Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(134)

At that, she shifted her gaze to where a pale light seemed to glow to the north-east. ‘What is that?’ she asked Bars.

But Blues answered, sounding uncharacteristically grim: ‘An ice field.’ She remembered that he’d crossed the immense plain of ice that separated Stratem from the lands of Korel to the north.

‘Can we get through?’ she asked.

Blues shrugged. ‘There must be some way.’

She nodded at that. Yes. Surely some vessels must have made it through ahead of them. Her gaze fell on the wrapped bodies. ‘We should give them a proper send-off.’

‘Yes,’ Bars agreed, and he sounded very firm on that.

It was a channel. A narrow gap of open water that ran between tall cliffs of white and sapphire glacial ice. They reached it near to dusk, but such was the peculiar light held by the ice from the moon, and the star field where it shone through gaps in the cloud cover, that they continued on.

Luthal’s command ahead did likewise. They too neither paused nor let up, and Shimmer began to wonder whether the Letherii merchant had – rather stupidly – decided that this was some sort of race. And the gold to the winner.

Behind, the rest of the ragtag convoy straggled along. Next in line was the Mare galley. Privately, Shimmer was of the opinion that if any ship survived, it would be that one. She had a great respect for the vessels and crews of that seafaring nation.

The passage narrowed alarmingly in places. The cliffs reared nearly overhead. At times great reports cracked the night air and carriage-sized shards of ice came crashing down ahead or behind to send up fountains of frigid spray. Some of that spray even reached them on board the Forbearance.

Something about these avalanches of shards troubled Shimmer, and not just that any one of them could crush them into splinters. As they proceeded through, the sweeps hissing through ice-mush and clattering off floating chunks of sapphire-blue ice, it came to her.

The ice was only falling near them.

She watched to the rear for a time: no ice shards burst from the cliff faces behind them – at all. She turned ahead to study the three Letherii vessels and the full length of the channel ahead: nothing. No fracturing, cracking or rumbling.

She turned to K’azz.

Cowl suddenly appeared next to their commander. His scarred, ghostly pale face was upraised to study the overhanging cliffs. ‘We must back out – now,’ he said.

K’azz frowned his puzzlement. ‘Back out? Why?’

The High Mage lowered his face to gaze straight at K’azz. ‘You know why.’

K’azz snapped his gaze to the cliffs. ‘You don’t think …’

‘I do.’

K’azz spun to the mid-deck, roared, ‘Back oars! Back off!’ The Avowed on the oars pushed hard, heaving. Mael’s Forbearance came to a slow sluggish halt amid the wash of hissing crushed ice. ‘Back oars!’ K’azz yelled anew.

It appeared to Shimmer that they had just made a terrible mistake.

Reports like munition blasts erupted from the near port-side cliff. Cracks zigzagged up and down the translucent gleaming facets of the face. Chunks ranging in size from barrels to horses and wagons came crashing and tumbling. They sent up great fountains of spray that punched down to slap the decking of the Forbearance. One single massive crag now pulled away from the entire cliff. It extended from halfway up to the white snowy top. As slow as night falling it came, leaning farther and farther out from the body of the great ice wall above them.

Shimmer caught Blues’ wide gaze. ‘Do something,’ she said.

He shook his head in utter helplessness. ‘D’riss is of no …’

‘Cowl!’ K’azz demanded.

Shimmer snapped her gaze to the High Mage, but the man only stared, his face now uncharacteristically severe. ‘There is nothing.’

Brutal explosions of tons of crushed ice thundered above. A dark shadow engulfed the Forbearance.

K’azz drew a savage breath and bellowed: ‘Abandon ship!’

The crew and the Avowed on the oars let them fall. Everyone dived for the sides.

The last thing Shimmer remembered was the intense cold of the water. She struck the ice mush first, and it parted for her, but not before imparting numbing blows to her protecting forearm. She churned her one good arm, fought for the surface.

She never made it. Some immense dark shape came plunging into the water and it dragged her down with it, down into the frigid night of the depths below. For a time she fought to free herself from the weight that drove her on and on deeper into the darkness. But in the murk and the utter cold, her strength gradually seeped from her, and she knew nothing more.

* * *

‘We must go back!’ Reuth thrust an arm to the stern, his gaze fierce upon Storval. ‘Search for survivors!’

The first mate waved his dismissal. ‘You saw. None survived. Only wreckage surfaced.’ He nodded to the oarsmen, motioned for them to continue.

‘But we should wait. Search the wreckage!’

‘Too dangerous. The entire cliff fell on them. More might come down.’

Reuth stared, appalled beyond words. The foreign mercenaries saved them at Old Ruse and here at Mist, yet this heartless bastard was prepared to turn his back upon them. He clutched the man’s leather sleeve. ‘I see why you won’t stop – you’re a coward!’