Sea Of Ghosts

CHAPTER 1
HU

An aide held up the bottle for Emperor Hu’s inspection. Sweat trails ran down his powdered blue cheeks and through the rouge around his eyes, and he clutched the Unmer container in both trembling hands, clearly terrified of dropping it. The emperor, for his part, looked just as uncomfortable. From a distance of five feet away, Hu leaned his long white face towards the cause of this morning’s woes.

‘A sea-bottle,’ he remarked, rubbing his pointed chin. ‘It never ceases to amaze me how such tiny things can cause so much trouble. What do the Unmer call them?’

‘Ichusae, your Majesty,’ the aide said.

The emperor’s hall contained a great expanse of air so pungent with clashing perfumes that one wondered if it was safe to breathe. Sunlight slanted down through high windows in the opposite walls and baked wedges of pink marble floor. Several hundred courtiers had gathered to see the Unmer bottle: a score of the emperor’s aides bedecked in jewels and silk kamarbands, legislators huddled together like great red bears in their fur-lined robes, administrators in white wool wigs and grey sacking, shipping magnates from Valcinder, and assorted noblemen and women, favoured artisans, poets and fools, military officers and concubines wearing little but beads. Sworn-blood representatives of at least three enemy warlords were also present, each heavily adorned with gold clasps and chains that had doubtlessly been stolen from Hu’s own ships. Their crooked grins suggested mouths full of other men’s teeth. Two lines of blind Samarol bodyguard stood between the emperor and his guests, clad in silver mail and eyeless silver helms forged into the likeness of snarling wolves and clutching Unmer seeing knives

‘Which means what exactly?’ Hu retorted.

The aide looked uncertain.

‘It means a doorway.’ This answer came from the Haurstaf witch standing nearby. Sister Briana Marks was fair-skinned and flushed with youth. A great tumble of golden hair gathered in the sinuous hollow at the back of her white frock, flashing with sunlight whenever she moved.

Granger’s right shoulder was still burning from its exposure to the brine. The weird ichor was gnawing on his nerve-endings like an army of ants as it worked its spell on him, and it took a supreme effort of will to maintain his composure. He did not wish to show weakness in front of Banks, Tummel and Swan. The three privates waited six paces behind him. Sergeant Creedy had remained with the barrack surgeon.

‘Doorway,’ the emperor muttered. ‘What strange creatures the Unmer are.’

A general mutter of agreement passed through the assembled crowd. Fans waved and heads nodded. Strange creatures indeed.

‘One sea-bottle hardly matters when thousands more remain scattered across the ocean floors,’ Sister Marks said. She gave the emperor a perfect smile, her blue eyes gleaming with impudence, and strolled across the dais to the throne. For a moment Granger thought she was actually going to sit in it. But she simply hovered there, one slender hand resting on the gilded arm rest.

‘My navy is occupied,’ the emperor retorted.

‘If your navy was less intent on expanding your empire and more focused on finding these ichusae,’ the witch replied, ‘there would be no further need for expansion. But you’d have them respond to the symptoms rather than cure the disease.’

Emperor Hu dismissed his aide and fixed a look of disdain on the witch. ‘Where would the Haurstaf have me search?’

‘Why, everywhere, of course.’

A fresh jolt of pain stabbed Granger’s damaged shoulder. His collar bone felt like hot iron, and his nerves screamed. Three more days. Three more days before it healed or turned to sharkskin. He’d washed the wound thoroughly in clean water, but not soon enough after exposure to be certain it wouldn’t alter his flesh for good. Either way, he’d probably lose a great deal of flexibility in the right arm. And that would mean retraining to bring his fencing skills up to par.

The emperor snorted. He raised his voice for the benefit everyone present. ‘The Haurstaf would have me leave my empire unguarded while I hunt the seabed for little green bottles.’

A nervous laugh swept through the crowd.

Sister Marks only smiled. ‘Without the Haurstaf,’ she said carefully, ‘you would not have an empire to guard.’

Hu was turning red. ‘I could afford a hundred dredgers for what you charge for your services,’ he said through his teeth. ‘If you would only kill the last of the Unmer and take your witches back to Awl, I would have the resources with which to search the seas.’

‘Kill the Unmer?’ Marks said in affected tones. ‘But that would be wrong.’

He glared at her.

‘If you’re not happy with our little arrangement,’ she said. ‘We’ll gladly leave you to deal with the Unmer yourselves. After all, we do have other clients.’

Granger noted a sharp intake of breath from a few of the assembled guests. One of the warlords’ men chuckled. The witch simply regarded Hu with a vague air of contempt. No ordinary telepath, this one. Few Haurstaf would have been so arrogant as to humiliate the emperor in his own hall.

Hu’s expression darkened. ‘Warlords and privateers,’ he growled. He flashed a look at the representatives of these same men, before his attention settled on Granger. ‘What is wrong with you?’

‘A minor injury, Emperor,’ Granger replied.

‘Did I give you permission to speak?’

Granger looked at him coldly. Evidently the witch wasn’t the only one who needed a lesson in diplomacy. ‘You addressed the hall, Emperor,’ he said. ‘And I was the logical person to answer your question.’ From the corner of his eye, he saw Banks cringe.

