Stonewielder

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘When—’ began Sister Gosh.

  ‘What did she say?’ Martal demanded.

  ‘She …’ Gods, she asked that I sit at her side … and I refused her! He swallowed, shaken. ‘She … told me … that is, she said she believed I was on the right path …’ He rubbed at his suddenly hot and sweaty brow. ‘She seemed to be …’

  She believed I’d come to the path intuitively, she’d said. Laughing gods! She was trying to give me reassurance! He pressed a fold of cloth to his brow, cleared his throat.

  ‘What was she like?’ Sister Gosh asked.

  Gods! What was she like? He daubed the cloth to his face, struggled to speak. ‘She was young. Too young for what she’d experienced. On her hands, her thin arms, and body, there were scars of beatings. Of a life of hard manual labour. Of starvation. And there was blood, too, in her past. She’d done things that tormented her. I saw all this in her eyes. Heard it in her words …’ His voice trailed away into nothing – he could bear no more.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he heard Martal say, quietly.

  When he looked up they were gone and he was alone. He sat staring at nothing, suddenly desolate. How could he possibly … He was nothing! Wretched! Any comparison was laughable! A mockery! How dare he parade himself as her … as some sort of … no. Impossible. He should slink off into a hole.

  And yet … she had come to him. She chose him. Should he not have faith – faith! Gods, do not laugh! – in her judgement? If he had confidence in her – and he did! He felt it – should he not then honour her choices?

  But it was hard. Looking ahead he saw that embracing her path would be the most challenging, the most difficult calling he could ever take on. In its light everything he had done to date could only be seen as preparatory. So be it. Whether he was worthy or not was beside the point. Only in the doing can the measure be made, and then only in hindsight.

  That task he would leave to others.

  * * *

  The storm was as violent as any Hiam had ever witnessed. Through driving sheets of sleet he watched rolling combers the size of mountains come crashing in like landslides. The reverberations of their impact shook even these stones here in the upper reaches of the Great Tower. The clouds massed so low it seemed the very Stormwall itself was blocking their passage, while above all the sapphire and emerald glow of the Riders rippled and danced. It was as if they somehow knew. Could somehow sense this was their moment.

  The closest they might ever come.

  But not victory. Never that. He would not allow that. She might choose to test her instruments to their very limit … but they would not break.

  They would endure.

  The heavy plank door to his apartments rattled and Hiam closed and barred the shutter on the storm. Quint entered, cloak wrapped tight about him, spear in one hand, helm in the other. He’d just come from the wall and Hiam noted how the lingering energies of the enemy sorcerers, the Wandwielders, glowed like an aura about the spear’s keen tip. ‘Wall Marshal. What brings you here this ill-favoured night?’

  Quint pressed up close against the desk. His scarred face was clenched, the eyes darkened slits against the light of the chambers. ‘Where is Alton?’ he whispered. Hiam winced; he’d dreaded this moment, knowing it was unavoidable. He drew breath to speak but the Wall Marshal continued: ‘Where is Gall? Longspear? Went?’ Hiam raised a hand, nodding for silence, but the man ground on, his voice cracking: ‘I can find them nowhere. No one knows where they’ve gone.’ He set his helm on the desk and gripped the spear in tight, scarred fists, the knuckles white.

  ‘I can answer that, Quint—’ Hiam began, but was interrupted again.

  ‘Section Marshal Courval is missing. A fifteen-season veteran on the wall. One of our best. He, too, has been reassigned. Lord Protector … what have you done!’

  Hiam raised both hands. ‘Calm yourself, Quint. I knew you would not agree and so I did not inform you. I acted on my own authority.’

  ‘To do what?’ He raised his chin to the window, the storm, and the sea, beyond. ‘To weaken us now? In our time of greatest need?’

  Hiam watched, fascinated, while that keen spear-tip edged down towards his chest. Strangely, he felt no fear. I let the Lady decide – as she chooses. ‘You are right, Quint. They have all been pulled from the wall.’

  ‘Where?’ the man gasped, sounding close to weeping.

  ‘An exchange, Quint. Overlord Yeull of Rool has promised ten thousand troops for one hundred Stormguard. Soldiers, Quint! Not starving, cringing prisoners or bullied conscripts. Trained fighting men.’

