Ian Esslemont - Return of the Crimson Guard

An arm yanked her, marched her to the smoking gap — Rell. Somehow the Genabackan swordsman retained his grip of both weapons while hooking one arm around her. Wet gore covered both blades and splashed his leathers. None, she was sure, was his. He urged her on through the jagged hole.

The riverside wharf-front was dark. Watch torches lit the Idryn's far shore. Dirt gave way to the wood planks of the wharf and docks. Storo pushed Sunny through to Hurl then he and Rell covered the smoking gap in the warehouse wall. Planking from the roof fell all around. ‘Where to?’ she yelled.

‘The river!’ Storo answered.

Hurl staggered backwards with Sunny who fought to remain. ‘We'll cover them,’ she told him and he subsided. A shout sounded — a Seven Cities war challenge — and Jalor erupted from the blasted section at a dead run. Men poured out after him. Arrows nicked the ground all around, fired from the roof.

While Hurl hobbled with Sunny a familiar thump sounded from the docks and she grinned, tracing an imaginary path through the night sky to the roof behind and was rewarded by the crack of a sharper clearing the archers from one side of the roof. ‘Shaky has us covered!’ she laughed. Sunny's look told her she'd sounded a touch panicked.

Storo, Rell and Jalor fought a tight retreat. Pot-shots from Shaky cleared any group that pressed too close. Hurl found him crouched behind cover next to a moored river launch. ‘Get in,’ he snarled and reached for her crossbow. Hurl let Sunny down and raised the weapon herself.

From the wharf-walk Hurl saw that things were finally getting ugly. Some kind of summoning stepped out of a Warren. She imagined you'd call it a demon, or monster, all scales and jagged horns. In any case, it sure wasn't one of theirs. It turned on the Captain and closed ground. Rell actually looked ready to take it on but Storo pulled him back, bellowing, ‘Silk!’

Hurl held her breath, but nothing happened. Usually when the Captain called that loud for their cadre mage, smoke, flame and lightning and you name it came flying. But now nothing. A nagging thought surfaced; had the old gal and her buddy finally managed to corner him?

A whistle brought Hurl's attention around: Sunny on the launch. He held up a cussor then tossed it. She practically fired her crossbow in her panic to empty her hands. She let the cussor strike her chest and closed her arms around it then lay down to take the weight from her sagging knees. Gods! Cussor tossing! No matter that it took more than a shock to set them off — the imagination did wonders.

Shaky was looking down at her. ‘They're too close anyway.’ Arrows pattered around like rain. A bestial roar rattled the dock, echoing from the wharf-walk. Hurl peered over the piled cargo.

The demon was sinking. At least that was how it looked. The beast was up to its scaled waist in dirt and flailing madly. Everyone had stopped to watch, fascinated, the way Hurl had seen the fighting on battlefields halt when a particularly impressive piece of magery was in the process of going horribly awry. It sank to its chest, its neck, then, roaring what sounded like panic, disappeared but for its spasming arms. Those arms remained standing from the streaming dirt like two malformed plants, jerking and clawing.

‘Hood's bones!’ Shaky breathed. ‘What a way to go.’

‘Shoot, dammit!’ Sunny called from the launch. ‘Shoot!’

Hurl took aim and fired at the firmer parts of the warehouse roof where the archers had edged forward once more. Shaky dropped one into the closest knot of Orlat's men. That broke the spell. Men dived for cover. The rest of the squad made the dock. Hurl and Shaky fired last warning shots as the launch unmoored then everyone jumped for it. The archers peppered the boat as they drifted away into the dark. Rell and Sunny rowed while everyone else ducked for cover.

Shaky relieved Sunny who eased himself down next to Jalor who lay, eyes shut, breathing wetly. He looked to have taken a beating. The launch rocked alarmingly, dipping at the bow, and there was Silk, his trademark dark silks smoking and tattered. His long blond hair plastered his head, soaked in sweat. He let himself slump on to a thwart and leaned back, breathing in deep lungfuls of the cool river air.

So, they'd all made it. But what now? Hurl eyed the Captain. He was looking ahead, downriver, his gaze thoughtful. Would he send Silk by Warren to Fist Rheena? Surely now he had to let her know that a gang of pirates were in the city recruiting. She cleared her throat. The Captain nodded, grimacing. ‘Yes, Hurl… What now?’

‘Tell Rheena. She's been square.’

He rubbed an unshaven cheek, wincing at Hurl's words. ‘Yeah. Well, that's the problem. That just makes this all the harder.’

‘What?’

‘She's dead,’ said Silk.

Storo nodded sourly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He means,’ continued Silk, ‘that there's been a coup tonight in the city. Rheena is surely dead. We're all alone.’

‘C'mon, a coup? That's ridiculous. The Claws would crush it.’ But Sunny, Hurl noticed, wasn't sneering. Holding his leg, he looked personally affronted by the news. She bent to that wound, tore the trousers for a better look.

‘Not if they're too busy elsewhere,’ said Storo.

‘Where?’ Hurl took hold of the quarrel shaft, held Sunny's eyes. Rell eased over to take hold of his shoulders. He gave a sharp nod, gasped, ‘Do it.’

Hurl leaned her weight on to the shaft, bore on to it until the head burst through the other side of the thigh. Sunny thrashed in Rell's grip, snarled through his teeth clamped in his permanent leer. She eased off. He lay limp, his face glistening in a cold sweat. She unrolled her kit and set to work.

‘Orlat and I had a chat,’ continued Storo. ‘From what he hinted at I got the idea that the Seti were rising, as was Tali, and others of the old kingdoms. An organized insurrection. Laseen's been bleeding the garrisons dry for years now to fuel those overseas wars of hers. There's hardly more than a division between here and Unta. And most of those probably turned.’

‘Turned to who?’ Hurl glanced to the Captain. He was looking away, over the river to the torches and golden lanterns gleaming over the domes of the city.

‘Did you recognize the name Orlat?’ he asked.

‘Sounded familiar.’ Everyone, Hurl noted, was watching the Captain now. Even Sunny, who'd come to.

‘Orlat Kepten. Was captain of the Spear long ago. I was his first mate.’

Kepten! Yes, Fat Kepten. How could she have not made the connection? But he'd been a captain in Urko's fleet. That meant… ‘You served with Urko?’

Looking embarrassed, Storo rubbed again at his jowls. ‘Yeah. There at the end. My father served much longer. He was one of the first Falarans to join up — even before the invasions.’

While Storo was speaking, Silk had taken the stern and now directed them to the north shore. Storo turned to him. ‘What's this?’

‘My arrangements,’ Silk answered. He studied the maze of docks and jetties cluttering the shore like a mess of snaggled teeth. They slid under one sagging dock and Silk grabbed hold of a timber and they waited, silent. Waves licked at the glistening slimed wood of the old posts. Rell cleaned his blades in the water then ran an oiled cloth over them and sheathed them. Once again, Hurl saw, the youth had escaped any injury. In all the years campaigning together she'd yet to see him cut. There was something unnatural about that. She turned to Jalor's wounds.

‘That's all right, Hurl. Help should be coming,’ Silk told her gently.

‘You're just full of arrangements this night, ain't ya?’ Sunny challenged, watching the mage through slit eyes. Silk answered with an enigmatic smile of his own — one that Hurl had seen turn many a girl's head.