Perhaps it was the room’s poor lighting, but Rillish thought the man was glowering as if trying to think of what to do with him. His wide mouth drew down and he heaved a heavy breath. ‘It just so happens that a number of squads from the 4th have struck on ahead inland — my very intent, as it happens. You are to lead the rest of the 4th after them. Push, Fist. Push on westward. I will follow with Fist Shul and the main body. Adjunct Kyle here will accompany you. As will the High Mage.’
Rillish jerked an assent. ‘Certainly, High Fist. I understand. You wish to break out before the Skolati can organize a counter-strike.’ He nodded to the Adjunct, who stood watching from the door, his face emotionless, hands at his belt. ‘You are most welcome.’ The young man just nodded, utterly self-contained. So, my minder. Greymane is to take no chances with his subordinates this time.
‘You will leave immediately. I understand we can even offer some few mounts.’
‘That would be welcome as well.’
The High Fist grimaced again as if uncomfortable, rubbed his unshaven jaw. Rillish hoped it was because the man was as ill at ease with this interview as he. Then Greymane merely waved to the door. ‘That is all.’
Rillish drew himself up stiffly, saluted. ‘High Fist.’
The Adjunct opened the door.
Reaching the street, Rillish said nothing. Ranks of infantry marched past. Smoke plumed up from still-burning buildings. Broken rubble choked a side street. None of it registered clearly with him; everything spun as his pulse throbbed in his chest and temple. As they walked side by side, Devaleth and he, the Adjunct having remained behind for now, Devaleth said quietly, ‘You show great forbearance, Fist.’
Rillish glanced behind to Captain Peles and his guard, gave a curt wave as if to cut the memory away. ‘Whether I bellow and bluster, he remains my commanding officer. There is nothing I can do. Therefore, I’d rather cultivate equanimity. For my peace of mind.’
‘His paranoia threatens to incite the very actions he suspects.’
Rillish shot her a hard stare. ‘I’ll thank you not to talk of such things again, High Mage.’
She inclined her head. ‘As you prefer, Fist.’
‘For now let us get the 4th organized. I will hold a staff meeting at noon.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Orzu had fished the inland seas of Korel and its archipelagos all his life. He’d been born on a boat, part of no nation or state, had grown up knowing loyalty to no land or lands. Lately he and his clan had been living in a tiny fishing hamlet so small it appeared on no map. It was a collection of slate-roofed stone huts on the shores of the Plains of Blight. And if one climbed the tallest hill within a day’s walk and squinted hard to the south one could just make out the snowy peaks of the Iceback range. So it was quite a surprise to him when three men and a woman came tramping down the barren shore of black wave-smoothed stones to where he sat mending his nets in the lee of his boat.
He watched them approach, making no secret of his open examination. Seen hard travel. A shipwreck further up the coast, maybe? Armed and armoured. Soldiers. But whose? Stygg? Jasston? None had the look. The shortest was distinctly foreign-looking with his dark, almost bluish hue.
If they were raiders they were the sorriest-arsed brigands Orzu had ever seen. Thieves did come through occasionally: outlaws from Jasston, thugs from Stygg. He and his fellow villagers had no particular weapons or armour to oppose them; their main defence was in appearing to have nothing. And so he just eyed the four while they walked up and the foremost, the bluish-hued fellow, rested a hand on the side of his boat drawn up on the strand and addressed him in mangled Katakan: ‘You sell boat?’
Orzu took the pipe from his mouth. ‘No, I no sell boat.’
‘We pay much gold, many coin.’
‘Fish don’t want coin.’
The four talked then, their language foreign, but with a very familiar lilt to it. Orzu thought he could almost catch the odd word or two. Closer now, he also noticed how the tip of one’s nose was black, the edges of another’s ears. The skin of all four was cracked and bloodied, flaking. Frostbite. Damned severe, too. They couldn’t have come down from the Ice Barrens, could they? But that was a desolate emptiness.
‘We pay you to take us. To Korelri. Yes?’
Orzu thought about that. ‘How much coin?’
The spokesman gestured to the tallest of them, a great thick warrior in a mail shirt that hung to his ankles, a wide shield on his back, and a helm tied to his belt. His long black hair was a great mane. This one handed over a fat leather sack. The spokesman gave it to Orzu. It was amazingly hefty. Orzu peered in, took out a coin. Gold. More fortune than he’d ever dreamed to touch. He cinched the bag up tight. ‘I take you. But must bring wife, children.’
The four eyed one another, confused. ‘Take your… family?’ said the spokesman.
‘Yes. My price. Bring wife, children. Go tomorrow morning. Yes?’
‘Why…’
‘My price. Not so high, yes?’
‘Well…’
‘My name Orzu. We have deal, yes?’
‘Blues. We have a deal.’
Blues? What an odd name. Must be for the hue of his skin. Orzu shrugged inwardly. No matter. He set down his mending and stood. ‘First we eat. My wife make you fish stew. Is good, you see.’
That caught their interest. All four perked up at the mention of hot food.
Shipwrecked. Must be. What other possible explanation could there be? This was good. They would eat well, meet the family.
And he had such a very large family.
The stench was the hardest thing for Shell to endure. She sat near the doorway — nothing more than a gaping hole in the piled stones of the walls of the hut — and held the clay bowl down away from her face. All the while the fat woman, this fellow’s wife, grinned toothlessly at her, the only other woman present. At their feet a great gang of children cried, fought among themselves, gaped at her so close she could smell their stale breath, and gobbled down the rotten stew. Whose were they? Not this old couple, surely.
‘Blues,’ she called, edging aside a youth who seemed determined to find something hidden far up his nose. ‘Let’s just take a boat and go. We’re wasting time.’
From where he sat next to the gabbling old fellow, apparently the patriarch of this horde, Blues shook his head. ‘It’s their livelihood, Shell. They’d starve.’
Lazar stuck his head in. ‘There’s more coming outside. Two more boats are pulled up.’
‘Thanks.’ More of them! A damned family reunion.
At least Fingers seemed in his element: fascinating the kids with tricks of sleight of hand. They squealed when he made stones appear from their noses and mouths. She called to Blues: ‘There’s more of them outside.’
He spoke to the old man, listened, cocked his head in concentration. In-laws. His daughters’ and sons’ spouses’ brothers and sisters and their children.
‘Well, who in the Queen’s name are these kids?’
Blues looked surprised. ‘Haven’t you been listening? Grandchildren, of course.’
‘Blues…’
‘How do you like the food?’
‘It’s vile. Why?’
A laugh. ‘Just wondering, because it looks like we’re in for a lot more.’
‘What do you mean?’
Blues waved to encompass the kids, the men and women sitting outside on the bare smoothed stones, watching and waiting. ‘Because it looks like we just hired the entire clan.’
‘Blues!’
The next morning twelve broad fishing boats, longboats Shell imagined you might call them, lay pulled up on the strand. Orzu’s clan of fisherfolk was busy piling them up with their meagre smelly possessions. Now that she’d had time to reflect upon it, she couldn’t blame them. This was their chance to escape this desolate shore. Others had now found the courage to speak; a girl, fat with child and carrying yet another, seemed to have attached herself to Shell.