Return of the Crimson Guard (18 page)

‘What in the name of Burn does that mean?’

‘Knives. Usually to the death.’

The man gaped at Chord. ‘What?
Her?’

The men at the bonfire slowly climbed to their feet. ‘Cover them, Junior,’ Chord said aside.

‘Aye.’ The patrol spread out, crossbows still levelled.

‘You can't be serious. You're listening to this Wickan brat?’

‘I am.’

‘She's just a child!’

The sergeant stilled, his eyes hard on the spokesman. ‘Seein’ as she's old enough for you to rape, maybe she's old enough to hold you accountable for it, don't you think?’

The man eased back into a fighting stance, shrugging. He drew a knife from his belt sheath. ‘Fine. I'll just have to kill her too.’

Chord tossed the girl his own knife. She took it, screamed a Wickan curse and leapt.

It was over even more swiftly than Chord had assumed. In the end he had to pull the girl off the hacked body. The patrol lined up the youths and marched them off to the fort. As they went the men swore that word of this would spread and that they'd see the fort burnt to the ground. Part of Chord hoped they'd try; the other part worried that maybe he'd just bought his lieutenant more trouble than their garrison of one undersized company could handle.

* * *

Kyle lay in his bunk on board the
Kestral,
his eyes clenched closed. Seasick, his stomach roiling, he tensed his body against the juddering of the ship as it rolled alarmingly once more. Nearly a month at sea, their last landfall along the west coast of Bael lands, and now for these last five days the
Kestral
had ridden the leading edge of a storm driving them north-west – a direction the superstitious sailors would not even look.

The tag-end of his dream eluded his efforts to grasp it and he groaned, giving in to wakefulness. For the fleetest moment the sweet scent of perfume had seemed to tease his nose and the soft warmth of a hand seemed to linger at his brow. But now he was still in his bunk aboard the
Kestral,
weeks at sea and the Gods alone knew how close to, or how far from, its destination: Stratem. The adopted homeland of the Crimson Guard.

A land that meant nothing to Kyle.

Tarred wood shivered and creaked two hand-widths from his nose. Beaded condensation edged down the curved wall of planking to further soak the clammy burlap and straw padding he lay upon. The wood shivered visibly, pounded by the storm that threatened to shake the vessel into wreckage. His eyes watered in the smoke of rustleaf and D'bayang poppy that drifted in layers in the narrow companionway. The stink of old vomit, oil, sweat and stagnant sea-water all combined to make his stomach clench even tighter. Below him, Guardsmen talked, gambled and studied the Dragons deck.

He rolled on to his side. The curved plainsman's knife that he kept on a thong around his neck gouged into his shoulder. Blocking the narrow passage, the men were gathered in a knot around a small wood board on which the Dragon cards lay arranged. Slate was the Talent for this reading – everyone agreed Slate was one of the most accurate in the Guard.

Stoop's grizzled face appeared; he'd climbed the four berths to Kyle's topmost slot. He hooked the stump of his elbow over the cot's lip and winked, motioning down to the reading.

‘Slate's angry as Hood. Says the Queen of the House of Life dominates. Says that's damned odd and the reading's about as useful as a D'rek priest in a whorehouse.’

Kyle sighed and lay back on his berth. ‘Hood's bones, it's just a bunch of cards.’ Since joining the Guard he'd been confronted by more superstitions and gods than he'd ever imagined could exist, let alone keep straight or even believe.

Stoop scratched his grimed fingers through his patchy beard. ‘Lot more'n that,’ he said, mostly to himself.

‘Try again,’ someone urged Slate.

‘Can't,’ he answered. ‘Once a day.’

The thin, painted wood cards clicked as Slate gathered them together.

‘Try anyway.’

‘Bad luck.’

‘You mean maybe we'd see through your horseshit?’

‘I mean I could bring all kinds a trouble down on our heads.’

From the corner of his eye, Kyle saw Stoop nod seriously at that. Once a day, not near a shrine or sanctified ground, burial grounds or a recent battle. Kyle couldn't believe all the folklore and ritual that surrounded the deck. The cards were supposed to reveal the future but how could they if you couldn't use them half the time? He thought that too convenient for whoever sold the damned things.

Bored, weak and nauseous from the constant roll and bucking of the ship, he shut his eyes against the smoke and tried to seek out that dream once more. It eluded him; he attempted to doze again.

The door of the companionway crashed open allowing a rush of water down the stairs and a gust of frigid damp air that pulled at the lanterns. Everyone cursed the man coming down the stairs. It was one of the hired Kurzan sailors. His bare feet slapped the boards and his woollen shirt dripped sea-water on to the planks. Beneath black hair, plastered down by rain and spray, his bearded face was pale.

‘The captain wants you all on deck, armed,’ he announced in
Nabrajan, and stood aside. Everyone pulled on what leathers or gambesons they had; most metal armour had been greased in animal fat and stowed against rusting. Besides, it was more a danger than protection at sea. They asked questions of the sailor but he would say no more, only make signs against evil at his chest while his eyes, resigned and haunted, avoided them all. Kyle dressed in his gambeson shirt. He pulled on the leather cap he wore beneath his helmet and cinched his weapon belt as everyone lined up. They climbed the stairs passing the sailor, who shivered and wouldn't raise his eyes.

