Stonewielder (38 page)

The Adjunct sheathed his blade.

‘It cut,’ someone whispered. ‘Cut iron …’

‘Did you ever see the like …’

The Adjunct glared with his dark eyes as if expecting some sort of challenge, then turned away without a word.

Later, Suth, like many, went to examine the severed links. He found the iron mirror-bright and clean. Its edge was so sharp it cut one of his fingers.

They had pushed on through the greatest concentration of Mare vessels. Behind, bursts of orange glare and a banner of thick black smoke hanging low over the water obscured dawn. A final war galley rammed them on the port forward of the mainmast, but a volley of lobbed munitions from the Moranth left the ship so devastated that it drifted away, seemingly unmanned. As for the transport, while Suth was bent over the gunwale inspecting the great hole punched into the side, a Blue marine just said: ‘Our ships are also hard to sink.’

Orders came later that day to return to the hold to get some sleep. The assault would come tomorrow. The marines filed back down. Talk now lingered on this Adjunct. Who was he? Where was he from? One crazy rumour had him once serving among the mercenary company the Crimson Guard.

‘I hope he’s with us tomorrow,’ Dim said.

For once, Pyke had nothing to say.

*

Their captured Mare war galley rocked dead in the water as it was too jammed with marines to row effectively. Rillish and the Malazan captain, a mariner named Sketh out of the Seven Cities region, argued over everything in their new overcrowded vessel. The captain berated Rillish for heaping everyone into the war galley; Rillish responded by inviting him to rejoin his crippled former command. The captain told him to keep his mouth shut, as
he
was the captain; Rillish pointed out that Seven Cities was a desert.

In the midst of another heated exchange, Captain Peles tapped Rillish’s shoulder and gestured aside. ‘We’re not alone.’

Another Marese war galley was oaring up slowly. It rose and fell with the waves. The crew looked to be curious. Rillish immediately
ordered everyone down. ‘Flat!’ he hissed. ‘Lie on top of each other, damn you!’

Rillish left Sketh standing at the stern with its slim centre-set tiller arm. ‘What am I to do?’ the man whispered, fierce. ‘I am to stand here all alone?’

‘Wave them closer.’

Sketh waved. ‘I will report this to the Admiral, you fool. He will see you in chains.’

‘Just get them close.’

‘How? I am no foreigner like them.’

‘Yell in your Seven Cities dialect.’

Sketh gaped at Rillish, but kept waving. ‘
What?
’

‘Go ahead!’

‘Very well, fool!’ And he shouted something that sounded unpleasant.

A trooper near Rillish guffawed. ‘Yes?’ Rillish said.

The man looked uncomfortable, cleared his throat. ‘Ah, well. He said that he could smell their unwashed backsides from here and that he wished they would come no closer.’

Rillish turned to Peles. ‘That should confuse the Abyss out of them.’

Sketh yelled some more. This time the trooper almost blushed. Rillish eyed him expectantly.

‘Goats … and mothers,’ the man mumbled.

The Marese war galley was now so close Rillish could hear the crew talking. Someone in the vessel was shouting. Sketh answered in Seven Cities. Rillish heard oars knocking oars.

‘They’ve spotted you!’ Sketh shouted.

Rillish jumped up. ‘Now! Fire!’

The vessel was frustratingly just beyond a leap away, now backing oars. Malazan marines sprang up to fire crossbows point-blank across the deck and into the oarlocks. ‘Next rank!’ Rillish yelled.

Those who had fired fell back or squatted to reload. The next rank surged forward, firing almost immediately. ‘Bring us alongside!’ Rillish bellowed to Sketh.

‘We have no headway!’ Sketh answered, furious.

Fortunately the marines’ fire had raked the stern decking clear and the tiller of the galley swung loose. Anyone who raised a head was the target of a swath of crossbow bolts while wounded oarsmen encumbered their banks. The bronze-sheathed ram was swinging their way. The Malazan marines continued their merciless fusillade.

The ram bumped their side, slid, gouging the planking with a screech of wet wood. ‘Board!’ Rillish yelled a war cry and jumped with all his strength.

