Assail

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘Greetings,’ Baran said gently. ‘I am Baran of the Heels.’

  ‘Siguna of the Myrni,’ she stammered, her voice soft and wary.

  Erta knelt before her. ‘What happened, child?’

  Her wide eyes darted about as if expecting attack at any moment. ‘They came out of the river gravel,’ she said, awed. ‘I saw them myself. They came out of the ground. I ran home. There was a fire. Uncle sent me away.’

  ‘Who came?’ Shimmer asked.

  The girl’s terrified gaze flicked to her. ‘Demons. The Army of Dust and Bone.’

  Siguna travelled with Erta in the middle of the file. K’azz and Baran led. The closer they were to their destination the more their old general seemed to have shaken off his reluctance and self-imposed isolation. Shimmer for her part was content to leave him to command; she’d begun to suspect that something was wrong with her. When she looked at the young Myrni child alone in the world she knew that something ought to move within her, yet all she felt was a remote poignancy as of an old loss, now a distant memory. She searched her feelings only to find a landscape as desolate and lifeless as these barren rocky slopes.

  She was terrified of what was happening to her.

  Some time later in the climb, the loose rocks shook beneath her feet. Everyone paused, peering about in alarm. Rocks and boulders came tumbling down out of the ground-hugging fogs. They moved to a nearby ridge and gathered together. Blues came to stand next to her, his arms crossed. She noted how ragged and torn his leather jerkin had become, his scruffy beard and hollowed dark cheeks. Far above, beyond the immediate shoulders and slopes between them and the uppermost peaks, the clouds churned as if being drawn into a funnel. A blue glow suffused the region – a dazzling sapphire brilliance muted only by the cloud cover.

  The ground shook again and Shimmer was alarmed to sense that the entire ridge of rock had actually moved. Baran and Erta shared a shocked glance.

  ‘What is it?’ Shimmer demanded. ‘An earthquake?’

  ‘This is no earthquake,’ Blues growled, his eyes fixed upon the heights.

  ‘We must reach the ice-fields,’ Baran called over the crash and hissing of tumbling stones. ‘Quickly.’ And he set off, leaping from boulder to boulder. K’azz followed while Shimmer and Erta brought along Siguna. Bars and Turgal helped any of the rest who struggled to keep up.

  A howling, biting wind punished them as it came driving down into their faces. Shimmer scrambled her way up the slope of loose rock. She had the strange sensation of actually travelling backwards as she advanced. The shifting talus and gravel seemed to heap even higher before them. She came across the trunks of fallen trees, shorn of branches, slowly edging their way down towards them like battering rams.

  She clambered over the trunks only to hear a despairing call behind. She urged Siguna onward and stopped to peer back into the moiling fog. Others, she knew not who, passed as blurred shapes in the mist. Something closed upon her foot and ankle between the logs and she was yanked to her knees. A churning mix of gravel and soil had her. It was burying her as it came shifting down the slope. It rolled over her side and up her chest as it advanced. She drew breath to scream but took in a mouthful of dirt. Beneath the soil larger rocks squeezed her legs until she knew her bones would be shattered to splinters.

  Then a tight grip at the mail over her chest, an agonizing yank, and she was free on the surface, gagging and coughing, lying on her side. Someone stood over her, his gaze watchful: Cowl.

  He helped her clamber to her feet. She stood swaying, unsteady, as the ground felt like the deck of a ship. ‘Thank you,’ she managed, spitting out dirt.

  ‘You will not thank me. You, above all, I want to make it. I want you there to see what he has done to us. I want you to see it.’

  ‘Who has done what?’

  The mage retreated down the slope. ‘I know already. It is for you to discover. Then I want you to face him! Now go.’

  ‘Cowl!’ she yelled after him, but he was gone.

  The very ground groaned and vibrated beneath her feet. She dashed up the rocks, pushing against the loose debris as it came sloughing down the entire valley slope to either side.

  She made the crest of fresh steaming earth, and stopped, utterly amazed. A dry frigid wind battered her as she stared at a wide wall of dirty glacial ice that stretched from side to side across the entire high mountain vale before her. Far ahead, tiny figures, no larger than ants, struggled up the first of the leading lobes of dirty ice. Nearer, two figures ran towards her, stopping now and waving.

