Stonewielder

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  Ivanr knew that the advance scouts had passed these grim markers days ago, but Martal must have ordered them to remain untouched. At first the sight of the bodies and the vicious torture their torn flesh betrayed had horrified the untested volunteers of the army; many of the younger had actually fainted. As the days passed and the endless count of blackened, hacked bodies mounted, Ivanr saw that fear burn away, leaving behind a seething anger and outrage. His respect for this female general’s ruthlessness grew. It seemed odd to him that he’d never heard of her before. Where had Beneth found her? Katakan? He couldn’t think of any mercenary or military leader hailing from that backwater there in the shadow of Korel.

  Carr waved the dust from his face. ‘There must be fighting in Blight.’

  ‘You think so?’

  More Reform cavalry charged past, heading for the front of the straggling column. A small detail, only some forty horses. The sight reminded Ivanr of the Jourilan nobleman, Hegil, supposed commander of the army. So far all the man commanded was the cavalry. He seemed to share the Jourilan nobility’s contempt for infantry, judging the peasantry beneath his notice. But the vast majority of the Army of Reform was just those peasants – farmers and displaced burghers – and to them, if the army had any leader, it was Martal.

  The potential for confusion or outright argument troubled him. An army was like a snake; it should not have two heads.

  Ivanr and Carr’s place in the column reached a curve in a hillside offering a view east of the city of Blight and the Bay of Blight beyond. The city’s stone walls were tall. But now smoke wreathed them, billowing in plumes from almost everywhere within. It drifted inland, a great dark pall, driven by the prevailing wind that held from the north-east during this season of storms. The south gate gaped open, a dark invitation. The Army of Reform was ordering ranks before it. Seeing this, Ivanr cursed and pushed ahead. Carr followed.

  Ivanr tracked Martal simply by keeping an eye on all the messengers coming and going. He found the woman mounted, surrounded by staff and bodyguards, dressed as always in her blackened armour, black boots and blackened gauntlets, her short night-dark hair touched with grey. Such martial imagery was all in keeping with some kind of legendary warrior-princess, until one saw her face: the lips full, yes, but habitually grim, drawn down as if constantly displeased; the eyes dark, but sharp and dismissive, not mysterious or alluring; and the nose what one would expect to see sported by some grizzled campaigner, canted and flattened. The Black Queen indeed.

  A queen of war.

  The guards allowed Ivanr and Carr through. When Martal finished with a messenger Ivanr cleared his throat. She nodded distractedly for him to speak.

  ‘You’re not going in there,’ his said, his disapproval clear.

  A faint near-smile, her gaze scanning the broad columns of infantry. ‘No, Ivanr. We’re forming up. I’m told the adherents of the Lady are withdrawing to the north.’ She spared him a quick glance. ‘They need time to complete their flight.’

  Ivanr grunted his appreciation. ‘You would burden the Jourilan Imperials with them.’

  ‘Yes. Why should we be the only force herding civilians along? The difference being ours fight.’

  ‘Once they withdraw the city will be ours,’ Carr said, triumphant.

  ‘So we’ll own a burned-out ruin,’ Ivanr added, sour.

  Martal was reading a scrap of vellum brought in by a messenger. Its contents twisted her lips into an ugly scowl. ‘For Hegil,’ she told the messenger, who snapped his reins and charged off. She blinked now at Carr as if seeing him for the first time. ‘If we own it already, Lieutenant, then we can ignore it.’

  ‘You mean to just go round,’ Ivanr breathed, impressed.

  ‘In conquering a nation, squatting in the towns and cities is the surest route to failure.’

  Ivanr’s breath caught. He eyed the woman anew, her heavy outland armour of iron bands over mail, black-lacquered, battered by years of service. That opinion had the sound of quoted text. ‘What would you know of conquering nations?’

  The woman merely smiled. But it was not a reassuring smile; it spoke of secrets and a dark humour. She pointed a gauntleted hand to the west. ‘Jourilan lancers are harassing our flank. That would be the 10th Company, the Green Wall. Your lads and lasses, yes, Carr, Ivanr?’

  The two exchanged alarmed looks. ‘Gods beyond, Martal,’ Ivanr exploded. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ They pushed their way out of the ring of guards.

