Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

But he could not reach out to the winged lizard; he could not find Gu’Rull anywhere. Shit.

‘Is that a damned storm cloud up ahead, Gesler? Is that blood on your face? Tell me what the Hood’s going on!’

‘You really that curious?’ Gesler said, baring his teeth. He then spat. ‘The Nah’ruk have dropped everything. They’re coming for us. We’re on our own.’

‘And the Bonehunters?’

‘We’re on our own.’

The scouts emerged from the unforgiving darkness. On this night the Slashes had vanished, taking the stars and the jade glow with them. Even the swollen haze that was the moon did not dare the sky. Shivering in the sudden chill, Warleader Strahl waited for the scouts to reach him.

The two Senan warriors were hunched over, as if fearful, or perhaps wounded. When they halted before him, both knelt. They were exhausted, he saw, their chests heaving.

Look at them. Look at this darkness. Has the world ended this night?

He would not rush them, demanding words they would struggle to feed. The dread was thick enough in their harsh breaths.

Behind the Warleader the Senan Barghast waited. Some slept, but for most sleep would not come. Hunger. Thirst. The famine of loss, a song of soft weeping. He could feel scores of eyes fixed upon him, seeing, he knew, little more than a vague, smudged silhouette. Seeing the truth of him, and before them he had nowhere to hide.

One of the scouts had recovered his wind. ‘Warleader. Two armies on the plain.’

‘The Malazans-’

‘No, Warleader-these are demons-’

The other hissed, ‘ There are thousands! ’

‘Two armies, you said.’

‘They march towards each other-through the night-we are almost between them! Warleader, we must retreat-we must flee from here!’

‘Go into the camp, both of you. Rest. Leave me. Say nothing.’

Once they’d staggered off, he drew his furs closer about his shoulders. This dusk, they’d sighted a Moon’s Spawn, but one of hard angles and planes-his sharper-eyed warriors claimed it was carved in the shape of a dragon. Two demon armies-what better place to clash than on the Wastelands? Kill each other. Yours is not our war. We mean to find the Malazans… do we not? Our old enemy, a worthy one.

Did they not betray the alliance at Coral? Did they not try to cheat Caladan Brood and steal that city in the name of the cursed Empress? If not for Anomander Rake, they would have succeeded. These Bonehunters claim to be renegades, but then, did not Dujek Onearm say the same? No, this is the usual nest of lies. Whatever they seek, whatever they conquer, they will claim for the Empress.

Onos Toolan, what other enemy existed? Who else could you hope to find? Who else as worthy as the Malazans, conquerors, devourers of history? You said you once served them. But you left them. You came to lead the White Faces. You knew this enemy-you told us so much that we now need-we were fools, that we did not see.

But now I do.

The demons were welcome to their battle.

Yes, they would retreat from this. He swung round.

Dust spun in the Senan camp, silver as moonlight, in spirals rising on all sides. Someone shrieked.

Ghostly warriors-the gleam of bone, rippling blades of chert and flint-

Strahl stared, struggling to comprehend. Screams erupted-the terrible weapons lashed out, tore through mortal flesh and bone. Barghast war-cries sounded, iron rang against stone. Rotted faces, black-pitted eyes.

A hulking figure appeared directly in front of Strahl. The Warleader’s eyes widened-as in the firelight he saw the sword gripped in the creature’s bony hands. No. No! ‘We avenged you! Onos Toolan, we avenged them all! Do not-you cannot-’

The sword hissed a diagonal slash that cut through both of Strahl’s legs, from his right hip to below his left knee. He slid down with that blade, found himself lying on the ground. Above him, only darkness. Sickly cold rushed through him. We did all we could. Our shame. Our guilt. Warleader, please. There are children, there are innocents-

The downward chop shattered his skull.

The Senan died. The White Face Barghast died. Nom Kala stood apart from the slaughter. The T’lan Imass were relentless, and had she a heart, it would have recoiled before this remorseless horror.

The slayers of his wife, his children, were paid in kind. Cut down with implacable efficiency. She heard mothers plead for the lives of their children. She heard their death-cries. She heard tiny wailing voices fall suddenly silent.

This was a crime that would poison every soul. She could almost feel the earth crack and bleed beneath them, as if spirits writhed, as if gods stumbled. The rage emanating from Onos T’oolan was darker than the sky, thicker than any cloud. It gusted outward in waves of his own horrified recognition-he knew, he could see himself, as if torn loose and flung outside his own body-he saw, and the very sight of what he was doing was driving him mad.

And us all. Oh, give me dust. Give me a morning born in oblivion, born in eternal, blessed oblivion.

There were thousands, and scores were fleeing into the night, but so many were already dead. This is what was, once. Terrible armies of T’lan Imass. We hunted down the Jaghut. We gave them what I see here. By all the spirits, is this our only voice? A terrible moaning was rising in the foul wake of the last few death-blows, a moaning that seemed to spin and swirl, coming from the T’lan Imass, from each warrior splashed in gore, dripping weapons in their hands. It was a sound that cut through Nom Kala. She staggered before it in retreat, as if begging the darkness to swallow her whole.

Onos T’oolan. Your vengeance-you delivered it… upon us, upon your pathetic followers. We followed your lead. We did as you did. We broke our own chains. We unleashed ourselves-how many millennia of this anger within us? Lashed loose, lashed into life.

Now, we are become slayers of children. We have stepped into the world, again, after all this time spent so… so free from its crimes. Onos T’oolan, do you see? Do you understand?

Now, once more, we are born into history.

If this is what a Shield Anvil feels, then I don’t want it. Do you hear me? I don’t want it! He knew Gesler, knew what the man’s refusal meant. Through that damned rhizan’s eyes he’d seen the corpses. The slaughtered remains of the Bonehunters and the Letherii. Only two days ago they’d been marching with them-all those faces he knew, all those soldiers he liked to swear at-now gone. Dead.

This was all wrong. He and Ges should have died with them, died fighting at their sides. Brotherhood and sisterhood only found true meaning in the wash of death, in the falling one after another, the darkness and then the shuddering awake before Hood’s Gate. Aye, we’re family when fighting to the last, but the real family is among the fallen. Why else do we stagger half-blind after every battle? Why else do we look upon dead kin and feel so abandoned? They left without us, that’s why.

A soldier knows this. A soldier saying different is a Hood-damned liar.

Dawn was not far off. The last day was close. But this ain’t the family I knew. It ain’t the one I wanted. All I got is Gesler. We been through it all, true, so at least we can die together. At least that makes sense. Been through it all. Falar-gods we were young! Damned fools, aye. Running off, swearing ourselves into the Fener cult-it was the rumours of the orgies that did us in. What rutting lad wouldn’t jump at the thought?

Damned orgies, oh yes. But we should’ve worked it out for ourselves. S’damned god of war, right? Orgies, oh indeed, orgies of slaughter, not sex. Thinking with the wrong brains, is what we did. But, at that age, isn’t it how it’s supposed to be?