A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

projecting
feet jammed amongst staring faces, the occasional arm
hanging out, twitching, dripping sweat. Here a knee, there
a shoulder. Tangles of sodden hair, fingers with dagger-long
nails. Human, demon, Forkrul Assail, K'Chain Che'Malle,
others of natures Ditch could not even identify. He saw
one hand and forearm that appeared to be made entirely
of metal, sockets and hinges and rods and a carapace of
iron skin visible in mottled, pitted patches. Worst of all
were the staring eyes, peering from faces that seemed to
have surrendered every possible expression, leaving behind
something slack and dull.
    'Make space up top!' bellowed Draconus.
    Cries of 'No room!' and 'Nowhere left!' greeted him.
    Ignoring such protests, Draconus began climbing the
wall of flesh. Faces twisted in rage and pain, eyes widened
in affronted disbelief, hands clawed at him or beat him
with fists, but the huge warrior was indifferent to all of it.
Ditch could feel the man's enormous strength, an implacable
certainty to every movement that bespoke something
unconquerable. He was awed into silence.
    Higher they climbed, and shadows raced in crazed
patterns now in the churning glare of the storm, as if the
natural gloom of the world clung close to its surface, and
here, high above it, the air was clearer, sharper.
    The rocking crawl of the wagon below was felt now in
the swaying of the wall near the top, a motion groaned
out in the slick shifting of flesh and in a wavering song of
dull, rhythmic moans and grunts. The wall finally sloped
inward, and Ditch was tugged over hummocks of skin,
the bodies so tight-packed that the surface beneath him
seemed solid, an undulating landscape, sheathed in sweat
and flecks of ash and grime. Most of those lying here had
settled on their stomachs, as if to stare at the sky – that
would vanish for ever as soon as the next body arrived
– was too much to bear.
    Draconus rolled him into a depression between two
backs, one facing one way, the other in the opposite
direction. A man, a woman – the sudden contact with the
woman's soft flesh as he was wedged against her startled an
awakening in Ditch and he cursed.
    'Take what you can, mage,' said Draconus.
    Ditch heard him leaving.
    He could make out distinct voices now, odd nearby
sounds. Someone was scrabbling closer and Ditch felt a
faint tug on his chain.
    'Almost off, then. Almost off.'
    Ditch twisted round to see who had spoken.
    A Tiste Andii. He was clearly blind, and both sockets
bore the terrible scarring of burns – only deliberate torture
could be that precise. His legs were gone, stumps visible
just below his hips. He was dragging himself up alongside
Ditch, and the mage saw that the creature held in one
hand a long sharpened bone with a blackened point.
    'Plan on killing me?' Ditch asked.
    The Tiste Andii paused, lifted his head. Straggly black
hair framed a narrow, hollowed-out face. 'What sort of eyes
do you have, friend?'
    'Working ones.'
    A momentary smile, and then he squirmed closer.
    Ditch managed to shift round so that his ruined shoulder
and arm were beneath him, freeing his undamaged arm.
'It's crazy, but I still intend to defend myself. Though death
– if it even exists here – would be a mercy.'
    'It doesn't,' replied the Tiste Andii. 'I could stab you for
the next thousand years and do nothing more than leave
you full of holes. Full of holes.' He paused and the smile
flickered once more. 'Yet I must stab you anyway, since
you've made a mess of things. A mess, a mess, a mess.'
    'I have? Explain.'
    'There's no point, unless you have eyes.'
    'I have them, you damned fool!'
    'But can they see ?'
    He caught the emphasis on the last word. Could he
awaken magic here? Could he scrape something from
his warren – enough to attenuate his vision? There was
nothing to do but try. 'Wait a moment,' he said. Oh, the
warren was there, yes, as impervious as a wall – yet he
sensed something he had not expected. Cracks, fissures,
things bleeding in, bleeding out.
    The effects of chaos, he realized. Gods, it's all breaking down! Would there be a time, he wondered – an instant,
in the very moment that the storm finally struck them
– when he would find his warren within reach? Could he
escape before he was obliterated along with everyone and
everything else?
    'How long, how long, how long?' asked the Tiste Andii.
    Ditch found he could indeed scrape a residue of power.
A few words muttered under his breath, and all at once he
saw what had been