Assail

CHAPTER XI

The prairie was one of tall grasses whipped by a chill wind. Tall menhirs leaned drunkenly like a giant’s set of toys tossed and forgotten across the landscape. Why Shimmer found herself here, she had no idea. The sky was clear, a hard frosty blue, with the moon low in the south. Strangely, the moon looked different: larger, and far less mottled. Another bright object also blazed in the day’s sky, something that trailed a long train of fire behind, just as the Visitor had. To the north — if indeed that direction was the north — lay a horizon to horizon wall of snow and deeper azure blue glowing ghostly in the moonlight.

She wondered if this was Hood’s demesne, his Paths, where the dead wander eternally, forever wringing their hands as they bemoan past choices, mistakes and lost opportunities.

As if on cue, a figure rounded one of the nearby markers and approached. He was grey-haired and bearded, in long tattered brown robes that bore scorch marks and a scattering of burn holes across the weave. She recognized Smoky. One of the Crimson Guard dead. What they called their Brethren.

It occurred to her at that moment that in fact the Brethren constituted by far the majority of the Crimson Guard. The chained spirits of their dead, held to the mortal realm by the power of the Vow they swore to K’azz. The Guard, then, could in truth more accurately be regarded as an army of the dead.

Smoky gave her a nod in greeting. ‘Shimmer.’

‘Where are we?’

The mage scratched his chin beneath his scraggly beard. ‘We don’t rightly know. Most of us think it’s the spot we swore the Vow — only how it looked long ago.’ He shrugged. ‘No one knows for certain.’

‘You’re remarkably unconcerned about it all.’

‘I’m dead, ain’t I?’

‘Why am I here?’

He regarded her more closely. ‘Looks to me like you’re making up your mind.’

‘Making up my mind? About what?’

‘About where you belong.’

‘Making up my mind? You mean, about whether I’m dead or not?’

‘Something like that.’

She snorted her impatience. ‘Well … I want to return, of course.’

He shrugged his bony shoulders once more. ‘Yeah. Figured as much. Off you go then.’

‘What? Just like that?’

The old fellow looked annoyed. ‘What do you want? A band to play?’

‘But isn’t this … Hood’s realm?’

He shook his head. ‘No. These are not Hood’s Paths.’

‘So what do I do?’

He waved her off. ‘Just — decide.’

‘Right.’ She decided, then, that she did not belong here. At that moment another figure rounded the rock to regard her from a distance. She immediately recognized his rotund form. His sodden robes. He raised an arm in sad farewell.

She lurched forward, ‘Petal! No …’

But the ground slipped from beneath her feet, her vision dimmed, and she found herself spinning in a way she had no words for. She was suddenly certain she was going to be sick.

She coughed, nearly vomiting, and sucked in a great chestful of cold crisp air.

A man yelped in surprise directly above her and she snapped her eyes open. She was lying on some sort of cot, naked, her arms tied above her head, while a man, similarly naked, sat between her spread legs.

‘Hey, Rosell,’ the fellow called. ‘She ain’t dead after all. Like you said.’

‘Told ya,’ a voice answered from outside her vision.

This fellow leaned over her and slapped her cheek — none too gently. ‘Just warming you up, sweetheart. You’re so cold in there you near shrank my cock.’ He grinned down at her with broken grey teeth. ‘Welcome to Destruction Bay.’

Her answer was to hitch up her legs round his neck, twist her hips, and spin him over the side of the cot to slam his head into the dirt floor with a satisfying snap of his neck. She then brought her legs up over her head and pushed against the wood headboard she was tied to. The board burst. She rose from the frame in time to block a knife-thrust from Rosell, wrap the cord strung between her wrists around his throat, and set her knee against the back of his neck. She pushed there until she began to see black spots in her vision, then she let him fall, limp, and stumbled to her own knees, utterly spent.

After catching her breath, she used the knife to cut the cord. She scavenged trousers, a shirt, and oversized leather shoes from what she could find among the meagre possessions scattered about. She then staggered from the hut’s entrance, a mere hanging rotten blanket, and stepped out with the knife tucked up her sleeve.

She was on a broad mud flat, perhaps a raised floodplain. A clutch of dilapidated huts and shacks lay about. White smoke rose from a few smoke-holes. Great chunks of flat ice dotted a shore of black gravel. She lurched down to the shore. To the south rose the tall ice cliffs of the channel they had just navigated — or failed to navigate. She studied it and was dismayed to see that she was on the south shore. The wrong shore.

For some obscure reason this one further development was too much for her. She felt an uncontrollable urge to howl. She splashed out up to her knees in the frigid waters then collapsed, her face in her hands, and shuddered in spasms of weeping. She felt disgust and revulsion at everything: the cold, the touch of the grimy clothing, her sweaty clinging hair. She splashed the clean frigid water over her face and squatted there until she was utterly numb.

The coarse physicality of it all nauseated her beyond explanation. Gods! She’d come back to this?

Footsteps crunched in the gravel of the strand. She closed a fist on the grip of the dagger and raised her eyes a touch to peer over one forearm: it was Bars in his leathers, a mail coat over one shoulder. He extended a hand. ‘Knew you were about.’

She felt as if a death sentence had been reprieved. She clasped his hand, rising. The mail coat was hers and he handed it over. ‘Thank you,’ she told him. She was surprised by how much his massive presence reassured her. Any others?’

‘Gwynn’s here. Lean and Keel.’

She stared, horrified. ‘That is all?’

‘No. The Brethren say K’azz is on the north shore with others.’ She nodded at his words. The Brethren, of course. ‘Then we must rendezvous.’ Bars did not answer and she turned from peering across the channel. He was watching her with a strange expression in his dark sad eyes, something like worry. ‘Yes? What?’

‘We must go on?’

‘Yes. We must. We have come too far. Paid too high a price for anything else.’

‘Do you really think there are answers to be found here, Shimmer?’

‘K’azz does. He knows the truth — and I swear I will get it from him.’

The big man heaved a troubled sigh, eyed the north shore. ‘Well, then … we’d best be going.’

She peered about: rowboats and launches lay pulled up on the strand. ‘Gather the others. I’ll secure a boat.’

Bars offered a mock salute and crunched off across the gravel. Shimmer headed to one of the larger launches.

She had their boat-master guide the vessel close along the north shore of the Sea of Gold. They had agreed upon a price for the crossing, but it was no doubt dawning upon the man that any said pay might be long in coming, if it came at all. With nightfall, she had him put in and they built a fire and lay down round it, save for Bars and Keel, who took turns guarding and sleeping in the boat. When morning came, Shimmer was surprised that the man was still with them. But then, the boat was his livelihood, no matter where he might find himself.

Bars made tea that morning. And with that familiar ritual, she felt that some sort of normality had returned.

They were packing up when footsteps sounded among the surrounding rocks and K’azz appeared in his hunting leathers, hopping from boulder to boulder. With him came Cowl, Black the Lesser, Turgal, and Blues.

