Return of the Crimson Guard (50 page)

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.’

I find it has a calming effect.’

She tossed the skin back. ‘You can keep it. So, what happens tonight?’

Molk, who was drinking at the moment, gagged and spluttered out his own mouthful.

‘Touch too much distillate?’

Coughing, he wiped his mouth. ‘Ah, the Captain should be more careful with her language in the future, I think.’

She eyed the hunched, goggle-eyed hireling – what did Amaron possibly see in this fellow? ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘More's the pity – well, I've brought food, blankets. We'll bivouac under the stars this one night. That is, if we have any say in the matter …’

‘Any say?’

He raised his chin to indicate behind her. ‘Our friends – they've made up their minds about us.’

Ghelel spun. Five horsemen were lazily angling in upon them, single-file. Where in Hood's Paths had
they
come from? Grey and brown fur pennants dangled from their lances. Recurved bows stood tall at their backs. They rode on thin leather saddles, no more than blankets, with thin leather strap stirrups and reins.

‘Wolf Soldiers,’ Molk said.

‘Like I give a damn.’

The Seti encircled them while one kneed his mount closer.

‘Greetings, friend,’ Molk called loudly in the Hengan dialect.

‘Trespassers are no friends of ours,’ answered the spokesman in kind – a young warrior, his kinky black hair tied in a multitude of tails, a leather jerkin painted in umber and yellow streaks and swirls, the dusting of a moustache at his lip.

‘Trespassers?’ Molk laughed. ‘No, friend. We are Talian – allies.’

The youth frowned, considering. He pointed north. ‘Last I saw, Heng was that way.’

Molk laughed again. ‘Yes, yes. We're meeting our squadmates in a village south of here.’

‘We've burned down all the villages. Killed all the men and …’ he bared his teeth to Ghelel, ‘raped all the women. There's no one alive to the south. That was the last of our fun. Now, we just ride in circles around Heng while they squat in their city. It's dull. Our only fun is riding down Hengans who flee the city.’

‘Ah, well, we're Talians. We're wearing blue, as you see.’

The youth nodded. ‘Oh yes, you wear blue. But it strikes me, there must be blue cloth in Heng.’

Ghelel had had enough of this adolescent baiting, ‘Look here, you Hood-cursed—’

Molk clenched her arm. ‘My employer wishes to remind you that your warlord is an ally of our commander, Choss.’

With a squeeze of his knees the warrior began backing his mount. ‘The warlord, it seems to me,’ he said, ‘is very far away.’ With a touch of the reins the mount turned aside and the five wheeled, galloping off.

Ghelel watched them go. Damned thugs! She faced Molk. ‘Now what?’

He adjusted the saddlebags at his shoulder. ‘Well,
seems to me,
they mean to have themselves some fun. Let's move.’

Twilight gathered while they jogged through the tall grass. A whoop or the thump of hooves from the dark announced their pursuers. Occasionally an arrow would slash the grasses next to her and Ghelel would clench her teeth,
Bastards.
Molk, jogging ahead of her, suddenly disappeared. At first she thought it a trick of the late afternoon light but after a few more steps it became clear that the man was gone. Had an arrow from the ingrate ambushing Seti taken him? She involuntarily slowed, wondering, should she throw herself down? Hide? But to what end? They'd just trample her. Walking, her next step kept descending and she found herself falling forward tumbling head over toes and she managed one yell before slamming down on to stone bottom-first. ‘Ow!’

‘How expressive.’

Wincing, she leaned aside to rub her buttocks. ‘What in the Abyss?’

‘Just my thought as well.’

‘I'm sure. What's this? She gestured to the flat shadowed road running low between twin rows of tall grasses.

Molk, his head cocked listening to the night, whispered, ‘The Imperial road to Dal Hon. Thank the Malazan engineers for it.’

‘Quon Talian, you mean,’ Ghelel countered. ‘The only thing
that
island produces is pirates – not engineers.’

‘It produced the will to employ them.’

‘Which?’

‘Both.’

Sighing her irritation, Ghelel rearranged her armour and belts. ‘Now what? On this road the Seti would run us down in an instant.’

‘True. And that wouldn't be much fun.’

‘No, it wouldn't!’

‘I was talking about them.’

‘I was talking about both of us.’

Molk grinned crookedly, winked. ‘Now you've got the hang of it.’ He raised his chin to the north-east, up the road. ‘This way … there should be a hostelry close by, if memory serves.’ He started off and Ghelel followed.

‘The Seti said they burned everything down.’

‘I'm willing to bet they didn't burn this one down.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, as the youth said, the warlord is far away … Anyway, you'll see.’

Twilight deepened, transforming the road into a slash of darkness. Ghelel thought she heard the movement of something large through the grasses parallel to the road. After a long hike a curve in the flagged way revealed the burnt remains of a building. It resolved into the piled stones of a foundation supporting standing blackened timbers. A field of knee-high weeds surrounded the sacked structure. Ghelel stopped short, set her hands to her belt. Molk stopped beside her. ‘Oh,’ he said, and scratched his chin.

She was about to loose upon the incompetent fool the full torrent of the day's frustration when a man straightened from beside the road. He was almost indistinguishable in the dark, wearing blackened studded leather armour. He held a cocked crossbow and a long curved sabre hung at his side. A wide black moustache completely hid his mouth. ‘Who in cursed Fener's own entrails are you?’ he demanded in the Talian dialect.

Molk nodded to the man. ‘You're of the Sentries?’

‘Who's askin'?’

Molk gestured to Ghelel. ‘May I introduce Prevost Alil – a new officer.’