Return of the Crimson Guard

work that must have gone into the carving.

Only Greymane stood upright, his thick trunk-like legs apart and long grey hair whipping about from under his helmet. He motioned with his gauntleted hands, dividing the men into parties. Kyle wondered what he had done with the two-handed sword he'd used against Shen, for the renegade carried no sheath large enough for it — only a slim longsword now hung at his belt.

Smoky suddenly appeared skittering toward Kyle like a storm-driven crow. His soaked robes clung to his skinny frame. His black hair, slicked by the rain, gave his narrow face the frenzied look of a half-drowned rat.

‘You the scout, Kyle?’ the mage yelled, his voice hoarse.

Kyle nodded.

A shudder took the mage and he scowled miserably, drew his soaked robes tighter about his neck. The rain ran in rivulets down his face. He pointed to four men near Kyle. These men nodded their acknowledgement. Of them, Kyle knew only one: Geddin, a hulking swordsman Kyle was relieved to have with him.

Smoky leaned his mouth close to Kyle's ear. Even in the rain, soaked through to the bone, the smell of wood smoke and hot metal still unaccountably wafted from the man. He pointed a bony finger to a wall fronted by a long colonnade entirely carved of the dark basalt: the roof, pillars and dark portals that opened to rooms within. ‘We check out these rooms. You got point.’

Smoky caught Kyle's reaction to that announcement and he laughed. The laugh transformed into a racking cough.

Kyle drew his tulwar and searched for intervening cover. Point. Great.

‘Wait.’ Smoky grasped Kyle's weapon hand.

Kyle almost yanked free, but he remembered Ogilvy's words and stopped himself. The mage frowned as he studied the blade. Kyle waited, unsure. Now what was the matter? The rain beat upon his shoulders. The mage's grip was uncomfortably hot. Smoky turned to peer to where Greymane stood with his group. Kyle could see nothing more than a smear of shapes through the slanting curtains of rain. Smoky raised Kyle's sword and arm, his brows rising in an unspoken question. Kyle squinted but could make out nothing of Greymane's face or gestures. The mage grunted, evidently seeing some answer and fished a slim steel needle from his robes. He began scratching at the curved blade. ‘Anything you want? Your name? Oponn's favour? Fire, maybe?’

Thinking of his own totem, Kyle answered, ‘Wind.’

The needle stopped moving. Rain pattered like sling missiles against Kyle's shoulders. Smoky looked up, his eyes slitted, searching Kyle's face, and then he flashed a conspiratorial grin. ‘Saw the histories on the way up too, aye? Good choice.’ He etched the spiral of Wind into the blade. Incredibly, the tempered iron melted like wax under Smoky's firm pressure. The sword's grip heated in Kyle's hand.

Rain hissed, misting from the blade. The mage released him. What had that been all about? What of Wind? What was it his father used to say… ‘All are at the mercy of the wind’?

Kyle looked up to see Smoky, impatient, wave him ahead.

The rooms hollowed out of solid basalt were empty. Kyle kicked aside rotting leaves and the remains of crumbled wood furniture. He felt disappointment but also, ashamedly, relief as well. He felt exposed, helpless. What could he do against this warlock? His stomach was a tight acid knot and his limbs shook with uncoiled tension.

Ahead, the wind moaning and a mist of rain betrayed an opening through to the outside. He entered a three-walled room facing out over the edge of the Spur. The lashing wind yanked at him and he steadied himself in the portal. The room held a large wood and rope cage slung beneath a timber boom that appeared able to be swung out over the gulf. Rope led up from the cage to a recess in the roof then descended again at the room's rear where it circled a fat winch barrel as tall as a man.

Smoky peered in over Kyle's shoulder. He patted his back. Our way down.’

‘Not in this wind,’ grumbled one of the men behind Smoky. ‘We'll be smashed to pieces.’

Scowling, Smoky turned on the Guardsman — perhaps the only one in the company shorter than him. ‘Always with a complaint, hey, Junior?’

