The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire)
Page 38
Quinn was engaging two opponents, the rest were closing.
‘Run, damn you!’ he yelled.
‘No.’ She thrust at the nearest; he parried, declined to counterattack. Damn them! They’re holding us up. Hooves shook the ground from behind. She turned: a calvaryman, leaning sideways, blade raised. She thrust hers up crossways. The blow smashed her arm, her hilts slammed high on her chest and she was down.
Yelling came dimly through her ringing ears; rearing horses kicked up mud around her. Her breath steamed in the cold night air. She climbed to her feet, weaving, blinking. Quinn still stood, dodging, parrying blows from above. She bent to retrieve her longsword from the churned mud. Another horse reared, shrieking, stumbled backwards into the brush and Quinn thrust her after it. She fell, clawing at the struggling animal. Its rider was pinned beneath; she ignored him. Quinn forced her on. Together they fell into the thick brush. Branches slashed her face, cutting her cheeks, tore at her hair. She pushed forward.
They burst out into low brush and the thick entangled branches of young pines. Quinn took her arm and suddenly she found she had to support him. Longsword still in her grip, she held him up. Bright blood smeared his left side where his shirt hung open, sliced. He smiled blearily at her, his grey hair wet with sweat. ‘Gave them a good run we did. Proud of you.’
‘Shh, now. We’ll be all right.’
‘No, no. You go on. Leave me. Run.’
‘No.’
He raised his hilt to her, saluting. ‘Proud of you. You did well, Ghelel Rhik Tayliin. A pleasure to serve.’
Hooves pounded the treeline, shouts for the crossbowmen. ‘We’re not done yet.’ What did he mean, Tayliin? The only Tayliins she knew of had ruled during the last Hegemony. Kellanved and Dancer had the last of them slain when they took Tali.
They heard more horses thundering up the slope of the field. Quinn urged her on. Just pushing her away made him fall to his knees. She couldn’t leave him like that and put an arm around him to raise him up. ‘Apologies,’ he mumbled.
‘What did you mean, Tayliin?’
The old man just smiled, his face as pale as sun-bleached cloth. Shouts snapped her head around – angry yelling – the clash of weaponry. What in the name of the Queen of Mysteries was going on out there? Why hadn’t they come for them?
Silence but for the thumping of hooves and horses’ nickering.
‘Hello within! Are you there, Quinn?’ someone bellowed from the field.
The weaponmaster raised a finger to his lips, gave Ghelel a wink.
‘It’s me, damn you! You know my voice!’
Quinn struggled to sheathe his longsword. Ghelel helped him.
‘Very well!’ came a vexed call. ‘It’s me, Amaron!’
Quinn smiled. ‘What are you doing here!’ he called back and winced in pain. He finished, softer, ‘Haven’t you heard of delegating?’
‘Yes, yes. Came as quick as I could. Come on down, will you.’
Quinn waved her forward. ‘It’s safe, m’Lady. Amaron was my commander.’
‘Your commander?’
‘In the, ah, military. I served under him.’ He tried to walk but stumbled. She held him up. ‘My thanks – apologies.’
‘Here.’ Arm around him, Ghelel guided him forward.
‘Thank you. Not the impression I wish to give.’
‘Togg can take that.’
‘You curse like a marine now, m’Lady. I despair.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Do not apologize. Offer sarcasm.’
‘Always teaching, hey?’
‘Touché.’
They pushed their way through to stumble out on to the field and into a unit of some thirty cavalry, the horses’ breath clouding the night air. Almost all Quinn’s weight now rested on Ghelel’s arm. Dismounted soldiers immediately took him from her. Calls sounded for a healer. They laid him on a horse blanket.
‘Who of you is Amaron?’ she asked.
‘I.’ A man dismounted, his boots thumping to the mud. He was a giant of a fellow, Napan, in blackened unadorned mail beneath dark-green riding cloaks.
‘He’s lost a lot of blood.’
