Stands a Shadow

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Surrender and Be Free

‘I have to go,’ Bahn told his wife as he tied down the last of the equipment to his saddle.

Marlee nodded stiffly. Behind her, in the evening shadows, a man on crutches hobbled past in the otherwise empty street, a flap of skin hanging where his foot had once been. The man was in a hurry, as though pursued by the sounds of the tower horns that wailed across the city to announce the departure of the last of the troops.

‘Remember what I said, now. Get a message to Reese. Let her know she can come and stay here with you. Tell her I’m sorry I haven’t been to see her.’ Bahn suddenly ran his fingers through his hair. He recalled the last time he had seen his sister-in-law; her quiet voice explaining how her son had left the city. ‘Sweet Mercy, I haven’t even been to ask after Nico. How long has it been now?’

‘It’s all right,’ soothed his wife behind him. ‘I’ll tell Reese. She’ll understand.’

Her words failed to assuage him. Bahn had felt a certain responsibility towards Reese and her son ever since his brother Cole had deserted them.

He cinched the leather strap with a final sharp tug, putting his frustration into it. He inspected his work, then took a deep breath before turning to face his wife.

‘Time to go.’

Marlee nodded without expression. She was maintaining her composure for the sake of them both.

He’d felt awkward around his wife these recent weeks. He’d found that in her presence his guilty conscience would often make him think of the girl Curl, and it made him uneasy in his wife’s gaze, as though she might somehow see through him.

Now he stared hard into her eyes, unflinching. Marlee clasped her arms around his neck as he held her slim waist in his hands. Their noses touched.

‘I love you,’ he told her.

‘And I love you, my sweet man.’

Her eyes shone with the beginnings of tears.

He held her to him tightly, crushing her against his armour. He did not wish to let her go.

I don’t deserve this woman, he thought bitterly.

The children were already asleep inside. Bahn had kissed his sleeping infant daughter on the forehead, had shared a few words with his bleary-eyed son tucked up in bed.

He couldn’t shake what he’d seen in the streets on his hasty return home. People had been lining the thoroughfares as columns of soldiers and old Molari marched for the northern gates, cheering them on as they passed by, forcing good-luck charms and parcels of food and bottles of spirits into their hands. Some had cried at the sight of them, old men even, stirred by the determined expressions of the soldiers and the knowledge of what they all marched towards.

We can do this, Bahn had thought as his own emotions soared with the collective spirit of the crowds. If we stand together we can get through this.

But then, cutting through the backstreets to make better progress, he had passed countless people rushing with their belongings towards the harbours, hoping to find safe passage off the island, and he had watched them pass with something of envy in his heart.

On the walls, fresh graffiti was painted as though in blood. The flesh is strong. Surrender and be free. The work of Mannian agitators, resurfacing in the city now that it was truly vulnerable, and the majority of its forces were leaving.

Standing with Marlee in his arms, Bahn once more felt the urge to grab his wife and shake her and say, For pity’s sake, take the children and find a way out! But they were words for him alone, for he could never bring himself to say them. Not to Marlee, his pillar of strength, this woman whose father had fallen on the first day of the siege in defence of the city. She would say no, absolutely no, and then she would think less of him as a husband, as a man.

‘Look after them,’ was all he could say amidst the soft thickness of her hair.

‘Of course,’ she breathed. ‘And promise me you’ll be careful.’

‘I will.’

And despite their words of reassurance, they kissed long and hard and desperate, as though they would never see each other again.

On the still-smouldering hilltop, Ash stood amongst the ashes and debris that were the remains of a small fishing village, and stared down at a line of severed penises laid out in the gloom like a children’s forgotten game of half-sticks.

Close by, the charred corpses of their owners lay contorted amid the rubble of a collapsed stable. Ash had glimpsed smaller bodies lying amongst them; children and even infants.

Of the women, there was no sign.

Not for the first time in Ash’s long life, it struck him how death smelled the same no matter if it was man, zel, or dog. Ash had seen such things before in his days with the People’s Revolutionary Army. The long-running war of his homeland had burned the compassion from many men’s hearts. Friends had become unhinged with loss or simply callous and hardened like himself, while those men already tainted with cruelty within had revelled unfettered through a landscape of war where the normal bounds of decency no longer applied.

