Return of the Crimson Guard (94 page)

‘Acting-Fist Hurl.’ She motioned to her own escort. ‘And this is Silk.’ The commander bowed. Exhaling noisily, he sat on the edge of the broken water trough.

‘Congratulations in forestalling the Talians. It must have been very difficult.’

‘Accepted.’

‘Yet…’ and he was looking off to the west, ‘it has no doubt left you sorely diminished. You must ask yourself, how much more can your men take? How much more must they have left within them?’

‘Enough to turn away your dog and pony act.’

He flashed a tolerant smile and motioned to the surrounding countryside. ‘We of the Confederacy did not come empty-handed, Acting-Fist. We know these lands well – they used to be ours. We know of the shortage of wood and so we brought our own. Enough for many siege towers.’

‘There's nothing I like more than a good fire.’

Again, a smile of forbearance. ‘Consider, commander, can you face us in the south and keep adequate watch on your north? I very much doubt it. Consider well, and offer terms – if only for the sake of your men.’

Hurl pulled on her gloves. The formalities had been observed; she
had no interest in jousting with the man. ‘Our terms are that you withdraw to a day's march to the south. Otherwise we consider you a target. Am I understood?’ She finally succeeded in wiping away that smile. The man stood, gave a curt bow and gestured to the horses. Hurl led.

Readying her horse, Hurl saw that the fat bald Invigilator and Silk were locked in something of a staring match. As she mounted, the Invigilator addressed Silk: ‘Many of my brothers and sisters in the south say that now that the Malazan peace has been broken the man-eater has returned, summoned by the bloodshed. What say you?’

‘I would say the current hostilities have much to do with it, yes.’

‘Those responsible for his return deserve to die in his jaws,’ the Invigilator called as Silk turned his horse. ‘Just as the ancient curse prophesies. Wouldn't you agree?’

Silk did not turn. His back stiff, he snapped his reins and rode off.

‘How many has he taken so far?’ the man yelled.

Hurl followed, but she could not help glancing back: the Invigilator pointed a damning finger at her. She urged her mount on to catch up to Silk.

‘What in the name of D'rek was all that about?’

Looking ahead, the mage pushed aside his wind-tossed hair. ‘Nothing, Hurl.’

‘Nothing?
You mean there's a
real
curse? Jalor's dead. Storo is nearly. Shaky's gone—’

‘Shaky died before we did anything, Hurl.’

‘Don't split hairs. I see a trend. How long have you known about this
curse?’

Silk gestured helplessly. ‘Hurl, it's nothing to take seriously. Nothing specific. It's probably just something made up by minstrels and such who love the subject. That's all.’

‘Probably …
probably
? How do you know?’

‘Because neither Kellanved nor Tayschrenn deal in curses, yes? It wasn't to their taste.’

‘So I'm supposed to trust to that?’

‘Yes.’ He faced her, gave his best reassuring smile that she'd seen him lie through hundreds of times. ‘Listen. He was just trying to shake you up. Undermine your confidence. That's all.’

‘Yeah, well, he succeeded.’

They met up with the rest of their detachment and by mutual consent neither said anything more on the subject. Reaching the city, Hurl travelled with her newly assigned six bodyguards to the North
Outer Round to check on the repairs. There the seething activity astonished her. Hundreds of workers clearing up, repairing walls, salvaging material. It seemed that the residents of Li Heng had finally come around to their own defence. The cynic in Hurl wondered whether Ryllandaras's appearance had anything to do with their sudden new enthusiasm. But there
was
another explanation. She could not deny that after Rell's performance forestalling the beast the city had embraced him. It was now common to hear them shouting ‘Protector!’ after him and even throwing flowers. It had got to the point that he didn't go out on to the streets any more. The city, it seemed, had convinced itself that, in its hour of most dire need, it had found its new Protector. And for her part, Hurl was not entirely certain that they hadn't.

At the North Plains Gate she spotted Sunny surrounded by a crowd of shouting tradesmen, and he raised a hand to acknowledge her while heaping insults on them. She climbed stairs to the wall ramparts. The gate, beyond repair, was being permanently sealed. A wall of stone blocks was being raised up behind temporary wood and rubble outer barriers. At the battlements she found Liss. The Seti shamaness, or mage, or whatever she might be, was staring north over the prairie, empty now but for broken, abandoned equipment, humped burials and wind-lashed tatters.

‘How's Storo?’ Hurl asked.

A cocked brow. ‘As good as can be expected. Mending a clean sword cut, a blade puncture, or knitting a broken bone is easy compared to trying to align flesh torn and mangled by talons. He's lost his arm, an eye, and we may yet lose him to his internal wounds. But why ask me? You should go to see him yourself.’

Hurl shook her head. He would not want her to see him as he was, helpless and broken. Liss pursed her lips but said nothing. She returned to moodily watching the plain.

‘Will he be back?’ Hurl asked. Both understood that by
he.
Hurl now meant someone else.

Liss nodded weakly. ‘Yes. Eventually. Right now there's easy pickings out there.’ The shamaness's demeanour seemed to be falling by the hour. Her hair hung in greasy strings, her skin looked unhealthily pale and, unbelievably, she smelled worse than when Hurl first met her – something which had she been asked at the time she would not have thought possible.

