Gravedigger 01 - Sea Of Ghosts

by Alan Campbell

  The crowd began to boo and shout abuse.

  Emperor Hu stood up on the podium, and inclined his head.

  One of his Samarol bodyguards slotted his seeing knife into the bracket atop a carbine rifle. Then he raised the barrel.

  ‘Banks,’ Granger growled.

  Banks turned just as the rifle fired.

  Granger heard the lead ball zing past his ear. It struck Swan in the side of his head and knocked him down. He lay there unmoving, blood leaking from a hole above his ear. Banks stood dead still, a look of horror on his face.

  Tummel was silent for a moment. Then he roared and rushed at the corral wall, shouting, ‘Come in here, you bastard, come in here.’ He smashed his sword repeatedly against the mesh of dragon-bones, hacking fragments from it. ‘Come in here and fight me you blind bastard. Fight an old man, you coward. Fight an old man.’

  Hu merely looked impatient. ‘Get on with it,’ he said. ‘And try to make it entertaining. I don’t want to waste another rifle-ball.’

  Granger picked up Swan’s sword. ‘Banks?’

  The private continued to stare at his companion’s corpse.

  ‘Banks!’

  His eyes met Granger’s.

  ‘Fight me for real, Banks.’

  ‘Sir?’

  Granger rushed at him, pushing him back with a solid flurry of blows that forced the other man to raise his buckler and block. Banks began to parry, almost reluctantly at first, and then with more urgency as the strikes continued to come down on his left side.

  Tummel sat on the ground and lay down his sword.

  Granger broke away from Banks and whispered, ‘You’re going to have to try and kill me.’

  Banks just shook his head.

  ‘Keep their attention away from Tummel,’ Granger urged. ‘Make it real. Make it entertaining.’ He saw an opening and thrust his sword at Banks’s undefended left. The private responded instinctively with his own blade, but not before Granger raked the younger man’s hauberk, the edge of his weapon rasping across the steel links.

  From the podium he heard Emperor Hu laugh. ‘They’re getting into it now, aren’t they?’ he called out with delight.

  Granger kept the pressure on Banks, forcing him back towards the corral wall, towards Tummel. The old Gravedigger merely sat on the ground and stared back at the body of his brother. It seemed that all life had deserted him.

  ‘On your feet, seaman,’ Granger growled.

  But Tummel wouldn’t respond.

  Banks, meanwhile, must have realized Granger’s real intentions, for he broke suddenly from the fight, turning his back on Granger even as the colonel’s blade was raised to strike. He grabbed Tummel by his armpits. ‘Get up, you old fool. Get up and fight.’

  Granger cursed at Banks’s manoeuvre. The private left himself open to a killing blow. In what he hoped would look like a desperate mistake, he swung the blade furiously at Banks’s right side, striking the top of the buckler hard. The sword skimmed off and stuck into an enormous dragon-bone bar above Banks’s head.

  ‘It’s a charade,’ the emperor said. ‘Shoot the other one.’

  Banks screamed at Tummel. ‘Get up, you old fool!’ He started to drag him upright.

  A shot rang out.

  Tummel’s head jerked forward. Blood spattered across Bank’s face.

  Banks released Tummel’s body and looked up at the Samarol bodyguard, who was now lowering his carbine rifle for the second time. The huge blind warrior detached his seeing knife from the weapon’s barrel and turned it slowly in his fingers. His silver wolf-head helmet grinned blankly.

  Banks turned to Granger, a pained expression on his face.

  Granger freed his sword from the corral wall and backed away from the other man, assuming a fighting stance.

  ‘You’d kill me?’ Banks said.

  ‘If you let me.’

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, Colonel, but this is the shittiest plan you’ve ever had.’

  Granger had no answer for his friend. He glanced over at the the crowd again, but there was still no sign of Briana Marks. Sudden movement caught his attention.