It had broken his heart the first time he’d witnessed such an atrocity; an anguish almost akin to the heartbreak of a beloved’s infidelity, though much worse than that; like a great lie at the heart of the world, suddenly exposed by shocking vivisection.

‘This is not your war,’ Ash told himself aloud in the darkness of the night.

He almost expected to hear the voice of Nico in admonishment. Those were Khosians lying there in the rubble. The whole country, the boy’s family included, faced slavery or the same fate as this.

Nothing came to Ash, though, no voice of conscience or disembodied spirit, only the vague unsettled feeling that he was as much a part of this as anyone, whether he chose a side or not.

The brief gap in the clouds closed above his head, and pitch blackness enveloped him. Sheathed sword in hand, face and hands blackened with soot, Ash turned his back on what lay there in the darkness.

He held a finger against a clogged nostril and blew it clear, then stepped beyond the ruins to the edge of the hill, where he lay on his belly on the coarse grass and looked down on the glowing tents of the Matriarch’s camp below.

The tents were visible for the lamps that shone within them, and they stood on a rise of ground that was broad and flat on top, surrounded by a palisade of sharpened, outward-leaning stakes, and the black line of a ditch ran around the foot of the position. Behind the stakes, white-robed sentries stood half a dozen paces apart. At their backs, a bonfire crackled in a clear space between the tents. The flames were illuminating the twitching flag of the Matriarch.

Ash ranged outwards with his gaze, taking in the much larger camp that sprawled around the Matriarch’s palisade, perhaps a thousand Acolytes or more. They were surrounded in turn by a band of blackness, and he struggled to make out the double picket lines he knew would be positioned there beyond the light. He couldn’t see them, though; only the fires that flickered further along the dunes, the main army spread out far and wide.

He snapped his attention back to the imperial enclosure. By the look of it, the entrance lay on the western side of the palisade, but he couldn’t see clearly enough from here. He would need to get down there if he wanted a closer look.

Over the course of the next half-hour, Ash descended towards the outermost perimeter, working his way around it as he went. He stopped once to take a drink from a brook running down a cleft in the hill. He stopped again when he was on the flat ground to the west and sensed that he was approaching the first line of sentries, the pickets he’d been unable to see from above.

Ash waited until he formed an impression of what was ranged before him; an outer ring of guards spaced widely apart. He could smell them, their musk of sweat and garlic. He could hear them too: a throat being cleared, the rustle of movement as a cloak was drawn tighter against the chill.

When he thought he knew where the nearest two were located, Ash crept forwards carefully through the space between them. It was no more difficult than that.

Ahead stood the inner line of pickets. He could see them silhouetted against the many fires, standing some fifteen paces apart. They were too far out, he thought in his experienced way; more vulnerable here in the backlit darkness where they were visible but could barely see.

At the heart of the camp stood the Matriarch’s enclosure. Barbed wire had been stretched in coils between the stakes of the palisade. The ditch below it was invisible from his position; most likely filled with caltrops to impale the soles of unwary feet. At least he could see the entrance to the enclosure better. It was covered by a screen of wood, and while he watched he saw it being dragged aside to allow an Acolyte to pass through.

Ash had a decision to make: whether this was to be a reconnaissance or a full attempt at reaching Sasheen. He’d seen enough to know there was only one way for him to gain access to her enclosure.

He lay down on the cool grass and rested his chin on his hands. Tried to sense the flow of it all. The opportunity was there all right, though it was a risky one. And no telling what procedures the guards were following at the entrance to the enclosure – not from here.

Let us go and find out then.

Ash singled out the closest sentry to him, a form standing alone taking the odd drink from a flask. He judged the size of the Acolyte and thought that he would do.

For another half-hour, Ash crawled towards the figure through the blackness of the night. It was hard work, moving each limb a tiny fraction at a time without sound. It required his utmost concentration. All the while, his troubled chest burned with the pain of breathing so shallowly.

Six feet from the sentry, he froze as a cough nearby broke the stillness. It made Ash want to cough too. His chest convulsed, and he clamped a hand over his mouth and fought the urge until it had passed. He saw the Acolyte turn his head in his direction.

Ash lay pressed against the grass, barely breathing, his eyes closed.

