A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

turned.
'Corporal Shard, you heard Fid. Send word back to Keneb.'
    'Aye, Sergeant.'
    'Sinn,' Cord added, speaking to a young girl nearby, 'put
that knife away – he's already dead.'
    She looked up, even as her blade cut through the base of
the dead warrior's right index finger. She held it up for display,
then stuffed it into a belt pouch.
    'Nice girl you got there,' Strings said. 'Had us one of
those, once.'
    'Shard! Hold back there! Send Sinn with the message,
will you?'
    'I don't want to go back!' Sinn shouted.
    'Too bad,' Cord said. Then, to Strings: 'We'll link up
with Mosel's heavies behind you.'
    Strings nodded. 'All right, squad, let's try out the next
street, shall we?'
    Bottle swallowed back another surge of nausea, then he
joined the others as they scrambled towards Koryk and
Cuttle. Gods, this is going to be brutal.
     
    Sergeant Gesler could smell it. Trouble in the night.
Unrelieved darkness from gaping windows, yawning doorways,
and on flanking streets, where other squads were
moving, the sounds of pitched battle. Yet, before them, no
movement, no sound – nothing at all. He raised his right
hand, hooked two fingers and made a downward tugging
motion. Behind him he heard boots on the cobbles, one
padding off to his left, the other to his right, away, halting
when the soldiers reached the flanking buildings. Truth on
his left, Pella on his right, crossbows out, eyes on opposite
rooftops and upper windows.
    Another gesture and Sands came up from behind to
crouch at his side. 'Well?' Gesler demanded, wishing for the
thousandth time that Stormy was here.
    'It's bad,' Sands said. 'Ambushes.'
    'Right, so where's ours? Go back and call up Moak and
his squad, and Tugg's – I want those heavies clearing these
buildings, before it all comes down on us. What sappers we
got with us?'
    'Thom Tissy's squad's got some,' Sands said. 'Able, Jump
and Gupp, although they just decided to become sappers
tonight, a bell or so ago.'
    'Great, and they got munitions?'
    'Aye, Sergeant.'
    'Madness. All right. Get Thom Tissy's squad up here,
too. I heard one cusser go off already – might be the only
way to do this.'
    'Okay, Sergeant. I'll be right back.'
    Under-strength squads and a night engagement in a
strange, hostile city. Had the Adjunct lost her mind?
     
    Twenty paces away, Pella crouched low, his back against a
mud-brick wall. He thought he'd caught movement in
a high window opposite, but he couldn't be certain – not
enough to call out the alarm. Might well have been a
curtain or something, plucked by the wind.
    Only ... there ain't much wind.
    Eyes fixed on that particular window, he slowly raised his
crossbow.
    Nothing. Just darkness.
    Distant detonations – sharpers, he guessed, somewhere
to the south. We're supposed to be pushing in hard and fast,
and here we are, bogged down barely one street in from the
breach. Gesler's gotten way too cautious, I think.
    He heard the clank of weapons, armour and the thud of
footfalls as more squads came up. Flicking his gaze away
from the window, he watched as Sergeant Tugg led his
heavies towards the building opposite. Three soldiers from
Thorn Tissy's squad padded up to the doorway of the building
Pella was huddled against. Jump, Gupp and Able. Pella
saw sharpers in their hands – and nothing else. He
crouched lower, then returned his attention to the distant
window, cursing under his breath, waiting for one of them
to toss a grenado in through the doorway.
    On the other side of the street, Tugg's squad plunged into
the building – there was a shout from within, the clang of
weapons, sudden screams—
    Then more shrieking, this time from the building at
Pella's back, as the three sappers rushed inside. Pella
cringed – no, you fools! You don't carry them inside – you
throw them!
    A sharp crack, shaking dust from the wall behind Pella,
grit raining down onto the back of his neck, then screams.
Another concussion – ducking still lower, Pella looked
back up at the opposite window—
    To see, momentarily, a single flash—
    —to feel the shock of surprise—
    —as the arrow sped at him. A hard, splintering cracking
sound. Pella's head was thrown back, helm crunching
against the wall. Something, wavering, at the upper edge of
his vision, but those edges were growing darker. He heard
his crossbow clatter to the cobbles at his feet, then distant
pain as his knees struck the stones, the jolt peeling skin
away – he'd done that once, as a child, playing in the