Assail (55 page)

K’azz stepped forward and bowed in a courtly manner, as when he had dealt with the prickly Quon kings and nobles long ago. ‘Greetings,’ he murmured, his head lowered. ‘I am K’azz, commander of the mercenary company the Crimson Guard. With me are members of my troop: Shimmer, Blues, Gwynn, and Keel.’

The woman favoured them with a hard glare; she did not respond to K’azz’s greeting. ‘A mercenary company,’ she said, musing. ‘An army – of sorts.’ Her glare narrowed. ‘Are you the enemy I was warned to expect?’

K’azz turned round to examine each of them. Gwynn stood leaning upon his staff. He adjusted the leather patch over his eye, frowned his confusion. Shimmer was completely mystified and shook her head. K’azz turned back to the woman. ‘I do not believe we are …’

‘Mist,’ the woman supplied. ‘You may call me Mist. Normally, here I would also say that I am your queen as well. But there is something about you …’ She turned her head as if to regard them first through one eye, then the other. ‘Something about you I do not like. Therefore, while I would usually give you until tomorrow to lay down your weapons,
you
I will ask to depart – immediately. Or you will be executed.’

K’azz appeared to rub his chin. ‘Executed? Then we are your prisoners?’

Mist shook her head. ‘No. Not prisoners. Trespassers. Meddlers. Troublemakers here among my peaceful farming community.’

‘Perhaps we may be permitted to purchase a few small parcels of food – kegs of potable water? We must travel north, as we have business there.’

The woman’s features hardened even more. ‘The north does not want your business. But I see that you are not to be convinced. You are armed and experienced fighters – perhaps you think you can win your way through by strength of arms.’ She snapped her fingers, motioned curtly to one side.

Heavy steps sounded from the darkness behind the woman’s throne. Two gigantic shapes emerged. Twins they seemed, two giants. They resembled those of the race of Jaghut Shimmer had seen over the years, but differed in the coarseness of their features: enormous jutting tusks; thick shelves of brow ridges entirely shadowing the orbs of their eyes; massed thick manes of hair that tumbled about their shoulders. One wore a long coat of scaled bronze, and carried a two-headed axe thrust through a wide belt. The weapon was fully as tall as Shimmer herself. The other wore a similar set of shell-like scaled armour, but of iron. This one carried a massive two-handed sword taller from tip to pommel than Keel’s full height.

Both set their shovel-like hands to their belts and grinned to expose uneven teeth; both obviously enjoyed the reactions their appearance evoked.

Shimmer heard Gwynn’s breath leave him in one long hiss of revulsion. She cast him a questioning look. He whispered low, ‘Twisted, these two – in the womb.’

She could not help her hand climbing to where the grip of her whipsword rose over one shoulder. Gwynn shook a negative, inclined his head to the gloom of the chamber. Shimmer squinted. At first she saw nothing, but slowly details emerged. She had thought the ragged scarf-ends of this sorceress’s dress and hair ended in the small circle of light she could make out, but in fact they did not. They stretched on across the full breadth and length of the hall. Then she realized something even more remarkable: they were moving. The tatters and ribbons writhed and twitched – and they surrounded them.

Like cats’ tails, she thought to herself. Lashing. And we are the mice.

‘May I introduce my sons,’ Mist said, sounding quite proud. She extended a hand to her left. ‘Anger,’ and she indicated to her right, ‘Wrath.’

‘Impressive,’ K’azz allowed, and nodded his greeting to each. Their low rumbled amusement sounded like rocks shifting. ‘We will leave you, then, to your peaceful farming community,’ and he bowed again, motioning for Blues and Gwynn to back away.

‘Go then,’ Mist called as they retreated. ‘You I do not like. But the others … the many vessels dropping anchor even as we speak … they may stay.’

Shimmer could not help but shoot K’azz an anxious look. He waved her on. Outside, the commander motioned for a hurried retreat to the shore. ‘Why did she let us go?’ she demanded.

‘We are an unknown. She senses there is more to us.’

‘Such as what?’ she snapped.

He would not meet her gaze. ‘The Vow, I imagine.’

