Stonewielder

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  The body beneath him convulsed then, almost shaking him loose. Ussü snapped open his eyes to see just a hand’s breadth away this subject, the Avowed, aware and glaring, burning rage into him. Ussü stared back at the man. ‘You’re conscious?’ he breathed in wonder.

  The gagged mouth drew up in a ghastly smile. The muscles of the arms and chest tensed – even around Ussü’s wrist they tensed, and the man strained on the chains binding him. His face flushed, veins starting out and writhing. Ussü could not believe what he was witnessing. What did the man think he could … Then it occurred to him: the earthquake! Gods, no! He snapped a glance to the floor. The stone blocks were now uneven, jostled. The iron pin positively vibrated, quivering, grinding.

  Oh no. Gods, no. Please do not play with me so. He clenched his hand, raising another thrashing convulsion from the man. ‘I have your heart! Stop! Or I will crush it!’

  The ghastly, almost insane smile remained fixed at the gagged mouth.

  No! Stop! You don’t—

  The pin rang as it snapped free. The arms flattened Ussü to the man’s chest.

  Yet Ussü kept his grip, staving off the combined attacks of all three mages. The chains fell away with a clash. The Avowed pulled down the gag. ‘Now I have you,’ he grated.

  Ussü twisted his fist: the organ laboured, squeezed in his hand. The man’s eyes glazed in agony, fluttering, his arms weakening. ‘Who will die first, I wonder?’ he asked.

  Bars shook the chains off his arms. He snapped a hand to Ussü’s throat. ‘You’re forgetting,’ he panted, hoarse with the unimaginable torture he’d endured. ‘I can’t die.’

  ‘Yes you can.’ And Ussü clenched with all his might, meaning to pulp the shuddering ball of muscle in his fist. But Bars’ hand clenched as well, crushing Ussü’s throat, cutting off his breath, the life force from his lungs. As Ussü’s life slipped away from him he suddenly saw far into the wellspring of the inexhaustible might sustaining this Avowed and he understood its source. He gazed at the man’s flushed twisted face, not a hand’s breadth from his own, appalled by the magnitude of the discovery. He opened his mouth, meaning to tell him: Do you have any idea—

  Bars squeezed until his clenched fingers cramped, shook the body one last time to make sure of it, then relaxed his grip on the corpse. With his other hand he gently, oh so damned gently, grasped hold of the wrist where it entered his chest, and slowly, as tenderly as possible, pulled.

  The anguish returned – torture beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. White blinding fire blossomed again in his mind. All his death-wishes were as nothing compared to his desire to be free of this agony. Anything! Death would be as the most soothing balm. Infinitely preferable.

  The hand came free with a sickening sucking noise. Revolted, Bars threw the body aside only to wince, gasping and cradling his chest. He stayed like that for some time: sitting up, curled around his wound, arms wrapped round his chest. The slightest move was an ordeal beyond any consideration.

  After a time someone was at the door. Bars cracked one eye for a look. It was Blues. The man entered gingerly, as quietly as he could, stepping over litter. Bars raised a finger to forestall him. ‘Don’t fucking touch me.’

  Blues eyed the fallen mage, nodded solemnly. Bars pointed to his chained legs. Blues waved and the chain fell away. Gritting his teeth, Bars eased one leg down to the floor, then the other. Blues closed to help but Bars waved him away. ‘Let’s get out of this Hood-damned hole.’

  Blues stood aside of the door. ‘Damn right.’

  They were on the stairs, Blues ahead, casting quick worried glances back to Bars, when someone called from a blocked room: ‘Hello! Is that someone? Hello?’

  Bars straightened up from cradling his chest, his eyes huge. ‘Jemain? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes. Bars?’

  Bars gestured to the blocked doorway. Blues motioned and stones began grating aside. Jemain’s anxious face appeared in a gap. ‘Bars! Corlo’s here – he’s hurt.’

  *

  On the wall, Fingers tried to raise Shell, who, grimacing and hissing, pulled her hands free: ‘Wait! Listen!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Grab hold of something, now!’

