‘Won’t this guy stay down?’ Blues grumbled.
‘Now you know how it feels,’ Tollen complained.
Blues caught Shell’s eye. ‘Let’s see if he can swim…’ He was gesturing to raise his Warren anew when a blast of power erupted between him and Shell, tossing them both aside. Shell had a momentary glimpse of the waters foaming and lashing next to the wall before slamming down with a bone-snapping impact against stone.
When Ussu returned to his chambers he found the door open, his two aides fled. Very well. Good help and all that… The Crimson Guard Avowed, Bars, lay as before. Ussu tested the pins and lengths of chain, giving each a yank. Strong still.
The real blast was on its way. Where to sit it out? The chamber boasted a sturdy desk built of thick timbers. Beneath this? Too undignified. He went to the doorway, blocked the door open, pressed himself up against one jamb. Have to do.
He heard it just before it struck. How appropriate, he judged, that it should come rumbling like the avalanche and landslide that it was. Then a jolt threw him from the doorway and he tumbled about the hall like a doll kicked by the floor. Bone-juddering fractures announced the calving of huge shards from the tower’s sheath of ice. A crack shot through the roof, beams exploding. Pulverized rock showered down upon him.
As the shaking stilled, he stirred, groaning, shook dust from his hair. He staggered like a drunk to his room through the fallen rubble of the hall. Within, he found an icy wind cutting about the chamber; the falling ice had torn the shutters from the window. His subject lay stretched over the thick table as before, arms and legs pinioned. Ussu pressed his ear to the man’s naked chest, ignored the ugly gaping wound oozing blood.
A steady beat! As strong as before. It was as if nothing had happened! Thank you, my Lady. With such seemingly inexhaustible strength to draw upon — imagine what I can accomplish!
He brushed the dust and litter from the man. Pulled the larger stones and fallen grit from the wound. Would the Riders bother to strike here? Somehow he didn’t think so. They had their breach elsewhere. No, it would be the Malazans. This was their chance to finish things. Shattering a section of the wall was one thing — stone and wood can be repaired. Truly crushing the Korelri would be another.
It was hard to think with such enormous forces pressing upon him. The gathering might felt like a mountain suspended above his head. A vast displacement was bearing down through the Narrows. And he, even from this far, felt it like a giant’s boot crushing him.
And what of the Overlord? He raised his Warren and cast his vision south. What he saw made him lurch, almost sickened. No! You fool! The man had his army marshalled still within sight of the coast! Why wasn’t he in the highlands? Had he no idea — but no, of course not. Gods! I must warn him!
Ussu threw himself upon Bars. He savagely pushed his hand into the wound, parting the glutinous scab of blood and fluids to quest down amid the organs. His fingers slid down around a lung and through the tears in the fat and muscle fibre surrounding the beating heart. Pressing his head down close to the subject’s chest he closed his eyes and reached out to take the additional energy needed for a sending. Grasping this, he projected his consciousness southward.
He found Yeull wrapped in layers of blankets and furs, standing outside watching his tent burning to the ground. Chaos surrounded him, soldiers running about. ‘Overlord!’ he called, peremptorily, to be heard above the riot. The man’s eyes flicked about, searching. His mouth drew down, frowning even more.
‘What witchery is this?’ he murmured, his gaze slitted.
Yeull, he knew, was seeing the faint and wavering image of himself, Ussu, outlined by his aura energies. ‘I have news! A warning!’
‘A warning?’ The Overlord spread his arms. ‘Rather late it would seem.’
‘No! Worse — why are you still here? Why have you not struck inland?’
Yeull’s gaze became creamy with a kind of satisfied cunning and his mouth crooked up in a half-smile. ‘Best to give the Korelri a good scare, yes? They’ll appreciate us all the more once we’ve rescued them from these invaders…’
Ussu could not contain himself any longer. All he had endured from the man came rushing up, choking him like swallowed vomit. ‘You loathsome cretin! Because of your childish scheming-’
‘Hey? What’s that? Has the Lady driven you insane, man?’
‘Just listen to me and flee! Run! Order everyone to high ground! Abandon everything!’
Yeull scowled his confusion. ‘What’s that? Run? Whatever for?’
‘A huge wave! A flood-’ Ussu broke off as outside Ice Tower, just beneath his feet, another mage suddenly announced his presence by raising his Warren. ‘Just order everyone to run for high land! You are warned!’ And he broke away from Yeull as the man opened his mouth to ask for more explanation, or to object.
Drawing upon his and the Lady’s power and the life energy of his subject, Ussu quested passively down through the tower to find the mage. A practitioner of D’riss — and strong. Very well. I will have to strike hard, make sure of it immediately. He began drawing and coiling power, gathering it into one stored blast to unleash in a single gesture. When the potentiality was almost bursting beyond his control, he projected it down the tower and released it.
The blast shook him high in his chamber. The entire tower groaned and shifted. More dust rained down, and somewhere a beam shattered in an answering explosion.
Fingers decided he’d had enough of life without access to a Warren. These damned Stormguard had snapped the otataral wrist-torc on him and since then life had been nothing but one long indignity. They forced him out into the frigid cold to chase those damned Riders off the wall — nearly getting him run through! And all the while he was as sick as a dog and would like to die — if he could!
Then someone unleashes Burn’s own fury against the Stormwall and wearing this torc all he can do is watch while the tremor strikes, bringing down the tower around him. He’d be dead, he knew, if it weren’t for the Vow. Apparently the otataral does nothing to impede its effectiveness. He’s crawled over broken stones, up rubble- choked stairs, dragged himself over flattened burst bodies, and now he’s lying outside on the wall, smeared in crap, somewhere along this blasted wall, gods know where, stranded! Two broken legs and no way to bloody heal himself.
Panting, almost delirious with pain, he raised his head to study the belt-knife he’d taken from one of the corpses. Only thing for it… He pressed his right hand, palm up, to the frozen stone flagging and set the edge of the knife to the wrist. Goodbye hand! So much for rope climbing.
‘You really ought to be dead,’ someone rumbled over him.
Fingers peered up, blinking, close to passing out. ‘What?’ Whoever this was, he was a giant of a fellow, occluding almost all the sky.
‘You are a mage, yes?’
Swallowing, Fingers managed a faint ‘Yes.’ Then he cried out a yell, his vision blackening, as the big man yanked on his right hand.
‘You want this off, yes?’
Fingers could only hiss, ‘Yes.’
‘Very well. All others are dead, as far as I can see. Only we two survive here. I am leaving. But before I go, remember, I, Hagen of the Toblakai, rescued you.’
Fingers nodded. Yes, certainly, Hagen, yes. Whoever.
The giant twisted the torc and Fingers yelled again as the fellow nearly broke his wrist. Then it was free and Fingers felt his Warren blossom open to him once more. He sighed, almost ecstatic, and felt like hugging the great shaggy ape. But the fellow, Hagen, had merely pushed off, running for the rear of the wall. Fingers stared uncomprehending as the giant increased his pace, faster and faster, until one huge bounding leap took him up and over the rear of the wall to disappear.
He gazed for a time at the blank section of stone where the giant had jumped and thought, Was that really a Toblakai?
Then, blinking and shaking his head as if to awaken from a trance, he set about healing his legs so that he could at least stand — not that he had any feel at all for the tricky Denul Warren.
On the cluttered stone floor of the infirmary, amid the toppled beds, fallen instruments and shards of stone,
