Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

The ornately helmed head fell back, away, thumped as it struck the slush-covered cobbles.

Snarling, lifeless shreds snagged on his teeth, the wolf spun round.

The hound crouched, spine hunched, in a corner of the archway. Blood poured from it. Alone, to battle its wounds.

The undead swordsman- my brother — was on his leather-wrapped feet now, his flint sword trading blows with the other K'ell Hunter's twin blades. At speeds unimaginable. Chunks of the K'Chain Che'Malle flew. A sword-bound forearm spun end over end to land near the flinching hound.

The K'ell Hunter lurched back in the face of the onslaught. Shin-bones snapped with a brittle report. The huge creature fell over, spraying slush out to all sides.

The undead warrior clambered onto it, systematically swinging his sword to dismember the K'Chain Che'Malle. It was a task swiftly completed.

The wolf approached the wounded hound. The animal snapped a warning to stay away-

Toc was suddenly blind, ripped away from the wolf's vision.

Bitter winds tore at him, but the Matron held him tight. On the move. Swiftly. They travelled a warren, a path of riven ice. They were, he realized, fleeing Outlook, fleeing the fortress that had just been breached.

By Baaljagg. And Garath and Tool. Garath — those wounds -

'Silence!' a voice shrieked.

The Seer was with them, leading the way through Omtose Phellack.

The gift of clarity remained in Toc's mind. His laugh was a ragged gurgle.

'Shut up!'

The entire warren shook to distant thunder, the sound of vast ice … cracking, exploding in a conflagration of sorcery.

Lady Envy. With us once more -

The Seer screamed.

Reptilian arms clenched Toc. Bones cracked, splintered. Pain shoved him over a precipice. My kin, my brothers - He blacked out.

The night sky to the south was lit red. Though over a league distant, from the slope of the sparsely wooded hill, Capustan's death was plain to see, drawing the witnesses to silence apart from the rustle of armour and weapons, and the squelch of boots and moccasins in mud.

Leaves dripped a steady susurration. The soaked humus filled the warm air with its fecundity. Somewhere nearby a man coughed.

Captain Paran drew a dagger and began scraping the mud from his boots. He had known what to expect at this moment — his first sight of the city. Humbrall Taur's scouts had brought word back earlier in the day. The siege was over. The Grey Swords might well have demanded an emperor's ransom for their services, but fire-charred, tooth-gnawed bones could not collect it. Even so, knowing what to expect did little to diminish the pathos of a dying city.

Had those Grey Swords been Crimson Guard, the scene before Paran might well be different. With the lone exception of Prince K'azz D'Avore's Company of the Avowed, mercenaries were less than worthless as far as the captain was concerned. Tough talk and little else.

Let's hope those children of Humbrall Taur have fared better. It did not seem likely. Pockets of resistance perhaps remained. Small knots of cornered soldiers, knowing mercy was out of the question, would fight to the last. In alleys, in houses, in rooms. Capustan's death-throes would be protracted. Then again, if these damned Barghast can actually manage a doubletime — instead of this squabbling saunter — we might be able to adjust that particular fate's conclusion.

Paran turned at the arrival of his new commander, Trotts.

The huge Barghast's eyes glittered as he studied the burning city. 'The rains have done little to dim the flames,' he rumbled, scowling.

'Perhaps it's not as bad as it looks,' Paran said. 'I can make out maybe five major fires. It could be worse — I've heard tales of firestorms …'

'Aye. We saw one from afar, in Seven Cities, once.'

'What's Humbrall Taur had to say, Warchief? Do we pick up our pace or do we just stand here?'

Trotts bared his filed teeth. 'He will send the Barahn and the Ahkrata clans southeast. They are tasked with taking the landings and the floating bridges and barges. His own Senan and the Gilk will strike towards Capustan. The remaining clans will seize the Septarch's main supply camp, which lies between the landings and the city.'

'That's all very well, but if we keep dawdling-'

'Hetan and Cafal, Taur's children, are alive and not at risk. So the shouldermen insist. The bones are being protected, by strange sorceries. Strange, yet profoundly powerful. There is-'

'Damn you, Trotts! People are dying down there! People are being devoured !'

The Barghast's grin broadened. 'Thus, I have been given leave … to lead my clan at a pace of my own choosing. Captain, are you eager to be first among the White Faces into Capustan?'

Paran growled under his breath. He felt a need to draw his sword, felt a need to deliver vengeance, to finally — after all this time — strike a blow against the Pannion Domin. Quick Ben, in those moments when he was lucid and not raving with fever, had made it clear that the Domin held dire secrets, and a malevolence stained its heart. The fact of the Tenescowri was proof enough of that to the captain's mind.

But there was more to his need. He lived with pain. His stomach raged with spotfires. He had thrown up acidic bile and blood — revealing that truth to no-one. The pain bound him within himself, and those bindings were getting tighter.

And another truth, one I keep pushing away. She's haunting me. Seeking my thoughts. But I'm not ready for her. Not yet, not with my stomach aflame.

It was no doubt madness — a delusion — but Paran believed that the pain would relent — all would be well once more — as soon as he delivered to the world the violence trapped within him. Folly or not, he clung to that belief. Only then will these pressures relent. Only then.

He was not ready to fail.

'Call up the Bridgeburners, then,' Paran muttered. 'We can be at the north gate inside of a bell.'

Trotts grunted. 'All thirty-odd of us.'

'Well, damn if we can't shame these Barghast into some haste-'

'This is your hope?'

Paran glanced over at the man. 'Hood take us all, Trotts, you were the one who asked Taur to grant you leave. Do you expect the thirty-seven of us to retake Capustan all on our own? With an unconscious mage in tow?'

The Barghast, eyes thinned to slits as he studied the city ahead, rolled his shoulders and said, 'We leave Quick Ben behind. As for retaking the city, I mean to try.'

After a long moment, the captain grinned. 'Glad to hear it.'

The march of the White Face Barghast had been slow, torturous. Early on, during the southward journey across the high plains, sudden duels brought the clans to a halt a half-dozen times a day. These were, finally, diminishing, and Humbrall Taur's decision to assign entire clans to specific tasks in the upcoming battle would effectively remove the opportunity in the days to come. For all that every warchief had bowed to the single cause — the liberation of their gods — longstanding enmities persisted.

Trotts's new role as warchief of the Bridgeburners had proved something of a relief for Paran. He'd hated the responsibility of command. The pressure that was the well-being of every soldier under him had been a growing burden. As second-in-command, that pressure had diminished, if only slightly — but it was, for now, enough. Less pleasant was the fact that Paran had lost his role as representative of the Bridgeburners. Trotts had taken on the task of attending the war councils, leaving the captain out of the picture.

In the strictest sense, Paran remained in command of the Bridgeburners. But the company had become a tribe, insofar as Humbrall Taur and the Barghast were concerned, and tribes elected warchiefs, and that role belonged to Trotts.