Assail

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘Should we not wait for Cull?’

  ‘No. There is no telling when he might return – if at all. He comes and goes of his own pleasing. I am used to it. Indeed, it would gall me to have him here underfoot at all times.’

  Kyle could not restrain himself any longer. He was famished, and tucked into the offering as if one of those exiled dogs himself. She watched him for a time, clearly taking pleasure from his appetite.

  ‘You wish to try to find Stalker Lost, yes?’

  Kyle nodded, his mouth full.

  Yullveig thought about this while she cleared up. ‘It will be difficult,’ she began, after a long silence. ‘The Losts are far to the east. You must cross all the surviving Holdings to reach them. You will probably be killed out of hand.’ She crossed her arms and stared down at him. ‘I suggest you return to the lowlands and journey east from there.’

  Kyle could not keep from shaking his head. After coming all this way? ‘That will not be so easy either.’

  ‘Less dangerous than the Holdings, I think.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Yullveig did not argue the point further. ‘Sleep here tonight. Rest. Tomorrow I will escort you to the edge of the Holdings. You can make your way from there.’

  ‘Well … thank you, Yullveig. I am grateful for your kindness.’ A thought occurred and he ventured a question. ‘Did you say surviving Holdings?’

  ‘Yes. Far more existed once. Larger Holdings covered the south. They extended down all the way to what you call the Bone Peninsula and the Dread Sea. I and my daughter Erta are from one such. The Fanyar, we were named. Gone now with the retreat of the cold and ice. Cull took us in when others would not.’

  ‘I am sorry, Yullveig. I did not know.’

  She shrugged again. ‘Few do in this day and age.’

  Kyle did not know what to say after that. Yullveig went to the rear of the cabin. ‘We have a few hides and blankets. You can sleep by the hearth.’

  ‘My thanks.’

  ‘Save your thanks till the morning – the nights are very cold up here.’

  Kyle did not doubt her. And true enough, no matter how closely he crowded the stones of the hearth, no warmth seemed to reach him through the frigid bite of the night air.

  In the morning, Yullveig had no hot tea or drink to offer. She handed over slices of the smoked venison wrapped in burlap, then collected an immense spear from next to the door and headed out. Kyle followed. They spoke little the entire time; Yullveig proved a far more sombre guide than her voluble husband. She struck a south-east route and four days’ hard journeying brought them to a stretch of forest that betrayed patches of recent clearing.

  ‘Homesteaders,’ she explained.

  Kyle listened but heard no reports of further chopping, nor voices calling out. He wondered if Baran and Erta had been through recently.

  ‘You are on your own from here, cousin. Give our regards to the Losts.’

  ‘I shall. Give my thanks to Cull, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Fare you well. Oh,’ she gestured to his side, ‘I’d cover a weapon such as that if I were you.’

  ‘Ah – yes. I usually do. Goodbye.’

  Yullveig turned and jogged off. She disappeared in what seemed an instant among the dark trunks of the spruce and pine. He thought there must be some sort of magic in how these Icebloods came and went so quietly and suddenly here within their Holdings.

  He did indeed wrap the sword in leather before heading into the clearing. But he kept it at his side in case he had call to use it. He travelled easily down among the foothills; parties crossed his path now and then, but none challenged or harassed him. He supposed he looked too much like what he was: just another ragged fortune-hunter.

  He met more and more gold-chasers the further he went. They were a friendly lot away from the actual bearing fields and stream beds. Some invited him to join them at their fires. They told tall tales of the difficulties of their passages north – and of the hard knocks and precious few rewards since. And every day Kyle listened for the mention of a fierce warrior-woman, a shieldmaiden. For most of the men and women he met hailed from nearby Genabackis, and would know her as such.

  The trails that had been newly tramped out of the wilderness led him down to the shores of the Sea of Gold, and a rambling tent city its fortune-hunter founders named, ironically perhaps, Wrongway.

  At a tent-tavern, he heard that a band of Malazan marauders had attacked and half burned the place to the ground. After this, the thug who ran the town, one Lying Gell, died of a mysterious knife-thrust and most of the gold-hunters decamped to join the crowd pressing the siege of the last independent local settlement, Mantle. The prospect of loot on hand, it seemed, was preferable to trying to track it down and dig it up. Kyle reflected that an invasion of fortune-hunters had now made the transition into a plain invasion. Inevitable, he supposed, when these rootless blades appeared to outnumber the locals by far.

