Assail

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘They are of the Kerluhm,’ Pran Chole murmured tonelessly. He pushed into the waves.

  Though she was dreading it, the news still made her clench her fists and press one to her breast. Gods, no! More of them. Will they not stop coming? Why not others?

  Pran Chole raised a hand of bone and cured leathery skin. ‘Greetings, Kerluhm,’ he called. ‘I am Pran Chole of the Kron. We honour you.’

  ‘I am Othut K’ho,’ one answered. ‘We honour the Kron.’ A ragged cape of sewn animal skins hung from this one’s bare bone shoulders. He turned to Silverfox and lowered himself to one knee in the surf. The others of his band joined him. ‘Summoner,’ he murmured as softly as Pran. ‘We honour you as well.’

  She raised a hand for pause. Now, she knew, she had to command when her every instinct urged her to plead. ‘My thanks, Othut. If you honour me I must ask you agree to forestall any action until I have explained fully.’

  His battered mien wrinkled up even more as his mostly fleshless brow crinkled. ‘Explain?’ he breathed. His empty sockets edged to the north and he murmured, ‘We are newly reawakened to the world, true. We were caught crossing the Agadal and the ice took us. It seems we slept for ages. And while we slumbered, interned, that river of ice carried us far afield indeed. I awoke on the shore of an unknown sea and freed what companions I could find. Then we heard the Call …’

  ‘Listen to me, Othut,’ she interjected, speaking with all her power over the roar of the surf. ‘If you honour me you must follow my command. And I command an end to the war, Othut. It is over. No more hostilities. We gather here and I will release you all. Is this understood, Othut? Are you listening?’

  The Kerluhm’s rotted head, its tannin-stained skull peeking from behind the mummified flesh, had edged aside to Pran, and it raised a bone-thin arm to point to the north. ‘Is what I sense true?’ it asked, and Silverfox heard the familiar stunned amazement in his words.

  Pran answered in a slow firm nod. ‘It is so. And we of the Kron name them beyond the boundary of the Ritual.’

  Silverfox stood frozen, fists clenched at her sides, fairly quivering in dread. Now would come the answer, she knew. The T’lan did not dissemble. Nor hide their intent. It would happen now.

  ‘We Kerluhm,’ Othet answered, his voice even more raw and jagged, ‘do not.’

  ‘No!’ she cried once more – as she always did – but to no effect. The waves boiled about her as Kron warriors surged through the surface and they and the Kerluhm locked blades that clashed and grated. Pran shifted to stand protectively before her, though never in all the battles played out here on these beaches did one Imass ever move to threaten her.

  She fell to her knees, the water at her breast, her face in her hands. Failure! Utter wretched failure once more! The cold waves splashed over her. The surge of bodies fighting around her died away.

  ‘It is over,’ Pran Chole said unnecessarily. ‘They have fled. My warriors pursue.’

  She raised her face. Her tears felt hot on her chilled wet cheeks. ‘Your numbers are diminishing, Pran. Some time soon too many will arrive and you will be overrun. What then?’ she yelled. ‘What then!’

  ‘You will not be harmed.’

  She lunged to her feet. Her wet hides slapped about her, almost pulling her over. She threw up a hand as if to strike his stone-hard face. ‘I do not speak of myself!’ She jabbed a finger to the north. ‘I speak of them! Them! What will happen to all those thousands … so many. A crime beyond imagining, Pran! And you Imass the perpetrators. Mass murderers …’ The enormity of it made her dizzy and she could not continue.

  ‘Omtose Phellack remains active in the north. It protects them yet.

  ‘For how long!’ she threw back at him. ‘It is weakening. You know this! In the little time we’ve been here I have felt it weakening.’

  To this Pran could only offer the wordless gesture of those who live long enough in the indifferent world: the subtle lift of the shoulders that says, who is to know?

  * * *

  Fisher Kel Tath found the Bone Peninsula much the same as when he’d left it so very long ago. Which is to say: insular, murderous, and savage. The pocket city-states still jostled and warred amongst themselves seeking supremacy. And each, in its turn, succeeded in grasping a taste of said supremacy only to be dragged down eventually by some new alliance of their neighbours, said alliance then flying apart in the inevitable betrayals and killings. And so it went. On and on. Endlessly repeating itself and none apparently learning a thing from it. Fisher was even more disheartened and disgusted than when he’d fled it all originally.

