Stonewielder

CHAPTER V

Devaleth stood peering out of one of the large glazed windows of Nok’s cabin on board the Star of Unta. Rain lashed the glazing, obscuring her view of the dim evening light and the vessels rising and falling out amid the great iron-blue rollers. Yet they called to her, the gathered mages of Ruse out there. How the Warren beckoned! She just had to reach out… they would all know then, of course. And they would mass against her and she would not last an instant.

For the last three days and nights Greymane’s expeditionary force had been losing ships to Marese predation. It had become a continuous running engagement of sudden ramming and retreat into the heaving waves.

Greymane’s divisional Fists, Shul and the nobleman Rillish, had withdrawn to their own vessels. Greymane had asked her — his ‘sea-witch’, he called her — to remain with him and the Adjunct, Kyle, on board the flagship. Reports streamed in of these darting Marese attacks, and every dawn the list of lost vessels mounted. ‘Morale?’ Nok had asked one Malazan captain come in from the convoy rear. The woman shook her head. ‘We understand orders not to pursue or engage, Admiral. But… it’s hard to just sit there and wait for them to take us like ripe fruit.’

This evening Nok leaned over his desk, charts flat beneath his palms. His long white hair hung down, obscuring his lined face. ‘Prevailing winds will remain out of the north-west?’ he asked her.

‘Yes.’

‘By now, I presume,’ he continued, straightening, and pushing back his hair, ‘any fleet would have bunched up, ready for slaughter, or been torn apart in countless minor engagements.’

Devaleth glanced to Greymane, a dark shape hunched in a chair, leaning forward, thick forearms on his knees. ‘Yes.’ She remained fascinated by the man, unable to take her eyes from him.

‘Then,’ Nok gestured to an aide, ‘let us not disappoint.’ To the aide: ‘Send my compliments to Admiral Swirl. Have him direct the Blues’ warships to begin forming up.’

‘Yes, Admiral.’ The aide departed.

She’d been leaning against a wall, her arms across her wide chest. She watched the aide go, frowned her disquiet. ‘Admiral… with all due respect… no one has ever defeated we Marese at sea.’

‘That was never our intent,’ Greymane said from his dark corner seat.

The young Adjunct’s face echoed Devaleth’s own confusion — this was news to him as well. Greymane sat forward, the chair creaking ominously beneath his bulk. ‘Nok and I are in accord on this. Only a fool attacks an enemy where he or she is strong. Such a fool deserves to fail.’

‘But the battle order…’

‘The Blues will form a wedge between the Marese and us,’ Nok explained. ‘A skirmish line, or flying chevron, call it what you will. They will engage.’

‘While you…’

‘The transports, with a few Blue vessels, will punch through and head for the coast.’

Devaleth was shaking her head, horrified. ‘The losses…’

‘I am charged to secure this front for the Empire,’ rumbled Greymane. ‘And I intend to do that. One way. Or another.’

But she was not convinced. ‘You don’t understand what you are facing, High Fist. To you Malazans the “Warren of Ruse” is a forgotten mystery. We of Mare have never forgotten it. And it is more than a Warren of power to us. It is our religion. Every Mare vessel is sanctified to Ruse. Every vessel carries a priest-mage sworn to Ruse. The rowers and crew are all initiates. Every board and rope is bound by ward and ritual to the will of the captain. High Fist… our vessels cannot be sunk.’

‘If we are going to sink, Devaleth,’ Greymane said, low and precise, ‘then why are you with us?’

‘High Fist…’ Nok objected.

But she raised a hand, accepting the blunt question. ‘Fair enough. You have been to the region, High Fist. You know why I am returning.’

‘I may. But I want to hear it from you.’

She felt a tight grimace twisting her face. ‘The cult of the Lady. It must be confronted. It is a sickness upon us.’ In the gloom, Greymane was nodding his agreement. ‘Do you know, High Fist,’ Devaleth continued, musing, ‘why your Malazan invasion failed in the first place?’

‘No.’

Almost hoarse with the strength of her emotion, she ground out: ‘It is because our lands have already been conquered. We just don’t realize it.’

Kyle, she saw, shared a look with the High Fist and something eased within her chest. They know. Somehow, they understand.

‘Devaleth…’ Greymane began.

‘Yes?’

‘Remain with the Admiral. Give him all the help you can for the coming battle.’

She flinched, considered explaining how outnumbered she was — thought better of it — bowed curtly. ‘Yes, High Fist.’

Greymane gestured to Kyle. ‘And you…’

‘Yes?’

‘The assault. I want you with them in case there’s trouble.’

‘Me? What of you?’

‘I will be with the last transport.’

‘What? The Marese will pick you off!’

‘Kyle… consider the men. It won’t look like flight if my banner is with the rearguard.’

‘Admiral, talk some sense into him.’

Carefully pouring himself some wine while the vessel rolled and heaved, Greymane was almost chuckling. ‘The Admiral, Kyle, agrees.’

The youth sent a wordless appeal to Devaleth but she shook her head; she agreed as well. The least hopeless of all the hopeless options, it seemed to her.

Kyle stared from man to man, unable to find the words. The two commanders exchanged amused looks. Finally Kyle waved his disgust. ‘Lunatics — both of you!’ He stormed out.

Bowing, Devaleth followed.

Alone, the two were quiet for a time; Nok accepted a glass from Greymane. ‘Your Adjunct,’ Nok said, savouring the drink. ‘Are you sure the lad is up to the job?’

Greymane swallowed, then frowned over his answer, considering how to reply. Eventually he cleared his throat. ‘Nok… I tell you this in all trust. Kyle is from Assail.’

The old Admiral straightened, his eyes widening. ‘That is impossible.’

‘I was with the Crimson Guard when it slunk its way wide south of Assail lands. Kyle was recruited then. He’d come down from the north.’

‘There’s so much I would ask… What of the Imass?’

But the High Fist was shaking his head. ‘No. He’s just a tribesman. He knows nothing of wars or fighting further north. Although…’ and here the High Fist looked away, thoughtful, ‘there were three lads — friends of his — I believe they knew more of what was going on up north. They kept damned mum about it all, understandably.’

Nok raised his glass. ‘One mystery at a time then.’

Greymane answered the salute. ‘Yes. A slow fighting retreat, yes? Give us all the time you can, Admiral.’

The old man smoothed his white moustache, grinning. His eyes, deep in their nest of wrinkles, flashed an almost fey anticipation. He extended a hand. ‘Until we meet again on the west coast.’

Laughing, Greymane took the hand as hard and dry as wood. ‘Until then, Admiral.’

*

A shake of his foot woke Suth. The hold was almost completely black.

‘Collect your kit,’ Goss’s voice whispered from the dark. ‘We’re shipping out.’

Suth grunted his acknowledgement. He swung from his hammock, began pulling his gear together. Around him the 17th stirred to life.

He’d been thrown around below and so he knew what to expect when he climbed up on to the deck. Tall waves crashed into the Lasana, sending a biting spray across his face. Beside him a sailor was ordering a coil of rope. ‘There would be a storm, wouldn’t there?’ he said to the fellow.

The sailor looked up. He was chewing a great wad of something that he spat out. He glanced around at the low slate-grey clouds, the heaving rough seas. ‘Call this a storm?’

Smart arse. The 20th was gathered at the port rail. Suth carefully edged his way over. Next to the tall Lasana a small launch was struggling to come alongside. The waves alternately threw it up then dropped it suddenly and the waters threatened to suck it under the Lasana’s hull. On board, Blue marines used poles to fend it away from the giant transport. Sailors from the Lasana threw down rope ladders. ‘After you!’ one shouted gaily to the gathered heavies, laughing.

A trooper sent the man an evil eye.

‘Hey, Yana!’ a woman from the 20th yelled: Coral, its sergeant. Suth glanced back to see Yana running up. ‘This is stupid! We want a cradle.’

‘What’s the hold-up?’ Yana asked, her eyes puffy with sleep.

‘Ha! Very funny. We should have a cradle for this.’

‘Fuck, I hate all this fucking water,’ someone said next to Suth. Surprised, he glanced down to see Faro. Though the small man wore heeled boots, he barely came up to Suth’s shoulder. He held his pipe in his teeth, unlit, and wore a loose dark jacket over a vest and shirt. ‘Let’s get going,’ he said mostly to himself, set both gloved hands on the rail, and promptly vaulted over.

A horrified shout went up from everyone crowding the rail. Suth threw himself forward to peer down. The man was hanging from a rope ladder, being knocked about, swinging wildly.

‘Who in Hood’s name is that?’ someone said.

‘One of Goss’ boys.’

‘His pet knife.’

‘Get hisself killed.’

The Blue marines allowed the launch to lurch closer. Faro let go and flew, landing and rolling in the broad belly of the launch.

‘Blast it!’ Coral snarled. ‘Bring rope! Tie your gear to ropes.’

One by one the squads lowered bundled gear until the wide belly of the launch was fairly covered. Then they descended by rope ladder. By the end, the launch was riding insanely low in the rough seas. The Blues pushed off and set long sweeps. They gestured that everyone should lend a hand. Some thirty men and women scrambled to help, displaying more eagerness than they had the entire journey.

They crossed to a Blue vessel waiting nearby. Troopers were climbing netting hung at its sides while launches bobbed like insects and empty ones were being raised. Despite his fear of either drowning or being dashed to pieces, Suth was curious to see the inside of one of these ships. Eventually their turn came, but not soon enough for some of the men and women, who had thrown themselves to the sides, heaving up their guts.

Suth waited in line for the dangerous task of climbing the netting. When he finally pulled himself up on to the decking he lay soaked and exhausted. Their gear followed, heaved up on ropes. They collected their kits then were directed below decks to quarters. Rain lashed down now, as cold as ice. A Blue marine directed them to the companionway. On the way Len, next to Suth, touched his shoulder then brought a finger to his eye, glancing aside. Suth followed the man’s gaze to where a soldier leaned against the side, arms crossed. He was a young fellow, broad with a long moustache, in a sheepskin jacket under thick cloaks.

‘The Adjunct,’ Len murmured. It was the first Suth had seen of him. ‘Some say he’s Greymane’s hatchet-man.’ Suth merely grunted, knowing nothing of him. ‘Maybe he’ll lead the landing.’

‘Or maybe he’s here to execute anyone who holds back,’ said Pyke, who’d come abreast of them.

‘Then I guess that would be you,’ said Len, aside.

Suth laughed out loud as they took the stairs.

Like a curtain of night a dust storm hung in the distance, cutting the horizon in half. It was, Kiska finally decided, strangely beautiful in its own stark way. She had no idea how much time she’d spent watching the front’s grave, stately advance across the far plain. An afternoon? A day? Two days? Who was to know here in Shadow? Or were these even the right questions to ask?

Her companion in their unofficial captivity lay curled up asleep, or at least pretending. He was good at both: relaxing and pretending. She saw him as a natural hunter, with that ability to wait indefinitely for prey to wander by, while the pretending part was all the camouflage necessary. Indeed, so far he had learned much more about her than the reverse.

And on that note… Kiska turned from the narrow gap, adjusted her sore back on the jagged rock seating. She cleared her throat. ‘So… you fought against the invasion, then…’

Jheval grunted the affirmative, stretched.

The man is like a cat.

Blinking, he gave her a questioning look.

‘Did you face the Imass?’

‘Am I dead?’

‘Sorry. Silly question. Did you-’

The man had raised a hand for silence. He rubbed his face, yawning. ‘No, an understandable question. Your Imass hold such a grip on your Malazan imagination. There was only Aren, really.’

Kiska understood. It was shortly after the massacre at Aren that the dreaded undead army of Imass abandoned Imperial service to march off into the deserts west of the Seven Cities region. Everyone assumed it had to do with the transition from Kellanved, the Emperor, to Laseen, his successor. ‘But you fought…’

‘Oh, yes. I fought against you invaders.’ Jheval gestured vaguely, agreeing. ‘I was young, foolish. I thought I was so fast and skilled and smart that nothing could touch me.’

He stopped there, staring off at the rock wall; perhaps reliving old memories. ‘And?’ Kiska prompted after a time.

A shrug. ‘War taught me otherwise.’

‘You ran into someone smarter and more skilled than you?’

He looked to her, quite startled. ‘Oh no. I haven’t met anyone smarter or more skilled than I.’

Ye gods! Queen deliver me from this man’s overweening vanity! ‘So what did happen, then?’ she asked, rather drily.

‘I saw that such qualities were mostly irrelevant in war. Chance. It all just comes down to dumb chance. Whether you live or die. Chance. The tossed siege boulder crushing the man next to you. The arrow shot high into the sky coming down through your shoulder armour without breaking your skin. The half-strength patrol running into a party even smaller than it.’ Jheval made a wave through the air as if tossing something away. ‘So it goes. Some fall, some are spared. But not for any good reason.’

Such a cold and futile view of life made Kiska shudder. ‘Surely the gods decide…’

‘… who lives and who dies?’ Jheval canted his head, looking pensive. ‘We are trapped here, so it would be best not to argue… But from what I have seen the gods do not decide anything. Oh, certainly they intervene occasionally, when it suits their purposes, but otherwise I think they are as bound by happenstance as we. And you know what?’ He looked to her, knitted his fingers across his waist. ‘I find that endlessly reassuring.’

