A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

wrong—'
    'I have his back,' said the Toblakai in a growl.
    'But what if—'
    An inhuman cry from Traveller cut through her words,
cut through every thought, slashing like a knife. Such a
forlorn, desperate sound – it did not belong to him, could
not, but he had thrust out one arm, as if to shove Cotillion
aside.
    They stood too far apart for that. Yet Cotillion, now
silent, simply stepped away from Traveller's path.
    And the warrior walked past, but now it was as if
each boot needed to be dragged forward, as if Traveller
now struggled against some terrible, invisible tide. That
ferocious obsession seemed to have come untethered – he
walked as would a man lost.
    Cotillion watched him go, and she saw him lift a forearm
to his eyes, as if he did not want the memory of this, as if he
could wipe it away with a single, private gesture.
    Although she did not understand, sorrow flooded through
Samar Dev. Sorrow for whom? She had no answer that made
sense. She wanted to weep. For Traveller. For Cotillion. For
Karsa. For this damned city and this damned night.
    The Hounds had trotted off.
    She blinked. Cotillion too had disappeared.
    Karsa shook himself, and then led her onward once
more.
    The pressure was building, leaning in on her defences.
She sensed cracks, the sifting of dust. And as they stumbled
along in Traveller's wake, Samar Dev realized that the
warrior was marching straight for the nexus of that power.
    The taste of fear was bitter on her tongue.
    No, Traveller, no. Change your mind. Change it, please.
    But he would not do that, would he? Would not. Could
not. The fate of the fated, oh, that sounds clumsy, and yet
. . . what else can it be called? This force of inevitability, both
willed and unwilling, both unnecessary and inexorable. The
fate of the fated.
    Walking, through a city trapped in a nightmare, beneath
the ghoulish light of a moon in its death-throes. Traveller
might as well be dragging chains, and at the ends of those
chains, none other than Karsa Orlong and Samar Dev.
And Traveller might as well be wearing his own collar
of iron, something invisible but undeniable heaving him
forward.
    She had never felt so helpless.
    In the eternity leading up to the moment of the Lord of
Death's arrival, the world of Dragnipur had begun a slow,
deadly and seemingly unstoppable convulsion. Everywhere,
the looming promise of annihilation. Everywhere, a chorus
of desperate cries, bellowing rage and hopeless defiance.
The raw nature of each chained thing was awakened,
and each gave that nature voice, and each voice held the
flavour of sharp truth. Dragons shrilled, demons roared,
fools shrieked in hysteria. Bold heroes and murderous thugs
snatched deep breaths that made ribs creak, and then
loosed battle cries.
    Argent fires were tumbling down from the sky, tearing
down through clouds of ash. An army of unimaginable
size, from which no quarter was possible, had begun
a lumbering charge, and weapons clashed the rims of
shields and this white, rolling wave of destruction
seemed to surge higher as if seeking to merge with the
storm clouds.
    Feeble, eroded shapes dragged along at the ends of
chains now flopped blunted limbs as if to fend off the fast
closing oblivion. Eyes rolled in battered skulls, remnants of
life and of knowledge flickering one last time.
    No, nothing wanted to die. When death is oblivion, life
will spit in its face. If it can.
    The sentient and the mindless were now, finally, all of
one mind.
    Shake awake all reason. These gathered instincts are not the
end but the means. Rattle the chains if you must, but know
that that which binds does not break, and the path is never as
wayward as one might believe.
    Ditch stared with one eye into the descending heavens, and
knew terror, but that terror was not his. The god that saw
with the same eye filled Ditch's skull with its shrieks. Born
to die! I am born to die! I am born to die! Not fair not fair not
fair! And Ditch just rattled a laugh – or at least imagined
that he did so – and replied, We're all born to die, you idiot.
Let the span last a single heartbeat, let it last a thousand years.
Stretch the heartbeat out, crush down the centuries, it's no
different. They feel the same, when the end arrives.
    Gods, they feel the same!
    No, he was not much impressed by this godling cowering
in his soul. Kadaspala was mad, mad to think such a
creation could achieve anything. Etch deep into its heart
this ferocious hunger to kill , and then reveal the horror