  ‘Who are the leaders?’ he asked the crowded table.

  It turned out the captains were from all over, though none were Malazan, given the recent attack – which everyone seemed to regard as some sort of betrayal. A betrayal of what, Kyle couldn’t quite understand. There was a Lether captain who called himself Marshal Teal; a number of ex-ship’s captains who’d kept their crews together, and a Genabackan troop pulled together by a woman who’d actually served in the north, under the Warlord Caladan Brood.

  ‘This woman,’ Kyle asked, ‘what’s her name?’

  The fortune-hunters glanced to one another, uncertain. One fellow spoke up. ‘Don’t know her name,’ he offered. ‘Only know what they call her.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘They call her the Shieldmaiden.’

  And Kyle sat back, sipping his drink of watered ale. Lyan. Served under Brood? Neglected to mention that … But then, she knew he’d served with the Malazans, didn’t she?

  He stood from the table.

  ‘Headed out?’ someone asked.

  Kyle finished his drink and saluted the table. ‘Yes. Going to join up.’

  * * *

  The seventh day after they entered the Sea of Dread, a long low vessel came storming out of the west to intercept them. The Crimson Guard led the convoy of twelve in their captured local raider ship, which Captain Ghelath insisted on rechristening Mael’s Forbearance.

  The strange vessel was long and sleek, and moved with extraordinary speed – all the more astonishingly as she showed no sail nor sweeps. Like a shot arrow, it darted straight for the Forbearance and pulled up alongside, slowing to match the ponderous pace of the sweeps that pulled the Forbearance along, as there was no wind to speak of.

  A lone figure straightened from the deck. It was a thin old man, mostly bald, wrapped in a ragged cloak. ‘Permission to come aboard,’ he called up in a reedy voice.

  Gwynn, next to Shimmer, muttered: ‘That vessel is soaked in magery.’

  ‘Raise your Warren,’ she answered, and signed likewise to Petal and Blues.

  A rope ladder was lowered. The foreign vessel manoeuvred alongside. The old man climbed aboard – quite vigorously for such an ancient. K’azz came forward to meet him. The fellow scanned the deck with eyes tiny and dark, like deep wells.

  ‘What can we do for you?’ K’azz asked.

  ‘You can surrender this vessel and all those behind to us.’

  ‘I’m sorry …’ K’azz began.

  The old man snapped up a wizened hand. ‘Do not argue. And do not resist. We will destroy—’ The fellow stopped himself, his gaze narrowing. He murmured, ‘Wait a moment …’

  Someone very big and sturdy brushed past Shimmer: Bars pushing his way forward. ‘Just a minute,’ he called.

  The two met at mid-deck. The old man’s gaze widened and he gaped; Bars rocked back, pointing. ‘You!’ the old man growled.

  ‘It’s them!’ Bars called. ‘The Sharrs of Exile Keep!’

  Snarling, the old man spun sending his cloak flying across to enmesh
Bars who went down in its smothering folds. Beneath, bands and belts wrapped the old fellow from head to foot, all holding short blades that shone like polished silver. He threw his arms out and every one of the blades, an entire forest of them, flew from their many sheaths.

  The blades scattered over the deck. Shimmer staggered at a blow to her chest, then threw herself flat as several glinting shards flew for her face. She heard the slivers punch into someone near, and his answering grunt as he fell: Sept, thrust through the throat. Multiple impacts now sounded as Black the Elder closed on the man behind his shield – the blades thudding home. But, the slivers of metal flew like birds, and many swung round to strike Black from the rear, hammering into him so hard they disappeared fully into his back. He fell as well.

  She glimpsed Gwynn lying against the side, a hand pressed to one eye, blood coursing between the fingers.

  A thrown rope took the mage round his neck and yanked him viciously from his feet, but the spinning blades flew and severed the rope. A new figure appeared at the bow: a young man wielding lengths of slim chain in each hand. These he lashed about, clearing the space round him. The tearing of cloth revealed Bars freeing himself. K’azz and others were closing on the old man, all crawling forward.

