Return of the Crimson Guard (33 page)

‘Tell her to go – I cannot stand to see her trembling.’

‘The one who has given up his name, his past, all that he once was, to bring his message to the world, blesses you, and bids you go.’

‘My Lord!

The girl's gaze was averted as if from a glaring light. She could not see how her actions, her words, tormented Traveller. ‘Go,’ Ereko repeated. ‘Go.’

She backed away, weeping, a hand at her mouth, the other wiping her eyes. She was beyond words, stricken. Transformed. Annealed by the flames that burn within these mortals’ spirits that so erupt in Traveller's presence. Like handfuls of mineral powders tossed upon a fire.

They watched her retreat until she clambered up a cliff of tumbled rocks and disappeared from sight.

‘Perhaps we should burn these ships before the villagers loot them,’ Traveller said into the long silence.

‘I want the wood.’

He let out a long sigh. ‘Very well. I'll forbid any looting.’

Ereko turned to him. ‘Forgive me, Traveller, but I must ask. What
is it they sense? The ones like this.’ He was startled to see that Traveller too was trembling. Perhaps it was the chill wind. The man had swung his gaze out to sea, squinting now into the shards of sunlight flashing there among the waves.

‘I really do not know. They see what they must see. I didn't lie when I said it was already there within them. It was always there. I believe that I merely show them the Path. They must choose to walk it.’

‘And where does this new Path of yours lead?’

His answering smile was full of self-mockery. ‘I do not know. I am still walking it. Though I will say this one thing – it leads to a meeting and a choice. A confrontation that I cannot see beyond.’

He left Ereko standing motionless in thought upon the wave-washed shingle. More had been revealed than Ereko had ever expected, or dared ask. Yet it all remained a closed mystery to him. Among his kind they were born of Mother Earth, their flesh remained of the Earth, and when they faltered so they returned to Her embrace. Things, it seemed, were far simpler back then.

* * *

Stalker, Grere and Kyle scouted the settlement the next dawn. Empty rotting huts and grass-choked lanes. The hulks of sunken boats in the weeds of the shore. Long abandoned it was. Yet Kyle could not shake a feeling of unease. The gaping doorways seemed to mock him. Unseen figures seemed to watch from among fallen rafters. His back prickled as if hidden bows were trained upon him. After a quick search they returned to the blade waiting in the woods. ‘Abandoned,’ Stalker announced. Kyle nodded his agreement.

‘Visited now and then,’ added Grere. ‘Fishermen, hunters, ‘n’ such.’

‘Did you enter the fortress?’ Trench asked.

They shook their heads.

‘Good. Don't for now.’ He stood. ‘Let's move in. Stalker, Grere, point. Stoop, with me. Kyle, Twisty, rear.’

The blade spent the day kicking through the falling-down huts and storehouses. Trench appropriated the least collapsed house as the base. He dragged the only usable chair into the shade just inside the gaping front opening and sat facing the bay.

Kyle looked to the hamlet's rear where an overgrown path led into dense brush and on, presumably, to the cliff and fortress above.

‘Why not camp down in the woods, out of sight?’ Stalker asked.

Sitting on the steps. Stoop answered, ‘’Cause we want to make contact.’

Trench pulled a pouch from his waist, pushed a pinch of leaf and white powder into one cheek. ‘That's right. Keep watch. Someone comes, grab ‘em.’

‘Aye.’

That night Kyle stood watch with Twisty. They kept no fires. Kyle stood in the dark close to shore, watching the moonlight shimmer from the bay's calm water. It was cool and he wondered how hard a winter this region drew. While he tried to make himself as still as the night he heard someone approaching slowly and stealthily from his rear; listening, he believed he identified the man making the noise. ‘You're supposed to be watching the woods.’

Twisty pulled up short, surprised. ‘Damn. How'd you know it was me?’

‘You told me you were from a city – no woodsman would make that much noise.’

Twisty grimaced his disbelief. ‘Is that really true?’

‘No. I've never even been in a city. Seen one from a distance though.’

Twisty unrolled a wool cloak he carried over a shoulder and pulled it tight about himself. ‘You're down here at the shore, I've come down from the woods. I think we both felt it last night and this night too.’

‘Felt what?’

‘The spirits.’

‘Spirits?’

‘Yes.’ Twisty's bony shoulders shook as he shivered. ‘The land's lousy with them.’

Kyle squinted up to the dark tree line. ‘It feels empty to me.’

‘Maybe they're the reason why it's empty.’

‘Maybe. I'm not sure what I feel.’

‘No? Really? They're interested in you.’

Kyle couldn't suppress a flinch of recognition. ‘How do you know this?’

‘My Warren is Denul. I sense these things.’

Now that it had been named, Kyle shook off the feeling he'd sensed since setting foot in this land – the feeling of being watched. He turned to the bay. ‘Warrens,’ he ground out. ‘I don't understand your Warrens. How do they work? On the steppes we just worshipped the land and the rain and—’ Kyle stopped.

‘Yes?’ Twisty prompted.

