They burst out into low brush and the thick entangled branches of young pines. Quinn took her arm and suddenly she found she had to support him. Longsword still in her grip, she held him up. Bright blood smeared his left side where his shirt hung open, sliced. He smiled blearily at her, his grey hair wet with sweat. ‘Gave them a good run we did. Proud of you.’
‘Shh, now. We'll be all right.’
‘No, no. You go on. Leave me. Run.’
‘No.’
He raised his hilt to her, saluting. ‘Proud of you. You did well, Ghelel Rhik Tayliin. A pleasure to serve.’
Hooves pounded the treeline, shouts for the crossbowmen. ‘We're not done yet.’ What did he mean, Tayliin? The only Tayliins she knew of had ruled during the last Hegemony. Kellanved and Dancer had the last of them slain when they took Tali.
They heard more horses thundering up the slope of the field. Quinn urged her on. Just pushing her away made him fall to his knees. She couldn't leave him like that and put an arm around him to raise him up. ‘Apologies,’ he mumbled.
‘What did you mean, Tayliin?’
The old man just smiled, his face as pale as sun-bleached cloth. Shouts snapped her head around — angry yelling — the clash of weaponry. What in the name of the Queen of Mysteries was going on out there? Why hadn't they come for them?
Silence but for the thumping of hooves and horses’ nickering.
‘Hello within! Are you there, Quinn?’ someone bellowed from the field.
The weaponmaster raised a finger to his lips, gave Ghelel a wink.
‘It's me, damn you! You know my voice!’
Quinn struggled to sheathe his longsword. Ghelel helped him.
‘Very well!’ came a vexed call. ‘It's me, Amaron!’
Quinn smiled. ‘What are you doing here!’ he called back and winced in pain. He finished, softer, ‘Haven't you heard of delegating?’
‘Yes, yes. Came as quick as I could. Come on down, will you.’
Quinn waved her forward. ‘It's safe, m'Lady. Amaron was my commander.’
‘Your commander?’
‘In the, ah, military. I served under him.’ He tried to walk but stumbled. She held him up. ‘My thanks — apologies.’
‘Here.’ Arm around him, Ghelel guided him forward.
‘Thank you. Not the impression I wish to give.’
‘Togg can take that.’
‘You curse like a marine now, m'Lady. I despair.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Do not apologize. Offer sarcasm.’
‘Always teaching, hey?’
‘Touche.’
They pushed their way through to stumble out on to the field and into a unit of some thirty cavalry, the horses’ breath clouding the night air. Almost all Quinn's weight now rested on Ghelel's arm. Dismounted soldiers immediately took him from her. Calls sounded for a healer. They laid him on a horse blanket.
‘Who of you is Amaron?’ she asked.
‘I.’ A man dismounted, his boots thumping to the mud. He was a giant of a fellow, Napan, in blackened unadorned mail beneath dark-green riding cloaks.
‘He's lost a lot of blood.’
‘He's in good hands.’
‘What of the Sellaths? Can you take me to them?’
Amaron rested his gauntleted hands at his waist, studied her. He dropped his gaze. ‘I'm sorry — Ghelel. They've been taken. Fist Kal'il will no doubt be using them, and others, as guarantors of safe passage.’
‘Safe passage?’
‘Out of Tali. By ship, probably. The capital is now under the control of a troika of Talian noble families.’
Ghelel glanced about at the men; none wore Malazan greys. Amaron himself wore no insignia or sigil at all. In fact the calvarymen wore dark blue — the old Talian colours. ‘Who commands?’
‘Choss. General Choss has been granted military command.’
‘Not the same Choss who was High Fist for a time?’
‘Yes, the same.’
‘I thought he was dead.’
‘That was the general idea.’
Ghelel found herself studying this man; Quinn had called him his old commander. ‘What of you? May I ask what you do?’
A shrug. ‘Whatever needs be done. You could say I'm in charge of intelligence gathering.’
Un-huh. ‘Well, thank you, Amaron, for our deliverance.’ He bowed. ‘But may I accompany Quinn?’
‘Certainly. We'll take him to the manor house, yes? There we can have a private conversation.’
Yes, a private conversation about certain ravings of a delirious wounded man perhaps? Until she knew whether Quinn should have revealed what he had she would play the innocent. Right now she wasn't certain how much she trusted this fellow. Quinn clearly did but the man felt cold to her, oddly detached. Quinn's condition didn't seem to affect him at all. She needed the weaponmaster conscious and well. Startled, she realized that he was possibly the last remaining link to her old life. She hurried to follow the soldiers carrying him down to the house. Their way was lit by the stables now sending tall flames high into the night sky.
Twelve days after descending from the mountains they reached the squalid village Traveller named Canton's Landing — no more than a collection of straw-roofed huts next to a slumped moat and ancient burned-down palisade overlooking the tidal flats of the Explorer's Sea.
‘We must wait here?’ Ereko asked.
He nodded, his guarded, lined brown face revealing nothing.
Ereko sighed. Enchantress give me the patience to endure.
It was close to evening and they claimed an abandoned hut. Ereko attempted to stretch his cramped arms and legs and failed. Human dwellings simply did not agree with him. He'd always been better off sleeping under the stars. A villager, an old woman, came hobbling up with a basket under one arm. ‘A meal approaches,’ he told Traveller. ‘I wish they wouldn't. From the look of them they need the food more than us.’
‘They are afraid of us and it's all that they have to offer. I also believe they want us to do something for them.’
Grinning a mouth empty of teeth, bowing, the old woman set out bowls of fish mush and hard-baked bread.
‘Send your headman,’ Traveller said to her in Talian. ‘We would speak with him.’
‘The headman is dead. His nephew will speak with you. I will send him tomorrow.’
Later, while Traveller slept, Ereko stared out over the embers of the fire to the phosphor-glow of the waves rolling in to the strand. He saw another sea in his thoughts, a far angrier and savage sea, this one iron-grey and heaving with cliff-tall breakers. That last season the Riders had arrived early at the Stormwall. The section of curtain wall he faced remained quiet as the Riders no longer challenged him. Indeed, these last few years his time upon the wall had actually been boring. Of course this pleased his Korelan captors no end; one more portion of the wall they need not worry about.
Ereko had watched the distant figure as he was chained as all were at the ankle. Watched as he'd been lowered to his station, a narrow stone ledge, without commotion or resistance. The man sat unperturbed as the ice-skeined waves smashed the wall and the spray obscured him. Many pointed as Riders surfaced far out in the strait. Some screamed, begged for release. His man remained sitting and the whisper of a fearful suspicion touched Ereko: might this fellow be one of those brave enough to refrain from defending their piece of the wall, sacrificing themselves to contribute in a small way to the enormous structure's erosion?
A file of the Riders closed, distant dark shapes upon the waves. The otherworldly cold that accompanied them gripped even Ereko's limbs. Frost limned the leathers of his sleeves and trousers. Ice thickened over the stones making the footing slick and treacherous. As the Riders neared, the Korelan Chosen tossed down weapons to those lost souls lowest and most exposed.