* * *
Nait crawled on his belly from one pit to another. The flesh of his back writhed with the knowledge that energies that could evaporate iron crackled and thrummed just a stone's throw above him. Ants. Just us ants down here ‘s all. Finding the next pit, he flopped down into the hip-deep depression where soldiers on their knees frantically dug with those once maligned but now oh-so-valuable saboteur tools: shovels. He shouted over the avalanche churning of power: ‘Anyone here get a look at whoever the Abyss it is?’
The nearest answered: ‘Yeah. I seen ‘im. It's Hood himself come to get us!’ He gestured upwards. ‘Brought his gate with him!’
Nait pushed the laughing fellow aside, carried on.
‘It's a mage,’ one shouted into his ear as he passed. ‘Wrapped in flame. None of the bolts reached him – they burned. Even melted!’ Nait nodded his understanding.
‘Where is he now?’ he yelled. The fellow gestured ahead. ‘Thanks.’ Nait pointed back the way he'd come. ‘Dig back, link up!’ A nod of acknowledgement. Reaching the end of the pit, Nait edged up to slide out. The chest of his hauberk gouged the dirt as he pulled himself along by the insides of his arms and legs. Through the wind-lashed grass he saw the fellow – or what must be him. It was a swirling squat tornado of power inside which he could just make out a human-like silhouette, arms raised.
He turned his head to peer upward. It was misleading, but the summoning, or whatever it was, seemed to hover exactly above him. Its height was hard to guess – top of a tall tree maybe? Darkness tinged by grey boiled and stirred within. Around him dust and fragments of chaff floated upwards, drawn up on a gathering draught that appeared to lead into the thing. Abyss! And it might just be so, too.
Something touched his leg and his heart almost burst. He looked back: it was one of the Avowed, his face all purplish and bruised, one eye swollen shut. Blues, Ho had given his name as. The Avowed gestured him back. Nait waved him away: blasted fool! He'd almost made him jump up and run for it! The fellow gestured again, insistent. Fine! Nait pushed himself backwards.
They met all together in a rear trench. Urfa's and Nait's saboteurs worked around them deepening the earthworks. In attendance were the saboteur sergeants, the survivors of the wreck and two sergeants from stranded heavy infantry elements squatting in the grasses: Pellan, a Falaran, and Tourmaline, a Moranth. Nait was surprised and pleased to see Heuk as well. ‘What are you doing here?’ he shouted.
The old mage grimaced, scratched his patchy beard. ‘Bastards dropped me ‘n’ ran. Woke me up.’
After introductions, the Malazan heavy infantry sergeant, Pellan, spoke up: ‘What can we do? ‘Cept get our arses away from here?’
‘Can't move,’ Ho said. ‘Anything that moves gets hit, consumed to ashes.’
‘So what can we do?’ Pellan gestured angrily to the sky. ‘There ain't nothing we can do against that!’
Ho opened his mouth but the Gold Moranth spoke up: ‘It must be closed.’
Everyone turned to him – or her. ‘We know of these … things. A remnant of one still exists to the south of our lands. They are crimes against existence. They undermine the very ground upon which we live, the air we breathe. It must be destroyed at all cost.’
Pellan blinked, clearly impressed by such passion, but he pointed up again. ‘What? Way up there? There's nothin’ we can do – unless we jump that mage.’
‘No chance,’ Ho said. ‘Anyone coming close would be incinerated.’
Pellan threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘Then you mages come up with something!’ and he waved to Heuk.
The grimed mage exchanged glances with Ho, the ones named Blues and Fingers, and the big, thick-armed female mage named Devaleth. The last of them, the old Wickan witch, had yet to recover with the aid of the sketchy healing that could be provided. They all still seemed a little punchy, but they were deadly serious; so much so Nait found himself wondering about their relationship with the source of this thing. If they were such enemies why were they all together on the same ship? And pretty much all of them mages, too. As far as he was concerned, you get that many mages, jammed together and things like this are practically guaranteed to happen.
