Dark Forge

by Miles Cameron

  Then he went aboard the trabaccolo. It was dark, perhaps three hours to midnight. He’d need an hour to make his arrangements for the assault.

  Inoques met him at the rail. Her tattoos glowed very slightly in the dark. Aranthur didn’t think that had been true before.

  She laughed. “The Black Stone binds me. And it’s right there, under my deck.” She laughed again.

  “Why are you laughing, then?” Aranthur asked.

  She took his hand and led him aft to her cabin, where Mera laid out a feast of old salt cod and ship’s biscuit beaten with sugar and rum.

  “I’m already drunk,” he said. “Listen, Inoques. I owe you—you are, after all, my wife,”

  Just saying it made him smile, and she returned his smile.

  “I agree, it is droll. I have no regrets, though. You are an interesting man, and your youth is pleasant. Since I met you, I have thought some thoughts I have not had in an aeon. Truth, loyalty, glory, honour. These things are not part of the quest for power.” She shrugged. “Nor part of being a slave.”

  He nodded. “We’re attacking tonight. In about four hours. It’s a desperate gamble and no one expects it to succeed. We’re at half-rations and we have perhaps five days left to hold, or so says Kallinikas.”

  “But you could fall tonight. If they catch me in the harbour, even with Haras and your Dahlia, even if we make them build bridges of the dead, they will take the Black Stone.” She shrugged. “Which we were foolish enough to bring here.”

  She poured something dark into his glass, and he drank it without thinking.

  “Damn it, now I am drunk,” he said.

  She began to pull her linen shirt over her head.

  “I’ll sober you up,” she said. “This carnality is one of the things I had forgotten. So long since I had a body as nice as this.”

  He thought of her rotting the boat full of desperate people fleeing the ship’s gonnes; but that was nothing beside the reality of her—her scent, and her skin, and her hair, and her obvious delight.

  He awoke to moonlight. She was stroking his cheek.

  “And there you are,” she said.

  “What time is it?” he asked, sitting up.

  “Plenty of time for you to run and die. Listen, love. I…” She showed actual embarrassment.

  He laughed.

  She smiled. “I think it is the reality that you like me that continues to haunt me. I have taken a great liberty. I entered your mind.”

  He drew back.

  She shrugged. “I built you something. I promise you would have come to it in time. I only accelerated the process a little.”

  He tried not to flinch at the notion of her inside his head.

  “I’d like you to live,” she said. “Oath-bound.”

  He kissed her, and rose to put on clothes. He found they were all clean, a small, household miracle.

  “Mera did it of his own free will,” she said from the bed. “You spend a great deal of time with Myr Kallinikas,” she said suddenly.

  “She’s my mentor in this bloody business.”

  “If you sleep with her, I will kill her.” Inoques’ voice was calm, and in a normal human, would have been rational. “We are oath-bound.”

  “Blessed Sophia! Sleep with Kallinikas? Are you mad?”

  “She was in your mind.” Inoques was naked, the lines of her immense binding ritual glowing well enough for him to button his doublet by their light. “I am sorry. It was foolish of me to go in, but you were asleep, and I want you to be strong, and live.”

  “What have you done?” he asked, his voice sharp.

  “What needed to be done.”

  Aranthur pursed his lips, and decided that he had too many battles to fight, for this to be one of them. So instead, he took a steadying breath.

  “I need some silver,” he said. “Maybe a pound.”

  She changed directions as quickly as he.

  “A pound is possible. Here—some spoons. For what?”

  “A casting.”

  She nodded, as if she had not just invaded his head, and found him silver. And then she rowed him ashore.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He kissed her. “Another time, we’ll argue.”

  “Don’t die,” she said. “I like you.”

  Aranthur went to the nave of the ancient temple, where he found Haras, still working.

  “I need an alembic and a ladle to cast silver,” he said.

  Haras nodded. “That I can provide. You work alchemy?”

  “Only the simplest kind,” Aranthur admitted.

  He melted the silver with a small brazier and, when he was impatient, a blast of his own power, which was too easy.

  “It is altering you,” Haras said.

  Aranthur turned to Haras.

