A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

the two men.
    Quick Ben twisted onto his side, cursing. 'Hold on, Captain!'
    A warren opened around them.
    And they were suddenly under water, armour pulling them down into darkness.
    Grey light streaked wild and savage directly above, a thundering concussion visibly descending towards the two men.
    Water exploded on all sides, hard roots cracking against Paran's ribs. Coughing, gasping, he clawed at mud.
    A hand closed round a strap of his harness, began dragging him across the sodden forest floor. 'Where's your damned sword?'
    Paran managed to pull his legs under him, stumbled upright. 'Sword? You bastard! I was drowning!'
    'Damn!' the wizard swore. 'You'd better hope that bird's still stunned.'
    A murderous glance revealed Quick Ben's sorry state – blood streamed from the man's ears, nose and mouth. His leather armour had split along every seam. Paran looked down to see that his own banded armour was similarly mangled. He wiped at his mouth – his gauntlet came away smeared red.
    'I've still got my pig-sticker.'
    'Pull it out, I think we're close ...'
    Ahead, between the trees, broken branches littered the floor. Smoke drifted from the ground.
    Then Paran saw it – Quick Ben's warning grip on the captain's arm indicated that the wizard, too, had detected the black mass in the shadows off to one side, a mass that glistened as it moved.
    The flash of a pale grey neck, the glimmer of a hooked beak. Tendrils of sorcery, dancing, building.
    Paran hesitated no longer, rushing past the wizard, knife sliding from its scabbard.
    The creature was huge, its body the size of a female bhed-erin, the neck rising from hunched shoulders like a snake. Black, slimy head with nightmare eyes swinging towards him.
    Something whipped past Paran from behind – a wraith, clawed hands reaching for the condor.
    The creature hissed, recoiling, then the head snapped out.
    Sorcery flashed.
    The wraith was gone.
    Paran twisted away from the condor's head. Drove the sticker's long blade down, deep into its back. He felt the blade deflect from the spine and cursed.
    A shrill scream, a flash of black motion, and Paran found himself engulfed in black, oily, smothering feathers. Hooked beak scored lashing pain along his temple, ripping down to take his ear – he felt the grisly snip, the spray of hot blood down onto his neck.
    Awareness fragmented to an explosion of bestial rage, rising within him—
    Ten paces away, on his knees – too battered to do more than simply watch – Quick Ben stared, disbelieving, as the two figures thrashed in battle. Paran was almost invisible within a writhing, shadow-woven Hound. Not a Soletaken – not a veering. These are two creatures – man and beast – woven together . . . somehow. And the power behind it – it's Shadow. Kurald Emurlahn.
    The Hound's massive jaws and finger-long canines ripped into the condor, chewing a path up the creature's shoulders towards the neck. The demon, in turn, tore again and again into the beast – its flanks ribboned and spurting all too real blood.
    The earth shook beneath the two beasts. A wing shot up to hammer into a tree. Bone and wood snapped as one. The condor screamed.
    The tree's broken base – knee-high – punched out and then down, pinning the flailing wing, then grinding through the limb as it toppled back, away from the two contestants, crashing in a storm of branches and bark.
    Hound's jaws closed on condor's neck.
    Vertebrae crunched.
    The creature's head flopped back to thud onto the churned forest floor.
    The shadows of the triumphant Hound flickered – then the beast vanished.
    Paran rolled from the dead bird's body.
    Quick Ben could barely see the man beneath the shredded flesh and blood. The wizard's eyes widened as the ghastly figure slowly climbed to its feet. The skin along his right temple hung down, away from the bone. Half the ear on that side was gone, cut in a curved line that streamed blood.
    Paran lifted his head, met the wizard's gaze. 'What happened?'
    Quick Ben pushed himself to his feet. 'Come with me, Captain. We're taking a warren to a healer.'
    'A healer?' Paran asked. 'Why?'
    The wizard looked into the captain's eyes and saw no sign of awareness at all. 'All right.' Quick Ben took Paran's arm. 'Here we go ...'
     
    Picker pushed her way through the boughs until she came within sight of the forest floor below. No-one in sight. Muddy tracks were all that remained of the Beklites who had passed beneath them half a bell past. She