by K. J. Parker
Even so, he kept his men back for as long as the flames continued to dart and lick; for fear that they’d get burnt, sure enough, but mostly just in case A Company came bursting out of the fire and pulped them, like apples under the millstone. After all, he said nervously to himself as the sparks flew upwards, there’s no hurry. If they’re dead now, they’ll still be dead in ten minutes’ time, maybe even twenty.
It came on to rain while the flames were still as tall as a man, and the smoke blended with steam, and the white and grey ash dissolved into filthy black mud, and there was no sign of anything living, or anything that had ever been alive, under the splayed ribcage of fallen rafters. Even so, Anogei held his men back a little while longer, during which time a soldier reported having found the bodies of three dead women, a little to the west and just up from the beach.
But when the last glowing coals had died out, and the light was beginning to fade, Anogei sent his men in to search the charred beams and the black sludge, just in case. He himself held well back and out of the way, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed. In particular, he said, he wanted bones; failing which, rings, buttons, belt and shoe buckles, any solid item that could give a positive identification; weapons, he added, something distinctive, like a catsplitter, or Thouridos Alces’ famous zweyhander sword, from which it was well known that he was extremely reluctant to be parted.
In his report, he rationalised the absence of solid evidence by pointing out that the fire, fanned by the freak wind referred to above, became extremely hot. The bones must have been consumed, the metal artefacts melted and drained away into the ground. He could assure Central Command quite categorically that nobody and nothing had passed through the cordon of armed men he’d placed round the burning barn. It was equally certain that nobody had left the building before the fire took hold. It was even possible, if the statement of the widow Proiapsen was to be believed, that all five were dead already (and the discovery of three dead women, all apparently poisoned, corroborated her story to some extent). As to the woman Chaere Proiapsen, he’d delivered her into the custody of the civil authorities, in case they wished to question her further about the women’s deaths. Personally, he could see no point in such enquiries, since nothing could be proved. Further to a promise made by his civilian revenue officer, he was enclosing on the widow Proiapsen’s behalf a formal notice of appeal against the confiscation of her late husband’s assets, for what it was worth.
On a more positive note, he was pleased to be able to report that the gold workings were now ready to be reopened, and he trusted that the revenue derived therefrom would be reserved exclusively for funding the expeditionary force against the old enemy, which he understood was to be launched in the near future. If such an expression were not out of place in a formal report, he would be most grateful to be considered for any command in said force that might become available, so that he might have further opportunities of serving his government and his country.
There is a legend about A Company, elusive but remarkably persistent: that they survived the fire by hiding in the root cellar, breathing through a channel cut through the clay to the surface by Thouridos Alces, using his long zweyhander sword (which would account for the fact that it was never found); that when the ashes had cooled and the soldiers had gone away, they crept out, hurried across the island to the place where the sloop was moored, set sail for the mainland; ran into one of those sudden, unpredictable squalls and were driven on to the murderous reef that surrounds the volcanic island of Oudenos, making that wretched, treeless scrap of lava and ash inaccessible to the outside world; that there they remain to this day, living on crabs and gulls’ eggs and semi-edible roots, the way Menin Aeide taught them to, and fighting each other to a standstill every day from sunrise to sunset, five against five, with no particular alliances and all the anger and hate in the world; that if ever they are found and rescued and brought back to the mainland, the war will come again and sweep through the land and the continent and the entire planet, and it will last for ever and ever, world without end, amen.