Kiska decided that she did not understand, nor possibly like, this man at all. Something in his words — the ideas behind them — instilled a nameless panic in her chest. Now she felt trapped, while all this time the possibility hadn’t really been a worry. She knew she had to act; she had to do something or be driven insane. She climbed to her feet, crouched over double in their cramped cave. ‘Time to test the waters… don’t you think?’

Jheval was surprised once again, his brows rising. ‘Really? I was only joking, you know. About taking turns. I’ll go.’

‘No. You’re right. We should share the risk. What weapon, do you think?’

‘What weapon?’ He laughed. ‘One of your Malazan Moranth munitions, I should think.’

Kiska held out her empty hands. ‘Barring one of those. A stave, I think, to hold them off.’

‘You’ve already gone mad if you think you could hold one of them off.’

Kiska began pulling lengths of blackened metal pipe from slim pockets in her cloak and at her belt and vest. She spoke while she worked: ‘I’ve seen them before, you know. These hounds. They’re strong, but they have their limitations.’ The sections screwed together and latched, locking.

Jheval watched closely without saying a thing. Finally, he cleared his throat. ‘Their limitations, I think, have nothing to do with us poor mortals. And that toy… it’s of no use. Let me go.’

‘This toy is as strong as, if not stronger than, any staff. It was custom built for me by the Moranth.’

‘I’m sure the hounds will pause to admire it.’

Kiska gave what she hoped was a carefree smile. ‘We shall see.’ And she edged out of the crack. She heard behind her a stifled call and was relieved. Good. At least he knew enough not to shout. Straightening to a fighting stance, she peered about, listened, and then sensed outwards with an awareness now long attuned to these surroundings. The bare rocky slope appeared empty, as did the sandy hillsides to either flank. Nothing so far. No swift ambush. Now comes, as they say, the weighing of the gold. How far dare I venture from our bolthole? Surely they are watching, waiting tensed for that one step too many.

Kiska bounded out three steps then immediately spun and raced back as fast as she could then spun again, crouched, stave ready. Nothing. Seen that one before perhaps.

A slight scrape snapped her attention to the rear. Jheval was there, edging out to the far side of the crack. His hands were clasped at the morningstars tied to his waist, ready to pull them free.

What was the fool doing? Offering himself up? Didn’t he trust her to do this right? She waved him back. All for naught, probably. Surely these hounds have better things ‘Kiska!’

She spun and there one was: bounding in the air, almost upon her. She had the impression of a tawny blur, the red maw, wet fangs, then she yanked her stave between them and the blow knocked her backwards. Sharp rocks slammed into her back, taking the breath from her. She lay dazed for what she was sure was her last moment.

Her awareness cleared and she saw Jheval fending off the hound. The morningstars spun almost invisible from his hands. The hound’s every effort to bull forward or lunge was met by a smashing blow from the flanged iron heads that sent it flinching, snarling and rumbling like the very stones grinding. Kiska put off her amazement at what she was seeing and jumped to her feet. Then it was a chaotic blur of images: her stave thumping the beast’s broad chest, Jheval’s feet clawed from beneath him in a red spray; the stave, twisted, sliding a blade and slashing beneath an eye, buying the time for the man to leap upright. The two retreated, scrambling, alive only because they could cover each other. Then a stumbling collapse backwards into the slim gap to fall over one another.

The beast howled an ecstasy of rage, sprayed froth and blood. Blows shuddered the rock face. Only then could Kiska relax her chest enough to draw a full breath. They lay immobile, limbs entwined, both watching the opening.

Low rumbling as the beast eyed them through the gap; its bulk almost completely occluded the dim half-light. It padded off.

Jheval started laughing. It began as a low chuckle but built to a loud full release of unreserved relief, exhilaration, and frank amazement. Kiska could smile and share an embrace but that was all.

Now she understood that this narrow cave could very well become her tomb. She sat with her knees tight to her chest and covered her face to wipe away hot tears that she could not stop.

Devaleth went to a side of the Star of Unta’s deck, grasped hold of the cold wet wood. Greymane had left for the final troop vessel while his Adjunct, the young Kyle, had taken a launch out to the Blue transport that would lead the shore assault, there to represent the High Fist. She wondered if the lad was up to it; he appeared to be a savage warrior, but could one so young command the respect of these hardened troops?

There on deck she might have thought of herself as alone when in truth she was far from it: sailors dashed back and forth setting out leather buckets of sand and water, readying ropes and repelling poles. Marines assembled the ship’s armoury of weapons, checked the crossbows, and oiled the large stone-throwing onager at the bows. Amid all this chaos and preparation Devaleth felt at home. She’d grown up spending more time at sea than on land. Her school had been sitting cross-legged next to a ship’s mage, old canny Parell, where she learned her trade through storms, battles, and calm nights when the sea became so still one could see all the way down to Ruse’s infinite gateways.

Nok was at the tall sterncastle, where he would oversee the coming battle. Next to him a Blue liaison coordinated with Swirl by way of a fire in a tall brazier that could be made to flare differing colours, sometimes intense orange, or a brilliant blood red, or green, or even sea blue.

‘The coming battle’ — listen to yourself, woman. As if what is to come can in any way be termed a battle. What is to come will be a slaughter. I may reach land by way of my Ruse talents, but for most of this force it will be the ancient sea god’s cold welcome below.

So why am I here, as this Betrayer so rightly challenged? Because something has to be done. I must make some effort, no matter how feeble it may prove to be.

I, too, am a betrayer.

A marine stopped at her side. ‘High Mage, the Admiral wishes your counsel.’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’

Ever courtly, the Admiral bowed as she joined him. Devaleth was grateful though she knew herself to be a far from courtly figure. Nok waved a long wing-like arm to encompass the night. ‘I would have your impressions, Devaleth. What’s going on?’

‘They have been waiting for a sufficient number of vessels.’

‘To do what?’

‘Attack en masse.’

‘And have they achieved this threshold?’

She shrugged. ‘I have no way of telling. Though I will know it when the order is given.’

He cocked a greying brow. ‘Oh?’

‘It will be given through Ruse,’ she said dully. ‘I will sense it.’

The Admiral glanced at her sharply then smiled behind his thick silver moustache. ‘You do not think much of our chances, do you?’

‘I’m sorry, Admiral. I do not see how this expedition can end any differently from its predecessors.’

He accepted that. His gaze scanned the distant low shapes of the Mare war galleys just visible in the gathering night. An aide came to his side, murmured something. He responded, ‘In a moment’; then, addressing Devaleth, said, ‘You in Korel do not really know the Moranth, do you?’

Uncertain of the Admiral’s tack, the High Mage was slow to respond. ‘No. Not really.’

‘We have been allies for decades now. We’ve achieved great things with what minor alchemies they were willing to trade with us.’

‘I have heard that the Malaz-Moranth alliance has cooled, of late.’

The flagship struck a particularly large wave, the bows rising very tall. Everyone on the sterncastle braced for the pitch forward. The vessel slammed down into the trough, the bows disappearing in spray. Nok had taken hold of the ship’s tiller. Devaleth alone stood with her hands held behind her back. Amazingly, the charcoal fire still burned in its brazier. A kind of foreign magic? And what was everyone waiting for? This time her Mare compatriots seemed slow to the attack, while the Moranth-Malaz expedition held back as well. She sensed her brethren’s uncertainty. These alien Moranth vessels… what hidden menace was deployed here? They were wary.

‘It is true that our alliance seems to be paper-thin these days,’ Nok said, resuming their conversation. ‘We’ve been unable to get any further soldiers out of them. It may be internal for all we know.’ He gestured to the Blue liaison with him. ‘But our deal with the Blue here is very different. A contract, cut and dried. Nothing political. So now we shall see what the Moranth themselves can accomplish when a task is given over to them wholly.’ He nodded to his liaison. ‘Give the order.’

‘Aye, sir.’ The Moranth Blue dropped a packet on to the brazier. It took a moment to catch, but then it flared, sizzling and popping, to send up a tall silvery-white flame that cast the sterncastle into fierce relief and flashed from the surrounding waters.

Devaleth was forced to turn away, shielding her eyes. Order for what? Engagement? Surely not!

After the blinding actinic-bright flare died down, she straightened, blinking, willing back her night vision. At first she saw nothing, heard only the ship groaning in the high seas. Of course, fool! It will take time for these two unwieldy giants to embrace.

‘Order the transports to move,’ Nok told the liaison.

‘Aye, sir.’ The Blue reached for another packet.

This time Devaleth was ready; she flinched away, an arm across her eyes. As it was, a brilliant gold glow dazzled her vision, fading to leave afterimages of dancing stars.

She straightened, temporarily blind. This was it. Now would be the clash. How many of Greymane’s transports would push through to reach the shore? All you foreign gods, please not the pitiful few of before.

*

Crammed into the hold of the Blue vessel, his knees drawn up to his chest, Suth was pressed in thigh to thigh with his fellow Malazan infantry. It was hot, clammy and damp, and the least comfortable he’d been all journey — especially with Wess asleep on his shoulder. The sergeants stood at small openings in the sides, peering out and passing on information. Other than the greater roominess and general cleanliness, the main difference between the Blue vessel and the one they had left was that the former didn’t stink nearly as foully as the Malazans’. In fact, it was nearly odourless. Ignoring the vile sour sweat of the men and women crowded in the hold, the main scents Suth could detect were very strange. One Len told him was sulphur, while another reminded him of honey, and another of pine sap. It was all very unnerving. And these Korelri think their Stormriders are alien.

A flash of brilliant white light cast a clear image of the hold, the troops sitting jammed together like firewood, their eyes and sweaty faces gleaming. Darkness returned just as instantly. Everyone clamoured to know what it was.

‘Some kind of signal,’ came the rather unhelpful explanation.

Then Moranth armoured boots tramped the decking, trapdoors crashed open. Orders to climb. Waiting in line, frigid seawater pouring down the steep stairs. Up on the pitching deck, ordered to sit alongside Blue marines. Suth steadied himself with a ratline to gaze out over the night-dark waters. Ahead, a line of Blue dromonds parting. Low dark Marese war galleys swarmed around them like dogs worrying tired Thanu. The strikes of ramming reached Suth like the reports of distant explosions.

A golden-amber flash lit the night like a reflection of the sun, searing the vessels into silhouettes against the dark waters, only to snap away instantly. The Blue marines surged to their feet. Orders were bellowed from the after-deck. Suth found Len amid the crowd of troopers. ‘What is it?’ he shouted over the thumping of boots and the crash of the sea.

‘We’re off the leash,’ the saboteur answered. ‘Now we’ll see if we came all this way to any purpose,’ he added grimly.

Suth gave his private agreement. He wore only his padded gambeson, trousers and helmet, sword at his side. His armour lay wrapped below. The order seemed a useless precaution given the freezing waters and distance from shore. Still, perhaps it served to reassure some. He saw the Adjunct at the rail, his long dark hair blowing loose. He too wore only hide pants and sheepskin jacket; the ivory or bone grip and pommel of his sword shone with a near unnatural brightness.

Fire lit the night, flickering out of the distance ahead. Everyone gaped, staring. Even the Adjunct turned, his dark eyes narrowed. Another burst of flame illuminated a scene out of the Harrower’s realm: a Blue man-of-war, rammed, and down from the tall tower at its bows poured not arrows or javelins, but a stream of liquid fire. While Suth watched, dark shapes on board the Mare vessel writhed amid the flames. Some threw themselves overboard. He thought he could almost hear their screams of agony.

‘Sorcery!’ rose a shout from nearby.

‘No,’ murmured someone — Len. ‘Alchemy. Moranth incendiary. It even burns on water — see!’ He pointed, urgent. Indeed, the flames were spreading across the waters, pooling and wave-tossed, to engulf yet another Mare war galley. ‘So this is their answer,’ the saboteur continued, awed. ‘Come close all you like… ram, and burn.’

*

As more fires burst to life in the darkness all around, Devaleth stared, horrified. Her countrymen! She lurched to the side of the sterncastle, clenched the wood to keep from falling. Torched like vermin! This was outrageous! She turned on Nok. ‘You knew…’

The Admiral had the grace to appear pained. ‘I knew their intent, yes. But whether it will be enough…’ He shrugged.

‘This is barbaric! You Malazans claim to be civilized.’

His gaze sharpened. ‘Is leaving a man to drown any more civilized? Dead is dead.’

She turned from him. So, will it be enough? All around she felt Ruse stirring. Flames died, steam misting into a suppressing fog. Yet through the waters, even submerged, the foreign alchemies of the Moranth burned on, sizzling and bubbling.

‘Give the order to advance with the transports,’ Nok told the liaison.

Moments later a verdant green brilliance threw Devaleth’s shadow out across the water, flashing from the sides of vessels locked together, sails burning, dark shapes flailing amid the waves. A light rain, Ruse-summoned, began to fall.

They passed a Blue dromond assaulted by three Mare war galleys. Two had stove it in, rams entangled in broken wood. Grapnels shot like quarrels from crossbows mounted on the side of the Moranth vessel. They trailed rope that entangled the enemy ship. Staccato eruptions reached Devaleth as the Blues tossed munitions of some sort down on to one war galley; shattered wood flew, bodies spun over the sides, and the vessel lurched like a kicked toy.

Yet the battle was not all one-way. The Marese streaked like greyhounds, ramming at will. Many Blue vessels reared stern high, or wallowed, dead in the water. These the Marese ignored; in the shifting action of a naval engagement, to lose mobility was to be useless. That Blue man-of-war, rammed twice — even if it remained afloat, it was now so cumbersome it was for all purposes sunk.