Hu glared at him. ‘I know you, don’t I?’

‘Colonel Granger, Emperor.’

A knowing smirk came to the emperor’s lips. ‘Weaverbrook,’ he said. ‘1432. You’re one of the Gravediggers.’

Granger nodded.

‘Weaverbrook 1432,’ Hu said. ‘The largest loss of Imperial troops in my whole campaign.’

‘I believe it was the second-largest loss, Emperor.’

Hu snorted a laugh. ‘Is that so? For a man who spent more time digging holes for his dead comrades than actually fighting, you don’t sound particularly remorseful, Colonel.’

‘My men fought bravely,’ Granger replied. He could see Banks shaking his head urgently, Swan and Tummel shifting uncomfortably. They didn’t want Granger to say what he was about to say. But he said it anyway. ‘We took the villages and the outlying farms, as ordered. We secured the peninsula to Coomb, as ordered. We arranged an armistice, and I delivered your terms to the Evensraum Council myself. My men were jubilant but exhausted, and I regret we were ill equipped to withstand the naval bombardment you ordered on our position, Emperor.’

Silence filled the hall, only to be broken a moment later by a laugh from the Haurstaf witch.

‘Forgive me, Colonel,’ Banks said, ‘but why did you have to open your goddamned mouth?’

They were walking along a corridor in the City Fortress. Gem lanterns hung from the rafters, but they were ancient and provided scant illumination in this gloom. Moonlight filtered through a line of small grimy windows that overlooked the Naval Dockyards and the dragon cannery. Even from here, Granger could hear the pounding of the factory machines and smell the blood and salt.

‘Did you not see the warlords’ men?’

Granger marched ahead.

Banks went on, ‘You might as well as commented on the size of the emperor’s cock.’

Granger’s boots splashed through a puddle. The floor above held tanks of Mare Lux brine to accommodate sharkskin prisoners of war for experimentation, but the old vats leaked constantly, sending trickles of toxic seawater down through the fabric of the building. Damp stained the corridor walls. Chocolate-coloured ichusan crystals had already begun to form in places.

‘Actually,’ Banks said, ‘it might have been less of a problem if you had-’

‘That’s enough,’ Granger said.

Banks blew between his teeth. ‘Hell,’ he said. ‘At least I’ll take the image of his face to my grave. However soon that’ll be.’

‘I said, that’s enough.’

They found the surgeon in Recovery Room 4. He was leaning over Creedy’s head, feeding gauze into the wounded man’s eye socket. The sergeant reclined on an enormous adjustable chair, clutching a tray full of bloody surgical implements in his lap.

‘That looks like a good clean wound, Sergeant,’ Granger observed.

‘Hurts like a bastard, sir,’ Creedy replied. ‘But I’ve had worse.’

The surgeon looked up. ‘I thought it best to avoid the risk of anaesthetic,’ he said. ‘In this case the arrow has cauterized the wound quite nicely.’ He sighed. ‘We don’t see many injuries like this any more.’

‘You sound disappointed,’ Granger said.

The other man made a non-committal gesture. ‘Void arrows make such lovely wounds. Much cleaner than a sword cut. Much less prone to infection.’ He withdrew his bloody fingers from Creedy’s eye socket. ‘Hand me one of those bandages, will you?’

Granger took a bandage and a couple of snap-pins from a box on a nearby trolley. ‘I’ll finish this off,’ he said. ‘Get yourself cleaned up.’ He wrapped the bandage around Creedy’s head and secured it with a pin.

The recovery room plumbing had been rudely extended to reposition an array of washbasins a foot out from the wall, away from the brine-riddled stonework. The ceiling plaster along the western edge of the room had collapsed, and glassy brown contusions had appeared around the metal window frames. The surgeon washed his hands in fresh water and shook them dry. ‘I don’t suppose you recovered the arrow?’ he asked Granger.

‘It disappeared into the vault wall.’

‘Shame, shame. Skywards or seawards?’

‘A very slight inclination. It must have passed through the city in an instant.’

The surgeon nodded. ‘Heading for the stars.’ He turned back to Creedy. ‘Your eye socket will take an implant, Sergeant. I can have one made up in a couple of weeks. Nothing fancy, just clay and resin.’

‘I like the hole just fine.’ Creedy thought for a moment. ‘Maybe I can keep something useful in there… tobacco, ammunition.’ He laughed. ‘Would it hold a grenade?’

‘I have one you could try,’ Banks said. ‘You can have it for free, Creedy.’

The surgeon made a sound of disapproval. ‘I would not recommend that, Sergeant. Colonel, would you like me to take a look at your shoulder?’

Before Granger could reply, the door of the recovery room opened, and a young girl walked in. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, but she wore the robes of a Haurstaf cadet and carried herself with all the authority that implied. She approached the colonel and handed him a sealed envelope. ‘Sister Marks asked me to deliver this,’ she said. ‘It’s already in circulation.’

Creedy sat up.

Granger opened the envelope and read the note inside.

24/Hu-Suarin/1441