The squat man nodded. The lamplight reflected gold from his bald blunt head. ‘I understand.’
Devaleth looked from face to face: the two reluctant Admirals, the flat uninflected Fist, and the growling, coiled High Fist. She wanted to scream: How can you do this? But she knew she’d be dismissed out of hand. Best to swallow her dread, follow along, and do the most she could to ameliorate the certain disaster to come.
‘That is all, then,’ Greymane said, crossing his arms. ‘A dawn assault.’
Fist Shul saluted. ‘Sir.’ Bowing, he left to see to his preparations.
Devaleth bowed as well. ‘I’ll try to get some rest, then.’
The three wished her a good sleep. When she pulled the door to the stateroom closed, Admiral Nok was making tea.
Outside, Devaleth leaned on a gunwale railing. It was after mid-night, and they were passing the last of the Barrier range rising north of them into the night like a distant set of ragged teeth. The sea was calm though the winds were high. And those winds chilled her, coming directly off the Ocean of Storms and bearing a hint of the Riders themselves.
As tentatively as possible she opened up to passively reach for her Ruse Warren. The response almost overwhelmed her. Raw churning power taut with anticipation. Something is coming. Ruse senses it, or carries it like the gravid swelling of power before its release. What is it? Our destruction? Whatever it might be it is immense; there is power here for the taking – more than I’d ever dare to take, or even suspected flowed there for the taking.
Drawing back, what frightened her the most was the dread that before tomorrow was over, she may be driven to reach for it.
The day dawned with the fleet approaching the coast on a wide front. From the side of Admiral Nok’s flagship, the Star of Unta, it looked to Devaleth as if these Malazans and Moranth had used up all their tricks and stratagems getting by the Skolati and the Mare forces, and now all they were left with was a plain straightforward assault.
They’d entered the lee of the Barrier range and many vessels had had to break out the sweeps to continue shoreward. It was clear that the rocky coast was too rough for the ships to anchor anywhere close and so crews readied launches. Ashore, bonfires burned and Devaleth could make out timber barriers and massed troops. The Roolians. Obviously Yeull also understood that this length of shore was the crucial landing place.
The vessels nosed as close to the shore as possible. Smaller cutters and sloops swept in closer, carrying as many troops as could be jammed on board. But while the water was still too deep for the men and women to jump off sheeting bow-fire met them, arcing up from massed archers. Devaleth’s stomach clenched seeing the troops delay while launches and all manner of rowboats were readied. They were sitting targets!
The coast was so rocky and dangerous here, only the smallest boats dared approach, so only the barest handful of troopers could land at any one time. Parties slogged ashore in fives and tens through the waist-deep water, and, while Devaleth watched, overwhelming numbers jumped up from behind fallen logs and rocks to charge. She saw entire boatloads of infantry cut down one at a time before escaping the wash of the waves.
This is a catastrophe! And the Korelri haven’t even yet lent their weight to the battle.
Then, just as Devaleth could not imagine things unfolding any more disastrously, batteries of mangonels, catapults and onagers opened up from the shore. A barrage of projectiles came streaming up from the hidden weapons. Devaleth jumped, flinching at the sight of the fusillade. She watched frozen in a sort of suspended fascination as the stones descended, roaring, amid the anchored fleet. Most struck only water, sending up massive jets of spray. But a few found targets and punched down through decking and hull. This is insane! Where was Greymane? The fool! Yeull was waiting for them!
But yet again she’d forgotten about the Moranth. The engines that had cast so much death and destruction among the Mare fleet now responded. The colour of the dawn changed to an orange-red as a great sheet of flaming projectiles arced up from the Blue vessels. She watched just as fascinated as this barrage passed over the immediate shore to land a good hundred paces back from the lip of the sand cliffs masking the coast.
A firestorm blossomed, roiling in fat billowing flames and black smoke. It spread in great arcs of incendiaries that reached like claws, secondary bursts scattering the inferno even farther. The blast reached Devaleth like a distant rockslide or titanic waterfall. She was shaken from the spell of that eruption by soldiers jostling her: the Star of Unta was unloading its some four hundred infantry on to launches and jolly boats.
