Captain Tinsmith lay having his slashed leg re-bandaged while Kepp sat silently by – he could only sit silently as the fist of an Avowed had shattered his jaws.

Of the lesser officers and sergeants present, Nait shared nods with Least, Lim and others, and watched while these conferred in whispers and grunts. Everyone was whispering because they squatted on the border of the Darkness. All was quiet here; even the battle's roar just a few paces away was a feeble distant murmur. And it was cold; Nait's damp sweat-soaked shirt and padding chilled him. He knew of course what was coming before they said a thing. So he shared an all-suffering roll of the eyes with Least when Tinsmith called out, ‘Sergeant Jumpy, a word.’

He jogged up and knelt on his haunches. ‘Aye.’

‘We want you to go up and talk to him.’

‘I ain't goin’ up there to talk to him. You go.’

A savage glare from the old sergeant, now captain. ‘In case you hadn't noticed – I can't walk.’

‘Then Kepp, here.’

Through clenched teeth: ‘He… can't… talk.’

‘Then Blossom, here.’

‘He doesn't speak Talian!’

Fucking troop of carnival clowns, we are. Fucking hopeless. ‘Fine!’

Tinsmith stroked one side of his long silver moustache, smiled evilly. ‘He's your squad mage.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He straightened, grunting and wincing – so tired, and things ain't even come to a head yet – and started up the slope. The grass crackled brittle with hoarfrost under his old falling-apart sandals. The dark was extraordinary, unrelieved, yet he could still see and he thought of Heuk's swill – the iron tang of which still caked his tongue. It was as if he were wrapped in layers of the thickest, darkest, finest cloth imaginable. Sable, maybe, he decided, though he'd never seen or touched it. The chill bit at him; lacings of frost appeared on the iron backings of his gauntlets.

‘Heuk!’ The dark seemed to swallow his voice. A silence answered; but it was not a true silence. Something filled it. He strained to listen: the faintest rumbling and rattle of chain? Deep reverberations such as wheels groaning somewhere in the dark? ‘Heuk?’

‘Here.’

Nait started; the fellow was practically kneeling right before him.

‘Ah, you all right?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Why're you kneeling there?’

‘I was giving thanks, of course.’

‘Ah;

The mage pushed himself to his feet, weaving slightly. He was a sight. Blood dried black, or what appeared black in this strange place, covered his face and shoulders, and had run in streaks down his robes. Oddly, he seemed taller and straighter than before. ‘What is it?’ he asked, as if there was nothing strange in any of this.

‘Ah, well. The boys down below want you to know we have Avowed headed our way. An’ I guess, they're worried. C'n you handle them?’

‘I will give it everything I possess,’ the man said, sounding more lucid than Nait could ever recall. But it was unnerving as well: he was so calm, his gaze so steady and self-possessed. And that eerie all-black pupil, iris and orb.

‘Ah! Great! Everyone'll be happy to hear that. We'll keep them off your back then.’

‘I know you will, Nait. Good luck to you. I will do what I can to protect all of you. If I am overcome, there will be no mistaking it.’

‘Right.’ Nait almost saluted. Strange how an aura of unassuming command seemed to have suddenly enveloped the old bird. After a sort of half-bow, Nait started down the slope. He had no idea of where the trench was, of course, as the dark was so unremitting – yet he could see to walk in it. He decided it must've been that sip from the jug.

It all thrust itself at him in one pace as it had before: the yells, clash of weaponry, rattle of shields. Hands pulled him down and he crouched, blinking. Far down the modest slope, curving arcs of layered defences of heavy infantry behind shields protected a screen of skirmishers who took turns stepping up to fire then withdrawing. Behind these, an inner defence of Moranth Gold and more Malazan heavies, and behind these the trench where a dense thicket of cross-bowmen and women, skirmishers and saboteurs, rained a punishing hail of bolts down on the ranks of Guardsmen pressing the defences.