A war galley emerged from the smoke, the swirling flames and the spume-topped waves, and charged the flagship. Its sides were scorched and smoke poured from its decking, yet the crew rowed no slower. Devaleth glanced back to the Admiral, who was watching its approach, a hand raised. The temptation to summon her Warren pulled at her. The fleshly demands of plain self-preservation. Yet to do so would announce herself to every ship’s mage present and invite a storm of reprisals.

It was close now; the oars had hit that unmistakable frantic ramming pace. The mage at the stern was a scarecrow figure in burned robes streaming smoke. They must have fought through the Lady’s own fury to reach them. At the last instant Nok gave the order and the flagship swung over with a swiftness startling for a vessel of its size. Bows turning, the Star now threatened to run over the war galley’s bank of oars, but a barked order from that ship’s master brought the sweeps high and the two vessels passed within an arm’s span of one another. Devaleth saw Nok salute the ship’s master at the tiller, who watched the Malazan vessel, his face unreadable. The war galley sped off into the night, its fate unknown. Did it engage another vessel? Did it at last, burned to the waterline, put her vaunted claims to the test?

That master’s face had been unreadable because, like myself, he probably had no reference for what was happening all around him. Things simply did not happen this way when the Marese went to sea. It was more than humbling. It was shattering.

*

Having been rammed and sunk on his first run to Korel lands, Rillish Jal Keth watched Mare war galleys manoeuvre out amid the dark ocean waves and felt a bowel-tightening sense of having seen all this before.

That the great ungainly transport still floated was something of a miracle. It had been a day of dodging and running, hiding behind the screen of Blue men-of-war. But the order had been given to break out. The fence was down and the wolves were in the fold. Now two war galleys cooperated in cornering the tall Quon three-master carrying over four hundred souls.

He turned to the transport’s master next to the ship’s tiller. ‘Not long, I think, Captain.’

‘Aye. It’s every man for himself out here now,’ the man grumbled.

Rillish crossed his arms, eyed the low sleek vessels cutting through the waves under oar and sail as swift as arrows. A light rain had started up, obscuring everything in a chilling grey haze. ‘I’ve heard they are unsinkable,’ he mused.

‘So they say.’

Rillish cocked his head to one side, wiped his face with the back of a hand, thought of the ramming he’d experienced before. ‘We have near four hundred Malazan heavy infantry on board this vessel, Captain. Their ships might be better than ours, but I’m willing to wager that our marines are more ferocious than theirs. How would you like a vessel that can’t sink under your feet?’

The ship’s master stroked his whiskered chin. His slit gaze shifted over to one Mare war galley sliding past, forcing a port turn from the sailing master. Then his gaze shifted back to Rillish. A broad smile split the man’s whiskers. He leaned over the railing of the sterncastle. ‘Ready all grapnels! Ready all boathooks! All troops on deck! Ready for boarding!’

‘Aye, aye, sir!’ the mate shouted from amidships. ‘Ready for boarding!’

Rillish saluted the captain and went to his cabin. His aide helped him strap on his cuirass of banded iron, his vambraces and greaves. Last, he tied on his weapon belt and twinned Untan duelling swords. His helmet he tucked under an arm. Then he returned to the sterncastle. He found the ship’s captain and the sailing master both struggling with the long arm of the tiller.

‘Took your time,’ the captain called over the worsening weather. ‘Can’t hold them off any longer.’

‘Offer them a fat broadside target, Captain.’

The man spat with the wind. ‘Don’t tell me my business, landsman.’

‘I’ll be at the side.’

The captain waved him on. ‘Give them my sharp regards, yes?’

‘That’s my business, Captain.’ He descended to amidships and pushed his way through the crowd of heavies. He thrust his helmet at a nearby soldier, then climbed up into the ratlines. The spray of a wave crashing into the transport slashed over him. He regarded the crowded deck. ‘Soldiers of Malaz!’ he bellowed with all his strength. ‘We’re about to be rammed! There’s nothing to be done for it. But I’m glad!’ He pointed over the slate-grey waves. ‘Out there is a much better ship than this damned tub and they’re about to offer it to us! Now… what say you!’

Fists and swords thrust to the sky. A great answering roar momentarily drowned out the gusting wind, the booming sails. Rillish added his own raised fist. ‘Aye! Now — ready grapnels! Ready ropes! Ready boathooks!’

‘For the Fourth!’ rose a shout.

‘Eighth!’ came an answering call.

‘For the Empire!’ Rillish shouted.

A great roar answered that: ‘Aye!’

In no way did Rillish consider himself a sailor but even he could see the attack coming. One war galley threatened their port side, so the sailing master and the captain obligingly pressed their weight upon the arm to show the enemy their stern-plate and in so doing exposed their starboard to the second war galley, which was already lunging in upon them. Its bronze-capped ram thrust down into the dark green of a trough only to leap upwards again, throwing a crest of water high above the sleek vessel’s freeboard.

One more wave. ‘Brace for ramming!’ Rillish wrapped an arm and a leg in the ratlines.

The blow came as an enormous shudder, but such was the mass of the transport that it failed even to lurch sideways. Rillish was thrown yet managed to keep his grip on the ropes. Grapnels flew. The Marese crew back-oared powerfully. Canny Malazan marines used the boathooks to snare oars, throwing the banks into confusion. Shattered wood snarled as the master threw the tiller aside, bringing the vessels together. Marese oars snapped or were thrust down as the two ships swung to clash together. Rillish could imagine the carnage that must be occurring within the war galley.

‘Board!’ Rillish roared. Men swung down on ropes or jumped. One fell short and grasped an oar, only to disappear with a shriek as the sides pounded together. A rope ladder was tossed, unrolling, and Rillish grasped hold of it. Marese marines waited below in dark leathers. A volley of arrows slashed the side of the Malazan transport. Men and women fell, striking the deck with leaden thumps.

Rillish crashed heavily to the deck, righted himself. Around him marines pushed forward to the stern. The Marese had raised a shield-wall amidships and from behind this bow-fire raked the boarders. Rillish drew his two slim duelling blades. ‘Forward!’

More of the heavy infantry reached the deck, adding their weight to the surge against the shieldwall. Rillish clawed his way to the front rank. He danced high, stabbing down over a shield to feel the blade flense cheek, grate from teeth. The man screamed, gurgled, fell. Rillish tumbled down on top of him. In the cramped confines of the narrow vessel a marine fell across Rillish and as she did so a gout of water shot from her mouth and even from her ears. Her dead eyes rolled blood-red, their vessels burst.

Sea-magics! The ship’s mage! Rillish straightened, wiped the foul water from his face. There! At the stern, hair wild in the wind, gold torcs at his arms, gesturing, and with each wave a swath of marines falling, clutching their throats. Rillish gulped for air. ‘Take the stern, heavies! For the Empire!’

The press heaved against the shieldwall, but the Marese held. The ship’s mage wreaked murder through the marines. His powers seemed unlimited here in his element. Then a great bull of a trooper in bright mail broke through the wall and, wielding a two-handed blade that he chopped up and down more like an axe, reached the sterncastle stairs. The shieldwall was shattered, disintegrating. The trooper reached the stairway and marines poured up with him. The ship’s mage threw some magery that levelled many, but the trooper in the bright mail coat, the helm cast to resemble a snarling wolf’s head, shook it off to reach the man with a great two-handed blow that severed him from collarbone to sternum.

Rillish came clambering up to the stern to see the marine pull off the helm to show what he’d suspected: the matted silver hair and flushed sweaty face of Captain Peles. Rillish clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Well fought, Captain.’

She inclined her head to Rillish. ‘And not many Fists lead a charge against a shieldwall.’

Rillish waved that aside. ‘The mage — he didn’t slow you down…’

Panting, the woman gave a modest shrug. ‘The Wolves were with me this day, sir.’

‘Well, thank them for that.’

A sailor saluted Rillish. ‘Captain’s regards, Fist. The transport is stove through, irretrievable.’

‘Have all personnel transferred over. Cut the lines.’

‘All, sir? That’s far too much weight for a vessel this size. We’ll wallow in these high waves, take on water…’

Rillish just laughed. ‘Haven’t you heard, man? These vessels are unsinkable.’

After the sailor left, shaking his head, Peles regarded Rillish. She pushed back her sodden hair. ‘Now what, sir?’

‘Well, as the man said. We’re overcrowded.’ He gave Peles a grin. ‘I think we could use another ship.’

Peles was cleaning her two-handed blade on the robes of the dead mage. ‘Aye, sir. That we could.’

*

Suth’s Blue transport was secured side by side with a twin as a kind of gigantic catamaran. They carried suspended between them some sort of beam construction as long as the ships themselves. Despite this awkward arrangement they made good time, had bulled through swaths of burning sea, knocked aside rudderless hulks, submerged countless souls shouting and begging from the waves, and looked to be keeping place as the standard-bearer for the charge to the Fist coast. Dawn was nearing and in the half-light more Marese war galleys could be glimpsed cutting across their bows. ‘Too many,’ Len said, his elbows on the railing. ‘Don’t know how we’ll make it.’

Orders rang out and Blue sailors, indistinguishable from their marine brethren, climbed the rigging. More sail unfurled, billowed and bellied, taking the wind aslant. Suth watched the tall mainmast, amazed by the sight.

‘Still too slow,’ Len grumbled.

A Moranth sailor in the crow’s nest gave a warning shout.

‘Here they come,’ said Len.

The sleek black war galleys closed from either side, lunging like tossed javelins. As they closed the Blue captain found an extra ounce of speed from somewhere to slip just ahead. The troops sent up a great cheer as the Marese coursed across the transport’s broad foaming wake.

‘We won’t surprise them like that-’ Len was beginning when twin reports as of siege arbalests sounded from the Marese galleys and missiles came hissing through the air to crash into the transport’s stern. The vessel lurched almost to a standstill and everyone’s feet were cut from beneath them while barrels tumbled overboard and ropes snapped, singing.

Recovering, Suth clambered to the rear. Here among the wreckage of broken wood and twisted iron Blue marines were hacking at what appeared to be giant grapnels that had gouged hold of the stern.

‘Cut them!’ someone shouted.

‘They’re chain!’

‘We’re dragging!’

A Blue officer appeared, yelled orders. Axes emerged. Out amid the brightening waves Suth saw more Mare vessels closing. The grapnels led via lengths of chain to thick ropes that stretched to the two war galleys. Both were backing oars, sending up a great churning froth of water.

‘Cut them!’

‘Chop the wood!’

Then the young Adjunct was there. He brushed aside the Blue axemen. ‘Room,’ he shouted, and drew his blade. Sunlight blinded Suth, flashing from the curved ivory blade. The Adjunct swung it overhead two-handed, hacking, raising high piercing shrieks of metal. The transport lurched forward. A marine almost fell overboard but was pulled back. The Adjunct swung again and the ship sprang free, surging ahead. Suth stared where the chains swung, severed cleanly just back from the grapnel.

The Adjunct sheathed his blade.

‘It cut,’ someone whispered. ‘Cut iron…’

‘Did you ever see the like…’

The Adjunct glared with his dark eyes as if expecting some sort of challenge, then turned away without a word.

Later, Suth, like many, went to examine the severed links. He found the iron mirror-bright and clean. Its edge was so sharp it cut one of his fingers.

They had pushed on through the greatest concentration of Mare vessels. Behind, bursts of orange glare and a banner of thick black smoke hanging low over the water obscured dawn. A final war galley rammed them on the port forward of the mainmast, but a volley of lobbed munitions from the Moranth left the ship so devastated that it drifted away, seemingly unmanned. As for the transport, while Suth was bent over the gunwale inspecting the great hole punched into the side, a Blue marine just said: ‘Our ships are also hard to sink.’

Orders came later that day to return to the hold to get some sleep. The assault would come tomorrow. The marines filed back down. Talk now lingered on this Adjunct. Who was he? Where was he from? One crazy rumour had him once serving among the mercenary company the Crimson Guard.

‘I hope he’s with us tomorrow,’ Dim said.

For once, Pyke had nothing to say.

*

Their captured Mare war galley rocked dead in the water as it was too jammed with marines to row effectively. Rillish and the Malazan captain, a mariner named Sketh out of the Seven Cities region, argued over everything in their new overcrowded vessel. The captain berated Rillish for heaping everyone into the war galley; Rillish responded by inviting him to rejoin his crippled former command. The captain told him to keep his mouth shut, as he was the captain; Rillish pointed out that Seven Cities was a desert.

In the midst of another heated exchange, Captain Peles tapped Rillish’s shoulder and gestured aside. ‘We’re not alone.’

Another Marese war galley was oaring up slowly. It rose and fell with the waves. The crew looked to be curious. Rillish immediately ordered everyone down. ‘Flat!’ he hissed. ‘Lie on top of each other, damn you!’

Rillish left Sketh standing at the stern with its slim centre-set tiller arm. ‘What am I to do?’ the man whispered, fierce. ‘I am to stand here all alone?’

‘Wave them closer.’

Sketh waved. ‘I will report this to the Admiral, you fool. He will see you in chains.’

‘Just get them close.’

‘How? I am no foreigner like them.’

‘Yell in your Seven Cities dialect.’

Sketh gaped at Rillish, but kept waving. ‘What?’

‘Go ahead!’

‘Very well, fool!’ And he shouted something that sounded unpleasant.