  Tenth Company, which had selected the nickname the Green Wall, was formed up in a wide front, pikes and spears facing west. Beyond their ranks skirmishing Jourilan cavalry raced back and forth across open ground of burned fields. Edging his way through, Ivanr reached the front rank. He’d already collected a spear. ‘Lights,’ Carr said, drawing his sword. ‘They won’t press a charge.’

  ‘They’re pinning us down, though. Can’t advance. Where’s Hegil’s cav?’

  Carr shrugged. ‘Occupied elsewhere, perhaps. We’ve few enough.’

  ‘Can’t just sit here. Martal’s damned wagons are about to roll up our backsides.’

  Carr glanced behind: the entire mass of the Army of Reform was lurching west, groping its way round the city, about to run them over.

  Ivanr straightened, taking a great breath. ‘Company! Broaden line! On my mark! Now!’ He watched to the right and left while the rows adjusted their spacing to allow an extra pace between them. It was one of the most difficult manoeuvres he’d covered with them. He’d never dare attempt it facing a body of heavies awaiting a chance for a charge. As it was, the movement caught the eye of the lights and they raced over, forming a chase line, swinging close, lances still held tall. Ivanr bellowed: ‘Company, brace!’ Carr raised his sword.

  The flying chevron of lights charged obliquely across the line of the levelled pikes and spearheads. Lances and javelins flew. Men and women screamed, impaled. The clean line of bristling pikeheads shook, rattling. A second charge was swinging in behind the first. Ivanr fumed. Archers! Where was their support? They needed archers to drive these skirmishers off. ‘Steady, company! Brace!’

  The second charge circled past. Another flight of javelins and lances drove ferocious punishment into the column. Ivanr saw the wall of pikes waver like wind-tossed grasses. ‘Steady, Lady damn you all! Break and you’re trampled!’

  Then a wall of smoke came streaming down from the plumes overhead, obscuring everything. The thick greasy fumes stank of awful things. Things Ivanr didn’t want to imagine burning. He covered his mouth. Soot darkened his hands. Everyone was coughing and cursing. Blind to everything, he heard dropped pikes clattering to the ground. Somewhere in the dark horses shrieked their terror. He glimpsed a smudged light off to his right and staggered to it. Here in a small depression he found an old woman hunched over a smoking fire, blowing on the glowing brands.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  The old woman blinked up at him. She wore the tattered remains of layered wraps over frayed skirts. ‘Making lunch.’ She dropped handfuls of freshly cut green grass and green leaves on the fire. A great gout of white smoke billowed up.

  ‘Would you stop that!’

  ‘Stop it? I’m hungry.’

  ‘You’re making all this smoke!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. All this smoke is from the city.’

  Carr came running up, waving the fumes from his face and coughing. ‘The cavalry has fled. The field is clear.’

  Ivanr eyed the old woman crouched before the fire like a penitent, bony elbows sticking out like wings. She gave Ivanr a wink. ‘Horses, they say, are in a terrible fear of fire.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Sister Gosh.’

  ‘Well, Sister Gosh. If the Lady knew there was magery here on this field, you’d be a dead woman.’

  ‘Then it’s a good thing there was none o’ that. Just an errant gust of wind and smoke from the city, hey?’

  ‘You play a dangerous game, Sister.’r />
  ‘Now’s the time for it.’

  Ivanr grunted his agreement. He faced Carr. ‘Have the company form up for advance. Martal wants us past the city.’

  Carr saluted. ‘Aye, sir.’

  Sir? When did that happen? And what did that make him? Ivanr frankly had no idea and he decided he didn’t care.

  * * *

  Those veterans who managed to doze off below decks were woken in the late afternoon just before evening. Some twenty Malazan squads and a horde of Blue marines crowded the two dromonds that constituted the ungainly catamaran. A meal of watery soup came around in pots and ladles. Sails were trimmed. The bow-crest eased to almost nothing. Suth nudged Len while they ate their flat hardbread. ‘We’ve slowed, yes?’

  ‘Yeah. Have to give the others time to catch up, hey? And the sun’s setting – can’t have that in our eyes.’

