Assail

CHAPTER XIII

Orman, the Reddin brothers, Bernal and the Sayer household servants Leal and Ham had three days to prepare before Keth jogged up from the lower valley to report that the outlander army was approaching and would arrive before nightfall.

These last three days it had been alternately raining, sleeting, and snowing. It was as if the weather could not make up its mind. Orman was glad for the damp chill. It would work against the invaders, or so he told himself. He worked piling the last of the equipment and furniture on the barricade of logs and hastily cut down trees they had raised surrounding the Greathall. All bolstered by lashed barrels, heaped sod, and any tangled bric-a-brac they could pull from the outbuildings before they fired them.

And what of his resolve? he wondered as he tied down a great heavy table of solid logs turned onto its side. Has the weather dampened it? He straightened and pressed a hand to the patch over his eye. Hard to know it was still there when he couldn’t see it. Was he an utter fool not to have run off one of these past nights? Bernal said to have faith in Jaochim — easy for him, as he’d known the Iceblood for decades.

No, faith in the Icebloods wasn’t keeping him here. It was, rather, the faith they had shown in him. They had simply taken his word that he would see this through and that trust was what kept him steadfast. That, and the answer to the question what would he do if it were Jass who stood now beside him? Could he abandon him?

The absurdity of the idea of his ever deserting Jass made Orman laugh aloud. The carefree barking chuckle startled him and raised Kasson’s head from where he worked mounding the earthworks.

‘There is something of Old Bear in you, I think,’ Jaochim said behind Orman and he turned, feeling a hot embarrassment for his outburst.

‘I have been watching you these last few days,’ the lean Iceblood said, peering down at him. ‘I have seen you struggle with your resolve to remain despite not knowing what was to come.’ He gestured for Orman to follow him back to the Greathall. ‘Come — I have something for you.’

Within, the Iceblood elder dug about in a remaining large wooden chest and pulled out a cloak of thick black bear fur. ‘Here. Wear this. It is going to get cold.’ He helped Orman slip it on then pinned it at one shoulder with a wide bronze brooch. He seemed to study Orman for a time, then nodded to himself. ‘Good. Now, do not interrupt me as I speak. Yrain and I have no intention of allowing these outlanders to take us and luckily — though …’ and here he paced, thinking, ‘perhaps luck had nothing to do with it … In any case, we have had time to fully sense Buri’s plan. And we support it. Therefore, when the time comes, you will take everyone and find him once more-’ Orman drew breath to object, but Jaochim carried on: ‘You will take him this message: that he is to use all that we have given him. Yes? You will do this?’

At first Orman would not answer. He kept his jaws clenched only to mutter, low, ‘I will not abandon you.’

‘You are not abandoning us. You are fulfilling a last obligation.’

Orman felt hot tears come once more to his eyes and this embarrassed him yet again. ‘Do not send me away.’

Jaochim nodded his understanding. ‘Yrain and I have spoken, and we will not have you fall in our defence. That would be selfish of us. You and the brothers have many years before you. You shall carry our legacy into the future. For that possibility alone, Yrain and I are glad to send you like a spear thrown onward into the years to come.’ He clasped Orman’s shoulders in both hands. ‘Will you do this thing? For our sacrifice? And for Vala and Jass’s sacrifice?’ Unable to speak, his throat and chest choked with emotion, Orman gave a curt jerked nod. Jaochim squeezed his shoulders. ‘My thanks.’

Bernal appeared in the sunlight streaming in the entrance. ‘They are here.’

Jaochim released him. He turned to Bernal. ‘When the time comes — go with Orman here, yes?’

Bernal bowed from the waist. ‘Very well.’

‘You will know when,’ he told Orman. He gestured to the far end of the Greathall where the thrones stood on their raised wooden dais. ‘Yrain and I will wait here. No others should be present.’ Seeing Orman hesitating, unwilling to go, he gently motioned to the front. ‘Bernal — please greet our guests.’

Bernal thumped the butt of his spear to the packed dirt of the hall floor and lowered himself to one knee. ‘As you order, m’lord.’ Straightening, he urged Orman out. ‘Come. There’s more than enough for all of us.’

Though it was a grey overcast day, Orman still had to blink as he stepped outside. Once his vision cleared, he saw that Bernal was right. There were a damned lot of them. Far too many, in fact. The ranks were parting as they approached, no doubt meaning to encircle the Greathall. It was not a ragtag mob of marauders and raiding fortune-hunters. This was an army. Someone had come with more in mind than scavenging gold. He quickly descended the steps and jogged to where he’d left Svalthbrul leaning up against the barricade.

The soldiers formed up two ranks deep encircling them. They wore plain leather armour and carried medium-sized triangular shields, with shortswords at their sides. Behind them ranged the skirmishers: remnants of the force they had routed days earlier. These carried a mishmash of weaponry; some bore no armour at all — it looked as if all those better equipped had been taken up into the ranks.

A man pushed forward and stepped out ahead of the front rank. He was by far the best armoured of the lot: banded iron engraved and inlaid with a silvery spider-tracing that glimmered as he moved. His hair was long and loose, but his beard was short and neatly trimmed. He waved an arm before himself as if in disbelief.

‘What is this?’ he called. ‘I see only three of you.’

Bernal stepped up to the barricade, thumped his spear to the ground. ‘There’s one more in the back.’

‘Is this some sort of insult?’

‘Is this what you call parleying?’

The man, whom Orman assumed to be their commander, looked to the sky in what he might have thought was a gesture of self-control, but which was also actually an insult. ‘I am not parleying,’ he sighed. ‘I am in truth attempting to do you a favour.’

‘And what favour would this be?’ Bernal inquired innocently, leaning on his spear.

‘The offer of your lives.’ He raised his voice, calling: ‘Set down your weapons and walk away and you may live!’

Bernal turned his head round to glance behind to the right and left, then returned his attention to the man. He shrugged.

The commander sighed once more, rubbed his brow. ‘I see.’ He glanced to the men next to him and explained: ‘Barbarians. The same everywhere. All façade of nobility and honour. They yearn to demonstrate how brave they are. We of Lether have dealt with this before, have we not? They wish to prove they do not fear death? Very well. We shall oblige them.’

Orman ached to plant Svalthrul in the man’s sneering heart, but then the weapon would be beyond the barricade, out of his reach. ‘At least give us until nightfall to consider your offer!’ he shouted.

The man glanced to Orman then looked up at the dense ashen clouds above and shook his head. ‘No. I think not.’ He bellowed: ‘Torches!’

Orman flinched. This was not what he’d been expecting.

Shortly, a barrage of lit torches came arcing up from behind the ranks to sail over and land on the wooden planks of the Greathall roof. Most rolled back down to fall to the ground. But some remained, sending up gouts of black smoke. Orman tore his gaze from the roof to return to facing the men ranked before him.

More torches flew overhead. Behind him grew the crackling and snapping of burning wood. Was this what Jaochim meant by the right moment? But what were they to do? Charge the ranks? That would also be certain suicide.

Bernal came limping a circuit of the barricade. ‘Steady, lad,’ he murmured. ‘They won’t charge us now, will they?’

‘What of …’ He jerked his head to the Greathall.

Bernal rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘They’ve made their choice, they have.’

‘But what should we do?’

‘We’ll see, lad. We’ll see.’