A trooper near Rillish guffawed. ‘Yes?’ Rillish said.

The man looked uncomfortable, cleared his throat. ‘Ah, well. He said that he could smell their unwashed backsides from here and that he wished they would come no closer.’

Rillish turned to Peles. ‘That should confuse the Abyss out of them.’

Sketh yelled some more. This time the trooper almost blushed. Rillish eyed him expectantly.

‘Goats… and mothers,’ the man mumbled.

The Marese war galley was now so close Rillish could hear the crew talking. Someone in the vessel was shouting. Sketh answered in Seven Cities. Rillish heard oars knocking oars.

‘They’ve spotted you!’ Sketh shouted.

Rillish jumped up. ‘Now! Fire!’

The vessel was frustratingly just beyond a leap away, now backing oars. Malazan marines sprang up to fire crossbows point-blank across the deck and into the oarlocks. ‘Next rank!’ Rillish yelled.

Those who had fired fell back or squatted to reload. The next rank surged forward, firing almost immediately. ‘Bring us alongside!’ Rillish bellowed to Sketh.

‘We have no headway!’ Sketh answered, furious.

Fortunately the marines’ fire had raked the stern decking clear and the tiller of the galley swung loose. Anyone who raised a head was the target of a swath of crossbow bolts while wounded oarsmen encumbered their banks. The bronze-sheathed ram was swinging their way. The Malazan marines continued their merciless fusillade.

The ram bumped their side, slid, gouging the planking with a screech of wet wood. ‘Board!’ Rillish yelled a war cry and jumped with all his strength.

He didn’t make it. His heart lurched as he realized in mid-leap that he’d fall short. He grasped the gunwale, his face slamming into the wood. Stars burst across his vision and hot blood gushed over his mouth. A sailor reared up over him, sword raised, only to disappear as a Malazan trooper crashed down on to him. Dazed, Rillish struggled to pull himself over the side. Fighting raged across the vessel. Rillish tumbled gasping on to the decking amid the fallen. He straightened, wiped the back of a gauntlet across his wet mouth, clumsily drew one blade, and peered about, blinking. The fight was over. They had their second ship.

The rest of the morning did not go as satisfactorily. They had to fashion a rough kind of Malazan standard to fly over their captured vessels just to stop the Moranth from shooting fire at them whenever they drew close. Rillish peered up at the black cloth, squinted in the strengthening light, and shook his head. ‘Might as well call ourselves pirates and be done with it, hey, Captain Peles?’

She was offended. ‘Oh, no, sir. This is a fine ship. Our boatwrights could learn a few things from it, I think.’

So damned literal. He shrugged. The night and morning had been exhilarating yet disappointing and he was in a poor mood. Exhilarating because they were alive and the engagement was over and they were victorious. Disappointing because they were now spending the majority of the time in a futile chase of other Marese war galleys that always outpaced them. The Malazan sailors were unfamiliar with the rigging, Sketh didn’t have a feel for the vessel’s handling, and they were still overburdened.

Good enough. He sat, tucked his gauntlets into his belt, and dabbed a wet corner of his surcoat to the dried blood smearing his face. Sketh had command of the other captured vessel while his sailing master was with them. The man had sent them off with a storm of Seven Cities curses.

Rillish didn’t ask for a translation.

Now they trailed the transports heading to the coast. Marese war galleys shadowed them, keeping their distance. Somewhere ahead Greymane’s banner marked the straggling tail of the invasion force while behind the majority of the Blue dromonds maintained a screen sweeping southward. Onward to Mare itself… he wished them luck with that.

For now it was the landing that preoccupied him. How many transports had broken through? Would they succeed in taking Aamil? He knew he’d arrive too late for the first assault. Yet at least he’d arrive; there were too many as couldn’t boast that.

The day after the Malazan garrison and the city militia marched away inland, Bakune rose, put on his best robes as he had every day, and headed out for his offices close to the centre of town. He’d decided to face things squarely; to find out, for better or worse, where and how things stood. Was he to be arrested? And if not, what of his authority? Was he to be merely closely watched by the Abbot and his self-styled Guardians of the Faith? Or dragged in chains before the holy courts? He did not consider himself a brave man; the anxiety of not knowing was simply burning a hole in his guts.

His housekeeper wept as she shut and locked the door behind him.

The streets were unnaturally deserted for this early hour. Indeed, an air of uncertainty hung over the entire city. The harbour was almost empty; news of the renewed Marese blockade had stopped the pilgrim vessels from running; and Yeull, the Malazan Overlord, had ordered all naval and merchant vessels north to Lallit up the coast. To make things worse a bitterly cold front had swept over the Fall Strait to leave remnants of snow in the shaded edges of the streets and roofs. The only institution bustling with energy was the Blessed Cloister and Hospice, as hordes of citizens crowded its halls to pray and seek the intervention of the Lady.

Two Guardians of the Faith stood before the closed double doors of the city courts. Like all of these self-appointed morality police, they were bearded, wore heavy robes, and carried iron-bound staves. Bakune stopped short, drew a deep breath, and asked more bravely than he felt: ‘Why are these doors closed?’ A scornful superior look from both men sent a cold shiver down his back.

‘The civil courts are closed until further notice, petitioner.’

Bakune forced himself to ask, ‘By whose authority?’

The Guardians shared a surprised glance. ‘By order of Abbot Starvann, of course.’

Bakune swallowed hard, but pressed on: ‘And by what authority does the Abbot intervene in civil affairs?’

One Guardian stepped down from the threshold. He held his stave sideways across his body. ‘You are Assessor Bakune?’

Bakune managed a faint, ‘Yes.’ His hands were damp, cold, useless things at his sides.

‘You will come with me.’

The Guardian started down the street. Bakune hesitated. Why should he cooperate? But then, what else could he possibly do? Should he run? Where? Be dragged kicking and blubbering down the street? How undignified. The Guardian stopped, turned back to peer at him. He set his stave to the cobbles with a sharp rap of its iron-bound heel. To cover his panic, Bakune drew out his lined gloves and took his time pulling them on. When he had finally finished tugging each finger, his heart had slowed and he had reconciled himself to what was to come. As he approached the Guardian he even managed to say evenly, ‘Cold this morning, yes?’

The man turned away without replying.

After two turns the Guardian’s destination became clear to Bakune and his panic took hold of him once more. The Carceral Quarters. Of course. Where else for an undesirable such as himself? Despite the biting wind out of the west, sweat pricked his brow and he dabbed at it with the back of a glove. More Guardians at the thick armoured doors to the Carceral Quarters. The City Watch was no longer in charge of maintaining order. Bakune’s heart sank; not for himself, but for his city, his country. They were sliding back into the ancient age of superstition and religious rule. All the strides of civilization over the last few hundred years were being swept away by this crisis.

In the halls Bakune was handed over to a priest, who, with obvious distaste, looked him up and down. ‘You are Assessor Bakune?’

‘Yes.’

The priest gestured him on. Two Guardians walked behind, staves stamping the stone flags in time. He was led past many galleries of cells to one far beneath the holding areas reserved for common thieves and murderers. Bakune’s stomach tore a bite out of his innards with every turn and every staircase down. What a fool he’d been! Karien’el had as much as urged him to run! Looking back now, it seemed as usual that Karien’el had done all the work to lead him to the obvious, self-serving decision, which he had then mulishly refused. The priest opened the door to the cell and stood by it. The Assessor could not move; was this it then? The end for him? Would he obligingly walk in like a calf to the slaughter? A Guardian stepped close behind, set his stave down hard in a stamp that echoed harshly within the narrow passage. Almost unable to breathe, Bakune wiped a gloved hand down his face, and then straightened. No! No weakness! He would show these fanatics how a civilized man, a man of true ethical principles, behaved. He stepped up next to the priest, met his eyes and nodded. ‘Very well. Since you leave me no choice.’

The priest slammed the door shut behind him.

Facing what he had thought was to be his prison for perhaps the rest of his — presumably short — life, Bakune halted, startled, because it was not a cell. It was a courtroom. His heart clenched and his innards twisted; the Lady was not done with him. She was not content that he should quietly disappear in the confusion of all this upheaval and panic.

It was to be a trial. Signed confession. Public disapprobation. The courts divine would legitimize themselves by discrediting the courts civil. Very well. The good opinion of the public had never been his obsession. Quite the opposite, in fact.

A long table ran along one wall, and behind it sat three tall chairs. My judges. A single, much poorer chair faced the table from the other side. Bakune sat in this, crossed one leg over the other and carefully folded and smoothed his robes. He pulled off his gloves, clasped his hands on his lap. And waited.

Shortly thereafter many men came marching up the passage. The door clattered open. In walked another priest, this one much fatter and older, wearing the starburst symbol of Our Lady. He was vaguely familiar. The priest’s brows rose upon seeing Bakune. ‘My dear Assessor! Not there!’ Bakune placed him: Arten, Chief Divine of the Order of the Guardians of the Faith. Abbot Starvann’s second. This court was to have a seal of the highest authority. Chuckling, Arten invited Bakune to move to the other side of the table. ‘Here, if you would. On my right.’

Bakune could only stare up at the man. The other side of the table?

Arten repeated his invitation. Guardians now stood waiting at the door, someone in chains between them: a short, extremely stocky figure. Bakune rose shakily to his feet. Arten shepherded him round the table. ‘There you are. Very good.’ He nodded to the Guardians, who entered.

Bakune sat, blinking, quite shocked, while the prisoner was seated opposite, armed Guardians flanking him. Bakune took the time to study him. He was well past middle age yet still quite powerful, with burly shoulders and chest. But the man’s most striking feature was the faded blue facial tattooing of some sort of animal. A boar — so the man was, or had been, sworn to that foreign god… the boar… Fener! Lady, no. Could this be he? That foreign priest Karien’el had mentioned?

The priest who had first escorted Bakune now sat on Arten’s left. ‘Brother Kureh,’ Arten addressed him, ‘would you read the charges?’

Kureh drew a sheaf of parchments from within his robes, sorted through them, and then cleared his throat. ‘Defendant… would you state your given name?’

The man smiled, revealing surprisingly large canines. ‘As of now,’ he ground out in a rough voice, ‘I take the name Prophet.’

‘Prophet,’ Kureh repeated. ‘Prophet of what?’

‘A new faith.’

‘And does this new faith have a name?’ Arten asked.

The man regarded Arten through low heavy lids. ‘Not yet.’

‘And which degenerate foreign god does it serve?’

‘None… and all.’

Kureh threw down the parchments. ‘Come, come. You make no sense.’

The man lifted and let fall his shoulders, his chains clattering. ‘Not to your blinkered minds.’

Kureh glared his rage. Arten raised a hand for a pause. ‘Pray, please educate us.’

The man sighed heavily. ‘All paths that arise from within partake of the divine.’

Arten nodded, smiling. ‘True. And Our Lady is that divine source.’

Here the man revealed his first burst of emotion as his mouth drew down in disgust. ‘She is not.’

It seemed to Bakune that the man could not be trying harder to commit suicide.

Kureh slammed his hands to the table. ‘I for one have heard enough!’

Arten sadly shook his head. ‘Yes, brother. A disturbing case. There is almost nothing we can do for such delusion. We can only pray the Lady grant him peace.’ He regarded the man for a time, drew a breath as if reluctant to continue. ‘You give me no choice but to broach the distasteful subject of your implication in the murder of a young girl last week. Possessions of yours were found with the body-’

‘Convenient,’ the man sneered.

‘And witnesses…’ Arten gestured to Kureh, who raised papers, ‘have attested under oath to seeing you with the girl that evening. How do you plead?’

‘Disgusted.’

‘You remain defiant? Very well. The papers, Kureh.’ Brother Kureh slid a few sheets and a quill and inkpot to Arten, who signed the papers then slid them along to Bakune. ‘Assessor, if you would please

…’

Bakune examined the sheets. As he suspected: a death sentence calling for public execution. The charge, murder. He set them back on the table. ‘I cannot sign these.’

Arten slowly swung his head to look at him. ‘Assessor Bakune… I urge you to give due consideration to your position. And sign.’

Knowing full well what he was about to do to his own future, Bakune drew a weak breath and managed, ‘I see no compelling evidence of guilt.’

‘No evidence!’ Kureh exploded. ‘Have you not been sitting here? Have you not heard him self-confessed from his own mouth? His utter lack of seemly repentance?’

‘Sign, Assessor,’ the Prophet urged. ‘Do not sacrifice yourself on my account.’

‘The accused is dismissed!’ Arten roared, and pointed to the door.

The Guardians marched the man out. Arten rose to stand over Bakune. ‘I am disappointed, Assessor. Surely it must be clear to you that what we require is merely your cooperation in these few small matters. Give us this and you may return to your insignificant civil affairs of stolen apples and wandering cows.’

Bakune blinked up at the man. He clasped his hands to stop their shaking. ‘I do not consider the life of a man a small matter.’

‘Then I suggest, Assessor, that you spend your remaining time considering your own.’ He snapped his fingers and a Guardian entered. ‘Escort this man to his cell.’

‘Yes, Divine.’ The Guardian grasped hold of Bakune’s robes and pulled him to his feet, then marched him out. In the hall he glanced back to see the strange man, this Prophet, peering back at him as he was dragged off. And it was odd, but the man appeared completely unruffled. Bakune could not shake the impression that the fellow was allowing himself to be taken away.