  “Look,” he said, raising his hands and stepping back, as if afraid of Aranthur. “I mean no offence. I need it to perform my mission, but I fear it.”

  “Her,” Aranthur said.

  Haras shrugged. “If you insist. She is a shard of an ancient, alien consciousness bound to the body of a young woman who is effectively dead. And that combination—that construct. It’s at least three hundred years old.”

  Aranthur shrugged. He took out the mould he’d made in a huril shell he’d picked up on the beach, the way farmers did it in Souli. Huril shells were soft on the inside, and yet incredibly resilient; you could press a shape into them, and then cast into it dozens of times. People made charms and fish-hooks that way. He’d duplicated the Varestan glyph of penetration in the shell’s soft interior. Now, working quickly, he cast the sparkling silver into the shell and watched it cool and become solid. In each case, the solidification was sudden, as if some inner impulse suddenly frosted the metal and then it was done. He used the tip of his eating knife to pry the new bullet out and drop it in water, where it would hiss for a moment. Each time, he checked the bullet to make sure the glyph was clear. With each, he gave it a dose of saar to ignite the glyph.

  “You are very puissant,” Haras said. “Will you listen to me?”

  Aranthur had been crouched over his mould, but he only had enough silver for nine bullets. He rose, his thighs burning.

  “I am listening. Haras, I think you imagine that I am a witless foreigner without a sensible thought in my head, a tool of this dangerous ancient thing…”

  Haras’ face betrayed that he thought something like that.

  “You have to imagine that perhaps I have some idea of what’s happening—out there in the darkness, up in the sky, and with Inoques.”

  “You can’t imagine—” Haras insisted in his patronising tone.

  “You have no idea what I can imagine. And perhaps your Byzas is good enough to understand one of our sayings.”

  “Try me.”

  “War and politics make for strange bedfellows.” Aranthur smiled. “I mean no offence, but at the moment, I trust my wife more than I trust you. I will do my best to protect the Black Stone. Otherwise, be cautious.”

  Haras nodded. “You are honest. An honest fool.”

  Dressed and armed, he found “his” troops in the new ditch by the collapsed tower: Vilna and Lang Cleg and thirty militia, Kallotronis and twenty of his Arnauts. He went to Kallotronis and handed him the silver bullets.

  Kallotronis nodded slowly. “Damn, I owe you, Timos.” He gave Aranthur a bear hug. “I feel naked without something to shoot the… witches.”

  Aranthur returned the squeeze, slapped the big man’s back, and went along the lines of his people at the base of the trench. He looked them over in the moonlit darkness; checked on their powder, made sure that every weapon was loaded.

  Almost all of the assault party had borrowed some armour, from Lang Cleg, a tall Keltai woman with maille and a breastplate and a heavy morion, to the smallest of the Arnauts, who had a maille collar that hung almost to his belt. Beyond his people were the Magdalenes, as steel-smooth and enigmatic as they were in the streets of the City. There were
thirty of them, all in steel, so well polished that the lantern lights reflected from all of them.

  “Timos?” a voice asked.

  The voice was connected to a suit of armour, smooth and seamless.

  “Syr Ippeas.” Aranthur didn’t know whether to bow or salute. “Great Sword.”

  He bowed. Ippeas was that imposing.

  “Not a noise or a shot,” Ippeas said. “When the mine blows, it’s possible it will hurt us. The essential thing is that we have to go into their trenches the moment it blows. We cannot give them time to recover. And then straight for their gonnes. And their magikers, if we can get them.”

  Aranthur nodded. “Yes, syr. I can… shield us. Against some of the effects of the mine.”

  Ippeas nodded. “I know. At least, I think that’s why young Kallinikas chose you.”

  The ditch was becoming packed with people, and more were coming out of the sallyport.

  “Aranthur!” Sasan shouted somewhere close by.

  He turned. In the darkness and enforced quiet, the voice was loud, and desperate.

  He grabbed at Sasan. “Silence,” he hissed.

  “You must come!”

  “I’m in the assault—”

  “Now!” Sasan said. “I beg you.”

  Aranthur caught Vilna’s wrist.

