‘Wake the others, Cuttle. It’s time.’
Shouting, getting louder, and Gesler awoke soaked in sweat. That, he decided, was a dream he would never, ever revisit. Given the choice. Fire, of course, so much fire. Shadowy figures dancing on all sides, dancing around him, in fact. Night, snapped at by flames, the drumming of feet, voices chanting in some barbaric, unknown language, and he could feel his soul responding, flaring, burgeoning as if summoned by some ritual.
At which point Gesler realized. They were dancing round a hearth. And he was looking out at them – from the very flame itself. No, he was the flame.
Oh Truth, you went and killed yourself. Damned fool.
Soldiers were awakening on all sides of the chamber – shouts and moans and a chorus of clunking urns.
This journey was not yet done. They would go on, and on, deeper and deeper, until the passage dead-ended, until the air ran out, until a mass of rubble shook loose and crushed them all.
Any way at all, please, except fire.
How long had they been down here? Bottle had no idea. Memories of open sky, of sunlight and the wind, were invitations to madness, so fierce was the torture of recalling all those things one took for granted. Now, the world was reduced to sharp fragments of brick, dust, cobwebs and darkness. Passages that twisted, climbed, dropped away. His hands were a battered, bloody mess from clawing through packed rubble.
And now, on a sharp down-slope, he had reached a place too small to get through. Feeling with his half-numbed hands, he tracked the edges. Some kind of cut cornerstone had sagged down at an angle from the ceiling. Its lowermost corner – barely two hand’s-widths above the rutted, sandy floor – neatly bisected the passage.
Bottle settled his forehead against the gritty floor. Air still flowed past, a faint stirring now, nothing more than that. And water had run down this track, heading somewhere.
‘What’s wrong?’ Cuttle asked behind him.
‘We’re blocked.’
Silence for a moment, then, ‘Your rat gone ahead? Past the block?’
‘Yes. It opens out again – there’s an intersection of some kind ahead, a hole coming down from above, with air pulling down from it and straight into a pit in the floor. But, Cuttle – there’s a big cut stone, no way to squeeze past it. I’m sorry. We have to go back—’
‘To Hood we do, move aside if you can, I want to feel this for myself.’
It was not as easy as it sounded, and it was some time before the two men managed to swap positions. Bottle listened to the sapper muttering under his breath, then cursing.
‘I told you—’
‘Be quiet, I’m thinking. We could try and break it loose, only the whole ceiling might come down with it. No, but maybe we can dig under, into the floor here. Give me your knife.’
‘I ain’t got a knife any more. Lost it down a hole.’
‘Then call back for one.’
‘Cuttle—’
‘You ain’t giving up on us, Bottle. You can’t. You either take us through or we’re all dead.’
‘Damn you,’ Bottle hissed. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that maybe there’s no way through? Why should there be? Rats are small – Hood, rats can live down here. Why should there be a tunnel big enough for us, some convenient route all the way out from under this damned city? To be honest, I’m amazed we’ve gotten this far. Look, we could go back, right to the temple – and dig our way out—’
‘You’re the one who doesn’t understand, soldier. There’s a mountain sitting over the hole we dropped into, a mountain that used to be the city’s biggest temple. Dig out? Forget it. There’s no going back, Bottle. Only forward; now get me a knife, damn you.’
Smiles drew out one of her throwing-knives and passed it up to the child ahead of her. Something told her that this was it – as far as they would go. Except maybe for the children. The call had come to send the urchins ahead. At the very least, then, they could to go on, find a way out. All this effort – somebody had better live through it.
Not that they’d get very far, not without Bottle. That spineless bastard – imagine, depending on him. The man who could see eye to eye with rats, lizards, spiders, fungi. Matching wits, and it was a tough battle, wasn’t it just.
Still, he wasn’t a bad sort – he’d taken half the load that day on the march, after that bitch of a captain revealed just how psychotic she really was. That had been generous of him. Strangely generous. But men were like that, on occasion. She never used to believe that, but now she had no choice. They could surprise you.
