A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

deep water.' He shook his
head. 'I've a feeling we haven't seen the last of them.'
    'The Shadow Realm,' Kalam said. 'It was theirs, once,
and now they want it back.'
    The wizard's gaze narrowed on the assassin. 'Cotillion
told you this?'
    Kalam shrugged.
    'It keeps coming back to Shadowthrone, doesn't it? No
wonder I'm nervous. That slimy, slippery bastard—'
    'Oh Hood's balls,' Stormy groaned, 'give me that rice
piss, if you're gonna go on and on. Shadowthrone ain't
scary. Shadowthrone's just Ammanas, and Ammanas is just
Kellanved. Just like Cotillion's Dancer. Hood knows, we
knew the Emperor well enough. And Dancer. They up to
something? No surprise. They were always up to something,
from the very start. I tell you both right now,' he paused for
a swig of rice wine, made a face, then continued, 'when all
the dust's settled, they'll be shining like pearls atop a dungheap.
Gods, Elder Gods, dragons, undead, spirits and the
scary empty face of the Abyss itself – they won't none a
them stand a chance. You want to worry about Tiste Edur,
wizard? Go ahead. Maybe they ruled Shadow once, but
Shadowthrone'll take 'em down. Him and Dancer.' He
belched. 'An' you know why? I'll tell you why. They never
fight fair. That's why.'
    Kalam looked over at the empty chair, and his eyes
slowly narrowed.
     
    Stumbling, crawling, or dragging themselves along through
the bed of white ash, they all came to where Bottle sat, the
sky a swirl of stars overhead. Saying nothing, not one of
those soldiers, but each in turn managing one gentle
gesture – reaching out and with one finger, touching the
head of Y'Ghatan the rat.
    Tender, with great reverence – until she bit that finger,
and the hand would be snatched back with a hissed curse.
    One after another, Y'Ghatan bit them all.
    She was hungry, Bottle explained, and pregnant. So he
explained. Or tried to, but no-one was really listening. It
seemed that they didn't even care, that her bite was part of
the ritual, now, a price of blood, the payment of sacrifice.
    He told those who would listen that she had bitten him
too.
    But she hadn't. Not her. Not him. Their souls were inextricably
bound, now. And things like that were
complicated, profound even. He studied the creature where
it was settled in his lap. Profound, yes, that was the word.
    He stroked her head. My dear rat. My sweet — ow! Damn
you! Bitch!
    Black, glittering eyes looked up at him, whiskered nose
twitching.
    Vile, disgusting creatures.
    He set the creature down and it could wander over a
precipice for all he cared. Instead, the rat snuggled up
against his right foot and curled into sleep. Bottle looked
over at the makeshift camp, at the array of dim faces he
could see here and there. No-one had lit a fire. Funny, that,
in a sick way.
    They had come through it. Bottle still found it difficult
to believe. And Gesler had gone back in, only to return a
while later. Followed by Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas, the
warrior dragging Strings into view, then himself collapsing.
Bottle could hear the man's snores that had been going on
uninterrupted half the night.
    The sergeant was alive. The honey smeared into his
wounds seemed to have delivered healing to match High
Denul, making it obvious that it had been anything but
ordinary honey – as if the strange visions weren't proof
enough of that. Still, even that was unable to replace the
blood Strings had lost, and that blood loss should have
killed him. Yet now the sergeant slept, too weak to manage
much else, but alive.
    Bottle wished he was as tired ... in that way, at least, the
kind that beckoned warm and welcoming. Instead of this
spiritual exhaustion that left his nerves frayed, images returning
again and again of their nightmare journey among the
buried bones of Y'Ghatan. And with them, the bitter taste of
those moments when all seemed lost, hopeless.
    Captain Faradan Sort and Sinn had stashed away a
supply of water-casks and food-packs, which they had since
retrieved, but for Bottle no amount of water could wash the
taste of smoke and ashes from his mouth. And there was
something else that burned still within him. The Adjunct
had abandoned them, forcing the captain and Sinn to
desert. True enough, it was only reasonable to assume no-one
had been left alive. He knew his feeling was irrational,
yet it gnawed at him nonetheless.
    The captain had talked about the plague, sweeping
towards them from the east, and the need to keep the army
well ahead of it. The Adjunct had waited as