Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(131)

‘We made it through.’

He nodded again, the muscles of his jaws bunched in stark contrast beneath his parchment-like skin. ‘How is he?’

She jumped, flinching. Petal! She ran to where the man sat close to the side rudder and knelt before him. His head hung so low she couldn’t see his face. ‘Petal? Hello? Are you with us?’

The blankets heaped about the man stirred. The head shook, as if its owner were waking, then rose. Sweat sheathed the pale rounded cheeks, dripped from the chin. He peered about, puzzled, as if he’d forgotten everything, then his gaze found her face and fixed there and he smiled, rather self-consciously. ‘Thirsty,’ he croaked.

She straightened. ‘Water here! A drink!’

One of Ghelath’s crewmen ran up with a skin of water. Petal just blinked at the thing. Shimmer snatched it away, unstoppered it, and held the spout to his lips, squeezing gently. Water poured down his chin but he managed to swallow some few gulps. He nodded his thanks.

Only now did Shimmer realize how neglectful they had been. Who had taken care of him? Gods, how could they have been so … forgetful? But no, Blues, surely … With Petal awake, Blues was here with her now, along with Gwynn.

‘Did you check on him?’ she demanded.

Blues blinked his surprise. ‘Well … no. I thought …’ and he gestured vaguely, as if to indicate the ship’s company in general.

Shimmer gazed down at the mage as he stirred. He wanted to stand, and so they helped him to his feet. The blankets fell from him and steam rose into the air from his sweat-soaked robes, as if he smouldered with heat. How many days, weeks, had it been, she wondered. Or had it only been a few? In any case, how could he have survived? It was inhuman.

She studied the fellow as he weaved on his feet. He looked to have lost a full two stone.

They passed a number of bare rocky headlands, a few yet sheathed in scabrous ice, then came to where the coast flattened and here they found the shore littered with the broken husks of ships.

Blues pointed a stick ahead, where cliffs rose; there stood a keep, a heap of rock exactly the same slate-grey hue as the surrounding cliffs. The land before it lay checkered in fields in various degrees of care and cultivation. A bedraggled clutch of wooden huts hugged the shore.

A rain that had fallen on and off through the day started in earnest. It pushed down the smoke climbing from holes in the shack roofs. Though Shimmer had longed for land, it was a dour and depressing sight.

‘We should go ashore first,’ said K’azz from beside her and she started, surprised; she hadn’t sensed his presence.

‘Of course.’

The landing party consisted of her, K’azz, Blues, Gwynn, and Keel. She was startled to see K’azz actually carrying a sword – a hand and a half. He caught her gaze and said, explaining, ‘Cole’s.’

The losses still burned in her chest, and she nodded. ‘I’m sorry, K’azz.

‘As am I, Shimmer. As am I.’

A launch took them to shore. They tramped up the wet sand then climbed a ratty set of stairs built of timbers taken from stricken vessels. The huts were likewise constructed from ships’ timbers. But so much wood was in evidence, Shimmer began to suspect deliberate wrecking. The shacks were roofed with sod, bundled grasses, or wooden shakes. What few men and women they met turned away, or stopped in stony silence to watch them pass. One woman, her rags gathered about her, murmured, ‘Run while you can,’ and hurried off herself.

Shimmer looked to K’azz, quite uneasy. He motioned her on to the stone fortress. Blues, she noted, had drawn his sticks. These he tossed and spun as they went, and she knew this was his habit when nervous. Keel walked with his enormous rectangular shield readied on his arm.

They found the wide wooden door open upon its heavy iron hinges. The hall within was flagged with broad cut stones, yet littered with wind-blown leaves and twigs as if from long neglect, and thick with tramped-in mud. The entrance hall led to a much larger reception hall. It was very dark after the outdoors. The only light streamed in from the open doorway behind them, or from thin slit openings high up the walls. Here a woman awaited them. She sat in a wooden chair also constructed from battered ship’s planking, and wore a flowing white dress that hung down to spread in long reaching lengths all about the floor. Her hair was similarly snow-white and extraordinarily long – it appeared to even reach the stone floor around her. The proud way she sat in the chair of faded old timbers made it clear to Shimmer that she regarded it as a throne.

K’azz stepped forward and bowed in a courtly manner, as when he had dealt with the prickly Quon kings and nobles long ago. ‘Greetings,’ he murmured, his head lowered. ‘I am K’azz, commander of the mercenary company the Crimson Guard. With me are members of my troop: Shimmer, Blues, Gwynn, and Keel.’

The woman favoured them with a hard glare; she did not respond to K’azz’s greeting. ‘A mercenary company,’ she said, musing. ‘An army – of sorts.’ Her glare narrowed. ‘Are you the enemy I was warned to expect?’

K’azz turned round to examine each of them. Gwynn stood leaning upon his staff. He adjusted the leather patch over his eye, frowned his confusion. Shimmer was completely mystified and shook her head. K’azz turned back to the woman. ‘I do not believe we are …’

‘Mist,’ the woman supplied. ‘You may call me Mist. Normally, here I would also say that I am your queen as well. But there is something about you …’ She turned her head as if to regard them first through one eye, then the other. ‘Something about you I do not like. Therefore, while I would usually give you until tomorrow to lay down your weapons, you I will ask to depart – immediately. Or you will be executed.’