Return of the Crimson Guard (21 page)

Sunny was called Sunny because of the awfulness of his smiles, which were less like smiles than agonized, toothy glowers. He gave one of these strained leers. ‘Firstly, sure you got your Idryn River cutting right through the city, but it's a muddy river comin’ a long way through a dry plain. Too uncertain to fill a moat – and would only silt it up anyway. Secondly, hey, Hurl – what's the easiest way to raise the walls?’

Hurl winked, and her smiled was much more pleasant. ‘Lower the ground.’

There you go. It was a ditch. A big-ass ditch. Not a pleasant moonlit froggy pool. A dusty rubbish-strewn bung-hole full of dead dogs ‘n’ shit.’

‘OK! I get it.’ Storo signalled to the landlord's wife, Estal, for another round. ‘You don't have to elaborate.’

Sunny frowned. ‘Weren't elaborating. Me ‘n’ Hurl and Shaky, we sank a pit to the bottom of the ditch. That's what we found down there. Dead dogs ‘n’ shit.’

While Estal thumped down a flagon of ale, Storo eyed his crew of saboteurs. He hadn't decided whether to be angered or relieved by the relentless maintenance of the games and habits that had seen them though years of combat in north Genabackis. If he shut his eyes, it was almost as if he were back in the campaigns and Sunny and Hurl were playing Stones with the Mott defenders, shouting their moves out to the night. He rubbed his forehead with a thumb and forefinger, took a long deep drink of the cheap Hengan ale. ‘So. We drop the moat – the ditch.’

Shaky shook his head. ‘No way. Ah, that is, maybe not. Hurl's got an idea.’

Hugging herself, Hurl leaned towards the table, lowered her voice. ‘Sinking that pit.’ She stopped herself, glanced around the room. Perplexed, Storo followed her gaze: the place was empty but for a few drunken caravan guards, and Estal. Hurl leaned forward once again. ‘The ditch is just a big dump fulla wood and litter and rags and has all kinds a gaps. Holes. I say we fill it. But not with water. What say you, Cap'n?’

Sunny smiled his ghastly smile.

Four flagons of ale later, while Shaky, Hurl and Sunny sat playing cards and Storo drank, three Malazan soldiers entered the common room. Two sat at an empty table midway between the door and Storo's table. The third, an officer, stalked up to the table and opened his arms wide. ‘Look who's here.’ He turned to his companions. ‘It
is him. Just like Rheena said. OP Sergeant Storo back from Genabackis.’

Shaky, Hurl and Sunny did not look from their cards. Storo squinted blearily up at the man. ‘Do I know you?’

The officer used his boot to hook a chair from the table, sat. The pommels of twin duelling swords thrust forward under his armpits. His black hair hung curled in tight thin rat-tails tied off by bright twists of cloth; these he pushed back from his wide, tanned face. ‘No. Haven't had the pleasure. Allow me to introduce myself. Harmin, Captain Harmin Els D'Shil, of Fist Rheena's staff.’ He inclined his head in the ghost of a bow.

Shaky, Hurl and Sunny glanced sidelong. Storo grunted his recognition. ‘What can I do for you?’

Harmin's smile was as smooth as Sunny's was gnarled yet they seemed eerily akin. ‘Well, imagine my surprise – nay, my dismay – to learn that the hero of the north Genabackis campaigns had returned only to be digging dirt and piling rocks like a convicted criminal.’

Shaky, Hurl and Sunny lowered their cards. Storo growled, ‘Hero?’ He yanked Sunny's hand from the pouch at his side. ‘What do you mean,
hero?’

The bright focus of Harmin's smile shifted to Sunny. ‘Surely your men have no doubt heard the story many times by now, yes?’ The smile returned like a bared blade to Storo. ‘How your Sergeant Storo here slew an Avowed of the Crimson Guard?’

Hurl blew her hair from her sweaty grimed forehead, brought her arms down under the table to rest her hands near her belted knives. ‘Yeah. We'd heard. An’ that's
Captain,
now, ah … Captain.’

