Return of the Crimson Guard: A Novel of the Malazan Empire

by Ian C. Esslemont

  * * *

  Lieutenant-commander Ullen's brigades had already marched, but he rode with his aides to the battlefield where a detail was piling corpses for burning. The bonfire nearest the compound contained wounded who had succumbed since the engagement. And among these was the body of Commander Choss, once High Fist under Laseen.

  Ullen reined in, crossed his mail-backed hands before him on the pommel of his saddle. Such a damned waste. So much knowledge, cunning and experience gone now just when it was needed so vitally. The Empire was marching to face its oldest – possibly its most dangerous – foe and it had lost one of its most gifted commanders of men in what now seemed to him useless internal squabbling. Nothing like an external foe to put things into perspective, hey, Choss? He'd probably appreciate the irony.

  An aide's mount nickered in what Ullen hoped was inadvertent impatience. To these youths just beginning their officer training this man was nothing more than a name, a last remnant of legendary times as distant to them as the T'lan Imass. What did they know of campaigns more than twenty years old – before some were even born? But Ullen had been there. He'd been younger than they on his first posting, just a messenger attached to Choss's staff during the final conquests.

  To one side two soldiers stood up from where they'd been sitting in the grass and pulled on their helmets. Come to offer their own respects no doubt – old-looking veterans – men whose memories go back even further with Choss, perhaps back to the earliest campaigns. The urge to speak with them washed over Ullen, to share memories of the man they'd come to see off, but they didn't seemed eager for company and so he had to respect that. Still, watching them go, there was something familiar about seeing the two of them together. Perhaps they'd crossed paths more than once over the years.

  One of his staff cleared his throat and Ullen tightened his lips, exhaling. The smoke from all the burning was thick and he had to fight his own urge to cough. Goodbye, old friend and mentor. You deserved better. But then, so may we all. He clicked his tongue to urge his mount onward and pulled the reins aside.

  They rode alongside the main line of march south, passing first the laden wagons of the train and the camp-followers on foot, a ragged mob of the combined Talian and Malazan noncombatants. Wives with children in tow waved, as did girlfriends and prostitutes, even husbands of some female officers who held down a trade, smithing or leatherworking, or cooking. Then came the rear guard and the Empress's personal train surrounded by its own guard of Malazan heavies and troops of noble cavalry. Securely ensconced within rolled the Imperial carriage, pulled by a team of eight oxen. Idly, Ullen wondered whether Laseen was even in the damned thing and whether it was all just for show. What little he knew of her made him suspect such to be the case. After this they came to the columns of the reserve elements; here was to be Ullen's assignment, coordinating with High Fist Anand. But he was curious to see the grounds ahead and so continued on. Crossing the east-west trader road they next came upon elements of the main body, spreading out, forming up. Ahead, the ground sloped gently downward. Here awaited the Guard, straddling the south pilgrim road. Beyond, the slope continued on to meet the cliffs of the Idryn River valley.

  The mercenaries had deployed themselves in a broad arc, widely spread, with large phalanxes holding their extreme flanks. Clearly they were inviting a thrust down the middle. The Avowed appeared supremely confident in their capability to blunt and pin down any advance. Ullen was inclined not to doubt them. He cast a glance to the sun – close to noon and the day was humid, fast heating up. Not a good day for any long-drawn-out struggle. To the east rose the enormous eroded butte upon which the ruins of the Great Sanctuary of Burn could just be made out. Idly, he wondered whether the Guard intended it as a retreat and rallying point – but they did not seem the type to set contingencies for defeat.

  The Imperial skirmishers, the Untan Militia, call them what you like – the murderous midges, his own heavies named them – had already spread out over the hillsides of tall sun-browned grass. Ground-nesting birds took flight, disturbed by their movement. Stooping down, many of the crossbowmen disappeared entirely from sight and Ullen had to smile: yes, good cover, but it won't last. The Guard's mages will burn it away. He'd seen it before. Unlike most here he'd witnessed full-scale mage clashes where Warren battled Warren and swaths of ground and men were churned under. He'd been there when the Falaran island capitals fell and his stomach clenched in dread of what was to come. Still, he consoled himself with the knowledge that such a full-on field engagement was not to the Guard's style; they never were a stand-alone force. More an attachment to any main army, a special service good for narrow, specific objectives or duties. He hoped this less than ideal position would help even the odds.

