* * *
‘You must all flee.’
They were in conference within the stone tower at Mantle. Lady Orosenn stood with the aid of Jute’s shoulder – he winced whenever her full weight threatened to bow him – and he with one arm bandaged and bound across his chest. They stood together with the new king, Voti, and Malle at his side. Cartheron was there, gritting his bristled jowls, and Tyvar, dabbing a cloth to the cut above his temple that would not stop bleeding.
The young king continued to shake his head. ‘This is our home. We will not leave.’
Lady Orosenn shifted her entreating gaze to Malle, whose black skirting was now slashed and spattered with dried blood. Having seen her fighting upon the wall Jute felt even more terrified of the woman: she threw slim knife blades, then hatchets that had snapped back the heads of more than one Imass. Now, though, she merely pursed her thin colourless lips as if to say: there is nothing I can do …
Orosenn shifted one awkward step backwards, signalling that she would go. ‘But reconsider while there is still time.’ Jute helped her turn round. Cartheron and Tyvar followed them out. ‘Stubborn fools,’ she complained as they went.
‘We cannot force them to go,’ Tyvar observed as he refolded the bloodied cloth.
The Jaghut sorceress, for that was what everyone now knew her to be, studied the Blue Shield commander for a time. ‘No. But there is something you can do. The task that perhaps you were truly sent here for.’ She headed off, limping, for the eastern curtain wall. ‘Come with me.’
Jute helped her up the ramp to the catwalk. She gestured over the wall to the ragtag encampment the invaders had set up along the shore east of the fortress. Smoke from countless camp fires hung over it before gusting southward over the sea, driven by the fierce frigid winds blowing down from the heights. Jute put their numbers at close to six thousand.
However, he was far more interested in the five vessels anchored a safe distance off the coast. Through it was foggy, he would recognize the Dawn anywhere. With it lay the Ragstopper, the Resolute, the Supplicant, and that Genabackan pirate’s galley.
Seeing the direction of his gaze, Tyvar said, ‘They are wise to stay off shore.’
Jute nodded. ‘Aye. They’d be swamped immediately.’
‘You see these people?’ Orosenn asked Tyvar, who stroked his beard, a touch mystified. ‘In less than two days they will all be dead if they do not move south.’
The mercenary commander narrowed his gaze. ‘You are certain?’
The sorceress let out a hard breath. ‘I know what is coming.’
‘What, then, would you have us do?’
‘Tyvar Gendarian, you said Togg gave you one last geas – to save innocent lives. Well, there lie thousands. I believe that is truly what our god had in mind. Not battle. Saving lives! You are the Blue Shields, are you not? Escort them south! Organize the evacuation of the women and children on to the vessels, then guide the rest down the Bone Peninsula. Guard them. Ward them. See them safe. There is a true challenge!’
The commander studied the rambling camp and his brows tightened. ‘We are fewer than one hundred now,’ he murmured.
‘Work with that woman who was organizing their defence – she lives still.’ Her eyes rose to the heights, where some sort of lightning storm flickered and glowed behind the dense cloud cover. Jute could hear the rumblings of the thunder even from this distance. She returned her gaze to Tyvar, fierce. ‘This is my request of you, Tyvar. See them safe. I’m sure Togg would approve.’
He had been stroking his beard. His eyes now glittered with renewed passion. He bowed his head in assent. ‘Saving innocents,’ he answered. ‘Yes. Togg would approve. Thank you for reminding me of my purpose, my lady. We will go at once.’ He jogged down the ramp, shouting for his lieutenants.
‘And what of us?’ Jute asked. ‘Will we be safe here?’
She turned a warm gaze upon him. ‘You will return to Ieleen on board the Dawn and sail south, Jute of Delanss. You have lingered here too long.’
‘But will you be safe?’
‘Never mind about us. See the evacuees safe. Enjoy your life. Give your love to Ieleen. She is very worried for you.’
‘But what of you?’
