Return of the Crimson Guard, page 67
Nait waved his squad on. ‘We have to go.’
‘Yes, I know. But I’ve a favour to ask of you, soldier.’
Oh Gods no. Not that. ‘No…I’m sorry.’
‘Ah, well, I understand. It’s just the birds, you see. Evil beasties flapping closer all the time. And I…well…’ he glanced down to his useless arms.
Soliel’s mercy! How could he leave the man to…that? But he was no killer. What could he—‘Brill!’
‘Sir?’
Nait shoved the flask to the man. ‘Stay here with this wounded officer – wave down a healer.’
Brill saluted, his long gangly limbs jerking, thrust out his chin. ‘Aye, sir.’
‘OK. Let’s go.’
As they turned away, Nait heard the cavalry commander asking Brill, ‘So, have you ever been to Falar then?’
By the time they reached the Eastern border of the battlefield their trousers and cloth leggings were painted red to the knees from pushing through the soaked grasses. Flies tormented them, and the setting orange-red sun cast its light almost parallel with the plain, limning the field of slaughter in rich honey tones. Nait glimpsed dun-hued shapes loping across the hills in the distance and he shivered. Jackals or wolves. They were already here – and he was coming. He waved to his boys – that is, his men and women, all gone quiet now over the harrowing course of their trek – to pick up their pace.
The rain that had been threatening all day fell with the cooling night. After labouring in the downpour beside his men finishing the defences of the Imperial compound, deepening the pooling outer trench, helping to shore up the logs of the palisade, Ullen, along with a handful of other officers, was separated out. They were marched to the main gate. Entering, he strained to look back to the set, grim faces of the Talian soldiers watching him go within while they remained without. Many saluted their farewell. He was escorted to a brig of sharpened stakes. Here he found Urko, V’thell and other surviving League officers, including Choss, who lay in the lap of a Captain Roggen, near unconscious from loss of blood. Urko was hunched nearby, wearing only a torn padded linen jerkin, apparently unhurt despite everyone attesting that he’d been trampled by horsemen three times. V’thell sat nearby as well, his battered and cracked armour reflecting deep red-gold from the torches. Ullen knew that Urko could walk right out if he wished, but he – and Laseen no doubt – also knew that he wouldn’t because of reprisals against his men.
He knelt on his haunches before his commander. The chill rain slapped against his back. ‘General – the men are being kept outside the compound.’
Urko slowly raised his head. ‘What?’
‘All the Talian regulars. They’re being kept out.’
‘What?’ Urko lurched up, peered into the slanting mist of rain. He crossed to the wall of stakes, grasped hold and shouted to a guard, ‘Get me your commander! Right now!’
‘No need for that,’ a voice answered from the thin rain. A dark shape approached flanked by guards. Squinting, Ullen made out the bulky armoured figure of Korbolo Dom. ‘Urko and Cartharon Crust,’ the man called, stopping at the wall of stakes. ‘Amaron, Grinner, Nok, Surly…Do you have any idea what it was like to grow up on Nap in the wake of such names?’
‘Fener can shit on that! My men are outside the compound with that monster on the loose – on whose orders?’
‘Mine.’
‘You!’ A stake shattered in Urko’s fist.
‘Kill me and your men will surely die!’
Urko subsided, his shoulders twitching beneath his padded gambeson.
‘Anonymity,’ Korbolo continued. ‘You doomed us all to anonymity. Can you think of the name of any Napan of the last generations?’
‘There’s my grand-nephew Tolip.’
‘Well, a new name has finally eclipsed yours. All the mouths on the island and in the Empire will finally be speaking that new name – Korbolo Dom – Sword of the Empire. And it is only right and proper that a fellow Napan has finally defeated you.’
‘I’d say it was just Oponn’s decision. The fortunes of war. Listen, let the men in…I’ll guarantee their cooperation.’
‘The loser would invoke fortune, wouldn’t he?’
‘And the winner wouldn’t, would he?’ Urko hunched his shoulders, biting down anything more. He finally asked, ‘What do you want from me?’
Korbolo straightened, adjusted his layered cloaks against the rain. ‘I have what I have always wanted. Look at you, squatting in the mud like an animal. You are defeated, squalid. I need not even attend your execution in Unta – you are already dead to me.’
