Return of the Crimson Guard

She stood, walked the grounds around the dying fire just to be sure but found no sign of Liss. So she succeeded where all others had failed. She'd delivered the Seti of their curse. And hadn't she given her own? What had it been…?

Seti shamanesses came and spoke to her but she ignored them, shaking her head. No, not yet. What had it been? Ah, yes! That they would wander lost until they prayed for her forgiveness! Well, Lissarathel or not, the woman had just assured herself a place in their pantheon, or at least their legends. Certainly their prayers.

She rubbed her face, glanced around, sighing her exhaustion. Hours till dawn. She waved the corporal of the guard detachment to her. He ran up, saluted smartly, his eyes hugely wide. She motioned to Rell. ‘Wrap him up. We'll return him for burial. And bring the swords. They have to be returned. It's time to go home.’

EPILOGUE

A bent figure draped in rags emerged from a sagging, dilapidated tent of hides and felt blankets. He hobbled down to a broad white sand beach, leaning heavily on a stick of driftwood, pausing occasionally to catch his breath. He came to the surf where a turquoise lagoon washed up weakly in a thin line of spume. An armoured giant of a man lay half-buried in sand at the surf's edge. The bent figure stood looking down for a time then gave the figure a sharp rap with his stick. The man gasped, fumbling awkwardly, pushed himself heavily to his feet. He yanked off his tall helm to let it fall into the wet sand, clutched at his neck just beneath his blond beard. His eyes filled with wonder.

‘Yes, you are healed, Skinner.’

The man, Skinner, towered over the bent figure. ‘You answered…’ he rumbled.

‘Of course. Have I not been nearby for some time now? I know you sensed my aid here and there, yes? I have had my eye on you, Skinner of the Avowed.’ The figure, his shape obscured in the layered hanging rags, gestured to his tent. ‘The question is, what can you do… for me?’

Skinner ignored the invitation, peered up and down the shore. ‘Where are my people?’

Turning away, the figure shuffled haltingly back up the strand. ‘They are being held in abeyance until we have reached an accord, Skinner.’

‘We have an accord, Chained One,’ Skinner growled, straightening and wincing. He still touched at his neck.

The figure glanced back, his rag-wrapped head bent almost to the sands. ‘Oh? We do?’

‘Yes.’ Skinner studied the shore, squinted in the dazzling light reflected from the white sands. ‘Here are my terms — I deliver to you myself and some forty Avowed and in return I claim the title of King.’

Oh? You claim it?’

Skinner drew off his gauntlets, let them fall on to the sands. He nodded, his gaze hooded, almost sleepy, on the bent-double figure. ‘Yes. It is mine.’

‘Good.’ The figure hobbled off. ‘It's about time somebody took it.’

‘My people!’

A negligent wave of a misshapen hand over his shoulder and the figure ducked within the low sagging tent. Skinner turned to examine the surf. In ones and twos men and women appeared washed up in the lazy waves. He went to help pull them up on to the strand.

It was night, and the battlefield of gouged, naked soil and blackened stubble was empty but for sniffing, hopeful jackals and the odd human scavenger searching for loot. A man in a mail coat under laced leathers stood motionless, his head lowered. His long black hair blew about his scarred dark face.

‘Greetings, Dessembrae,’ spoke a nearby gnawed skull, once buried but since dug up by scavengers. ‘And I say Dessembrae for I see you are here now in that aspect.’

The man let go a long breath, rolled his neck to ease its tension. ‘A long time, Hood.’

‘Indeed. Dare I say how just like those old times?’

The man's face twisted in loathing. ‘No, you may not.’

‘Yet here you are — why are you here?’

‘I am bearing witness to a death. A soldier's death.’

‘How… commonplace.’

‘He was no common soldier, though he knew it not. Had the Seti remained he would have out-generalled the Imperial forces, and had his bodyguard been a fraction of an instant faster, would have proven victorious over the Guard as well. He would have made High Fist and risen to become one of the greatest commanders ever thrown up by the Empire. But all that potential died here today, unrealized. Known to none.’

‘I know, Dessembrae. I took him.’

‘Yes. As you take everyone — eventually. And I will not ask what all others ask of you — why? Because what I have come to understand is that there is no why. To ask why is to impose expectations on mute existence — expectations it is in no way obliged to meet or even extend. And so I make no more, ask no more.’