Assail

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘Aye!’ she answered, ever eager.

  Half the crew at the oars stood for the detail. Jute knew he was lucky; some of the greatest sea-fighters in Falar had volunteered for this voyage, archers and swordsmen and women. If this were an even fight he’d place his bet on them any day – but they faced over a hundred damned ships.

  ‘The Malazan’s drawn near one o’ the towers,’ Dulat shouted. He was shading his gaze. ‘They’re readying springals and arbalests at stern and bows.’

  Jute squinted at the far galley. Siege weapons? Did they mean to try to take the tower?

  ‘Engagement with them Genabackans!’ Dulat called.

  Jute almost shook his head; the lad was actually excited by all this. Couldn’t he see how it would play out? It would soon be his own guts spread upon the waters.

  The Genabackan pirate ship with its crew of soldiers had pretty much ploughed into the front rank of wrecker vessels. It was now surrounded by the rag-tag flotilla of ships and boats. Grapnels flew. They were being boarded from all sides.

  ‘That foreign ship!’ Dulat shouted.

  The tall vessel had fallen behind as well. It too was being surrounded as it and the Genabackan now held the rear, engaging the wreckers, while the Dawn closed on the Malazan vessel.

  Jute watched the fighting, fascinated despite his dismay. Hordes clambered up the side of the Genabackan ship. From across the smooth waters of the cove came the clash of iron and screams of the wounded. Shapes came tumbling over the sides. Most fell limp to splash into the water or crash on to decks.

  ‘They’re slaughtering them,’ Dulat breathed, awed.

  Aye, for the nonce, Jute added darkly. But eventually they’ll be overrun. Numbers will tell. He shifted his gaze to the foreign ship. The wreckers appeared to be having trouble climbing the sides of the supernaturally tall vessel. Some few made it, clambering hand over hand on ropes, up and over the side. But what became of them he couldn’t see. Nor in all this time had he seen any crew on board either, for that matter.

  No shouts or noise of fighting crossed the water from that vessel.

  Then he physically jumped as explosions thumped the air behind him. They slapped him in the back to concuss the air from his lungs and the Dawn shuddered from stem to stern. Some of the oarsmen lost their grips, so shocked were they. He turned, gaping. ‘What in the name of the dead god of death was that?’

  Blossoming clouds of smoke enmeshed the top of the north tower. Even as Jute watched, disbelieving, amazed, stone shards came flying through the swelling black clouds to arc over the waters before they struck, punching great tall towers of spray.

  Dulat, atop the very highest spar, threw his arms in the air, howling in triumph: ‘Munitions! The damned Malazans are demolishing the tower!’

  Jute felt an immense weight lift from his shoulders. By the Queen’s soothing embrace … there’s hope yet. He swung his gaze to the Genabackan; but have we the time? The vessel was completely surrounded, its sides aswarm with boarders – yet from the furious action on the deck, the soldiers fought still. The foreign vessel was equally engulfed and overrun, but oddly, disturbingly, quiet.

  ‘Send us a touch southerly there on the channel,’ he told Lurjen, who nodded profoundly, his eyes huge.

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘They’re reloading their arbalests!’ Dulat called.

  Jute ignored that to study the wreckers closing upon them in what he now understood to be a fleet of captured launches, traders’ coasters and unsuspecting travellers’ galleys. ‘Take the range,’ he called to Letita. She nodded, now fully armoured, her iron helm with its long camail of chain link hanging past her neck, bronze cheek-guards closed. She raised her bow.

  The shot fell just short of the bow of the closest vessel.

  ‘Target that nearest one,’ Jute ordered.

  ‘Ready archers!’ Letita shouted. ‘Fire!’

  All forty archers loosed. Most of the flight struck true over the open galley, raising chaos among the oarsmen. ‘Fire at will,’ Jute called. ‘Pound them!’

  Buen appeared on the quarterdeck and handed Jute his blade, wrapped in its belt, which he tied on. The first mate then thumped into the wood of the deck next to Lurjen the wicked cross-hilted parrying daggers the man favoured for close-in fighting. The steersman grinned and winked his thanks.

  Jute turned to Ieleen. ‘Sorry, lass,’ he said. ‘It’s time you went below.’

  His wife shook her head. ‘I can’t hear so good down below.’