Harmin inclined his head to Hurl. ‘I didn't believe it myself when I first heard it, of course. I thought it one of those wild stories you hear of from the front.’ He crossed his arms, leaving his hands near the pommels of his swords. His smile on Storo revealed even more teeth. ‘You know the sort … lies woven by fame hounds …’

Sunny lurched up from his chair only to be pulled down by Storo. Harmin, who had not moved, bestowed his smile once more on Sunny. Storo thumped his elbows to the table, rested his chin in his hands. ‘But you found out it was true.’

Nodding, Harmin slowly uncrossed his arms. He took the cup from in front of Shaky, sniffed at it and set it down untasted. ‘Yes. Needless to say I was astonished. But Fist Rheena assures me of its veracity.’

‘So you have come to get a look at me and to hear how it happened.’

‘Yes, that. And to deliver a message.’ He raised a hand. ‘But please, do not misunderstand. My interest is not merely that of the common dumb gawping foot soldier. I have something of a connection to the Guard. As you can tell from my family name. The D'Avore family are – were – cousins of mine.’

Storo topped up his cup and sat back with a long-suffering sigh. ‘All right. I'll tell you all about it.’ Shaky, Hurl and Sunny all shot their commander surprised looks. Shaky quickly dumped out his own cup on to the straw-heaped floor then refilled it. Storo took a long drink, cleared his throat.

‘It was just outside Owndos, during the siege. My squad was assigned the objective of a tower overlooking the sea of that same name. Take it, or, failing that, destroy it to deny it to the warlord Brood. We were lucky ‘cause we still had our cadre battle mage, Silk – who's still with me now.’ Storo raised his voice. ‘Ain't that so, Silk?’

Harmin glanced around and jerked, startled. A slim, pale man now sat at the next table. He wore a fine dark silk shirt, vest, and trousers now faded and worn. He offered a mocking smile to Harmin who returned it through clenched teeth.

Storo took another drink. ‘Silk scouted the tower, reported a sizeable enemy contingent occupied it: Free City soldiers, Barghast tribals and local townsmen militia. Seemed it offered a strategic view of surrounding forest and Owndos coastline. In any case, we weren't concerned about the locals. We even had Barghast allies of our own – those boys will fight anyone, anywhere. No, the Lad's push of things was that the tower was commanded by four of the Crimson Guard. Now, that was a pause. You know the old official policy – don't engage the Guard unless you outnumber them five to one. We didn't. So that night I sent in Silk and the boys to mine the tower. The next morning a patrol went out led by three of the Guard. That suited us. We sat pretty till they were long gone then we charged the compound. The plan was to hit fast and hard an’ drive them back into the tower then blow it. Sure enough, things sailed along fine. Once most of the defenders retreated to the tower, we blew it. The whole thing went up, came crashing down in a great blast of stone and dust. The remaining Free City soldiers an’ Barghast were just stupefied and we chased them off easily enough.

‘But then the fourth Guard came staggering out of the fire and wreckage – seemed she was an Avowed. She must've been on an upper floor when the blast went off so she didn't get the worst of it. But dropping a four-floor stone tower on her was slowing her down
some in any case. She wasn't walking so good – maybe a broken hip – and one arm was all mangled. Our Barghast circled her and thrust her full of javelins and spears. Must've been near ten spears pinning her down on the ground but she was still squirmin’, pulling them out, one by one. That impressed the Barghast no end. Their shamaness called off her boys. Yelled something about
spirits
and
pacts
and made it clear they weren't gonna have anything more to do with the Avowed. By this time she was sittin’ up. Only the javelins through her legs were holding her down.’

Storo took a drink, raised and lowered his beefy shoulders. ‘So it was up to me. I charged in and though all she had with her was a knife I nearly got my leg sliced off for my trouble. I went down. She went back to tuggin’ at the javelins. Time was passing, so I limped over to the side of her bad arm and got a few good two-handed licks in. These slowed her down some even more and I was able to tag her head a few times. After that I could really step in and I managed to chop away until her head came away from her neck. And so she died.

