Ian Esslemont - Assail

Closing now, up the silent unmoving ranks, came two figures. Both were of course of Imass stock, yet they differed strikingly: one was lean while the other markedly squat. The lean one wore the mangy and raggedy hide of what appeared to have once been a white bear. The beast’s head rode his own, the upper fangs hanging down before his mummified face. Necklaces of yellowed bear claws rode his chest, and the clacking and clattering of these were the only sounds Jute could hear.

The other Imass was among the most damaged of those present. She, and Jute intuited somehow that it was female, appeared to have been thrust through multiple times. She bore a primitive face of a broad shelf with a brow and wide jaws. Her canines jutted quite prominently and they glinted copper in the early morning light. Shells laced about her ragged leathers swung and clattered.

The Imass in the bear hide stepped forward. His voice, though as wispy as brushing leaves, somehow reached Jute: ‘Greetings. I am Ut’el Anag, Bonecaster to the Kerluhm T’lan Imass. Who addresses us in the old formula?’

‘I am Cartheron Crust of the Malazans. We greet you as allies and friends.’

Ut’el shifted to glance briefly to his companion Imass. ‘I understand that alliance no longer holds. You and all those not native to these lands are trespassers here. Stand aside and you will not be harmed. Our quarrel is not with you.’

‘This is the will of Silverfox?’ Cartheron called, much louder.

The Bonecaster paused only very slightly. ‘It is our way.’

‘But not hers, I gather. She is coming, is she not? Perhaps we would prefer to wait to hear her counsel on this matter.’

The bear head dipped as the Kerluhm Bonecaster nodded. ‘You may wait. Meanwhile, Omtose Phellack is rotting. I sense a powerful elder Jaghut within, but even she, being flesh and blood, will tire. Soon we shall be free to move as we wish.’

Jute turned to mutter to Cartheron: ‘He is right in that. What shall we do?’

The old commander answered beneath his breath: ‘Don’t worry yourself. They may be ancient, but they’re still awful at cards. They can’t bluff worth a damn.’

Smiling broadly, the ex-High Fist answered with a welcoming sweep of his arm. ‘Then sit yourself down and let me tell you all about my childhood on Nap. Do you know Nap? It’s an island south of Quon Tali. ’Course in your time it was probably a mountain top. In any case, I was born on Fanderay’s High Holy day — not that that’s done me any good — though my mam claims it shaped my character just as my brother Urko was born in a quarry-’

Ut’el raised a withered hand for silence. ‘So be it. You should not invite our attack. Do not think we will spare you as we did these other outsiders.’

‘I did not imagine so.’ Cartheron turned to the new king and Malle. ‘Find your place at the wall, ah, sire.’

The lad nodded and sauntered off, determined to show how unimpressed he was. ‘They were going to attack anyway,’ Malle said.

Cartheron waved her onward. ‘I figured as much.’

Jute took a renewed grip on his spear haft, found he had to wipe his hands once again.

The attack came as before: without warning or shouted orders. As one, the Imass simply advanced, spread along the arc of the wall. They clambered down the slope of the moat, pushed through the mud, then started climbing the wall using handholds in the rough stone slabs.

The defenders, local northerners, Malazans, and Blue Shields, thrust with spears to dislodge or stave off the wave. The Imass ignored these stabs as they climbed. Many defenders soon understood that thrusting weapons were ineffective against this ancient army, and so the spears, billhooks and pikes were thrown down and swords and axes readied.

Jute abandoned his own spear standing from the shoulder of an Imass — the creature calmly took hold of the haft, yanked it free, and returned to its slow deliberate ascent. Jute drew the weapon at his side and was appalled to remember as he saw it that it was a shortsword. He cursed Mael and himself. How could he have not foreseen … He madly searched about for a larger weapon.

Long-hafted axes lay gathered at the inside base of the wall. Jute scrambled down the ramp to collect one. He lifted one and was about to return to the wall when he heard a strange sound coming from the rear — from the cliff side. It was the methodical thump of wood being chopped.

He could hear this because the battle was eerily silent. The Imass, of course, made no noise at all; the defenders merely grunted, swore and exhaled noisily in their efforts, while wood and iron clattered from stone.

He wondered: what could possibly … Then he knew and his hair stirred to stand on end. He ran for the cliff top. A crowd of the locals had gathered here, peering down and pointing. Jute pushed through to the fore. Down below, four Imass had climbed out along the cliff to reach the stairway and were in the process of demolishing it. Even as he watched, sections of the stairs tore free of the rocks to tumble in awful slowness.

The Dawn was below! He looked to the vessels, and realized the crews had seen this coming and had already slipped moorings and were in the process of pulling away: the Dawn , the Ragstopper , and the Genabackan pirate’s. Even the Resolute , though Jute had no idea who might be crewing it.

The wreckage of timber crashed and burst upon the rocks. Entire lengths of the stairs had been cut from the cliff face. Jute watched the vessels raising sails and he silently bid Ieleen farewell. He knew now he would die here. His need to be part of negotiations, to witness events — to poke his nose in where it didn’t belong, as Ieleen had it — would finally finish him. As she had so long predicted.

Everyone at the cliff top now saw the four T’lan Imass climbing the rocks headed straight for them.

As the battle raged on behind them, these locals, most of them non-combatant women and old men, began heaving rocks down upon the Imass. They took axes to the uppermost section of the stairs, Jute included, and managed to send it tumbling down as well. One of the Imass fell a short distance, but caught himself, possibly breaking the bones of his arm.

The lead three reached the top where soil and sod curled over the lip. As they dragged themselves over, people crowded in to hack at them. It was frantic and panicked — ugly to any soldier, no doubt, as utter disorder reigned. People got in each other’s way, even injured one another with their wild swings. Jute caught himself sobbing and cursing as he tried to get a blow in.

One Imass lost an arm and slipped back over the lip, presumably to fall. The two others righted themselves beneath a flurry of blows and drew their stone blades. A lucky swing took one’s hand off where it gripped the blade and the Imass lashed out to clutch its adversary’s neck. Trachea and vertebrae popped and crunched audibly, then it tossed the limp corpse over the edge behind it. Spears thudded into its torso to stand like decorations. It knelt to retrieve its blade odd-handed. The other Imass slashed down a woman. Two men threw themselves on to it, wrapped their arms around it, and the three tottered backwards to slip off the edge and disappear in complete deathly silence.

The remaining Imass slashed about itself. Men and women fell clutching at deep eviscerating cuts that spilt blood and bile over the grass. The Imass waded into the crowd which exploded in wild panic. Jute knew that he not could let this attacker come at the wall from the rear, and so he backed off to allow it to pass and then began to stalk it.

Perhaps it was simply too intent upon slaughter to notice his approach, Jute did not know, but he raised his long-hafted axe up over his head for a great swing, charged the last two steps, and brought the iron wedge-shaped blade down upon the mangy, desiccated half-bare skull, and split it nearly in two.