  With another snarl, the Sharr mage jumped over the side. Shimmer leapt to the rail; saw him on his own vessel. A panicked yell snapped her attention to the bow: Blues was closing upon the youth, the chains now wrapped about his twinned fighting sticks. Bars lunged in, blade overhead, for a ferocious swipe that hacked through the lad’s shoulder, collarbone and ribs and stuck in the spine. A kick sent the body over the side. As one, like a flock, all the flying shards converged upon Bars. Rather coolly, he simply rolled over the rail to follow the lad into the sea below.

  At that instant Reed, Cole and Amatt all bounded past Shimmer to throw themselves after the mage. K’azz and she yelled simultaneously, ‘No!’ But all three thumped to the strange vessel’s deck, rolling, and came up, blades readied.

  K’azz joined Shimmer at the rail. ‘Get off there!’ he yelled.

  Chains, Shimmer noted, lay all about the decking. The old man laughed and gestured, and the chains snaked to life. They lashed their fat links about the three Avowed, then tumbled over the side in huge splashes. She caught one last glimpse of Cole before he disappeared, and she wasn’t certain, but she thought the man flashed her one last typical roguish smile, as if to say: well … had to happen sometime. She had one boot up on the rail when a firm hand on her shoulder urged her back down – K’azz.

  A sudden blur of motion next to the Exile mage, and the fellow fell stiffly to the deck. Or rather, most of him did: Cowl stood holding his severed head. The last links of chain slithered off the deck to sink into the water, and all was quiet.

  Shimmer stood staring at the waves where moments before three good friends had disappeared. She shook her head in horror and disbelief.

  ‘By the gods …’ someone murmured, in awe.

  She rubbed her chest where one of the flying slivers had rebounded from her mail armour. K’azz was staring at her, a strange expression on his face. She frowned at him, distracted.

  A call sounded from the water below: ‘Hello? Some help here?’

  Everyone dashed to the side. Bars was splashing about. Ropes were thrown and soon the man was up over the side, dripping water to the deck. Shimmer embraced him, but he did not share her pleasure. ‘How many?’ he asked K’azz.

  Their commander opened his mouth to answer, but stopped himself. He looked to Shimmer. ‘How many?’

  She scanned the deck: Gwynn, she saw, now stood, a cloth tied over one eye. ‘Five, I believe,’ she answered. ‘Black the Elder, Sept, Cole, Amatt, and Reed.’

  K’azz, she noted, had not taken his eyes from her the entire time. The man was obviously in anguish: the flesh of his face was drawn so tight as to seem parchment. ‘Yes … five,’ he managed, his voice breaking. ‘I’m sorry … Shimmer.’

  She nodded. ‘As am I.’ She gestured to the Exile vessel drifting alongside. ‘Take that ship under tow.’

  ‘No!’

  She turned. Gwynn approached. He had a hand pressed to his ravaged socket. ‘It’s cursed. Burn it.’

  She shrugged. ‘If you insist.’ Her gaze fell to the still figures of Sept and Black the Elder prone upon the blood-soaked deck.

  ‘And them?’ Gwynn asked.

  She sighed, rubbing her chest. ‘Burial at sea, Gwynn.’

  He inclined his head in agreement. ‘Very well.’

  She turned away, only to nearly run into Cowl standing behind her. ‘What?’ she snarled, in no mood for the man’s games.

  Fresh slashes and gouges marked where many of the shards had struck the High Mage. His crooked smile appeared even more manic than usual. ‘Nothing.’ He turned away, brows raised. ‘Nothing at all.’

  She frowned her irritation. Lunatic.

  Bars came to her side. Water still dripped from him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, his gaze lowered. ‘I tried to warn you.’

  She wanted to embrace him – I could have lost you! – but held his shoulder instead. ‘It’s all right. Now we know why Cal-Brinn chose to break off.’

  He took her hand. His was so icy cold she almost yanked hers free. ‘If only …’ he began.

  ‘If only we were somewhere else,’ she finished. ‘Someone else.’

  His answering smile was a half grimace. ‘Yes … if only.’