‘That smoke in the distance there,’ Ivanr asked, gesturing to the northern horizon. ‘That all part of your big plan for deliverance?’

Lieutenant Carr had also been watching the north as they walked amid the dust of the main column, his expression troubled. Beneth’s rag-tag Army of Reform had reached the plains, which fell away, rolling gently to northern farmlands and the coast. To the east, they had passed the River White where it charged down out of the foothills bearing its meltwater to the bay. Burned cottages, the rotting carcasses of dead animals, and the blackened stubble of scorched fields was all that had greeted them so far. It seemed to Ivanr that the Jourilans would rather destroy their own country than see it given over to any other creed or rule.

They also met corpses. Impaled, crucified, eviscerated. Some hung from scorched trees. Many bore signs or had carved into their flesh the condemnation Heretic.

Ivanr knew that the advance scouts had passed these grim markers days ago, but Martal must have ordered them to remain untouched. At first the sight of the bodies and the vicious torture their torn flesh betrayed had horrified the untested volunteers of the army; many of the younger had actually fainted. As the days passed and the endless count of blackened, hacked bodies mounted, Ivanr saw that fear burn away, leaving behind a seething anger and outrage. His respect for this female general’s ruthlessness grew. It seemed odd to him that he’d never heard of her before. Where had Beneth found her? Katakan? He couldn’t think of any mercenary or military leader hailing from that backwater there in the shadow of Korel.

Carr waved the dust from his face. ‘There must be fighting in Blight.’

‘You think so?’

More Reform cavalry charged past, heading for the front of the straggling column. A small detail, only some forty horses. The sight reminded Ivanr of the Jourilan nobleman, Hegil, supposed commander of the army. So far all the man commanded was the cavalry. He seemed to share the Jourilan nobility’s contempt for infantry, judging the peasantry beneath his notice. But the vast majority of the Army of Reform was just those peasants — farmers and displaced burghers — and to them, if the army had any leader, it was Martal.

The potential for confusion or outright argument troubled him. An army was like a snake; it should not have two heads.

Ivanr and Carr’s place in the column reached a curve in a hillside offering a view east of the city of Blight and the Bay of Blight beyond. The city’s stone walls were tall. But now smoke wreathed them, billowing in plumes from almost everywhere within. It drifted inland, a great dark pall, driven by the prevailing wind that held from the north-east during this season of storms. The south gate gaped open, a dark invitation. The Army of Reform was ordering ranks before it. Seeing this, Ivanr cursed and pushed ahead. Carr followed.

Ivanr tracked Martal simply by keeping an eye on all the messengers coming and going. He found the woman mounted, surrounded by staff and bodyguards, dressed as always in her blackened armour, black boots and blackened gauntlets, her short night-dark hair touched with grey. Such martial imagery was all in keeping with some kind of legendary warrior-princess, until one saw her face: the lips full, yes, but habitually grim, drawn down as if constantly displeased; the eyes dark, but sharp and dismissive, not mysterious or alluring; and the nose what one would expect to see sported by some grizzled campaigner, canted and flattened. The Black Queen indeed.

A queen of war.

The guards allowed Ivanr and Carr through. When Martal finished with a messenger Ivanr cleared his throat. She nodded distractedly for him to speak.

‘You’re not going in there,’ his said, his disapproval clear.

A faint near-smile, her gaze scanning the broad columns of infantry. ‘No, Ivanr. We’re forming up. I’m told the adherents of the Lady are withdrawing to the north.’ She spared him a quick glance. ‘They need time to complete their flight.’

Ivanr grunted his appreciation. ‘You would burden the Jourilan Imperials with them.’

‘Yes. Why should we be the only force herding civilians along? The difference being ours fight.’

‘Once they withdraw the city will be ours,’ Carr said, triumphant.

‘So we’ll own a burned-out ruin,’ Ivanr added, sour.

Martal was reading a scrap of vellum brought in by a messenger. Its contents twisted her lips into an ugly scowl. ‘For Hegil,’ she told the messenger, who snapped his reins and charged off. She blinked now at Carr as if seeing him for the first time. ‘If we own it already, Lieutenant, then we can ignore it.’

‘You mean to just go round,’ Ivanr breathed, impressed.

‘In conquering a nation, squatting in the towns and cities is the surest route to failure.’

Ivanr’s breath caught. He eyed the woman anew, her heavy outland armour of iron bands over mail, black-lacquered, battered by years of service. That opinion had the sound of quoted text. ‘What would you know of conquering nations?’

The woman merely smiled. But it was not a reassuring smile; it spoke of secrets and a dark humour. She pointed a gauntleted hand to the west. ‘Jourilan lancers are harassing our flank. That would be the 10th Company, the Green Wall. Your lads and lasses, yes, Carr, Ivanr?’

The two exchanged alarmed looks. ‘Gods beyond, Martal,’ Ivanr exploded. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ They pushed their way out of the ring of guards.

Tenth Company, which had selected the nickname the Green Wall, was formed up in a wide front, pikes and spears facing west. Beyond their ranks skirmishing Jourilan cavalry raced back and forth across open ground of burned fields. Edging his way through, Ivanr reached the front rank. He’d already collected a spear. ‘Lights,’ Carr said, drawing his sword. ‘They won’t press a charge.’

‘They’re pinning us down, though. Can’t advance. Where’s Hegil’s cav?’

Carr shrugged. ‘Occupied elsewhere, perhaps. We’ve few enough.’

‘Can’t just sit here. Martal’s damned wagons are about to roll up our backsides.’

Carr glanced behind: the entire mass of the Army of Reform was lurching west, groping its way round the city, about to run them over.

Ivanr straightened, taking a great breath. ‘Company! Broaden line! On my mark! Now!’ He watched to the right and left while the rows adjusted their spacing to allow an extra pace between them. It was one of the most difficult manoeuvres he’d covered with them. He’d never dare attempt it facing a body of heavies awaiting a chance for a charge. As it was, the movement caught the eye of the lights and they raced over, forming a chase line, swinging close, lances still held tall. Ivanr bellowed: ‘Company, brace!’ Carr raised his sword.

The flying chevron of lights charged obliquely across the line of the levelled pikes and spearheads. Lances and javelins flew. Men and women screamed, impaled. The clean line of bristling pikeheads shook, rattling. A second charge was swinging in behind the first. Ivanr fumed. Archers! Where was their support? They needed archers to drive these skirmishers off. ‘Steady, company! Brace!’

The second charge circled past. Another flight of javelins and lances drove ferocious punishment into the column. Ivanr saw the wall of pikes waver like wind-tossed grasses. ‘Steady, Lady damn you all! Break and you’re trampled!’

Then a wall of smoke came streaming down from the plumes overhead, obscuring everything. The thick greasy fumes stank of awful things. Things Ivanr didn’t want to imagine burning. He covered his mouth. Soot darkened his hands. Everyone was coughing and cursing. Blind to everything, he heard dropped pikes clattering to the ground. Somewhere in the dark horses shrieked their terror. He glimpsed a smudged light off to his right and staggered to it. Here in a small depression he found an old woman hunched over a smoking fire, blowing on the glowing brands.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

The old woman blinked up at him. She wore the tattered remains of layered wraps over frayed skirts. ‘Making lunch.’ She dropped handfuls of freshly cut green grass and green leaves on the fire. A great gout of white smoke billowed up.

‘Would you stop that!’

‘Stop it? I’m hungry.’

‘You’re making all this smoke!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. All this smoke is from the city.’

Carr came running up, waving the fumes from his face and coughing. ‘The cavalry has fled. The field is clear.’

Ivanr eyed the old woman crouched before the fire like a penitent, bony elbows sticking out like wings. She gave Ivanr a wink. ‘Horses, they say, are in a terrible fear of fire.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Sister Gosh.’

‘Well, Sister Gosh. If the Lady knew there was magery here on this field, you’d be a dead woman.’

‘Then it’s a good thing there was none o’ that. Just an errant gust of wind and smoke from the city, hey?’

‘You play a dangerous game, Sister.’

‘Now’s the time for it.’

Ivanr grunted his agreement. He faced Carr. ‘Have the company form up for advance. Martal wants us past the city.’

Carr saluted. ‘Aye, sir.’

Sir? When did that happen? And what did that make him? Ivanr frankly had no idea and he decided he didn’t care.

Those veterans who managed to doze off below decks were woken in the late afternoon just before evening. Some twenty Malazan squads and a horde of Blue marines crowded the two dromonds that constituted the ungainly catamaran. A meal of watery soup came around in pots and ladles. Sails were trimmed. The bow-crest eased to almost nothing. Suth nudged Len while they ate their flat hardbread. ‘We’ve slowed, yes?’

‘Yeah. Have to give the others time to catch up, hey? And the sun’s setting — can’t have that in our eyes.’

Suth returned to the grainy bread. He hadn’t thought of that. To the west the shore passed as distant green hills, wooded, with few signs of habitation. Beyond rose a crest of tall misted mountains, dark and snow-peaked. Goss came round, gripping shoulders and making a last equipment check. He and Len grasped forearms. ‘We’re sixth in line. Form up along the port side.’

‘Any munitions to share out?’

Goss snorted. ‘I suspect these Blues will be supplying more to the fight than any of us would like.’

Len waved that off. ‘Had to ask. And that thing between the ships. What is it?’

‘Don’t know. Blues are all mum about it. May be a catapult.’

After Goss moved on Keri sat with them. ‘That’s no catapult.’

‘Been checking it out, have you?’ Len rumbled with a sly smile.

‘Yeah. And it ain’t no catapult.’

‘What is it then?’

She hunched, peering round. ‘I got a theory… too crazy to say, though.’ She drew her weapon, what Suth had learned the Malazans called a ‘long-knife’. She checked its edge.

Suth frowned. ‘You’re not coming with us on the assault, are you?’

Keri’s gaze narrowed on him and her thin lined face lost all expression. ‘Why?’ she asked, her voice flat.

‘’Cause you’re only wearing leathers.’

She relaxed, slapped her weapon home in its wooden sheath. ‘Listen, kid… this is your first engagement, so maybe you should stay behind me…’

Len laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Take it easy, Kerr. He’s green.’ To Suth: ‘Just remember, in battle, we saboteurs tell you to do something — you do it. Okay?’

Len was the corporal so Suth said nothing, though he saw no reason why he should do whatever the saboteurs told him. They weren’t even armoured heavily enough to last the first exchange. It was useless bringing them along on what he assumed would be a plain frontal assault.

As the afternoon gave way to the evening more Blue and Malazan vessels gathered. The ships manoeuvred into battle groups. Messages passed as brilliant flaring colours, while Malazan vessels exchanged coded signals by flags. Suth heard from the talk going around that the Blue Admiral, Swirl, was in charge and that the sergeants weren’t particularly happy about it. They’d have preferred to have Greymane here. No one mentioned the young Adjunct.

The fleet rounded the headland of a bay and there before them was the harbour of Aamil. It had the look of a fortress stronghold built specifically to resist any assault from the sea. Suth thought of Mare nearby to the south. Twin curving moles met at a narrow harbour entrance flanked by stout guard towers. The main fortress rose straight from the water in a tall featureless curtain wall of salt-stained grey limestone blocks. Access from the harbour was limited to the narrow inlet between the fortified towers.

Voicing Suth’s thoughts, Len let go a long low whistle. ‘Now that’s a stronghold.’

‘These Blues better know what they’re doin’,’ Keri grumbled.

‘They have so far.’

Yana squeezed by, cuffed Suth. ‘Let’s go. Form up.’

Distantly, the ringing of bells echoed from across the bay. The Skolati were readying themselves.

Four Blue men-of-war led the attack. As the ships closed on the harbour entrance, what appeared to be a dark flight of birds erupted from each of the broad squat towers. The flights resolved themselves into twin showers of arrows. The bow-fire scoured the decks of the men-of-war. Suth could just make out the oval shapes of raised shields lining those decks. Then twin thumps echoed and two great rocks, both trailing flames, came flying from atop the towers. The rocks screamed down to scatter immense showers of spray between the ships.

Suth was kneeling with his squad next to the portside railing, in line with the other marines. ‘Damned big onagers on those towers,’ Len mused.

‘Have to sneak by close,’ Keri said.

‘Why?’ Suth asked.

‘With them machines,’ Keri said, ‘their aim’s worse the closer you are.’

The voices of the squad sergeants rang out: ‘Ready shields!’

Ahead, two of the men-of-war rocked on the water as another pair of fiery boulders crashed into the sea between them, while the remaining two swung wide, one to each side, drawing close to the tumbled rock shore of the mole and out of sight. Len chuckled at that.

‘What?’ Suth asked.

‘There’s a nasty choice. Shoot at the ship whose crew’s about to besiege you, or keep firing at the rest?’

Suth bit down and resorted to pleading with his insane collection of Dal Hon gods that the gigantic target he currently rode — two dromonds side by side! — would somehow fail to be hit.

A third volley of stones, now no longer flaming, arced skyward. One came hurtling down on a Blue transport, cleanly smashing the vessel in half in a terrific shattering of wood. The other sent a wash of spume over the lumbering catamaran.

‘Can we even fit through?’ Len shouted to a nearby Blue marine.

The Moranth peered ahead. ‘It will be… how do you Malazans say… a close thing.’

Bellows rose from all sides: ‘Raise shields!’

