Lieutenant Jalaz now held the dock.
‘Captain?’ Jute turned; Letita stood armed and ready, helmet cheek-guards lowered. He shook his head. ‘Stay on board, master-at-arms.’ The woman’s mouth hardened but she did not object. Jute pointed out over the bows. ‘However, we do have a good view of the dock from here …’
Her lips climbed in a savage grin; she turned to the mid-deck. ‘Archers! Form up!’
The shouts and iron-clash of fighting now washed down to the Dawn. A gang of Gell’s thugs rushed Jalaz’s squad. This time blood flowed as swords were drawn.
More tents burst into flame. The yells and cries swelled to a steady roar. Jute could now make out a running mêlée making its way down the tent city. Everything in its way was trampled and destroyed as it came. Men were running both away and towards it.
A solid crowd now pressed against Jalaz’s position; Jute nodded to Letita. ‘Archers,’ the weapons master called, ‘Thin them out — try to avoid our crew.’
Her team of forty archers opened fire on the crowd.
A strange clacking noise pulled Jute’s attention to the rear. He glanced back and blanched: Benevolent gods forgive us. The Ragstopper’s springals were being brought round to bear on the shore.
He’d seen what they’d done to the fortifications at Old Ruse, and now … civilians? Yet could any soul here truly be counted as an innocent civilian? Very few, no doubt. And those should be fleeing the scene rather than closing on it.
The springals released with twin bangs and fat bolts shot overhead in trajectories lower than the Dawn’s tops’l. Twin explosions lit the darkness and sent geysers of wet earth to the night sky — along with cartwheeling doll-like figures. The mud and debris came pattering across the dock and smacked into the mud flats like wet fists.
Into the profound silence following the eruptions, Lieutenant Jalaz’s voice came bellowing out of the darkness: ‘Watch where yer shooting, y’damned apes!’
The pause was only momentary as the fighting renewed itself. The running scrum broke into the open close to the waterfront. Jute could make out individual figures within the press: the two Falarans who’d given their names as Red and Rusty — which was a joke of course, all Falarans tell outsiders their name is Red. And in the middle of the pack, a scrawny grey-haired figure pointing and shouting commands: Cartheron. The roiling knot now made for the dock. Sword blades flashed in the light of waving torches. Men and women cursed and grunted at blows given and taken.
The huge figure of Black Bull reared into view before Lieutenant Jalaz. He leaned in swinging two-handed. She met him with twinned shortswords. The weapons slid and grated across one another in blows and parries until one of Jalaz’s swords flicked up across the man’s beard and he reared back in a spray of blood. He clasped his throat, his eyes rolling white in the darkness. She raised a boot to his chest and kicked him down.
Jute couldn’t fathom the numbers of these would-be miners and fortune-hunters all piling in, all struggling to tear the Malazans apart. He’d been there when they’d been told Lying Gell’s thugs numbered some three hundred. Yet far more than that — a horde of over a thousand — now clamoured to pull them down. And more were arriving every minute.
Something, it seemed, had turned the entire tent city of Wrong-way against Cartheron and his crew. Lying Gell couldn’t command that sort of loyalty, could he? But then, maybe it had something to do with them having just blown up or burned all the food in the town.
The crew, or gang, pushed through to the dock and linked with Jalaz and her squad. The entire troop now retreated up the dock. Letita kept up her punishing volleys of arrow fire. Then the springals released once more and Jute couldn’t help but duck.
The end of the dock disappeared in twin concussions that shot bodies and timber high into the air to come raining down as debris that knocked more people from the dock. When the smoke cleared, Jute glimpsed the Malazans backing away, headed for the Ragstopper. In their midst, lumbering like two laden oxen, struggled two of the Barghast veterans. They carried between them a huge iron trunk.
Jute almost laid his head on the ship’s railing. Oh, no … Cartheron … y’damned pirate. Don’t tell me you …
Lieutenant Jalaz came bounding up the gangway. ‘Push off!’ she yelled.
Jute blinked and shook his head; at her cry it was as if his daze from the explosion snapped away. ‘Cut that rope!’ he bellowed. ‘Push off! Lower sweeps!’
Arrows and crossbow bolts thudded into the Dawn’s side and Jute ducked. It looked as if the entire population of Wrongway now lined the shore. Many were striding out into the deep mud, waving swords and torches. The roar of the mingled yells and curses drowned out everything.
The Dawn pulled away; the gangplank tumbled into the water.
Something flaming arced from the shore to burst on the deck spreading fire. Everyone not manning the sweeps dashed to help smother the flames. More flaming pots came flying their way. All but one fell short and that one smacked the sternplate. The crew dashed water over the flames as the dock receded into the darkness behind.
‘Well,’ Ieleen said into the relative silence. ‘What got them all in a tizzy?’
Jute held his head. ‘You don’t want to know.’
Lieutenant Jalaz joined them, a helmet under an arm. ‘They’ll give chase,’ she said, and she brushed her sweaty matted hair from her face, breathing heavily.
Jute turned on her, furious. ‘Oh, you think so, do you? Think they’ll give chase — seeing as you just stole all their damned gold!’
But the lieutenant merely shook the blood from a deep cut across her hand. ‘Well, what in the name of the forest gods did you think we’d do?’
Jute kept his hands on his head, if only to stop himself from grabbing hold of the woman. God’s blood! Fifty ships pushing out to chase them! Nowhere to run! But … there was one place. He raised his head. ‘We’ve been had, dearest,’ he said.
‘How so, luv?’ Ieleen answered.
‘Cartheron … This is what he intended from the start — or was hired for!’ He thrust a finger at Jalaz. ‘Were you sent ahead?’
The woman’s face wrinkled up in a scowl. ‘What in the name of the Sky King are you talking about?’ And she cursed, studying the blood dripping to the decking from her hand. Letita had joined them and now she lifted the hand then pulled a strip of cloth from her belt and began tying up the wound.
‘Calm yourself, luv,’ Ieleen said. ‘Lieutenant — why don’t you tell us what Cartheron told you?’
Lurjen, at the tiller, cleared his throat. ‘Shall I follow the Rag-stopper, cap’n?’
‘Aye!’ Jute snapped. ‘We can’t let him out of our sight now, can we?’
The lieutenant shrugged. ‘He just asked whether we wanted a share o’ all that gold those lying bastards had been cheating from everyone. And we were all in, of course.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘No, why?’
Jute gestured to the dark waters of the bay. ‘Because anchored out there is a sorceress and a pocket army of mercenaries who could sweep this entire northern region if they wanted to, that’s why. And if they’re not interested in this sorry-ass tent city — then the question is … why are they here?’
Jalaz glanced ahead to the starlit bay. The dark silhouette of one ship was just visible. It appeared that the Ragstopper was making for them. ‘I see only one vessel.’
‘Trust me. Those are the Blue Shields out there.’