*
Crammed into the hold of the Blue vessel, his knees drawn up to his chest, Suth was pressed in thigh to thigh with his fellow Malazan infantry. It was hot, clammy and damp, and the least comfortable he’d been all journey – especially with Wess asleep on his shoulder. The sergeants stood at small openings in the sides, peering out and passing on information. Other than the greater roominess and general cleanliness, the main difference between the Blue vessel and the one they had left was that the former didn’t stink nearly as foully as the Malazans’. In fact, it was nearly odourless. Ignoring the vile sour sweat of the men and women crowded in the hold, the main scents Suth could detect were very strange. One Len told him was sulphur, while another reminded him of honey, and another of pine sap. It was all very unnerving. And these Korelri think their Stormriders are alien.
A flash of brilliant white light cast a clear image of the hold, the troops sitting jammed together like firewood, their eyes and sweaty faces gleaming. Darkness returned just as instantly. Everyone clamoured to know what it was.
‘Some kind of signal,’ came the rather unhelpful explanation.
Then Moranth armoured boots tramped the decking, trapdoors crashed open. Orders to climb. Waiting in line, frigid seawater pouring down the steep stairs. Up on the pitching deck, ordered to sit alongside Blue marines. Suth steadied himself with a ratline to gaze out over the night-dark waters. Ahead, a line of Blue dromonds parting. Low dark Marese war galleys swarmed around them like dogs worrying tired Thanu. The strikes of ramming reached Suth like the reports of distant explosions.
A golden-amber flash lit the night like a reflection of the sun, searing the vessels into silhouettes against the dark waters, only to snap away instantly. The Blue marines surged to their feet. Orders were bellowed from the after-deck. Suth found Len amid the crowd of troopers. ‘What is it?’ he shouted over the thumping of boots and the crash of the sea.
‘We’re off the leash,’ the saboteur answered. ‘Now we’ll see if we came all this way to any purpose,’ he added grimly.
Suth gave his private agreement. He wore only his padded gambeson, trousers and helmet, sword at his side. His armour lay wrapped below. The order seemed a useless precaution given the freezing waters and distance from shore. Still, perhaps it served to reassure some. He saw the Adjunct at the rail, his long dark hair blowing loose. He too wore only hide pants and sheepskin jacket; the ivory or bone grip and pommel of his sword shone with a near unnatural brightness.
Fire lit the night, flickering out of the distance ahead. Everyone gaped, staring. Even the Adjunct turned, his dark eyes narrowed. Another burst of flame illuminated a scene out of the Harrower’s realm: a Blue man-of-war, rammed, and down from the tall tower at its bows poured not arrows or javelins, but a stream of liquid fire. While Suth watched, dark shapes on board the Mare vessel writhed amid the flames. Some threw themselves overboard. He thought he could almost hear their screams of agony.
‘Sorcery!’ rose a shout from nearby.
‘No,’ murmured someone – Len. ‘Alchemy. Moranth incendiary. It even burns on water – see!’ He pointed, urgent. Indeed, the flames were spreading across the waters, pooling and wave-tossed, to engulf yet another Mare war galley. ‘So this is their answer,’ the saboteur continued, awed. ‘Come close all you like … ram, and burn.’
*
As more fires burst to life in the darkness all around, Devaleth stared, horrified. Her countrymen! She lurched to the side of the sterncastle, clenched the wood to keep from falling. Torched like vermin! This was outrageous! She turned on Nok. ‘You knew …’
The Admiral had the grace to appear pained. ‘I knew their intent, yes. But whether it will be enough …’ He shrugged.
‘This is barbaric! You Malazans claim to be civilized.’
His gaze sharpened. ‘Is leaving a man to drown any more civilized? Dead is dead.’
She turned from him. So, will it be enough? All around she felt Ruse stirring. Flames died, steam misting into a suppressing fog. Yet through the waters, even submerged, the foreign alchemies of the Moranth burned on, sizzling and bubbling.
‘Give the order to advance with the transports,’ Nok told the liaison.
Moments later a verdant green brilliance threw Devaleth’s shadow out across the water, flashing from the sides of vessels locked together, sails burning, dark shapes flailing amid the waves. A light rain, Ruse-summoned, began to fall.