  Lead elements of Malazan, Talian and Falaran infantry spread themselves out. They had already broken down into units of just one or two or three companies. They pushed their way through the irregulars like ships through a heaving sea. Many of the units had organized themselves with hollow centres – a good strategy when facing battle-mages. Urko was down there somewhere on the west flank with his Talians, V'thell on the east with the Gold. He studied the distant Crimson Guard formations: they too followed such dispersal, mixed with lines. Yet the Guard must know that Laseen was weak in mages. The Claws remain! Don't forget them! Simply because she elected to spare the League officers such culling doesn't mean that her forbearance would extend to the Guard. No, on the contrary, the Avowed will no doubt find themselves swamped. And thinking of that Ullen suddenly knew why not one Claw had assaulted him or any other League officer. She needed them for this! All this time! She'd been planning even for this!

  He almost fell from his horse, so great was the anger that clamped his chest. Had they no chance all along then? All useless? For nothing? Stopping, he pulled off his helmet, wiped the sweat starting from his brow. His staff pulled up as well, to cast him curious glances. But no – she could not have known for certain. Just plain prudence. A husbanding of resources. He and Urko and others of the League had been spared. Laseen had intended all the time to win over their men and assassinating beloved leaders such as an Urko or a Dujek was no way to manage that. No such considerations, however, applied to the Guard. All the Claw shall be unleashed upon them.

  While he watched, the standard of the Sword reached the centre field, this time dismounted. This new Sword, Korbolo Dom, had elected to fight on foot backed by a legion of heavies. Ullen knew little of the man except what he'd heard before and seen just recently. The man's ferocity and fighting ability were certainly not to be doubted; but he appeared to lack that certain aura or elan that had so bonded the men to Dassem. With the old Sword, the soldiers had known that should they come to a tight spot Dassem would be there to defend them no matter what. Ullen knew this. He'd seen Dassem trailed by his Sword bodyguard repeatedly cut a swath across battlefields to come to the aid of hard-pressed formations and positions. One could not confidently expect the same from this Sword.

  ‘Sir?’ one of his staff ventured, rousing him from his reverie.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Should we not be returning?’

  Ullen squeezed his eyes. Already he was tired. ‘Yes. No doubt High Fist Anand is wondering where we've got to …’ He gently urged his mount around.

  * * *

  Harbour-Assessor Jenoso Al'Sule of Cawn, newly appointed, gauged with something akin to horror the wallowing, limping progress of this current entrant to their busy docks. God of a Thousand Moods, please do not sink in a berth! His superiors would note the loss of income! Still, if it did sink, it would technically be occupying the berth and its owners would then be legally obliged … Jenoso smoothed his crisp new uniform, Imperial black trimmed with burgundy, and waited while harbour launches towed the vessel in. Once lines were firmly secured to bollards he started forward, fully expecting a gangway to come out to meet him, yet none came. He stopped abruptly at the edge of the dock, scanned the railing. Gods! What a wreck! Had it been in a
storm?

  ‘Hello? Vessel …’ Jenoso scanned for the name – Beru, no! Who would name a vessel that? ‘Ah, Ragstopper?’

  A pale-faced, sickly-looking sailing hand appeared at the rail. ‘No one comes aboard!’ he fairly howled, pointing.

  ‘Very well – that is your business. Mine is registration and inspection. Now, let me aboard.’

  ‘No! Go away!’

  ‘Do not be ridiculous. Your cargo must be inspected, fees levied. Come, come. I haven't all day.’

  The man yanked at his long, unkempt, mangy hair. ‘Plague!’ he shouted. ‘Yes, that's right! We've plague! Look out! Ooo!’

