stared across at the churning bergs of ice warring across the strait. Like a city tumbling down, enormous sections looming over where Fent Reach used to be were splitting away, in momentary silence, until the waves of concussion rolled over the choppy waves of the sea, arriving in thunder. Roiling silver clouds, gouts of foamy water-
A mountain range in its death-throes,’ muttered Ebron at his side.
‘War machines pounding a city wall,’ Cord countered.
‘A frozen storm,’ said Limp behind them.
‘You all have it wrong,’ interjected Crump through chattering teeth. ‘It’s like big pieces of ice… falling down.’
‘That’s… simply stunning, Crump,’ said Corporal Shard. ‘You’re a Hood-damned poet. I cannot believe the Mott Irregulars ever let you get away. No, truly, Crump. I cannot believe it.’
‘Well, it’s not like they had any choice,’ the tall, knock-kneed sapper said, rubbing vigorously at both sides of his jaw before adding, ‘I mean, I left when no-one was looking. I used a fish spine to pick the manacles-you can’t arrest a High Marshal anyhow. I kept telling them. You can’t. It’s not allowed.’
Cord turned to his corporal. ‘Any better luck at talking to your sister? Is she getting tired holding all this back? We can’t tell. Widdershins doesn’t even know how she’s doing it in the first place, so he can’t help.’
‘Got no answers for you, Sergeant. She doesn’t talk to me either. I don’t know-she doesn’t look tired, but she hardly sleeps any more anyway. There’s not much I recognize in Sinn these days. Not since Y’Ghatan.’
Cord thought about this for a time, then he nodded. ‘I’m sending Widdershins back. The Adjunct should be landing in the Fort by now.’
‘She has,’ said Ebron, pulling at his nose as if to confirm it hadn’t frozen off. Like Widdershins, the squad mage had no idea how Sinn was managing to fend off mountains of ice. A bad jolt to his confidence, and it showed. ‘The harbour’s blocked, the thug in charge is contained. Everything is going as planned.’
A grunt from Limp. ‘Glad you’re not the superstitious type, Ebron. As for me, I’m getting down off this spine before I slip and blow a knee.’
Shard laughed. ‘You’re just about due, Limp.’
‘Thanks, Corporal. I really do appreciate your concern.’
‘Concern is right. I got five imperials on you living up to your name before the month’s out.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Shard,’ Cord said after they’d watched-with some amusement-Limp gingerly retreat from the promontory, ‘where is Sinn now?’
‘In that old lighthouse,’ the corporal replied.
‘All right. Let’s get under some cover ourselves-there’s more freezing rain on the way.’
‘That’s just it,’ Ebron said in sudden anger. ‘She’s not just holding the ice back, Sergeant. She’s killing it. And the water’s rising and rising fast.’
‘Thought it was all dying anyway’
‘Aye, Sergeant. But she’s quickened that up-she just took apart that Omtose Phellack like reeds from a broken basket-but she didn’t throw ‘era away, no, she’s weaving something else.’
Cord glared at his mage. ‘Sinn ain’t the only one not talking. What do you mean by “something else”?’
‘I don’t know! Hood’s balls, I don’t!’
‘There’s no baskets over there,’ Crump said. ‘Not that I can see. Marsh pigs, you got good eyes, Ebron. Even when
I squint with one eye, I don’t see-’
‘That’s enough, Sapper,’ Cord cut in. He studied Ebron for a moment longer, then turned away. ‘Come on, I got a block of ice between my legs and that’s the warmest part of me.’
They headed down towards the fisher’s shack they used as their base.
‘You should get rid of it, Sergeant,’ Crump said.
‘What?’
‘That block of ice. Or use your hands, at least.’
‘Thanks, Crump, but I ain’t that desperate yet.’
It had been a comfortable life, all things considered. True,
Malaz City was hardly a jewel of the empire, but at least it wasn’t likely to fall apart and sink in a storm. And he’d had no real complaints about the company he kept. Coop’s had its assortment of fools, enough to make Withal feel as if he belonged.
Braven Tooth. Temper. Banaschar-and at least Banaschar was here, the one familiar face beyond a trio of Nachts and, of course, his wife. Of course. Her. And though an Elder God had told him to wait, the Meckros blacksmith would have been content to see that waiting last for ever. Damn the gods, anyway, with their constant meddling, they way they just use us. As they like.
Even after what had to be a year spent on the same ship as the Adjunct, Withal could not claim to know her. True, there had been that prolonged period of grief-Tavore’s lover had been killed in Malaz City, he’d been told-and the Adjunct had seemed, for a time, like a woman more dead than alive.
If she was now back to herself, then, well, her self wasn’t much.
The gods didn’t care. They’d decided to use her as much as they had used him. He could see it, that bleak awareness in her unremarkable eyes. And if she had decided to stand against them, then she stood alone.
I would never have the courage for that. Not even close. But maybe, to do what she’s doing, she has to make herself less than human. More than human? Choosing to be less to be more, perhaps. So many here might see her as surrounded by allies. Allies such as Withal himself, Banaschar, Sandalath, Sinn and Keneb. But he knew better. We all watch. Waiting. Wondering.
Undecided.
Is this what you wanted, Mael? To deliver me to her? Yes, she was who I was waiting for.
Leading, inevitably, to that most perplexing question: But why me?
True, he could tell her of the sword. His sword. The tool he had hammered and pounded into life for the Crippled God. But there was no answering that weapon.
Yet the Adjunct was undeterred. Choosing a war not even her soldiers wanted. With the aim of bringing down an empire. And the Emperor who held that sword in his hands. An Emperor driven mad by his own power. Another tool of the gods.
It was hard to feel easy about all this. Hard to find any confidence in the Adjunct’s bold decision. The marines had been flung onto the Letherii shore, not a single landing en masse, in strength, but one scattered, clandestine, at night. Then, as if to defy the tactic, the transports had been set aflame.
An announcement to be sure.
We are here. Find us, if you dare. But be assured, in time we will find you.
While most of another legion remained in ships well off the Letherii coast. And the Adjunct alone knew where the Khundryl had gone. And most of the Perish.
‘You have taken to brooding, husband.’
Withal slowly lifted his head and regarded the onyx-skinned woman sitting opposite him in the cabin. ‘I am a man of deep thoughts,’ he said.
You’re a lazy toad trapped in a pit of self-obsession.’
‘That, too.’
‘We will soon be ashore. I would have thought you’d be eager at the gunnel, given all your groaning and moaning. Mother Dark knows, I would never have known you for a Meckros with your abiding hatred of the sea.’
‘Abiding hatred, is it? No, more like… frustration.’ He lifted his huge hands. ‘Repairing ships is a speciality. But it’s not mine. I need to be back doing what I do best, wife.’
‘Horseshoes?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Shield-rims? Dagger-hilts? Swords?’
‘If need be.’
‘Armies always drag smiths with them.’
‘Not my speciality.’
