About the Book

An epic new chapter in the tumultuous history of the Malazan Empire.

The return of the Crimson Guard could not have come at a worse time for an empire exhausted by warfare and weakened by betrayals and rivalries.

Into the seething cauldron of Quon Tali – the Malazan Empire’s heartland – they march, and with their return comes the memory of their vow: undying opposition to the Empire. But elements within the Guard’s élite, the Avowed, have set their sights on far greater power, while other, more ancient entities are rising up, intent on furthering their own arcane ends. And what of the swordsman called Traveller who, with his companion Ereko, seeks a confrontation from which none have ever returned?

As the Guard prepare to wage war, the Empress Laseen’s generals and mages grow impatient at what they perceive as her mismanagement of the Empire. Is she losing her grip on power or has she outwitted them all? Could she be using the uprisings to draw out and finally eliminate the last irksome survivors from the days of Kellanved, her illustrious predecessor?

About the Author

Ian Cameron Esslemont was born in Winnipeg, Canada, and currently lives in Alaska with his wife and three sons. He is a trained archaeologist, has travelled extensively in South East Asia and lived in Thailand and Japan. He is currently completing a PhD in English Literature. Night of Knives was his début novel and was set in the world of the Malaz, a world he co-created with his friend Steven Erikson.

To find out more about the world of Malaz, visit www.malazanempire.com

Also by Ian C. Esslemont

NIGHT OF KNIVES

RETURN OF THE
CRIMSON GUARD

A NOVEL OF THE MALAZAN
EMPIRE

Ian C. Esslemont

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.transworldbooks.co.uk

Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published in Great Britain in a limited edition 2008 by PS Publishing LLP
This edition published 2008 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Ian Cameron Esslemont 2008

Ian Cameron Esslemont has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409057635
ISBNs 9780593058091 (cased)
9780593058107 (tpb)

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

This novel is dedicated to the first Winnipeg gang of the Treherne Room and the second of Rick’s Place. For all those afternoons and evenings honing the trade.

With gratitude I acknowledge Peter Crowther, who made this work possible; John Jarrold, who extended a great deal of faith; and Simon Taylor, whose encouragement and welcome meant, and continue to mean, more than he knows.

Thanks also to Bill Hunter and Chris for their early readings.

Gerri, Conor, Ross, and Callum: you give it meaning.

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Map

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

Book I

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Book II

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Book III

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Epilogue

Glossary

About the Author

Also by Ian C. Esslemont

Copyright

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

IN UNTA
Imperial High Command

Unta Harbour Guard

Others in Unta

IN LI HENG
Malazan Army

Storo Matash’s Squad

Civilians in Li Heng

IN CAWN

ON THE SETI PLAINS

ON THE WICKAN FRONTIER
Malazan Army

Wickans

In the Pit

IN QUON TALI PROVINCE

THE CRIMSON GUARD
Surviving Named Avowed

First Company

Second Company

Third Company

Fourth Company

Among the First Induction (recruitment)

Among the Second Induction

Among the Third Induction

OF THE TALIAN LEAGUE

OTHERS

This, the first of wars, paroxysmed for time unmeasured. Ever Light thrust yet dissipated, and ever Night retreated yet smothered. Thus the two combatants locked in an ever-widening gyre of eternal creation and destruction. Countless champions of both Houses arose, scoured the face of creation in their potency, only to fall each in turn, their names now lost to memory.

Then, in what some named the ten thousandth turn of the spreading whorl of the two hosts, there came to the shimmering curtain edge of battle one unknown to either House, and he did castigate the combatants.

‘Who are you to speak thusly?’ demanded he who would come to be known as Draconus.

‘One who has moved upon the Void long enough to know this will never end.’

‘It is ordained,’ answered a champion of Light, Liossercal. ‘Ever must one rise, the other fall.’

Disdainful, the newcomer thrust the opponents apart. ‘Then agree that this be so and name it done!’

And so both Houses fell upon the stranger tearing him into countless fragments.

Thus was Shadow born and the first great sundering ended.

Myth Fragment
Compendium Primal, Mantle

PROLOGUE

The Elder Age,

Time unmeasured

THE ERUPTION HAD wounded the world. Denuth, a child of the Earth, was first to penetrate the curtains of drifting cinders and so come upon the crater. Steaming water the colour of slate pooled at the centre of a basin leagues across. A slope of naked jagged rock led down to the silent shore. All was still, layered in a snow of ash. Yet a stirring of movement caught his attention and he picked his way to the water’s edge to find an entity sembled in a shape akin to his own with two legs and arms, but slashed and gouged by ferocious wounds. Blood was a black crust upon the one and darkened the waters around him.

Gently, Denuth turned the being over only to start, amazed. ‘Liossercal! Father’s own first born! Who is it that set upon you?’

A savage smile of blunt canine tusks. ‘None. Best ask whom I set upon. Are there no others?’

‘None I saw.’

