Reaper's Gale (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #7)

Reaper's Gale (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #7) Page 415

Rud Elalle was a true child of Menandore. A Soletaken. But so very young, so very naive. If brute force could not defeat him, then treachery would. Her final act of vengeance-and betrayal-against Menandore.

The trail led into a high-walled, narrow channel, one that seemed to lead downward, perhaps to caves. Before its mouth was a small, level clearing, bounded on both sides by boulders.

She dropped down, slowed her flight.

And saw, standing before the defile’s entrance, an Imass warrior.

Good. I can kill. 1 can feed.

Settling down into the clearing-a tight fit, her one working wing needing tp draw in close-and then sembling, drawing her power inward. Until she stood, not twenty paces from the Imass.

Mortal. Nothing more than what he appeared.

Sukul Ankhadu laughed. She would walk up to him, wrest his stone weapons away, then sink her teeth into his throat.

Still laughing, she approached.

He readied himself, dropping into a crouch.

At ten paces, he surprised her. The maul, swung in a loop underhand, shot out from his extended arm.

Sukul threw herself to one side-had that weapon struck, it would have shattered her skull-then, as the Imass leapt forward with his sword, she reached out and caught his wrist. Twisted, snapping the bones. With her other hand she grasped his throat and lifted him from his feet.

And saw, in his face, a smile-even as she crushed that throat.

Behind her, two Bonecasters, veered into identical beasts-long-legged bears with vestigial tails, covered in thick brown and black hair, with flattened snouts, at their shoulders the height of a Tiste-emerged from the cover of the boulders and, as Hostille Rator died, the Soletaken arrived at a full charge.

Slamming into Sukul Ankhadu, one on her left, the other on her right. Huge talons slashing, massive forelimbs closing about her as jaws, opened wide, tore into her.

Lower canines sank under her left jawline, the upper canines punching down through flesh and bone, and as the beast whipped its head to one side, Sukul’s lower jaw, left cheekbones and temporal plate all went with it.

The second beast bit through her right upper arm as it closed its jaws about her ribcage, clamping round a mouthful of crushed ribs and pulped lung.

As the terrible pain and pressure suddenly ripped away from her head, Sukul twisted round. Her left arm-the only one still attached to her-had been holding up the warrior, and now, releasing the dying Imass, she swung that arm backhand, striking the side of the giant bear’s head. And with that impact, she released a surge of power.

The beast’s head exploded in a mass of bone shards, brains and teeth.

As it fell away, Sukul Ankhadu tried twisting further, to reach across for the second beast’s snout.

It lurched back, tearing away ribs and lung.

She spun, driving her hand between the creature’s clavicles. Through thick hide, into a welter of spurting blood and soft meat, fingers closing on the ridged windpipe-

A taloned paw struck the side of her head-the same side as had been mauled by the first beast-and where the temporal plate had been, cerebral matter now sprayed out with the impact. The claws caught more bone and hard cartilage, raked through forebrain on its way back out.

The upper front of Sukul’s head and the rest of her face was ripped away, spilling brains out from the gaping space.

At that moment, the other paw hammered what remained from the other side. When it had completed its passage, all that was left was a section of occipital plate attached to a flopping patch of scalp, dangling from the back of the neck.

Sukul Ankhadu’s knees buckled. Her left hand exited the wound in the second beast’s throat with a sobbing sound.

She might have remained on her knees, balanced by the sudden absence of any weight above her shoulders, but then the creature that had finally killed her lurched forward, its enormous weight crushing her down as the Soletaken, who had once been Til’aras Benok, collapsed, slowly suffocating from a crushed windpipe.

Moments later, the only sound from this modest clearing was the dripping of blood.

Trull Sengar could hear the faint echoes of sorcery and he feared for his friends. Something was seeking to reach this place, and if it-or they-got past Hedge and Quick Ben, then once more Trull would find himself standing before unlikely odds. Even with Onrack at his side…

Yet he held his gaze on the gates. The silent flames rose and ebbed within the portals, each to its own rhythm, each tinted in a different hue. The air felt charged. Static sparks crackled in the dust that had begun swirling up from the stone floor.

He heard a sound behind him and turned. Relief flooded through him. ‘Onrack-’

‘They seek Ulshun Pral,’ his friend replied, emerging from the tunnel mouth, two paces, three, then he halted. ‘You are too close to those gates, my friend. Come-’