They passed a Blue dromond assaulted by three Mare war galleys. Two had stove it in, rams entangled in broken wood. Grapnels shot like quarrels from crossbows mounted on the side of the Moranth vessel. They trailed rope that entangled the enemy ship. Staccato eruptions reached Devaleth as the Blues tossed munitions of some sort down on to one war galley; shattered wood flew, bodies spun over the sides, and the vessel lurched like a kicked toy.
Yet the battle was not all one-way. The Marese streaked like greyhounds, ramming at will. Many Blue vessels reared stern high, or wallowed, dead in the water. These the Marese ignored; in the shifting action of a naval engagement, to lose mobility was to be useless. That Blue man-of-war, rammed twice – even if it remained afloat, it was now so cumbersome it was for all purposes sunk.
A war galley emerged from the smoke, the swirling flames and the spume-topped waves, and charged the flagship. Its sides were scorched and smoke poured from its decking, yet the crew rowed no slower. Devaleth glanced back to the Admiral, who was watching its approach, a hand raised. The temptation to summon her Warren pulled at her. The fleshly demands of plain self-preservation. Yet to do so would announce herself to every ship’s mage present and invite a storm of reprisals.
It was close now; the oars had hit that unmistakable frantic ramming pace. The mage at the stern was a scarecrow figure in burned robes streaming smoke. They must have fought through the Lady’s own fury to reach them. At the last instant Nok gave the order and the flagship swung over with a swiftness startling for a vessel of its size. Bows turning, the Star now threatened to run over the war galley’s bank of oars, but a barked order from that ship’s master brought the sweeps high and the two vessels passed within an arm’s span of one another. Devaleth saw Nok salute the ship’s master at the tiller, who watched the Malazan vessel, his face unreadable. The war galley sped off into the night, its fate unknown. Did it engage another vessel? Did it at last, burned to the waterline, put her vaunted claims to the test?
That master’s face had been unreadable because, like myself, he probably had no reference for what was happening all around him. Things simply did not happen this way when the Marese went to sea. It was more than humbling. It was shattering.
*
Having been rammed and sunk on his first run to Korel lands, Rillish Jal Keth watched Mare war galleys manoeuvre out amid the dark ocean waves and felt a bowel-tightening sense of having seen all this before.
That the great ungainly transport still floated was something of a miracle. It had been a day of dodging and running, hiding behind the screen of Blue men-of-war. But the order had been given to break out. The fence was down and the wolves were in the fold. Now two war galleys cooperated in cornering the tall Quon three-master carrying over four hundred souls.
He turned to the transport’s master next to the ship’s tiller. ‘Not long, I think, Captain.’
‘Aye. It’s every man for himself out here now,’ the man grumbled.
Rillish crossed his arms, eyed the low sleek vessels cutting through the waves under oar and sail as swift as arrows. A light rain had started up, obscuring everything in a chilling grey haze. ‘I’ve heard they are unsinkable,’ he mused.
‘So they say.’
Rillish cocked his head to one side, wiped his face with the back of a hand, thought of the ramming he’d experienced before. ‘We have near four hundred Malazan heavy infantry on board this vessel, Captain. Their ships might be better than ours, but I’m willing to wager that our marines are more ferocious than theirs. How would you like a vesse
l that can’t sink under your feet?’
The ship’s master stroked his whiskered chin. His slit gaze shifted over to one Mare war galley sliding past, forcing a port turn from the sailing master. Then his gaze shifted back to Rillish. A broad smile split the man’s whiskers. He leaned over the railing of the sterncastle. ‘Ready all grapnels! Ready all boathooks! All troops on deck! Ready for boarding!’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ the mate shouted from amidships. ‘Ready for boarding!’
Rillish saluted the captain and went to his cabin. His aide helped him strap on his cuirass of banded iron, his vambraces and greaves. Last, he tied on his weapon belt and twinned Untan duelling swords. His helmet he tucked under an arm. Then he returned to the sterncastle. He found the ship’s captain and the sailing master both struggling with the long arm of the tiller.
‘Took your time,’ the captain called over the worsening weather. ‘Can’t hold them off any longer.’
‘Offer them a fat broadside target, Captain.’
The man spat with the wind. ‘Don’t tell me my business, landsman.’
