Tomorrow, the Killing

45

I started hitting crowds at Broad Street, a good half-mile from the epicenter. I didn’t know what count Pretories had been hoping for when he’d put this shindig together, but whatever it had been he’d blown through it. There were contingents of veterans from throughout the Empire, from every corner of the Three Kingdoms: Tarasaighns from Kinterre in brightly colored outfits, piss drunk despite the hour; lines of Ashers with clipped black hair and clipped black eyes, eternally solemn, taking no part in the festivities; Islanders strolling in full naval regalia, red velvet coats and gilded thread, grinning in the heat. Groups had been piling into the city all week, setting up makeshift shelters at the march site. They milled about happily near their lean-tos, swapping lies about the war, buying food from passing vendors, catching up on regimental gossip.

Joachim’s logistical abilities hadn’t faded – it was a masterpiece of planning, executed with extraordinary precision. I’d say military precision, but having been in the service I know that to be an oxymoron. Everything so far was legal as sea salt. The Throne couldn’t refuse permission for a march by the men who had guaranteed its survival. What they could do, and indeed had done, was surround the protesters by a cordon of hard-looking men in dark brown uniforms, carrying thick-headed clubs of the same color. Not city boys either, the hoax were too smart to let themselves get pulled into this mess. Levies from the provinces if I had to guess, bumpkins culled from the fields and brought south. Fifteen years earlier they’d have been called out to fight the Dren. They were the nephews and sons of the men they would soon be attacking, though it would have been too much to ask of them to realize it.

It was a vast host, too thick a chunk of humanity to comfortably force down. I hadn’t seen its like since the war itself. Reminded me of the war in a lot of ways, looking at the faces of men soon to die and knowing nothing can be done to stop it. At least during the war everyone was aware of the possibility of imminent demise. But the atmosphere at the march was anything but tense, self-righteous certainty buttressed by the joyous folly of the crowd. They’d have thought me mad if I’d tried to tell them what I knew, or taken me for a provocateur and lynched me from the nearest pole. Nobody likes being told they’re walking in the wrong direction, even if the trail ends at a cliff.

I struggled my way through the tightening mass, conscious of the hour’s steady beat. Closer to the front progress choked to a standstill, and I started throwing elbows and getting them back in return. The storm rumbled from a few blocks over, but from where I stood the sun was bright as it had been the last week. Too bright, you had to squint against it. Sometimes that’s how close it is, the line between the two.

There was a barrier separating the organizers from the mob. I saw Adolphus on the other side of it, not for the first time grateful that he was closer to two men than one. I hopped over the obstruction, ignoring the dirty looks of the unwashed. The press of people loosened enough that I could make out the face standing at Adolphus’s side. They were smiling to each other and talking, but they cut that shit short at my approach.

For a moment the ties that bound me to the giant, ties that were strong enough to have induced me to risk my life in getting him to safety, strained. I looked at Wren, then back at his guardian savagely. ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’

Dimly Adolphus must have realized he’d overstepped, or perhaps our last interaction was still wearing on him, because he didn’t answer.

‘Not enough risking your own fool life, you gotta drag the boy in as well?’

‘I can take care of myself,’ Wren piped in, doing his best approximation of an adult. ‘I’m man enough.’

I cuffed him against the side of the head, hard enough to set him to his knees. ‘No, you ain’t. Not nearly. Get home, now.’

He peered up at me, then over at Adolphus, who seemed strangely apathetic, paralyzed by my arrival. After a moment he dragged himself off the ground, then slipped out from the crowd, shaken and pale.

I felt great about myself. Adolphus still refused to look straight at me, his one eye fluttering off at the margins. ‘We’d best follow his example. Right now.’

He ejected a thimble of spit from his square jaw. ‘I’m not talking about this with you again. I made my decision. It’s settled.’ A drop of rain splattered against his pockmarked nose.

‘Today ends badly.’

‘Never pegged you for a prophet.’

