Return of the Crimson Guard

may yet lose him to his internal wounds. But why ask me? You should go to see him yourself.’

Hurl shook her head. He would not want her to see him as he was, helpless and broken. Liss pursed her lips but said nothing. She returned to moodily watching the plain.

‘Will he be back?’ Hurl asked. Both understood that by he. Hurl now meant someone else.

Liss nodded weakly. ‘Yes. Eventually. Right now there's easy pickings out there.’ The shamaness's demeanour seemed to be falling by the hour. Her hair hung in greasy strings, her skin looked unhealthily pale and, unbelievably, she smelled worse than when Hurl first met her — something which had she been asked at the time she would not have thought possible.

‘And the Seti? Are they safe?’

A tired smile. ‘Thank you, Hurl, my gal. Yes. For the time being. They are safe. Yet can a people be said to be safe from themselves?

This White Jackal worship must not be allowed to gain its stranglehold once more. It is a regression for us — a childlike dependency.’

‘I'm sorry.’ Indeed, she felt very sorry. More and more it was coming to seem that they should not have done what they did. That she had made a terrifying mistake that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Perhaps there really was a curse.

The shamaness slapped Hurl on the back. ‘Don't worry yourself, lass. What's done is done. Now, it's up to me to do something.’

‘You?’ She eyed her suspiciously. ‘What do you mean?’

Liss turned her hands back and forth before her eyes, examined her layered ragged skirts. ‘Just something I've put off for maybe too long, that's all. Maybe the time's come.’

For what? Hurl wanted to ask but something stopped her, a vague unformed dread that whispered you do not want to know. It occurred to her that perhaps she was a coward after all.

The journey north had been smooth, though the Kite did not perform nearly so lithely as before without Ereko's steady hand at the tiller. Jan, Stalker and Kyle traded off keeping the sail as taut as possible. The brothers kept to the middle of the open boat, preparing the food and generally getting on each other's nerves. Traveller was a dark brooding presence at the prow that everyone avoided. It was as if Ereko, though not human himself, had been the only thing keeping a human presence within the swordsman. Kyle knew that the Lost brothers believed he blamed Traveller for Ereko's death. And for a time he had. But now he wondered how much choice the man had — the entire confrontation had had the air of an inevitable convergence, the long-delayed closure of a circle. Unavoidable. And Ereko had warned of the melancholy spell of the weapon at the man's side. It was clear now to him that what had happened had been just as hard on Traveller, if not harder. Hadn't he been friends with the Thel Akai for so much longer? It seemed to him unhealthy that the man be allowed to brood for so long and he realized that if anyone was going to do anything, it could only be him. On the fifth day he worked up the resolve to approach and sit near the prow.

‘So, Quon,’ he said after a time.

Through his long black hair hanging down, the man's dark ocean eyes shifted from his hands hanging limply at his legs to

Kyle. Something stirred, flickering within them, a kind of distant recognition, and a hand came up to squeeze them. He raised his head. ‘Yes. Quon.’

‘May I ask why?’

A tired shrug. ‘You have a case to make with the Guard. That is where the Guard is headed.’

‘And you?’

‘I will make my way from there.’

‘Will you help?’

A smile of amusement. ‘No, Kyle. My presence would only… complicate matters.’

‘Cowl will just kill me out of hand.’

‘No. You'll be safe enough with the brothers. And there is the blade you carry. You have no idea what you really have here and that I think is the way things were intended.’

His sword? ‘What do you mean?’

An easy shrug. ‘It is a powerful weapon. Others might have used it to gather riches, power. But nothing like that has even occurred to you, has it?’

Kyle thought about that — the fact was he didn't have the first idea how to go about such things.

‘Then, what about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

The man took a deep breath, scanned the waters. ‘I'm hunting someone, Kyle. Someone determined to avoid me. But eventually I will corner him. Then there will be an accounting long delayed.’

‘Vengeance?’

A sharp glance, softened. ‘Yes. But not just for me, for a great deal. A very great deal.’

An errant wave sent spray across Badlands who howled his shock. Coots laughed uproariously, his mouth full. A smile touched Traveller's features, though it appeared to Kyle to be the wintry, distant smile of an adult watching the amusing antics of children. Or… what was that word he'd overheard the Guardsmen using when discussing the leader of the race they called the Andii? And the Magus? An Ascendant.

‘Well, perhaps we can help?’

Traveller looked to him, his smile holding. ‘Thank you, Kyle. But no. This is something I have sworn to do. I must pursue it in my own way.’

‘Well, if that is as it must be.’ He rose to go.

‘Kyle?’ Traveller called after him.

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you. And… I'm very sorry. I know you were very fond of him.’

‘Yes. I'm sure you were too.’ Kyle turned away and his eyes met those of Jan, watching from the stern, who looked away, back out over the water, as was his habit.

The next morning Kyle awoke to find Stalker at the tiller, standing, peering ahead, and at the bow Traveller standing as well. ‘What is it?’ he asked Coots. The man was tending the small cooking fire in a metal bowl, cutting up the roots they boiled for a starchy stew. He gave an unconcerned shrug.

‘Some kind of storm ahead.’

At the stern he caught the eye of Stalker, who gestured forward. A dark bruising of clouds darkened the sky. ‘Can we go around?’

The scout merely arched one dusty blond brow. ‘This is my third course correction since dawn. Each time — there it is.’ To one side Jan lay curled up in blankets. Kyle considered questioning him but decided against it; if Stalker or Traveller wanted to, they could do it.

‘What does Traveller say?’

‘He said to stop trying to go around. Just head on north-east.’

Kyle went to the bow. Traveller's gaze was fixed ahead. He was wearing his armour coat beneath his leathers and his sword belted at his side. A sizzling anger rode his taut shoulders and stare. ‘What is it?’

‘Someone's interfering. Someone who should know better than to get in my way.’

‘Who?’

The man looked about to answer but stopped himself, shaking his head. ‘Never mind. Just keep your eyes sharp.’

‘What should we do?’

‘Do? Eat, check your weapons.’

Coots prepared a meal of boiled mush with fish and mouldy old bread. The Lost brothers busied themselves testing the edges of the multitude of blades each carried at belts, vests and boots. Jan had no weapon at all that Kyle could see so he fished around to come up with an old long-knife that he never used and offered it to the man. Jan looked up, surprised and pleased. Then his gaze slid aside and Kyle followed it to find Traveller watching, his