The Proof House (44 page)

As soon as he closed his eyes he found himself in a place he knew well, almost as well as the plains. It was dark there, and he couldn’t see the walls or the roof; it was a tunnel under a city, garlic and coriander together, a cellar under a factory, the proof house. He turned round - that involved kneeling down, feeling for the plank walls of the gallery - and saw that Alexius had got a fire going; he saw the smoke rising straight up into the vent-hole in the roof, with its blackened edges.

‘You’re early,’ Alexius said.

‘We’ve been making good time,’ he replied. ‘Is there a lot to get through?’

Alexius shook his head. Oddly enough, he wasn’t wearing Alexius’ body this time, or rather he’d put on another man’s face over his own (like a visor) so that he’d become Anax, the Son of Heaven who had failed. ‘Shouldn’t take long,’ he said. ‘Fetch the hammer and we’ll make a start.’

He remembered the feel of Bollo’s hammer in his hands - big, heavy, definitive, the measure of all things - but for the first time (and how many times had he been here? He’d lost count) he noticed that the hammer was in fact the Empire, because of course nothing can survive Bollo’s hammer, it’s just a matter of seeing how long it continues to offer resistance and the manner in which it eventually fails -

The first piece to be tested was an arm; a low-specification, munition-grade arm, made of ordinary flesh and bone, not expected to pass above the first degree of proof. Anax laid it on the anvil and Bardas reduced it to pulp with a few well-placed blows.

‘Fail that,’ Alexius said. ‘All right, next.’

He put a torso up; it was quite well made, with skilfully formed pectorals and well-defined ribs, and it was stamped with the plainsmen’s mark, usually a guarantee of quality. Bardas started with a couple of heavy bashes across the breastbone - ‘Thought so,’ Anax commented, ‘fancy decoration on top of poor material’ - then methodically broke the ribs, as easily as snapping off icicles. ‘Fail that,’ said Anax, and Bardas swept it off the anvil into the scrap.

‘Next,’ Alexius said, and Bardas put up a head. ‘Collector’s item,’ he said, because it was the head of a Son of Heaven, the late Colonel Estar. ‘Always wanted to see how well one of these would do,’ he said, and swung the hammer, putting a lot of left elbow and right shoulder behind the blow. The skull crumpled but stayed together - ‘That’s quality for you,’ said Anax - and it took him seven blows to wreck it completely. ‘It’s the bone structure that does it,’ Anax pointed out. ‘That high-domed forehead, see, and those cheek-bones. I’ll pass that in the second degree; still not good enough for the purpose it was made for.’

Another torso; female this time, with small round breasts and sloping, rounded shoulders. It had been made in the Perimadeian style but the patina on the surface suggested the sunlight of the Island. Breaking the ribs and collar-bone was easy enough; but the flesh was soft and springy, like the quilted silk armour of the far-eastern provinces, easy to bruise but next to impossible to crush, the force of the hammer blows just seemed to soak away into it, like water into sand. In the end, Bardas managed to ruin it by trapping it between the hammerhead and the edge of the anvil. ‘Third degree pass,’ said Anax. ‘Impressive.’

‘Cheating, if you ask me,’ Bardas replied.

Next was a hand; a girl’s hand with long, slender fingers. Instead of the hammer Bardas used the eight-pound axe, and the fingers came away quite cleanly. ‘Now the hammer,’ Alexius said, and Bardas smashed it across the back, expecting it to pulp. It didn’t. ‘Ah,’ said Alexius with a smile, ‘that’s a genuine Loredan, you see. Tough as old boots, they are.’ By the time he’d wrecked it to his satisfaction, Bardas had worked up quite a sweat.

‘Let’s have that head there,’ Alexius said. ‘Now,’ he went on, turning it round in his fingers, ‘here’s a challenge for you. Let’s see just how strong you are.’

Bardas grinned; the head was bald, with a strong jaw and a big, soft mouth. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said; but the first, second and third blows glanced harmlessly off the curved surface of the skull, and the head, opening its eyes and winking, forgave him.

‘I’ll pass it if you like,’ Alexius said sardonically. Bardas didn’t reply; he laid the head on its side and hammered on the jaw until the hinge cracked, then attacked the temples. He made some inroads but had to give up when he hit short, caught the shaft of the hammer on the side of the anvil and broke off the head.

‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I’ll use the axe.’

‘All right,’ said Anax, ‘but it’s not the right tool, so it won’t be a fair proof.’