‘He’s in good hands.’
‘What of the Sellaths? Can you take me to them?’
Amaron rested his gauntleted hands at his waist, studied her. He dropped his gaze. ‘I’m sorry – Ghelel. They’ve been taken. Fist Kal’il will no doubt be using them, and others, as guarantors of safe passage.’
‘Safe passage?’
‘Out of Tali. By ship, probably. The capital is now under the control of a troika of Talian noble families.’
Ghelel glanced about at the men; none wore Malazan greys. Amaron himself wore no insignia or sigil at all. In fact the calvarymen wore dark blue – the old Talian colours. ‘Who commands?’
‘Choss. General Choss has been granted military command.’
‘Not the same Choss who was High Fist for a time?’
‘Yes, the same.’
‘I thought he was dead.’
‘That was the general idea.’
Ghelel found herself studying this man; Quinn had called him his old commander. ‘What of you? May I ask what you do?’
A shrug. ‘Whatever needs be done. You could say I’m in charge of intelligence gathering.’
Un-huh. ‘Well, thank you, Amaron, for our deliverance.’ He bowed. ‘But may I accompany Quinn?’
‘Certainly. We’ll take him to the manor house, yes? There we can have a private conversation.’
Yes, a private conversation about certain ravings of a delirious wounded man perhaps? Until she knew whether Quinn should have revealed what he had she would play the innocent. Right now she wasn’t certain how much she trusted this fellow. Quinn clearly did but the man felt cold to her, oddly detached. Quinn’s condition didn’t seem to affect him at all. She needed the weaponmaster conscious and well. Startled, she realized that he was possibly the last remaining link to her old life. She hurried to follow the soldiers carrying him down to the house. Their way was lit by the stables now sending tall flames high into the night sky.
Twelve days after descending from the mountains they reached the squalid village Traveller named Canton’s Landing – no more than a collection of straw-roofed huts next to a slumped moat and ancient burned-down palisade overlooking the tidal flats of the Explorer’s Sea.
‘We must wait here?’ Ereko asked.
He nodded, his guarded, lined brown face revealing nothing.
Ereko sighed. Enchantress give me the patience to endure.
It was close to evening and they claimed an abandoned hut. Ereko attempted to stretch his cramped arms and legs and failed. Human dwellings simply did not agree with him. He’d always been better off sleeping under the stars. A villager, an old woman, came hobbling up with a basket under one arm. ‘A meal approaches,’ he told Traveller. ‘I wish they wouldn’t. From the look of them they need the food more than us.’
‘They are afraid of us and it’s all that they have to offer. I also believe they want us to do something for them.’
Grinning a mouth empty of teeth, bowing, the old woman set out bowls of fish mush and hard-baked bread.
‘Send your headman,’ Traveller said to her in Talian. ‘We would speak with him.’
‘The headman is dead. His nephew will speak with you. I will send him tomorrow.’
Later, while Traveller slept, Ereko stared out over the embers of the fire to the phosphor-glow of the waves rolling in to the strand. He saw another sea in his thoughts, a far angrier and savage sea, this one iron-grey and heaving with cliff-tall breakers. That last season the Riders had arrived early at the Stormwall. The section of curtain wall he faced remained quiet as the Riders no longer challenged him. Indeed, these last few years his time upon the wall had actually been boring. Of course this pleased his Korelan captors no end; one more portion of the wall they need not worry about.
Ereko had watched the distant figure as he was chained as
all were at the ankle. Watched as he’d been lowered to his station, a narrow stone ledge, without commotion or resistance. The man sat unperturbed as the ice-skeined waves smashed the wall and the spray obscured him. Many pointed as Riders surfaced far out in the strait. Some screamed, begged for release. His man remained sitting and the whisper of a fearful suspicion touched Ereko: might this fellow be one of those brave enough to refrain from defending their piece of the wall, sacrificing themselves to contribute in a small way to the enormous structure’s erosion?