Ho hunched further as if driven down by the appalling furnace hovering above. ‘We may not be able to get close to the summoner, but the rift itself is growing, expanding.’
‘So?’ said Pellan.
Tourmaline nodded his helmed head. ‘It is coming closer into range,’ the Moranth said flatly.
Ho and the Gold studied one another wordlessly until Ho lowered his gaze, guiltily, it appeared to Nait.
‘You're going to try to disrupt it,’ Fingers said from where he sat, grimacing his pain and holding his bandaged bloody head.
‘Yes,’ said Ho. ‘A sufficiently large blast might be enough to upset its flow. Especially while it's just establishing itself.’
Pellan leaned back, crossing his arms. ‘Oh, wonderful plan! Who's gonna do that?’
‘I will,’ said Tourmaline.
No one had anything to add to that.
Someone or something jabbed Nait where he crouched on his haunches. May was on her knees behind him, glaring. He mouthed a ‘what?’ She motioned him savagely to speak. The glare deepened into an evil eye. ‘All right, all right!’
‘Yeah, I'll help out,’ he told Tourmaline. The Moranth gave a short bow. I'll hold your rope, or something like that, maybe. Nait signalled Urfa aside. The two put their heads together to talk low.
‘How're going to get the stuff from our boys ‘n’ girls?’ Urfa asked.
‘Good question. Tell ‘em the Gold have munitions to distribute – that'll bring them runnin’.’
Urfa guffawed showing a mouthful of bent, misaligned teeth. ‘Goddamn, you're a sneaky one, Jumpy! OK, we'll spread the word. Have some heavies nearby to corral them.’
‘We'll need lots.’
*
After all the crying and yelling died down, Jawl's begging and pleading, Urfa's veterans threatening murder, the heavies dragged the last of the saboteurs off and Nait and Urfa went through the assembled hoard. They were careful. Some jokers weren't above boobytrapping their packs with small charges such as the rare Moranth ‘stick fuses’. Tourmaline arrived with all the Gold had with them. They placed the largest of the munitions all together: eight cussors and four crackers. A terrifying assemblage, as far as Nait was concerned. Like nothing he'd ever dreamed seeing gathered together in his entire lifetime. A hoard fit to level a fortress. But when he studied the moiling gap into nothingness turning ponderously like a whirlpool on its side, the pile seemed laughably inadequate. Yet it was all they had.
Tourmaline began packing it all away into the Moranth wood-framed canvas carryalls. After watching for a time Nait helped. They took two bags each, brought them to the closest edge of the earthworks. Urfa followed, arranged the carrying straps, pulled them tight.
‘You'd take Ryllandaras over this any day, hey?’ she shouted over the constant thundering roar above.
‘Naked with jam on my arse!’
Laughing, she gave a thumbs-up.
A number of the mages came sliding down into the dirt trench, faces averted from the stain hanging over everyone. Heuk came to Nait's side. ‘What's this?’ Nait asked.
‘Some are going to head out with you,’ the old mage shouted, his mouth close to Nait's ear.
‘What for?’
‘In case he spots you – they'll do what they can.’
‘Oh, great!’
Tourmaline turned to Nait, signed move out. They edged up and out. Nait pushed himself along with the inside of his frayed leather sandals, pulled with handfuls of the sharp tough grass. The swirling dust made him want to sneeze. His munition bags dragged to either side. Through the grass he caught brief glimpses of the mages accompanying them: Ho and Blues, at least. Then their differing paths took them from sight.
As they edged along, on an idle thought, Nait spoke to Tourmaline. ‘You Moranth, I was wondering, you have women among you?’
‘Of course. All are needed in defence of the homeland.’
‘And you? What about you? I mean – Tourmaline – among you … is that a woman's or a man's name?’
The helm jerked away as if Tourmaline was offended. ‘A woman's, of course! Isn't it obvious?’ And she shuffled away, kicking dirt.
Nait paused, stricken with wonder. Gods above and below! He was surrounded by them! May, Urfa, Bala, Hands, now Tourmaline. Strong women! They were a bane upon his life.