‘I got the inside line.’

‘From whom?’

‘The head of Black House.’

Adolphus shot a quick look around, concerned that my intemperate announcement might have made its way to the men surrounding us. ‘Keep your voice down.’

‘There’s no time for subtlety – the Old Man’s gonna make his move, and make it soon, and when he does blood’s gonna water the dust.’

He had enough respect for me not to call it a bluff, which I appreciated. But still it took him a while to process it, time we didn’t have, my heart beating near through my chest. Adolphus wasn’t stupid, but he was slow – sudden shifts of direction were not his strong suit. Finally he reached a decision. ‘Even if that’s the case – especially if that’s the case – I’m not going anywhere. These are my people. I’ll stand with them.’

‘Wren’s your people. Adeline’s your people.’ I set my palm against his chest and shoved him, playing the frantic, though it wasn’t hard to fake it. His bulk barely wavered, but at least it got his attention. ‘I’m your fucking people.’

He didn’t have anything to say to that, but then he didn’t have to. Stalemate would kill us both – I needed to shock him into movement.

‘Pretories is a Black House plant,’ I said, loud enough to make sure our neighbors heard it.

A thunderclap echoed in the distance, and not the distant distance either. Adolphus took a quick look around, checking the audience for signs of threat, then hissed under his breath. ‘Don’t be tossing that kind of shit around.’

‘He’s been working for the Throne since he let Roland Montgomery get killed.’

‘That’s bullshit. You got no cause to talk like that.’ But his voice fluttered.

‘Pretories bit the Old Man’s gold and didn’t taste the lead.’

‘How do you know this?’ Adolphus asked, though I bet he could have made a solid guess.

‘Because I was the one behind it – it was my way into Special Ops. I thought Roland was crazy, or maybe I didn’t – it doesn’t matter now. I did it, and Joachim was in on it, and he hasn’t gotten any better in the last twelve years. This . . .’ I waved my hand at the mob that was beginning to show signs of movement. ‘It’s a pageant, a way for the veterans to loose some fury off aimlessly. Except it isn’t – the Old Man thinks Pretories has got too big and plans to put him down, and when he does things are going to get bad, real bad, bad for everyone here, understand? It’s too late for these people, but it’s not too late for us.’

His mouth hung open, condemnation or confusion, I never did find out. There was an explosion from somewhere in the back, and an uninterrupted half hour of screaming began.

I’d been expecting its arrival. The Old Man hadn’t bothered to divulge specifics of his set-up, but the easiest way to do anything is backwards. Who was to say there wasn’t an extreme contingent of the Association discontent with Joachim’s policy of non-violence? Who was to say they hadn’t brought in explosives, set them off at the outskirts as an exercise in nihilistic radicalism? No one, not after today.

The crowd was as unprepared as a virgin, and in the immediate aftermath reacted with stunned confusion – but stampede was in the air as certain as the storm. The guards semi-circled ahead of us, however, were not surprised, not at all – if one had a grim turn of mind, one might even imagine they’d known about it beforehand. They didn’t march forward so much as surge, a coiled spring unwound, wading into the front ranks and swinging their big, knobbed clubs.

Pretories had filled the first rank with war heroes, men like Adolphus, thinking their status would be certain proof against violence. He’d reckoned without the Old Man’s savagery – a curious error given their history. Two men holding a banner aloft found themselves the first casualties, their message inked over with blood. An amputee stumbled backward over his crutches trying to escape, a line of medals pinned across his chest. Having lost a leg for his country, he had perhaps thought he’d earned the right not to be beaten to death by men in its employ. It never pays to underestimate ingratitude.

Truth was even the Association’s muscle, Rabbit and Hroudland, the men who’d taken care of Giroie, hadn’t come prepared for a fight. The switch between civilization and barbarism isn’t a finger snap, even the most savage of motherfuckers needs a few minutes to get going. The line of marchers stretched well back into the horizon. Most of them couldn’t see what was going on, but those who did started moving backwards.