  She waved back. And she might have been imagining it, but it seemed to her that the entire gargantuan frozen river itself, a very mountain of ice, was moving.

  CHAPTER XIV

  THEY KEPT TO the forest as they fled upland, though as they climbed higher the woods thinned. Spruce now predominated, and those thin and scraggly. Fisher and Jethiss stayed with Kyle, while the remaining Crimson Guard spread out about them. No one had formally set out the marching order. Kyle wondered whether it was to protect him – he who least needed protection. Stalker and Badlands ranged widely, sometimes scouting ahead, other times keeping an eye on the rear.

  At least they travelled through the constant cover of the dense clouds that hugged these high slopes of the Salt range. Eventually, during the morning – if he judged aright the diffuse yellow glow of the sky – Cal-Brinn called a halt and they collapsed where they stopped to lie panting, sucking in great shuddering breaths of the frigid air. Water skins made the rounds.

  The Crimson Guard captain came to where Kyle, Fisher and Jethiss sat leaning against the backrest of a toppled fir. ‘Sleep,’ he told them. ‘We will keep watch.’ He moved on. Kyle did not argue, and neither did his companions. They rolled themselves into whatever cloaks or blankets they had managed to salvage or pack. In Kyle’s case, it was an untanned bear hide he’d rolled and roped over his back before the fight. He lay down and his thoughts went to the lowlands, to the shores of the Sea of Gold. What was happening there? Were Lyan and Dorinn safe? Of course she might not even be there – she might have accompanied the army north. But somehow he did not think so; these Lether officers and soldiers were claiming the north for themselves. To them, she and her Genabackans were outsiders. Perhaps even a threat.

  Some time later he was woken by the poke of a spear-butt and he sat up, shivering, bleary and coughing. The sun was a smoky, silvery orb among the clouds. Tendrils of steam rose in wisps all about, and a clawing cold wind slithered down across them from the heights.

  ‘The weather is strange,’ he commented to Fisher.

  The bard did not appear pleased; in fact, he had been in an uncharacteristically grim mood since they fled the Greathall. ‘It is no weather,’ he replied.

  By now Kyle was accustomed to having to draw information from this man the way one must shake coins from a miser. A strange manner for a bard. ‘Then what is it?’

  Fisher drew a hard breath as if he would rather not say, but then he allowed: ‘It is power coiling and tensing. Preparing itself for an unleashing. An invocation of Omtose.’

  Kyle noted Jethiss paying close attention. ‘What will come?’ the Andii asked.

  ‘I do not know for certain what form it will take,’ Fisher admitted. ‘But I fear the worst it might.’

  Stalker and Badlands emerged from the dense fogs. ‘They are with us still,’ Badlands announced.

  When he was younger, Kyle might have expressed his confusion: they’d pushed them out – the Holding was theirs. Why pursue? But he was older now, hard truths of the world had been beaten into him, and so he merely shook his head at the inevitability of it. Of course they were coming. What else would they do? To ensure their grip on the land these new rulers had to eliminate all last vestiges of any prior claim. Any survivors would be a potential menace: they might raid, or form alliances and return some day to try to reclaim their ancestral holdings. In this Marshal Teal had no choice. Usurpers – claim-jumpers – had to be thorough.<
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  Stalker stopped before Kyle. ‘Far enough north for you?’ he asked.

  Kyle laughed. ‘Aye. Perhaps for them as well.’

  The Iceblood’s hazel eyes held amusement. ‘Well, I’ve never been up much higher. No call for it. From here, though, we can descend into the Sayer or Heel Holding if we would. I only wish I knew the best route.’

  ‘Our line is good for now,’ said Fisher. He shook out his cloak. ‘Straight on.’

  Everyone eyed the bard as he clipped the cloak tightly about his shoulders. Stalker studied the man as he drew his thumb and forefinger down his long moustache, smoothing it. Fisher, for his part, said no more.

  It seemed to Kyle that the man had left the role of bard behind. He was something else now and Kyle wasn’t certain just what that might be. Then, unexpectedly, he remembered the instrument the man had been strumming … the way he had held it. Like a treasure. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said.

