Return of the Crimson Guard (88 page)

‘Thank Beru!’ the big man exploded upon spotting him. ‘What in the Chained One's name is going on out there? I'm getting all kinds of outrageous reports.’

‘It's Ryllandaras returned, beyond a doubt. And we're pressed in here with him.’

Choss's horrified stare was the worst vision yet for Toc that night. A wind, pulled up by all the fires, blew the commander's great mane of hair across his face. He spat to the roof. ‘So they've been saying. Well, you'd know, Toc’ He looked to the sections of curtain wall visible from this position, drew in a deep breath, held it, then released it in a long slow exhalation of regret. ‘We captured a tower, Toc,’ he said, wistful. ‘We were so close. Now I have to turn around and come up with a way to salvage this.’

Screams of utter terror pulled their gazes aside to the maze of streets and lanes. Toc's back crawled at the hopelessness of those cries. Ryllandaras was murdering their soldiers – and he would not stop. Toc studied Choss. The man's regard had returned to the distant battlements where figures could be seen firing down, dropping torches. Toc was silent, thinking of how closely this man had worked with that great general, Dujek, and how it was he who saw the army through the shock of Y'Ghatan where Dassem fell. ‘If I remember rightly,’ Choss said, his gaze narrowed, ‘his feud is with Heng. It's Heng he hates. You could say we're just in the way.’ The hazel eyes shifted to Toc, calculating. ‘Is that not so?’

‘I think you could say that.’

‘All right then. If this Storo wants to play for all the stakes then we'll match his roll.’ He turned to a messenger, ‘Bring up all the munitions! Tell the sappers, every single last secret cache upon pain of death! Double-time.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Toc watched as Choss returned to studying the walls. What did he intend? Toc had spent most of his time with the cavalry and so didn't know the man as well as he would like. But munitions? Would it work? Every trap and trick known had been tried on the man-beast and none had succeeded. The creature's wariness and cunning were legendary. Still, munitions ought to be new to the cursed fiend.

*

Hurl found Storo at a stair-tower close by the Inner Round Gate. ‘They're retreating to the Gate of the Dawn,’ she told him. ‘Abandoning the assault.’

He wiped a bundled handful of his surcoat across his face. ‘Looks like. Can't fight
him
and us at the same time.’

‘What do you think they'll do?’

‘Withdraw. Redeploy to face Laseen. Get off the plains as fast as Oponn will allow.’

Yells and firing at the Inner Round Gate drew Hurl's attention. She peered out to see that the assault continued there. Bowmen behind mantlets and among the ruins of the burnt buildings close by exchanged fire with their crossbowmen. Ladders lay broken like straw on the road amid bodies, some burning. ‘What's going on there?’

‘Keeping up appearances. They're running sappers up against the gates, to no use.’

‘Why? Are they digging?’

‘Yes. But the foundations go down far too deep. You know that.’

Hurl's chest tightened with an inchoate dread. ‘I don't like it, Storo. Clear them off.’

‘Fast as we can.’ He turned to a messenger. ‘Tell them to bring up more stones.’

‘Aye.’

Storo pulled his helmet off, sighed his exhaustion and obvious unshielded relief. ‘I thought they really—’

A blast rocked their footing, throwing them both down. Hurl smashed her head to the stone floor. ‘Hood preserve us!’ Storo gasped. Together they leapt to the east arch. Hurl held her head and fought back a darkness gathering at the edges of her vision. Smoke and dust obscured the gate but from the strength of the eruption Hurl knew it was shattered. Storo's eyes met hers. Her legs buckled and he reached out quickly to support her. He cupped her head then brought his hand away wet with blood. Hurl tried to say what she now knew but there was no need; she saw it in Storo's stricken gaze.

Ryllandaras was now their curse.

Hurl awoke to screams and a guttural snarled bellowing that raised the hair at her neck and shook the stones beneath her back. She lay in a room crowded with many other wounded. Groans and cursing along with the tang of blood and spilt bile assaulted her on all sides. She pushed herself up, dizzy, her head throbbing as if a spike were being hammered into it. Her munitions bag still hung from her side.
She made her way to the door, stepping carefully over wounded, some of whom helped steady her. At the door a guard watched the street, crossbow raised. Hengan urban cohorts ran past the opening, weapons abandoned.

It was still night. The fitful light from fires lit the street. Hurl peeked out to see that she occupied a guardhouse hard up by the blown gate. A shuffling, yelling wall of men armed with spears and poleaxes fought something. A thing that when it reared back rose fully three times their height. It was covered in pale creamy-white fur with darker streaks down its back in grey and dirty yellow. A great maw, black-lipped, twisted from enormous canines. Carmine eyes as dark as heart-blood glared hotly and blood stained its entire front. It punched out with unnaturally long cabled arms ending in black talons to claw men and toss them aside like handfuls of straw.

A sound like a whimper brought Hurl's gaze around; the guard met her gaze. Terror and uncomprehending despair filled the man's wide staring eyes. ‘It is
be,’
he gasped. The man-eater.’ After a last look of utter hopelessness, the guard threw down his crossbow and ran.

Hurl reached down to gently take up the weapon. Yes, it was he. The creature some named a God, brother to an ascending God. Some even claimed him to be a last remnant of those ancient primordial terrors who hunted humanity's ancestors so long ago out beyond the firelight. Hurl did not know; she knew only that he had sworn to level Heng, and that should he get within he would do so. And the Talians would lay claim to what was left with the sunrise.