Yet so few. So few left on both sides. Where was everyone? Could the fallen number so many? Thousands remained in the centre, though, of course, and in the west. Thankfully, the Guard elements here had been reduced to so few that all they could do was harass and pin down – yet why do more? Why bloody themselves further cracking this hard nut when all they had to do was wait for their Avowed to arrive and break us open for them?

Yells went up around the curve of the defensive line as two figures were spotted charging the trench. Nait jumped up, running, ‘Hold fire! Hold fire!’ The two shouldered aside closing regulars, straight-armed Moranth Gold from their path, and tumbled into the trench. Nait arrived as they straightened, sharing mad grins. ‘You damn fools!’ he snarled. ‘You could've gotten yourselves killed.’

The shorter of the two, Master Sergeant Temp, wearing an ox's load of layered mail and banded iron armour, flinched back his grey-stubbled chin behind the cheek-guards of his helmet. ‘Why, it's our old friend Sergeant Jumpy himself. Sounds like he's gone all responsible on us, Ferrule. Command does that, I hear.’

The two climbed up out of the trench. ‘I told you, it ain't Ferrule no more,‘ the other, the burly Seti, complained. ‘It's…’ and his thick brows clenched in concentration, ‘… Bear.’ His face lit up, all pleased. ‘Yeah, Bear.’

‘Bear? That's just plain stupid. Don't you have any imagination? How about… Dainty?’

The Seti struck Temp a blow on his chest that would've broken Nait's ribs. ‘No! That don't take any imagination – that's just saying the opposite. Like Rock.’

‘Oh, yeah, Rock. I forgot about that guy. Lady, could he run!’

‘Hey! Hey!’

The two glared at Nait. ‘What?’

‘What in the Abyss are you two doing here?’

Temp shrugged, winking. ‘We heard this was the place to be.’

Oh great! They were gonna get hammered.

Almost as if reading Nait's thoughts, silence gathered over the lines. The Guardsmen had pulled back all around the length of the curving front. Figures pushed forward to the front of the makeshift Guard shieldwall: both glowing like miniature suns to Nait's blood-enhanced vision. Here we go! Damned Avowed mages come to answer the challenge. Through the blazing auras surrounding them he could just make them out: a man leaning on a staff, twisted-looking like he'd been wounded bad, or had survived childhood rickets. The other was a Dal Hon woman in thick dark robes gathered at one shoulder, her hair bunched and wild.

The men and women around Nait shouted, pointing off to the side. He squinted into the night lit by fitful fires over the field cluttered with broken equipment and piled bodies. A long column of soldiers was marching by and at their fore a tall banner, dark with the bright silver dragon rampant. Skinner circling around to head north. Why? Was he that confident of his mages?

Temp struck Ferrule's, or Bear's, shoulder, motioning to the distant banner. ‘There's our boy.’

‘What? Circlin’ around?’ The Seti was affronted. ‘Fener take it! After all the trouble we went to.’

‘C'mon,’ the master sergeant called, and jumped the trench. ‘He's gettin’ away.’

‘Wait!’ Nait called but they were gone, jogging hunched down the hillside like two boulders launched against the Guardsmen line. They crashed into it and kept going, men falling backwards before them, weapons flying, to disappear into the night. ‘Shit!’

It had got perceptibly colder, as if the darkness were gathering itself for what was to come. The two mages in Nait's sight raised their arms. Crossbow bolts flew at them like a hailstorm but none came near. From the Dal Hon woman's position pressure mounted against Nait like a wind that was no wind. Waves of it advanced up the hill before the woman, each stronger than the last. First they pressed the broken grass stalks flat. The next waves gouged the stalks and dense root matrix from the ground. The next then began pushing a ridge of loosened dirt up the hill like a chisel. Just in time the trench was abandoned by scrambling men and women as it collapsed, pushed back and filled by the shifting earth. Some soldiers fell, hands clutching at their ears, helmets torn off. Nait fell to his knees. Hunched, he glimpsed much worse appearing before the other Avowed mage. In a slow advance up the slope soldiers fell as if scythed, shrieking, gagging. They writhed in wordless agony, limbs twisting up like drying roots. The sight brought Nait's gorge to his throat. He fell to his hands and knees and vomited.