Reaper's Gate & Toll the Hounds - By Steven Erikson Page 0,471

Her weight deliciously flattening him for a single exquisite moment before she rolled off.

Horses stumbling, hoofs cracking down way too close. Soldiers rushing in, pulling them clear.

Balm stared up into a familiar face. 'Thom Tissy, you ain't dead?'

The ugly face spread into a toad's grin – toad under a brick oh they smile wide then don't they – and then a calloused hand slapped him hard. 'You with us, Balm? Glad you arrived – we're getting pressed here – seems the whole damned city garrison is here, tryin' to retake the gate.'

'Garrison? What's Blistig thinking? We're on his side! Show me the famous dancing girls of Aren, Tissy, that's what I'm here to see and maybe more than see, hey?'

Thom Tissy dragged Balm onto his feet, set the dented helm back onto Balm's head, then he took him by the shoulders and turned him round.

And there was Keneb, and there, just beyond, barricades of wreckage and soldiers crouching down reloading crossbows while others hacked at Letherii soldiers trying to force a breach. Somewhere to the right a sharper detonated in an alley mouth where the enemy had been gathering for another rush. People screamed.

Fist Keneb stepped up to Balm. 'Where are the rest, Sergeant?'

'Sir?'

'The Adjunct and the army!'

'In the transports, sir, where else? Worst storm I've ever seen and now all the ships are upside down—'

Behind Balm Deadsmell said, 'Fist, they should be on the march.'

'Get Masan Gilani back on her horse,' Keneb said and Balm wanted to kiss the man, 'and I don't care if she kills the beast but I want her to reach the Adjunct – they need to step it up. Send their cavalry ahead riding hard.'

'Yes sir.'

'We're running low on munitions and quarrels and there's more of the Letherii gathering with every damned breath and if they find a decent commander we won't be able to hold.'

Was the Fist talking to Balm? He wasn't sure, but he wanted to turn round to watch Masan Gilani jump with her legs spread onto that horse's back, oh yes he did, but these hands on his shoulders wouldn't let him and someone was whimpering in his ear—

'Stop making that sound, Sergeant,' Keneb said.

Someone rode back out through the gate and where did they think they were going? There was a fight here! 'Boyfriends of the dancing girls,' he whispered, reaching for his sword.

'Corporal,' Keneb said. 'Guide your sergeant here to the barricade to the left. You too, Throatslitter.'

Deadsmell said, 'He'll be fine in a moment, sir—'

'Yes, just go.'

'Aye, Fist.'

Boyfriends. Balm wanted to kill every one of them.

'This city looks like a hurricane went through it,' Cuttle said in a low mutter.

He had that right. The looting and all the rest was days old, however, and now it seemed that word of the Malazan breach was sweeping through in yet another storm – this one met with exhaustion – as the squad crouched in shadows near one end of an alley, watching the occasional furtive figure rush across the street.

They'd ambushed one unit forming up to march for the western gate. Quarrels and sharpers and a burner under the weapons wagon – still burning back there by the column of black smoke lifting into the ever-brightening sky. Took them all out, twenty-five dead or wounded, and before he and Gesler had pulled away locals were scurrying out to loot the bodies.

The captain had commandeered Urb and his squad off to find Hellian and her soldiers – the damned drunk had taken a wrong turn somewhere – which left Fiddler and Gesler to keep pushing for the palace.

Forty paces down the street to their right was a high wall with a fortified postern. City Garrison block and compound, and now that gate had opened and troops were filing out to form up ranks in the street.

'That's where we find the commander,' Cuttle said. 'The one organizing the whole thing.'

Fiddler looked directly across from where he and his marines were hiding and saw Gesler and his soldiers in a matching position in another alley mouth. It'd be nice if we were on the roofs. But no-one was keen to break into these official-looking buildings and maybe end up fighting frenzied clerks and night watch guards. Noise like that and there'd be real troops pushing in from behind them.

Maybe closer to the palace – tenement blocks there, and crowded together. It'd save us a lot of this ducking and crawling crap.

And what could be messy ambushes.

'Hood's breath, Fid, there's a hundred out