Stonewielder

CHAPTER XII

The first sign Stall had of trouble was members of the work gang standing up from their hammering to stare southwards. Stall pushed himself from the rock he’d been leaning against and, taking up his spear, drew his cloak tighter about himself. Evessa straightened as well, sent him a questioning look. He motioned to the rock field far below, where a lone figure climbed the rugged slope that sprawled down from the rear of the Stormwall. Taking up her spear, Evessa waved to Stall and the two took their time picking their way down to the man.

Closer, Stall saw him to be a bull of a fellow, apparently unarmed, full helm under an arm. Against the cold he wore a plain cloak and thick robes in layers over his armour. He and Evessa spread out to stand ahead of the fellow, to either side.

Stall planted his spear, called, ‘Who are you? Name yourself!’

The man did not answer immediately. He peered up past them to the slope where the rear of this section of the curved curtain wall soared like a fortress. The gang peered down from among the rocks where they worked on the buttressing ordered by Master Engineer Stimins.

The stranger nodded to himself, took a deep breath, and drew on his helm. ‘I suggest you go now,’ he told them in accented Korelri.

Stall lowered his spear. ‘You’ll have to come with us for questioning…’

Kneeling, the man pressed a gauntleted hand to the bare stony ground. Stall and Evessa shared a look — was the fellow touched? Stall began: ‘Don’t give us any…’

The ground shook. Rocks clattered, falling. Grating and roaring, the larger boulders shifted. Evessa cried out and had to jump when the huge rocks she stood upon ground together. The reverberation fanned out around them into the distance, from where the echoes of scraping and shifting returned ever more faintly. The workers cried out, scattering, clambering among the rocks.

Stall returned his attention to the stranger to see that he now carried a sword: a great two-handed length of dull grey. The man’s eyes glared a bright pale blue from the darkness of his helm. ‘Go now!’ he commanded. ‘Warn everyone to flee!’

Stall looked to Evessa, cocked a brow. The Jourilan woman inclined her head; Stall nodded. The two backed away. The man was clearing stones from the ground before him. Stall and Evessa picked up their pace, waving away the remaining workers watching them, uncertain.

‘Run, you damned fools!’ Stall yelled.

*

So which would it be? Greymane wondered while he stood waiting to give everyone time to put more room between he and they. The greatest mass-murderer of the region? Or a semi-mythical deliverer?

Both, I imagine. It could not be avoided. Many would die. And rightly or wrongly he would be blamed. Yet was he not just one link in an unbroken chain of causality stretching back who knew how far? Albeit the final one.

Devaleth’s argument returned to haunt him — not that he didn’t know the same doubts: what guarantee did he have that the Riders would not overrun all the lands? Objectively, that much water didn’t exist in the world. Subjectively, every observation, action, and account supported his conclusion.

They would strike for the Lady.

Just as he should have when he had his chance. Regrets choked him now. He hoped Kyle would not be too angry with him — he’d had to keep everyone at arm’s length. The fool probably would have tried to follow him!

And were the troops free of the coast? Certainly they should be by now — especially with Devaleth forewarned. And she should reach Banith as well, through Ruse. Yet what of every other coastal settlement of the region? Were they not all threatened? Yes, many would die. But at least after that it would be over. It would not go on eternally, year after year, as it had for centuries.

Or so he told himself.

Enough! Enough self-flagellation. It was too late then; it is even later now. What he should have done long ago awaited him still. Time to act.

A short thrust first, I think. To warn everyone what is to come.

He knelt, raised the stone sword, point down. Burn, accept this offering and answer. Bless my intent. Right this ancient wrong. Heal this wound upon the world.

He slammed the blade down into the earth.

At first nothing happened. The blade slid easily through the exposed stone. A kind of silence grew around him. Then came a vibration, the ground uneasy, shuddering. Up the slope boulders slid, subsiding. Rocks tumbled to either side. Far above, where the wall met the overcast sky with its embrasures, lift-houses, and quarters, clouds of birds erupted from their perches to take flight in dark swaths. Enormous hanging accumulations of ice, some longer than a man, snapped away, plunging down the rear to smash to the rocks below. Tiny figures raced madly back and forth.

Run while you can. Greymane yanked the blade free. Setting his left foot back firmly, he raised the sword straight up overhead to its fullest extension. Tensing his body, he snapped the blade down as if to gouge a slice from the earth. The rough stone blade struck the granite in an eruption of force that shuddered straight up to his grip. A crack split the rounded worn bedrock, shooting off ahead to disappear beneath the jumbled scree slope. Kneeling, he kept his death’s grip on the length of carved stone. Water appeared from among the jumbled rocks. It shot down over his knees in a frigid sheen.

Oh shit. I’m under the wall.

Well, he chided himself, you didn’t really think you’d survive this, did you?

A bell-like booming resounded from the towering wall. Two lift-houses built up over the rear fell away in a litter of fractured stone to tumble like doll’s houses down the curved face and explode in shards of wood and stone at the base. Cut blocks of the curtain wall, each perhaps as large as a man, shifted, dirt and moss cascading down. Water shot from the lowest in a jetting spray, darkening the rocks of the slope.

Greymane yanked the blade free. Enough? Well, best make sure of it.

He raised the sword again. One more. Then run like a madman.

This time he swept the blade down as if he were sinking it into water. The naked time-gnawed bedrock parted in a gap that took even his grip. The very ground around him seemed to sink then flex upwards like a struck drum. Boulders the size of houses heaved aside to crash and tumble like catapult stones. A grinding screech as of a death-shriek sounded from the distance where the rearing curtain wall wavered as if struck by a giant’s battering ram. Then it bulged outward at its base, stones shifting, and water burst forth in a gushing, heaving rush.

Time to go. Greymane yanked but his hands, sunk in past his wrists, would not give.

He yanked again, pushing off with his legs, but his hands and wrists were caught in the exposed granite bedrock.

He snapped a gaze to the flood rushing down the retaining field. Far along the curve of the curtain wall a watchtower, some five storeys tall, toppled achingly slowly, looking like a child’s toy so far in the distance. The top courses of the curtain, undermined, now gave way in a series of puzzle-pieces. They tumbled, an avalanche of gargantuan stones, into the exposed gap beneath. He had a momentary glimpse of the Stormwall’s interior architecture as the fallen walls revealed its outer casework of dressed stone blocks on either side of a driven fill of rubble.

The wall was breached entirely now, through to the bay beyond.

Greymane yanked again, frantic, but his limbs would not budge. He stared down at his hands, trapped in the raw living stone, and only then did the beautiful poetry of it dawn upon him and he threw back his head to laugh aloud. Oh ye gods, you have outdone yourselves! Laugh at the fool mortal, for only now do I see it. Stonewielder indeed! Yes. You scheming bastards and bitches!

‘Damn you all to Hood’s deepest pits!’

The foaming flood struck him. His feet were swept from under him; he was trapped under the raging flow. Branches and other driven trash smashed into him and he could hold his breath no longer. The air burst from his searing lungs in a froth of bubbles.

He never drew another.

As his consciousness faded he thought he felt hands grasp him there beneath the surface. He did not know if it was his delirious fancy or not, or what it might mean, for all went to dark then and he allowed himself release without regret, without anger, without expectation of anything.

*

The waters of the Ocean of Storms, risen far above ancient levels, tide-swollen, driven by the sorceries of the Stormriders, poured through the gap in a burgeoning flood. The course gouged its way south, always seeking low ground. Entire swaths of forest were swept aside as the flash flood raced downhill, gathering ever greater momentum as it went. Farmhouses, fields, roads, stone walls, all disappeared as this sudden new river scoured a widening channel down to the bedrock of the island.

A chance subtle rise in the landscape spared the fortress city of Storm. Its citizens had just picked themselves up from a rare earth tremor. Many had walked out into the streets to peer at the new cracks in the cobbled roads and arcing-down walls. They heard the distant roar and went to the walls to watch astonished as to the east a new channel thundered past as a true waterfall. And, for a time, the city was entirely cut off from the rest of Korel. These citizens later swore to catching glimpses amid the flow of brilliant sapphire flashes and gliding ominous dark shapes.

Racing far more swiftly than the fastest charger, the churning waters crashed through the last forested reach of land to pour over, then entirely grind away, the shore beaches and sand cliffs down into Crooked Strait. Here the waters melded into the narrow strait, ever rising, forming from shore to shore a great swelling hump of water coursing to the east and to the west. The wavefront climbed higher than the topgallant of the tallest vessel. Entire fishing hamlets disappeared without a ripple beneath this heaving peak more than five fathoms deep. It raced faster than any ship or messenger. It overtook fleeing vessels, submerged low-lying forested islands. Left behind in its passing lay an entirely new coastline, resculpted and washed clean.

Deep in thought, Hiam climbed the narrow circular stairs of Ice Tower. Chosen hurried up and down, pausing to salute, which he answered absently. This tremor; could it really be as bad as the Malazan seems to think? Every mage who practises his or her witchery eventually goes mad — that is the most obvious explanation. Everyone, he imagined, must be thinking of those mystical prophecies: the earth cracking open to swallow the wall. But this was no supernatural event; it was just an earth tremor, common enough in many regions of the world. Unprecedented events were unfolding, yes, but that was no reason for panic.

Reaching the communication chamber he adjusted the flame to burn its highest then bashed open the west shutters. The frigid wind sliced into the chamber again but this time it did not snuff the flame. He lowered the metal sleeve, dug up a scoopful of the flaring dust and tossed it on to the flame. The dust burst into a hissing white glare that made him flinch away, covering his face. Hunched, head turned away, he worked the sleeve up and down, signalling the tower on top of the western pass.

Wind Tower: report.

Wind Tower was the westernmost of the main fortresses.

He waited. The request had to travel the entire length of the wall then back again. The answer came much more swiftly than he had anticipated; it seemed this tremor had put everyone on edge.

Wind Tower not responding.

That was the Tower of Ruel’s Tears, its eastern neighbour.

Tossing more dust on to the flame, Hiam signed: Status?

After a time the answer came: Ruel’s Tears not responding.

That was the Great Tower north of Elri, their main fortress on the Stormwall.

Disbelieving, Hiam threw more dust on to the flame, signed: Status! Status!

A long silence during which the wind moaned and gusted, seeming to mock him. Then, mystifyingly, from the neighbouring tower, the Tower of Stars: Pray!

Hiam threw himself to the western window, stared through the eternal blowing snow to the high pass where the glow of the guard tower shone like a beacon in the overcast gloom. While he watched, it was snuffed into darkness, and something billowed around it: something like a blizzard cascading down the pass along the wall, driving for this last reach of the wall and Ice Tower. Hiam clenched the window: Lady, what was this? A true catastrophe such as struck ages ago? Was this truly the end? Lady, what have we done that you should turn your face from us so?

Lady, forgive us…

The avalanche struck like a wall of white. Hiam was thrown to the floor, which bucked and hammered him. Enormous crackling fractured his hearing and he understood that the gargantuan shelves of blue-black ice that sheathed the tower were breaking off its sides. Further blows rocked and shuddered the tower as these shards, the size of wagons, came thundering down to slam bursting on to the top of the wall.

