paused for a long moment, then he gathered his mount's reins and led the climb. Scrambling, stumbling against the steep bank, they eventually reached the top and found themselves on a road.
    The paving stones were exquisitely cut, evenly set, with the thinnest of cracks visible between them. Bemused, Fiddler crouched down, trying to hold his focus as he studied the road's surface – a task made more difficult by the streams of airborne sand racing over the stones. There was no telling its age. While he imagined that, even buried beneath the sands, there would be signs of wear, he could detect none. Moreover, the engineering showed skill beyond any masonry he'd yet seen in Seven Cities.
    To his right and left the road ran spearshaft-straight as far as his squinting eyes could see. It stood like a vast breakwater that even this sorcerous storm could not breach.
    Crokus leaned close. 'I thought there were no roads in Raraku!' he shouted over the storm's keening wail.
    The sapper shook his head, at a loss to explain.
    'Do we follow it?' Crokus asked. 'The wind's not as bad up here—'
    As far as Fiddler could judge, the road angled southwest-ward, deep into the heart of Raraku. To the northeast it would reach the Pan'potsun Hills within ten leagues – in that direction they would come to the hills perhaps five leagues south of where they had left them. There seemed little value in that. He stared again down the road to his right. The heart of Raraku. It is said an oasis lies there. Where Sha'ik and her renegades are encamped. How far to that oasis? Can water be found anywhere in between here and there? Surely a road crossing a desert would be constructed to intersect sources of water. It was madness to think otherwise, and clearly the builders of this road were too skilled to be fools. Tremorlor . . . If the gods will it, Ms track will lead us to that legendary gate. Raraku has a heart, Quick Ben said. Tremorlor, a House of the Azath.
    Fiddler mounted the Gral gelding. 'We follow the road,' he yelled to his companions, gesturing southwestward.
    They voiced no complaints, turning to their mounts. They had bowed to his command, Fiddler realized, because both were lost in this land. They relied on him completely. Hood's breath, they think I know what I'm doing. Should I now tell them that the plan to find Tremorlor rests entirely on the faith that the fabled place actually exists? And that Quick Ben's suppositions are accurate, despite his unwillingness to explain the source of his certainty? Do I tell them we're more likely to die out here than anything else – if not from wasting thirst, then at the hands of Sha'ik's fanatical followers?
    'Fid!' Crokus cried, pointing up the road. He spun around to see a handful of Gral warriors ascending the bank, less than fifty paces away. Their hunters had split up into smaller parties, as dismissive of the sorcerous storm as Fiddler's group had been. A moment later they saw their quarry and voiced faint war cries as they pulled their horses onto the flat top.
    'Do we run?' Apsalar asked.
    The Gral had remounted and were now unslinging their lances.
    'Looks like they're not interested in conversation,' the sapper muttered. In a louder voice he said, 'Leave them to me! You two ride on!'
    'What, again?' Crokus slid back down from his horse. 'What would be the point?'
    Apsalar followed suit. She stepped close to Fiddler, her eyes meeting his. 'With you dead, what are our chances of surviving this desert?'
    About as bad as with me leading you. He fought the temptation to give voice to his thought, simply shrugging in reply as he unlimbered his crossbow. 'I mean to make this a short engagement,' he said, loading a cusser quarrel into the weapon's slot.
    The Gral had pulled their mounts into position on the road. Lances lowered, they kicked the horses into motion.
    Despite himself, Fiddler's heart broke for those Gral horses, even as he aimed and fired. The quarrel struck the road three paces in front of the charging tribesmen. The detonation was deafening, the blast a bruised gout of flame that drove back the airborne sand and the wind carrying it, and flung the attackers and