The child behind Smiles was climbing over her, all elbows and knees and running, drippy, smearing nose. It smelled, too. Smelled bad. Awful things, children. Needy, self-centred tyrants, the boys all teeth and fists, the girls all claws and spit. Gathering into snivelling packs and sniffing out vulnerabilities – and woe to the child not cunning enough to hide their own – the others would close in like the grubby sharks they were. Great pastime, savaging someone.
If these runts are the only ones here who survive, I will haunt them. Every one of them, for the rest of their days. ‘Look,’ she snarled after an elbow in the nose, ‘just get your smelly slimy hide out of my face! Go on, you little ape!’
A voice from behind her: ‘Easy there. You was a child once, you know—’
‘You don’t know nothing about me, so shut it!’
‘What, you was hatched? Hah! I believe it! Along with all the other snakes!’
‘Yeah, well, whoever you are, don’t even think of climbing past me.’
‘And get that close? Not a chance.’
She grunted. ‘Glad we’re understood, then.’
If there was no way through – they’d all lose their minds. No doubt of that at all. Well, at least she had a couple knives left – anybody fool enough to come for her and they’d pay.
The children were squirming through – even as Cuttle dug into the floor with the knife – and then huddling on the other side. Weeping, clinging to each other, and Bottle’s heart cried out for them. They would have to find courage, but for the moment, there seemed to be no hope of that.
Cuttle’s grunts and gasps, then his curse as he broke the knife’s point – not very promising sounds. Ahead, the rat circled the edge of the pit, whiskers twitching at the flow of warm air coming from the shaft. She could climb round to the other side, and Bottle was willing the creature to do so – yet it seemed his control was weakening, for the rat was resisting, her head tilted over the edge of the pit, claws gripping the pocked side, the air flowing up over her…
Bottle frowned. From the shaft above, the air had been coming down. And from the pit, flowing up. Conjoining in the tunnel, then drifting towards the children.
But the rat…that air from below. Warm, not cool. Warm, smelling of sunlight.
‘Cuttle!’
The sapper halted. ‘What?’
‘We’ve got to get past this! That pit – its edges, they’ve been cut. That shaft, Cuttle, it’s been mined, cut through – someone’s dug into the side of the tel – there’s no other possibility!’
The children’s cries had ceased with Bottle’s words. He went on, ‘That explains this, don’t you see? We ain’t the first ones to use this tunnel – people have been mining the ruins, looking for loot—’
He could hear Cuttle moving about.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m gonna kick this block out of the way—’
‘No, wait! You said—’
‘I can’t dig through the damned floor! I’m gonna kick this bastard outa the way!’
‘Cuttle, wait!’
A bellow, then a heavy thump, dust and gravel streaming from above. A second thump, then thunder shook the floor, and the ceiling was raining down. Screams of terror through the dust-clouds. Ducking, covering his head as stones and sherds descended on him, Bottle squeezed his eyes shut – the dust, so bright—
Bright.
But he couldn’t breathe – he could barel
y move beneath the weight of rubble atop him.
Muted yells from behind, but the terrible hiss of rubble had ceased.
Bottle lifted his head, gasping, coughing.
To see a white shaft of sunlight, dust-filled, cutting its way down. Bathing Cuttle’s splayed legs, the huge foundation stone between them. ‘Cuttle?’
A cough, then, ‘Gods below, that damned thing – it came down between my legs – just missed my…oh Hood take me, I feel sick—’
‘Never mind that! There’s light, coming down. Sunlight!’
‘Call your rat back – I can’t see…how far up. I think it narrows. Narrows bad, Bottle.’
The rat was clambering over the children, and he could feel its racing heart.
‘I see it – your rat—’
‘Take her in your hands, help her into the shaft over you. Yes, there’s daylight – oh, it’s too narrow – I might make it, or Smiles maybe, but most of the others…’
‘You just dig when you’re up there, make it wider, Bottle. We’re too close, now.’
‘Can the children get back here? Past the block?’
‘Uh, I think so. Tight, but yes.’
