Return of the Crimson Guard (26 page)

‘So am I, Orlat. So am I.’

The man and woman with Orlat disappeared.
Hood take it! Old cadre mages!
Six swordsmen entered the square to take Orlat's side, hardened veterans every one of them. Rell stepped out of the dark to take the Captain's side. Neither Storo nor Orlat moved a muscle.
Six veterans! This could give Rell a run for his money.

Then the needle point of a knife touched Hurl's back and she flinched. ‘Turn around real slow,’ someone said from behind. Hurl hung her head –
the Lady's Pull!
She rolled on to her back. A little runt of a guy dressed all in dark colours knelt over both her and Sunny. Twin long blackened poniard blades hovered a finger's breadth over their vitals. ‘Now,’ this guy said, and his lips pulled
back over grey rotting teeth, ‘you got just one chance to give the right answer to the question—’

And darkness opened up, swallowing him. And he disappeared. Hurl looked to Sunny, blinked. ‘Well, I guess we'll never know what the right answer was.’ Silk floated up from within the crates. ‘Where'd he go?’ Sunny asked him.

Silk smiled and winked. ‘Elsewhere.’

‘What's the plan?’ Hurl whispered.

‘Living through the night. The exits are all sealed. Open a way out to the riverside. We'll keep them occupied.’

‘The
riverside?
Why there?’ But Silk was already sinking from view.
Ym busy,
he mouthed and was gone. Sunny crawled to another edge, waved Hurl over. She threw herself down next to him. ‘This is bad. Real bad.’

‘Yeah. We'll be dead any minute for sure.’

‘Wonderful.’

He motioned to the stacked crates and barrels across the narrow passage. ‘Have to jump it.’

‘What?’
But the fool was already backing up. ‘Listen, let's talk about this—’ Sunny kicked himself into a run and the crates swayed beneath them. As he took long strides to gather speed Hurl suddenly remembered just what he carried snug in the pockets of his cloak and vest and bags. A vision of the entire warehouse and surrounding buildings disappearing in an eruption of light froze her.
Sweet Twins, no!
She flinched away.

A crack sounded as Sunny jumped – the release of a crossbow – then a crash of him lying dead flat on his back on the crates that rocked, creaking and scraping against one another. Swords rang from the dark below followed by a gasp and panting and Hurl knew that couldn't be Rell because he never made a sound when he fought, ever. She peeked down to see Rell holding off four remaining soldiers while the Captain was drawing his sword. Orlat's gaze was narrow as he watched Rell's form. ‘No sense making this any harder than it has to be,’ he told Storo, though he sounded less sure of himself.

‘That's what I was thinking,’ answered the Captain.

Hurl backed up and ran for the gap. The crossbow on her back slammed her down as her feet hit the crates and that sent her face-first into the unfinished wood, knocking the breath from her. The side of her face scraped raw. Finding her breath again, she touched her cheek and came away with blood. She sat up to see Sunny holding his leg from which a quarrel jutted.
Shit.

‘That was not a nice trick your friend pulled,’ a familiar voice called from across the way. It was Runty the Knifer, back from who-knew-where. He jumped the gap with ease, came down standing. The crates rocked beneath them all like a lazy sea swell. ‘But I got friends too. Now, where was I? Oh yeah,’ he raised his knives. ‘Killing you two.’

‘Shut the Hood up,’ Sunny snarled, tossing something at the fellow's feet that went off with an ear-splitting bang. Though she recognized it as a smoker, Hurl flinched. Black impenetrable clouds engulfed them, blinding and choking. She was sure that whatever the Moranth put in those was not meant to be inhaled. Sunny took her shoulder, yanked her to the edge of the crates. They hung for an instant at the lip, held on to break the distance, then they fell. Sunny roared as his weight hit his wounded leg. They both lay winded on the beaten earth.

The fellow landed lithely as a cat next to them. Flat on her stomach, Hurl groaned her disgust. He waggled a blade and shrugged. ‘Nothing personal, you understand. Just business.’

