Return of the Crimson Guard (59 page)

The Hand spread out among the wreckage. Possum walked to the front. Small fires flickered amid the fallen walls and splintered furniture. Gone. The delay had ruined their attack. He checked the street; had they bulled out the front?

A wet blow, like that of a butcher's strike, snapped his attention around. Eljin stared his stunned surprise at a blade now hung caught
in his chest having swept down from behind through his collarbone and upper ribs severing his torso almost in two halves.
So much for the man's demotion.
The armoured giant behind Eljin raised a mailed foot to push the standing corpse from his blade. All around Guardsmen erupted from the wreckage engaging Claws and Possum could only stare stunned like Eljin.
They'd laid their own blasted trap!

As the first echoes of battle hidden far inland reached them, and plumes of smoke rose shortly thereafter over the city, Nait watched the Guardsman commanding the force at the harbour order a withdrawal. They climbed aboard their two commandeered vessels and oared out to the bay where they dropped anchor, waiting. From the wharf side Nait waved every obscene gesture he knew until Hands cuffed him. ‘Why'd they go?’ she asked Tinsmith. ‘Abandon their friends?’

Tinsmith merely spat into the water. ‘Don't have enough men to secure the harbour. They're safe from the mob out there.’

‘But not them,’ Nait said, pointing to the top of the harbour curtain wall. There catapults and mangonels glowed in the light of torches held by their busy attendants. ‘Gonna be a pheasant shoot for them,’ he chuckled gleefully.

‘Don't know about that,’ Honey Boy objected, ‘don't think I've ever seen them actually shoot one of those rusted things.’

Tinsmith did not look impressed either. ‘Let's leave them to their job. Now it's time for us to do ours.’

Nait adjusted the bird-bone toothpick at the corner of his mouth, his eyes narrowing. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Secure the harbour, of course. We are the harbour guard.’

Hands pulled her gauntlets from her belt. ‘About bloody time.’

Least frowned his agreement. Nait could only stare from grim face to grim face. ‘Are you all crazy? 1 know there's only one of them left on the wharf but do you know what he must be?’

‘He's a Trake-cursed invader!’ said Hands.

He's probably from Unta,
Nait silently rejoined.

Tinsmith walked up to the single Guardsman left behind at the foot of the stone wharf. As he got close the man turned to him, his eyes hidden within the helm's closed visor. Whoever he was, he wore a thick scaled hauberk and mailed leggings, and bore a broad shield on his back. His surcoat had originally no doubt been deep crimson but now dried salt scale had turned it white. Close, Tinsmith opened his hands to show he meant no harm.

‘You are the sergeant of the Harbour Guard,’ the man said.

‘Yes. Sergeant Tinsmith. And you?’

‘Black.’

Tinsmith nodded a cautious hello. ‘Well, Black. Hostilities have been declared. Looks like we're gonna have to do our job.’

‘You do yours and I'll do mine.’

Tinsmith nodded again and backed away. A third up the length of the wharf he gestured a signal and ten of the harbour guard rose with crossbows readied. The instant they fired the Avowed leapt behind piled cargo. Having fired, these first ten knelt and a second rank straightened. ‘Hold fire!’ Tinsmith ordered.

He eyed the piled sacks and barrels now feathered by bolts. Had the Avowed retreated or was he manoeuvring for another approach? Yet no clear path existed, Tinsmith had made sure of that. The man stood suddenly, shield raised, and charged.

‘Fire!’

The Avowed dived for new cover but not before bolts slammed into his shield. ‘Next rank,’ Tinsmith ordered. The first rank straightened once again, crossbows levelled. The Avowed had closed about six paces.

‘Now?’ Nait asked of Tinsmith where he crouched on his knees behind cover, a heavy sledge in his hands.

‘Not yet.’

The Avowed rose again. With an angry swipe he broke the bolts from his shield. He advanced despite a bolt that ran straight through one thigh. ‘Fire!’

This time the Avowed did not bother ducking. Bolts slammed into his shield, rocking him backwards. One tore through his right calf, sending him to one knee.

‘Next rank,’ Tinsmith ordered.

‘He's gotta be there by now!’ Nait pleaded.

‘Almost.’

The next rank stood but three had not yet finished cocking their weapons. This volley, rushed, most wide, did not slow the Avowed. ‘Now,’ Tinsmith judged. Nait swept up the sledge and slammed it down on the iron pin jammed between chain links at his feet. Nothing happened. ‘I said
now,’
Tinsmith repeated.

‘She's as tight as a ten-year-old's—’

‘Watch it!’ snarled Hands next to Tinsmith, sword ready.

Tinsmith was eyeing the closing Avowed. ‘Now would be a good time.’

Nait pulled down the sledge with a frantic, urgent swing. The head
banged from the pin, which shot from the links like a bolt itself, so great was the pressure upon it. ‘She's away!’ Nait yelled.

The harbour guard threw themselves down. Chain links rattled, snarling against stone. The Avowed paused, uncertain. Then in an explosion of heaped cargo, a length of chain came sweeping across the width of the wharf, tossing barrels, tearing sacks, splintering timbers, until it came to snatch away the Avowed as it he were a doll and sweep him aside into the water.

Nait ran to the stone ledge of the wharf, danced from foot to foot. ‘Ha! We got you! Ha! Not so big now, hey?’ Tinsmith came to his side followed by Heuk. All three peered down into the churned, dirty green waves. ‘Ha! He's dead.’

Heuk shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. Might still be alive. It's a real debate – I'd like to stay to see.’

‘Can't.’ Tinsmith gestured to the two Guard ships, ‘they saw it all. So maybe we should go join the fight.’