They found that a thick ground fog had arisen while they were inside. Shimmer did not imagine it coincidental. The meandering streamers of fog reminded her too much of Mist’s lashing white dress. In fact, she began to wonder whether they were in very great trouble; certainly K’azz seemed to think so as he hurried them along.

‘Get to the ships,’ he told them as they jogged. ‘Warn them off. None should put in.’

She gave a quick nod and ran for the nearest launch already ashore. These sailors she warned away. The next lot she found by nearly running into their boat in the dense soup-like miasma. They were clinging to the boat’s side as if afraid they’d sink in the fog and she recognized them as sailors of the Mare galley, the one with the pilot K’azz said knew most about these waters.

‘Put out,’ she told them. ‘It’s a trap. A sorceress is here.’

‘Mist?’ A youth spoke up, standing from within the boat.

‘Yes. She calls herself Mist.’

‘We must leave,’ the youth said to another sailor, presumably his superior. ‘The Fortress Mist and its witch. It’s mentioned in some few accounts. She enslaves all those who land.’

The officer grimaced his scepticism. ‘We need water, Storval,’ another said.

‘Shut up,’ the officer growled. ‘Let me think.’ He eyed Shimmer. ‘Couldn’t we find a—’

A scream sounded from the distance. Its source was utterly obscured by the layers of dense fog surrounding them. It bespoke chilling terror, and was all the more horrible for being cut off in a gurgle, as if the man had fallen from a gallows.

‘Push off now!’ Shimmer commanded, and ran into the fog. She headed for where she thought she’d glimpsed another longboat. Her feet splashed through the waves and sand hissed beneath her boots, but for all that it was as if she waded through a sea of blanketing soup.

She doubled over as she ran into the next boat, nearly falling in. ‘Push off!’ she gasped.

None of the sailors within answered. Nor would they again. They lay sprawled, contorted, hands at throats, their features swollen and purple, although paling now. Scarves of thick fog drifted from their necks even as she watched. She threw herself from the boat, scanned the coursing banners of mist. Damn it to Hood! They were turning round. Where was their boat?

She ran on along the strand. Thicker gravel crunched beneath her boots and the normality of it comforted her; the fog was so leaden it was as if she’d wandered into another world – perhaps Hood’s demesne itself, which some theorize as a land of mists.

The loud shock of a boot-step sounded nearby, one far heavier than any she or any person might make. Something hissed above her and she sidestepped – a fluid motion as swift as thought that only a trained sword-dancer could execute. Something sliced the fog beside her to slam into the gravel like a battering ram. She found herself within a hand’s breadth of the beaten bronze blade of a two-headed axe, one pounded so heavily into the strand that she could step over it, though she knew it to be as tall as she.

A gnarled fist larger than her head yanked the weapon free and it disappeared once more into the swirling mists above her.

Shimmer ran.

Cries of terror continued all about, most cut off in throttled gurgles. She stumbled over boulders, flinched when her boot pressed down on a yielding body. It was galling that just nearby, out of sight, waves slapped against boats. If she could only find theirs!

A voice called then, from nearby in the mist, and she recognized it: Petal. ‘Shimmer!’ It was spoken, not shouted, as if from just next to her.

She shouted, ‘Yes!’ and was chagrined by the note of panic she heard.

‘This way. Follow my voice.’ She set off, feeling her way. Petal spoke every few heartbeats to reacquaint her with his location: ‘Keep going,’ he sometimes said, or, ‘More left.’

Distantly, she heard cordage creaking and sweeps banging wood; the ships were drawing anchor and pulling out. From across a portion of the strand she could make out the silhouette of one of the giant brothers, Anger or Wrath. The massive shape knelt at the shore then rose, roaring, and she recognized the shadowy curve of a boat’s side rising with him. A mass of panicked shouts and screams was abruptly cut off as the longboat, overturned, fell upon its crew.

The giant’s roar of laughter was an avalanche of falling rocks.

‘Swim for it,’ Petal told her.

‘What of you?’

‘Never mind me. Swim!’