The quake passed quickly, the last of the shudders reverberating off into the distance like a passing storm, or rockfall. Unwilling to believe it was actually over, Hiam gingerly picked himself from the floor. He went to the window and peered out, half expecting a vista of ruination, but what he saw filled him with admiration and awe.

We still stand! The wall is intact!

Magnificent ancestors, you have not striven in vain! Lady, we have taken the worst and endured! Is this your message? If so, I am ashamed. How pathetic my faith.

Certainly, the damage was horrific. The worst of his imaginings… but nothing like a fracture or failure. Outer machicolations had fallen away; rear buildings had collapsed, coursework along the upper reaches appeared misaligned; cracks worked down the wall of the tower. But this was all merely cosmetic: the basic structural curve of the curtain wall appeared sound. Beyond that curve, however, the waters of the bay appeared unusually disturbed: great counter-waves slammed back and forth, and froth and spume jetted straight up in a clash of forces far out in the bay.

I’ll need to inspect the damage. He ran for the stairs, but before he got two full turns down he found the way jammed by fallen rubble. He stared at the barrier, almost uncomprehending. No! Not now! Not when I’m needed most! He threw himself at the great stone blocks, heaving, pulling.

Lady, no! Please! I beg you to forgive me!

Deep under Ice Tower in the holding cells Shell stood pressed up hard against a glacial wall. That first tremor had terrified her. Here she was far below a stone tower on an ancient crumbling wall perched above a cliff over a sea! And now, though she dared not raise her Warren, she could feel it twitching, pulling at her. Something was happening. Something shattering.

A contingent came filing down from standing the wall. Shell saw Blues among them. The man had a hand to his forehead, wincing. A regular guardsman urged him on with a poke of his sword. Seemingly without effort Blues yanked the blade from the man’s hand then clouted him on the side of his head and he fell senseless. The file of prisoners shuffled to a halt, completely uncertain what to do. Blues leaned against a wall, blinking and shaking his shaggy head.

‘You sense it?’ Shell called.

‘Sense it!’ the man groaned. ‘Gods! My head’s gonna explode. I’ve not felt this since Genabackis when we faced the Warlord… In fact, I would’ve sworn it was impossible…’

‘What?’

The man stared about, suddenly panicked. ‘Everyone, take cover! Get into doorways!

‘What is it?’

‘Quiet! Listen!’ The man backed into a cell doorway, gripped the edges.

Shell tried to still her breathing. She felt her Warren crackling with energy at her fingertips — just as during the worst magery engagements! Enormous power has been unleashed!

Then she heard it: a rumbling seeming to arise from beneath her feet. The wall struck her, slamming her across the cell into the sleeping ledge. Stone shrieked, grinding and hammering. Dust and dirt rained down, choking her breath and blinding her while the floor bashed her. She was going to die crushed like a beetle!

Eventually, though it seemed to last an eternity, the rumbling and up-and-down shaking passed away. Ominous groanings, creakings, and the cries of wounded filled the silence. The door to her cell burst into the chamber, iron bars rattling.

‘Shell!’ Hands pulled her up: it was Blues, the side of his head a dust-coated smear of blood. ‘Are you all right?’

She brushed at the pulverized rock dusting her clothes. ‘Yes… yes! I think so. Who else is here? Lazar?’

‘He’s up top last I saw. What about Bars? Corlo?’

‘They took him up the tower. Corlo… I can’t say.’

Blues helped her out. ‘Let’s see who’s here.’

Together they dug out all who could stand. They found a good many Malazan veterans, including Tollen. But no sign of Jemain or Corlo. For Bars’ sake she hoped they hadn’t been buried under tons of stone.

The Malazans formed into a party, headed by Tollen. They scavenged all the weapons they could find. ‘We’re heading up!’ Tollen called to Shell.

‘We should all go together,’ Blues said.

Tollen spat. ‘This tower won’t stand for ever. Gotta go.’

‘Good luck,’ Shell called.

Tollen raised a hand in what might be taken as an abbreviated version of the Guard salute, then nodded his party up the stairs.

‘One quick peep is all it would take to make sure no one’s left,’ she told Blues.

He frowned a negative. ‘Too early for that yet. No lower levels?’

‘Yes, but no prisoners down there.’

‘The infirmary then — where’s that?’

She nodded, suddenly certain. ‘Yes! The infirmary! Jemain is sure to be there.’

‘All right.’ Blues searched around and came up with two sticks, each about the length of his forearm. With these he headed up the stairs. Shell followed, unarmed as yet.

Fighting soon sounded from above. They passed three floors to find the way blocked by the Malazans. Tollen pushed his way down to them, spat again. ‘Blasted Stormguard’s blocking the way.’

‘Overbear them,’ Blues said. ‘What’s the matter with you marines?’

Tollen snorted, then drawled, ‘There’s just the one.’

‘One?’ Blues pushed past the bear of a fellow. ‘Let me through.’

Tollen offered Shell a wink. ‘This I gotta see. The Lady’s Grace is on this one… He won’t go down.’

‘The Lady’s Grace? What’s that?’

Tollen eyed her sidelong. ‘You’ll see.’

Shell followed. She had to walk over four dead Malazans, each bearing ferocious impalement wounds. They’d reached the main guardroom that allowed access to the surface. A lone Korelri Stormguard blocked the way amid the rubble, spear held upright at rest position, arms wrapped under his cloak. It was an older man, his short hair pepper-grey, his face savagely scarred. But what was most strange was the faint blue aura that played like a flame about the man and his spear. Energies raised over him — and so strong as to be visible even without her Warren.

‘Form up to stand the wall, prisoner,’ he told Blues.

‘Shit!’ Tollen murmured behind her. ‘Now I know him. Wall Marshal Quint. The one Chosen we didn’t want to meet.’

Blues advanced into the room. He held his two sticks straight down, angled slightly outwards from his body. ‘Let us pass and we’ll make no trouble.’

Quint’s scarred face twisted in an almost otherworldly contempt. ‘Pass? You can pass all right. You’re needed to stand the wall. The Riders are stirring. Now’s your chance to serve the Lady.’

Indeed, the waves were hammering the wall, but even Shell, new as she was to the place, could hear the difference: the arrhythmia of their pounding, and the relative weakness. It was as if they were drawing off — but it was far too early for that.

‘We decline the honour of dying for your Lady,’ Blues said.

The man levelled the spear. ‘Why? You’re going to die anyway.’ And he thrust. Blues blocked the spear with his crossed sticks and lashed out, kicking the man back. He grunted, recovering instantly, to drive Blues back with a series of short thrusts. Shell was startled: Blues was their mercenary company’s weapon-master; no one could stand before him. Certainly, there were those who could outlast him or overbear him, such as Bars or Lazar, or Skinner, for that matter, but in technique and ability with any weapon the man was peerless among them.

They duelled in this manner for a time, neither able to penetrate the other’s guard. Shell watched, her amazement growing moment by moment. Who were these Stormguard? Obviously, she saw now, their reputation was not overblown.

Snarling his disgust, the Chosen, Quint, stepped back to point his spear. ‘You’ve talent, I’ll grant you that. A shame you refuse to put it to the proper use. But now we’re done. Let’s see how you like a touch of the Lady’s Wrath.’

The aura that played about the man intensified at his hands, flaring to a brilliant glow. Shell had no time to call out a warning before it shot like a lance from the spearhead to strike Blues full in the chest. He staggered back, the aura dancing about him, sizzling. He smacked backwards into a wall with a sickening crunch that brought down another rain of dust from the roof, but he did not fall.

Quint gazed at him, utterly astonished. ‘How is this? You live?’

Blues wiped blood from his cheek and mouth and shook himself like a dog. ‘I felt something like that before, Wall Marshal. On another continent, and from another supposed god. I seem to have built up a tolerance.’

Quint struck a ready stance. ‘Then we’ll just have to settle this the old-fashioned way.’

Blues sighed, shook his head. ‘No. I don’t have time for this.’ He raised his arms and Shell saw his D’riss Warren come to him, the Warren of Earth and Stone. He thrust his arms out, sending an answering blast of power that struck the Wall Marshal and knocked him flying backwards to crash through the heavy panelled door and tumble out on to the cluttered, ice-strewn wall.

Tollen let go a low whistle that Shell seconded: yes, it’s easy to forget that the man is also one of the Guard’s strongest mages. She stepped through the wreckage to Blues’ side. ‘Decided to test the waters, did you?’

Blues gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘I guess the Lady’s too busy to care so much right now.’

The Malazans and other prisoners pressed forward. ‘Let’s go,’ Tollen called.

Outside, enormous shards of shattered ice choked the walk. Gouges had been taken out of the sides and entire buildings were gone — having slid off the rear, or collapsed. A great crack ran down the side of the tower, the dressed stone blocks shattered. A howling wind rampaged through the debris, driving pulverized ice into Shell’s face. As they stood peering for a way through the carnage, a figure straightened amid the shattered wreckage, throwing off slivers of broken ice: Wall Marshal Quint.

‘Won’t this guy stay down?’ Blues grumbled.

‘Now you know how it feels,’ Tollen complained.

Blues caught Shell’s eye. ‘Let’s see if he can swim…’ He was gesturing to raise his Warren anew when a blast of power erupted between him and Shell, tossing them both aside. Shell had a momentary glimpse of the waters foaming and lashing next to the wall before slamming down with a bone-snapping impact against stone.

When Ussu returned to his chambers he found the door open, his two aides fled. Very well. Good help and all that… The Crimson Guard Avowed, Bars, lay as before. Ussu tested the pins and lengths of chain, giving each a yank. Strong still.

The real blast was on its way. Where to sit it out? The chamber boasted a sturdy desk built of thick timbers. Beneath this? Too undignified. He went to the doorway, blocked the door open, pressed himself up against one jamb. Have to do.

He heard it just before it struck. How appropriate, he judged, that it should come rumbling like the avalanche and landslide that it was. Then a jolt threw him from the doorway and he tumbled about the hall like a doll kicked by the floor. Bone-juddering fractures announced the calving of huge shards from the tower’s sheath of ice. A crack shot through the roof, beams exploding. Pulverized rock showered down upon him.

As the shaking stilled, he stirred, groaning, shook dust from his hair. He staggered like a drunk to his room through the fallen rubble of the hall. Within, he found an icy wind cutting about the chamber; the falling ice had torn the shutters from the window. His subject lay stretched over the thick table as before, arms and legs pinioned. Ussu pressed his ear to the man’s naked chest, ignored the ugly gaping wound oozing blood.

A steady beat! As strong as before. It was as if nothing had happened! Thank you, my Lady. With such seemingly inexhaustible strength to draw upon — imagine what I can accomplish!

He brushed the dust and litter from the man. Pulled the larger stones and fallen grit from the wound. Would the Riders bother to strike here? Somehow he didn’t think so. They had their breach elsewhere. No, it would be the Malazans. This was their chance to finish things. Shattering a section of the wall was one thing — stone and wood can be repaired. Truly crushing the Korelri would be another.

It was hard to think with such enormous forces pressing upon him. The gathering might felt like a mountain suspended above his head. A vast displacement was bearing down through the Narrows. And he, even from this far, felt it like a giant’s boot crushing him.