‘And the Seti? Are they safe?’

A tired smile. ‘Thank you, Hurl, my gal. Yes. For the time being. They are safe. Yet can a people be said to be safe from themselves?

This White Jackal worship must not be allowed to gain its stranglehold once more. It is a regression for us – a childlike dependency.’

‘I'm sorry.’ Indeed, she felt very sorry. More and more it was coming to seem that they should not have done what they did. That she had made a terrifying mistake that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Perhaps there really
was
a curse.

The shamaness slapped Hurl on the back. ‘Don't worry yourself, lass. What's done is done. Now, it's up to me to do something.’

‘You?’ She eyed her suspiciously. ‘What do you mean?’

Liss turned her hands back and forth before her eyes, examined her layered ragged skirts. ‘Just something I've put off for maybe too long, that's all. Maybe the time's come.’

For what?
Hurl wanted to ask but something stopped her, a vague unformed dread that whispered
you do not want to know.
It occurred to her that perhaps she was a coward after all.

* * *

The journey north had been smooth, though the
Kite
did not perform nearly so lithely as before without Ereko's steady hand at the tiller. Jan, Stalker and Kyle traded off keeping the sail as taut as possible. The brothers kept to the middle of the open boat, preparing the food and generally getting on each other's nerves. Traveller was a dark brooding presence at the prow that everyone avoided. It was as if Ereko, though not human himself, had been the only thing keeping a human presence within the swordsman. Kyle knew that the Lost brothers believed he blamed Traveller for Ereko's death. And for a time he had. But now he wondered how much choice the man had – the entire confrontation had had the air of an inevitable convergence, the long-delayed closure of a circle. Unavoidable. And Ereko had warned of the melancholy spell of the weapon at the man's side. It was clear now to him that what had happened had been just as hard on Traveller, if not harder. Hadn't he been friends with the Thel Akai for so much longer? It seemed to him unhealthy that the man be allowed to brood for so long and he realized that if anyone was going to do anything, it could only be him. On the fifth day he worked up the resolve to approach and sit near the prow.

‘So, Quon,’ he said after a time.

Through his long black hair hanging down, the man's dark ocean eyes shifted from his hands hanging limply at his legs to

Kyle. Something stirred, flickering within them, a kind of distant recognition, and a hand came up to squeeze them. He raised his head. ‘Yes. Quon.’

‘May I ask why?’

A tired shrug. ‘You have a case to make with the Guard. That is where the Guard is headed.’

‘And you?’

‘I will make my way from there.’

‘Will you help?’

A smile of amusement. ‘No, Kyle. My presence would only … complicate matters.’

‘Cowl will just kill me out of hand.’

‘No. You'll be safe enough with the brothers. And there is the blade you carry. You have no idea what you really have here and that I think is the way things were intended.’

His sword?
‘What do you mean?’

An easy shrug. ‘It is a powerful weapon. Others might have used it to gather riches, power. But nothing like that has even occurred to you, has it?’

Kyle thought about that – the fact was he didn't have the first idea how to go about such things.

‘Then, what about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

The man took a deep breath, scanned the waters. ‘I'm hunting someone, Kyle. Someone determined to avoid me. But eventually I will corner him. Then there will be an accounting long delayed.’

‘Vengeance?’

A sharp glance, softened. ‘Yes. But not just for me, for a great deal. A very great deal.’

An errant wave sent spray across Badlands who howled his shock. Coots laughed uproariously, his mouth full. A smile touched Traveller's features, though it appeared to Kyle to be the wintry, distant smile of an adult watching the amusing antics of children. Or … what was that word he'd overheard the Guardsmen using when discussing the leader of the race they called the Andii? And the Magus? An
Ascendant.

‘Well, perhaps we can help?’

Traveller looked to him, his smile holding. ‘Thank you, Kyle. But no. This is something I have sworn to do. I must pursue it in my own way.’

‘Well, if that is as it must be.’ He rose to go.

‘Kyle?’ Traveller called after him.

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you. And … I'm very sorry. I know you were very fond of him.’

‘Yes. I'm sure you were too.’ Kyle turned away and his eyes met those of Jan, watching from the stern, who looked away, back out over the water, as was his habit.

The next morning Kyle awoke to find Stalker at the tiller, standing, peering ahead, and at the bow Traveller standing as well. ‘What is it?’ he asked Coots. The man was tending the small cooking fire in a metal bowl, cutting up the roots they boiled for a starchy stew. He gave an unconcerned shrug.

‘Some kind of storm ahead.’

At the stern he caught the eye of Stalker, who gestured forward. A dark bruising of clouds darkened the sky. ‘Can we go around?’

The scout merely arched one dusty blond brow. ‘This is my third course correction since dawn. Each time – there it is.’ To one side Jan lay curled up in blankets. Kyle considered questioning him but decided against it; if Stalker or Traveller wanted to, they could do it.

‘What does Traveller say?’

‘He said to stop trying to go around. Just head on north-east.’