Assail (69 page)

Kilava pushed her hair from her wide face, the broad cheekbones and thick, almost brutal brow ridge. ‘I would witness.’

CHAPTER XII

KYLE AWOKE TO
the hiss of rain and uncontrollable shudders. He was sitting upright against the trunk of a tall spruce amid needles and twisted roots. Yet even here the night’s constant misting rain had found him as it came running down the trunk. He didn’t know the north of these lands, of course, but this was the wettest and most icy spring he could remember. Straightening, he muffled a groan and stretched, then pulled his sodden leathers from his legs and back. He needed a fire to warm up, but there appeared little chance of getting one going. He settled instead for that other way to warm oneself, and set off at a jog in an easterly direction.

Ground-hugging fogs snaked through the woods he threaded. Sodden leaf mulch and moss was silent beneath his soft-soled moccasins. Drops of the icy vapour fell from his hair to his shoulders and ran down the back of his neck. The day was dark, hardly warmer than the night. Banks of clouds obscured the heights where breaks in the tree cover allowed a view. He heard the strong pounding of run-off driving through deep ravines and chasms in the distant slopes, but could see only courses of haze that ran down from the heights like rivers themselves.

Strange spring weather. Felt more like autumn.

He crossed over to an easterly valley and started north. The bruises and stings from the clashes the night before – he’d jogged an entire day and night since – slowed him with cramps and a tightness round his chest. Pausing, his breath sending up great plumes of steam, he damned Lyan for a fool. She didn’t really think she’d come out on top, did she? Still, she was an experienced war commander – and how many of these Icebloods could there be left anyway? Perhaps it
was
worth the gamble.

Yet what of Stalker and Badlands and Coots, should he actually find them? A possibility that appeared to be diminishing by the day. What if she and he were to meet on opposite sides? He snorted as he pushed his way through a prickly, dense patch of brush. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, y’damned idiot. Looks like you’re not going to even
find
any of the Losts.

And if they had any sense, they’d all have packed up long ago, anyway.

The next day he reached a broad, flat stream bed of washed gravel where the water chained and sheeted in a thin but icy flow, and followed the course for the morning. His feet became numb blocks of ice themselves, as did his hands, despite his effort to keep them tucked under his armpits as much as he could.

He was hungry, but not unbearably so; he’d endured far worse. Mushrooms, nuts and berries filled the void for the time being. He’d snared a rabbit the night before and kept an eye out for a dry spot, with tinder enough, to build a fire to cook it. So far he’d found nothing.

Towards mid-day, a discolouring wash came streaming down with the waters. The stain was so washed out it took him some time to identify it: thinned blood. He crouched low and continued on, splashing from the cover of one patch of tall grass to another. Slowly, bit by bit, he came across the washed-out remains of the site: tatters of torn cloth, scraps of leather. Then heavier litter: a boot, the broken wooden handle of a shovel or a spade.

Shattered equipment lay ahead. He recognized gold-sluices and hand-held sifting frames. Amid the wreckage lay the bodies of its owners. Hands tucked in his shirt, Kyle carefully studied the remains. Unarmoured, in tattered old jerkins and trousers. A pretty ragged lot. Mostly unarmed as well; nothing larger than broad heavy knives lay in the water.

He felt sickened. A slaughter. A damned slaughter. These prospectors didn’t stand a chance. It was obvious this lot had nothing to do with burning Greathalls, or warring against the Icebloods. Killing them solved nothing. If anything, it invited retaliation.

Stupid. Damned stupid. Such bloodletting only made things worse. Again, the senselessness of vendetta and blood-feud reprisals and vengeance killings impressed itself upon him. Joining the Guard had opened his eyes to how self-defeating and petty these endless cycles of family or clan retribution were.

Something shifted nearby and he straightened, damning himself. Speaking of stupid …

He turned. A man had emerged from the tall green grasses. He was burly, in a torn hide shirt, wide leather wrist-guards, moccasins, and leather leggings up over buckskin trousers. ‘Should’ve run when you saw the bodies, lowlander,’ the fellow growled.

Kyle stared. That voice. The wild mane of kinky black hair – the hair all over, actually.

The man charged, long-knives flashing. Kyle rapidly backed off while trying to get the name out. He swung and Kyle fell into the water to avoid the blade.