And what of the Overlord? He raised his Warren and cast his vision south. What he saw made him lurch, almost sickened. No! You fool! The man had his army marshalled still within sight of the coast! Why wasn’t he in the highlands? Had he no idea — but no, of course not. Gods! I must warn him!

Ussu threw himself upon Bars. He savagely pushed his hand into the wound, parting the glutinous scab of blood and fluids to quest down amid the organs. His fingers slid down around a lung and through the tears in the fat and muscle fibre surrounding the beating heart. Pressing his head down close to the subject’s chest he closed his eyes and reached out to take the additional energy needed for a sending. Grasping this, he projected his consciousness southward.

He found Yeull wrapped in layers of blankets and furs, standing outside watching his tent burning to the ground. Chaos surrounded him, soldiers running about. ‘Overlord!’ he called, peremptorily, to be heard above the riot. The man’s eyes flicked about, searching. His mouth drew down, frowning even more.

‘What witchery is this?’ he murmured, his gaze slitted.

Yeull, he knew, was seeing the faint and wavering image of himself, Ussu, outlined by his aura energies. ‘I have news! A warning!’

‘A warning?’ The Overlord spread his arms. ‘Rather late it would seem.’

‘No! Worse — why are you still here? Why have you not struck inland?’

Yeull’s gaze became creamy with a kind of satisfied cunning and his mouth crooked up in a half-smile. ‘Best to give the Korelri a good scare, yes? They’ll appreciate us all the more once we’ve rescued them from these invaders…’

Ussu could not contain himself any longer. All he had endured from the man came rushing up, choking him like swallowed vomit. ‘You loathsome cretin! Because of your childish scheming-’

‘Hey? What’s that? Has the Lady driven you insane, man?’

‘Just listen to me and flee! Run! Order everyone to high ground! Abandon everything!’

Yeull scowled his confusion. ‘What’s that? Run? Whatever for?’

‘A huge wave! A flood-’ Ussu broke off as outside Ice Tower, just beneath his feet, another mage suddenly announced his presence by raising his Warren. ‘Just order everyone to run for high land! You are warned!’ And he broke away from Yeull as the man opened his mouth to ask for more explanation, or to object.

Drawing upon his and the Lady’s power and the life energy of his subject, Ussu quested passively down through the tower to find the mage. A practitioner of D’riss — and strong. Very well. I will have to strike hard, make sure of it immediately. He began drawing and coiling power, gathering it into one stored blast to unleash in a single gesture. When the potentiality was almost bursting beyond his control, he projected it down the tower and released it.

The blast shook him high in his chamber. The entire tower groaned and shifted. More dust rained down, and somewhere a beam shattered in an answering explosion.

Fingers decided he’d had enough of life without access to a Warren. These damned Stormguard had snapped the otataral wrist-torc on him and since then life had been nothing but one long indignity. They forced him out into the frigid cold to chase those damned Riders off the wall — nearly getting him run through! And all the while he was as sick as a dog and would like to die — if he could!

Then someone unleashes Burn’s own fury against the Stormwall and wearing this torc all he can do is watch while the tremor strikes, bringing down the tower around him. He’d be dead, he knew, if it weren’t for the Vow. Apparently the otataral does nothing to impede its effectiveness. He’s crawled over broken stones, up rubble-choked stairs, dragged himself over flattened burst bodies, and now he’s lying outside on the wall, smeared in crap, somewhere along this blasted wall, gods know where, stranded! Two broken legs and no way to bloody heal himself.

Panting, almost delirious with pain, he raised his head to study the belt-knife he’d taken from one of the corpses. Only thing for it… He pressed his right hand, palm up, to the frozen stone flagging and set the edge of the knife to the wrist. Goodbye hand! So much for rope climbing.

‘You really ought to be dead,’ someone rumbled over him.

Fingers peered up, blinking, close to passing out. ‘What?’ Whoever this was, he was a giant of a fellow, occluding almost all the sky.

‘You are a mage, yes?’

Swallowing, Fingers managed a faint ‘Yes.’ Then he cried out a yell, his vision blackening, as the big man yanked on his right hand.

‘You want this off, yes?’

Fingers could only hiss, ‘Yes.’

‘Very well. All others are dead, as far as I can see. Only we two survive here. I am leaving. But before I go, remember, I, Hagen of the Toblakai, rescued you.’

Fingers nodded. Yes, certainly, Hagen, yes. Whoever.

The giant twisted the torc and Fingers yelled again as the fellow nearly broke his wrist. Then it was free and Fingers felt his Warren blossom open to him once more. He sighed, almost ecstatic, and felt like hugging the great shaggy ape. But the fellow, Hagen, had merely pushed off, running for the rear of the wall. Fingers stared uncomprehending as the giant increased his pace, faster and faster, until one huge bounding leap took him up and over the rear of the wall to disappear.

He gazed for a time at the blank section of stone where the giant had jumped and thought, Was that really a Toblakai?

Then, blinking and shaking his head as if to awaken from a trance, he set about healing his legs so that he could at least stand — not that he had any feel at all for the tricky Denul Warren.

On the cluttered stone floor of the infirmary, amid the toppled beds, fallen instruments and shards of stone, Corlo lay staring up at a titanic wooden beam fully a foot wide and a foot thick, yet split right through and hanging directly overhead.

Someone was next to him, talking, but he ignored the man. Fall, he urged. Fall, you bastard! Cut me in half!

The fellow was saying something about a saw and cutting — Corlo just wished he’d go away.

Why by all the gods above and below am I still alive? What have I done that was so terrible to deserve such punishment? Why have I been singled out like this? Aren’t you done with me? What more could you possibly squeeze from me?

Something bit at his leg and he peered down. The man — Jemain! — was cutting off his leg at the knee. Jemain is cutting my leg off!

Corlo lunged for his neck. He hooked his fingers around Jemain’s throat but the fellow easily pushed him down — he was so weak! Why was he so weak? One arm pressing on Corlo’s chest, Jemain returned to sawing at the knee.

When the iron teeth slid under his kneecap Corlo passed out.

Shell awoke lying on her side. Her right arm was numb and it was an agony to breathe any deeper than the shallowest of gasps. Ribs broken. Only the instantaneous raising of Blues’ Warren had saved her life in that attack. As it was, she hadn’t fared so well. From where she lay she could see Lazar, close to the shattered crenellations, engaged in a duel with two Stormguard, both of whom carried the flaming aura of what they called the Lady’s Grace.

Possession would be her word for it.

On the far side of the wall, the escaped prisoners, Malazans mostly, fought Korelri holding the stairs, Wall Marshal Quint among them.

But at the centre of the marshalling walk Blues was taking terrible punishment from this new mage who had suddenly announced himself. A mage? She thought these Korelri had no mages. And of terrifying power, too!

The driving energies were pushing Blues back towards the crumbling forward edge of the wall. Beyond, the seas raged, frothing and tumbled — the tremor must have struck there as well, underwater. As for the Riders, they appeared too preoccupied to take advantage of the chaos here. Waves still struck, however, still overtopping in washes of bitingly chill waters with every other strike.

Around Blues all the ice sizzled and melted in the wash of energies unleashed by this mage. Steadily Blues was being pushed to the lip of the wall. Obviously, this Korelri meant to drive him over the edge. Gods! And she could not help! Just tensing her chest sent lances of agony through her and she winced, screwing shut her eyes, tears freezing on her cheeks.

Then a hand on her chest and relief — blessed easing. She sucked a shuddering breath deep into her lungs and opened her eyes to see Fingers kneeling next to her. He grinned his encouragement. ‘Looks like Blues has finally dug up a real threat.’

Drawing one more wonderful breath, Shell gave him a nod and together they threw all they could muster against the mage.

More of these enemy mages! Ussu was surprised, but with the resources now at his command he was more than ready for them. The wellspring of power that sustained this Avowed seemed limitless; while the Lady’s blessing, though thinning, continued. Along that flow of energies he sensed an awareness, the Lady herself perhaps, distracted, flailing, directing one quick vicious command his way: Slay them all!

Most certainly, Mistress. Ussu bore down, hammering this D’riss mage — why wouldn’t the man fall? He seemed impossibly resilient to the might he was pouring down upon him. Die, damn you! How could you possibly still live? Who is this prisoner? Another Malazan cadre mage?

The body beneath him convulsed then, almost shaking him loose. Ussu snapped open his eyes to see just a hand’s breadth away this subject, the Avowed, aware and glaring, burning rage into him. Ussu stared back at the man. ‘You’re conscious?’ he breathed in wonder.

The gagged mouth drew up in a ghastly smile. The muscles of the arms and chest tensed — even around Ussu’s wrist they tensed, and the man strained on the chains binding him. His face flushed, veins starting out and writhing. Ussu could not believe what he was witnessing. What did the man think he could… Then it occurred to him: the earthquake! Gods, no! He snapped a glance to the floor. The stone blocks were now uneven, jostled. The iron pin positively vibrated, quivering, grinding.

Oh no. Gods, no. Please do not play with me so. He clenched his hand, raising another thrashing convulsion from the man. ‘I have your heart! Stop! Or I will crush it!’

The ghastly, almost insane smile remained fixed at the gagged mouth.

No! Stop! You don’t The pin rang as it snapped free. The arms flattened Ussu to the man’s chest.

Yet Ussu kept his grip, staving off the combined attacks of all three mages. The chains fell away with a clash. The Avowed pulled down the gag. ‘Now I have you,’ he grated.

Ussu twisted his fist: the organ laboured, squeezed in his hand. The man’s eyes glazed in agony, fluttering, his arms weakening. ‘Who will die first, I wonder?’ he asked.

Bars shook the chains off his arms. He snapped a hand to Ussu’s throat. ‘You’re forgetting,’ he panted, hoarse with the unimaginable torture he’d endured. ‘I can’t die.’

‘Yes you can.’ And Ussu clenched with all his might, meaning to pulp the shuddering ball of muscle in his fist. But Bars’ hand clenched as well, crushing Ussu’s throat, cutting off his breath, the life force from his lungs. As Ussu’s life slipped away from him he suddenly saw far into the wellspring of the inexhaustible might sustaining this Avowed and he understood its source. He gazed at the man’s flushed twisted face, not a hand’s breadth from his own, appalled by the magnitude of the discovery. He opened his mouth, meaning to tell him: Do you have any idea Bars squeezed until his clenched fingers cramped, shook the body one last time to make sure of it, then relaxed his grip on the corpse. With his other hand he gently, oh so damned gently, grasped hold of the wrist where it entered his chest, and slowly, as tenderly as possible, pulled.

The anguish returned — torture beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. White blinding fire blossomed again in his mind. All his death-wishes were as nothing compared to his desire to be free of this agony. Anything! Death would be as the most soothing balm. Infinitely preferable.

The hand came free with a sickening sucking noise. Revolted, Bars threw the body aside only to wince, gasping and cradling his chest. He stayed like that for some time: sitting up, curled around his wound, arms wrapped round his chest. The slightest move was an ordeal beyond any consideration.

After a time someone was at the door. Bars cracked one eye for a look. It was Blues. The man entered gingerly, as quietly as he could, stepping over litter. Bars raised a finger to forestall him. ‘Don’t fucking touch me.’