Suth quickly huddled beneath his. Everyone likewise hunched. He heard a hissing as of sleet or heavy rain and he tensed his arm. Then came a hammering all around as a forest of arrows slammed into the hardwood decking and the layered wood, leather, and lacquer of the shields. A few men and women cried out as arrows punched through to impale arms, or found unprotected flesh. A marine next to Suth snarled his pain and outrage as an arrow nailed his foot to the deck.

A warning shout went up from the stern and Suth twisted to see the helmsman down and Blue sailors scrambling to right the tiller arm. The awkward behemoth lost headway, began edging sideways in the narrow harbour inlet. Everyone started yelling warnings.

‘Stay under cover!’ the sergeants warned.

An immense explosion from the port tower punched the catamaran. Rocks tumbled down the mole. A cloud of dust and smoke engulfed the guard tower on that side. Just visible above the smoke, the roof platform canted, tilting in slow motion, to fall backwards away from the harbour inlet. Keri jumped to her feet, shield held over her head. ‘Yeah! Hood take you! That’s the way to do it!’ She was hopping up and down. Everyone was cheering as the tower disappeared into the cloud of debris and rocks that came churning the water and even clattering on to the decking.

‘Get down!’ Goss yelled.

Keri, and many others, tumbled forward as one dromond, the other half of the catamaran, grated against submerged rock. ‘Ready poles!’ a Blue officer called. Blue sailors and marines dropped shields to obey. ‘Push off!’

From beneath his shield Suth watched as the marines and sailors strove to free the catamaran. Meanwhile, the withering bow-fire had not diminished from the other tower. Many fell, clutching at arrows that seemed to sprout from nowhere. Troopers clamoured to be allowed to lend a hand. ‘Stay where you are!’ the sergeants yelled.

The catamaran rocked again as another explosion took the tower on the opposite side. This one sprayed stones and debris out over the harbour so close as to pluck Blue sailors from the bow of one of the dromonds. The tower tilted, settling, and slowly slid down the mole in an avalanche of rubble that crashed into the harbour.

Everyone jumped up cheering. Suth noted that as it fell the tower buried the Blue man-of-war anchored at its feet. He wondered how many, if any, had remained on board.

With all hands contributing, the catamaran grated free of the rocks and edged its way through the harbour mouth. Peering behind, Suth saw practically the entire invasion fleet bunched up behind them. Not the brightest decision, it seemed to him, to send them through so early. Perhaps they ought to have been last. Or maybe he was just thinking of his self-preservation.

Now the fleet poured in practically bow to stern, one after the other. A fresh round of bells sounded from Aamil. Smaller onagers and catapults on the walls fired, most falling short as they tested their reach. Suth’s catamaran headed straight for the centre of the curtain wall. The other vessels fanned out to either side.

Fishing boats and cargo vessels now rose into flames all about the harbour. The Skolati sailors sent them coasting out to meet the invaders, then abandoned them. The Blue vessels appeared to ignore the much smaller fireships, knocking them aside, though they did furl all their canvas — the most flammable part of them, Suth imagined.

A great thrumming brought his attention to the main stronghold wall where it climbed straight up from the water. A black cloud rose, arcing up into the darkening night-blue sky. ‘Raise shields!’ the sergeants bellowed once more. Already sick of the threat of arrows, Suth hunched again.

The swath the fortress bow-fire raked across the vessel was astonishing. The deck appeared almost furred in arrows. So intense was the missile fire, no counter-barrage could even be attempted. Everyone tightened into balls and hid for their lives beneath their shields. Sneaking a glance from under his, Suth saw transports thumping against wharves, lowering wide gangplanks, and emptying their cargoes of marines in great surging hordes that charged up the stone piers.

Arbalests and scorpions on nearby men-of-war cracked, firing, and Keri stood again. ‘This I gotta see!’

‘Will you get down!’ Goss yelled.

A fusillade of explosions engulfed the top of the curtain wall in smoke and bursting fragments of stone. The rubble fell in long arcs to sleet the waters or punch through vessels. Keri sat, disappointed. ‘Mostly sharpers, those.’

Len shook his head. ‘What’d you expect? We’re right under the damned wall!’

An order went up from the Blue sterncastle: ‘Raise the tower!’

Keri jumped to her feet again, punching the air. ‘I knew it! Did you hear that? It’s a tower. A Hood-damned siege tower!’

All the while the withering barrage of arrow-fire continued to rake the decking. Suth began to wonder how this woman managed to survive any engagement. Near the bow sailors struggled with circular mechanisms while Blue marines protected them with raised shields. The ratcheting of iron vibrated the dromond as the sailors worked what appeared to be some kind of immense winch.

The tall construction, as long as the vessels themselves, began to swing upwards from the stern. Suth stared, genuinely amazed. Overlapping shields layered the front and sides. The open rear exposed a plain scaling ladder. A shielded walled and roofed box topped it. Everyone watched its agonizingly slow climb to the vertical. Water poured from the thing, some crashing down to the decks. Len was stroking his chin, quite impressed. Keri hopped from foot to foot, hardly able to contain her excitement. ‘I read about one of these in Gatan’s Compendium. We’ve never been able to build one.’

But Len was frowning now, troubled by something.

It was too short. Too short by far. The curtain wall rose nearly twice its height. Just as Suth opened his mouth to ask about this the ratcheting changed timbre to a deeper, more laboured, slower turning. And the tower began to rise. Not the entire thing; it became obvious that the tower was in fact built of two segments, one snug inside the other. It was the inner one that now rose.

The Skolati had reorganized the battlement defences and rocks pelted down, smashing to the decking, flattening troopers. The arrow-fire returned to its unrelenting stream. Suth adjusted his helmet strap one-handed, the other supporting his shield up over his head.

‘Move forward!’ sergeants bellowed. ‘Ready to climb!’

The men-of-war and flanking support ships fired another salvo from their arbalests, scorpions and bow onagers and Suth flinched, knowing now what was to come. Staccato explosions atop the wall obscured it in smoke and dust. Rubble came showering down upon them in pebbles and stones large enough to knock a hole in the deck. A marine in line disappeared as a stone smashed her flat. Everyone cursed the Blues to Hood. Suth agreed, wondering what was worse: the defending arrow-fire, or their own supporting counter-barrage. Now he understood Len’s cryptic remark about the Blues supplying more munitions to the fight than they would want.

‘Forward!’

The troopers readied themselves, shields overhead. Suth peered under his to the bows. He caught a glimpse of the Adjunct, now in a red cloth-wrapped helmet and a heavy banded hauberk with mail sleeves. The young officer leaned in to take the ladder first. Two squads of what looked like elite Blue marines followed him. Soon after that the line edged forward.

Arrow-fire returned, scattered, but gathering in density, clattering like hail. A roar shook the dimming evening as the marines, Blue and Malazan, clamoured before the west gatehouse. A much heavier defence faced them there. Suth’s mouth had gone as dry as dirt yet his palms were wet. Action was what’d he wanted all this time but now that it was here it was not what he’d been expecting at all. This was no testing of individual prowess of the sort boasted by his brothers and sisters back in Dal Hon. Yet, bizarrely, the courage it demanded was perhaps even greater: one had to abandon all personal control, release one’s fate to the greater effort. It was terrifying, yet intoxicating. He felt helpless, yet part of an unstoppable force.

His squad, Goss leading, reached the bow decking. Here a section of the railing had been removed and a gangway led to the rear of the tower. A solid line of men and women slowly worked their way up the ladder above, shields swinging at their backs.

‘Keep moving,’ a Blue officer told everyone who passed, a hand on his or her shoulder. ‘Do not stop at the top. Push forward. Make room for more.’ Pyke took a grip of the ladder ahead of Suth, while Wess was behind. Len and Keri brought up the rear.

Though water still poured down the construction, Suth found the climbing easy. Some sort of sand or grit coated the rungs of the ladder. Arrows and rocks rattled from the layered shields, striking at poor angles.

‘Move your fat arse,’ Pyke yelled at Dim, above.

The tower shook then, rocking back and forth, and a crash sounded above. Suth hugged the rungs for his life. But no one came tumbling down and the tower remained upright. A beast-like roar from the top told the story. Enough troopers had reached the platform to lower the gangway and charge. Iron rang from iron and now bodies fell tumbling past to hit the water with a splash, or strike the decking with a sickening thump. Suth fixed his concentration on each rung before him and just climbed.

He dared not look down; he’d never been much for climbing. His arms ached already and he hadn’t even reached the fighting yet. Then from either side hands grasped his shoulders and pulled him upright. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ someone yelled, propelling him forward. He charged after Pyke, drawing his sword and readying his shield. The gangway sagged and swayed beneath him. He reached the wall battlements and stepped down amid shattered stone and a carpet of fallen bodies. The noise that buffeted him from behind the curtain wall almost knocked him back. Fighting clashed from either side. Explosions lit the evening across the port city as Moranth incendiaries came arcing in overhead to fall blossoming in orange and gold flame. Suth stood transfixed by the sight of such chaos. This was not fighting as he knew it; this was war. Two arrows hammering into his shield shook the trance from him and he charged to the right after Pyke.

His squad was bunched up at the rear of a line of marines choking an open walkway leading to a tower. ‘What’s the hold-up?’ Yana called.

‘Who knows?’ someone shouted back.

Arrows clattered from the stones around them, fired from rooftops behind the wall. ‘Let’s move!’ Lard bellowed. ‘Our backsides are hanging out here!’

‘I’m sure they’re working on it!’ another voice called back.

An explosion shot smoke and debris on to the broad street below. In the fitful light Suth glimpsed fallen bodies, broken rock and equipment. Marines appeared, charging after retreating defenders. A great shout went up from within the tower and the line began advancing.

‘Who do you think that was?’ Keri asked Len as they shuffled down the tight passage.

‘Thumbs, maybe. Or Slowburn.’

‘Naw. Tight work like that? Musta been Squeaky.’

Len made a noise. ‘She’s overrated.’

‘Cap it!’ Goss barked from below.

They charged through a guardroom and hall cluttered by fallen Skolati defenders and marines. A barrier of furniture had been blasted aside, and the stone was slick underfoot with blood and fluids. The tower door had been demolished. The squads piled up behind pushed them out like a great vomit of rage, confusion and frustration. Squads peeled off down narrow streets. Goss was there and he yanked Suth aside to send him over to where Yana, Lard and Dim stood together in a triangle watching the darkened doorways and windows. Suth joined them, followed by the rest. Goss addressed them, hands raised. ‘Okay. This is where it gets hairy. The Skolati have fallen back but they’ll re-form. Where, we don’t know. We’re to push to the east gate tower to hit them from behind. Follow me. Stay close. And keep your eyes open.’ They formed two columns, Len and Keri in the middle, Goss leading, and headed up one of the narrow cobbled streets.

‘How do we know this is the right way?’ Pyke said, his voice low.

‘We don’t, okay?’ Yana growled. ‘So shut the Hood up.’

Once they entered the canyon-like street the light disappeared. Only a pale shifting glow from the fires in the city offered any details. Echoes of fierce fighting elsewhere came and went. Jogging down the street, Suth felt more exposed than if he were out on the savannah at night blindfolded. Despite the chaos the city seemed to be holding its breath.

‘Where is everyone?’ Pyke hissed. ‘This is stupid. We should all be together.’

‘Everyone just kinda took off,’ Wess said absently, chewing something, and he spat out a stream of brown.

Ahead, Goss stopped, raised a fist. The street dead-ended at a small courtyard. He gave a ‘turn round’ signal.

‘Shit,’ Wess mouthed, and he eased one of the two long-knives he carried.

‘I think-’

‘No one gives a shit what you think, okay, Pyke?’ Yana cut in. ‘Now be quiet. I’m trying to listen.’

‘Listen? Listen to what?’

Yana tilted her head. ‘Something…’

‘Form up!’ Goss bellowed.

Above, all round the square, windows crashed open. Arrow-fire raked the cobbles. The squad hunched, backs to each other, shields out. Goss kicked open a door only to have someone charge out and strike him in the chest with a woodsman’s axe.

It surprised Goss more than damaged him as he was wearing a heavy brigandine. He stabbed the man, pushed him aside, and then urged the squad to follow him in. A horde of Skolati burst from the surrounding doorways. The squad stabbed and thrust from behind their shields as they retreated into the building.

‘Lard, Yana, hold the door,’ Goss yelled.

‘Aye!’

While Lard jabbed, cursing, and Yana shield-bashed, Suth edged to a rear stairway. He watched Goss and Len crouch together in the middle of what were someone’s living quarters. ‘Can’t stay here,’ Len said and he picked up a pot and peered into it, sniffing.

Goss nodded heavily. ‘I know. I know. But there’s too damned many.’ He cocked his head, eyed Len speculatively. ‘You carrying?’

Len pursed his lips, considering, then nodded.

Goss stood. ‘Togg’s teats! Why didn’t you say so, dammit!’ He turned to where Lard and Yana hammered back with their shields, stabbing at those of the clamouring crowd who could push up to the door. He waved his disgust. ‘Clear the street.’

Len stood. ‘Keri! We’re on.’

Steps sounded on the stairs. Goss snapped his fingers at Suth, who was nearest. Suth charged up the stairway. He met a line of bearded men in boiled leather armour. The lead man swung a curved sword in a clumsy panicked arc. Suth let it pass then thrust straight through the man’s inner thigh. The fellow screamed and fell from the stairs into the room, where the rest finished him. The second leapt for Suth but he shifted sideways to let him fall past. The third swung for his head. He ducked, climbed higher and stabbed, severing the fellow’s ankle tendon. This one lost his footing and tumbled into Suth, who shrugged him off the stairs to fall and be finished.

