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

by Ian C. Esslemont

  The Primogenatrix stood, gathered her power to her. The Circlet wove its ritual of containment.

  They waited. Dust fell from the face of the granite blocks, each the size of a bull, as if the heap had received some sharp blow from within. Men within the ranks shouted their alarm.

  Flame-lit, the face of the barrier shifted, tilted outwards as if levered from within.

  Great Ancestor, Timmel swore. She had not anticipated this.

  The blocks thundered outwards into the pool of burning oil sending a great wave and showers of flame among the front ranks who shrank back amid screams. Storms of arrows and crossbow quarrels shot into the dark within the cave to no effect Timmel could see.

  Then, a bloom of muted power within followed by movement. A grey wall broaching the dark. Dust? Smoke? Timmel looked to T'enet. ‘What sorcery is this?’

  ‘Not sorcery …’ The bald mage paused, watching while the grey wall edged ever forward. Arrows and bolts bounced from its face. ‘Tactics, your highness. Such battle formations are hinted at in foreign sources. Interlocking shields.’

  ‘They carried no such shields when we forced them in there, T'enet.’

  ‘No, your highness. These appear to have been carved from stone.’

  Hurled grenadoes of oil burst into flames upon the dome of shields. A massive scorpion bolt, three feet of iron, cannoned from the angled face without so much as a quaver.

  Timmel's eyes narrowed. Hardened, sorcerously, from within. Very well. So it will be a fight after all. ‘Circlet Master! Slow them down.’

  ‘Indeed.’ T'enet nodded to his companions. The Circlet brought its will to bear upon the shuffling dome.

  Timmel did her best to ignore the screams and clash of battle – the amazed and fear-tinged shouts as the dome broached the first moat of burning oil only to continue on. She reached out her senses to touch this strange foreign presence. First she noted great strength in the mysteries of the earth. That would be difficult to overcome in a direct assault. Timmel's senses next brushed up against a diamond-like lattice of investiture that left her stunned. Years in the manufacture. Such mastery! She would have given anything to speak with the author of such work. It was beyond her. And beneath all, a dark swirling of Shadow mysteries that troubled her. Whence this influence? Not within the shield-dome, now climbing the slope leading up to the first rank of men. Yet striving potently … from where?

  Timmel's gaze shot to the gaping cavern entrance, dark, open … ignored. Gods of the Elder Ice. She threw herself aside yet not quickly enough to avoid a stabbing flame of pain that skittered along her scapula to slide in straightening up into her right armpit. She fell on her back, right arm clasped to her side, stared up at an apparition. A walking corpse it seemed to her. Ghostly pale, female, in tattered rags of crimson cloth wrapped at her loins, eyes wild, hair white, matted and as long as her waist.

  Looking down at her, the demon woman spoke something in her tongue before disappearing. Timmel recognized none of her words save one that shocked her utterly, Jaghut.

  Her bodyguard arrived, glaring, weapons bared. Timmel struggled to her feet. The superior strength and resilience of her line that also brought her potent talents saw her through the shock and pain of her wound.

  T'enet, she glimpsed over the heads of the shorter of her bodyguards, was not so lucky. He lay sprawled face down. The Circlet was too committed to their ritual to spare him any attention.

  ‘Your wounds—’

  Timmel waved aside the captain of her bodyguard. ‘The battle?’

  The officer bowed to her. Timmel searched for his name … Regar Y'linn.

  ‘Brief me, Regar.’

  The man bowed again. ‘The shield formation makes progress. The second line of defences has been breached. Commander Fanell has been assassinated.’

  Timmel cast her senses about the valley, searched for any hint of the Shadow mysteries. Nothing. Gone to ground. ‘Direction?’

  Regar frowned his uncertainty. ‘I'm sorry, Primogenatrix?’

  ‘Direction of the shield-dome?’

  ‘Ah! South-east, towards the river.’

  Timmel nodded to herself. Yes, just as before. Down slope, to water. Ever to water. T'enet had strenuously opposed her before and against her better judgment she had acceded to his council. Now she would do things her way. ‘Have the ranks thinned to the south-east, commander. Then report back.’

  Regar hesitated.

  ‘Commander?’

  ‘As you order, Primogenatrix.’

  Timmel sat heavily in her chair. ‘Circlet?’

  ‘Yes, Primogenatrix,’ the voice of every thaumaturg, slowly and emotionlessly, responded.

  Timmel threw off the shivering terror their shared awarenesses clawed at her. ‘Ease off your efforts.’

  ‘Yes, Primogenatrix.’

  She rested. Her blood dripped from the tips of her numb fingers then ceased as her family lineage's healing abilities knitted the wound. The clash of battle receded as the shield-dome edged ever farther away. That word, that forbidden word. So, all has not been forgotten out there in the wider world. Ancient truths remain alive somewhere. One place too many for her and her kind.

  Footsteps approaching roused her. She raised her head to see Regar. ‘Yes?’

  ‘They are following the course of the river.’

