A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

Pust here to find him!'
    'Shadowthrone, actually, not me. For that reason, I cannot
say if mercy counted for anything in his decision.'
    Mogora glanced again at the tent. 'Magi ... that
blathering idiot.'
    Cotillion was gazing steadily at her, then he said, 'You're
one of Ardata's, aren't you?'
    She veered into a mass of spiders.
    The god watched as they fled into every crack and,
moments later, were gone. He sighed, took one last look
round, momentarily meeting the placid eyes of the mule,
then vanished in a flowing swirl of shadows.

CHAPTER TEN
    When the day knew only darkness,
the wind a mute beggar stirring ashes and stars
in the discarded pools beneath the old
retaining wall, down where the white rivers
of sand slip grain by grain into the unseen,
and every foundation is but a moment
from a horizon's stagger, I found myself
among friends and so was made at ease
with my modest list of farewells.
    Soldier Dying
Fisher kel Tath
     
    T hey emerged from the warren into the stench of
smoke and ashes, and before them, in the growing
light of dawn, reared a destroyed city. The three
stood unmoving for a time, silent, each seeking to comprehend
this vista.
    Stormy was the first to speak. 'Looks like the Imperial
Warren's spilled out here.'
    Ash and dead air, the light seeming listless – Kalam was
not surprised by the marine's observation. They had just
left a place of death and desolation, only to find themselves
in another. 'I still recognize it,' the assassin said.
'Y'Ghatan.'
    Stormy coughed, then spat. 'Some siege.'
    'The army's moved on,' Quick Ben observed, studying
the tracks and rubbish where the main encampment had
been. 'West.'
    Stormy grunted, then said, 'Look at that gap in the wall.
Moranth munitions, a whole damned wagon of 'em, I'd say.'
    A viscous river had flowed out through that gap, and,
motionless now, it glittered in the morning light. Fused
glass and metals. There had been a firestorm, Kalam
realized. Yet another one to afflict poor Y'Ghatan. Had the
sappers set that off?
    'Olive oil,' said Quick Ben suddenly. 'The oil harvest
must have been in the city.' He paused, then added, 'Makes
me wonder if it was an accident.'
    Kalam glanced over at the wizard. 'Seems a little
extreme, Quick. Besides, from what I've heard of Leoman,
he's not the kind to throw his own life away.'
    'Assuming he stayed around long enough.'
    'We took losses here,' Stormy said. 'There's a grave
mound there, under that ash.' He pointed. 'Scary big,
unless they included rebel dead.'
    'We make separate holes for them,' Kalam said, knowing
that Stormy knew that as well. None of this looked good,
and they were reluctant to admit that. Not out loud. 'The
tracks look a few days old, at least. I suppose we should
catch up with the Fourteenth.'
    'Let's circle this first,' Quick Ben said, squinting at the
ruined city. 'There's something ... some residue ... I don't
know. Only ...'
    'Sound argument from the High Mage,' Stormy said. 'I'm
convinced.'
    Kalam glanced over at the mass burial mound, and wondered how
    many of his friends were lying trapped in that earth, unmoving in the eternal
    dark, the maggots and worms already at work to take away all that had made
    each of them unique. It wasn't something he enjoyed thinking about, but if
    he did not stand here and gift them a few more moments of thought, then who
    would?
     
    Charred rubbish lay strewn on the road and in the flats to
either side. Tent stakes still in place gripped burnt fragments
of canvas, and in a trench beyond the road's bend as
it made its way towards what used to be the city's gate, a
dozen bloated horse carcasses had been dumped, legs
upthrust like bony tree-stumps in a flyblown swamp. The
stench of burnt things hung in the motionless air.
    Apsalar reined in on the road as her slow scan of the
devastation before her caught movement a hundred paces
ahead and to her left. She settled back in the saddle, seeing
familiarity in the gaits and demeanours of two of the three
figures now walking towards what remained of Y'Ghatan.
Telorast and Curdle scampered back to flank her horse.
    'Terrible news, Not-Apsalar!' Telorast cried. 'Three
terrible men await us, should we continue this course. If
you seek to destroy them, well then, that is fine. We wish
you well. Otherwise, I suggest we escape. Now.'
    'I agree,' Curdle added, small skeletal head bobbing
as the creature paced, grovelled, then paced again, tail
spiking the air.
    Her horse lifted a front hoof and the