‘Go. Now. Leave me here at the wall. I wish to … study the storm for a time.’
He was unwilling to abandon her, or Cartheron for that matter. She had arguably saved his life twice now. Thinking of the Malazan gave him an idea. He bowed his leave and went to find the old commander.
It took him a long time to track the man down. Eventually he was pointed to the cliff edge and there found the fellow peering down at the sea. He had the look of a man who’d forgotten something he suspected was important. He nodded a distracted greeting to Jute. ‘Damned thorough, those Imass,’ he muttered. ‘Took out our access to the water. Now I know what it’s like to be on the other end of their stone swords.’
‘Sir,’ Jute began, attempting to grab his attention, ‘you have to talk sense into Malle. Something tells me she wouldn’t ignore a direct command from you.’
The fellow lifted his chin in assent. ‘Once, aye. But there’s a new regime now, and I’m not welcome. In fact, I’m officially drowned.’
‘The sorceress has asked Tyvar to escort all the newcomers south. I believe he’ll do it.’
‘Sounds like an impossible task. I’m sure he’ll relish it.’
‘We can get the women and children into the vessels.’
Cartheron nodded approvingly. ‘And you go with them, Jute. But not the Ragstopper.’
‘Why not?’
‘She’s full of water. Won’t sail no more. And I have to admit I’m kinda curious ’bout what’s coming. I have my suspicions.’
It took some time for Jute to accept what he was hearing. ‘So … you’re saying you’re going to stay?’
‘Aye. I believe it could be quite a sight.’
‘And the crew?’
He shrugged. ‘They can choose, o’ course.’
Jute let out a long breath. He didn’t know what to say. He discovered himself plucking at the edge of his shirt. ‘Well, then,’ he sighed. ‘I guess I’d best go help.’
Cartheron gave him the old salute of a hand to the chest, then waved him away. A few paces off, Jute turned back and called: ‘What was he like?’
‘Who?’
‘The old emperor.’
Cartheron pulled a hand down his greying jowls, nodded his understanding of Jute’s interest. ‘I could never make up mind if he was the biggest fool I’d ever met, or the most cunning bastard.’
The answer wasn’t what Jute had expected, but the commander, once a High Fist, turned away to stare out over the waters of the Sea of Gold, and so he went to find Tyvar.
The vessels, it turned out, were wisely allowing none to approach. Early in the morning, Jute went out alone in the battered old skiff that the invaders’ commander, Lyan, had sent out through the night to beg for berths. He arranged for the young and the wounded to be taken out to the Resolute and the Silver Dawn. Lady Orosenn also offered up the Supplicant. Jute was wary, but when he climbed a rope ladder, one-handed, and inspected the vessel, he found it completely empty of any crew. He did not know where the silent figures he’d glimpsed had gone now that the sorceress had no more use for them. He had his ideas, of course, but these he kept to himself.
The Genabackan pirate, Enguf, offered berths to the highest bidders, and in this manner did well out of the venture after all. He was the first to sail off, if rather sluggishly, with a perilously slim freeboard, as he’d taken on far too many passengers. Greed, Jute reflected, seemed immune to all setbacks.
Next went the Resolute. As passenger on board this vessel went a crippled youth who seemed to be family to the Genabackan shield-maiden officer. The woman, however, remained with the camp; she seemed satisfied with the protection that the Blue Shields offered, sending five of their number with the vessel, together with their pledge to reunite her and the boy in south Genabackis.
The Supplicant followed slowly, its crew of veteran sailors from among the invaders doing their best with the unfamiliar lines of the strange vessel.
This left the Ragstopper and the Silver Dawn. Jute clapped his hands on young Reuth’s shoulders and looked him up and down. The lad appeared to be prospering; gone were the bruises of his escape – at least those apparent in the flesh. He was eating well and even occasionally smiled. Jute had noticed that he asked almost every new passenger for news of Whiteblade, the ex-Malazan swordsman.
