by Al Ewing
PAX BRITANNIA
EL SOMBRA
And suddenly, without warning, there appeared on a neighbouring rooftop a man, naked but for a pair of black trousers, ragged and stained with desert dust. His hair was long, filthy and unkempt, his beard was wild and home to insects, and over his eyes, there was tied a red sash, coated with old, dry blood, with holes cut to see by, the tail-ends flapping in the wind like pirate flags. His skin was baked and hard from the desert sun and the burning sand. To Alexis, who bathed so meticulously and treated his skin and hair with a thousand products, he seemed like some ugly, savage monster.
In one hand, the creature held a sword. Razor sharp - gleaming and glittering in the light - it pointed directly at Alexis. The smile on the creature's face was powerful and confident and utterly unafraid. To Alexis, it seemed like the smile the devil might have in the deepest pits of Hell.
The moment seemed to last a thousand years.
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First published in 2007 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, United Kingdom, UK.
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ISBN (.epub format): 978-1-84997-000-6
ISBN (.mobi format): 978-1-84997-022-8
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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
PAX BRITANNIA
EL SOMBRA
Al Ewing
PROLOGUE
The Man And The Desert
The man walked across the desert.
And the desert destroyed the man.
The sun was a dragon that breathed fire on his neck and his back. Each grain of sand beneath his feet was a branding iron. He wanted to cry, but the desert had stolen his tears. Instead, his eyes wept blood.
In his left hand, he clutched a sash of silk, red stained black with spattered gore. His right hand gripped a sword. The knuckles on both hands were white and straining, almost bulging through the burned skin. He couldn't have opened his hands if he'd wanted to. But he didn't want to.
All the man wanted to do was die.
The wedding had been three days before.
And oh! What a wedding it had been!
The groom had passed the bride the thirteen coins and the rosary lasso was placed around their shoulders and then Father Santiago had blessed the couple - and when they kissed, you should have heard the noise! The whole town cheered and stamped their feet for joy! Everyone from old Gilberto, who'd crafted a pair of wedding ducks, to little Carina, the madrina de ramo, nine years old and too shy to do anything other than giggle and punch the dashing madrina de laso on the arm. The cheer rang until the mariachis struck up their lively wedding march, and Heraclio led Maria - his Maria! - to his magnificent white horse, Santo. The noble beast stood quietly as his new mistress was lifted onto his back and then bore her with all the grace his old horse body could muster to the Great Square. Heraclio gave the venerable beast a gentle pat on the muzzle and fed him a lump of sugar from his wedding-coat, as the townspeople followed behind, led by the mariachi band, for dancing and laughter and food and good wine.
It was all the little town of Pasito had been talking of for months. The day when Heraclio, the handsome guardsman who rode through the town on his white horse and gave sugar-drops to the children from the pocket of his coat, would marry his Maria, perhaps the most beautiful girl the little Mexican town had yet produced and certainly the very finest dancer. To see her laugh and smile atop the gently pacing Santo was to catch a brief glimpse of what life could offer a man. Miguel the baker, forty-three years old and heavy and fat as his own loaves, drank her in with his eyes, and then turned those green eyes to his wife, with whom he had not shared a bed in more than a decade - and did those laughing green eyes not have a certain unidentifiable sparkle that said: Come, mi amor! Let us forget the passing of years and find ourselves again under the desert stars! Little Hector, the madrina de laso, who carried the coins and the lasso, all of twelve years old and looking very handsome in his miniature version of Heraclio's red wedding sash, looked at Maria as though he had never seen her before, never seen anyone before... and this time, when little Carina punched him in his arm, he grinned a cocky grin at her and said, "One day I'm gonna marry you!" Poor Carina, she blushed as red as that wedding sash, and ran to hide behind her father, the chubby jailer Rafael, who chuckled and murmured to his neighbour in the crowd: "That boy, he's muy caballero! Like a little Heraclio, hey? In ten years we'll be going to his wedding!"
"Ah, not if you can catch him first!" chuckled Isidoro the schoolteacher, and Carina blushed even redder but smiled secretly at Hector from the safety of her father's legs.
The only one who could look at Maria and not feel as though life was worth living was the poet Djego. Thin as a rake and soft as dough, with a mane of lank, black hair and a tiny pencil moustache, he might have been considered handsome - even debonair - if not for the air of misery and sorrow that he had carefully crafted to hang around himself like a funeral shroud. He was generally tolerated, occasionally even humoured, but there was not a soul in town who could possibly understand how Djego and Heraclio could be brothers.
The wise old women of the town nodded sagely in their rocking chairs when the question was put to them, and the reply was always the same. "Sometimes, a mother and a father put so much into that first child, that it takes a little out of the womb and the balls, and after that they don't work so good. So the first son is like a god, or maybe they have a princess for a daughter. And after that..." And at this point in the telling Djego would strut past with his nose in the air, frowning as though there was nothing to be enjoyed on a sunny day but his own secret and special pain. And the old wise women would chuckle. "After that... blehhh!"