A concussion shook the stone beneath their feet, cutting off any further talk. Distant muted reports of rock cracking made Kyle's teeth ache. Smoky recovered his balance, cackled. ‘Ol’ Grey's fished him out!’

A second bone-rattling explosion kicked at the rock. Kyle swore he felt the entire Spur sway. He steadied himself. The hemp and wood cage rocked, creaking and thumping in its housings. Smoky's grin fell and he wiped water from his face. ‘I think.’

‘Let's go back,’ suggested another Guardsman, one Kyle couldn't name. He'd used the company's native tongue, Talian. ‘The Brethren are worried.’

Pulling at his sodden robes, Smoky grunted his assent. Kyle eyed this unknown Guardsman; brethren, the man had said. He'd heard the word used before. Something to do with the elite of the Guard, the originals, the Avowed. Or perhaps another word for them, used only among themselves? Kyle continued to study the fellow sidelong: battered scale hauberk, a large shield at his back, sheathed longsword. He could very well be of the Avowed himself — they wore no torcs or rank insignias. You couldn't tell them from any other Guardsman. Stoop had explained it was deliberate: fear, the old fellow had said. No one knows who they're facing. Makes ‘em think twice, that does.

When they returned to the inner chambers, Guardsmen filled the rooms. It appeared to be a pre-arranged rallying point. Through the arched gaps between stone pillars Kyle watched the mercenaries converging on the complex of rooms. Men slipped, fumbling on the rain-slick polished stone. He turned to the short mercenary beside him. ‘What's going on, Junior?’

Beneath the lip of his sodden cloth-wrapped helmet, the man's eyes flicked to Kyle, wide with outrage. ‘The name's not Junior,’ he forced through clenched teeth.

Kyle cursed his stupidity and these odd foreign names. ‘Sorry. Smoky called you that.’

‘Smoky can call anyone whatever he damned well pleases. You better show more respect…’

‘Sorry, I-’

Someone yanked on Kyle's hauberk; he spun to find Stoop. The old sapper flashed him a wink, said, ‘Let's not bother friend Boll here with our questions. He's not the helpful type.’

Boll's lips stretched even tighter into a straight hound's smile. Inclining his helmet to Stoop, he pushed himself from the wall and edged his way through the crowd of Guardsmen.

‘What's going on?’ Kyle whispered.

‘Not too sure right now,’ the old veteran admitted candidly. ‘Have to wait to find out. In this business that's how it is most of the time, you know.’

And just what business is that? Kyle almost asked, but the men all suddenly stood to attention, weapons ready. Kyle peered about, confused. What was going on? Why was he always the last to know? It seemed to him that they straightened in unison like puppets on one string. It was as if the veteran Guardsmen shared a silent language or instinct that he lacked. Countless times he'd been sitting in a room watching a card game, or dozing in a barracks, only to see the men snap alert as if catching a drum's sounding. At such times he and the other recent recruits were always the last ready, always bringing up the rear.

This time Kyle spotted everyone's centre of attention as the open portal of the main structure on the far side of the roof garden. The men assembled along the colonnade, levelled cocked crossbows at that door. The front rank knelt and the rear rank stood over them. Kyle himself carried no such weapon as the company was running short.

‘Here they come,’ Stoop murmured.

Through the sheets of driving rain, Kyle made out a squad of men exiting the portal. Greymane emerged last. All alone he manhandled shut its stone slab of a door. The men jog-trotted across the abutting levels of gardens and patios. They threw themselves behind benches and stone garden planters that now held nothing more than the beaten down stalks of dead brush. These men and women covered the doorway while their companions jogged and skittered to another section of the courtyard. Stalker was among them, his own crossbow held high. Greymane brought up the rear, walking slowly and heavily as if deep in thought. Not once did he look behind. Oddly, wind- lashed mist plumed from the man like a banner.

The men reached the cover of the colonnade. As Greymane emerged from the curtain of rain Kyle saw that a layer of ice covered the man — icicles hung from the skirts of his hanging scaled armour. The Malazan renegade