  Banks came at him in a desperate fury, now wielding his sword with all the skill Granger knew the younger man possessed. And Granger was hard pressed to parry these blows. Steel clashed and clashed. The plaza seemed quiet but for the crack of swords and the scuffs and grunts of each opponent. And then Banks slammed his buckler into Granger’s face.

  Granger recoiled, shaking his head.

  A great roar went up from the crowd.

  Banks was breathing heavily, his eyes full of pain and fear. He rushed at Granger a second time, that quick mind of his composing a flurry of feints and blows that tested Granger’s own skill to the limits. He seemed detached from his actions, indeed possessed of a strange sort of madness. Only when the two men clashed and wrestled did Banks finally break away. Now Granger could feel pain rising in his chest as the strain of exertion began to take its toll. He doubted he could beat his opponent.

  And then he saw Briana Marks.

  He realized he had heard the launch’s engine somewhere in the back of his mind, but had not registered it until now. The Haurstaf witch alighted from the slender deepwater craft, and hurried up the dock steps to the plaza. She was wrapped in whale-skins and wore goggles on her forehead. Ianthe was not with her.

  Banks turned his sword over and made to move at Granger again.

  ‘Wait,’ Granger said.

  But the young man was already lost to whatever madness or battle lust gripped him. The look in his eyes suggested that perhaps he no longer even recognized his opponent. Everything was about the fight, about survival. He launched a vicious attack with sword and buckler both, thrusting and punching with consummate skill.

  Granger parried, but not fast enough. Banks’s sword sliced through his right shoulder.

  Banks lunged forward for the killing strike, but Granger managed to break away, more by luck than design. He jogged backwards. Briana Marks had by now reached the podium. The emperor bowed and then waved away one of the administrators to offer her a seat. She glanced over at Granger and shook her head.

  What did that mean?

  Granger ran towards the corral wall. ‘Sister Marks?’

  She lowered her gaze.

  ‘Sister Marks?’

  Still she refused to acknowledge him. Emperor Hu glanced between Granger and the witch and then frowned. He spoke quietly to Marks, but she ignored him completely and simply continued to stare at her hands.

  Granger heard Banks approaching from behind and turned to find the private with his sword already raised to strike. In that moment he saw the pain and despair in his young opponent’s eyes. Granger lifted his own blade in a desperate attempt to fend off the blow, but he already knew it was too late. Banks had the advantage.

  But he didn’t take it.

  He stopped, and just stood there for a heartbeat with his sword raised, staring down at Granger. Then he threw his weapon away. It clattered off the flagstones and came to rest several yards away, gleaming like a mirror. Silence settled over the plaza.

  A third shot rang out.

  Private Merrad Banks remained standing for a moment longer as his life blood surged from a hole in the centre of his forehead. He started to lift a hand up towards the wound and then he paused and sat down on the ground. His body slumped forward.

  Granger rushed to him and held him. He could smell Banks’s sweat and blood, feel the heat from the other man’s sun-warmed steel epaulettes, but there was no life left in that body. Everything Banks had been had come to an end here in this rotten corner of the empire. He heard the corral gate
scrape open behind him.

  ‘Finish him off,’ Hu said. ‘But do it slowly. No less than fifty cuts.’

  Grech took to the podium again. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘jailers of Ethugra, protectors of the Imperial law. For the final trial, our gracious ruler has chosen, for your pleasure, to pit against the traitor the strongest, the fastest, and the most merciless of all combatants!’ He raised his hand to quell the excited chatter from the crowd. ‘Three score years in the training! His mortal flesh empowered by Unmer sorcery, his eyes scorched from his own skull from gazing into the furious reaches of infinity. Ladies and gentlemen . . . the emperor presents to you, his very own . . . Samarol!’

  The crowd went wild.

  The bodyguard who had fired the shots now detached his seeing knife from his rifle for the final time and held it lightly in one mailed fist. Despite his great size he moved with the grace of a wolf. His helmet grinned fiercely, but its silver eyes evinced a rage that did not belong to its wearer. It was the fury of the empire carried by a surrogate. It was an executioner’s mask. And was it possible to think of the Samarol in any other way? What mortal man could hope to prevail in a fight against one?