  ‘Downstream?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Timmel felt a tension slip away that had held her rigid in her chair the entire night. High above, dawn now touched the inland mountain peaks gold and pink. ‘Send a rider to the city, Regar. Have a ship – our sturdiest – waiting at the mouth of the river. Unmanned. Anchored.’

  ‘I'm sorry, Primogenatrix?’

  Timmel straightened in her chair, bringing her almost eye to eye with the soldier. ‘Did you hear me, Commander?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do so. Immediately.’

  Regar saluted, turned smartly and hurried off.

  ‘Circlet?’

  ‘Yes, Primogenatrix?’

  ‘Harry them, Circlet. Ride them all the way. Let them know. Let them know they're not wanted here.’ Yes, go. Go with all our curses. You invaders. You Crimson Guardsmen.

  ‘Yes, Primogenatrix.’

  * * *

  Kital E'sh Oll, newly initiated as full Claw under Commander Urs, straightened from the mummified corpse to scan the layered rock walls of the surrounding canyon here in the Imperial Warren. It seemed eerie to him, the way the smoothly sculpted stone resembled water frozen in mid-fall. How could this be the work of wind alone? Yet things did not always work the same from Realm to Realm.

  The remains at his feet were not that old. A few months at most. Scavengers had disturbed the site obscuring any hint of the means of death – and just what those scavengers might be, here in the seemingly lifeless Imperial Warren, was yet another mystery of this place likely never to be solved.

  Whoever this had been in life, all indications were that he had been a Malazan Claw. Yet another vital message, and messenger, lost. Kital examined the surrounding dust-laden rock. Who was intercepting Imperial traffic? One of the unknown local denizens? Hood knew they were legion – demons, revenants, spirits lingering from the Warren's cursed past. Yet all these threats were nothing new. Everyone agreed the Warren was haunted. No one walked its paths for longer than absolutely necessary. Why should it suddenly have become so much more perilous?

  A faint scratching brought his attention around. A man – or what appeared to be a man – now crouched on a ledge of rock behind. Dust-hued rags of what might have once been rich clothes hung from him and his hair was a tangled white matting. Kital drew his long-knives. ‘You are … ?’ The man stood – tallish, Kital noted, with a good reach, though emaciated.

  ‘Surprised,’ the stranger answered alike in Talian.

  ‘Surprised? How so?’ Kital glanced about for any others. The man's bearing was unnerving; could he really be alone?

  The stranger jumped down, bringing h
imself almost within striking range. ‘That you keep coming.’

  Despite himself, Kital gave ground to the apparition. Rumours of the Warren's hidden past whispered in his ears. Who, or what, was this? What was it talking about? Coming? ‘What do you mean?’

  The figure looked down at the half-buried corpse now at his sandalled feet. ‘I mean when will that toad you call your master ever learn.’

  ‘Toad? I serve the Empress!’

  ‘So you think, lad. So you think.’ He stretched out his arms. ‘Come. I am unarmed. I will make it quick.’

  Kital took in the long thin limbs, the dusky hue of the man's skin beneath the ash-laden dust. Stories whispered beneath breaths in the Claw training halls and dormitories stirred in his memories. ‘Who are you?’

  The man assumed a ready stance, hands open. ‘Good question. I have been many men. I was one for some time, then another, and then another, though that last one was a lie. Now, out here for so long alone, I have begun to wonder myself … and I have decided to become the man I could have been and to test myself against the only one who is my peer. That is my goal. For the meantime, I have no name.’

  Kital stared. Deranged. The fellow was completely deranged. But then, becoming lost here in the Imperial Warren would do that to anyone.

  ‘You should have attacked me by now, young initiate. While I so obligingly talked.’

  ‘My mission is to gather intelligence.’

  The madman hung his head for a moment. ‘I understand. You are following your protocols. Well done, Initiate. Well done. A pity.’ He exhaled a long slow breath. ‘You would have been a great asset to the ranks. Now I regret what I must do—’

  The man sprang upon him. Parrying, Kital yielded ground. The fool was unarmed! Yet every cut and strike Kital directed at him touched no skin. Knuckles struck his elbow and a long-knife flew from numbed fingers. A blow to his head disoriented him then pain erupted at his chest as his breath was driven from him as if he'd been kicked by a horse. He lay staring up at the dull, slate-hued sky, unable to inhale, his chest aflame. The stranger's face occluded the sky.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Kital heard him say through the roaring in his ears.

  The face so close – those eyes! – Kital guessed the name and mouthed it. The man nodded, placed his hands on either side of Kital's head, hands so warm, and twisted.

  Alone once more, flanked by corpses, one fresh, one old, the man straightened. He stood for a time, head cocked, listening, perhaps only to the dreary wind. The shifting of dry soil brought his attention to the older of the two bodies. That corpse's ravaged fingers of tattered sinew and bone now spasmed in the dust. The man edged away, his hands at his sides twitching. The bare broken ribs rose. Air whistled into the cadaver's torn cavities. It lurched up, its desiccated skin creaking like the leather it had become. Gaping eye sockets regarded the man.

  Uncertain whether to leap on the body or away, the man offered, warily, ‘Whom am I addressing?’

  ‘Not the prior occupant.’

