Ian Esslemont - Assail

Then a hammer struck her across the head and she tumbled sideways off the horse to land numb with the shock of it. Pink coloured the swirling visions that assaulted her. She sensed her awarenesses, like survivors lashed to a raft, battling to remain afloat. The most potent of them, Nightchill, appeared to swim before her. Not in ten thousand years have they dared! she snarled, enraged. Bizarrely, behind the cracks widening between her shared essences, came the bellowed joy of Bellurdan as the giant gloried in the unleashed puissance washing over them. Darkness took her then.

*

A jolt awoke her to the utter blackness of a deeply overcast night. Except in one direction: bright mage-fire flickering in greens and blues far off. She was being carried over steep ground while lying flat in some sort of litter. Distant thunder rumbled and murmured and she thought it odd that a storm should be rising — perhaps it was all these clouds. She closed her eyes.

When she woke again it was day, or a fog-choked attempt at one in any case. Branches of conifers passed overhead. The ground was rough. Four T’lan Imass carried her. Again distant rumblings and eruptions rolled over them in sharp distinct blasts; were they moving into a thunderstorm?

‘What happened?’ she asked, rather groggily.

Kilava’s head appeared in her vision. Black flakes of dried blood marked where her nose must have bled. ‘You are with us still — good. They were of course quite worried.’

‘Worried that I had fallen apart?’

The Bonecaster nodded her agreement. ‘Something like that.’

She rubbed her forehead where it seemed as if a spike had been driven between her eyes. ‘What happened?’

‘We are privileged,’ the Bonecaster remarked with something like very dry humour.

She blinked, not certain she understood. ‘Privileged?’

‘To witness something thought long gone from the world. The birth … well, the re birth of a Jaghut ice barrier. The T’lan are understandably rather … angered.

She’d like to see that — an angry T’lan Imass. How would one know?

‘What of the Kerluhm?’

‘They travel north as well. The, ah, disagreement has been set aside until we have dealt with this new threat.’

Silverfox allowed her throbbing head to fall back to rest upon the cloth of the litter. ‘Good.’

Kilava, however, appeared not to share her relief. She walked along, one hand on one of the wooden poles of the litter, and brushed aside branches that rained cold droplets. Nearby, rocks clattered and crashed in a slide. ‘Do not be glad, child, nor think those survivors safe. The rejuvenated ice barrier will grind them to splinters of bone if they do not flee.’

‘They will retreat.’

‘Let us hope so.’

She rubbed her head, astonished to find no wound upon it. The impact must have been sorcerous alone. A wave of Omtose Phellack colliding with Tellann. Fraying it with its intensity. She and Kilava, both alive, both Bonecasters, felt the punishment of this dismembering. The T’lan, being undying, remained immune. Thus the ritual of Tellann.

‘So we travel to it, then,’ she murmured, and winced as the litter jerked in the hands of its bearers.

Kilava’s darkly tanned features took on an odd look, almost pained. ‘Well … the truth is, it is coming to us.’

The constant low rumblings took on an awful new meaning in Silverfox’s awareness. She raised her head to try to see, but all she could make out was an army of mist-shrouded trees on a steep rocky slope. Somewhere, though, stones shifted and hissed, punctuated by the crash of a tree falling. Like an enormous beast arising from the black depths, the awareness of what coming clarified in her thoughts and she eased her head down in wonder. Gods. They really went and did it. And we drove them to it. I hope the damned Kerluhm are happy now! And perhaps they are. Perhaps this was what they wanted all along: proof of the Jaghut’s threat. And now it’s a threat that would swallow us all.

* * *

K’azz, Shimmer and Blues led the way up the wide course of the ice-tongue. To either side naked ridges of rock rose like knife-edged barriers. It was snowing now, and above, through brief gaps in the massed storm clouds, the white expanse of the ice-field glittered in a hard cerulean light. They prodded the ice ahead with trimmed branches they had collected, searching for hidden crevasses in the creaking and groaning surface beneath their feet. Indeed, this course of ice, this frost-serpent, struck her as nearly a river in truth as she imagined it bucking and writhing under her boots. She had the unnerving sensation that they were actually moving backwards and making no progress at all.

Yet they struggled on. All without a spoken word. More than ever now was she determined to see this thing to its utter end. They had come too far; too many had fallen. She could never face the Brethren if the day came and she had no answer for them. So she planted one tattered leather boot before the other and leaned upon the long branch, prodding and probing as she went.

Something, however, seemed to be resisting her. Some force pressed down upon her, dimming her awareness. Each footfall felt like an eternity. At times she had trouble lifting her boots as the ice seemed to grip and pull at them. Once or twice she found herself on her knees; these spells she shook off and lurched to her feet once more.

A hand tugged at her mail armour and she turned, blinking. It was the Myrni girl, Siguna. ‘I have been calling,’ she shouted, looking oddly panicked.

Shimmer frowned. Calling? Whatever could she mean?

‘Your friends! They have fallen behind! One won’t rise. Another is missing!’

Shimmer had to force herself to concentrate upon the words and their meaning. Missing? Fallen? Understanding finally reached her and she nodded her thanks, pointed to where she’d last seen Blues through the swirling fat flakes of snow. ‘Get Blues.’

The girl gave a quick nod and ran off.

For a moment Shimmer watched her go, wondering at her energy and lightness of foot over the snow. Whatever was weighing upon her didn’t seem to be affecting the girl at all. Then she shook her head and began tramping back to find the rest of the column.

A knot of figures, no more than dark outlines amid the brushing curtains of blowing snow, waited below. She found Gwynn, Bars, Black the Lesser and Turgal with the two Heels, Baran and Erta. They stood around a figure keeling in snow up to her waist. Lean.

Gwynn greeted her, gestured to Lean. ‘She will not get up.’

Shimmer knelt before her friend, gripped her chin and lifted it to study her. The woman’s face was slack, her eyes unfocused. ‘Come to me, Lean,’ she called.

Lean blinked. The eyes searched, found Shimmer’s face. ‘Let me sleep,’ she mumbled through lips nearly frozen shut.

‘No. Time to move out. We’re waiting.’

‘I’m too Togg-blasted tired.’

Blues joined them, followed by K’azz. Shimmer looked up. ‘What should we do?’

‘Where is Keel?’

Bars’ dark hair hung in an unkempt mess; he was growing a thick black beard. He winced and gestured down behind them. ‘I’m sorry … I should’ve noticed.’

‘None of us did,’ Gwynn said.

K’azz raised a hand to end the matter. ‘You four will go back — take Lean with you. Find Keel. Cross to a rock ridge. Get off the ice. Wait there.’

Bars’ face revealed his shocked disbelief. ‘You can’t send us back!’

K’azz’s voice softened. ‘Not back, Bars. Off the ice. It is dangerous for you.’

‘But not for you, or Shimmer, or Blues?’

‘We … seem able to fight its effects better. Now, pick her up and go.’ He gestured Gwynn to him: ‘Make sure they all make it off.’