  Fingers faced the bay, grunted, ‘Aw shit …’

  A wave smashed into the battered crenellations, overtopped easily and kept coming at them. It pushed loose blocks aside then struck them, submerging Shell. She held on, straining not to be washed off the wall and cast over the rear to shatter on the rocks below. Through the slurry of deathly cold water she saw the shimmering armour of a Stormrider standing before her.

  She threw her head back, gasping in air, panting, her limbs shivering almost uncontrollably. The entity peered down, regarding her. Its sword remained sheathed at its side, no lance in evidence. Its helm shifted as it looked about. Then it raised an arm, the scaled armour flashing iridescent, seeming to salute her, and backed away.

  Fingers appeared at her side, supported her. Together they watched while the entity reached the outer shattered crenellations and stepped back to fall away.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Fingers asked, stuttering.

  ‘I think they’re done here.’

  ‘So’re we,’ Fingers growled. ‘C’mon.’

  Down one way they saw the Stormguard righting themselves where they blocked the one access leading off the wall. Of the Malazans Shell saw no sign. Fingers motioned the other way; there Lazar fought splashing through the thinning waters, duelling two Stormguard both still glowing with the aura of the Lady. She and Fingers raised their Warrens.

  Their combined strike smashed the two Chosen from the wall, casting them tumbling out into the white-capped waves, where they disappeared. Holding her numb side, Shell joined Lazar to peer down over the broken lip of the wall to the waters foaming below. ‘Thanks, you two,’ Lazar said, breathing heavily. ‘Those boys just wouldn’t go down.’

  ‘Neither would you,’ Fingers remarked, as he came limping up behind.

  Lazar drew off his full helm and steam plumed in the frigid air from the sweat soaking his hair and running down his face. He drew in great breaths, blowing and gasping; then, peering out over the inlet, he froze. ‘Damn Hood …’

  Shell looked over and her flesh prickled with true terror. A wave was approaching up the narrow bay – a wave unlike any she’d seen before. More a mountain of water, webbed in slush and topped in white spume, already looming far taller than the wall itself.

  ‘Oponn’s throw,’ Fingers breathed.

  Lazar punched Shell’s arm, making her wince. ‘Let’s go!’

  They met Blues and Bars at the tower entrance. Jemain was following behind, carrying an unconscious Corlo, one of whose legs now ended at a wrapped stump. ‘We have to go,’ Fingers told Blues. ‘Now.’

  ‘What about the Malazans?’ Shell asked. She looked to where four Korelri Stormguard remained, Quint included, holding the stairs. Only a few fallen Malazan bodies were visible.

  ‘They ran for the high pass,’ Blues said.

  ‘Good luck to them,’ Fingers added.

  Shell warned: ‘Blues – take us.’ Quint had motioned to his brother Stormguard and they were approaching.

  ‘All right, all right!’ Blues answered. ‘We’re gone. Stand close.’

  *

  Quint rounded the side of the tower to find the wall … empty. The foreigners had fled; they’d used their alien Warren witchery to escape. Movement out over the inlet caught his eye and he stared. At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing – the scale was all wrong. No wave could possibly be that tall, that immense. A small voice whispered in the back of his mind: It is the prophesied end of the Stormwall come upon them after all. First the earth shakes then the waters come to reclaim the land – was that not the ancient warning of the end of the world?

  Quint looked to his spear, its gouged and battered blade, the Lady’s Grace thinning, so faint, then to this titanic approaching crag of water greater than any h
e had seen in over fifty years, rearing now over him taller than six fathoms.

  Damn you …

  He raised the spear, shaking it in the searing extremity of his rage.

  Damn everyone! Damn everything! Damn—

  The mountain of water slammed into the wall to tumble, undercut, overflowing like a waterfall, washing, scouring, unstoppable. When it thinned, draining to both sides from the course of the wall, the stone core remained, uneven, punished, gouged of everything, empty of all movement.

  On into the evening a fresh layer of snow began to fall over all: the grey undisturbed waters of the inlet, and the bare stones of the wall where no footfalls marred it. Through the night it froze into a fresh clean layer of frost and ice.