The smile crooked down to a feral scowl. ‘All consumed then. Taken by the blast.’

‘Blast?’ Denuth narrowed his gaze upon the alien power. Yes, alien – for who could possibly fathom the mind of one born with Light’s first eruption? ‘What exactly has occurred here?’

Wincing, Liossercal shrugged himself from Denuth’s support. He sat hunched, arms clasped tight about himself as if to hold his body together. Thick dark blood welled fresh from his deeper lacerations. ‘An experiment. An attempt. An assault. Call it what you will.’

‘An assault? Upon what? There was naught here but . . ’ Denuth’s voice died away into the stillness of the ash-choked water. ‘Mother Preserve us! An Azath!’ Glancing about, he took in the immense crater, attempted to grasp the scale of the calamity. It has pained us all! ‘You fool! Would you stop at nothing in your questing?’

The pale head rose, amber eyes hot. ‘I do as I choose.’

Denuth recoiled. Indeed. And here then was the quandary. Something must be done about these ancient powers before their antagonisms and limitless ambitions destroy all order once again. Draconus’s solution horrifies, yet well now could I almost understand such . . . exigencies. After all, was not eternal imprisonment preferable to such potential for destruction?

Liossercal struggled to his feet, stiff, hissing at his many wounds, and Denuth knew a terrible temptation. Never before had he heard an account of this entity so vulnerable, so weakened. Soletaken, Elient, what were such labels to this power who may have moved through Light before it knew Dark? Yet now he was obviously wounded almost unto expiration. Should he act now? Would ever such a chance come again to anyone?

As if following the chain of the Child of Earth’s thoughts, Liossercal smiled, upthrusting canines prominent. ‘Do not be tempted, Denuth. Draconus is a fool. His conclusions flawed. Rigidity is not the answer.’

‘And what is?’

A pained grimace, fingers gently probed a deep laceration high on one cheek. ‘I was exploring alternatives.’

‘Explore elsewhere.’

A flash of white rage, quelled. ‘Well taken, Child of Earth. He comes, does he not?’

‘He does. And he brings his answer with him.’

‘I had best go.’

‘Indeed.’

Liossercal threw his arms up, his outline blurring, sembling, but he gasped in mid-shift, roared his pain and collapsed to the shore. A dragon shape of silver and gold writhed over the brittle rocks before Denuth who hurriedly backed away. Boulders crashed into the lake as slashed wings laboured. Eventually, unsteady, the enormous bulk arose to snake heavily away. Its long tail hissed a cut through the steaming waters of the crater.

Denuth remained, motionless. Wavelets crossed the limpid water, lapped silently. The snow of cinders limned the dull black basalt of his shoulders and arms. Then steps crunched over the broken rock and he felt a biting cold darkness at his side, as of the emptiness that was said to abide between the stars. Keeping his face averted, Denuth bowed. ‘Consort of Dark and Suzerain of Night. Draconus. Greetings.’

‘Consort no longer,’ came a dry rasping voice. ‘And that suzerainty long defied. But I thank you just the same.’

Rigid, Denuth refused to turn to regard the ancient potent being, and the equally alarming darkness he carried at his side. How many had disappeared into that Void, and what horrifying shape would its final forging take? Such extreme measures yet revolted him.

‘So,’ Draconus breathed. ‘The Bastard of Light himself. And weakened. His essence will be a great addition.’

That which Denuth thought of as his soul shivered within him. ‘He is not for you.’

A cold regard. Denuth urged himself not to look.

After some time, ‘Is this a foretelling – from Her?’

‘My own small adeptness. I suspect he may one day find that which he seeks.’

‘And that is?’

‘That which we all seek. Union with the All.’

Time passed. Denuth sensed careful consideration within the entity at his side. He heard rough scales that were not of metal catching and scraping as armoured arms crossed. A slow thoughtful exhalation. ‘Nonetheless. I will pursue. After all, I offer my own version of union . . . Is that not so?’

Your perversion of it. But Denuth said nothing; he knew he walked a delicate line with this power that could take him should he wish. Only a reluctance to antagonize his parent, Mother to all who come from the Earth, stilled this ancient one’s hand. ‘Perhaps Anomandaris—’ Denuth began.

‘Speak not to me of that upstart,’ Draconus grated. ‘I will bring him to heel soon enough.’

And I hope to be nowhere near when that should come to pass . . .

The power stirred, arms uncrossed. ‘Very well, Child of the Earth. I leave you to your – ah, contemplations. A troubling manifestation of existence, this world. All is change and flux. Yet I find in it a strange attraction. Perhaps I shall remain a time here.’ Such a prospect made Denuth’s stone hands grind as they clenched.

Ultimately, after no further words from either, the soul-numbing cold night gathered, swirling, and Denuth once again found himself alone on the bleak shore. It occurred to him that peace would evade everyone so long as entities such as these strode the face of the world pursuing their ages-old feuds, enmities and uncurbed ambitions. Perhaps once the last has withdrawn to uninterrupted slumber – as so many have, or been slain, or interred – perhaps only then would accord come to those who may walk the lands in such a distant time.