  ‘Ieleen …’

  ‘Never mind ’bout me.’

  Jute sighed his exasperation. ‘Lass …’

  She just smiled. ‘Every time we have this argument. And every time you lose. Now, forget about me and mind our speed.’

  Jute spun to the bow and choked. They were so close to the channel opening he could make out the individual weed-draped links of the chain swinging and dripping ahead. ‘Ease off, y’damned blind fools!’ he bellowed. ‘Back oars!’

  Movement above caught his eye: Dulat hunching, one arm covering his head and the other hugging the very tip of the mainmast where he sat atop the yardarm. Oh, for the love of D’rek … ‘Back oars!’

  Multiple punches assaulted his ears and chest. Clouds of pulverized stone and black smoke blossomed above. A rain of stone shards came arcing for the Dawn. ‘Take cover!’ he yelled and bent over Ieleen, hugging her to his chest.

  The striking rock sounded like cloth ripping as it punished the decking and splashed all about. It reminded Jute of the impact of shot from arbalests during his naval engagements. Men and women of the crew grunted their pain or slumped, unconscious or dead, from dull thumping impacts. The huge links of the sea-chain rattled and bumped as they swung. Jute grunted himself as small stones and gravel pelted his back and shoulders. He cast an eye to the barrier and the length appeared to slump lower in the water.

  Beneath him, Ieleen squeezed his arm in empathy. He straightened to see that Letita had not allowed her archers to let up. The foremost boat that had been heading for them now wallowed, having lost all headway, and she’d turned her attention to the next – but some six more now came closing in upon them.

  ‘I think this is it, dearest,’ he murmured to Ieleen.

  ‘You’re always saying that.’ Then her head snapped up as something captured her attention. Her brows rose and she breathed an awed, ‘Oh my.’

  He followed her blind gaze; it was fixed upon the tall foreign vessel. Something strange sounded then. Or failed to sound. It was like the tolling of a massive bronze bell as tall as a house, but silent. Something came rolling from that ship. It struck sharp expanding waves in the water. It swept over all the wreckers’ vessels. Wood of oar and hull snapped and splintered as the invisible wave engulfed them.

  ‘Here it comes!’ Jute shouted, but heard nothing of his own voice. Indeed, at that moment it was as if he was deaf to every sound.

  The Dawn rocked as if punched, pitching from side to side. Yet the concussion merely passed over them while at the same time utterly crushing the nearest wreckers’ boats as if clenching them in a giant’s fist. Ieleen, wrapped in his arms, let out a gasped breath, and he heard, faintly, ‘Now there’s a sorceress!’

  Atop the mainmast Dulat threw his arms into the air. ‘Yeaw!’ he howled, or Jute thought he did, for he barely heard the man. ‘We won! We won!’

  Won? Jute snorted. The spell, or ward, or whatever it was, had only bought them time. Behind this first wave of attackers far more were oaring down upon them. Even their Genabackan defenders, he noted, were assembling oars to withdraw from the wreckage of broken timbers and canted half-sunk hulls surrounding them. And something told him they shouldn’t count on their foreign ally to rescue them a second time.

  He turned his attention then to the Malazans. Squinting, he could make out figures still working frantically to wind their springals and arbalests. Amazingly, the crew had kept to their duties through the sorcerous blast and the fusillades of rock and the
threat of impending boarding. But then, he reflected, they must have seen much worse – should all the stories be believed.

  The arbalests swung into position at stern and bow even as he watched. At some unheard command they fired in unison. He caught a momentary glimpse of the fat munitions flying up like dark eggs to disappear into the billowing smoke obscuring the tower’s heights. Fresh eruptions punished his ears and punched his chest. Cussors, he judged. They must be throwing waves of cussors at the installation. Those boys are damned serious about getting out of this trap.

  A new sound grated its jagged course along Jute’s skull and spine. Through the swelling clouds of dust and smoke he thought he glimpsed the very stone of the tower, itself chiselled from the rock of the cliff-side, split away in two there at the top. A teeth-shaking thunder announced the length of bronze links, each perhaps as great around as his own waist, slithering and thumping its way down the stone side of the tower to crash into the channel. The top of the tower followed. It burst into shards as it fell then punched the water, sending up great spouts of foam and spray that reached even to the Dawn, spattering its decks.

