Return of the Crimson Guard (90 page)

‘Where'd you get that anyway?’ Least asked.

‘Found it dead.’

‘You ever been outside a town?’

Nait took a test nibble at the thing, looked to Least, puzzled. ‘No, why?’

Heuk suddenly jerked upright, making everyone flinch. His rheumy bloodshot eyes rolled, scanning the dark. ‘Something's happening,’ he croaked.

Nait threw a handful of dung at the man. ‘Not again! All the time, old man. Things happen all the time.’

‘He's here. I can taste his lust and hunger. All our blood couldn't slake it.’

Everyone stared. Leaning over, Nait cuffed the man. ‘Will you cut it out! You're giving everyone the willies.’

Heuk raised the earthenware jug, gulped down a mouthful of its dark contents. He spilled much over his beard and dirty robes. Honey waved a hand in front of his nose. ‘Faugh, old man. What's in there?’

‘Blood and bravery.’

Shouts suddenly sounded from the dark. Everyone stilled. The shouts took on a panicked note, followed shortly after by the beginnings of a scream suddenly cut short. Hands jumped to her feet. ‘What in the Abyss was that?’ She scanned the surrounding fields, dotted in campfires. ‘North, I think.’ She picked up her sword and belt. ‘C'mon!’

Everyone, even Heuk, climbed to their feet. ‘Anyone have a torch or a lamp or anything?’ Lim asked. Shrugs all around. ‘Great. Just great.’ She picked up her longsword and helmet and jogged after Hands who had not waited.

Least picked up a piece of burning bhederin dung. ‘I got this …’ he called after Lim.

It was chaos out on the dark shadowed slopes of tall, wind-lashed grasses. Men and women shouted, ran together, split up. Crossbow bolts flew, snapping overhead, making Nait duck. Another scream shattered the night in the distance. Nait ran into Honey, who was shaking a crossbowman by the shirt. ‘No shooting, Hood take it!’ He threw the man aide. ‘Almost skewered me …’

‘What is it? An attack?’

‘Don't know. Hope not, ‘cause we're beat already.’

Torches brightened the night to the north. A bellowing voice sounded across the hillside,
‘Assemble! Asssemmbblle!
Form up! Close!
Close up!’

Nait's shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, Gods Below. I don't believe it.’

Honey slapped his back. ‘C'mon – he's got the right idea.’ He jogged off. After peering about at the dark, Nait followed.

The formation was a broad swelling rectangle swallowing all it met; swordsmen held torches at its edges, crossbowmen behind. The master sergeant was there, and commander Braven Tooth, whom Nait had heard called a walking enraged hairball, a description with which he was inclined to agree. Also keeping order were Hands, Lim and the other sergeants.

After marching for a time, being chivvied into ranks with cuffs and kicks, orders sounded from the front to halt and to hold ranks. Nait pushed his way to the front. Here the stink of spilled bowels, vomit and blood almost choked off his breath – all that plus another reek like that of some kind of sick animal. It reminded him of the village butcher's, only this time instead of goat and pig guts and portions, it was human torsos, limbs and smears of viscera. Master Sergeant Temp and Braven Tooth were huddled over one corpse, torches held high. Both either slept in mail coats or had had the time or wherewithal to pull them on.

‘Looks like Soletaken, don't it?’ Braven Tooth said, his guttural voice kept low.

‘He could be. Not all are known.’ The master sergeant raised his head, calling, ‘Any cadre mages?’

Shortly later Heuk either pushed his way or was pushed to the front. The old man took one look at the splayed corpses and strewn entrails and fell to his knees and hands vomiting up great gouts of dark fluids.

‘I feel so much safer now,’ Honey commented to no one in particular.

‘That thing's a demon!’ Nait blurted out.

Both the master sergeant and Braven Tooth winced, glaring. ‘Will you stop your gob, soldier,’ Braven Tooth grated.

‘He's no demon,’ Master Sergeant Temp announced loudly to the crowd.

‘How in the Abyss would you know?’ Nait demanded.

The master sergeant crossed to Nait, peered up at him – he was a very squat, but very wide, man. ‘’Cause demons don't smell like that.’ He walked off to study the trail of slaughter. Braven Tooth clenched a hand on Nait's shoulder, grinned behind his bushy black beard. ‘You can trust the master sergeant on that one, soldier. Knows his demons, Temp does.’ Squeezing the shoulder painfully, he pulled Nait close to growl, ‘You keep your yap shut or I'll give you your real name, soldier.’

‘What d'you mean, my real name?’

His mouth tight in distaste, the commander looked him up and down. ‘Like Jumpy, soldier. You are definitely Jumpy.’ He pushed Nait aside, raised his head to the column. ‘All right! That's far enough! I want all the veterans, guards and Malazan regulars front and centre, now!’

Nait followed Hands to the master sergeant, who had returned from the trail. She asked, ‘What's going on?’

‘We're splitting up. Most of you guards and regulars are gonna escort the skirmishers back to camp—’

‘What?’ Nait blurted. ‘That's stupid, splitting up.’

Master Sergeant Temp just watched Nait for a time, saying nothing. He turned to Hands. ‘The recruits are too green to see what's ahead. It might break them. We need to get them back.’

‘Aye.’

While Braven Tooth was ordering the column, a troop of Imperial cavalry came riding out of the dark, torches sputtering. It was led by none other than Korbolo Dom, High Fist and Sword of the Empire, in full regalia of layered iron-banded armour and iron-scaled sleeves and hose. A black jupon displayed the silver Imperial sceptre while his mount supported long black and silver trappings that brushed the trampled grass. Master Sergeant Temp and Commander Braven Tooth saluted.