  Jenoso blinked his confusion. ‘Well, in that case you are in contravention of standard procedure. You must anchor in the bay, raise a black flag …’

  An old man with a shock of grey-white bristly hair and a seamed, wind-darkened face pushed the sailor aside. ‘Did I hear the words “standard procedure”? What's happened to all the ports these days? Why, times were in Cawn a few silver moons would – Holy Dessembrae forfend!’ the man cried, staring at the town. ‘You must've tried to tax the wrong people!’

  Jenoso struggled to ignore the accuracy of that off-the-cuff observation. ‘Never mind – more so, greater funds are now needed for reconstruction – ergo, the matter at hand.’

  The old captain, his thin, sun-faded shirt barely hanging on his bony frame, gestured a clawed hand to him. ‘Why the Imperial colours? I thought Cawn was open to the highest bidder. Or has the bidding closed?’

  Again Jenoso struggled to keep his features, and tone, even. ‘I'll have you know that not just yesterday a massed army of close to thirty thousand Cawnese provincial forces marched through here on their way west to the support of the Empire.’

  The captain rubbed a hand over his face, grimacing. ‘That so. Yesterday or not yesterday? Which?’

  ‘Ah … pardon?’

  ‘You said “not yesterday”– so, which was it?’

  It seemed to the harbour-assessor that somehow control of the situation was slipping away from him yet he couldn't exactly put his finger on just how and when it happened. ‘Ah, yesterday, or so …’

  ‘Well, why didn't you just say so, man! Gods!’

  Jenoso's grip tightened so hard on his wax tablet he felt his hot fingertips pressing into it. ‘Sir! The matter at hand …!’

  ‘What's the matter with the hand dealt to us here is that we're throwin’ in our hand. Looks like the Empire's got all the ports in the fist of her hand so we're pushin’ off!’

  The harbour-assessor's knotted brows hurt. ‘I'm sorry … ?’

  ‘So am I. Cast off!’

  ‘What – me?’

  ‘Why? Are you enlisting?’ He gestured aside, ‘Cast off!’

  ‘Aw, no, Captain! Please!’ someone pleaded. ‘Soliel's mercy, sir! We want water, food …’

  ‘What you want is a chance to desert! Now move!’

  ‘Sir …’ Jenoso called, ‘Sir!’

  ‘Yes? You still here?’

  ‘Sadly so.’

  A fey laugh from the captain. ‘That's the spirit, lad.’

  Sailors, barefoot, dressed in ragged trousers and shirts climbed over the sides to slide down the mooring ropes. Jenoso pointed. ‘Wait. You can't do that – wait. Mooring and unmooring at a whim! You owe fees – docking, launch crews must be paid …’

  ‘Tell you what,’ the captain announced, ‘here's a down-payment,’ and he tossed something, a small ball of some kind.

  In his panic, Jenoso dropped his tablet to catch the dark ball. He juggled it in his hands, staring. ‘What is this?’ he fairly squeaked.

  ‘It's what you think it is.’

  Jenoso froze, the ball, or ovoid, held at arm's length. His mouth gaped but no sound emerged.

  ‘Raise sails!’ the captain ordered, ‘we've a seaward breeze. It's less than the gas passed from a countessa during a reception, but it'll do.’

  Canvas and ropes rasped, feet pounded the deck. Jenoso remained frozen. His arms ached.

  ‘Farewell to all these bureaucracy-choked lands!’ The captain bellowed. ‘A curse upon all you assessors and collectors and all you state-run bandits! May you choke in Hood's craw! Goodbye to all fees, tithes, taxes, bills and levies! Damn you all to the darker side of the Abyss!’

  The sails caught the weak breeze. Sailors struggled to push off with poles. The captain continued his rant. Unavoidably, this strange activity attracted the attention of the harbour guard and a detachment marched down to investigate. Its sergeant found the harbour-assessor white-faced, arms quivering, a death-grip on an object in his hands. The sergeant gently pulled it from him to study it. ‘Stamp of the Imperial Arsenal,’ he said musingly.