The crackling swelled to a constant roar. A growing heat punished his back. Smoke billowed, blinding him and tearing at his throat. A wind rose with the flames. He heard nothing but the ravening fire and the explosive popping of resin.

Dear ancestors, this was it. Oddly enough, he felt utterly resigned. Just as Jass went, so too would he. It was an … elemental way to go.

Squinting through the smoke he saw, rather than heard, the ranks retreat a step. To a man they now stared above him, wonder and a touch of dread on their faces. Orman dared a glance behind.

The fire appeared to be diminishing. He might be mistaken, but here and there the blackened beams of the room showed through, smoking, yet free of flames.

And from the Greathall entrance, descending the log steps like a river, came a steady course of dense fog. It curled outwards past Bernal’s sandalled feet, spreading as it went.

Something frigid kissed Orman’s own feet and he leapt, flinching. More fog now ran out from beneath the hall. It appeared to be spreading to all sides. It coursed through and over the barricade, swelled onward.

Many of the soldiers retreated as it came.

‘Stand firm!’ the commander bellowed. ‘Mere barbarian witchery. I-’ He stopped himself, staring upwards in disbelief. Orman followed his gaze: the roof fire was now completely out. Exposed blackened beams smoked, but no flames could be seen. The commander once more pressed a hand to his brow. He sounded an aggrieved sigh. ‘Oh — just kill them.’

Sergeants among the ranks bellowed, ‘Charge!’

The front rank surged forward to the barricade. They chopped and yanked at the heaped logs, barrels and equipment. One screamed as Bernal’s spear found him. Orman shook off his hesitation and thrust as well, jabbing at every soldier within reach.

He fully expected the soldiers to climb or push their way through the barricade in moments; it was undefended for almost all its length. Yet this did not happen. The men he fended off with thrusts of Svalthbrul retreated, nursing wounds, but so too did nearly all the others. These gasped and flinched, hunching, their breaths steaming. Many fell amid the dense fog. Over these humped shapes he glimpsed a fine glittering armour of hoar frost grow and thicken.

He stood back in wonder. True, it was damned cold; he felt the air biting at him and his own breath plumed, but somehow the frigid streamers were not so deadly to him. He ran to find Bernal.

The disembodied voice of the enemy commander shouted from somewhere behind the wall of churning vapours: ‘What are you waiting for? It is just a fog! Advance, damn you!’

Bernal stood on the log stairs together with one of the Reddin brothers, Kasson, Orman was fairly certain. ‘Now is the time,’ he said as he arrived.

Bernal curtly nodded his agreement. ‘You and the brothers must go.’

Orman cast a quick glance into the hall: mist choked it, but he could see that thick layers of icy hoar frost covered the walls and floor, while at the far end sat two figures, immobile, streaming with vapours — no doubt the very source of them. Iceblood magics, obviously. He turned back to Bernal. ‘What? No. All of us. Now.’

Bernal smiled behind his beard as he shook his head. ‘No. I will stay and hold the door. Now go.’

‘Leal and Ham, then.’

The commander’s voice sounded again: ‘I order you to advance!’

Bernal urged him onward with a push of his shoulder. ‘They sit now with the master and mistress. As I shall — so go, quickly. The spell is fading.’ He pushed Kasson off also.

Orman edged back down the stairs; he had his one last duty to perform. ‘Very well. Kasson, let’s find your brother.’ Backing away, he saluted Bernal with Svalthbrul. The fellow raised his great spear in answer and waved them off. Orman and Kasson jogged away round the Greathall.

They found Keth at the rear, the bodies of fallen soldiers all about him. ‘Jaochim has tasked us to bring word of this to Buri,’ Orman said.

Kasson nodded. ‘Bernal told me.’

Characteristically, Keth said nothing. He merely started climbing the thin barrier of logs. Orman joined him.

Vapours slid about the fields, sinking now into pools and depressions, like water. They jogged past fallen soldiers who lay shuddering, their arms clenched to their chests as if against a terrifying cold. Orman headed for the nearest patch of woods and they crashed through. The tree limbs and brush snapped like icicles; Orman reflected that he might be inured to the magics because of his shared blood, but the air was so appallingly frigid it still hurt his nose and lungs with every breath.

They jogged onward, heading north and upland; Orman heard no sounds of pursuit.

* * *

The night watch woke Jute, reporting of strange sights and sounds to the west. Still groggy, but happy to have his cabin back now that the Mare youth had recovered and moved to sleeping in the hammocks with the crew, he pulled on his boots, wrapped himself in a thick fur cloak, and headed out.

The night air shocked him with its bracing cold. His fingers tingled. This didn’t feel like spring at all. Had more of the smell of autumn to it. The sailor motioned to the far shore where it lay barely discernible in the dark overcast night — only the diffuse glow of the moon and stars behind the clouds allowed any visibility. Torches and lanterns swung and bobbed there: movement. A great number of people on the move in the dead of night.

Jute scratched his chin, wondering. Those would have to be the people from Wrongway up the coast. Given up on the goldfields, perhaps. But what would drive them onward through the night?

‘Jute Hernan,’ he heard Ieleen call, and he turned. She stood wrapped in a blanket in the doorway, a hand on the jamb.

‘Hmm? What is it, love? Sorry if I woke you.’

Her blind gaze was on the west and he was surprised to see her brows crimp in worry. ‘Sound the wake up and get dressed. Visitors.’

He stroked his chin. Well, if she insisted … it seemed quiet to him, but he’d lived this long by respecting her instincts. He nodded to the crewman. ‘Sound the alarm. All hands to readiness.’ He returned to their cabin as the hanging bronze alarm was banged and feet pounded the deck.

When he returned, he found the crew at their posts and the ship’s marines at the sides together with the Malazans. Both officers, Letita and Giana, armed and armoured, stood before him. ‘Captain,’ Letita greeted him. ‘Your orders?’

He glanced to Ieleen sitting next to the tiller arm; she had her pipe in her mouth, but it wasn’t lit. The Mare lad, Reuth, sat cross-legged on the deck beside her. She withdrew the pipe and motioned to the bows; he followed the motion to see Cartheron leaning up against the side, peering to the west. He nodded to Letita and Giana to excuse him and went to the captain. His voice low, he asked: ‘What’s going on?’

The old fellow ran a hand over what little of his bristled hair remained. ‘Damned if I know …’

‘Commander Tyvar!’ one of the crewmen called out.

Tyvar came pounding up the gangway. Behind him came another person, startling Jute: the unmistakable tall figure of the foreign sorceress, Lady Orosenn. He bowed to her and she returned the courtesy.

‘Captain,’ she said. ‘I must apologize. I thought that disguising my presence would buy us more time — but I can see now that I need not have bothered.’

Jute blinked his confusion. ‘Your presence?’

Tyvar motioned to the switchback staircase. ‘I must get my men up at once.’

‘Their King Ronal will treat you as just another invader and attack,’ Cartheron warned. ‘Malle has made that clear.’

‘Malle of Gris?’ A new voice spoke up and everyone turned. It was that bedraggled Malazan Khall-head, straightening from where he’d been slouched next to the gangway. Somehow, Jute — everyone — had overlooked him. ‘She’s up there?’ he breathed, and he squinted at the heights.

Cartheron followed the man’s gaze. He started for him: ‘Don’t you dare …’ But the fellow slipped away down the gangplank with a fluid speed that surprised Jute. Cartheron hurried after him, cursing. He reappeared a moment later, rubbing his chest and wincing, winded. ‘He got away, damn his eyes.’