Smoke now veiled the shore. Wave after wave of infantry from the Fourth and Eighth Armies heaved themselves over the sides of the boats to wade into the killing zone where the surf broke amid rocks and pockets of gravel strand. She could not quite tell if any foothold had yet been gained. The bodies that had not sunk now washed about, crowding the surf like driftwood.
Punching through the smoke came a continued barrage from the defending engines, only now aimed higher, to fall short among the crowded boats and knots of men. Great jets burst skyward with each impact, throwing troopers like rags. Some few struck boats, exploding them in a great eruption of wood splinters and disintegrated bodies.
A hand grasped Devaleth’s upper arm and she jumped, gasping. It was Greymane.
‘I was calling you,’ he said.
She swallowed, her heart pounding. ‘I’m – I’m sorry. I’m so … Is this as bad as it looks?’
The big man grimaced his understanding. ‘It’s ugly – there’s no way round it. Attacking a hostile shore? You can only push and keep pushing. It’s up to the troops now – they mustn’t flinch.’ He looked to shore, his pale eyes the colour of the sky. ‘But I have every confidence in them.’ His gaze returned to her. ‘Now I have a request of you, High Mage.’
‘Me?’
‘A journey through your Warren. I’m needed elsewhere.’
‘What?’ She gestured to the shore. ‘But what of this? You’re needed here!’
He shook his head. ‘No. It’s no longer up to me here. I can only watch. Nok and Shul have their orders and they will see things through. I must go – believe me.’
‘But the Lady …’
His lips crooked up in a smile. ‘We’re on water, mage.’
She sighed as she acknowledged defeat. ‘Very well. Where?’
‘West. I will let you know. In fact, you may sense it yourself.’
‘All right. West. If you must.’ She took hold of his forearm. ‘Gods – it’s been ages since I’ve done this.’ She reached out to Ruse … and stepped through.
She found herself on a flooded plain, standing in shin-deep water. The sky was clear, deep blue. Greymane was with her in his heavy armour of banded iron, helmet pushed high on his head. He hooked his gauntleted hands at his belt. ‘Where are we?’
‘I don’t know.’ She turned full circle: flat desolation in all directions. The water was fetid, heavy with silt and muck. The stink, gorge-rising.
‘Which way?’ Greymane asked, wincing at the smell.
‘This way.’ She headed off, slogging through the flood. Her sodden robes dragged as she pushed through the water.
They came to a long low hill, like a moraine, and there washed up against its side lay a great line of pale things like a high-water mark. At first she thought them stranded sea-life, seals or porpoises, but as they drew closer the awful truth of them clawed at her and she bent over, heaving up her stomach. Greymane steadied her.
‘God of the Sea preserve us,’ she managed, spitting and gasping. ‘What has happened here?’
‘It’s me,’ Greymane ground out, his voice thick with suppressed emotion. ‘A warning, or a lesson, from Mael.’
‘A lesson?’ She studied him anew. ‘What is this? What is going on here?’
The man tried to speak, looked away, blinking back tears, then tried again. ‘I’m going to do something, Devaleth. Something I’ve been running from for
decades. Something that terrifies me.’
She backed away, splashing through the shallow polluted waters. ‘No!’ A dizzying suspicion clenched her chest – she could not breathe. ‘Stonewielder! No! Do not do this thing!’
‘It must be done. I’ve always known that. I … I couldn’t summon the nerve, the determination, before. But now I see there’s no choice.’
She pointed to the swollen rotting corpses, men, women, children, heaved up like wreckage. ‘And what is this? You would do this!’
He bowed his head then raised it to look to the sky, blinking. ‘I was handed two ghastly choices decades ago, Devaleth. Mass murder on the one hand – and an unending atrocity of blood and death on the other. Which would you choose?’
‘I would find a third course!’
‘I tried. Believe me, I tried.’ He gestured off into the distance. ‘But it hasn’t stopped, has it?’ He added, more softly, ‘And do you really think it will?’
She had to shake her head. ‘No. It won’t. But … the price …’
‘It’s the only way to end it. Everyone is in too deep. A price must be paid.’
