Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(7)

That alarmed Kyle, and he must have not made a good enough job of disguising his reaction as the captain held up a hand. ‘You are Malazan. I understand your concern. But do not worry. All that is the past, no? We are now brothers together in this venture for gainful capital, yes?’

Kyle allowed a wary smile. ‘Of course.’ Struck by a new thought, he studied Reuth. ‘So you know the coast …’

The lad blushed and lowered his gaze. Tulan stroked his beard and grinned like a proud uncle, saying, ‘We have the best maps outside Assail itself, I am sure.’

Reuth dared a glance. ‘The names,’ he whispered, as if frightened. ‘I don’t understand the names. ‘Have you heard those names?’

Kyle nodded his agreement. Yes. Those names haunted the stories of his youth. All of them ghost stories. ‘Wrath …’ he murmured. ‘Wrack … Dread … Black Pit … the Anguish Coast.’

Tulan grunted, but not unkindly. ‘You’re young, Reuth.’ He held another titbit of meat over the brazier. ‘We may be ignorant provincials here in these lands, friend Kyle, but I know a tale or two. I’ve heard tell of lands where people name their children “Fool”, “Louse”, or even “Splitnose”. Know you why they would do such cruel things to their own children?’

Kyle smiled his understanding. ‘To turn away the attention of the gods – or demons.’

‘Exactly. So, tell me, friend Kyle, if you wanted to ruin a place what would you name it?’

His smile twisted to its side. ‘I suppose I’d tout it as Paradise. Or Bounty.’

‘Exactly. And if you wanted to keep people away?’ Tulan turned his questioning gaze on Reuth.

The lad nodded. ‘I see.’

‘Or perhaps they are just awful places,’ Kyle suggested.

Tulan burst out in a great bout of laughter. ‘Perhaps indeed they are, friend Kyle.’ He rubbed his hands again on his already greasy furs and leathers. ‘So. You will bunk here on the Lady’s Luck, yes?’

Kyle motioned that he had no objection.

‘You have gear? I could send Storval.’

‘No – no thank you.’

The captain waved to Kyle’s side. ‘Need you another blade? We have plenty.’

He could not stop his hand from going to his belt where he carried his sword wrapped in leather. ‘No. It is quite all right. I will repair it.’

The big man shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Storval will see you bunked. We’ll push out with tomorrow’s evening tide, yes?’

Kyle rose. ‘Very good. Thank you.’ He bowed to the captain and noted how Reuth now could not keep his gaze from the wrapped blade at his side. He descended to the rowing deck. Tulan bellowed: ‘Storval! Rouse your worthless hide! See to this man’s berth!’

While the first mate rubbed his eyes and stretched, Kyle stood with his hand still resting on his covered sword. He wondered whether these two had heard the tales of the war against the Lady. Stories making the rounds of the invasion and rebellion. Of the Malazan commander Greymane, named Stonewielder here, and his foreign companion, and of two swords: one grey and one pale. The grey one was gone. The stuff of mere legend now. But the rumours also told of an ivory sword carried by a foreign warrior, a blade that could cut through anything. A sword he’d heard the stories here named Whiteblade. A weapon, they said, fit for a god.

These stories were closer to the truth than even their tellers knew. For the blade came to his hand from the hand of the Sky-King Osserc himself, and Kyle was beginning to suspect just what it might be. The possibilities terrified him. And so he dared not leave it out of his sight, yet he dared not show it either. The burden of it was a curse. A damned curse. So had Greymane named the stone sword he had wielded. And now Kyle understood the man completely.

He clenched the weapon in its leather wrap more tightly to his side. Storval motioned curtly to the steps down into the low-roofed storage cabin beneath the stern deck. ‘You may sleep here tonight,’ he growled, then smiled wolfishly and added, ‘But after tomorrow it’s the rowing benches for you – what say you to that, foreigner?’

Kyle shrugged indifferently. ‘Beats the ground.’

The first mate sneered his disbelief and curtly waved him down.

* * *

Shimmer did not want to do it, but two months after returning from Jacuruku and the harrowing though successful expedition to that cursed land, she requested a select few of the officers of the Crimson Guard meet her in the forest just north of Fortress Haven, Stratem.

She realized that this decision had been some time in coming. These last months of indecision and inactivity on the part of K’azz had merely provoked it. Cal-Brinn and the Fourth remained trapped in Assail and still no steps were being taken to organize their rescue. K’azz had even been told that answers to what awaited the Guard in the future lay in those lands. Yet he did nothing. No vessels had been hired nor were efforts being made to begin construction. K’azz had simply disappeared once more into the wild tracts of Stratem’s interior.

It was infuriating. And it was saddening. He was allowing her no choice. She had to act. It was in the best interest of the Guard.

Yet she was also self-aware enough to reflect: or so I tell myself.

Even so, it cost her a full month of sleepless nights. The doubts and self-recriminations would not go away. Was she no better than Skinner? He too had expressed his dissatisfaction with K’azz’s leadership – though in a far more direct and decisive fashion.