‘I’ll be at the side.’
The captain waved him on. ‘Give them my sharp regards, yes?’
‘That’s my business, Captain.’ He descended to amidships and pushed his way through the crowd of heavies. He thrust his helmet at a nearby soldier, then climbed up into the ratlines. The spray of a wave crashing into the transport slashed over him. He regarded the crowded deck. ‘Soldiers of Malaz!’ he bellowed with all his strength. ‘We’re about to be rammed! There’s nothing to be done for it. But I’m glad!’ He pointed over the slate-grey waves. ‘Out there is a much better ship than this damned tub and they’re about to offer it to us! Now … what say you!’
Fists and swords thrust to the sky. A great answering roar momentarily drowned out the gusting wind, the booming sails. Rillish added his own raised fist. ‘Aye! Now – ready grapnels! Ready ropes! Ready boathooks!’
‘For the Fourth!’ rose a shout.
‘Eighth!’ came an answering call.
‘For the Empire!’ Rillish shouted.
A great roar answered that: ‘Aye!’
In no way did Rillish consider himself a sailor but even he could see the attack coming. One war galley threatened their port side, so the sailing master and the captain obligingly pressed their weight upon the arm to show the enemy their stern-plate and in so doing exposed their starboard to the second war galley, which was already lunging in upon them. Its bronze-capped ram thrust down into the dark green of a trough only to leap upwards again, throwing a crest of water high above the sleek vessel’s freeboard.
One more wave. ‘Brace for ramming!’ Rillish wrapped an arm and a leg in the ratlines.
The blow came as an enormous shudder, but such was the mass of the transport that it failed even to lurch sideways. Rillish was thrown yet managed to keep his grip on the ropes. Grapnels flew. The Marese crew back-oared powerfully. Canny Malazan marines used the boathooks to snare oars, throwing the banks into confusion. Shattered wood snarled as the master threw the tiller aside, bringing the vessels together. Marese oars snapped or were thrust down as the two ships swung to clash together. Rillish could imagine the carnage that must be occurring within the war galley.
‘Board!’ Rillish roared. Men swung down on ropes or jumped. One fell short and grasped an oar, only to disappear with a shriek as the sides pounded together. A rope ladder was tossed, unrolling, and Rillish grasped hold of it. Marese marines waited below in dark leathers. A volley of arrows slashed the side of the Malazan transport. Men and women fell, striking the deck with leaden thumps.
Rillish crashed heavily to the deck, righted himself. Around him marines pushed forward to the stern. The Marese had raised a shield-wall amidships and from behind this bow-fire raked the boarders. Rillish drew his two slim duelling blades. ‘Forward!’
More of the heavy infantry reached the deck, adding their weight to the surge against the shieldwall. Rillish clawed his way to the front rank. He danced high, stabbing down over a shield to feel the blade flense cheek, grate from teeth. The man screamed, gurgled, fell. Rillish tumbled down on top of him. In the cramped confines of the narrow vessel a marine fell across Rillish and as she did so a gout of water shot from her mouth and even from her ears. Her dead eyes rolled blood-red, their vessels burst.
Sea-magics! The ship’s mage! Rillish straightened, wiped the foul water from his face. There! At the stern, hair wild in the wind, gold torcs at his arms, gesturing, and with each wave a swath of marines falling, clutching their throats. Rillish gulped for air. ‘Take the stern, heavies! For the Empire!’
The press heaved against the shieldwall, but the Marese held. The ship’s mage wreaked murder through the marines. His powers seemed unlimited here in his element. Then a great bull of a trooper in bright mail broke through the wall and, wielding a two-handed blade that he chopped up and down more like an axe, reached the sterncastle stairs. The shieldwall was shattered, disintegrating. The trooper reached the stairway and marines poured up with him. The ship’s mage threw some magery that levelled many, but the trooper in the bright mail coat, the helm cast to resemble a snarling wolf’s head, shook it off to reach the man with a great two-handed blow that severed him from collarbone to sternum.
Rillish came clambering up to the stern to see the marine pull off the helm to show what he’d suspected: the matted silver hair and flushed sweaty face of Captain Peles. Rillish clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Well fought, Captain.’
She inclined her head to Rillish. ‘And not many Fists lead a charge against a shieldwall.’