  The bard turned a puzzled frown upon him. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘That old stringed instrument at the Greathall. We had to flee. There was nothing you could have done.’

  Understanding blossomed in rising brows and a broad smile broke through the man’s dark mood. He squeezed Kyle’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for your thoughts, Whiteblade. But not to worry.’ He raised the shoulder bag at his side. ‘Such a rare thing should not be left to destruction.’

  ‘So there is hope yet, then,’ Kyle said.

  The bard appeared startled. His gaze went to the shrouded heights. ‘You are right, of course. The skein of our fates is unknown. Or at least is not for me to say.’

  Badlands slumped on the fallen trunk. ‘Now that that’s settled – did anyone think to bring any food?’

  It turned out that Cal-Brinn and the Guard always carried pouches with a few days’ worth of dried rations pressed into bricks. It was hardly edible, but Kyle found that if one kept a knot of it tucked into the cheek, it slowly softened into something resembling food.

  Cal-Brinn signed that they should get going, so they packed up their gear and set off jogging upland once more. They trotted through the rest of the day, as the light through the black clouds deepened to a silvery pewter. Kyle knew he would freezing if it weren’t for the heat of his exertions. His breath steamed and plumes of mist rose through his armour from his sweat-soaked tunic beneath.

  Stalker ran with him and Fisher and Jethiss for a time. He gestured ahead where the valley slope rose in a steep ridge of naked rock. ‘We are nearing the top of the Lost Holding. Beyond that ridge lies a wide run-off stream, the Stonewash. Past that are the ice-rivers that descend out of the frozen wastes above.’

  ‘Will they follow us?’ Kyle asked.

  He gave a non-committal shrug. ‘They may send a party to dog us.’ He eyed Jethiss. ‘You are intent upon continuing?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘There may be no one there.’

  ‘In which case we are all free to choose whichever direction we wish.’

  Stalker drew off his conical iron helmet and rubbed a hand through his matted hair. ‘Well, I have to admit to being rather curious myself.’

  ‘Not a good enough reason,’ Fisher muttered.

  ‘And you a bard,’ Stalker remarked. He pulled the helmet on once again and turned his attention to Kyle. ‘You still wear it, I see,’ he said.

  Kyle’s brows drew down. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The stone you’re always fingering.’

  He realized he was rubbing the amber pendant at his neck, as he often did. He dropped the hand. ‘Yes.’

  Stalker nodded solemn agreement. ‘He was a good friend, Ereko. We miss him too.’

  Kyle cleared his throat. It still pained him to hear the Thelomen-kind, Thel-Akai as he had it, mentioned. He’d forgotten that Stalker had spent as much time with the giant as he. He answered the Lost’s nod. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know that name,’ Fisher said, his eyes narrowing in thought. ‘He was said to have been one of the oldest of those raised up by the earth.’ He studied Kyle anew. ‘You travelled with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I would have that tale.’

  Stalker flashed his teeth in a smile. ‘Now you’re sounding like a bard.’ He jogged ahead to start climbing the slope.

  From the knife’s edge of the ridge-top they could see nothing. The mists enveloped them. Stunted long-needle pine and juniper clung to the rocks here, damp with fog. Stalker and Badlands started down into the vale, which promised to lead higher up this shoulder of the Salt range.

  Close to the floor of the narrow valley, the Lost cousins raised their hands for a halt. Dense banners of fog obscured all ahead. A fiercely cold wind buffeted them. ‘What is it?’ Fisher asked.

  ‘Listen,’ Stalker said.

  Kyle focused on what sounds he could make out. Other than the moaning, gusting wind, all he could hear was a distant cracking and booming, accompanied by the occasional crash as of rocks falling.

  ‘Those are the sounds of the great ice-tongues,’ Fisher said. ‘Some name them frost-serpents.’

  Stalker tilted his head in agreement. ‘Yeah. That’s right. But what’s strange is that we shouldn’t be able to hear that above the roar of the stream that comes down here.’

  ‘I hear no stream,’ Kyle said.

