‘They say he's a Malazan deserter,’ the guards explained. ‘Caught on a ship trying to run the blockade. The Mare marines say he fought like a tiger so they set fire to the ship beneath him and pushed off. They say he saw reason then. Jumped ship and swam to them. They handed him over to us to stand the wall.’
He watched them drag the man to an empty slot a few hundred yards down the curving curtain wall. The Korelan guards fixed his ankle fetters to the corroded iron rings set into the granite flagging then freed his arms. Ereko studied his own lengths of ankle chain and listened once again for the Enchantress's soft voice. But she was silent. No further guidance would be his.
He resolved to act as soon as a quiet night presented itself. But such a night never came and within weeks the first of the Riders’ storms were upon them and thousands of Korelan soldiery jammed the wall.
They followed the forest's edge south. In the evenings they clambered down to the sand and rock shore to collect shellfish. The first sign of human settlement they met was the fire-blackened and overgrown remains of a fort: a choked trench faced by burned ragged stumps of logs surrounding an open court. The court held a burnt barracks longhouse and the beginnings of a stone and mortar central keep abandoned, or sacked, in mid-construction. They slept wrapped in their pelts in the dry, grass-gnarled court. The fire cast a faint glow upon the vine-shrouded stones of the keep's curving wall.
‘They were here,’ Traveller announced while leaning back on his pelts, his dark brooding gaze on the ruined tower.
Ereko peered up from his share of the fish they'd found trapped in a tide-pool. ‘Who? Who was here?’
The Crimson Guard. Like the old bandit said. This was their work.’
‘When?’
‘More than half a century ago.’
‘You knew them?’
Across the fire the eyes swung to Ereko and he felt a chill such as no human had ever instilled within him. How was it that this man's gaze carried the weight and aching depth of the ancients? Was he deciding just now whether to kill me for my curiosity? Such desolation there within; the gaze reminded him of doomed Togg whom he met once in another forested land – or the beast some call Fanderay – whom he saw last so long ago.
The eyes dropped. ‘Yes. I knew them. This could be Pine Fort, their northernmost outpost on this coast of Stratem. The next settlement would be North Citadel, but that is far to the south and my information is long out of date. I'm hoping to come to a settlement before that.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘You really do not know the story?’
‘Only what the Korelans spoke of. Something about a war in Talian lands to the north.’
‘Yes. A decades-long war. A war of conquest waged by Kellanved across the entire continent. And everywhere his armies marched they found ranks of the Guard opposing them. From Kan to Tali, even out upon the Seti plains, mercenary companies of the Crimson Guard unfurled their silver dragon banner against the sceptre of the invading Malazan armies.
‘Eventually, after decades, the last of their ancestral holds, the D'Avore family fastness in the Fenn Mountains, fell. The Citadel, it was called. Kellanved brought it down with an earthquake. He killed thousands of his own men.’
Traveller fell silent at that, staring into the fire. For some unknown reason he had now opened up and was talking more than all the months they had been together. Ereko waited a time then prompted quietly, ‘I have heard much talk of this emperor. Why did he not use his feared Imass warriors upon the Guard?’
So intent was Traveller upon the fire – reliving old memories? – Ereko believed the man would not answer yet he spoke without stirring. ‘Have you heard of K'azz's vow?’
‘I heard he swore to oppose the Malazans.’
‘That and more. Much more. Eternal opposition enduring until the Empire should fall. It bound them together, those six hundred men and women. Bound them with ties greater than even they suspected, I think. Kellanved ordered the Imass to crush them but the Imass refused.’
This news surprised Ereko. ‘Why should they do that?’ Few things walking the face of the world in this young age terrified him and this army of the undying was one.
‘None know for certain. But I had heard …’ His voice trailed into a thoughtful silence.
‘Yes? What?’
The man scowled, perhaps thinking he had revealed enough. He broke a twig into sections that he then threw upon the embers. ‘I heard that the Imass said only that it would be wrong for them to oppose such a vow. Yet I am sure that by now, to all those who swore it, this vow must seem more of a curse.’
Three days later they came upon the first settlement. A squalid fishing village. Traveller had Ereko remain hidden in the woods while he approached alone to dispel their panic. As it was, the appearance of a single man walking out of the forest generated panic enough. Old men and youths came running carrying spears, javelins and bows. Traveller treated with them at the edge of their collection of shacks where a stream braided its way out of the rocks and trees to run in a sheen down the mudflats to the ocean.
He returned alone. ‘They're a wary lot. The usual fears. Don't know if I soothed them at all. Let's continue on a way south. Keep an eye out for good trees.’
‘Trees? So you are building a boat then.’
‘Yes. I am.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then we wait.’
He walked away and Ereko almost laughed at his own surprised flash of frustration. Dealing with this man was almost as irritating as negotiating with that most reclusive of races, the Assail. He shook his head at himself and followed. To think that during all his many years he had prided himself on his patience!
