A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

stone.
    Faintly: 'How hot is that water in that pool? Boiling yet?
No? Good, those with canteens and skins, fill 'em now—'
    Into the crevasse ... while the rat scurried down
the canted, littered street, beneath a ceiling of packed
rubble ...
     
    Bottle felt his body push through a fissure, then plunge
downward, onto the low-ceilinged section of street. Rocks,
mortar and potsherds under his hands, cutting, scraping as
he scrabbled forward. Once walked, this avenue, in an age
long past. Wagons had rattled here, horse-hoofs clumping,
and there had been rich smells. Cooking from nearby
homes, livestock being driven to the market squares. Kings
and paupers, great mages and ambitious priests. All gone.
Gone to dust.
    The street sloped sharply, where cobbles had buckled,
sagging down to fill a subterranean chamber – no, an old
sewer, brick-lined, and it was into this channel his rat had
crawled.
    Pushing aside broken pieces of cobble, he pulled himself
down into the shaft. Desiccated faeces in a thin, shallow
bed beneath him, the husks of dead insects, carapaces
crunching as he slithered along. A pale lizard, long as his
forearm, fled in a whisper into a side crack. His forehead
caught strands of spider's web, tough enough to halt him
momentarily before audibly snapping. He felt something
alight on his shoulder, race across his back, then leap off.
    Behind him Bottle heard Cuttle coughing in the dust in
his wake, as it swept over the sapper on the gusting wind.
A child had been crying somewhere back there, but was
now silent, only the sound of movement, gasps of effort.
Just ahead, a section of the tunnel had fallen in. The rat
had found a way through, so he knew the barrier was not
impassable. Reaching it, he began pulling away the rubble.
     
    Smiles nudged the child ahead of her. 'Go on,' she murmured,
'keep going. Not far now.' She could still hear the girl's sniffles
– not crying, not yet, anyway, just the dust, so much dust now,
with those people crawling ahead. Behind her, small hands
touched her blistered feet again and again, lancing vicious
stabs of pain up her legs, but she bit back on it, making no
outcry. Damned brat don't know any better, does he? And why
they got such big eyes, looking up like that? Like starving puppies. 'Keep crawling, little one. Not much farther ...'
    The child behind her, a boy, was helping Tavos Pond,
whose face was wrapped in bloody bandages. Koryk was
right behind them. Smiles could hear the half-Seti, going
on and on with some kind of chant. Probably the only
thing keeping the fool from deadly panic. He liked his open
savannah, didn't he. Not cramped, twisting tunnels.
    None of this bothered her. She'd known worse. Times,
long ago, she'd lived in worse. You learned to only count on
what's in reach, and so long as the way ahead stayed clear,
there was still hope, still a chance.
    If only this brat of a girl wouldn't keep stopping. Another
nudge. 'Go on, lass. Not much more, you'll see ...'
     
    Gesler pulled himself along in pitch darkness, hearing
Tulip's heavy grunts ahead of him, Crump's maddening
singing behind him. The huge soldier whose bare feet
Gesler's outstretched hands kept touching was having a
hard time, and the sergeant could feel the smears of blood
Tulip left behind as he squeezed and pulled himself through
the narrow, twisting passage. Thick gasps, coughing – no,
not coughing—
    'Abyss take us, Tulip,' Gesler hissed, 'what's so funny?'
    'Tickling,' the man called back. 'You. Keep. Tickling.
    My. Feet.'
    'Just keep moving, you damned fool!'
    Behind him, Crump's idiotic song continued.
    'and I says oh I says them marsh trees
got soft feet, and moss beards all the way down
and they sway in the smelly breeze
from that swamp water all yella'n'brown
    oh we was in the froggy toady dawn
belly-down in the leeches and collectin' spawn
'cause when you give those worms a squeeze
the blue pinky ropes come slimin' down—
    and don't they taste sweet!
and don't they taste sweet!
sweet as peat, oh yes
sweet as peat —'
    Gesler wanted to scream, like someone up ahead was doing.
Scream, but he couldn't summon the breath – it was all too
close, too fetid, the once cool sliding air rank with sweat,
urine and Hood knew what else. Truth's face kept coming
back to him, rising in his mind like dread accusation.
Gesler and Stormy, they'd pulled the recruit through so
much since the damned rebellion. Kept him alive, showed
him the ways of staying alive in this Hood-cursed