A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

hands
pulled him along – his own, he was certain – and he could
hear soldiers moving behind him, the crying of children,
the scrape and catch of buckles, leather straps snagging,
rubble being pushed aside, clawed at, clambered over.
    He had no idea how far they had gone. The rat sought
out the widest, highest passages, following the howling,
whistling wind. If people remained in the temple, awaiting
their turn to enter this tortured tunnel, that turn would
never come, for the air itself would have burst aflame by
now, and soon the temple would collapse, burying their
blackened corpses in melting stone.
    Strings would have been among those victims, for the
sergeant had insisted on going last, just behind Corabb
Bhilan Thenu'alas. Bottle thought back to those frantic
moments, before the dust-clouds had even cleared, as
chunks of the domed ceiling rained down ...
     
    'Bottle!'
    'I'm looking!' Questing down, through cracks and
fissures, hunting life. Warm-blooded life. Brushing then
closing in on the muted awareness of a rat, sleek, healthy –
but overheating with terror. Overwhelming its meagre
defences, clasping hard an iron control about its soul – that
faint, flickering force, yet strong enough to reach beyond
the flesh and bones that sheltered it. Cunning, strangely
proud, warmed by the presence of kin, the rule of the
swarm's master, but now all was in chaos, the drive of
survival overpowering all else. Racing down, following
spoor, following the rich scents in the air—
    And then it turned about, began climbing upwards once
more, and Bottle could feel its soul in his grasp. Perfectly
still, unresisting now that it had been captured. Observing,
curious, calm. There was more, he had always known – so
much more to creatures. And so few who understood them
the way he did, so few who could reach out and grasp such
souls, and so find the strange web of trust all tangled with
suspicion, fear with curiosity, need with loyalty.
    He was not leading this morsel of a creature to its death.
He would not do that, could not, and somehow it seemed
to understand, to sense, now, a greater purpose to its life, its
existence.
    'I have her,' Bottle heard himself saying.
    'Get down there, then!'
    'Not yet. She needs to find a way up – to lead us back
down—'
    'Gods below!'
    Gesler spoke: 'Start adopting children, soldiers. I want
one between everyone behind Cuttle, since Cuttle will be
right behind Bottle—'
    'Leave me to the last,' Strings said.
    'Your leg—'
    'That's exactly right, Gesler.'
    'We got other injured – got someone guiding or dragging
each of 'em. Fid—'
    'No. I go last. Whoever's right ahead of me, we're going
to need to close up this tunnel, else the fire'll follow us
down—'
    'There are copper doors. They covered the pool.' That
was Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas. 'I will stay with you.
Together, we shall use those panels to seal our retreat.'
    'Second to last?' someone snarled. 'You'll just kill Fid
and—'
    'And what, Malazan? No, would I be allowed, I would go
last. I stood at Leoman's side—'
    'I'm satisfied with that,' Strings said. 'Corabb, you and I,
that will do.'
    'Hold on,' said Hellian, leaning close to Bottle. 'I ain't
going down there. Someone better kill me right now—'
    'Sergeant—'
    'No way, there's spiders down there—'
    The sound of a fist cracking into a jaw, then a collapsing
body.
    'Urb, you just knocked out your own sergeant.'
    'Aye. I known her a long time, you see. She's a good
sergeant, no matter what all of you think.'
    'Huh. Right.'
    'It's the spiders. No way she'd go down there – now I got
to gag her and tie her arms and feet – I'll drag her
myself—'
    'If she's a good sergeant, Urb, how do you treat bad ones?'
    'Ain't had any other sergeant, and I mean to keep it that
way.'
    Below, the broad crevasse that Bottle had sensed earlier, his
rat scrambling free, now seeking to follow that wide but
shallow crack – too shallow? No, they could scrape through,
and there, beneath it, a tilted chamber of some kind, most of
the ceiling intact, and the lower half of a doorway – he
sent the rat that way, and beyond the doorway ... 'I have it!
There's a street! Part of a street – not sure how far—'
    'Never mind! Lead us down, damn you! I'm starting to
blister everywhere! Hurry!'
    All right. Why not? At the very least, it'll purchase us a few
more moments. He slithered down into the pit. Behind him,
voices, the scrabble of boots, the hissing of pain as flesh
touched hot