Return of the Crimson Guard

forward…

… And walked into a forest — tall conifers, birdsong, sunlight shafting down through boughs, movement between the thick trunks, a kind of large deer? — then one more step and into cool night. Hands steadied him, Chord and the female soldier. He looked up and was reassured to see familiar constellations: the Twins, the Wolf, the broad Path of Light. ‘Where are we?’

‘Just west of the fort, seems,’ supplied Chord. ‘You can see the flames from the hilltop.’

Rillish peered about, getting his bearings. They were in a deep gully, a dry river bed. Around them was — no one. ‘Where is everyone? The children?’

‘Headed off north-west already, sir. Couldn't stop them. Said they had directions from Clearwater. I sent the men with them.’

‘Very well, Sergeant.’

‘Shall we go?’ East, a pale orange glow backlit a hill. Rillish watched it for a time. ‘Care to take one last look, sir?’

Wincing, Rillish squeezed his leg and brushed the night flies from his face. ‘No, Sergeant. It's all right. We best go.’

‘Yes, sir. There's our guide.’ Chord gestured up the gully where the dim figure of a Wickan girl stood waving them on impatiently.

The female soldier slipped her shield to her back, offered an arm. Rillish accepted.

The weather of the Western Explorer's Sea had proven remarkably calm these last few days. The morning of the sixth day Shimmer took her usual place next to Jhep, her tillerman on the Wanderer, She wore only her long linen undershirt and pantaloons but the cold dawn wind did not chill her. A sailor brought her hot tea that she sipped, her eyes fixed on the waters far ahead on the north horizon. There an emerald nimbus grew, wavering like the lights one sometimes saw in the night sky. Cowl's ritual. It made her uneasy, this relying on Ruse's uncharacteristic, how had the High Mage put it, compliance. Shimmer's instincts told her to mistrust any such pose — for pose it surely must be. Especially when an Elder is involved. And this demonic rush to reach Quon… There was no need as far as she could see; and every reason for the opposite. Again, especially with unfinished business left behind.

She looked to the Gedrand, the captured Kurzan three-tiered warship Skinner had taken as his flag vessel. Despite the incalculable advantage his presence brought to their Vow, Shimmer could not help wishing he had never returned. Simply catching sight of him now made her wince — where was the man she'd known? Who was this impostor? Her sources told her they'd yet to see him outside his armour. Reportedly, he slept sitting up, fully accoutred. And that armour; she had never seen anything like it. What was that dark patina that covered it with a crystal-like glitter? Skinner did not hide that his patron, Ardata of Jacuruku, had gifted it to him. She was some sort of witch queen, perhaps an Ascendant herself of those alien lands. And he made no secret they had been close. Lovers? Shimmer felt the cold wind and she wrapped her arms about herself. The Vow still drove him; of that she was sure. Yet what other, lesser, vows might he have sworn during all those years away? She dashed the cold tea over the side.

‘Send for Smoky,’ she called to a guardsman.

‘Aye.’

Shortly afterwards the mage came working his way sternward, hand over hand along the gunwale, his face sickly pale. Shimmer could not help but smile. Never one to find his sea-legs was Smoky. ‘No further word from the investigation?’ she asked as he came close.

‘No, Commander.’ The mage's face was milky beneath his greasy tangled locks. His eyes narrowed ahead where a greenish curtain of light now climbed from the waves.

Her sergeants brought Shimmer her armour. She raised her arms for them to slip the quilted aketon over her head, followed by her mail shirt that they shook to hang down to her calves, slit back and front. ‘You have questioned the Brethren?’

‘Yes. They maintain they saw nothing that night. Indeed, they even claim that nothing happened — because they did not see it.’

‘And Stoop has not appeared among them?’

‘No. No sign of him.’

‘Have they been suborned?’

The question startled Smoky. His glance to Shimmer was alarmed. He answered, thoughtfully, ‘I don't think that possible…’

‘Then we are left with this youth as an enemy agent. A spy with powerful allies.’

‘Yes. His escape would suggest such a conclusion.’

Shimmer took her helmet and sword and waved the soldiers away. ‘Unless those searching were not trying so very hard.’

The mage's hairless brows rose. ‘I had not considered that. It points in, ah, unhealthy directions.’

She pulled on her helmet, swung closed the lower face guard. ‘Greymane suggested it.’

Smoky's gaze flicked to the broad back of the man at the bow. ‘I see… Yes, that makes sense. Close to the matter, but not Vowed, and thus not sharing our blindnesses. It would take an outsider, wouldn't it? Thank you, Commander.’

‘The Brethren fully back Skinner, of course.’

‘They never stopped demanding it. A strike against Quon.’

‘Exactly. Their priorities are not necessarily ours.’

‘True. Yet perhaps suborned is too strong.’ Smoky pushed his wind-blown hair from his face. ‘Perhaps seduced, or swayed?’

Shimmer belted on her whipsword, adjusted its weight at her hips. ‘Perhaps. Now, shouldn't you be lending your strength to the ritual?’

‘Gods, no. I'm just a minor battle mage of Telas — though I admit to some glimpses into Elder Thryllan in moments of inspiration. Not conducive, you imagine, to current shared efforts on the bridling of Ruse.’

‘If you say so, mage.’ Again, how she wished she had kept Blues and his blade close! But theirs was a desperate gamble they'd decided worth the throw. It was too late for regret. And what of Cal-Brinn? What had happened to his command? His opinion on these ritual magics she would accede to.

‘Shimmer…’

‘Yes?’

‘Be careful.’

A nod. ‘I could say the same to you.’

Snorting, Smoky headed to the bow.

The glow strengthened through the morning, thickening into a wavering curtain of green and deep violet accompanied by a constant thunder ahead. As Cowl and the other Avowed mages readied themselves for just the right moment the partition, or portal, whatever it was, paced them, maintaining its distance some hundred cables before them. The sea that emerged from beneath reached them emerald with foaming bubbles as if churned by energies and, more troubling, flecked by driftwood and litter such as that which gathers along any shore. At mid- deck, the Kurzani first mate bellowed orders: sails were being lowered, men were securing materiel. Shimmer recognized preparations for a coming gale.

What did that screen disguise? Shimmer had heard the ususal legends and stories of whirlpools and ship- shredding storms that awaited any fool impudent enough, or desperate enough, to try Mael's realm. But all such tales came down to them from long ago and might be just no more than that — imaginings. Truth told, no one knew what awaited them; not any of their twelve mages, Avowed or not, nor any of their sailors, for none had ever heard again from anyone who had actually dared.

Why this unholy hurry? Why this quick thrust for Quon — just three vessels darting ahead of the fleet — the Wanderer’, Gedrand and Kestral? They carried the majority of the Avowed, yes. But what could Skinner hope to accomplish with a mere two thousand men?

Flags waved from the sides of the neighbouring Gedrand. At the bow, Smoky's