Shimmer clasped each in a great hug. ‘Good to see you,’ she kept saying. ‘Good to see you.’

Blues accepted her greeting with an embarrassed flinch. ‘I’m sorry …’ he began.

‘There was nothing you could’ve done.’

He wiped his eyes. ‘Still … it galls.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry.’ She turned last to K’azz. The man appeared unchanged; same painfully thin features, same skull-like mien with pale sky-blue eyes that sometimes seemed completely colourless. His leathers, however, looked far worse for wear. ‘The ice fell on us,’ she told him.

‘Yes. Bad luck.’

She shook her head from side to side in slow negation. ‘Not good enough. It targeted us.’

He pursed his thin cracked lips. ‘The Vow, then. No doubt.’ He made a move to enter the boat but she blocked his path.

‘Not good enough any more, K’azz. What about the Vow?’

The commander glanced about and she followed his gaze. Bars was standing very close with his thick arms crossed; Gwynn stroked the snow-white beard he was growing; Lean stood nearby, truly lean now, having lost so much of her plumpness; and Blues was frowning as if troubled by his own suspicions.

K’azz did not look to Cowl, who stood behind, hugging himself, rocking back and forth on his heels, grinning crazily as usual. The mage even offered Shimmer a wink. Completely dismissive of him now, she merely pulled her gaze away.

K’azz would not look up. He drew a hard breath. ‘It concerns the Vow, Shimmer. We aren’t welcome here.’

She nodded at that. ‘Very well … that’s a beginning. What else?’

K’azz raised his eyes and she was shocked to see actual pleading in them. ‘Isn’t that enough, Shimmer? Isn’t it clear we must not continue?’

‘No.’ The denial was blunt and harsh. ‘I see that you still refuse to speak and so we must continue onward — to get the truth of this. We owe it to all who have fallen.’ She thrust an arm to the south. ‘They paid with their lives! And I will collect on it.’ She brushed past him. ‘Either speak up or stand aside.’

He was left standing alone on the shore. For a moment, she saw him as nothing more than a thin ragged figure, haunted and torn, then she hardened her heart and turned to Bars. ‘Push off.’ K’azz stepped on board at the last instant. She faced the boat’s master who held the side-mounted tiller. ‘What lies up the coast?’

‘Scattered camps, ma’am. One big one the gold-hunters established over an old town up there. They call it Wrongway. Past that they say is a fortress named Mantle.’

She eyed K’azz where he sat alone in the bow. ‘Are you going to help?’

‘The path is due north. Follow the coast for a short time then strike upland.’

‘Thank you.’ She nodded to the boat’s master. ‘You have your orders.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He eased back, resigned to his situation, and spat over the side. ‘If you lot would step the mast that would be a big help.’

* * *

The figures came shuffling out of the deeper gloom in the middle of the broad subterranean chamber that was the no-man’s-land separating the feuding Sharr and Sheer families of Exile Keep. Othan Sharr, now the Sharr of Sharr with the death of his elder brother, paused in his gnawing of a roasted rat carcass and narrowed his own rather beady, rat-like eyes upon the strangers.

‘What Sheer trickery is this?’ he growled to his cousin/wife, Amina Sharr, on his right.

She pushed back her nest of frizzy hair, narrowed her eyes, then hissed a grating breath and gripped the battered table with both sinewy hands. ‘Didn’t I say with Geth and Turnan gone they’d try something?’

The rest of the Sharrs lined up along the table facing the no-man’s-land slowly set down their cups and crusts of bread.

‘What foolishness is this?’ Sharr of Sharr called out to the now motionless figures. ‘There can be no parley or truce between us — you know that!’ The slim shadowy shapes remained silent. The Sharr of Sharr squinted his tiny eyes even further. ‘What are they doing? I can’t quite see. Are those … costumes?’

Across the empty chamber, along the far wall, sitting at the table of the Sheer family, Gurat Sheer, the ancient Sheer of Sheers, similarly squinted into the gloom. ‘What are those asinine Sharrs up to now?’ He fumbled at the littered tabletop before him, found a stick, and hit the elderly man next to him. ‘What is this, Jatar?’

Jatar, Gurat’s eldest nephew, wiped the spilled wine from the front of his shirt and glared at his uncle before glancing out across the dusty flagstones of the chamber. His greying brows rose. ‘Looks like a full frontal assault.’

The Sheer of Sheers banged his stick against the table for attention. ‘Haven’t had one of them in generations.’ He pointed out to the chamber, shouted: ‘So desperate now are you, Othan, you dried up rat?’

The figures paced closer. Jatar pushed himself back from the table, frowning. Gurat snorted his contempt. ‘What foolish trick is this?’

Amina Sharr pushed her unruly nest of hair even further from her face to better see. The figures — they looked very thin.

‘Such costumes of bone and rags will not terrorize us!’ the Sharr of Sharr laughed.

Amina touched her cousin/husband’s arm. ‘I do not believe those are costumes, husband dear.’

The Sharr of Sharrs lost his smirk. His beady eyes narrowed to slits as he studied the bizarre skeletal apparitions. ‘Oh dear. They resemble descriptions of the dread army of bone and dust.’

As one, the skeletal figures drew long blades of stone from ragged belts and sashes of rotting uncured pelts. Shrieking her rage, Amina Sharr surged to her feet, thrust with her hands, and actinic power lit the low-roofed chamber like a blast of lightning.

Along the other wall, the Sheers kicked back their chairs, some leaping over the table. The Sheer of Sheers slammed his stick to the table, breaking it. ‘Send them back to their nether-realm, boys and girls!’

The no-man’s-land of shattered furniture and dust erupted into a firestorm of unleashed power where flurries of lancing iron shards peppered stone, the air itself solidified into sheets of rock-hard ice, the flagstones parted revealing black gulfs, and raw unleashed chaos itself roiled through the air in clouds consuming all it touched.

Through this blistering conflagration of energies the figures of bone and rag hides advanced. They threw milky brown flint knives that sliced Sharr and Sheer mages, or rebounded from defensive glyphs. A heaved stone broadsword, a full arm’s length of razor-sharp black chalcedony, arced through the air to take the head from young Manadara Sheer. Her arms fell and the channelled raw chaos she had been summoning gushed on to the table, consuming it and the flagstones beneath. The nearby Sheers scrambled in either direction.

The foremost warrior of bone and dust pushed through curtains of ice shards so impossibly keen and hard that they penetrated even its fossilized bones to stand like daggers. It reached the Sharrs’ table. A single blow from its grey flint longsword parted the timbers in an eruption of dust and slivers.

Amina Sharr confronted it. ‘To annihilation!’ she howled, and, leaping, she locked her legs about the creature’s torso and released all hold upon the arcing energies sizzling her flesh. The two burst into a cloud of ash and soot that dispersed about the coursing, contrary winds of the chamber.