Nait lost his smile. ‘Oh, right. Yeah. Maybe so.’

Tinsmith signed the guard to form up.

* * *

The mute shuffling and grunts of continued fighting prodded Possum to crack open an eye. The noises came from out back; everyone inside was quite obviously dead. He rose silently to his feet and as he did so the mortal slash that laid open his entrails disappeared leaving behind a much shallower, albeit deep enough, cut. Bodies strewed the blown-out first storey, Claws and Guardsmen alike. Wincing, Possum clenched an arm across his slashed abdomen and surveyed the carnage. He and the seven Claws had managed to take down the five Guard – all but one, an Avowed, who then finished off the two remaining Claw and Possum himself, or thought he had.

Yet the fighting continued. Stiff with pain, Possum crossed carefully to a window looking out on the rubbish-strewn enclosure behind the tenement. There the Avowed duelled a single Claw. Possum stared.
Run, you damned fool!
Who was this idiot? He'd not authorized any lone hunters this night. The man, woman, Possum corrected himself, had elected to face the Avowed barehanded. Possum could not understand it, the highest, most exacting of the disciplines taught at the Claw cre´ches and the Academy, yes, but against an armoured opponent wielding a longsword? Granted, the Avowed moved rather awkwardly having been thrust through the back and front scores of times by Possum and his own guards
before managing to cut them all down, but still: bare hands against iron mail?

The Claw, wrapped all over in black cloth strips, including her head, leaving only a slit for her eyes, circled the Avowed, probing, shifting her stance. He waited, sword raised, his other arm hanging useless having been shattered in the explosion. Possum decided that though she might be the stupidest of his ranks she deserved help if only for, well… sheer brainless audacity. He calmed himself to summon his Warren.

A cold knife blade bit his neck. He froze. From behind, a head nestled its weight on his left shoulder. A woman's low voice breathed hot and damp into his ear, ‘Let's see what she's got.’ Despite the blazing pain of his abdomen Possum felt a shiver of hunger to know the possessor of such a voice.

The flickering glow of burning city blocks lit the enclosure and painted the night sky orange. Distant screams and the murmur of battle marked the front where the Guard inexorably bulled its way back to the harbour. The Claw continued her circling dance while the Avowed clumsily tracked her, one lumbering step after another. So swiftly that Possum missed it, one foot lashed in to swipe the side of the Avowed's helmet, the sword swung after, and the armoured giant righted himself, shaking his head.
Fool! What did that accomplish? You'll only break the bones of your foot.
Another kick, this one connecting square in the chest, rocking the Avowed backwards – again, another slow swing. The woman at his shoulder snorted her impatience and Possum had to agree; what was the point in this wasted time and effort?

Yet useless punishment was not the Claw's purpose, as became clear to Possum in an instant as another kick brought another swing, but this time the arm was trapped, locked and the Claw's own elbow pushed in and the mailed arm snapped backwards with an audible wet popping. The Claw sprang away. The woman at Possum's shoulder grunted her appreciation of the move. The sword had fallen from the numb grip and now the Avowed struggled with his shattered arm to reach a dirk sheathed at his belt. The Claw launched herself upon him, legs twisting around his torso. Hands jabbed straight over the Avowed's vision slit, fisted, thumbs extended to disappear entirely within.

The Avowed bellowed his excruciating pain – the first sound Possum recalled hearing from him. The Claw sprang free once more, faced the blinded, crippled giant. He sank to his knees. He appeared to say something which was lost in the din of the surrounding battle;

she answered. He lowered his helmeted head. The Claw spun, leg lashing out to take the man low on the neck beneath the lip of the helmet, snapping the head sickeningly aside. The Avowed toppled to his side.

Possum could not believe what he'd just seen; how was this possible?
Hood preserve him! Who was this woman?
None he knew of in the ranks. The one holding the blade to his throat snarled something in a language unknown to Possum and withdrew. He spun but she was gone.
So quick!
A mage as well; and damned good.

Turning back, he caught the one wrapped in black swathings staring right at him. He took a breath to call but she ran, disappearing into another tenement. He cradled his front with a gasp; that sudden breath hadn't been a good idea. When he looked up again another lone Claw had entered the garbage-strewn enclosure. This one wore grey cloth, her short black hair uncovered.
Great Fanderay! Yet another one! And another female to boot! Where were they all coming from?
The Claw knelt to examine the fallen Avowed. Possum limped to the shattered rear door.

By the time he reached the Guardsman this third mystery woman was of course gone. He shuffled to the fallen Avowed. A hand at the man's broken neck assured him that the man was indeed dead - asphyxiation, Possum assumed, from feeling his crushed larynx.

He straightened from the corpse. Intriguing mysteries, yes, but all would have to wait. He studied the glow of flames brightening the night sky, black smoke billowing from nearby. Time to reassert some measure of control – if possible. And find a healer too. He probed the slit across his front gummed with drying blood, and grimaced; yes, definitely the closest he'd yet come to the end of his career. A wave and an opening to darkness appeared. Possum stepped through delicately.

* * *

Coming up the Way of Opals, Nait and the harbour guard met a wagon headed the opposite way. A tarp covered its contents and the drover was afoot, pulling on the tack of the two harnessed oxen. His face glistened with sweat and his eyes were wide with terror as he nodded to Sergeant Tinsmith. Up the road fires looked to be gathering Strength in the fine tailoring district. ‘How goes things?’ Sergeant Tinsmith called to the man.

‘Very good, sir. Very good. Just trying to save some possessions from the fires.’ He pulled two-handed on the yoke, muttered feverishly to the oxen.