Assail

by Ian C. Esslemont

‘Take his word for it.’

  She almost flinched. There it was – the lingering ghost of the old chain of command. Was she able to give orders or not? Damn the way the past just wouldn’t go away! She turned on her heel and left the man standing alone.

  She returned to the gathered company mages. Her gaze found Petal and rested there. ‘You said it should be you – why?’

  The huge man seemed to shrink under her stony regard. ‘Well,’ he began, stammering, ‘Blues’ D’riss is not appropriate to this. Nor is Serc. Nor Shadow.’ He pressed his hands together and touched them to his chin. ‘I believe my insights into the Mockra Warren – the magics of the mind and perception – should guide us best.’

  Shimmer nodded. ‘Very well. You have the task.’ The fellow blinked, quite surprised by his success. ‘Blues, Gwynn, give him any aid necessary.’

  The mages murmured their assent and the three went off, already arguing and sharing opinions on the coming job.

  Shimmer crossed her arms and returned to staring out over the water. Familiar. Hood-blasted familiar. Like Ardata. But not as heavy-handed or powerful. More subtle. More … insinuating.

  Days passed. Eleven vessels followed their lead, including the Lether ships of that ruthless merchant general, Luthal Canar. Eleven now, as one morning the sun rose to reveal that one of their number had simply gone missing overnight. No further losses appeared after that. The ship immediately following theirs, the Mare galley, the Lady’s Luck, kept close, and the others followed them.

  One day Blues joined her at the rail where she was studying the unchanging heavy cover of fog. ‘How is Petal doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Holding up.’ He glanced back to where the mage sat cross-legged on the deck, wrapped in blankets. He let out a hard breath. ‘I gather from his muttering that what he’s facing – Omtose Phellack unveiled – is fading even as he wrestles with it. Unravelling like rotten cloth. Probably be impossible to push through, otherwise.’

  ‘Good. Maybe we’ll make it through this without any further losses.’

  They stood together in silence after that. The sun sank to a dim reddish smear close to the horizon. She remarked, ‘The Brethren have been silent of late.’

  ‘Petal says the Jaghut magic is holding them off.’

  Shimmer grunted her acceptance. The night darkened. The unvarying haze of the Sea of Dread thickened to an impenetrable blanket that blinded her.

  With the sounding of the mid-night bell, Blues remarked, ‘There were ex-Stormguard on that Mare vessel. The men who used to fight the Riders of the Strait of Storms. They’ll be useful in a dust-up.’

  She nodded at this information. Yet she wished to say so much more; to thank the man for his support, for his extraordinary lack of jealousy that would have driven others to undermine her position; for frankly just being him all these years. But something stopped her, something intervened and closed her mouth like a clenching fist, and she wondered: was it the clichéd isolation of command? The weight she’d heard described so often? Ridiculous. Yet there it was. Something had driven itself between her and all the others of the Guard. Something she hadn’t felt before.

  But she said nothing of this. She remained silent. She was no longer the one to give explanations; she gave orders now. And a voice within her remarked, scornfully: how like K’azz!

  Days later – Shimmer had no idea how many, and felt no impulse to ask – the banks of fog that choked the Sea of Dread parted before their bow, revealing a rugged rocky coast, forested hills beyond, and distant jagged snow-peaked mountains.

  Shimmer went to find K’azz. He was at the stern, hands clasped behind his back. ‘We’re through,’ she reported.

  For some time he did not answer, then his eyes fluttered, blinking, and his head turned to her. It was as if he was surfacing from some deep dive, such as his undersea walk at the Isle of Pillars. He nodded. ‘Good.’ He gestured to the line of vessels emerging from the fog-banks behind them. ‘Nine now. Lost two more.’

  ‘When?’

  He shrugged. ‘Some time ago.’

  ‘An attack?’

  He shook his head; his iron-grey hair, she noted, was thinning even more. ‘No. No attacks. I understand that here, on the Dread Sea, crews just give up. Or disappear. Vessels lose headway, then coast, and finally lie adrift, empty. Abandoned. A sea of ghost ships.’

  ‘We made it through.’

  He nodded again, the muscles of his jaws bunched in stark contrast beneath his parchment-like skin. ‘How is he?’

