Most certainly, Mistress. Ussu bore down, hammering this D’riss mage — why wouldn’t the man fall? He seemed impossibly resilient to the might he was pouring down upon him. Die, damn you! How could you possibly still live? Who is this prisoner? Another Malazan cadre mage?
The body beneath him convulsed then, almost shaking him loose. Ussu snapped open his eyes to see just a hand’s breadth away this subject, the Avowed, aware and glaring, burning rage into him. Ussu stared back at the man. ‘You’re conscious?’ he breathed in wonder.
The gagged mouth drew up in a ghastly smile. The muscles of the arms and chest tensed — even around Ussu’s wrist they tensed, and the man strained on the chains binding him. His face flushed, veins starting out and writhing. Ussu could not believe what he was witnessing. What did the man think he could… Then it occurred to him: the earthquake! Gods, no! He snapped a glance to the floor. The stone blocks were now uneven, jostled. The iron pin positively vibrated, quivering, grinding.
Oh no. Gods, no. Please do not play with me so. He clenched his hand, raising another thrashing convulsion from the man. ‘I have your heart! Stop! Or I will crush it!’
The ghastly, almost insane smile remained fixed at the gagged mouth.
No! Stop! You don’t The pin rang as it snapped free. The arms flattened Ussu to the man’s chest.
Yet Ussu kept his grip, staving off the combined attacks of all three mages. The chains fell away with a clash. The Avowed pulled down the gag. ‘Now I have you,’ he grated.
Ussu twisted his fist: the organ laboured, squeezed in his hand. The man’s eyes glazed in agony, fluttering, his arms weakening. ‘Who will die first, I wonder?’ he asked.
Bars shook the chains off his arms. He snapped a hand to Ussu’s throat. ‘You’re forgetting,’ he panted, hoarse with the unimaginable torture he’d endured. ‘I can’t die.’
‘Yes you can.’ And Ussu clenched with all his might, meaning to pulp the shuddering ball of muscle in his fist. But Bars’ hand clenched as well, crushing Ussu’s throat, cutting off his breath, the life force from his lungs. As Ussu’s life slipped away from him he suddenly saw far into the wellspring of the inexhaustible might sustaining this Avowed and he understood its source. He gazed at the man’s flushed twisted face, not a hand’s breadth from his own, appalled by the magnitude of the discovery. He opened his mouth, meaning to tell him: Do you have any idea Bars squeezed until his clenched fingers cramped, shook the body one last time to make sure of it, then relaxed his grip on the corpse. With his other hand he gently, oh so damned gently, grasped hold of the wrist where it entered his chest, and slowly, as tenderly as possible, pulled.
The anguish returned — torture beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. White blinding fire blossomed again in his mind. All his death-wishes were as nothing compared to his desire to be free of this agony. Anything! Death would be as the most soothing balm. Infinitely preferable.
The hand came free with a sickening sucking noise. Revolted, Bars threw the body aside only to wince, gasping and cradling his chest. He stayed like that for some time: sitting up, curled around his wound, arms wrapped round his chest. The slightest move was an ordeal beyond any consideration.
After a time someone was at the door. Bars cracked one eye for a look. It was Blues. The man entered gingerly, as quietly as he could, stepping over litter. Bars raised a finger to forestall him. ‘Don’t fucking touch me.’
Blues eyed the fallen mage, nodded solemnly. Bars pointed to his chained legs. Blues waved and the chain fell away. Gritting his teeth, Bars eased one leg down to the floor, then the other. Blues closed to help but Bars waved him away. ‘Let’s get out of this Hood-damned hole.’
Blues stood aside of the door. ‘Damn right.’
They were on the stairs, Blues ahead, casting quick worried glances back to Bars, when someone called from a blocked room: ‘Hello! Is that someone? Hello?’
Bars straightened up from cradling his chest, his eyes huge. ‘Jemain? Is that you?’
‘Yes. Bars?’
Bars gestured to the blocked doorway. Blues motioned and stones began grating aside. Jemain’s anxious face appeared in a gap. ‘Bars! Corlo’s here — he’s hurt.’
On the wall, Fingers tried to raise Shell, who, grimacing and hissing, pulled her hands free: ‘Wait! Listen!’
‘What?’
‘Grab hold of something, now!’
Fingers faced the bay, grunted, ‘Aw shit…’
A wave smashed into the battered crenellations, overtopped easily and kept coming at them. It pushed loose blocks aside then struck them, submerging Shell. She held on, straining not to be washed off the wall and cast over the rear to shatter on the rocks below. Through the slurry of deathly cold water she saw the shimmering armour of a Stormrider standing before her.
She threw her head back, gasping in air, panting, her limbs shivering almost uncontrollably. The entity peered down, regarding her. Its sword remained sheathed at its side, no lance in evidence. Its helm shifted as it looked about. Then it raised an arm, the scaled armour flashing iridescent, seeming to salute her, and backed away.
Fingers appeared at her side, supported her. Together they watched while the entity reached the outer shattered crenellations and stepped back to fall away.
‘What was that all about?’ Fingers asked, stuttering.
‘I think they’re done here.’
‘So’re we,’ Fingers growled. ‘C’mon.’
Down one way they saw the Stormguard righting themselves where they blocked the one access leading off the wall. Of the Malazans Shell saw no sign. Fingers motioned the other way; there Lazar fought splashing through the thinning waters, duelling two Stormguard both still glowing with the aura of the Lady. She and Fingers raised their Warrens.
Their combined strike smashed the two Chosen from the wall, casting them tumbling out into the white-capped waves, where they disappeared. Holding her numb side, Shell joined Lazar to peer down over the broken lip of the wall to the waters foaming below. ‘Thanks, you two,’ Lazar said, breathing heavily. ‘Those boys just wouldn’t go down.’
‘Neither would you,’ Fingers remarked, as he came limping up behind.
Lazar drew off his full helm and steam plumed in the frigid air from the sweat soaking his hair and running down his face. He drew in great breaths, blowing and gasping; then, peering out over the inlet, he froze. ‘Damn Hood…’
Shell looked over and her flesh prickled with true terror. A wave was approaching up the narrow bay — a wave unlike any she’d seen before. More a mountain of water, webbed in slush and topped in white spume, already looming far taller than the wall itself.
‘Oponn’s throw,’ Fingers breathed.
Lazar punched Shell’s arm, making her wince. ‘Let’s go!’
They met Blues and Bars at the tower entrance. Jemain was following behind, carrying an unconscious Corlo, one of whose legs now ended at a wrapped stump. ‘We have to go,’ Fingers told Blues. ‘Now.’
‘What about the Malazans?’ Shell asked. She looked to where four Korelri Stormguard remained, Quint included, holding the stairs. Only a few fallen Malazan bodies were visible.
‘They ran for the high pass,’ Blues said.
‘Good luck to them,’ Fingers added.
Shell warned: ‘Blues — take us.’ Quint had motioned to his brother Stormguard and they were approaching.
‘All right, all right!’ Blues answered. ‘We’re gone. Stand close.’
Quint rounded the side of the tower to find the wall… empty. The foreigners had fled; they’d used their alien Warren witchery to escape. Movement out over the inlet caught his eye and he stared. At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing — the scale was all wrong. No wave could possibly be that tall, that immense. A small voice whispered in the back of his mind: It is the prophesied end of the Stormwall come upon them after all. First the earth shakes then the waters come to reclaim the land — was that not the ancient warning of the end of the world?