  Suth returned to the grainy bread. He hadn’t thought of that. To the west the shore passed as distant green hills, wooded, with few signs of habitation. Beyond rose a crest of tall misted mountains, dark and snow-peaked. Goss came round, gripping shoulders and making a last equipment check. He and Len grasped forearms. ‘We’re sixth in line. Form up along the port side.’

  ‘Any munitions to share out?’

  Goss snorted. ‘I suspect these Blues will be supplying more to the fight than any of us would like.’

  Len waved that off. ‘Had to ask. And that thing between the ships. What is it?’

  ‘Don’t know. Blues are all mum about it. May be a catapult.’

  After Goss moved on Keri sat with them. ‘That’s no catapult.’

  ‘Been checking it out, have you?’ Len rumbled with a sly smile.

  ‘Yeah. And it ain’t no catapult.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  She hunched, peering round. ‘I got a theory … too crazy to say, though.’ She drew her weapon, what Suth had learned the Malazans called a ‘long-knife’. She checked its edge.

  Suth frowned. ‘You’re not coming with us on the assault, are you?’

  Keri’s gaze narrowed on him and her thin lined face lost all expression. ‘Why?’ she asked, her voice flat.

  ‘’Cause you’re only wearing leathers.’

  She relaxed, slapped her weapon home in its wooden sheath. ‘Listen, kid … this is your first engagement, so maybe you should stay behind me …’

  Len laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Take it easy, Kerr. He’s green.’ To Suth: ‘Just remember, in battle, we saboteurs tell you to do something – you do it. Okay?’

  Len was the corporal so Suth said nothing, though he saw no reason why he should do whatever the saboteurs told him. They weren’t even armoured heavily enough to last the first exchange. It was useless bringing them along on what he assumed would be a plain frontal assault.

  As the afternoon gave way to the evening more Blue and Malazan vessels gathered. The ships manoeuvred into battle groups. Messages passed as brilliant flaring colours, while Malazan vessels exchanged coded signals by flags. Suth heard from the talk going around that the Blue Admiral, Swirl, was in charge and that the sergeants weren’t particularly happy about it. They’d have preferred to have Greymane here. No one mentioned the young Adjunct.

  The fleet rounded the headland of a bay and there before them was the harbour of Aamil. It had the look of a fortress stronghold built specifically to resist any assault from the sea. Suth thought of Mare nearby to the south. Twin curving moles met at a narrow harbour entrance flanked by stout guard towers. The main fortress rose straight from the water in a tall featureless curtain wall of salt-stained grey limestone blocks. Access from the harbour was limited to the narrow inlet between the fortified towers.

  Voicing Suth’s thoughts, Len let go a long low whistle. ‘Now that’s a stronghold.’

  ‘These Blues better know what they’re doin’,’ Keri grumbled.

  ‘They have so far.’

  Yana squeezed by, cuffed Suth. ‘Let’s go. Form up.’

  Distantly, the ringing of bells echoed from across the bay. The Skolati were readying themselves.

  Four Blue men-of-war led the attack. As the ships closed on the harbour entrance, what appeared to be a dark flight of birds erupted from each of the broad squat towers. The flights resolved themselves into twin showers of arrows. The bow-fire scoured the decks of the men-of-war. Suth could just make out the oval shapes of raised shields lining those decks. Then twin thumps echoed and two great rocks, both trailing flames, came flying from atop the towers. The rocks screamed down to scatter immense showers of spray between the ships.

  Suth was kneeling with his squad next to the portside railing, in line with the other marines. ‘Damned big onagers on those towers,’ Len mused.

  ‘Have to sneak by close,’ Keri said.

  ‘Why?’ Suth asked.

  ‘With them machines,’ Keri said, ‘their aim’s worse the closer you are.’

  The voices of the squad sergeants rang out: ‘Ready shields!’

  Ahead, two of the men-of-war rocked on the water as another pair of fiery boulders crashed into the sea between them, while the remaining two swung wide, one to each side, drawing close to the tumbled rock shore of the mole and out of sight. Len chuckled at that.

  ‘What?’ Suth asked.

  ‘There’s a nasty choice. Shoot at the ship whose crew’s about to besiege you, or keep firing at the rest?’

  Suth bit down and resorted to pleading with his insane collection of Dal Hon gods that the gigantic target he currently rode – two dromonds side by side! – would somehow fail to be hit.