Snarling her displeasure, she pushed her way into the surf. It was a good thing she’d chosen not to wear her armour, but then it had been weeks since she’d donned it. Her feet left the bottom and she paddled – she’d only ever had a few basic lessons from Blues. Something snagged at her and she flinched, gained a mouthful of water, and almost slipped into blind flailing terror. Blues’ first lesson saved her: don’t panic, he’d told her. As in a fight, panicking is the worst thing you can do.

She forced her eyes open, stilled her slapping of the water, and saw that she was engaged in a struggle with a corpse. Its limp arms kept bumping up against her. She pushed it away and carried on.

‘To the right.’ Petal spoke again and she realized then that he’d never been with her at all. It was a sending of some sort, or he was watching for her from his Warren. She paddled on.

‘Shimmer!’ a new voice shouted. She recognized Bars bulls’ bellow.

‘Here!’

‘Follow my voice! This way! I have an oar! Do you see it?’

Something splashed the water nearby through the cloaking fog. She headed that way. A tall cliff of darkness emerged from the bank – the side of a vessel. ‘Here!’ she called.

An oar came sluicing through the waves. She grasped for it but missed. She caught it on the second try.

‘There’s a rope here,’ Bars said. The oar pulled her along through the water to where a rope ladder hung from the side. She took hold and started up. On deck, she was met by all the landing party.

‘You’re last,’ Bars told her.

She scanned the shore; the coursing banners of fog still obscured everything. The rest of the Guard were manning the sweeps. She noticed that, oddly, Lean was at the rudder.

‘Where’s Havvin?’

Bars and K’azz exchanged glances. ‘I’m sorry, Shimmer,’ K’azz said. He motioned to where several shapes lay bundled in sailcloth.

Shimmer suddenly felt very cold as she stood dripping wet in the fog. She shivered. ‘How many?’

‘Eight,’ K’azz said. His voice, and his features, did not change at all, and Shimmer realized that he was holding himself under a terrifying degree of will. ‘Taken by the mist.’

She swallowed to dare her next question: ‘Any of us?’

‘None.’

She was vastly relieved, but then fixed her gaze upon him; she wished to take hold of his shoulders and shake him. ‘Why?
Why?
’

‘The … Vow … I imagine.’ He lurched away and seemed to totter off.

She let him go. He knows more than that –
he must
. She met Bars’ gaze, but the man just shook his head.

‘I’m very sorry, Shimmer.’

‘As am I, Bars,’ she sighed.

The Avowed helped on the sweeps, a skeletal few, yet
Mael’s Forbearance
made steady headway. They finally emerged from the fog and Shimmer found that they were a good way out in the bay. Behind, the thick bank obscured the shore for several bowshots. Utterly unnatural, that concentration of mist. She peered round, counting ships. Found nine. Every vessel, it seemed, had escaped – though most of the ship’s launches and their crews probably hadn’t. She turned to face ahead, and while the sky was a leaden hue, overcast, she still had to squint in the light. Three vessels were far ahead: the Letherii modified merchantmen. It seemed Luthal Canar was in no mood to offer anyone any aid. Well, that was fine: they could face whatever lay ahead first.

At that, she shifted her gaze to where a pale light seemed to glow to the north-east. ‘What is that?’ she asked Bars.

But Blues answered, sounding uncharacteristically grim: ‘An ice field.’ She remembered that he’d crossed the immense plain of ice that separated Stratem from the lands of Korel to the north.

‘Can we get through?’ she asked.

Blues shrugged. ‘There must be some way.’

She nodded at that. Yes. Surely some vessels must have made it through ahead of them. Her gaze fell on the wrapped bodies. ‘We should give them a proper send-off.’

‘Yes,’ Bars agreed, and he sounded very firm on that.

It was a channel. A narrow gap of open water that ran between tall cliffs of white and sapphire glacial ice. They reached it near to dusk, but such was the peculiar light held by the ice from the moon, and the star field where it shone through gaps in the cloud cover, that they continued on.

Luthal’s command ahead did likewise. They too neither paused nor let up, and Shimmer began to wonder whether the Letherii merchant had – rather stupidly – decided that this was some sort of race. And the gold to the winner.