Memories of Ice

'I thought you were a mage,' Paran muttered as the man turned towards the waiting squads.

Spindle glanced back. 'I am, Captain. And I'm a sapper, too. Deadly combination, eh?'

'Deadly for us,' Antsy retorted. 'That and your damned hairshirt-'

'Hey, the burnt patches are growing back — see?'

'Get to it,' Trotts growled.

Spindle started tagging off squad sappers.

'So we just punch right through,' Paran said. 'With the sharpers that should be no problem, but then the ones on the outside flanks will sweep in behind us-'

Spindle rejoined them in time to grunt and say, 'That's why we'll sow cussers, Captain. Two drops on the wax. Ten heartbeats. The word's "run", and when we shout it that's what you'd better do, and fast. If you're less than thirty paces away when they go up, you're diced liver.'

'You ready?' Trotts asked Spindle.

'Aye. Nine of us, so expect just under thirty paces wide, the path we carve.'

'Weapons out,' the Barghast said. Then he reached out and gripped Spindle's hairshirt and dragged him close. Trotts grinned. 'No mistakes.'

'No mistakes,' the man agreed, eyes widening as Trotts clacked his sharpened teeth inches from his face.

A moment later, Spindle and his eight fellow sappers were moving towards the enemy lines, hooded and shapeless in their rain-capes.

The presence brushed Paran's awareness once again. He did all he could in his mind to push it away. The acid in his stomach swirled, murmuring a promise of pain. He drew a deep breath to steady himself. If swords clash … it will be my first. After all this time, my first battle.

The enemy medium infantry were huddled in groups, twenty or more to each of a row of hearths on the encampment's only high ground — what used to be a cart track running parallel to the city wall. Paran judged that a path thirty paces wide would take out most of three groups.

Leaving well over a hundred Pannions capable of responding. If there were any capable officers among them, this could get ugly. Then again, if there were any capable officers there the squads wouldn't be clumped up the way they are.

The sappers had gone to ground. The captain could no longer see them. Shifting his grip on his sword, he checked back over a shoulder to scan the rest of the Bridgeburners. Picker was at the forefront, a painful expression on her face. He was about to ask her what was wrong when detonations cracked through the night. The captain spun round.

Bodies writhed in the firelight of the now scattered hearths.

Trotts loosed a quavering warcry.

The Bridgeburners sprinted forward.

More sharpers exploded, out to the sides now, dropping the mobbed, confused soldiers around adjacent hearths.

Paran saw the dark forms of the sappers, converging directly ahead, squatting down amidst dead and dying Pannions.

Crossbows thunked in the hands of the dozen or so Bridgeburners who carried them.

Screams rang.

Trotts leading the way, the Bridgeburners reached the charnel path, passed around the crouching sappers who were one and all readying the larger cussers. Two drops of acid to the wax plug sealing the hole in the clay grenado.

A chorus of muted hisses.

'Run!'

Paran cursed. Ten heartbeats suddenly seemed no time at all. Cussers were the largest of the Moranth munitions. A single one could make the intersection of four streets virtually impassable. The captain ran.

His heart almost seized in his chest as he fixed his eyes on the gate directly ahead. The thousand corpses were stirring. Oh damn. Not dead at all. Sleeping. The bastards were sleeping!

'Down down down!'

The word was Malazan, the voice was Hedge's.

Paran hesitated only long enough to see Spindle, Hedge and the other sappers arrive among them … to throw cussers. Forward. Into the massing ranks of Tenescowri between them and the gates. Then they dived flat.

'Oh, Hood!' The captain threw himself down, slid across gritty mud, releasing his grip on his sword and clamping both hands to his ears.

The ground punched the breath from his lungs, threw his legs into the air. He thumped back down in the mud. On his back. He had time to begin his roll before the cussers directly ahead exploded. The impact sent him tumbling. Bloody shreds rained down on him.

A large object thumped beside Paran's head. He blinked his eyes open. To see a man's hips — just the hips, the concavity where intestines belonged yawning black and wet. Thighs were gone, taken at the joints. The captain stared.

His ears were ringing. He felt blood trickling from his nose. His chest ached. Distant screaming wailed through the night.

A hand closed on his rain-cape, tugged him upright.