Free Return of the Crimson Guard by Ian C. Esslemont

the forest's edge south. In the evenings they clambered down to the sand and rock shore to collect shellfish. The first sign of human settlement they met was the fire-blackened and overgrown remains of a fort: a choked trench faced by burned ragged stumps of logs surrounding an open court. The court held a burnt barracks longhouse and the beginnings of a stone and mortar central keep abandoned, or sacked, in mid-construction. They slept wrapped in their pelts in the dry, grass-gnarled court. The fire cast a faint glow upon the vine-shrouded stones of the keep's curving wall.
     
‘They were here,’ Traveller announced while leaning back on his pelts, his dark brooding gaze on the ruined tower.
Ereko peered up from his share of the fish they'd found trapped in a tide-pool. ‘Who? Who was here?’
The Crimson Guard. Like the old bandit said. This was their work.’
‘When?’
‘More than half a century ago.’
‘You knew them?’
Across the fire the eyes swung to Ereko and he felt a chill such as no human had ever instilled within him. How was it that this man's gaze carried the weight and aching depth of the ancients? Was he deciding just now whether to kill me for my curiosity? Such desolation there within; the gaze reminded him of doomed Togg whom he met once in another forested land – or the beast some call Fanderay – whom he saw last so long ago.
The eyes dropped. ‘Yes. I knew them. This could be Pine Fort, their northernmost outpost on this coast of Stratem. The next settlement would be North Citadel, but that is far to the south and my information is long out of date. I'm hoping to come to a settlement before that.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘You really do not know the story?’
‘Only what the Korelans spoke of. Something about a war in Talian lands to the north.’
‘Yes. A decades-long war. A war of conquest waged by Kellanved across the entire continent. And everywhere his armies marched they found ranks of the Guard opposing them. From Kan to Tali, even out upon the Seti plains, mercenary companies of the Crimson Guard unfurled their silver dragon banner against the sceptre of the invading Malazan armies.
‘Eventually, after decades, the last of their ancestral holds, the D'Avore family fastness in the Fenn Mountains, fell. The Citadel, it was called. Kellanved brought it down with an earthquake. He killed thousands of his own men.’
Traveller fell silent at that, staring into the fire. For some unknown reason he had now opened up and was talking more than all the months they had been together. Ereko waited a time then prompted quietly, ‘I have heard much talk of this emperor. Why did he not use his feared Imass warriors upon the Guard?’
So intent was Traveller upon the fire – reliving old memories? – Ereko believed the man would not answer yet he spoke without stirring. ‘Have you heard of K'azz's vow?’
‘I heard he swore to oppose the Malazans.’
‘That and more. Much more. Eternal opposition enduring until the Empire should fall. It bound them together, those six hundred men and women. Bound them with ties greater than even they suspected, I think. Kellanved ordered the Imass to crush them but the Imass refused.’
This news surprised Ereko. ‘Why should they do that?’ Few things walking the face of the world in this young age terrified him and this army of the undying was one.
‘None know for certain. But I had heard …’ His voice trailed into a thoughtful silence.
‘Yes? What?’
The man scowled, perhaps thinking he had revealed enough. He broke a twig into sections that he then threw upon the embers. ‘I heard that the Imass said only that it would be wrong for them to oppose such a vow. Yet I am sure that by now, to all those who swore it, this vow must seem more of a curse.’

Three days later they came upon the first settlement. A squalid fishing village. Traveller had Ereko remain hidden in the woods while he approached alone to dispel their panic. As it was,