Devaleth hugged herself as if to keep the pain swelling in her chest contained. ‘I … I understand. For us the time for easy options is long past. And now our delay has brought us to this.’
‘Yes.’
She bowed her head. Gods – you are all a merciless lot, aren’t you? But then, how can you be any better than your worshippers? She started off again. ‘This way. I feel it. It’s unmistakable.’
She found the locus: a great current coursing through the flood where the water fairly vibrated with power. Here she brought them out of the Warren to appear in the shallows of a long wide beach that led up to a wooded shore.
Greymane turned to her. ‘My thanks. You didn’t have to …’
She waved that aside. ‘I understand. It’s time we made the hard choices. And I understand now why you pushed everyone away. Your friend Kyle. Us. All of us.’
He winced at that. ‘Speak to him for me, won’t you? I … I couldn’t tell him.’
‘Yes.’
‘And give my apologies to Rillish. He proved himself. He deserved better.’
‘I will.’
‘Good. My thanks.’ He started up the beach, turned back. ‘Tomorrow. You’ll have till tomorrow. Get everyone into the hills – and see Nok through this. It’s up to you.’
‘Yes. I’d say good luck, but I can’t bring myself to. I’m sorry.’
The High Fist nodded. ‘Goodbye. Good luck to you.’ And he bowed his head in a kind of salute.
Devaleth watched till he disappeared into the forest of this unremarkable length of coast. A forest soon to be swept utterly away should the man succeed – which isn’t guaranteed, either.
She summoned Ruse and returned to the Warren.
Her return journey was uneventful. The shallow wash remained, either the remnant of a flood, or a flood from an earth tremor, or some such thing. She could not tell. She avoided the moraine but bumped up against waterlogged corpses sunk in the water. Though their flesh was disintegrating in a cloud around their bones, these bodies appeared unusual: very gracile, the bones curved oddly, the skull narrow, limbs elongated. Very pale, of course, as the bleaching of the water accomplishes that. But still, very pale indeed.
Unnerved, she hurried on. When her sense of the Warren told her she’d found the place of her entrance she reached out once more to step through.
And she entered a maelstrom of noise and smoke and screaming. Malazan dead carpeted the tidal interzone of algae-skirted rocks and pools. Troopers hunched for cover among those rocks. Arrows and crossbow bolts whipped past her and she quickly raised a shield from Ruse to deflect them. Launches and jolly boats choked the shore, abandoned or half sunk.
What was going on? Why were they still here?
Furious, she slogged over to the nearest crowd of soldiers. ‘What are you doing!’ she demanded.
The troopers gaped at her. One, a sergeant by his armband, offered a hasty salute. ‘Beggin’ yer pardon, High Mage, ma’am. It’s them shoreward cliffs. Their archers beat back every charge.’
She studied the cliffs: some three fathoms of loamy soil, no handholds, no gaps. ‘Very well. Looks like you can use some help.’
The sergeant nudged the troopers near him. ‘Yes, ma’am. An even exchange, every time.’
‘Prepare yourselves …’
Ruse called to her. It practically sang. Yes, yes, she answered. So be it. She extended her arms to reach out over as wide a front as possible. Come. Rush through. Rise. She tugged the waters behind her, urging them into a swelling, a great roll or front that came surging upward. She sensed the enormous Blue dromonds and men-of-war anchored behind in the bay as tiny toys bouncing far above her consciousness. And she pushed.
Yells of alarm rang out around her but she did not turn.
An immensity now leaning forward behind her, rising inexorably. The weight was impossible, but she allowed it to flow through her, onward, promising release just ahead. A wave took her from behind, climbed her body and kept mounting ever higher. She sensed the launches and jolly boats surging overhead, men and women momentarily suspended, counter-balanced in their weight, kicked forward.
The surge struck the cliff like a tidal bore and was pushed upward, bulging, rising. It washed over the lip, taking with it everyone along this stretch of the landing, to burst outward in a great release of pressure, washing onwards, diminishing.
