Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,471

the order came to advance.

Bloody marines. Should've volunteered for plain old infantry. Should've gotten a transfer. Should've never joined up at all. Skullcup was more than enough for me, dammit. Should've run, that's what I should've done.

Night wind whistling about them, Corabb, Leoman, L'oric, Dunsparrow and a guard stood on the gently swaying platform atop the palace tower. The city spread out in all directions, frighteningly dark and seeming lifeless.

'What are we here to see, Leoman?' L'oric asked.

'Wait, my friend – ah, there!' He pointed to the rooftop of a distant building near the west wall. On its flat top flickered muted lantern-light. Then ... gone.

'And there!'

Another building, another flash of light.

'Another! More, they are all in place! Fanatics! Damned fools! Dryjhna take us, this is going to work!'

Work? Corabb frowned, then scowled. He caught Dunsparrow's gaze on him – she mouthed a kiss. Oh how he wanted to kill her.

Heaps of rubble, broken pots, a dead, bloated dog, and animal bones, there wasn't a single stretch of even ground at the base of the wall. Bottle had followed on the heels of the sappers, up the first tier, brick fragments spilling away beneath their boots, then cries of pain and cursing as someone stumbled over a wasp nest – darkness alone had saved them from what could have been a fatal few moments – the wasps were sluggish – Bottle was astonished they had come out at all, until he saw what the soldier had managed. Knocking over one rock, then thumping his entire foot down the nest's maw.

He'd momentarily relinquished Meanas, then, to slip into the swarming soul-sparks of the wasps, quelling their panic and anger. Devoid of disguising magic for the last two tiers, the sappers had scrambled like terrified beetles – the rock they had hidden under suddenly vanishing – and made the base of the wall well ahead of the others. Where they crouched, unlimbering their packs of munitions.

Bottle scampered up to crouch at Cuttle's side. 'The gloom's back,' he whispered. 'Sorry about that – good thing they weren't black wasps – Maybe'd be dead by now.'

'Not to mention yours truly,' Cuttle said. 'It was me who stepped in the damned thing.'

'How many stings?'

'Two or three, right leg's numb, but that's better than it was fifteen heartbeats ago.'

'Numb? Cuttle, that's bad. Find Lutes fast as you can once we're done here.'

'Count on it. Now, shut up, I got to concentrate.'

Bottle watched him lift out from his pack a bundle of munitions – two cussers strapped together, looking like a pair of ample breasts. Affixed to them at the base were two spike-shaped explosives – crackers. Gingerly setting the assemblage on the ground beside him, Cuttle then turned his attention to the base of the wall. He cleared bricks and rocks to make an angled hole, large and deep enough to accommodate the wall-breaker.

That was the easy part, Bottle reminded himself as he watched Cuttle place the explosive into the hole. Now comes the acid on the wax plug. He glanced up and down the length of wall, saw other sappers doing the very same thing Cuttle had just done. 'Don't get ahead of the rest,' Bottle said.

'I know what needs knowing, mage. Stick to your spells and leave me alone.'

Miffed, Bottle looked away again. Then his eyes widened. 'Hey, what's he doing – Cuttle, what's Crump doing?'

Cursing, the veteran glanced over. 'Gods below—'

The sapper from Sergeant Cord's squad had prepared not one wall-breaker, but three, the mass of cussers and crackers filling his entire pack. His huge teeth were gleaming, eyes glittering as he wrestled it loose and, lying on his back, head closest to the wall, settled it on his stomach and began crawling until there was the audible crunch of the back of his skull contacting the rearing stonework.

Cuttle scrambled over. 'You!' he hissed. 'Are you mad? Take those damned things apart!'

The man's grin collapsed. 'But I made it myself!'

'Keep your voice down, idiot!'

Crump rolled and shoved the mass of munitions up against the wall. A small glittering vial appeared in his right hand. 'Wait till you see this!' he whispered, smiling once more.

'Wait! Not yet!'

A sizzle, threads of smoke rising—

Cuttle was on his feet, and, dragging a leg, he began running. And he began screaming. 'Everyone! Back! Run, you fools! Run!'

Figures pelting away on all sides, Bottle among them.

Crump raced past as if the mage had been standing still, the man's absurdly long legs pumping high and wild, knobby knees and huge