Or perhaps not. Denuth was doubtful. If he had learned anything from observing these struggles it was that new generations arose to slavishly take up the prejudices and goals of the old. A sad premonition of the future. He sat on the shore and crossed his legs – a heap of rock no different from the tumbled broken wreckage surrounding him. This unending strife of all against all wearied him. Why must they contend so? Was it truly no more than pettiness and childish prickliness, as Kilmandaros suggests? He would consider what it might take to end these eternal cycles of violence. And he would consult with Mother. It would, he imagined, take some time to find an answer. Should there be any.

BOOK I

Diaspora’s End

CHAPTER I

‘The wise say that as vows are sworn, so are they reaped. I have found this to be true.’

Prince K’azz D’Avore
Founder of the Crimson Guard

The Weeping Plains, Bael Subcontinent
1165th year of Burn’s Sleep
11th year of Empress Laseen’s reign
99th year of the Crimson Guard’s Vow

ON THE EDGE of a tiled rooftop, a small tent heaved and swayed under the force of the battering wind. It was nothing more than an oilskin cape propped up by a stick, barely enough to keep off the worst of the pounding rain. Beneath it sat a youth squinting into the growing murk of storm and twilight. Occasionally he glimpsed the ruins of surrounding buildings wrecked by the siege and, if he looked hard enough, he could just make out high above the rearing silhouette of the Spur.

What, he wondered, was the point of having a watch if you couldn’t see a damned thing?

The Spur towered alone, hundreds of feet above the plains. Local legend had it an ancient power raised it when the world was young – perhaps the warlock, Shen, occupying it now. Kyle knew nothing of that. He knew only that the Guard had besieged the rock more than a year ago and still wasn’t anywhere near to taking it. What was more, he knew that from the fortress on its peak Shen could take on all the company’s mage corps and leave them cross-eyed and panting. He was powerful enough for that. And when a situation like that comes around, Stoop had told him, it’s time for us pike-pushers to stick our noses in.

Stoop – a saboteur, and old enough to know better. He was down in the cellar right now, wielding a pick in his one hand. And he wasn’t alone – with him worked the rest of the Ninth Blade alongside a few other men tapped by Sergeant Trench. All of them bashing away at the stone floor with hammers and sledges and picks.

The wind gusted rain into Kyle’s face and he shivered. To his mind the stupid thing was that they hadn’t told anyone about it. Don’t want anyone stealing our thunder, Stoop had said grinning like a fool. But then, they’d all grinned like fools when Stalker put the plan to Trench. They trusted his local knowledge being from this side of Seeker’s Deep, like Kyle himself. Stalker had been recruited a few years back during the Guard’s migration through this region. He knew the local dialects, and was familiar with local lore. That was to be expected from a scout, Kyle knew.

The Guard had bought him from a Nabrajan slave column to help guide them across the steppes. But he didn’t know these southern tongues. His people raided the Nabrajans more often than they talked to them.

Kyle pulled the front fold of the cloak tighter about himself. He wished he understood the Guard’s native tongue, Talian, better too. When Stoop, Trench and Stalker had sat with their heads together, he’d crept close enough to overhear their whispers. Their dialect was difficult to make out, though. He’d had to turn the words over and over before they began to make sense. It seemed Stalker had put together different legends: that of the ancient Ascendant who’d supposedly raised the Spur and started a golden age, and this current ‘Reign of Night’ with its ruins. Since then he and the others had been underground taking apart the walls and stone floor, Stoop no doubt muttering about his damned stolen thunder. Kyle whispered a short prayer to Father Wind, his people’s guiding spirit. If this worked he figured they were in for more thunder than they’d like.

Then there was the matter of these ‘Old Guard’ rivalries and jealousies. He couldn’t understand the first of it even though he’d been with the Guard for almost a year now. Guard lore had it his Ninth Blade was one of the storied, established a century before, and first commanded by a legendary figure named Skinner. Stoop put a lot of weight on such legends. He’d hopped from foot to foot in his eagerness to put one over the Guard’s mage corps and its covert Veils.

The rain fell hard now, laced by hail. Above, the clouds in the darkening sky tumbled and roiled, but something caught Kyle’s eye – movement. Dim shapes ducked through the ceiling of clouds. Winged fiends summoned by Shen on the Spur above. Lightning twisted actinic-bright about them, but they circled in a lazy descent. Kyle peered up as they glided overhead, wings extended and eyes blazing. He prayed to Wind for them to pass on.

Then, as if some invisible blade had eviscerated it, the leading creature burst open from chin to groin. It dissolved into a cloud of inky smoke and its companions shrieked their alarm. As one they bent their wings and turned towards the source of the attack. Kyle muttered another prayer, this one of thanks. Cowl must be on the roster tonight – only the company’s premier mage could have launched so strong an assault.