The Sharr of Sharrs, coughing, waving the ash of his cousin/wife from his eyes, slid along a wall. He tried to right himself but found that for some reason he couldn’t. He peered blearily at his arm where it ended at the elbow. He remembered, vaguely, a sword flashing before him, raising an arm … Shaking his head, he continued sliding along the wall. Perhaps if he made it to the entrance to the lower regions …

His path brought him to a shadowed figure awaiting him. He pulled up short, raised his gaze.

The skeletal figure punched its stone longsword through his chest. Coughing anew, the Sharr of Sharrs smiled and dragged himself even closer. He cupped his hand against the discoloured naked bone of the skull as if caressing it and peered into the darkness of the empty sockets. ‘We will take you with us, you know,’ he promised. ‘We neither can outlive the other.’

‘Just so long as you go,’ the creature’s answer came, breathless and faint.

Hand and skull exploded into shards of bone. Both bodies fell.

*

Lanas Tog and Ut’el Anag silently watched the thick sooty smoke gush from the shattered entrance of the inner stone structure. Through the pall emerged the remnants of the warband they had sent within. They waited until no more appeared, then Lanas Tog said, ‘This deviation has cost us dear.’

‘The nest had to be extirpated.’

‘We cannot delay.’

Ut’el swung his nearly fleshless face to the south. ‘True. They are close.’ The head tilted, as if in thought. ‘Yet numbers are still with us. Perhaps we should turn upon them. This structure could provide a trap …’

Lanas Tog reached out as if she would grasp the Bonecaster’s shoulder but pulled her hand of sinew and bare bone back at the last moment. ‘Remember our task. Once it is completed, there will be no more argument between us. All shall be moot.’

The battered skull turned to her. ‘True. Why blunt our weapons upon each other when our quarry lies so near …’ He motioned the gathered T’lan onward, stepped close upon Lanas. ‘However, remember that I will allow nothing to come between me and the completion of our sworn task. I have waited far too long for this.’

‘We, you mean,’ Lanas observed, her voice even fainter than usual. ‘We have all waited far too long.’ In answer, Ut’el merely held his carious face close for a time as he stepped around her, then walked off.

After a lingering glance to the south, Lanas followed.

* * *

Reuth was not impressed by what he saw of the gold-seekers’ tent town of Wrongway. It stank, and appeared disorganized even to his inexperienced eye. Tents and huts lay all about with no clear avenues or paths, as if everyone had simply set up camp wherever they wished. And with a heavy spring rain last night, it was now a cesspool of mud tracks and overflowing latrines.

Storval went ashore, accompanied by Riggin, the nominal leader of the ten Stormguard. The rest of the Stormguard, plus the new captain’s closest supporters among the hireswords, were under orders to remain on board. It did not take him long to realize why: so that the rest of the Mare crew did not simply slip the mooring ropes and sail off.

With the evening coming, he decided that this was to be his chance. At the stern, he’d hidden a bundle of what few spare clothes he possessed. He collected a meal of old bread and dried fish and sat there close to the stern plate to wait long into the night.

Yet he was not alone. Two of Storval’s closest supporters hung about as the hours slipped by and the twilight deepened. Then he realized: Storval had set a watch upon him. He, their prisoner pilot, a valuable asset, would not be allowed to slip away.

He wanted to cry then, and he damned his lack of worldly experience. He’d never fought or trained for such things. He was a scholar! When other children were scuffling and drubbing one another he was kept indoors and forced to learn his letters.

Wiping his sleeve across his face, he leaned against the ship’s side, set his chin on his arm and watched the shore. Fires were rising all about the sprawling camp. He could hear loud voices, snatches of laughter and songs from the many informal tent-taverns.

He wondered what Whiteblade would do in this situation. The answer was clear enough: he’d swim to shore. Only, like most, Reuth couldn’t swim. It was a rare talent indeed. Yet, thinking of it, there were other ways. Wood floated, and sailors’ lives had been saved by grasping hold of such things as oars and timbers. He dropped his gaze to the mooring pole lying at his feet. That would do.

He would have to be quick. Toss it over then jump after.

But what if he missed? When then? Like any sailor, he had a terror of drowning.

Yet who said this would be easy? Of course he’d have to take a risk. No gain without it.

Very well. This would be it.

He lifted his bundle of clothes from where he’d stuffed it from sight and set it next to his feet. Then, fighting to steady his breathing, he reached down and lifted the pole from its housing and threw it overboard.

‘Hey? What’s that?’ his minder demanded across the stern deck.

Taking a deep breath, Reuth grabbed hold of his sack and vaulted over the side. The water was shockingly cold and his head sank beneath the surface. He immediately abandoned his bundle to flail blindly for the pole. His searching, grasping hands found nothing. In his panic, he inhaled a mouthful of water and then complete frenzied terror took over. He lashed the water, opened his mouth to scream, but only more water rushed in. He inhaled further, sucking the fluid deeper into his lungs.

Something jabbed his side and scraped a flaming tear across his ribs.

Sudden noise, shouts, splashing, even laughter. He was hanging gaffed: a boathook had him by his clothes. He was yanked up the side of the hull, gagging, vomiting, to thump down on the deck like some sort of hooked fish. Someone kicked him in the side. He pushed his hair back and peered blearily up at Jands, the new first mate.

‘That’ll teach ya,’ the mate said. ‘Storval won’t like to hear of this!’

The gathered hireswords had a good laugh then wandered off, leaving him under guard. He let his head thump to the timbers of the decking and pressed a hand to his side. He’d failed. Made a mess of it. Unlike Whiteblade, who’d made them all look like utter fools.

Seemed there was more to it than just the need and the desire. There had to be some sort of accompanying experience and skill. Well, how could you gather the required experience unless you tried? At least he’d tried. Couldn’t take that from him. He curled up to try to conserve his warmth, and wept fiercely into his fists. At some point in the night one of the Mare sailors dropped a blanket over him.

The next morning, Storval came aboard and announced that they were sailing for Mantle to pledge their swords to the leader of the invader army there, some sort of veteran Letherii commander named Teal. His next act was to manacle Reuth to the stern, next to the rudder.

Reuth wouldn’t have minded the position had Gren still been the steersman. However, the big friendly Jasston native hadn’t recovered from the arrow wound in his leg and had died of infection. Reuth suspected neglect was closer to the cause, as the man had been no friend of Storval or his hiresword lackeys. The new steersman was one of Storval’s hangers-on — he certainly didn’t owe his position to any skill with the rudder.

So it was that the next few days passed in a series of cuffs, sour glances and curses sent Reuth’s way. It was as if this fellow Brener, a dense Katakan native, somehow resented Reuth personally for some slight or wrong the lad couldn’t even remember.

