The first mate waved his dismissal. ‘You saw. None survived. Only wreckage surfaced.’ He nodded to the oarsmen, motioned for them to continue.
‘But we should wait. Search the wreckage!’
‘Too dangerous. The entire cliff fell on them. More might come down.’
Reuth stared, appalled beyond words. The foreign mercenaries saved them at Old Ruse and here at Mist, yet this heartless bastard was prepared to turn his back upon them. He clutched the man’s leather sleeve. ‘I see why you won’t stop – you’re a coward!’
He did not see the blow; next thing he knew he was on the deck, blinking, his head ringing. Hands clutched his shirtfront, yanked him to his feet. ‘You little puke,’ Storval hissed in his face. ‘You’re only living because I’ve allowed you to live. Maybe if you keep your trap shut and do your job I’ll continue to let you!’ The hands thrust him backwards and he stumbled into the ship’s side.
Storval straightened his jerkin and paced off. Reuth caught the gazes of nearby Stormguard but he saw no sympathy there, only their maddening haughty airs. ‘They saved us at Old Ruse,’ he said, and rubbed his head where he’d been struck.
‘We guided them here,’ one of the Stormguard answered.
‘We?’ Reuth gaped, nearly speechless. ‘I guided us here!’
The Stormguard merely shrugged, unconcerned. ‘We all have our job to do.’
Reuth almost answered, but caught himself in time: and yours is a glorified spear-rack. Instead, he turned away, pointedly giving these fools his back.
His uncle wouldn’t have bulled through the wreckage. He would’ve stopped. And Kyle would’ve supported him against these Stormguard. Still, it was hard to imagine that anyone could’ve survived such an enormous blow. It had been as if the hand of some vengeful god had slammed down upon those mercenaries. No other vessel had even been touched! Reuth slapped the timbers of the stern cabin. All for naught now. He was a captive – Abyss, a slave to this cowardly wretch’s commands.
He knew then what he would do at the first opportunity. The decision had been coming for some time now in his unhappiness and frustration. Come his first chance he’d jump ship, abandon these bastards to their own fate. Then they’d see how well they fared without a proper pilot.
It would be simple enough; there were no charts or rolls of maps to burn or steal away. His uncle had seen to that – forbidding him from bringing even the simplest scroll. Now he understood why. Bargaining power and value. Where there were no charts, the knowledge he held in his head made him priceless.
Reuth suddenly realized just how much he must have meant to his uncle – and what pains Tulan had taken to ensure his survival.
He wept for him then, hugging himself, kneeling hidden as deep in the stern notch as he could wiggle. All he had seen was his uncle’s gruffness. His coarse ways. And how he had resented him for it. Now a hotter grief clutched his throat and he recognized the certainty of his own unworthiness. His ingratitude! His sullen pouting childishness!
Someone kicked his flank. It was Storval. ‘Hey,’ he urged. ‘Which way? What now, damn you?’
He wiped his sleeve across his burning eyes. ‘Hug the north shore,’ he answered, his voice thick. ‘There should be … settlements there.’
Storval – he still could not bring himself to think of the man as captain – simply grunted and turned away.
Reuth watched him go. The first settlement they reached … he’d be gone.
* * *
Stones rattled from a switchback trail down a steep ravine as a file of silent figures descended in the night. At its base they spread out upon a narrow cleft of dirt to regard the amazing sight ahead of a deep chasm spanned by a construction of bones lashed and hooked into a bridge. None spoke; they all seemed to be waiting.
The ground before the bridge shifted. Ancient stained bones emerged, shook off the dry dirt. A titanic entity of bone slowly straightened from the stony ground. Last of all came a colossal battered dragon skull that it set upon its broad neck with skeletal hands.
A faint blue flame flickered to life deep within the sockets of the skull as the entity regarded the eerily silent figures – who studied him in turn.
‘I am Yrkki,’ the giant boomed. ‘And you, most of all, certainly may not pass.’
The foremost of the travellers strode closer. Passing clouds allowed the moonlight to shine upon this one, revealing him to be wrapped in ragged leathers, a fur cloak at one shoulder, his sockets empty and his lips curled back from grinning teeth stained the colour of wet dead leaves. ‘I am Gor’eth of the Kerluhm T’lan Imass,’ he announced. ‘And we have no quarrel with you.’
