Ian Esslemont - Assail

The lines of the bard’s mouth appeared graven in stone. His grey-streaked long hair whipped in the strong winds and his gloved hand was upon the grip of his Darujhistani longsword. ‘Go east or west. Hide anywhere but here.’

The elder continued to close. ‘You would draw a weapon upon me?’

‘If I must. You mustn’t disturb what lies above.’

‘What lies above is our only chance of escape.’

The bard’s features appeared ready to crack. He gasped as if in pain: ‘There are other ways.’

Kyle’s own hand went to the blade at his belt as he saw how the Sayer lad’s fists tightened upon the spear, and the two with him prepared to draw their longswords.

The elder shook her head as she advanced right up into sword-range. ‘Will you draw upon me?’

Some terrible emotion shuddered through the bard and his face broke as he groaned, defeated. His hand fell from the sword grip and he slumped to the rocks to sit hunched, his head in his hands.

The elder passed him. She rested a hand upon his head for a time, as in blessing, then walked on. When Kyle reached him he extended a hand. At first the bard refused to raise his head. But then he held up a hand, which Kyle took to pull him upright.

‘There is no dishonour here,’ he told him.

Fisher shook his head, fierce. ‘She is a fool if she thinks she can control them. Or dictate terms. No one can.’

‘We shall see,’ Jethiss said. His gaze was on the heights, where a blasting wind punished the bare rock above.

‘The same goes for you,’ Fisher told him.

A peculiar smile came to the Andii’s lips. ‘I merely have one simple wish.’ And he passed them, climbing once more.

The Crimson Guard reached them. Kyle noted how the bard regarded them now with a bruised look in his eyes of which the mercenaries seemed oblivious. Blues carried his sticks in his hands and he gestured back with them. ‘They’re gaining and there’re too many of them.’

‘Our guide believes she has a secret weapon,’ Fisher spat, hugging himself.

‘Well, we’d better find it damned soon,’ Blues grumbled. He urged them on.

Kyle almost groaned himself as he forced his legs to move. Dizzy spells came and went and he had to rest, sitting a few times, until one of the Guard appeared to chivvy him along. He had no idea how long they’d been climbing, though the sky was clear now and he could see that it was late in the afternoon. He felt as if he’d been wandering across the entire mountain range for an eternity.

*

Shimmer found that she climbed in a fog, even though they had left the mists and snow of the cloud cover far behind. Above, the Jaghut elder, the obvious matriarch of all these northern clans, led the way. Her distant descendants followed. The ex-Guardsman Kyle came after them, filled out now to a rangy, fierce-looking plainsman and fitting bearer of a storied blade. He kept fitting company as well; the strange Andii, and the legendary bard.

K’azz had them spread out to serve as a rear guard. She could not stop peering over to Cal — just to make certain he really was still with them. What a shock it had been, finding him. The man hadn’t appeared much different, only more careworn than before. Yet she must have changed; she saw the distress of it in his eyes when they embraced. And his shock upon seeing K’azz’s condition couldn’t be hidden from any of them.

‘The others?’ K’azz had asked, and he had replied: ‘Waiting below,’ and that had been the extent of the conversation. Then they fell in together and it was as if nothing had intervened and no time had passed at all — though in truth, nearly two decades had come and gone.

She climbed. Rocks clattered and shifted beneath her ratty broken boots, and she wondered how it could be that so much time could have disappeared without her noticing it. Perhaps, she reflected, that was how lives went by. Long or short, they ran out like sand through your fingers before you could even think of closing your fist; and by then it was too late, and the sands were gone.

A shout snapped her head up. A warning from Blues. She turned, drawing her whipsword all in one motion.

They faced a closing skirmish line of T’lan Imass. Some forty in all. Cal-Brinn had his longsword out, Blues his sticks. K’azz stood with arms crossed.

Two Imass approached from the line. One wore the rotted hide of a northern white bear. Necklaces of bear claws rattled about his withered neck. The other was squat and bore a trim of white hair about its skull, tied with what looked like stones or shells.

‘Stand aside,’ the white bear one whispered, his voice carrying as if he yelled.

‘Remember your manners!’ K’azz answered, startling Shimmer with the sudden new anger in his voice. ‘I would know who speaks!’

The lead one’s features, dried and withered, almost conveyed surprise. He inclined his head in assent. ‘I am Ut’el, of the Kerluhm T’lan Imass. Who is it that knows the old formulas?’

‘Well met, Ut’el. I am K’azz, of the Crimson Guard. Know that we will not allow you to pass.’

‘You will be brushed aside,’ stated the Imass next to Ut’el.

‘You may try,’ K’azz invited.

One of the line advanced, whispering, ‘Enough talk.’ It swung its long chalcedony blade at K’azz, who stepped inside to block the arm, twisting. Bones snapped like dry branches and K’azz took the weapon while kicking down the Imass.

The entire gathering of T’lan Imass became utterly motionless, as did Shimmer, watching but not believing. How could that have happened? How did K’azz do such a thing?

After remaining frozen for a time, Ut’el tilted his ravaged head and whispered in a voice like the wind scouring the rocks: ‘Who are you?’

‘Greetings, old enemy!’ came a bellow that made Shimmer jump. It was the Jaghut, coming down the slope, awkwardly, stepping sideways. Her descendants were arrayed before her, spears lowered and swords readied.

Fisher and Jethiss accompanied her.

Ut’el straightened in obvious recognition. ‘I did not think to see you again,’ he answered. He pointed a withered finger to the lad, Orman. ‘That is my spear you hold.’

‘You deserve it,’ Orman grated. He raised it to throw.

The Jaghut reached out and lowered the spear-point with her hand. ‘There will be no hostilities. We are in the shadow of the Forkrul.’

Ut’el turned his flat dried mien to right and left. ‘I see them not. They sleep — as is their nature.’

‘Dare you risk that?’

He waved to encompass everyone with her. ‘Dare you?’

She crossed her arms. ‘We are at stalemate, then.’

The Imass edged his head beneath its bear skull in the faintest of negatives. ‘I think not. You yet have everything to lose. While we … possess nothing.’

‘I believe you will find that you are wrong in that, Ut’el,’ K’azz said, loudly and suddenly. He lowered his head a touch to indicate the lower slope. Ut’el and the one with him turned. An instant later, all the Imass turned as well.

Shimmer peered past them: what looked to be four more T’lan Imass approached. She could see nothing in this — four more meant nothing as there were already too many to withstand. Yet what of K’azz and his defeat of one? There was something in that — some hint of an idea that, for some reason, she could not bring into focus. Something that made her look away from her commander.

The four proved to be two obvious T’lan and two living women — one old, the other of middle-age. From the manner in which the two T’lan followed the older woman, Shimmer thought her the leader, though the other woman, dark and wind-tanned, stood apart.

To Shimmer’s astonishment, the gathered T’lan Imass knelt to one knee before the old woman in her worn tanned leathers and necklaces of turquoise and green jade. Ut’el, the leader, knelt as well, murmuring, ‘Summoner. You honour us.’