At last, they anchored close to the shore just short of the cliffs and the guarded harbour of Mantle. Storval and the Stormguards had all the crew go ashore. All but two — two guards set to watch the Lady’s Luck, and no doubt Reuth as well.

As the evening darkened, Reuth sat hunched with a few feet of chain manacling him to the timbers of the stern deck. He decided right then that this truly must be his night and that was all there was be to it. No more half measures. No more running. He’d come to realize that there were no easy escapes for him. He considered his freedom incalculably important — valuable enough to be bought with blood. Others’, and probably some of his.

What set his plan in motion was the sight of Gren’s pair of big fighting dirks tucked between the boards just behind the gear next to the stern-plate. Big enough to hack away the meat of the timber round the pin securing his chains. Big enough to take a man’s life, if necessary. Though he still hoped he could avoid that.

So he waited, behaving himself, while the coast came to life in campfires, and voices called to one another, and he overheard snatches of distorted shouting and laughter. To the east, cliffs rose straight from the shore and now they stood black as night. Night birds emerged and fish splashed snapping up insects in the calm waters of the bay. Across the clear night sky the Goddess’s Wall, as the Korelri had it, emerged to shine as a horizon to horizon barrier, where, they said, she kept watch against all manner of uncanny demons.

At least that was what they said now that she had been banished from the physical realm.

He waited long into the night, and would have waited even longer but for the fear that Storval, or others, would return or be sent back to the vessel. He took up one of Gren’s fighting dirks and reversed it to hold it tight to his stomach.

‘Emmel,’ he called, ‘the anchor’s come loose and we’re sliding in towards shore.’

‘The Lady’s Ire we are,’ Emmel growled and, coming up to him, dutifully leaned out to test the chain. Reuth saw his chance and lunged, hammering the man high in the back and sending him tumbling over the side.

Things all rushed together then. Jands called, sharpish, ‘What was that?’

Emmel managed one gurgled call before going under. Emmel, it appeared, belonged to that majority of sailors who did not know how to swim. Reuth yelled: ‘Gods below! Emmel’s fallen overboard!’

‘What?’ Jands appeared in a rush.

‘He was testing the anchor chain …’

Jands, too, leaned out. But something tipped him, perhaps the strangeness of the situation, or Reuth acted too quickly. In any case, his push, intended to send him after Emmel, merely had the first mate tumbling to the deck.

‘Lying little sneak!’ the man growled, and came at him obviously intending to beat him to a pulp. The point of no return had been reached for Reuth. He swiped the blade out across his front as the man lunged. He hadn’t wanted to, and he closed his eyes and flinched backwards as he did so.

Jands let go a fierce yelp of surprise combined with a disbelieving snarl of pain and rage. Reuth forced himself to open his eyes to see the man staggering back, a hand clenched to his forearm where a long deep gash welled blood that dripped from his fingertips to hit the deck in big wet droplets.

‘Bastard sneaky snotty upstart,’ Jands was cursing under his breath as he made his way to the mid-decks. Reuth knew what the man was going for and turned to the pin that secured the chain of his manacles. Using the heavy knife like an axe, he hacked at the wood on either side of the pin. Chips of fresh bright yellow wood jumped to the deck.

Jands yelled from somewhere out of sight: ‘Shoulda killed you right away! There’s those of us who argued so. But no, Storval had to save your skin till we reached the goldfields. Well, you brat …’ he appeared, a rag tied around one arm and a shortsword in his other hand, ‘… we’re here now, aren’t we.’

Reuth hacked at the timber in near-blind panicked desperation. The man closed and swung. Reuth parried the awkward blow and realized that the man was swinging with his off-hand. Thank the gods for that. Snarling, Jands swung again, and Reuth, completely unfamiliar with knife-fighting, or any other sort of fighting for that matter, barely managed to deflect the blow, which struck him high in the head and sent a white-hot spike of pain across his mind.

Through a pink haze he saw Jands pulling the weapon back for a straight killing thrust. He remembered then, almost giddy, that Gren always carried two dirks. No sooner had he thought that, or imagined it, then he threw with all his might, falling forward to the wet decking as he loosed the blade.

Some time later, perhaps a mere heartbeat or two, he blinked to wakefulness. He could only see out of one eye. Something slick and hot coated the other. Jands lay a short distance off, awkwardly, one leg twisted back beneath him. He was holding the grip of the dirk where it protruded from his lower stomach, just above his crotch. He was groaning and babbling.

Blinking, shaking with shock and pent-up panicked energy, Reuth used the ship’s side to lever himself to his feet. He pulled the second dirk free and set to hacking at the timber once more.

Jands turned his head to him. ‘You’ve done for me, you damned piece of worthless shit.’

Reuth kept hacking. Every blow sent shockwaves of agony through his head. Black spots danced across his vision — including his gummed-shut eye. A loud roaring came and went in his hearing, as if the vessel were approaching an immense waterfall, or raging surf.

‘Me! Poor Jands, who never hurt no one!’

Reuth kept swinging. Gods! Would he have to cut the ship in half?

‘You’re a useless sneaking backstabbing snivelling spoiled rat! That’s what you are.’ Jands panted to gather breath for another rant. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done for me!’

Leaning forward — which took some doing without blacking out — Reuth took hold of the iron pin and tried to yank it back and forth. It gave … a little. He returned to bashing at the wood.

Jands was crying now. ‘It’s just not fair! That’s what it is. How could you have killed me? It just ain’t fair!’

Reuth had to pause to gather his own breath. He reached down for the pin — and couldn’t find it. In a sudden horror he fell to his knees, pawing at the cleft where it had been. Where was it? How could he have lost it? What a fool!

Then he spotted it on the deck where it lay amid the curled chips, still driven through its link of chain. Relief surged through him. Thank Ruse! He thought he’d lost it. He picked it up, or tried to, as when he raised the thing it was yanked from his hand.

Reuth stood blinking at the clattering loose end of chain for some time. Then he realized — oh yes.

He went to the anchor stanchion, found the storm release, and pulled it free. The length of anchor chain went rattling and slithering free like a hound released from its leash.

The next thing would require him to make it to the bows. And that would mean … Jands lay in his way. He edged as close as he dared. The man was still alive. He was panting as if running, his lower torso, crotch and thighs a wet mess of blood. His eyes were open and glaring murder and hatred upon Reuth’s head.

Reuth gingerly raised his leg and stepped over the man.

A wet slick hand snapped up to grip his sailcloth trousers. Reuth almost screamed his horror. ‘Save poor Jands,’ the man begged. ‘Please … be a good lad and bring help for your old friend … poor Jands.’

Smothering his terror, Reuth reached down and brushed the hand from its clutching grip the way one might remove a clinging piece of dirt or mud.

The hand fell to the deck timbers with a heavy thud. ‘Heartless murdering piece of shit!’

Reuth then did the hardest thing. He walked away from a man who would soon be dead. A man he had killed. The first — well, the second — man he had killed. He felt diminished as a person as he limped away. But he also felt a childish sort of surge of triumph and energy.

