Assail Read online

  Two days was far less than Jute would have wanted, but the deadline reminded him that they were not alone in this rush to the north. Others were on their way, or already ahead; who knew how many. And so he nodded his agreement. ‘Very well. Two days.’ And he added, gesturing to Tyvar, ‘If I may ask, sir, why do you wish to journey to the north? If not for the gold or the plunder, then what?’

  The tall man nodded again, sombre. ‘A very good question, captain. Before Togg withdrew, he set upon me one last task, one last mission. That when certain portents were fulfilled, we of the Blue Shields would venture to the north of this region and there fight to right an ancient wrong. And to prevent a great tragedy.’

  Jute frowned, uncertain. ‘A great tragedy sir? What would that be?’

  Tyvar waved as if the answer was obvious. ‘Why, the death of innocents, of course.’ He bowed his farewell, then turned to Cartheron. ‘My regards to our Lady,’ he offered. ‘Come, Haagen,’ and the two returned to their launch.

  Jute and Cartheron watched them go. It was now the middle of the night, and darkness quickly swallowed the small boat. The bonfires snapped and popped on the beach, sending sparks high amid the stars of the night sky. Most of Jute’s crew lay asleep around them. He sighed and rubbed his aching, foggy brow.

  Cartheron slapped the cork back into the bottle and regarded him, scratching meditatively at the bristles on his cheeks. ‘Take my advice, lad,’ he said. ‘Don’t get caught up in all this talk of missions and god-given purposes. I’ve seen it before and it only leads to misery and pain.’ He offered the bottle, which Jute took. Then he inclined his head good night and walked into the dark, crunching his way across the gravel strand to his launch.

  Jute stood alone for a time. He studied the night sky as if he could somehow discern there a portent of what might lie ahead, but he was no Seer or mage. He turned to the ridge with its tall tossing grasses – who knew what enemies or dangers lay hidden within? Finally, he drew a deep breath and headed to a fire to find a place to lie down.

  * * *

  Silverfox walked the dunes of the coast. Her hair, long uncut and uncombed, whipped about her head. She hugged herself as she went; the wind was cold this day. Sea-birds hovered overhead, their wings backswept like strung bows. It was odd, she considered as she went, how she was alone yet felt as if she had to be on her own. Because of course she was never truly alone. Within her Bellurdan, the giant Thelomen, raged for action, while Nightchill, the ancient Sister of Cold Nights, and the true wellspring of her power, counselled patience. Closest to her in her humanity was Tattersail, the mage, once of the Malazan imperial cadre. She too urged patience.

  And yet what of Silverfox? What of her? What did she wish? The sad fact was that she had no idea. Hers was the mere frail soul of a girl, full of doubts and fears. How could she set herself against such potent beings? How could she even be certain which thoughts were her own?

  She raised her hands to study them, turned them over. Skin sun-darkened, stretched thin and dry, age-spotted, joints knotted and swollen – not the hands of the young girl she held in her mind’s eye. Her creation, birth, and maturation had consumed the life of her mother. As now it was consuming hers. Yet she was content; it was just. She only hoped there would be enough time. The Imass had waited untold thousands of years for her arrival, a living Bonecaster who could release them from their ritual, and now that life was slipping away. Should she fail, how much longer would they have to wait again?

  If there ever could be a second chance for redemption.

  The wind gusted, sands hissing about her, lashing her, and she turned her face away. The stiff brown grasses clinging to the dunes shushed and grated. She saw Pran Chole standing alone on the shore, facing out to sea, and her chest tightened in bands of dread. No – not again.

  Though it was the last thing she wanted to face, she clambered down the sand slopes to the strand. He did not turn when she joined him. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  Pran was slow to answer. ‘I am not certain. I sense something … different.’

  ‘Different? How?’

  Dry tendons creaked as he turned his ravaged face to hers. ‘Powerful.’

  She suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Nightchill wavered close to her consciousness as if to reassure her with the message: do not fear, I am here.

  I am no child to need such soothing, she cast against the presence in her thoughts.

  Regardless, I am here should there be need.

  ‘It comes,’ Pran breathed, and he extended a skeletal arm, all bone and desiccated flesh, pointing.

  Silverfox sought out her own powers as a Bonecaster, a shaman, in her own right.