‘Secure those rooms!’ Goss shouted.

‘Aye!’ Suth charged, shield high. He saw no one until he entered one room to find an open trapdoor, a ladder, and four Skolati soldiers. He charged. His shield-bash knocked three off balance. The fourth swung for his head, the blade cracking off his iron helmet, making his head ring and stars burst in his vision. He stabbed this one in the shoulder before spinning to put his back to a wall. They all closed at once, crowding one another. Suth trusted in his shield and concentrated on the one on his right. He parried a swing, sliding his shorter blade along the sword, and thrust low beneath the hauberk. The blade grated along the pelvis bone as it slid in.

Suth turned from that man without waiting to see him fall — the thrust had to be fatal. A blade skittered along the top of his shield; another hit his shoulder, numbing his shield-arm but not piercing the armour. Then the three were down and Len and Keri were there, long-knives bloodied.

‘That was stupid,’ Len told him, his voice low. ‘You tryin’ to win this war all by yourself? Next time you call for support, yes?’

Suth nodded, surprised to find his heart hammering, his throat parched and arms shaking. Keri was kneeling to clean her blade on the headscarf of one man; that casual gesture made Suth re-evaluate the woman.

Len cuffed his shoulder. ‘Now come with us.’

‘Yessir.’

They went to a room overlooking the street. Suth peered out. The street was jammed with Skolati citizens. Their screaming and cursing was an unintelligible roar. Soldiers fought to force their way through the mob, weapons held high. Len and Keri shrugged off their shoulder bags and knelt. They straightened, holding small dark green orbs in each hand.

Len used his elbow to nudge Suth back from the window. ‘Munitions!’ he yelled back towards the interior of the building.

‘Aye,’ came Goss’ answering shout.

Len leaned out to throw his, one to each side of the doorway, and ducked away from the window. Twin explosions shocked Suth, popping his ears and knocking him backwards. Dust streamed down from the roof. Keri leaned out, tossed her munitions farther, one after the other, and then went to one knee. Those eruptions echoed like hammer-strokes in the courtyard.

Len faced the interior, hands cupped to his mouth: ‘Clear!’ He scooped up his bag, grabbed Suth’s shoulder to propel him to the stairs. ‘Go!’

Downstairs the squad was formed up at the smoke-shrouded doorway, ready. ‘Go!’ Yana shouted, and they charged. Suth brought up the rear, covering Len and Keri. Outside he nearly tripped on men and women lying cut down on the street, or hobbling, soaked in blood from the countless minor slashing wounds of the munitions Keri called ‘sharpers’. A low moaning rose from countless wounded and dying. They escaped the courtyard, charged back up the way they’d come. After a few turns Keri shouted, pointing up a side alley, ‘This way!’

Goss signed a halt then came to her. ‘What is it?’

‘This should lead to a main way.’

Pyke waved his dismissal. ‘How would she know?’

‘Shut up,’ Suth told the man. Pyke glared his rage.

‘Okay.’ Goss pointed up the alley. ‘Let’s go.’

Suth kept to the rear behind the saboteurs. As they jogged along the narrow twisting way, he asked Keri, his voice low, ‘How do you know?’

She smiled, her teeth bright in the gloom. ‘Acoustics.’

‘What?’

‘Sounds. These sounds belong to a big space.’

All he could hear was the distorted clash and snarl of countless engagements all melded together into one rumbling as of a midnight thunderstorm. He shook his head — he was not used to cities. Ahead the squad was crouched where the alley opened on to a broad, treed boulevard that appeared to lead up from the waterfront. In the moonlight and shifting yellow glow of fires Suth glimpsed citizens running across the way carrying bundled possessions in their arms. Len tapped him, pointed up the boulevard. A squad of Moranth Blue marines. Goss waved an advance. They jogged up to the Blues.

As they went someone straightened among the Moranth: the young Adjunct. He’d been kneeling to examine dark shapes that resolved into a number of fallen Malazan soldiers. Goss offered the Adjunct a very truncated salute that he answered with a nod.

A gasp from Dim brought Suth’s attention to the fallen. They looked strange, skeletal, flesh drawn in and wrinkled, pulled back from grinning teeth. It was as if they were desiccated.

‘What is it, sir?’ Goss asked.

‘Looks like magery.’

‘We were told to expect none.’

‘That’s true, Sergeant.’ The Adjunct’s gauntleted hand went to the bright ivory grip of his sword, as if the movement were an unconscious habit of his while thinking. ‘I’m told there’s only one kind here.’ He was gazing up the boulevard to a tall building, spired, its arched roof silver in the moonlight.

‘Shit,’ Keri murmured, aside.

‘What is it?’ Suth asked, low.

‘Their Hood-spawned local cult.’

‘You’re with me,’ the Adjunct told Goss. He signed to the Blue commander, who jerked a nod and waved to his marines. They spread out, advancing. Goss motioned for his squad to take the centre behind the Adjunct.

More Malazan dead littered the stairs leading up to the building’s open door. It looked as though a squad had come to investigate something and been cut down by magery. Not one corpse of a defender could be seen. The Adjunct drew his blade and entered first. Half the Blue squad followed, then Goss motioned his in, and the remaining Blues brought up the rear. Within, braziers on tripods and lamps hanging from the distant ceiling lit a broad open chamber. Pillars ran in double rows along a centre aisle. Some sort of bright ornament, shaped like a starburst, hung on the far wall. Dark tapestries hinted at scenes of storm-racked waters and a woman in white flowing robes.

Four men stepped out from behind pillars to meet the Adjunct. They wore long priestly robes, were bearded, and carried stout staves. ‘You are a fool to have entered here,’ said one.

‘Surrender, and you can keep your religion,’ the Adjunct answered.

‘Fool! You cannot take our faith! The Lady is with us now. All those who dare to invade are doomed.’

The four struck their staves to the polished stone floor. Suth felt something strike him like a hand at his chest, or a gust of wind. Blue marines on either side clutched at their throats and helms, gagging. They fell to their knees. All those near the Adjunct, including Goss’s squad, remained standing. The four priests gaped at them, astonished. It might have been a trick of the uncertain light but the young Adjunct’s blade seemed to shine more brightly then. The Adjunct stepped up and swung. The priest raised his stave and the sword sliced right through the iron-braced dark wood. The priest staggered back, then his eyes blazed with an inner light and his lips twisted back from his teeth. ‘I see you now,’ he grated, his voice changed, somehow torn from his throat. ‘The Bitch Queen would send her soldier. But it will take more than you. I will drink your heart-blood.’

The Adjunct swung again and the man’s head spun from his neck. At that the spell seemed to shatter and everyone charged, cutting down the priests in a frenzy of loathing. They hacked the corpses long after they’d fallen, then Suth crossed to where the Adjunct was on his haunches, his blunt tribesman features drawn down in a frown. The youth was examining the decapitated corpse. Not one drop of blood could be seen pooled at the severed neck. Suth’s heart lurched in his chest and his gorge rose sour in his mouth. He turned away, staggered outside the temple to suck deep the warm smoke-tinged air. Wess emerged, clapped him on the back. ‘Fucking butcher’s work, hey? Not proper soldiering.’

‘You’ve — seen — things like that before?’

He gave a curt nod. ‘Yeah. There’s nothing you can do. Either it gets you or you get it.’

Suth drew in a deep breath. Distant fighting still rumbled from the waterfront. ‘What now?’

‘What now?’ Wess adjusted his helmet. ‘Now the real fighting starts. We’re headed to one of the gate towers!’ and he laughed, spitting.

Goss came out, followed by the rest of the squad. ‘Form up. We’re for the east gate. Double-time.’

The Adjunct emerged as well. The remaining Blue marines took up positions around him. He signed to Goss, who shouted, ‘Move out!’

*

It was long past mid-night when Rillish’s two captured Marese galleys, one rammed and listing, limped down the coast. He was certain they must be the last vessels and would arrive too late for the assault. That they still floated at all was enough, of course, but still, he was disappointed.

A Skolati merchant caravel, fat and slow, crossed ahead of them, bows to the south. The Skolati were not alarmed; for all they knew they were crippled Marese struggling home. Rillish was willing to let them go. It had been a night of alarms and excursions, flight and chase, and they were all exhausted. A figure walked to the stern of the distant cargo vessel, set a foot on the low rail to peer back at them. He was armoured, and the orange pre-dawn light caught at bright silver filigree adorning his cuirass and headgear, and tracing the longsword sheath.

Rillish’s breath caught in his throat. Burn deliver them! He ran back to the sailing master. ‘Take that ship!’

The man blinked sleepily. ‘What?’

‘Come aside of it! Take it! Now!’

The sailing master squinted at the vessel. ‘It isn’t even a warship!’

‘Do it!’ Rillish gripped his sword. ‘Or I’ll force you.’

The man scowled behind his beard. ‘Very well!’ He leaned on the tiller arm and the galley began to heave to. Rillish faced the crowded vessel and shouted: ‘Row! Row now with all your strength! One last charge!’

The troopers groaned, protesting, but the galley picked up speed. The Malazan sailors with them adjusted the sail to cut closer to the weak wind. Rillish watched for a time then turned on the sailing master. ‘We’re barely gaining. Can’t you do more?’

‘Your soldiers row like retards. They are not in time. It takes years of training. Still,’ and he shrugged, ‘we are gaining.’

Rillish shaded his gaze to look behind. The other captured galley was following, but at a great distance. The sailing master saw his gaze. ‘He is cursing you very much right now, I think.’

‘Yes. I expect so.’

He found Captain Peles at the bows. She eyed him, puzzled. ‘A prize of war, Fist?’

‘A hunch. We’re going to board. Do not charge ahead. Form a line, shields out. Yes?’

She saluted. ‘As you order, sir.’

‘Very good.’

Their progress was agonizing. A pale pre-dawn glow gathered to the east. Arrow-fire flew from the cargo ship but it was thin and uninspired. As they drew aside, Rillish saw that he’d been right. Three men in dark armour, silver-detailed, awaited them at mid-deck. Three Korelri Chosen — veterans of the wall. He was glad to have more than a hundred heavy infantry backing him up.

Eventually, the sailing master was content with their relative positions and the bow of the galley swung over towards the bow of the cargo vessel, cutting it off. ‘Toss grapnels,’ he called. ‘Ship oars!’

Marines threw the pronged iron grapnels, heaved on the ropes. The vessels swung together. Oars that were slow to be drawn were snapped. Their ends swung, hammering troopers flat.

‘Board!’ Rillish yelled, stepping up on to the railing and leaping. The troopers followed, shields at their backs. Rillish fell, rolling, then jumped up to retreat to the infantry now lining the ship’s side. The sailors of the cargo vessel stood empty-handed, surrendering. The three armoured men calmly faced them alone, weapons undrawn. ‘Ready shields,’ Rillish ordered. The troopers complied, forming line. He drew his duelling swords, pointed to one of the Korelri Stormguard. ‘Surrender and you will be spared.’

‘Do you know who we are?’ the man asked from behind the narrow slit of his chased blue-black helm.

‘Yes. I know.’

‘Then you know our answer.’

‘Yes.’

‘We cannot allow you to boast of our defeat, invader. You will not have our swords or armour to spit upon as spoils of war. It would be an insult to Our Lady. That cannot be permitted. And so-’

Rillish took a breath to shout, lurched forward. ‘NO!’

The three turned and vaulted over the side. Rillish threw himself to the rail, staring down. Three dark shapes sinking from sight, blades drawn, glinting in the slanting light, held upright before their helms. Gods! It was inconceivable. Such fervour. Such dedication. Such waste. He found tears starting from his eyes and he turned away.

Captain Peles was there, peering down, troubled. ‘So those were Korelri, yes?’

Rillish cleared his throat. ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice thick.

‘And we are to invade their lands?’

Rillish almost laughed at the thought. ‘Yes.’

The woman said nothing; her sceptical look was enough.

‘Captives, sir!’ A trooper ran up, saluted. ‘The cargo — human captives. Hundreds jammed in down there.’

Rillish answered the salute. ‘Thank you, soldier.’

‘Slaves?’ Peles said, surprised. ‘They are slavers?’

‘Of a kind, Captain. Bodies. Hundreds of bodies destined for the wall. Warm bodies to man it and defend it against the Stormriders.’ Rillish could see that the woman was shaken. ‘We’ll sail the vessel for Aamil. We’ll free them there — if we have the port. Have the master send over what sailors he can spare.’

Captain Peles saluted. ‘Aye, sir.’

*

Just after the sun cleared the horizon Rillish’s captured Skolati vessel bumped up against the stone pier at Aamil in one of the last available berths. Malazan sailors threw down ropes. The mage of Ruse, Devaleth, was there waiting to greet him. After last orders to the ship’s master, he went to the gangway and found Captain Peles there with a detachment of Malazan heavies. ‘No need, Captain.’

‘Every need, sir.’ She saluted. ‘You are an Imperial Fist. You should be treated as such.’

Rillish answered the salute, nodded his exhausted acquiescence. ‘Very well, Captain.’ He climbed the gangway to bow to Devaleth, who gave wry, but pleased, acknowledgement.

‘Good to see you made it,’ he said.

‘And you.’ She gestured up the pier. ‘This way.’