What followed was so much easer: the plain setting of the small foresail, the return to tie off the rudder. Only then did he dare allow himself to relax. He sat in a small stool the steersman was sometimes allowed to pull out, and leaned upon the arm.

The night seemed somehow darker. He blinked, jerked his head up. Then he slid from the stool and banged his head on the deck. He couldn’t stop the spinning after that and he was unable to get up.

Voice roused him to wakefulness. Someone spoke: ‘Hasn’t pulled free. Been a fight.’ A heavy step sounded close by. ‘Look at this.’

Another voice: ‘Mutineer?’

Chain rattled. Someone yanked his leg. ‘An escaped prisoner. Or a slave.’

Reuth forced open his eyes, or tried to: one was glued shut. He saw a giant towering over him. A bearded soldier in a long mail coat that hung to his knees. Over his armour the man wore a pale cloth surcoat.

‘You are safe now, lad,’ he said. ‘We offer you sanctuary. And we among the Blue Shields take such offers very seriously.’

Reuth let his head fall back to the decking. Sanctuary? The word troubled him; sounded too much like the pious mouthings of the Stormguard. Was he no better off? After all that … The idea was just too much for him and he had to choose between weeping or slipping away into darkness.

He chose the easier of the two.

* * *

Orman and the Reddin brothers returned to the Sayer Greathall as swiftly as they could. They jog-trotted up the forested valleys, splashed through streams of runoff, and laboured their way up steep bare rocky ridge-slopes. When at last Orman broke through the forest surrounding the cleared fields he was relieved, and also vaguely uneasy, to see the hall still standing, but quietly so, as if abandoned. No one walked the fields or patrolled the yards, though a thin white plume was climbing from the longhouse’s smoke-hole.

Was it truly abandoned? Would they enter to find slain corpses? But of course not — the Greathall would certainly be aflame if that were so.

He shook off his dread and continued on. The Reddin brothers, as was their wont, said nothing of their thoughts.

No one challenged them as they leapt up the wooden stairs to the wide open entrance. Just within the darkness of the long hall, Heavyhand awaited them. He was armoured for war in a long mail coat over leathers manufactured in the old fashion: the rings as large as coins and riveted to the leather hauberk. His wild mane of greying hair was pulled back and braided, his beard tied off with strips of leather. The spear he held carried a blade as large as an axe.

He allowed them to pass, but offered no greeting, and his gaze was reserved. Beyond, Jaochim and Yrain waited in their raised wooden chairs, one to either side of the central empty one. Orman crossed to stand directly before them and inclined his head.

‘I am sorry,’ he began. ‘But …’ He found he could not speak the news he’d run all this way to give. His throat constricted as if in rebellion. The words for what he had to say remained burning in his chest.

Jaochim raised a hand in acknowledgement. ‘The Eithjar have informed us, Orman. They say also that you slew Lotji with Svalthbrul.’

‘Yes.’

‘That is good. They are gone then. More blood has been spilled, but the feud between us is done.’

Orman could not prevent himself from frowning his amazement and disapproval. This was their main concern? He glanced between the two. ‘Good? What of the invading army? They will return. The Bain Greathall is only the first …’

He broke off because Yrain surged to her feet. ‘Do not presume to lecture us, hearthguard. The Bain Holding is merely the most recent of some twenty others. All gone. Every disappearance witnessed by us. Do not think us unmoved by this creeping valley by valley pogrom we have been forced to endure. You presume to judge us by your standards. Please do not do so. It is misguided — and in error.’

Her gaze was so severe Orman almost thought himself personally responsible for the centuries of murders and purgings her story implied.

She lowered her gaze then, releasing him, and sat once more. ‘We are the last. We few remaining Holdings. It is up to us how to greet this final nightfall of our kind. We choose to meet it at our hearth’s side, face on. Without running. Without flight. For truly … there remains nowhere to run.’

Still panting, Orman wiped the sweat from his eyes and turned to the Reddin brothers. They shared a silent glance and nodded. Deep down, Orman wanted to run. He desperately wanted to live. But he could not shame himself in front of the brothers, or Jaochim, nor of course the memory of Jass. So he swallowed his fears, his yammering need to flee, and nodded as well.

Jaochim and Yrain smiled as if this was to be expected, then stood. ‘Very good,’ Jaochim announced. ‘We were right in offering you the roof of our hall and the food of our table, and the rings from our own hands. Sayer Greathall shall not fall so easily.’ He raised his gaze to Bernal. ‘Heavyhand, what say you?’

Bernal crossed his thick arms, hugging the haft of his pole-arm to his chest. ‘The outbuildings should all be burned. All the stored grain and foodstuffs should be moved inside. The animals should be scattered.’

Jaochim nodded his agreement. He motioned them out. ‘See to it.’

The Reddin brothers turned and went. Orman was slow to follow; he still had so many questions. But the two Icebloods descended to the rear of the raised wood platform. He reluctantly followed the brothers out.

In the muddy open ground before the Greathall he hurried to match strides with Bernal. ‘They really cannot expect to withstand a siege, do they?’ he demanded. ‘We cannot defend against fifty, or a hundred. They’ll just burn the place down around us.’

The veteran huffed into his thick russet beard. ‘Do not dismiss Iceblood magics, lad. They’re still powerful up here in the highlands.’

‘But Vala …’

Bernal pulled a hand through his beard. ‘What I heard suggests she chose her end, lad. She chose to pass beyond with Jass.’

Orman felt tears welling up once more. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes. Yes. She did that, didn’t she.

‘Now, as for us,’ Bernal began, ‘you lot can start bundling all the useful supplies into the Greathall.’

Rather than answering, the Reddin brothers inclined their heads and jogged off. Orman coughed to try to clear the burning heat from his throat, and followed.

* * *

It began before Jute noticed it. He and Ieleen had been surprised, and pleased, to see a longboat come their way from Tyvar’s vessel, the Resolute. In it came a contingent of Blue Shields together with its commander himself. One trooper carried what appeared to be a wounded sailor up the rope ladder and brought him immediately to Jute. It was a young man, and he was unconscious,

‘An escapee from the besiegers,’ Tyvar announced. ‘Perhaps a slave or a prisoner.’

Jute called to his wife: ‘Ieleen, a patient for you.’

She stood. ‘Bring him to the crew’s quarters — and someone must guide me.’

Jute signed to his crewmen to obey. Tyvar motioned to his troopers to follow the sailors’ lead.

Once the wounded fellow and Ieleen were below, Jute turned to the commander. ‘Why all the fuss? There must be many such deserters and escapees.’

‘His hands,’ Tyvar replied, rather enigmatically.

Jute frowned. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Soft, pale, unscarred, and stained black under the nails. No oarsman or servant, that one. Literate. And the ship we pulled him from was a Mare war galley.’