  Yet he’d returned. Drawn not by the steep inlets and forested mountain slopes that so figured in his youth, but by hints from readings in the divinatory Dragons deck, by whispered rumours, and by plain gut instincts that told him that things were about to change here in the lands of Assail, so very ancient and clinging to the old ways of family, clan and blood-feud.

  He lingered in Holly, at the top of the mountainous peninsula. It was one of the more northerly of the coastal kingdoms. They were named kingdoms here along the coast, though in any other region they would rate as little more than baronies, or minor city-states. He lingered because when he arrived he found himself anticipated by a horde of foreigners all come ashore from the outland vessels now crowding the tiny fishing harbour of this modest fortress and town.

  It seemed that for all his seeking out of subtle readers of the deck, paying of noted prophets, and even time spent insinuating himself into the good graces of a certain priestess of the Queen of Dreams for hints of future events, he had failed to discover the news that was clearly common knowledge: that streams bedded in gold had been discovered in northern Assail lands.

  He did not know whether to consider it a personal failing, or a sad comment on the skills of said clairvoyants. In any case, he now had a seat in a tavern quite taken over by foreigners – and he thought by everyone to be among them – while strategy was being hammered out around the captain’s table.

  It was a raucous affair of banged fists, yelled insults, and daggers half drawn while their owners, hired swords, and plain men-at-arms watched one another suspiciously.

  ‘We must all march together overland.’ This was Marshal Teal of Lether, tall, pole-slim and sour-faced, who possessed the largest force: a pocket army of forty armed fortune-hunters, all probable ex-soldiers. He called himself ‘Marshal’, though Fisher couldn’t recall such a rank associated with the Letherii military.

  ‘Overland is too slow!’ This from Enguf, called the Broad, a man who couldn’t be more opposite to the pale-lipped Letherii commander: a squat, flame-haired south Genabackan pirate who’d landed with a crew of twenty armed, lean and hungry swordsmen. ‘Those who continue on to the inland sea will take everything!’

  ‘We have no time for such games,’ cut in the third commander at the table, a Malazan aristocrat, Malle of Gris. She was an older woman, wiry, in thick layered finery of the sort that was fashionable in Unta two decades ago. Thick silver wristlets gleamed at her wrists like manacles, and kohl lined her eyes giving her something of the look of an owl. ‘That you landed here betrays your intent clearly.’

  ‘And that is?’ Enguf answered, not the least intimidated by the woman’s haughty manner.

  She dismissed him with a wave of a skinny hand. ‘We three must have seen maps or heard accounts that hint of the dangers all along the inland sea. The Sea of Dread, many style it. The Anguish Coast. Are we three not betting that few of these vessels will reach the inland Sea of Gold? Better to cut across the top of the peninsula, neh? Though the mountain passes of the Bone range no doubt hold their own dangers.’

  ‘Quite so, Malle,’ put in Marshal Teal. ‘We will march for the top of the Demon Narrows. To a settlement named Desolation Bay.’

  ‘Hardly encouraging, that,’ muttered Enguf.

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Malle. Her lips thinned into a humourless predatory smile. ‘I believe that to be a description o
f what awaits those foolish enough to attempt the narrows.’

  ‘We are resolved then?’ enquired Teal. He signed to his second, who drew a sheet of parchment from a pouch. ‘We the undersigned,’ he began, dictating, ‘agree to equal shares of all profits accruing, after shared expenses, from our venture in gathering mineral resources from the Salt range.’ When his aide had finished, he signed the document then slid it and the quill across to Malle, who also signed. She offered it to Enguf, who scowled at the sheet and the other two commanders.

  ‘Must I?’ he growled distastefully.

  ‘Mercantile contracts must be signed and witnessed,’ insisted Teal.

  Enguf snatched up a candle and tilted it over the document. ‘All this paper waving and scratching is nothing more than hollow mummery. What matters is a man or a woman’s word.’

  ‘Nevertheless …’ Malle murmured.

  Wax dripped to the page and Enguf pressed a ring into the cooling droplet. He pushed the sheet to Teal. ‘Done. Meaningless charade though it is.’

  ‘In a barbaric country perhaps,’ allowed Teal. His second rolled the document and slipped it away. ‘But in Lether the rule of law is respected.’