He waved the lad off and turned to Ieleen, who sat in her usual place next to the tiller arm, hands on her short walking stick, her head tilted to the wind. It seemed to him that she’d been watching him out of the edge of her snow-white orbs. He rubbed a hand over his unshaven cheeks and cleared his throat.
‘You’re staying, then,’ she said, and he jumped, startled.
‘How did you know?’
‘I know that throat-clearing.’
He continued to brush his fingers over a cheek. ‘I have to see this through to the end, love.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’ He gazed about the deck, now crowded with evacuees. ‘Curiosity, I guess. I have to see how it ends.’
She banged the stick to the deck. ‘It could end in your death!’
‘Don’t let’s fight, dear. Not during my leave-taking.’
‘I’m supposed to like it?’
‘Don’t worry. The Ragstopper remains. We can evacuate in that, if we must.’
She shook her head in a knowing negative. ‘That hulk sounds as full of water as a bathtub.’
‘Well … it’s still afloat. In any case, we can always run for it.’
She continued shaking her head. Her grey curls blew about in the wind. ‘I’ve always feared your curiosity will be the death of you.’
‘I’ll be careful, dearest.’
Her silver orbs narrowed, promising her wrath. ‘You’d better be.’
‘Of course I will. I’ll await your return. If not here, then further south down the coast. Yes?’
She tapped the stick to the deck thoughtfully. ‘I do not want you to go. But if you must …’ She shook her head. Sadly, this time.
‘Thank you, my chick.’ He pecked her on the cheek.
She urged him off with the stick. ‘Go on, then.’
He saluted the ship’s weapons master, Letita, who appeared miserable herself, her eyes red and her cheeks wet. He recalled that Lieutenant Jalaz was remaining with Cartheron. Then he climbed down one of the rope ladders to a waiting skiff.
The shore was now empty. Where a temporary encampment of thousands had arisen, only smoking fire pits and the trash of torn canvas, abandoned boots and broken tools and mining equipment remained. The unruly mob of civilians had been urged, cajoled, and plain browbeaten by Tyvar and his remaining Blue Shields, plus the Shieldmaiden and her Genabackan veterans, into marching south down the coast.
Walking back up the slope of the rise topped by Mantle, Jute noted the closing storm from the north. The cloud front had rolled down the upper heights of the Salt range and was now obscuring the vales immediately above. The constant roar of thunder shook the ground and the strong winds lashed the branches. He spotted elk and deer bounding along the treeline just above the fields. Flights of birds came peeling out of the fog: ravens, gulls, ducks, and apart from these, soaring higher, the outlines of prey-birds: eagles and falcons.
Something was driving all before it. The thing Lady Orosenn spoke of. All that Jute could imagine was a sort of huge landslide or avalanche, churning its way down the slopes.
He found Cartheron and Lady Orosenn in conversation at the wall, also looking north. Cartheron was gesturing, explaining something. ‘Am I interrupting?’ he asked, approaching up the earthen ramp.
‘Always welcome,’ Lady Orosenn greeted him. ‘Commander Cartheron was just explaining the geography of this location.’
‘Commander Cartheron?’
‘Considering his experience, King Voti has placed him in charge of Mantle’s defences.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ the man grumbled.
‘It is worth a great deal,’ Lady Orosenn corrected him. ‘I myself had hoped to reach the north and there kneel before my mother and beg her forgiveness. But,’ she pressed a hand to her wounded thigh, ‘it was not to be. Now we must weather the coming storm from here.’
‘And this storm,’ Jute now dared ask, ‘what is it exactly?’
The Jaghut shared a glance with Cartheron. ‘You know the great ice cliffs we passed to the south?’ Jute nodded; he had seen such along many shores. ‘Like that, only moving across the land.’ Jute blew out a breath – he couldn’t even imagine what that would be like. Nothing, it seemed to him, would be spared such a grinding passage. ‘And Commander Cartheron has some ideas on this front.’
