Seven thousand veterans and four thousand recruits. The Black Moranth legions lined the ridge to the west a quarter-mile distant.
No wind stirred the midday air. Biting midges roved in visible clouds through the soldiers waiting below. The sky was overcast, the cloud cover thin but absolute.
Tattersail stood on the hill's crest, sweat running down under her clothing, and watched the soldiers on the plain before facing her meagre cadre. At full strength, six mages should have been arrayed behind her, but there were only two. Off to one side Hairlock waited, wrapped in the dark grey raincloak that was his battle attire-looking smug.
Calot nudged Tattersail and jerked his head towards Hairlock. “What's he so happy about?”
“Hairlock,” Tattersail called. The man swung his head. “Were you right about the three High Mages?”
He smiled, then turned away again.
“I hate it when he's hiding something,” Calot said.
The sorceress grunted. “He's added something up, all right. What's so particular about Nightchill, Bellurdan and NKaronys? Why did Tayschrenn pick them and how did Hairlock know he'd pick them?”
“Questions, questions,” Calot sighed. “All three are old hands at this kind of stuff. Back in the days of the Emperor they each commanded a company of Adepts-when the Empire had enough mages in the ranks to form actual companies. NKaronys climbed through the ranks in the Falari Campaign, and Bellurdan and Nightchill were from before even then-came down from Fenn on the Quon mainland during the unification wars.”
“All old hands,” Tattersail mused, “as you said. None have been active lately, have they? Their last campaign was Seven Cities-”
“Where NKaronys took a beating in the Pan'potsun Wastes-”
“He was left hanging-the Emperor had just been assassinated. Everything was chaotic. The T'lan Imass refused to acknowledge the new Empress, marched themselves off into the Jhag Odhan.”
“Rumour has it they're back, at half-strength-whatever they ran into out there wasn't pleasant.”
Tattersail nodded. “Nightchill and Bellurdan were told to report to Nathilog, left sitting on their hands for the past six, seven years-”
“Until Tayschrenn sent the Thelomen off to Genabaris, to study a pile of ancient scrolls, of all things.”
“I'm frightened,” Tattersail admitted. “Very frightened. Did you see Dujek's face? He knew something-a realization, and it hit him like a dagger in the back.”
“Time to work,” Hairlock called.
Calot and Tattersail swung around.
A shiver ran through her. Moon's Spawn had been revolving steadily for the last three years. It had just stopped. Near its very top, on the side facing them, was a small ledge, and a shadowed recess had appeared. A portal. No movement showed yet. “He knows,” she whispered.
“And he isn't running,” Calot added.
Down on the first hill, High Mage Tayschrenn rose and lifted his arms out to the sides. A wave of golden flame spanned his hands, then rolled upward, growing as it raced towards Moon's Spawn. The spell crashed against the black rock, sending chunks hurtling out, then down. A rain of death descended into the city of Pale, and among the Malazan legions waiting in the plain.
“It's begun,” Calot breathed.
Silence answered Tayschrenn's first attack, save for the faint scatter of rubble on the city's tiled rooftops and the distant cries of wounded soldiers on the plain. Everyone's eyes were trained upward.
The reply was not what anyone expected.
A black cloud enshrouded Moon's Spawn, followed by faint shrieking.
A moment later the cloud spread out, fragmenting, and Tattersail realized what she was seeing.
Ravens.
Thousands upon thousands of Great Ravens. They must have nested among the crags and pocks in the Moon's surface. Their shrieks grew more defined, a caterwaul of outrage. They wheeled out from the Moon, their fifteen-foot wingspans catching the wind and lifting them high above the city and plain.
Fear lurched into terror in Tattersail's heart.
Hairlock barked a laugh and whirled to them. “These are the Moon's messengers, colleagues!” Madness glittered in his eyes. “These carrion birds!” He flung back his cloak and raised his arms. “Imagine a lord who's kept thirty thousand Great Ravens well fed!”
A figure had appeared on the ledge before the portal, its arms upraised, long silver hair blowing from its head.
Mane of Chaos. Anomander Rake. Lord of the black-skinned Tiste And? who has looked down on a hundred thousand winters, who has tasted the blood of dragons, who leads the last of his kind, seated in the Throne of Sorrow and a kingdom tragic and fey-a kingdom with no land to call its own.