Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(189)

The defenders retreated down the ramps in a solid wedge, the Blue Shields at the rear, fending off the T’lan in their slow advance.

‘We will not last,’ Jute murmured, now certain of it.

‘No. They will win through.’

‘Well, I will guard you now.’

She turned the same affectionate look upon him that he had often noticed. ‘You are gallant, Jute of Delanss. But Ieleen would have you back. Even now she fights to protect you.’

He blinked again, bewildered. ‘Oh? How so?’

‘She is helping to pull the wind out of the heights.’

‘A wind?’ He had noticed how cold the air was and how the banners snapped and whipped.

‘Yes.’ The sorceress’s eyes slipped closed and she stumbled back against the stone wall. She clasped a deep cut in one thigh and fought to open her eyes once more. ‘It brings news from the ice-fields. I only hope their Bonecaster will notice.’

She would have fallen but for Jute catching her, one-armed, and lowering her to sit up against the jamb. They found him like that, kneeling before her, rubbing her hand and whispering that she come back to them.

She smiled then, her eyes shut, and murmured, ‘Ieleen is a lucky woman, Jute of Delanss.’

It was Cartheron who gently urged him aside. He felt for her pulse, then pressed a hand to her chest.

‘Will she …’ Jute began.

‘She’ll live. That we could even dare face them is thanks to her.’

Jute peered about. He was astonished and alarmed to see Tyvar here. The man’s chest was heaving, his mail hacked through across his torso and arms, helmet gone, his cheek and scalp slashed – the blood from these head wounds was soaking his neck and shoulder, yet his eyes were shining with joy.

‘What happened?’ Jute demanded.

‘They’d reached the bailey in places,’ Tyvar explained, each word a laboured breath, ‘and so we pulled the locals back even as they refused to retreat. Then, all at once, the Imass drew off.’ He appeared as bewildered as Jute.

‘I saw it,’ Cartheron said. ‘Their Bonecaster, Ut’el. All of a sudden his head snapped round to the north and he took off without hesitating. The rest followed him.’

‘They are hurrying to the heights to stop it,’ said Orosenn, her voice dreamy with fatigue.

‘Stop what?’ Cartheron asked.

She raised an arm and Jute took it to help her up. She leaned back against the wall, drew a ragged breath. ‘The Imass have their ritual of Tellann, you know. They used it to create the T’lan. We have our ritual as well. The Raising of Phellack. Someone in the heights has invoked it. What powers I possess are as a raindrop in the ocean compared to the might I sense being marshalled there. And when it comes …’ She shook her head, almost falling once more. ‘All of you must flee – now.’

‘What is it? What comes?’ Jute asked, almost unable to believe that anything worse could possibly happen.

She smiled again, but sadly this time. ‘The true end of the world, Jute of Delanss.’

* * *

They walked in silence, for there was nothing more to say. None called for a halt for a meal; no one stopped when the sun set, nor when the sun rose. It seemed unnecessary, even tedious to Shimmer to consider halting so close to their goal.

K’azz led through the woods and high ridges. He pushed through frigid streams and up steep valley slopes. Shimmer followed next in line. Bars came after, then Lean, Keel, Black the Lesser, Turgal, Gwynn, and Blues in the rear. Where Cowl had gone, or even whether he still followed, she did not care.

They were high in these northern mountains now, the Salt range. They parted thick hanging cloud banks as if walking through an underworld of mists. Banners of the opaque fogs wove about them like the sinuous bodies of dragons. For brief moments she would note how loose her mail coat hung from her; how her hair lay tangled about her face and shoulders; how ragged her leather boots had become, yet she walked on, uncaring. K’azz promised their fate lay ahead. The secret of the Vow – which was clearly now a curse.

They came to a high meadow, a clearing that had once been a series of cultivated fields, now long abandoned, and they spread out. K’azz, on her right, was a vague silhouette in the low churning clouds, as was Bars on her left. A burned empty husk of a Greathall emerged from the mists ahead. Whatever tragedy had happened here had been wrought long ago. Saplings grew within the tumbled logs.

Past the overgrown remains of the burned hall stood a modest log cabin, sod-roofed. Here two figures rose from the tall grasses to confront them. Enormous they reared, to Shimmer’s eyes, both far taller than any normal man or woman, yet both obviously young in years. The lad wore supple tanned leathers and possessed a thick curled mane of russet hair and a beard to match. The girl was equally sturdy, in hunting leathers, her long blazingly red hair plaited.

The lad drew two hatchets to stand protectively before the girl. ‘You’ll not take us easily, damn you.’

K’azz raised his open hands. ‘We intend no harm. We seek the heights and those who live there.’

‘You intend no harm?’ the lad repeated, incredulous. ‘You who have slain all our kin?’

‘We have slain no one. We are mercenaries out of lands far to the west.’

The lad frowned his disbelief but rubbed his eyes then examined them more closely. He jerked a nod. ‘I am sorry. For a moment there I mistook you for … for someone else.’