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.
Mallet. The healer leaned close to press the captain's sword into his hands, then shouted words Paran barely heard. 'Come on! They're all getting the Hood out of here!' A shove sent the captain stumbling forward.
His eyes saw, but his mind failed in registering the devastation to either side of the path they now ran down towards the north gate. He felt himself shutting down inside, even as he slipped and staggered through the human ruin … shutting down as he had once before, years ago, on a road in Itko Kan.
The hand of vengeance stayed cold only so long. Any soul possessing a shred of humanity could not help but see the reality behind cruel deliverance, no matter how justified it might have at first seemed. Faces blank in death. Bodies twisted in postures no-one unbroken could achieve. Destroyed lives. Vengeance yielded a mirror to every atrocity, where notions of right and wrong blurred and lost all relevance.
He saw, to the right and left, fleeing figures. A few sharpers cracked, hastening the rout.
The Bridgeburners had announced themselves to the enemy.
We are their match, the captain realized as he ran, in calculated brutality. But this is a war of nerves where no-one wins.
The unchallenged darkness of the gate swallowed Paran and his fellow Bridgeburners. Boots skidded as the soldiers halted their mad sprint. Dropping into crouches. Reloading crossbows. Not a word spoken.
Trotts reached a hand out and dragged Hedge close. The Barghast shook the man hard for a moment, then made to throw him down. A squeal from Spindle stopped him. Hedge, after all, carried a leather sack half full of munitions.
His face still a mass of bruises from Detoran's fond touch, Hedge cursed. 'Ain't no choice, you big ape!'