‘Never mind him,’ Jute said, wondering why it should matter if the fellow ran off.

But Cartheron was staring off at the clifftop. ‘The shit will well and truly fly now,’ he announced. Then he lowered his gaze, grinning savagely. ‘Malle will not like this, but she’ll have no choice.’

‘I see no one on the stairs,’ Tyvar said as he scanned the night.

‘He used his Warren,’ Lady Orosenn observed.

Jute felt his brows shoot up. Really? That broken-down derelict? He shuddered in memory of the insults he’d sent the fellow’s way.

‘Our troubles remain,’ Tyvar commented impatiently. ‘We will climb regardless. Now.’

Cartheron raised a hand for a pause. ‘Wait. Give it one glass’s time. If I know my man, this shouldn’t take long.’

‘Who? What?’ Jute demanded, frankly rather irritated with the old Malazan commander.

Cartheron leaned back against the gunwale, crossed his arms and nodded as he accepted the reasonableness of Jute’s annoyance. ‘He is, well, was, an imperial Claw. An assassin,’ he explained, speaking to Lady Orosenn. ‘I recognized him. Seen him around. Rose up through the ranks under, ah, the old emperor’s regime.’

Jute snorted at this. ‘That wreck?’

Cartheron’s lips clenched and he lowered his gaze. ‘Something happened to him. Something that shattered him.’ And he added, softly, as if speaking only for himself: ‘Something that hurt all of us.’

The Blue Shield commander was still scanning the west shore. Jute glanced over: the bobbing torches and lanterns were closer now, waving furiously, as if the people had now broken into a run. Tyvar actually growled as he spun away. ‘Lady Orosenn,’ he demanded, ‘if what you say is true we must go now. My people are ready. We will climb ten at a time. We must prepare.’

The foreign sorceress regarded Cartheron silently. Her almond-shaped amber eyes were narrow, probing and gauging. The Malazan returned the stare without flinching. Jute reflected that the man must have faced down some pretty powerful entities in his time. She slowly nodded her inhumanly long head. ‘You have your time, Cartheron Crust.’

It was not many minutes after that that a crash sounded on the boards of the dock close to the base of the cliff. As if he’d been expecting exactly that, Cartheron nodded to everyone, turned, and jogged down the gangway. Tyvar, Jute and Giana followed.

It was the fellow himself, lying slashed and bloodied amid the broken timbers of the dock. Cartheron knelt and gently cradled his head on his lap. A smile raised the man’s lips as he croaked, ‘Didn’t get the landing right. Got him, though. Damn if those boys aren’t good with their spears.’

‘Don’t talk,’ Cartheron murmured, though it was clear from the many thrusts the man had taken that it would make no difference.

Then tears came to the man’s eyes and he clamped a blood-smeared hand on Cartheron’s arm. ‘I’m sorry!’ he gasped, suddenly panicked. ‘I’m so sorry she fell. I failed her. Do you forgive me?’

It was fairly clear to Jute that, like so many in dying, the man was now rambling of his past.

‘We all failed her,’ Cartheron answered, and Jute was surprised by the strength of emotion in his voice. ‘Only after she was gone did I see how much we needed her.’

The man clenched savagely at Cartheron’s arm as if he would pull himself erect. He left bright bloody smears down the Malazan’s sleeve. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he barely breathed.

Cartheron gently pressed shut his eyes and, with an effort, pushed himself erect. Peering down, he murmured so low Jute hardly heard: ‘I can forgive you …’

‘Who was he?’ Jute asked. ‘What’s going on?’

‘There’s a light flashing from above,’ Giana observed, scanning the heights.

‘What does it say?’ Cartheron asked. He was still regarding the strange fallen fellow, who Jute gathered must have been more than a passing acquaintance. The old captain now suddenly appeared much older, much more beaten down by his years. He raised his gaze to blink at Jute as if only now recognizing his presence. ‘As I said. He once was a Claw. Bodyguard to Empress Laseen, in fact. They used to call him Possum.’

Laseen! The slain empress! So … this broken man … One slip, one mistake, and his entire world ended. How he now regretted his earlier harshness. ‘He was a friend, then?’

‘No. Couldn’t stand him myself.’

Giana came to the commander’s side, murmured low and respectfully: ‘It says we can come up.’

Cartheron gave a tired nod. ‘Very good, Lieutenant.’ He turned to study Tyvar. ‘You have your invitation to the party, Mortal Sword of Togg.’

*

Jute joined the file to climb even though on the Dawn, Ieleen had made clear with her silence that she did not approve of his choice to go. They went in small groups. Tyvar’s Genabackans were by far the majority. Cartheron joined the file even though he’d sworn he’d never climb the damned stairs again. With the old commander went Lady Orosenn followed by her servant, Velman or — mar, Jute couldn’t remember. Lieutenant Jalaz led the contingent of every Malazan veteran from both ships.

As they gathered awaiting their turn upon the stairs, the Genabackan captain Enguf appeared. He swore the ships would all be safe with him and his crew remaining behind to guard them. He wished them all the best of luck then hurried back to his ship.

Jute found the night climb easier than his first ascent. It was either that he couldn’t see his actual height clearly, or he’d done it already and so had lost his fear of it. In either case, it was over far more quickly than the first climb. The structure groaned and shifted alarmingly, but he found he could put that out of mind more easily by concentrating on his handholds on the dried grey slats of the scaffolding.

It was dark at the top, though moving torches and lanterns glowed beyond the outer curtain wall where it arced in a broad semicircle from cliff edge to cliff edge. Tyvar was there, whispering commands to his officers. Cartheron and Lady Orosenn stood aside, scanning the crowded grounds. The old Malazan looked very much worse for having made the climb. He was pale, pressing a hand to his chest, apparently in some measure of pain.

Giana Jalaz gained the top and nodded to Cartheron, awaiting orders. The old captain waved for her to take to the walls. She bowed and jogged off with her command.

A knot of the locals, spears in hand, came marching up. Almost invisible in their midst was the short and wiry shape, all in black, of Malle of Gris.

The company halted before Cartheron and stamped their spear-butts to the ground. Malle stepped forth and indicated one of the party: a youth, and like these locals tall and slim with a great mane of brown curls. He was studying Cartheron and did not appear to be impressed by what he saw.

‘This is Voti,’ Malle began, ‘nephew of King Ronal who now lies upon his bier, cut down by an outlander assassin sent by the besiegers …’ her voice quite hardened at that last part as she eyed Cartheron. She bowed to the lad, Voti. ‘May I present Cartheron Crust — a great veteran commander of the Empire.’

The lad, the king presumptive, Jute assumed, gave the merest nod. ‘Malle tells us you know these outlander ways. You may advise during the coming battle.’

Cartheron was experienced enough not to even blink as he inclined his head. ‘My thanks.’

The lad next turned to the figure of Lady Orosenn, dressed now in her tanned hunting leathers, a long-knife at her side. Tall she was, even in this company, her auburn hair unbound in a great wild mane. Jute was suddenly struck by the resemblance between her and these people in their features and general build.

He remembered then her saying that she was returning home.

‘You look familiar …’ the lad said, addressing her, frowning as if trying to recall just where he’d seen her.

She inclined her head. ‘I do not believe so. My name is Orosenn. I have been a long time away. It is merely the family resemblance.’

