Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(143)

He ducked from the hut and crossed to the smouldering ruins. The brothers followed. He stood for a time facing the pile of ash and blackened logs, Svalthbrul cradled in his arms. He adjusted the patch of ragged leather he’d cut to cover his eye. He bowed to his fallen kin. There were no words to say. No tears to shed. His heart had been thrust through as irrevocably as Jass’s. He was done, finished; as burnt and ashen within as the hulk of this Greathall.

He set off north.

* * *

It had taken only one salvo from Cartheron’s springals to destroy the foremost of the vessels pursuing them. It erupted in a blast of flying timbers and cartwheeling men, and sank as if pulled from beneath. The rest of the flotilla eased up oars. Their bow-waves disappeared in a wash of dispersing foam, and Jute watched them diminish to the rear.

Another two days’ journey brought them rounding a headland to enter a broad bay, its shore one of tall rock cliffs. Jutting from these cliffs, hard up to their very edge, stood the blunt cylinder of grey rock that was the Keep at Mantle town. As they approached, he kept an eye on the structure; something about its dimensions bothered him.

He leaned on the railing next to where the ex-Malazan officer, Giana Jalaz, stood with her bare forearms over the wood, an apple in one hand. ‘I see ships,’ he commented. Indeed, the masts of some handful of vessels rose from the waves at the base of the cliff beneath the tower. ‘They are blockaded, you say?’

She took a bite, chewed. ‘So I was told,’ she answered round the mouthful. She raised the apple. ‘Good thing you brought supplies.’

‘That was not my intention, you can be sure …’ he said, but she was moving now, signing something to the other soldiers who had accompanied her. They began pulling on their armour.

Giana herself simply yanked her thin blouse over her head and tossed it to Jute. Mechanically, unthinkingly, he caught and held it; it was warm from her body. Her upper torso was wide and muscular, her breasts small and high, the areoles dark. Only then did Jute realize he was staring and spin away.

‘Hang on to that,’ she told him. ‘That’s my one good shirt.’

He stammered, ‘Of course.’

A low laugh from Ieleen made his ears heat. ‘Getting changed, are we?’ she enquired sweetly.

‘Could be a fight,’ Giana explained. He heard her armour rattle and jangle as she pulled it on. ‘Buckle me up, won’t you?’

Still with his back to the disturbing north Genabackan woman, he said, ‘Perhaps someone else …’

‘Well, seeing as I’m blind,’ Ieleen offered, ‘she might not like the result if I took a hand. Go ahead, dear. You can tell me all about it later.’ Then, even more disturbingly, the two women shared a laugh.

Jute decided that he was at a distinct disadvantage and that perhaps it would be best if he just went along with things. He turned and found the ex-Malazan officer waiting, her side to him, buckles of her hauberk presented. He set to work.

He was almost done when the woman yanked forward out of his grip. She growled, ‘What in the name of the nitwit Boles is he doing?’ Jute found the clasps again and finished up, squinting ahead: the Resolute had surged onward, sweeps flashing.

‘Charging the blockade, looks like.’

The woman turned to where the Ragstopper continued its steady pace. ‘No flags. No signalling … Cartheron’s letting them go?’

‘They pretty much do whatever they want.’

She sent him a sceptical glance. ‘You say those soldiers are Blue Shields?’

‘Aye.’

‘This I have to see. Can we close up?’

Jute considered. They could, he supposed. The Malazans would fight if it came to that – not that he was expecting any real resistance to Tyvar and his Blue Shields. He nodded, went to the stern railing, called, ‘Follow the Resolute, Buen.’

‘Aye, captain.’ His first mate started chivvying the men and women at the oars.

He asked Giana, ‘And once we are at Mantle? Then what?’

‘That’s Cartheron’s call.’

‘You must have some idea. What would you do?’

‘Me?’ She rubbed her jaw. ‘I was never staff level. Strategy’s not my strength. But seeing as that gang outside the walls wants our blood already …’ She shrugged. ‘Ever work as a mercenary, Captain Hernan?’

Mercenary? Him? He glanced back to Ieleen; she sat with her chin resting upon her walking stick. Her head was tilted as if she was listening to something faint and far off. Her expression was intent and focused, but not alarmed. ‘I’m a businessman, not a mercenary,’ he told Giana.

‘Same thing,’ she said. ‘One just cleans up better than the other.’

As they neared base, the blockade resolved into five man-o’-wars anchored in a wide semicircle, presumably just outside the range of what appeared to be two mangonels just visible atop the cliffs.

The Resolute did not pause. It pulled alongside the middle vessel, sweeps were shipped and grapnels flew to span the gap.

At his side, Giana allowed a grudging, ‘Well executed, that.’

Yet the action at the vessels could not capture Jute’s attention; something about that squat so-called fortress kept nagging at him and now he recognized what it was: the damned thing was hardly larger than a guard tower.