‘The woman who dived into the lake,’ I said, drawing my fingers down my face and looking up. ‘What was she hoping to achieve?’
‘I do not know,’ said Nanook.
‘I know how well I play the part, but don’t mistake me for a genuine fool. And don’t think I can’t spot another fraud quicker than a Judicator can glean the taint of Chaos.’
The elders exchanged glances.
Nanook sighed and set down his soup, his appetite apparently gone. ‘To goad him on blood, Castle Lord. To make him hunger, enough that he will break his nets and swim in search of meat amongst the bloodreavers.’
‘That sounds like a fine plan,’ I declared. ‘A classic. Just the way they teach it at the castellan temples in Sigmaron. The only drawback I see to it is that it’s taken you over a month to bring it to me.’ The elder chiefs shrank from the thunder in my voice. The feathers in their attire prickled as the air in the hut became charged. I eyed the steaming hearthpot. ‘Let’s feed the Grey King.’
‘No,’ said Nanook, mildly, but firmly.
‘Try and stop me, old man.’ I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, but I was angry. The long, cold fear had made me so. I saw a way out of this purgatory and it made me go in with both feet. I never had been one to think of consequences. ‘I’ll jump in with the monster myself if I have to.’
The elder chiefs looked at each other, astonished, never once considering that I was an immortal barbarian who would far rather be eaten by a hell-squid in pursuit of victory than endure another day under Blackjaw’s siege ships.
‘Please, Castle Lord.’ Nanook cupped his hands in the Nemesian gesture of supplication. ‘The people take great inspiration from seeing you among them. The maorai, they look up to you – they see you on the wall day after day, night after night, railing against the bloodreavers without fear.’
I coughed into my hand.
Even I, it seems, have some shame.
‘Hamilcar Bear-Eater fears no enemy,’ I mumbled.
‘Do not let them think less of you by acting rashly now,’ he said.
I grimaced. He had me by the short ones there, so much so that I couldn’t believe he hadn’t gone there on purpose. Nothing, no personal challenge or mortal dread, no commandment of the gods or bastion of Greater Azyr, could compel me like concern for my reputation amongst the free peoples of the Mortal Realms.
‘Perseverance and generosity,’ Hitta smiled.
I could have beheaded her with her own soup bowl.
I gave it thought.
‘We need only hold,’ said Nanook. ‘Angujakkak will lay and will break free on his own.’ He shrugged. ‘We need only hold.’
I frowned at them all, Jissipa in the corner included, these old mortals who had far more right to be impatient than I. The last thing I wanted was to lose face with the maorai, but now I knew there was a way out there was no way I was going to spend another night in Nemisuvik waiting for a sacred whale to lay an egg. I just needed to be subtle about it.
It was, in hindsight, a symptom of my mental state that I considered this within the realm of my abilities.
‘Perseverance and generosity,’ I said through gritted teeth, assuming a place by the hearthpot. I would have one more bowl of broth, and then I would sleep on it.
I woke to a string of calamitous booms, sky-splitting, shivering the cut-out canoe-cots of the maorai hall in which I slept, rattling spare weapons in their racks. I would say that it sounded like thunder, except that I know thunder, and hold it in too high esteem. It sounded as though a mob of Ironjaw warchanters with steel drums were being dropped over the Nemesian pontoons by airship.
I should have been so lucky.
I sat up sharply, banging my head on the bunk above mine. This was well before the days of Stormholds, or even Freeguilder barracks in every settlement, and the berth I alternated with a burly maorai of the Arkorapter Double-Axes was a foot too low for me and three too short.
I was raised in a cave, though. I’ve slept on worse.
Shifting myself awkwardly out of bed, I looked around the huge hollowed-out leviadon shell of the hall.
All the cots were empty.
There is a school of thought that whatever a commander’s warriors are asked to suffer, he must suffer it first, and hardest. He must eat the same rations as they do, be first over every bridge and to the top of every hill, put his shoulder to the same labours. He must also be abed an hour after the most anxious warrior has fallen sound and rise an hour again before the dawn watch. Ordinarily, I am the exemplar of this school, but with nothing in Nemisuvik to actually fight I had slipped into the habit of grumbling awake around eleven with lunch. The maorai seemed to find my morning lie-ins cheering, as though nothing I could sleep through could possibly harm them, and after a time I managed to convince myself it was a deliberate act of brilliance on my part.
I looked up, gripping one of the wooden crossbars from which the rocking cot beds were suspended as a new impact shook through the ceiling.
I tried to guess how close it must have been. In the Nemesian fashion, the maorai hall had no windows by which heat might escape or damp gain entry. Another strike followed almost immediately, the sound of shattering shell followed by the muted wumpf of a fireball, and my cot swayed fitfully of its own volition. I had grown accustomed to onslaughts at all times, to falling asleep with my jaw clenched, but nothing as concerted as this was shaping up to be.
I could think of two possibilities – either my efforts here had allowed Broudiccan and my brothers to win the war for the mainland, forcing Blackjaw to launch an attack, or the bloodreavers had finally become as sick of this as I was.
I gritted my teeth and rose, hoping for the latter. I wasn’t going to have Broudiccan Stonebow and the Astral Templars coming to my rescue, not after I’d endured hell for a month.
It didn’t take long to ready myself. After that length of time without serfs or armsmen, I’d become accustomed to living in my armour, a decision to go defiantly unwashed that was facilitated by Nemisuvik’s overwhelming odour of fish. I reached under my cot to collect my halberd, picked up my warding lantern from the wall hook I had claimed for it, then strode outside.
It was night. The sky had become smoke, lit by constellations of burning skulls and the embers of fires. House fires boiled against the suffocating gloom, squat and broad and weirdly horned, like daemons of the Brass Citadel come fresh to Nemisuvik.
Again, I should have been so lucky.
I charged through streets that had become clotted with fumes. People huddled together in milling groups, looking at the sky in confusion. They had become accustomed to the incessant bombardment, as I had in my own way, but the unusual ferocity had reminded them of their fear of it. It reassured me to see that they had been as terrified as me all along, that they had simply wrapped it up in their lives and hidden it better.
I reached my preferred spot on the gabion-wall to be greeted by Akbu and his maorai band. They cheered me as I ascended the steps.
‘See this man!’ Akbu indicated me with an open hand. With the other, he held a pole arm ready. ‘Who else could sleep almost to morning through this?’
‘Hamilcar!’ his warriors roared. Some pumped their weapons in the air, others banged them on the parapet.
Typical maorai, they couldn’t even agree on that.
‘You should have woken me,’ I snapped. ‘Can’t you see this is a prelude to an assault?’
Akbu shrugged, then turned to yell, ‘Moha! Hand over your shells, you fool-squid. When will you learn to not make bets?’ He turned back to me and grinned. ‘She thought you would sleep through and complain of the broth being cold.’