They passed the scattered, tangled ruins of the ship and Nait caught up with the Moranth, finding that she'd taken out a saboteur's shovel and was hacking out a cut in the thick root-layer of the prairie grass. Nait looked up: the mar, or rift, or whatever it was, appeared to hang edge-on, directly above. Dust raised by Tourmaline's efforts puffed up to rise like smoke, sucked up and up, presumably to waft into the gap. Nait winced at that, imagining himself following. Into the Abyss, or the Gap of Chaos itself.
Knowing there was only room for one to work, Nait peeked through the blowing grasses to keep watch. The mage stood far off, a flickering darker shape within the spinning curtain of multicoloured energies surrounding him like a glaring winding-sheet.
He watched for a time. The slanting rays of the sun punished him, heating his pot helmet. He was sweating and damned thirsty. He figured it was nearing mid-morning. Behind him, Tourmaline excavated a bowl-shaped depression in the thick grey topsoil.
Then sudden movement. Four figures had appeared from nowhere between him and the mage: two Wickans, and two Crimson Guardsmen. Nait gaped, then threw himself as low as possible. The Imperials and the Guard were making a move!
Power erupted, slamming Nait backwards and pounding the ground to make it shake. Spot-fires burst to life among the grasses. Nait fumbled, bouncing, to throw himself on top of Tourmaline who lay on top of her excavation. Speech was impossible: the howling rabid ferocity pummelled Nait, making him scream soundlessly. He risked a glance up, eyes slitted, face shaded against the blowing dirt and chaff. The four poured punishing energies into the one mage who responded with his own lashes that flailed each. But they were not alone: Ho and Blues had appeared as well and now they too added their efforts.
It looked to him as if the six were making headway; the attacks from the one seemed to weaken, flickering. Yes! They're going to do it! Yet the winding penumbra of energy that surrounded him did not appear to be thinning at all. Argent fire searing from one of the attackers was merely deflected to spin inward, adding its own layer to those enmeshing the mage. What was going on? Why couldn't they overcome him?
Crashing noise pulled Nait's attention from the front. He glanced behind and gaped, horrified. Broken timbers, jagged fragments of shattered board and rope-tangled ironmongery were on their way, flying towards him through the air. Look out! But of course he couldn't warn anyone; he could only duck, covering his head.
The debris swooped over, whipping and hissing through the air as fierce as crossbow bolts shot from a siege scorpion. He watched enraged and aghast as the spinning wreckage lanced into the six attackers. One was decapitated instantly. All were plucked from their feet like scythed weeds to fly spinning through the air. It looked to him as if one had taken a blow to the head from a bent iron bar, Ho was impaled once more by wood shards, and the others similarly swept away in one masterstroke.
Beside him Tourmaline signed for Nait to go help them. Nait motioned to the pit. She shook her head, waved for him to give her his munitions. Cursing, Nait pulled the straps from over his head, then scuttled off keeping as low to the ground as possible.
As he went he kept an eye on the mage in his ring of protective energies; the man appeared to have turned away from the field, dismissing it once more to concentrate on his efforts with the rift. That suited Nait. Crawling through the whipping, singed grasses he yelped to meet two coming towards him – the Wickans, young, adolescent boy and girl, nearly identical. Each carried appalling wounds, gouges and slices that ran with blood, clothes tattered. Nait grasped an arm of each to help guide them back to the trench.
He handed them over to the reaching arms of Heuk, two Avowed named Treat and Sept, and even the old Wickan witch who had come forward. She took them and immediately began berating them in Wickan; the two flinched, hanging their heads, looking like remorseful schoolchildren. Nait turned back to try to find the others. The two Avowed slipped up and out after him, running hunched.