Urko bared his teeth. ‘You don’t want to know what I’m lookin’ at.’
Korbolo turned away, walked off into the night escorted by his guards.
‘Listen, Hood take you!’ Urko called. ‘Never mind about me. Do what you want with me – but let my men in!’ He wrenched another stake from the wall, broke it in his fists, almost launched himself out after the man, but mastered himself to finally sink down into the mud.
Ullen sat as well. To one side Choss coughed wetly, murmuring. Roggen held a cloth out over his slack face. Reaching out, Ullen tried to warm the man’s ice-cold hand in his. The chill damp was sapping even Choss’s strength. He doubted his old mentor would see the dawn.
Lights approached, torches flickering and hissing held by guards, and in their midst a short slim figure, the rain beading and running from her dark hair, the wet silk cloth of her tunic outlining her muscular arms, slim chest. Ullen had not seen her in decades but she looked exactly as when he had last set eyes upon her. Surly – Laseen. So small and unprepossessing! Yet all those around were unable to ignore her presence; even the captive Talian officers found themselves drawn to stand in respect. She acknowledged their gesture with a slight nod. Urko, however, refused to look up. She simply waited, clasped her hands at her back. After a time Urko finally glanced up, then away, and kept his face averted.
‘I expected better of you than this, Surly,’ he grated.
‘I’ve come with a request, Urko,’ she said.
He pushed himself awkwardly to his feet. ‘A request? You come with a request of me? Well, it just so happens I have one for you.’
‘Yes. Strange, that. I would speak with you and V’thell.’ At the mention of his name the Gold commander bowed. His right arm and side were a weeping, gouged and mangled mess.
‘I would want their cooperation. Urko. V’thell.’
‘You’ll have it,’ Urko swore. V’thell bowed again.
‘I will still have to keep you and the officers as guarantors…’
‘We understand,’ V’thell said.
‘Very well.’ She signed to a guard.
‘What of Korbolo?’ Urko asked.
‘He is not your concern.’
That statement, delivered with such assurance and command, struck Ullen as a true note of Imperial rule and it must have echoed similarly with Urko as well for he straightened, giving a small nod of his head, with a look of something like surprised wonder on his craggy, rain-spattered face.
Nait, followed by the two heavies of his squad, Tranter and Martin, and one of his regular infantry saboteurs, Kal, walked the lines of the defences. ‘You seen a soldier named Brill?’ he asked every picket he met. ‘A stupid-looking gawking awkward fella? Anyone? Out on the field?’ But no one had and the fellow hadn’t reported back. How stupid could he be? Had he just fallen asleep somewhere without reporting? If so, he was gonna tear his head off!
A soldier caught up with them and tapped his arm. ‘You lookin’ for a man out on the field?’
‘Yeah. Brill.’
‘Brill. Brill? Maybe. I was with a healer detachment. He waved us over but wouldn’t leave the field. Said he was ordered to stay with his man. Don’t know why though – the fellow was dead.’
Nait stared, then shuddered with cold. He wiped the rain from his face, saw the soldier regarding him curiously. ‘Right! Ah, thanks, solider.’ The man saluted. Nait stared again until he realized that he ought to respond; he answered the salute and the soldier jogged away into the rain. He looked to Tranter, Martin and Kal. Their eyes slid aside to the darkness out beyond the crossed stakes. Poliel’s Pustules! Hood’s Kiss! Fucking dumbass anus-for-brains! Nait threw his helmet into the mud.
‘I haven’t heard anything about no inspection,’ the guard at the gate said, frowning in his confusion. Nait shrugged under his cloak. ‘It’s not like it’s official or anything – we’re just worried about the wall of the palisade collapsing – that’s all.’
The guards exchanged alarmed looks. ‘Collapsin’?’
‘Yeah. In the rain.’ He pointed to the wall of sunken poles. ‘Look – they’re tiltin’ out already.’
‘OK, OK. You wanna go out there, that’s your worry.’ The guards lifted the barrier aside. Nait waved forward the five with him but out of the rain came four more, the young new recruits shuffling up beneath outsized capes that dragged in the mud. Nait glared, motioning them away, but they saluted.