  A head broke through the waves, its owner obviously walking the rising shore, approaching. Patches of long hair clung here and there over the bare dome of a tannin-stained skull. Dark empty sockets beneath thick brow-ridges, full wide cheekbones over lipless jaws that still carried strips of muscle and tendon. Next came chest and shoulders of bone beneath a ragged hide shirt, coarsely sewn, with sleeves all torn and stained.

  At her side Pran Chole made one faltering step forward, as if half moving to greet the newcomer. A dry breath, like a sigh, escaped his throat.

  ‘What is it?’ Silverfox asked.

  The newcomer approached, bowed on one knee to her. ‘Greetings, Summoner,’ he murmured in the T’lan voice that was the mere brush of falling leaves. ‘It is an honour.’

  Pran Chole took another hesitant step closer. ‘I am Pran Chole. We of the Kron salute you.’

  ‘I am Tolb Bell’al,’ the newcomer answered, ‘Bonecaster to the Ifayle T’lan Imass. And long have I been absent.’

  And to Silverfox’s utter astonishment, the two Imass embraced. For a time they held one another at arm’s length, seeming to study each other. Ifayle, she marvelled, amazed. According to the Kron they’d been lost long ago. Some even claimed they were lost here, on Assail.

  ‘Long has it been since the steppes of the Has’erin, Pran,’ said Tolb.

  ‘Indeed. That was a parting of many tears.’

  ‘Yet we meet again.’

  Silverfox stepped up. ‘Pardon, Tolb of the Ifayle, but I must know … have you been here before?’

  The two relinquished their grips. The newcomer turned to face her. She felt the full power of his regard, and it was potent indeed. This one may be the last and only shaman of the Ifayle, she thought. He carries their fate upon his ravaged shoulders. ‘No, Summoner,’ he answered. ‘But the Ifayle are here and I have searched everywhere to know the answer to their fate. I found it nowhere, and despaired. Until your arrival. I see now that we merely had to wait for you to come to us.’

  Merely! Silverfox felt her knees weaken at the ages of weight that one small word carried.

  ‘So … you know.’

  ‘Yes. I alone escaped and have spent all this time in search of an answer. And now here you are.’

  ‘I?’

  ‘Yes.’ He bowed once more. ‘Summoner, we must travel north. The answers are there. In the far north.’

  Pran Chole also faced her. ‘Summoner? What say you?’

  The moment Tolb spoke she’d felt the right of it. In truth, she’d known it since they arrived on this shore. Yet she had avoided it. Dreaded the final irrevocable hard choices. She rubbed her hands up her arms and held herself. ‘I must face Omtose Phellack unveiled. Something the world has not seen in tens of thousands of years.’

  ‘Not you,’ said Pran.

  She blinked at him, a touch irritated. ‘Not I?’

  ‘No. Tolb and I and the remaining Bonecasters shall. As during the ancient unveilings when the Odhan was scoured clean by rivers of ice leagues thick. Or the war over the rich fields of the Gareth’eshal, which yet lay lost to us beneath the sea.’

  ‘Then what of me?’

  ‘Summoner,’ Tolb spoke gently, ‘you must bring the Kerluhm to heel. You must stand before them and deny them their war.’

  ‘Your war,�
�� she corrected. ‘You also swore the ritual.’

  The Ifayle Bonecaster nodded deeply then, his neck creaking, and it seemed to Silverfox that a great exhalation of repentance shuddered from the ancient. ‘A question of interpretation. They choose to fight it. We choose to end it.’

  This near confession touched her deeply and she felt an urge to console the man though he was a walking corpse to her vision. Yet, she wondered, what differences truly lie between us? Only the accidental timing of birth. I could easily have been hearthmate to him, or he born of the Rhivi. She swept an arm to Pran. ‘Gather everyone.’

  ‘Summoner,’ Pran said, a warning in his voice. ‘It will be a long journey.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘We cannot move through Tellann – Omtose inhibits this. We must travel across the land. So did the Jaghut deny us tracts of land and slow our progress in the elder ages.’

  Silverfox stared, speechless. Walk … on foot all the way north across this enormous continent? It would take months! Still, was she not of the Rhivi? Why let yet another migration deter her? She smoothed her layered hides down her hips. ‘Then let us go at once.’ And she headed for her tent to pack.