  *

  All through the fighting below Hiam knelt, praying. He prayed for forgiveness. For penance. And for guidance. He ignored the cries, the blasts and the upheaval. Hands clasped, eyes screwed shut, entreating, begging. Lady! Please answer! How have we displeased you? Where have we transgressed? Please! In the name of our devotion. Will you not grace me with your guidance?

  At one point something enormous ploughed into the tower in an avalanche roar that seemed the end of the world. The impact drove Hiam against a wall and left the tower tilted, threatening to fall at any moment, but he did not turn from his single-minded observance. Surely his zeal would be rewarded now, at this moment of testing.

  After a time he knew not how long – nor did he care – an answer came. The Lady’s voice whispered as if into his ear: You failed me, Lord Protector!

  He bowed to the floor, abject in his piety. ‘My Lady! How? How did we fail? What was our transgression? Let us make amends.’

  Amends? You failed! They are upon me! You let them through! You swore to protect me!

  ‘M’Lady, our holy concord remains between us. We will protect the lands as we swore—’

  The lands? The lands? You protect me! Me! And you have failed even at that simple task, you wretched fool.

  Hiam sat up, puzzled. ‘We swore to protect all the lands – under your blessing and guidance, of course.’

  The lands? You fool! Your blood protected me from my old enemies! And now they are coming!

  ‘Our blood protected … you?’

  Yes! Fool! Blood sacrifice forestalls them. But now they are through! What is left to me? Who will— Wait! I sense them close. The ancient enemy. They have followed me even unto here. How will I hide? You! Why did you not die for me? Do so – now!

  And the Lady’s presence snapped away, leaving Hiam reeling. His mind couldn’t catch at anything. His hands went to his neck. All this time … then all this time … No. It was too terrible to contemplate. Too horrific. A monstrous crime.

  He rose from the floor, backed to a wall as if retreating from an invisible enemy. It was a lie. A deception. Somehow. But no. That had been the Lady. He knew her presence.

  He had finally come to the true foundation of his faith and he wished he’d never done so.

  His scorched thoughts turned to all the brethren who had preceded him – good men and women all. So many. Down through the ages. His heart went out to them in an ache of love that could not be borne. Countless! All trusting to the truth of their cause … Yes, trusting and … used.

  He crossed to a gaping window, stared out at the snow-flecked night without seeing it. He knew what to do. What was one more death? He would die – but not for her.

  No. Most certainly not for her.

  Hiam climbed up on to the windowsill and threw himself from the tower, to tumble down into the heaving white-capped waters below.

  * * *

  Dockworkers among the maze of waterfront wharves serving the Korelri capital of Elri were still discussing the morning’s tremor – how the tall pilings wavered like ships’ masts! – when, before their eyes, the tide suddenly withdrew to an extent unheard of in any account. Fish lay jumping and gasping in the tidal muck abandoned by the waters. The rotted stumps of ancient docks reared like ragged teeth far out into the mudflats of the bay. Citizens still dazed from the shaking gathered on the waterfront to watch this eerie phenomenon.

  A strange greenish cast grew in the sky to the west. A sound like a distant windstorm gathered. People stopped talking to listen and watch, hushed. Something was approaching up the bay – a wide green banner or wall hurrying in upon them like a landslide. The noise climbed to a raging whistling rush of wind that snapped cloaks and banners away. Citizens now screamed, pointing, or turned to run, or merely stared entranced as the wall swelled into an overtopping comber now breaking some seven fathoms high. It crashed through the shoreline without slowing or faltering and rushed on inland, taking villages, roads and fields on its way to slam smashing through the south-facing fortifications of Elri, demolishing those walls, toppling stone guard towers, gouging a three-block swath through jammed houses and shops.

  As the water slowly withdrew it left behind a stirred, glutinous mass of brick, mud, shattered timbers and building stone. It sucked everything loose with it down the slope and back out into the bay, never to be seen again. And it left behind an empty shoreline of mud a full rod beyond its original contours.