Pretories did his best to rally them, grabbing up a standard and waving it in the breeze. Last-minute heroics weren’t really his line, but he did all right. More than that, if I’m being honest. He moved with courage, and certainty. Roland himself couldn’t have done any better.

One of his boys, one I hadn’t ever thought to pay attention to, one who looked pretty much like the rest, lifted his hand up to his commander’s neck. There was a bright line of scarlet. The colors dropped into the dust. Pretories followed.

It was a quick few seconds, easy to miss. I doubted many saw it. That was how the Old Man got to be so old, you see – he always has a piece behind you. I wondered who’d get me, when the time came. I wouldn’t see it coming, of that I was sure.

Considering the trouble I’d gone through to see it happen, the death of Joachim Pretories provided me little pleasure. Watching his men trample his corpse in the dirt trying to escape, it was hard to hate him. All things considered, I’d met worse men. But then again, I’d killed better ones, so there wasn’t no point in getting sentimental.

With the loss of their leader any semblance of order collapsed completely. We were at life and death, and everyone realized it. Accordingly the knee-high barrier separating us from the thickest part of the throng stopped doing that, proving no impediment to the movement of fifty thousand angry, frightened men. The march had become a rout – I was a drop in a sea of flesh, and could do nothing but paddle with the current.

Adolphus had it easier – even the most scattered fellow will avoid running into a brick wall if he can help it. But I’m not much bigger than average, and the surge carried me along. Like any great body of people it moved without purpose or direction, mankind in the aggregate no brighter than in detail. The explosion had sent the men in the back sprinting forward, and the barbarity of the guards had sent the men in the front sprinting back. Adolphus and I made for the flanks accordingly, but it was like wading a swollen river. A river that’s screaming at you and shoving fingers into your eyes.

An errant blow from a passer-by sent me to my knees, my head spinning, the sheer press of men near to crushing me. An ugly way to go, and I managed to regain my footing with a few sharp hooks. By the time I got my head up Adolphus was gone, swept onward by the tide. Or perhaps he just hadn’t cared to wait – I got the sense that my well-being was not his foremost concern.

Chaos like that, there isn’t anything that distinguishes one man from another – survival comes down to drunken chance. I was in the front when it started, and I knew it was coming, so I had a better shot than most, but not much of one.

A packed squad of guardsmen hammered their way toward us, and the crowd surged backward like a wounded animal. I broke forward, figuring to take my chances against one fool with a weapon than ten thousand unarmed. A uniformed scab took a swing at me, and I ducked beneath it and took his legs out from under him. I wanted to stay there and beat on him a little, but there wasn’t time. I was off and sprinting as quick as I could muster.

Off the main boulevard I took my first full breath, lungs expanding into bruised bone and injured flesh. I wasn’t sure how long it had lasted, the mad press of bodies. Not as long as it had felt like, that was damn sure. The wind was scattering sparks of fire further into the city, and things were getting bad fast. Worse, I guess I should say. Still I turned to watch, climbed a few feet up the wall of the alley, finding footholds in parched ivy. I’d set the fuse – it seemed only right to stay till the end.

For once the Old Man had overreached. Most of the people in the crowd hadn’t seen violence in fifteen years, but that’s not never. Enough of it was coming back to them to make the comparatively tiny number of guards distinctly insufficient. The Ashers, ever prepared for combat, had formed into a tight square and were edging their way to safety, distinct by their outfits and discipline. Mostly the guards were smart enough to stay away from them, but occasionally one got too close and found himself pulled under, executed efficiently though not painlessly by men who’d made violence a religion.