A file of the Riders closed, distant dark shapes upon the waves. The otherworldly cold that accompanied them gripped even Ereko’s limbs. Frost limned the leathers of his sleeves and trousers. Ice thickened over the stones making the footing slick and treacherous. As the Riders neared, the Korelan Chosen tossed down weapons to those lost souls lowest and most exposed.
He was relieved when his man stood, sword in hand. The waves breasted ever higher. Their foaming crests entirely submerged some defenders. He watched closely now; the first rank would strike soon. Arrows and bolts shot from above arced down among the broaching Riders. Ice-jagged lances couched at hips, they rolled forward mounted upon what seemed half wave, half ice-sculpted horse. Armour of ice-scales glittered opalescent and emerald among the whitecaps.
Spray obscured the first strike. When the waters pulled back his man still stood. Up and down the curtain wall men clashed against wave-born Riders. Most failed, of course, for what mere man or woman could oppose such eldritch alien sorcery? Auroras played like waves themselves across the night sky. The lights of another world, or so claimed the Korelri.
In the pause between ranks of attacking Riders the waters withdrew revealing most stations empty or supporting fallen prisoners hanging by their ankle fetters like grotesque fruit. Korelri Chosen descended on ropes to clear away the dead. New prisoners were lowered, arms flailing. These the Chosen did not bother securing by the ankles.
His man remained. He’d sat again, not out of bravado, Ereko realized, but for warmth as he hugged his legs to his chest.
The Chosen used knots that pulled in a certain way released their burden and in this fashion the prisoners were stranded at their landings. Some grabbed hold of the ropes in a futile effort to regain the heights but archers shot these and the lesson was not lost on the others.
The surf of the strait regathered its power. The Riders who had been circling far out swung landward once again. And so it would go for days on end until the storm blew itself out. Then would come a week or two of relative calm when the wall faced mere mundane weather. During this time the incomprehensible presence deep within the strait regenerated its strength.
That night the second wave came swiftly. As it closed, a Malazan prisoner of war farther along the curving wall bellowed a challenge or prayer and launched himself from his landing. A Korelri Chosen was swiftly lowered to take his place. The crest struck, shuddering the stone of the Stormwall as if the force of an entire sea were launching itself against the land.
When the waters and ice slabs sloughed away from the scarred stone, his man remained. Another, a fellow Malazan prisoner by his rags, was shouting to him, calling, one arm out entreating. His man saluted him and the fellow straightened and gravely responded in kind.
As the storm continued through the night Ereko’s man was the only original left within his line of sight. Prisoners continued to be lowered from above – the Korelri considered it a favour to offer these men and women the chance to regain their dignity by falling in defence of the wall. The prisoners obviously held other opinions.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the pattern of Rider attacks at this section of wall changed. Pressure eased along the curtain as the Riders circled and withdrew. Korelri Chosen gathered above, watching, pointing excitedly. Ereko peered out to sea: darker smears had emerged from the depths, the Wandwielders, Stormrider mages. He raised himself higher; rarely did he see these beings. Night-black ice was their armour, forged perhaps within the lightless utter depths of the sea. They carried rods and wands of precious stone and crystal, olivine, garnet and serpentine, with which they lashed the wall with summoned power and shattering cold during the most hard-pressed and ferocious assaults.
The Riders circled out amid the whitecaps; one approached, headed directly for the man the Enchantress had pointed out to Ereko as being the instrument of his deliverance. The Rider closed, rearing as his wave crested and smashed upon the wall. When the spume and mist cleared his man still stood and the Rider was gone.
A bloodthirsty, triumphant cheer went up among the Korelri Chosen gathered above. It seemed to Ereko to shake the wall just as ferociously as the waves themselves.
His man peered up for a time, then pointedly turned his back.