Despite the battle overhead, Kyle yawned and stretched. His wet clothes stuck to his skin and made him shiver. A year ago such a demonstration would have sent him scrambling for cover. It was the worst of his people’s stories come to life: fiends in the night, men wielding the powers of a shaman but turned to evil, warlocks. Then, he had cringed beneath broken roofs. Now, after so many months of sorcerous duelling the horror of these exchanges had completely worn away. For half a bell the fireworks kept up – fireworks – something else Kyle hadn’t encountered until his conscription into the Guard. Now, as though it was there for his entertainment, he watched a green and pink nimbus wavering atop a building in the merchants’ district. The fiends swooped over it, their calls harsh, almost taunting, as they attacked. One by one they disappeared – destroyed, banished or returned of their own accord to the dark sky. Then there was nothing but the hissing rain and the constant low grumble of thunder that made Kyle drowsy.

Footsteps from the tower at the corner of the roof brought him around. Stalker had come up the stairs. His conical helmet made him look taller, elegant even, with the braided silk cord that wrapped it. No cloak this night – instead he wore the Guard’s surcoat of dark crimson over a boiled and studded leather hauberk, and his usual knee-high leather moccasins. The man squinted then sniffed at the rain. Beneath his blond moustache his mouth twisted into a lazy half-smile. Stalker’s smiles always made Kyle uneasy. Perhaps it was because the man’s mouth seemed unaccustomed to them, and his bright hazel eyes never shared them.

‘All right,’ he announced from the shelter of the stairwell. ‘We’re set. Everyone’s downstairs.’

Kyle let the tented cape fall off his head and clambered over the roof’s broken tiles and dark gaps. Stalker had already started down the circular stairway, so Kyle followed. They were halfway down before it occurred to him that when Stalker had smiled, he’d been squinting up at the Spur.

The cellar beneath was no more than a vault-roofed grotto. Armed and armoured men stood shoulder to shoulder. They numbered about thirty. Kyle recognized fewer than half. Steam rose from some, mixing with the sooty smoke of torches and lanterns. The haze made Kyle’s eyes water. He rubbed them with the back of his hand and gave a deep cough.

A hole had been smashed through the smoothly set blocks of the floor and through it Kyle saw steps leading down. A drop ran coldly from his hair down his neck and he shivered. Everyone seemed to be waiting. He shifted his wet feet and coughed into his hand. Close by a massive broad-shouldered man was speaking in low tones with Sergeant Trench. Now he turned Kyle’s way. With a catch of breath, Kyle recognized the flattened nose, the heavy mouth, the deeply set grey-blue eyes. Lieutenant Greymane. Not one of the true elite of the Guard himself, but the nearest thing to it. The man waved a gauntleted hand to the pit and a spidery fellow in coarse brown robes with wild, kinky black hair led the way down. Smoky, that was his name, Kyle remembered. A mage, an original Avowed – one of the surviving twenty or so men and women in this company who had sworn the Vow of eternal loyalty to the founder of this mercenary company, K’azz D’Avore.

The men filed down. Greymane stepped in followed by Sergeant Trench, Stoop, Meek, Harman, Grere, Pilgrim, Whitey, Ambrose and others Kyle didn’t know. He was about to join the line when Stalker touched his arm.

‘You and I – we’re the rear guard.’

‘Great.’

Of course, Kyle reflected, as the Ninth’s scouts, the rear was where they ought to be given what lay ahead. They’d been watching the fireworks for too long now and seen the full mage corps of the company scrambling on the defensive. Kyle was happy to leave that confrontation to the heavies up front.

The stairs ended at a long corridor flooded with a foot of stagnant water. Rivulets squirmed down the worked-stone walls. Rats squealed and panicked in the water, and the men cursed and kicked at them. From what Kyle could tell in the gloom, the corridor appeared to be leading them straight to the Spur. He imagined the file of dark figures an assembly of ghosts – phantoms sloshing wearily to a rendezvous with fate.

His thoughts turned to his own youthful night raids. Brothers, sisters and friends banding together against the neighbouring clan’s young warriors. Prize-stealing mostly, a test of adulthood, and, he could admit now, there had been little else to do. The Nabrajans had always been encroaching upon his people’s lands. Settlements no more than collections of homesteads, but growing. His last raid ended when he and his brothers and sisters encountered something they had no words for: a garrison.

The column stopped abruptly and Kyle ran into the compact, bald-headed man at his front. This man turned and flashed a quick smile. His teeth were uneven but bright in the dark. ‘Ogilvy’s the name.’ His voice was so hoarse as to be almost inaudible. ‘The Thirty-Second.’

‘Kyle. The Ninth.’

Ogilvy nodded, glanced to Stalker, nodded again. ‘We’ll have the spook this time. Ol’ Grey’s gonna get Cowl’s goat.’

