House of Chains (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #4) 73

The Adjunct returned her gaze to the distant officers. ‘Let us see, shall we?’

Both Wickans rose, then shared a glance unwitnessed by Tavore.

Gamet rubbed his uncut hand along his brow beneath the helm’s rim, and his fingers came away dripping with sweat. Something had used him, he realized shakily. Through the medium of his blood. He could hear distant music, a song of voices and unrecognizable instruments. A pressure was building in his skull. ‘If you are done with me, Adjunct,’ he said roughly.

She nodded without looking over. ‘Return to your legion, Fist. Convey to your officers, please, the following. Units may appear during the battle on the morrow which you will not recognize. They may seek orders, and you are to give them as if they were under your command.’

‘Understood, Adjunct.’

‘Have a cutter attend to your hand, Fist Gamet, and thank you. Also, ask the guards to return to me my sword.’

‘Aye.’ He wheeled his horse and walked it down the slope.

The headache was not fading, and the song itself seemed to have poisoned his veins, a music of flesh and bone that hinted of madness. Leave me in peace, damn you. I am naught but a soldier. A soldier …

Strings sat on the boulder, his head in his hands. He had flung off the helm but had no memory of having done so, and it lay at his feet, blurry and wavering behind the waves of pain that rose and fell like a storm-tossed sea. Voices were speaking around him, seeking to reach him, but he could make no sense of what was being said. The song had burgeoned sudden and fierce in his skull, flowing through his limbs like fire.

A hand gripped his shoulder, and he felt a sorcerous questing seep into his veins, tentatively at first, then flinching away entirely, only to return with more force-and with it, a spreading silence. Blissful peace, cool and calm.

Finally, the sergeant was able to look up.

He found his squad gathered around him. The hand fixed onto his shoulder was Bottle’s, and the lad’s face was pale, beaded with sweat. Their eyes locked, then Bottle nodded and slowly withdrew his hand.

‘Can you hear me, Sergeant?’

‘Faint, as if you were thirty paces away.’

‘Is the pain gone?’

‘Aye-what did you do?’

Bottle glanced away.

Strings frowned, then said, ‘Everyone else, back to work. Stay here, Bottle.’

Cuttle cuffed Tarr and the corporal straightened and mumbled, ‘Let’s go, soldiers. There’s pits to dig.’

The sergeant and Bottle watched the others head off, retrieving their picks and shovels as they went. The squad was positioned on the south-westernmost island, overlooking dunes that reached out to the horizon. A single, sufficiently wide corridor lay directly to the north, through which the enemy-if broken and fleeing-would come as they left the basin. Just beyond it lay a modest, flat-topped tel, on which a company of mounted desert warriors were ensconced, the crest dotted with scouts keeping a careful eye on the Malazans. ‘All right, Bottle,’ Strings said, ‘out with it.’

‘Spirits, Sergeant. They’re… awakening.’

‘And what in Hood’s name has that got to do with me?’

‘Mortal blood, I think. It has its own song. They remember it. They came to you, Sergeant, eager to add their voices to it. To… uh… to you.’

‘Why me?’

‘I don’t know.’

Strings studied the young mage for a moment, mulling on the taste of that lie, then grimaced and said, ‘You think it’s because I’m fated to die here-at this battle.’

Bottle looked away once more. ‘I’m not sure, Sergeant. It’s way beyond me… this land. And its spirits. And what it all has to do with you-’

‘I’m a Bridgeburner, lad. The Bridgeburners were born here. In Raraku’s crucible.’

Bottle’s eyes thinned as he studied the desert to the west. ‘But… they were wiped out.’

‘Aye, they were.’

Neither spoke for a time. Koryk had broken his shovel on a rock and was stringing together an admirable list of Seti curses. The others had stopped to listen. On the northern edge of the island Gesler’s squad was busy building a wall of rubble, which promptly toppled, the boulders tumbling down the far edge. Distant hoots and howls sounded from the tel across the way.

‘It won’t be your usual battle, will it?’ Bottle asked.

Strings shrugged. ‘There’s no such thing, lad. There’s nothing usual about killing and dying, about pain and terror.’

‘That’s not what I meant-’