Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(205)

The eruptions came almost continuously now, in a constant shooting spray of pulverized ice that arced high into the blowing snow. Jute thought the pushing lip of the ice-tongue was climbing the hump of bedrock. Soon, he imagined, it would sweep them off like dust from a tabletop.

All four crews kept pounding, and it did seem to Jute that larger chunks of broken ice now flew with each eruption. He gripped the topmost stone of the wall before him, itself many hundreds of pounds of rock, and felt the immense power of the grinding advance transmitted to his bones through the juddering of the stone. Break, damn you! he exhorted the ice. Break!

He’d seen towers brought down by one or two well-placed cussors. Entire harbour defences reduced to rubble with just a few casts. And now this man, Cartheron Crust, was pouring half the imperial arsenal of Moranth munitions into this unstoppable mountain of ice in a colossal contest of wills that would grind all else into dust.

The stones of the wall jerked towards him then, knocking his hand aside as if it were alive and flinching. Ahead, through the curls and scarves of snow, a great fountain of white was burgeoning upwards like a dome swelling over a surfacing swimmer. Enormous shards of blue-white ice now arced skywards. They blossomed outwards in all directions. A roar washed over Mantle that overcame even the valley-wide growling of the ice.

Smaller chunks fell all about him. They burst to shards against the wall. Some punched through the timbers of the catwalk. Nearby, a man fell as if mattocked, his head a shattered ruin. Jute ducked, arms over his head, and staggered down the ramp to take cover under the catwalk. Here, beneath his hand and his rump, the bedrock shook as if drummed. A deep wounded-animal sort of groan mounted into a high-pitched cracking. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the stupendous weight of the ice pulling it downslope to the east and to the west, naturally tugging in opposite directions. And so it would split – not of intent, but because the great ice-river merely wished to find the lowest level. He rose and clambered out to look. The ramp had been shaken to nothing more than a heap of dirt, and this he climbed to pull himself one-handed up on to the catwalk. The huge blocks of the wall were now misaligned and uneven in their course, and it seemed wondrous to Jute that the snow still fell as if nothing had happened. To the right and left coursed the dirty snow-blown river of ice, down to where the two arms came together again before sweeping out over the obliterated shore of the Sea of Gold.

They sat atop a scoured-clean island of naked rock.

He went to find Cartheron and spotted him collapsed against the wall, watched over by two of his crew. He was pale, squeezing his chest, his face clenched against pain. Jute knelt next to him. The roar of the creaking and groaning ice was still like a thunderstorm, and he had to yell to make himself heard. ‘Are you all right?’

The old man laughed weakly. ‘When Lady Orosenn sewed me up she told me to avoid any stress.’

‘Good thing you’re taking it easy, then.’

There was a tremor in the Malazan’s hands that he didn’t seem to notice. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘it’s the retired life for me.’

Jute stood. ‘I’ll get Orosenn.’

The old commander was too exhausted even to respond. Jute ran, searching for the sorceress. He found her at the extreme southern end of the catwalk close to the wall’s edge overlooking the cliff. She was watching the great tongue of ice where it crept out over the Sea of Gold.

Gaining her attention, he put a hand to his mouth to shout: ‘Cartheron is in a bad way.’

She nodded. ‘I’ve done what I can for him. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.’

He gestured out towards the sea. ‘What can we do?’

‘We wait.’

‘Will it be like this for ever?’

She bestowed the familiar affectionate smile upon him once more. ‘No, Jute of Delanss. This was a ferociously rapid invocation. It will fade faster than most. Perhaps a mere hundred years.’

Oh. A mere hundred years. ‘So it is over,’ he breathed, immensely relieved.

But the sorceress shook her head, her long black hair blowing like a veil. ‘No. This was only the opening salvo. The true confrontation is taking place high above. I wish I was there to add my voice.’

‘Add your voice?’

‘Against the rekindling of an ancient war. And I do not mean the animosity of the T’lan Imass for the Jaghut. There have been far older wars, Jute of Delanss. And there are some who never forget, nor forgive.’

He not know what the sorceress meant; did not have her deeper vision of events. He only knew that a friend was in pain, so he gestured once more that they should help Cartheron and Orosenn nodded, squeezing his arm.





CHAPTER XV



THEY WERE ONLY a short distance up the wide sinuous serpent of ice when Kyle halted. Blustering snow obscured the distance. He could just make out tall spine-like ridges of iron-grey rock that rose as barriers far to the east and west.

Fisher came to his side. ‘What is it?’

‘I can’t walk away.’

‘I told you – they’re safe. The farther from here the better.’

But Kyle couldn’t shake the feeling that he was betraying the Losts. It felt wrong, just turning his back. Even if they didn’t want him to follow. ‘No. I have to go back.’

Cal-Brinn joined them. ‘They’re closing. We must keep moving.’