Cowl. Besides being the company’s most feared mage, the Avowed was also second in command under Shimmer and the leader of the Veils, killers of a hardened kind Kyle couldn’t have imagined a year before. He had seen those two commanders only from a distance and hoped to keep it that way.

Stalker frowned his scepticism. ‘This Greymane better be as good as everyone says.’

Ogilvy chuckled and his eyes lit with a hidden joke. ‘A price on his head offered by the Korelans and the Malazans too. Renegade to both, he is. They call him Stonewielder. I hear he’s worth a barrelful of black pearls.’

‘Why?’ Kyle asked.

Ogilvy shrugged his beefy shoulders. ‘Betrayed ’em both, didn’t he? Hope to find out exactly how one of these days, hey?’ He winked to Kyle. ‘You two are locals, ain’t ya?’

Kyle nodded. Stalker didn’t. He didn’t move at all.

Ogilvy rubbed a hand over the scars marbling his bald scalp. ‘Well, I’ve been with the Guard some ten years now. Signed on in Genabackis.’

Kyle had heard much of that contract. It was the company’s last major one, ending years ago when the Malazan offensive fell to pieces. All the old hands grumbled that the Malazan Empire just wasn’t what it used to be. And while the veterans were close-mouthed about their and the Guard’s past, Kyle gathered they often opposed these Malazans.

‘This contract’s been a damned strange one,’ Ogilvy continued. ‘We’re just keeping our heads down, hey? While the mage corps practise blowing smoke outta their arses. Not the Guard’s style.’ He glanced significantly at them. ‘Been recruiting to bust a gut, too.’

The column started moving again and Ogilvy sloshed noisily away.

‘What was that about?’ Kyle asked Stalker as they walked.

‘I don’t know. This Ogilvy has been with the Guard for a decade and even he’s in the dark. I’ve been doing a lot of listening. This company seems divided against itself – the old against the new.’

The tall lean scout clasped Kyle’s arm in a grip sharp as the bite of a hound. They stopped, and the silence seemed to ring in Kyle’s ears. ‘But I’ll tell you this,’ he said, leaning close, the shadows swallowing his face, ‘there are those in this Crimson Guard who have wandered the land a very long time indeed. They have amassed power and knowledge. And I don’t believe they intend to let it go. It’s an old story – one I had hoped to have left behind.’

He released Kyle’s arm and walked on leaving him alone in the dark and silence of the tunnel. Kyle stood there wondering what to make of all that until the rats became bold and tried to climb his legs.

He found Stalker at a twisted iron gate that must have once spanned the corridor. He was bent low, inspecting it, a tiny nub of candle cupped in one hand.

‘What is it?’ Kyle whispered.

‘A wreck. But more important than what is when. This is recent. The iron is still warm from its mangling. Did you hear anything?’

‘I thought maybe something . . . earlier.’

‘Yes. As did I.’ He squinted ahead to a dim golden lantern’s glow where the column’s rear was slowly disappearing. He squeezed a small leather pouch at his neck and rubbed it. A habit Kyle had noticed before. ‘I have heard talk of this Greymane. They say he’s much more than he seems . . .’

Kyle studied the wrenched and bowed frame. The bars were fully half as thick around as his wrist. Was the northerner suggesting that somehow Greymane had thrust it aside? He snorted. Ridiculous!

Stalker’s eyes, glowing hazel in the flame, shifted to him. ‘Don’t be so quick to judge. I’ve fought many things and seen a lot I still do not believe.’

Kyle wanted to ask about all these other battles but the man appeared troubled. He glanced to Kyle twice, his eyes touched by worry as if he regretted speaking his mind.

In the light of Stalker’s candle Kyle could make out a short set of steps rising beyond the gate. It glittered darkly – black basalt, the rock of the Spur. The steps had been worn almost to bowls at their centre. He straightened; his hand seemed to find the grip of his tulwar on its own. Stalker shook out the candle and after a moment Kyle could discern the glow of lantern light ahead.

They met up with Ogilvy who gestured up and gave a whistle of awe. The tunnel opened to a circular chamber cut from the same rock as the steps. More black basalt, the very root-rock of the Spur. The dimensions of the chamber bothered Kyle until he realized it was the base of a hollow circular stairway. Torches flickered where the stairs began, rising to spiral tightly around the inside of the chamber’s wall. Squinting up, he saw the column slowly ascending, two men abreast, Smoky and Greymane leading. He stepped out into the centre and looked straight up. Beyond the men, from high above, dark-blue light cascaded down along with a fine mist of rain. The moisture kissed his upturned face. A flash of lightning illuminated a tiny coin-sized disc at the very top of the hollowed-out column of rock. Dizzy and sickened, Kyle leant against one slick, cold wall. Far away the wind howled like a chained dog, punctuated by the occasional drum-roll of thunder.