‘Reportin’ for the inspection,’ the eldest, Kibb, said, winking.
His back to the guards, Nait raised a fist to them. The youth tapped something bulky with him under his cape. Nait’s brows climbed his forehead; the youth gave a smirking, knowing assent.
‘You goin’ or what?’ the guard asked.
‘On our way, Cap’n.’ Nait waved the squad through impatiently.
Out of earshot, in the dark with the rain pelting down, he turned on the youths. ‘What’d you think you’re doing! This ain’t no pleasure hike!’
‘We know!’ Kibb said, annoyed. ‘We came armed for bear.’ And they pulled up their capes.
‘The Gods’ golden shit!’ The exclamation was torn from Nait as if he’d been poleaxed. Under their capes each carried one of the Moranth munition boxes. The rest of Nait’s squad flinched back a step.
‘Will you put those away!’ Nait yanked down their capes, glared out at the darkness as if expecting to be arrested. ‘How did you get them?’
Kibb tapped a finger to the side of his nose. ‘We marked the tent they was hiding all the confiscated munitions. An’ in the rain an’ the dark an’ all it was easy.’ He shrugged.
‘Well, you’re not comin’ with us. It’s too dangerous. You’re going to stay here and wait until we come back and then you’re going to return those like nothing’s ever happened! OK?’
‘Bullshit!’
‘Bullshit? Don’t shit me, soldier!’
‘Well, you’re talkin’ it.’
Nait set his fists on his hips. Why, the little runts! It’s just like he was back home dealin’ with his swarm of younger brothers. ‘OK, fine. You wanna come then you have to follow my orders and…Abyss, I don’t even know all your names – what in Fanderay are your names anyway?’
‘Kibb.’ Yes, Kibb. What a dumb name. What’s it supposed to mean?
‘Poot,’ said one. Poot? Aw, you poor skinny pox-faced kid! What were your parents thinking? Maybe I’ll start calling you ‘Pimple’ – that’d be an improvement.
‘Jawl.’ Jawl? What kind of a name is that for a girl?
Blushing furiously, the smallest just shook his head. ‘No name at all?’ He squirmed.
‘Stubbin.’
Stubbin? Stubbin! You poor kid. Your parents really did a number on you. Gods, he couldn’t have come up with a worse selection than their parents had managed spontaneously. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’
As far as Nait was concerned, he was the only person he knew entirely free of any self-delusions. He knew he wasn’t brave or a particularly good fighter. He knew sure as Beru that he wasn’t exactly an inspiring figure. He also knew that he wasn’t leading his squad out on to a gruesome battlefield at night haunted by the worst curse ever to afflict Quon because he was some kind of glory-drunk fool. No, he was just gonna collect his man then get the Abyss off the field all real quiet and as fast as his little pitter-pattering feet could carry him.
The rain let up though it was still as dark as the inside of a cave and for that he was thankful. He misstepped a few times, slipped on things all slithery and occasionally stuck his hand into something wet and soft that sucked when he yanked it free but he didn’t look, didn’t want to know what that thing was. His squad was real quiet and for that he was thankful as well. No talkers. Some men or women get all talky when they’re scared or nervous; that was something he couldn’t abide.
The stink wasn’t quite so bad yet – not so bad as you’d lose your meal. The flies, though, they were vile. Assaulting his nose, eyes and ears as if they preferred live meat over the endless banquet prepared for them. He had a fair idea where they’d found the Falaran commander and he led his squad as quickly as he could to that spot, without detour or bothering to keep to low-lying ground. Growling and snarling warned them off the skulking carrion-eaters and he figured they wouldn’t attack – not when their stomachs were full and there was plenty left for everyone.
They found the man’s big horse and him still beneath it – unmarred by the sharp beaks of any birds. But no sign of Brill. The image flashed into Nait’s mind of the man asleep in the compound and he almost fainted in a gasping white fury. Then Martin hissed, pointed to his feet. There the man lay, blissfully asleep amidst all the gory horror. What could allow such a thing? A clean conscience? An utter lack of any imagination? It was one of the Queen’s own mysteries to Nait. They kicked him awake and he sat up, yawning and rubbing his face.