The old Napan held his hands out over the wall as if describing an inverted V. ‘This is bedrock we’re built on. Been here for ages. This is the highest piece of land across the entire north coast. See how we’re atop a wedge that slopes down away before us and off to either side?’ Jute nodded. ‘We can use that natural rock incline.’
‘How so?’ Jute asked, still mystified.
Lady Orosenn was examining the slope. Free of her headscarf and veil, her features were rather harsh, Jute thought – the jaw too square and heavy, the cheekbones too jutting. But her wide expressive eyes still held their glamour for him. They carried sceptical calculation now. ‘Why are we discussing this? You would need some sort of immense push even to get the motion going.’
Cartheron winked. ‘Oh, I got me a big motivator.’ He looked around, found Lieutenant Jalaz where she waited nearby for orders, and waved her to him. ‘Send word to the Ragstopper. I want it brought in to shore and Orothos up here.’ Jalaz saluted and jogged off. ‘Now we wait.’ He peered round again and shouted to a nearby local spearman: ‘Hey, how about a meal? I’m starving up here.’
A meal eventually appeared, comprising a trencher of bread, cold venison, a block of hard cheese and a leather tankard of beer. With the meal came Malle. She shot Cartheron a knowing glare and raised her chin to the cloud front descending the forested vales amid a now constant reverberating booming. ‘What’s the plan?’ she asked, raising her voice to be heard above the din. ‘Do we jump into the sea?’
‘Might come to that,’ Cartheron agreed. Then, aside, ‘Ah! Here we are.’
His first mate, Orothos, came walking up the dirt ramp. His shirt hung in tatters from his emaciated form, as did his trousers of canvas, which were tied up with a worn hemp rope. ‘What now?’ the mate grumbled in a manner far from respectful. ‘I’m busy bailing.’
Cartheron ignored the tone – or possibly it meant nothing to him. ‘I want the springals and scorpions mounted on the wall here. And I want all the consignment brought up for use.’
The first mate blinked his incredulity. ‘What? All of it?’
‘It’s of no use to us at the bottom of the Sea of Gold.’
The man gaped at his captain. He spluttered, ‘But that’s our nest egg. Our retirement fund! What’re we gonna do without it?’
‘The king here has offered us a place. I understand I’m takin’ over as foreign adviser once Malle here leaves.’ The wiry old woman tilted her head in agreement.
‘If there’s anything left!’
Cartheron finally snapped: ‘Then let’s see to it! Now do as I say!’
The first mate glared his defiance, which Cartheron met with a scowl, and then the man slapped a hand to his forehead, spun on his heels, and slouched his way down the ramp, muttering to himself, ‘… now he drops anchor? … not Nathilog? … damned nowhere … not one tavern to be found …’
In the silence following the mate’s departure, Malle clasped her hands and stepped up to Cartheron. ‘I, too, must express my concern. I mean – must you use all of it?’
‘It’s it or us, Malle. And I intend to hit it with all I got.’
A strange smile crept up one edge of her thin lips. ‘Well … that is the old Crust I remember.’
The ex-High Fist snorted, then gestured Lieutenant Jalaz to him. ‘Take the lads and lasses and see to the unloading.’ She saluted again, and offered a savage grin.
All the Malazans, including Malle’s guard, lent a hand. As the light darkened to the honey-yellow of late afternoon, the four siege weapons were mounted and test shots were executed with weighted stones to measure distance. A steady train of black wooden chests were carried up from the Ragstopper, each sealed with a silver sigil. Lieutenant Jalaz came to Jute as he studied the chests and she pointed out the seals. ‘See the sceptre? Sign of the imperial arsenal at Unta.’ She ran a caressing hand across the wet black wood. ‘When K’azz’s Crimson Guard attacked the capital they blew the main imperial depot. All the Moranth munitions were supposed to have been lost. But look at this. A cache such as no one will ever see again.’
‘So this is rare – even for you Malazans.’
The lieutenant choked down a laugh. ‘Rare? Captain … you could buy a kingdom with this.’
