Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(162)

‘An escapee from the besiegers,’ Tyvar announced. ‘Perhaps a slave or a prisoner.’

Jute called to his wife: ‘Ieleen, a patient for you.’

She stood. ‘Bring him to the crew’s quarters – and someone must guide me.’

Jute signed to his crewmen to obey. Tyvar motioned to his troopers to follow the sailors’ lead.

Once the wounded fellow and Ieleen were below, Jute turned to the commander. ‘Why all the fuss? There must be many such deserters and escapees.’

‘His hands,’ Tyvar replied, rather enigmatically.

Jute frowned. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Soft, pale, unscarred, and stained black under the nails. No oarsman or servant, that one. Literate. And the ship we pulled him from was a Mare war galley.’

Jute’s brows rose. A Mare vessel? Quite the prize.

Tyvar reached into his belt and pulled forth an instrument Jute instantly recognized: an alidade. ‘And he carried this.’

Jute reached out and Tyvar set it in his hands. It was a beautiful piece of cast and polished bronze. Crude by Falaran standards, of course, what with their tradition of open-water exploration. But more important, he could see this one had been designed to personal order. He shook his head, amazed. What an accomplishment for someone coming from a region of shallow-water navigation!

He blew out a breath. ‘I see … Well, won’t you stay for a drink, commander?’

Tyvar pulled a hand down his beard and offered Jute a wink. ‘I do believe I shall.’

In his cabin, Jute poured two tiny thimbles of Falaran distilled spirit made from the seeds of a low bush that grew on the islands of their archipelago. They called it Peuch. When he turned from the cupboards, however, he found that they were not two, but three. He was annoyed, and rather alarmed, to find that Khall-head hanger-on from the Wrongway camp sitting at the table.

‘What in the name of the damned Mael are you doing here?’ He pointed to the door. ‘Get the Abyss out.’

Tyvar raised a hand to beg permission to intercede. ‘If I may, captain?’ Jute subsided, grumbling beneath his breath. The Blue Shield commander then surprised Jute immensely by saying slowly, and gently, as if addressing an infant: ‘You really should ask permission before entering the captain’s quarters.’

The Khall-head raised his brows in slow-motion surprise. His yellowed eyes roamed the chamber as if only now fully aware of his surroundings – which Jute did not doubt.

Tyvar continued: ‘So wait outside, won’t you?’

The fellow smiled then – his eerie empty raising of the lips – and bestirred himself. Despite his antagonism, the state of his limbs raised a wince of empathy from Jute: emaciated, scabbed by sores and the old weeping cuts of an unhealthy body hardly functioning, let alone healing.

He shambled from the cabin. Jute eyed the huge commander. ‘Who is he to you?’

Tyvar cleared his throat, tossed back his thimble of spirit and sucked his teeth. ‘Cartheron told me his tale. A man worthy of our pity. A sad tale that …’ His voice tailed off and his gaze swung across the cabin to the door.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s begun,’ Tyvar announced.

‘What? What’s begun?’

‘An attack on Mantle.’ Two broad steps took the man to the door and out. Jute hurriedly knocked back his shot of Peuch, coughed slightly, and followed.

He found Lieutenant Jalaz also on deck. She wore only a plain padded undershirt that hung to her knees. She was gazing up at the cliff top.

‘What—’ Jute began, but Tyvar lifted his hand. Jute strained to listen, but all he could hear was a strange sort of murmuring from above, as of many voices and sharp sounds commingled.

‘They’ve rushed the walls,’ Tyvar announced.

‘Really? How can you …’

‘By time we climb those stairs it’ll be over,’ Giana grumbled.

Tyvar nodded his grim assent. ‘Still, the effort must be made. Prepare yourself, Lieutenant. You and I must climb to see who now holds Mantle.’

‘I will come too,’ Jute added, rather surprising himself.

Instead of scoffing, as he feared, the two warriors merely shared a knowing, amused smile. Tyvar pulled a hand down his beard, trying to hide his grin. ‘Your wife,’ the Blue Shield commander said. ‘She has complained of your penchant for rushing in where you shouldn’t. She made us swear not to … ah, encourage it.’

Something in him felt very annoyed by Ieleen going behind his back like that. ‘I’ve come damned far and I swore I’d see this through!’

Tyvar raised a hand in surrender. ‘I cannot argue with that, captain. And you may of course travel where you would. However, we ask one thing …’

‘Yes?’

Tyvar shared a wink with Giana. ‘That you face her when we return.’

‘Leave her to me.’

Giana burst out with a laugh and headed off to get ready, saying, ‘I’d rather face these invaders, myself.’

Tyvar held out a hand and his sword, sheathed and wrapped in its belt, was pressed into his grip by one of his troopers. He fastened it round the long quilted aketon that he wore as part of his armour’s underpadding, and gestured an invitation to Jute. ‘Shall we?’