‘Later someone told me her name: Sarafa Lenesh.’

While Storo talked Harmin's smile had melted away into an expression of disgust. He let out a low hissed breath. ‘So, you attacked a wounded woman. Cut her head off while she was pinned down.’

Storo nodded. ‘That's about the bare bones of it.’

Harmin seemed at a loss for words; he shook his head in mute denial. ‘You are a barbarian. You destroyed something irreplaceable. Unique in all the world.’

‘They're the goddamned enemy,’ Sunny growled.

Harmin found his smile once more. He stood. ‘Thank you for the story, Storo. Though it does you no credit.’

‘The message?’ Storo asked, and took a drink.

His eyes thinning to slits, Harmin pulled a slip of folded paper from his belt. He tossed it on to the table. ‘Fist Rheena requested I deliver this. It arrived through Imperial administrative channels.’ The smile quirked up. ‘Perhaps it's a notice of retirement. One can always hope.’ After a shallow bow, he turned from the table. The two who had entered with him stood. Just short of the entrance, he paused as he caught sight of two men sitting to either side of the door. Both he knew by sight as the muscle of Storo's under-strength command: Jalor, a Seven Cities tribesman, bearing a tightly trimmed and oiled beard that did little to disguise the scars crisscrossing his dark face; and a fellow named Rell, from Genabackis, slouched in his chair, his
greasy black hair hanging down over his face. These two Harmin couldn't be bothered to smile at, and chose to ignore. They returned the favour.

Once Harmin left, Jalor and Rell crossed to the squad's table. Silk caught Storo's eye, glanced significantly to the door.

Storo frowned a negative. ‘Let them go.’ He sat rubbing his fingers over the folded slip.

‘Do you think he read it?’ Shaky asked.

‘A’ course,’ said Sunny.

Hurl blew the hair from her brow. ‘Why'd Rheena send
him
of all the garrison?’

‘She probably sent someone else,’ offered Silk, ‘but he stepped in.’

Storo grunted his agreement. He opened the paper, stared for a very long time then crumpled it in his hand. He took a drink. His command exchanged glances. Sunny nudged Silk who shifted uncomfortably then finally asked, ‘So. What did it say?’

Storo did not answer. He offered the slip to Shaky who took it and smoothed it out. He read aloud: ‘ “Storo Matash, we regret to inform you that the
Graven Heart
sank in a storm off Gull Rocks.”’ Shaky looked up. ‘Did you know someone on board?’

‘No. It's code. An old smuggler's code shared by Strike, and Malaz, and Nap, and a few other isles. It's an offer of a meeting from a man I knew when I was young. A friend of my father. A man I'd thought dead a long time ago.’

Sometime later that night Hurl offered to the table, ‘Hey, that guy, Harmin, I think from now on we should call him
Smiley’

* * *

The ruins of the shore temple were half-submerged in the waters west of Unta Bay. Its broken columns stood in the waves as mere barnacle-encrusted humps. Though an easy day's ride from Unta, this shore was a deserted stretch of rearing cliff-sides home to no more than water-birds and sea otters. A short fat man in a dark ocean-blue cloak carefully picked his way down the treacherous turning footpath that traced a way to the base of the cliff.

Reaching the rocky shore, he dabbed the sheen of sweat from his wide face then pulled a folding camp stool of wood and leather from under his cloak and sat with a weary sigh just short of the misting sea-spray.

Fanning himself, the man addressed the surf: ‘Come now! This coyness achieves nothing.’

Though the waves had been pounding the tumbled rocks at the base of the cliff, the surf stilled, subsiding. The water seemed almost to withdraw. The man cocked his head as if listening to the splashing as one might a voice. And a voice spoke, though few else living would have understood it. ‘You compelled, Mallick?’ came the response sounding from the gurgle and murmur of the waves.