‘Perhaps that’s what Cartheron aims to do with it.’
To her credit as a one-time servant of the throne, Jalaz flinched from such frank language. ‘He sees a chance to defend an ally and he does not shrink from it.’
Jute would not release her from his steady gaze. ‘Lieutenant, you are from Genabackis. I am from Falar. Our fathers or grandfathers were conquered by the Malazans, yet here we are. Why?’
Giana Jalaz turned away to stare off at the thick cloud that hung overhead like a hand about to crush them. She hugged herself against the chill wind, tucking her hands under her arms. ‘When I was child,’ she said, after a time, ‘my world was very small. Just my village and the valley we and the neighbouring villages occupied. To travel beyond it was unthinkable. You would be robbed or enslaved or killed out of hand as a stranger – an interloper. But then the Empire came and my world broadened beyond measure. I could travel from Cat in the north to Pale or even to Darujhistan if I wished … all under the aegis of the imperial sceptre. I was treated as equal, able to sign up to serve. I could hold what was mine under the law and the law held. That was what the Malazans brought. Granted, there were abuses, corruption, just as there had been under the old provincial rulers – human nature doesn’t change. But the opportunity was there. Hope was there. At least a chance.’ She lowered her gaze to him. ‘And now the new emperor is from Falar, isn’t he?’
Jute pulled away, but not because of the rearing head of imperial politics. ‘We don’t speak of him in Falar.’
‘No? Why not?’
Jute straightened from the stacked chests, glanced about. ‘You have been frank, and I thank you. That is a rare gift. I am only a ship’s captain, a small-time recovering raider. But we of the sea trade in Falar know of the old blood-cult, the Jhistal. Its followers terrorized our islands for generations. He—’ Jute broke off as a gang of Malle’s guards arrived to carry the chests up to the top of the wall. Once they were gone, he turned back to Giana and lowered his voice: ‘You speak of limited horizons. We in Falar had squirmed in the grip of those priests for generations. To speak up was to find one’s children selected as the next sacrifices to the sea. The Malazans broke that grip and for that I will be for ever grateful, despite the cost. But the new emperor … he tries to rewrite the history of it, but there are those who still dare to whisper that he came out of that hierarchy. That he was once a priest of the Jhistal. And so as long as he may rule we will never speak his name.’
The lieutenant blew out a long ragged breath and held out her hand. He took it in a tight grip. ‘Honesty is a rare gift among strangers,’ she said with feeling.
‘An easy gift, since we may not see the morrow.’
She lowered her gaze to the chest at their feet. ‘Well then … let’s get to it.’
They each took a handle, and together they carried it up to the top of the wall.
Lady Orosenn was on the catwalk speaking to Voti and Malle. Beyond, up the valley, the fog appeared to be breaking up. The rumbling was not diminishing, however. Even atop the wall, Jute felt the vibrations hammering through his boots.
‘This is your people’s last chance,’ Lady Orosenn was saying. ‘There will be no escape once it is upon us.’
The young king’s mouth pulled down, accentuating his long jaw. ‘We will not abandon what is ours.’
Lady Orosenn simply dipped her head in acceptance. ‘Very well. I have to confess – I hold little hope.’
Voti bowed. ‘Thank you for that frank admission. I will go to tell my council.’
Lady Orosenn answered the bow and he descended the ramp, followed by his bodyguard of ten spears. Malle remained; she leaned against the shaking stone blocks of the wall, peering out.
Cartheron arrived and nodded to Lieutenant Jalaz. ‘Time,’ he said. She gave a curt bob of her head. ‘You’ll need eight veterans.’
Malle turned from the wall. ‘Riley and his boys are up for it.’
Cartheron gave his assent.
‘Time for what?’ Jute asked, feeling a strange sort of growing unease.
Lieutenant Jalaz squeezed his shoulder, grinning. ‘Wish me luck, Jute of Delanss.’ She jogged off down the ramp. Malle leaned out over the catwalk and snapped her fingers. The majority of her remaining guards rose where they’d been squatting below among the chests.