Without a word, Stalker stepped to the stairs, a hand on the grip of his longsword. His leather moccasins were soundless against the rounded stone ledges. Ogilvy slapped Kyle on his back. ‘C’mon, lad. Just a short hike before the night’s done, hey?’ and he chuckled.

After the twentieth full revolution of the stairs, Kyle studied curving symbols gouged unevenly into the wall at shoulder height. They were part of a running panel that climbed with the stairs. Portions of it showed through where the moss and cobwebs had been brushed aside. It seemed to tell a story but Kyle had never been taught his symbols. He recognized one only: the curling spiral of Wind. His people’s totem.

After a time his legs became numb, his breath short. What would be there waiting for them? And more importantly, what did Smoky and Greymane plan to do about it? Just ahead, Ogilvy grunted and exhaled noisily through his flattened nose. The veteran maintained an even pace despite a full mail coif, shirt and skirting that hung rustling and hissing with each step. Kyle’s armour, what cast-offs the guard could spare, chafed his neck raw and tore the flesh of his shoulders. His outfit consisted of an oversized hauberk of layered and lacquered horn and bone stripping over quilted undershirts, sleeves of soft leather sewn with steel rings – many of these missing – studded skirting over leather leggings, gloves backed with mail, and a naked iron helmet with a nose guard that was so oversized it nearly rested on his shoulders. Kyle had adjusted its fit by wrapping a rag underneath. The combined weight made the climb torture. Yet one morning a year ago when Stoop had dumped the pieces in his lap he had felt like the richest man in all Bael lands. Not even their tribe’s war-leader could have boasted such a collection. Now he felt like the company’s beggar fool.

He concentrated on his footing, tried to grimace down the flaring pain of his thighs, chafed shoulders and his blazing lungs. Back among his brothers and cousins he’d been counted one of the strongest runners, able to jog from sun’s rise to sun’s set. There was no way he’d let this old veteran walk him into the ground.

A shout from above and Kyle stopped. Distant blows sounded together with shouts of alarm. Weapons hissed from sheaths. He leaned out to peer up the inner circular gap but couldn’t see what was going on. He turned to speak to Ogilvy but the veteran silenced him with a raised hand. The man’s eyes glistened in the dark and he held his blade high. Gone was the joking, bantering mask and in its place was set a cold poised killer, the smiling mouth now tight in a feral grin. It was a chilling transformation.

The column moved again, steel brushing against stone in jerking fits and starts. Three circuits of the stairs brought Kyle to a shallow alcove recessed into the wall. At its base lay the broken remains of an armoured corpse, ages dead. Its desiccated flesh had cured to a leathery dark brown. Kyle stared until Ogilvy pushed him on.

‘What in Wind’s name was that?’ he asked, hushed.

Ogilvy was about to shrug but stopped himself and instead spat out over the open edge. ‘A guardian. Revenant. I’ve heard of ’em.’

Kyle was startled to see that he’d unsheathed his tulwar. He didn’t remember doing that. ‘Was it . . . dead?’

Ogilvy gave him a long measuring stare. ‘It is now. So be quiet, and keep your eyes open. There’ll be trouble soon.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Like fish in a barrel.’ He jerked his head to the rear. ‘Tripped the alarm, didn’t we? He’ll be here, or should be. Stay between me and the wall, hey?’

That sounded fine to Kyle and he was about to ask why when a burst of light flashed above blinding him followed by a report that shook the steps. Ogilvy snatched at the ringed leather of his sleeve, pulling him back from the open lip of the stairs. Wind sucked at him as something large rushed past down the central emptiness. A scream broke the silence following the report. Kyle’s vision returned in time for him to see a Guardsman plummet by down into darkness – the head and neck a bloody ruin. At his side, Ogilvy fumed.

‘He’s pullin’ us off one by one! Where’s Grey?’

Kyle squinted up the hollow column; he could see better now that they were nearly at the top where moonlight and lightning flashes streamed down with the misted rain. A dark shape hovered. The warlock, Shen. Guardsmen swung torches and swords at him. He stood on nothing, erect, wrapped in shifting shadows. His hands were large pale claws. One of those claws reached out for another man but was swatted aside. Shen snarled and gestured. A cerulean flash blazed. A Guardsman crumpled as if gut-stabbed; he tottered outward, fell like a statue rushing past so close his boots almost struck Kyle’s upturned face.

Guardsmen howled their rage. Thrown weapons and crossbow bolts glanced from the slim erect figure. He laughed. His gaze shifted to the man next in line. Kyle leaned out as far as he dared, howled his own impotent rage and fear.

‘Hood drag you down, you piece of inhuman shit!’ Ogilvy bellowed, shaking his fist.

Above, Smoky leaned out to Shen, his hands open, palms out at stomach level. Guardsmen lining the curve of the stairs spun away, raised arms across their faces.

‘Heads up!’ Ogilvy snapped and pulled Kyle back by his hauberk.

