Stonewielder, page 12
Quint did not disappoint. ‘Hiam! That is, Lord Protector! The centre bears the brunt. It’s always been the champion’s post.’
Hiam offered his deputy, the Wall Marshal, an amused smile. ‘You’re telling me things I don’t know?’
Quint’s bright gaze shifted to the Chosen nearby. His look told Hiam: If we were alone right now … ‘They’ll read something into the change. You mustn’t underestimate them.’
The Lord Protector’s smile broadened: that had always been his message. The Wall Marshal was obviously not above appropriating arguments. Anything to win the skirmish. ‘They might. We’ll watch their patterns, just as usual.’ The Wall Marshal was not appeased, but he did clamp his lips shut – a temporary withdrawal perhaps. The rain that had been long promised by the day’s low-hanging clouds scudding in from the north came spattering down. Hiam pulled his thick cloak higher and tighter. ‘Section Marshal Felis …’ The woman saluted. ‘My apologies that we could not provide you with adequate materiel to sufficiently defend your command. I am sorry.’
Felis appeared stricken to the bone. ‘Sir! I take full responsibility! The inspection—’
‘Was more than thorough, I’m sure. No, do not blame yourself, Marshal. Please convey my regrets to the rest of the Theftian crew and commend them for their efforts.’
The Section Marshal saluted smartly, her eyes fairly shining. ‘Yes, Lord Protector.’
Hiam answered the salute. ‘Dismissed.’ He invited Quint onward. ‘Since we’re here, let’s have a look at the Tower of Ruel’s Tears.’
‘Yes, Lord Protector.’
Wall Marshal Quint walked quietly at the side of his commander. Once more the man had shaken him by his seeming casual disregard for tradition and the hard-won wisdom of their predecessors. Was he not aware that thousands had died for the priceless knowledge of where best to place their defences and how best to deploy for every situation? Yet of course Hiam knew, perhaps better than he did himself; the man was, after all, a student of history. A reader of scrolls and books, unlike him.
He was a man of the spear. He had but two answers for all that existence could possibly throw his way: either the butt or the blade. Nothing need be more complicated than that.
Yet the protectorship had not come to him. Despite five seasons’ seniority. Was he not the Spear of the Wall? Was his service not storied? Now lately he wondered: was there something he lacked? Some quality unfathomable to him? On days such as this Hiam would make him think. That woman, Section Marshal Felis – a woman! Were they in truth that short of men? Yet by his words of support the Lord Protector had won her, helm to sandals. She was his now, would do anything for him. He saw it in her eyes. Hiam could do that with just a word or a glance – what was this the indefinite quality? And most important, was it what was needed by the Chosen at this time?
Or was it the butt or the blade?
They entered the Tower of Ruel’s Tears. Guard chambers on the first floor, beds to double as an infirmary. Up the circular stairs they came to dormitories. Chosen jumped to attention. Hiam and Quint answered their salutes.
‘All well here?’ Hiam asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ the ranking Chosen present responded, a Wall Provost, or sergeant, by the look of him.
Hiam pointed to a guard across the low-ceilinged room. ‘Allan, yes?’
The guard smiled, pleased. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ramparts of the Stars, three seasons ago. That was quite the scuffle, yes?’
‘Yes, Lord Protector. A cold one.’
‘Good to see you. Carry on.’ Hiam brought his fist to his heart in salute.
‘Sir!’ rang the shouted response.
They continued up the stairway past further levels of dormitories, these empty, awaiting the arrival of the season’s contingents from abroad. Beyond these they came to an armoury jammed with racks of spears, swords, and a few sets of spare armour – boiled leather cuirasses mainly. At the walls stood barrels of the weapon of last resort: tar, pitch and rare alchemicals for a barrier of flame. Above this the stairs ended at a trapdoor to the uppermost chamber. Hiam pushed it open and stepped up. Quint followed.
Here broad windows faced all directions, all closed now by sturdy wood shutters bracketed in iron. At the centre of the small open chamber stood a stone pillar topped by an iron sleeve that could be raised and lowered by a lever. Hiam bent down, examining it. ‘This was tested this summer?’