‘What is going on?’ Jute asked everyone.
Cartheron shouted down: ‘Open the gates!’
‘Open the gates? What for?’
But Cartheron ignored him, going to the wall to lean out, peering down. Jute went to his side. Below, the gates of bronze-sheathed timber swung open and Lieutenant Jalaz appeared, jog-trotting north at the head of a train of four munition chests, each carried by two men and piled with shovels and picks.
‘What is this?’ Jute demanded.
Cartheron finally turned to him. He was rubbing a hand over his balding pate. ‘A gamble.’
‘A gamble? What sort of gamble?’
‘Orosenn assures me that all the soil and dirt ’n’ such is going to be scraped up, so no point in burying a charge. But there’s rock crevices and cracks where the bedrock comes mounding up. They’re gonna look for some of those at our maximum range. Push a few munitions down there for a little extra oomph.’
Jute snapped his gaze to where Lieutenant Jalaz and her team were disappearing into the banners of ground fog. ‘There’s no time for that!’
Cartheron just brushed his fingers down his jaw. ‘It’s a good throw. Worth four chests.’
Jute could not believe such callousness. ‘Four chests! What of nine people?’
That must have stung, as the old commander’s gaze flicked to him and he grated, his voice tight: ‘Don’t lecture me, son. They’re good people doing what they do best, so leave them to it.’ He walked off, unsteady, looking bowed. Jute moved to follow, but Malle caught his arm.
‘Let him go. Do not add to his pain. Nine lives, you say? Well, what of all of us?’
‘But—’
The hardened old woman stopped him with a look. ‘There will always be buts, captain. The important thing is that choices be made. Now comes the hard part.’
‘The hard part?’
‘Yes.’ Her gaze shifted to the north. ‘Now we wait.’
The walls became crowded as the evening passed. Everyone wanted to watch; perhaps out of a kind of perverse fascination to see the end. Conversation was almost impossible: one had to press one’s mouth to anyone’s ear to be heard over groaning earth, the rumbling avalanche, and the growing thunderous grinding of tonnes upon tonnes of moiling rock and earth.
To make it worse, it was now blowing snow. The fat flakes came out of the heights, driven by a cutting wind that only grew in intensity. Far to the east and west, all along the uplands as far as Jute could see, the thinning clouds hinted at a wall of white covering the heights – an unbroken sheath of snow that was utterly featureless except where tall ridges of black rock poked through like knife-edges.
He scanned the curved rock before the fortress where it descended to the north; the bedrock carried only low brush and dwarf trees, but it combed downward into a forest of cedar, fir, and birch. Just at the fringe of these woods was where Giana and her team were supposed to be digging. He could see no sign of them, however.
The vibration punishing everyone’s feet was becoming almost unbearable. One of the pounded dirt ramps collapsed into a heap of soil, it seemed soundlessly, as the cacophony of the leagues-wide avalanche grinding down upon them drowned everything out.
Squinting into the blowing snow he could make out entire swaths of forest disappearing as if swept down by an invisible hand. The enormous blocks of the wall juddered and bounced as if toys. The last screen of trees between them and the avalanche fell towards them, their crowns swinging down as if bowing in farewell. Come on! he urged Giana. Run!
Something appeared through the curtain of snow but it was not what Jute expected. To all appearances it looked like a flood of extremely muddy water creeping up the slope of the bedrock. Sticks and detritus roiled amid the froth of the approaching tide. It took him a moment to grasp that the sticks were in fact the stripped trunks of mature trees, and that the coming tide was a churned froth of mud, silts, soil, and sand, all being scooped downslope towards them in front of a solid wall of one of the ice-tongues. And before this flood emerged six figures, running pell-mell for the high land and the wall.
Jute tottered and stumbled his way down the ramp to the gates, where a team of locals waited to swing closed the twin leaves. The figures, completely mud-covered, ran on while the very earth jumped and shuddered beneath them. Now Jute counted only four.