  The man was shaking his head, his eyes swimming in tears. ‘Ten … You fool … he is laughing at you right now. They’ve been invaded – he’ll never send any of them!’

  The spear was almost level now. So, it is to be the blade for me, is it, Quint? Hiam fought to keep his voice level. ‘Then Courval will return. Do you really think those Roolians could stop a hundred Stormguard?’

  The Wall Marshal took a shuddering breath. His arms quivered; and Hiam knew it was not with exhaustion. The blade tilted up a notch. ‘No. No one in this entire region could stop them. Section Marshal Courval will see the impossibility of this exchange and he will return. And when he does …’ The spear’s butt slammed to the stones. ‘We will have an assembly on your leadership, Hiam. I swear to that.’

  Hiam inclined his head in assent. ‘I agree, Wall Marshal. Until then.’ He waited until Quint reached for the door, then spoke again. ‘I have before me entries from your quartermaster clerks, Quint. Were you aware of Master Engineer Stimins’ many requisitions?’

  From the door the man grimaced his impatience. ‘What?’

  ‘Monies for labourers. For tools, stone, chain, rope, and other such equipment?’

  ‘What do I care for the man’s stones and rope?’

  ‘You should, Quint. If I were you I would be far more concerned about Stimins’ continuing construction work than my, ah, unorthodox efforts to bolster our numbers.’

  The Wall Marshal dismissed Hiam’s words with a curt wave and slammed the door shut behind him.

  Hiam sat for a time in the dim office. Beyond the shutters the wind howled and battered like a fiend struggling to break through. You kept quiet about it, Stimins. I wouldn’t have found out but for oh-so-conscientious Shool. Pray let it not be the foundation behind Wind Tower. What had been his words? We may have one hundred years – or one.

  Poor Quint. Did he not see that should these desperate clutchings at straws fail, we will all be far too busy for a leadership review. Perhaps I should step down? Save him the trouble. It would be good to be facing them spear in hand again when …

  But no. That is an unworthy thought. Forgive me, Blessed Lady! I mustn’t give in to weakness. We will prevail as we always have. Too much rests upon our shoulders. The lives of every man, woman, and child of this region even unto the Ice Wastes rely upon us!

  Hiam pressed his hands to his hot face and felt the wetness there at his eyes. Forgive my weakness, Lady. Yea, though the shadow of doubt is upon me, I shall not waver …

  * * *

  For some reason Shell hadn’t anticipated that they would be split up. It was done expertly, with a brutal efficiency born of centuries of handling captives. Lazar had led their manacled file – either by chance or by design – while Shell followed, then Blues, and lastly Fingers. Their escort chivvied them up along a steep climb through a town whose bundled inhabitants hardly looked up from their daily tasks: just one more file of condemned on their way to an anonymous death upon the wall. They climbed to a fortress that squatted half sheltered under a rocky slope that rose even higher. Once inside the fortress they were pulled and pushed into a series of underground corridors. After much marching Shell was thoroughly lost and they had passed far into what seemed a great sprawling underground complex. Heavy bronze-bound doors led off the halls into tiny rooms, cells perhaps, and further corridors.

  Without wa
rning barred gates thrust across the narrow corridor they walked, separating Lazar at the front and Fingers at the rear. Lazar tensed to fight but a sharp sign from Blues stood him down, and he relaxed, reluctantly. The guards unlatched the big fighter from the chain gang and led him off down another corridor; the same was done to Fingers, who called after them: ‘See you around!’ Shell and Blues were left together for the moment until a Chosen soldier in his silvered blue-black armour and dark blue cloak unhitched Blues and led him off.

  She was alone. After the Chosen escorting Blues up another corridor had disappeared, a regular local guard pulled at her blonde hair. ‘You’re for the wall, then,’ he said, so close she could smell his foul breath. ‘What a waste. How ’bout a last screw before you die? Hmm?’

  She kneed him in the groin and he fell gasping. Before the rest of the escort could react she stomped on his upturned face, spraying blood all down his chest. Only then did they grab her arms and she allowed them to pull her away – that had been enough of a demonstration. Two of her escort remained behind to walk the injured guard to an infirmary, leaving only three to restrain her. She realized she could easily overpower these, but that was not her intent. She could hardly find Bars as a fugitive on the run. And so she meekly submitted to their amateurish cuffs and prodding.

  Now she sat in a holding pen, fettered at the ankles, legs drawn up tight to her chest to help conserve her warmth. Lining both walls of the long narrow chamber were her putative co-combatants: a more surly and unimpressive lot she couldn’t have imagined. Prisoners all, unwilling, uncooperative, more like those condemned to die by execution than fighting men and women who believed they possessed any chance for survival. Shell was mystified. With these tools the Chosen expected to defend the wall? They might as well throw these people off the top for all the difference it would make.

  ‘Who here is a veteran?’ she called out to the entire chamber. ‘Anyone stood before?’

  In the torchlit gloom eyes glittered as they shifted to her. A brazier in the centre of the room crackled and hissed in the silence. ‘Who in the Lady’s name are you?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Foreign bitch!’

  ‘Malazan whore!’

  A man who had been ladling out stew up and down the line knelt before her. ‘There’s no point,’ he murmured as he dropped a portion of stew into a bowl at her feet.

  ‘We’d have a better chance if we—’

  ‘Chance? What chance is it you think most here have?’ On his haunches he studied her, his gaze sympathetic. ‘You are Malazan, yes?’ She nodded. ‘Already then they hate you. What’s worse, you are a veteran, yes?’ She nodded again, but puzzled now. ‘So most here hate you even more. And why? Because already you stand a much greater chance of surviving than they – you see?’

  ‘If we worked together we’d all stand a much greater chance.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. It does not work that way.’

  His accent was strange to her. ‘You’re not from round here either.’

  ‘No. I’m from south Genabackis.’ He stood, motioned to a man apparently asleep two places down, older, with a touch of grey in his hair. ‘Ask him how it works.’

  ‘Thank you – what’s your name?’

  He paused, looking back. ‘Jemain.’

  ‘Shell.’

  ‘Good luck, Shell.’

  She squinted over at the older fellow, ignored the continuing insults regarding her person and what she might do with a spear. ‘Hey, you – old man!’

  The fellow did not stir. He must be awake; no one could sleep amid all this uproar. She found a piece of stone and threw it at him. He cracked open an eye, rubbed his unshaven jaw.

  ‘What’s the routine?’ she demanded.

  He sighed as if already exhausted by her, said, ‘It’s in pairs. One shieldman. One spearman – or woman,’ he added, nodding to her.

  ‘That’s stupid. We should mass together, fend them off.’

  He was shaking his head. ‘That’s not the Stormguard’s priority. Their priority is to cover the wall. There’s a good stone’s throw between you and the next pair.’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ she repeated. This entire exercise struck her as stupid. An utter waste.

  The older fellow shrugged. He was eyeing her now, narrowly. ‘You’re not Sixth Army.’

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  ‘What’re you doing here then?’

  ‘Shipwrecked on the west coast.’

  ‘What in Hood’s name you doin’ there?’

  It was her turn to shrug. He bared his yellowed teeth in answer to his own question. ‘Reconnaissance, hey?’

  She didn’t reply and he leaned his head back against the stone wall. ‘Don’t matter. We’re not goin’ anywhere.’

  Two days later the Chosen came for them.

  The bronze-bound door slammed open and a detail entered to unlatch the chain securing their ankle fetters. Covered by crossbowmen, the lines along both walls stood. At an order one file, Shell’s, began shuffling along out of the door. The line walked corridors, ever upwards, the air getting colder and steadily more damp. They came out into a night-time snowstorm. Guards pushed them up steep ice-slick stairs cut from naked stone. The cold snatched Shell’s breath away and bit at her hands and feet. To left and right lay slopes of heaped boulders rising up to disappear into the driven snow that came blasting from the darkness. The guards urged them on with blows from the flat of their blades. As she walked she tore a strip of cloth from her inner shirt and wrapped it round her hands.

  From down beneath the rock came a great shudder that struck Shell like a blow. Stones tumbled and grated amid the boulders. A roar sounded above, a waterfall thundering, which slowly passed. The file of prisoners exchanged wide-eyed, terrified glances.

  The Stormwall. She was to stand it. Only now did the certitude of such an unreal and outrageous fate strike home. Who would’ve imagined it? The stairs led up into a tower and a circular staircase. In a chamber within the tower two Chosen Stormguard awaited them at the only other exit, a portal leading to narrow ascending stairs. A single brazier cast a weak circle of warmth in the centre of the room. ‘Sit,’ one of the Stormguard told them.

  While they waited, regular guards distributed sets of battered armour, mostly studded leathers, some boiled cuirasses, a few leather caps. All the equipment bore the gouges and scars of terrible blows – many obviously mortal. Just for the warmth, Shell grabbed a cap and strapped it on tight. No one spoke. Two men vomited where they sat. One shuffled to the piss-hole in a corner at least five times. The vomit froze solid on the stone-flagged floor.

  Shell saw piled rags and took a bunch to wrap round her head, neck and hands. The old veteran, she noticed, had unwound a scarf from his waist and wrapped it round his head and neck.

  A shout echoed from the stairway and the Stormguard closed on the front of the line. While one watched, the other struck the chain from the fetters. The first two, the first ‘pair’, were pushed up the stairs.

  Counting off, Shell looked at the man next to her, her partner to be. He was skinny and shuddering uncontrollably – either from the cold or from terror. ‘What’s your name?’

  The man flinched as if she’d struck him. ‘What?’

  ‘Your name … what is it?’

  ‘What does that matter? We’re dead, aren’t we?’

  ‘Quiet,’ one of the Stormguard warned.

  ‘We’re planning!’ she answered, glaring. The man scowled but didn’t answer. ‘Have you used a spear?’

  The fellow looked on the verge of tears. ‘What? A spear? You think it matters? You think we have a chance?’

  ‘This is your last warning,’ the Stormguard said quietly.

  Shell muttered a response. Shit! I’m going to be chained to this fool? I’d be better off on my own. She leaned forward, trying to pull more warmth from the brazier. Well … it may just come to that …

  The wait lengthened. Everyone sat in an agony of tense anticipation. Afte
r what seemed half the night one of the Stormguard squinted up the narrow chute of stairs and then back at them. ‘Sleep,’ he said.

  Shell did not sleep. She sat back, eyes slitted, while the man next to her nodded off – though perhaps he simply passed out in an utter exhaustion of dread. At intervals, one Stormguard paced the chamber. She watched him when he passed. Who were these soldiers? Their manner struck her as one of a military order, one dedicated to their Blessed Lady. She’d heard of them all her life, of course; they were always cited in admiration. And she could admit to having once shared that awe for what seemed – from far away – an honourable calling. Once.

  Now, they’d rather fallen in her regard.

  Eventually, inevitably, their turn came. The Stormguard struck them from the chain and pushed them up the narrow stone stairway. Her partner went first, and when he reached the top someone passed him a spear, which he flinched from before shakily taking.

  Fanderay help us. The shield was thrust at her. It was a broad curved rectangle of layered wood, bone and bronze. The narrow chute of the stairway opened on to a small frigid room with one door; that door was lined in rime, its threshold wet with melted ice and slush. She knew where that door led.

  While she fought with the shield’s old strapping the entire structure around and beneath her shuddered, jerking, and a great booming burst through the room like a thunderclap. She rocked, taking a step. Ice fell like glass shards from the walls. The regular guards holding cocked crossbows on her and her partner grinned at them over the stocks of their weapons.

  The outer door slammed open and in came a Stormguard. Sleet and wind-tossed salt spume coated his cloak. His longsword was drawn and he gestured to them with it. Her partner, to whom she was linked by a few arms’ length of chain, gaped at the Chosen, frozen in terror, or disbelief. His eyes blazing within his narrow vision slit, the Stormguard snatched the spear close to its wide leaf-shaped blade and yanked the man forward.

  In this undignified manner they stumbled out on to the marshalling walk of the Stormwall. A brutal wind cut at Shell while sleet slashed almost level. The coming dawn brightened the east behind massed heavy clouds. The Stormguard urged them along, now tugging on the chain linking them. As he force-marched them he was yelling: ‘You will face the enemy. You will fight! If you flinch or cringe I will kill you myself! And believe me … you have a better chance against them than against me!’