They were the only knot of organization to be seen, but in chaotic remnants here and there once dangerous men recalled their powers. The guards were armed, and made savage by youth, but their opponents had earned degrees in brutality at the definitive institute in history. A Vaalan the size of an ox snapped a guard over his knee, back breaking like a rotten tree branch. Further down the line a pair of Islanders had isolated one unfortunate, had him against the ground and were beating him to death with something akin to glee. Joachim had stipulated that no one was to carry a weapon, the better to head off this exact scenario – but amidst the tens of thousands some remnant had come with blade or bronzed knuckle. What had begun as blind flight was rapidly hardening into a battle, and I felt an incongruous moment of enthusiasm for my brothers-in-arms.

But the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Another explosion ricocheted through the crowd, then another and another, pops like fireworks, each signaling death, and whatever had braced the spirit of the mob was carried away by fear.

The drizzle had turned into a downpour, but it wasn’t doing anything to stem the spread of the flames. The second wave of explosions had dirtied the air, rendering further observation of the proceedings futile. The city was ripe as a tinderbox, the ground so dry a dropped cigarette would burn cobblestone. There was a burst of heat as the windows of a house a block over erupted, and I dropped from my perch and started off.

The smoke was in my eyes and in my throat and in my lungs, and I coughed my way through the alleys trying to get away from it. I wasn’t the only one hoping to make an escape – I passed a steady stream of veterans breaking out in any and every direction, so long as it was away, away, away. I was of the same desperate strain of mind, so it was a hell of a surprise to make a U-turn in a cul-de-sac and find myself face to face with a pair of old friends.

‘If it isn’t the lieutenant,’ Hroudland said, and for once Rabbit didn’t smile.

‘Thank the Firstborn you two survived! Where’s the commander?’

‘Commander’s dead,’ Hroudland said.

‘Heavens!’ I exclaimed. By that point I was pretty sure talking wasn’t going to square us.

‘What happened to Roussel, Lieutenant?’ Hroudland asked.

‘I might have killed him,’ I admitted, giving up the charade. ‘And I might have enjoyed it.’

Rabbit nodded, unsurprised. ‘As I will this.’

My interview with the Old Man had left me unarmed, and there hadn’t been time to make good the lack. Rabbit held a thin stiletto in his off hand, but he let it drop blade-first to the ground and gestured at me to come forward. I’d never had any great desire to engage the man in fisticuffs, but it didn’t do to show him that. I went in strong as I could, feinting a body shot and trying for an eye-level straight – but he just grinned that grin that I’d come to loathe and dipped his head, and I broke two knuckles off his cranium.

It was a short fight, and the rest of it went the same way. What little I landed might as well not have, and every one of Rabbit’s short, sharp punches found purchase on my own flesh. Soon I was on the ground and he was kicking me in the ribs, the beating somewhat superfluous given what I’d already suffered. Another moment of fun and he dropped down on top of me, pinned his knees against my shoulders and wrapped his fingers around my throat.

The smoke was thick as marmalade, and it seeped into my brain. The margins of my vision folded inward, narrowing on an impossibly wide grin, teeth as big as chess pieces, running together into eternity.

A palm reached out of the fog and wrapped itself around Rabbit’s skull, pulling it towards the wall and dragging the rest of his body along with it. The passageway was ruined brick, but all the same Rabbit’s bald head created a sizable indentation. He slumped slowly to the ground, leaving a streak of blood in his wake.

The hand attaches to an arm attaches to a body, and it’s Adolphus’s, and I am saved.

There are men who wouldn’t have hesitated then, but there aren’t many, and Hroudland wasn’t one of them. His jaw quivered and he held his knife loose in his hand. Adolphus slapped it away casually, the blade skittering off into the dirt. A second backhand rebounded Hroudland off the well, stunned him insensible, left him open for the finale. While I’m aware that it is not literally possible for a punch to knock a man’s head off, somehow that’s the only description that fits.

I lay motionless as my best friend approached me, wondering if perhaps he’d set his boot against my chest and make a clean go of everyone who’d fucked him. Instead he bent down and lifted me to my feet like I was a child.

‘Let’s go home,’ he said, and that’s what we did.