The lad grunted at this, satisfied. ‘Very well.’ Then, as if suddenly remembering his duties, he added, gruffly, ‘You are welcome.’ He strode off followed by his bodyguard of spearmen.

Malle, however, remained. Her glare, fixed upon Cartheron, could’ve melted iron. The commander, still pale and haggard from the climb, raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I know, I know.’

‘I thought I made it clear,’ she hissed, her lips tight, ‘the old ways of doing things are over.’

‘I’m all old school, Malle.’

She snorted her agreement, but then a new light came into her eyes: something like grudging admiration. She gestured to the nearest section of wall to invite Cartheron, Jute, and Lady Orosenn forward. ‘Well, by now you’ve guessed the Empire saw its chance for a toehold on this continent and we were sent to establish relations. What I didn’t expect was to find myself in the middle of a full-scale invasion.’

‘There is far more at stake here than a mere change in rulership,’ came the deep contralto of Lady Orosenn.

Malle stopped short and turned to peer up at the woman. She did not flinch, and Jute realized just how apposite Cartheron’s warning about not getting in the woman’s way had been. She appeared wrought entirely of iron, from her iron-grey hair to her thin arms of twisted iron bar. ‘I know your heritage, sorceress. I know the name of the cold winds blowing down from these mountains. I know we sit at the feet of a Jaghut refugium.’

‘But do you know that your being here is no accident?’ the sorceress countered, her voice hardening as well. ‘That we should be here at all is entirely your fault?’

Malle was clearly rocked by the accusation. Her mouth drew down into a sour scowl. ‘Explain yourself, sorceress …’ Even Jute heard the cold menace in the old woman’s words.

‘You Malazans,’ Lady Orosenn continued. ‘Your being here is no accident. I knew this the moment I encountered Cartheron here on his way to these lands. And so I enrolled Tyvar and his Blue Shields in helping escort him north.’

Cartheron almost jumped at that. ‘What the …?’ He coughed, utterly shocked. ‘I’m just making a delivery.’

Orosenn nodded. ‘Yes, for this woman to use to back up a Malazan client state here in the north — conveniently near a goldfield.’

Now Malle’s gaze narrowed; her hands disappeared among the long black lace trimmings at her wrists. ‘You are too well informed, sorceress.’

Cartheron raised a hand in warning. ‘Malle … don’t.’

Jute’s hair rose as he realized that this woman fully intended to attack the sorceress. The servant — whatever his name was — tried to push forward but Orosenn held him back.

‘Why this delay!’ boomed a new voice as Tyvar came jogging up, his armour jangling, helmet tucked under an arm, his gauntleted fist on the long leather-wrapped grip of his sword. ‘Those without the walls are clamouring to be allowed in. Our fair ruler refuses. And,’ he added, his tone sharpening, ‘m’lady, of the enemy you mentioned, there is yet no sign at all …’

Jute felt as if he could suddenly breathe once more. Malle’s hands reappeared among the hanging lace at her wrists. She demanded: ‘What army? What state’s? More Lether reinforcements?’

‘We should have until dawn,’ Lady Orosenn answered Tyvar. She turned her attention to Malle. ‘What army, you ask? One might argue that it is the army of the past that comes now to throttle the future.’

Jute felt his face wrinkle up in confusion. What nonsense was this now?

‘The army of the past,’ Malle echoed, wonderingly. Her gaze shot to Cartheron. ‘It cannot be …’

Jute was surprised to see the old general’s face harden and lose all hint of his habitual mocking humour. ‘You’re on dangerous ground hinting as such things, Lady Orosenn.’

‘I? I am on dangerous ground? You Malazans have no idea what you’ve been meddling in. The old war was over until your emperor broke the balance. Now all this blood spilled is your fault and you must make reparation.’

Jute cleared his throat loudly. ‘Please, Lady Orosenn — of what do you speak?’

The sorceress turned to him and her features softened. A smile came to her lips, but it was a wistful one. ‘Jute of Delanss — I am sorry. You are right. We dance around the subject because it is almost too terrifying to name. I speak of course of the T’lan Imass, reawoken by the old emperor.’

Cartheron was shaking his head in hard denial. ‘No. You say we’re culpable. But we brought them Silverfox. Their new living Summoner.’

‘Or she emerged in a desperate effort to right the imbalance,’ the sorceress countered.

‘Word is, Silverfox has nothing against the Jaghut,’ Cartheron growled.

‘Evidently she does not speak for all clans.’

Malle snapped up a hand. ‘Enough. This cannot be settled now. Sorceress — you claim the T’lan Imass are marching here. Yet what is this to us? I gather they seek these Icebloods, who I suspected were Jaghut. They will ignore us and pass on into the heights to track down their old enemies. It is sad and regrettable … but we could not interfere even if we wished.’ Malle made a show of studying the sorceress up and down. ‘Indeed, Lady Orosenn, I understand the fierceness of your advocacy. And considering this, you would be well advised to flee immediately yourself.’

‘Tell them what you told me,’ Tyvar Gendarian rumbled, his voice deep with suppressed emotion.

The sorceress sighed and there was now compassion in her gaze as she studied Cartheron. ‘This is a hard thing to tell you Malazans, but all these locals who live in the north, who occupy this keep, who farmed and lived here originally … they all share some Jaghut blood. The T’lan Imass are marching north and killing all as they come. They will take this keep by storm and slay every living original inhabitant of these lands.’

Jute found that he almost blacked out at the thought of it. His vision darkened and his face and hands became frigid and numb. All the gods forfend! How could such things be allowed? Surely the injustice of it must offend all. He’d never considered the idea of evil before, but surely such an act must be condemned as such.

If Jute felt sickened, he could not imagine what Cartheron was feeling now: the man had appeared haggard and tired before, but this news seemed to age him decades as a weight slowly settled upon his shoulders and gouged fresh depth in the already creased and furrowed brackets at his mouth and eyes. He pulled a shaking hand down his face. ‘If that’s so, then there’s nothing we can do.’

‘We have a chance,’ Lady Orosenn offered. ‘Omtose Phellack hampers them. They must march as any other army. They must climb defences. Receive blows. Those that are broken will not arise again. We can defend. Their Bonecasters will attempt to raise Tellann, but I shall work to suppress it. Together, we may have a chance.’

The age-spotted hand that Cartheron had been pulling so hard down his face now brushed the grey bristles of his chin. He turned his head to study Tyvar for a time. ‘And what of you, Mortal Sword? I don’t believe Togg has done you any favours here.’

The swordsman regained his savage grin. ‘I disagree. We have been blessed with the greatest challenge we could hope for. No force has ever repelled the T’lan. The Blue Shields intend to be the first.’

Cartheron gave a curt nod. ‘So be it. To tell the truth, I would like to have a word with these Imass.’

Lady Orosenn bowed to Cartheron. ‘My thanks, commander. We all have our posts, then. I shall be at the entrance to the inner keep.’ Bowing again, she headed off, followed by her servant.

Malle regarded Cartheron with a speculative glint in her dark eyes. ‘The right thing, Crust?’

‘Right enough,’ he answered, roughly.

‘And what of your cargo?’

He shook his head. ‘Not right for this — unless you want to destroy our own walls.’

She pursed her thin lips. ‘A shame. Very well …’ She inclined her head. ‘Commander. I shall be at the wall with my men.’

