#bridgeburners

[vorueg]

[victusinveritas]

Can confirm. Absolutely stellar series. Just dive in Gardens of the Moon, enjoy the ride, and don't really expect things to make sense until book 2, Deadhouse Gates. Just trust me on this. There is no other book series, not Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones, or the Kingkiller Chronicles, certainly not anything by Sanderson.

[chloristoflora]

Fiddler nodded. The corridor was ornately decorated, impressively wide, with an arched ceiling gleaming with gold leaf. There was no-one about. "So where are the guards, and in which direction is the throne room?"

"No idea," Cuttle replied. "But I'd guess we go left."

"Why?"

"No reason, except everyone who tried to get away from us was more or less heading that way."

"Good point, unless they were all headed out the back door." Fiddler wiped sweat from his eyes. Oh, this had been a nasty bloodletting, but he'd let his soldiers go, despite the disapproving looks from Quick Ben. Damned High Mage and his nose in the air – and where in Hood's name did all that magic come from? Quick had never showed anything like that before. Not even close.

He looked across at Hedge.

Same old Hedge. No older than the last time Fiddler had seen him. Gods, it doesn't feel real. He's back. Living, breathing, farting . . . He reached out and cuffed the man in the side of the head.

"Hey, what's that for?"

"No reason, but I'm sure I was owed doing that at least once."

"Who saved your skin in the desert? And under the city?"

"Some ghost up to no good," Fiddler replied.

"Hood, that white beard makes you look ancient, Fid, you know that?"

Oh, be quiet.

Reaper's Gale, by Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen #7)

[corporal-nobbs]

Bridgeburner logo

Get your own https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5246592

[victusinveritas]

Marc Simonetti cover for Gardens of the Moon, first book of The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson.

[chloristoflora]

Picker could not pull her eyes from the man. He sat hunched over, on a chair that had yet to find a table, still clutching in his hands the small rag of tattered cloth on which something had been written. The alchemist had done all he could to return life to what had been a mostly destroyed, desiccated body, and Baruk's talents had been stretched to their limits - there was no doubt of that.

She knew of him, of course. They all did. They all knew, as well, where he had come from.

He spoke not a word. Had not since the resurrection. No physical flaw kept him from finding his voice, Baruk had insisted.

The Imperial Historian had fallen silent. No-one knew why.

(...)

"Sure," Spindle snapped, "a story to break our hearts all over again! What's the value in that?"

A rough, broken voice replied, "There is value."

Everyone fell silent, turned to Duiker.

The Imperial Historian had looked up, was studying them with dark eyes. "Value. Yes. I think, much value. But not yours, soldiers. Not yet. Too soon for you. Too soon."

"Perhaps," Baruk murmured, "perhaps you are right in that. We ask too much-"

"Of them. Yes." The old man looked down once more at the cloth in his hands.

The silence stretched.

Duiker made no move.

Picker began to turn back to her companions - when the man began speaking. "Very well, permit me, if you will, on this night. To break your hearts once more. This is the story of the Chain of Dogs. Of Coltaine of the Crow Clan, newly come Fist to the 7th Army..."

Memories of Ice, by Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen #3)

[chloristoflora]

With another faint, wistful smile, Anomander Rake strode past him.

Whiskeyjack sheathed his bloodied sword, and followed.

He stared at the Tiste Andii's broad back, at the weapon that hung from it. Anomander Rake, how can you bear this burden? This burden that has so thoroughly broken my heart?

But no, that is not what so tears at me.

Lord of Moon's Spawn, you asked me to step aside, and you called it a mercy. I misunderstood you. A mercy, not to the Women of the Dead Seed. But to me. Thus your sorrowed smile when I denied you.

Ah, my friend, I saw only your brutality - and that hurt you.

Better, for us both, had you crossed blades with me.

For us both.

And I - I am not worth such friends. Old man, foolish gestures plague you. Be done with it. Make this your last war.

Make it your last.

Memories of Ice, by Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen #3)

[chloristoflora]

The sergeant rested his back against the wagon's sidewall. His expression soured as he studied his squad. Trotts was swinging his pick as if on a battlefield. Stones flew everywhere. Passersby ducked, and cursed when ducking failed. Hedge and Fiddler crouched behind a wheelbarrow, flinching each time the Barghast's pick struck the street. Mallet stood a short distance away, directing pedestrians to the other pavement. He no longer bellowed at the people, having lost his voice arguing with an old man with a donkey wobbling under in an enormous basket of firewood. The bundles now lay scattered across the street - the old man and the donkey nowhere to be seen - providing an effective barrier to wheeled vehicles.

All in all, Whiskeyjack concluded, everyone with him had assumed the role of heat-crazed street worker with a facility he found oddly disturbing.

Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson