Stonewielder

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  ‘Corbin,’ said the short stocky one.

  ‘Lane,’ said the other, his arm slashed and dripping blood.

  ‘Looks like we’re cut off,’ Suth explained.

  ‘Happens to me every night,’ Fish said morosely.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Corbin asked.

  ‘The big guy, Manask, says he’ll lead us out.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Lane said.

  Suth nodded to this tacit acceptance of his offer. ‘I want the saboteur, Squeaky, in the middle in case things get hot. I’ll back up Manask. You, Fish, back me up.’

  ‘I can’t even stand up in this friggin’ mouse house,’ Fish grumbled.

  ‘Lane, take the rear with Pyke.’

  ‘Oh sure!’ Pyke yelled. ‘Rear! Who put you in charge?’

  ‘Put a rag in it,’ Squeaky snarled.

  Suth went to the Drenn elder. ‘You walk with Squeaky here.’

  But the elder’s dark eyes narrowed to slits. ‘No. I am sorry, soldier. But the Korelri are here. This changes everything. I will go for help.’

  Suth studied him, uncertain. ‘You mean your Warren? Here?’

  The elder wiped the grime and sweat from his face, gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Well … we can hardly pretend to be hiding now, can we?’

  ‘True. Who – where will you go?’

  The old man looked pained. ‘I can only think of one place … but I am sorry, I cannot make any promises.’

  ‘I understand. May the gods speed you.’

  Pyke pushed his way to them. ‘He can take us all with him! We can escape!’

  Suth restrained himself from striking the man. ‘We stay with the mission.’

  ‘I don’t like that Warren anyway,’ Fish said to Lane. ‘Looked dangerous.’

  Lane nodded his profound agreement.

  Pyke peered round at them. ‘What’s the matter with you all? We’re gonna get killed! You’re all crazy – I could do better on my own!’

  ‘Do your job or I’ll kill you myself,’ Suth said, matter-of-fact.

  Pyke straightened, slowly nodding. ‘Fine. Okay. We’re fucked anyway.’ And he threw up his hands.

  Suth turned to Faro, raised his chin. ‘You’re being real quiet.’

  The little man raised and lowered his shoulders. ‘Just pretend I’m not here,’ he said, and gave his sharp-toothed smile.

  That is bloody easier said than done. He looked to Gheven. ‘What do you need?’

  The man peered round the rough cave, carved from the broken sedimentary rock. ‘This will do. I can go from here.’

  The troopers backed away to give him room. He crossed to the rear of the cave and pressed his hands to the rock. He bowed his head in concentration, and stepped into the wall, disappearing.

  Suth turned to Manask. ‘Looks like you’re up.’

  The giant fellow threw everyone a huge grin. ‘Do not fear! I will winkle out the secrets of this maze in no time! Come!’ He lumbered in an ungainly duck-walk out into the tunnel. Suth followed, shield and longsword ready.

  It was slow going. Manask’s great bulk completely blocked Suth’s forward vision. At every cave opening the man paused to poke in the broken haft of his spear and wave it around. Then he waved an arm. Finally, he hopped forward with a shout: ‘Ah-ha!’

  The third time he did this he reeled backwards accompanied by the thumping of heavy objects striking something. The giant staggered on to Suth. Two spears stood out from his thick armour like proud quills. ‘You see!’ Manask puffed, winded, ‘one merely has to disarm them!’

  Suth squeezed past and into the chamber. The Korelri Stormguard had already swung shields round and were prepared. Suth engaged one, Fish another. Suth fought extremely carefully: he probed the man’s defences, kept him busy. Openings came but he recognized them as traps meant to draw him out. Facing the Stormguard he quickly understood everyone’s dread – the man was fully the finest swordsman he’d ever faced: fearless, aggressive, and quick, a full-time professional fighter. But the Malazan infantry were trained for crowded shield and sword work. It was their lifeblood. These Korelri appeared to fight as individuals. Suth thought he and his squadmates might have the advantage in these circumstances.

  A spear thrust over Suth’s shoulder. The Korelri blocked, but the point continued on, passing through his shield to impale him in the chest and push him back to the wall, where he hung from the haft like an insect. ‘Two can play with pointed sticks!’ Manask exulted, and he brushed his hands together.

  Alone, facing outrageous odds, the second Stormguard gave no hint of asking for quarter. He backed against a dirt wall, shield ready. ‘Drop your weapons!’ Suth ordered. The full helm merely slid side to side. Eyes hot for battle glared out of the narrow vision slit.

  Damned fanatic. They didn’t have time for this. He, Fish, Corbin and Pyke spread out in an arc before the man. Useless! To prove what? Suth tightened his grip on his longsword, steadied his breathing.

  The Stormguard looked past them all, gaping. ‘No!’

  A crossbow fired just behind Suth made him flinch. The bolt took the Stormguard in the throat and the man slid down the wall, gagging. Suth turned to see Faro calmly tuck the slim weapon back under his cloak.

  ‘Let’s get going, shall we?’ Faro said, raising his brows.

  Suth nodded, swallowing. Ye gods! Forget this man is with them? Not damned likely.

  Manask led them onward, but their pace did not increase. Distant yells, the clash of fighting, and, occasionally, a report of munitions would reach them. They came upon scenes of battle: fallen Stormguard and dead troopers; caves blasted by munitions; tunnels partially collapsed. Suth was shaken to find Len dead, run through by a spear. Len? You too? Somehow I’d imagined it couldn’t happen to you. I’m so sorry. You were a good friend. Looks like maybe Pyke’s finally got things right.

  Squeaky knelt over the body for some time while everyone kept a nervous watch. Her final act was to close his eyes – the man’s shoulder bags had already been scavenged.

  Soon after that the earth shook, sending them all to the beaten earth floor huddled for cover. Dirt came tumbling down in a wash of dust that blinded and choked. After the shaking passed Suth gingerly eased himself up, wiping his face and coughing. When they had all straightened, beating at their cloaks and clearing their throats, they glared at Squeaky. She glared back, raising her hands.

  ‘Hey! Don’t look at me. There’s no way we brought that many munitions.’

  They continued through the half-collapsed tunnels. Suth couldn’t tell if they were making any headway, but he didn’t challenge Manask as he didn’t think he’d do any better choosing left from right, or which carved chamber to enter. It was a senseless jumbled warren of tunnels to him. Eventually, it seemed they’d been walking, hunched, on the adrenalin knife-edge of fear for far too long, and he called a halt. They chose the best defensible cave they could find, set a watch, and lay down to try to get some rest.

  Suth stood his watch with Lane, then had his turn to lie down. Though he was exhausted beyond care, sleep would not come. He couldn’t shake Pyke’s words. How many left now? What of Goss, Wess and Keri? Still alive? These Stormguard are butchering us! This obviously isn’t what Rillish and that priest had in mind. It seemed to him that he’d just closed his eyes when a bellow wrenched him awake. A sword slammed into the dirt where he’d just been lying. A Stormguard stood over him, pulling back the blade for another thrust, and Suth swept a leg, bringing him down. He leapt upon the man, found a gauche scabbard at his side, drew the weapon offhanded, and thrust it home up into an armpit. The Stormguard shuddered, but threw him off and leapt to his feet. He and Suth faced off, crouched, circling. A shape fell upon the Stormguard, Faro leaping, two long daggers flashing, and they collapsed in a tangle. Suth cast a frenzied glare around the darkened cave. Jammed shoulder to shoulder, troopers grappled with Korelri. A Stormguard duelling Lane retreated towards Suth so he stabbed him low in the back then drew his own blade. He sa
w Fish go down, dragging a Korelri with him. Manask was holding the corpse of one in front of himself, using it as a shield with which to bash another back until Corbin took the Stormguard from the side.

  In that instant of fevered rush it was over – though to Suth it seemed to have happened in a half-lit sort of slow-motion. Dust drifted now in the dead air and he stood still, panting. He, Manask, Faro and Corbin alone stood. Of the Korelri attackers who had seemed everywhere, Suth counted a mere five. Five! Gods below! Still, they were lucky to be alive at all.

  Peering around, he saw Squeaky slouched up against a wall. She’d been gut-stabbed. He knelt at her side; she lived still, but had lost a lot of blood. Her breaths came shallow and quick, like a child’s. ‘He took it,’ she told him.

  ‘Quiet.’

  ‘No. He took it. That prick, Pyke.’

  ‘What?’ He straightened, cast a quick glance around the cave: no Pyke, alive or dead. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Who?’ Faro asked.

  ‘Pyke, the bastard. Who was he on watch with?’

  ‘Was with me,’ Fish said from the floor, breathing through clenched teeth.

  Suth knelt next to Corbin, who was staunching the wound in the man’s side. ‘What happened?’

  The man gave a weak shrug. ‘He took one side. I took th’ other. Later, I looked over an’ he was gone. Run off. Them Korelri charged in.’

  Suth sat back stunned. Deserted! Takes the munitions and runs off. Leaves them unguarded. A blinding white fury made him dizzy. Why didn’t I kill him? All those chances. And now this! He went to his bedroll: he’d been sleeping in his hauberk and now he pulled on the rest of his gear.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Corbin asked.

  ‘I’m gonna find and kill the fucker.’

  Corbin spat aside, nodding. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  ‘Not the mission,’ Faro warned from where he squatted cleaning his knives.

  ‘To Hood with the mission! This is personal!’

  The scout – Hood take it, a Claw – stood. He brushed dust from a sleeve. ‘Can’t let it get personal. Doesn’t do. I can’t go that way.’

  ‘Fine. Manask?’

  The giant picked up a spear. ‘He can’t have gotten far.’

  ‘Corbin?’

  The trooper squeezed Fish’s shoulder. ‘Let me kit up.’

  ‘Good.’ He went to Squeaky. ‘Take it easy now. We’ll be back. Just …’ The woman was staring, head sunk. Suth brushed a hand down her eyes to close them. He stood. ‘Let’s go.’

  In the hall, Suth nodded farewell to Faro, who answered the nod – very slightly – then padded off silently to disappear into the gloom. Suth watched him go, thinking that of all of them, that bastard would win through.

  There wasn’t much of a spoor to follow. It was night-dark. Corbin carried their lamp. The Korelri had tramped all through the tunnel, but Suth walked ahead to do the tracking – somehow he’d lost faith in the giant’s skills. It seemed to him they’d been doing nothing more than wandering randomly yesterday. Some tunnels bore a distinct slope and he calculated that Pyke would follow the slope downward, hoping to reach a way out. So it was they retraced some of their way, keeping to the tunnels, always downward.

  Distantly, the reports of renewed fighting reached them as reverberations and muted roaring echoed down the tunnels and they would freeze, listening. But it was very far off now. Ahead, down a side tunnel, a bright golden glow spilled out of an opening. Suth edged up to take a quick look. He recoiled immediately. What he’d glimpsed inside made his shoulders slump.

  ‘Come!’ a voice called, inviting. ‘You are looking for someone, yes?’

  Suth leaned his head back against the curved tunnel wall, took a fortifying breath, and stepped in. Corbin and Manask followed. It was the largest of the chambers they’d yet seen. Some sort of rough temple complete with pillars of living stone. Candles and lamps lit the room. Across its centre, in two rows, waited ten Korelri Stormguard. The one at centre front was holding Pyke by the scruff of his neck.

  ‘This is yours perhaps?’

  ‘He’s not one of ours any more,’ Suth ground out.

  ‘Oh? Then you would not mind if I did this?’ The man raised a knife to Pyke’s throat. Pyke struggled furiously, but he was gagged and bound.

  Suth frowned a negative. ‘Go ahead. Save us the trouble.’

  The Stormguard nodded. ‘Yes. I do not blame you. Do you know that when we caught him he offered to sell you out?’

  Suth studied the wriggling fellow. So much for your stupid lone wolf chances, fool. Didn’t come to much, did they? Peering beyond, though, Suth glimpsed the clean white light of day shining in from a side opening. Damn! Pyke did come across an exit, but the Korelri had it covered. Haven’t missed one trick yet, these bastards.

  Manask, Suth noted, was edging back to the opening. Good idea. ‘Do as you like,’ he told the Korelri.

  The man dragged the curved blade across Pyke’s throat, bringing forth a great gush of blood that splashed down his front into the dirt before him. His legs spasmed and the Korelri let him fall like a slaughtered animal carcass.

  ‘Run, my friends,’ Manask told them, and Suth and Corbin darted from the chamber, the giant following. Suth’s last sight was the Korelri waving forward his fellows.

  They ran pell-mell through the dim tunnels. Suth’s poor vision caused him to run headlong into some corners. Picking himself up, he saw that Manask was far behind – the giant could hardly run squatting down as he must.

  Bloody Hood! He waved Corbin back, pointed to a narrow cave opening, the cell of an ascetic. ‘Have to do.’ They waited for the giant then backed in. Manask’s great bulk utterly choked the portal.

  Suth could not help but laugh, staring as he was at the man’s gigantic padded backside. ‘Manask, this must be your worst nightmare!’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he rumbled, ‘I shall be the obstruction which cannot be dislodged!’

  ‘I’m all choked up,’ Corbin said, laughing.

  But Suth lost his smile when he heard the big man grunting and his thick layered armour wrenched from impacts. Brithan Troop take it! There was nothing they could do but wait for the man to die then be hacked to pieces!

  ‘Manask! Back in!’

  ‘No, my friends,’ he gasped, struggling. ‘It would appear that I am truly stuck!’

  If not back, then forward! Suth gestured to the man’s broad padded back. In the near-absolute gloom Corbin’s gleaming sweaty face showed understanding. The two pressed themselves against the tiny chamber’s far end. ‘One, two—’

  An eruption punched the air from his chest and something enormous fell upon him, pinning him to the ground. Cave-in! Buried alive! Dust swirled, blinding him and filling his lungs. Groaning sounded from someone else trapped with him – Corbin perhaps.

  The dust slowly thinned, and, blinking, Suth saw that the considerable bulk of Manask was lying on him. He struggled to move his arms to edge himself free. Then someone else was there, a skinny form, coughing in the dust as she heaved on the huge fellow. With her help Suth eventually managed to slide free and he stood, brushing dust from himself. The woman was Keri, her bag of munitions across her chest. ‘What are you guys doing?’ she demanded, glaring at him as if he’d been off on a drunken binge.

  ‘Sightseeing,’ Suth growled. He peered down at Manask: the man’s unique armour was ruined, shredded, revealing an unnaturally skinny chest. He knelt to press a hand to the throat – alive, at least. Just stunned. And Corbin? He pulled him out by a leg, slapped his face. The man came to, coughing and hacking. Suth helped him up.

  ‘What do we do with him?’ Corbin asked.

  ‘Leave him,’ Keri said. ‘No one’s around. C’mon. The Korelri are regrouping.’ She waved them into the tunnel. ‘Come on!’

  Suth reluctantly agreed. He picked up a spear, secured his shield on his back, and cuffed Corbin’s shoulder. They followed Keri up the tunnel.

  * * *

  Corlo la
y on the straw-covered ledge that was his bed in his cell deep within Ice Tower. The bars facing the walk rattled as someone set down a wooden platter – dinner.

  ‘Corlo,’ that someone whispered.

  He cracked open an eye: it was Jemain. He sprang to the bars. ‘What are you doing here?’ He peered up and down the empty hall. ‘When did you get here?’

  But the skinny Genabackan did not look pleased to see him. He gave a sad shrug. ‘Word is out on Ice Tower. No one wants to come here. Then I got a message, and they were happy to get a volunteer. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine! What about you – what word? Who have you found?’

  The man positively winced: he looked unhealthy. The cold had scoured a ruddy rash of chapped skin and cracked bleeding scars. Glancing up the walk, he took hold of the bars with both hands. ‘Corlo … when I saw you in the infirmary you looked so bad … I thought you knew, then.’

  Something urged Corlo to back away, to shut the man up. A clawing fear choked his throat. ‘What are you saying?’ he managed.

  ‘Then, when I found out you didn’t know … well, I’m sorry. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.’

  ‘Tell me what? Tell me, damn you! Out with it!’

  Jemain backed away, as if frightened. He held his hands to his chest, hugging himself. ‘I’m sorry, Corlo. But … there’s only us. Us two. We are the only ones left.’

  ‘No! You’re lying! There are others. There must be! I saw Halfpeck!’

  Jemain was nodding. ‘Yes, he lasted for a time. But he too died on the wall.’

  He too? All the gods damn these Stormguard! Damn them! Then what he’d promised Bars struck him and he almost fainted. Queen forgive him, he’d told Bars there were others!

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jemain said. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.’

  Corlo fell to his knees. He clasped the bars as if they were the only things keeping him alive. Then he laughed. Gods, have your laugh! Justice is served, Corlo. How does it taste? It tastes … just. Yes. It tastes just. He raised his head to regard Jemain, who was watching him with tears on his cheeks. ‘Thank you, Jemain. For telling me. It seems we have come to the end of our lies. We can go no further with them.’