The Broken Isles (Legends of the Red Sun 4) (11 page)

‘I don’t know yet, Lady Eir. Although Artemisia’s people could provide significant support, we should plan for all eventualities, war or no war. Though I suspect that war is
more likely.’

‘On which front?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine, Lady Eir. It may be that we have to mass an army to defend some other corner of the Empire, or it may happen in Villiren again.’

‘One final thought,’ she added.

Brynd indicated for her to continue, then steered his mare towards the cobbled road that led up directly to the Citadel. A unit of soldiers began to move forward but, on recognizing him, moved
aside to let them through.

‘Please, no more of this
Lady
Eir. It hardly seems fitting any more. Just Eir will be sufficient.’

‘As you wish,’ he replied with a smile.

‘Commander,’ one of the soldiers called.

Brynd looked away to see a sergeant running towards him. When he reached his side he held up a letter. ‘This arrived when you were out, sir.’

Brynd took the letter, thanked the man and placed it in his pocket.

*

Night-time traditionally brought out the worst elements in Villiren, though the war had put a stop to most of that. When he had first arrived, Brynd had found underground drug
dens, whorehouses importing kidnapped tribal girls, and a black market larger than the Imperial registered channel. Brynd could not concern himself with these matters; he had his mind set on the defence of the city. When the war came, this more
colourful
side of the city
was forced to the fringes and beyond – out of sight, out of mind. But now the more insalubrious kinds of city life were finding their way back to the heart of things, where money and people
met.

Brynd headed out on horseback along with two young archers from the Dragoons. They were riding towards a sector of the city right on the tip of where Deeping met what used to be the Wastelands, a former area of new growth that hadn’t lost its old moniker. There were rumours of illicit goings-on here, but he had other matters on his mind after reading the letter.

Brynd dismounted and tied his horse securely to an iron bollard alongside some former industrial works, while the two archers remained on standby, their eyes fixed on the surrounding shadows.
The streets were wide and largely featureless, the buildings no more than a storey high for the most part, until they reached one area that appeared to be a row of large disused warehouses. Along
this stretch of road, homeless people were gathering around small fires, their hands out for warmth, their faces illuminated by the flames.

There was a warehouse at the end with a large double door, on which the number 54 was painted crudely in white. The building was vast and reminded Brynd of some of the industrial fishing units
near Port Nostalgia – just like the one in which he and some of the Night Guard had nearly died. It had a gently sloped pyramid-style roof, with ornamentation at the top.

This must be the place, then
, Brynd thought as he approached.

He banged three times with the ball of his hand and waited, peering around into the gloom. Then he waited a little longer, watching a dog trot from one side of the street to the other before it
disappeared into the darkness.

Eventually, after a clang of bolts, Brynd found himself facing a slender young man in his late teens or early twenties, with short blond hair and a wide smile. He stood a little shorter than
Brynd, and was wearing what looked like overalls. His face was smeared with grease.

I’ve come all the way out here for this youth?

‘Hey, it’s the Night Guard commander,’ the lad beamed. ‘Can tell by your eyes. Glad you could join us, man. You got our message, right?’

There was no salute, no signal of respect. ‘Would I be here otherwise?’

‘True, true. Hey, come in, it’s freezing outside.’ He backed away and let Brynd walk in. The door closed with a thud behind, and the young man bolted the door.

‘What’s your name?’ Brynd asked, his voice echoing.

‘Diggsy,’ he replied.

‘Funny-sounding name,’ Brynd said.

‘That’s just what the lads call me. Real name’s Thongar Diggrsen.’

‘I can see why they call you Diggsy.’

‘Hey, you’ve got a sense of humour. Was beginning to think you were all po-faced.’

You would be, if you’d seen what I’d seen, boy.

‘Lead on, Diggsy,’ Brynd gestured. ‘I’m keen to see what all the fuss is about and hope that I haven’t wasted my time traipsing across the city for no good
reason.’

‘Right you are.’ Diggsy turned and walked down a dark corridor. Though Brynd could cope with the poor lighting, how Diggsy was finding his way in front of him was a mystery, but the
lad seemed to move as if the passage was committed to his memory.