  Enguf stroked his thick russet beard. ‘Oh yes. I forgot that being civilized means constructing laws that favour yourself while at the same time disadvantaging everyone else.’

  Teal offered a bloodless smile. ‘My friend, if in some manner you find yourself disadvantaged by the law then by definition you must be a criminal.’

  ‘You take my point exactly.’

  Malle threw up a hand for silence. ‘We are outside our purview. I suggest we ready for the morrow.’

  Teal nodded his assent. ‘Of course. My thanks, Malle of Gris.’

  ‘What?’ Enguf objected, quite disbelieving. ‘Not one drink to our partnership? Come now, we must drink. All mercantile agreements must be sealed by a toast.’

  Teal’s mouth tightened even more as his jaws clenched.

  ‘If we must,’ said Malle. ‘Myself, I favour liqueurs. Wormwood, or dhenrabi blood, preferably.’

  Enguf raised his brows, impressed. ‘Well – I doubt we’ll find such rare delicacies here. But we can only try.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Innkeep? Hello? Demons and gods, has the man fled?’ He gestured to his crew and two men got to their feet and ambled to the rear, where, Fisher imagined, the man was probably cowering, overcome by this crowd of foreigners who had taken over his business.

  Fisher noted a lad lingering about the back door. He was biting his lip and shifting his weight from foot to foot, obviously anxious. He crossed to him. ‘Is something wrong, lad?’

  The boy jumped, rather surprised. ‘You don’t talk funny.’

  Fisher cursed his mistake, muttered, ‘I’ve travelled a lot. So, what’s troubling you?’

  ‘Father sent me to give a message – but I don’t know who to talk to.’

  ‘Can you tell it to me? I’ll pass it along.’

  The boy brightened; clearly this was what he’d hoped to hear. He gestured to the north. ‘We found another of you foreigners washed up on the shore. We brought him here but don’t know what to do with him. The Countess’s men won’t take him.’

  Iren, Countess of Holly. And north of here was a good part of the Wreckers’ Coast. The gods alone knew how many of the ships making for this region had their bottoms ripped out along that length of treacherous rocks and shoals. To its inhabitants anyone not local was free game to rob and murder. It was, in point of fact, the only industry they had. ‘Why bring him here?’ Fisher asked, now wondering why the lad’s father hadn’t robbed this fellow and pushed him under as he had probably done countless times before.

  The boy now got a strange look in his eyes, wary, and touched with fear. ‘He’s a strange one, sir.’

  A strange one? ‘Well, let’s take a look.’

  The lad bobbed his head, grateful and relieved. He motioned to the rear. ‘We’d best go this way.’

  ‘The back? Why?’

  The boy now squinted to the front. ‘Ah … reasons, sir.’

  One of Enguf’s men appeared from the kitchens. ‘Can’t find the innkeep anywhere,’ he bellowed.

  Fisher eyed the sturdy hewn planks of the front door. Come to think of it, no one had come or gone for some time. He motioned the lad onward. ‘After you.’

  The boy took him out of the canted ill-fitting rear door, then immediately ducked behind a tall stack of firewood and crouched. Fisher joined him. ‘Company?’ he whispered.

  ‘The Countess’s men have closed the roads round the inn.’

  ‘Didn’t consider sharing that information?’

  The lad studied him as if he was a fool. ‘Not my errand.’ He dashed for a rear outbuilding. Keeping low, Fisher followed. Entering a field of tall stubble the lad suddenly halted and Fisher saw that he faced one of the Countess’s men-at-arms. This fellow wore a loose oversized leather jack covered in iron studs that winked as they caught the moonlight. He had a crossbow levelled upon them.

  ‘Back inside,’ he growled through a ragged beard.

  Fisher motioned to the lad. ‘He’s not with us.’

  ‘Doan’ care. Back inside. We’re arrestin’ you lot.’

  ‘What for?’ Fisher asked, almost smiling at the conceit.

  But the question didn’t buy any time at all as the man spat to one side and smiled behind his beard. ‘For bein’ a damned foreigner.’