‘And the wind. We worshipped Father Wind.’

Twisty blew out a long thoughtful breath. ‘The Warrens … Good question. Hardly anyone actually knows. They're not ours after all. In your lands, do you have brotherhoods, groups of men or women?’

‘Yes. We have warrior societies. Most young men join if they can. The Tall Grass, The Red Earth. The women have theirs.’

‘Well, you might think of the Warrens that way. Each one has its own way of doing things. Its own secret words, symbols, and rituals. That's all there is to it. Sadly puerile, really.’

Still facing away, Kyle whispered, ‘But gods?’

Kyle snorted. ‘Just powerful spirits to my mind. Beings who have more power than others – nothing more. But you don't have to believe me. I'm something of a cynic on the matter.’

Kyle turned to eye the mage. ‘Just power – is that the only difference?’

‘Yes. There should be more but it's not something any of them seem willing to accept.’

‘What's that?’

‘The connection.’

The next day a small boat entered the bay. An old man rowed it. He tied it up at the least decrepit dock. The men of the blade watched from cover. ‘Alive,’ Trench whispered, raising a warning finger to Grere who bared his teeth in answer. Stalker, Kyle and Grere spread out among the empty huts.

Kyle allowed the old man to walk past his hiding place then stepped out on to the overgrown lane behind. The man had been whistling but stopped now that Grere suddenly faced him. He shot a glimpse to his rear, saw Kyle and his shoulders slumped. He drew a long-knife from his waist and dropped it. Grere waved him up the hill with a flick of his hand.

‘Thought you were ghosts,’ the man said to Trench in what Kyle heard as oddly accented Talian.

‘Ghosts?’ Grere answered, sneering. ‘We're flesh and blood.’

‘Funny that.’

‘Why's that funny?’

‘That's what they say too.’

Grere clouted the man across his face and Kyle fought down an urge to do the same to the Barghast tribesman. ‘What settlement is north of here, old man?’ Trench asked.

‘Thikton.’

‘How many men and women there?’

‘A lot. Many hundreds.’

‘How long have the Malazans run the place?’

The old man peered at them all. ‘Malazans? Ain't no Malazans here. Just traders, if that's what you mean.’

‘No? Then who runs the place?’

The old man scratched his head. ‘Well, no one, I s'pose. We just mind our own business.’

Trench's mouth hardened. ‘You sayin’ there's no ruler? No authority?’

‘Oh, well. There's the factor upriver at Quillon. I s'pose you could say he runs things.’

‘The factor? A trader?’

‘Yes.’

‘What if you were attacked? Pirates or raiders?’

The old man nodded eagerly. ‘Oh, yes. That used to happen all the time. Korelan raiders from up north. Even invaders from Mare landed south of here.’

‘And? What happened?’

The old man swallowed, hunched his shoulders. ‘Ah. Well. The ghosts, y'see. They run them all off.’

Trench raised a gauntleted hand to cuff the man but turned away in disgust. ‘This is useless.’

‘Kill him?’ Grere asked.

‘Kill him? You Genabackan recruits are a bloodthirsty lot.’

‘I think we can manage one fisherman,’ Stoop drawled.

‘I'll keep watch on him,’ said Kyle.

‘So will I,’ Twisty added.

Trench waved to take the old man away. ‘Fine. He goes missing, I'll take the skin off your backs.’

That night Kyle sat on the steps with Stoop who smoked his pipe. High broken clouds moved raggedly across the face of the moon. A weak wind stirred the limbs of the birch and spruce. ‘What of the ship?’ Kyle asked.

‘They'll wait while we scout out this town upriver.’

‘Then what?’

‘Well, we'll see, won't we? If there's no Malazan garrisons like the man says, then we'll just move right in.’

‘But this isn't Quon Tali.’

‘No.’ Stoop took the pipe from his mouth, knocked the embers in a shower of sparks to the wet ground and gave Kyle a wink. ‘But
we're real close now, lad. We just have to reach out, and it's ours.’

Somehow Kyle didn't think it would be so easy.

Stoop slipped the pipe into a pocket. ‘I'm off for sleep. These old bones don't take to cold bivouacs no more. Did you know that not one of these roofs don't leak?’

‘Try the one across the way.’

The old saboteur eyed the canted, sunken-roofed ruin. ‘Thanks a lot.’

Kyle sat for a time in the dark. These last few nights he'd hardly slept at all. That feeling of being watched that Twisty blamed on spirits wouldn't leave him. Sometimes he thought he'd heard voices whispering in the night. He even felt as if he'd heard his name called once or twice.

A walk might do him good. Too little action recently; too much waiting. First the agonizing ocean crossing and now this strange non-event of an arrival. Where was everyone? It was an unnerving land. As his feet took him on to a forest path he realized that, for all its foreignness, it was also eerily familiar. He'd felt something just like this land's haunted presence when his clan had ventured on to the northernmost high plateau of their territory. His uncle had gestured to the misty lowlands north of them saying that there they never ventured: those were Assail lands. Just studying them from the distance Kyle had sensed their eerie alienness.