Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(187)

As they neared the stakes driven into the ground before the ditch beneath the walls, Cartheron leaned forward, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted down: ‘We of Mantle Keep greet you! With what clan do I speak?’

The ranks halted to stand as silent and still as a file of statues. A weak wind brushed at the hanging tattered ends of hides and fur cloaks.

Jute saw the local young king presumptive, Voti, followed by Malle, come next to Cartheron. The lad stood with his arms crossed, the haft of his spear hugged to his chest. Jute heard a steady murmuring among the local defenders gathered at the walls. Their accent was difficult for him, but eventually he made out the repeated litany of wonder: ‘… bone and dust …’

He turned to the nearest of the locals, a woman, perhaps a mother standing the wall to defend her children within. ‘What does this mean,’ he asked, ‘“bone and dust”?’

‘An old legend among us,’ she replied, sounding oddly resigned. ‘An old story that our world will end with an invasion of the dead.’

Jute could only shake his head in wonder. Ye gods! Was this prescience? Or merely chance? But, he thought, the war between Imass and Jaghut was incalculably ancient. Perhaps this legend was a memory of an earlier clash. One that might even have occurred upon another continent halfway round the world.

Closing now, up the silent unmoving ranks, came two figures. Both were of course of Imass stock, yet they differed strikingly: one was lean while the other markedly squat. The lean one wore the mangy and raggedy hide of what appeared to have once been a white bear. The beast’s head rode his own, the upper fangs hanging down before his mummified face. Necklaces of yellowed bear claws rode his chest, and the clacking and clattering of these were the only sounds Jute could hear.

The other Imass was among the most damaged of those present. She, and Jute intuited somehow that it was female, appeared to have been thrust through multiple times. She bore a primitive face of a broad shelf with a brow and wide jaws. Her canines jutted quite prominently and they glinted copper in the early morning light. Shells laced about her ragged leathers swung and clattered.

The Imass in the bear hide stepped forward. His voice, though as wispy as brushing leaves, somehow reached Jute: ‘Greetings. I am Ut’el Anag, Bonecaster to the Kerluhm T’lan Imass. Who addresses us in the old formula?’

‘I am Cartheron Crust of the Malazans. We greet you as allies and friends.’

Ut’el shifted to glance briefly to his companion Imass. ‘I understand that alliance no longer holds. You and all those not native to these lands are trespassers here. Stand aside and you will not be harmed. Our quarrel is not with you.’

‘This is the will of Silverfox?’ Cartheron called, much louder.

The Bonecaster paused only very slightly. ‘It is our way.’

‘But not hers, I gather. She is coming, is she not? Perhaps we would prefer to wait to hear her counsel on this matter.’

The bear head dipped as the Kerluhm Bonecaster nodded. ‘You may wait. Meanwhile, Omtose Phellack is rotting. I sense a powerful elder Jaghut within, but even she, being flesh and blood, will tire. Soon we shall be free to move as we wish.’

Jute turned to mutter to Cartheron: ‘He is right in that. What shall we do?’

The old commander answered beneath his breath: ‘Don’t worry yourself. They may be ancient, but they’re still awful at cards. They can’t bluff worth a damn.’

Smiling broadly, the ex-High Fist answered with a welcoming sweep of his arm. ‘Then sit yourself down and let me tell you all about my childhood on Nap. Do you know Nap? It’s an island south of Quon Tali. ’Course in your time it was probably a mountain top. In any case, I was born on Fanderay’s High Holy day – not that that’s done me any good – though my mam claims it shaped my character just as my brother Urko was born in a quarry—’

Ut’el raised a withered hand for silence. ‘So be it. You should not invite our attack. Do not think we will spare you as we did these other outsiders.’

‘I did not imagine so.’ Cartheron turned to the new king and Malle. ‘Find your place at the wall, ah, sire.’

The lad nodded and sauntered off, determined to show how unimpressed he was. ‘They were going to attack anyway,’ Malle said.

Cartheron waved her onward. ‘I figured as much.’

Jute took a renewed grip on his spear haft, found he had to wipe his hands once again.

The attack came as before: without warning or shouted orders. As one, the Imass simply advanced, spread along the arc of the wall. They clambered down the slope of the moat, pushed through the mud, then started climbing the wall using handholds in the rough stone slabs.

The defenders, local northerners, Malazans, and Blue Shields, thrust with spears to dislodge or stave off the wave. The Imass ignored these stabs as they climbed. Many defenders soon understood that thrusting weapons were ineffective against this ancient army, and so the spears, billhooks and pikes were thrown down and swords and axes readied.

Jute abandoned his own spear standing from the shoulder of an Imass – the creature calmly took hold of the haft, yanked it free, and returned to its slow deliberate ascent. Jute drew the weapon at his side and was appalled to remember as he saw it that it was a shortsword. He cursed Mael and himself. How could he have not foreseen … He madly searched about for a larger weapon.