‘Yes. Tested and inspected.’
‘Good. If there is one thing we mustn’t stint on, this is it.’
‘Yes.’ Their communication system. An oil flame within could be made to burn exceedingly bright with the addition of certain mineral powders. Raising and lowering the sleeve allowed them to send coded messages up and down the length of the wall. Simple communiqués: attack, help, all-clear.
Quint examined his tall commander: grey coming into the beard and in the unkempt mane of thick hair. Yet seemingly young in his mannerisms. Not an outstanding spearman, it had to be said. But there was a certain something about his eyes and expression. Quint had always felt comfortable around the man, though he rarely felt comfortable around anyone. He crossed his arms under his cloak. ‘You didn’t drag me up here to discuss our communication system.’
A wry smile. ‘No. And direct as ever. Reassuring, Quint. You’ve been quiet of late.’ He went to the shuttered window facing north, unlatched it and stood peering out. ‘No, word has come via my ever-efficient Staff Marshal Shool of the Jourilan and Dourkan contingent. ’ He turned, leaning back against the window ledge, hands clasping the edges of his thick cloak. ‘They have been halved.’
‘Halved. Halved? Well, what’s the point of that? Do they want to be overrun? They might as well send no one for all the use!’
Hiam raised a hand in agreement. ‘Yes, Quint. Yes. But what’s done is done. We cannot conjure up any further men or women. We can expect only some three thousand spears from Jourilan and Dourkan. That puts our strength for the coming season at some twenty thousand spears of active-service men and women. Twenty-five, if we pressed every possible standing body. Including, I suppose, even our Master Engineer Stimins.’
Despite the news, Quint barked a laugh at that vision. ‘It may be all worth it just to see that. But,’ and he slid a hand up from within his cloak to stroke his gouged chin between thumb and forefinger, ‘as you say, there seems nothing to discuss in all this. What’s done is done.’
‘Yes. There’s nothing to discuss,’ and the Lord Protector’s expression hardened, ‘save how we will respond to the fact that we are now below half-strength for the coming season.’
Quint shrugged easily. ‘Then there is nothing to discuss. We will defend. We are the Chosen, the Stormguard. Ours is a sacred responsibility to defend all the lands.’
Hiam pushed himself from the wall, nodding. ‘Very good, Quint. I knew that would be your answer. I merely wanted to have this out in the open between us. We are in complete agreement. We fight. We defend to the last man and woman. There is no alternative.’ He squeezed Quint’s shoulder, peered about the chamber. ‘You know this tower is named Ruel’s Tears because a millennium ago the Lord Protector of the time, Ruel, was said to have thrown himself from this very window after having been overcome by some terrible vision?’
Quint nodded; he’d heard the legend.
‘Some say his vision was of the ultimate defeat of the Stormguard. Had you heard that?’
Quint could only pinch his chin savagely; he’d heard that whispered a time or two.
Looking off as if he could see beyond the walls of the small chamber, Hiam said softly, ‘I never could understand such a reaction, Quint. All I feel is admiration. I sometimes think that if I were to die of anything, it would be of unbearable pride …’ He smiled then, looking away. ‘Very good, Wall Marshal. We are in accordance.’ And he started down the stairs.
Only later, long after he and Hiam had walked in silence completing the day’s inspection tour, did it occur to Quint that the discussion of Ruel’s Tears in truth had not at all been for Hiam to test his reaction to the news of this season’s shorthandedness; rather, it had been to reassure him, Quint, of Hiam’s own steadfast resolve in the face of such news.
For it was not in Quint’s nature ever to bend or to waver – neither the butt nor the blade allowed for that. However, in the months ahead he may come to wonder on the like determination of his Lord Protector. And Hiam had just neatly anticipated and eliminated any such misgivings on the part of his second in command. As he hung his cloak and sat watching the fire in the common room of the Tower of Kor, it occurred to Quint that perhaps there was more than met the eye to the indefinable quality that made Hiam the Lord Protector.