‘That is true,’ the giant rumbled. ‘Yet I have a claim upon you.’
‘We are newly wakened after an ages-long sleep. We seek the north. Stand aside, ancient spirit, and you may continue your guardianship.’
‘My guardianship – my custodianship – is of this bridge. Long have I awaited your arrival, T’lan. When I was set here ages ago to ward this passage my price was but one request.’
Gor’eth shifted, his skeletal hand slipping to the worn grip of the stone blade that hung at his pelvis. ‘And that was?’
Yrkki stretched his wide arms to encompass the cleft. ‘The bones of the T’lan Imass for my bridge!’
Gor’eth rolled to avoid an immense hand that flattened the ground he stood upon. His fellows surged forward. Flint and chalcedony weapons slashed the fat mammoth legs Yrkki stood upon. Bone chips flew. A swatting hand knocked Imass aside to land shattering among rocks. Gor’eth swung his two-handed blade of milky flint, severing one clutching hand of bones. Imass charged. They levered stone spearheads into the vertebrae of the giant’s exposed spine.
Yrkki roared and crushed a handful with a descending blow then swept the rest aside. But more of the warriors gathered to encircle him and he could not defend himself on all sides.
More stone-headed spears thrust at the joints of the naked vertebrae, and levered. Yrkki roared his panic and spun. A rock-shattering crack sounded and the vertebrae parted. The giant gave one last desparing bellow as it tottered in two directions. The rain of enormous bones came crashing down upon the remaining T’lan Imass.
Gor’eth righted himself and approached, kicking through the wreckage. He stopped before the fallen dragon skull and regarded the faint azure flame still guttering within its sockets. ‘Your masters have not been kind to you, Yrkki.’
‘Omtose Phellack has withdrawn,’ came a faint breath. ‘That is true. But as a spirit of the earth, I sense its stirring. I tell you, the ice shall once again claim these lands.’
Gor’eth extended a finger that was no more than flanges sheathed in cured leather flesh. He traced a suture where it ran in a jagged line between the rises of the orbital ridges of the dragon skull’s sockets. Then he gripped his stone weapon in both fists and brought it high up overhead to swing it crashing down upon the skull, splitting it into fragments.
He turned to his gathered brethren. ‘Let us go.’
* * *
The file of silent figures climbed a trail that led to a bare rock ridge. Behind them, spanning its dark gap, the trellis-like bridge groaned and tilted ponderously from side to side. Thunderous cracking and popping split its length and sections fell, toppling, to disappear into the depths. After one immense shudder, the remaining structure collapsed in an impact that shook the ground the Imass stood upon and brought a small avalanche of loose rock and gravel tumbling down the slope.
Making the crest of the ridge, Gor’eth paused, glanced back down into the murk of the valley. A great billowing cloud of dust obscured the site where the bridge once stood. He returned his attention to the north, then studied his own skeletal hands.
Another Imass joined him. This one’s skull bore a hideous crack that revealed withered fibrous remains within. ‘I sense our brothers and sisters to the west.’
‘Yes, Sholas. While we must yet walk.’
‘Tellann lies beyo
nd our reach – as yet.’
Gor’esh lowered his hands. ‘Those broken must thus remain.’
‘They will re-join us – eventually.’
The tendons of Gor’esh’s neck creaked as he nodded his agreement. ‘Yes, Sholas. Eventually. As before.’
They started down the slope to where the grade shallowed and a forest of thin spruce boles gripped the bare talus.
CHAPTER X
On his third day descending into the valleys and ridges of the Bain Holding, Orman spotted something strange in a meadow of waving tall green grasses far below. It was the single figure of a large man running. But ponderously, awkwardly so. And, breaking from the cover of a nearby treeline, a pursuing party of some ten men. Orman froze in his sliding descent down a steep scree slope. He shaded his one good eye. He might be mistaken, what with his different vision now, but that shambling figure practically had the appearance of a bear running on two legs.
