Dust of Dreams

and stay off it. Those emissaries are already dead, even if they don’t know it. We need to dig in, Captain, and we need to do it now.
’
    She lifted herself up, face dark with anger, and then glared into his eyes. Whatever she saw in them was hard and sharp as a slap. Sort rolled to one side and rose. ‘Someone get this horse out of here. Where’s our signaller? Flags up: prepare for battle. Ridge defence. Foot to dig in, munitions spread second trench—get on it, damn you!’
     
    Most of the damned soldiers were doing nothing but get in the way. Snarling and cursing, Bottle forced through the press until he reached the closest supply wagon.He scrambled on to it, pulling himself by the rope netting until he was atop the heaped bales. Then he stood.
    A half-dozen of the Adjunct’s emissaries were cantering towards that distant army.
    The sky above the strangers swarmed with . . . birds? No.
Rhinazan . . . and some bigger things. Bigger . . . enkar’al? Wyval?
He felt sick enough to void his bowels. He knew that smell. It had soaked into his brain ever since he’d crawled through a shredded tent.
That army isn’t human. Adjunct, your emissaries—
    Something blinding arced out from the foremost line of one of the distant phalanxes. It cut a ragged path above the ground until it struck the mounted emissaries. Bodies burst into flames. Burning horses reeled and collapsed in clouds of ash.
    Bottle stared.
Hood’s holy shit.
     
    Sinter ran as fast as she could, cutting between ranks of soldiers. They were finally digging in, while the supply train—the wagons herded like enormous beasts between mounted archers and lancers—had swung northward, forcing, she saw, the Letherii forces to divide almost in half to permit the retreating column through their ranks.
    That wasn’t good. She could see the chaos rippling out as the huge wagons plunged into the narrow avenue. Pikes pitched and wavered to either side, the press making figures stumble and fall.
    Not her problem. She looked ahead once again, saw the vanguard, saw the Adjunct, Captain Yil, Fists Blistig and Keneb and a score or so honour guard and mounted staff. Tavore was issuing commands and riders were winging out to various units. There wasn’t much time. The distant hills had been swallowed by marching phalanxes, a dozen in sight and more coming—and each formation looked massive. Five thousand? Six? The thunder was the measure of their strides, steady, unceasing. The sky behind them was the colour of bile, winged creatures swarming above the rising dust.
    Those soldiers. They aren’t people. They aren’t human—gods below, they are huge.
    She reached the vanguard. ‘Adjunct!’
    Tavore’s helmed head snapped round.
    ‘Adjunct, we must retreat! This is wrong! This isn’t—’
    ‘Sergeant,’ Tavore’s voice cut through like a blade’s edge. ‘There is no time. Furthermore, our obvious avenue of retreat happens to be blocked by the Letherii legions—’
    ‘Send a rider to Brys—’
    ‘We have done so, Sergeant—’
    ‘
They aren’t human!
’
    Flat eyes regarded her. ‘No, they are not. K’Chain—’
    ‘
They don’t want us! We’re just in their fucking way!
’
    Expressionless, the Adjunct said, ‘It is clear they intend to engage us, Sergeant.’
    Wildly, Sinter turned to Keneb. ‘Fist, please! You need to explain—’
    ‘Sinter,’ said Tavore, ‘K’Chain
Nah’ruk
.’
    Keneb’s face had taken on the colour of the sickly sky. ‘Return to your squad, Sergeant.’
     
    Quick Ben stood wrapped in his leather cloak, thirty paces on from the Malazan vanguard. He was alone. Three hundred paces behind him the Letherii companies were wheeling to form a bristling defensive line along the ridge on which the column had been marching. They had joined their supply train and herds to the Bonehunters’ and it seemed an entire city and all its livestock was wheeling northward in desperate flight. Brys intended to defend that retreat. The High Mage understood the logic of that. It marked, perhaps, the last rational moment of this day.
    Ill luck. Stupid, pathetic, miserable mischance. It was absurd. It was sickening beyond all belief. Which gods had clutched together to spin this madness? He had told the Adjunct all he knew. As soon as the warren’s mouth had spread wide, as soon as the earth trembled to the first heavy footfall of the first marching phalanx.
We saw their sky keeps. We knew they weren’t gone. We knew