Something didn’t make sense: why was someone so young occupying a factory? Was it his home? The building smelled like a blacksmith’s workshop, of charred materials and molten metal.
There was also the tang of cultists down here, too, that weird, unmistakable chemical odour from messing with things people shouldn’t.

‘How long have you been working here?’ Brynd enquired.

‘Now that’s a question,’ Diggsy replied. ‘Way before the war, if that’s what you mean. Pilli’s father was one of those ore-owning types, and she knew this
building of his – like quite a few others – wasn’t being used at all. Anyhow, Pilli’s good stock – not like her father – and so this has become our headquarters
for the most part.’

‘Headquarters? So are you part of an official order?’

‘Ha, no. Hell no. We don’t like to get involved with other cultists. They can be shitting well poncey if you ask me. All about structures and etiquette and whatever. That’s not
our kind of thing – we prefer to live by our own rules, in our gang.’

‘How many are in your . . .
gang
, then?’ Brynd felt the situation was growing increasingly absurd. The way this Diggsy talked, his mannerisms and nonchalance, his references
to his social circle, suggested this was all going to be a complete waste of time.

‘Depends on when it is. We lost one in the war. Got the odd seasonal, but that dried up a year back. Oh, watch the corner here – it’s a sharp one.’

‘I see it. You didn’t want to join in the war effort yourself?’ Brynd asked. ‘We had people far younger than you.’ They turned to the left, along a narrow corridor,
the sound of their feet occasionally scuffing along the smooth stone.

‘We were too busy, to be honest. Sounds lame, doesn’t it? But seriously, once you see what we’ve got, I think you’ll understand.’

Diggsy’s voice suddenly gave off a lot of reverb. They had entered a large chamber, lighter with a lot of energetic conversation and laughter at the far end. Brynd could smell arum weed
mixed with cooking meat. There were four, maybe five people there, and they turned to face Diggsy when he hollered out to them.

Diggsy turned back to Brynd, gestured with wide arms, and smiled. ‘Welcome to Factory 54. I think you’ll like it.’

Brynd looked around to take in the scene. All around the walls and hanging from the rafters were bipedal structures, things made from junk that looked like immense hanged men. They were metallic
and flesh and perhaps even something else, with leathery attire and what looked like massive trays on the floor. ‘By Bohr . . .’

‘Aw, this is nothing,’ came a girl’s voice, a young redhead with a slender frame and freckled face. ‘This is the shit that doesn’t work. We’ve been trying
forever to get things to work, but life isn’t that easy to manufacture. Isn’t that right, Diggsy?’

Brynd eyed her and Diggsy. Judging by her look towards the lad, there was a history between them, that much was certain.

Brynd stepped closer to the large trays, which contained weird-looking brown fluids. ‘Could someone bring me a flame over? I’d like to see this as clearly as possible.’

Some of the others laughed.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, chief,’ Diggsy said. ‘Get a flame in that stuff and we’ll all be eating breakfast in another world.’

Brynd soaked up the scene. This building was immense, which meant all these hanging creatures were larger than he originally thought. He stepped back to take in their expressionless faces, if
they could be called
faces
. They were so creased, stitched and folded they seemed as if they were old sacks. Some of them wore open fissures, which had dried to black. They were bizarre
specimens. The fact that they were a parody of a human or rumel kept him from believing that this was in any way unethical.

‘Where did you get these from?’ Brynd asked.

‘We
made
them, of course,’ the red-haired girl said, wandering over. ‘Or resurrected them in many instances.’

Brynd asked for her name.

‘Jeza,’ she replied nonchalantly.

‘Your name was on the letter,’ he said.

She nodded coyly.

‘Presumably you all know me – Commander Brynd Lathraea, leader of the Night Guard? Leader of the military that has applied martial law across the city.’

‘Yeah, we got you,’ someone replied.

He hoped to lend a little gravitas to his presence, but they showed little sign of acknowledging that. ‘Let me get this right in my head: you’re similar to cultists, then? You use
the old science in new ways?’

‘More or less, in layman’s terms, though we don’t really like cultists,’ Jeza said. ‘We deal with them, but they’re
way
too cliquey, and they speak in
all these prophetic riddles, it’s ridiculous.’