The High Fist pulled off his helmet. ‘You are wasting time here, Commander. You should give pursuit!’

Braven Tooth frowned thoughtfully as if considering the
proposition. ‘We were thinking that if we did that he might just swing around and take a bite outta our arses.’

The Sword's bluish Napan features darkened even further. ‘You have been long from the front, Commander. You have perhaps lost the proper fighting spirit. Very well, stay hidden among your men.
I
go to hunt him down!’

‘I wouldn't go out there if I were you,’ Master Sergeant Temp said. ‘He'll just string you along then turn on you.’

The Sword sawed his mount over to look down at the man. ‘And who are you?’

‘Master Sergeant Temp,’ and he saluted.

‘Then that, Master Sergeant,’ Korbolo explained loftily, ‘is why
I
am the Sword and you are not.’ And he kicked his mount to lunge away into the night, followed by his troop. Commander Braven Tooth and the master sergeant exchanged glances of arched brows.

‘Think we'll ever see him again?’ Braven Tooth asked.

‘With his luck and ours? Yes.’

After more cajoling and cuffing the commander led the main column of skirmishers, escorted by regulars, back to camp. Master Sergeant Temp led the smaller column of ex-guards and Malazan regulars, including the cadre mage Heuk, onward, tracking the way the beast had come. As they walked through the night Nait complained, ‘Jumpy? I ain't jumpy. Who in the Abyss does he think he is? It ain't even a name. Might as well call someone Stone, or Stick.’ He cuffed the fellow marching ahead of him who, from his size, must be a heavy. ‘Hey, what's your name?’

The fellow turned, blinking slowly. ‘Fish.’

‘Fish?
Your name is
Fish
? What in the Abyss kind of name is that?’

A shrug. ‘I dunno. The commander gave it to me.’

‘Hey, Jumpy,’ someone shouted, ‘Shut the Abyss up.’

They backtracked the beast until they lost the trail along the rocky bed of a dry creek that wended across the plain. Straightening, Master Sergeant Temp waved Heuk forward. The old man came puffing up, looking as if he was about to pass out. His curly brown mop of hair hung stringy and sweaty. He hugged his earthenware jug as if it held his deliverance – which, Nait presumed, wasn't too far from the truth. ‘Well?’ the master sergeant demanded. ‘Try your Warren – track him down!’

The old man raised the jug and took a long pull then wiped his mouth with a greasy sleeve. He squinted blearily at the trail, shook
his head in a long drawn out negative. ‘No, Temp— that is, Master Sergeant. I'm not a Warren-mage. Blood and the Elders is my path. And you don't want me opening it. Not yet.’

The master sergeant looked like he was about to savage the man with a few good curses, but then he stopped. He scratched his stubbled cheeks while studying the old mage and actually appeared unnerved. He tilted his head, accepting the explanation. ‘Yeah. Let's hope it don't come to that.’ He raised a hand to sign a return. It was dawn before they sighted camp and when they returned they found everyone packing for another day's march.

* * *

Ho came and kicked Grief – that is, Blues – awake where he dozed in the shade under canvas hung at the bow of the
Forlorn.
‘Yath's drowning another of us.’

The man cracked open one eye. ‘Why're you telling me? I'm not his keeper. You lot can rule yourselves – like you were so proud of.’

‘We're on board your ship! If you can call this rotting wreck a ship. You have authority.’

Blues groaned, fumbled to his feet. Ho still could not get used to calling the man by his real name. Real? More like his earlier alias. Who knew what his real name was? To him, he'd always be Grief. Ho chuckled aloud – he liked that. Blues gave him a puzzled glance. ‘The stern.’

‘Right. The stern.’ He motioned to two of his companions. ‘Get Fingers.’ Grumbling, the two headed below.

The Seven Cities cargo ship
Forlorn
boasted two decks, the main and a raised second stern deck. The gap between was tall enough for most save the tallest of the men. At the very stern, where the keel rose up tall and curving, Yath and Sessin were overseeing a party of his most enthusiastic supporters teamed on a rope. Seeing so many of the inmates all crowded together almost made Ho laugh aloud again; what a ragged, seedy and just plain scrofulous spectacle they all presented! Most had hacked their hair to brush-cut length to rid themselves of the clinging dust; most wore no more than blankets or rags taken from the ship's stores. All the pale-skinned ones were sun-burnt red with cracked, bleeding skin. Ho ran a hand over his own shaved head and winced as he was sun-burnt just as badly. And to make it worse, they were already nearly out of water.

‘That's enough,’ Blues called.

The men looked to Blues then glanced at Yath. After a moment the
Seven Cities priest allowed an indifferent shrug. The men hauled on the rope. It was amazing, Ho reflected, how the revelations that followed the arrival of the
Forlorn
with the rest of Blues’ squad, or blade, had instilled a spirit of cooperation among the fractious band of inmate mages. The truth that Blues and Treat and his squad were not just secessionists working against the Empress, but in fact were Crimson Guardsmen, and not only that, all six were of the Avowed: well – it certainly ended the talk of throwing them overboard.

The rope team pulled an old man up over the railing to splay naked and unconscious on to the deck. He had tightly curled greying hair and brown skin, and scars of swirling designs covered him. Ho recognized him as Jain, a Dal Hon warlock. ‘Yath! You idiot!’ Blues snarled. He knelt over Jain, listened at his chest, then tilted his head back and blew into his mouth. The man coughed, spluttered, inhaled a great gasping breath.

‘Wasted effort,’ sneered a voice from behind Ho and he turned to see the skinny, almost skeletal shape of Fingers, the mage, with Treat and Dim. While of the Avowed, the mage had the appearance of a gangly apprentice.