Stands a Shadow (29 page)

‘She might be a pup but she can play, I’ll give her that.’

It was true, she could play a decent game of cards. Though in fact tonight, for the sheer thrill of it, Curl was cheating. Every other time it was her turn to deal, Curl used one of the many shuffling tricks her old lover had once shown her to stack the deck in her favour. She was doing so well at it, in fact, that only one of them seemed to have yet noticed, and that was Kris, who simply watched with a knowing amusement in her eyes.

They all looked up as the tent flap parted and Koolas the war chatt
ē
ro stepped inside. ‘Mind if I join you?’ he puffed.

Exaggerated groans sounded from around the tent. ‘There must be a hundred games of rash in this camp tonight,’ chirped Milos. ‘And yet always you come to us.’

‘Well now,’ replied Koolas as he found himself a free seat around the table. ‘That’s because you medicos have all the good drugs.’

Jeers and catcalls exploded around him. Kris gave him a bow and began to fix him a drink of wine and sanseed, while Andolson changed to a different song, making up the lyrics as he went along. He crooned about the fat war chatt
ē
ro who was so in love with battle he rode along just to watch it.

‘Besides,’ Koolas called out, ‘I’m thinking of doing a story on you all. The medicos. The unsung heroes who go out there alone amongst the killing to save who they can, or to steal the jewellery of those who they can’t.’

Amidst the jeers Milos hollered, ‘Unsung fools more like!’

‘Aye, well, if it was truth the copy-houses wanted then I’d write of it. My thanks,’ he added, as Kris brought over a drink.

They were shouting him down when Major Bolt stepped into the tent.

‘Popular tonight,’ muttered Milos as the tent fell silent, and Kris hid the bottle of sanseed behind her back.

‘At ease,’ Bolt told them all. ‘I’m just here to see how you are. See if you need anything.’

‘We’re fine, Major, just fine,’ said Andolson languidly from behind his jitar.

Bolt surveyed each of them in turn. His eyes lingered on Kris for a moment, her hands behind her back. ‘Carry on, then,’ he said.

As he turned to leave he gave Curl a sidelong glance and a tug of his head.

She ignored the comments around her and followed him out through the flap.

Outside in the fresh air, Curl experienced a strange moment of transition. Suddenly she stood once more in a camp of war, and the memory of what they were doing, and what still faced them, came slowly back to her. Out there somewhere was the imperial army.

She shivered, the goosebumps rising on her flesh, and held an arm across her chest.

‘How are you?’ Bolt asked. ‘You seem to be fitting in well enough.’

‘They’re good people,’ she replied, looking up at him only briefly. She was always nervous in the company of this man, for she could never tell what he was thinking.

‘Here,’ he said, and handed her something. She looked down and saw a wrap of graf leaves in his outstretched hand.

‘I noticed the markings,’ he said, looking at her nostrils, which were less reddened now that she had left the city, and her supply of dross had run out. ‘It’s just a little muscado. It’ll help take the edge off a little.’

‘I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘Really.’

‘Take it,’ he said, and she so she did, and slipped the folded leaves into a pocket. ‘You’ll be glad of it once we see some action, and we start running low on those bottles of sanseed.’

She looked up into his grey eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Bolt stared hard at her.

‘I’d better get back inside,’ she told him.

After a moment he nodded, his expression still blank. Without a word he turned and strode away.

They gathered in the warmth of the command tent, the space heated by the black iron stove that squatted in one corner, its chimney running up through the roof. A plain, square table stood in the middle of the tent, covered with maps and notes for the march. Bahn swept them up quickly to put them out of sight. Creed took the weight off his feet by sitting back in his wicker chair. Halahan sat on the edge of the table, his leg-brace squeaking. The Nathalese colonel was clearly fighting down his anger.

After a few moments the Mannian ambassador was allowed to enter. The guards had stripped him of his clothing before searching his cavities. The man hadn’t shaven in some days, and he covered his nakedness with a borrowed red cloak wrapped about him, so that his appearance was that of some ragged beggar. It was an illusion only. The man held himself tall, and seemed hardly concerned that he stood in the heart of his enemy’s encampment.

‘Our spies were correct, it seems,’ he said in an accent clearly Q’osian. ‘Though I can hardly believe it. You must have fewer than ten thousand men here, if even that.’

Creed brought his hand to his chin. His eyes flickered to Halahan.

‘State your business here, ambassador,’ Halahan instructed as he removed the hat from his head, lay it down on the table. His tone was openly hostile.

‘Please. Call me Alarum. May I sit?’ This last addressed to Creed.

The general raised a hand in consent, and the Mannian settled down in a chair with a long and weary sigh. ‘It’s been a hard ride,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we could share some wine and food while we talk?’

Creed’s chair creaked sharply as he leaned forwards. ‘Why are you here, fanatic?’

Alarum inclined his head and studied the general with his dark eyes. ‘I’ve been sent by the Holy Matriarch to offer you terms.’

‘She wishes to surrender?’

The man gave a quick, pinched smile. ‘It’s not too late, you know. Even now, after all these years, we can settle our differences another way.’

‘Aye,’ snapped Halahan. ‘You can pack up your armies and go home.’

‘Come, now,’ responded the man. ‘You know as well as I what reputations are riding on this. We can hardly simply withdraw. But what we can do is this: we can offer you the lives of your people, if only you will surrender Khos to us now, and agree to become a client state of Mann.’

‘What, open our gates to you like Serat, so you can decimate the population with your purges and enslave the rest?’ Halahan was incensed. Bahn could see the blood rushing to his face. ‘You came all this way for this?’

‘If you don’t, we’ll slaughter every man, woman and child of Bar-Khos. That is a promise not made lightly.’

