Return of the Crimson Guard

disembarking into your wagon to be taken to the Seti camp.’

‘Really? You've got someone playing me?’

‘Of course! Gods, woman… honestly. Sometimes I wonder.’

‘I'm new to all this.’

‘That's for sure.’

She commandeered a small riverboat to take them across the river while a hundred yards downstream the broad royal barge wallowed in reed-choked shallows and the heavy wagon driven down to meet it looked to be sunk in the mud. On board the barge dozens of men pushed on poles while drovers cracked their whips over the pitiful lowing oxen. Molk sat at the bow of the punt, watching. ‘Too bad we missed all the speeches,’ he said.

Ghelel sat next to him, lowered her voice. This is stupid, me arriving at the unit the same day the barge arrives here at Heng. Shouldn't I have come ahead or something?’

Molk shrugged. ‘Down south they've got no idea what's happening here. And I don't think they much care either.’

‘Someone will piece it together.’

He sighed. They'll all piece something or other together — that's how they are in the unit. The important thing is that if they accept you, they'll defend you.’

She turned to study the man. ‘What do you mean // they accept me…?’

‘Don't worry. Just, ah, don't give any silly orders and you'll be fine.’

‘I've never given an order in all my life!’

‘Really? I find that difficult to believe.’

Ghelel let that pass. ‘How am I supposed to know what's silly and what's not?’

He pulled a hand through his tangle of unruly black hair. ‘Well, don't give any then.’

‘None? But I'm supposed to command!’

The nose of the boat stuck into the mud of the shore. Molk jumped down. ‘Our thanks,’ he called to the fellow who'd paddled them across.

‘Yes, thanks,’ Ghelel called.

Throwing the saddle-bags across one shoulder, Molk immediately climbed the steep embankment. He pulled himself up by tree roots and handholds of brush. Ghelel followed. Past the screen of trees, she emerged once more on to the prairie of thick stiff grass. The sharp blades slashed at her mailed sleeves and leather greaves, hissed in the wind. Eastward, past the curve of the Idryn, the walls of Heng reared through a haze of smoke from the countless fires within. Ghelel took the opportunity to study the walls; they appeared to run in three ranks, the outermost the lowest, each rank increasing in height as one moved inward, so that even if one were to capture the outermost defences, one would still be subject to fire from further in. The gates too, she'd heard, ran in staggered openings around the circumferences of the various encircling walls — there was no straight run into the heart of the city. She was no student of siegecraft, but the prospect of investing this city seemed a chancy thing. What if they exhausted themselves taking Heng and had nothing left for Unta?

Couldn't they have simply ignored it? Let the Seti continue to isolate it? She had all these questions for Choss and Amaron after they'd gotten rid of her. How convenient for them. She hurried to catch up to Molk. ‘Is this it?’ she called.

He stopped. ‘What?’

She waved hungry wasps from her face. ‘Is this it? No escort or mounts or directions — just the two of us wandering across a blasted plain that goes on for thousands of leagues?’

The man made a show of turning full circle to peer in all directions. ‘Seems so.’ He started off again.

She threw her arms in the air. ‘This is ridiculous!’

‘Why?’ he called back.

‘Because…’ She refused to move another step, watched him walk away. ‘Because we'll get lost!’

He turned around, walking backwards. ‘No, we won't. I know exactly where I'm headed.’

‘Oh? Where's that?’

Molk pointed over his shoulder. ‘That way.’

Ghelel glared about the open expanse of wind-swept grasslands — if only to find some sort of alternative, any at all. Completely alone, it seemed the only thing she could do was jog after the crazed fool whom Amaron, in his senile idiocy, had actually set to guard her.

‘They say Burn sleeps beneath us,’ Molk was saying while Ghelel had been thinking of her youth, the dinners at Sellath House in Quon. What she had then taken as such selfless generosity — raising her as a ward from some distantly related family — seemed poisoned by what she now knew. Damn these noble families and their ambitions; not only had they stolen her future, they'd twisted her past as well.

‘Have you heard that?’ Molk asked.

‘Heard what?’ she said absently.

‘That Burn sleeps beneath us.’

‘She sleeps beneath all of us,’ she recited, bored.

‘No, I mean right here, beneath the Seti Plains. That's the local legend.’

‘No, I hadn't heard that. No doubt every tribe and community has similar myths. All of them equally true.’

Molk stopped short, gestured aside. ‘If you don't mind, Captain, I'd like to have a moment in the brush there. Call of nature.’

‘What? All of sudden you're all shy? What happened to the cursing, spitting lout I'd come to know? You're all just show after all, hey?’ She crossed her arms, waiting.

Molk had ducked into the brush. Invisible, he answered: ‘No female officer would allow that kind of behaviour from her servant. Don't you think?’

Ghelel threw her arms wide once more. ‘Gods, man! Who in the Abyss is going to know! We're in the middle of an empty wasteland if you haven't noticed.’

Molk appeared, doing up the tie of his trousers. ‘You know, that's a false assumption.’

‘What is?’

He shouldered the bags. ‘That the land of others is a wasteland. Just because they don't use the land in a way familiar to you doesn't make it useless or wasted.’

Ghelel started off. ‘I don't know what in Hood's name you're talking about.’

‘Obviously. For instance — this is prairie lion pasturage we're trespassing on right now.’

She laughed her scorn. ‘How in the Abyss would you know that?’

‘Didn't see the markers? I thought they were rather obvious. Anyway, it takes a lot more land to raise animals to support a family than it does tilled land. To a society such as ours based on tillage any open pasture's gonna look like wasteland. And I shouldn't say open either — that's misleading. Grazing rights are very carefully controlled and apportioned, you can be sure of that.’

Ghelel just rolled her eyes. ‘Why are you going on about all this horseshit?’

Molk nodded. ‘Good point. I just thought you might want to know a few things about the Seti riders who've been shadowing us since we left the river.’

Ghelel spun, scanned the shadow-swept hillsides. ‘I don't see anything.’

‘They're good at what they do.’

‘Pardon me for saying this, but as I heard the soldiers say — you're shitting me.’

‘Now who's the foul-mouthed lout?’

‘I'd rather be a foul-mouthed lout than a gullible fool.’

‘You said it.’

Though fuming, Ghelel walked on in silence. Perhaps she should just keep going south — walk away from all this. Clearly the only thing this fool could accomplish was get her killed. Didn't he realize this was serious? Still, at least no one was going to find her out here in the middle of nowhere! That was for certain. She stopped, drew off her scaled gauntlets, tucked them into her belt. ‘Did you at least bring water?’

‘Of course.’ Kneeling, he rummaged in the bags, pulled out a waterskin.

‘Thank you,’ she allowed, grudgingly. She took a deep pull then gagged, spitting. ‘Gods! What's this?’

River water, laced with a distillation of juniper berries. Makes it healthy.’

Distilled juniper berry? That's strong stuff.’