‘
Badlands!
’ he managed, half stuttering in his amazement.

But the Lost brother splashed after him as if in a bloodlust fury – this was not the laughing, easy-going Badlands he knew! He lunged in, thrusting. Kyle drew to cut across his front, hacking off Badlands’ blade in a loud screech of tempered iron.

Badlands flinched away, blinking his disbelief. Kyle rose to a crouch, the frigid water dripping from him. ‘It’s me, Kyle,’ he said.

Badlands retreated another step; frowned as if half-comprehending. ‘Kyle, lad?’

‘Yes, it’s me. I’ve come to find you and Coots and Stalker!’

Now real confusion wrinkled his hairy brow and he waved the shorn weapon in his hand. ‘But you was in Korel!’

Kyle sheathed the white sword back under his arm, eased out a long breath. ‘I was. Greymane died.’

Badlands dropped his gaze. ‘Yeah. I heard the stories.’ He let out a hiss, dropped the ruined weapon and squeezed his thumb. ‘You cut off the end of my blasted thumb, dammit!’

‘Sorry.’ Kyle fumbled to find a rag or a piece of cloth to tear.

‘Never mind!’ The Lost brother surged forward and clasped Kyle’s shoulders. ‘Look at you now! All growed up. No more the scrawny steppe wolf-pup old Stoop bought from the slave-pen! You look like a damned brigand! Didn’t even recognize you with the moustache ’n’all.’

He squeezed Badland’s forearm. ‘Glad to have found you. How’s Coots and Stalker?’

The Lost brother dropped his grin. He half turned away. ‘Coots didn’t make it.’

Coots? How could Coots not make it? He’d always seemed so … indestructible. All Kyle could manage was an unbelieving, ‘I’m sorry.’ Badlands gave a shake of his shoulders as if to brush the topic aside. ‘And Stalker?’

‘Stalk’s his same grim old self. Only more so.’

Kyle didn’t comment that Badlands struck him as very different from his old self. The old Badlands he knew would never have murdered a gang of dirt-poor barely armed prospectors. But then, his brother was dead and his land was being stolen from him; and his culture – his people – were being swept from the face of the world. Understandable, one might say.

The Lost’s thoughts must have run along lines similar to Kyle’s as he clapped him on the shoulder and urged him along. ‘Still – great to see you, lad. Just like old times, hey?’ And he laughed, but rather crazily – or so it sounded to Kyle. ‘Remember ol’ Greymane’s face when we showed up after that big Malazan fracas? He sure wasn’t expecting us.’

Kyle laughed as well, thought not nearly so wildly. ‘Yes. He probably thought we were Claws come for him at last.’

Badlands led him north. He sucked on his wounded thumb and glanced back, looking him up and down. An amused, speculative light came into his eyes. ‘So,’ he announced. ‘You
are
the White-blade, then.’

Kyle dropped his gaze, shrugging. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well, well. Ain’t that somethin’?’ He chuckled. ‘We can probably hold off all these damned invaders now.’

The remark annoyed Kyle, as if Badlands had somehow enlisted him into something he might not agree with. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean not only are you Whiteblade, but we all was Crimson Guard together. And damn the old Oddsmaker if that ain’t the oddest thing …’

Now Kyle was thoroughly perplexed. In fact, he wondered about the man’s state of mind. ‘Just what are you getting at?’

‘I mean remember that talk we heard of the missing Fourth Company?’

Kyle remembered hearing how the Guard, after barely repulsing a Malazan expeditionary army sent to Stratem to destroy them, had divided itself into four companies to pursue contracts around the world. Eventually, those contracts brought the First Company, under Shimmer, to southern Assail where he, along with the Lost cousins, had joined. Long before then, though, the Guard had lost contact with the Fourth and none knew of its whereabouts, or fate. ‘What of it?’ he asked.

Badlands laughed. His mirth did not reassure Kyle. Before, the man’s laughter had been of the most innocent, teasing sort. Now, it sounded as dark as a hangman’s welcome. ‘Well … who do you think Stalk found camped on the mountainside, every sword against them? None other than Cal-Brinn and his Fourth!’