He peered at them, completely unsurprised. ‘Yeah?’
Nait waved everyone down. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed.
‘Waitin’ for you.’
‘Waitin’—’ Nait stopped himself from reaching out to throttle the ape. But he had to do something – he pulled off his helmet and hit him with it. ‘You damned fool! Don’t you ever do anything like that again!’
‘But you ordered me to—’
‘I don’t care what I said – you use your blasted empty head! Now, c’mon. Let’s go.’ He started up but Stubbin waved everyone down. ‘What?’
Stubbin made a motion for quiet.
‘What is it?’ Nait whispered.
The boy waved furiously for silence.
Oh, right. He listened. He didn’t hear a damned thing. That is, except for the wings of night feeders, the growls and snapping of fighting jackals and plains wolves, the moaning of one or two wounded still alive somewhere out there in the dark. ‘I don’t hear—!’ A hand grasped him and another covered his mouth, stifling his yell of surprise. He was yanked around to face the sweaty, dark, scarred features of Master Sergeant Temp. He relaxed and was released. ‘It’s you!’
‘Yeah. Damned unfortunate.’
‘They said you were blown up.’
‘That’s the story. ’Preciate you keeping to it.’
‘Uh, OK. Why?’
‘Let’s say I first left Imperial service under sharp circumstances.’
Nait’s squad gathered around. ‘What’s up? Kibb asked.
The man was a gruesome sight, hacked and slashed, the front of his layered iron hauberk and scale gauntlets dark with the remains of blood and gore. His shield was gone, but from his short time in the phalanx Nait knew it was common to go through two or three or four shields in any one engagement. ‘What’re you doing out here?’
‘Same as you, I expect.’ He flicked the cloth tied around Nait’s arm. ‘What’s this?’
Nait thought maybe he blushed and was thankful for the dark. ‘Made sergeant.’
‘Handin’ them out to anyone these days.’
‘Listen – we’re headin’ back. You coming or not?’
‘No, you’re coming with me.’
‘Coming with you? What in Fanderay’s ass for?’
‘There’s Seti poking around out there and I want to know who and why.’
‘What? Who cares? Ryllandaras is out here. We gotta get back!’
The master sergeant dragged Nait up. ‘Ryllandaras ain’t gonna bother with little ol’ us so don’t bother with your cover story.’ He motioned to the squad. ‘Fall in, double-column.’
‘Cover story? What d’you mean cover story?’
‘I know why you came out here with your saboteur squad.’ He shook Nait by the arm. ‘Got yourself some munitions, don’t cha? Gonna bag yourself the big one, ain’t ya?’
‘What? No!’
‘The old fart’s got a point,’ Kibb said aside.
The veteran waved a gauntleted hand. ‘It’s all right. You’ll get your chance for everlastin’ fame and glory. I just want a quick parley with these Seti here, then we’ll hustle back to camp and I’ll help you ambush Whitey.’
‘For the last time, I don’t—’
‘Shhh.’
The master sergeant led them west past the killing fields out on to horse-trampled prairie. Farther west Nait could just make out a party of Seti horsemen, dismounted and gathered together. They seemed to be just waiting, watching the east, towards the Imperial encampment.
The master sergeant whispered into Nait’s ear: ‘Call for the Boar.’
‘What?’ Nait hissed. ‘No, you call!’
The veteran nudged him none too lightly. ‘G’wan.’
Eyes on the master sergeant, who winked his encouragement, Nait cleared his throat. The Seti all dropped from sight as if felled. ‘Ah – is the Boar there?’ he called in a strained whisper.
After a time the answer came in Talian: ‘Who is asking?’
‘Tell him,’ whispered the master sergeant, ‘his sword-brother.’
Nait cleared his throat once more. ‘Ah – his sword-brother.’
A man stood, short and very stocky, long arms akimbo. ‘Sword-brother? Stand up then, damn you!’
The master sergeant stood. ‘I know that voice!’
‘And I know that silhouette.’
The two men started forward towards one another through the grass, slowly though, warily, until close they threw themselves into each other’s arms, pounding each other on the back.
‘Am I seein’ things,’ Kibb asked. ‘Or are those two guys hugging?’