Flames exploded in the hollow tube of the circular staircase. They churned at Kyle like liquid metal. He gulped heated air and covered his face. A kiln thrust itself at him. Flames yammered at his ears, scalded the back of his hands. Then, like a burst of wind, popping his ears, the flames snapped away leaving him gasping for breath. Through the smoke and stink of burnt hair and singed leather he heard Ogilvy croak, ‘Togg’s teeth, Smoky. Take it down a notch.’

They peered up, searched the smoke for some sign of the warlock. Churning, spinning, the clouds gathered as if drawn by a sucking wind and disappeared leaving an apparently unhurt Shen hovering in the emptiness. The warlock raised his amber gaze to Smoky, reached out a pale clawed hand. Kyle yearned to be up there, to aid Smoky, the only mage accompanying their party. It was clear to him now that they were hopelessly out-classed.

The arm stretched for Smoky. The warlock curled his pale fingers, beckoning. The men close enough swung but to no effect. Then the hulking shape of Greymane appeared, stepping forward from the shadows and he thrust a wide blade straight out. The two-handed sword impaled Shen who gaped, astonished. The warlock’s mouth stretched open and he let go an ear-tearing shriek and grasped the sword with both hands. He lurched himself backwards off the blade. Before Greymane could thrust again the warlock shot straight up through the opening.

At Kyle’s side, Ogilvy scratched his chin and peered speculatively to the top. ‘Well, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?’ he said with a wink.

Kyle stared, wordless. He shook his head, horrified and relieved. Then he started, remembering. ‘Stalker!’ Searching the men, Kyle spotted him close to Greymane. They locked gazes then Stalker, his pale eyes bright against the darkness of his face, looked away.

Ogilvy sniffed and sheathed his sword. ‘Asked me to keep an eye on you, he did. Back down at the bottom.’

‘I don’t need anyone to keep an eye on me.’

‘Then there’s one thing you’ll have to learn if you want to stay live in this business,’ Ogilvy hawked and spat into the pit. ‘And that’s accepting help when it’s offered ’cause it won’t be too often.’

The column moved again and Ogilvy started up the stairs.

They exited from the corner tower of a rectangular walled court. The rain lashed sideways, driven as harshly as sand in a windstorm. The men huddled in groups wherever cover offered. Kyle fought to pull on his leather cape and ran to the waist-high ledge of an overflowing pond and pressed himself into its slim protection. Cloud-cover smothered the fortress like fog. The wind roared so loud together with the discharge of thunder that men side by side had to shout into each other’s ears to be heard. By the almost constant discharge of lightning, Kyle saw that the structure was less a fortress and more of a walled private dwelling. The central courtyard, the walls, the benches, the buildings, were all made from the living black basalt of the Spur. He was astounded by the amount of work that must have gone into the carving.

Only Greymane stood upright, his thick trunk-like legs apart and long grey hair whipping about from under his helmet. He motioned with his gauntleted hands, dividing the men into parties. Kyle wondered what he had done with the two-handed sword he’d used against Shen, for the renegade carried no sheath large enough for it – only a slim longsword now hung at his belt.

Smoky suddenly appeared skittering toward Kyle like a storm-driven crow. His soaked robes clung to his skinny frame. His black hair, slicked by the rain, gave his narrow face the frenzied look of a half-drowned rat.

‘You the scout, Kyle?’ the mage yelled, his voice hoarse.

Kyle nodded.

A shudder took the mage and he scowled miserably, drew his soaked robes tighter about his neck. The rain ran in rivulets down his face. He pointed to four men near Kyle. These men nodded their acknowledgement. Of them, Kyle knew only one: Geddin, a hulking swordsman Kyle was relieved to have with him.

Smoky leaned his mouth close to Kyle’s ear. Even in the rain, soaked through to the bone, the smell of wood smoke and hot metal still unaccountably wafted from the man. He pointed a bony finger to a wall fronted by a long colonnade entirely carved of the dark basalt: the roof, pillars and dark portals that opened to rooms within. ‘We check out these rooms. You got point.’

Smoky caught Kyle’s reaction to that announcement and he laughed. The laugh transformed into a racking cough.

Kyle drew his tulwar and searched for intervening cover. Point. Great.

‘Wait.’ Smoky grasped Kyle’s weapon hand.

Kyle almost yanked free, but he remembered Ogilvy’s words and stopped himself. The mage frowned as he studied the blade. Kyle waited, unsure. Now what was the matter? The rain beat upon his shoulders. The mage’s grip was uncomfortably hot. Smoky turned to peer to where Greymane stood with his group. Kyle could see nothing more than a smear of shapes through the slanting curtains of rain. Smoky raised Kyle’s sword and arm, his brows rising in an unspoken question. Kyle squinted but could make out nothing of Greymane’s face or gestures. The mage grunted, evidently seeing some answer and fished a slim steel needle from his robes. He began scratching at the curved blade. ‘Anything you want? Your name? Oponn’s favour? Fire, maybe?’