Jute watched her walk away then turned to Cartheron. ‘Excuse me, captain … but just who is that woman anyway?’

Cartheron was rubbing a hand over his bristled chin once more. ‘Who? Her? Ah — Malle.’ An expression came to his face that was similar to the admiring look the woman herself had given him. ‘The Empire has one academy where its imperial Claws are trained, Jute. For thirty years that gal ran it.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Well, I’m for the walls. Apparently I’m in command of the foreigner contingent here. You can stand with me if you like — as good a view as anywhere of the coming goddamned end of the world, I suppose.’ He headed off.

Jute stood unmoving. He knew where his post should be — back at the Dawn with Ieleen. She’d be worried, he knew. Yet … to walk away from witnessing the T’lan Imass confronted? To describe such an opportunity as once in a lifetime would be a laughable understatement. Once every ten thousand years, more like. He simply could not tear himself away. Besides, the Dawn was in the best of hands with her. And the crew was loyal.

He hurried to catch up. Beyond the tall stone walls, the glow of torches still bobbed and swept about. Voices clamoured, and, above the bellowed orders and shouts of plain panic, he heard the crash and groan of equipment being moved and the thump of axes on timber.

Climbing a ramp of beaten earth, Jute found Cartheron with Lieutenant Jalaz at his side. He took the commander’s other side. They overlooked Mantle town — or at least its remains. The camp of the besiegers was in turmoil. Glancing far to the east, where the glow of coming dawn painted the sky a brightening purple, he glimpsed a bedraggled line of distant figures in retreat: those who wouldn’t stop even for the presumptive safety of the camp and what portion of the invader army remained. From what he’d heard of the wilds of the Bone Peninsula, he imagined such refugees wouldn’t long survive.

Those elements that had retained their organization were now feverishly assembling a barricade to the rear; they obviously had completely reversed themselves to face the enemy they believed to be coming for them. Jute groaned his helpless frustration and disbelief: ‘But the T’lan don’t want them!’

Cartheron sighed. ‘Malle’s been trying to tell them that.’ He lifted his bone-thin shoulders. ‘They’re terrified. They won’t listen.’

‘Better if they had all fled,’ Jute grumbled.

‘Really?’ Cartheron shot him a quick glance. ‘Bastards might actually get lucky, you know. Take down a few of the Imass.’

The sentiment made Jute shudder. He’d forgotten. Their time together had fooled him into thinking the man at his side was a relatively harmless old codger — but he wasn’t. He was a retired commander of Malazan forces, once a High Fist. And to defend his command he was obviously prepared to sacrifice every one of these poor unfortunates arrayed on the field before him.

Jute wrapped his cloak tighter about himself, turned to study the walls. A small complement, a watch, now stood the walls. He spotted the night-black shape of Malle at the wall, flanked by two figures, an old man and a young girl, who he believed had to be imperial cadre mages. Most of the defenders, locals, the Malazans, and Tyvar’s Genabackans, were lying down across the grounds. Jute shuddered again: the sight of all the prone figures crowding the broad yard made him think of a field of graves.

Gods! The T’lan Imass. We won’t see the noon. Yet all I would have to do is drop my weapon and they would pass me by — would they not? Somehow, when the time came, Jute knew he would not yield. He would do his part. And defending walls is spear-work. Thankfully, there were plenty of racks at hand. He collected a spear and leaned upon it.

Out among the demolished houses and huts of Mantle town, along the line of hastily raised barricades, one figure constantly marched back and forth, cajoling, yelling orders. From the voice, Jute knew this officer was a woman. She wore a long coat of mail and a helmet with a faceplate, raised at the moment.

At one point Tyvar came past on an inspection and he paused at Cartheron’s side to motion to the officer. ‘See that one?’

Cartheron nodded tiredly. ‘Yeah. I see.’

‘I’d know that style of armour and helmet anywhere,’ Tyvar continued, sounding almost excited. ‘That’s a shieldmaiden out of northern Genabackis, I’m sure.’

‘They fought us in the north,’ Cartheron observed, a touch irritated — he’d been asleep standing up.

Tyvar gave a serious nod. ‘Aye — as we would’ve if you’d reached the south.’ And he slapped Cartheron on the back and continued his circuit.

Jute blinked heavily then, leaning on his spear, and the next thing he knew there were screams from below and he blinked anew, clutching his spear haft. It was brighter now, fully dawn, though it was hard to tell because of the dense low bank of clouds that hung like a smothering blanket crowded up against the slopes of the Salt range. Men and women among the defenders and civilians below were now pointing west. More among them broke and ran for the east, abandoning their posts and fleeing. The Shieldmaiden sent curses after them.

Jute squinted into the gloom of the west. Figures were approaching just inland from the coast of the Gold Sea. A wide front of shapes. Not a file, or a column, but rather a broad skirmish-line of walkers. The image came to Jute of a net, a line of beaters, driving their prey before them. The image made him almost faint with dread. Imass. So terrifyingly ruthless and unrelenting. They won’t let anyone escape them.

The Shieldmaiden now shouted encouragement to her troops, who readied their spears. She drew her own sword and climbed the barricade.

‘Good for you …’ Cartheron murmured beneath his breath.

The T’lan came on, scarecrow thin, unhurried, yet somehow inexorable — like the tide, Jute thought. Their skirmish-line passed between the burned and scavenged husks of the few houses of Mantle town. They brushed aside the canvas of tents, kicked through smoking campfires. Closer now, Jute saw how their cloaks hung ragged and full of gaping tears. Some few wore animal bones as armour: wide scapulae lashed across the chest, skulls of enormous beasts upon their heads. They came with their slim stone blades gripped negligently in their fists. He put their number at over a hundred.

They met the logs and overturned wagons of the barricade and those blades flashed to hack through the thigh-wide trunks as if they were kindling. The defenders thrust with their spears. They rocked backwards a few of the attackers, but these merely shook off the thrusts and returned to the task of chopping the barrier.

Further panicked yells sounded where individual Imass succeeded in pushing their way through. Defenders closed, spears abandoned and swords drawn. Next to Jute, Cartheron ground out a muttered: ‘Fools …’ yet he sounded admiring all the same.

Jute saw the commander of this desperate — yet needless! — defence charge in to join one fray. A great swipe from her heavy blade chopped down through an Imass at juncture of neck and shoulder: that one fell, evidently crippled. A great cheer arose from the defenders, and Jute noted that Tyvar’s Blue Shields joined in the huzzah.

More Imass came as they pushed and hacked through the heaped wreckage. Defenders fell. However, to his relief, Jute saw now that the Imass were lashing out with their fists and the sides of their blades as they swung to bash the men and women down. Oddly enough, he almost felt grateful to these elders for their restraint — if that was what one might call it.

The Shieldmaiden fell then, taken by a blow to her helmet that laid her flat. A shudder of pain seemed to run through the line of defenders, and it broke. Jute, who had never seen a battle before this journey, sensed it even as it happened. It seemed as if all it took was one defender half stepping back, or flinching, and his fellows shied away as well. Instantly, it seemed, like a contagion, this backpedalling spread up and down the ragged line and men and women were outright fleeing, scrambling, all streaming towards the east.

The T’lan halted their advance to watch them go; hoary ravaged profiles turned to follow the men and women as they fled. Those same cadaver heads then swung up to regard the walls.