‘So you use their technology,’ Brynd observed. ‘That is to say, I’m guessing here, this was all done with the assistance of relics.’

‘It was and it wasn’t,’ Jeza said. ‘There’s a whole mix of things – relics mainly, but we use some tribal refinements too, not to mention with palaeomancy
you’re dealing with the creations of the natural world itself.’

‘I don’t think the commander needs to know all the details,’ Diggsy interrupted.

‘Sure he does,’ Jeza snapped. ‘Think about it.’

‘What’s wrong with you tonight, Jeza?’ Diggsy said softly.

‘We need him to trust us,’ she replied, then turned to Brynd. He noticed that her face revealed underlying conflicts within her. ‘Isn’t that right, commander?’

‘That depends what you need my trust for.’

Jeza took his arm in an informal manner and directed him along the lines of constructs, through the semi-darkness. Shadows seemed to exaggerate the sinister appeal of these things, but Brynd
couldn’t help but wonder what they’d look like on the battlefield.

‘None of these function, right?’ Brynd asked.

‘If you mean move around like a living thing, then only some of them do. We’ve actually got a couple in an adjoining chamber, which are a little more polished, but just take in all
of this for a moment. You can see the potential here, can’t you?’

‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘But what were you saying about the technology behind them . . . ?’

‘Yes, we work with a mixture of tribal knowledge and cultist science. Cultists haven’t really touched on this stuff – to our knowledge at least. They concentrate on the bits of
science and the discipline of technological lore being handed down through the generations. They’re too full of shit to look further afield – you know, the tribes have some pretty
powerful stuff, but no one gives them the time of day. They just dismiss it as magic.’

‘You have me intrigued,’ Brynd said.

‘I guess we were all lucky to have Lim.’

‘And who,’ Brynd asked, ‘is Lim?’

Jeza sighed. ‘He died during the fighting. But he was really, really good at this stuff. He came from one of the tribes on Varltung, which is how we got to work in this way.’

‘Off Empire? How did he make it out here?’

‘He ran away, came across on his own, learned the languages, did it all the hard way. They’ve got cultists on Varltung, too – did you know that?’

‘I didn’t,’ Brynd admitted.

‘Well, they have. Anyway, so Lim knew stuff that we didn’t. Spoke Jamur well enough to explain his findings to us.’

Brynd’s interest was most definitely piqued. He would indulge these youths a little longer. ‘You all just meet then. He comes to Villiren—’

‘Because anyone can make a go of things in a place where no one cares,’ Jeza said. ‘No one bothers us. No one pays us attention.’

Brynd nodded for her to go on. ‘You have my attention.’

She looked around at the others who were approaching to hear the conversation.

‘We all found each other, more or less. We’re the kind of people who fell through the gaps – either dead parents or kicked out of home or runaways. Those kind of things make
you grow up fast.’

‘You’ve done all right for yourselves by the look of it,’ Brynd said. ‘But I don’t understand how a bunch of street kids could have come across cultist
technology.’

Diggsy laughed. One of the others was shaking their head. Jeza said, ‘You don’t know much about cultists, commander.’

‘Excuse me?’ Brynd replied.

‘I mean, you might think they’re all high-powered and respect them and stuff, but . . . what you might not know is that some orders take in kids.’

‘Of course, I’ve heard of such things.’

‘Have you heard of abuse rings? Have you heard of cultists taking in dozens of young children promising to show them all the riches they can imagine, only to lock them in windowless rooms?
Bringing them out just to test technology on them, or sexually abuse them.’

A silence fell in which Brynd considered the way Jeza spoke. She seemed totally unmoved by her past.

‘My apologies,’ he said eventually.
Tough kids, these ones
. . .

‘Ah, think nothing of it, commander,’ Diggsy said. ‘We were the lucky ones. We managed to scrape some knowledge together and get the hell out of there – others are still
trapped, being beaten or worse. We got out, we stuck together and used the only thing we had – our knowledge of relics.’

‘Not to mention stealing a load of relics when we ran away,’ Jeza pointed out.

‘True,’ Diggsy smiled faintly, sadly.

There was a charm about these youths that Brynd admired. They’d done things the hard way – there was a lot to be said for that.