The God is Not Willing (Witness #1)

by Steven Erikson

It was well, Oams decided, that Fist Sevitt had made certain the refugees were at the front of the withdrawal to the new camp site well inland. They’d not seen this, and he hoped they never would. There were remnants of uniforms among the thousands of corpses that now marked the division between land and sea, but for the most part, the dead weren’t soldiers. They were Teblor. They were Ganrel. They were Wilders and Saemdhi, Bright Knot and Jhinan, Fildasz and Brethen, and countless other peoples beyond identification. Looking to the left, Oams could see that grisly wrack continuing on for as far as his eyes could discern. To the right, the sea’s shoreline curled northward, and there the bodies were mixed among uprooted trees, branches and massive mats and mounds of leaves. No one spoke. They weren’t here to speak. But Oams felt the failure like a stone in his chest. Still, he would not look away. Like the others, he studied the scene below, detail after detail, searing it onto his soul. There were reasons for doing this. No doubt they would make no sense to most people. At times, they made no sense to Oams, either. None of those reasons were easy to put into words. To bear witness, perhaps. Because to do otherwise would not only be the act of a coward, it would also be an act of disrespect. And it was not just the bodies of Malazan marines below – the bodies of friends and comrades lost – but all the others as well. Especially the children, and there were so many children....