A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

of vague shape, and the challenge was in gauging
the speed at which they approached, and, from this, their
distance and relative size. The carriage driver had taken
this to a fine art indeed, with no one the wiser.
    Which, in this instance at least, was of no help at all.
    He could hear everyone screaming behind him, and
he was adding plenty all on his own, even as the thought
flashed in his mind that Reccanto Ilk was probably
shrieking in ignorance – simply because everyone else was
– but the looming mass of the rotted cliff-face was a most
undenimissable presence, and my how big it was getting!
The horses could do naught but run, what must have
seemed downhill for the hapless beasts, even as the wave's
surge reared ever higher – all sorts of massomentum going
on here, Glanno knew, and no quibblering about it, either.
    What with pitch and angle and cant and all that,
Glanno could now see the top of the cliff, a guano-streaked
lip all wavy and grimacing. Odd vertical streaks depended
down from the edge – what were those? Could it be?
Ladders? How strange.
    Higher still, view expandering, the sweep of the summit,
flat land, and globs of glimmering light like melted dollops
of murky wax. Something towering, a spire, a tower – yes, a
towering tower, with jagged-teeth windows high up, blinking
in and out – all directly opposite now, almost level—
    Something pounded the air, pounded right into his
bones, rattling the roots of his insipid or was it inspired
grin – something that tore the wave apart, an upward
charging of spume, a world splashed white, engulfing the
horses, the carriage, and Glanno himself.
    His mouth was suddenly full of seawater. His eyes stared
through stinging salt. His ears popped like berries between
finger and thumb, ploop ploop. And oh, that hurt!
    The water rushed past, wiping clean the world – and
there, before him – were those buildings?
    Horses were clever. Horses weren't half blind. They
could find something, a street, a way through, and why
not? Clever horses.
    'Yeaagh!' Glanno thrashed the reins.
    Equine shrills.
    The wheels slammed down on to something hard for the
first time in four days.
    And, with every last remnant of axle grease scrubbed
away, why, those wheels locked up, a moment of binding,
and then the carriage leapt back into the air, and Glanno's
head snapped right and left at the flanking blur of wheels
spinning past at high speed.
    Oh.
    When the carriage came back down again, the landing
was far from smooth.
    Things exploded. Glanno and the bench he was
strapped to followed the horses down a broad cobbled
street. Although he was unaware of it at the time, the
carriage behind them elected to take a sharp left turn
on to a side street, just behind the formidable tower, and,
skidding on its belly, barrelled another sixty paces down
the avenue before coming to a rocking rest opposite a squat
gabled building with a wooden sign swinging wildly just
above the front door.
    Glanno rode the bench this way and that, the reins
sawing at his fingers and wrists, as the horses reached
the end of the rather short high street, and boldly leapt,
in smooth succession, a low stone wall that, alas, Glanno
could not quite manage to clear on his skidding bench. The
impact shattered all manner of things, and the driver found
himself flying through the air, pulled back down as the
horses, hoofs hammering soft ground, drew taut the leather
harness, and then whipped him round as they swung left
rather than leaping the next low stone wall – and why
would they? They had found themselves in a corral.
    Glanno landed in deep mud consisting mostly of horse
shit and piss, which was probably what saved his two legs,
already broken, from being torn right off. The horses
came to a halt beneath thrashing rain, in early evening
gloom, easing by a fraction the agony of his two dislocated
shoulders, and he was able to roll mostly on to his back, to
lie unmoving, the rain streaming down his face, his eyes
closed, with only a little blood dripping from his ears.
    Outside the tavern, frightened patrons who had rushed
out at the cacophony in the street now stood getting wet
beneath the eaves, staring in silence at the wheelless
carriage, from the roof of which people on all sides seemed
to be falling, whereupon they dragged themselves upright,
bleary eyes fixing on the tavern door, and staggered
whenceforth inside. Only a few moments afterwards, the
nearest carriage door opened with a squeal, to