Traveller pushed his way through the dense underbrush, stopping occasionally to point out a possible tree for harvesting and to talk through its merits. Eventually, Ereko joined in his speculations and they exchanged wisdom on the fine art of wood selection for the construction of a sturdy, yet flexible, ocean-going craft.
Ereko decided that Traveller knew a fair bit on the subject, for a human.
* * *
In the aftermath of the Nabrajan contract payment arrived in the form of war material of weapons and armour, treated hides, iron ingots and pack animals. The mercantile houses, traditional slave-traders, were also happy to pay in slaves, which Shimmer was also happy to accept. The Guard marched east, downriver, through rolling farmed plains to the coast. On the trading road to the coastal city of Kurzan, the existence of which had only been a rumour to Kyle's people, Shimmer ordered the slaves assembled in a muddy field.
Dressed in bright mail from her neck to her calves, her helmet under an arm, and her long black hair blowing free in the wind, she faced them. ‘We in the Guard do not accept slavery. Therefore, you will all be released.’
Stunned silence met the announcement. Even fellow tribesmen and women stared a cringing wary disbelief. Kyle was ashamed.
‘Those of you who wish to take up arms and join the Guard of your own free will please go to the standard for examination and induction. The rest of you will be free to go.’
And so through that day the line of men and women wishing induction into the ranks of the Guard ran its course. Those too old or infirm were rejected to rejoin their fellows awaiting their release. Eventually, as dusk came, all those who voluntarily chose to join and were found acceptable were marched away.
Needless to say, those remaining were not released. They were re-bound into their linked manacles and led away. They hardly moaned. So beaten down were they that perhaps they imagined the whole exercise a sham solely meant to single out the strong and young to be sold elsewhere. And perhaps, in its own way, that's exactly what it was.
The army, nearly seven thousand souls strong, wound its way east skirting the River Thin. After two weeks the Guard camped on the coast south of Kurzan, overlooking the Anari Narrows where ships rested at anchor in its sheltered, calm waters. Northward, Kyle could just make out the gre
y and tan towers of the city harbour defences.
‘Ships!’ Stoop announced, slapping him on the back. ‘Ships,’ he repeated, savouring the word.
‘Ships,’ Kyle echoed, having only heard them described. He did not relish having to enter the belly of one. It seemed unnatural.
‘Now what?’
‘We camp. Train. Wait.’
‘What's happening?’
Stoop adjusted his leather cap of a helmet, scratched his grey fringe of bristles. ‘Negotiations, Kyle. Shimmer's negotiating in the city to hire ships.’ The old saboteur pinched something between his nails, grimaced. ‘Tell me, lad. How do you feel about swimming?’
‘It's not natural for people to go into water.’
‘Well, now's a fine time for you to learn.’
Over the next week Kyle joined some forty male and female recruits being forcefully dunked in the muddy water of one of the broader channels of the River Thin's delta. Veteran Guardsmen enforced the lessons and swung truncheons to quiet all rebellion. Kyle sometimes saw Stoop sitting on the shore, smoking his pipe and shouting his encouragement.
From the first day of practice Kyle witnessed another duty of the Guardsmen keeping a close eye upon them when a shout went up and crossbow bolts hissed into the dark water. Immediately, the surface foamed and a great long beast thrashed and writhed, snapping its jaws and lashing its scaled tail. All the swimmers flailed for the shore. After the beast sank below the surface those same soldiers used truncheons to beat the recruits back into the water. Three youths refused entirely, were beaten unconscious and dragged away.
For his part, Kyle decided not to go meekly. When a Guardsman came to force him into the muddy channel he surprised her, a female veteran from Genabackis named Jaris. Together they tumbled down the slick mud slope into the water. From the shore and the shallows the mercenaries laughed and hooted while Kyle and Jaris thrashed in the murky water. He was lucky and managed to get behind her, hook his elbow under her chin, and he thought he might just force her to take his place as a swimmer. While he strained to push her head down below the water, something sharp and cold pricked his crotch. He jerked, strained to climb higher on his toes.
That's right, boy, ‘laughed Jaris. There's another biter in the water and it's after your little fish.’ The point pricked Kyle's crotch again. ‘What'll it be? You want to get bit?’
Kyle released her and she backed away through the waist-deep water. She raised a particularly wicked-looking dagger. ‘Smart choice. And a stupid move, lad. There's others who would've knifed you just for gettin’ them wet.’
Eventually, Kyle was selected as part of a troop and was given floats of tarred inflated skins to hang on to and paddle around for hours at a time in the river. Guardsmen kept watch on shore and in the tall grasses of the marsh.
The second role of the many Guards Kyle discovered on the eighth day when shouts went up from the shore of a mud island out in the channel and mercenaries came running from all around. They splashed through the murky shallows, dived into the tall stands of grasses. Kyle and the other swimmers stopped to watch.