  ‘Hood's messenger, then?’

  A laugh no more than air whistling. ‘A message. But not from him.’

  ‘Who then?’

  The corpse jerked its arms, which swung loose from frayed ligaments. ‘Look closely, fool in rags.. You see the inevitable. Flesh imperfect. The spirit failing. All is for naught.’ Again the whistling laugh. ‘Come, you are not one to delude yourself like the rest of the common herd. Why pretend? Everything human is flawed and preordained to failure.’

  Grimacing his disgust, the man eased his stance. ‘As you can see, my limbs are all whole. You're wasting your time.’

  A chuckle dry as ashes. ‘Now you are deluding yourself. Or attempting to deceive me. Surely you above all are aware of the unimportance – the plain cultivated artifice — of all outward appearances.’

  The man eyed the ridges above for movement. Was he being delayed? Were agents on the way? What lay behind the Chained One's contact, here, now?

  ‘I assure you we are quite alone. We have all the time in the world to discuss our mutual interests.’

  He regarded the cadaver. ‘You can assure that – here?’

  A convulsive laugh raised a cloud of dust from the body. ‘Oh, yes. Most surely. Through the influence of one of my representatives. Which brings me to my point. You, sir, are most qualified to join my House. If the positions as currently revealed do not interest you, then perhaps a new one could be forged. A new card called into creation for you and you alone. Imagine that. Is that not a singular achievement?’

  ‘It's been done.’

  Stillness from the corpse, which the man interpreted as icy irritation. ‘Do not be so impetuous. It ill befits you. Come. Be reasonable. Surely you do not imagine you will survive the forces now arraying themselves against the Throne – and more. Do not throw yourself away needlessly.’

  ‘Tell me more of these forces.’

  A gnawed digit reduced to one knuckle rose to shake a negative. ‘Now, now. We have not yet struck a bargain. Nor does it appear we shall.’ The arm fell and the carious grin widened. ‘A pity. For while you refuse to see wisdom, I've no doubt he shall …’ The corpse laughed its desiccated heaving whistle and with a snarl the man kicked it down. It fell clattering into pieces as the presence animating it withdrew.

  The figure in rags stood for a time, silent, listening to that anaemic wind. No, he decided. No one would rob him of his satisfaction – not even the Chained One himself. But he would be no more likely to accept either, would he? No, he knew him too well. They were too much alike. Neither would accept any diversion until the final deed was done, the final knife driven home. And the beauty of all this waiting was that eventually, ultimately, the bastard Cowl would have to come to him.

  * * *

  When Traveller and a few villagers went out to search the highlands for a mast tree, Ereko left the hut at mid-morning. He would have preferred going while the man slept but he was reluctant to pursue a reading at night; only a fool would tempt fate so. The house, a sod-roofed fisherman's dwelling, stood near the edge of the strand's modest lip. A sturdy skiff was pulled up at the shore, a man repairing its side. An old woman sat at the hut's door mending a coat. She looked up at him without fear, the first sign he had of what was to come.

  ‘I was told a Talent lives here.’

  The old woman nodded and set aside her mending. She held out a clawed hand. Ereko set a silver piece into her hardened palm.

  She showed no surprise, merely tucked the coin into her wide skirt at the waist. This he should have taken as the second sign.

  ‘Hrath!’ she called, her voice harsh and clipped, like a sea bird's. ‘Hrath!’

  A young boy whom he had noticed earlier playing among the black algae-skirted rocks at the headland ran up to them. The old woman took his hand. ‘The cards, Hrath,’ she said, and pushed him inside.

  Ereko noticed immediately the marks of a Talent on the smooth face of the boy. He appeared to be about ten, prepubescent for a certainty – another strong sign. He wondered for how long the entwined strings of fate had woven for this encounter. It had been a long time since he had last dared a reading. For him, more than others, they tended to be messy. For Traveller, they would be deadly.

  Stooping, Ereko sat cross-legged on the packed dirt floor of the hut. The old woman now tended a fire at the back of the one room while the boy smoothed the bared dirt of the floor. He stretched the cards out for inspection. Ereko noted their damp chill, another strong sign.

  The boy held the deck calmly for a moment then began placing them in a cross design that divided the patch of earth into quarters. An old arrangement. Ereko had been told it was a field not popular in the cities. That it favoured the influence of the Houses too much, so the Talents there complained. When the boy began speaking his voice startled Ereko, so full of assurance and experience it was.

  ‘The Queen of Life is high,’ the boy began, as most true Talents do for him. ‘Protection, I think. You are favou
red. I see House of Death; it is also concerned. How they ever dog each other! Shadow is present, growing over time. The Sceptre close to the Knight of Death reversed … Betrayal. By whom? But no, that is the past. It regards another and intrudes. I see multiple convergences and revenge, but all bitter. Obelisk is close – it travels with you, both a blessing and a burden. Kallor, the High King, twisted inversion of all rulership, stands opposite …’

  Ereko was startled. How could this boy know that? Then he chided himself. If a true Talent, the boy knew more than he now spoke even if his poor deck had no cards of the new house.