A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

blackened, until only Toblakai's impassive, battered face remained, coolly watching Bidithal's death.
    Death? Yes. You fool, Toblakai —
    The hand around his neck relaxed, drew away.
    Involuntarily, Bidithal drew in an agonizing breath and made to scream—
    Something soft and bloody was pushed into his mouth.
    'For you, Bidithal. For every nameless girl-child you destroyed. Here. Choke on your pleasure.'
    And choke he did. Until Hood's Gate yawned—
    And there, gathered by the Lord of Death, waited demons who were of like nature to Bidithal himself, gleefully closing about their new victim.
    A lifetime of vicious pleasure. An eternity of pain in answer.
    For even Hood understood the necessity for balance.
     
    Lostara Yil edged up from the sinkhole and squinted in an effort to pierce the gloom. A glance behind her revealed a starlit desert, luminous and glittering. Yet, ahead, darkness swathed the oasis and the ruined city within it. A short while earlier she had heard distant thumps, faint screams, but now silence had returned.
    The air had grown bitter cold. Scowling, Lostara checked her weapons, then made to leave.
    'Make no move,' a voice murmured from a pace or two off to her right.
    Her head snapped round, then her scowl deepened. 'If you're here to watch, Cotillion, there's little to see. I woke Pearl, and he hardly swore at all, despite the headache. He's in there, somewhere—'
    'Aye, he is, lass. But already he's returning ... because he can feel what's coming.'
    'What's coming. Enough to make you hide here beside me?'
    The shadow-shrouded god seemed to shrug. 'There are times when it is advisable to step back ... and wait. The Holy Desert itself senses the approach of an ancient foe, and will rise in answer if need be. Even more precarious, the fragment of Kurald Emurlahn that the Whirlwind Goddess would claim is manifesting itself. The goddess is fashioning a portal, a gate – one massive enough to swallow this entire oasis. Thus, she too makes a play for Raraku's immortal heart. The irony is that she herself is being manipulated, by a far cleverer god, who would take this fragment for himself, and call it his House of Chains. So you see, Lostara Shadow Dancer, best we remain precisely where we are. For tonight, and in this place, worlds are at war.'
    'It is nothing to Pearl and me,' she insisted, squinting hard into the gloom. 'We're here for Felisin—'
    'And you have found her, but she remains beyond you. Beyond Pearl as well. For the moment...'
    'Then we must needs but await the clearing of the path.'
    'Aye. As I have advised, patience.'
    Shadows swirled, hissed over sand, then the god was gone.
    Lostara grunted. 'Goodbye to you as well,' she muttered, then drew her cloak tighter about herself and settled down to wait.
     
    Assassins armed with crossbows had crept up behind him. Febryl had killed them, one after another, as soon as they arrived, with a host of most painful spells, and now his sorcerous web told him that there were no more. Indeed, Korbolo Dom and Kamist Reloe had been bearded in their den. By ghosts and worse – agents of the Malazan Empire.
    Wide and bloody paths had carved messily across his web, leaving him blind here and there, but none stretched anywhere close to his position ... so far. And soon, the
oasis behind him would become as a nightmare wakened into horrid reality, and Febryl himself would vanish from the minds of his enemies in the face of more immediate threats.
    Dawn was but two bells away. While, behind him, darkness had devoured the oasis, the sky overhead and to the east was comparatively bright with the glitter of stars. Indeed, everything was proceeding perfectly.
    The starlight also proved sufficient for Febryl to detect the shadow that fell over him.
    'I never liked you much,' rumbled a voice above him.
    Squealing, Febryl sought to dive forward.
    But was effortlessly plucked and lifted high from the ground.
    Then broken.
    The snap of his spine was like brittle wood in the cold night air.
     
    Karsa Orlong flung Febryl's corpse away. He glared up at the stars for a moment, drew a deep breath into his lungs, and sought to clear his mind.
    Urugal's withered voice was screaming in his skull. It had been that voice, and that will, that had driven him step by step from the oasis.
    The false god of the Uryd tribe wanted Karsa Orlong ... gone.
    He was being pushed hard ... away from what was coming, from what was about to happen in the oasis.
    But Karsa did not