Jute felt his mouth turn ash-dry while at the same time his hands were slick upon the spear haft. He wiped them on the thighs of his woollen trousers.

At some silent order, the T’lan resumed their advance. They stepped on dropped shields and abandoned spears as they came.

As they neared the stakes driven into the ground before the ditch beneath the walls, Cartheron leaned forward, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted down: ‘We of Mantle Keep greet you! With what clan do I speak?’

The ranks halted to stand as silent and still as a file of statues. A weak wind brushed at the hanging tattered ends of hides and fur cloaks.

Jute saw the local young king presumptive, Voti, followed by Malle, come next to Cartheron. The lad stood with his arms crossed, the haft of his spear hugged to his chest. Jute heard a steady murmuring among the local defenders gathered at the walls. Their accent was difficult for him, but eventually he made out the repeated litany of wonder: ‘… bone and dust …’

He turned to the nearest of the locals, a woman, perhaps a mother standing the wall to defend her children within. ‘What does this mean,’ he asked, ‘“bone and dust”?’

‘An old legend among us,’ she replied, sounding oddly resigned. ‘An old story that our world will end with an invasion of the dead.’

Jute could only shake his head in wonder. Ye gods! Was this prescience? Or merely chance? But, he thought, the war between Imass and Jaghut was incalculably ancient. Perhaps this legend was a memory of an earlier clash. One that might even have occurred upon another continent halfway round the world.

Closing now, up the silent unmoving ranks, came two figures. Both were of course of Imass stock, yet they differed strikingly: one was lean while the other markedly squat. The lean one wore the mangy and raggedy hide of what appeared to have once been a white bear. The beast’s head rode his own, the upper fangs hanging down before his mummified face. Necklaces of yellowed bear claws rode his chest, and the clacking and clattering of these were the only sounds Jute could hear.

The other Imass was among the most damaged of those present. She, and Jute intuited somehow that it was female, appeared to have been thrust through multiple times. She bore a primitive face of a broad shelf with a brow and wide jaws. Her canines jutted quite prominently and they glinted copper in the early morning light. Shells laced about her ragged leathers swung and clattered.

The Imass in the bear hide stepped forward. His voice, though as wispy as brushing leaves, somehow reached Jute: ‘Greetings. I am Ut’el Anag, Bonecaster to the Kerluhm T’lan Imass. Who addresses us in the old formula?’

‘I am Cartheron Crust of the Malazans. We greet you as allies and friends.’

Ut’el shifted to glance briefly to his companion Imass. ‘I understand that alliance no longer holds. You and all those not native to these lands are trespassers here. Stand aside and you will not be harmed. Our quarrel is not with you.’

‘This is the will of Silverfox?’ Cartheron called, much louder.

The Bonecaster paused only very slightly. ‘It is our way.’

‘But not hers, I gather. She is coming, is she not? Perhaps we would prefer to wait to hear her counsel on this matter.’

The bear head dipped as the Kerluhm Bonecaster nodded. ‘You may wait. Meanwhile, Omtose Phellack is rotting. I sense a powerful elder Jaghut within, but even she, being flesh and blood, will tire. Soon we shall be free to move as we wish.’

Jute turned to mutter to Cartheron: ‘He is right in that. What shall we do?’

The old commander answered beneath his breath: ‘Don’t worry yourself. They may be ancient, but they’re still awful at cards. They can’t bluff worth a damn.’

Smiling broadly, the ex-High Fist answered with a welcoming sweep of his arm. ‘Then sit yourself down and let me tell you all about my childhood on Nap. Do you know Nap? It’s an island south of Quon Tali. ’Course in your time it was probably a mountain top. In any case, I was born on Fanderay’s High Holy day — not that that’s done me any good — though my mam claims it shaped my character just as my brother Urko was born in a quarry-’

Ut’el raised a withered hand for silence. ‘So be it. You should not invite our attack. Do not think we will spare you as we did these other outsiders.’

‘I did not imagine so.’ Cartheron turned to the new king and Malle. ‘Find your place at the wall, ah, sire.’

The lad nodded and sauntered off, determined to show how unimpressed he was. ‘They were going to attack anyway,’ Malle said.

Cartheron waved her onward. ‘I figured as much.’

Jute took a renewed grip on his spear haft, found he had to wipe his hands once again.

The attack came as before: without warning or shouted orders. As one, the Imass simply advanced, spread along the arc of the wall. They clambered down the slope of the moat, pushed through the mud, then started climbing the wall using handholds in the rough stone slabs.

The defenders, local northerners, Malazans, and Blue Shields, thrust with spears to dislodge or stave off the wave. The Imass ignored these stabs as they climbed. Many defenders soon understood that thrusting weapons were ineffective against this ancient army, and so the spears, billhooks and pikes were thrown down and swords and axes readied.

Jute abandoned his own spear standing from the shoulder of an Imass — the creature calmly took hold of the haft, yanked it free, and returned to its slow deliberate ascent. Jute drew the weapon at his side and was appalled to remember as he saw it that it was a shortsword. He cursed Mael and himself. How could he have not foreseen … He madly searched about for a larger weapon.

Long-hafted axes lay gathered at the inside base of the wall. Jute scrambled down the ramp to collect one. He lifted one and was about to return to the wall when he heard a strange sound coming from the rear — from the cliff side. It was the methodical thump of wood being chopped.

He could hear this because the battle was eerily silent. The Imass, of course, made no noise at all; the defenders merely grunted, swore and exhaled noisily in their efforts, while wood and iron clattered from stone.

He wondered: what could possibly … Then he knew and his hair stirred to stand on end. He ran for the cliff top. A crowd of the locals had gathered here, peering down and pointing. Jute pushed through to the fore. Down below, four Imass had climbed out along the cliff to reach the stairway and were in the process of demolishing it. Even as he watched, sections of the stairs tore free of the rocks to tumble in awful slowness.

The Dawn was below! He looked to the vessels, and realized the crews had seen this coming and had already slipped moorings and were in the process of pulling away: the Dawn, the Ragstopper, and the Genabackan pirate’s. Even the Resolute, though Jute had no idea who might be crewing it.

The wreckage of timber crashed and burst upon the rocks. Entire lengths of the stairs had been cut from the cliff face. Jute watched the vessels raising sails and he silently bid Ieleen farewell. He knew now he would die here. His need to be part of negotiations, to witness events — to poke his nose in where it didn’t belong, as Ieleen had it — would finally finish him. As she had so long predicted.

Everyone at the cliff top now saw the four T’lan Imass climbing the rocks headed straight for them.

As the battle raged on behind them, these locals, most of them non-combatant women and old men, began heaving rocks down upon the Imass. They took axes to the uppermost section of the stairs, Jute included, and managed to send it tumbling down as well. One of the Imass fell a short distance, but caught himself, possibly breaking the bones of his arm.

The lead three reached the top where soil and sod curled over the lip. As they dragged themselves over, people crowded in to hack at them. It was frantic and panicked — ugly to any soldier, no doubt, as utter disorder reigned. People got in each other’s way, even injured one another with their wild swings. Jute caught himself sobbing and cursing as he tried to get a blow in.