On deck, Kyle found a guide-rope and covered his eyes from the spray. He took in the reefed sails and the white-capped, churning seas. Men pointed, shouting, their words torn away by the wind. Kyle followed their gazes and couldn't believe what he saw: among the waves and blowing spume moved human figures. What appeared to be armour upon them gleamed sapphire and rainbow opalescent. They seemed to ride the waves. White foam flew about them. While he watched, some of the waves curled into horse-like shapes and dived, carrying their riders with them only to broach the rough waters further along. The armour shone like frost and they carried jagged-edged lances.

Kyle searched the horizons. Of the Guard's fleet of twenty ships, he could only see the
Wanderer.
The nearest mercenary, Tolt, gripped Kyle's arm, shouted, ‘Stormriders! We've blown into the Cut! We don't have a chance!’

Kyle's immediate reaction was one of awe and numb fear. Two months ago, near the beginning of the journey, Stoop had explained something of the strange convoluted archipelago and continents that the Crimson Guard called home. Quon Tali, and to the north, Falar. To the south, Korel. A deep ocean trench of unpredictable storms and contrary currents, Stoop explained, separated Quon Tali from Korel, or Fist, as it was sometimes known. The Stormriders had claimed this passage for as long as anyone could recall. Twice the Malazans had tried to push through to reach Korel, and twice the Riders sank the fleets. They allowed none to trespass and warred continuously with the Korelans over the coastline of their lands.

Kyle went to the gunwale. Through the spray he could make out a number of Riders circling the ship. While he watched, incredulous, the ones nearest the
Kestral
saluted the vessel with upraised lances and submerged. More surged abreast of his vessel. One broached the waters close by and seemed to be watching him. But as the tall helm hid the being's eyes, Kyle couldn't be sure. On impulse he drew his
tulwar and raised it straight up before his face, saluting the Rider. The alien entity straightened and raised his lance, its barbed point flashing cruelly. Kyle laughed his palpable relief and sheathed his sword. Tolt was right, it seemed to him – if it had come to a fight they wouldn't have stood a chance.

‘That Rider saluted you.’

Kyle turned. There stood Greymane, the only person fully armoured in banded iron, his legs planted wide apart, yet steadying himself at a guide-rope. Kyle remembered the Malazan renegade's words at Kurzan: ‘water ‘n’ me, we don't get along.’ The veteran's eyes held a calculation Kyle had never seen before. ‘Or he was saluting you.’

A tight sardonic smile reached the man's sky-pale eyes. ‘No. I told them to cut that out long ago.’

Kyle turned away; this was not what he wanted to hear from this strange Malazan turncoat. Jokes! This renegade had torn something irreplacable from him – something that drove him to his own vow – but not one in sympathy to the Guard's. He gripped the gunwale. It was numbing cold, yet any change from the rank enclosed quarters below was welcome for a time. They were packed tight on all the ships. Every Guardsman squeezed shoulder to shoulder. ‘You've been through here before, haven't you?’ Kyle asked, facing the slate-grey sea. He watched the Riders circling, submerging one by one. A few mercenaries remained on deck, their faces hardened now that panic had passed. He reminded himself some of these men had witnessed wonders far greater than this.

For some time Greymane didn't answer, but Kyle could feel him there, close. He heard the man's layered banding grating at his shoulders and arms as he shifted his stance with the lurching of the ship. ‘Aye. Many times. I grew up on Geni – an island south of Quon. My father fished the Cut. Saw them many times I did, as a boy. Before my father went out and never came back. Taken by them, some said. I swore off the sea then. Joined the army.’

The renegade paused and Kyle could imagine him offering a rueful grin – fat lot of good that choice had done! But Kyle refused to look. This man had taken all that was precious from him. Murdered a guiding spirit of his people! He did not want to hear this.

‘Command thought my familiarity with the Cut would be an asset for the Korel invasion,’ Greymane continued. ‘And for a time they were right. But as the years passed the stalemate drove me to try something no one had ever tried

The last of the Riders disappeared in swirls of pale emerald froth.
Kyle shivered. Despite himself, he turned. ‘What? What did you do?’

The renegade was frowning, his pale gaze fixed on the waters. He wiped the spray from his face then made a gesture as if throwing something away. ‘Well, let's just say it lit a fire under the Korelri like nothing else ever before and got me arrested by command. I made a mistake – misjudged the situation – and a lot of people got killed that didn't have to.’

‘I'm sorry.’

‘Yeah, so was I. But I accept it. Now I'm just plain fed up.’ A crooked smile, the eyes bright as the ice that clings to the mountain-tops in the north of Kyle's homeland. Or these Riders’ own glimmering armour.

Kyle's face grew hot despite the frigid wind, and he turned away. This was not what he wanted: an opening up, confessions. Not from this man. A man of the company he had vowed to …
Damn him for this!

‘Well, better go below. Gotta re-oil everything thanks to these blasted Riders.’

Kyle said nothing, not trusting himself to speak. When he glanced back he was alone.

* * *

Evening darkened; the low overcast horizon to the west glowed deep pink and orange. The water lost its chop, the troughs shallowing and the wind dropping. The
Kestral
and the
Wanderer,
just visible as a smear to the north, were swinging over to a southward heading. Despite the wind that drove knives of ice across Kyle's back, he remained on deck. The closed rankness below churned his stomach. To the stern the glow of a pipe revealed the old saboteur Stoop sitting wrapped in a blanket. Kyle made his way sternward hand over hand by ratlines to stand next to him.

Stoop examined the pipe, tamped the bowl with his thumb, pushed it back into his mouth. ‘You can relax, lad. Be more at ease. You're home now.’

‘Home?’

‘Certainly! You're of the Guard now, son.’

‘Am I?’

‘Aye. Swore you in m'self.’