  The Samarol stepped into the corral, and the gate closed behind him.

  Granger glanced at Briana Marks, and, for an instant, their eyes met.

  She stood up and called out to the emperor, ‘Wait.’ And then she hurried over to the corral gate and beckoned Granger to approach.

  ‘Maskelyne wasn’t at Scythe Island,’ she said. ‘He’s out at sea somewhere. I couldn’t reach him.’

  ‘So that’s it? You’re leaving me here to die.’

  ‘I’ve no evidence he has a hostage with him at all, Mr Granger, let alone a psychic one. I can’t sense another seer within three hundred miles of here. And I cannot interfere with an Imperial trial on your word alone.’

  ‘You could,’ he replied. ‘But you choose not to.’

  He could see from her expression that he’d struck upon the truth. The Haurstaf had the power to ostracize and thus bring down empires at their whim, and yet that that power could only be maintained through strict impartiality and honesty. Those emperors and warlords who paid so much for psychic communications in wartime needed to know that the information they received was not influenced by others – that all parties were paying for the truth. Briana Marks could stop Hu if she desired, but she wouldn’t risk Haurstaf honour to do it. His life wasn’t worth that much to her.

  As she turned to go, he said, ‘Look for her again, after the trial.’

  She nodded and walked away.

  ‘Proceed,’ the emperor said.

  The Samarol came at him running, astonishingly quickly for a man of his size. His leather boots made no sound on the flagstones. His seeing knife flashed. Granger feinted left, but then pushed himself away from the corral wall in the opposite direction. The bodyguard turned like a dancer and passed by in a blur.

  Searing pain ran up Granger’s arm.

  He stared in astonishment at blood welling from a knife cut across the back of his right wrist. It was deep. He hadn’t even seen the bodyguard’s attack.

  The crowd shouted, ‘One!’

  The Samarol relaxed into a jog, and made a circuit of the corral. Granger turned with him, following the other man’s progress with the tip of his sword. Blood flowed freely over his right hand, spattering the flagstones at his feet. As the bodyguard drew near, he picked up his speed, flipping the knife from one hand to the other and back again.

  Granger thrust his blade up at the man’s head.

  The Samarol ducked and pivoted, and spun away.

  ‘Two,’ roared the crowd.

  Granger felt warm blood spilling down his leg. A second cut had sliced through his breeches and split the skin on his thigh. He clamped his hand across the wound and turned again to follow the bodyguard’s progress.

  The Samarol made a second leisurely circuit of the arena, and as he ran he wiped his knife against a leather patch sewn across his belt. He closed on Granger a third time, the seeing knife now clenched in one back-turned fist, his wolf helmet gleaming.

  Granger swiped his blade in a wide arc, hoping to drive his attacker back. After all, he had the advantage of reach.

  But the bodyguard caught the sword on the edge of his knife, and turned the blow up, over his own head. Granger had never seen reflexes like it. The man was inhuman. Within a heartbeat he had ducked again, moving inside Granger’s reach. And then came that same strange pirouette, and Granger felt something scrape his rib.

  ‘Three.’

  Granger’s chest had been punctured on his left side. A third stream of blood now flowed from his flesh. He staggered back a few steps, gaping at his own lacerated body. His muscles were starting to ache and soon they would fail him altogether. The Samarol meanwhile continued his performance for the crowd, cleaning his seeing knife again as he jogged away. He had been deliberately inflicting shallow, non-lethal wounds. He was carving Granger up for the emperor’s amusement.

  Granger watched his opponent wiping the edge of that unholy knife against the leather patch on his belt. The Unmer metal was conveying its surroundings to the blind warrior, while granting him unnatural swiftness. In this battle the blade was Granger’s real enemy.

  The Samarol turned inwards for a fourth attack.

