The pain was so vast it was almost exquisite. She writhed, twisted in its grip, and then pitched down from the beam. Chains rapped against the sodden wood. Her weight pulled them down in a rattle and she heard something break.
Thumping on to ash-smeared clay.
Staring as she held up her hands. Seeing frost-rimed shackles, and, beneath them, broken links.
She had felt the wagon rocking its way back round. Horror and disbelief had filled her soul, and the need to do something had overwhelmed her, trampling all caution, trampling sanity itself.
And now, lying on the cold, gritty mud, she thought to laugh.
Free.
Free with nowhere to run. With possibly dead hands-and what good was a thief with dead, rotting hands?
She struggled to uncurl her fingers. Watched the knuckles crack open like charred meat. Red fissures gaped. And, as she stared, she saw the first droplets of blood welling from them. Was that a good sign?
‘Fire is life,’ she intoned. ‘Stone is flesh. Water is breath. Fire is life. Stone is water is flesh is breath is life. Pluck a flower from a field and it will not thrive. Take and beauty dies, and that which one possesses becomes worthless. I am a thief. I take but do not keep. All I gain I cast away. I take your wealth only because you value it.
‘I am Apsal’ara, Mistress of Thieves. Only you need fear me, you who lust to own.’
She watched her fingers slowly straighten, watched flakes of skin lift and then fall away.
She would survive this. Her hands had touched Darkness, and lived still.
As if it mattered.
Even here, beneath the wagon, the dread sounds of war surrounded her. Chaos closed in on all sides. Souls died in numbers beyond counting, and their cries re-vealed a loss so far past comprehension that she refused to contemplate it. The death of honourable souls. The immense sacrifice wasted. No, none of this bore thinking about.
Apsal’ara rolled on to her side, and then on to her knees and elbows.
She began crawling.
And then gasped anew, as a familiar voice filled her head.
‘Mistress of Thieves. Take the eye. The eye of the god. Apsal’ara, steal the eye
Trembling-wondering-how? How could he reach so into her mind? He could do so only if… only if-
Apsal’ara gasped a third time.
And so… once in pain, once in wonder, and once in… in hope.
She resumed crawling.
Pluck your flower. I am coming for you.
Oh yes, I am coming for you.
With each soul consumed, the power of chaos grew. Hunger surged with renewed strength, and the beleaguered defenders fell back another step.
But they were running out of steps.
The indomitable legions surrounded the now stationary wagon and its dwindling ring of souls. The countless dead who had answered Hood’s final summons were melting away, most of them too ancient to call upon memories of strength, to even remember that will alone held power. In standing against the enemy, they had done little more than marginally slow the advance of chaos, as all that remained of them was ripped apart, devoured.
Some, however, were made of sterner things. The Grey Swords, delivered unto Hood by the loss of Fener, fought with grim ferocity. Commanding them, Brukhalian was like a deep-rooted standing stone, as if capable of willing himself immovable, unconquerable. He had, after all, done this before. The company fought and held for a time-an impressive length of time-but now their flanks were under assault, and there was nothing to do but retreat yet closer to the enor-mous wagon with its heap of bodies.
A score of Seguleh, all that remained of the Second’s forces, formed one im-possibly thin link with the Grey Swords. Each one had fallen to Anomander Rake, and this knowledge alone was sufficient, for it burned like acid, it stung like shame. They wore their masks, and as they fought, the painted slashes, the sigils of rank, began to fade, worn away by the fires of chaos, until upon each warrior the mask gleamed pure. As if here, within the world of this sword, some power could yield to greater truths. Here, Dragnipur seemed to say, you are all equal.
The Grey Swords’ other flank closed up with another knot of soldiers-the Bridgeburners, into which remnants of other Malazan forces were falling, drawing upon the elite company’s ascendant power, and upon the commander now known as Iskar Jarak.
The Bridgeburners were arrayed in a half-circle that slowly contracted under the brunt of the assault. Grey Swords on one flank, and the last of the Chained on the other, where a huge demon formed the point of a defiant wedge that refused to buckle. Tears streamed down the demon’s face, for even as it fought, it grieved for those lost. And such grief filled Pearl’s heart unto bursting. Pearl did not fight for itself, nor for the wagon, nor even the Gate of Darkness, the Wandering Hold. The demon fought for its comrades, as would a soldier pushed beyond breaking, pushed until there was nowhere else to go.