He charged down the slope. He skittered and slid, kicked up a great fan of tumbling gravel and rocks. These he leapt in greater and greater jumps until an ankle turned on a loose rock and he joined the minor landslide as one more object making its way in the inevitable rush, rolling and tumbling, down to the rocky base. As the hissing wash of stones slowed he jumped up and cleared the mass of boulders awaiting him, rolled, and leapt up to continue running.
He drew his hatchets as he ran. He jumped fallen logs, or attempted to, as he still was not used to his differing vision and fell a few times. Standing, damning the irreversible loss, he shouldered through dense thickets then burst forth on to the meadow. The roars of battle-joy he heard from over a nearby gentle rise confirmed his suspicions, and he charged.
From the crest he saw Old Bear himself below, surrounded by spearmen. The man held a body in front of him and this he raised in both arms over his head and threw upon a spearman, then charged. The ring flinched, men backpedalling. Old Bear batted the glinting spearheads aside.
Orman was spotted and the ring eased back into a line, facing the two of them. He charged in headlong. He took one prodding spear on the notch of his bearded hatchet and yanked the haft aside, then smashed his blade into the nook where shoulder met neck and half decapitated the man. A spear thrust at him from his blind side, appearing from nowhere, and he was rocked by the surprise. He had only an instant to realize what a disadvantage he now possessed and took to bobbing his head from side to side. He successfully knocked aside two more thrusts.
Roaring with laughter now, Old Bear picked up another corpse to hurl on to the spearmen. He took a thrust in the shoulder for his trouble.
‘Stop fooling around!’ Orman yelled.
Another spearman lunged forward. Old Bear snatched the weapon from his hands and cracked the butt-end across his head, felling him. ‘Fooling around?’ he bellowed, affronted. ‘Why, you young pup!’
Three charged. Orman hurled a hatchet, taking one in the chest. The remaining two Old Bear somehow managed to force to cross hafts, and these he yanked from their hands. A blow from one of his huge fists felled one. The other fled. The remaining ones also backed off then turned to flee.
Old Bear simply waved them off as he stood puffing and drawing in great lungfuls of air. He eyed Orman and a wide grin spread across his shaggy features. Then he frowned. ‘I resent your interference,’ he said, practically wheezing.
‘I saved your life, you old fool.’
Old Bear waved a dismissal over the fallen men. ‘All you did was cheat me of a great boast – should I have succeeded.’
‘Should you have succeeded,’ Orman agreed.
The grin returned and the old man opened one arm – his good arm – and Orman embraced him. Old Bear pounded his back. ‘Good to see you, y’damned fool!’ He took hold of Orman’s shoulder and pulled him away to give him a good look up and down. Orman noted the flinch as he examined his face. ‘Running off north! What do you think you could accomplish?’
‘I saw him.’
The old man’s tangled greying brows rose. Even the one over the blind milky eye. ‘Really? You met Buri? What did he say?’
What Buri said returned to Orman’s thoughts, and he half turned away. He shook his head.
Old Bear pulled a hand through his thick beard. ‘Ach – you tried, lad.’ He winced and gripped his shoulder. ‘Damned bastards tickled me.’
Orman took his arm. ‘Let’s find a stream. Clean that wound.’
Old Bear motioned to Orman’s patch as they made their way down the slope. ‘We’re practically twins now!’ he chortled.
Orman laughed as well. ‘Yes – how will they ever tell us apart? So, what’s going on? What in the name of the ancients are you doing here?’
‘Your plan was accepted, Orman. We’re working with the Losts.’
‘My plan? It wasn’t my plan. Was one of the Lost hearthguards’… Cal, I think.’
The old man made a face as if insulted. ‘Of course it was your plan! No dim hearthguard of the Losts could come up with a decent plan!’ He grinned anew. ‘Only the Sayers.’
Orman just snorted. Then he drew a hard breath, tensing himself. ‘Any word … on Jass?’
Old Bear lost his grin. He cleared his throat as he limped along. ‘No, lad. He’s a hostage of the Bains. They’ll keep him safe. Don’t you worry. It’s the old ways.’
‘And Lotji?’