Rillish was playing with his toddler, Halgin, in the courtyard of his house just outside the hamlet of Halas when a column of Malazan cavalry came up the dirt road from the village. Straightening, he motioned the nanny to take the lad then walked out to meet them. They took their time. The grey dust of west Cawn coated their travelling cloaks and the sweaty flanks of their mounts. As they drew closer Rillish could see by the torc high on the leader’s arm that the commander was a captain, which was unusual for such a small detachment. His wife, Talia, broad with child, appeared at his side. ‘You needn’t come out,’ he told her. ‘It’s nothing, I’m sure.’
‘They wouldn’t be here for nothing,’ she said grimly.
The captain motioned a halt and nodded a greeting. She pulled off her gloves and batted the dust from her cloak. ‘Fist Rillish Jal Keth?’
‘That promotion was honorary only. I’m retired.’
The captain pulled off her helmet and the padded leather hood beneath. She was fair, startlingly so, her long white-blonde hair tightly braided. For the life of him Rillish could not place her background. Few on Quon were so pale, and there was something in her voice, the accent unusual.
‘That retirement was voluntary. Under terms of service you are still in reserve. The Empire, sir, did not let you go.’
‘That fat toad on the throne …’ Talia hissed beneath her breath.
Rillish raised a hand for quiet. ‘I’m sorry, Captain, but there must be some misunderstanding. Firm agreements were made in the terms of my service and retirement. I am finished with the Empire.’
The captain gave a judicious nod. ‘That may be true, sir. But, as I say, the Empire may not be finished with you.’
Talia’s hand found his, hot and sweaty. He squeezed. ‘There is nothing, Captain, that could induce me to return.’
‘Nothing?’ The captain peered about the yard, the modest garden plot, the fields, the paddock of horses, before finally returning to him. ‘Perhaps there is somewhere we can talk, sir?’
Rillish shrugged. ‘Well, we can go for a walk if you wish.’ He released Talia’s hand. ‘But I believe you’ve come a long way to no profit. You may water the mounts, of course, and perhaps we can find something for your troop.’
‘You are kind, sir.’ She turned to the detachment. ‘Stand down. See to the horses.’
Dismounted, the woman was as tall as Rillish, and far older than he’d thought, perhaps close to his own fifty. The lines around the eyes and mouth gave her age away. ‘And you are?’
She saluted. ‘Peleshar is my full name, but I go by Peles. At your service, Fist.’
Rillish let the rank reference pass. ‘Peleshar … an unusual name …’
She nodded. ‘I am from south Genabackis.’
Rillish was surprised and impressed. ‘You served in One-Arm’s host?’
‘No, sir. I saw action in the Free City campaigns. Then I served in the liaison contingent to the Moranth.’
Even more impressive. A record of service that should warrant a rank far higher than captain. And the Free City campaigns – those went far back indeed. He managed to stop himself from being so gauche as to ask just how far back, and invited the captain to accompany him.
‘I’ll see what we can pull together for the troopers,’ Talia said, her gaze hard on the captain.
Peles bowed. ‘My thanks.’
They stopped at the paddock. Suspicious of the stranger, the horses snorted and edged away. The captain studied them with admiration. ‘Fine mounts. They are Wickan?’
Watching the horses as well, Rillish smiled his affection. ‘Yes. You are in the cavalry?’
A laugh. ‘Fanderay, no. I have had little exposure to horses. My people are not riders. We have other … specialties. I am a commander of marines.’
Rillish nodded, brushed drying bark from the still-green wood of the fence. ‘So, Captain. Why are you here?’
‘I am only the messenger, of course. I was asked to deliver this.’ She held out a slim, tightly bound scroll. ‘I am told it is from Emperor Mallick’s own hand.’
Rillish regarded it without moving. For a moment he feared it was poisoned. Then he mocked himself, thinking, why would the man bother when he could just dispatch his Claw assassins to kill them in their sleep? He took the scroll, broke the seal, and read.
It was a long time before he lowered the short note.
