Orzu thumped down next to her and gave her head a look. ‘Are you all right then, child?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the babe?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you, mother!’ he yelled.
‘Fine, no thanks to you!’ she grumbled.
‘Do you think our friends had something to do with this?’ Ena asked, still rather dazed.
Orzu slapped the boat’s side. ‘Well… that I don’t know. But now I guess I’ll have to do what I’ve been threatening to do all this time.’
‘Which is?’ She wasn’t certain which of his threats he might be referring to.
‘Take up farming.’
Ena snorted. That might last a day.
‘Let’s round everyone up then,’ he said, patting all his pockets in search of his pipe.
The reassembled armies of Rool waited while its commanders, led by their Overlord himself, debated strategy. The camp had been cleaned up from the fires and panic of the series of tremors. Thankfully, while there had been some property damage, and some horses had been lost as they ran terrified, there had been little loss of life.
In a new tent, huddled next to a brazier, though he somehow felt warm enough for the first time in a decade, the Overlord Yeull was of the opinion that these invader Malazans, elements of the Fourth and Eighth Armies, must have fared much more poorly in the rough highlands, where landslides and rockfalls were so common.
A knot of army officers stood together, rather nervously eyeing the Overlord where he sat slumped, his face set in its habitual glower.
‘Do they mean to come upon Kor from the mountains?’ a young captain wondered aloud.
Yeull snorted. ‘They’re fools. They don’t know the country. The Barrier range is a maze of defiles and razorback ridges. They’ll starve.’
The officers, none of whom had ever set foot in Korel, nodded sagely.
A messenger entered, bowed next to the Overlord to whisper, his voice low. The Overlord frowned even more. ‘What?’
The messenger gestured outside. Scowling, Yeull pushed himself erect, straightened his thick bear cloak — though he was tempted to throw off the suffocating thing — and headed for the entrance. ‘Let’s have a look.’
The officers followed. Outside, Yeull shaded his eyes to gaze to the south-west where the coast curved in a bay that gave way to a headland. The tide appeared to have withdrawn significantly when it should be in. Mudflats lay exposed in an ugly brown and grey swath. Yeull ground his teeth. More Ruse trickery from that traitor bitch? What could she have in mind?
Ussu’s warning came to him but he pushed it aside. The man had reached the end of his usefulness. The Lady appeared to have finally dragged him into senility. In any case, they were safe here so far from the shore — he’d made sure of that. Nothing to… He squinted out past the bay, where the strait appeared to be experiencing unusually rough conditions. Something was coming into the bay. A tall bulge of water like a tidal bore, but fast, faster than any wave he’d ever heard of.
Amazed shouts sounded around him; soldiers pointing.
That was a lot of water and the bay was very shallow. Yeull’s gaze traced the long gentle rise up from the shore cliffs to their camp.
Lady, no… It could not be possible. No. I refuse to believe it.
The great rolling bulge was not only impossibly tall, it was also impossibly broad: it stretched all the way across the bay, perhaps even across the strait itself.
It numbed his imagination just to try to conceive of that volume of water, and that amount of destructive potential bearing down upon him.
The damned end of the world, just like these crazy Korelri were always going on about.
The wave did not strike the shore so much as absorb it, continuing on without any hesitation. Soldiers now broke to run in open panic.
Yeull stood his ground. Officers called begging for instructions but he ignored them. No. Impossible. It will not happen.
The churning front of mud, silt, sand, tumbling shore wreckage, even suspended hulks from the shore assault, all crashing and spinning, now came flying up the grade towards them. Its blasting roar was as of an avalanche. Yeull’s shoulders sagged. Gods damn you, Greymane. This is you, isn’t it? This is why these Chosen hated you so. These Korelri fanatics finally met someone as crazy as them. Don’t you know your name will go down as the greatest villain this region has ever known? Malazans won’t be able to enter this region for generations — you’ve lost all these lands for ever…
Inexorable, blasting two stone farmhouses to rubble and splinters as it came, the wavefront ploughed into the camp. It swept over tents, collected supplies, masses of men. Yeull’s last sight was of a maw of crashing tree trunks headed right for him.
On board the Malazan flagship, the Star of Unta, Devaleth had waited through the night and the dawn of the next day. At her urging the combined Malazan and Blue fleet had withdrawn to the centre of Crack Strait. Here they’d waited while, as far as she could tell, nothing happened. To their credit, neither Nok nor the Blue Admiral Swirl approached to pester her with questions or demands for explanations. They had accorded her the title High Mage, and seemed also willing to grant her due credibility as well.
All that changed in the early morning when a rumbling as of a thunderstorm rolled over the massed fleet. Devaleth looked to the west. That was a much greater report than she’d been expecting. To have reached them this far, so loudly…
Then far off, through the Warren of Ruse, she felt the sea lurch. Sea-Father forgive them! It was like the undersea tremors they taught about at the Ruse Academy. Immense volumes of water displaced, creating… She backed away from the side of the vessel. Nok stood nearby, concern on his craggy narrow face.
‘What is it, High Mage?’ he asked.
She found her voice, pulled her hand from her neck. ‘A wave, Admiral. Much larger than I had anticipated. A great flood. We must run before it. Order the fleet to spread out, head east — now. I will do all I can smooth our passage.’
Nok bowed, went to give the orders. After he went Devaleth gripped the side to stop her weakened legs from giving way. Smooth our passage! Laugh, great Sea-Father! May as well try to hold back an earth tremor with one’s bare hands. Everyone must be warned of this.
Captain Fullen, temporarily in command of the garrison at Banith, had a heart-stopping moment shaving when an apparition flickered into existence in his tent. He almost cut himself fatally when he jerked, surprised, as a hollow distorted voice spoke: ‘Commander…’
He spun, pressing a cloth to his cheek, to see a shimmering image of the Mare mage, the new High Mage. ‘A great wave is approaching,’ the woman continued. ‘You may have until noon. You must take steps to evacuate Banith immediately. Take all steps necessary. Admiral Nok orders this.’
The image wavered then disappeared. Fullen stared where it had appeared, wiped the blood and soap from his face. Togg deliver him… just like the old tales of how things used to get done in the Empire. And he’d thought he’d never see the like!
He ran from the tent, bellowing orders as he went.
A similar apparition appeared in many coastal cities, Balik and Molz in Katakan, Danig and Filk in Theft.
In Stygg, deep within the pleasure palace of Ebon, its ruler gaped at the image, heard its warning, then quickly acted upon its appearance: he gathered together all the twenty self-styled sorcerers, warlocks and witches he paid to protect him from such things and had them executed immediately.
Only in Mare, at Black city and Rivdo, were the warnings given any credence, though they originated from a damned traitor.
Devaleth also attempted to reach to the west, to Dour and Wolt in Dourkan, but the shattering disruptions she met in Ruse threw her back and she could not reach.