A boy in a ragged tunic appeared, flushed from the grasses and cattails. He ran down the clay shore of the channel island, barefoot, wild-eyed. A Guardsman jumped from the cover of the grasses and tackled the youth into the water. Both disappeared beneath the brown surface. Kyle swam for them as fast as he could.
The mercenary surfaced, dragged a limp shape to the shore. Kyle arrived to see the thick red of heart's blood smearing the mud and the youth's chest. The Guardsman was the short veteran, Boll, whom Stoop had warned him to stay clear of. Despite this, Kyle charged in sloshing through the shallow water. He raised the boy's head – a bare youth – and dead.
‘What did you have to kill him for?’
The veteran ignored Kyle, began cleaning and re-oiling his knife blade.
‘He's just a kid. Why did you?’
‘Shut up. Orders. No spying allowed.’
‘Spying?’ Kyle couldn't believe what he was hearing. ‘Spying?
Maybe he was just watching. Maybe he was just curious. Who wouldn't be?’
‘You watch your mouth. I don't play nice like that Genabackan cow, Jaris.’
Kyle almost jumped the squat knifeman – from some place called Ehrlitan, he'd heard – but Boll still held his blade while Kyle held only his ridiculous goatskin bladder. He raised the bladder. ‘You and this thing are a lot alike, Boll. You're both puffed up.’ Kyle pried at a tarred seam of the bladder until the air farted out in a stream. ‘And you both make a lot of loud noise.’
Boll slapped the bladder from Kyle's hands. ‘Don't ride me. This ain't a game.’
Other Guardsmen arrived then and waved Kyle away. He went to find a replacement bladder. The mercenaries dragged the body into the thick stands of marsh grasses.
*
The next week Kyle was kicked awake in the middle of the night. He squinted into the blackness of a moonless night barely able to make out someone standing over him.
‘Get up. Assemble at the beach. Double-time.’
It was Trench, his sergeant. ‘Aye, aye.’
He collected his armour and equipment by the dim glow of a fire's embers then stumbled down to the beach to find a mixture of recruits and veteran Guardsmen assembled in knots. Trench, wearing only pantaloons and a vest of leather, shook all of his equipment from his hands.
‘Won't be needing that.’
Trench moved on to the other recruits. Stalker appeared at Kyle's side, knelt with him to sort through his gear.
‘Take the knife,’ he whispered. ‘Keep it at your neck.’ He examined Kyle's mishmash of armour. ‘Wear the leather alone – no padding – and the skirting's OK. Go barefoot.’
‘What's going on?’
‘We're swimming out to the ships. I hear negotiations have gone sour.’
Kyle pulled on his leathers. ‘Gone sour? Looks like this has been in the works for some time.’
‘An option. Shimmer seems cunning. I'll give her that.’
Squinting out over the water, Kyle could see nothing. The Narrows were calm and smooth, not a breath of air stirred, but it was as dark as the inside of a cave. ‘I can't see a damned thing.’
‘Don't you worry. There'll be plenty of light.’
Kyle hefted his tulwar – more than a stone's weight of iron.
‘Don't take it,’ Stalker said.
‘I want to take it.’
‘Then at least get rid of the blasted sheath. Hang it on a strap over your neck. If it looks like you can't make it – cut it loose.’
‘I'll never part with this.’
A spasm of irritation crossed Stalker's brow. ‘Dark Hunter take you! It's your burial.’
The tall scout stormed away. Kyle found the bladders in baskets. Men and women were strapping them to their chests. He hung the freshly re-gripped tulwar by a leather strap at its hilts and ran the strap under one shoulder and up around his neck. Mercenaries pushed out past him into the placid, nearly motionless surf.
‘Where are we going?’ Kyle asked them.
‘Quiet,’ someone hissed.
‘Hood take your tongue.’
Kyle bit back a retort. He joined the ranks of almost naked men and women pushing out into the water.
The water was cold, terrifyingly so. Kyle felt his toes and fingers already tingling. What use might he be when he eventually reached a ship, too numb to swing a weapon? Had anyone thought of that?
He pulled up short as the water reached his waist. He turned to speak to someone – anyone – but was pushed on.
‘Let's go.’
‘Ain't got much time.’
‘Time till what?’ he hissed.
A hand like a shovel took him by his hauberk and pushed him along. He spun to see the wide shape of Greymane in the dark. Kyle had never seen him without his mail and banded armour, and out of it the man was, if anything, even more impressive. His chest was massive, covered in a pelt of grey hair
plastered down by water. Black hair covered his thick arms.
‘Swim to the fourth ship,’ he rumbled to Kyle, and shook him by his hauberk.
‘Fourth?’
‘The fourth most distant, lad.’
‘Oh, right. Yes. What about the cold?’
The renegade blinked, puzzled. ‘What cold?’
Wind preserve him! ‘What ship are you heading to?’
‘Ship? Treach's teeth, I'm not going.’
Return of the Crimson Guard: A Novel of the Malazan Empire Page 7