Assail Read Online Free PDF Page B

taking enormous pleasure in Blues’ discomfort.
    ‘Well
I
do,’ Blues growled. ‘I decline. And anyway, it makes no difference either way.’
    Shimmer frowned, not certain what he meant, but sensing the truth of the man’s words. They carried an echo of something out of Jacuruku. ‘What do you mean?’ she said slowly, almost in dread.
    He waved to Cowl. ‘What this jackal’s laughin’ about. You’re not a mage, Shimmer. You don’t understand. Makes no difference who we put forward to take over. Can’t be done.’
    ‘As I now have come to see,’ Cowl whispered, and his toothy white smile broadened once again. ‘The Vow is binding.’
    What of the Vow? she wondered. Whatever did the man— Damn! We swore to K’azz! He commands … until we are all gone? No escape? We are … helpless? A strange dizziness assaulted her and her vision darkened. A hand steadied her – Blues – and she nodded her thanks. ‘Then there is nothing we can do,’ she barely said aloud. The words sounded desolate to her ears. There was no hope for them.
    ‘Make the arrangements, Shimmer,’ Blues said gently. ‘Just go ahead. We will go to Assail.’
    ‘Who should come?’
    ‘I must,’ Cowl said, and his manic smile returned.
    ‘Then I will,’ Blues answered, glaring at the mage.
    ‘And myself,’ Shimmer answered. She cast an invitation to Petal.
    He raised his brows, quite surprised. ‘I would – if I may. And I suggest Gwynn.’
    ‘Bars must come, of course,’ Blues added. ‘What of you, Tarkhan?’
    The plainsman shifted his broad stance, uncomfortable. ‘If you lot are going then I am certain K’azz will once more leave command of Stratem to me.’ He smoothed his moustache and scowled his disgust. ‘There you are. Neither Shimmer nor you get command. It comes to me, unwanted and unasked for.’
    ‘I am sorry, Tarkhan,’ Shimmer offered. ‘But I am also relieved.’
    The man snorted.
    ‘We must go in force,’ Blues continued. ‘At least ten more swords.’
    Shimmer nodded her assent. ‘Two Blades, then. You take one, I the other.’
    ‘Very good.’
    ‘And K’azz?’ Petal asked, his hand at his lip.
    Blues waved the question aside. ‘He can come or not. His choice. We aren’t leaving Cal to rot.’
    * * *
    The south coastal people called her the Ghost Woman, the Stranger, or She-Who-Speaks-to-the-Wind. All anyone knew was that she appeared just a few seasons ago here on this stretch of their coast and that that day there had been a terrible battle in which the dead rose to fight all the day and all the night. Since that time this length of seashore was avoided by all and was cursed with the name the Dead Coast.
    And over the seasons the clash and clamour of battle had returned to rage from that coastline. At those times, day or night, the locals would huddle in their huts, throw themselves down before their altars, and beg that the gods and demons pass them by.
    Sumaran, son of Jirel, was one of those inhabitants. A fisherman by trade. Once, when the winds pushed his outrigger too far up the coast, he spotted the woman herself. She was out walking the dunes all alone, just as others had reported seeing her – reports he’d doubted himself. Yet that day there she appeared, a lonely figure, her long hair blowing in the shoreward winds, her ragged clothes snapping and flicking as well. Then she had stilled, and it seemed to him that her face turned to him, and he thought he saw her mouth moving as if she were speaking though no one was there. Or she was casting a spell upon him. He had made the sign against evil at his heart and rowed on as fast as he could.
    Now, this morning, the winds had taken hold of his outrigger once more and were determined to toss him upon the Dead Coast. He’d lowered his mast and paddled furiously but still the rising winds pushed him in towards the submerged rocks that guarded this stretch of beach. It was, he decided, as if some malevolent god or demon was working to make