Assail by Ian C. Esslemont Page A

rocks where K’azz had been awaiting them came to her: the Cape of the Stone Army. Also known as the Cursed Soldiers.
    She closed her eyes against the night and sent a prayer to Burn: dear ancient one, please let this not be an omen you send us. If these stone soldiers be cursed, then let that be the end of your anger. Send no doom upon us. In answer to your forbearance, I offer my dream. The wish I have held within my heart all these years. It I would sacrifice to you. A future for a future. This is my pledge.
    So do I vow.
    * * *
    Kyle threw himself into the exhausting duties of day-to-day sailing. There was work enough aboard the
Lady’s Luck
for everyone, though the Stormguard held themselves apart, viewing such labour as beneath them. He did not suffer from such delusions of self-importance. He avoided the ten ex-Chosen, which suited them as they had only contempt for all outlanders. Indeed, they kept themselves apart from everyone: they stood wrapped in their thick blue woollen robes, spears never far from their fists. The regular working crew of the Mare vessel were torn between admiration for them as Stormguard, and a growing resentment at their arrogant presumption of superiority.
    For his part, Kyle suffered no such quandary. His answer to their scowls and slit-eyed hard stares was a quiet smile of amusement, as if they’d become a joke – something they no doubt suspected and thus dreaded to be the truth.
    His companion for much of this time was Reuth, Tulan’s nephew. In terms of seamanship, the lad was far behind even him. The Mare sailors were dismissive of the lad, seeing no worth in anyone so woefully ignorant. Kyle, however, remembered his own abrupt introduction to the sea: he’d grown up on the steppes, far inland, and had never even seen a ship until his fourteenth summer.
    The lad tagged along with him during watches and while he crewed. He kept up a peppering of questions regarding the outside world. A week into the crossing, perhaps halfway, Kyle drew the task of inspecting the lines, their splices and ends, searching for breaks and any dangerous fraying. He sat near the bow in the half-shade of the high prow while he sorted through the coils and bundles. Reuth sat with him. This day the lad was uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn.
    Kyle glanced up from studying a line of woven linen. ‘There is something troubling you?’ The lad would not meet his gaze; instead, he stared off down the long gangway that ran the length of the
Lady’s Luck
. ‘One of the crew kicked you aside? Cussed you up and down?’
    Reuth gave a shrug of his thin shoulders. ‘No worse than usual. No, they’re not so bad. Remember, Tulan’s the ship’s master.’
    ‘Not one to coddle you too closely, though.’
    Reuth laughed without humour. ‘No. That’s for certain.’
    Kyle set the linen line aside and turned to another, which appeared to be woven of hair. He inspected it more closely and was surprised, and a touch unnerved, to see that it was not horse hair, as he had presumed, but human hair.
    ‘Pay no attention to what these ragged sailors say, Reuth. Continue studying your maps. You could become a navigator, or a pilot. That’s a rare skill. One these hands can’t even imagine.’ He didn’t add that he himself was barely literate – it was only after joining the Guard that he learned to read and write, just.
    ‘No. It’s not them.’
    Kyle pulled on the woven line – it was strong. Perhaps it was somehow special; that is, special beyond the sacrifice made by the women of Mare for the welfare of their husbands and sons. Perhaps it was employed in the ship’s rituals surrounding the invocations of Ruse. ‘Not them?’ he asked absently.
    ‘No. It’s you.’
    He raised his gaze to the lad to find him casting quick concerned glances his way. He lowered the line. ‘Oh? Me? How so?’
    The lad licked his lips then cleared his throat into a fist. ‘You are an outlander. You served with the Malazans,