Long moments passed, enough for a passing mosquito to settle on his sooty cheek. He felt the itch of it, but remained so perfectly still that after a moment the insect took off again, without biting him.

He peered through his eyelashes and saw that the Acolyte was looking elsewhere. Ash began to move again. Like a cat on the hunt, he lifted and settled his limbs with a deliberate slowness, closing the distance an inch at a time. Sweat beaded his skin by the time that he was within range.

He lay right at the man’s boots.

The white-robe sniffed the air, looking about him. He could scent Ash’s sweat.

Ash lunged up and stabbed his thumbs into the man’s throat. The Acolyte choked, trying to release a sound; a hand clawed at Ash’s face. Ash pressed his thumbs even harder, seeing the white flash of his victim’s eyes through the mask.

He helped him to the ground as the man went slack in his grip. Maintained the pressure of his thumbs until he was certain he was dead.

‘Cuno?’ came a voice from the darkness to his left.

Ash froze with his hands still around the Acolyte’s neck. He caught a scent of the alcohol that had spilled from the man’s dropped flask.

He swallowed air and forced a belch from his gullet.

‘Aye,’ he said in Trade, and waited for a cry of alarm.

‘Nothing,’ came the voice again. ‘Thought I heard something.’

Ash hurried. His victim was larger than he’d first appeared, and as Ash donned the Acolyte’s armour and robe they felt much too big on him.

No, he realized. It was Ash who was smaller now. He’d lost weight during the long voyage.

He pulled the cloak over the oversized armour, hoping that would be enough to the hide the ill fit and the curve of his sword. Then he fixed the mask about his face, which covered his scalp too, like a helm. Only once did he glance at the contorted face that had been revealed beneath it; a middle-aged man with a shaven head, his jowls pronounced beneath a hard face. Ash bent and closed the Acolyte’s bulging eyes.

The camp was quiet at this hour, with most of the Acolytes asleep, though laughter and music played from the largest, brightest tent within the Matriarch’s enclosure. The camp was arranged in orderly squares, and Ash strode along the lanes between the pup tents and dying campfires as though he rightly belonged there, ignoring the occasional Acolyte that walked past him, or hunkered down over some flames.

As he neared the mound of the enclosure the sounds grew louder in his ears. He heard a sharp cry of pleasure, and a bell ringing.

Ahead, an Acolyte was approaching the palisade with a camouflaged scout limping by his side. They stopped at the screen of wood and wire drawn across the entrance. Ash increased his pace a little, rehearsing a few words in his head as he strode towards the entrance himself.

And then his heart skipped a beat, for he saw the Acolyte stop and display the stubbed little finger of his hand to the guards behind the screen.

Ash cursed and faltered in his stride. He watched as the screen was dragged to one side to allow them through.

If he sprinted now, he might just make it through before it was closed again.

And then what? Fight his way through a hundred men?

He felt his chest convulse, and then he erupted into a fit of coughing from behind his mask. He stopped and doubled over, saw the guards at the entrance turn to regard him through the closing screen.

Ash straightened and walked away from the entrance, knowing how suspicious he must look to them. He wanted to hurry. Instead he walked calmly, his pace steady, waiting to be challenged at any second.

‘You there!’ came a man’s voice through the night.

Che looked up as he heard someone call out his name.

It was Sasheen who had called to him, from where she lounged on a couch in total nakedness, save for the grey plaster wrapped around her broken arm. Already, though, her attention had returned to the young woman who kneeled before her on one of the fur rugs, lapping at Sasheen’s heavy breast. Sasheen stroked the shaven head of the young aide, and whispered something down to her while she held a small pinchbowl of narcotics near the girl’s nostrils.

Klint the physician was walking around the edges of the tent with a joybell in his hand, a bottle of wine in the other. He was ringing the bell loudly each time he heard a cry of pleasure from one of the writhing forms he carefully trod around, all the while chanting wordbindings of devotion. He stopped before one of the alcoves in the tent wall, where the head of Lucian sat on a pedestal. The head blinked dully back at him as Klint shook the joybell in his face, and shouted, grinning, ‘ Free yourself, and all you desire you shall have !’ Sasheen laughed, egging him on. She was in high spirits tonight. They all were. The First Expeditionary Force had made landfall at long last, and they were alive, and having their fill of it.

