Return of the Crimson Guard

wounded. His guards had already scampered down to find the renegade. That settled the matter for Ullen and he followed.

It was a shallow, rocky gully. They found Greymane lying amid stones at its bottom. The man was conscious, but barely so. Together all of them strained to drag him up the side. They laid him on the ground. His eyes — one carmine with blood from broken vessels — found Ullen's face and he snorted, shaking his head. ‘Cheating bastard. His blade's poison. Bastard poisoned me! Got me all riled up, he has. Lucky bastard. I almost used the sword on him — but not here… too close to the sanctuary it is. Who knows what might've happened?’

Ullen ignored the man's ramblings. His sword? What was the man on about? ‘Relax — we'll bring a healer.’ Ullen motioned one of his guards away. The man saluted and ran.

Ullen caught Captain Moss's eye, tilted his head after Skinner. The officer held his gaze for a long time, his own eyes dark and flat, his mouth held expressionless. A hand rose to rub at the scabbed gashes crossing his face and he nodded his assent. Ullen straightened from Greymane. He pointed to another of his remaining guards. ‘Stay with this man. The rest of you — follow me.’ He jogged after the Avowed commander, left hand hot and sweaty on the grip of his sword. Left! His bloody left hand!

Conversation guided him through the detritus of burning equipment and scattered corpses. He caught sight of two men confronting Skinner. They were speaking with him, their words lost amid crackling flames and the shrill shrieks of a wounded horse. The two burly soldiers looked familiar yet he couldn't quite place them. Across the way figures emerged from the gloom, five Crimson Guardsmen, all Avowed, no doubt. They drew blades and began edging out to surround the two.

Ullen started forward but stopped as another man stepped directly in his path — where on earth had he come from?. Moss lunged forward, sabres raised, but the fellow held up empty hands. He was an ironwood-hued Dal Hon, scarred, in a fine mail shirt. His long kinked hair was pulled back tied in a leather strip and he regarded Ullen as if he knew him. And the man did look… but no, that cannot be… he was dead!

The ghost rested a hand on Ullen's shoulder. ‘You've done more than enough, Ullen,’ he said in that voice that sent chills down Ullen's spine. ‘The field is yours. My congratulations. Choss, I'm sure, would have been proud. Now leave this to us.’ Then the man's closed features softened with affection and he motioned to the gathering duel: ‘Those two, I swear they did this deliberately. Knew I couldn't let them face him alone.’ And he jogged off. The encircling Avowed flinched from his approach and he slipped within, to the side of the two facing Skinner.

No — it cannot be. How could it be him? Was it no more than a ghost from his past?

The three formed a triangle while the Avowed completed their encirclement. The newcomer faced Skinner who pointed a gauntleted hand, saying something lost in the roar of the burning wreckage. The newcomer didn't deign to answer. He drew his sword, a dark slim length. At a signal from Skinner all lunged in upon the three at once.

Ullen was stunned by what he witnessed, blades flashing in the firelight too fast for him to comprehend. Of the three defenders, one hunkered behind a square heavy infantryman's shield, calmly sliding blows that would batter walls only to jab, forcing back any of the Avowed who edged too close; the other, a burly Seti, fought with two sturdy long-knives each bearing bronze knuckle guards, parrying and delivering awful blows, lashing out to rock one Avowed with a swipe to the head. Ullen winced, thinking of his own wound.

But it was the duel between the Dal Hon and Skinner that took his breath. The man's smooth, economical grace was beautiful: tremendous swings from Skinner brushed aside with the seeming lightest of touches to be followed by lightning ripostes. It must be him! But how? In answer to a prayer?

Yet those ripostes all slid, rebounding, from the Avowed's stained dark armour. And Skinner laughed. In that laugh Ullen heard certainty of victory.

At his side, Captain Moss breathed, awed, ‘Who is that? I've never seen anything… He knew you — who is he? But that armour… Skinner will wound him. And then… just a matter of time.’

But Ullen shook his head. ‘No. He knows. He must know.’

