A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

the Hounds of Shadow was
obvious. An entire gate was gone, filled with the flame-licked
wreckage of the blockhouses and a dozen nearby
structures. Figures now clambered in its midst, hunting
survivors, fighting the flames.
    Beyond it, vast sections of the city – where heaving
clouds of smoke lifted skyward, lit bright by raging gas-fires
– suddenly ebbed, as if Darujhistan's very breath had been
snatched away. Samar Dev staggered, fell to her knees. The
pressure closing about her head felt moments from crushing
the plates of her skull. She cried out even as Karsa
crouched down beside her.
    Ahead, Traveller had swung away from the destroyed
gate, seeking instead another portal to the east, through
which terrified refugees now spilled out into the ramshackle
neighbourhood of shanties, where new fires had
erupted from knocked-down shacks and in the wake of
fleeing squatters. How Traveller intended to push his way
through that mob—
    'Witch, you must concentrate.'
    'What?'
    'In your mind, raise a wall. On all sides. Make it strong,
give it the power to withstand the one who has arrived.'
    She pulled away from his hand. 'Who? Who has arrived?
By the spirits, I can't stand—'
    He slapped her, hard enough to knock her down.
Stunned, she stared up at him.
    'Samar Dev, I do not know who, or what – it is not the
Hounds. Not even Shadowthrone. Someone is there, and
that someone blazes. I – I cannot imagine such a being—'
    'A god.'
    He shrugged. 'Build your walls.'
    The pressure had eased and she wondered at that, and
then realized that Karsa had moved round, placing himself
between her and the city. She saw sweat running down the
Toblakai's face, streaming like rain. She saw the tightness
in his eyes. 'Karsa—'
    'If we are to follow, you and me both, then you must do
this. Build walls, witch, and hurry.'
    His gaze lifted to something behind her and all at once
she felt a breath of power at her back, gusting against her,
sinking past clothes, past skin, through flesh and then deep
into her bones. She gasped.
    The pressure was pushed back, left to rage against immense
barriers now shielding her mind.
    She climbed to her feet.
    Side by side, they set out after Traveller.
    He was cutting across a ragged strip of fallow field, dust
rising with each stride, making for the gate at a sharp
angle.
    The surging mob of people blocking the portal seemed
to melt back, and she wondered what those refugees had
seen in Traveller's face as he marched straight for them.
Whatever it had been, clearly it was not something to be
challenged.
    A strange, diffuse light now painted the city, the uneven
wall, the domes, minarets and spires visible behind it. From
a thousand throats erupted a moaning wail. Of shock, of
dread. She saw faces lift, one by one. She saw eyes widen.
    Grunting, Karsa glanced back, and then halted. 'Gods
below!'
    She spun. The giant bear loomed twenty or so paces
back, its outline limned by a silver light – and that light—
    The moon had finally clambered free of the horizon
– but it was . . . Queen of Dreams —
    'Shattered,' Karsa said. 'The moon has shattered. Faces
in the Rock, what has happened?'
    What rose now into the sky was a mass of fragments,
torn apart amidst a cloud of thin rings of dust. It had
expanded in its eruption and was now twice its normal
size. Huge chunks were visibly spiralling away from the
centre. The light it cast was sickly yet astonishingly
bright.
    The monstrous bear had half turned and was lifting its
snout towards that devastated world, as if it was capable of
smelling death across the span of countless leagues.
    Karsa tugged at Samar Dev. 'He's in the city, witch. We
cannot lose him.'
    She permitted him to drag her along, her hand enveloped
by his.
    Perched in a niche close to the gate, Chillbais tracked
the one known as Traveller. The demon was shaking
uncontrollably. The bellowing of Hounds, the detonations
of entire buildings, the arrival of the Son of Darkness and
the slaying of a god – oh, any of these could have been
sufficient cause for such quivering terror. Even that ruined
moon thrusting skyward to the south. Alas, however, it was
none of these that had elicited the winged toad's present
state of abject extremity.
    No, the source was threading through the crowd at
the gate, now passing beneath the arch. The one named
Traveller. Oh, he held in so much of himself, a will of such
breathtaking intensity that Chillbais imagined it could, if
the man so desired, reach into