Ian Esslemont - Return of the Crimson Guard

‘What're we goin’ to do?’ Sunny said, ‘Pull ourselves up through a privy hole and say, Hello!’

‘A reverse birth for you, eh, Sunny?’ called Shaky — from the rear.

Sunny just smiled, his teeth bright in the gloom.

‘For your information, yes, something just like that,’ said Silk from up front with Rell.

‘You just had to ask,’ Hurl whispered to Sunny.

‘Quiet.’ This from the Captain behind.

Stooped, wincing at the stench, they sloshed along, slipping and skidding on the centuries’ accumulation of the city's ruling elite's excrement. How fitting! Hurl imagined floors above, in a dark alcove, some magistrate extending his withered arse out over her head and wrinkling up his monkey face in effort to deposit… suddenly dizzy she almost heaved and had to lean against the slimy wall. Storo steadied her. ‘You OK?’

‘I can't do this.’

‘Just a bit further. Bear down on it.’

‘Please! Cap'n!’

‘Sorry.’

Ahead, a yell of mingled anger and disgust from Sunny echoed through the tunnel. They groped into a broad underground chamber, dome-roofed, lit by the lantern carried by Silk. Sunny stood knee deep in the pool of filth filling its floor. Everyone else kept to the shallows at its edges. ‘Poliel's rotting tits!’ he snarled. ‘I can't believe the mage led us to this!’ He pointed a long-knife to the far side. There, the flow of excrement dribbled from a sculpture twice Hurl's height — that of a closed snouted dog's maw. As Hurl's vision adjusted she could make out more detail: long pointed ears, slanted canine eyes. An entire carved hound's head, down here! In the dark! What could be the reason for that?

But the nose was too long, the head too narrow. All of a sudden she recognized it: a jackal. Ryllandaras. The White Jackal of Winter. Quon's Curse. The man-jackal First Hero who rampaged for centuries across these central plains rendering them all but impassable but for the intercession of the tribes who worshipped him — the Old Seti.

Silk pushed his way forward through the sluggish wash until he touched the gigantic head. He turned to them. ‘Who recognizes this?’

‘Ryllandaras,’ Hurl supplied.

He nodded, pleased. ‘Yes, I thought you might know, Hurl. Though none of you has ever seen him. Gone from these plains for near a century now. Great was the hatred of this city for their ancient enemy, the man-jackal of the grasslands. As you can see.’

‘We all know the stories,’ Sunny sneered. ‘Until the emperor, or Dancer, slew him. Get on with it.’

‘That's one version of things… in any case, this is an entrance. A very old one. One dating back far before the current Empire when Heng was an independent city state, and the third most powerful one on the continent. Back then Ryllandaras and the Seti tribes were the eternal enemy, ever washing up against its walls…’

The mage was silent for a time, regarding the faeces-smeared titanic statue. He shook his head as if reliving old memories. Hurl shot a questioning look to Storo but the Captain frowned a negative. Not now.

Silk edged himself up a forelimb, leaned forward up beside the head and whispered something into one tall stone ear. One word. After a moment the stones groaned, grated, clots of muck and excrement showered down. The pointed teeth scraped as they parted.

The maw reared open.

‘Hood's balls!’ said Shaky. ‘I ain't goin’ in there!’

‘Then wait out here alone in the dark,’ Storo suggested.

Rell had already ducked within. He returned, gesturing them on.

‘There is a raised walk.’

Along the walkway Hurl manoeuvred next to Silk. ‘You've shown too much of your hand,’ she said in an undertone.

‘This night it's all or nothing.’

‘You were a city mage back then, weren't you? When Kellanved came.’ The man was silent for a time. Perhaps he thought it too obvious for comment. Well, if the piece won't give in one place, try another, as her old Da used to say. ‘What is this place?’

‘A final bolt-hole retreat. It leads from the City Temple.’

‘But it wasn't used.’

‘No. She wouldn't flee. We… everyone, should've known she'd never abandon her city.’

The hairs on the back of Hurl's neck and arms prickled. Her. Shalmanat. Protectress of Li Heng for millennia. Some said since its first founding as a caravan crossroads. Slain by Kellanved — or Dancer, to be precise. Her gaze slid sideways to the slim mage with his long blond hair and tattered silks — always an object of mockery and scorn among the troops. Just who was he? And why was he here, in Li Heng, at this moment in time? ‘This is no accident,’ she said as she thought it, then damned the short connection between her thoughts and her mouth. He said nothing. ‘You, finding yourself here for this coup I mean. You knew.’

He flashed his most winning smile, the warm yet teasingly distant, slightly impish expression that captured camp followers and serving girls. It only raised Hurl's ire. ‘Don't try that on me. You knew.’

‘I only knew something was coming, Hurl. That's all. A change in the day's light.’

And that had brought him here? She considered the hidden implications of that claim. Bluster? Bluff? Or what if it was true? What influence could he have had on their, admittedly unusual, posting? Did he actually mean to imply that he…

Hurl stopped walking. Silk carried on. The Captain urged her forward with one big hand at her back. He'd brought her in. That is, she remembered him asking what she thought of Storo and the next thing she knew she was somehow transferred to this squad. He'd even brought in Rell. She remembered him taking the Captain to see this swordsman he'd come across in the Malyntaeas gaol. Shortly after that new recruit Rell was in the squad. By all the Gods above and below — had Silk somehow been recruiting ? All with an eye to this evening, this eventuality? No. That was too outrageous. Just who was he?

The stone-flagged walkway ended at a locked iron door that Silk opened, and that in turn led to a hall and a stone circular stairway. He stopped them here then pushed back his hair and tied it with a faded strip of silk. ‘Ready yourselves,’ he whispered. The door above opens on to the City Temple. There's no way of knowing who's within, or how many.’ He looked to Storo, who cleared his throat.

‘Right. So, saboteurs — put away the crossbows.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Shaky. ‘From my dead hands maybe.’

Storo eyed him. ‘Don't tempt me… Crossbows away. Each of you ready a satchel of sharpers and smokers and such — all we've got. This is gonna be room to room. Me ‘n’ Jalor will be up front. OK? OK.’

Shaky and Hurl pillaged Sunny's hoard even as he squirmed and snarled and tried to snatch it all back. Storo unslung his two-handed cutlass while Jalor tightened the strap of his domed helmet then drew his long-knives. Rell unsheathed each of his two odd slim longswords, single-edged, slightly curved, and then threw the sheaths away into the dark. That gesture dried Hurl's mouth.

As they climbed the stairs, Silk leading, Hurl hooked the crossbow on her belt and used her foot to cock it, then left it hanging from its shoulder-strap. They got to the door, or what Silk indicated was the door: it looked like just another length of wall to Hurl. Using battle signs Storo ordered an initial charge followed by a halt during which he and the heavies would defend while the saboteurs cleared the room. Everyone signed their understanding.

Silk did something there at the wall and a door appeared. He stepped through then aside. Storo, Rell and Jalor followed in as silently as they could but for the soft jangling of armour. Hurl came in next. She blinked in the brightness. Squinting, one hand holding a sharper shading her eyes, she saw an empty room.