  Behind her, Tolb Bell’al and Pran Chole shared a glance that could almost be said to contain humour. ‘You chose well, Pran,’ Tolb murmured, his breathless voice nearly lost in the wind.

  ‘It was she who chose to come to us,’ he answered.

  * * *

  When the lookouts of the Lady’s Luck sighted land in the east, Kyle counselled that they turn south to travel round the horn of the continent. Tulan Orbed, however, ordered Reuth to find their position first to see how far north the winds had taken them. That night Reuth studied the stars, their setting and rising, and determined that they had indeed been driven quite far to the north. Kyle’s advice against travelling round the northern coast was rejected.

  Two nights later Reuth came to where Kyle slept wrapped in blankets in the bows. The lad reached out to wake him but his approach had already roused him; he now slept as wary as when on campaign.

  ‘Kyle …’ Reuth urged over the shush of the bow wave.

  ‘Yes?’

  Tears gleamed on the lad’s face. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered, choking, his voice thick.

  Kyle understood immediately, and reached up to squeeze the lad’s shoulder. From the stern came a knot of men – the majority of the crew all told – headed by the ex-Stormguard and Storval. Kyle pushed Reuth away. ‘Hide yourself now, lad.’

  After one last anguished look – which Kyle answered reassuringly – the youth slid down amid the rowers’ berths and disappeared. Kyle stood. The crew confronted him, spread out, the ex-Stormguard at the fore.

  ‘The lad warned you, did he?’ Storval growled.

  Kyle ignored the glowering mate. He spoke to Tulan: ‘You should be proud that your nephew finds murder distasteful.’

  The master of the Lady’s Luck at least had the grace to appear embarrassed. He pulled on his thick black beard, his gaze downcast. ‘My apologies, outlander. But we must know …’

  ‘Show us the blade,’ Storval demanded.

  Kyle glanced to the east where the coast lay as a dark line that brought the horizon close. With his foot, he drew the pack he used to rest his head on towards him. ‘You want to see the sword, do you?’ And he reached behind his back.

  Storval yanked his shortsword from his belt. The ex-Stormguard levelled their spears. The front line of the crew reached for their knives. The rest raised cocked crossbows.

  Kyle slowly drew the weapon and shook off the leather wrap. A glow immediately suffused the bows, cast by the curved, translucent, cream-hued blade.

  ‘Whiteblade,’ one of the crew breathed, awed.

  Storval’s gaze remained fixed on the sword. He took a steadying breath. ‘Hand it over.’

  ‘Before I was in Korel lands,’ Kyle said conversationally, hefting the blade, ‘I was with a mercenary company. The Crimson Guard. And with them I acquired a rare and mysterious skill. I will demonstrate it now.’

  Storval frowned at him, puzzled. ‘What?’

  Kyle kicked the pack up to his free hand and turned to the side. Then he planted one foot on the gunwale and leapt over. Roars of outrage followed him until his head plunged beneath the frigid water.

  He emerged into darkness. The sword in his grip was a murky glow in the water as he struggled to open the pack. The ship was a diminishing dark blotch in the night. A great cheering whoop reached him from it – Reuth’s shout of triumph – followed by Tulan’s barked: ‘Shut up, lad! Come about!’

  They might bring the Lady’s Luck about, but Kyle was confident they’d never spot him here in the dark of night amid the waves. Holding the sword beneath the pack, he drew out the water-bladders he’d half inflated, and began blowing into one. It would be a long swim to shore and he’d have to keep topping up the bladders, but he should make it – provided he didn’t freeze to death first.

  *

  Dawn saw a man drag himself by his elbows up through the surf, his hands mere pale blue clubs. He lay on the beach of coarse gravel, half in the waves, exhausted and immobile, warming himself in the gathering light.

  Later in the morning, Kyle pushed himself up and blew on his hands. He pulled at his wet clothes then faced inland. Eroded cliffs topped by scrub and brush hid what lay beyond, but he knew what awaited him: a broad flat steppe-land of grasses and copses of trees, arid, a near desert in regions, that swept all the way east to the foothills of the near-mythical Salt range.

  He drew the sword from his shirt, wrapped it in the empty sack, and tucked it through his belt. Then he pushed back his sodden hair, tied it with a leather strip, and set off.

