Return of the Crimson Guard (110 page)

But the eunuch wasn't even looking his way; he was turned aside, looking out over the water. Olo squinted as well but saw only the smooth green swells of the harbour, the forest of berthed ships. The boat slowed.

Without so much as turning his head the man said, ‘Row on or jump out. Your decision.’ And he held his hands over the side.

Olo gaped at the fellow.
What? Who was he to
—

The water began to foam under the man's hands. It churned as if boiling, hissing and paling to a light olive green.

Olo almost fell over backwards as he heaved on the oars.
Gods forgive me! Chem Bless me! Thousand-fold God favour me! What have I done to deserve this – other than all those things Vve done but never told anyone?

‘Those folded leaves. The flowers and garlands on the water. What are they?’

Pulling harder than he had in thirty years, Olo gasped a breath. ‘Offerings. Prayers.’

‘Offerings to
whom?’

‘The God of the waters, sir. God of all the seas. God of a Thousand Moods, a Thousand Faces, a Thousand Names.’

‘No! Mael! You shall writhe in agony for this!’

Olo gaped at the man.
Mael who?
Then, remembering, he renewed his pulling. The skiff bucked, bobbing in suddenly rough waters.

‘Speak! I command you!’

Olo somehow knew that his passenger was not addressing him. The tiny skiff sped up, but not from any efforts on Olo's part. The water was swelling, climbing upwards, bulging beneath them like a blanket billowed by air, and his skiff was sliding down its slope. He abandoned his oars in futility, scooped up the gourd and emptied it over his face, gulping. And horribly, appallingly, he heard something speak:
‘Mallick. What is there for us to talk of?’

‘What have you been scheming!’ the passenger demanded.

‘I? Nothing. Your prohibitions forbid this. I have merely been here – awaiting your summons. Am I to be blamed that others have sensed me, sent their offerings? Their prayers? Is it my fault that somehow have been recalled the ancient titles and invocations?’

‘What are you babbling about!’ his passenger fairly howled, hands now fists at his temples.

The voice took on a harsh edge.
‘I am free of you now, Mallick. Your bindings upon me have frayed, unravelled by the plucking of countless thousands. We are done, you and I. Finished, We shall speak no more. I could crush you now – and I should for all the crimes you have committed. But I will withhold my anger. I have indulged it too much of late. My last gift to you is this passage. That, your life, and my mercy – may it gall you.’

The skiff suddenly spun like a top, whirling on foaming waters. Olo had the sickening sensation of falling, then water heaved over the sides, the boat rocking, settling. He scrambled to use his cupped hands to toss out the water. His passenger sat slumped in the stern, soaked in spray. Olo then grasped the oars, rowed for his life. The west shore was close now, though it looked too wild and steep. Had they drifted out into the bay? As his boat neared the rocky shore he looked around and gaped, stunned. Where in the Queen's Teasings was he? This was not Unta! There was a town to the north, but it was much too small. Though it too did look as if it had seen an attack. He steadied the craft at a rock, setting a sandalled foot out to hook it. Waves threatened to break the skiff on the shore but he pushed back, fighting the surge. Movement announced his passenger stirring.

‘We're lost, sir,’ he called over the waves.

A long pause, then, ‘Yes. I am. But perhaps not completely.’

The man was obviously one of those crazed mages he heard all about in songs and somehow his insanity had touched him – Gods, may it pass! ‘What I mean, sir, is I don't know where we are.’

The man edged his way forward, set a cold damp hand on Olo's shoulder. ‘We are in Cawn,’ he said, and he pushed off Olo to reach the rock.

Olo gaped up at him. ‘Really, sir? I mean, I've never been.’

The fat fellow pushed back his wet hair, clasped his hands across his broad stomach, his fingers weaving, and he regarded the town to the north through lowered eyelids. ‘Well, you have now.’ Something must have caught his eye then for he stooped, reaching down, and
came up with a folded leaf votive offering. It held an old wilted geranium blossom. So, even here in Cawn too, Olo reflected. The fellow regarded it for a time, quite pensive, his fat lips turned down. ‘Patience, this lesson. Patience, and – acceptance of the unalterable. Will I finally learn, I wonder?’

‘Pardon, sir?’

But it was as if Olo had not spoken at all. The fellow tossed the offering back into the waves and turned away. Further up the shore, where a short cliff rose from a steep strand of gravel, driftwood and black, angular rocks, a group of men and women now waited where just before none had been. Olo recognized the dark-cloaked figures from stories and was now glad to have simply been left alive. He lifted his gourd for a drink but found it empty and threw it aside in disgust. Then he remembered the coin and fished around inside his shirt. He found it and shouted his glee then glanced hurriedly to the shore but the figures were gone, and his eerie passenger with them. May they fall into the Abyss!

He pushed off from the slippery algae-lined rock and back-oared. Now for Cawn. He hoped they were civilized enough here to boast a brothel or two. And what a tale he had to tell! It might even be good enough for one on the house.

* * *

Ullen picked up a fallen soldier's helmet only to find it heavy with gore. He dropped the wet thing. Four of Cowl's Avowed assassins. The reserves in turmoil. Some sort of flesh-bursting Warren magics only stopped by an end of bodies to feed it. He caught the eye of the healer treating High Fist Anand, bloodied and prone on a cloak, cocked a question.

The healer rose to put her face to his ear. ‘He may live.’