Bottle twisted round. ‘Roll call! And listen, we’re almost there! Dig your way free! We’re almost there!’
The rat climbed, closer and closer to that patch of daylight.
Bottle scrambled free of the gravel. ‘All right,’ he gasped as he moved over Cuttle.
‘Watch where you step!’ the sapper said. ‘My face is ugly enough without a damned heel print on it.’
Bottle pulled himself into the uneven shaft, then halted. ‘I got to pull stuff away, Cuttle. Move from directly below…’
‘Aye.’
Names were being called out…hard to tell how many…maybe most of them. Bottle could not afford to think about it now. He began tugging at outcrops, bricks and rocks, widening the shaft. ‘Stuff coming down!’
As each piece thumped down or bounced off the foundation stone, Cuttle collected it and passed it back.
‘Bottle!’
‘What?’
‘One of the urchins – she fell into the pit – she ain’t making any sound – I think we lost her.’
Shit. ‘Pass that rope ahead – can Smiles get over to them?’
‘I’m not sure. Keep going, soldier – we’ll see what we can do down here.’
Bottle worked his way upward. A sudden widening, then narrowing once more – almost within reach of that tiny opening – too small, he realized, for even so much as his hand. He pulled a large chunk of stone from the wall, dragged himself as close as he could to the hole. On a slight ledge near his left shoulder crouched the rat. He wanted to kiss the damned thing.
But not yet. Things looked badly jammed up around that hole. Big stones. Panic whispered through him.
With the rock in his hand, Bottle struck at the stone. A spurt of blood from one fingertip, crushed by the impact – he barely felt it. Hammering, hammering away. Chips raining down every now and then. His arm tiring – he was running out of reserves, he didn’t have the strength, the endurance for this. Yet he kept swinging.
Each impact weaker than the one before.
No, damn you! No!
He swung again.
Blood spattered his eyes.
Captain Faradan Sort reined in on the ridge, just north of the dead city. Normally, a city that had fallen to siege soon acquired its scavengers, old women and children scrambling about, picking through the ruins. But not here, not yet, anyway. Maybe not for a long time.
Like a cracked pot, the steep sides of Y’Ghatan’s tel had bled out – melted lead, copper, silver and gold, veins and pools filled with accreted stone chips, dust and potsherds.
Offering an arm, Sort helped Sinn slip down from the saddle behind her – she’d been squirming, whimpering and clutching at her, growing more agitated the closer the day’s end came, the light failing. The Fourteenth Army had left the night before. The captain and her charge had walked their lone horse round the tel, not once, but twice, since the sun’s rise.
And the captain had begun to doubt her own reading of the child Sinn, her own sense that this half-mad, now seemingly mute creature had known something, sensed something – Sinn had tried and tried to get back into the ruins before her arrest. There had to be a reason for that.
Or, perhaps not. Perhaps nothing more than an insane grief – for her lost brother.
Scanning the rubble-strewn base below the tel’s north wall one more time, she noted that one scavenger at least had arrived. A child, smeared in white dust, her hair a matted snarl, was wandering perhaps thirty paces from the rough wall.
Sinn saw her as well, then began picking her way down the slope, making strange mewling sounds.
The captain unstrapped her helm and lifted it clear to settle it on the saddle horn. She wiped grimy sweat from her brow. Desertion. Well, it wasn’t the first time, now, was it? If not for Sinn’s magic, the Wickans would have found them. And likely executed them. She’d take a few with her, of course, no matter what Sinn did. People learned that you had to pay to deal with her. Pay in every way. A lesson she never tired of teaching.
She watched as Sinn ran to the city’s cliff-side, ignoring the scavenger, and began climbing it.
Now what?
Replacing the helm, the sodden leather inside-rim momentarily cool against her brow, the strap feeling stretched as she fixed the clasp beneath her jaw, Faradan Sort collected the reins and guided her horse into a slow descent down the scree.
The scavenger was crying, grubby hands pressed against her eyes. All that dust on her, the webs in her hair – this was the true face of war, the captain knew. That child’s face would haunt her memories, joining the many other faces, for as long as she lived.