‘He’s out there somewhere. It’s one big running battle. We’re trying to herd them together. Us ’n’ the Losts. But they just ain’t organized. Just a bunch of raiding bands, all independent.’ The man grumbled under his breath. ‘Like herding cats.’
‘Well … I’m for Lotji.’
The big man shook his head. ‘Don’t do it, lad. He’ll run you through with Svalthbrul.’
‘I’ll just have to take my chances.’
But Old Bear would not stop shaking his shaggy head. ‘No, lad. Don’t you lot there in Curl tell the old tales?’
Orman snorted his scepticism. ‘You mean that it never misses?’
‘That’s right, lad. Svalthbrul, once loosed, never misses its mark.’
He had no answer for that. Yet Buri had advised he challenge Lotji, and he must know the truth of those old tales, if anyone did. Anyway, he really had no choice in the matter. It would be confronting Lotji, or abandoning everything he believed about himself. It was no choice at all.
* * *
They found a stream and Orman cleaned and bound Bear’s shoulder. Then they headed south, down the valley. The shadows lengthened; the sun sizzled atop the ridge to the west. Twilight already pooled in the depths of this particularly steep mountain vale. Orman was considering finding a place to settle in for the night when he heard the clash of fighting echoing from the very bottom of the valley. He and Bear broke into a trot, started jogging down the forested slope.
He glimpsed figures through the trees running parallel to them. Too many to be any allies of theirs. In his rush he’d left Bear behind, and now he broke through a dense thicket of tearing brush to nearly fall into a shallow stream. Halfway across the rushing water, hunched amid gleaming wet boulders, were the Reddin brothers with Vala, Jass’s mother. Even as he watched, arrows glanced from the rocks; they were pinned down by a band of archers on the opposite shore.
Lowlanders came charging out past the line of bowmen, making for them. Bodies lay in the stream all about the hearthguards and Vala, like boulders themselves. The rushing waters coursed over them as over any other obstruction.
Orman charged out as well. He hoped that the archers on the far shore would merely take him for one of their own. Some eight attackers now engaged the brothers and Vala. The three formed a rough triangle amid the rocks. The archers held off, not wanting to hit their fellows. When Orman neared the fight he lashed out with his hatchets, chopping down through the shoulder of one attacker, then stabbing another through the ribs with the spike of his second. The brothers and Vala instantly shifted to the attack. Both brothers had their shields up and were usin
g their swords one-handed. Vala fought with long-knives. She cut down two of the attacking men, and a woman, in swift blows that amazed Orman. Her power was such that she nearly severed a man’s leg at the thigh.
An arrow cut angrily past his head and he threw himself low in the frigid stream, on his haunches, next to Keth – or the brother he was fairly certain was Keth.
‘I did not think I would see you again,’ Vala shouted from where she crouched.
‘I’ve come for Lotji,’ he called back.
She gave a fierce nod, answered, ‘As have I.’ Roaring gusts of laughter sounded from the forested slope above the stream and Orman shared a grin with the Reddin brothers. ‘Old Bear is keeping them busy,’ Vala said.
Keth – or was it Kasson? – directed Orman’s gaze to the stream. He peered about for a moment, uncertain, then he saw it: where the waves slapped up over the fallen bodies the water left behind a wash of sand, and amid the sifting granules tiny flecks gleamed in the fading light. It was as if someone had tossed a handful of gold dust over the corpses.
Orman could only shake his head at the poetry of it. ‘They came seeking gold…’ he said.
‘… and they found it,’ Keth finished.
The other brother motioned to Kyle’s patch. ‘The Eithjar reported you had lost your eye. They say that one who loses an eye gains a second sight.’
Orman offered a weak smile; they were trying to cheer him up, but they all knew what a handicap he now carried in any battle.
Vala had been studying both valley slopes, and now she nodded to herself. ‘Very good. I believe we’ve drawn them in. Now it’s time to push them.’ She faced the north, upstream, and waved a hand low over the surface of the chilling water. It looked to Orman as if she were casting something out across the stream, or perhaps summoning something.
The arrow fire intensified. It seemed more of the outlanders had arrived. He dared a glance over the top of his cover; some twenty archers were now creeping out into the stream, stepping over the wet rocks, searching for sound footing.
The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire) Page 375
