Ian Esslemont - Return of the Crimson Guard

Ho hunched further as if driven down by the appalling furnace hovering above. ‘We may not be able to get close to the summoner, but the rift itself is growing, expanding.’

‘So?’ said Pellan.

Tourmaline nodded his helmed head. ‘It is coming closer into range,’ the Moranth said flatly.

Ho and the Gold studied one another wordlessly until Ho lowered his gaze, guiltily, it appeared to Nait.

‘You're going to try to disrupt it,’ Fingers said from where he sat, grimacing his pain and holding his bandaged bloody head.

‘Yes,’ said Ho. ‘A sufficiently large blast might be enough to upset its flow. Especially while it's just establishing itself.’

Pellan leaned back, crossing his arms. ‘Oh, wonderful plan! Who's gonna do that?’

‘I will,’ said Tourmaline.

No one had anything to add to that.

Someone or something jabbed Nait where he crouched on his haunches. May was on her knees behind him, glaring. He mouthed a ‘what?’ She motioned him savagely to speak. The glare deepened into an evil eye. ‘All right, all right!’

‘Yeah, I'll help out,’ he told Tourmaline. The Moranth gave a short bow. I'll hold your rope, or something like that, maybe. Nait signalled Urfa aside. The two put their heads together to talk low.

‘How're going to get the stuff from our boys ‘n’ girls?’ Urfa asked.

‘Good question. Tell ‘em the Gold have munitions to distribute — that'll bring them runnin’.’

Urfa guffawed showing a mouthful of bent, misaligned teeth. ‘Goddamn, you're a sneaky one, Jumpy! OK, we'll spread the word. Have some heavies nearby to corral them.’

‘We'll need lots.’

After all the crying and yelling died down, Jawl's begging and pleading, Urfa's veterans threatening murder, the heavies dragged the last of the saboteurs off and Nait and Urfa went through the assembled hoard. They were careful. Some jokers weren't above boobytrapping their packs with small charges such as the rare Moranth ‘stick fuses’. Tourmaline arrived with all the Gold had with them. They placed the largest of the munitions all together: eight cussors and four crackers. A terrifying assemblage, as far as Nait was concerned. Like nothing he'd ever dreamed seeing gathered together in his entire lifetime. A hoard fit to level a fortress. But when he studied the moiling gap into nothingness turning ponderously like a whirlpool on its side, the pile seemed laughably inadequate. Yet it was all they had.

Tourmaline began packing it all away into the Moranth wood-framed canvas carryalls. After watching for a time Nait helped. They took two bags each, brought them to the closest edge of the earthworks. Urfa followed, arranged the carrying straps, pulled them tight.

‘You'd take Ryllandaras over this any day, hey?’ she shouted over the constant thundering roar above.

‘Naked with jam on my arse!’

Laughing, she gave a thumbs-up.

A number of the mages came sliding down into the dirt trench, faces averted from the stain hanging over everyone. Heuk came to Nait's side. ‘What's this?’ Nait asked.

‘Some are going to head out with you,’ the old mage shouted, his mouth close to Nait's ear.

‘What for?’

‘In case he spots you — they'll do what they can.’

‘Oh, great!’

Tourmaline turned to Nait, signed move out. They edged up and out. Nait pushed himself along with the inside of his frayed leather sandals, pulled with handfuls of the sharp tough grass. The swirling dust made him want to sneeze. His munition bags dragged to either side. Through the grass he caught brief glimpses of the mages accompanying them: Ho and Blues, at least. Then their differing paths took them from sight.

As they edged along, on an idle thought, Nait spoke to Tourmaline. ‘You Moranth, I was wondering, you have women among you?’

‘Of course. All are needed in defence of the homeland.’

‘And you? What about you? I mean — Tourmaline — among you… is that a woman's or a man's name?’

The helm jerked away as if Tourmaline was offended. ‘A woman's, of course! Isn't it obvious?’ And she shuffled away, kicking dirt.

Nait paused, stricken with wonder. Gods above and below! He was surrounded by them! May, Urfa, Bala, Hands, now Tourmaline. Strong women! They were a bane upon his life.

They passed the scattered, tangled ruins of the ship and Nait caught up with the Moranth, finding that she'd taken out a saboteur's shovel and was hacking out a cut in the thick root-layer of the prairie grass. Nait looked up: the mar, or rift, or whatever it was, appeared to hang edge-on, directly above. Dust raised by Tourmaline's efforts puffed up to rise like smoke, sucked up and up, presumably to waft into the gap. Nait winced at that, imagining himself following. Into the Abyss, or the Gap of Chaos itself.

Knowing there was only room for one to work, Nait peeked through the blowing grasses to keep watch. The mage stood far off, a flickering darker shape within the spinning curtain of multicoloured energies surrounding him like a glaring winding-sheet.

He watched for a time. The slanting rays of the sun punished him, heating his pot helmet. He was sweating and damned thirsty. He figured it was nearing mid-morning. Behind him, Tourmaline excavated a bowl-shaped depression in the thick grey topsoil.

Then sudden movement. Four figures had appeared from nowhere between him and the mage: two Wickans, and two Crimson Guardsmen. Nait gaped, then threw himself as low as possible. The Imperials and the Guard were making a move!

Power erupted, slamming Nait backwards and pounding the ground to make it shake. Spot-fires burst to life among the grasses. Nait fumbled, bouncing, to throw himself on top of Tourmaline who lay on top of her excavation. Speech was impossible: the howling rabid ferocity pummelled Nait, making him scream soundlessly. He risked a glance up, eyes slitted, face shaded against the blowing dirt and chaff. The four poured punishing energies into the one mage who responded with his own lashes that flailed each. But they were not alone: Ho and Blues had appeared as well and now they too added their efforts.

It looked to him as if the six were making headway; the attacks from the one seemed to weaken, flickering. Yes! They're going to do it! Yet the winding penumbra of energy that surrounded him did not appear to be thinning at all. Argent fire searing from one of the attackers was merely deflected to spin inward, adding its own layer to those enmeshing the mage. What was going on? Why couldn't they overcome him?

Crashing noise pulled Nait's attention from the front. He glanced behind and gaped, horrified. Broken timbers, jagged fragments of shattered board and rope-tangled ironmongery were on their way, flying towards him through the air. Look out! But of course he couldn't warn anyone; he could only duck, covering his head.

The debris swooped over, whipping and hissing through the air as fierce as crossbow bolts shot from a siege scorpion. He watched enraged and aghast as the spinning wreckage lanced into the six attackers. One was decapitated instantly. All were plucked from their feet like scythed weeds to fly spinning through the air. It looked to him as if one had taken a blow to the head from a bent iron bar, Ho was impaled once more by wood shards, and the others similarly swept away in one masterstroke.

Beside him Tourmaline signed for Nait to go help them. Nait motioned to the pit. She shook her head, waved for him to give her his munitions. Cursing, Nait pulled the straps from over his head, then scuttled off keeping as low to the ground as possible.

As he went he kept an eye on the mage in his ring of protective energies; the man appeared to have turned away from the field, dismissing it once more to concentrate on his efforts with the rift. That suited Nait. Crawling through the whipping, singed grasses he yelped to meet two coming towards him — the Wickans, young, adolescent boy and girl, nearly identical. Each carried appalling wounds, gouges and slices that ran with blood, clothes tattered. Nait grasped an arm of each to help guide them back to the trench.