The quartet came barrelling in, dripping, sheathed in mud and streaks of blood, and fall to the ground, panting and gasping. King Voti’s people pulled shut the leaves. Jute and a number of Malazans stooped to the four, rubbing away muck, pulling a shattered length of wood the size of a dagger from the arm of one of them. To Jute’s immense relief Lieutenant Jalaz emerged, bruised and bloodied, from the layers of clinging muck encasing another of them.
‘You fool!’ he growled, though of course she could not hear. She understood, however, and shrugged weakly. He waved for her to stay where she was and tottered up the ramp.
What he found above reminded him of what Lady Orosenn had said about there being no escape. Entire forests of tangled trees were building up amid the coursing wash of suspended soil and earth that was passing to either side of the rise. Orothos, under directions from Cartheron, had his crews blasting these logjams to pieces. Meanwhile, the roiling mass of coming earth just kept mounting higher and higher. Of the township of Mantle there remained no trace. The effect of all this was as of the worst naval engagement Jute had ever endured. He ran to Lady Orosenn, motioned that he wished to speak. She lowered her head. ‘What are they doing?’ he yelled.
She made a pushing gesture. ‘Moving it along.’
‘Why?’
‘We don’t want it to catch and heap up.’
‘Why are they firing into the mud?’
‘We don’t know when the ice will arrive,’ she called back. ‘I suspect the leading edge to be thin – under the muck at first.’
After that, Jute was too hoarse to continue yelling so he merely nodded and allowed Lady Orosenn to return to studying the flow. He tried to imagine what it must be like on the shores of the Sea of Gold as all this earth and gravel and loose rock came thrusting out on to the mudflats, perhaps taking them with it. It suddenly occurred to him, horrifyingly: could the entire sea be erased? All that water heaved further south? How far away were the ships? Had they made it through the channel yet? He prayed to the gods that they had. If not, they were in for a memorable ride.
One of the crews on the springals thrust their arms skyward, shouting soundlessly, and Jute scanned the base of the rise. Pulverized white flakes came floating down from an eruption. They momentarily painted white the foaming, shifting flow, only to be sucked beneath. Cartheron was gesturing, signing to the crews, who shifted their aim. He raised an open hand and the crews waited, hands at the releases.
Why was he waiting, Jute wondered. Shouldn’t he be punishing the ice now that it had arrived? Perhaps he was waiting for the flow to thicken – no point in blasting the thinnest leading finger. Perhaps. Then he noticed that the commander’s gaze was fixed upon Lady Orosenn, who had a hand outstretched as if reaching for him.
The walls rocked then, as in a true earthquake. Or perhaps a collision. Jute turned his head to the north, terrified of what he might see. There, what he’d taken earlier for a thick wall of falling snow revealed itself to be a steep upward-sweeping wing-like slope that went on and on, perhaps for leagues, up the entire lowest shoulder of the mountains: an ungraspable immensity of ice and weight and might all bearing down upon them like a war dromond striking a water beetle. He knew it to be a plain physical manifestation of ice and rock, but he couldn’t help also feeling a palpable sense of deliberate menace and ruthless will pointed directly at him – and he the size of a flea beneath it.
Lady Orosenn snapped her hand down and Cartheron made a fist.
All four siege weapons fired.
The four cussors arced upwards, disappearing into the driving snow. Almost immediately spouts of smashed ice shot upwards, without any accompanying sound. Jute was appalled. The best we had. Like a child throwing a rock at a landslide. Cartheron signed to fire again. The four now simply kept firing and reloading, pounding that one same spot. Jute imagined that that must be where the cussors had been jammed down into cracks and crevices in the bedrock – if they hadn’t yet been plucked out.
The eruptions came almost continuously now, in a constant shooting spray of pulverized ice that arced high into the blowing snow. Jute thought the pushing lip of the ice-tongue was climbing the hump of bedrock. Soon, he imagined, it would sweep them off like dust from a tabletop.