Halahan stood up with his hands clenching. Creed held a hand up to restrain him, staring hard at the ambassador. ‘You still have to defeat us first,’ he reminded the man softly.

‘I have forty thousand fighting men at my back, General.’

‘Aye. That you do. And those men are far from home. Their fleet has departed. Their supplies are limited to what they already have and what they can pillage from the land. If they’re not fast, winter will set in and trap them here without adequate sources of food or shelter. You are hardly in any position of certainty, ambassador. Else you would not be here.’

Alarum’s response was to rise slowly from the chair with the cloak held loosely about him. He glanced at Halahan as the colonel took a step towards him. Bahn felt the sudden rise of tension in the air. He gripped the pommel of his sword without thinking.

‘If I may,’ said Alarum, with a soft, cautious smile. ‘The Holy Matriarch has sent a gift for you, should you fail to see sense in this matter.’

Creed nodded, and one of the guards at the entrance stepped forward with something in his hand. He handed it to Bahn, the closest person to him.

Bahn looked down at the sheathed dagger in his hand. It was a curved blade no larger than his thumb, and the scabbard was ornately decorated with gold and diamonds, and fitted with a cord to hang about a person’s neck.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

He looked up even as Halahan struck the ambassador hard across the face, sending the man toppling back across the chair.

Halahan kicked him in the side of the head as he tried to get up.

‘What gives you the right to this?
What gives you the right to demand that others bow down to you or they must die?
’

‘Colonel,’ Creed snapped. ‘
Halahan!
’

At last the colonel backed away, panting hard now. Nothing in the world could tear his gaze from Alarum as the man climbed unsteadily to his feet. The ambassador’s lip was bloody, and he hitched the robe over his body to cover his sudden nakedness.

He glowered at Halahan as he dabbed a corner of the robe against his mouth. ‘What right? By right of natural law, what other? Do I need to explain this as though to children? What is man’s nature if not to take power wherever he can? The strong do what they like. The weak must endure what they must always endure. Do not blame we followers of Mann because life is this way. Blame your World Mother. Blame your Dao.’

Creed placed his hands on either side of his chair and rose slowly to confront him.

‘We have a belief, amongst the Free Ports, ambassador. A belief that power must always flow outwards, especially to those most affected by it. The idea comes from Zeziké. I suppose you Mannians don’t read much of our famed philosopher, no?’

Alarum tilted his head, saying nothing.

‘I’ll be honest with you, I don’t always agree with him myself. But at times he made some fine points, especially about such notions as yours. If I recall his words correctly, he said that human behaviour is as much a result of our environment as it is the blood in our veins. And that our environment is as much a result of how we choose it to be as it is the turning of the earth and the sky.’

He leaned forwards, looking carefully at the ambassador’s expression.

‘You do not like that idea, perhaps? Yet you of Mann wish to shape the entire world in your image. Why is this, then? I will tell you why. Because you know this truth as well as Zeziké ever did. You know that to rule absolutely, you must control those choices in people’s lives which allow them to shape their environment. Is that not so?’

Alarum’s breathing had calmed now. He dabbed his lip again, looked at the blood that stained the material of his robe. ‘You talk of ideals, General,’ he answered. ‘Empty words of this and that. I talk of something much closer to reality. I talk of power, which in the end needs no defence. Power will always speak for itself. It will always subdue what is weaker, no matter what you believe.’

‘Aye, it’s an old story certainly, subjugation. Yet so is murder. And rape. And theft. Things that decent people despise and outlaw from their lives when they have the choice to do so. Because they choose to believe in man’s capacity to be better than that.’

They blinked at each other as though from across an abyss. Bahn could barely see the seething anger beneath the general’s impassive features, so well did he hide it.

‘Now, ambassador, if you’d kindly get out my sight,’ Creed growled.

Alarum accepted his dismissal with a cavalier bow. He looked faintly amused as the guards pulled him roughly from the tent.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Bahn at last. He was studying the dagger in his hand again.

Creed ignored him. He remained standing with his eyes locked on the flapping entrance of the tent, his jaw muscles clenching.

‘The dagger,’ said Halahan with a wipe of his mouth, ‘is a ceremonial blade of Mann.’

‘For what purpose?’

‘For taking your own life.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Burning of Spire

On the fifth day of their march, the Imperial Expeditionary Force descended into the country known as the Tumbledowns, where they found themselves looking down upon the snowmelt rapids of the Cinnamon river.

To the north, high mountains stood black and ice-capped against the pale sky. To the west, the Tumbledowns ran on to the horizon. Beyond them lay fertile lands of rice paddies and orchards and vineyards, which rolled onwards past the Windrush into the flat western half of the island where most of its population could be found, and where fields of wheat rippled all the way to the Sargassi Sea.

The army turned south-west on a course that followed the Cinnamon, and which would take them into the Silent Valley and the lands of the Reach, and from there to the ancient city of Tume. The floating city was most probably heavily garrisoned by now. All knew it would need to be dealt with before they pushed on to Bar-Khos in the south.

It was here, along the Cinnamon, where the eager fighting force came across their first Khosian town. The guides told them it was called Spiré, and the Imperials did not have to ask them why. It was a hilltown, situated on a high abutment of rock that protruded into the flatlands of the Cinnamon valley. A snaking wall surrounded it, rising and falling over the elevated crown on which its whitewashed buildings stood; the multiple spires of pale granite that stabbed upwards like petrified spears.

By evening, the gates of the town lay breached by cannon shots, and imperial infantry flooded through them into the winding streets within. The overwhelmed defenders fought on, soldiers of the town’s Principari in the main, though with a scattering of civilians amongst them, throwing rocks from rooftops or holding out behind barricades blocking the streets. The majority of the populace had already fled westwards, harried by imperial skirmishers.