He didn’t make it. His heart lurched as he realized in mid-leap that he’d fall short. He grasped the gunwale, his face slamming into the wood. Stars burst across his vision and hot blood gushed over his mouth. A sailor reared up over him, sword raised, only to disappear as a Malazan trooper crashed down on to him. Dazed, Rillish struggled to pull himself over the side. Fighting raged across the vessel. Rillish tumbled gasping on to the decking amid the fallen. He straightened, wiped the back of a gauntlet across his wet mouth, clumsily drew one blade, and peered about, blinking. The fight was over. They had their second ship.

The rest of the morning did not go as satisfactorily. They had to fashion a rough kind of Malazan standard to fly over their captured vessels just to stop the Moranth from shooting fire at them whenever they drew close. Rillish peered up at the black cloth, squinted in the strengthening light, and shook his head. ‘Might as well call ourselves pirates and be done with it, hey, Captain Peles?’

She was offended. ‘Oh, no, sir. This is a fine ship. Our boatwrights could learn a few things from it, I think.’

So damned literal
. He shrugged. The night and morning had been exhilarating yet disappointing and he was in a poor mood. Exhilarating because they were alive and the engagement was over and they were victorious. Disappointing because they were now spending the majority of the time in a futile chase of other Marese war galleys that always outpaced them. The Malazan sailors were unfamiliar with the rigging, Sketh didn’t have a feel for the vessel’s handling, and they were still overburdened.

Good enough
. He sat, tucked his gauntlets into his belt, and dabbed a wet corner of his surcoat to the dried blood smearing his face. Sketh had command of the other captured vessel while his sailing master was with them. The man had sent them off with a storm of Seven Cities curses.

Rillish didn’t ask for a translation.

Now they trailed the transports heading to the coast. Marese war galleys shadowed them, keeping their distance. Somewhere ahead Greymane’s banner marked the straggling tail of the invasion force while behind the majority of the Blue dromonds maintained a screen sweeping southward.
Onward to Mare itself …
he wished them luck with that.

For now it was the landing that preoccupied him. How many transports had broken through? Would they succeed in taking Aamil? He knew he’d arrive too late for the first assault. Yet at least he’d arrive; there were too many as couldn’t boast that.

*    *    *

The day after the Malazan garrison and the city militia marched away inland, Bakune rose, put on his best robes as he had every day, and headed out for his offices close to the centre of town. He’d decided to face things squarely; to find out, for better or worse, where and how things stood. Was he to be arrested? And if not, what of his authority? Was he to be merely closely watched by the Abbot and his self-styled Guardians of the Faith? Or dragged in chains before the holy courts? He did not consider himself a brave man; the anxiety of not knowing was simply burning a hole in his guts.

His housekeeper wept as she shut and locked the door behind him.

The streets were unnaturally deserted for this early hour. Indeed, an air of uncertainty hung over the entire city. The harbour was almost empty; news of the renewed Marese blockade had stopped the pilgrim vessels from running; and Yeull, the Malazan Overlord, had ordered all naval and merchant vessels north to Lallit up the coast. To make things worse a bitterly cold front had swept over the Fall Strait to leave remnants of snow in the shaded edges of the streets and roofs. The only institution bustling with energy was the Blessed Cloister and Hospice, as hordes of citizens crowded its halls to pray and seek the intervention of the Lady.

Two Guardians of the Faith stood before the closed double doors of the city courts. Like all of these self-appointed morality police, they were bearded, wore heavy robes, and carried iron-bound staves. Bakune stopped short, drew a deep breath, and asked more bravely than he felt: ‘Why are these doors closed?’ A scornful superior look from both men sent a cold shiver down his back.

‘The civil courts are closed until further notice, petitioner.’

Bakune forced himself to ask, ‘By whose authority?’

The Guardians shared a surprised glance. ‘By order of Abbot Starvann, of course.’

Bakune swallowed hard, but pressed on: ‘And by what authority does the Abbot intervene in civil affairs?’