  She jumped, flinching. Petal! She ran to where the man sat close to the side rudder and knelt before him. His head hung so low she couldn’t see his face. ‘Petal? Hello? Are you with us?’

  The blankets heaped about the man stirred. The head shook, as if its owner were waking, then rose. Sweat sheathed the pale rounded cheeks, dripped from the chin. He peered about, puzzled, as if he’d forgotten everything, then his gaze found her face and fixed there and he smiled, rather self-consciously. ‘Thirsty,’ he croaked.

  She straightened. ‘Water here! A drink!’

  One of Ghelath’s crewmen ran up with a skin of water. Petal just blinked at the thing. Shimmer snatched it away, unstoppered it, and held the spout to his lips, squeezing gently. Water poured down his chin but he managed to swallow some few gulps. He nodded his thanks.

  Only now did Shimmer realize how neglectful they had been. Who had taken care of him? Gods, how could they have been so … forgetful? But no, Blues, surely … With Petal awake, Blues was here with her now, along with Gwynn.

  ‘Did you check on him?’ she demanded.

  Blues blinked his surprise. ‘Well … no. I thought …’ and he gestured vaguely, as if to indicate the ship’s company in general.

  Shimmer gazed down at the mage as he stirred. He wanted to stand, and so they helped him to his feet. The blankets fell from him and steam rose into the air from his sweat-soaked robes, as if he smouldered with heat. How many days, weeks, had it been, she wondered. Or had it only been a few? In any case, how could he have survived? It was inhuman.

  She studied the fellow as he weaved on his feet. He looked to have lost a full two stone.

  They passed a number of bare rocky headlands, a few yet sheathed in scabrous ice, then came to where the coast flattened and here they found the shore littered with the broken husks of ships.

  Blues pointed a stick ahead, where cliffs rose; there stood a keep, a heap of rock exactly the same slate-grey hue as the surrounding cliffs. The land before it lay checkered in fields in various degrees of care and cultivation. A bedraggled clutch of wooden huts hugged the shore.

  A rain that had fallen on and off through the day started in earnest. It pushed down the smoke climbing from holes in the shack roofs. Though Shimmer had longed for land, it was a dour and depressing sight.

  ‘We should go ashore first,’ said K’azz from beside her and she started, surprised; she hadn’t sensed his presence.

  ‘Of course.’

  The landing party consisted of her, K’azz, Blues, Gwynn, and Keel. She was startled to see K’azz actually carrying a sword – a hand and a half. He caught her gaze and said, explaining, ‘Cole’s.’

  The losses still burned in her chest, and she nodded. ‘I’m sorry, K’azz.

  ‘As am I, Shimmer. As am I.’

  A launch took them to shore. They tramped up the wet sand then climbed a ratty set of stairs built of timbers taken from stricken vessels. The huts were likewise constructed from ships’ timbers. But so much wood was in evidence, Shimmer began to suspect deliberate wrecking. The shacks were roofed with sod, bundled grasses, or wooden shakes. What few men and women they met turned away, or stopped in stony silence to watch them pass. One woman, her rags gathered about her, murmured, ‘Run while you can,’ and hurried off herself.

  Shimmer looked to K’azz, quite uneasy. He motioned her on to the stone fortress. Blues, she noted, had drawn his sticks. These he tossed and spun as they went, and she knew this was his ha
bit when nervous. Keel walked with his enormous rectangular shield readied on his arm.

  They found the wide wooden door open upon its heavy iron hinges. The hall within was flagged with broad cut stones, yet littered with wind-blown leaves and twigs as if from long neglect, and thick with tramped-in mud. The entrance hall led to a much larger reception hall. It was very dark after the outdoors. The only light streamed in from the open doorway behind them, or from thin slit openings high up the walls. Here a woman awaited them. She sat in a wooden chair also constructed from battered ship’s planking, and wore a flowing white dress that hung down to spread in long reaching lengths all about the floor. Her hair was similarly snow-white and extraordinarily long – it appeared to even reach the stone floor around her. The proud way she sat in the chair of faded old timbers made it clear to Shimmer that she regarded it as a throne.

  K’azz stepped forward and bowed in a courtly manner, as when he had dealt with the prickly Quon kings and nobles long ago. ‘Greetings,’ he murmured, his head lowered. ‘I am K’azz, commander of the mercenary company the Crimson Guard. With me are members of my troop: Shimmer, Blues, Gwynn, and Keel.’