  Stalker’s moustache drew down. ‘Yeah. Something’s odd. Wait here.’ He gestured Badlands to the right and he took the left. They disappeared into the roiling sheets of mist. Cal-Brinn signed for the Avowed to form a defensive perimeter. Kyle nodded a greeting to Leena, who winked back.

  After a brief time, the two figures came jogging back through the fog. Their boots crunched on the stones and gravel as they closed. Stalker stood breathing heavily, his breath steaming. He smoothed his moustache while he shook his head in wonder. ‘It’s gone,’ he told Fisher. ‘The run-off stream is dry – well, muddy, but free of any flow. Can’t figure it.’

  ‘I can,’ Fisher answered, grimly.

  ‘And?’ Badlands prompted.

  The bard scowled as if he regretted saying anything. Finally, he offered, ‘The ice has awakened. There’ll be no spring or summer.’

  Badlands laughed aloud. ‘Ha! You’ve sung too many old sagas, Fisher. Such things no longer happen.’

  Fisher gave Kyle a long-suffering why-do-I-even-try look. Kyle hid a smile and thought that perhaps he now understood something of the bard’s reticence.

  ‘We’ll cross then climb the ice-serpent, though it will be treacherous with crevasses,’ said Stalker, and he gestured to invite them onward.

  They followed what was essentially a shallow empty riverbed of green-grey silt flats and broad gravel patches, all punctuated by boulders that emerged from the mists like sentinels. The way led them upslope. The wind was punishing now – a blasting current of cold that was oddly dry and desiccating. It carried the cracking and popping of the massive hidden field of ice. The eruptions burst as loud as the explosive munitions of the Moranth.

  Stalker raised a hand to call for another halt. He came crunching across the gravel to Fisher, motioning for Cal-Brinn to join them. ‘You lot can carry on until you reach the foot of the ice. Badlands and I will check on our friends. We’ll re-join you upslope.’

  Fisher and Cal-Brinn curtly nodded their agreement. Stalker waved for Badlands to accompany him and they set off jogging down the gravel bars and silts of the riverbed. In places they hopped from rock to rock as they descended.

  Cal-Brinn and the Guard turned to walk on, as did Kyle, but at the last instant something urged him to turn back. Some sensation that brushed at the nape of his neck and made the small hairs on his arms stand on end. He suddenly knew they were no longer alone. He glanced about, alarmed, but saw only that, of the party, Fisher alone had turned back as well. He met Fisher’s troubled gaze, and realized: we two are of the blood …

  Rocks clattered below, gravel shifted. Movement among the silts caught Kyle’s eye. Shapes were rising from the riverbed. Down
below, Stalker and Badlands had halted and turned back as well.

  Ragged skeletal shapes straightened. Clots of clay and silt fell to the ground. They wore rotting lengths of coarse hides and furs. Some carried the remains of a sort of crude armour of stitched straw. Stained brown skulls, some hairless, turned to him and Fisher. The faces were as he expected: dried and mummified with empty sockets and fleshless grins. T’lan Imass. The enemy of the Jaghut.

  And, he realized with a terrified sickening jolt, his enemy.

  ‘Over here!’ he heard Stalker bellow from below. Several of the carious heads turned that way. A clash of weaponry: Badlands had charged the nearest. ‘C’mon, you bastards!’ Stalker yelled.

  Kyle started forward. Hands grasped him from behind. ‘We must flee,’ said Cal-Brinn, now next to him.

  Badlands was backing away down the slope, drawing the nightmare shapes after him. ‘Go, damn you!’ he yelled to Kyle.

  ‘Protect him!’ Stalker called, then he was off, running down the slope. This quick movement somehow settled the matter as the Imass started after him. Kyle counted some seventeen. He ought to follow – they would need the white blade!

  ‘We’re going to say goodbye to Coots!’ Badlands called, laughing, as he jumped from stone to stone. Their outlines disappeared into the mists.

  More arms and heads were emerging from the gravel beds even as Kyle stood there, frozen, horrified.

  Fisher appeared before him. He set his hands on his shoulders. ‘We must go. Now.’

  Kyle blinked, remembered to breathe. He met the bard’s gaze, pleading. ‘We must help …’

  ‘They will outrun them. Do not worry.’