Arrows pelted down and Kyle hunched low for cover behind the gunwale. Lurgman didn't move. ‘Stand up. We won't get hit.’ Then he flinched as if slapped. ‘’Ware a mage!’ he bellowed.
At that moment a ball of actinic-bright energy burst alight on deck. It spun about randomly, striking a mast with a flash then ricocheting to a barrel that it consumed in a deafening eruption.
‘Bring that man down!’ Cole bellowed, outraged.
‘Aye,’ Lurgman answered. He scanned the ships.
Grapnels struck the gunwales. The cargo ships drew closer, one to either side. Beyond, two long and low war-galleys foundered in the relatively calm waters, sinking for no reason Kyle could see. Soldiers jammed the decks. They wrestled frantically with their armour. Some fell overboard to disappear instantly. For the first time Kyle felt safe in his thin leathers.
‘There!’ Lurgman shouted, catching Kyle's arm. ‘The stern. The old fellow in the dark hat like a hood. Gold at his neck.‘ Kyle spotted him, sighted and loosed. The arrow hung in the dark as if suspended then took the throat of a man at the mage's side. His gaze darted to Kyle, narrowed to luminous slits. His hands rose, gestured. Gold and jewellery glittered at the fingers.
‘’Ware your back,’ someone called behind Kyle who spun to see a darkening and swirling like oil-smoke at the far side of the bow deck.
‘Lurgman!’ he warned.
The mage turned and gaped. ‘Hood's curse! Cole! A summoning!’
Kyle snapped a glimpse to the deck to see Cole and his two flankers encircled by a sea of Kurzan soldiery.
The mage pushed Kyle forward. ‘Buy me time. Time!’
A scaled and clawed foot emerged from the Warren portal. A long face, scaled olive-green like that of an insect, peered out. Kyle pressed the blade of his tulwar to his lips. Wind save met He edged forward, hunched to receive heavy blows.
The demon, or sending, or whatever it was, reached out as if to simply grasp Kyle in one taloned hand and so he swung. The tulwar severed the forearm sending the hand spinning out overboard. The fiend shrieked. A hot stream of ichor gushed over Kyle who jerked back, stung, blinking to clear his eyes.
Kurzan soldiers appeared at the stairs up from the mid-deck, took in the battle scene at the upper deck, and flinched away.
The fiend grasped the end of his forearm. Smoke fumed from the wound. It withdrew its hand revealing a hardened, cauterized stump. Its jaws moved, crackling and snapping, and somehow Kyle understood the words: ‘Who are you to have done this?
‘Just a soldier,’ he answered because he himself had no idea what had just happened.
Arrows stormed down around the vessel, deflected somehow. Flames spread across the waves engulfing a ship as it rammed the vessel next to Kyle's. The fiend straightened. ‘J was not forewarned that one of your stature awaited. But, so be it. Let us test our mettle, you and L’
Then, and Kyle could only understand it this way, the fiend melted. Its scaled keratin or bone skeleton, or armour, melted and ran, buckling and twisting. It fell to its knees and before its skull collapsed like heated wax Kyle thought he saw horror and astonishment in its black eyes.
Kyle retreated to the ship's side, saw Lurgman slumped, one arm hooked over the gunwale. He helped the mage up. ‘How did you do that?’ he whispered, awed.
‘I could very well ask you the same question,’ the mage anwered, his voice ragged. Blood ran from his nose and blotched his eyes carmine. Those eyes narrowed and Lurgman turned to glare out over the water. Kyle looked – men now supported the Kurzan mage. His hat was gone, his bald head shining.
‘So, it's going to be the hard way is it?’ Lurgman growled beneath his breath. ‘Can you throw better than you shoot?’
‘From this distance, yes.’
‘Then throw this.’ The mage passed Kyle a small ball like a slingstone. Kyle hefted it, nodded. He aimed, reached back and threw. The stone landed, unseen, somewhere near the mage. While Kyle watched, the men at the stern deck suddenly clutched at their faces. Their mouths gaped into dark ovals. Their eyes bulged. Clawed fingers gouged into flesh and all crowding the stern of the vessel fell. The mage toppled among them. Kyle turned away, feeling his stomach rising into his throat. Lurgman eased himself down to sit with his back to the ship's side.
Queasy, his limbs quivering with unspent energy, Kyle threw himself down beside the man. ‘So this is the way you Avowed finish your arguments.’
‘Avowed? Me? Gods no. I'm not in their rank. Anyway, I'm from Genabackis. No Avowed are from Genabackis.’
Kurzan soldiers edged warily up the stairs. Lurgman raised a menacing hand to them and they flinched away. ‘No, I was just a healer in Cat when the Malazans invaded. A Bone Mage we're called back there. Was a damned good one too. I healed breaks, straightened bones, cleaned infections. So, as you saw, I'm really not much of a battle mage.’
‘Could've fooled me.’
The clash of steel and thump and rattle of armour subsided below.
Lurgman eyed Kyle sidelong. ‘What of you? What's the story on that blade?’
Kyle shrugged. ‘Smoky inscribed it, if that's what you mean.’
Cole appeared at the top of one stairway; his tunic hung in bloody shreds about his waist. Shallow cuts crisscrossed his arms and chest. Sweat ran from his soaked hair. He peered around the bow, frowned his surprise. ‘I thought a demon ate you two.’
‘We got lucky,’ said Lurgman.
‘Well, get down here, Twisty. My flankers need healing and more ships are coming.’ He thumped back down the stairs.
Kyle helped Lurgman to his feet. ‘Twisty?’
The mage's mouth curled wryly. ‘Twisty. They insist on calling me Twisty.’