Blues eyed the fallen mage, nodded solemnly. Bars pointed to his chained legs. Blues waved and the chain fell away. Gritting his teeth, Bars eased one leg down to the floor, then the other. Blues closed to help but Bars waved him away. ‘Let’s get out of this Hood-damned hole.’

Blues stood aside of the door. ‘Damn right.’

They were on the stairs, Blues ahead, casting quick worried glances back to Bars, when someone called from a blocked room: ‘Hello! Is that someone? Hello?’

Bars straightened up from cradling his chest, his eyes huge. ‘Jemain? Is that you?’

‘Yes. Bars?’

Bars gestured to the blocked doorway. Blues motioned and stones began grating aside. Jemain’s anxious face appeared in a gap. ‘Bars! Corlo’s here — he’s hurt.’

On the wall, Fingers tried to raise Shell, who, grimacing and hissing, pulled her hands free: ‘Wait! Listen!’

‘What?’

‘Grab hold of something, now!’

Fingers faced the bay, grunted, ‘Aw shit…’

A wave smashed into the battered crenellations, overtopped easily and kept coming at them. It pushed loose blocks aside then struck them, submerging Shell. She held on, straining not to be washed off the wall and cast over the rear to shatter on the rocks below. Through the slurry of deathly cold water she saw the shimmering armour of a Stormrider standing before her.

She threw her head back, gasping in air, panting, her limbs shivering almost uncontrollably. The entity peered down, regarding her. Its sword remained sheathed at its side, no lance in evidence. Its helm shifted as it looked about. Then it raised an arm, the scaled armour flashing iridescent, seeming to salute her, and backed away.

Fingers appeared at her side, supported her. Together they watched while the entity reached the outer shattered crenellations and stepped back to fall away.

‘What was that all about?’ Fingers asked, stuttering.

‘I think they’re done here.’

‘So’re we,’ Fingers growled. ‘C’mon.’

Down one way they saw the Stormguard righting themselves where they blocked the one access leading off the wall. Of the Malazans Shell saw no sign. Fingers motioned the other way; there Lazar fought splashing through the thinning waters, duelling two Stormguard both still glowing with the aura of the Lady. She and Fingers raised their Warrens.

Their combined strike smashed the two Chosen from the wall, casting them tumbling out into the white-capped waves, where they disappeared. Holding her numb side, Shell joined Lazar to peer down over the broken lip of the wall to the waters foaming below. ‘Thanks, you two,’ Lazar said, breathing heavily. ‘Those boys just wouldn’t go down.’

‘Neither would you,’ Fingers remarked, as he came limping up behind.

Lazar drew off his full helm and steam plumed in the frigid air from the sweat soaking his hair and running down his face. He drew in great breaths, blowing and gasping; then, peering out over the inlet, he froze. ‘Damn Hood…’

Shell looked over and her flesh prickled with true terror. A wave was approaching up the narrow bay — a wave unlike any she’d seen before. More a mountain of water, webbed in slush and topped in white spume, already looming far taller than the wall itself.

‘Oponn’s throw,’ Fingers breathed.

Lazar punched Shell’s arm, making her wince. ‘Let’s go!’

They met Blues and Bars at the tower entrance. Jemain was following behind, carrying an unconscious Corlo, one of whose legs now ended at a wrapped stump. ‘We have to go,’ Fingers told Blues. ‘Now.’

‘What about the Malazans?’ Shell asked. She looked to where four Korelri Stormguard remained, Quint included, holding the stairs. Only a few fallen Malazan bodies were visible.

‘They ran for the high pass,’ Blues said.

‘Good luck to them,’ Fingers added.

Shell warned: ‘Blues — take us.’ Quint had motioned to his brother Stormguard and they were approaching.

‘All right, all right!’ Blues answered. ‘We’re gone. Stand close.’

Quint rounded the side of the tower to find the wall… empty. The foreigners had fled; they’d used their alien Warren witchery to escape. Movement out over the inlet caught his eye and he stared. At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing — the scale was all wrong. No wave could possibly be that tall, that immense. A small voice whispered in the back of his mind: It is the prophesied end of the Stormwall come upon them after all. First the earth shakes then the waters come to reclaim the land — was that not the ancient warning of the end of the world?

Quint looked to his spear, its gouged and battered blade, the Lady’s Grace thinning, so faint, then to this titanic approaching crag of water greater than any he had seen in over fifty years, rearing now over him taller than six fathoms.

Damn you…

He raised the spear, shaking it in the searing extremity of his rage.

Damn everyone! Damn everything! Damn The mountain of water slammed into the wall to tumble, undercut, overflowing like a waterfall, washing, scouring, unstoppable. When it thinned, draining to both sides from the course of the wall, the stone core remained, uneven, punished, gouged of everything, empty of all movement.

On into the evening a fresh layer of snow began to fall over all: the grey undisturbed waters of the inlet, and the bare stones of the wall where no footfalls marred it. Through the night it froze into a fresh clean layer of frost and ice.

All through the fighting below Hiam knelt, praying. He prayed for forgiveness. For penance. And for guidance. He ignored the cries, the blasts and the upheaval. Hands clasped, eyes screwed shut, entreating, begging. Lady! Please answer! How have we displeased you? Where have we transgressed? Please! In the name of our devotion. Will you not grace me with your guidance?

At one point something enormous ploughed into the tower in an avalanche roar that seemed the end of the world. The impact drove Hiam against a wall and left the tower tilted, threatening to fall at any moment, but he did not turn from his single-minded observance. Surely his zeal would be rewarded now, at this moment of testing.

After a time he knew not how long — nor did he care — an answer came. The Lady’s voice whispered as if into his ear: You failed me, Lord Protector!

He bowed to the floor, abject in his piety. ‘My Lady! How? How did we fail? What was our transgression? Let us make amends.’

Amends? You failed! They are upon me! You let them through! You swore to protect me!

‘M’Lady, our holy concord remains between us. We will protect the lands as we swore-’

The lands? The lands? You protect me! Me! And you have failed even at that simple task, you wretched fool.

Hiam sat up, puzzled. ‘We swore to protect all the lands — under your blessing and guidance, of course.’

The lands? You fool! Your blood protected me from my old enemies! And now they are coming!

‘Our blood protected… you?’

Yes! Fool! Blood sacrifice forestalls them. But now they are through! What is left to me? Who will- Wait! I sense them close. The ancient enemy. They have followed me even unto here. How will I hide? You! Why did you not die for me? Do so — now!

And the Lady’s presence snapped away, leaving Hiam reeling. His mind couldn’t catch at anything. His hands went to his neck. All this time… then all this time… No. It was too terrible to contemplate. Too horrific. A monstrous crime.

He rose from the floor, backed to a wall as if retreating from an invisible enemy. It was a lie. A deception. Somehow. But no. That had been the Lady. He knew her presence.

He had finally come to the true foundation of his faith and he wished he’d never done so.

His scorched thoughts turned to all the brethren who had preceded him — good men and women all. So many. Down through the ages. His heart went out to them in an ache of love that could not be borne. Countless! All trusting to the truth of their cause… Yes, trusting and… used.

He crossed to a gaping window, stared out at the snow-flecked night without seeing it. He knew what to do. What was one more death? He would die — but not for her.

No. Most certainly not for her.

Hiam climbed up on to the windowsill and threw himself from the tower, to tumble down into the heaving white-capped waters below.

Dockworkers among the maze of waterfront wharves serving the Korelri capital of Elri were still discussing the morning’s tremor — how the tall pilings wavered like ships’ masts! — when, before their eyes, the tide suddenly withdrew to an extent unheard of in any account. Fish lay jumping and gasping in the tidal muck abandoned by the waters. The rotted stumps of ancient docks reared like ragged teeth far out into the mudflats of the bay. Citizens still dazed from the shaking gathered on the waterfront to watch this eerie phenomenon.

A strange greenish cast grew in the sky to the west. A sound like a distant windstorm gathered. People stopped talking to listen and watch, hushed. Something was approaching up the bay — a wide green banner or wall hurrying in upon them like a landslide. The noise climbed to a raging whistling rush of wind that snapped cloaks and banners away. Citizens now screamed, pointing, or turned to run, or merely stared entranced as the wall swelled into an overtopping comber now breaking some seven fathoms high. It crashed through the shoreline without slowing or faltering and rushed on inland, taking villages, roads and fields on its way to slam smashing through the south-facing fortifications of Elri, demolishing those walls, toppling stone guard towers, gouging a three-block swath through jammed houses and shops.

As the water slowly withdrew it left behind a stirred, glutinous mass of brick, mud, shattered timbers and building stone. It sucked everything loose with it down the slope and back out into the bay, never to be seen again. And it left behind an empty shoreline of mud a full rod beyond its original contours.

*

Far within the channel maze of the saltwater marsh east of Elri, Orzu pulled his pipe from his mouth to sniff the air and eye the strange colour of the sky to the west. He leapt to his feet, threw the pipe aside and set his hands to his mouth, bellowing: ‘Everyone aboard! Now! Quick-like!’ The Sea-Folk stared, frozen where they squatted at cook fires or sat tying reeds. ‘Now!’ Orzu ordered. ‘Abandon it all! Cut the ropes!’

Cradling her child to her chest, Ena clambered on board. ‘What is it, Da?’

‘The Sea’s Vengeance, lass. Now tie yourself down.’ Aside, to another boat, he roared, ‘Throw all that timber overboard, Laza! Lighten the load.’

Ena wrapped one arm in a rope, tried to peer over the great fields of wind-lashed reeds bobbing taller than any man. A storm was hurrying in upon them. It cast a light over everything like none she’d ever seen before. It was as if the entire world was underwater.

Something was coming. She could hear it; a growling, rising in intensity. ‘Is it another shudder of the great earth goddess?’ she called.

‘The old sea god’s been awakened. And he’s angry.’ Orzu gestured urgently. ‘Mother! Drop that baggage and jump in now!’

The boat lurched. Ena peered over the side: the waters had risen. She glanced back west in time to see some dark wall advancing like night, consuming the leagues of waving grasses.

‘Here it comes!’ Orzu bellowed.

The vessel slammed sideways, twisting like a thrown top. Ena banged her head against the side, struggled to shield the babe pressed to her breast. When she next looked up they were charging north, water-borne, bobbing amid a storm of wreckage: uprooted trees, the roofs of huts, driftwood logs, all in a churning mulch of detritus mixed with a flux of mud. She watched a cousin’s boat become wedged between the boles of two enormous logs and crushed to shards. Her family members jumped to the roof of a hut spinning nearby.

The wave carried them over the sand cliffs bordering the marshlands and on inland, ever slowing, diminishing, thinning. Until finally, in its last ebbing gasp, it lifted them up to lie canted on the slope of a hillside far from the sight of the coast. She sat watching in wordless amazement as the waters swept back as if sucked, leaving behind in their wake a trail of ugly churned mud, soil, and stranded oddities such as the wall of a reed hut, or their boat itself: a curious ornament for a farmer’s field.

Orzu thumped down next to her and gave her head a look. ‘Are you all right then, child?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the babe?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you, mother!’ he yelled.

‘Fine, no thanks to you!’ she grumbled.

‘Do you think our friends had something to do with this?’ Ena asked, still rather dazed.