‘So what?’ Bardas replied. The axe made a better job; but by the time he was satisfied there wasn’t much edge left on it, and the blade was notched where he’d hit directly on one open, winking eye. The head forgave him again as he shoved it off the anvil. ‘Fifth degree proof,’ Alexius said. ‘They don’t make ’em like that any more.’

Bardas was tired. He wiped away the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist and asked, ‘Is that it?’

‘Almost,’ said Anax. ‘One more head, and then we’re done.’ And he reached under the bench and produced the head of Colonel Bardas Loredan. ‘All right then, Mister Clever,’ he said. ‘Crack that if you can, and I’ll buy you a jug of cold milk.’

Bardas frowned. ‘What with?’ he said. ‘I’ve bust the hammer and the axe is useless.’

Alexius scowled at him. ‘Don’t be so pathetic,’ he said. ‘When I was your age we proved
everything
with our bare hands, we didn’t faff about with hammers. Stop mucking about and get on with it.’

So Bardas hammered on the piece with his clenched fists, which were of course harder than any axe and heavier than any hammer; but try as he might, once he’d battered away the skin and the flesh, he couldn’t make so much as a little dent in the skull. ‘Quality,’ Anax muttered. ‘Don’t think you’ll ever crease that, not even with a drop-hammer.’

‘Rubbish,’ Bardas replied irritably. ‘I can break anything. Bloody fine assistant deputy viceproofmaster I’d be if I couldn’t. Here, give me that.’ He pointed to an arm which Anax had picked out of the pile; it was Colonel Bardas Loredan’s sword-arm, neatly sawn off at the elbow. He cut off the hand with his thin-bladed kitchen knife, the one he used for jointing and skinning the carcasses, and swung the massive bone round his head with all the strength he could muster. Steel on steel, the noise was; because Colonel Loredan’s head was a helmet and his sword-arm a vambrace, cop and lames. ‘You can always tell the quality by the sound it makes,’ Anax reminded him. ‘Listen to that, best Mesoge steel. When you’ve done with that skull, I’ll have what’s left for a planishing stake.’

‘There won’t be anything left,’ Bardas grunted; and he attacked the piece as if it was an enemy and his life depended on the outcome. In the end, honours were roughly even between the arm and the skull; both were dented and twisted, but nothing a good armourer couldn’t mend by beating out over an anvil. Quality like this can always be mended by hard, skilful bashing between hammer and anvil; no reason why it shouldn’t go on for ever.

‘Give up?’ Alexius asked, and the skull’s eyes opened -

- ‘What?’ Bardas asked. There was a man standing over him. ‘Gods, is it morning already?’

‘Staff meeting,’ the soldier replied. ‘Then weapons training; it says on your schedule you’re doing wounds and death with the ninth, tenth and twelfth platoons.’

Bardas yawned. ‘I’d completely forgotten. All right, tell ’em I’ll be out in a minute or two.’

Another agreeable thing about the Imperial army was its eagerness to learn. Two centuries ago, the Sons of Heaven had hit on the happy notion of performance-related bonuses for field armies. These awards were calculated at platoon level (to take it further down the command structure would be to risk encouraging soldiers to place individual opportunity above corporate goals) and were based on the number of confirmed kills attributable to each platoon during a battle. Naturally, any kills achieved in the face of or to the prejudice of explicit orders from an officer were discounted; only the platoons that saw action were eligible, which had the beneficial effect of making each unit eager to take its turn in the front rank. In consequence, combat tutorials from an expert like Colonel Loredan were regarded as a genuine opportunity to increase a platoon’s earning power, and were very well attended.

‘Today,’ Bardas said, looking over the top of the mass of attentive faces, ‘we’re going to look at the mechanics of killing; this is all about making your blows count, doing as much damage as you can with as little exposure and risk as you can get away with.’

You could have heard a coin drop. Bardas suppressed a grin.
If you could see me now, Alexius; a college lecturer.

‘Quite simply,’ he went on, ‘there’s two ways of doing damage with the sword and the halberd, namely thrusting and cutting. Now then, hands up anybody who’s studied fencing or something similar outside the service.’ A couple of hands appeared; Bardas nodded. ‘Well, first thing you’ll be doing is forgetting everything you were taught in fencing school about thrusts being better than cuts. Sure, thrusts kill better than cuts, but they kill slowly. You’re in a battle and the other man’s trying to kill
you
: you don’t just want him dead, you want him dead
now.
Most of all, you want to stop him being able to hurt you; which is why a cut that does relatively little damage - snips off a thumb, say - is quite likely going to be more use to you than a neat thrust through the lung that’ll drop him dead as a stone in ninety seconds’ time.’

