Ian Esslemont - Assail

‘You are?’ she demanded.

‘Ut’el, Bonecaster to the Kerluhm.’

The woman turned from him to rest her attention upon the other Imass. This one stood firm and impassive beneath her hard gaze. ‘Lanas,’ the woman said at last, and there was no welcome in her voice.

The Imass dipped her head, the teeth and stones woven into her remaining white hair clattering in the chill air. ‘Summoner.’

From what she’d heard of events in south Genabackis, Shimmer now understood this Summoner to be Silverfox, a living Imass Bonecaster — the first in millennia. And born, it was said, to fulfil their Vow. This must be so, she decided, as she noted how Silverfox ignored the Jaghut matriarch. Yet the surviving Iceblood, the Heels and the Sayers, were lined up before their ancestor, ready to defend her. Standing apart was the small grouping of Kyle, Fisher and the Tiste Andii. It occurred to her that, being from this region, Kyle might also be a target of the Imass. She signed to K’azz: Shall we defend?

He answered: Wait and see.

After studying this second Imass, and perhaps communicating some soundless message, the Summoner dismissed her. In passing, her gaze fell upon K’azz and Shimmer saw how it fixed there. The woman started, almost stunned, it seemed, by what she saw. An entire gamut of emotions crossed her wrinkled, sun-burnished features: surprise, disbelief and amazement, followed by near horror and stricken grief.

K’azz, for his part, simply lowered his head as if in shame.

Recovering her bearing, the woman tore her gaze from K’azz to face the Bonecaster. ‘You have done well, Ut’el, to sustain so many against the pull of Phellack. For that I salute you. But I must ask: what is it you believe you will accomplish here?’

‘I merely serve the demands of the Vow, Summoner.’

Silverfox answered, her voice hard: ‘I decide what does, or does not, serve the Vow, Bonecaster.’

Ut’el bowed his head, acknowledging her authority. ‘Forgive me, but all was set out ages ago. It is our legacy. It is all we Imass have left to us.’

‘All you have …’ Silverfox echoed, wonder in her voice. She turned on the one named Lanas. ‘I see … My apologies, Ut’el, I had thought you Kerluhm deliberately blind. But I see that I was mistaken.’ She closed to stand directly before the female Imass with her copper-capped incisors and ravaged torso of countless sword thrusts. ‘You, Lanas Tog, have withheld the gift of the Redeemer.’

‘Time for that afterwards, Summoner,’ Lanas answered, her voice faint and dry as falling leaves. ‘There will always be time … afterwards.’

‘What does the Summoner speak of, Lanas?’ Ut’el demanded.

‘You will not show them?’

The Imass remained immobile in her defiance.

Silverfox turned to Ut’el. ‘I speak of a gift that is not mine to give.’ She invited one of the Imass with her to stand forward.

Ut’el nodded his welcome, murmuring, ‘Greetings, Pran Chole of the Kron.’

Pran answered: ‘We honour the Kerluhm.’ He held out empty open hands that were no more than bundles of sinew-wrapped bone. ‘Tellann is suppressed here, Ut’el. May I offer a gift that was given us, unbidden and unlooked for, in lands beyond these?’

The bear-head hood covering Ut’el’s head dipped as he gave his assent. Pran advanced to press his hand to the Bonecaster’s forehead. It seemed an instant later that the Kerluhm Bonecaster snapped backwards as if having received a blow from a hammer. He raised his hands to his face and studied them. His sockets were empty pits, but it seemed to Shimmer that open wonder and amazement filled his features. ‘Who gave the T’lan Imass this gift of hope of a realm for our spirits?’

‘We name him the Redeemer.’

At that, the Kerluhm Bonecaster appeared to flinch, stricken by pain. He bowed to Silverfox. ‘I can do naught but strive to honour it,’ he murmured, his voice even more faint and breathless. He turned to the one named Lanas, who waited, immobile, her incisors bright in the hard light of the heights. ‘You knew of a realm where we might find peace after the Vow … yet you withheld it?’

‘We each sought to serve the Vow in our own way.’

The Bonecaster shook his lean desiccated head beneath its hood of curving bear fangs. ‘I thought such hope long gone from us, Lanas. Yet it lives again and I repent of my despair. Think on this during your ages-long imprisonment.’ He swept his hand and the Imass dissolved into a scarf of dust that the wind immediately scattered across the snows.

Ut’el turned to Silverfox. He knelt on one knee. ‘We of the Kerluhm offer ourselves to your judgement, Summoner.’

Silverfox laid a hand upon his bear headdress. ‘There can be no punishment worse than that which the T’lan have already endured tenfold, Ut’el. Stand with me. The Kron and the Ifayle welcome the Kerluhm.’

Ut’el stood and he and the two other Bonecasters grasped one another’s forearms: Pran Chole, and the other Shimmer now recognized as Tolb Bell’al, whom she had met on an ice-floe during their journey to Jacuruku. The Summoner, she noted, looked to the other woman, the short powerful one with hair like a long black mane that whipped in the wind. This one stood rigid, her arms wrapped tightly about herself, her cheeks wet. For an instant she appeared familiar to Shimmer; a ghost memory of having seen her before drifted across her awareness, only to waver away. Somewhere — she’d seen her before — she was certain.

As if summoned, this woman now strode towards her. An unreasoning urge to flee grasped Shimmer’s throat. She couldn’t breathe and she felt the hair rising upon her arms and neck in terror. Something awful is coming , she realized. Yet her feet in their frayed boots remained frozen to the ice, her lips numb with cold, and her arms heavy — so very heavy.

The woman faced Shimmer and K’azz and Blues and Cal-Brinn, lined up as they were to challenge the Kerluhm should they attack. Yet there was no hint of challenge in the woman’s wind-darkened features. No, what horrified Shimmer was the sadness there, the open compassion in her dark eyes.

The woman said to Silverfox, over her shoulder: ‘One more task awaits you before we may go, Summoner. One I do not envy you.’

Silverfox drew a heavy shuddering breath. Her hands closed to pale fists at her sides. ‘This is not my burden, Kilava,’ she answered, resolute.

The woman named Kilava closed her eyes for an instant, let her arms fall. ‘But it is.’ She added, ‘I’m sorry.’ Yet to whom she was apologizing was unclear to Shimmer.

Swallowing through her dread, Shimmer addressed K’azz: ‘What is this?’

The man was holding himself rigid. His hollowed cheeks and bruised sunken eyes made him look so very ill. Was this what they were speaking of? That he is near to death? ‘I’m so very sorry, Shimmer,’ he answered, his voice choked and ragged. ‘This wasn’t what I wanted — please believe me.’

‘What is it, please?’ she begged.

Silverfox seemed to drag herself to stand before them, flanked by Tolb Bell’al and Pran Chole. She studied them each in turn and the anguish in her eyes terrified Shimmer. ‘The Crimson Guard,’ she murmured, nodding to herself. ‘If only we had met earlier. I would have recognized it immediately, K’azz.’

‘You are the Summoner,’ he said, his voice hardly more than a groan.

‘Yes. So the task must fall to me though I wish it otherwise.’

Something in what they were saying made Shimmer dizzy; the thing lurking behind their words threatened her so much she thought she would lose her reason. She raised a hand, pointing to Kilava. ‘I have seen you before …’