Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(188)
Long-hafted axes lay gathered at the inside base of the wall. Jute scrambled down the ramp to collect one. He lifted one and was about to return to the wall when he heard a strange sound coming from the rear – from the cliff side. It was the methodical thump of wood being chopped.
He could hear this because the battle was eerily silent. The Imass, of course, made no noise at all; the defenders merely grunted, swore and exhaled noisily in their efforts, while wood and iron clattered from stone.
He wondered: what could possibly … Then he knew and his hair stirred to stand on end. He ran for the cliff top. A crowd of the locals had gathered here, peering down and pointing. Jute pushed through to the fore. Down below, four Imass had climbed out along the cliff to reach the stairway and were in the process of demolishing it. Even as he watched, sections of the stairs tore free of the rocks to tumble in awful slowness.
The Dawn was below! He looked to the vessels, and realized the crews had seen this coming and had already slipped moorings and were in the process of pulling away: the Dawn, the Ragstopper, and the Genabackan pirate’s. Even the Resolute, though Jute had no idea who might be crewing it.
The wreckage of timber crashed and burst upon the rocks. Entire lengths of the stairs had been cut from the cliff face. Jute watched the vessels raising sails and he silently bid Ieleen farewell. He knew now he would die here. His need to be part of negotiations, to witness events – to poke his nose in where it didn’t belong, as Ieleen had it – would finally finish him. As she had so long predicted.
Everyone at the cliff top now saw the four T’lan Imass climbing the rocks headed straight for them.
As the battle raged on behind them, these locals, most of them non-combatant women and old men, began heaving rocks down upon the Imass. They took axes to the uppermost section of the stairs, Jute included, and managed to send it tumbling down as well. One of the Imass fell a short distance, but caught himself, possibly breaking the bones of his arm.
The lead three reached the top where soil and sod curled over the lip. As they dragged themselves over, people crowded in to hack at them. It was frantic and panicked – ugly to any soldier, no doubt, as utter disorder reigned. People got in each other’s way, even injured one another with their wild swings. Jute caught himself sobbing and cursing as he tried to get a blow in.
One Imass lost an arm and slipped back over the lip, presumably to fall. The two others righted themselves beneath a flurry of blows and drew their stone blades. A lucky swing took one’s hand off where it gripped the blade and the Imass lashed out to clutch its adversary’s neck. Trachea and vertebrae popped and crunched audibly, then it tossed the limp corpse over the edge behind it. Spears thudded into its torso to stand like decorations. It knelt to retrieve its blade odd-handed. The other Imass slashed down a woman. Two men threw themselves on to it, wrapped their arms around it, and the three tottered backwards to slip off the edge and disappear in complete deathly silence.
The remaining Imass slashed about itself. Men and women fell clutching at deep eviscerating cuts that spilt blood and bile over the grass. The Imass waded into the crowd which exploded in wild panic. Jute knew that he not could let this attacker come at the wall from the rear, and so he backed off to allow it to pass and then began to stalk it.
Perhaps it was simply too intent upon slaughter to notice his approach, Jute did not know, but he raised his long-hafted axe up over his head for a great swing, charged the last two steps, and brought the iron wedge-shaped blade down upon the mangy, desiccated half-bare skull, and split it nearly in two.
The blade wedged at the base of the neck. As the creature swung round it tore the haft from Jute’s grip. Jute backed away, appalled. Ye gods! What does it take …
The creature slashed, catching Jute’s upper arm. He gasped at the sizzling pain of the cut and kept retreating back towards the cliff edge. The Imass kept after, incensed perhaps by this fellow who dared split its head with an axe. His right arm hung blood-soaked and numb, He knelt one-handed for an abandoned spear and gripped it hard, tucking the haft under his armpit for further stability.
The Imass came on. When Jute’s very heels were at the cliff’s lip he lunged, striking the spear home in the Imass’s chest. It raised its blade to hack at the haft; still gripping the weapon, Jute danced a half-circle and pushed with all his might. The Imass sliced through the haft, but not before it staggered backwards and overbalanced, to slip suddenly from view.
Jute lurched back towards the tower and the wall beyond. He gripped his arm where the blood still welled. His vision seemed to darken and there was a roaring in his ears – he suspected it was his laboured pulse. Coming round the base of the tower he found the ground before the entrance blackened and smoking. Three corpses, no more than white bones and charcoal, lay upon the scorched earth. Two were Imass, the other Jute assumed to be the sorceress’s servant, since she herself sat up against one wall of the entrance, her chest heaving, her leg and a hand bloodied.
He tottered to her. ‘Can you stand?’
She nodded tiredly. ‘Barely.’
He helped her up then surveyed the corpses. ‘Your servant saved your life.’
‘He did.’
‘I can’t remember his name.’
‘It was Velmar.’
‘Ah.’ He scanned the walls, blinking to clear his vision. Perhaps he was seeing things, but it seemed that half of those who’d stood defending the walls were gone. Bodies lay thick upon the catwalk. The local northerners were still fighting side by side with the Blue Shields, all struggling to push back the Imass. Malle and the Malazan veterans held the east arc of the wall. Jute watched amazed while the young cadre mage’s roaring streams of flame cleared a swath across the top and the lean older mage thrust with his staff, somehow driving individual Imass off as if punched. Yet more took the wall than were repelled. The young cadre mage jerked, the flames snapping away; she toppled backwards impaled upon a slim cream-hued blade. Sections of the top were being yielded to the Imass. A hoarse bellow of alarm from the old Malazan mage marked his rush to an exposed Malle; he charged, knocking Imass from the wall, clearing a section, only to totter, slashed through to hanging ribbons of cloth and red gashes, and fall forward from sight.