The audience shifted a little in their seats. Bardas knew why; they weren’t sure which they were more interested in, staying alive or racking up a healthy body-count. Very good; let them keep that division of priorities firmly in mind.

‘If you’re going to kill a man or take him out of play, you’ll need to damage either the works or the pipes; works are things like muscle, sinew and bone, pipes are veins and arteries. But damage isn’t everything; you can do fatal damage and still not do the job. Just as important as damage is shock. Always remember that, if you can.’

Bardas paused and took a sip of water.

‘For a good military kill with a thrust, don’t bother with the head too much. Skulls are thick; unless you’re lucky enough to get a fluke shot in through the eye, the ear or the mouth, chances are that all you’ll do is make your enemy even more bad-tempered than he was before. Necks are good, especially if you twist the blade once you’re in, but the neck’s a damn fiddly small target; so’s the heart, come to that. If you go for the heart, ten to one you’ll get tangled up in the ribs, which are springy and a right pain. You can make a real mess of someone’s chest and still not stop him; it’s a low-return shot, not something you want to muck around with in a serious battle.

‘If you’re fighting cavalry, of course, you’ve got the option of a thrust up under the ribs - also if you’re kneeling to receive an infantry charge. As well as the heart, you’ve also got a clear shot at the liver and a big fat artery. Gut-shots are probably the easiest kind of thrust; but you’ll be amazed at the amount of junk there is inside there that you’ve got to get through before you reach anything worthwhile. Also bear in mind that the stomach muscles convulse when they’re cut, enough to move your shot off line. By the way; when you prick a stomach, it goes pop as all the air comes rushing out; it’ll startle the life out of you the first time you hear it, so be prepared for that.

‘Actually, if you’re thrusting you can do a lot worse than go for the arteries in the groin, the small of the back, upper arm, armpit, knee and so forth. Lay one of those open and you’ll almost certainly have a kill; but please, always bear in mind the fact that bleeding to death takes its own sweet time, during which he’s still armed and dangerous. Even if you’ve got him fair and square in a good place, always follow up, preferably with a big cut, just to make sure he ends up on the deck. Same goes for kidneys, lungs, all that stuff. If all you’re interested in is killing, get a job in a slaughterhouse. If you want to be a soldier, concentrate on killing
quickly.
’

He paused for breath. Still got their attention? Good.

‘Cutting, on the other hand,’ he went on, ‘is as much about shock as damage. Cut a man’s hand off and suddenly he’s not a threat any more, even if he lives to be a hundred. Remember, pain is your friend, it’ll stop him trying to get you; a perfectly lethal thrust might not hurt enough to notice, and if a man doesn’t know he’s dead, he might not stop attacking you until it’s too late. Now, the choicest cuts are to the head and neck; but don’t fool about trying to chop the other man’s head off when a nice crunching slash across the neck artery will do just as nicely. For one thing, while you’re swinging your sword up for the really big hit, you’re the next best thing to an open target yourself. Short, meaty cuts across bones are what bring home the bacon; so long as you stop him cold, you can always finish him off with the next one.

‘Finally, people will tell you the thrust’s quicker than the cut; maybe so, but that sounds to me like you’re taking too big a swing. Get close first, then take your shot; use your feet to close up the gap, move your body and your arm at the same time, and you won’t need to worry too much about slow cutting. Do it right and they’ll never know what hit them. All right, any questions? ’

There were questions, plenty of them and for the most part intelligent and informed. Once again Bardas reflected on what a pleasure it was to work with people who really cared about technique and craft. If only he’d had a few students of this calibre (instead of only one) when he was running his fencing school, perhaps it might have worked out a whole lot better.

Later that day, the first timber wagons rolled back into camp, and the tempo changed noticeably. In no time at all the lumber was unshipped and hauled to where it was needed, giving the engineers barely enough time to finish their designs. As he watched the teams of men dragging the heavy logs into position, he couldn’t help remembering the spectacle of Temrai’s men as they shifted lumber and built their trebuchets and catapults under the walls of the City. No matter which side you’re on, there are few sights more inspiring than a large number of men working well together on a big, ambitious project; watching them lever and winch huge bulks of timber about as if they weighed nothing at all, even hoist them into the air on cranes and pulleys, is enough to make a man feel proud to be human.
Is this how Temrai felt?
he wondered.
He’d have been entitled to, no question about that.
It was odd; being back here, doing this sort of thing, was almost enough to make him feel young again.