Return of the Crimson Guard

Over the next week Kyle joined some forty male and female recruits being forcefully dunked in the muddy water of one of the broader channels of the River Thin's delta. Veteran Guardsmen enforced the lessons and swung truncheons to quiet all rebellion. Kyle sometimes saw Stoop sitting on the shore, smoking his pipe and shouting his encouragement.

From the first day of practice Kyle witnessed another duty of the Guardsmen keeping a close eye upon them when a shout went up and crossbow bolts hissed into the dark water. Immediately, the surface foamed and a great long beast thrashed and writhed, snapping its jaws and lashing its scaled tail. All the swimmers flailed for the shore. After the beast sank below the surface those same soldiers used truncheons to beat the recruits back into the water. Three youths refused entirely, were beaten unconscious and dragged away.

For his part, Kyle decided not to go meekly. When a Guardsman came to force him into the muddy channel he surprised her, a female veteran from Genabackis named Jaris. Together they tumbled down the slick mud slope into the water. From the shore and the shallows the mercenaries laughed and hooted while Kyle and Jaris thrashed in the murky water. He was lucky and managed to get behind her, hook his elbow under her chin, and he thought he might just force her to take his place as a swimmer. While he strained to push her head down below the water, something sharp and cold pricked his crotch. He jerked, strained to climb higher on his toes.

That's right, boy, ‘laughed Jaris. There's another biter in the water and it's after your little fish.’ The point pricked Kyle's crotch again. ‘What'll it be? You want to get bit?’

Kyle released her and she backed away through the waist-deep water. She raised a particularly wicked-looking dagger. ‘Smart choice. And a stupid move, lad. There's others who would've knifed you just for gettin’ them wet.’

Eventually, Kyle was selected as part of a troop and was given floats of tarred inflated skins to hang on to and paddle around for hours at a time in the river. Guardsmen kept watch on shore and in the tall grasses of the marsh.

The second role of the many Guards Kyle discovered on the eighth day when shouts went up from the shore of a mud island out in the channel and mercenaries came running from all around. They splashed through the murky shallows, dived into the tall stands of grasses. Kyle and the other swimmers stopped to watch.

A boy in a ragged tunic appeared, flushed from the grasses and cattails. He ran down the clay shore of the channel island, barefoot, wild-eyed. A Guardsman jumped from the cover of the grasses and tackled the youth into the water. Both disappeared beneath the brown surface. Kyle swam for them as fast as he could.

The mercenary surfaced, dragged a limp shape to the shore. Kyle arrived to see the thick red of heart's blood smearing the mud and the youth's chest. The Guardsman was the short veteran, Boll, whom Stoop had warned him to stay clear of. Despite this, Kyle charged in sloshing through the shallow water. He raised the boy's head — a bare youth — and dead.

‘What did you have to kill him for?’

The veteran ignored Kyle, began cleaning and re-oiling his knife blade.

‘He's just a kid. Why did you?’

‘Shut up. Orders. No spying allowed.’

‘Spying?’ Kyle couldn't believe what he was hearing. ‘Spying?

Maybe he was just watching. Maybe he was just curious. Who wouldn't be?’

‘You watch your mouth. I don't play nice like that Genabackan cow, Jaris.’

Kyle almost jumped the squat knifeman — from some place called Ehrlitan, he'd heard — but Boll still held his blade while Kyle held only his ridiculous goatskin bladder. He raised the bladder. ‘You and this thing are a lot alike, Boll. You're both puffed up.’ Kyle pried at a tarred seam of the bladder until the air farted out in a stream. ‘And you both make a lot of loud noise.’

Boll slapped the bladder from Kyle's hands. ‘Don't ride me. This ain't a game.’

Other Guardsmen arrived then and waved Kyle away. He went to find a replacement bladder. The mercenaries dragged the body into the thick stands of marsh grasses.

The next week Kyle was kicked awake in the middle of the night. He squinted into the blackness of a moonless night barely able to make out someone standing over him.

‘Get up. Assemble at the beach. Double-time.’

It was Trench, his sergeant. ‘Aye, aye.’

He collected his armour and equipment by the dim glow of a fire's embers then stumbled down to the beach to find a mixture of recruits and veteran Guardsmen assembled in knots. Trench, wearing only pantaloons and a vest of leather, shook all of his equipment from his hands.

‘Won't be needing that.’

Trench moved on to the other recruits. Stalker appeared at Kyle's side, knelt with him to sort through his gear.

‘Take the knife,’ he whispered. ‘Keep it at your neck.’ He examined Kyle's mishmash of armour. ‘Wear the leather alone — no padding — and the skirting's OK. Go barefoot.’

‘What's going on?’