Wild terrible laughter rose from the Jaghut upon seeing their arrival. Each of the fourteen led knots of Imass, and the Jaghut themselves were islands amidst slaughter – none could stand before them.
Yet they were but fourteen, and the Imass fighting close to them continued to fall, no matter how savagely they fought.
The K’ell Hunters struck the inside envelopment, driving the enemy back in a maelstrom of savagery. They swarmed out across the pasture and over the paddocks to swing round and plunge into the Kolansii flank, almost opposite the Teblor.
And in answer to all of this, High Watered Festian ordered his reserves into the battle. Four legions, almost eight thousand heavy infantry, heaved forward to close on the enemy.
Bitterspring, crippled by a sword thrust through her left thigh, lay among the heaps of fallen kin. There had been a charge – it had swept over her, but now she saw how it had stalled, and was once more yielding ground, step by step.
There were no memories to match this moment – this time, so short, so sweet, when she had tasted breath once again, when she had felt the softness of her skin, had known the feel of tears in her own eyes – how that blurred her vision, a thing she had forgotten. If this was how living had been, if this was the reality of mortality … she could not imagine that anyone, no matter how despairing, would ever willingly surrender it. And yet … and yet …
The blood still raining down – thinner now, cooler on her skin – offered no further gifts. She could feel her own blood, much warmer, pooling under her thigh, and around her hip, and the life so fresh, so new, was slowly draining away.
Was this better than an inexorable advance into the enemy forces? Better than killing hundreds and then thousands when they could do little to defend themselves against her and her immortal kind? Was this not, in fact, a redressing of the balance?
She would not grieve. No matter how short-lived this gift.
I have known it again. And so few are that fortunate. So few .
The Ship of Death lay trapped on its side, embraced in ice. Captain Shurq Elalle picked herself up, brushing the snow from her clothes. Beside her, Skorgen Kaban the Pretty was still on his knees, gathering up a handful of icy snow and then sucking on it.
‘Bad for your teeth, Pretty,’ Shurq Elalle said.
When the man grinned up at her she sighed.
‘Apologies. Forgot you had so few left.’
Princess Felash came round from the other side of the ship’s prow, trailed by her handmaid. ‘I have found him,’ she announced through a gust of smoke. ‘He is indeed walking this chilly road, and it is safe to surmise, from careful gauging of the direction of his tracks, that he intends to walk all the way to that spire. Into that most unnatural rain.’
Shurq Elalle squinted across what had been – only a short time ago – a bay. The awakening of Omtose Phellack had been like a fist to the side of the head, and only the captain had remained conscious through the unleashing of power that followed. She alone had witnessed the freezing of the seas, even as she struggled to ensure that none of her crew or guests slid over the side as the ship ran aground and started tilting hard to port.
And, alone among them all, she had seen Hood setting out, on foot.
A short time later, a storm had broken over the spire, releasing a torrential downpour of rain that seemed to glisten red as blood as it fell over the headland.
Shurq Elalle regarded Felash. ‘Princess … any sense of the fate of your mother?’
‘Too much confusion, alas, in the ether. It seems,’ she added, pausing to draw on her pipe and turning to face inland, ‘that we too shall have to trek across this wretched ice field – and hope that it does not begin breaking up too soon, now that Omtose Phellack sleeps once more.’
Skorgen scowled. ‘Excuse me … sleeps? Cap’n, she saying it’s going to melt?’
‘Pretty,’ said Shurq Elalle, ‘it is already. Very well then, shall we make haste?’
But the princess lifted a plump hand. ‘At first, I considered following in Hood’s footsteps, but that appears to entail a steep and no doubt treacherous ascent. Therefore, might I suggest an alternative? That we strike due west from here?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Shurq Elalle. ‘Shall we spend half a day discussing this?’
Felash frowned. ‘And what, precisely, did I say to invite such sarcasm? Hmm, Captain?’
‘My apologies, Highness. This has been a rather fraught journey.’
‘It is hardly done, my dear, and we can scarcely afford the luxury of complaining now, can we?’