‘Well, you missed
your
chance,’ said Sunny smiling nastily as he glanced up the alley.

Runty cursed, twisting, but a thrown knife took him in the side. He went down, rolled, and dived from sight around a corner. Jalor came jogging up, the gold rings at his fingers bright. He grinned but blood smeared his teeth and was running from his mouth down over his trimmed beard. The dark robes he wore over his armour were slashed. He drew another knife to replace the one he'd thrown and kept his beatific grin. ‘It is good to kill Malazans again!’

Hurl helped Sunny to his feet. ‘Just don't make a habit of it.’

He frowned. ‘Why?’ then added, ‘Didn't Silk give you two a job to do?’

‘Yeah,’ said Sunny. ‘Gotta blow us all up.’

Jalor shrugged. ‘As I've said – I should have died a long time ago.’

Sunny grumbled under his breath, ‘Just do us a favour and do it tomorrow.’ Jalor grinned and offered Hurl a wink. He set off after Runty.

Hurl tried to take Sunny's arm but he shook her off. ‘Fine. Be that way.’

‘What do you think,’ he panted as he limped, his voice taut with pain, ‘a cracker?’

‘Yeah. That should overkill it nicely.’

The passage opened on to an open square of beaten earth that ended at a wide sliding door. Hurl held Sunny's arm to halt him.
Silk had said the exits were sealed; what had he meant by that? ‘What are you waiting for?’ Sunny hissed.

‘Silk warned us off the doors.’

He pulled his arm free. ‘Just blast it and let's go!’

While Hurl watched, shadows on the panels shifted and stretched. They seemed to drip on to the ground then they snaked out like wet black ink reaching towards them.
Shit again.

Flinching back, Sunny almost knocked her down.

Light blazed across the square in a cutting curtain of blinding white. Blinking away the after-images Hurl saw the shadows on the door writhing as if in pain. In the darkness of an alley across the way she glimpsed the slim older woman who had stood with Orlat. She was examining the door as well. Then she turned her lazy gaze to them. ‘Your friend is good,’ she called, ‘but we'll corner him.’ She frowned. ‘Ule should've finished with you two already.’

Without aiming Hurl lifted the crossbow from under her arm and fired. It wasn't bang-on, but it was close. She was sure the blast caught the woman before she entered her Warren. As it was, she at least blew up two barrels damn good. Sunny offered her a reluctant nod. ‘Nice one.’

They ran to the wall as far from the loading dock as possible. ‘I'll take that,’ said Sunny, holding out a cracker. They exchanged. Sunny covered her while she studied the wall and kicked at its base: solid hand-shaved planks sunk far into beaten earth. Tricky. The cracker could obliterate any section above but it would need a solid foundation to direct the blast. She drew her shortest blade and started hacking at the dry packed earth. While she worked she saw Sunny set down the crossbow and unwrap a cussor. He caught her watching him. ‘I'm tired of playing around.’

‘Might as well chuck it against the wall now.’

‘That'd be a waste.’

Hurl had to agree. The cracker was bad enough, but a cussor used against a wall of timbers was enough to make any sapper cry. Used against any one particular enemy who has pissed you off mightily, well, that was pretty much a tradition in the corps started by Hedge. Sword-play and stamping feet echoed up the alley behind. She hurriedly set the cracker, kicked the earth down around it. ‘Have to do.’

‘Now,’ came Sunny's tight warning.

She risked a glance: Storo and Rell were shuffling in a fighting retreat against a pressing gang of swordsmen. She let two drops of undiluted acid fall on to the dirt packed over the cracker, then,
jumping up, took Sunny's arm to help him run aside and yelled the standard sapper warning: ‘Munitions!’