Ullen turned to the pale, shaken staff officers, Imperial and Talian. ‘Reorder the brigades.’ Relieved jerked nods all around. ‘The rest of you, follow me. From now on we'll keep moving.’

Salutes. ‘Aye, Commander.’

He headed south to the best vantage of the field he could find. Ahead, smoke draped the entire slope where fires rose raging only to suddenly whip out as if by invisible tornadoes. The heaving mass of irregulars still fired their withering flights of bolts into the hunched lines of Crimson Guard soldiery. So far the thrumming and singing of the crossbows was the main noise of battle. Behind the lines, the Blades waited, veterans and Avowed all. On the west, Urko's
command of Talian heavies had broken through and now faced a number of coalesced Blades.
Good luck, old friend.
The tall standard of the Sword was still pressing in the centre, now facing the thickest of the lines. Ullen had to admire the man's bravery and martial spirit, even if it was accompanied by a rather appalling lack of imagination. He waved forward a messenger. ‘Ride to V'thell. Give him my compliments and have him break that east phalanx at all costs, then head west to the road to cut the main Guard elements from the bridge.’

‘Aye, sir.’

A staff lieutenant cleared his throat. Ullen turned, a brow raised.

It was an Imperial officer. ‘With all respect. That is not Korbolo and Anand's battle plan.’

‘No, it is not. But I served under Choss who has faced the Guard before and his lesson is not to treat them as an army but as individuals. Separate the Blades, isolate them, bring superior numbers to bear and bury them.’

The Imperial staff command officers stirred uneasily. ‘Again, with all due respect, Lieutenant-commander.
We
defeated
you
.’

Ullen merely blinked, puzzled. ‘We were not the Guard.’

Another staff officer, a young Dal Hon woman, spoke. ‘Should we not check with the Empress? What if she is not safe?’

Ullen returned his gaze to the field. ‘That is not my concern. My job is to win this engagement if at all possible.’ And he headed off again – he'd been standing in one place long enough. The assembled staff and messengers of command could choose to follow or not.

He climbed up on to the south road, a high point, its bed raised by Imperial engineers. The deep amber slanting light of late afternoon now gathered over the broad slope. Cries snapped his attention to the centre field where a swirling in the light revealed a Warren opening. Darkness blossomed and out came something night-black and angular, winged.
A demon. And not one of ours.
The staff officers shouted their alarm. Ullen turned on them, ‘Have the skirmishers concentrate their fire on that thing!’

The Dal Hon woman saluted, ‘Aye’, ran for the nearest mount.

Good. A lesson from Choss: even if you know it's not enough – do
something!
And where was their damned mage cadre? Done in by the Veils already?

While the entire field of gathered men and women watched, the thing swooped over Urko's heavies and stooped, slashing left and right. It then rose, carrying a victim that it dismembered in full view of all, limbs spinning, fluids splashing. Ullen swore that his complete command
flinched at the spectacle.
Damn it to Hood! They had to show everyone they possessed the firepower to counter that thing! That display alone was enough to break morale,

Wings beating heavily, the demon swung next to the east where V'thell's Gold were mauling the Guard phalanx. Sharpers burst beneath it among the ranks indiscriminately, revealing missed throws of munitions.
Where was their blasted mage cadre!
As the creature passed over a hillock something struck it and a flash of actinic light made Ullen wince and glance away. A grating shriek such as cracking stone echoed over the slope. When he looked back the thing was flailing, white flames engulfing it, pieces dropping away in fluid globules. It began to sink, limbs spasming as its outline changed, thinning, drooping. It struck the ground, bowled over irregulars and crashed into a shieldwall of Malazan regulars who hacked at its twitching flesh. A great cheer went up among the Imperial forces. Everyone on both sides had paused in horror and fascination to watch the spectacle.
Gods, a melter. What an awful way to go.
He marked that hillock, bare but ringed by a dark line, a trench. Something odd about the crest struck him. The grasses bowed, fluttering as if in a constant hard wind –
fanning! Bala.

‘Name a strong reserve unit,’ he called out.

‘We have a detachment of Gold,’ someone answered from the mix of Ullen's own personal guard and the command staff surrounding him.

‘Send it to defend that hillock on the east flank. Someone's established a redoubt there on the field.’

‘A redoubt, sir? Isn't our goal to advance?’

‘Push back the Avowed? Hardly. But we can break them up. Penetrate their lines. As to the redoubt,’ Ullen lifted his chin to the west, ‘night is coming.’

His thoughts obviously returning to the horrors of last night, the officer paled and bowed. ‘Aye, sir.’

A disgraced ex-High Mage and a saboteur squad dug in. A strong position. Should V'thell succeed they might be able to lever the Guard from the road. ‘What news from the bridge? What of the Kan forces?’

A pause as staffers discussed things among themselves. ‘Latest intelligence is that they've yet to commit,’ the Imperial lieutenant said.

Ullen stopped pacing the set cobbles of the road.
‘What?’

Confusion, exchanged panicked glances. ‘Sorry, sir—’

‘You are all agreed on this?’

Nods all around.
Damn the tightfisted calculating bastards!
‘Send messages across the river. By arrow, if you must. The Empress
demands
they initiate an attack on that bridge! Further – any continued delay will be considered rebellion and we will march on Kan next!’

‘Sir!’
someone objected, shocked. ‘Ah, that is, do we have the authority …’

Ullen pointed to the south. ‘We could lose any and all Hood-damned authority we may have thought we had. Now go!’