Orzu slapped the boat’s side. ‘Well… that I don’t know. But now I guess I’ll have to do what I’ve been threatening to do all this time.’

‘Which is?’ She wasn’t certain which of his threats he might be referring to.

‘Take up farming.’

Ena snorted. That might last a day.

‘Let’s round everyone up then,’ he said, patting all his pockets in search of his pipe.

The reassembled armies of Rool waited while its commanders, led by their Overlord himself, debated strategy. The camp had been cleaned up from the fires and panic of the series of tremors. Thankfully, while there had been some property damage, and some horses had been lost as they ran terrified, there had been little loss of life.

In a new tent, huddled next to a brazier, though he somehow felt warm enough for the first time in a decade, the Overlord Yeull was of the opinion that these invader Malazans, elements of the Fourth and Eighth Armies, must have fared much more poorly in the rough highlands, where landslides and rockfalls were so common.

A knot of army officers stood together, rather nervously eyeing the Overlord where he sat slumped, his face set in its habitual glower.

‘Do they mean to come upon Kor from the mountains?’ a young captain wondered aloud.

Yeull snorted. ‘They’re fools. They don’t know the country. The Barrier range is a maze of defiles and razorback ridges. They’ll starve.’

The officers, none of whom had ever set foot in Korel, nodded sagely.

A messenger entered, bowed next to the Overlord to whisper, his voice low. The Overlord frowned even more. ‘What?’

The messenger gestured outside. Scowling, Yeull pushed himself erect, straightened his thick bear cloak — though he was tempted to throw off the suffocating thing — and headed for the entrance. ‘Let’s have a look.’

The officers followed. Outside, Yeull shaded his eyes to gaze to the south-west where the coast curved in a bay that gave way to a headland. The tide appeared to have withdrawn significantly when it should be in. Mudflats lay exposed in an ugly brown and grey swath. Yeull ground his teeth. More Ruse trickery from that traitor bitch? What could she have in mind?

Ussu’s warning came to him but he pushed it aside. The man had reached the end of his usefulness. The Lady appeared to have finally dragged him into senility. In any case, they were safe here so far from the shore — he’d made sure of that. Nothing to… He squinted out past the bay, where the strait appeared to be experiencing unusually rough conditions. Something was coming into the bay. A tall bulge of water like a tidal bore, but fast, faster than any wave he’d ever heard of.

Amazed shouts sounded around him; soldiers pointing.

That was a lot of water and the bay was very shallow. Yeull’s gaze traced the long gentle rise up from the shore cliffs to their camp.

Lady, no… It could not be possible. No. I refuse to believe it.

The great rolling bulge was not only impossibly tall, it was also impossibly broad: it stretched all the way across the bay, perhaps even across the strait itself.

It numbed his imagination just to try to conceive of that volume of water, and that amount of destructive potential bearing down upon him.

The damned end of the world, just like these crazy Korelri were always going on about.

The wave did not strike the shore so much as absorb it, continuing on without any hesitation. Soldiers now broke to run in open panic.

Yeull stood his ground. Officers called begging for instructions but he ignored them. No. Impossible. It will not happen.

The churning front of mud, silt, sand, tumbling shore wreckage, even suspended hulks from the shore assault, all crashing and spinning, now came flying up the grade towards them. Its blasting roar was as of an avalanche. Yeull’s shoulders sagged. Gods damn you, Greymane. This is you, isn’t it? This is why these Chosen hated you so. These Korelri fanatics finally met someone as crazy as them. Don’t you know your name will go down as the greatest villain this region has ever known? Malazans won’t be able to enter this region for generations — you’ve lost all these lands for ever…

Inexorable, blasting two stone farmhouses to rubble and splinters as it came, the wavefront ploughed into the camp. It swept over tents, collected supplies, masses of men. Yeull’s last sight was of a maw of crashing tree trunks headed right for him.

On board the Malazan flagship, the Star of Unta, Devaleth had waited through the night and the dawn of the next day. At her urging the combined Malazan and Blue fleet had withdrawn to the centre of Crack Strait. Here they’d waited while, as far as she could tell, nothing happened. To their credit, neither Nok nor the Blue Admiral Swirl approached to pester her with questions or demands for explanations. They had accorded her the title High Mage, and seemed also willing to grant her due credibility as well.

All that changed in the early morning when a rumbling as of a thunderstorm rolled over the massed fleet. Devaleth looked to the west. That was a much greater report than she’d been expecting. To have reached them this far, so loudly…

Then far off, through the Warren of Ruse, she felt the sea lurch. Sea-Father forgive them! It was like the undersea tremors they taught about at the Ruse Academy. Immense volumes of water displaced, creating… She backed away from the side of the vessel. Nok stood nearby, concern on his craggy narrow face.

‘What is it, High Mage?’ he asked.

She found her voice, pulled her hand from her neck. ‘A wave, Admiral. Much larger than I had anticipated. A great flood. We must run before it. Order the fleet to spread out, head east — now. I will do all I can smooth our passage.’

Nok bowed, went to give the orders. After he went Devaleth gripped the side to stop her weakened legs from giving way. Smooth our passage! Laugh, great Sea-Father! May as well try to hold back an earth tremor with one’s bare hands. Everyone must be warned of this.

Captain Fullen, temporarily in command of the garrison at Banith, had a heart-stopping moment shaving when an apparition flickered into existence in his tent. He almost cut himself fatally when he jerked, surprised, as a hollow distorted voice spoke: ‘Commander…’

He spun, pressing a cloth to his cheek, to see a shimmering image of the Mare mage, the new High Mage. ‘A great wave is approaching,’ the woman continued. ‘You may have until noon. You must take steps to evacuate Banith immediately. Take all steps necessary. Admiral Nok orders this.’

The image wavered then disappeared. Fullen stared where it had appeared, wiped the blood and soap from his face. Togg deliver him… just like the old tales of how things used to get done in the Empire. And he’d thought he’d never see the like!

He ran from the tent, bellowing orders as he went.

A similar apparition appeared in many coastal cities, Balik and Molz in Katakan, Danig and Filk in Theft.

In Stygg, deep within the pleasure palace of Ebon, its ruler gaped at the image, heard its warning, then quickly acted upon its appearance: he gathered together all the twenty self-styled sorcerers, warlocks and witches he paid to protect him from such things and had them executed immediately.

Only in Mare, at Black city and Rivdo, were the warnings given any credence, though they originated from a damned traitor.

Devaleth also attempted to reach to the west, to Dour and Wolt in Dourkan, but the shattering disruptions she met in Ruse threw her back and she could not reach.

After sending what few warnings she could, she sat to gather her strength. She reached out to Ruse, extending her summons as far as she ever had — the burgeoning puissance nearing from the west called to her but she kept away, knowing it would consume her in an instant. Instead, she decided upon an old water-witch’s trick from her youth: sea-soothing. Like oil upon water, the localized rounding off of rough water. It was simple, easy to sustain, and this would free her to concentrate upon drawing from the yammering waterfall of power coursing through Ruse — potency that would flick her to ashes in a moment’s slip of concentration.

Horrified cries rose but she did not crack open her eyes. Ropes suddenly drew tight about her, binding her to a cabin wall, but she was far gone from her flesh — she rode the shockwave itself as it coursed through Ruse. Above a swelling roar Nok’s voice sounded, ordering more sail. Devaleth worked to gather a pool of calm: a smooth surface like a slick of oil that would ride above the churning froth bearing down upon them. Accomplishing this, she worked now on spreading it to protect as much of the fleet as she could reach.

The roar intensified beyond bearing; nothing could penetrate its ear-shattering continual thunderclap. The Star of Unta suddenly lurched forward, picking up speed like a child’s toy. It struck an impossible forward attitude. A rope’s explosive snap penetrated the roar; boards groaned. Equipment tumbled down the deck, rolling and crashing for the bow. The ropes constraining Develath held her back. Someone screamed, falling forward, rolling along the decking. She fought at the limits of her strength — not to maintain the workings of the Warren, but to hold back the immense forces striving to break through her grip like an enraged bear striking at the thinnest of cloth. If even the smallest fraction of it should squeeze through it would annihilate her and the vessel together.

The Star of Unta now rode a waterfall slope, its angle pitched almost straight down. The crest! We were upon the crest! Devaleth bore down with all her might to maintain the mental contours of the sea-soothing charm. How grateful she was for its simplicity, its time-honed elegance. And we in Mare sneer at these water-witches! They know what works, and do not mess with it!

With another ominous chorus of groanings the vessel heaved itself flatter, falling at the stern. A mast-top snapped, falling with a deck-shuddering crash. Devaleth maintained her concentration, moving now with the wavefront, easing the passage of every vessel she could reach.

Someone was kneeling with her and a wet cloth was pressed to her brow. The coolness and the gentleness of the gesture revived her immensely. She dared slit open one eye: it was the old Admiral, Nok.

‘How did you know that would help?’ she ground through her clenched teeth.

‘A mage named Tattersail told me — long ago.’

She grunted — of course. This man has seen them all.

‘Well done, High Mage,’ he said. ‘I believe we are through the worst. And that was the worst I’ve ever seen. The end of the world.’

‘No. Not the end of the world, Admiral. The end of their world.’

Nodding, he squeezed her shoulder and rose; instinctively, he understood that he’d distracted her enough, and withdrew.

Once the titanic wavefront had swept on far enough — far outstripping the lumbering progress of the vessels — she relaxed. She tried to rise but fell back, tied down. Utterly exhausted, she cleared her throat to croak, ‘Would someone get these ropes off me!’

Sailors untied her and then the Blue Admiral, Swirl, gently attempted to raise her up but she could not move. Her vision suddenly swirled pink and all sounds disappeared. Agonizing pain seized her joints. No! The depth-sickness! It had her! In the panic she’d neglected her protections!

Yells of alarm rose around her as she suddenly, explosively, vomited up great gouts of bile and water.

Ivanr had returned to his weeding. It was heavy work; he’d been away for some time. It was demanding and he was out of shape. How it hurt his chest to bend down!

Someone was following him but he ignored her.

‘Ivanr,’ she called. ‘Your work is not yet done.’

Don’t I know it — just look at the mess of this garden!

‘Your garden lies elsewhere…’

He turned on the annoying voice to find himself staring down at the small slim form of the Priestess. You are dead.

‘And you will be as well if you keep retreating from your duty.’

Duty? Have I not done enough?

‘No. A life’s time would not be enough. The fight is unending.’

I know. He gestured around. You see?

‘Exactly. You are needed. Think of it as… stewardship.’

Someone else can manage that. He bent to his weeding, wincing, and holding his chest.

‘No. It has fallen to you — not because you are somehow special or singled out by fate. It is just that your turn has come. As it came to me.’

He straightened, studied his muddy hands. That I can understand, I suppose. None of this stupid special chosen nonsense.

‘Yes. It is your turn — as it is everyone’s at some time. The test is in our response.’

He slowly nodded, looked up at the sky. Yes. The test is how you answer. Yes. He rubbed his hands together. I suppose so…

‘Ivanr?’ another voice called, this one an old woman. ‘Ivanr?’

He blinked his eyes, opened them to the hides of his tent outside the city, on his bed. It was day. The old mage, Sister Gosh, was leaning over him, the long dirty curls of her hair hanging down.