  A great roar went up from the crew and Jute slapped Lurjen’s meaty shoulder. ‘Ahead easy, master Buen!’ he called.

  ‘Aye!’

  ‘I want pole-men at the bows!’

  ‘Aye.’

  Buen called commands, setting the rowers’ pace. Jute bent down to plant a kiss on Ieleen’s head. ‘I’m for the bows, love.’

  ‘Wouldn’t do to get stuck and block the channel, yes?’

  ‘I do believe our Malazan friends would blow us to Hood’s own cellar if we managed that.’

  She laughed and waved him off. ‘I do believe they would.’

  At the bows, Jute picked up a pole and leaned over the side. He felt a twinge of guilt at striking for the channel first, after the Malazan did all the work. But of the two vessels, they were unquestionably in the better position to make for the opening. Even as he watched, the Malazans were turning to follow. Further back, the foreign vessel’s bow was sweeping their way in an ungainly broad arc; to the rear, the Genabackan soldiers had turned their vessel broadside to the incoming second wave of ships and boats and was exchanging racking arrow-fire with some ten of them even as their oarsmen worked to keep them mobile.

  Jute had time to wonder, amazed, how they’d fitted so many men on that ship when the grey shapes of jagged rock blossomed in the water beneath him and he readied his pole.

  ‘Two rods!’ one of the pole-men announced.

  ‘Steady on!’ Jute shouted.

  ‘One rod!’ a pole-man on the starboard side called.

  ‘A touch to port!’ Jute yelled to Lurjen.

  Oars scraped the sheer cliffs to either side. It was suddenly very dark and chill in the shadow of the narrow slit. The pole-men kept jabbing. ‘A half-rod!’ one shouted, alarmed.

  Damn the Twins! Nothing for it. Jute turned to Buen. ‘Keep going. Don’t stop for anything!’

  Rock from on high pattered down upon the deck. Wood groaned and creaked as the hull grated over stone. Jute hoped to Mael that it was just piled wreckage and not some great obstinate boulder. The terrifying scraping and creaking passed, then the debris field fell away to reveal deep black waters.

  Jute straightened in relief. He considered asking for more speed but decided against it. There was no need to risk banging against the cliff sides. When they broached the entrance the crew cheered again but Jute was quiet – for now there was but one thing to order. He caught Buen’s eye and called, ‘A westerly course up the narrows, First Mate.’

  ‘Aye,’ the man answered. His sun-burnished long face dropped its unaccustomed smile.

  ‘Slow,’ Jute added, then he turned to watch the entrance as it dropped behind them.

  The Malazan was the first to exit, as Jute expected. It was a very long time before the next vessel emerged; by then a curve in the narrows was taking them out of sight. The tall foreign ship it was and Jute shook his head in amazement. Ye gods! The Genabackans covered the retreat of that great lumbering beast?

  Then they were too far up the main channel and Jute turned his attention to finding some beach or cove to put in. He returned to the quarterdeck. Along the way he stopped at the mainmast to shout up, ‘Find us a landing, Dulat. Or you’re not coming down!’

  ‘Oh, no worries there, cap’n. We’ll sink long before that!’

  Or be wallowing so bad we’ll have no control. In either case, time was limited. At the stern he called to Ieleen: ‘How’s the wind, lass?’

  She tilted her head, her brow wrinkling in thought, and was quiet for a time. He and Lurjen kept quiet as well, awaiting her judgement. ‘It’s freshening ahead,’ she finally allowed. ‘Though how far I cannot say.’

  Jute turned away, frowning. One good thing about sailing west: it was damned clear how much daylight they had remaining. That would put an end to things. There was no way he could sail into unfamiliar waters after dark. Have to drop anchor next to the base of one of these cliffs and risk being driven up against it.

  He glanced behind, searching the narrows. There was the Malazan. Its master had it tagging along in the far distance, just keeping line of sight. Jute was puzzled. They could easily catch them if they wished; Jute had the Dawn keeping a slow pace.

  Then he realized: the Malazan was holding back for that foreign vessel. Probably doing its best to keep a line of sight on her. But why bother? They were in a channel; there was no chance anyone could get lost. But what if he, Jute, found a slim hidden cove or inlet and put in? What if the way opened into a maze of islands or sand bars? That captain was playing a careful game.