  ‘Is it …’ the harbour-assessor stammered, weak-voiced, ‘is it …’

  ‘It's just a smoker,’ the sergeant said, tossing it hand to hand. He raised his chin to the ship easing into the bay. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘The Ragstopper^ Jenoso gasped as he flexed and massaged his hands together. Peering down he saw that his tablet had slipped neatly through a gap in the dock slats to drop into the harbour. He pressed his hot hands to his face and fought an urge to cry.

  The Ragstopper, you say? Well, we'll be waiting for him. No matter where he puts in – we'll be waiting for him.’

  * * *

  The seas were climbing and heavy clouds prefaced a squall, but Yathengar stamped his staff to the deck of the Forlorn regardless, calling assembly of the ritual participants. Ho sat at the stern with Su and Devaleth; the Wickan witch perfectly miserable in the rough weather and the Korelan sea-mage perfectly at ease.

  The participants, some twenty-three, not including Yath, shuffled together and again Ho was struck by the sad spectacle. We look like a collection of village idiots, all of us. Hair hacked and badly shaved, dressed in rags scrounged on the ship – all old clothing and sandals and such thrown overboard. Some men even shaved their body hair. Those pale are sun-burned. The skin of all is raw, cracked and bleeding from repeated scrubbing. You'd think plague had broken out on board. Yet it's working – that and having left the islands far behind. I can feel my powers returning. They are there; I just have to dare to reach for them.

  The participants arranged themselves in rows before Yath, Seven Cities priest and mage. Ho, of course, had researched ritual magics to a degree far greater than most scholarly mages and Su, he knew, must also be familiar with its demands. Wickan warlocks and witches employed it regularly. Devaleth, he imagined, must also be conversant – Ruse was infamous for the complexity of its rituals.

  And none of them had elected to participate. Was this the mere product of personal dislike of Yath, or was there more here – a deeper suspicion, or healthy dread, of the consequences for any participant should things go wrong? Maybe both.

  It began well enough. Ho detected only the most negligible interference from the presence of any lingering traces of Otataral. Around the sitting, concentrating mages, the mundane sailing of the vessel continued. The Avowed crew shortened the sails and secured everything against the coming storm. Blues was at the stern-tiller with Treat while Fingers sat beside them propped up against the side. The skies darkened, the thick low clouds churning. Ho wanted to call it all off, but he understood that time was pressing. Events were converging on Quon. A cusp of a kind was approaching during which they must act or thereafter lose any chance of influencing its outcome.

  He studied his own rasped-raw palms and the soles of his feet, his bloodied nails cut short by a knife – and all self-inflicted! Was there a metaphor here of some kind for the pursuits of him and his companions? If so, it was not a pleasant one.

  Mouthings pulled his attention to Grief – Blues – at the stern tiller along with Treat and Dim. The man's eyes were on Yath, his lips moving as he followed along in the invocation, nodding to himself at Yath's choices in his groundwork for the merging to come. Ho straightened, amazed – the man's a mage! Yes, one of us indeed!

  �
�You're a mage as well,’ he said to Blues.

  The man shared a glance with Fingers, a sardonic smile raised one edge of his lips. ‘Don't spread it around. Fingers and I like to surprise people with it.’

  ‘What Warren, may I ask?’

  A shrug. ‘D'riss.’

  So, the Paths of the earth. A Warren very appropriate to their researches in the Pit. Was this how the man was able to so shrug off what happened to him there? Yet had he? He also, Ho noted, was not participating in the ritual. But Blues and his fellow Avowed now fought the heavy tiller arm, swinging it hard over. Devaleth stood, studied the waves surging towards them like slate towers.

  ‘Shorten the sails further,’ she called to Blues. ‘Now.’

  Blues did not waste time thinking or reacting, he merely nodded to Treat who ran to relay the order. ‘We're much too damned light,’ the woman grumbled under her breath. ‘Should've taken on more ballast at the Pit …’