‘Ivanr?’

‘Yes?’

She sagged her relief. ‘Thank the foreign gods. You’re alive.’

‘I thought you said we wouldn’t meet again…’

She waved her hands. ‘Never mind about that. I was wrong. Now listen, order Ring city evacuated. You must! It is vital! You will save countless lives. Now do it!’

‘Order the city evacuated?’

‘Yes. A great flood is approaching. Call it the Lady’s Wrath, whatever. Just order it!’

He frowned. ‘I can’t say that…’

‘Just do it!’ she yelled.

He blinked, surprised, and she was gone. Guards flew into the tent, glared about. Then, seeing him awake, they fell to their knees.

He cleared his throat, croaked hoarsely: ‘Evacuate the city.’

The guards glanced to one another. ‘Deliverer…?’

‘Evacuate the city!’ He squeezed his chest. ‘It… it is doomed. Empty it now.’

Eyes widening in superstitious fear and awe, the guards backed away. Then they bowed reverently. ‘Yes, Deliverer!’ And fled.

Ivanr eased himself back down into his bed. He massaged his chest. Gods, how giving orders hurt!

*

Sister Gosh straightened from where she’d taken cover from the gusting frigid wind next to Cyclopean stones that anchored an immense length of chain, the links of which were as thick as her thigh. The huge chain extended out across a wide gap of water between the tips of two cliffs, the ends of a ridge of rock that encircled a deep well that was supposedly bottomless. The Ring. Metal mesh netting hung from the chain — a barrier to anything larger than a fish.

She studied the rusted gnawed metal of the chain, pulled a silver flask from her shawls, up-ended it in a series of gulping swallows then shook it, found it empty, and shrugging threw it away. She set both hands upon the final link and bent her head down to it, concentrating. Smoke wafted from the iron and a red glow blossomed beneath her hands.

‘It’s just you and I now, Sister Gosh,’ someone said from behind her.

Sighing, she turned to see Brother Totsin, the wind tossing his peppery hair and the tatters of his frayed vest, shirt and trousers. ‘Thought you’d show up.’

‘The Lady is with me, Gosh. I suggest you join as well.’

Sister Gosh sighed again. ‘The Lady is using you, fool. And in any case, she’s finished.’

‘Not if you fail here.’

‘I won’t.’

Totsin frowned, disappointed, as if he were dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘You cannot win. The Lady has granted me full access to her powers.’

‘Meaning she owns you.’

His greying goatee writhed as he scowled his irritation. ‘Be the stubborn fool then. I never liked you.’

‘I’m relieved to hear that.’

He launched himself upon her. Their arms met in an eruption of power that shook the stones beneath their feet. Rocks tumbled down some ten fathoms to the blue-black waters of the Hole below. The gargantuan chain rattled and clacked to vibrate in a frothing line across the gap. The flesh of Sister Gosh’s hands wrinkled and cracked as if desiccated. She snarled, bearing down further, her face darkening in effort. A satisfied smile crept up behind Totsin’s goatee.

Like an explosion a crack shot through the chiselled stone beside them anchoring the chain. Snarling, Totsin twisted to heave Sister Gosh out over the Hole. Black tendrils like ribbons snapped out around him, yanking him backwards, and the two released their mutual grip with a great thunderclap of energy.

A new figure now stood upon the narrow stone perch, tall, emaciated, dressed all in black, his black hair a wild mass. ‘I have come back!’ he announced.

Edging round to face both, Totsin nodded to the newcomer: ‘Carfin. I am surprised to see you again.’

‘The truth at last, Totsin. The truth at last.’

A rumbling swelled in the distance as of a thunderstorm, though only high clouds obscured the sky. Sister Gosh and Carfin shared alarmed glances.

Totsin laughed. ‘Too late!’

‘Not yet,’ Sister Gosh snarled, and she threw everything she had at him.

The blast of energies surprised Totsin, throwing him back a step. Carfin levelled his Warren as well. The coursing power revealed far more potency than even Sister Gosh suspected of him — it seemed his sojourn within his Warren had granted him much greater confidence in his abilities. Totsin flailed beneath the cataract streams coursing upon him then, grimacing, leaned forward, edging in upon them. Carfin gestured again and a cowl of black snapped over the man’s face. His hands leapt to the hood, grasping, tearing it into shreds. Sister Gosh yelled as she drew up a great coil of might that she snapped out upon Totsin. He flinched back, crying aloud, and stumbled off the lip. Sister Gosh kept her punishment centred upon him all the way down, and, though she could not be sure, she believed he struck the water far below.

‘Thank you,’ she gasped to Carfin.

‘It was nothing.’

She turned to the anchor stone and the chain. ‘Quickly now.’

Each pressed hands to the final link, stressing, heating, searching for weaknesses. The water, she noted, now ran far higher on the chain than it had before. Thunder rising in pitch announced the approach of something enormous emerging from Bleeder’s Cut.

‘What was it like?’ she asked while they worked.

‘What was what like?’

‘Your Warren. Darkness. Rashan.’

‘I don’t know,’ Carfin answered, straight-faced. ‘It was dark.’

The metal glowed yellow now beneath Sister Gosh’s hands. Drips of molten metal ran down the sides. ‘You mean like that slimy cave you live in?’

Carfin clapped his hands and the metal of the link suddenly darkened to black beneath a coating of frost. It burst in an explosion of metal shards, Sister Gosh yanking her hands away. Screeching, grinding, the immense length of iron dragged itself down the lip of the cliff to flick from sight. Away across the gap water foamed and settled over its length as it sank.

‘It is not a cave,’ Carfin told Gosh. ‘It is a subterranean domicile.’

The ridge of solid rock they stood upon shook then, rolling and heaving. A titanic bulge of water came coursing over the bay created where Bleeder’s Cut met Flow Strait. The wave, more a wall of water, flowed over the Hole and with it went swift glimmering flashes of mother-of-pearl and brilliant sapphire.

Sister Gosh and Carfin sat on the lip of the stone. These flashes of light sank within the nearly black waters of the Hole. They seemed to descend for a long time. Then eruptions frothed the surface, greenish light flashing, coruscating from the depths. Over the Hole the surface bulged alarmingly, as from the pressures of an immense explosion. Then they hissed, steaming and frothing anew. Fog obscured the pit of the Ring, hanging in thick scarves.

The afternoon faded towards evening. Sister Gosh watched the undersides of the clouds painted in deep mauve and pink. More shapes came flashing through the waters to descend into the Hole. She fancied she saw the shells of their armour opalescent in emerald and gold. Reinforcements?

Whatever was down there was a long time in dying. Eruptions blistered the surface anew. Lights flickered like undersea flames. It seemed a full-blown war somewhere far beyond the ken of humankind.

Slowly, by degrees, the ferocity of the struggle in the depths appeared to wane. Evening darkened into twilight. Carfin amused himself making shapes of darkness dance upon the stones. Seeing this, Sister Gosh growled far down in her throat. The shapes bowed to her, then diffused into nothingness. Carfin sighed and shifted his skinny haunches. ‘Now what?’

‘Now everyone and their dog will be a hedge-wizard or sea-soother.’

Carfin wrinkled his nose. ‘Gods. It’ll be awful.’ He rose, dusted off his trousers. ‘I’ll stay in my cave — that is, my domicile.’

‘Good riddance.’

‘And to you.’ He stepped into darkness and disappeared.

Now that’s just plain showing off.

Below, swift shapes passed beneath the soles of her mud-covered, tattered shoes, coursing out into the bay. Far fewer than had entered, that was for sure. So it was over, here at least. What of elsewhere? Did the Riders fare as well against their other targets? Who knew? She was dog-tired. So tired she wondered whether there was a boat somewhere on this damned island.

Suth and Corbin followed Keri through the tunnels. They stayed close as the woman showed an alarming willingness to throw her Moranth munitions wherever she wished, and at the least hint of danger.

Almost hugging her back, Suth asked, ‘Did the old man send you to help us?’

She sent him an irritated glare over her shoulder. ‘What old man?’

‘Never mind. So, they sent you to find us? All alone?’

She stopped in the dimness of a tunnel, turned on him, an explosive shrapnel munition called a sharper in one fist. ‘Listen, Dal Hon. Alone is better, right? That way I can throw these without having to worry about your sorry arses, right?’

Suth raised his hands in surrender. ‘Yes, okay! Whatever you say.’

‘Damned straight.’

Corbin raised the lamp. ‘What’s the hold-up?’

‘Numbnuts here,’ Keri muttered. Corbin and Suth shared commiserating looks. ‘This way,’ Keri ordered, and headed off.

Suth expected Stormguard to jump out from every corner. He was shaken by their ruthless competence. They were ferocious opponents. Of their separated party only he and Corbin remained on their feet. Both squads had been ravaged, and Suth frankly doubted any of them would live to see the light of day again.

Keri led them through sections of half-collapsed tunnels, the scenes of confrontations where the dead lay where they fell, Stormguard and Malazan alike. Suth recognized the body of Sergeant Twofoot, nearly hacked to pieces. A faint yellowish glow ahead signalled a light source and Keri halted. She made a tapping noise, some sort of signal. It was answered differently but apparently correctly for she straightened, waving them on.

They entered a guarded chamber holding all that was left of the team: Fist Rillish, bearing many cuts, the Adjunct Kyle, Captain Peles, her armour gashed and helm dented, the squat priest, Sergeant Goss, Wess, and a few of Twofoot’s squad.

Goss squeezed Suth’s shoulder. ‘The others?’

‘Too wounded.’ The priest, Ipshank, straightened from where he’d been sitting. ‘Manask…’

‘He was wounded, unconscious last we saw.’

Fist Rillish came forward. ‘And the elder, Gheven?’

‘He left by Warren to get help.’

Ipshank grunted at that. ‘Good. But we can’t count on it. We must press forward.’

Fist Rillish turned on the man. ‘Why? Tell me that. We are outnumbered. I see no reason to lose anyone more.’

Ipshank nodded his understanding. ‘Yet we must.’

‘Why?’

The priest looked to Kyle who watched, arms crossed, the grip and pommel of the sword at his side glowing in the dim light. ‘Because I believe Greymane is going to use his sword, Adjunct. And when he does we must be ready to finish what he has begun — else it will all be for nothing.’

Perhaps unconsciously, the young Adjunct’s fist went to his own sword to close there, tight. He shook his head, in a kind of rueful self-mockery as if at some joke known only to him, and on him. ‘I understand, Ipshank. I will go on. No one need accompany me.’

‘I will, of course,’ Ipshank answered.

‘And I,’ the Fist added.

‘And I,’ said Captain Peles.

‘We’re all goin’,’ Goss rumbled, and signed Move out.

They advanced unopposed through sections of the tunnels. The Adjunct and the Fist led, followed by Captain Peles and the priest, then the regular troopers including Suth, Corbin and Wess. Sergeant Goss brought up the rear. Suth wondered at the lack of opposition but he overheard the Fist opining that they’d withdrawn to guard their target. Ipshank now guided them, choosing corners and which chambers to pass by or enter.