She pushed her way out on to the rubble-strewn street, pulled the bolt from the weapon. She slid round the crowd to begin climbing the heaped fallen stones to one side of the blasted opening. At times dizziness took her and she paused on all fours, breathing heavily. She reached a vantage on the piled stones and spread her booted feet for stability. She could now see that one soldier led the defence: he wore a long coat of armour and a visored helm, and wielded twinned longswords. Rell. The monster racked at him but he slipped every swing and the blades flicked inward, slashing so fast only the reflected torchlight marked their movement. The beast's roar of rage and pain shook the stones beneath Hurl's feet. From the bag at her side she took a bolt armed with a sharper, slotted it and punched the air. Warning shouts sounded below. Grunting her effort, she raised the weapon, steadied it. She marked the littered ground just behind the beast, fired. The kick knocked her backwards from her feet. An instant later an explosion spat stones against her entire
front. She lay among the broken smoking rocks until roused by renewed roaring that was a constant thunder snarl of rage. Using her elbows and knees she pulled herself up to a sitting position. Men still faced the fiend but it had pulled down or swept aside most. Blood now flecked the pelt on its back. It dodged right and left, blurringly quick, but always the same fighter forestalled it, twin swords raised. Hurl was hardly conscious but even she could sense that something miraculous was occurring – no man ought to be doing what Rell was managing. Through the blown gate she saw Talian troops standing still, watching, mouths open. They held bows and crossbows loose at their sides as if it were inconceivable to interfere in the duel. Ryllandaras's wild swings, ducked or slipped by Rell, knocked the very stone blocks of the wall flying – stones heavier than any man could lift. Spittle flew as the beast threw back its head in such a bellowing eruption of blind incandescent rage that more stones were torn from the fractured walls and Hurl cried, attempting to cover her ears.

Through eyes slitted and blurred, she saw that Rell alone now faced the man-beast. He struck a guard position, one slim blade low, the other high above his head, point down. Ryllandaras’ jaws worked, taloned bloodied hands gestured. Was it speaking to him? The thunder in Hurl's ears deadened them to all sounds. A sudden leap inward made her flinch, so quick was it, yet Rell met it in a flurry of counter-attacks that slashed arms, torso and legs. Now Hurl was amazed by the man-beast: how could any living thing absorb such punishment? Was it truly something of a god itself – akin to Trake? Was Rell doomed to tire, to slow and fail?

Rousing herself, she fought to cock the crossbow, gave it up as futile. She threw it down, drew another bolt from her satchel, pulled the sharper from its mount. With it held high in one fist she struggled to climb down the rubble slope closer to the beast. Now Rell was shouting something, pointing a blade. Hurl looked up to meet the lambent flame-red eyes of the beast watching her. The eyes tracked the munition in her hand. A leg moved as it stepped toward her -
Gods, what a stride!
An arm stretched out, talons closing –
what reach!

Hurl threw at its feet, falling flat.

Some unknown time later she came to as hands pulled her, stones scraped along gouging her back. She tried to cry out, couldn't. Soldiers bent over her; it was still night. The clash of fighting still nearby. Someone took her shoulderbag, another cupped her head on
his lap. She looked up into the worried face of Fallow, the squad healer. ‘I'm getting to be a regular,’ she chuckled.

‘You and your commander. Now quiet.’

‘Storo? What… ?’

‘Quiet. Relax.’ He closed her eyes with his palm and that was the last she knew.

Toc and Choss remained behind at the Gate of the Dawn with a contingent of seventy spearmen backed up by fifty archers and cross-bowmen. They waited until the last of their elements had withdrawn, then their men pulled the gates shut behind them. Smoke, dust and exhaustion made Toc's eyes gritty and he pressed his fingers into them. As it was after every battle his mouth was as dry as dust and held an iron tinge of – and he could admit it – terror. He spat into the charred remains of a building next to the road burned by the defenders to deny them the wood for siege engines. When he turned from the gate dawn's light struck his gaze and he raised a hand to blot it out. Horsemen were galloping up from the east. Choss and he went to meet them,

‘Felicitations from Commander Urko!’ the leader announced, a fat ginger-haired Falaran in bronze scale armour. ‘I am to report that as per your intelligence Urko has begun excavation of ramparts and is raising a palisade to fortify his position.’

Choss nodded. ‘Thank you, ah …’

‘Captain Tonley.’

‘My thanks, Captain Tonley. Tell him our divisions will redeploy to join him by tonight.’

‘Very good, Commander.’

While they spoke, spare horses had been brought up led by the bloodied Captain Moss. Toc took one, nodding his thanks. Choss mounted as well. Captain Tonley leaned forward on his saddle. ‘Ah, tell me, sirs … what's this I hear of a great giant beastie?’

Toc, Choss and Moss exchanged exhausted glances. ‘It's the truth,’ Choss said flatly.

Captain Tonley shook his head, amazed. ‘You Quon Talians seem fearful of everything. First a band of hireswords and now a beastie. How you ever got the better of us I'll never know.’

Choss stared at the man. A grin pulled at his lips and he chuckled, then laughed outright. ‘It's a mystery, Captain. You may report back.’

A sloppy salute. ‘Very good, Commander. Let's go, boys. No drink to be had here.’ The troop stormed off. Toc turned to Choss.

‘So, now Laseen … And what of the Crimson Guard?’

‘We'll make them an offer. They want the Empire broken, don't they?’

‘And Heng?’

‘Heng and Ryllandaras can bugger each other. What of your Seti?’

Toc scanned the empty hillsides. ‘I don't know. I'll have to speak with them. Imotan's spent all his life praying for his patron God and now that he's come he's probably terrified.’

Choss grunted his scepticism. ‘Well, go. We still need them.’

‘Aye.’

They rode back to camp, silent for a time. ‘That soldier,’ Toc finally said, ‘who faced Ryllandaras. Have you ever seen the like?’