Gardens of the Moon

The Jaghut Possessed threw up his arms before his face as the waves struck. Mammot's body withered beneath the clambering, frenzied attack. Flesh was ripped away, fires lancing, boring holes through him.

He was driven to his knees, a vortex swirling like madness around him. Mammot howled, raising a fist that was nothing but charred bone.

The fist spasmed and one of Quick Ben's Warrens slammed shut. The fist jerked again.

Quick Ben sagged. 'I'm done.'

Derudan grabbed a handful of the wizard's cloak. 'Wizard! Listen to me!'

Another Warren was driven away. Quick Ben shook his head. 'done.'

'Listen! That man-the one over there-what's he doing?'

Quick Ben looked up. 'Hood's Breath!' he yelled, in sudden terror. A dozen paces away crouched Hedge, only his head and shoulders showing behind a bench. The saboteur's eyes shone with a manic glaze that the wizard recognized, and a large, bulky arbalest was in his hands, point directly at Mammot.

A wordless, wailing scream came from Hedge.

The wizard shouted and dived for the woman a second time. As he flew through the air, he heard the thock of the saboteur's crossbow. Quick Ben closed his eyes before colliding once again with the woman.

Crone flew tight circles over the plain where the Jaghut Tyrant had been.

He had reached to within fifty paces of Silanah, then vanished. Not a flight through a Warren, but a vanishing more complete, more absolute and all the more fascinating for that.

It had been a glorious night, a battle worthy of remembrance, and its end proved no end at all. 'Delicious mystery,' she cackled. Crone knew her presence was demanded elsewhere, but she was reluctant to leave.

'Such terrible energies I have witnessed.' She laughed. 'I mock the waste, the sheer foolishness! Ah, and now all that remains is questions, questions!'

She craned her head upward. Her lord's two Tiste And? Soletaken remained overhead. No one wanted to leave before the truth of the Jaghut Tyrant's fate was revealed. They'd earned the right to witness it, though Crone was beginning to suspect such answers would never come.

Silanah loosed a keening cry, then rose from the ground, the Warren that birthed her flight a strong, pungent exhalation. The red dragon's head swung westward, and she voiced a second cry.

With a mad flap of wings, Crone brought her descent under control, then skirted the tattered ground. She climbed skyward again, and saw what Silanah had seen. Crone shrieked in joy and anticipation-and surprise. 'And now it comes! It comes!'

As he shut his eyes, Quick Ben collapsed the last of his Warrens. The woman's arms closed around him as he struck her. She grunted loudly and collapsed beneath his momentum.

The detonation snatched the air from his lungs. The stones under them jumped and a flash of fire and flying masonry filled their world to the exclusion of all else. Then everything was still.

Quick Ben sat up. He looked to where Mammot had been standing.

The paving stones were gone, and a wide, deep, steaming hole now yawned near the shattered fountain. The old man was nowhere in sight.

'Dear wizard,' the woman murmured beneath him. 'We live?'

Quick Ben glanced down at her. 'You'd closed your Warren. Very clever.'

'Closed, yes, but not by choice. Why clever?'

'Moranth munitions are mundane weapons, Witch. Opened Warrens draw their explosive force. That Tyrant is dead. Obliterated.'

And then Hedge was beside them, his leather cap half blown away and flash-burns covering one side of his face. 'You all right?' he gasped.

The wizard reached out and cuffed the man. 'You idiot! How many times have I-' 'He's dead, ain't he?' Hedge retorted, hurt. 'Just a smouldering hole in the ground-best way to deal with mages, right?'

They saw Captain Paran rise shakily from the rubble-strewn terrace.

He scanned the scene, his gaze finding the wizard. 'Where is Whiskeyjack?' he demanded.

'In the woods,' Hedge answered.

Paran stumbled in that direction.

'Big help he was,' Hedge muttered.

'Quick!' The wizard turned to see Kalam approach. The assassin paused as he skirted the edge of the crater, then he said. 'Something's moving down there.'

Paling, Quick Ben rose, then helped the witch to her feet.

They approached the crater. 'Impossible,' the wizard breathed. A manshaped form had coalesced at the base of the pit. 'We're dead. Or worse.'

Thrashing from the garden drew their attention. The three froze as strangely blurred roots broke free of the undergrowth and snaked hungrily towards the crater.

The Jaghut Possessed straightened, spreading grey, swirling arms.

The roots closed around the creature. It shrieked in sudden terror.

'Azath edieirmarn! No! You've taken my Finnest-but leave me! Please!'

Tendrils clambered in a frenzy, entwining its limbs. The Omtose Phellack power writhed in a panicked effort to escape, to no avail. The roots pulled the apparition down, then dragged it screaming into the garden.

'Azath?' Quick Ben whispered. 'Here?'

'None, I would swear,' Derudan said, her face white. 'It's said they arise-'