Rillish waved that aside. ‘The mage – he didn’t slow you down …’
Panting, the woman gave a modest shrug. ‘The Wolves were with me this day, sir.’
‘Well, thank them for that.’
A sailor saluted Rillish. ‘Captain’s regards, Fist. The transport is stove through, irretrievable.’
‘Have all personnel transferred over. Cut the lines.’
‘All, sir? That’s far too much weight for a vessel this size. We’ll wallow in these high waves, take on water …’
Rillish just laughed. ‘Haven’t you heard, man? These vessels are unsinkable.’
After the sailor left, shaking his head, Peles regarded Rillish. She pushed back her sodden hair. ‘Now what, sir?’
‘Well, as the man said. We’re overcrowded.’ He gave Peles a grin. ‘I think we could use another ship.’
Peles was cleaning her two-handed blade on the robes of the dead mage. ‘Aye, sir. That we could.’
*
Suth’s Blue transport was secured side by side with a twin as a kind of gigantic catamaran. They carried suspended between them some sort of beam construction as long as the ships themselves. Despite this awkward arrangement they made good time, had bulled through swaths of burning sea, knocked aside rudderless hulks, submerged countless souls shouting and begging from the waves, and looked to be keeping place as the standard-bearer for the charge to the Fist coast. Dawn was nearing and in the half-light more Marese war galleys could be glimpsed cutting across their bows. ‘Too many,’ Len said, his elbows on the railing. ‘Don’t know how we’ll make it.’
Orders rang out and Blue sailors, indistinguishable from their marine brethren, climbed the rigging. More sail unfurled, billowed and bellied, taking the wind aslant. Suth watched the tall mainmast, amazed by the sight.
‘Still too slow,’ Len grumbled.
A Moranth sailor in the crow’s nest gave a warning shout.
‘Here they come,’ said Len.
The sleek black war galleys closed from either side, lunging like tossed javelins. As they closed the Blue captain found an extra ounce of speed from somewhere to slip just ahead. The troops sent up a great cheer as the Marese coursed across the transport’s broad foaming wake.
‘We won’t surprise them like that—’ Len was beginning when twin reports as of siege arbalests sounded from the Marese galleys and m
issiles came hissing through the air to crash into the transport’s stern. The vessel lurched almost to a standstill and everyone’s feet were cut from beneath them while barrels tumbled overboard and ropes snapped, singing.
Recovering, Suth clambered to the rear. Here among the wreckage of broken wood and twisted iron Blue marines were hacking at what appeared to be giant grapnels that had gouged hold of the stern.
‘Cut them!’ someone shouted.
‘They’re chain!’
‘We’re dragging!’
A Blue officer appeared, yelled orders. Axes emerged. Out amid the brightening waves Suth saw more Mare vessels closing. The grapnels led via lengths of chain to thick ropes that stretched to the two war galleys. Both were backing oars, sending up a great churning froth of water.
‘Cut them!’
‘Chop the wood!’
Then the young Adjunct was there. He brushed aside the Blue axemen. ‘Room,’ he shouted, and drew his blade. Sunlight blinded Suth, flashing from the curved ivory blade. The Adjunct swung it overhead two-handed, hacking, raising high piercing shrieks of metal. The transport lurched forward. A marine almost fell overboard but was pulled back. The Adjunct swung again and the ship sprang free, surging ahead. Suth stared where the chains swung, severed cleanly just back from the grapnel.
The Adjunct sheathed his blade.
‘It cut,’ someone whispered. ‘Cut iron …’
‘Did you ever see the like …’
The Adjunct glared with his dark eyes as if expecting some sort of challenge, then turned away without a word.
Later, Suth, like many, went to examine the severed links. He found the iron mirror-bright and clean. Its edge was so sharp it cut one of his fingers.
They had pushed on through the greatest concentration of Mare vessels. Behind, bursts of orange glare and a banner of thick black smoke hanging low over the water obscured dawn. A final war galley rammed them on the port forward of the mainmast, but a volley of lobbed munitions from the Moranth left the ship so devastated that it drifted away, seemingly unmanned. As for the transport, while Suth was bent over the gunwale inspecting the great hole punched into the side, a Blue marine just said: ‘Our ships are also hard to sink.’
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