He winced at her tone. ‘Lower your voice, Burn curse you! Or I'll use this on you.’ He raised her dagger, pommel first.
‘I don't have to hide. I'm not important.’
The sturdy blade of the gauche caught at an edge. A hidden trapdoor, no wider than a man's shoulders, swung up. ‘Yes you are.’
Ghelel stared, bewildered. What? In that instant Quinn pushed her headfirst into the darkness.
She landed face down into piled damp rags that stank of rot. ‘Aw, Gods! Hood take you, you blasted oaf! Help! Anyone!’
Darkness as the trapdoor shut, a thump of Quinn jumping down. ‘Yell again and I'll knock you out,’ he hissed, his voice low. ‘Your choice.’
‘Knock me out? Neither of us can see a thing!’
‘Your eyes will adjust.’
Silence, her own breath panting. ‘What's going on?’
‘Shhh …’ The gentle slide of metal on leather and wood as he raised his longsword.
She could make out faint streams of light now slanting down from between the slats. ‘Are you going to … murder me?’
‘No, but I'll stick whoever opens that trap.’
‘What's going on?’
‘Looks like the local Fist is rounding up hostages from all the first families.’
‘Hostages! Why?’
She could just make out the pale oval of his face studying her. ‘Not been paying attention to things, hey?’ He shrugged. ‘Well, why should you have, I suppose …’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Insurrection. Secession. Call it what you will. The Talian noble houses never accepted Kellanved's rule – certainly not Laseen's.’
‘My father
‘Stepfather.’
‘Yes, I'm a ward! But he might as well be my father! Is he safe? What about Jhem? Little Darian?’
‘They may all have been taken.’
Ghelel threw herself at the ladder she could now just see. He pulled her down. She punched and kicked him while he held her to him. As he had to the mare above, he made soft shushing noises. Eventually she relaxed in his arms. ‘Quiet now, m'Lady,’ he whispered. ‘Or they'll take you too.’
‘I'm not important.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘What—’
He put his finger to her mouth. She stilled. Listening, she kept her body motionless, but relaxed, not straining, worked to remain conscious of her breath which she kept deep, not shallowing – techniques Quinn himself had taught her.
A step above. A booted foot pressing down on straw. The scratching of a blade on wood. Quinn raised his longsword. He held her dagger out to her, which she took.
A pause of silence then boots retreating, distant muted talk. Quinn relaxed. ‘We'll wait for night,’ he breathed. She felt awful about it but she nodded.
A nudge woke Ghelel to absolute darkness and she started, panicked. ‘Shhh,’ someone said from the dark and, remembering, she relaxed.
‘Gods, it's dark.’
‘Yes. Let's have a peek.’
She listened to him carefully ascending the ladder, push at the trapdoor. Starlight streamed down. Ghelel checked her sheathed weapons, adjusted her leather jerkin and trousers. Quinn stepped up out of sight. A moment later his hand appeared waving her up.
Someone had ransacked the stable but most of the horses remained. The double doors hung open. A light shone from the kitchens of the main house. Ghelel strained to listen but heard only the wind brushing through trees. It was more quiet this night at the country house than she could ever remember. Quinn signalled that he would go ahead for a look. She nodded.
Weapons ready, Quinn edged up to one door, leaned out. He was still for a long moment, then he gave a disdainful snort. ‘I can smell you,’ he called to the night.
Movement from all around: a scrape of gravel, a creak of leather armour. ‘Send the girl out,’ someone called, ‘Quinn, or whatever your name really is. She's all we want. Walk out right now and keep walking.’
‘I'll just go get her,’ and he hopped back inside, ducking. Crossbow bolts slammed into the timbers of the door, sending it swinging.
‘Cease fire, damn your hairless crotches! He's only one man!’
Hunched, Quinn took her arm, nodded to the rear. They retreated as far back as was possible. ‘Now what?’ she whispered.
‘If this fellow knows what he's doing this could get very ugly very quick. We'll have to make a run for it – out the back.’
Something crashed just inside the front of the barn then three flaming brands arced through the doors. Blue flames spread like animals darting across the straw-littered floor. ‘Damn,’ said Quinn, ‘he knows what he's doing.’ He clenched Ghelel's arm. ‘Whatever you do, do not stop! Keep going, cut and run! Into the woods, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Now, we dive out then come up running.’
He kicked open the rear door, waited an instant, then dived out, rolling. Ghelel followed without a thought as if this was just another exercise in all the years she'd spent training in swordplay and riding – there'd been little else for her to do as a mere ward. Something sang through the air above her, thudding into wood. Ahead, Quinn exchanged blows with two Malazan soldiers. Then he was off again even though the two men still stood. Coming abreast of them Ghelel raised her weapons but neither paid her any attention. One had a hand clenched to his neck where blood jetted between his fingers; the other was looking down and holding his chest as if pressing in his breath. Ghelel ran past them.
