Return of the Crimson Guard (119 page)

Ullen saluted. ‘I go now to save it, Fist.’

‘D'Ebbin nodded his assent, saluted. His face settled into grim resignation. Tor sceptre and throne, Lieutenant-commander.’

‘Sceptre and throne.’ Fist D'Ebbin jogged away. Ullen turned back to his staff. ‘Relay my orders. We march to meet the Crimson Guard standard. We must keep them engaged until the Kanese arrive. Now is our turn to bloody our swords.’

‘We are with you sir,’ said the Imperial lieutenant, and Ullen was surprised and pleased to hear the support in his voice.

‘Very good. Order the march.’ His officers saluted and ran to their commands.

* * *

‘Is this the truth?’ asked an astonished Shimmer.

The Brethren shade before her, once Lieutenant Shirdar, bowed. ‘We offer no excuse. We were … blinded … commander. The Vow—’

‘Damn the Vow!’ Shimmer grated. ‘Cowl used your damned fixation to manipulate you!’

The shade wavered, fading, then reasserting its presence as if attempting to go but being held against its wishes.
‘It is yours too,’
it murmured.

Shimmer raised a gauntleted hand as if she would strike it. ‘Gather the Brethren. There are second and third investiture soldiers abandoned in the field, alone, beleaguered. Find them, protect them, guide them here!’

‘And K'azz?’

‘We will be—’ She cast about, pointed to a hill in the west. ‘There. Our rallying point.’

Shirdar bowed his head. ‘As you order.’

‘Yes! As
I
order. Now go!’

The shade disappeared. ‘Avowed!’ Shimmer yelled, raising her arms and turning full circle. ‘There are soldiers abandoned in the
field! Our brothers and sisters! Go! Find them! Bring them to me! The Brethren will guide you!’

A great shout answered her call, arms raised. The Avowed spread out for the field. Smoky, Shell and Bower paused to eye Shimmer – she waved them on. Even Greymane bowed, obviously meaning to go. She cocked a brow. ‘Where are you going? The Brethren will not talk to you.’

The man's thick lips turned up in a one-sided smile. His eyes now laughed with some hidden joke. ‘Skinner, you say, has been cast out. Very good. I go now to do what should've been done some time ago.’

Her breath caught. ‘I forbid it!’

The smile broadened with the hidden joke. ‘As you have constantly reminded me, Shimmer, I am no Avowed.’ And he bowed, leaving.

You fool! There are too many! He is not alone.

‘Commander,’ a Guardsman sergeant, Trench, asked.

‘Yes?’

‘The rallying point?’

She pulled her gaze reluctantly from the back of the renegade as he jogged into the fire-dotted night. ‘Yes. This way. We withdraw to that hill.’

A Brethren shade appeared before her. ‘The Claw comes.’

Shimmer pushed Trench from her. ‘Go! Assemble. Go on.’ And she backed away. The man hesitated, hand going to his sword. ‘I order you to go!’ Grimacing his unwillingness, the sergeant turned and ran.

Shimmer continued backing away. She unsheathed her whipsword and it flexed before her, almost invisible in profile so thin was it. Darker shapes arose in the field around her. She turned, counting. Ten. Two Hands. She flicked the blade, weaving it, and she turned, spinning. Slowly at first, then quickening, the blade nearly invisible.
And so the dance^
Shimmer heard again the dry voice of her old instructress lashing her.
The sword-dance of spinning cuts. Beautiful – but oh so deadly.

The Claws closed, knives out, crouched. Thrown weapons glanced from the twisting blade. Training of a lifetime refined over a further century flicked out the tempered blade to lick arms, legs and heads as she spun. Claws flinched away, gasping at razor cuts that sawed through flesh to scrape bone, sever wrists, lacerate faces and slit throats.

A second wave challenged, ducking, probing. The blade licked whipping through them all, extending suddenly to its full length. Shimmer spun, twisting and leaping. The blade's razor edge
flicked, kissing all remaining, and she landed, arms extended, panting.

She stilled, weapon extended before her, quivering, blood running from its length. All ten were down, some weeping, holding faces, bloodied stumps. Three more stood a few paces off, their eyes huge. Shimmer saw them and at the same instant each raised a crossbow.
Damn – no momentum.

Then another jumped among them, kicking, rolling, and they rocked backwards to fall, immobile, felled by blows of feet and hands. This new figure strode up to her – female, slim and wiry, wrapped head to foot in dark cloth strips. Those strips wet with blood at her feet and torn away from her bloodied hands by the ferocity of her blows. Shimmer inclined her head in greeting. ‘I could have handled them.’

‘Perhaps.’ Only dark, calculating eyes were visible in her face and these shifted away. She raised her chin to the retreating Guardsmen. ‘You are withdrawing.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then go with my permission and never return to these lands.’

Shimmer's brows rose. ‘And you are?’

The female Claw ignored the question.

Another Claw came running out of the dark, this one a man with a pinched rat's face, dark mussed hair and an unsettling crazy grin. Shimmer recognized him from briefings on the Claw – Possum, Clawmaster. He crouched behind the woman as if guarding her back. The Master of the Claws following around a woman like a pet dog? Then this must be … Shimmer froze in shock.
Gods! It's her! Of course, Mistress of the Claw, once rival of Dancer himself!

Trench with a full Blade was running their way. Shimmer raised a hand to forestall them.

