Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

Someone was pushing through the crowd behind her, snarling curses and dire warnings. A moment later, Skwish scrambled forward. ‘There’s near a thousand gulpin’ down o’er there, Queen. When they get their nerve, they’re gonna carve inta us-we got a line a ex-guards an’ the like betwixt ’em an’ us. You better do somethin’ and do it fast… Highness.’

She could hear renewed fighting, somewhere down the beach. Twilight frowned. Something about that sound… ‘Do you hear that?’ she asked the witch cowering at her side.

‘Wha?’

‘That’s an organized advance, Skwish.’ And she pushed past the old woman, making her way towards that steady clash of iron, the shouts of commands being given, the shrieks and cries of dying looters. Even in the uncertain flickering light from the forest fire, she could see how the mob was curling back-a wedge of Letherii soldiers was pushing through, drawing ever closer.

Twilight halted. Yedan Derryg. And his troop. My brother-damn him!

She saw her ex-guards shift uneasily as the wedge cut through the last looters. They did not know if the newcomers would attack them next-if they did, the poorly armed islanders would be cut to pieces. Twilight hurried, determined to throw herself between the two forces.

She heard Yedan snap an order, and saw the perfect precision of his thirty or so soldiers wheeling round, the wedge dispersing, flattening out to form a new line facing the churning crowd of looters, locking shields, drawing up their weapons.

The threat from that direction was now over. Actual numbers were irrelevant. Discipline among a few could defeat a multitude-that was Letherii doctrine, borne out in countless battles against wild tribes on the borderlands. Yan Tovis knew it as did her brother.

She pushed through her island guard, seeing the loose relief on the faces that swung to her, the sudden deliverance from certain death.

Yedan, blackened with soot and spatters of blood, must have seen her before she spied him, for he stepped into her path, lifting his helm’s cheek-guards, revealing his black beard, the bunching muscles of his jaw. ‘My Queen,’ he said. ‘Dawn fast approaches-the moment of the Watch is almost past-you will lose the darkness.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘I do not believe we can survive another day in this uprising.’

‘Of course we can’t, you infuriating bastard!’

‘The Road to Gallan, my Queen. If you will open the way, it must be now.’ He gestured with a gauntleted hand. ‘When they see the portal born, they will try for it-to escape the flames. To escape the retribution of the kingdom. You will have two thousand criminals rushing on your heels.’

‘And what is there to do about it?’ Even as she asked, she knew how he would answer. Knew, and wanted to scream.

‘Queen, my soldiers will hold the portal.’

‘And be slaughtered!’

He said nothing. Muscles knotted rhythmically beneath his beard.

‘Damn you! Damn you! ’

‘Unveil the Road, my Queen.’

She spun to her two captains among the ex-prison guards. ‘Pithy. Brevity. Support Yedan Derryg’s soldiers-for as long as you can-but be sure not to get so entangled that your people cannot withdraw-I want you through the gate, do you understand?’

‘We shall do as you say, Highness,’ Brevity replied.

Yan Tovis studied the two women, wondering yet again why the others had elected them as their captains. They’d never been soldiers-anyone could see that. Damned criminals, in fact. Yet they could command. Shaking her head, she faced her brother once more.

‘Will you follow us?’

‘If we can, my Queen. But we must be certain to hold until we see the portalway failing.’ He paused, and then added with his usual terseness, ‘It will be close.’

Yan Tovis wanted to tear at her hair. ‘Then I begin-and,’ she hesitated, ‘I will talk to Pully and Skwish. I will-’

‘Do not defend what I have done, sister. The time to lead is now. Go, do what must be done.’

Gods, you pompous idiot.

Don’t die, damn you. Don’t you dare die!

She did not know if he heard her sob as she rushed away. He’d dropped his cheek-guards once more. Besides, those helms blunted all but the sharpest sounds.

The Road to Gallan. The road home. Ever leading me to wonder, why did we leave in the first place? What drove us from Gallan? The first shoreline? What so fouled the water that we could no longer live there?

She reached the ancient shell midden where she and the witches had sanctified the ground, climbed, achingly, raw with desperation, to join the pair of old witches.

Their eyes glittered, with madness or terror-she could never tell with these two hags.

‘Now?’ asked Pully.

‘Yes. Now.’

And Yan Tovis turned round. From her vantage point, she looked upon her cowering followers. Her people, crowded along the length of beach. Behind them the forest was a wall of fire. Ashes and smoke, a conflagration. This-this is what we leave. Remember that. From where she stood, she could not even see her brother.

No one need ever ask why we fled this world.

She whirled round, drawing her blessed daggers. And laid open her forearms. The gift of royal blood. To the shore.

Pully and Skwish screamed the Words of Sundering, their twisted hands grasping her wrists, soaking in her blood like leeches.

They should not complain. That but two remain. They will learn, I think, to thank my brother. When they see what royal blood gives them. When they see.

Darkness yawned. Impenetrable, a portal immune to the water that its lower end carved into.

The road home.

Weeping, Yan Tovis, Twilight, Queen of the Shake, pulled her arms loose from the witches’ grip, and lunged forward. Into the cold past.

Where none could hear her screams of grief.

The mob hesitated longer than Yedan expected, hundreds of voices crying out upon witnessing the birth of the portal, those cries turning to need and then anger as the Shake and the islanders among them plunged into the gate, vanishing-escaping this madness.

He stood with his troop, gauging the nearest of the rioters. ‘Captain Brevity,’ he called over a shoulder.

‘Watch.’

‘Do not tarry here. We will do what needs doing.’

‘We got our orders.’

‘I said we will hold.’

‘Sorry,’ the woman snapped. ‘We ain’t in the mood to watch you go all heroic here.’

‘Asides,’ added Pithy, ‘our lads couldn’t live with themselves if they just left you to it.’

A half-dozen voices loudly objected to her claim, to which both captains laughed.

Biting back a smile, Yedan said nothing. The mob was moments from rushing them-they were being pushed from behind. It was always this way, he knew. Someone else’s courage, so boisterous in its refuge among walls of flesh, so easy with someone else’s life. He could see, in heaving eddies, the worst of them, and set their details in his mind, to test their courage when at last he came face to face with each one.

‘Wake up, soldiers,’ he shouted. ‘Here they come.’

The first task in driving back a charging mob was two quick steps forward, right into the faces of the foremost attackers. Cut them down, pull back a single stride, and hold fast. As the survivors were thrust forward once more, repeat the aggression, messy and brutal, and this time advance into the teeth of the crowd, blades chopping, stabbing, shield rims slamming into bodies, studded heels crunching down on those that fell underfoot.

The nearest ranks recoiled from the assault.

Then retaliated, rising like a wave.

Yedan and his troop delivered fierce slaughter. Held for twenty frantic heartbeats, and then were driven back one step, and then another. Better-armed looters began appearing, thrust to the forefront. The first Letherii soldier fell, stabbed through a thigh. Two of Brevity’s guards hurried forward and pulled the man from the line, a cutter rushing in to staunch the wound with clumps of spider’s web.