shells of their armour opalescent in emerald and gold. Reinforcements?
Whatever was down there was a long time in dying. Eruptions blistered the surface anew. Lights flickered like undersea flames. It seemed a full-blown war somewhere far beyond the ken of humankind.
Slowly, by degrees, the ferocity of the struggle in the depths appeared to wane. Evening darkened into twilight. Carfin amused himself making shapes of darkness dance upon the stones. Seeing this, Sister Gosh growled far down in her throat. The shapes bowed to her, then diffused into nothingness. Carfin sighed and shifted his skinny haunches. ‘Now what?’
‘Now everyone and their dog will be a hedge-wizard or sea-soother.’
Carfin wrinkled his nose. ‘Gods. It’ll be awful.’ He rose, dusted off his trousers. ‘I’ll stay in my cave — that is, my domicile.’
‘Good riddance.’
‘And to you.’ He stepped into darkness and disappeared.
Now that’s just plain showing off.
Below, swift shapes passed beneath the soles of her mud-covered, tattered shoes, coursing out into the bay. Far fewer than had entered, that was for sure. So it was over, here at least. What of elsewhere? Did the Riders fare as well against their other targets? Who knew? She was dog-tired. So tired she wondered whether there was a boat somewhere on this damned island.
Suth and Corbin followed Keri through the tunnels. They stayed close as the woman showed an alarming willingness to throw her Moranth munitions wherever she wished, and at the least hint of danger.
Almost hugging her back, Suth asked, ‘Did the old man send you to help us?’
She sent him an irritated glare over her shoulder. ‘What old man?’
‘Never mind. So, they sent you to find us? All alone?’
She stopped in the dimness of a tunnel, turned on him, an explosive shrapnel munition called a sharper in one fist. ‘Listen, Dal Hon. Alone is better, right? That way I can throw these without having to worry about your sorry arses, right?’
Suth raised his hands in surrender. ‘Yes, okay! Whatever you say.’
‘Damned straight.’
Corbin raised the lamp. ‘What’s the hold-up?’
‘Numbnuts here,’ Keri muttered. Corbin and Suth shared commiserating looks. ‘This way,’ Keri ordered, and headed off.
Suth expected Stormguard to jump out from every corner. He was shaken by their ruthless competence. They were ferocious opponents. Of their separated party only he and Corbin remained on their feet. Both squads had been ravaged, and Suth frankly doubted any of them would live to see the light of day again.
Keri led them through sections of half-collapsed tunnels, the scenes of confrontations where the dead lay where they fell, Stormguard and Malazan alike. Suth recognized the body of Sergeant Twofoot, nearly hacked to pieces. A faint yellowish glow ahead signalled a light source and Keri halted. She made a tapping noise, some sort of signal. It was answered differently but apparently correctly for she straightened, waving them on.
They entered a guarded chamber holding all that was left of the team: Fist Rillish, bearing many cuts, the Adjunct Kyle, Captain Peles, her armour gashed and helm dented, the squat priest, Sergeant Goss, Wess, and a few of Twofoot’s squad.
Goss squeezed Suth’s shoulder. ‘The others?’
‘Too wounded.’ The priest, Ipshank, straightened from where he’d been sitting. ‘Manask…’
‘He was wounded, unconscious last we saw.’
Fist Rillish came forward. ‘And the elder, Gheven?’
‘He left by Warren to get help.’
Ipshank grunted at that. ‘Good. But we can’t count on it. We must press forward.’
Fist Rillish turned on the man. ‘Why? Tell me that. We are outnumbered. I see no reason to lose anyone more.’
Ipshank nodded his understanding. ‘Yet we must.’
‘Why?’
The priest looked to Kyle who watched, arms crossed, the grip and pommel of the sword at his side glowing in the dim light. ‘Because I believe Greymane is going to use his sword, Adjunct. And when he does we must be ready to finish what he has begun — else it will all be for nothing.’
Perhaps unconsciously, the young Adjunct’s fist went to his own sword to close there, tight. He shook his head, in a kind of rueful self-mockery as if at some joke known only to him, and on him. ‘I understand, Ipshank. I will go on. No one need accompany me.’
‘I will, of course,’ Ipshank answered.
‘And I,’ the Fist added.
‘And I,’ said Captain Peles.
‘We’re all goin’,’ Goss rumbled, and signed Move out.
They advanced unopposed through sections of the tunnels. The Adjunct and the Fist led, followed by Captain Peles and the priest, then the regular troopers including Suth, Corbin and Wess. Sergeant Goss brought up the rear. Suth wondered at the lack of opposition but he overheard the Fist opining that they’d withdrawn to guard their target. Ipshank now guided them, choosing corners and which chambers to pass by or enter.
Eventually they reached a widening in the excavation that ended at solid stone. Tall double doors reared in the naked cliff bearing the sigil of the Lady, the white starburst. After glancing about, wary of ambush, the Adjunct approached, tried the doors, found them closed and secured. He drew his blade. In the dimness it glowed like pure sunlight. Two-handed, he struck directly down into the middle where the doors met, and hacked through in a ringing of metal. He kicked a leaf and it swung heavily open, crashing against stone. They crowded forward.
It was a temple to the Lady. A long columned hall gave way to a wider chamber. Daylight streamed in from high up through portals cut into the rock. Awaiting them were gathered some twenty Stormguard. Behind them two priests flanked the tiny figure of a young girl who held before her a chest of dark wood glowing with silver tracery.
‘Retreat, heretics,’ one of the bearded priests called, ‘or be destroyed by the holy wrath of the Lady.’
They spread out, the Adjunct and Fist Rillish taking the centre of the line. The Adjunct edged forward. He did not bother answering. One priest stamped his staff against the polished stone flagging and the Korelri spread out, drawing blades. A faint blue-green flame, an auora all too familiar to Suth, arose around the two priests. They touched their staffs to the Stormguard before them and the flames spread from man to man down the lines.
On Suth’s right the priest Ipshank growled, ‘Shit.’ He shouted: ‘They’ll ignore wounds now!’
Suth knew this from prior experience. The priests howled some sort of invocation to the Lady and levelled their staffs. The flames leapt across the chamber to strike the Adjunct and Ipshank, who flinched, stepping back, grunting their pain and raising arms to protect their faces, but neither fell back.
The Korelri charged.
Suth fought with sword and shield. The Stormguard attacked first with spears.
Keri raised a sharper but the Fist yelled at her to stop. Cursing, she swung the bag to her rear and drew two long-knives. The Adjunct leapt forward, swinging. His blade struck a Stormguard but was deflected away in a shower of sparks and crackling energy.
‘Who protects you?’ a priest yelled at the Adjunct.
Ipshank grasped a spear thrust at him and held on though his hands smoked. The stink of burning flesh wafted over Suth. The troopers from Twofoot’s squad fell. Keri stepped into the gap, parrying. Suth was almost taken by a thrust as he peered over, terrified for her. A spearhead grazed her face, then another took her in the thigh and she fell. Goss hacked two of the Stormguard but they would not fall, and, momentarily surprised, the sergeant was thrust through the stomach. Wess and Corbin held the gap but were close to being overborne. Then a huge figure came bounding into the room to join them: Manask, his armour hanging from him in shreds. He’d somewhere found a great halberd, which he swung, beheading a Stormguard. The headless body tottered and fell.
The Stormguard facing Ipshank freed his spear and thrust the priest in the side. The man fell to his knees. Fist Rillish stepped into the gap and the arcing blue-green flames shifted to envelop him. He screamed, smoking,