One Imass lost an arm and slipped back over the lip, presumably to fall. The two others righted themselves beneath a flurry of blows and drew their stone blades. A lucky swing took one’s hand off where it gripped the blade and the Imass lashed out to clutch its adversary’s neck. Trachea and vertebrae popped and crunched audibly, then it tossed the limp corpse over the edge behind it. Spears thudded into its torso to stand like decorations. It knelt to retrieve its blade odd-handed. The other Imass slashed down a woman. Two men threw themselves on to it, wrapped their arms around it, and the three tottered backwards to slip off the edge and disappear in complete deathly silence.

The remaining Imass slashed about itself. Men and women fell clutching at deep eviscerating cuts that spilt blood and bile over the grass. The Imass waded into the crowd which exploded in wild panic. Jute knew that he not could let this attacker come at the wall from the rear, and so he backed off to allow it to pass and then began to stalk it.

Perhaps it was simply too intent upon slaughter to notice his approach, Jute did not know, but he raised his long-hafted axe up over his head for a great swing, charged the last two steps, and brought the iron wedge-shaped blade down upon the mangy, desiccated half-bare skull, and split it nearly in two.

The blade wedged at the base of the neck. As the creature swung round it tore the haft from Jute’s grip. Jute backed away, appalled. Ye gods! What does it take …

The creature slashed, catching Jute’s upper arm. He gasped at the sizzling pain of the cut and kept retreating back towards the cliff edge. The Imass kept after, incensed perhaps by this fellow who dared split its head with an axe. His right arm hung blood-soaked and numb, He knelt one-handed for an abandoned spear and gripped it hard, tucking the haft under his armpit for further stability.

The Imass came on. When Jute’s very heels were at the cliff’s lip he lunged, striking the spear home in the Imass’s chest. It raised its blade to hack at the haft; still gripping the weapon, Jute danced a half-circle and pushed with all his might. The Imass sliced through the haft, but not before it staggered backwards and overbalanced, to slip suddenly from view.

Jute lurched back towards the tower and the wall beyond. He gripped his arm where the blood still welled. His vision seemed to darken and there was a roaring in his ears — he suspected it was his laboured pulse. Coming round the base of the tower he found the ground before the entrance blackened and smoking. Three corpses, no more than white bones and charcoal, lay upon the scorched earth. Two were Imass, the other Jute assumed to be the sorceress’s servant, since she herself sat up against one wall of the entrance, her chest heaving, her leg and a hand bloodied.

He tottered to her. ‘Can you stand?’

She nodded tiredly. ‘Barely.’

He helped her up then surveyed the corpses. ‘Your servant saved your life.’

‘He did.’

‘I can’t remember his name.’

‘It was Velmar.’

‘Ah.’ He scanned the walls, blinking to clear his vision. Perhaps he was seeing things, but it seemed that half of those who’d stood defending the walls were gone. Bodies lay thick upon the catwalk. The local northerners were still fighting side by side with the Blue Shields, all struggling to push back the Imass. Malle and the Malazan veterans held the east arc of the wall. Jute watched amazed while the young cadre mage’s roaring streams of flame cleared a swath across the top and the lean older mage thrust with his staff, somehow driving individual Imass off as if punched. Yet more took the wall than were repelled. The young cadre mage jerked, the flames snapping away; she toppled backwards impaled upon a slim cream-hued blade. Sections of the top were being yielded to the Imass. A hoarse bellow of alarm from the old Malazan mage marked his rush to an exposed Malle; he charged, knocking Imass from the wall, clearing a section, only to totter, slashed through to hanging ribbons of cloth and red gashes, and fall forward from sight.

The defenders retreated down the ramps in a solid wedge, the Blue Shields at the rear, fending off the T’lan in their slow advance.

‘We will not last,’ Jute murmured, now certain of it.

‘No. They will win through.’

‘Well, I will guard you now.’

She turned the same affectionate look upon him that he had often noticed. ‘You are gallant, Jute of Delanss. But Ieleen would have you back. Even now she fights to protect you.’

He blinked again, bewildered. ‘Oh? How so?’

‘She is helping to pull the wind out of the heights.’

‘A wind?’ He had noticed how cold the air was and how the banners snapped and whipped.

‘Yes.’ The sorceress’s eyes slipped closed and she stumbled back against the stone wall. She clasped a deep cut in one thigh and fought to open her eyes once more. ‘It brings news from the ice-fields. I only hope their Bonecaster will notice.’

She would have fallen but for Jute catching her, one-armed, and lowering her to sit up against the jamb. They found him like that, kneeling before her, rubbing her hand and whispering that she come back to them.

She smiled then, her eyes shut, and murmured, ‘Ieleen is a lucky woman, Jute of Delanss.’

It was Cartheron who gently urged him aside. He felt for her pulse, then pressed a hand to her chest.

‘Will she …’ Jute began.

‘She’ll live. That we could even dare face them is thanks to her.’

Jute peered about. He was astonished and alarmed to see Tyvar here. The man’s chest was heaving, his mail hacked through across his torso and arms, helmet gone, his cheek and scalp slashed — the blood from these head wounds was soaking his neck and shoulder, yet his eyes were shining with joy.

‘What happened?’ Jute demanded.

‘They’d reached the bailey in places,’ Tyvar explained, each word a laboured breath, ‘and so we pulled the locals back even as they refused to retreat. Then, all at once, the Imass drew off.’ He appeared as bewildered as Jute.

‘I saw it,’ Cartheron said. ‘Their Bonecaster, Ut’el. All of a sudden his head snapped round to the north and he took off without hesitating. The rest followed him.’

‘They are hurrying to the heights to stop it,’ said Orosenn, her voice dreamy with fatigue.

‘Stop what?’ Cartheron asked.

She raised an arm and Jute took it to help her up. She leaned back against the wall, drew a ragged breath. ‘The Imass have their ritual of Tellann, you know. They used it to create the T’lan. We have our ritual as well. The Raising of Phellack. Someone in the heights has invoked it. What powers I possess are as a raindrop in the ocean compared to the might I sense being marshalled there. And when it comes …’ She shook her head, almost falling once more. ‘All of you must flee — now.’

‘What is it? What comes?’ Jute asked, almost unable to believe that anything worse could possibly happen.

She smiled again, but sadly this time. ‘The true end of the world, Jute of Delanss.’

* * *

They walked in silence, for there was nothing more to say. None called for a halt for a meal; no one stopped when the sun set, nor when the sun rose. It seemed unnecessary, even tedious to Shimmer to consider halting so close to their goal.

K’azz led through the woods and high ridges. He pushed through frigid streams and up steep valley slopes. Shimmer followed next in line. Bars came after, then Lean, Keel, Black the Lesser, Turgal, Gwynn, and Blues in the rear. Where Cowl had gone, or even whether he still followed, she did not care.

They were high in these northern mountains now, the Salt range. They parted thick hanging cloud banks as if walking through an underworld of mists. Banners of the opaque fogs wove about them like the sinuous bodies of dragons. For brief moments she would note how loose her mail coat hung from her; how her hair lay tangled about her face and shoulders; how ragged her leather boots had become, yet she walked on, uncaring. K’azz promised their fate lay ahead. The secret of the Vow — which was clearly now a curse.

They came to a high meadow, a clearing that had once been a series of cultivated fields, now long abandoned, and they spread out. K’azz, on her right, was a vague silhouette in the low churning clouds, as was Bars on her left. A burned empty husk of a Greathall emerged from the mists ahead. Whatever tragedy had happened here had been wrought long ago. Saplings grew within the tumbled logs.