Captain Peles had not moved nor spoken the whole time. She had merely watched the horses, her surprisingly thick forearms resting on the paddock fence. Patient, this one. We might get along at that. Rillish returned the scroll. ‘Very well, Captain. I accept. As he knew I would, no doubt.’
‘Yes, Fist. So I was told.’
Rillish turned to face the yard where his wife and the servants were sharing out bread and cold meats. ‘Now the hard part, Captain.’
She nodded, clearing her throat. ‘I’ll ready my men and women.’
Before he even got close enough to speak, she knew. Her face stiffened and she turned away to enter the house without a word. Rillish followed, but she was gone, fled to some back room. He went to the storeroom where his gear lay rolled in leather. He dug about for his blades, his father’s old Untan two-edged longswords. He found them under the shelves, wrapped in oiled rags. When he straightened she was in the doorway. Tears glistened on her cheeks.
‘What did he offer?’
‘Everything.’
She gestured savagely to the surroundings, the house, the yard. ‘You have everything you need here – don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
She wiped the tears from her face. ‘Isn’t it enough?’
‘Yes.’ He closed to hold her but she backed away. ‘This is all I need, Talia. But he offered to give it all back – everything. How could I refuse?’
Her mouth tightened to a slit and she spat, ‘We don’t want it.’
He lowered his gaze, pulled one blade a short way from its scabbard, then shoved it home. When he looked up she was gone.
Captain Peles had halted her detachment a short way down the dirt road. With the help of his foreman, Rillish saddled his favourite mount, then led it out into the yard. Here Halgin waited with his nanny. When the toddler saw him he broke free to run. Rillish knelt to hold his shoulders. The lad peered up, his gaze as blue and open as the sky. Rillish kissed his forehead. He could hardly find his voice. ‘I’m going away for a time, son. What I’m doing, I’m doing for you, and for little Nil or Nether to come. I want you to know that I love you more than I could ever say. Goodbye for now.’
He straightened but Halgin grabbed his leg and would not let go. In the end the nanny came to pull the howling lad away. Mounting, Rillish searched for Talia but didn’t see her anywhere. That hurt, but he teased the reins to start down the road.
When he reached the detachment, Captain Peles raised her chin to motion back behind him and he turned. She stood there. The captain signed for her detachment to move on.
He watched her. For the longest time they remained unmoving, studying one another over the stretch of dusty dirt road between, she motionless beside the unfinished gate to their little yard hemmed in by the house and paddock. Such a small allotment, hardly enough to get by, let alone prosper. He thought of his family’s many estates in Unta. The largest, hard by the Gris border, a man could not cross in a full day’s riding. All that had been his before the Insurrection, before his choice to side against the Empress’s edicts on the Wickan pogrom had stripped him of it. Now the Emperor offered it all back for his return to active duty – and just where, he believed he knew. And he’d accepted. Not for himself of course, but for Halgin. It would be his legacy now. He hoped his son would have better luck of it than he or his father before him.
He raised a hand in farewell and she answered, slowly. He lowered his arm and turned away.
In the end Kiska had no idea why she agreed to Agayla’s request that she accompany her up-island for a walk among the windswept hills. Perhaps it was the daytime sight of the Deadhouse: if anything even more foreboding in the full glare of the sun and even more unsettling to her senses now than she remembered from her youth.
Could this tomb-like dilapidated hulk really be of the Azath? A mysterious network of dwellings, caves or houses, call them what you would – structures, of some sort – that some claimed pervade creation? All she knew of them was what she had overheard speculated about in Tayschrenn’s presence, and that precious little. In fact, she remembered scholars who had approached Tayschrenn for his knowledge of them and their outrage at his opinion that the Azath were not a matter for human investigation. ‘They are waning,’ she heard him say once. ‘We should let them go in peace.’
She rested a hand on the low wall of piled fieldstones surrounding the house’s grounds and thought of another night, seemingly so long ago, when she had faced the brooding presence last. That night saw the only known successful assault upon an Azath; and that by the most cunning – and probably most insane – mage of their time. The Emperor himself. All other would-be assailants through the ages, human, daemon, Jaghut, now crowded the many mounds humping the dead grounds, enslaved to the house.