Movement on the field dropped Nait to his chest – two of the fallen mages – up and closing on the summoner: Blues and Ho. Despite torn bloodied rags revealing gaping wounds, Blues’ back wet with blood that ran down darkening his legs, both limped inexorably towards the mage. Blues drew two short blades. They reached the outermost spiralling layer of energy, pushing inward, hands protecting their faces. And it seemed to Nait that, somehow, despite the punishing, scouring conflagration, both were pushing through. The two Avowed threw themselves down next to Nait. ‘Blues!’ one urged, ‘Get ‘im!’
Even Nait found his hands clenched in fists. Yes! Get him! Send him to Hood!
Shapes appeared from nowhere behind Blues and lunged up from the grass behind Ho. The Avowed cursed, leapt to their feet running, drawing weapons. Blues turned, defending himself only to be thrust from his feet by the power of the churning energy to fall in a tangle with his attackers. The three figures tackling Ho struck Nait as all bizarrely similar, as if they were all members of the same family. The four rolled away in a blur of ferocious kicks and blows that sent up swaths of earth.
Sizzling actinic power slashed out to strike the closing Avowed, Treat and Sept, throwing them tumbling across the slope like tossed balls. Two more figures ran past Nait, bent over, faces averted from the blasting magics – the Wickan youths, heading for the brawl of Ho and his attackers.
Lady, this is seriously not what I signed up for. Not what I signed up for at all.
He was considering heading back for the trench when he froze. Someone was standing right beside him. Nait slowly edged his head up: the man wore loose trousers, sashed, and a long-sleeved pale-blue tunic; his long loose hair blew about his mahogany face, which was wrinkled up in sour disgust. Nait had never seen the man before in his life. ‘I allow them their petty squabbles,’ the fellow said as if thinking aloud. ‘I do not interfere in succession. My forbearance I thought unassailable. But this! This I cannot allow.’
The man merely raised a hand and a blinding eruption threw Nait aside. He rolled tumbling to lie stunned, gasping in the hot dust-choked air. He didn't know whether he blacked out. He couldn't tell. But when he shook his head, blinking and coughing, eyes watering, he reared up to look: a slash of brilliant light was hammering the mage in his gyre of protective energies. It was pushing the entire tornado of writhing force backwards while this new mage advanced at a steady pace.
Hood's balls! Who was this guy?
More wreckage flew overhead, whipping for the fellow. No! Not again! But as it neared it burst into flames, the shattered timbers incinerating instantly into wafting black flakes. The mangled iron glowing, melting and misting into smoke.
Three figures emerged from the churning smoke and dust, Ho supported by the Wickan youths. They were making for the trench. Though he was beaten and bruised the mage's face held an idiotic grin. The Wickan girl spotted Nait and signed retreat. He didn't need any more encouragement than that.
They piled into the trench. People reached out, supporting Nait. One was Heuk. ‘Who in Hood's mercy is that!’ Nait said.
‘Tayschrenn.’ The old mage grinned his blackened rotten teeth. ‘Ain't he somethin’?’
‘I'll say.’
The aged Wickan witch helped with Ho, who offered a broken-lipped smile. ‘You won?’ she asked him. He gave a tired nod.
‘They acceded to me.’
‘Good. I knew they would.’ She turned on the two youths. ‘And you two – where is the other, Blues? Why did you not come back with him? We still may need him.’
The two exchanged suffering glances, but bowed. ‘Yes, Nana,’ they said, and scrambled back out on to the field.
‘Healers!’ the old woman barked, waving them to Ho. ‘See to him!’
Nait peered up at the mar still hanging in the clear blue sky like a bruise or ugly wound. It had grown since he last looked. ‘It's low,’ he said to Heuk.
‘Yes, but-look!’
The enemy mage, named Yath apparently, had been plucked off the ground. He flailed now, limbs churning, enmeshed in the argent puissance invoked by Tayschrenn. It looked as though the High Mage intended to force him through his own rift.
‘Yes …’ Heuk murmured appreciatively, ‘he may just bridge it…’ Then the mage stiffened and turned to Nait, his face blanching. He gripped Nait's shoulder. ‘Eldest forgive me! What of Tourmaline? The munitions! Tayschrenn stands almost on top of them!’