And that was the reaction when Djego walked through the town, composing his awful poems, never turning his hand to anything of value, never allowing his heavy, leaden, rhymeless, metreless verse to breathe or represent something of beauty or worth. Blehhh. His brother looked after him, as he always had since their parents had died - because he felt sorry for him. "Djego is an idiot," he would say, "but he is my brother. And one day he will be able to laugh with me."
All of this is not to say that Djego could resist Maria's charms - quite the opposite. But when most men would see the most beautiful girl in Pasito and want to go out and live life, dance, sing, make great plans for themselves - Djego looked upon her and only wished to be transformed into stone.
The reason for this was simple. Djego had been hopelessly in love with Maria since the first moment his brother had brought her home.
The man in the desert fell t
o his knees and then fell forward onto his face.
Each breath was agony now. His throat was numb and his lips were swollen with the lack of moisture. His skin was like cracked parchment, burnt red. Blisters covered his feet from the red-hot sand that now seared his body.
In front of him, there was a small cactus, no larger than his head. His eyes could barely focus on it, but some switch in his mind triggered the thought that here was water. If you could question his conscious mind on the matter, he would tell you vehemently that he wanted no water; he wanted nothing but to die, and die soon. But his fingers crept forward, scrabbling at the spines of the cactus, drawing blood, then reaching for the hilt of the sword.
The conscious mind was all but dead. The brave desire to walk himself to death had boiled away in the furnace of the desert sun. All that was left was the instinct to survive. The sword flashed, carving the cactus open, the dry, cracked mouth making a terrible noise of despair and rage as a precious drop of moisture was lost to the sand. Then he was leaning forward to drink in what little liquid there was, eating the pulpy, wet flesh, swallowing and sucking it down, tearing at it with his teeth, breaking away the spines so he could devour the skin of the cactus itself.
When he began to choke on the cactus, he rolled to his side and slumped on the sand, unable to move, the pulpy meat of the plant resting in his arid mouth as the sun beat mercilessly down.
The cactus was of the Trichocereus variety. Originally from Ecuador, it had slowly migrated north through Central America, mutating as it went to survive the greenhouse effect brought down on the planet by Britain's runaway industrialism. Originally, the Trichocereus was used by tribal shamen to provide them with intense, often terrifying visions. Those botanists who had discovered this new variety termed it Trichocereus Validus.
This was because its psychotropic qualities were hundreds, perhaps thousands of times more powerful.
The man's eyes bulged. He began to convulse. Foam ran from his lips as from a rabid dog.
He could no longer recall his name, but he remembered very vividly that three days before he had been punched in the face by a woman, for the first and the last time in his life.
The procession had reached the great square, and there the dancing began. Heraclio danced with his beautiful bride to the strains of the mariachi band, and all around him, the whole town danced in the shape of a heart, as was tradition. Had there ever been a happier moment in the whole time that the town of Pasito had stood? Certainly none anyone could remember, although occasionally a husband would turn to a wife and squeeze their hand a little tighter, the glimmer in their eyes seeming to say: Yes, I remember it well.
And then the great circle broke up, and every man in the town took their turn to dance with the lovely Maria, and the women queued to be whirled around by the manly Heraclio, who danced well, but not as well as with Maria, and danced with consideration, slowing his pace where necessary - especially when gently escorting the ninety-five year old Consuela Vasquez, the town's oldest resident, from one end of the square to the other.
Occasionally, Maria would sit herself down in her magnificent white dress, and pass time with the old men and women who, unlike the beloved and venerable Consuela, were unable to dance - either through advanced age, physical disorder or, in the case of Toraidio DeMario, several bottles of good wine. She would also flash her stunning smile at Elbanco the singer and the rest of his band, who would not fail to play whatever song she requested. Even those they did not know, they would do their very best to attempt, plucking the words from the air and making up a tune which fit them. A song called The Dark Side Of The Moon, for example, had been the talk of London some ten or twenty years previously. It was a melancholy ballad with subtle undertones of laudanum abuse, and had become so famous that word of it had managed to spread even as far as El Pasito. In the hands of Elbanco's band it became a quick, jolly tune about a cuckold painting his wife's bottom black to discourage the many suitors who came running when she waved it out of the window. Maria laughed and danced to it regardless, and thanked each of the band with another sparkling smile, which they considered ample payment for their labours.
And so, when Djego finally deigned to take the floor and dance, Elbanco and his cohorts were busily attempting to perform an apparently famous European ditty called The Dancing Queen, which allegedly went something like:
She doesn't like to walk and she cannot ride a horse -
But the way she dances? Oh, it's a scandal!