Kyle was amazed. The Fourth found? Here of all places? Yet why not? The First, under Shimmer, was in the south. Plenty of warfare and potential patrons up here. ‘How many?’

Badlands nodded at the question. ‘Ah! Just the sole survivors of years of fighting. Sixteen of their Avowed.’

Sixteen Avowed! No wonder the Lost Greathall still stood! Then the thought came: what of the rest in Stratem? ‘We should get word of this to K’azz.’

Badlands continued nodding as he climbed the slope ahead. ‘Yeah. We talked about that. Cal says they’ll come. He says, eventually, they’ll have to come.’ He gave an eloquent shrug. ‘What he means by that I have no idea. Anyway, the Eithjar sure don’t like them hanging around. They hate them. Told Stalk to get rid of them! Funny that. Competition, maybe, hey?’ and he laughed again, darkly, without humour.

Kyle offered a weak answering laugh then was quiet. He now almost regretted finding his old friend. Compared to the old Badlands, this new one only made him sad.

Two days of climbing through intermittent rains, fording swollen run-off streams, and crossing high mountain vales brought them to a temperate mist-forest in a narrow valley. Kyle reflected that they must now be at enough of an elevation to have entered the clouds that hugged the highest slopes of the Salt range. That, or the weather was one of persistent low cloud cover. He’d heard of wet springs, of course, but this felt extreme.

They exited the tall mature forest of ash and hemlock to enter a series of what appeared to be overgrown fields: younger deciduous trees dominated here, birch and poplar, and the ground cover was thicker, high brush and bramble. Kyle judged these particular fields uncultivated for decades. Past these once-cleared tracts they came to a tall grass pasture where a number of cattle grazed, apparently unsupervised. Beyond, up the gentle rise of the vale, rose the grass-covered pitched roof of the Lost Greathall. Badlands led the way.

Fog and a light misty rain that draped down like folds of cloth hugged the colossal structure. Broad, rough-hewn log steps led up to the main entrance, which gaped wide. Kyle noted how wet green moss grew like a carpet over the steps.

Rainwater pattered down across the doorway. Just within stood two guards, bearded, in much-battered layered leather armour that appeared to have once been stained a deep red. Two Avowed, Kyle assumed. They greeted Badlands. Kyle gave them a nodded hello and almost told them he was of the Guard as well, but he stopped himself as he considered how asinine that would sound coming from someone who obviously was
not
currently of the Guard. Badlands pushed on, the rain pattering from his shoulders.

Within, it was dark, and Kyle paused to allow his vision to adjust. The hall was huge, cavernous, almost all one long main room. Light streamed down from a smoke-hole near the middle of its length over a broad hearth ringed in stones, dark now, hardly smoking at all. Badlands trudged in past long tables cluttered with a litter of old hides and cloaks, bowls and knives. Spears stood leaning against the tables. Kyle noted the dust coating their broad iron heads. From the darkness beyond the reach of the light streaming down from the smoke-hole came the murmur of music – the slow strumming of some sort of stringed instrument.

At the far end, a man sat at a long table covered in bowls and platters. He glanced up, revealing long straight sandy hair, a drooping blond moustache, and bright hazel eyes: Stalker Lost.

‘Another guest,’ Badlands called out.

Stalker growled, ‘Another? We’re gettin’ overrun here.’ Then he frowned beneath his moustache and half rose. ‘You look familiar.’

Kyle nodded, grinning. ‘Yes.’

‘Kyle, lad? That you?’

‘Yes, Stalker.’

The head of the Lost clan came round the table. ‘By all the false gods! It is you! Look at you!’ He set his hands on Kyle’s shoulders. ‘You’ve filled out.’

The strumming stopped. A figure emerged from the dark, tall and lean with long straight dark hair. He moved with the grace of a courtier and carried what looked like a wooden box set with strings across its face. Stalker motioned to him. ‘Fisher. Fisher Kel Tath.’

‘Fisher? The bard?’

The man bowed. ‘Indeed. And you are Kyle … not the Kyle once of the Crimson Guard, companion to Greymane, the Stonewielder?’

Kyle was embarrassed, but nodded. ‘Yes.’

The bard’s brows rose high. ‘I have sung songs of you. There is a name for you now, you know.’