  And Granger let him come. He feinted an uppercut with his sword, leaving his right shoulder vulnerable to attack. The bodyguard spotted the opening and struck out with the knife, but Granger was ready for him.

  As the attack came, Granger dropped his sword and grabbed his opponent’s wrist. And then he plunged the knife even deeper into his own shoulder. A grunt of surprise came from behind the wolf helmet. The Samarol tried to withdraw the knife, but Granger now seized the other man’s wrist in both hands and held it fast. He had momentarily denied the bodyguard his sight.

  Still fiercely gripping the other man’s wrist, he swung him around, and around again in a circle, hoping to further disorientate his opponent, hoping to break his grip on the Unmer blade. But the Samarol folded his knees and buckled in one fluid movement, dragging Granger down to the ground with him.

  Granger landed heavily against the man. For several heartbeats they wrestled, the Samarol trying to wrench the knife from Granger’s flesh, while Granger tried to stop him. The pain was intolerable. He felt the edge of the blade raking against his clavicle. He felt his grip loosened by his own blood. He couldn’t hold on. He was going to lose this struggle.

  But then he thought about Swan and Tummel and Banks, their dead eyes staring lifelessly at the ground, the blood leaking from the holes in their skull as the emperor applauded. He imagined Creedy’s brute face looking on as the Hookmen threw Hana into the brine, and he let the sound of her screams fill his heart. He pictured Ianthe in the hands of that bastard Maskelyne, using the girl to enrich his wretched little empire. Hu, Creedy, Maskelyne – Granger saw each of their faces behind that shining wolf’s mask before him now. And it filled him with rage.

  He seized the brim of the warrior’s helmet and wrenched it backwards with all of his strength. He felt the chinstrap stretch and then suddenly snap as the helmet came away and flew across the arena.

  The Samarol cried out. He released his hold of the knife and clamped his hands across his face. That face had only been exposed to the light for a heartbeat, but that was long enough for the horror of it to be burned in Granger’s mind.

  No flesh clung to the man’s skull. It was as if the Unmer sorcery had consumed his living tissues, leaving nothing behind but raw bone. The eye sockets and nasal opening were covered by a smooth brass plate, utterly featureless and without ornamentation, an
d yet the bodyguard groped at it as if the light was searing his very nerves. He scrambled away from Granger on his hands and knees, howling like a child as he sought to reclaim his helmet. But without the knife in his hand and the helmet to cover his metal visage he could not find it.

  Granger plucked the seeing knife from his shoulder and tucked it into the band of his breeches. He was weak and giddy and struggling to breathe against the pressure mounting in his chest. His hands and torso streamed with blood. But he thought he might now survive today after all. He stared at the corpses of his friends, Swan, Tummel and Banks, and a terrible grief came over him. That he should survive this trial at their expense. He could not forgive Hu for this.

  All the crowd were silent as he turned to face the emperor. ‘I survived your trials,’ he said. ‘Will you honour the law and release me?’

  Briana Marks’s face looked ashen, but the emperor’s own was red with rage. ‘How dare you speak to me?’ he cried. ‘Look at what you’ve done here! Do you have any idea how much Samarol cost? How many years it takes for the absorption to hold?’ His thin chest rose and fell rapidly beneath his golden mail. He turned to the crowd. ‘This man has shown himself to be a cheat. This is a mockery of justice!’

  The crowd remained silent.

  Administrator Grech came alongside the emperor and tried to speak, but Hu just slapped the old man across the face. He raised his Imperial hand again and pointed at Granger. ‘Shoot him,’ he said. ‘Shoot him now.’

  Outside the corral, the remaining Samarol reached for their carbine rifles. Nineteen knives slotted into nineteen barrels.

  Granger looked to the Haurstaf witch for help, but she simply buried her head in her hands.

  ‘Kill him!’ the emperor roared.

  There was nowhere for Granger to go, and nowhere to hide. Walls of dragon-bone caged him on three sides. The gate remained sealed.