Quorl
The winged mounts of the Moranth, each carrying two riders and guided by unseen signals, whose crossbows and munitions gave the Malazan Empire an air arm no other power could answer.
The Moranth ride quorls, and that partnership more than anything else changed the way the Malazan Empire fights its wars. A single quorl carries two riders, guided by signals no onlooker can catch. They feed on live prey, detest open water, and fly by night as readily as by day. From their backs the Moranth loose crossbow bolts and drop munitions, striking targets in the air and on the ground alike, and their mass bombardments are punishing; at the last extremity a quorl can be flown as a diving bomb, snapping and biting at its target even as its frail body and wings come apart. The Empire leans on them for troops and supplies, for slipping squads into place under cover of dark and for shifting whole companies across a battlefield, and imperial officials have long preferred that ordinary people not know they exist. Both males and females give milk, which the Moranth bottle and sell, mostly to women hoping to conceive.
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