Jute’s brows rose. A Mare vessel? Quite the prize.

Tyvar reached into his belt and pulled forth an instrument Jute instantly recognized: an alidade. ‘And he carried this.’

Jute reached out and Tyvar set it in his hands. It was a beautiful piece of cast and polished bronze. Crude by Falaran standards, of course, what with their tradition of open-water exploration. But more important, he could see this one had been designed to personal order. He shook his head, amazed. What an accomplishment for someone coming from a region of shallow-water navigation!

He blew out a breath. ‘I see … Well, won’t you stay for a drink, commander?’

Tyvar pulled a hand down his beard and offered Jute a wink. ‘I do believe I shall.’

In his cabin, Jute poured two tiny thimbles of Falaran distilled spirit made from the seeds of a low bush that grew on the islands of their archipelago. They called it Peuch. When he turned from the cupboards, however, he found that they were not two, but three. He was annoyed, and rather alarmed, to find that Khall-head hanger-on from the Wrongway camp sitting at the table.

‘What in the name of the damned Mael are you doing here?’ He pointed to the door. ‘Get the Abyss out.’

Tyvar raised a hand to beg permission to intercede. ‘If I may, captain?’ Jute subsided, grumbling beneath his breath. The Blue Shield commander then surprised Jute immensely by saying slowly, and gently, as if addressing an infant: ‘You really should ask permission before entering the captain’s quarters.’

The Khall-head raised his brows in slow-motion surprise. His yellowed eyes roamed the chamber as if only now fully aware of his surroundings — which Jute did not doubt.

Tyvar continued: ‘So wait outside, won’t you?’

The fellow smiled then — his eerie empty raising of the lips — and bestirred himself. Despite his antagonism, the state of his limbs raised a wince of empathy from Jute: emaciated, scabbed by sores and the old weeping cuts of an unhealthy body hardly functioning, let alone healing.

He shambled from the cabin. Jute eyed the huge commander. ‘Who is he to you?’

Tyvar cleared his throat, tossed back his thimble of spirit and sucked his teeth. ‘Cartheron told me his tale. A man worthy of our pity. A sad tale that …’ His voice tailed off and his gaze swung across the cabin to the door.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s begun,’ Tyvar announced.

‘What? What’s begun?’

‘An attack on Mantle.’ Two broad steps took the man to the door and out. Jute hurriedly knocked back his shot of Peuch, coughed slightly, and followed.

He found Lieutenant Jalaz also on deck. She wore only a plain padded undershirt that hung to her knees. She was gazing up at the cliff top.

‘What-’ Jute began, but Tyvar lifted his hand. Jute strained to listen, but all he could hear was a strange sort of murmuring from above, as of many voices and sharp sounds commingled.

‘They’ve rushed the walls,’ Tyvar announced.

‘Really? How can you …’

‘By time we climb those stairs it’ll be over,’ Giana grumbled.

Tyvar nodded his grim assent. ‘Still, the effort must be made. Prepare yourself, Lieutenant. You and I must climb to see who now holds Mantle.’

‘I will come too,’ Jute added, rather surprising himself.

Instead of scoffing, as he feared, the two warriors merely shared a knowing, amused smile. Tyvar pulled a hand down his beard, trying to hide his grin. ‘Your wife,’ the Blue Shield commander said. ‘She has complained of your penchant for rushing in where you shouldn’t. She made us swear not to … ah, encourage it.’

Something in him felt very annoyed by Ieleen going behind his back like that. ‘I’ve come damned far and I swore I’d see this through!’

Tyvar raised a hand in surrender. ‘I cannot argue with that, captain. And you may of course travel where you would. However, we ask one thing …’

‘Yes?’

Tyvar shared a wink with Giana. ‘That you face her when we return.’

‘Leave her to me.’

Giana burst out with a laugh and headed off to get ready, saying, ‘I’d rather face these invaders, myself.’

Tyvar held out a hand and his sword, sheathed and wrapped in its belt, was pressed into his grip by one of his troopers. He fastened it round the long quilted aketon that he wore as part of his armour’s underpadding, and gestured an invitation to Jute. ‘Shall we?’

Giana rushed up to join them as they left the ship. She wore leathers, and carried a Malazan-issue shortsword at her side. ‘Cartheron?’ she asked.

Tyvar shook his head. ‘He made it plain he would not be travelling up and down those stairs. “Like a weasel popping out of its hole” I believe were his exact words.’

Jute smiled at that, but was saddened as well. The man clearly hadn’t recovered from his gut wound — and probably never would, as he was so very old.

The Genabackan reiver Enguf met them on the dock. His cheery greeting was, to Jute’s ears, rather forced. ‘Going topside, are we?’ The man laughed. ‘Good, good. You’ll enquire as to the plans, yes? Perhaps I and my crew should be sent for help? Yes? Gather reinforcements?’ The crewmen on the dock behind him all nodded their heads enthusiastically.

‘I’ll … suggest it,’ Tyvar promised.

‘Good, good!’ The reiver waved an enthusiastic farewell as they passed.

Starting up the stairs, Giana muttered: ‘Fifty Malazan orbs says they won’t be here when we return.’

‘They will be,’ Tyvar answered, sounding amused.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because they know they can’t get past my men without my approval. They are, effectively, trapped.’

Jute climbed unhappily, already resenting the effort. Above, the shouts and clash of battle rose and fell like a surf washing a distant shore. The Blue Shield commander’s pace was steady and a touch faster than his; he hurried to keep up. His thoughts turned to the man’s predicament. He had said that the Genabackan pirate was trapped — what then of Tyvar himself? Was he? Jute cleared his throat. ‘Commander?’

‘Just Tyvar to you, captain.’

‘Thank you, sir. If I may … with all due respect. Are you not disheartened?’

The wooden slats of the stairs creaked ominously as the man paused to glance back over his shoulder, a brow raised. ‘Disheartened?’

Jute decided that perhaps that was too strong a word. ‘Ah, concerned?’

Tyvar resumed climbing. ‘Concerned?’

‘To have come all this way — followed the commandment of your god — only to find yourself held aside. Hindered.’

The Blue Shield commander nodded profoundly as he continued up the twisting scaffolding. ‘I understand. In answer to your question … No. We do not. We have faith in Togg, my friend, absent though he may be. All shall be as he foretold. Never fear. Our fate has not come yet … but it shall.’

They took another turn in the scaffolding. Giana was gamely following along behind Jute, grinding her teeth in her frustration, either at the delay, or the rickety construction. After mulling over the Genabackan’s words, Jute called up: ‘But as you say, many of the gods are gone from this world. Our offerings no longer reach them directly. How … isn’t it too late?’