Shouts sounded behind. Boots stamped the ground. Quinn was making for the closest arm of woods, avoiding the nearby vineyards. Whistling announced crossbow fire. Distantly, horses’ hooves slammed the ground. Ghelel cursed; there was no way they could outrun mounted pursuit. What had Quinn been thinking? But then, there was no way they could have remained within.
Further missiles whipped the air nearby. She put them out of her mind, concentrated on running. All that remained ahead was the moonlit swath of a turned field then the cover of dense woods would be theirs. Ahead, Quinn gestured to the right: horsemen racing the treeline, all in Malazan greys. Fanderay take them! They'd been so close.
Quinn kept glancing back, ‘Keep going!’
Ghelel put everything she could into her speed but the soft uneven earth clung to her boots. The horsemen cut ahead of them. They turned their mounts side to side, swords bright in the cold light. Quinn made directly for the nearest. The man's fearlessness almost brought a shout of admiration from Ghelel. He sloughed the man's swing then did something to the horse that made it rear, shrieking. The man fell, tumbling sideways. Quinn ignored him to turn to the next. Ghelel reached their line. The nearest Malazan had already dismounted. He thrust as if she would obligingly impale herself but she stopped short, avoiding the jab, then spun putting everything she had into a thrust of the gauche. The blade caught him full in the stomach, was held by the mail. Perhaps only an inch of blade entered him. Yet she'd been trained to expect this – more importantly the man had just had the breath knocked from him. She knelt then straightened thrusting up with the short blade to feel it enter upwards behind his chin. It locked there so tightly the man's convulsion tore it from her hand. She turned away to check the next threat, thinking, Burn forgive me – I have killed a man.
Quinn was engaging two opponents, the rest were closing.
‘Run, damn you!’ he yelled.
‘No.’ She thrust at the nearest; he parried, declined to counterattack. Damn them! They're holding us up. Hooves shook the ground from behind. She turned: a calvaryman, leaning sideways, blade raised. She thrust hers up crossways. The blow smashed her arm, her hilts slammed high on her chest and she was down.
Yelling came dimly through her ringing ears; rearing horses kicked up mud around her. Her breath steamed in the cold night air. She climbed to her feet, weaving, blinking. Quinn still stood, dodging, parrying blows from above. She bent to retrieve her longsword from the churned mud. Another horse reared, shri
eking, stumbled backwards into the brush and Quinn thrust her after it. She fell, clawing at the struggling animal. Its rider was pinned beneath; she ignored him. Quinn forced her on. Together they fell into the thick brush. Branches slashed her face, cutting her cheeks, tore at her hair. She pushed forward.
They burst out into low brush and the thick entangled branches of young pines. Quinn took her arm and suddenly she found she had to support him. Longsword still in her grip, she held him up. Bright blood smeared his left side where his shirt hung open, sliced. He smiled blearily at her, his grey hair wet with sweat. ‘Gave them a good run we did. Proud of you.’
‘Shh, now. We'll be all right.’
‘No, no. You go on. Leave me. Run.’
‘No.’
He raised his hilt to her, saluting. ‘Proud of you. You did well, Ghelel Rhik Tayliin. A pleasure to serve.’
Hooves pounded the treeline, shouts for the crossbowmen. ‘We're not done yet.’ What did he mean, Tayliin? The only Tayliins she knew of had ruled during the last Hegemony. Kellanved and Dancer had the last of them slain when they took Tali.
They heard more horses thundering up the slope of the field. Quinn urged her on. Just pushing her away made him fall to his knees. She couldn't leave him like that and put an arm around him to raise him up. ‘Apologies,’ he mumbled.
‘What did you mean, Tayliin?’
The old man just smiled, his face as pale as sun-bleached cloth. Shouts snapped her head around – angry yelling – the clash of weaponry. What in the name of the Queen of Mysteries was going on out there? Why hadn't they come for them?
Silence but for the thumping of hooves and horses’ nickering.
‘Hello within! Are you there, Quinn?’ someone bellowed from the field.
The weaponmaster raised a finger to his lips, gave Ghelel a wink.
‘It's me, damn you! You know my voice!’
Quinn struggled to sheathe his longsword. Ghelel helped him.
‘Very well!’ came a vexed call. ‘It's me, Amaron!’
Quinn smiled. ‘What are you doing here!’ he called back and winced in pain. He finished, softer, ‘Haven't you heard of delegating?’
‘Yes, yes. Came as quick as I could. Come on down, will you.’
Quinn waved her forward. ‘It's safe, m'Lady. Amaron was my commander.’
‘Your commander?’
‘In the, ah, military. I served under him.’ He tried to walk but stumbled. She held him up. ‘My thanks – apologies.’
‘Here.’ Arm around him, Ghelel guided him forward.
‘Thank you. Not the impression I wish to give.’
‘Togg can take that.’
‘You curse like a marine now, m'Lady. I despair.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Do not apologize. Offer sarcasm.’
‘Always teaching, hey?’
‘Touché.’
They pushed their way through to stumble out on to the field and into a unit of some thirty cavalry, the horses’ breath clouding the night air. Almost all Quinn's weight now rested on Ghelel's arm. Dismounted soldiers immediately took him from her. Calls sounded for a healer. They laid him on a horse blanket.