One Guardian stepped down from the threshold. He held his stave
sideways across his body. ‘You are Assessor Bakune?’

Bakune managed a faint, ‘Yes.’ His hands were damp, cold, useless things at his sides.

‘You will come with me.’

The Guardian started down the street. Bakune hesitated. Why should he cooperate? But then, what else could he possibly do? Should he run? Where? Be dragged kicking and blubbering down the street? How undignified. The Guardian stopped, turned back to peer at him. He set his stave to the cobbles with a sharp rap of its iron-bound heel. To cover his panic, Bakune drew out his lined gloves and took his time pulling them on. When he had finally finished tugging each finger, his heart had slowed and he had reconciled himself to what was to come. As he approached the Guardian he even managed to say evenly, ‘Cold this morning, yes?’

The man turned away without replying.

After two turns the Guardian’s destination became clear to Bakune and his panic took hold of him once more. The Carceral Quarters. Of course. Where else for an undesirable such as himself? Despite the biting wind out of the west, sweat pricked his brow and he dabbed at it with the back of a glove. More Guardians at the thick armoured doors to the Carceral Quarters. The City Watch was no longer in charge of maintaining order. Bakune’s heart sank; not for himself, but for his city, his country. They were sliding back into the ancient age of superstition and religious rule. All the strides of civilization over the last few hundred years were being swept away by this crisis.

In the halls Bakune was handed over to a priest, who, with obvious distaste, looked him up and down. ‘You are Assessor Bakune?’

‘Yes.’

The priest gestured him on. Two Guardians walked behind, staves stamping the stone flags in time. He was led past many galleries of cells to one far beneath the holding areas reserved for common thieves and murderers. Bakune’s stomach tore a bite out of his innards with every turn and every staircase down. What a fool he’d been! Karien’el had as much as urged him to run! Looking back now, it seemed as usual that Karien’el had done all the work to lead him to the obvious, self-serving decision, which he had then mulishly refused. The priest opened the door to the cell and stood by it. The Assessor could not move; was this it then? The end for him? Would he obligingly walk in like a calf to the slaughter? A Guardian stepped close behind, set his stave down hard in a stamp that echoed harshly
within the narrow passage. Almost unable to breathe, Bakune wiped a gloved hand down his face, and then straightened. No! No weakness! He would show these fanatics how a civilized man, a man of true ethical principles, behaved. He stepped up next to the priest, met his eyes and nodded. ‘Very well. Since you leave me no choice.’

The priest slammed the door shut behind him.

Facing what he had thought was to be his prison for perhaps the rest of his – presumably short – life, Bakune halted, startled, because it was not a cell. It was a courtroom. His heart clenched and his innards twisted; the Lady was not done with him. She was not content that he should quietly disappear in the confusion of all this upheaval and panic.

It was to be a trial. Signed confession. Public disapprobation. The courts divine would legitimize themselves by discrediting the courts civil. Very well. The good opinion of the public had never been his obsession. Quite the opposite, in fact.

A long table ran along one wall, and behind it sat three tall chairs.
My judges
. A single, much poorer chair faced the table from the other side. Bakune sat in this, crossed one leg over the other and carefully folded and smoothed his robes. He pulled off his gloves, clasped his hands on his lap. And waited.

Shortly thereafter many men came marching up the passage. The door clattered open. In walked another priest, this one much fatter and older, wearing the starburst symbol of Our Lady. He was vaguely familiar. The priest’s brows rose upon seeing Bakune. ‘My dear Assessor! Not
there
!’ Bakune placed him: Arten, Chief Divine of the Order of the Guardians of the Faith. Abbot Starvann’s second. This court was to have a seal of the highest authority. Chuckling, Arten invited Bakune to move to the other side of the table. ‘Here, if you would. On my right.’

Bakune could only stare up at the man.
The
other
side of the table?

Arten repeated his invitation. Guardians now stood waiting at the door, someone in chains between them: a short, extremely stocky figure. Bakune rose shakily to his feet. Arten shepherded him round the table. ‘There you are. Very good.’ He nodded to the Guardians, who entered.