The surge sank around her, leaving her sodden, exhausted, and she slouched on to a rock. Water rushed round her knees, charging back to the sea, dragging the loamy soil with it, and peering up she saw the cliff eroded into draws that ran now like small waterfalls. A huge launch, some two fathoms in length itself, tottered on the lip of the cliff before sliding backwards, empty.
Troopers of the Fourth and Eighth splashed in from either side, charging, cheering, urging one another on. The charge thickened into a constant stream of soldiers as the entire landing converged on this gap to claw themselves up the slope. When next she raised her head for a look, a guard of troopers had her covered in a barrier of overlapping shields. She rubbed at a sticky wetness over her mouth and her hand came away clotted in blood. Nosebleed – of course.
Some time later the self-appointed honour-guard straightened, saluting, and, after bowing to her, jogged off. Devaleth turned to see the Blue Admiral, Swirl. The Moranth draped a blanket over her shoulders.
‘High Mage,’ he began, wonder in his voice, ‘I am amazed. Had I known – we would have merely stood aside to let you clear the way.’
She shook her head. ‘That wasn’t me. I just tapped something abiding within Ruse. Something so immense the mere possibility of it allowed this.’
The Blue Admiral tilted his helm. ‘I confess I do not understand. Does this bear on the High Fist’s last orders?’
‘What were they?’
‘Fist Shul is to strike inland, take high ground. The fleet is to withdraw from the coast.’
She jumped up, tottering, clutching the blanket. ‘Yes! That is it. We must withdraw to the centre of the Narrows. Shul will take the troops. He, all of us, we have until tomorrow.’
The Admiral bowed. ‘We will complete the unloading as soon as possible, then. Will you not return to the flagship?’
She nodded her relief. Gods, yes. I can feel her pushing against me. Raging. Full of hate and poison. Best to get away as soon as possible.
She took a step and would have collapsed but for the Admiral’s catching at her arm. Dizzy, she thanked him. He waved guards to him, ordered them to return her to the flagship. Despite her distaste for displaying weakness, she allowed them to walk her to the nearest boat.
‘What do you mean he isn’t here?’ Overlord Yeull stared at Ussü as if he were somehow responsible. ‘This is his landing! His moment! Why wouldn’t he be here?’ The man’s gaze darted about the tent, feverish, wild. ‘Where is he? He must be fou
nd!’ The eyes, white all round, found Ussü. ‘You! Find him! I command you! Find him and destroy him!’
Ussü drew breath to disagree but one look at the man hunched over the brazier, blankets and a fur cloak draped over his shoulders, hands practically sizzling over the embers, convinced him not to argue. He bowed. ‘I am your servant.’
The man glanced to him as if startled by his presence. ‘What? Yes! Go!’ He waved Ussü out.
Outside the darkened command tent, Ussü adjusted his robes and considered the Overlord’s degenerating condition. He always was unreliable – now, who knows what whim might take him? Things did not look promising.
Still, they were here in Korelri. Should these Malazans even gain a foothold, like a shallow wave they would break against the wall. He crossed to his tent, ducked within. His Roolian soldier attendants were still wiping up the blood from his earlier efforts. One was casting sawdust on the bare ground. The corpse had been wrapped and carried off. How the Lady mocked him for clinging to such crutches. Still, he remained reluctant to throw himself entirely into her hands.
‘Another prisoner, magus?’ an attendant asked.
‘No. That is all for now.’ No need to scry anew. Greymane was not here, that much was certain. Still, where was the man? It troubled him also that he could not find him. What was he up to? If he had sufficient power at his disposal he could locate the fellow – but not power pulled from the Lady, not yet. He wasn’t that desperate yet. But perhaps from another source …
‘I have need of a horse,’ he told an attendant. ‘Have we any?’
‘We brought a few across, sir. For messages.’
‘Very good. Prepare one.’
The man bowed and left. Ussü began packing a set of panniers. Should the Malazans gain a foothold then it would be an infantry battle, hedge-jumping and door-to-door skirmishing. Not his campaign. It seemed the Overlord had given him his mission, and thinking on it, he did believe it important. This man, Greymane, Stonewielder, must be planning something, and he, Ussü, the Lady’s erstwhile High Mage, was the only one with the slightest chance of locating him.
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 180