Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(50)

Didn’t he trust her?

The boat ground ashore and Luthal and his escort of six guards clambered out. She and Blues followed; the guard kept a steady bead on them with their crossbows as if they would throw themselves upon Luthal. She ignored them. Together they all awaited K’azz’s arrival. Other than they, the beach was deserted. When she and Blues had headed out, Ghelath and the rest of the Avowed had returned to the Greetings, there to await the outcome of the trial – and to avoid any further fees the Letherii might invent to level upon them.

Out of curiosity, Shimmer peered about at the so-called ‘establishment’. What immediately came to mind was an impression of general shabbiness. That, and the temporary, transient character of everything. No buildings of any sort had been erected. Canvas tents, pole-framed, stood here and there. Fire pits were in evidence everywhere. The Letherii soldiers – private hired guards, she corrected herself – lounged about in the shade of the tents, all but those manning the palisade that ran across the inland edge of the beach. The entire band appeared scruffy, ill-fed, and lacking in any discipline.

They would prove no challenge should Shimmer choose to act.

K’azz, however, held his company to a higher standard. No mere brigands were they to simply take what lay within their power to take. And Shimmer found that she agreed, though it galled her to have to endure the smug self-righteousness of Luthal.

The palisade troubled her. Clearly they were not alone on the island. Who were the locals? Hostile in any case, she assumed. And the palisade itself was not built simply of logs. It was an uneven mishmash of adzed timbers and sections of what appeared to be decking and hulls of ships. The entire construction was made up of bits and pieces of salvage from many wrecks.

She studied the rising pillar-like slopes above and noted that while grasses and low brush covered the rock, anything larger was entirely absent. Not one tree grew here – or they’d all been harvested for cooking or building. Had K’azz seen this earlier when he’d been studying the island?

A grunt of outrage from Luthal drew her attention to the lagoon. A dot had emerged from the waves: K’azz broaching the surface. Hunched forward, the man doggedly carried on, step after laborious step. And the shifting sands couldn’t be helping.

His shoulders emerged, each looped by the numerous ropes supporting his load of stones.

‘Impossible …’ Luthal murmured at Shimmer’s side. His voice, she noted, held a touch of awe. He turned to her, now scowling. ‘This is your foreign Warren-magic.’ He swept a hand down in dismissal. ‘This is illegal. You are forfeit.’

‘Forfeit?’ Blues snarled. ‘You set a trial. We pass it. Now you back out?’

The crossbowmen, Shimmer saw from the corners of her eyes, were spreading out in a semicircle facing them. K’azz was now only knee-deep in the surf. With each step the stone weights hung upon him clattered and knocked as he heaved himself up the steep grade of the beach. Shimmer tried to catch his eye but his head was lowered in his struggle to stay erect.

‘Mistrial!’ Luthal shouted. ‘I call mistrial! Outside influence!’

Shimmer had had enough. ‘Oh, shut the Abyss up.’ She ran down into the waves to help K’azz. Together, she and Blues half dragged their commander the rest of the way until he sank to his knees. The stones rattled and Shimmer noted the deep gouges the ropes had pressed into his shoulders. Blues had already begun cutting.

‘This proves nothing,’ Luthal continued, his voice rising.

K’azz heaved himself to his feet. Shimmer was amazed to see that he was not even out of breath. He pushed back his sodden hair and studied Luthal. Shimmer knew him well enough to read the fury in his narrowed impassive gaze.

‘You will not honour even your own laws?’ he ground out. His voice was level but Shimmer heard the disappointment, and disgust.

The Letherii showed only defiance, arms crossed, his expression one of arrogant superiority. ‘You did not follow the spirit of the law,’ he objected.

Shimmer found the man’s blindness to his own hypocrisy breathtaking. Moreover, he was obviously incapable of even understanding the possibility of it.

K’azz appeared to have reached the same conclusion as he blew out his breath and wiped the remaining water from his face. ‘Very well. Since there is no way we can ever satisfy you … we shall go.

‘Go? You cannot go – there remains the matter of the debt!’

For the first time a hard edge crept into K’azz’s voice: ‘I fulfilled your trial yet I choose to forgo the hundred Peaks. Consider yourself lucky not to be the one indebted.’

Luthal’s mouth twisted as he tasted the sourness of his position. Curtly, he waved them off. ‘Go then. Renegers. Men and women of bad faith. I cannot do business with those who refuse to honour even the most basic laws of commerce.’

Blues drew breath to answer but K’azz wearily raised a hand for silence. Together they walked to the small skiff that Ghelath had left pulled up the shore.

‘They gonna shoot us from behind?’ Blues murmured to K’azz, without looking back.

‘I suspect not,’ K’azz answered. ‘That would precipitate a pocket war between our forces. Bad for business.’

‘You’ve shown some restraint yourself,’ Shimmer observed.

K’azz nodded his tired agreement. ‘I gave the man every chance, Shimmer,’ he said. ‘Witness that. Every chance.’