The Bridgeburners

The Bridgeburners are a fictional elite unit of soldiers in the Malazan Empire described in the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. The unit and its major characters play a significant role in the plot of all the books in the series to date except Midnight Tides. Like a modern platoon, the unit is broken into numbered squads. In addition to combat, the Bridgeburners were used as sappers, sabateours and became masters of the use of explosive Moranth munitions.

History

The unit has had a combat role in military operations on the continents of the Seven Cities, Genabackis and Quon Tali. The unit was merged from the remenants of several units and was forged into a single force through their journey across the Holy Desert of Raraku. Their pasts were then burned away. In the beginning of the series, in book one The Gardens of the Moon, two companies of the Bridgeburners are killed at the command of Empress Laseen by Tayschrenn, the commanding High Mage. After the collapse of tunnels onto the Bridgeburners, around 35 lived. In the end of Memories of Ice, the company as a whole is blessed by the Master of the Deck, Ganoes Paran, through a blessing, allowing its members to Ascend and become part of High House War. Paran calls upon the Bridgeburners in The Bonehunters to assist his goal of securing the Malazan world against the Crippled God.

Motto

First in, last out.

Sigil

An arched bridge of stone with a background of licking flames.

Command

Captain Ganoes Stabros Paran

9th Squad

• Sergeant Whiskeyjack
• Corporal Kalam, a male assassin, formerly a Claw
• Quick Ben, a male mage with access to twelve warrens
• Fiddler, a male sapper
• Hedge, a male sapper
• Mallet, a male healer
• Trotts, a male Barghast soldier
• Sorry, a female soldier
  
  

7th Squad

• Sergeant Antsy, red-faced man with an enormous handlebar mustache
• Corporal Picker, female soldier who delivered Treach's torcs to Gruntle
• BLEND, a female soldier who has Raw but pure talent to become unnoticeable by others
• Detoran, a female soldier
• Spindle, a male mage sapper who's warren disrupts animals when he unveils it

Squad unknown

• Sergeant Bucklund
• Corporal Aimless
• Toes, claimed to be a necromancer, collector of toes to keep the ghost following him off-balance.
• Shank, a Seti Ritualist
• Bluepearl, a Napan mage of Ruse
• Mulch, a soldier
• Runter, a soldier
• Story, a soldier
• Liss, a soldier
• Dasalle, a soldier

Ganoes Paran

Captain Ganoes Stabro Paran started off as a Lieutenant on Itko Kan and was reassigned to Adjunct Lorn after the massacre of the Nineteenth Regiment of the Itko Kanese Eighth Cavalry by the Hounds of Shadow. On Genabackis, he has a relationship with Tattersail, a cadre sorceress and reader of the Deck of Dragons. Despite the title of captain, Paran realizes that the real commander of the Bridgeburners is Whiskeyjack.

Paran was almost slain by Sorry while she was possessed by Cotillion, and revived by Oppon, the Twin Gods of Chance. He was then pursued by The Insane animated puppet Hairlock, who was eventually captured by the Hounds of Shadow. The Hounds would have killed Paran next were it not for the intervention of Anomander Rake, who slew two Hounds. Paran tasted the blood of the dead Hounds and was drawn into the Warren within Dragnipur. Through these actions, Paran became the Master of the Deck of Dragons, the Wanderer within the Sword, a Soletaken capable of assuming the form of a Hound and assumed a variety of magical abilities of which even he is uncertain of. Paran's has since been ACTIVE on a variety of continents and Warrens, working to oppose the Crippled God and support the Malazan Empire. His most notable action to date as Master of the Deck was to bless High House Chains, forcing it into the role of a one of many Houses in the pantheon rather than allowing it to exist outside of it.

Whiskeyjack

Once the commander of the second and the third army, then demoted when Empress Laseen inverted the command structure.

In the 96th year of the Malazan Empire, during the final year of the Emperor Kellanved, Whiskeyjack speaks to the young Ganoes Paran. Paran tells Whiskeyjack that he wants to be a soldier, to Whiskeyjack's disapproval. In the book Memories of Ice, Whiskeyjack was promoted to High Fist Dujek's second-in-command. And at the end of the book, he is killed by the former High King Kallor, Caladan Brood’s second in command.

Kalam Mekhar

Kalam was once an assassin for the Holy Falah'dan's, a religious leader in the Seven Cities. He was recruited by the Malazan Empire's assassin sect and secret police, the Claw, who gave him command of one of their units. The recruitment is a testemant to Kalam's skill as an assassin, as the Claw normally eliminates, rather than recruits its competition, and prefers to train children to be members from birth. He is black skinned and has a northern Seven Cities accent.

Kalam's first appearance in the series is in the beginning of Gardens of the Moon outside the city of Pale, where he assists the remainder of the Bridgeburners in resurrecting the mage Hairlock.