  CHAPTER IV

  A STORM CAUGHT them while still west of the southern Bael coast. Master Ghelath saw them through, bellowing commands, solid on the deck though chilled blue from the spray. The towering cliff-high waves would have overpowered Havvin at the tiller arm had not Bars and Amatt taken hold to follow the canny old pilot’s orders.

  Storms were one of the main reasons Shimmer hated these deep ocean crossings. It seemed to her that no frail construct such as a ship should dare challenge the might of such vast depths and lengths of open water. The pitching and yawing below decks made her sick; that and the clattering of loose equipment and the ominous groaning of the mere finger-widths of timber that separated her from the cold dark depths. The noise and stink of vomit drove her to seek the fresh air above decks – even when ‘fresh’ meant gale-force winds and driving sleet.

  She found Lean and Sept taking their turn at the tiller arm, following Havvin’s commands yelled above the crashing of waves. K’azz was also above decks, an arm round the mainmast, staring forward into the roiling cloud cover. She climbed the stern to the pilot’s side, noting the length of line that secured him to the tiller arm. The old man, his long white hair a plastered layer upon his knobbly skull, sent her another of his intimate winks.

  She planted her legs wide, lowered her head against the blowing spray, and offered him an uncertain frown.

  The old man laughed his amusement. ‘Know you why Master Ghelath named her Mael’s Greetings?’ he called.

  ‘No,’ she shouted back.

  ‘Because Mael, having sent his greetings, need not send them again!’ and he cackled anew.

  Sailors, she thought. The oddest sense of humour.

  The pilot sliced an arm forward, yelling, ‘That one! Straight on!’ Lean heaved her considerable bulk against the arm while Sept pulled. ‘Further!’ Havvin urged. ‘Hard o’ port!’

  ‘I don’t remember volunteering for this,’ Lean gasped as she strained.

  ‘Beats marching,’ Sept grinned.

  Lean, her jaws set, shook her head. ‘Never the right weather, is it? Always too hot or too cold. Too wet or too dry.’

  Shimmer saluted them and headed back below. If they could still joke, then things were in hand. She descended the steep ladder to find Ba
rs and Blues awaiting her at the bottom. Water poured down over her shoulders in one last chilling wash. ‘I’m beginning to hate these journeys,’ she told Bars.

  ‘I’m with you, Shimmer. Only way to get anywhere, though.’

  They braced themselves on nearby timbers in the darkness of the low deck. Water sloshed about their boots. ‘And you, Bars,’ she asked. ‘Where were you in Assail lands?’

  The man grimaced at the memory. ‘Exile Keep. On the shores of the Dread Sea. Turned out to be two inbred families of mages battling each other for control of the coast.’ He paused and ran a thumb along a scar on his chin. Blues’ eyes glittered in the dark as he waited and watched, just as Shimmer did. ‘Somehow they got it into their crazy paranoid heads that we were plotting to take the keep, or some damned fool thing like that. Both the families turned on us. Every last one of them. Anyway …’ Bars cleared his throat. ‘Cal an’ the rest withdrew. Pulled ’em all off so me and my Blade could escape in a local’s fishing skiff. That was the last I saw of them. Headed north along the Anguish Coast.’ He lowered his head to study the knuckles of one hand.

  ‘That was Cal’s plan, wasn’t it?’ Blues said gently. Bars nodded. ‘So stop beating yourself up about it. The plan worked. Now we’re back because of it.’

  Bars curled the hand into a tight fist, lowered it. ‘Right.’

  Ah, Bars, Shimmer thought. Always feeling everything so keenly. Like a raw exposed nerve. The man’s emotions were like a storm; it would be attractive if it were not so exhausting.

  ‘Where’s K’azz?’ Blues asked.

  ‘Up top. Watching the storm.’ Shimmer shook her head, mystified. ‘It’s like he’s not afraid one whit. Just curious. As if he wants to experience it.’

  Blues snorted. ‘Well I’m damned afraid, if he’s not. Don’t like being out of sight of shore. Too far to swim.’

  Of course, Shimmer reflected, being a mage of D’riss Blues wouldn’t like being out of sight of land. ‘We’re none of us happy sailors,’ she said.