  “I have to go. Sasan—”

  “We have half an hour,” Vilna said.

  Aranthur followed Sasan back down the dark and dirty zig-zag sap to the old sallyport.

  “They’re going to kill all the prisoners,” Sasan said, his voice choked.

  “What?”

  “To save food.” Sasan paused. “And there’s a bone plague outbreak.”

  “Bone plague doesn’t just—”

  “I know. Damn it! Come. Someone is trying to kill them, and to manipulate the rest of us.”

  “Thousand hells!”

  Aranthur followed Sasan into the walls, up the narrow stairs, and into the city. The Safian led the way through a web of alleys.

  “I’ve been doing this for three days,” he said. “I’m getting good at slums.”

  Aranthur was breathing hard, as he was wearing armour and carrying forty rounds of ammunition, food, and carrying a helmet and his carabin and a long sword.

  They went under an arch and they were in the ancient stadium, past a pair of guards—men of the Seventh Geta Regiment. Getans were hard-working farm-folk, and tended to be very serious about the Empire. But they saluted Sasan as an officer, and saluted again when they saw Aranthur’s crimson sash.

  The stadium was very like the hippodrome in the City. Aranthur could see several hundred people lying, standing, or sitting at one side. At the other side, a company of one of the Getan regiment, drawn up in ranks.

  The prisoners were clearly terrified. And among them, he could see Kati and Haran and Val al-Dun.

  Aranthur cursed.

  Syr Vardar was standing with two officers at the head of the Getans. He glanced at Aranthur and frowned.

  “Timos? Aren’t you with the assault? This is none of yours—ugly business.”

  He turned to one of the officers, an Arnaut in wide Souliote trousers and a velvet waistcoat, with two silver-mounted pistols in his sash.

  Aranthur stepped in. “I disagree.”

  “Eks kajak synnina pasha? Sri inna?” he said to the Arnaut.

  What has he told you to do? The officer?

  Vardar turned, real anger in his eyes.

  “Timos, really. I will overlook this, but go back to your troops or I’ll have to arrest you. This is nasty, but it must be done.”

  “Nasty?” Sasan spat. “You are going to kill half a thousand men and women in cold blood.”

  Vardar shrugged. “Your fellow feeling does you credit, no doubt. We have a food crisis and the Vicar has decided not to feed these enemies any longer. And be sure they are enemies. We took them in arms.”

  “Sophia!” Aranthur grabbed Vardar’s arm. “You can rationalise anything, Syr Vardar. But they are prisoners!” He stood in the other man’s face. “And some of them are my people and not prisoners at all. From here I can see a woman who is an Academy Student.”

  Vardar shrugged. “I have orders.”

  “I will stop you.”

  It just came out, like so many of his other decisions.

  Vardar turned on him. “You what?” He looked puzzled.

  Aranthur put himself between the Getans and the Safian prisoners.

  “Gods witness,” spat Vardar. “You Arnauts disgust me. We do all the fighting and all the governing, and you people steal and lie and serve as mercenaries, as if the Empire isn’t worth your spit. And now here you are, having some sort of crisis of conscience because your precious Safian friend wants to save these people. They’re the enemy, and now that I think about it, you Arnaut thief, I wonder if you aren’t the enemy too. You lied about General Roaris, and—”

  “Do not obey this man,” Aranthur said in Souliote.

  The Arnaut officer spat.

  “I heard the Byzas fuck,” he said in the same tongue.

  “What was that?” Vardar snapped.

  Aranthur nodded to the Arnaut officer.

  Vardar grabbed at Aranthur’s collar, where it hung over his breastplate.

  Aranthur let him grab the collar, and then, in one pivot of his hips, he captured the man’s elbow. He rolled him, and threw him face down, with his right arm twisted behind his back.

  “Syr Vardar, I arrest you for violations of the honour code and for conduct unbecoming an officer,” Aranthur said smoothly. “Personally, I think you are the kind of man who thinks that Arnauts will kill whomever they are told to kill. Surprise—that’s not true. I’m going back to the assault force. Feel lucky I don’t just throw you to the Safian prisoners you planned to butcher.”