‘Who of you is Amaron?’ she asked.
‘I.’ A man dismounted, his boots thumping to the mud. He was a giant of a fellow, Napan, in blackened unadorned mail beneath dark-green riding cloaks.
‘He's lost a lot of blood.’
‘He's in good hands.’
‘What of the Sellaths? Can you take me to them?’
Amaron rested his gauntleted hands at his waist, studied her. He dropped his gaze. ‘I'm sorry – Ghelel. They've been taken. Fist Kal'il will no doubt be using them, and others, as guarantors of safe passage.’
‘Safe passage?’
‘Out of Tali. By ship, probably. The capital is now under the control of a troika of Talian noble families.’
Ghelel glanced about at the men; none wore Malazan greys. Amaron himself wore no insignia or sigil at all. In fact the calvarymen wore dark blue – the old Talian colours. ‘Who commands?’
‘Choss. General Choss has been granted military command.’
‘Not the same Choss who was High Fist for a time?’
‘Yes, the same.’
‘I thought he was dead.’
‘That was the general idea.’
Ghelel found herself studying this man; Quinn had called him his old commander. ‘What of you? May I ask what you do?’
A shrug. ‘Whatever needs be done. You could say I'm in charge of intelligence gathering.’
Un-huh. ‘Well, thank you, Amaron, for our deliverance.’ He bowed. ‘But may I accompany Quinn?’
‘Certainly. We'll take him to the manor house, yes? There we can have a private conversation.’
Yes, a private conversation about certain ravings of a delirious wounded man perhaps? Until she knew whether Quinn should have revealed what he had she would play the innocent. Right now she wasn't certain how much she trusted this fellow. Quinn clearly did but the man felt cold to her, oddly detached. Quinn's condition didn't seem to affect him at all. She needed the weaponmaster conscious and well. Startled, she realized that he was possibly the last remaining link to her old life. She hurried to follow the soldiers carrying him down to the house. Their way was lit by the stables now sending tall flames high into the night sky.
* * *
Twelve days after descending from the mountains they reached the squalid village Traveller named Canton's Landing – no more than a collection of straw-roofed huts next to a slumped moat and ancient burned-down palisade overlooking the tidal flats of the Explorer's Sea.
‘We must wait here?’ Ereko asked.
He nodded, his guarded, lined brown face revealing nothing.
Ereko sighed. Enchantress give me the patience to endure.
It was close to evening and they claimed an abandoned hut. Ereko attempted to stretch his cramped arms and legs and failed. Human dwellings simply did not agree with him. He'd always been better off sleeping under the stars. A villager, an old woman, came hobbling up with a basket under one arm. ‘A meal approaches,’ he told Traveller. ‘I wish they wouldn't. From the look of them they need the food more than us.’
‘They are afraid of us and it's all that they have to offer. I also believe they want us to do something for them.’
Grinning a mouth empty of teeth, bowing, the old woman set out bowls of fish mush and hard-baked bread.
‘Send your headman,’ Traveller said to her in Talian. ‘We would speak with him.’
‘The headman is dead. His nephew will speak with you. I will send him tomorrow.’
Later, while Traveller slept, Ereko stared out over the embers of the fire to the phosphor-glow of the waves rolling in to the strand. He saw another sea in his thoughts, a far angrier and savage sea, this one iron-grey and heaving with cliff-tall breakers. That last season the Riders had arrived early at the Stormwall. The section of curtain wall he faced remained quiet as the Riders no longer challenged him. Indeed, these last few years his time upon the wall had actually been boring. Of course this pleased his Korelan captors no end; one more portion of the wall they need not worry about.
Ereko had watched the distant figure as he was chained as all were at the ankle. Watched as he'd been lowered to his station, a narrow stone ledge, without commotion or resistance. The man sat unperturbed as the ice-skeined waves smashed the wall and the spray obscured him. Many pointed as Riders surfaced far out in the strait. Some screamed, begged for release. His man remained sitting and the whisper of a fearful suspicion touched Ereko: might this fellow be one of those brave enough to refrain from defending their piece of the wall, sacrificing themselves to contribute in a small way to the enormous structure's erosion?
A file of the Riders closed, distant dark shapes upon the waves. The otherworldly cold that accompanied them gripped even Ereko's limbs. Frost limned the leathers of his sleeves and trousers. Ice thickened over the stones making
the footing slick and treacherous. As the Riders neared, the Korelan Chosen tossed down weapons to those lost souls lowest and most exposed.
He was relieved when his man stood, sword in hand. The waves breasted ever higher. Their foaming crests entirely submerged some defenders. He watched closely now; the first rank would strike soon. Arrows and bolts shot from above arced down among the broaching Riders. Ice-jagged lances couched at hips, they rolled forward mounted upon what seemed half wave, half ice-sculpted horse. Armour of ice-scales glittered opalescent and emerald among the whitecaps.
Return of the Crimson Guard: A Novel of the Malazan Empire Page 11