The Avowed pressed, struggling to overbear the two guarding the Dal Hon's back. They took horrendous wounds attacking, but the two would not be forced or drawn out from guarding each other's flanks. One Avowed grasped the shield only to have his hand nearly severed: it flapped uselessly at the end of his arm as he continued fighting. The Seti was more aggressive, slashing at faces, torsos, inflicting wounds the Avowed silently absorbed until their legs ran glistening with blood and the ground darkened at their shuffling feet.

Try all you like, Avowed! No one ever penetrated the Sword, his bodyguard. He only fell to treachery. The Dal Hon continued punishing Skinner, landing blow after blow; yet each glanced away, turned by the man's seemingly impenetrable armour. While for his part, the Avowed could not pierce the man's virtuoso defence. All for naught, Ullen thought, for neither could bring the other down.

Didn't he comprehend? Why continue hacking at that mail coat? It was obviously Warren-invested, perhaps even aspected. Useless, utterly useless. Perhaps his dark thoughts tinged his vision but it seemed to Ullen that the two guarding the Dal Hon's back were tiring. It was to be expected — who could forestall Avowed forever? Soon, they would fall, then it would all be over. Skinner would finally prove victorious. He would return to the field to rally his Avowed, and they would sweep away any remaining organized resistance. The Guard would win.

The squat heavy infantryman's shield had been reduced to no more than a slivered handle of shattered slats. He now only parried with his shortsword. The Seti had abandoned counter-attacks and now merely defended. Only one of the Avowed had fallen: a woman who staggered off, hands pressing in her stomach where wet curves bulged out. She toppled face first a few short paces away where she lay, her appalling Avowed vitality sustaining her as limbs shifted weakly, kicking and writhing.

Still the Dal Hon riposted and counter-attacked. Just one of his cuts would have flensed any other attacker to the spine, yet Skinner remained unharmed. Ullen almost screamed: You fool! Give it up! Disengage! Suddenly it was too much for him. For this man he would act; it was not even something to question. Ullen lurched forward, raising his sword left-handed. Moss's arm encircled his neck to yank him back.

‘Don't be a fool!’

Then, in the midst of yet another exchange of heavy cumbersome blows from Skinner and the Dal Hon's lightning flickering counter-assault, the Dal Hon lunged forward farther than he ever had before, the tip of his blade in one pass flicking upwards just under Skinner's helm. The Avowed commander snapped his head back. He clutched a gauntleted hand to his neck where blood coursed down his front. He backed away, hand gripping his throat, sword still raised, still steady. The four remaining Avowed shifted to cover his retreat. The Dal Hon alone followed, pressing the attack.

Backing away, parrying, Skinner shouted some garbled wet command or entreaty and the air behind him boiled. It seemed to froth, lightened from night-dark to ugly streaked grey. The Avowed all backed into the jagged mar to disappear, two supporting Skinner. The Dal Hon halted, motionless, his breath still calm and level. He sheathed his dark-bladed sword.

Ullen ran up to the two soldiers who leaned together supporting each other. When he glanced back to the Dal Hon swordsman, he too was gone. A curse from his side revealed Captain Moss making the same discovery. The broad squat infantryman threw down the shattered slats and loose bronze strapping that remained of his shield. He pulled off his helmet and took a skin of water from his belt to squeeze a jet over his head and drink, gasping. He tossed it to the Seti.

‘Where is — the other… the Dal Hon?’ Ullen said.

‘Weren't no other,’ the old bald infantryman ground out, his voice so hoarse as to be almost inaudible. ‘Never was, hey?’

‘But…’

Panting, gasping in great lungfuls and swallowing with effort, the veteran waved Ullen's objections aside. ‘No, just the two of us. Ain't that right, ah, Slim?’

‘Slim?’ the Seti growled. He wiped his glistening face with the back of a hand, leaving a smear of blood. ‘Naw. It's… Sweetgrass.’

‘Wha-’ The infantryman faced the Seti directly to stand weaving, exhausted. ‘Sweetgrass? All these years… none of us even knew?’