The Malazans had quickly turned it. Sharpers cracking in the night, crossbows thudding, the flit of quarrels and the punch of impact. Shrieks of agony. A rush from Gesler’s heavies had broken one side of the ambush-

And then the sorcery had churned awake, something raw and terrible, devouring trees like acid. Grey tongues of chaotic fire, heaving into a kind of standing wave. Charging forward, engulfing Sands-his scream had been mercifully short. Fiddler, not ten paces away from where Sands had vanished, saw the Letherii mage, who seemed to be screaming with his own pain, even as the wave hurled forward. Bellowing, he’d swung his crossbow round, felt the kick in his hands as he loosed the heavy quarrel.

The cusser had struck a bole just above and behind the mage’s head. The explosion flattened nearby trees, shredded a score of Letherii soldiers. Snuffed the sorcery out in an instant. As more trees toppled, branches thrashing down, the Malazans had pulled back, fast, and then they ran.

Movement from Fiddler’s left and a moment later Gesler dragged himself up alongside. ‘Hood’s damned us all, Fid. We’re running out of forest-how’s Cuttle?’

‘Arrow’s deep,’ Fiddler replied, ‘but not a bleeder. We can dig it out when we get a chance.’

‘Think they’re tracking us?’

Fiddler shook his head. He had no idea. If there were enough of them left. He twisted round. ‘Bottle,’ he hissed, ‘over here.’

The young mage crawled close.

‘Can you reach back?’ Fiddler asked. ‘Find out if they’re after us?’

‘Already did, Sergeant. Used every damned creature in our wake.’

‘And?’ Gesler wanted to know.

‘That cusser did most of them, Sergeant. But the noise brought others. At least a dozen Tiste Edur and maybe a few hundred Letherii. Are they tracking us now? Aye, but still a way behind-they’ve learned to be cautious, I guess.’

‘We’re losing the dark,’ Gesler said. ‘We need a place to hide, Fid-only that’s probably not going to work this time, is it? They’re not going to rest.’

‘Can we lose them?’ Fiddler asked Bottle.

‘I’m pretty tired, Sergeant-’

‘Never mind. You’ve done enough. What do you think, Gesler? Time to get messy?’

‘And use up our few cussers?’

‘Don’t see much choice, to be honest. Of course, I always hold one back. Same for Cuttle.’

Gesler nodded. ‘We had ours distributed-good thing, too, the way Sands went up. Still, he had munitions on him, yet they didn’t ignite-’

‘Oh, but they did,’ Fiddler said. ‘Just not in this realm.

Am I right, Bottle? That sorcery, it’s like a broken gate, the kind that chews up whoever goes through it.’

‘Spirits below, Fid, you smelled it out about dead right. That magic, it started as one thing, then became another-and the mage was losing control, even before you minced him.’

Fiddler nodded. He’d seen as much. Or thought he had. ‘So, Bottle, what does that mean?’

The young mage shook his head. ‘Things are getting out of hand… somewhere. There was old stuff, primitive magic, at first. Not as ancient as spirit-bound stuff. Still, primitive. And then something chaotic grabbed it by the throat

A short distance away, Koryk rolled onto his back. He was bone tired. Let Bottle and the sergeants mutter away, he knew they were neck-deep in Hood’s dusty shit.

‘Hey, Koryk.’

‘What is it, Smiles?’

‘You damned near lost it back there, you know.’

‘I did, did I?’

‘When them four came at you all at once, oh, you danced quite a jig, half-blood.’ She laughed, low and brimming with what sounded like malice. ‘And if I hadn’t come along to stick a knife in that one’s eye-the one who’d slipped under your guard and was ready to give you a wide belly smile-well, you’d be cooling fast back there right now.’

‘And the other three?’ Koryk asked, grinning in the gloom. ‘Bet you never knew I was that quick, did you?’

‘Something tells me you didn’t either.’

He said nothing, because she was right. He’d been in something like a frenzy, yet his eye and his hand had been cold, precise. Through it all it had been as if he had simply watched, every move, every block, every shift in stance and twist, every slash of his heavy blade. Watched, yes, yet profoundly in love with that moment, with each moment. He’d felt some of this at the shield wall on the dock that night in Malaz City. But what had begun as vague euphoria was now transformed into pure revelation. 1 like killing. Gods below, I do like it, and the more 1 like it, the better at it I get. He never felt more alive, never more perfectly alive.

‘Can’t wait to see you dance again,’ Smiles murmured.

Koryk blinked in the gloom, then shifted to face her. Was she stirred? Had he somehow kissed her awake between those muscled legs of hers? Because he’d killed well? Did 1 dance that jig, Smiles? ‘You get scarier, woman, the more I know you.’

She snorted. ‘As it should be, half-blood.’

Tarr spoke from Koryk’s other side: ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

A slightly more distant laugh from Cuttle, ‘Aye, Tarr, it’s what happens when your entire world view collapses. Of course,’ he added, ‘if you could manage to dance like poetry when killing people, who knows-’

‘Enough of that. Please.’

‘No worries,’ Cuttle persisted. ‘You ain’t the dancing kind. You’re as rooted as a tree, and just about as slow, Tarr.’

‘I may be slow, Cuttle, but the fools go down eventually, don’t they?’

‘Oh aye, that they do. Not suggesting otherwise. You’re a one-man shield-wall, you are.’

Corporal Stormy was spitting blood. A damned elbow had cracked his mouth, and now two teeth were loose and he’d bitten his tongue. The elbow might have been his own-someone had collided hard with him in the scrap and he’d had his weapon arm lifted high with the sword’s point angled downward. Nearly wrenched his shoulder out of its damned socket.

A savage back-swing with the pommel had crunched the attacker’s temple and he’d reeled away, one eye half popped out. Shortnose had then cut the Letherii down.

That had been some charge, him and his heavies, Shortnose and the trio of dread ladies each one of whom could both stare down a rutting bhederin bull and beat it into a pulp if it came to that. Making Stormy a very happy sergeant. Bad luck about Sands, though. But we ain’t gonna lose any more. Not one. 1 got my heavies and we can take down whatever they throw at us.

And not just us neither. That Tarr and Koryk… Fid’s got a good mean pair in those. And that Smiles, she’s got the hlackrock heart of a Claw. Good squads here, for this kinda work. And now we’re gonna turn round and kick ‘em dead in the jaw, 1 can feel it. Fid and Gesler, cooking in Kellanved’s old cauldron.

He was delighted the Adjunct had finally cut them loose. In just this way, too. To Hood with damned marching in column. No, cut in fast and low and keep going, aye, and keep their heads spinnin’ every which way. So the fools on their trail were coming for them, were they? And why not? just two puny squads. And them probably in the hundreds by now.

‘Kellanved’s curse,’ he muttered with a grin.

Flashwit’s round face loomed into view, ‘Say something, Corporal?’

‘Malazan marines, my dear, that’s us.’

‘Not heavies? I thought-’

‘You’re both, Flash. Relax. It’s this, you see-the Malazan marines haven’t done what they was trained to do in years, not since before Kellanved died. Trained, y’see. To do exactly what we’re doing right now, praise Fener. Them poor bastards Letherii and Edur, gods below, them poor ignorant fools.’

‘Smart enough to ambush us,’ Uru Hela said from beyond Flashwit.

‘Didn’t work though, did it?’

‘Only because-’

‘Enough from you, Uru Hela. I was talking here, right? Your corporal. So just listen.’

‘I was just askin’-’

‘Another word and you’re on report, soldier.’