Jute lurched back towards the tower and the wall beyond. He gripped his arm where the blood still welled. His vision seemed to darken and there was a roaring in his ears – he suspected it was his laboured pulse. Coming round the base of the tower he found the ground before the entrance blackened and smoking. Three corpses, no more than white bones and charcoal, lay upon the scorched earth. Two were Imass, the other Jute assumed to be the sorceress’s servant, since she herself sat up against one wall of the entrance, her chest heaving, her leg and a hand bloodied.

He tottered to her. ‘Can you stand?’

She nodded tiredly. ‘Barely.’

He helped her up then surveyed the corpses. ‘Your servant saved your life.’

‘He did.’

‘I can’t remember his name.’

‘It was Velmar.’

‘Ah.’ He scanned the walls, blinking to clear his vision. Perhaps he was seeing things, but it seemed that half of those who’d stood defending the walls were gone. Bodies lay thick upon the catwalk. The local northerners were still fighting side by side with the Blue Shields, all struggling to push back the Imass. Malle and the Malazan veterans held the east arc of the wall. Jute watched amazed while the young cadre mage’s roaring streams of flame cleared a swath across the top and the lean older mage thrust with his staff, somehow driving individual Imass off as if punched. Yet more took the wall than were repelled. The young cadre mage jerked, the flames snapping away; she toppled backwards impaled upon a slim cream-hued blade. Sections of the top were being yielded to the Imass. A hoarse bellow of alarm from the old Malazan mage marked his rush to an exposed Malle; he charged, knocking Imass from the wall, clearing a section, only to totter, slashed through to hanging ribbons of cloth and red gashes, and fall forward from sight.

The defenders retreated down the ramps in a solid wedge, the Blue Shields at the rear, fending off the T’lan in their slow advance.

‘We will not last,’ Jute murmured, now certain of it.

‘No. They will win through.’

‘Well, I will guard you now.’

She turned the same affectionate look upon him that he had often noticed. ‘You are gallant, Jute of Delanss. But Ieleen would have you back. Even now she fights to protect you.’

He blinked again, bewildered. ‘Oh? How so?’

‘She is helping to pull the wind out of the heights.’

‘A wind?’ He had noticed how cold the air was and how the banners snapped and whipped.

‘Yes.’ The sorceress’s eyes slipped closed and she stumbled back against the stone wall. She clasped a deep cut in one thigh and fought to open her eyes once more. ‘It brings news from the ice-fields. I only hope their Bonecaster will notice.’