All four crews kept pounding, and it did seem to Jute that larger chunks of broken ice now flew with each eruption. He gripped the topmost stone of the wall before him, itself many hundreds of pounds of rock, and felt the immense power of the grinding advance transmitted to his bones through the juddering of the stone. Break, damn you! he exhorted the ice. Break!
He’d seen towers brought down by one or two well-placed cussors. Entire harbour defences reduced to rubble with just a few casts. And now this man, Cartheron Crust, was pouring half the imperial arsenal of Moranth munitions into this unstoppable mountain of ice in a colossal contest of wills that would grind all else into dust.
The stones of the wall jerked towards him then, knocking his hand aside as if it were alive and flinching. Ahead, through the curls and scarves of snow, a great fountain of white was burgeoning upwards like a dome swelling over a surfacing swimmer. Enormous shards of blue-white ice now arced skywards. They blossomed outwards in all directions. A roar washed over Mantle that overcame even the valley-wide growling of the ice.
Smaller chunks fell all about him. They burst to shards against the wall. Some punched through the timbers of the catwalk. Nearby, a man fell as if mattocked, his head a shattered ruin. Jute ducked, arms over his head, and staggered down the ramp to take cover under the catwalk. Here, beneath his hand and his rump, the bedrock shook as if drummed. A deep wounded-animal sort of groan mounted into a high-pitched cracking. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the stupendous weight of the ice pulling it downslope to the east and to the west, naturally tugging in opposite directions. And so it would split – not of intent, but because the great ice-river merely wished to find the lowest level. He rose and clambered out to look. The ramp had been shaken to nothing more than a heap of dirt, and this he climbed to pull himself one-handed up on to the catwalk. The huge blocks of the wall were now misaligned and uneven in their course, and it seemed wondrous to Jute that the snow still fell as if nothing had happened. To the right and left coursed the dirty snow-blown river of ice, down to where the two arms came together again before sweeping out over the obliterated shore of the Sea of Gold.
They sat atop a scoured-clean island of naked rock.
He went to find Cartheron and spotted him collapsed against the wall, watched over by two of his crew. He was pale, squeezing his chest, his face clenched against pain. Jute knelt next to him. The roar of the creaking and groaning ice was still like a thunderstorm, and he had to yell to make himself heard. ‘Are you all right?’
The old man laughed weakly. ‘When Lady Orosenn sewed me up she told me to avoid any stress.’
‘Good thing you’re taking it easy, then.’
There was a tremor in the Malazan’s hands that he didn’t seem to notice. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘it’s the retired life for me.’
Jute stood. ‘I’ll get Orosenn.’
The old commander was too exhausted even to respond. Jute ran, searching for the sorceress. He found her at the extreme southern end of the catwalk close to the wall’s edge overlooking the cliff. She was watching the great tongue of ice where it crept out over the Sea of Gold.
Gaining her attention, he put a hand to his mouth to shout: ‘Cartheron is in a bad way.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve done what I can for him. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.’
He gestured out towards the sea. ‘What can we do?’
‘We wait.’
‘Will it be like this for ever?’
She bestowed the familiar affectionate smile upon him once more. ‘No, Jute of Delanss. This was a ferociously rapid invocation. It will fade faster than most. Perhaps a mere hundred years.’
Oh. A mere hundred years. ‘So it is over,’ he breathed, immensely relieved.
But the sorceress shook her head, her long black hair blowing like a veil. ‘No. This was only the opening salvo. The true confrontation is taking place high above. I wish I was there to add my voice.’
‘Add your voice?’
‘Against the rekindling of an ancient war. And I do not mean the animosity of the T’lan Imass for the Jaghut. There have been far older wars, Jute of Delanss. And there are some who never forget, nor forgive.’
He not know what the sorceress meant; did not have her deeper vision of events. He only knew that a friend was in pain, so he gestured once more that they should help Cartheron and Orosenn nodded, squeezing his arm.