A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

rally position, his officers drawing
round him and bellowing orders. He saw Tene Baralta and
Captain Lostara Yil at the head of a narrow column that
had already begun moving.
    The sappers had messed up. That much was clear. And
some of them had not made it back. Damned fools, and they
weren't even under fire.
    He saw the fires guttering out in the gap, although webs
of flame clung stubbornly to the still-upright buildings to
either side. 'First, second and third squads,' Keneb said
to Captain Faradan Sort. 'The heavies lead the way into
the breach.'
    'The marines are already through, Fist.'
    'I know, Captain, but I want backup close behind them
if things get hairy. Get them moving.'
    'Aye, Fist.'
    Keneb glanced back to the higher ground on the other
side of the road and saw a row of figures watching. The
Adjunct, T'amber, Nil and Nether. Fist Blistig and
Warleader Gall. Fist Temul was likely out with his horsewarriors,
ranging round the city on the other sides. There
was always a chance Leoman would leave his followers to
their grisly fate and attempt to escape on his own. Such
things were not unknown.
    'Sergeant Cord!'
    The soldier strolled up. Keneb noted the sigil of the
Ashok Regiment on the man's battered leather armour, but
elected to ignore it. For now. 'Lead the mediums in,
seventh through twelfth squads.'
    'Aye, Fist, we're dogging the heavies' heels.'
    'Good. This will be street and alley fighting, Sergeant,
assuming the bastards don't surrender outright.'
    'I'd be surprised if they did that, Fist.'
    'Me too. Get going, Sergeant.'
    Finally, some motion among the troops of his company.
The waiting was over. The Fourteenth was heading into
battle. Hood look away from us this night. Just look away.
     
    Bottle and Cuttle rejoined their squad. Sergeant Strings
carried his lobber crossbow, a cusser quarrel slotted and
locked.
    'There's a way through the flames,' Strings said, wiping
sweat from his eyes, then spitting. 'Koryk and Tarr up front.
Cuttle to the rear and keep a sharper in your hand. Behind
the front two, me and Smiles. You're a step behind us,
Bottle.'
    'You want more illusions, Sergeant?'
    'No, I want your other stuff. Ride the rats and pigeons
and bats and spiders and whatever in Hood's name else is in
there. I need eyes you can look through into places we can't
see.'
    'Expecting a trap?' Bottle asked.
    'There's Borduke and his squad, dammit. First into the
breach. Come on, on their heels!'
    They sprinted forward across the uneven, rock-littered
ground. Moonlight struggled through the dust haze. Bottle
quested with his senses, seeking life somewhere ahead, but
what he found was in pain, dying, trickling away beneath
mounds of rubble, or stunned insensate by the concussions.
'We have to get past the blast area,' he said to Strings.
    'Right,' the sergeant replied over a shoulder. 'That's the
idea.'
    They reached the edge of the vast, sculpted crater
created by Crump's munitions. Borduke and his squad were
scrambling up the other side, and Bottle saw that the wall
they climbed was tiered with once-buried city ruins, ceilings
and floors compressed, cracked, collapsed, sections of
wall that had slid out and down into the pit itself, taking
with them older layers of floor tiles. He saw that both
Balgrid and Maybe had survived the explosion, but
wondered how many sappers and squad mages they had
lost. Some gut instinct told him Crump had survived.
    Borduke and his squad were having a hard time of it.
    'To the right,' Strings said. 'We can skirt it and get
through before them!'
    Borduke heard and twisted round from where he clung to
the wall, three quarters of the way up. 'Bastards! Balgrid,
get that fat butt of yours moving, damn you!'
    Koryk found a way round the crater, clambering over the
rubble, and Bottle and the others followed. Too distracted
for the moment by the effort of staying on his feet, Bottle
did not attempt to sense the myriad, minuscule life beyond
the blast area, in the city itself. Time for that later, he
hoped.
    The half-blood Seti's progress halted suddenly, and the
mage looked up to see that Koryk had encountered an
obstacle, a broad crack in a sharply angled, subterranean
floor, a man's height below ground-level. Dust-smeared
tiles revealed the painted images of yellow birds in flight,
all seeming to be heading deep underground with the slanting
pitch of the floor.
    Koryk glanced back at Strings. 'Saw the whole slab
move, Sergeant. Not sure how solid our footing will be.'
    'Hood