Thinking of his own totem, Kyle answered, ‘Wind.’

The needle stopped moving. Rain pattered like sling missiles against Kyle’s shoulders. Smoky looked up, his eyes slitted, searching Kyle’s face, and then he flashed a conspiratorial grin. ‘Saw the histories on the way up too, aye? Good choice.’ He etched the spiral of Wind into the blade. Incredibly, the tempered iron melted like wax under Smoky’s firm pressure. The sword’s grip heated in Kyle’s hand. Rain hissed, misting from the blade. The mage released him. What had that been all about? What of Wind? What was it his father used to say . . . ‘All are at the mercy of the wind’?

Kyle looked up to see Smoky, impatient, wave him ahead.

The rooms hollowed out of solid basalt were empty. Kyle kicked aside rotting leaves and the remains of crumbled wood furniture. He felt disappointment but also, ashamedly, relief as well. He felt exposed, helpless. What could he do against this warlock? His stomach was a tight acid knot and his limbs shook with uncoiled tension.

Ahead, the wind moaning and a mist of rain betrayed an opening through to the outside. He entered a three-walled room facing out over the edge of the Spur. The lashing wind yanked at him and he steadied himself in the portal. The room held a large wood and rope cage slung beneath a timber boom that appeared able to be swung out over the gulf. Rope led up from the cage to a recess in the roof then descended again at the room’s rear where it circled a fat winch barrel as tall as a man.

Smoky peered in over Kyle’s shoulder. He patted his back. ‘Our way down.’

‘Not in this wind,’ grumbled one of the men behind Smoky. ‘We’ll be smashed to pieces.’

Scowling, Smoky turned on the Guardsman – perhaps the only one in the company shorter than him. ‘Always with a complaint, hey, Junior?’

A concussion shook the stone beneath their feet, cutting off any further talk. Distant muted reports of rock cracking made Kyle’s teeth ache. Smoky recovered his balance, cackled. ‘Ol’ Grey’s fished him out!’

A second bone-rattling explosion kicked at the rock. Kyle swore he felt the entire Spur sway. He steadied himself. The hemp and wood cage rocked, creaking and thumping in its housings. Smoky’s grin fell and he wiped water from his face. ‘I think.’

‘Let’s go back,’ suggested another Guardsman, one Kyle couldn’t name. He’d used the company’s native tongue, Talian. ‘The Brethren are worried.’

Pulling at his sodden robes, Smoky grunted his assent. Kyle eyed this unknown Guardsman; brethren, the man had said. He’d heard the word used before. Something to do with the elite of the Guard, the originals, the Avowed. Or perhaps another word for them, used only among themselves? Kyle continued to study the fellow sidelong: battered scale hauberk, a large shield at his back, sheathed longsword. He could very well be of the Avowed himself – they wore no torcs or rank insignias. You couldn’t tell them from any other Guardsman. Stoop had explained it was deliberate: fear, the old fellow had said. No one knows who they’re facing. Makes ’em think twice, that does.

When they returned to the inner chambers, Guardsmen filled the rooms. It appeared to be a pre-arranged rallying point. Through the arched gaps between stone pillars Kyle watched the mercenaries converging on the complex of rooms. Men slipped, fumbling on the rain-slick polished stone. He turned to the short mercenary beside him. ‘What’s going on, Junior?’

Beneath the lip of his sodden cloth-wrapped helmet, the man’s eyes flicked to Kyle, wide with outrage. ‘The name’s not Junior,’ he forced through clenched teeth.

Kyle cursed his stupidity and these odd foreign names. ‘Sorry. Smoky called you that.’

‘Smoky can call anyone whatever he damned well pleases. You better show more respect . . .’

‘Sorry, I—’

Someone yanked on Kyle’s hauberk; he spun to find Stoop. The old sapper flashed him a wink, said, ‘Let’s not bother friend Boll here with our questions. He’s not the helpful type.’

Boll’s lips stretched even tighter into a straight hound’s smile. Inclining his helmet to Stoop, he pushed himself from the wall and edged his way through the crowd of Guardsmen.

‘What’s going on?’ Kyle whispered.

‘Not too sure right now,’ the old veteran admitted candidly. ‘Have to wait to find out. In this business that’s how it is most of the time, you know.’

And just what business is that? Kyle almost asked, but the men all suddenly stood to attention, weapons ready. Kyle peered about, confused. What was going on? Why was he always the last to know? It seemed to him that they straightened in unison like puppets on one string. It was as if the veteran Guardsmen shared a silent language or instinct that he lacked. Countless times he’d been sitting in a room watching a card game, or dozing in a barracks, only to see the men snap alert as if catching a drum’s sounding. At such times he and the other recent recruits were always the last ready, always bringing up the rear.

This time Kyle spotted everyone’s centre of attention as the open portal of the main structure on the far side of the roof garden. The men assembled along the colonnade, levelled cocked crossbows at that