Deadhouse Gates (malazan Book of the Fallen, #2)

Deadhouse Gates, the second installment in Steven Erikson's epic fantasy series The Malazan Book of the Fallen, weaves together multiple storylines across the continent of Seven Cities as a long-prophesied rebellion, the Whirlwind, erupts against the Malazan Empire.

In the imperial capital of Unta, Empress Laseen orders a purge of the nobility. Felisin Paran, the youngest daughter of a noble house, is chained alongside other prisoners and marched through a violent mob to the slave ships. Her own sister, Tavore, the newly appointed Adjunct (the Empress's chief military enforcer), orchestrated the family's downfall to prove loyalty to the throne. Shackled beside Felisin are Heboric Light Touch, a handless ex-priest of the boar god Fener whose body is covered in living tattoos, and Baudin, a dangerous man who kills a noblewoman to buy the group safe passage. All three are shipped to Skullcup, a mining camp where prisoners extract otataral, a rare ore that deadens magic.

At Skullcup, Felisin trades her body to Beneth, the camp's slave-master, for protection and better rations, numbing herself with the opiate durhang. When a guard mutiny erupts, Baudin leads their escape into the desert. During the crossing, Heboric touches a massive jade monolith buried in the sand, and something of its power transfers into him. Kulp, a military sorcerer dispatched by the Imperial Historian Duiker, arrives by sea to rescue them. They board the Silanda, a ship crewed by headless undead oarsmen, and are swept into a flooded Elder Warren, an ancient magical realm. After encounters with T'lan Imass, undead warriors of an ancient race, they return to the mortal world. The D'ivers Gryllen, a shapeshifter who splits into thousands of rats, kills Kulp. Baudin dies shielding Felisin from a firestorm, and only then does she learn the truth: He was a Talon, a covert agent sworn to protect her.

Lost in Raraku, Felisin and Heboric are found by Leoman, a desert warrior, and the Toblakai, a giant warrior, who guard the corpse of Sha'ik, the rebel Seeress killed by the Red Blades, an imperial military force. The prophecy spoke of rebirth. Through a ritual, Felisin demonstrates prophetic awareness and assumes the mantle of Sha'ik Reborn. The power of the Whirlwind goddess enters her through a bargain, leaving her own identity intact beneath the divine mantle. She names an adopted orphan girl "Felisin," as if passing on a lost innocence, then marches to the rebel encampment to force the submission of three High Mages and prepare for war against Tavore's approaching army.

Meanwhile, Coltaine, a Wickan warleader newly appointed as Fist (a Malazan army commander), arrives in the coastal city of Hissar to command the Seventh Army just as the rebellion ignites. Coltaine leads his Wickan clans in a fighting breakout, rescuing Malazan civilians from slaughter. What follows is the Chain of Dogs: a months-long march escorting tens of thousands of refugees across hundreds of leagues of hostile territory toward the city of Aren, harried ceaselessly by rebel and renegade forces under the High Mage Kamist Reloe and the turncoat Fist Korbolo Dom.

Duiker, the Imperial Historian, rides with the army and documents the journey. Coltaine proves a tactical genius, ambushing pursuers and forging his desperate column into a unified force. The young warlock Sormo E'nath, reborn with the soul of the most powerful executed Wickan warlock, communes with spirits of the land for protection. At the River Vathar crossing, the army's nobility secretly accepts terms from Korbolo Dom, triggering a catastrophe that kills over 20,000 refugees. Sormo is killed while unleashing sorcery. The sappers detonate 55 explosive munitions beneath the ford, destroying a portion of the enemy army. The march continues through forest and across a lifeless wasteland, where thirst and starvation claim lives daily. The Trygalle Trade Guild, a mercantile company that travels through magical warrens, delivers food and water financed by the outlawed High Fist (senior army commander) Dujek Onearm. Coltaine gives Duiker a protective artifact from Quick Ben, a mage of the Bridgeburners, an elite Malazan military unit, insisting the historian must survive to tell the tale.

In a separate storyline, Kalam, a former Bridgeburner assassin, carries the Holy Book of Dryjhna south through Seven Cities, delivering it to the rebel Seeress Sha'ik to secure safe passage through hostile territory. Accompanied by the demon Apt, he gathers survivors, including Minala, a capable fighter, and boards a ship to assassinate Empress Laseen. His fellow passenger Salk Elan is revealed to be Pearl, an operative of the Claw (the Empire's covert assassin service), who stabs Kalam and throws him overboard near Malaz City. Kalam survives, hunts Claw agents through the city, and reaches Mock's Hold, where Laseen argues through a corpse that the outlawing of Dujek is a ruse and the persecution of the Bridgeburners was not her order. Kalam sheathes his knife.

The sapper Fiddler leads Crokus, a young Daru thief, and Apsalar, a former vessel of the assassin god Cotillion, on a journey through Raraku. Their destination is Tremorlor, an Azath House, a living structure that imprisons powerful beings. They join forces with Mappo, a warrior of the Trell, a nomadic non-human people, and his companion Icarium, a half-Jaghut wanderer—the Jaghut being an ancient, near-extinct non-human race—whose lost memories conceal a terrible truth: His rages have destroyed entire civilizations. Mappo has spent centuries as Icarium's guardian, sworn by the Nameless Ones, an ancient secret order, to prevent the Jhag from recovering his past, a duty that torments him because it demands betraying the friend he loves.

At Tremorlor, the Azath House is under siege from Soletaken and D'ivers, shapeshifters drawn by the Path of Hands, a convergence promising Ascendancy, or godlike power. Fiddler shatters a conch shell gifted by a Tano Spiritwalker, a sorcerer of sung magic, releasing a sorcerous song that annihilates hundreds of shapeshifters. Icarium nearly awakens into his catastrophic rage; Mappo knocks him unconscious. Inside, Mappo and Icarium fall through the floor and are transported elsewhere. Fiddler, Crokus, and Apsalar emerge in the Deadhouse in Malaz City, where a Jaghut guardian, implied to be Icarium's father, reveals the Jhag's tragic history. They join Kalam in his battle against the Claw. Shadowthrone, the god of Shadow, disperses the group: Apsalar and Crokus return to her homeland; Fiddler re-enlists to join Tavore's army; Kalam and Minala receive sanctuary in the Shadow Realm along with 1,300 Malazan children rescued by Apt from crucifixion.

The novel's most devastating sequence unfolds at Aren. Coltaine sends Duiker ahead with the refugees, but the garrison watches from the walls as Coltaine's last 400 soldiers are overwhelmed on a burial mound within sight of the city. High Fist Pormqual, manipulated by his adviser Mallick Rel, a priest of the Elder sea god Mael secretly allied with the rebellion, refuses to sortie. Coltaine is crucified. Squint, an old bowman in Aren's garrison, fires a mercy arrow across 500 paces. Thousands of crows descend to claim Coltaine's soul, and when they rise, the cross stands empty. Mallick Rel then manipulates Pormqual into marching 10,000 soldiers into a trap. Pormqual is beheaded; the disarmed soldiers are crucified along three leagues of Aren Way. Duiker is nailed to the last tree. Blistig, Commander of the Aren Guard, holds the city until Adjunct Tavore's fleet arrives.

In the epilogue, Mappo and Icarium walk together across the plains; Icarium remembers nothing. Servants of a Darujhistan alchemist recover Duiker's body and the shattered artifact from his chest. On the Wickan Plains, a pregnant widow is about to drink poison because her unborn child has been pronounced soulless. A vast swarm of crows sweeps toward her from the north, bearing Coltaine's soul. Deep within the widow, the child stirs.