  They held a short ceremony for Sept and Black, then slid the weighted bodies over the side. May Mael embrace them, Shimmer prayed. The short invocation reminded her of her earlier prayer to Burn, the ancient goddess, to guide them through these dangers. It seemed her prayer was going unanswered.

  After this, she found she was spending almost all her time on deck, staring at the unnaturally smooth surface of the Dread Sea. It was all too familiar: the sliding water, the seeming spell of timelessness. Far too familiar.

  The fourth night after the attack, she decided she’d seen enough. It was too much like a land half the world away. A land named Jacuruku. ‘Gwynn,’ she murmured into the dark, though it was after the mid-night bell and the deck was deserted.

  A moment later he appeared. He wore a leather patch now; he’d lost his right eye.

  ‘Yes?’

  That was all. No What? or sleepy resentment at being disturbed. No, he knew she wouldn’t call unless there was a reason. She extended a hand to the water. ‘Look familiar?’

  The mage’s remaining eye narrowed on the barely undulating milky surface. He let go a tired sigh. ‘I see your point.’ He’d been a long time in Jacuruku.

  ‘Get on it.’

  He bowed, and returned below. Shimmer returned to studying the waves where they glimmered, reflecting the stars above.

  Three days later, three mages came to see her. She was again at the rail of the ‘liberated’ pirate vessel. Something told her she was not alone; that, in fact, she was the object of a great deal of regard, and she turned. The Guard’s mages faced her: Gwynn, as sour as ever; Petal, looking uncharacteristically concerned; and even Blues, ostensibly second-in-command, but a company mage as well.

  Now that they had her attention, Blues waved a hand to indicate those self-same waves. ‘Casts quite the spell, don’t it?’

  Shimmer flicked her gaze to Petal, who nodded, his thick neck bulging.

  ‘Can you do anything about it?’ she asked.

  Blues tapped one of his fighting sticks to his chin – Shimmer hadn’t noticed them slipping into his hands. ‘Petal here is of the opinion that maybe we can. But it’ll take all three of us working together.’

  Shimmer was surprised. What could possibly be so potent? ‘Why all of you?’

  Blues looked to Petal. The big mage actually blushed. He lowered his gaze to study his hands where they clasped his stomach. ‘It’s not just another Warren, Shimmer. This is a Realm. Jaghut magics. Omtose Phellack. And we’re not welcome.’

  ‘If you need pow
er then bring in our vaunted High Mage.’

  Petal shrugged his humped shoulders. ‘He said his participation would only make things more difficult.’

  Difficult bastard. Typical. ‘So? What’s stopping you?’

  The three exchanged uncomfortable glances. Blues finally supplied, ‘Could be fatal.’

  Fatal? To all? ‘I see. So … should we risk all our mages …’

  Blues gave a curt nod. ‘Right. So I’ll do it.’

  Gwynn snorted. ‘Idiotic.’

  ‘It would make most sense,’ Petal stammered, ‘if it was me … don’t you think?’

  Shimmer had had enough of this. She brushed past all three. ‘Won’t be any of you.’ Difficult, my arse! Trying to duck a dangerous job!

  She stamped her way across the mid-deck, scanned the stern, saw no hint of the fellow. ‘Cowl! Come out from under your rock! We need to have a chat!’

  ‘Yes?’ The answer was gentle, unforced, and directly to her rear. She turned round slowly. The man stood uncomfortably close. In kissing range, in fact. His eager, avid gaze seemed to be daring her to act: either embrace him, or knife him.

  She forced herself not to flinch, began calmly, ‘I understand that attempting to ease us through Omtose Phellack could kill the mage who tried.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t you be the one to make the attempt – High Mage?’

  His habitual mad mocking smile climbed even higher, as it always seemed to whenever they spoke. He shook his head in a negative. ‘Oh, it would be worse if I tried. Much worse.’

  ‘Why?’

  The man fairly hugged himself in his glee. ‘You’ll see …’

  She raised a hand to cuff the man across his face, thought better of it, and stormed off. Fool! Where’s – ah, there he is. She marched up to K’azz at the bow.

  ‘K’azz! Your pet is becoming more and more obnoxious.’

  ‘Shared a frank exchange of views, did you?’

  ‘I’d like to share my sword.’

  ‘He is still High Mage, Shimmer.’

  ‘Meaning?’