A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

erupted, with geysers of burning oil shooting
skyward, obliterating the darkness, revealing the sky
filling with tumbling black clouds.
    'Nil, Nether,' the Adjunct said in a brittle voice, 'gather
our mages – all of them – I want the flames smothered in
the breach. I want—'
    'Adjunct,' Nether cut in, 'we have not the power.'
    'The old earth spirits,' Nil added in a dull tone, 'are
dying, fleeing the flames, the baking agony, all dying or
fleeing. Something is about to be born ...'
    Before them, the city of Y'Ghatan was brightening into
day, yet a lurid, terrible day.
     
    Coughing, staggering, wounded soldiers half-carried, halfdragged
through the press – but there was nowhere to go.
Keneb stared – the air burning his eyes – at the mass of his
soldiers. Seven, eight hundred. Where were the others? But
he knew.
    Gone. Dead.
    In the streets beyond, he could see naught but fire, leaping
from building to building, filling the fierce, hot air, with
a voice of glee, demonic, hungry and eager.
    He needed to do something. Think of something, but
this heat, this terrible heat – his lungs were heaving, desperate
despite the searing pain that blossomed with each
strained breath. Lungful after lungful, yet it was as if the air
itself had died, all life sucked from it, and so could offer him
nothing.
    His own armour was cooking him alive. He was on his
knees, now, with all the others. 'Armour!' he rasped, not
knowing if anyone could hear him. 'Get it off! Armour!
Weapons!' Gods below, my chest – the pain —
     
    A blade-on-blade parry, holding contact, two edges rasping
against each other, then, as the warrior pushed harder with
his scimitar, Lostara Yil ducked low, disengaged her sword
downward, slashing up and under, taking him in the throat.
Blood poured out. Stepping past, she batted aside another
weapon thrusting at her – a spear – hearing splinters from
the shaft as she pushed it to one side. In her left hand was
her kethra knife, which she punched into her foe's belly,
twisting as she yanked it back out again.
    Lostara staggered free of the crumpling warrior, a
flood of sorrow shooting through her as she heard him
call out a woman's name before he struck the cobbles.
    The fight raged on all sides, her three squads now down
to fewer than a dozen soldiers, whilst yet more of the
berserk fanatics closed in from the flanking buildings –
market shops, shuttered doors kicked down and now
billowing smoke, carrying out into the street the reek of
overheated oil, spitting, crackling sounds – something went thump and all at once there was fire—
    Everywhere.
     
    Lostara Yil cried out a warning, even as another warrior
rushed her. Parrying with the knife, stop-thrusting with her
sword, then kicking the impaled body from her blade, his
sagging weight nearly tugging the weapon from her hand.
    Terrible shrieks behind her. She whirled.
    A flood of burning oil, roaring out from buildings to
either side, sweeping among the fighters – their legs, then
clothes – telaba, leathers, linens, the flames appearing all
over them. Warrior and soldier, the fire held to no
allegiance – it was devouring everyone.
    She staggered away from that onrushing river of death,
stumbled and fell, sprawling, onto a corpse, clambered onto
it a moment before fiery oil poured around her, swept past
her already burning island of torn flesh—
    A building exploded, the fireball expanding outward,
plunging towards her. She cried out, throwing up both
arms, as the searing incandescence reached out to take
her—
    A hand from behind, snagging her harness—
    Pain – the breath torn from her lungs – then ... nothing.
     
    'Stay low!' Balm shouted as he led his squad down the
twisting alley. After his bellowed advice, the sergeant
resumed his litany of curses. They were lost. Pushed back in
their efforts to return to Keneb and the breach, they were
now being herded. By flames. They had seen
the palace a short while earlier, through a momentary break
in the smoke, and as far as Balm could determine they were
still heading in that direction – but the world beyond had
vanished, in fire and smoke, and pursuing in their wake was
the growing conflagration. Alive, and hunting them.
    'It's building, Sergeant! We got to get out of this city!'
    'You think I don't know that, Widdershins? What in
Hood's name do you think we're trying to do here? Now be
quiet—'
    'We're gonna run out of air.'
    'We are already, you idiot! Now shut that mouth