Tyvar nodded once more, clasped his hands behind his back — a dangerous move considering their wobbling footholds. ‘Haagen and I have spoken much on this. It used to be that guardianship of the spirits of our brothers and sisters resided with us, the Shield Anvil and the Sword. Now, however, with Hood’s grip upon all of us released, things have changed.’ He spared Jute one quick glance, as if checking to make certain he was keeping up. ‘Are you familiar with the old belief that no one truly dies?’

Jute paused in his climbing to blink his confusion. ‘I’m sorry …?’ Tyvar paused as well, turned back to face him. ‘Oh yes. Reincarnation they call it. We — that is, our spirits, our souls, are reborn from life to life. No one truly ever goes away. It is a very old idea, in point of fact. Ancient.’

For some reason such an assertion profoundly offended Jute. He started climbing once more. ‘But … what would be the point of that? Is there no purpose to life, then?’

Resuming his climb, his back to Jute, Tyvar raised a finger. ‘A-ha. You have grasped the crux of it. What is the point? Or is there any at all? That is the dread. Perhaps one answer is that each life is an opportunity.’

‘An opportunity?’

‘Yes. For improvement. Or perfection.’

Jute felt quite bewildered by the idea. ‘Do you believe this?’

Tyvar glanced back once more. ‘Myself? No. It is too far from my previous beliefs. However, Haagen and I agree that we are mortal, yet there resides within us some portion that is non-corporeal, imperishable. Just as some element of Togg and all the various gods remains imperishable. And that now, it is to this that we join or are enfolded after death. And whatever that is could be named the Divine. To that will we dedicate our prayers and the care of our spirit.’

More than the vertigo of the ramshackle scaffolding and the blowing wind now tugged at Jute. He felt quite dizzy, and he made an effort to pull his thoughts back to himself. He pressed a hand to his aching brow. ‘I really wouldn’t know anything about such matters. I am just a modest sailor.’

They had reached the top landing. Tyvar turned to him. ‘Perhaps that is what is needed in these uncertain times, my friend. A sailor — someone used to finding his way upon unfamiliar waters. Who knows?’ His brows crimped then, in confusion, and he faced the walls — as did Jute.

All was now quiet, though the northern defenders still guarded the broad semicircle that was the outer walls. They leaned upon their spears and craned their necks to the main gate area. Giana came up beside Jute and frowned her uncertainty. ‘A parley?’ she ventured.

‘Very possibly,’ Tyvar answered and strode off across the bailey yard. Jute hurried after him.

They were stopped and surrounded long before they reached the front gate. From the yard, Jute glimpsed so-called King Ronal the Bastard up atop the wall, wrapped in a great bear-hide cloak, crowded round by his bodyguard, apparently involved in a meeting with someone beyond.

Tyvar motioned that he wished to witness. The northern warriors eyed one another, unsure. Taking advantage of their indecision, he simply barged up the nearest dirt ramp. Jute pressed in to follow in his considerable wake. Giana pushed forward as well.

Along the way they passed tents and awnings raised over ranks of wounded being treated. The ramp itself was blood-spattered and littered with fallen broken accoutrement of war: shattered spear-hafts, battered shields, a hide shoe, slit and soaked in its owner’s blood.

When Jute made the wall, he was treated to the breathtaking view of a mass of foreign besiegers, though a rather ragged and poorly armed mass. Dotted among these ranks of men — and Jute felt reluctant to name such shabby specimens soldiers — stood fully armed and armoured obvious professionals. And these all bore the same heraldry upon their shields and banded-iron hauberks: the sigil of a tower.

Jute didn’t know the symbol. ‘What soldiers are those?’ he asked Tyvar.

The commander was obviously wondering the same thing himself as he scratched his beard musingly. After a time, he came to a conclusion and nodded to himself. ‘Letherii,’ he murmured. ‘Some noble or trading house of the Lether Empire.’

Lether? Jute was surprised; the Letherii were not seafarers. But then, there was gold to be had, so he really ought not to be shocked that the Letherii were involved. Jute put their numbers in the hundreds. The contingent also appeared to have two commanders, as they were the only individuals mounted. One of these raised a hand, as if for silence, though no one was talking, and announced: ‘Very good, King Ronal. Your silence is answer enough. Remain cornered here in Mantle. You can watch while we take control of all the north.’

The speaker was a younger man in what was obviously an extremely expensive set of banded armour, inlaid and etched with intricate curling designs. His fellow commander sat tall upon his mount, boarding-pole slim, grey-haired, in much-worn leathers.

‘Your realm, King Ronal,’ the younger fellow continued, ‘has dwindled to a stone’s throw across. I understand that the custom here is that when the grip of the old ruler weakens, a new one arises to assert control. Who am I to argue with tradition? Sieges, by the way, are all about time. Time and suffering. We go now to take control of the goldfields — first things first, after all. Once that is done, we will return to relieve you of your suffering. Until then.’ He offered a mocking bow in farewell.

Wrapped in his bear cloak, King Ronal the Bastard cackled a grating laugh and waved him off. ‘Go on! The Icebloods will have your heads!’

The Lether noble was not concerned. ‘I think not. I wonder, if fact, whether there are any of them left.’ He turned his mount and cantered off, followed by his companion officer. King Ronal stormed from the wall. His bodyguard and crowd of court followers nearly tripped and fell over one another to keep from underfoot.

Tyvar pushed towards the man’s path. King Ronal caught sight of him; indeed, it was hard to miss him as he was as broad as a haystack. The king pointed, shouting: ‘What in the name of the ancients do you want?’

Tyvar bowed his head. ‘Once more, King Ronal, I humbly offer my-’

The Bastard threw his spindly arms into the air. ‘Another damned foreigner making demands upon me! To the Hooded Taker’s grip with all of you!’ and he barged onward without another glance. His entourage hurried after him.

Jute and Giana moved close to Tyvar who had remained quite still, his features controlled, but impassively so. Jute could not help but let out a growl. ‘I cannot believe such treatment. Tyvar, sir, you show astounding patience …’

The Blue Shield commander gave a wave as if to brush that aside. ‘If dedication to something infinitely greater than oneself should teach anything, it is humility.’

Jute remained unconvinced. ‘Well … I’m dumbfounded. Especially given the fame of your brother order the Grey Swords, and what they managed against the Pannions. This is plain stupidity!’

Tyvar brusquely shook his head. ‘No. It is pride. We outlanders have taken his kingdom from him. Brushed his people aside. Why should he be favourably inclined towards us?’

‘Pride …’ Giana ground out. Something in her tone made Jute glance at her. She was scowling ferociously. ‘Just another word for stupidity …’ She was staring off towards the wall as she spoke and Jute followed her gaze to find the old Malazan woman, the emissary of that empire, staring back. Her hands were busy adjusting the folds of her black layered blouse and skirts, brushing her face, primping her tightly pulled-back hair. He realized that she and Giana were somehow communicating, and that Giana was not happy. He returned his gaze to the ex-lieutenant to find her glaring straight at him; he hurriedly looked away.