  A third volley of stones, now no longer flaming, arced skyward. One came hurtling down on a Blue transport, cleanly smashing the vessel in half in a terrific shattering of wood. The other sent a wash of spume over the lumbering catamaran.

  ‘Can we even fit through?’ Len shouted to a nearby Blue marine.

  The Moranth peered ahead. ‘It will be … how do you Malazans say … a close thing.’

  Bellows rose from all sides: ‘Raise shields!’

  Suth quickly huddled beneath his. Everyone likewise hunched. He heard a hissing as of sleet or heavy rain and he tensed his arm. Then came a hammering all around as a forest of arrows slammed into the hardwood decking and the layered wood, leather, and lacquer of the shields. A few men and women cried out as arrows punched through to impale arms, or found unprotected flesh. A marine next to Suth snarled his pain and outrage as an arrow nailed his foot to the deck.

  A warning shout went up from the stern and Suth twisted to see the helmsman down and Blue sailors scrambling to right the tiller arm. The awkward behemoth lost headway, began edging sideways in the narrow harbour inlet. Everyone started yelling warnings.

  ‘Stay under cover!’ the sergeants warned.

  An immense explosion from the port tower punched the catamaran. Rocks tumbled down the mole. A cloud of dust and smoke engulfed the guard tower on that side. Just visible above the smoke, the roof platform canted, tilting in slow motion, to fall backwards away from the harbour inlet. Keri jumped to her feet, shield held over her head. ‘Yeah! Hood take you! That’s the way to do it!’ She was hopping up and down. Everyone was cheering as the tower disappeared into the cloud of debris and rocks that came churning the water and even clattering on to the decking.

  ‘Get down!’ Goss yelled.

  Keri, and many others, tumbled forward as one dromond, the other half of the catamaran, grated against submerged rock. ‘Ready poles!’ a Blue officer called. Blue sailors and marines dropped shields to obey. ‘Push off!’

  From beneath his shield Suth watched as the marines and sailors strove to free the catamaran. Meanwhile, the withering bow-fire had not diminished from the other tower. Many fell, clutching at arrows that seemed to sprout from nowhere. Troopers clamoured to be allowed to lend a hand. ‘Stay where you are!’ the sergeants yelled.

  The catamaran rocked again as another explosion took the tower on the opposite side. This one sprayed stones and
debris out over the harbour so close as to pluck Blue sailors from the bow of one of the dromonds. The tower tilted, settling, and slowly slid down the mole in an avalanche of rubble that crashed into the harbour.

  Everyone jumped up cheering. Suth noted that as it fell the tower buried the Blue man-of-war anchored at its feet. He wondered how many, if any, had remained on board.

  With all hands contributing, the catamaran grated free of the rocks and edged its way through the harbour mouth. Peering behind, Suth saw practically the entire invasion fleet bunched up behind them. Not the brightest decision, it seemed to him, to send them through so early. Perhaps they ought to have been last. Or maybe he was just thinking of his self-preservation.

  Now the fleet poured in practically bow to stern, one after the other. A fresh round of bells sounded from Aamil. Smaller onagers and catapults on the walls fired, most falling short as they tested their reach. Suth’s catamaran headed straight for the centre of the curtain wall. The other vessels fanned out to either side.

  Fishing boats and cargo vessels now rose into flames all about the harbour. The Skolati sailors sent them coasting out to meet the invaders, then abandoned them. The Blue vessels appeared to ignore the much smaller fireships, knocking them aside, though they did furl all their canvas – the most flammable part of them, Suth imagined.

  A great thrumming brought his attention to the main stronghold wall where it climbed straight up from the water. A black cloud rose, arcing up into the darkening night-blue sky. ‘Raise shields!’ the sergeants bellowed once more. Already sick of the threat of arrows, Suth hunched again.

  The swath the fortress bow-fire raked across the vessel was astonishing. The deck appeared almost furred in arrows. So intense was the missile fire, no counter-barrage could even be attempted. Everyone tightened into balls and hid for their lives beneath their shields. Sneaking a glance from under his, Suth saw transports thumping against wharves, lowering wide gangplanks, and emptying their cargoes of marines in great surging hordes that charged up the stone piers.