Eventually they reached a widening in the excavation that ended at solid stone. Tall double doors reared in the naked cliff bearing the sigil of the Lady, the white starburst. After glancing about, wary of ambush, the Adjunct approached, tried the doors, found them closed and secured. He drew his blade. In the dimness it glowed like pure sunlight. Two-handed, he struck directly down into the middle where the doors met, and hacked through in a ringing of metal. He kicked a leaf and it swung heavily open, crashing against stone. They crowded forward.

It was a temple to the Lady. A long columned hall gave way to a wider chamber. Daylight streamed in from high up through portals cut into the rock. Awaiting them were gathered some twenty Stormguard. Behind them two priests flanked the tiny figure of a young girl who held before her a chest of dark wood glowing with silver tracery.

‘Retreat, heretics,’ one of the bearded priests called, ‘or be destroyed by the holy wrath of the Lady.’

They spread out, the Adjunct and Fist Rillish taking the centre of the line. The Adjunct edged forward. He did not bother answering. One priest stamped his staff against the polished stone flagging and the Korelri spread out, drawing blades. A faint blue-green flame, an auora all too familiar to Suth, arose around the two priests. They touched their staffs to the Stormguard before them and the flames spread from man to man down the lines.

On Suth’s right the priest Ipshank growled, ‘Shit.’ He shouted: ‘They’ll ignore wounds now!’

Suth knew this from prior experience. The priests howled some sort of invocation to the Lady and levelled their staffs. The flames leapt across the chamber to strike the Adjunct and Ipshank, who flinched, stepping back, grunting their pain and raising arms to protect their faces, but neither fell back.

The Korelri charged.

Suth fought with sword and shield. The Stormguard attacked first with spears.

Keri raised a sharper but the Fist yelled at her to stop. Cursing, she swung the bag to her rear and drew two long-knives. The Adjunct leapt forward, swinging. His blade struck a Stormguard but was deflected away in a shower of sparks and crackling energy.

‘Who protects you?’ a priest yelled at the Adjunct.

Ipshank grasped a spear thrust at him and held on though his hands smoked. The stink of burning flesh wafted over Suth. The troopers from Twofoot’s squad fell. Keri stepped into the gap, parrying. Suth was almost taken by a thrust as he peered over, terrified for her. A spearhead grazed her face, then another took her in the thigh and she fell. Goss hacked two of the Stormguard but they would not fall, and, momentarily surprised, the sergeant was thrust through the stomach. Wess and Corbin held the gap but were close to being overborne. Then a huge figure came bounding into the room to join them: Manask, his armour hanging from him in shreds. He’d somewhere found a great halberd, which he swung, beheading a Stormguard. The headless body tottered and fell.

The Stormguard facing Ipshank freed his spear and thrust the priest in the side. The man fell to his knees. Fist Rillish stepped into the gap and the arcing blue-green flames shifted to envelop him. He screamed, smoking, and fell writhing in agony. Captain Peles let out a howl and hacked about her in a blind raging fury.

Then the earth moved. It kicked everyone from their feet, bucking and heaving. A great shriek of pained rock tore through the chamber. Rubble fell over them. A stone struck Suth, felling him. Dust and pulverized stone filled the chamber, swirling through broad beams of daylight. Then the reverberations and tremors eased into stillness and all was silent but for settling rock and the distant crash of surf.

The last tumbling stones clattered into the distance and Suth came to. He shook the dust from his face and helmet. The lancing pain in his shoulder was nothing compared to the crushing weight of the block of stone trapping his sandalled foot. Pushing with both hands, he managed to yank it free of the slim gap that stopped the great block from utterly flattening it. Around him, through the swirling dust, men and women groaned, rousing themselves. Daylight streamed through the dust and Suth blinked, trying to make sense of what he saw.

It seemed that the massive tremor had caused a landslide, or fault, and the far wall of the chamber had been shorn away with a portion of the rock it was cut from. Wind gusted through the chamber, lashing the dust away, and Suth had a bird’s view of the broad Fist Sea and its curved mountainous borders. Standing on this new cliff edge was one remaining priest, blood glistening through his torn robes down one side, one hand tight upon the girl, who still gripped the chest to herself, her eyes huge. Four remaining Stormguard stood before them, swords out.

Advancing upon them came Kyle, helmet gone, his black hair a tangled mess of dust and wet blood. Suth found his sword among the broken rock and pushed himself erect to follow. Also staggering up from the rubble came Fist Rillish and Captain Peles.

Before Kyle could engage a waiting Stormguard, the priest gestured and a lance of the green-blue fire shot out to strike him in the chest. He reeled backwards, grunting his pain, but he did not fall.

‘Who protects you?’ the priest bellowed again, enraged, foam at his mouth. ‘It is of the earth! I sense it! Who dares!’

Kyle’s arms fell as he stared, shocked. ‘The earth…?’ he echoed, wonder in his voice.

At that moment the Stormguard charged. Suth met one in a desperate delaying strategy, giving way, yielding, hoping beyond hope that one of his companions would finish their own opponent and come to aid him. Beside him, Fist Rillish fought with his two swords, exhausted, parrying only, hardly able to raise the tips of those slim weapons. Captain Peles fought doggedly, the only one of them to have retained a shield, which she hunched behind, refusing to give ground.

Kyle, recovering, hacked down the Stormguard and advanced upon the priest. Seeing death coming to him the priest howled his fury and thrust both hands out in a blast that threw up a cloud of dust, blinding everyone and bringing down further rocks, shaking the uncertain perch of the very cave. Suth, blinking, wiped an arm across his eyes, coughing. The Stormguard lashed out with a cut, judging his distance expertly from that mere cough, slicing Suth across his chest. The Korelri raised his sword for the killing stroke but lurched aside instead, falling. It was the priest, Ipshank. The man gripped the Stormguard’s helmed head between his broad wrestler’s hands and twisted, snapping sideways. The crunch of cartilage and vertebrae cracking made Suth flinch. He helped Ipshank to his feet.

Behind the Stormguard, the lashing wind tore the dust away to reveal the Adjunct down and the priest of the Lady exulting, laughing, the child yet at his side, frozen in horror, frozen in terror. That triumphant smile fell away, however, as a new figure bounded in from the side, rolling, closing with the priest — Faro. Before the priest could even react the Claw stitched him with countless knife-thrusts. Gaping his disbelief the man stared, unmoving, until Faro kicked him over the edge. Then the Claw turned to look down at the girl and raised his gleaming wet blades.

‘No!’ Fist Rillish yelled, charging past the Stormguard. The Korelri slashed his back as he passed. The Fist yanked the girl from Faro’s side.

Suth engaged the Stormguard, Ipshank limping just behind. ‘Do not touch the chest!’ the priest yelled.

Shrugging, Faro lazily advanced on the Stormguard Suth faced and the Korelri turned to keep the two of them before him. All this time Captain Peles exchanged ringing blows with the only other Korelri standing. They seemed to have made a pact to see who could outlast the other.

Shifting, panting, his foot numb and almost useless, Suth tried to bring the Stormguard’s back to Faro. Ipshank yelled then, next to him, ‘Rillish!’

Suth snapped a quick glance to the cliff edge. The Fist, his hands on the shoulders of the girl before him, was slowly leaning as if drunk. His eyes rolled up white and he tottered backwards, his hands slipping from the girl’s shoulders. He disappeared over the edge.

‘No!’ Peles howled and she smashed the Korelri facing her in a blurred storm of blows, literally crushing him to the ground before charging to the edge. Ipshank ran as well.

‘Yield,’ Suth gasped breathlessly to the last standing Stormguard.

The Chosen snorted from within his helm. ‘Don’t be a fool.’

‘You’re the fool,’ Suth answered, and nodded to Faro.

The Korelri snapped a quick glance to Faro, and as he did so the Claw flicked a hand. The Chosen flinched, his arms jumping like a puppet’s, then he sank to his knees and fell on his side. The handle of a throwing blade protruded from the narrow vision slit of his helm.

Suth limped for the cliff edge. Here he found Captain Peles, her helm thrown aside, white hair a matted sweaty mess, panting, gulping in great breaths. Out over the yawning gulf, straight-armed, she held the child by her shirt. The chest lay to one side.

‘Don’t do it,’ Ipshank was saying in a low calm voice. ‘Don’t give in to it. Don’t. You’ll never forgive yourself.’

Tears ran down the woman’s grimed, sweaty face. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a savage frozen snarl.

No one dared move. Far below the waves pounded, white-capped, insistent. Rocks tumbled and clattered down the freshly exposed cliff.

‘Don’t yield to it,’ Ipshank said, not begging nor commanding, simply matter-of-fact.

The woman drew three great shuddering breaths, seemed on the verge of weeping, then threw the child to Ipshank and stalked away, her hands over her face.

The priest held the girl to him. ‘Get everyone up,’ he told Suth.

A dash of water from a goatskin woke Kyle, who groaned, stirring. Whatever was supposed to have been protecting him appeared to have insulated him from the blast, as his only wound was the gash that split his scalp. Manask had escaped death yet again by virtue of his extraordinary armour, which even in its shredded state had protected him from an immense knife-edged stone that pinned him down. Suth and Kyle levered the stone aside and pulled him up. Pulverized rock rained from the fellow like flour. Goss they woke, then Kyle set to binding his wound. Wess they found buried under great blocks but alive. Corbin lay aside, motionless, covered in rock dust. Suth found Keri unconscious from loss of blood. He went to work binding up her leg.

Faro merely cleaned his blades. Captain Peles sat aside, head sunk in her hands. Ipshank called from the cliff edge where he sat, the girl in his arms, asleep or unconscious. ‘Look at the sea…’

Finished with Keri’s wound, Suth came to the edge. Some disturbance ran like a line across the surface of the inland body of water for as far as he could see. And it was approaching the base of their cliffs with unnatural speed.

‘Manask,’ Ipshank called. He gestured to the chest with a foot. ‘I want this as far out to sea as possible… but don’t touch it!’

Manask bounced his fingertips together as if deep in thought. ‘You know… we could get a fortune-’

‘Manask!’

He raised his hands in surrender. ‘Just a thought!’

Ipshank pointed. ‘The sea.’

‘Yes, yes. If we must. Simplicity itself!’ the giant answered — though far less a giant now as he was missing his great thick mane of hair, revealing his bald head. And he had lost or kicked aside his tall boots. His layered armour hung from him in loose, torn folds.

The big man selected one of the Korelri spears. He pushed the butt end through a grip of the chest then carefully extended it behind him, sideways. Everyone moved aside.

With a savage flick he snapped the spear forward like a kind of throwing stick, flinging the chest far out from the cliff. Suth followed its fall. So small was the chest, and so great the distances involved, he could not see it striking the surface.

Almost immediately, however, a froth arose among the waves. A glow flashed, bluish and lancing, slashing, as if striking out. Bright shapes coursed among the waves, closing from all sides. Within that patch the water foamed as if boiling.

Kyle stepped up to the edge next to Ipshank and stood watchful, hands at his belt. The squat man eyed the youth, his gaze concerned. ‘We don’t know for certain…’ he began, but the plainsman shook his head and turned away. As he went Suth saw him wipe at his face.

Manask elbowed Ipshank. ‘All finished with this nonsense now? A lifetime’s quest fulfilled, yes?’

‘Let’s hope so,’ the priest ground out.

