The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

Itkovian and Stonny rode past the Malazan rearguard. The crackle of sorcery – close. Soldiers lined the ridge before them, an army assembled, facing south – now breaking into disorganized motion. Dismay struck Itkovian with palpable force, a flood of raw pain, of immeasurable loss. He reeled in his saddle, forced himself upright once more. Urgency thundered through him, now, sudden, overwhelming. Stonny was shouting, angling her stumbling horse to the right, leaving the road, approaching a hilltop where stood the Malazan standard, drooped in the windless air. Itkovian followed, but slower, drawing back. His soul was drowning in cold horror. His horse surrendered its gallop, staggered, head thrusting out. Canter to a weaving, loose walk, then halting, slowly drawing square-footed twenty paces from the hill’s base. Then dying. Numbed, Itkovian slipped his boots from the stirrups, drew an aching leg over the beast’s rump, then dropped down to the ground. On the hill to his right, he saw Stonny, stumbling free from her horse – the slope had defeated it – and clambering upward. Gruntle and his troop had arrived, human once again, crowding the hill, yet seemingly doing nothing. Itkovian turned his gaze away, began walking along one side of the road, which had straightened for the final, downhill approach to the killing field, and the city beyond. Cold horror. His god was gone. His god could not deflect it as it had once done, months ago, on a plain west of Capustan. Loss and sor...