  *

  Far within the channel maze of the saltwater marsh east of Elri, Orzu pulled his pipe from his mouth to sniff the air and eye the strange colour of the sky to the west. He leapt to his feet, threw the pipe aside and set his hands to his mouth, bellowing: ‘Everyone aboard! Now! Quick-like!’ The Sea-Folk stared, frozen where they squatted at cook fires or sat tying reeds. ‘Now!’ Orzu ordered. ‘Abandon it all! Cut the ropes!’

  Cradling her child to her chest, Ena clambered on board. ‘What is it, Da?’

  ‘The Sea’s Vengeance, lass. Now tie yourself down.’ Aside, to another boat, he roared, ‘Throw all that timber overboard, Laza! Lighten the load.’

  Ena wrapped one arm in a rope, tried to peer over the great fields of wind-lashed reeds bobbing taller than any man. A storm was hurrying in upon them. It cast a light over everything like none she’d ever seen before. It was as if the entire world was underwater.

  Something was coming. She could hear it; a growling, rising in intensity. ‘Is it another shudder of the great earth goddess?’ she called.

  ‘The old sea god’s been awakened. And he’s angry.’ Orzu gestured urgently. ‘Mother! Drop that baggage and jump in now!’

  The boat lurched. Ena peered over the side: the waters had risen. She glanced back west in time to see some dark wall advancing like night, consuming the leagues of waving grasses.

  ‘Here it comes!’ Orzu bellowed.

  The vessel slammed sideways, twisting like a thrown top. Ena banged her head against the side, struggled to shield the babe pressed to her breast. When she next looked up they were charging north, water-borne, bobbing amid a storm of wreckage: uprooted trees, the roofs of huts, driftwood logs, all in a churning mulch of detritus mixed with a flux of mud. She watched a cousin’s boat become wedged between the boles of two enormous logs and crushed to shards. Her family members jumped to the roof of a hut spinning nearby.

  The wave carried them over the sand cliffs bordering the marshlands and on inland, ever slowing, diminishing, thinning. Until finally, in its last ebbing gasp, it lifted them up to lie canted on the slope of a hillside far from the sight of the coast. She sat watching in wordless amazement as the waters swept back as if sucked, leaving behind in their wake a trail of ugly churned mud, soil, and stranded oddities such as the wall of a reed hut, or their boat itself: a curious ornament for a farmer’s field.

  Orzu thumped down next to her and gave her head a look. ‘Are you all right then, child?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the babe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you, mother!’ he yelled.

  ‘Fine, no thanks to you!’ she grumbled.

  ‘Do you think our friends had something to do with this?’ Ena asked, still rather dazed.

  Orzu slapped the boat’s side. ‘We
ll … that I don’t know. But now I guess I’ll have to do what I’ve been threatening to do all this time.’

  ‘Which is?’ She wasn’t certain which of his threats he might be referring to.

  ‘Take up farming.’

  Ena snorted. That might last a day.

  ‘Let’s round everyone up then,’ he said, patting all his pockets in search of his pipe.

  *

  The reassembled armies of Rool waited while its commanders, led by their Overlord himself, debated strategy. The camp had been cleaned up from the fires and panic of the series of tremors. Thankfully, while there had been some property damage, and some horses had been lost as they ran terrified, there had been little loss of life.

  In a new tent, huddled next to a brazier, though he somehow felt warm enough for the first time in a decade, the Overlord Yeull was of the opinion that these invader Malazans, elements of the Fourth and Eighth Armies, must have fared much more poorly in the rough highlands, where landslides and rockfalls were so common.

  A knot of army officers stood together, rather nervously eyeing the Overlord where he sat slumped, his face set in its habitual glower.

  ‘Do they mean to come upon Kor from the mountains?’ a young captain wondered aloud.

  Yeull snorted. ‘They’re fools. They don’t know the country. The Barrier range is a maze of defiles and razorback ridges. They’ll starve.’

  The officers, none of whom had ever set foot in Korel, nodded sagely.

  A messenger entered, bowed next to the Overlord to whisper, his voice low. The Overlord frowned even more. ‘What?’

  The messenger gestured outside. Scowling, Yeull pushed himself erect, straightened his thick bear cloak – though he was tempted to throw off the suffocating thing – and headed for the entrance. ‘Let’s have a look.’