From the rear of the cavern, behind them all, Captain Peles yelled out: ‘Attend!’

Suth turned on his wounded foot, wincing. There, filing in, came Black Moranth one after the other, until some twenty faced them. Suth would have groaned aloud if he wasn’t so appalled. Captain Peles faced them, sword readied. Kyle joined her, and Wess staggered over to them.

‘I could use my preternatural skills to sneak away — but I will stand by your side,’ Manask told Ipshank.

‘What a comfort.’

Suth glanced around for Faro, to discover that the Claw obviously did not share the giant’s sense of comradeship. He drew his sword to limp up to Wess’ side.

Then an old man slipped out from among the ranks of the Moranth: the Drenn elder, Gheven. ‘I’m sorry we are so late — we were held up by collapsed tunnels.’

Suth stared at the man, uncomprehending. ‘You… brought the Moranth? To help?’

One of the Blacks bowed. ‘I am Commander Borun. We have contracted with our cousins the Blue to lend you aid. I apologize for our tardiness.’

Kyle lowered his blade. ‘You are with the Blues?’

‘Yes. Our obligations to the Overlord ended… dissatisfactorily.’

Suth could not think of anything to say; he exchanged an uncertain look with Wess, who appeared hardly able to stand on his feet, a gash down his entire side running with blood that soaked his leg.

‘See to the wounded,’ the commander told his troops, and they fanned out over the cavern.

Suth brought Gheven to Ipshank.

The old man peered out over the cliff, where lights flashed like an undersea eruption beneath the waters of the Fist Sea. ‘I dared not hope,’ he breathed.

‘Let’s hope they were successful elsewhere as well.’

‘I fear not,’ the old man said, his voice low.

Kneeling at the unconscious girl’s side, Ipshank stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I still sense her. She has not been utterly destroyed.’

‘Where?’

‘The Tower, I think. If I should guess.’

Ipshank grunted his agreement. ‘Hundreds of Korelri guard that place. Too many.’ Rising, he rubbed a hand over his shaven pate. ‘I can’t ask any more of anyone here.’

Gheven was quick to nod. ‘Yes. I understand. We can only hope.’

‘Yes.’ Ipshank raised the girl in his arms, grimacing against his wounds. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ He called across the chamber: ‘We should go, Adjunct. Collect the others.’

Kyle signalled his assent to the Moranth commander Borun, who then passed on the Malazan hand-sign move out to his troops.

Suth watched while the Moranth assembled a stretcher from Korelri spears and a cloak and laid Keri on it. Two picked up Corbin. Another raised Goss; Manask waved aside numerous offers of help. They filed out, following Gheven. Suth noticed that Kyle stood peering out over the cliff for some time in a long lonely vigil, and that he was the last to leave.

Shell stepped out of Blues’ D’riss Warren on to a muddy flattened wasteland of sluggish channels and humped, scoured-clean sand bars. She peered about mutely, as did the rest of the Crimson Guard.

‘Is this the right spot?’ she asked Blues, who’d been the first to emerge.

The man was looking around, still dumbfounded. ‘This is it. I don’t understand — wait! The wave. There must have been a huge wave here as well. The marsh has been swept over.’

In the distance a weak tendril of white smoke climbed into the twilight sky. They slogged their way to it. Lazar carried Corlo. Jemain helped Bars stumble along, his chest now bound. Fingers followed, coughing, leaning from side to side to press alternating nostrils closed and blow.

They found a dreary camp amid the wet sands, consisting of Orzu and a few of his numerous sons. The old man, pipe in mouth, rose to greet them. ‘I knew you would come,’ he said with a smile, holding out his arms.

Blues clapped the man’s back, then held him at arm’s length, frowning. ‘The girl…’

‘Ena,’ Shell said.

‘Ach! She is fine. It is too cold out here for her and the babe.’

‘Baby?’ Shell echoed.

The old man grinned with his stained rotten teeth. ‘Aye, a babe. Shell, she is named. Good name for the Sea-Folk, yes?’

Shell nodded, rather dazed.

‘You still have boats?’ Blues asked.

The man waggled his head. ‘Well… a few.’

Blues waved the matter aside. ‘Don’t worry. We don’t require one any more. We’ll make our own way. We just stopped to let you know…’ His voice tailed off as Fingers, aside, suddenly turned away and raised a hand for silence.

Shell looked over as well: something…

Blues peered south also, his gaze slitting.

‘What is it?’ Orzu asked, pulling his pipe from his mouth.

Shell sensed them now: Crimson Guard, but not. The Disavowed. Those who followed Skinner in his throw to take over the Guard, exiled by K’azz. Her gaze went to Bars. And he is come as well.

Hugging himself, Bars slowly straightened. Awareness came to his eyes. ‘He’s here. The bastard’s here!’

Orzu now clamped his lips shut, his gaze moving between them, calculating.

‘What’s south of here?’ Blues asked, his voice taut.

Orzu shrugged, bewildered. ‘Why, there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just Remnant Isle. But no one’s there.’

‘Nothing? On the island?’

Orzu pursed his lips. ‘Well… there is the-’ He stopped himself.

Blues turned to eye the man directly. ‘Talk, old man.’

Orzu studied his pipe, turning it in his hands. ‘Trust me, outlanders. You don’t want to go there.’

Bars took a step towards Orzu but Blues raised a hand, halting him. ‘We need to know. Tell us.’

Orzu’s sons had risen as well and hands had gone to belt-knives and staves. The old man waved them down. ‘A tower, foreigner. The Stormguard’s sanctuary, hidden far back from the wall. But you cannot go there. Too many of them.’

‘I’m going,’ Bars ground out, his voice rasping.

‘No you’re not,’ Blues said.

The man gulped an objection, his eyes widening, shocked. ‘What?’

Blues raised a hand. ‘I’m sorry — you’re in no shape.’

Lazar gently set Corlo down next to the fire. ‘We’ll need everyone,’ he said.

‘Blues,’ Shell breathed, ‘you and I and Fingers are under no constraints now.’

The short Napan leaned his head back, looking skyward. Shell held out a hand: a few fat raindrops struck from the darkening clouds. Blues threw down the sticks at his belt, gestured to the Sea-Folk youths. ‘Give me those knives.’

The two looked at Orzu, who waved for them to do so. They handed over the thick curved blades. Blues hefted them, testing their weight and balance, then shoved them into his belt. Jemain handed Bars a sword he’d scavenged in Ice Tower. ‘Lazar and Bars and I will stand together.’ Blues looked to Shell. ‘You and Fingers will switch in and out of Warren, covering us. I’ll take us through.’

Bars turned to Jemain, who’d crossed to Corlo. ‘If I don’t come back… well, you and Corlo will make it back from here.’

Jemain nodded. ‘Yes. And… thank you, Captain.’

Bars swallowed, looking away.

Shell caught the old man’s eye. ‘Say goodbye to Ena and the babe.’

Orzu forced something like an encouraging smile, bowed. ‘Fare you well.’

‘Closer,’ Blues ordered.

They came out on a bare rocky shore that looked to have recently been washed over by a very high tide or large wave: fresh torn seaweed lay draped atop boulders and the dark water-staining rose all the way up to the base of a wide plain tower that sat atop the very centre of this small isle.

Shell immediately raised her Warren, that of Serc, the Warren of Air and Storm, and flickered in and out, covering Blues and Bars and Lazar as they carefully climbed the slope. She knew that elsewhere, hidden, Fingers was doing the same.

She saw the scene in two differing frames. In one, the three men climbed the unremarkable barrier of rough uneven boulders, while in another the telltale marring and scars lingered of enormous energies expended and horrendous damage given and taken. Bodies lay among the rocks — slain Stormriders that she stepped right over. Their armour appeared to be a mixture of their sorcerous scaled ice over mundane materials such as shell, cold-forged copper, and exotic hides. They were fair, with pale hair. The characteristic features she saw among the corpses reminded her of the Tiste Andii.

The three reached the top and here Blues called to her. She stepped out of her Warren right next to him. He gestured ahead. Dead Korelri Stormguard were piled before the single, now blasted open, doorway to the tower. ‘Anyone?’ he asked, raising his chin to the tower.

She studied it from her Warren. ‘No. None remain alive within.’

Fingers appeared, gestured, Sighted.

They closed on the tower wall, slid along around it. There, down the slope at an open sorcerous gateway into a roiling greyish Warren — Chaos? — the Disavowed. She recognized the Dal Hon mage Mara with her piled curled mane of hair, and Shijel, who favoured two swords and always fancied himself a match for Blues. More ducked through the gate, disappearing even as she watched.

But last, in his long coat-like glittering black armour, Skinner, holding a chest bound all in silver fittings.

Bars charged out from cover, bounding in great running leaps from boulder to boulder down the slope like some sort of hunting cat. ‘Skinnerrrrrr!’ he roared as he went.

‘Bars!’ Blues yelled, then, ‘Shit!’ And ran out after him. They all followed, clambering pell-mell down the rugged bare rocks.

Skinner’s helmed head snapped round, then leaned back as the man laughed. ‘Bars! Is that you? You look like Hood’s own shit!’

Mara and Shijel paused, but Skinner motioned them in and they disappeared. He edged one step backwards, right to the lip of the flickering portal, while Bars closed. The helm cocked as the man judged his timing. ‘Lost them all, did you, Bars?’ he called. ‘Always were murder on your people…’ and, laughing, he stepped back, disappearing just as Bars came crashing down on the spot.

The gateway snapped away with a rush of air. Bars lay writhing at the water’s edge, snarling, striking the stones. They joined him there, weapons bared, Shell’s heart hammering. Skinner! From her Warren the man’s aura had appeared even stronger than the last time. As for the chest… the quickest snatched glimpse of the astounding potency carried within still left glowing afterimages in her vision.

‘What damned Warren was that?’ Bars snarled from where he lay.

‘The Crippled God’s,’ Shell said. ‘Skinner’s thrown in with him. The Dragons Deck readers claim that the Fallen God has made him King of his new house, the House of Chains.’

Bars pushed himself up, hugging his chest, anguish twisting his face. ‘He’s his errand boy too.’

‘What’s with the chest?’ Lazar asked.

‘A fragment of the entity charading as the Lady,’ said Shell.

‘A fragment?’ Blues repeated, alarmed. ‘As in the other name for the Crippled God… the Shattered God?’

Fingers sat heavily on a boulder. ‘Shit!’

Shell stared across the dark waters of the small crater lake surrounding this isle, to the near-black cloud cover obscuring the night sky, without seeing any of it. All that strength collected by the Crippled God. Added to him! What have they allowed here? What further catastrophes may very well be laid at their feet? She shook her head in mute denial.

Lazar cleared his throat. ‘We should go.’

Blues blinked, shaking off his thoughts. ‘Yeah. We’ll go get Corlo and Jemain.’

‘K’azz must be told of this,’ Shell said.

But Bars waved a negative. ‘Not our fight. We just want Skinner.’

‘K’azz will decide,’ Blues said, finishing the matter, and he waved everyone to him.

Moments later the isle was empty but for the hundreds of corpses, silent but for the ragged surf surging over the rocks. Then kites and crows assembled wheeling overhead, gathering from all around, while an army of white crabs came scrabbling and feeling their way up among the rocks.