‘The captain wants you all on deck, armed,’ he announced in Nabrajan, and stood aside. Everyone pulled on what leathers or gambesons they had; most metal armour had been greased in animal fat and stowed against rusting. Besides, it was more a danger than protection at sea. They asked questions of the sailor but he would say no more, only make signs against evil at his chest while his eyes, resigned and haunted, avoided them all. Kyle dressed in his gambeson shirt. He pulled on the leather cap he wore beneath his helmet and cinched his weapon belt as everyone lined up. They climbed the stairs passing the sailor, who shivered and wouldn't raise his eyes.
On deck, Kyle found a guide-rope and covered his eyes from the spray. He took in the reefed sails and the white-capped, churning seas. Men pointed, shouting, their words torn away by the wind. Kyle followed their gazes and couldn't believe what he saw: among the waves and blowing spume moved human figures. What appeared to be armour upon them gleamed sapphire and rainbow opalescent. They seemed to ride the waves. White foam flew about them. While he watched, some of the waves curled into horse-like shapes and dived, carrying their riders with them only to broach the rough waters further along. The armour shone like frost and they carried jagged-edged lances.
Kyle searched the horizons. Of the Guard's fleet of twenty ships, he could only see the Wanderer. The nearest mercenary, Tolt, gripped Kyle's arm, shouted, ‘Stormriders! We've blown into the Cut! We don't have a chance!’
Kyle's immediate reaction was one of awe and numb fear. Two months ago, near the beginning of the journey, Stoop had explained something of the strange convoluted archipelago and continents that the Crimson Guard called home. Quon Tali, and to the north, Falar. To the south, Korel. A deep ocean trench of unpredictable storms and contrary currents, Stoop explained, separated Quon Tali from Korel, or Fist, as it was sometimes known. The Stormriders had claimed this passage for as long as anyone could recall. Twice the Malazans had tried to push through to reach Korel, and twice the Riders sank the fleets. They allowed none to trespass and warred continuously with the Korelans over the coastline of their lands.
Kyle went to the gunwale. Through the spray he could make out a number of Riders circling the ship. While he watched, incredulous, the ones nearest the Kestral saluted the vessel with upraised lances and submerged. More surged abreast of his vessel. One broached the waters close by and seemed to be watching him. But as the tall helm hid the being's eyes, Kyle couldn't be sure. On impulse he drew his tulwar and raised it straight up before his face, saluting the Rider. The alien entity straightened and raised his lance, its barbed point flashing cruelly. Kyle laughed his palpable relief and sheathed his sword. Tolt was right, it seemed to him – if it had come to a fight they wouldn't have stood a chance.
‘That Rider saluted you.’
Kyle turned. There stood Greymane, the only person fully armoured in banded iron, his legs planted wide apart, yet steadying himself at a guide-rope. Kyle remembered the Malazan renegade's words at Kurzan: ‘water ‘n’ me, we don't get along.’ The veteran's eyes held a calculation Kyle had never seen before. ‘Or he was saluting you.’
A tight sardonic smile reached the man's sky-pale eyes. ‘No. I told them to cut that out long ago.’
Kyle turned away; this was not what he wanted to hear from this strange Malazan turncoat. Jokes! This renegade had torn something irreplacable from him – something that drove him to his own vow – but not one in sympathy to the Guard's. He gripped the gunwale. It was numbing cold, yet any change from the rank enclosed quarters below was welcome for a time. They were packed tight on all the ships. Every Guardsman squeezed shoulder to shoulder. ‘You've been through here before, haven't you?’ Kyle asked, facing the slate-grey sea. He watched the Riders circling, submerging one by one. A few mercenaries remained on deck, their faces hardened now that panic had passed. He reminded himself some of these men had witnessed wonders far greater than this.
For some time Greymane didn't answer, but Kyle could feel him there, close. He heard the man's layered banding grating at his shoulders and arms as he shifted his stance with the lurching of the ship. ‘Aye. Many times. I grew up on Geni – an island south of Quon. My father fished the Cut. Saw them many times I did, as a boy. Before my father went out and never came back. Taken by them, some said. I swore off the sea then. Joined the army.’
The renegade paused and Kyle could imagine him offering a rueful grin – fat lot of good that choice had done! But Kyle refused to look. This man had taken all that was precious from him. Murdered a guiding spirit of his people! He did not want to hear this.
‘Command thought my familiarity with the Cut would be an asset for the Korel invasion,’ Greymane continued. ‘And for a time they were right. But as the years passed the stalemate drove me to try something no one had ever tried
The last of the Riders disappeared in swirls of pale emerald froth. Kyle shivered. Despite himself, he turned. ‘What? What did you do?’
The renegade was frowning, his pale gaze fixed on the waters. He wiped the spray from his face then made a gesture as if throwing something away. ‘Well, let's just say it lit a fire under the Korelri like nothing else ever before and got me arrested by command. I made a mistake – misjudged the situation – and a lot of people got killed that didn't have to.’
‘I'm sorry.’
‘Yeah, so was I. But I accept it. Now I'm just plain fed up.’ A crooked smile, the eyes bright as the ice that clings to the mountain-tops in the north of Kyle's homeland. Or these Riders’ own glimmering armour.
Kyle's face grew hot despite the frigid wind, and he turned away. This was not what he wanted: an opening up, confessions. Not from this man. A man of the company he had vowed to… Damn him for this!
‘Well, better go below. Gotta re-oil everything thanks to these blasted Riders.’
Kyle said nothing, not trusting himself to speak. When he glanced back he was alone.
Evening darkened; the low overcast horizon to the west glowed deep pink and orange. The water lost its chop, the troughs shallowing and the wind dropping. The Kestral and the Wanderer, just visible as a smear to the north, were swinging over to a southward heading. Despite the wind that drove knives of ice across Kyle's back, he remained on deck. The closed rankness below churned his stomach. To the stern the glow of a pipe revealed the old saboteur Stoop sitting wrapped in a blanket. Kyle made his way sternward hand over hand by ratlines to stand next to him.
Stoop examined the pipe, tamped the bowl with his thumb, pushed it back into his mouth. ‘You can relax, lad. Be more at ease. You're home now.’
‘Home?’
‘Certainly! You're of the Guard now, son.’
‘Am I?’
‘Aye. Swore you in m'self.’
‘What about you? Where's your home?’
An impatient snort. ‘The soldier's home is his or her company, lad. You should know that by now. Sure, there's always gonna be longing an’ drippy honey memories of the places we've left behind but what happens to us when we go back to those places, hey?’ The old saboteur didn't wait for an answer, ‘We find out something we don't want to know – that they ain't home no more. No one there recognizes us no more. We don't fit in. No one understands. An’ after a while you realize that you made a mistake. You can't go back.’
The saboteur sighed, pulled the horse-blanket tighter. ‘No, those of us who take to soldiering, our home is the Guard, or the brigade, or whichever. That's our true home. An’ there's those who'd sneer at what I'm sayin’ and dismiss it all as maudlin, sayin’ they'd heard it all before so many times – but that don't change the truth of it for us, do it?’