  The woman favoured them with a hard glare; she did not respond to K’azz’s greeting. ‘A mercenary company,’ she said, musing. ‘An army – of sorts.’ Her glare narrowed. ‘Are you the enemy I was warned to expect?’

  K’azz turned round to examine each of them. Gwynn stood leaning upon his staff. He adjusted the leather patch over his eye, frowned his confusion. Shimmer was completely mystified and shook her head. K’azz turned back to the woman. ‘I do not believe we are …’

  ‘Mist,’ the woman supplied. ‘You may call me Mist. Normally, here I would also say that I am your queen as well. But there is something about you …’ She turned her head as if to regard them first through one eye, then the other. ‘Something about you I do not like. Therefore, while I would usually give you until tomorrow to lay down your weapons, you I will ask to depart – immediately. Or you will be executed.’

  K’azz appeared to rub his chin. ‘Executed? Then we are your prisoners?’

  Mist shook her head. ‘No. Not prisoners. Trespassers. Meddlers. Troublemakers here among my peaceful farming community.’

  ‘Perhaps we may be permitted to purchase a few small parcels of food – kegs of potable water? We must travel north, as we have business there.’

  The woman’s features hardened even more. ‘The north does not want your business. But I see that you are not to be convinced. You are armed and experienced fighters – perhaps you think you can win your way through by strength of arms.’ She snapped her fingers, motioned curtly to one side.

  Heavy steps sounded from the darkness behind the woman’s throne. Two gigantic shapes emerged. Twins they seemed, two giants. They resembled those of the race of Jaghut Shimmer had seen over the years, but differed in the coarseness of their features: enormous jutting tusks; thick shelves of brow ridges entirely shadowing the orbs of their eyes; massed thick manes of hair that tumbled about their shoulders. One wore a long coat of scaled bronze, and carried a two-headed axe thrust through a wide belt. The weapon was fully as tall as Shimmer herself. The other wore a similar set of shell-like scaled armour, but of iron. This one carried a massive two-handed sword taller from tip to pommel than Keel’s full height.

  Both set their shovel-like hands to their belts and grinned to expose uneven teeth; both obviously enjoyed the reactions their appearance evoked.

  Shimmer heard Gwynn’s breath leave him in one long hiss of revulsion. She cast him a questioning look. He whispered low, ‘Twisted, these two – in the womb.’

  She could not help her hand climbing to where the grip of her whipsword rose over one shoulder. Gwynn shook a negative, inclined his head to the gloom of the chamber. Shimmer squinted. At first she saw nothing, but slowly details emerged. She had thought the ragged scarf-ends of this sorceress’s dress and hair ended in the small circle of light she could make out, but in fact they did not. They stretched on across the full breadth and length of the hall. Then she realized something even more remarkable: they were moving. The tatters and ribbons writhed and twitched – and they surrounded them.

  Like cats’ tails, she thought to herself. Lashing. And we are the mice.

  ‘May I introduce my sons,’ Mist said, sounding quite proud. She extended a hand to her left. ‘Anger,’ and she indicated to her right, ‘Wrath.’

  ‘Impressive,’ K’azz allowed, and nodded his greeting to each. Their low rumbled amusement sounded like rocks shifting. ‘We will leave you, then, to your peaceful farming community,’ and he bowed again, motioning for Blues and Gwynn to back away.

  ‘Go then,’ Mist called as they retreated. ‘You I do not like. But the others … the many vessels dropping anchor even as we speak … they may stay.’

  Shimmer could not help but shoot K’azz an anxious look. He waved her on. Outside, the commander motioned for a hurried retreat to the shore. ‘Why did she let us go?’ she demanded.

  ‘We are an unknown. She senses there is more to us.’

  ‘Such as what?’ she snapped.

  He would not meet her gaze. ‘The Vow, I imagine.’

  They found that a thick ground fog had arisen while they were inside. Shimmer did not imagine it coincidental. The meandering streamers of fog reminded her too much of Mist’s lashing white dress. In fact, she began to wonder whether they were in very great trouble; certainly K’azz seemed to think so as he hurried them along.