  “You fucking idiot—the Vicar ordered it, you traitor—”

  “I choose not to believe you. And I note you are not accompanying the assault.”

  “You dare—”

  Aranthur laughed, and tripped a simple lethe spell. Awareness faded from the man’s eyes.

  “When he wakes,” Aranthur said in Souliote, “insist that it was all my doing.”

  The Arnaut shook his head. “Fuck that. I’m going back to barracks to get some sleep.” He beckoned to Sasan. “This isn’t my duty. And fuckhead won’t be awake for an hour. He sent the real guards away.” The man grinned. “These Getans are good lads and lasses. They’ll march away. I’d recommend that you and these poor bastards just… wander off.”

  “Thanks!” Aranthur said.

  The Arnaut smiled, and then frowned, troubled.

  “I couldn’t decide what to do.”

  Aranthur nodded. “My one talent.”

  He had no time. But he went to Kati.

  “Kati,” he said.

  She shrank away from him.

  “Kati,” he insisted. “it’s not all like this. I’m sorry—I’ll see to it that the orders aren’t carried out—”

  “Is this how it’s going to be? I wanted to go back to the Studion. But a Byzas officer just ordered my execution—I’m not even a prisoner, or so you once assured me.” She shook her head. “And look at you—you reek of violence. Is this your life?”

  “I often try to prevent violence—”

  “With your sword and your carabin and your puffers?” She shook her head.

  Aranthur thought of ten thousand things to say; explaining would take a hundred hours, or none.

  “Sometimes, violence works. Like, when you are being attacked.”

  Kati nodded. “I have killed. Masran priests.” She shrugged. “But it was wrong. It is all wrong.”

  Sasan came up. The guards were gone, as if they’d never been.

  “No idea what we’re going to eat, but I know a place we can hide—”

  “Don’t tell me,” Aranthur said.

  “Right.”

  “Get food from Inoques,” Aranthur said. “Tell her I asked.
”

  Sasan embraced him. “You are a good man, Aranthur.”

  Aranthur picked up his lobster-tail helmet.

  “I try,” he admitted. “Now I will go and kill.” He glanced at Kati. “Sometimes…”

  He shook hands with Sasan and headed out into the darkness beyond the gate. For a few ugly minutes he thought he’d spend the night lost, and then—a miracle from Sophia—he found himself at the sallyport steps. In a matter of a minute he was at Vilna’s side.

  “Where the hell were you?” Kallinikas put a hand on his shoulder. “I need to light my fuse. Where were you?”

  “Vardar was about to kill all the Safian prisoners,” he spat.

  Kallinikas nodded. “We don’t have the food to feed them. Laws of War.”

  Aranthur took a deep breath. “I put Vardar under arrest. I won’t accept it.”

  Kallinikas laughed. “Damn. Damn, you are quite the idealist. I have to light the fuse. You’re right in one way—if we fail in this sortie, no reason to kill the poor wretches.”

  “Thousand hells, Kallinikas, you mean you approve?”

  “We have no food!” she hissed. “We have four thousand soldiers! We can’t feed five hundred Safians!”

  He shrugged. “I can do arithmetika. Five hundred mouths scarcely changes the day count.” He leant close to her. “And frankly, if we kill prisoners, how are we better than the Pure?”

  “They’re forcing us—”

  “Bullshit!” Aranthur spat. “Bull shit! When you kill helpless people, that’s on you.” He took a grenado from Vilna without turning his head, checked the priming in his carabin. “I’ll do whatever you people ask, but I will not stand for this.”

  She looked at him for a long time.

  “I need to light my fuse. If you happen to have any friends among the gods, pray.” She put a hand on his breastplate. “I’m so fucking tired. Maybe you are right.”

  “Go and look at them,” he said. “Go and look them in the eye. Talk to five of them, and then tell me you approve. Sophia! It’s all murder.”

  “Exactly. And I’m about to kill a thousand of them, I hope.”

  “Different,” he said.

  “Really? Bah. Later.”

  She shook his hand and ran off into the darkness.

  “Five minutes,” said Ippeas.

  He walked over to Aranthur.