A shriek cut through the smoky air of the great tent. Some priests in a far corner were having their way with one of the freshly caught slaves – their first taste of Khos, one of them shouted, as he threw a rag of clothing over his shoulder and fell upon the woman.

Che rubbed his eyes where he sat on a chair in one of the alcoves, and wondered when the Matriarch would relieve him for the night. He had never been one for these passionestas of the order. They exposed him in ways more than merely physical, requiring that he drop his guard while in the presence of his fellow priests. Even so, his was becoming aroused despite himself.

The floor around him was like a pool of merging flesh now, the air so heady with narcotics he was finding it hard to focus. He listened to the rasp of breaths and voices, observed the sheen of oil on interlocked limbs, the flash of eyes, pink tongues, teeth, smiles and scowls, whispers, genitalia.

All hail the divine flesh, he reflected sourly.

Everyone was there of Sasheen’s inner circle and entourage. The two generals, eyeing one another like fighting dogs as they each caressed a slave girl and partook of dried fruits and wine. Sashseen’s caretaker, Heelas, going down on one of his young studs. Alarum the spymaster, holding court to a ring of apt listeners, including Sool.

The priests around these figures formed the outer circles of Sasheen’s court, those of lesser status who vied always to climb higher. At their very edges were the Matriarch’s aides and hangers-on. The twins were there, Guan and Swan, the brother and sister frolicking with a woman between them.

Around them all, Sasheen’s honour guard watched with their scratch-gloves sheathed and resting lightly on folded arms, their stares hidden by smoky goggles.

And who is watching the watchers, he wondered absently, and scanned the priests who also sat around the edges of the tent in the little alcoves, talking quietly or looking on with steady eyes, some too old for this sport, or too weary, or too bored. Three priests of the Monbarri, the fanatics of Mann, sat within an alcove across from him. The largest, seated in the middle of them, wore a lipless scar-mask for a face, his skin etched by acids in a statement of intent that was extreme even for a Monbarri inquisitor.

His eyes were studying Che from across the tent.

Che casually stared back at the faceless man. The bodies were pressing closer now, like a tide pressing against him. A head brushed his boot as a pair of bodies heaved before his feet. He placed his sole against the smooth scalp, pushed until they rolled away from him. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Swan and saw that she was looking at him from afar.

He offered the young woman a nod of his head. She smiled. The moment of connection warmed him, sent a thrill up his spine.

The Monbarri was still watching him from across the room.

Che decided he needed to clear his head, and rose to his feet in the same moment. He paused to catch Swan’s eye, willing her to follow him, then turned and strode to the entrance as the Monbarri watched him leave.

As he stepped outside he took a deep lungful of untainted air. The sentries ignored him – just another priest of Sasheen’s entourage. Che looked to his right, where a bonfire burned high into the night sky. Two Acolytes were throwing another empty wine crate onto it, one of many the priests had already worked their way through.

It was to be expected, Che supposed. With the success of the crossing and the survival of most of the fleet during last night’s storm, the Matriarch and her general staff were in need of venting their tensions. Watching them tonight, feasting and gorging themselves, it had become clear to Che that until the very moment they had reached land with their forces largely intact, no one had been entirely sure if it was possible.

Che stepped a little further away from the noise of the tent. He waited in hope that Swan would emerge, while a slight breeze blew down the valley, carrying with it a hint of the winter still to come. They would have to make haste if they were to take Bar-Khos before the first falls of snow.

An Acolyte was escorting a scout through the entrance to the palisade, a weary middle-aged purdah covered in dirt and sporting a limp. His wolfhound was nowhere to be seen. Che squinted. Behind the messenger and scout, a second Acolyte had been approaching the entrance, though the man had stopped as the screen was drawn across the entrance again, and had doubled over in a fit of coughing, and now was walking off in a different direction entirely.

Odd, thought Che.

‘You there!’ Che shouted to the guards at the entrance. They turned to see who was shouting.

Another shriek broke the night air. It recalled to Che the sound of a scream from a boiling water-heater, the whistle that had finally obscured it.

Che’s eyes lingered over the retreating Acolyte.

‘Never mind,’ he shouted to the guards.

He looked back to the threshold of the tent. Swan had not ventured out to join him.

Che stalked off to his tent alone.