Tyvar let out a breath, loosened his shoulders. ‘It would appear that we must yet wait a while longer.’ He invited them to follow him back to the stairs. ‘Perhaps when they get hungrier they will be more amenable to negotiation.’

* * *

The grit of pulverized rock crackled beneath Silverfox’s sandalled feet as she walked the subterranean chamber. With her toes she edged aside shattered wood from a chair to approach a sprawled corpse. A woman. Sliced through by the clean unmistakable cut of an Imass stone weapon. Nothing sharper, she thought, feeling very distant from it all. Even in this day and age, after all these centuries.

Her minders, Pran and Tolb, hovered nearby, she was certain, though she couldn’t see them at the moment. Prudent, that, given what she felt rising up within her.

She thought she’d managed to contain it all. Tamp it down, choke it off. She’d told herself she could live with all this killing. This murder. Now her numbness scared her. A new worry clawed at her stomach — was she becoming what she despised?

Oblivion would be preferable.

Yet … the dread within her whispered: what if not even oblivion is for you?

She raised her gaze to the stone ceiling where colossal wild magics had gouged and scarred the root rock. She blinked to clear her vision. The stink of rotting flesh assaulted her nostrils and raised acid in her throat.

I deserve this reek. I should live with it always. A reminder-

No. I should not need reminding. That I would ever need reminding is … unforgivable.

Grit crackled again as she made her way to the next corpse: an elderly man thrust through numerous times. Strong in his Jaghut blood, this one — he appeared to have ignored several mortal wounds to continue fighting — yet without the obvious strong markers of his heritage, the pronounced jaws and tusk-like teeth, the height. Without those. So did communities change over time. Look at the diversity of the peoples she knew — all from a common ancestor.

Ancestors she walked with now, who yet appeared far from her blood with their thick robust bones, their squat build and wide jaws.

Flies swarmed the dark holes that once held this one’s eyes. She was grateful that she did not have to meet his gaze, even a fixed death stare. She suspected it would be too much. She felt she was on a knife’s edge of … shattering. The faintest, most innocuous sound might send her tumbling over that edge to where she could never find herself again.

She’d driven her flesh beyond exhaustion, beyond what it should be expected to endure. Yet that was as nothing to the agony her soul had inflicted upon itself. Could a person choke on self-loathing? She felt she was as much a walking corpse as her companions.

Quick light steps across the littered floor swung her about: she caught a glimpse of a slip of a girl, her glaring eyes bright and wild in the gloom, her shirt and long skirting tattered and scorched, before the child launched herself upon her. Instinctively, Silverfox caught her arms and they rocked there, straining, limbs outstretched.

No reason remained in the hatred and rage pouring from the wide eyes. The broken nails of the clawed fingers stretched for her. Protect yourself! the voice of Tattersail shouted within. Destroy her! the Thelomen bellowed.

Yet Silverfox did not raise the powers of the magery at her command. Instead, she fought to catch those rolling eyes and said, her voice cracking: ‘Why?’

Perhaps it was the strangeness of being addressed — or the strangeness of the question itself — but she felt the girl’s arms ease. The mouth, working and twisted, fell into a frown of disbelief.

‘Why …?’ the girl repeated as if testing the word. ‘Why?’ She pulled away, clasped her hands behind her back as if to restrain them there. ‘You dare ask why? You, who slew my family?’

What could she say? The time for ‘Sorry’ was long past. Ten thousand years past. No, the gulf was too profoundly deep to be bridged by any such gesture. ‘What I mean,’ she said, ‘is why must we kill each other?’

The girl fairly quivered in the grip of emotions no doubt as profound as those afflicting Silverfox herself. Blood-smeared and ragged, she looked like a lost waif. Silverfox had to resist the urge to reach out in an effort to soothe her.

‘You attacked us!’ the girl accused.

‘And who are we?’

‘You are the enemy we thought would never come. A legend. Stories to scare children. The Army of Dust and Bone.’

So that may be the legacy of the Imass, Silverfox mused. A legend. A frightening threat from the dark night of the past. Even that, she decided, would be eminently preferable. She cleared her throat to speak as she could hardly force out the words. ‘Well … it is over. No one will threaten you now. You are in no danger.’

The girl’s frown eased, though she remained wary, her brows clenched in worry. Then she seemed to come to a decision and her mouth twitched upwards in something like a strained mask-like smile. ‘In that case-’ she began, then jerked, her eyes bulging.

The point of a brown flint sword punched through the front of her chest. Yet her eyes held Silverfox’s. As they dimmed, it seemed to the Summoner that they poured forth a child’s hurt at a profound betrayal, and this grief broke Silverfox’s heart. The girl slid off the blade revealing Pran Chole behind. Silverfox stared her horror at the Imass, whispered, ‘What have you done?’

‘Summoner … she was-’

Silverfox threw up a hand to command his silence; the presence of Tattersail, the old Malazan mage, was now choking her in its outrage. ‘Answer this crime!’ the ghost-presence of the woman demanded.

But no. No more retaliation. She was done with it. Done with them all. The raised hand now waved dismissal, but it was she who staggered off, lurching, almost blind. She wondered why tears would not come. Am I that hardened now? Instead, anger possessed her: a heated sizzling rage. To think they once held her pity! Chained to a ritual sworn ages ago! Unbending. Immovable. Intractable! They will not change.

Suddenly, it was clear what she had to do. If they were incapable of change, then it was up to her to force it upon them. She was, after all, the Summoner.

The entrance was a half-choked glare of light. She kicked her way through the rubble towards it. Her hand was still extended out behind her, daring anyone to follow.

In the darkness behind, broken rock crackled once more as Tolb Bell’al joined Pran Chole. The latter extended his withered foot in its tattered leather remnants to press open the hands of the dead girl. A thin knife blade clattered to the stones, its edge dark with venom.

The two exchanged a silent glance.

‘Shall we ever convince her of it?’ Tolb asked.

Pran shook his head, the leather of his neck creaking. ‘Best not to bring it up again, I think.’

Tolb nodded his agreement. ‘Perhaps so.’

Silverfox exited the stone portal like a swimmer broaching the surface after a too-long dive. She gasped for breath, lurching, grasping at the wall for support. The waiting ranks of the Ifayle and Kron flinched from her as they sensed her rage. She stormed off, up a grass-thatched dune, to a single figure standing alone, her long black hair whipping in the wind.

‘I am done with them,’ Silverfox announced, coming abreast of Kilava.

The ancient Bonecaster crossed her arms. ‘Strange how all those who meet the T’lan Imass eventually come to that conclusion. Those who survive, in any case.’

But Silverfox could not share the woman’s detachment. ‘Tell them to keep their distance. I will go on alone in this. Meet Lanas on my own.’ She paused. ‘That is, unless you wish to witness?’

Kilava pushed her hair from her wide face, the broad cheekbones and thick, almost brutal brow ridge. ‘I would witness.’