Eyebrows were raised - the venerable Consuela gave a gasp of shock, which was a rare event as she had, it was believed, seen it all. Djego the poet, who was above all petty enjoyments, was moving to dance for the first time! It was scarcely believable. To her credit, Maria acknowledged the rarity of the event, and took him gently in her arms to start a waltz about the floor. Heraclio watched with a proud smile - Djego had never told him his feelings on any matter, and so he assumed he was simply watching his shy younger brother finally coming out of the thick shell he had so painstakingly built for himself. He accepted the hand of the chief bridesmaid, and led her into a stately twirl as Elbanco waved his guitarist into a spirited solo.
Of course, he had no way of knowing what was truly on Djego's mind.
Maria's green eyes sparkled as she looked into his, and the smile on her face held a hint of mischief. "So you've finally decided to enjoy yourself, hah? Is this the start of a trend or a momentary bout of insanity?"
Djego smiled stiffly in response. "I... would like it to be the start of something."
She raised an eyebrow. "A new career as a ladykiller? Well, in that case, you'll have to stop those hands shaking. Let me lead a little." She began to gently guide him around the floor, and soon they were moving almost gracefully, with Djego even managing a little smile. "There! Isn't this nice? Djego, if you can keep this up, I promise I will dance at your wedding. Come on, smile! You look handsome when you smile, my brother-in-law. You should do it more. Where's the harm? It might bring your wedding day closer, hah?"
Djego's smile faltered. "I do not see that I will ever get married now, Maria."
Maria laughed, and the laugh was strong and sure. "Oh, there's time yet. Look at your brother when I first met him! Remember how he used to spit out of windows? And then he hit poor Father Santiago in the eye!" She laughed again, but Djego's attempt at a smile was nervous. His hands were shaking. Maria sighed. "Djego, if you keep this up I'm going to abandon you to Consuela. She'll teach you a few more things than dancing, I warn you. You've not seen how she has her eye on you?"
Djego shuddered, but not because of Maria's mental image. He swallowed hard, then spoke softly, barely heard above the music.
"Maria... do you remember the poems that Heraclio sent you?"
She blinked at him, continuing to lead the dance more by reflex than anything else, cocking her head slightly to look at him. "How do you know about those? He showed them to you to get a second opinion, right?"
Djego shook his head. "I wrote those, Maria. Those were my words to you."
Maria said nothing, but she stopped the dance.
"Those poems I wrote to you - I gave them to Heraclio because I didn't think I was worthy. But those are my feelings, Maria. The poems that won your heart, that made you his - they were mine." He swallowed, searching her eyes. Her expression was unreadable, but he pressed on. "This... this should be my wedding day." His eyes welled. The sadness was almost too great for him to contain. "I... I know I've waited too long... but... perhaps one day..."
This was the moment that Maria pulled away from him, swung around and slammed one of her fists into his jaw, sending him tumbling onto the ground in a cloud of dust.
"Estupido!" she yelled, and kicked him in the ribs. Elbanco and his band stopped playing. The venerable Consuela gave another gasp of shock - it was doubtful whether her heart would be able to stand any more unthinkable happenings that day. Little Hector put his hand over his mouth, turning ashen - his juvenile medi
tations on the power of manhood shattered in an instant. Carina only grinned.
Heraclio stood dumbfounded, then found his voice. "Djego, what have you done now?"
Maria spat venom as she grabbed the lapels of Djego's unseasonal black shirt and hauled him up.
"You honestly think you can walk up to me on my wedding day and say such things? Those poems were terrible, Djego! They were desgraciado! It was nice that Heraclio thought of reading me poems, but in the end I used them to start a fire going! You cannot write, tonto!"
Djego sniffled, reaching to wipe the blood from his nose, looking at the blazing Maria with wide eyes.
"Seriously, idiota, what was your big plan, hah? Would this be like one of those stupid books you read? Was I going to be the unattainable great love you pined away for for the rest of your life? Were we supposed to swap charged glances over the dinner table? Well guess what, retraso..." Her foot slammed into his groin. Hard. Djego gasped and collapsed, then began to retch, throwing up a puddle of half-digested wine onto the ground.
"I fell in love with a man. Not a bunch of stupid poems. So crawl off and hide away for a while? You're no longer welcome at my wedding party. Get the hell out!"
Silence rolled across the great square. All eyes were on the sobbing Djego, as he lay there, weeping openly. Had there been a more awkward moment in Pasito's long history than this? It was certainly the most public embarrassment anyone had suffered. Shocked, helpless eyes turned to each other, then to Heraclio, who shrugged, as if to say: What can I do? She's right! Not even the venerable Consuela could see a means of rescuing the occasion.
So in many ways it was a mercy when the stage exploded in a gout of fire and shrapnel, tearing Elbanco and his band into bloody shreds.