A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

flung the knife. The weighted blade struck
its shoulder, point and edge slicing through muscle to
caroom off the scapula and spin into the night.
    Regaining her feet, the Dal Honese plunged after it,
launching herself over the spitting beast.
    Talons raked down her left thigh, pitching her round,
off-balance. She landed awkwardly against a slope of
stones, the impact numbing her left shoulder. Sliding
downward, back towards the demon, Masan dug her feet
into the slope's side, then scrambled up the incline, flinging
out handfuls of sand and gravel into her wake.
    A sharp edge sliced along the back of her left hand,
down to the bone – she'd found the kethra, lying on the
slope. Grasping the grip with suddenly slick fingers, Masan
Gilani continued her desperate clamber upward.
    Another leap from behind brought the demon close, but
it slid back down, spitting and hissing as the bank sagged in
a clatter of stones and dust.
    Reaching the crest, Masan pulled herself onto her feet,
then ran, half-blind in the darkness. She heard the demon
make another attempt, followed by another shower of
sliding stones and rubble. Ahead she could make out a gully
of some sort, high-walled and narrow. Two strides from it,
she threw herself to the ground in response to a deafening
howl that tore through the night.
    Another howl answered it, reverberating among the crags,
a sound like a thousand souls plunging into the Abyss. Gelid
terror froze Masan Gilani's limbs, drained from her all
strength, all will. She lay in the grit, her gasps puffing tiny
clouds of dust before her face, her eyes wide and seeing
nothing but the scatter of rocks marking the gully's fan.
    From somewhere beyond the slope, down where her
horse had died, came the sound of hissing, rising from
three, perhaps four throats. Something in those eerie,
almost-human voices whispered terror and panic.
    A third howl filled the dark, coming from somewhere to
the south, close enough to rattle her sanity. She found her
forearms reaching out, her right hand clawing furrows in
the scree, the kethra knife still gripped tight as she could
manage with her blood-smeared left hand.
    Not wolves. Gods below, the throats that loosed those
howls —
    A sudden heavy gusting sound, to her right, too close.
She twisted her head round, the motion involuntary, and
cold seeped down through her paralysed body as if sinking
roots into the hard ground. A wolf but not a wolf, padding
down a steep slope to land silent on the same broad ledge
Masan Gilani was lying on – a wolf, but huge, as big as a
Dal Honese horse, deep grey or black – there was no way to
be certain. It paused, stood motionless for a moment in full
profile, its attention clearly fixed on something ahead,
down on the road.
    Then the massive beast's head swung round, and Masan
Gilani found herself staring into lambent, amber eyes, like
twin pits into madness.
    Her heart stopped in her chest. She could not draw
breath, could not pull her gaze from that creature's deathly
regard.
    Then, a slow – so very slow – closing of those eyes, down
to the thinnest slits – and the head swung back.
    The beast padded towards the crest. Stared down for a
time, then slipped down over the edge. And vanished from
sight.
    Sudden air flooded her lungs, thick with dust. She
coughed – impossible not to – twisting round into a ball,
hacking and gagging, spitting out gobs of gritty phlegm.
Helpless, giving herself – giving everything – away. Still
coughing, Masan Gilani waited for the beast to return, to
pick her up in its huge jaws, to shake her once, hard, hard
enough to snap her neck, her spine, to crunch down on her
ribcage, crushing everything inside.
    She slowly regained control of her breathing, still lying
on sweat-soaked ground, shivers rippling through her.
    From somewhere far overhead, in that dark sky, she
heard birds, crying out. A thousand voices, ten thousand.
She did not know that birds flew at night. Celestial voices,
winging south as fast as unseen wings could take them.
    Closer by ... no sound at all.
    Masan Gilani rolled onto her back, stared unseeing
upward, feeling blood streaming down her slashed thigh. Wait till Saltlick and the rest hear about this one ...
     
    Dejim Nebrahl raced through the darkness, three beasts in
full flight, a fourth limping in their wake, already far
behind. Too weak, made mindless with hunger, all cunning
lost, and now yet one more D'ivers kin was dead. Killed
effortlessly by a mere human, who