Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(125)

‘That was ancestor,’ Cull said, throwing another stick on to the fire and raising a great gust of sparks that flew up into the night. Kyle watched them rise on and on, as if they would join the aurora itself. He decided that Cull was talking about the shade. ‘Tell me to kill all trespassers.’ He poked a thin stick into the fire then pointed it at him. ‘Like you.’

‘Thank you for not killing me.’

The giant frowned at the glowing tip of the stick. ‘I have enough killing. Besides,’ he shrugged, ‘too many come.’ He eased himself back against a log. ‘Too many to kill.’

‘They are coming for the gold.’

The fellow swished the glowing tip through the air, making circles and snake-like lines. He seemed delighted by the designs. ‘Yes, the gold.’

‘Why don’t you just let them take it?’

‘Gold in the land. They take the land.’

He felt like a fool. ‘Yes. Sorry.’

‘I’m sorry for them.’

Kyle shook his head in amazement. ‘They are running you from your land and you are sorry for them?’

Cull continued swishing the stick. ‘Gold least important thing in land.’

‘Really? Then what is the most important?’

The fellow thought about this for a time. Frowning, he peered about at their forested surroundings, his brows crimping. Finally, a big infectious grin split his lips, and he offered, ‘Life.’

Kyle thought that a strange answer but decided he wouldn’t argue with his host. They slept then. For a time the blazing banners of the aurora kept him awake. It reminded him of Korel and the lights that glowed above the Strait of Storms. But they had been far fainter, more diffuse. Here they appeared so bright and low he thought he could pinch them between his fingers.

Over the next three days of climbing snow-patched slopes, Kyle decided that his host was very strange indeed. The man didn’t seem to think the way he did. At times he seemed a child in a giant’s body; at other times he was just plain odd. When Kyle remarked on the great rush of run-off streaming down the rock faces and the gathering summer, the man answered: ‘Sun not the enemy. Time the enemy.’

Another day Kyle found him standing very still and solemn as he appeared to be doing nothing more than studying the mossy forest floor before him. He stood with him for a time, but soon became bored and moved off to sit and rest for the unannounced, extended stop. Cull woke him with a gentle touch. Kyle started up, peered back to where the man had stood for so long. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Powerful ancestor fall there long ago,’ Cull answered, and started off.

Curious, Kyle crossed to the spot which appeared no different from any other patch of needle-strewn ground. Then he noticed how the dirt was darker here, far wetter than the surrounding earth. He knelt and brushed aside the leaf bracken and litter. Something gleamed amid the dirt. He dug deeper into the dark wet humus. A layer of it came away in a swath. Below gleamed a black smooth face of buried ice. Kyle flinched backward in shock and surprise. His hand throbbed, numb yet tingling. How like the Stormriders – but different. Theirs had been an alien cold, seemingly anathema to flesh and blood as he knew it. This was not so alien. Frigid, yes, but somehow far more comprehensible. Like … well, like a snow-capped mountain peak: formidable and inhospitable, but also majestic and awe-inspiring at the same time.

‘Little brother,’ Cull called, sounding far away.

Kyle shook his head and blinked to clear his vision, as if emerging from a dream. ‘Yes, sorry. Coming.’

Towards late afternoon, they exited the forest to push through the tall weeds and saplings of what had once been cleared land. Fields, Kyle decided, now abandoned – or neglected – to fall back to the forest from where they’d been taken. The fields climbed a rising slope that allowed a magnificent view of the haze-shrouded lowlands.

Cull led him to the burnt ruin of what once must have been a very long hall. Only the butt-ends of its huge logs had escaped the fire, many as broad in girth as a large shield. Its fieldstone foundation lay as a mute line of rock among the weeds. The Iceblood waved to the fallen shell. ‘Behold, Greathall.’

Kyle did not reply at once. He took a wondering breath. ‘Very … impressive …’

Studying the wreckage, Cull nodded his solemn agreement. ‘Yes. Very impressive.’ He motioned Kyle onward. ‘Come. We find wife.’ He led the way round the ruins to the rear. Here was a much more modest structure: a cabin of smaller logs, chinked, with a sod roof. Smoke curled from a roof-hole.

‘Ho! Wife!’ Cull boomed out.

A crash such as a dropped plate or bowl sounded from within. The door of adzed planks was thrust open. A woman of a scale to match Cull emerged, towering and broad, bearing an even greater tangle of wild unkempt auburn hair. She wore a tanned leather jerkin, trousers and moccasins, and a knife the size of a shortsword was sheathed at her side.

‘You!’ she called, glaring.

Cull raised his hands defensively. ‘Now, now …’

She started for him, a hand raised as if to clout him on the head. Cull backed away. Spying Kyle, the woman halted, surprised. ‘Who is this?’

‘He—’

‘A lowlander? You bring a lowlander here!’

‘I—’

‘Are you an even greater fool than everyone knows?’