Sinn was clinging to the rough wall, perhaps two man-heights up, motionless.
Too much, Sort decided. The child was mad. She glanced again at the scavenger, who did not seem aware that they had arrived. Hands still pressed against eyes. Red scrapes through the dust, a trickle of blood down one shin. Had she fallen? From where?
The captain rode up to halt her horse beneath Sinn. ‘Come down now,’ she said. ‘We need to make camp, Sinn. Come down, it’s no use – the sun’s almost gone. We can try again tomorrow.’
Sinn tightened her grip on the broken outcrops of stone and brick.
Grimacing, the captain side-stepped the mount closer to the wall, then reached up to pull Sinn from her perch.
Squealing, the girl lunged upward, one hand shooting into a hole—
His strength, his will, was gone. A short rest, then he could begin again. A short rest, the voices below drifting away, it didn’t matter. Sleep, now, the dark, warm embrace – drawing him down, ever deeper, then a blush of sweet golden light, wind rippling yellow grasses—
—and he was free, all pain gone. This, he realized, was not sleep. It was death, the return to the most ancient memory buried in each human soul. Grasslands, the sun and wind, the warmth and click of insects, dark herds in the distance, the lone trees with their vast canopies and the cool shade beneath, where lions dozed, tongues lolling, flies dancing round indifferent, languid eyes…
Death, and this long buried seed. We return. We return to the world…
And she reached for him, then, her hand damp with sweat, small and soft, prying his fingers loose from the rock they gripped, blood sticking – she clutched at his hand, as if filled with fierce need, and he knew the child within her belly was calling out in its own silent language, its own needs, so demanding…
Nails dug into the cuts on his hand—
Bottle jolted awake, eyes blinking – daylight almost gone – and a small hand reaching through from outside, grasping and tugging at his own.
Help. ‘Help – you, outside – help us—’
As she reached up yet further to tug the girl down, Sort saw Sinn’s head snap around, saw something blazing in her eyes as she stared down at the captain.
‘What now—’ And then there came a faint voice, seemingly from the very stones. Faradan Sort’s eyes widened. ‘Sinn?’
The girl’s hand, shoved into that crack – it was holding on to something.
Someone.
‘Oh, gods below!’
Crunching sounds outside, boots digging into stone, then gloved fingers slipped round one edge beside the child’s forearm, and Bottle heard: ‘You, inside – who? Can you hear me?’
A woman. Accented Ehrlii…familiar? ‘Fourteenth Army,’ Bottle said. ‘Malazans.’ The child’s grip tightened.
‘Oponn’s pull, soldier,’ the woman said in Malazan. ‘Sinn, let go of him. I need room. Make the hole bigger. Let go of him – it’s all right – you were right. We’re going to get them out.’
Sinn? The shouts from below were getting louder. Cuttle, calling up something about a way out. Bottle twisted to call back down. ‘Cuttle! We’ve been found! They’re going to dig us out! Let everyone know!’
Sinn’s hand released his, withdrew.
The woman spoke again. ‘Soldier, move away from the hole – I’m going to use my sword.’
‘Captain? Is that you?’
‘Aye. Now, move back and cover your eyes – what? Oh, where’d all those children come from? Is that one of Fiddler’s squad with them? Get down there, Sinn. There’s another way out. Help them.’
The sword-point dug into the concreted brick and stone. Chips danced down.
Cuttle was climbing up from below, grunting. ‘We gotta widen this some more, Bottle. That runt who dropped down the hole. We sent Smiles after her. A tunnel, angling back up – and out. A looter’s tunnel. The children’re all out—’
‘Good. Cuttle, it’s the captain. The Adjunct, she must have waited for us – sent searchers out to find us.’
‘That makes no sense—’
‘You’re right,’ Faradan Sort cut in. ‘They’ve marched, soldiers. It’s just me, and Sinn.’
‘They left you behind?’
‘No, we deserted. Sinn knew – she knew you were still alive, don’t ask me how.’
The Malazan Empire Page 498