  Fisher slowly raised his hands, and as he did so a coin appeared in each. Large ones that gleamed something other than silver in the moonlight. The man-at-arms’ tongue emerged to wet his lips and he peered about. He took his hand from the crossbow’s trigger bar and motioned for the coins to be tossed. Fisher threw them one after the other, then urged the lad onward with a hand pressed at his back. The man-at-arm ignored them as he held the coins up to the moon, squinting at them first through one eye then through the other.

  The lad stumbled onward and kept slowing to peek back. ‘Keep going,’ Fisher whispered. Once the man was left behind, the lad scowled and hunched his shoulders.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to spend no coin,’ he finally complained.

  Fisher understood the lad was worried he would press the debt upon his family. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he answered, quite untroubled. ‘The coins are from the Lether and worthless. The gold plating their brass is thinner than Letherii generosity – which is non-existent.’

  The lad frowned, still uncertain. ‘Well …’ he finally judged. ‘All right.’

  Fisher peered ahead into the night where the land fell to the coast. ‘You’re taking me to the harbour.’

  ‘Aye. We have him in our boat.’

  ‘I see.’

  He was led, not to one of the fishing docks, but onward, past the built-up shore to where the waves surged among black rocks and the footing became sodden and treacherous. Here, almost invisible from shore, a tiny boat, a skiff, bobbed with the sullen gleaming waters. As they closed, a pale face rose over the worn and gouged gunwale. It was a lad even younger than the first one, fear quite plain in his wide eyes.

  ‘Just the two of you?’ Fisher grunted, surprised.

  ‘Aye.’

  He was amazed they’d brought the man all this way and didn’t simply toss him overboard and call the errand finished. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face for the lad bristled and thrust out his chin. ‘We was told to bring him!’ Then he shrugged, his outrage melting. ‘Besides, Father said he doan’t want his ghost hauntin’ us in the night.’

  His ghost? Intrigued, Fisher edged down the slippery rocks to where the younger brother kept a handhold. The moon and clear night’s starlight revealed a tall form wrapped in burlap and rags in the skiff’s bottom.

  ‘He’s a tall one,’ Fisher observed.

  ‘That’s not all,’ said the lad, and he nodded to his brother, who knelt down and pulled the covering from the figure’s head.

  Fisher almost plunged into the cold waves
as the night revealed the black elongated features of a Tiste Andii.

  How long Fisher squatted awkwardly on the rocks staring at that face he knew not. All he knew was that he lost the feeling in his feet and had to gingerly adjust his seating to work the blood back into them. Jesting gods! An Andii here on these shores! What could be this one’s purpose for being here? Not the hunt for gold, that was certain.

  Then he saw how mist wafted from the figure, and how hoar frost limned the burlap. He pointed, hardly able to speak.

  ‘That?’ said the older lad. ‘That’s nothing. Covered in ice he was when we dropped him in. And the water in the scupper froze solid beneath him.’

  Fisher could hardly credit it. ‘Ice, you say? And what of the ship – the wreck?’

  The boys exchanged wondering glances and the elder stroked his chin in a gesture out of place in one so young. ‘Was none that night. Now as you say it. Maybe he fell overboard.’

  Fisher did not think so. The lads, he noted, had been studying him for some time now, sullen and still fearful, though covering this with a brittle truculence. ‘Well?’ the older one demanded.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Will you take him from us?’

  Fisher almost gaped. ‘Oh – aye. That is, yes. Certainly.’

  The lads let out long pent up breaths and even shared quick smiles of success. Clearly they were in dread of the curse of this black-skinned demon out of foreign lands. Fisher motioned that he would take him from the skiff. Together, the lads awkwardly eased the bundled body up to Fisher, who set it over his shoulder. At that instant he almost tumbled all of them into the waves as from within the rag cowl at the Andii’s head a great mass of billowing hair tumbled free to lash in the contrary winds: a long mane of straight black hair shot through by streaks of white.

  Andii – with streaks of silver! Fisher almost staggered. Jesting gods indeed! Could this be … him? Surely not. It must be another. He was not alone in his silvering hair, was he?

  The lads pushed him on his way, grateful now to be free of any death-curse from this eerie demon thrust upon them by the water and the night. Though Fisher was an unusually strong man he staggered beneath his burden back to town; this Andii was an unusually solid fellow. He selected a modest outbuilding, a small barn, and kicked open the door to lay his burden within. Then he went to find means to start a fire to warm him.