Past the overgrown remains of the burned hall stood a modest log cabin, sod-roofed. Here two figures rose from the tall grasses to confront them. Enormous they reared, to Shimmer’s eyes, both far taller than any normal man or woman, yet both obviously young in years. The lad wore supple tanned leathers and possessed a thick curled mane of russet hair and a beard to match. The girl was equally sturdy, in hunting leathers, her long blazingly red hair plaited.

The lad drew two hatchets to stand protectively before the girl. ‘You’ll not take us easily, damn you.’

K’azz raised his open hands. ‘We intend no harm. We seek the heights and those who live there.’

‘You intend no harm?’ the lad repeated, incredulous. ‘You who have slain all our kin?’

‘We have slain no one. We are mercenaries out of lands far to the west.’

The lad frowned his disbelief but rubbed his eyes then examined them more closely. He jerked a nod. ‘I am sorry. For a moment there I mistook you for … for someone else.’

‘What has happened here?’ Shimmer asked.

The lad slipped his hatchets into his belt then gestured to the cabin. ‘Our parents lie within, side by side.’

‘And these others you speak of,’ K’azz said, ‘they did this?’

The girl shook her head. ‘Nay,’ she said, her voice dull, yet full of wonder. ‘They simply chose to go. They bade us seek our elders in the heights then lay down together side by side.’

‘I am sorry,’ Shimmer offered.

The lad shook his head. His great mane of wild hair blew in the strong winds out of the north. ‘No. We do not weep. It is good to see them here together, holding hands. So loving, yet so different. Yullveig the Fierce they called her, and Cull the Kind. Apart too much in life — together now in death.’

Shimmer regarded the modest cabin. The lad’s words pulled at her distantly. There was something here, an ache that fought to squeeze her chest, yet she felt lost in a fog, or dullness, that held her numb to feelings.

‘We travel to the heights,’ K’azz said. ‘We may travel together?’

The two nodded a sort of bruised agreement.

‘Do we leave them in this manner?’ Blues asked the girl.

‘Yes. No flame will burn there now. We will leave them. None shall disturb them.’ She inclined her head to Shimmer. ‘I am Erta and this is Baran.’

Shimmer, K’azz and the rest introduced themselves. The two gathered up small rolls of gear and they headed upland once more.

The higher they climbed the thicker the fogs became and the more intense the cold. It was as if they had entered a realm of frigid winds and coiling mists as dense as streams. Ice now sheathed the trees and blades of tall grasses and they clattered and rattled as Shimmer pushed through. The light was diffuse, silvery; it was almost impossible to tell whether they travelled in night or day. The slopes steepened, became half barren ridges of grey and black rock, the only colour a mute orange and yellow of lichen.

K’azz and Baran, at the fore, halted here, as did the rest of the file in turn. The clattering of rocks no longer echoed about the shrouded steep valley they currently walked. Shimmer moved up to join K’azz. He and Baran stood peering ahead into the blowing, churning clouds where a figure was approaching. It was a girl; yet she stood man-high, slim, in trousers of wool and a leather shirt that hung to her knees, decorated in bright red and blue beadwork. Her hair blew about her, long and in tangles. Streams of tears darkened the ash and dirt that smeared her face.

‘Greetings,’ Baran said gently. ‘I am Baran of the Heels.’

‘Siguna of the Myrni,’ she stammered, her voice soft and wary.

Erta knelt before her. ‘What happened, child?’

Her wide eyes darted about as if expecting attack at any moment. ‘They came out of the river gravel,’ she said, awed. ‘I saw them myself. They came out of the ground. I ran home. There was a fire. Uncle sent me away.’

‘Who came?’ Shimmer asked.

The girl’s terrified gaze flicked to her. ‘Demons. The Army of Dust and Bone.’

Siguna travelled with Erta in the middle of the file. K’azz and Baran led. The closer they were to their destination the more their old general seemed to have shaken off his reluctance and self-imposed isolation. Shimmer for her part was content to leave him to command; she’d begun to suspect that something was wrong with her. When she looked at the young Myrni child alone in the world she knew that something ought to move within her, yet all she felt was a remote poignancy as of an old loss, now a distant memory. She searched her feelings only to find a landscape as desolate and lifeless as these barren rocky slopes.

She was terrified of what was happening to her.

Some time later in the climb, the loose rocks shook beneath her feet. Everyone paused, peering about in alarm. Rocks and boulders came tumbling down out of the ground-hugging fogs. They moved to a nearby ridge and gathered together. Blues came to stand next to her, his arms crossed. She noted how ragged and torn his leather jerkin had become, his scruffy beard and hollowed dark cheeks. Far above, beyond the immediate shoulders and slopes between them and the uppermost peaks, the clouds churned as if being drawn into a funnel. A blue glow suffused the region — a dazzling sapphire brilliance muted only by the cloud cover.

The ground shook again and Shimmer was alarmed to sense that the entire ridge of rock had actually moved. Baran and Erta shared a shocked glance.

‘What is it?’ Shimmer demanded. ‘An earthquake?’

‘This is no earthquake,’ Blues growled, his eyes fixed upon the heights.

‘We must reach the ice-fields,’ Baran called over the crash and hissing of tumbling stones. ‘Quickly.’ And he set off, leaping from boulder to boulder. K’azz followed while Shimmer and Erta brought along Siguna. Bars and Turgal helped any of the rest who struggled to keep up.

A howling, biting wind punished them as it came driving down into their faces. Shimmer scrambled her way up the slope of loose rock. She had the strange sensation of actually travelling backwards as she advanced. The shifting talus and gravel seemed to heap even higher before them. She came across the trunks of fallen trees, shorn of branches, slowly edging their way down towards them like battering rams.

She clambered over the trunks only to hear a despairing call behind. She urged Siguna onward and stopped to peer back into the moiling fog. Others, she knew not who, passed as blurred shapes in the mist. Something closed upon her foot and ankle between the logs and she was yanked to her knees. A churning mix of gravel and soil had her. It was burying her as it came shifting down the slope. It rolled over her side and up her chest as it advanced. She drew breath to scream but took in a mouthful of dirt. Beneath the soil larger rocks squeezed her legs until she knew her bones would be shattered to splinters.

Then a tight grip at the mail over her chest, an agonizing yank, and she was free on the surface, gagging and coughing, lying on her side. Someone stood over her, his gaze watchful: Cowl.

He helped her clamber to her feet. She stood swaying, unsteady, as the ground felt like the deck of a ship. ‘Thank you,’ she managed, spitting out dirt.

‘You will not thank me. You, above all, I want to make it. I want you there to see what he has done to us. I want you to see it.’

‘Who has done what?’

The mage retreated down the slope. ‘I know already. It is for you to discover. Then I want you to face him! Now go.’

‘Cowl!’ she yelled after him, but he was gone.

The very ground groaned and vibrated beneath her feet. She dashed up the rocks, pushing against the loose debris as it came sloughing down the entire valley slope to either side.

She made the crest of fresh steaming earth, and stopped, utterly amazed. A dry frigid wind battered her as she stared at a wide wall of dirty glacial ice that stretched from side to side across the entire high mountain vale before her. Far ahead, tiny figures, no larger than ants, struggled up the first of the leading lobes of dirty ice. Nearer, two figures ran towards her, stopping now and waving.

She waved back. And she might have been imagining it, but it seemed to her that the entire gargantuan frozen river itself, a very mountain of ice, was moving.