  It occurred to him then that if he wished, he could lose them now. Order chase speed and dash ahead to find this freshening wind then free all Dawn’s sail. This was a race after all. A selfish lunge to grasp what riches one could find and damn the slow ones to failure or death. Wasn’t that the point of chasing after gold or coin or any other fortune to be snatched from others or seized at sword-point? He’d leave them all completely lost, or he was an Untan dancing girl.

  Yet they’d saved his life. Or, more important, saved the Dawn and all who served on her. Including his love. And so he could not in good conscience abandon them. Besides, travelling with Malazans armed stem to stern with munitions, a powerful sorceress, and a pocket army – if they survived taking on the entire wrecker fleet – could have its advantages.

  ‘The cliffs are slipping away!’ Dulat called from his perch. Jute was startled; he’d quite forgotten about the lad.

  Indeed, the cliffs appeared to be smoothing out, sloping down as they advanced through the narrows. Perhaps the end of this inescapable chute was near.

  ‘Strand on the south shore!’ Dulat called again, pointing.

  Jute squinted; he couldn’t make it out. The light was gold and near straight on as the sun was falling to the horizon. ‘Take us in!’ he shouted up.

  ‘Three points to starboard,’ came the answer.

  Jute turned to scan to the rear. No other vessel was in sight. The Malazans may have sunk; they’d looked uncommonly low in the water. He turned to find Buen on the mid-deck walk. ‘Light a smudge,’ he called.

  The man gaped at him. ‘A smudge? Here? On an unknown shore?’

  ‘Do it!’ Jute snapped, suddenly annoyed at having his word challenged.

  Buen seemed to remember himself and he ducked his head, touching his chest. ‘Aye, cap’n.’

  ‘Everyone’s on edge, luv,’ Ieleen murmured from his side.

  ‘I’ll give him the edge of my hand.’

  ‘It’s a steep gravel strand,’ Dulat shouted. ‘Wide, though.’

  ‘Have to do,’ he answered.

  ‘Steady on,’ the lad shouted to Lurjen.

  Black smoke now wafted in a choking thick cloud from the pot Buen had set. Sailors moved the iron brazier to keep as much of the ship upwind as possible. The smoke plumed low and heavy over the waves, as if the Dawn
were unravelling a scarf.

  The shore now hove into view. In the deep gold of the setting sun Jute made out a steep rise of black stone gravel leading to the last remnants of the narrows’ cliffs: an inland rise of perhaps no more than a chain, topped by long wind-whipped grasses. And spread across the wave-washed gravel lay a litter of broken timbers, barrels, torn sailcloth and a tangled rigging, and the blackened skeletal hulls of two ships.

  Jute tried to remember the stories he’d heard of the region and came up with a name. The south shore of the Dread Sea – the Anguish Coast. Wasn’t that the best of Oponn’s jests! They were like sailors on leave staggering blind drunk from one rats’ nest to the next. And he’d thought things couldn’t get any worse. ‘Any sign of survivors?’ he called up.

  After a time the lad answered: ‘None as I can see.’

  Jute wiped a hand across his brow and found it cold and sweaty.

  ‘Another ship!’ Dulat shouted then, making Jute flinch.

  ‘Whereaway?’ he snapped, alarmed.

  ‘Following. That Malazan galley p’rhaps.’

  Jute let out a long breath. A hand brushed his and he snapped his head down: Ieleen reaching out. He took her hand and she gave a squeeze. Jute’s chest suddenly hurt with a great swelling pressure and he answered the squeeze. ‘Very good, Dulat,’ he said. ‘Take us in, slow and steady.’

  ‘Aye.’

  The lad directed them to a relatively clear swath of strand and Buen drove them in at a strong speed. The bow ground and grated its way up the gravel and crewmen and women jumped over the sides, pushing and tugging on the hull. Buen then tossed out two stout hemp lines that most of the crew grasped to heave the Dawn as far up the slope as possible. The lines were staked into the gravel.

  Jute climbed down over the side. Ieleen, he knew, would remain on board. She hadn’t set foot on land for some years now and he’d chided her on it, but she remained adamant and so he’d relented. It was a silly superstition to his mind, but it was important to her and he really couldn’t care either way.