She led him to a tall thick gateway. Peles followed with his guard. The detritus of war was piled high here and teams came and went, still pulling bodies from the heaped wreckage and carting them off to be buried or burned. Rillish was surprised that the broad stone archway was still intact. As they walked beneath it, the stones marred by dark stains, Rillish observed, ‘Why didn’t the Blues just blow the gate?’

Devaleth walked with her hands clasped at her back. She was frowning at the ground, her face drawn, her eyes bruised. ‘Yes, why not? They’ve burned and blown up everything else.’

Rillish cleared his throat. ‘I’m… sorry for your countrymen, Devaleth.’

She nodded absently as they walked. ‘I never thought I’d see it happen. The blockade broken. Do not get me wrong — I am glad, of course. It is necessary. Still…’ she gave him a wintry smile, ‘a shock to one’s pride.’

A squad posted at an intersection straightened, saluting. Rillish answered the salute. Devaleth led him round the corner. ‘I understand,’ she said, ‘the Blues fear a counter-assault from Mare. And so they left the defences as intact as possible.’

‘Ah. I see. How are the Skolati?’

‘Quiet. Just as shocked, perhaps. Staying indoors. No doubt they hope we will just go away.’

‘You were here for the attack?’

‘No. I was with the Admiral. After we broke through the blockade he sent me on with some last messages for the High Fist.’

Rillish felt his chest tighten. ‘Ah. Yes. Of course.’ The stink of smoke that hung over the city now made Rillish sick. He’d known, of course, that he would be reporting to the man, but he’d somehow managed to keep it all out of mind.

Devaleth gestured up the narrow cobbled road to an inn where Malazan troopers stood guard. ‘Here we are.’

As Rillish entered, two squads lounging in the common room straightened to their feet, saluted. Rillish answered, nodding to them. He motioned for Captain Peles to wait here with his guard, then followed Devaleth up the stairs.

Two troopers stood guard at a door on the third floor. Devaleth knocked and it was opened by the young Adjunct, Kyle. His thick black hair was a mess, his wide dark face smudged with soot, and he still wore his armoured hauberk — he’d not even cleaned up from the fight yet. He inclined his head in greeting. ‘Fist Rillish,’ he called out, opening the door wide.

The High Fist was within, facing a man in rich-looking robes, bearded and sweating, flanked by Malazan troopers. Greymane waved the man away. ‘That’s all for now, Patriarch Thurell. I want everything gathered at the main square. Supplies, all mounts, cartage.’

‘Yes, yes. Certainly.’ The man bowed jerkily, hands clasped at his front. He seemed terrified. The troopers marched him past Rillish and out of the door.

Greymane peered down at Rillish. His eyes seemed a brighter blue than usual, glittering from under the wide shelf of his brow. Rillish bowed. ‘Congratulations upon your victory, High Fist.’

Greymane leaned against a table, crossed his arms. ‘Here at last, Fist Rillish Jal Keth. Now that the fighting is over.’

Rillish clamped his teeth against the urge to laugh the comment off, cleared his throat. ‘We saw much action at sea.’

‘No doubt.’

Swallowing, Rillish squeezed a gloved hand until it ached. He felt Devaleth there at his side, her own stiffness, but he dared not look to her. ‘You have orders, sir?’

Perhaps it was the room’s poor lighting, but Rillish thought the man was glowering as if trying to think of what to do with him. His wide mouth drew down and he heaved a heavy breath. ‘It just so happens that a number of squads from the 4th have struck on ahead inland — my very intent, as it happens. You are to lead the rest of the 4th after them. Push, Fist. Push on westward. I will follow with Fist Shul and the main body. Adjunct Kyle here will accompany you. As will the High Mage.’

Rillish jerked an assent. ‘Certainly, High Fist. I understand. You wish to break out before the Skolati can organize a counter-strike.’ He nodded to the Adjunct, who stood watching from the door, his face emotionless, hands at his belt. ‘You are most welcome.’ The young man just nodded, utterly self-contained. So, my minder. Greymane is to take no chances with his subordinates this time.

‘You will leave immediately. I understand we can even offer some few mounts.’

‘That would be welcome as well.’

The High Fist grimaced again as if uncomfortable, rubbed his unshaven jaw. Rillish hoped it was because the man was as ill at ease with this interview as he. Then Greymane merely waved to the door. ‘That is all.’

Rillish drew himself up stiffly, saluted. ‘High Fist.’

The Adjunct opened the door.

Reaching the street, Rillish said nothing. Ranks of infantry marched past. Smoke plumed up from still-burning buildings. Broken rubble choked a side street. None of it registered clearly with him; everything spun as his pulse throbbed in his chest and temple. As they walked side by side, Devaleth and he, the Adjunct having remained behind for now, Devaleth said quietly, ‘You show great forbearance, Fist.’

Rillish glanced behind to Captain Peles and his guard, gave a curt wave as if to cut the memory away. ‘Whether I bellow and bluster, he remains my commanding officer. There is nothing I can do. Therefore, I’d rather cultivate equanimity. For my peace of mind.’

‘His paranoia threatens to incite the very actions he suspects.’

Rillish shot her a hard stare. ‘I’ll thank you not to talk of such things again, High Mage.’

She inclined her head. ‘As you prefer, Fist.’

‘For now let us get the 4th organized. I will hold a staff meeting at noon.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Orzu had fished the inland seas of Korel and its archipelagos all his life. He’d been born on a boat, part of no nation or state, had grown up knowing loyalty to no land or lands. Lately he and his clan had been living in a tiny fishing hamlet so small it appeared on no map. It was a collection of slate-roofed stone huts on the shores of the Plains of Blight. And if one climbed the tallest hill within a day’s walk and squinted hard to the south one could just make out the snowy peaks of the Iceback range. So it was quite a surprise to him when three men and a woman came tramping down the barren shore of black wave-smoothed stones to where he sat mending his nets in the lee of his boat.

He watched them approach, making no secret of his open examination. Seen hard travel. A shipwreck further up the coast, maybe? Armed and armoured. Soldiers. But whose? Stygg? Jasston? None had the look. The shortest was distinctly foreign-looking with his dark, almost bluish hue.

If they were raiders they were the sorriest-arsed brigands Orzu had ever seen. Thieves did come through occasionally: outlaws from Jasston, thugs from Stygg. He and his fellow villagers had no particular weapons or armour to oppose them; their main defence was in appearing to have nothing. And so he just eyed the four while they walked up and the foremost, the bluish-hued fellow, rested a hand on the side of his boat drawn up on the strand and addressed him in mangled Katakan: ‘You sell boat?’

Orzu took the pipe from his mouth. ‘No, I no sell boat.’

‘We pay much gold, many coin.’

‘Fish don’t want coin.’

The four talked then, their language foreign, but with a very familiar lilt to it. Orzu thought he could almost catch the odd word or two. Closer now, he also noticed how the tip of one’s nose was black, the edges of another’s ears. The skin of all four was cracked and bloodied, flaking. Frostbite. Damned severe, too. They couldn’t have come down from the Ice Barrens, could they? But that was a desolate emptiness.

‘We pay you to take us. To Korelri. Yes?’

Orzu thought about that. ‘How much coin?’

The spokesman gestured to the tallest of them, a great thick warrior in a mail shirt that hung to his ankles, a wide shield on his back, and a helm tied to his belt. His long black hair was a great mane. This one handed over a fat leather sack. The spokesman gave it to Orzu. It was amazingly hefty. Orzu peered in, took out a coin. Gold. More fortune than he’d ever dreamed to touch. He cinched the bag up tight. ‘I take you. But must bring wife, children.’

The four eyed one another, confused. ‘Take your… family?’ said the spokesman.

‘Yes. My price. Bring wife, children. Go tomorrow morning. Yes?’

‘Why…’

‘My price. Not so high, yes?’

‘Well…’

‘My name Orzu. We have deal, yes?’

‘Blues. We have a deal.’

Blues? What an odd name. Must be for the hue of his skin. Orzu shrugged inwardly. No matter. He set down his mending and stood. ‘First we eat. My wife make you fish stew. Is good, you see.’

That caught their interest. All four perked up at the mention of hot food.

Shipwrecked. Must be. What other possible explanation could there be? This was good. They would eat well, meet the family.

And he had such a very large family.

The stench was the hardest thing for Shell to endure. She sat near the doorway — nothing more than a gaping hole in the piled stones of the walls of the hut — and held the clay bowl down away from her face. All the while the fat woman, this fellow’s wife, grinned toothlessly at her, the only other woman present. At their feet a great gang of children cried, fought among themselves, gaped at her so close she could smell their stale breath, and gobbled down the rotten stew. Whose were they? Not this old couple, surely.

‘Blues,’ she called, edging aside a youth who seemed determined to find something hidden far up his nose. ‘Let’s just take a boat and go. We’re wasting time.’

From where he sat next to the gabbling old fellow, apparently the patriarch of this horde, Blues shook his head. ‘It’s their livelihood, Shell. They’d starve.’

Lazar stuck his head in. ‘There’s more coming outside. Two more boats are pulled up.’

‘Thanks.’ More of them! A damned family reunion.

At least Fingers seemed in his element: fascinating the kids with tricks of sleight of hand. They squealed when he made stones appear from their noses and mouths. She called to Blues: ‘There’s more of them outside.’

He spoke to the old man, listened, cocked his head in concentration. In-laws. His daughters’ and sons’ spouses’ brothers and sisters and their children.

‘Well, who in the Queen’s name are these kids?’

Blues looked surprised. ‘Haven’t you been listening? Grandchildren, of course.’

‘Blues…’

‘How do you like the food?’

‘It’s vile. Why?’

A laugh. ‘Just wondering, because it looks like we’re in for a lot more.’

‘What do you mean?’

Blues waved to encompass the kids, the men and women sitting outside on the bare smoothed stones, watching and waiting. ‘Because it looks like we just hired the entire clan.’

‘Blues!’

The next morning twelve broad fishing boats, longboats Shell imagined you might call them, lay pulled up on the strand. Orzu’s clan of fisherfolk was busy piling them up with their meagre smelly possessions. Now that she’d had time to reflect upon it, she couldn’t blame them. This was their chance to escape this desolate shore. Others had now found the courage to speak; a girl, fat with child and carrying yet another, seemed to have attached herself to Shell.

‘What is your name?’ she asked the girl.

‘Ena.’ The child she carried in her arm was fighting to open her blouse to reach a swollen teat. She brushed the small hands aside. ‘You?’

‘Shell. Where will you go?’

She shrugged. ‘We go to Theft.’

‘What will you do there?’

Again the indifferent shrug. ‘Same as here.’

You are wiser than you know, young woman-child. For you, things are sadly unlikely to change.

Ena was eyeing her soft leathers under her thick travelling cloak, her leather gloves and tall boots. ‘Where you come from?’

‘The south. Far to the south. Before that, far to the north.’

An older woman, exact relationship uncertain, came and took the child from Ena, then the two argued back and forth for a time until the old woman marched off enraged.

‘What is it?’ Shell asked.

A smile. ‘Mother says I am lazy. Work to be done. But I tell her I am no longer a child to be ordered about. The… Blessed Lady… she is known where you are from?’

Shell was surprised by the non-sequitur. It was a moment before she could reply. ‘No. She is not known. She is only known here.’

Ena tucked a hand under the swell of her belly. Her many relations tramped back and forth readying the boats. Blues was arguing with Orzu next to one particularly overloaded skiff; he appeared to be miming sinking.

‘Yes. We thought so, no matter the words of her priests.’

‘Her priests? You have heard them?’

Ena nodded with child-like earnestness. ‘Oh yes. They come here. Half-starved wanderers. They stay and preach to us. Lady this and Lady that. They try to convert us.’

‘Convert you? You do not worship the Lady?’

She nodded, so serious. ‘Oh no. We are the Sea-Folk. We follow the old ways. Oh, the last of the priests seemed harmless enough until he tried to use the boys to satisfy himself. So we bound him and threw him to the Sea-Father.’

‘The Sea-Father? Oh, yes. The old ways.’

‘Yes. The Sea-Father. The Sky-Father. The Dark-Taker. The fertile Mother. And the Enchantress. The priests spoke against her the most. But we do not listen. We know the Lady by her ancient name. Shrikasmil — the Destroyer.’

Shell studied the child-woman while she stared out to sea. She was pretty despite her greasy hair, the grimed unwashed face. Pretty perhaps only because of her youth and her pregnancy. ‘Why travel to Theft, then? Surely you will not be welcome.’

Again the uncaring shrug, though tinged by a wry smile. ‘Nowhere are we welcome. We are the Sea-Folk. We come and go as we please. We choose to harbour at Theft till they chase us off. It was strange, you know…’ and she cocked her head, her brows wrinkling, ‘he was glad when we threw him in. Happy. He wanted to be martyr to the Lady. They all want to die for her. It is perverse. Shouldn’t faith seek life?’

Shell said nothing. Ena answered her own question with what seemed her response to everything: a shrug of dismissal. Then, rousing herself, she walked off to lend her family a hand. Shell remained, facing the sea, troubled. Something the girl had said. Dying for her. They all want to die for her. Something in that clawed at her instincts. She did not know what it was, yet. But there was something there. She could feel it the way she could feel the Lady’s own baleful hot gaze glaring from the north. From this point onward none of them should dare summon their Warrens.

Esslemont, Ian Cameron

Stonewielder