Unconcerned, the woman motioned aside, to the east. ‘And those?’

Shimmer knew who she meant. ‘Disavowed. Disgraced. Stricken from our ranks.’

‘I see. May I ask the reason for this falling out?’

She doesn't know!
‘Skinner exceeded his authority.’
All too true.

‘How depressingly familiar …’ Musing, still gazing away, the woman – Laseen in truth? – spoke. ‘Very well. We are done here. Go! Return and you will be hunted down and slain. Accepted?’

Shimmer offered a shallow bow. ‘Accepted.’

The woman turned away, paused before the Clawmaster, who bowed profoundly on one knee. ‘Come, Possum. We have much to discuss – now.’ And she walked off into the dark, and, after a courtly mocking bow – that grin,
unbalanced
– Possum followed.

Trench jogged up. ‘Who was that?’

‘A … Claw officer. We have struck a truce.’

‘A truce? What of Skinner?’

‘I don't believe he's interested in any truces.’

Trench adjusted his hauberk. ‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Come, Sergeant, we've a defensive perimeter to build. No sense trusting to the Empire's good graces, yes?’

‘Aye, Commander.’

The sergeant headed off but Shimmer lingered. She gazed back to where the two disappeared into the night.
So, met at last. Is your word good, Empress? Shall you simply allow us to withdraw? Or will other voices, other councils, sway? I wonder
…

* * *

The smearing, shifting land, spiralling sky and blurring, meteor-like stars forced Rillish to close his eyes else vomit or faint. He lowered his head into the smoky mane of his mount. He clenched his eyes, wondered just what it was they rode upon then wished he hadn't. Gay laughter from ahead forced him to look – Nil and Nether sharing grins of victory, laughing their confidence, hair flying.
As if they'd feared they all could've died immediately I
He glanced back and wished he hadn't. The land they rode upon was disappearing behind them as they passed, collapsing, falling away, revealing emptiness – Abyss – behind.
Ye gods! Ride!

Overhead the great empty bowl of the night sky turned so fast the stars blurred like spun torches. A sun rose, fat and carmine – a bloated travesty of what he knew as the sun. Was it ill? Some peoples, he knew, worshipped the sun as a god. Its crimson light revealed that ahead lay … nothing. A dirt surface appeared before their column as if called into existence by the will of all the witches and warlocks bound to the twins. The surface supported them only to fall away once more into the miasma of the Abyss.

Ride, lads and lasses! Ride!

The glow of the horses’ eyes shocked him – all whites! Unconscious! But of course, what animal could endure such chaos? And so they ran, pulled along by the will of the warlocks. And he and all those who followed as well! He saw that at some point he'd unsheathed a sword, and, laughing, he awkwardly resheathed it. What use such a pathetic instrument?

Something moved upon the face of the unformed, churning sky – distant yet immense – wings outstretched, long tail lashing. A body
of rib and spine only –
a skeleton dragon?
And why not? In such a place where everything yet nothing is possible. And farther yet, if such things as distance applied here, a great dark fortress. Static, brooding. Appearing to float upon nothing. What were these things? Hallucinations?

He glanced back and the hair on his neck and arms rose, charged.
It was gaining!
The land was falling away closer and closer upon their rear. Nothingness was overtaking them!

Ride, fools! Death's reaching!

The twins pointed ahead where a dark smear stained the churning miasma ahead. Our gate?
But so far!
Rillish glanced back again and screamed. The rear ranks were slipping off the edge, hooves scrabbling, horses tumbling, men and women spinning backwards from sight. He kicked his mount savagely, almost weeping.

Ride to the Abyss!

* * *

Ullen ordered his legion into two arms, each of which would meet the Guard phalanx leading face at angles, hopefully to then wrap around and envelop. That was the best he could hope for. The Crimson Guard standard was held just a few ranks back from that face. The Avowed, he knew, would overcome any individual soldier who might oppose them, but eventually, if numbers should tell, they would find themselves beleaguered from all sides to be cut down by these stolid, grim Malazan and Talian heavy infantry veterans. Or so he told himself.

The two forces came marching towards one another out of the dark. The ruins of the Imperial pavilion smouldered just to the north. Ullen knew the Empress was nowhere nearby; yet for the Guard to march unopposed this far would be tantamount to victory, a tacit acknowledgement that the Imperial forces could no longer muster the wherewithal, or will, or spirit, to face them. The closest thing to defeat that becomes defeat in its realization.

When only a few paces separated the two lines Ullen raised his sword for the final charge. The Imperials sounded a low animal roar that swelled to a ferocious demanding invocation of rage, hate and battle-lust. They raised shields, leaning forward, the pressing shields of the ranks behind at their backs forcing them on. The two formations smashed together with a bone-breaking clash of shields smashing, blades probing, legs thrusting at the dirt. Line pushed against line; ranks slid across one another, mixing, milling. Men died
but could not fall, so crushing was the press. The screaming cacophony melded into one undifferentiated rumble that punished Ullen's ears into a ringing, oddly muted, din. He knew he was yelling but he could not hear his own voice.

Sword held awkwardly in his left hand, for his right remained too weak, he thrust savagely between shields. The ground beneath the grunting, scrabbling mass became glutinous with shed blood. Sandalled feet slipped, bodies fell. Men and women cursed fallen friends and enemies alike when they entangled their feet, tripping them. As the lines shifted back and forth these fallen became trampled down into the mulch of mud and gore.