Another single Rider rolled forward, lance raised. Ereko was horrified to see his man toss his sword aside to stand unarmed, waiting. The Rider pulled up short, lance couched. It rose and fell with the waves and it seemed to Ereko that the two spoke. Then the Rider leaned to one side and withdrew.
Far out, the Wandwielders lowered their staves of glittering crystal and all withdrew to the right and left of this course of the broad Stormwall curtain. For this section of wall, the attack was over.
The Korelri Chosen left Ereko’s man chained to his landing. That night Ereko yanked open the corroded fetter at his ankle, climbed the wall, descended to the fellow’s station, tore the fetter from him and carried him numb with cold up and over the wall. He swam the warmer inner Crack Narrows behind the wall with him held high at his shoulder. He reached the abandoned shores of what the Korelri name Remnant Isle before dawn touched the uppermost pennants of the wall’s watchtowers.
Within the shelter of boulders he sat and waited for sunrise. The man lay insensate, almost dead from exposure. Yet he was undoubtely much more than a man. Ereko’s sight, while nowhere as penetrating as that of his ancestors, told him that. And then there was the attention of his Enchantress, whom some now named the Queen of Dreams. The fellow was fit, certainly. But not overly broad or large, which so many mistakenly equate with prowess in combat. No, it was more an aura about him – even in repose. A great burden and a great danger. Not in the mere physical sense. Rather, a spirituality. Potential. Great potential to create. Or to destroy. And there the danger.
After the sun warmed the fellow sufficiently he wakened and Ereko greeted him. ‘My name is Ereko.’
‘Traveller.’ He peered around at the weed-encrusted rocks of the shore. ‘Why have you done this?’
‘I have been planning my own escape for some time. Yet I knew I would have a much better chance were I not alone. Your performance yesterday convinced me that with you my chances would be much greater.’
The man laughed. ‘It looks like I wasn’t much help.’
‘Do not be fooled. We are far from free. We are in the centre of the Korelan subcontinent. The Korelri Chosen have no doubt alerted everyone to hunt for us. We have far to go yet.’
He nodded at that; accepting the story or merely disinclined to pursue it. Ereko could not be certain. ‘And who are you? You are no Jaghut – you are taller. You are not Toblakai either, nor Trell. But there is something of them about you.’
‘We called ourselves “The People” – Thel Akai.’
Traveller stared, confused. ‘Tarthinoe…or Thelomen, you mean?’
‘No, Thel Akai. Those you name are descendants of my people.’
‘Their ancestor? But that is impossible. I have never heard of your kind.’
‘All have been gone for ages – save myself. That is, I have met no others.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And I am sorry for something else as well.’
‘What is that?’
‘I must return to the wall. They have my sword.’
Ereko took a long deep breath. Enchantress, how could you have done this to me? ‘I see. Then it seems I must unrescue you.’
The next morning at
Canton’s Landing they marked trees for the ship. At noon they returned to the hut to find an old man crouched there in the shade awaiting them. This was the nephew? The man nodded and smiled and nodded and smiled, stopping only when Traveller knelt beside him and rested a reassuring hand on his arm.
‘You have suffered a tragedy here,’ he said, startling the man.
‘Yes, honoured sir. We are afflicted. Death from the seas. Slavers and raiders. Again and again they come. Soon there will be none of us left.’
‘Move inland,’ Ereko suggested.
The old man’s smile was gap-toothed. ‘We are fisher folk here. We know of no other way of life.’
‘We are very sorry but we cannot—’ Ereko began, but Traveller raised a hand.
‘Do you have any possessions from these raiders? Weapons? Armour?’
The old man nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, yes…old gear can be found here and there.’
‘Show us.’
Mystified, Ereko accompanied Traveller and the old man as they patrolled the strand. They picked up a piece of corroded metal here, a fragment of broken stone there. Traveller knelt to pull a length of sun-bleached wood from the sand; the broken handle of a war club. A tassel of some sort hung from its grip. He rubbed the ragged feathers and dried leather in his fingers then stood.