Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(217)
Baran bowed also, smiling behind his beard. ‘With pleasure.’
Orman leaned more of his weight upon the thick haft of Svalthbrul. He nodded to Siguna. ‘Find us a favourable high vale that we may call our home.’
*
Jute haunted the cliff tops of Mantle Keep. They overlooked the one narrow clear channel that allowed access to the Sea of Gold through the ice cliffs. Great chunks of cerulean ice floated there, bumping and clashing on their way out to wander the sea. More fell daily, calving in massive eruptions of splitting ice.
Sometimes the Jaghut sorceress joined him to exercise her leg. Yet her gaze was drawn not out to sea, but to the north, and he knew she was considering leaving soon to make the journey up the great serpentine ice-floe where she claimed her mother abided.
Sometimes Cartheron walked with him, though any extended period of exertion tired the old campaigner and he would sit instead, grumbling about the food, the cold chambers, or the lack of circulation in his feet.
Other times the former lieutenant Giana Jalaz joined him. She, too, was quite eager for word from the outside world. King Voti of Mantle, it turned out, had been generous in rewarding the defence of his keep. His people had been residing here for a very long time on the shores of the Sea of Gold and had had ample opportunity to amass a considerable hoard of its namesake. All hidden below in chambers carved from the rock – all of which could have been swept away by the ice-serpent had not Cartheron intervened.
In any case, Giana was eager to transport her newfound riches home, where a certain plot of land awaited repurchase from the rapacious moneylenders of Mott. Jute knew also that a rather large chest sat in Malle’s chambers with his name upon it. None of that interested him, however, more than the sight of a certain vessel returning from its southern journey.
This day Cartheron sat in the sun while Jute paced back and forth, casting the occasional glance to the channel. Nearby, carpenters hammered and sawed a new stairway from the surplus of fallen logs surrounding them.
‘She made it, I’m certain,’ Cartheron assured him for the hundredth time as his pacing brought him past. ‘Question is, how far south did she go? Did she drop them off on the Bone Peninsula? Plenty of towns and cities down there, I understand.’
Jute nodded. Yes, he’d been through all that countless times in his mind. Always, he asked himself, what would I have done? How far would I have taken them? All the way to Genabackis? Gods, please, no!
He kneaded the still raw slash across his arm, shuddered in the chill air wafting off the ice. ‘We could build a new vessel before she returned,’ he complained.
Cartheron laughed. ‘Usually it’s the womenfolk home fretting for years – how does it feel to be on the other end?’
‘Ieleen and I always travelled together.’
The ex-High Fist straightened in his chair. ‘Ho? What’s this?’
Jute squinted out to the very mouth of the channel. Something dark was moving there amid the drifting chunks of frosty-blue ice.
‘Looks like a visitor,’ Cartheron observed.
It was still too far away for Jute to identify, but its general size and cut appeared encouraging.
‘Looks three-masted,’ Cartheron affirmed.
Crew were poling aside the ice as the vessel came on. Recognition came to Jute as the lines of its hull and the arrangement of its sails resolved into familiar lines. It was the Silver Dawn.
He waved frantically from the cliff’s edge. They drew nearer; sails were reefed and sweeps emerged. The Dawn advanced warily up the centre of the channel. It neared the wreckage of the docks and fallen lumber of the stairway in the waters at the base of the cliff.
Jute continued waving, one-handed, as his off-arm was still too stiff to raise.
And from the stern, next to the long tiller arm, though he knew she did not possess normal vision to see him as others did, a figure there returned his wave. His beloved Falaran sea-witch.
*
In the end, the ferocious relentless wind drove them to seek shelter at the Jaghut matriarch’s dwelling amid the bare rock of the peaks. It was no more than a heap of stones, a tomb rather than a home. He and Fisher took turns fetching wood for the meagre fire they kept.
Of the Matriarch they saw little; she invited them in yet quit the dwelling herself. Kyle felt uncomfortable for having driven her from her own home, yet he was also thankful for her absence, as the slim cave was hardly large enough for him and Fisher.
The bard passed the time composing on the kantele. Kyle listened with one ear while he scanned the lifeless windswept rocky slopes, his legs out, half asleep. One morning he overheard the bard singing faintly to himself as he strummed.
‘In these rows there are tales
For every line, every broken smile
Draw close then
And dry these tears
For I have a story to tell’
He also heard lines concerning ancient races of giants, hidden valleys, maidens of war, and powerful weapons whose curses doom their bearers. These last phrasings made him eye the bard sidelong.
By the fourth night he’d started wondering how to broach the subject of moving on when a huge dark shape emerged from the gloom. The Matriarch announced: ‘Someone is coming.’
Fisher eased the instrument back into its satchel and Kyle tightened his bear-hide cloak about his shoulders. They set out, leaning away from the slicing winds.