Return of the Crimson Guard

guards? Twenty-five, or thereabouts. How had the two accomplished this? All without any Warren magics either. The achievement irked Ho in a way — he felt as if he'd been rendered obsolete. What need for mages if they can manage this?

The platform bumped to a stop, swinging. With a screeching of wood on wood, the cantilevered solid tree- trunk supporting them began turning aside, carrying the platform over to rest on the dirt beside the opening. Grief unhitched the safety rope. Ho blinked in the unaccustomed dawn light, shaded his eyes. The Pit's infrastructure had not changed much since he'd last seen it. A long clapboard house looking like a guard barracks stood where, when Ho had been processed, had only been a tent. A lean-to blacksmith's shop, a corral for donkeys, a dusty heap of open piled barrels and a squat officer's house completed the penal station. Broken barrels and rusted pieces of metal littered the landscape. Beyond, dunes tufted by brittle grasses led off in all directions. Curtains of wind-blown dust obscured the distances. Treat was busy watering the four donkeys hooked to the spokes of the broad, circular lifting mechanism. ‘Where is everyone?’

Grief raised his chin to the barracks. ‘Inside.’

Ho wet his lips, forced himself to ask, ‘Alive?’

‘See for yourself.’

Ho decided that, yes, he would. But he could not bring himself to step from the platform. The others had walked off immediately. He looked down, edged a sandalled foot forward, brought it down on the surface, shifted some weight on to it, bounced slightly up and down as if testing its soundness. Only after this could he bring his other foot from the wood slats.

Grief watched all this without comment, his lips pursed. ‘I'm sorry,’ he finally said as they walked along to the barracks.

‘For what?’

‘I hadn't thought about just how hard this might be for some of you.’

‘For most of us, I think you'll find.’ Then Ho stopped. Something had been bothering him about the installation. He glanced around again, thinking. ‘Where are the wagons? Where's the track to the coast to deliver the ore?’ He pointed to the haphazardly piled barrels. ‘Those are empty. Where are all the full ones?’

Grief was looking away, squinting into the distance, the wrinkles around his eyes almost hiding them. ‘I'm sorry.’

‘Sorry? You're sorry? What do you mean, Hood take you!’

‘He means they've been dumping them,’ said the woman. Ho spun; she'd followed along.

‘Dumping them? They dump them!’ Ho raised his dirty, broken-nailed hands to Grief. ‘Seventy years of scraping and gouging — halved rations when we missed our quotas — and they… they just…’ Ho lurched off for the barracks.

Grief hurried to catch up. ‘Not at first, I understand. Only the last few, ah, decades. It was all played out, not worth refining. I'm sorry, Ho.’

The door wouldn't open. When Ho turned his shoulder to it as if he would batter it down, Grief stepped in front, pulled out two wedges. Ho pushed it open. He found the guards on the floor, lying down and sitting. Seeing Ho, those who could, stood. Seeing Grief they flinched. Almost all carried bloody head wounds, bruising blossoming deep black and purple. Ho thought again of the short batons Grief had whittled. So, yes, weapons after all. ‘Who is the senior officer?’

A short, broad fellow with a blond beard stood forward. He straightened his linen shirt. ‘I am Captain Galith. Who in the Abyss are you?’

‘Am I to understand that you have been dumping the ore that we have been sending up?’

A smile of understanding crept up the man's mouth. ‘Yes, it was policy when I arrived five years ago. We tested each delivery and dumped anything below refinable traces.’

Ho ran a hand through his short hair and found drops of sweat running down his temples. ‘And tell me when… how often were these standards met?’

The smile turned down into mocking defiance. ‘Never.’

Ho grasped a handful of the man's shirt. ‘Come with me.’ He walked the man out towards the gaping ledge.

Grief followed along. ‘What are you going to do, Ho? Toss him in? I can't allow that.’

‘You can't-’ Ho stopped, faced the short, muscular Napan. ‘Who do you think you are? You hang around for a few months and you know everything? This goes way back.’

‘These men surrendered to me. Not you. They're under my protection.’

Facing the Malazan officer, Ho took a deep steadying breath then forced his fist open; Captain Galith pulled his bunched shirt free. ‘You didn't have the guts anyway,’ he grated.

Ho swung a backhanded slap that caught the man across the side of his head, sending him off his feet to lie motionless. Grief leapt backwards clasping the grip of one sword. ‘How did you do that!’ he demanded, eyes slitted.

‘How did you have Treat defeat some twenty guards?’

Grief straightened, inclining his head in acknowledgement of the point. He smiled in a wicked humour. ‘We surprised them.’

‘If you two have finished your pissing contest then perhaps we can discuss how we're getting off this island?’

Grief and Ho turned to the dumpy, grey-haired female inmate. ‘Listen,’ Ho said impatiently, ‘what in the Lady's Favour is your name anyway?’

She crossed her thick arms across her wide chest. ‘Devaleth Omptol.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘It wouldn't mean anything to you.’

Ho rolled his eyes. ‘Gods, woman, there are over forty scholars, historians and archivists here.’

‘Mare. Ship's mage, out of Black City.’

‘You're from Fist, then.’

The woman's brows rose, surprised. ‘Yes. That name's not in common usage.’

Grief took the feet of the unconscious captain, began dragging him back to the barracks. ‘Ship's mage, hey? That'll be damned useful.’

‘If either of you think I'm going to summon my Warren with all this Otataral around you're the insane ones.’ She shouted after Grief, ‘How are we getting off this blasted island anyway?’

‘Treat's going to get the rest of our, ah, team, tonight. We have a ship.’

Devaleth snorted something that sounded like ‘Fine!’ and walked away.

‘Where are you going?’ Ho called after her.

She pointed to the dunes. ‘There's an ocean out there. I'm going to wash my clothes, scrub my skin with sand, scrub my hair, and then I'm going to do it all over again!’

Ho plucked at his threadbare, dirty jerkin, lifted a foot in its worn leather sandal. All impregnated with the ore. He looked to the barracks, his eyes widening, and he ran after Grief. ‘Wait a moment!’

Ghelel wanted to curry her own mount. It was an eager mare she'd grown quite fond of, but Molk had warned against it saying that the regulars took care of such things and that she, as a Prevost, ought not to lower herself. She personally saw nothing odd in an officer caring for his or her own horse; Molk, however, was insistent. And so she found herself facing another empty evening of waiting — waiting for intelligence from Li Heng on any development in the siege, which appeared to have settled into a sullen stalemate despite the early victories. Or waiting for intelligence from the east on the progress of the Empress's armada. Or of a new development: the coastal raids of a significant pirate navy that had coalesced to take advantage of the chaos, pillaging Unta and now Cawn. Just two days ago word reached them that these raiders had become so emboldened they were actually marching inland. The betting around the tents was on how far they dared go. Raids on Telo or Ipras were the odds-on favourites.

She therefore faced the same choice that wasn't really a choice this last week since General Urko's army had marched through: lie staring at the roof of her tent, sitting at the main campfire or visiting the command tent. Spending another useless evening at the campfire meant watching the Falaran cavalrymen led by their fat captain,