A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

silent. In the wake of crushed
fires, smoke billowed low, barely lit by fitful blue gaslight.
Piercing in and out of the black clouds, Great Ravens
circled, advanced, and retreated; and moments before
the two figures reached each other, the huge birds began
landing on roof edges facing down into the street, in rows
and clusters, scores and then hundreds.
    They were here.
    To witness.
    To know. To believe.
    And, perchance, to feed.
    Only three strides between them now. Hood slowed his
steps. 'Son of Darkness,' he said, 'I have reconsidered—'
    And the sword lashed out, a clean arc that took the Lord
of Death in the neck, slicing clean through.
    As Hood's head pitched round inside its severed cloth
sack, the body beneath it staggered back, dislodging what
it had lost.
    A heavy, solid crunch as the god's head struck the
cobbles, rolling on to one cheek, the eyes staring and
lifeless.
    Black blood welled up from the stump of neck. One more
step back, before the legs buckled and the Lord of Death
fell to his knees and then sat back.
    Opposite the dead god, Anomander Rake, face stretching
in agony, fought to remain standing.
    Whatever weight descended upon him at this moment
was invisible to the mortal eye, unseen even by the thousand
Great Ravens perched and leaning far forward on all
sides, but its horrendous toll was undeniable.
    The Son of Darkness, Dragnipur in one hand, bowed and
bent like an old man. The sword's point grated and then
caught in the join between four cobbles. And Anomander
Rake began to lean on it, every muscle straining as his
legs slowly gave way – no, he could not stand beneath this
weight.
    And so he sank down, the sword before him, both hands
on the cross-hilt's wings, head bowed against Dragnipur,
and these details alone were all that distinguished him
from the god opposite.
    They sat, on knees and haunches, as if mirrored images.
One leaning on a sword, forehead pressed to the gleaming,
smoke-wreathed blade. The other decapitated, hands
resting palm up on the thighs.
    One was dead.
    The other, at this moment, profoundly . . . vulnerable.
    Things noticed.
    Things were coming, and coming fast.
    And this night, why, it is but half done.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    He slid down the last of the trail and he asked of me,
'Do you see what you expected?'
    And this was a question breaking loose, rolling free.
Out from under stones and scattered
Into thoughts of what the cruel fates would now decree.
    He settled back in the dust and made his face into pain,
'Did you see only what you believed?'
And I looked down to where blood had left its stain
The charge of what's given, what's received
Announcing the closing dirge on this long campaign.
    'No,' I said, 'you are not what I expected to see.'
Young as hope and true as love was my enemy,
'The shields were burnished bright as a sun-splashed sea,
And drowning courage hath brought me to this calamity.
Expectation has so proved the death of me.'
    He spoke to say, 'You cannot war against the man
you were,
And I cannot slay the man I shall one day become,
Our enemy is expectation flung backward and fore,
The memories you choose and the tracks I would run.
Slayer of dreams, sower of regrets, all that we are.'
    Soldier at the End of his Days
    (fragment)
    Des'Ban of Nemil
    They did not stop for the night. With the city's fitful
glow to the north, throbbing crimson, Traveller
marched as would a man possessed. At times, as she
and Karsa rode on ahead to the next rise to fix their gazes
upon that distant conflagration, Samar Dev feared that he
might, upon reaching them, simply lash out with his sword.
Cut them both down. So that he could take Havok for
himself, and ride hard for Darujhistan.
    Something terrible was happening in that city. Her
nerves were on fire. Her skull seemed to creak with some
kind of pervasive pressure, building with each onward step.
She felt febrile, sick to her stomach, her mouth dry as dust,
and she held on to Karsa Orlong's muscled girth as if he was
a mast on a storm-wracked ship. He had said nothing for
some time now, and she did not have the courage to break
that grim silence.
    Less than a league away, the city flashed and rumbled.
    When Traveller reached them, however, it was as if
they did not exist. He was muttering under his breath.
Vague arguments, hissed denials, breathless lists of bizarre,
disconnected phrases, each one worked out as if it was a
justification for something he had done, or something he
was about to do. At times those