  ‘Get to the ships,’ he told them as they jogged. ‘Warn them off. None should put in.’

  She gave a quick nod and ran for the nearest launch already ashore. These sailors she warned away. The next lot she found by nearly running into their boat in the dense soup-like miasma. They were clinging to the boat’s side as if afraid they’d sink in the fog and she recognized them as sailors of the Mare galley, the one with the pilot K’azz said knew most about these waters.

  ‘Put out,’ she told them. ‘It’s a trap. A sorceress is here.’

  ‘Mist?’ A youth spoke up, standing from within the boat.

  ‘Yes. She calls herself Mist.’

  ‘We must leave,’ the youth said to another sailor, presumably his superior. ‘The Fortress Mist and its witch. It’s mentioned in some few accounts. She enslaves all those who land.’

  The officer grimaced his scepticism. ‘We need water, Storval,’ another said.

  ‘Shut up,’ the officer growled. ‘Let me think.’ He eyed Shimmer. ‘Couldn’t we find a—’

  A scream sounded from the distance. Its source was utterly obscured by the layers of dense fog surrounding them. It bespoke chilling terror, and was all the more horrible for being cut off in a gurgle, as if the man had fallen from a gallows.

  ‘Push off now!’ Shimmer commanded, and ran into the fog. She headed for where she thought she’d glimpsed another longboat. Her feet splashed through the waves and sand hissed beneath her boots, but for all that it was as if she waded through a sea of blanketing soup.

  She doubled over as she ran into the next boat, nearly falling in. ‘Push off!’ she gasped.

  None of the sailors within answered. Nor would they again. They lay sprawled, contorted, hands at throats, their features swollen and purple, although paling now. Scarves of thick fog drifted from their necks even as she watched. She threw herself from the boat, scanned the coursing banners of mist. Damn it to Hood! They were turning round. Where was their boat?

  She ran on along the strand. Thicker gravel crunched beneath her boots and the normality of it comforted her; the fog was so leaden it was as if she’d wandered into another world – perhaps Hood’s demesne itself, which some theorize as a land of mists.

  The loud shock of a boot-step sounded nearby, one far heavier than any she or any person might make. Something hissed above her and she sidestepped – a fluid motion as swift as thought that only a trained sword-dancer could execute. Something sliced the fog beside her to slam
into the gravel like a battering ram. She found herself within a hand’s breadth of the beaten bronze blade of a two-headed axe, one pounded so heavily into the strand that she could step over it, though she knew it to be as tall as she.

  A gnarled fist larger than her head yanked the weapon free and it disappeared once more into the swirling mists above her.

  Shimmer ran.

  Cries of terror continued all about, most cut off in throttled gurgles. She stumbled over boulders, flinched when her boot pressed down on a yielding body. It was galling that just nearby, out of sight, waves slapped against boats. If she could only find theirs!

  A voice called then, from nearby in the mist, and she recognized it: Petal. ‘Shimmer!’ It was spoken, not shouted, as if from just next to her.

  She shouted, ‘Yes!’ and was chagrined by the note of panic she heard.

  ‘This way. Follow my voice.’ She set off, feeling her way. Petal spoke every few heartbeats to reacquaint her with his location: ‘Keep going,’ he sometimes said, or, ‘More left.’

  Distantly, she heard cordage creaking and sweeps banging wood; the ships were drawing anchor and pulling out. From across a portion of the strand she could make out the silhouette of one of the giant brothers, Anger or Wrath. The massive shape knelt at the shore then rose, roaring, and she recognized the shadowy curve of a boat’s side rising with him. A mass of panicked shouts and screams was abruptly cut off as the longboat, overturned, fell upon its crew.

  The giant’s roar of laughter was an avalanche of falling rocks.

  ‘Swim for it,’ Petal told her.

  ‘What of you?’

  ‘Never mind me. Swim!’

  Snarling her displeasure, she pushed her way into the surf. It was a good thing she’d chosen not to wear her armour, but then it had been weeks since she’d donned it. Her feet left the bottom and she paddled – she’d only ever had a few basic lessons from Blues. Something snagged at her and she flinched, gained a mouthful of water, and almost slipped into blind flailing terror. Blues’ first lesson saved her: don’t panic, he’d told her. As in a fight, panicking is the worst thing you can do.