They dived. The eruption was like twin hammers slamming into her head from either side. Shredded timber tumbled down all around. Though Sunny and she were insanely close they were still in one piece because the whole point behind crackers was to direct the main force of the blast in one direction – up the wall in this case. Lying there, shaking off the effect of the explosion, she found that instinctively she'd thrown herself on top of Sunny to protect what he carried, and that he was curled on to his side facing away from the impact, despite the quarrel sticking out of his leg. The risks they were taking with their ordnance appalled her.

An arm yanked her, marched her to the smoking gap – Rell. Somehow the Genabackan swordsman retained his grip of both weapons while hooking one arm around her. Wet gore covered both blades and splashed his leathers. None, she was sure, was his. He urged her on through the jagged hole.

The riverside wharf-front was dark. Watch torches lit the Idryn's far shore. Dirt gave way to the wood planks of the wharf and docks. Storo pushed Sunny through to Hurl then he and Rell covered the smoking gap in the warehouse wall. Planking from the roof fell all around. ‘Where to?’ she yelled.

‘The river!’ Storo answered.

Hurl staggered backwards with Sunny who fought to remain. ‘We'll cover them,’ she told him and he subsided. A shout sounded – a Seven Cities war challenge – and Jalor erupted from the blasted section at a dead run. Men poured out after him. Arrows nicked the ground all around, fired from the roof.

While Hurl hobbled with Sunny a familiar thump sounded from the docks and she grinned, tracing an imaginary path through the night sky to the roof behind and was rewarded by the crack of a sharper clearing the archers from one side of the roof. ‘Shaky has us covered!’ she laughed. Sunny's look told her she'd sounded a touch panicked.

Storo, Rell and Jalor fought a tight retreat. Pot-shots from Shaky cleared any group that pressed too close. Hurl found him crouched behind cover next to a moored river launch. ‘Get in,’ he snarled and reached for her crossbow. Hurl let Sunny down and raised the weapon herself.

From the wharf-walk Hurl saw that things were finally getting ugly. Some kind of summoning stepped out of a Warren. She imagined you'd call it a demon, or monster, all scales and jagged horns. In any case, it sure wasn't one of theirs. It turned on the
Captain and closed ground. Rell actually looked ready to take it on but Storo pulled him back, bellowing, ‘Silk!’

Hurl held her breath, but nothing happened. Usually when the Captain called that loud for their cadre mage, smoke, flame and lightning and you name it came flying. But now nothing. A nagging thought surfaced; had the old gal and her buddy finally managed to corner him?

A whistle brought Hurl's attention around: Sunny on the launch. He held up a cussor then tossed it. She practically fired her crossbow in her panic to empty her hands. She let the cussor strike her chest and closed her arms around it then lay down to take the weight from her sagging knees.
Gods!
Cussor tossing! No matter that it took more than a shock to set them off – the imagination did wonders.

Shaky was looking down at her. ‘They're too close anyway.’ Arrows pattered around like rain. A bestial roar rattled the dock, echoing from the wharf-walk. Hurl peered over the piled cargo.

The demon was sinking. At least that was how it looked. The beast was up to its scaled waist in dirt and flailing madly. Everyone had stopped to watch, fascinated, the way Hurl had seen the fighting on battlefields halt when a particularly impressive piece of magery was in the process of going horribly awry. It sank to its chest, its neck, then, roaring what sounded like panic, disappeared but for its spasming arms. Those arms remained standing from the streaming dirt like two malformed plants, jerking and clawing.

‘Hood's bones!’ Shaky breathed. ‘What a way to go.’

‘Shoot, dammit!’ Sunny called from the launch. ‘Shoot!’

Hurl took aim and fired at the firmer parts of the warehouse roof where the archers had edged forward once more. Shaky dropped one into the closest knot of Orlat's men. That broke the spell. Men dived for cover. The rest of the squad made the dock. Hurl and Shaky fired last warning shots as the launch unmoored then everyone jumped for it. The archers peppered the boat as they drifted away into the dark. Rell and Sunny rowed while everyone else ducked for cover.