the threat beyond.
In the morning Ena accosted Shell while she ate a breakfast of fish stew. ‘What foolishness is this I hear?’
‘Foolishness?’ Shell answered mildly.
‘You giving yourselves over to the Korelri? In truth?’
‘Yes.’
The girl-woman made an angry gesture. ‘Stupidity! You will be killed.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Look at you. You are no warrior.’
‘Ena… I’ve served in a mercenary company for a very long time. You’d be surprised.’
‘The Riders…’
‘An enemy like any other. Listen, Ena. You would do whatever you must for your family, yes?’ A guarded angry nod answered that. ‘Very good. And so would I. At least grant me that dignity.’
Again, a slow nod. ‘You do this for your people?’
‘Yes.’
The young woman sat and cradled her broad stomach. ‘I will stay with the boat.’
Now it was Shell’s turn for anger. ‘You most certainly will not.’
‘The Korelri will not harm me.’
‘When are you due?’
An indifferent shrug. ‘Soon.’
‘Can’t have that kind of complication.’
‘Babies are born all the time everywhere. It is not a complication.’
‘It is if it’s not necessary.’
Ena smiled mockingly. ‘Babies are not necessary? You have been too long in your mercenary company, I think.’
That stopped Shell. She could not maintain her anger in the face of chiding from someone certainly younger in years, but perhaps older in other ways, than her. True. There is no stricture. It would not seem to be against the Vow. Why not, then? Time away from duties, I guess. Always something else to do. And now I am too old. Yet, am I? I took the Vow in my twenties… Strange how this had not occurred to me before. Change in company, I suppose.
She studied the girl’s blunt profile while she looked out to sea. Straggly dirty hair, grimed face; yet sharp intelligent dark eyes. ‘Don’t stay with the boat, Ena.’
She smiled wistfully, agreeing. ‘The Elders wouldn’t allow it anyway.’
‘Good luck with your life and your child, Ena.’
‘And you, Shell. May the Old Ones guide you.’
Old Ones? Shell thought about that. Which Old Ones might that be? Burn, she imagined. The Elder Gods. Hood. Mael. D’rek. Osserc? K’rul? Sister Night? That sea-cult that was probably another face of Mael, Chem’esh’el? Who knew? Something chthonic, certainly. Perhaps they should accept all the help they could get, but with the proviso this cult of the Lady presented: one should be careful of whom one accepts help from.
*
The exchange took place on a military pier at the Korelri fortress named Shelter. Shell, Blues, Lazar and Fingers were led up, hands securely tied. It was overcast as usual, a grim dark day. Snow blew about them in flurries. The flat grey fortress walls and the stone pier all had a military look to them. No colour, starkly functional. A troop of guards accepted them. From his dark blue cloak and silver-chased armour, the one leading the detachment was the lone Korelri Stormguard. And he was old, grey-bearded.
He looked them up and down, each in turn, while Orzu watched, clasping and reclasping his hands. Blues and Lazar the Chosen accepted immediately. He stopped in front of Shell.
‘You can fight?’ His accent reminded Shell of the rural Malazan Isle twang.
She raised her bound wrists. ‘Untie me and find out.’
The man ran a hand through her blonde hair, longer now than she usually kept it. ‘Perhaps you could contribute more in one of the brothels.’
Twins’ laughter! I didn’t even think of that! Maybe I have spent too long in a mercenary company.
And so she head-butted him.
He lurched away, gasping his pain, a hand to his nose. Blood gushed over his mouth. The guards leapt forward, weapons sliding from sheaths. But the Stormguard raised his other hand. His eyes were black with rage, yet that rage slipped away and the mouth twisted into a grin revealing blood-stained teeth. ‘Show the Riders your spirit, woman.’
Next he turned to Fingers. He regarded him carefully, his thin shivering frame, pale drawn face, cracked lips, sick watery eyes and running nose, and was not impressed.
‘I don’t want to be in the brothel either,’ Fingers said.
‘Show me your hands,’ the man growled.
Fingers held them up. The Stormguard turned them over, felt the palms. Then there was a metallic click and Fingers yanked his hands away: a dull metal bracelet encircled one wrist.
‘That’s otataral, mage. Don’t try any of your daemon tricks.’
Fingers’ shoulders sagged. He glared at Orzu. ‘Did you tell him? Bastard!’ He went for Orzu but the Stormguard kicked him down. Lazar lashed out, but somehow the Chosen slipped the blow.
Shell was impressed. And he was probably assigned this duty because he was too old to stand the wall. For the first time she wondered just what they had gotten themselves into.
The Stormguard pushed them along. ‘Pay the man, Gellin. Standard bounty.’
‘Standard?’ Orzu yelped. ‘But they are skilled fighters. Champion material.’
‘Oh yes? Then how is it you got the better of them?’
Orzu held up his open hands. ‘Come now, Chosen sir. You are too old for such naivety. Even the greatest fighter must eat and drink. And it is so very easy for d’bayang or white nectar to find its way into such things. And as for the rest… well, then it is all so very easy.’
The old Chosen stomped over to the guard called Gellin and took the bag of coin from him. He threw it down before Orzu, where it split amid the slush and footprints on the stone pier. The coins clattered, some sliding into the water. ‘You disgust me. Take your money and go before I run you through here and now.’
Orzu fell to his knees, bowing and scooping up the coins. ‘Yes, honoured sir. Certainly. Yes.’
Shell wanted to say something, but of course she couldn’t. She allowed herself one glance back: the old man was still on his knees, pocketing the coins, peering up through his hanging grey hair. He did not so much as wink.
She remembered some of her conversations with Ena; thought of deception and false fronts. For generations this was how the Sea-Folk survived. And now we, too, have elected for that same strategy. I can only hope our own subterfuge will prove as successful.
Devaleth found the nightly staff gatherings increasingly uncomfortable. The remaining Roolian force had held them at the bridge for four days now. Each time a push gathered yardage, or established a foothold on the opposite shore, a counterattack from elite forces, mainly the Black Moranth, pushed them back. The narrow width of the bridge was now their bottleneck. And they were stuck in it.
Greymane’s van had arrived near dawn of the night they took the bridge, scattering the remaining Roolian forces on the east shore. Unfortunately, the forced marching had taken its toll and his troops could not break through.
It was winter, and food was scarce. What meagre supplies Greymane’s forces had carried with them were exhausted. Foraging parties ranged everywhere. Any effort to harvest fish from the Ancy was met with bow-fire from the opposite shore. Not one horse or mule remained. Some troops now boiled leather, moss and grasses. Fist Khemet’s relief column, escorting all their logistics, was still a week away.
They had to break through soon, before they were too weak to fight at all.
The stalemate was taking its toll on the High Fist. He obviously felt the suffering of his troops. His temper was hair-thin and increasingly it sharpened itself on one target: the Untan aristocrat, Fist Rillish. Greymane stood
