Savage City

by Sophia McDougall

  ‘I will not be able to sleep now,’ said Noriko. ‘Una’s brother is alive?’

  ‘Don’t run and tell her until we establish how long he’s going to stay that way,’ said Tadahito sourly.

  Morokata appeared in the doorway. ‘The line is prepared, Your Highness.’

  Noriko pulled up a chair and sat down with an air of quiet obstinacy while Tadahito paced around the longdictor table, trying to work off the tension. He did not bother telling her again to go away. At last he lunged into the chair and seized the circlet. ‘Novianus Sulien,’ he said, ‘I thought I knew something about you by reputation. I must have been mistaken.’

  ‘That city—’ Sulien’s voice, bouncing across nine thousand miles, was faint and scratchy. ‘—Tamohara – did the avalanche hit it? Or was there an earthquake or – or anything?’

  ‘I don’t understand why you are asking me this,’ said Tadahito, in an icy tone that lent a certain stateliness and menace to the fact that he was, indeed, very confused.

  ‘I could have destroyed it – Tamohara. The weapon you used in Mohavia, you call it Surijin? Ours is called the Onager.’

  ‘I do not think it matters what names we use,’ said Tadahito. ‘You say you will destroy Tamohara unless what?’ He considered and added, ‘Perhaps you should be aware I have your sister here.’

  Noriko shook her head in distress. Tadahito looked away from her.

  In the Kosen bunker Sulien rocked back in his chair with shock, ‘What?’ he stammered, ‘Una – is she—?’ Tadahito’s implied threat barely touched him; he was too amazed at the thought that Una was so close to the thin, stern voice in his ear, too overwhelmed by everything that had happened today. ‘Then you know—?’

  ‘Explain to me what you mean by threatening Tamohara,’ insisted Tadahito.

  With difficulty Sulien dragged himself back to the question. ‘No, no, your Highness, the city’s safe – there’s no one out there. I had to make sure they’d actually pass the message on to you. Your people know where we are; they could have killed us all and you’d never have even known I was trying to talk to you.’

  Tadahito closed his eyes, almost resenting the jolt of relief that resounded through him; he felt it knock away what little grasp he had on what was happening. He asked, ‘And what did you wish to tell me?’

  ‘That you don’t want to fight this kind of war,’ Sulien said. ‘You can’t. You killed almost all of us in Mohavia today, and I know why. But if you don’t stop, now, then it won’t end with Rome, not with both sides holding these weapons. I know Rome has at least one more, somewhere on the Promethean Sea. And that’s all I know about it; when your soldiers get here they can do whatever you want to me, but that’s the truth. And there could be others out there.

  ‘Your Highness, even if you destroy Rome itself, even if you split the Empire into pieces, you won’t be safe.’

  Tadahito said nothing.

  ‘My sister has a plan to end the war,’ said Sulien. ‘All this year we have been working for that – my sister and Varius and— All of us.’

  ‘I know she has a plan,’ said Tadahito, carefully expressionless.

  ‘Then please, at least listen to her. Please. I know you’ve seen battle, your Highness, but you haven’t seen what these weapons do. You can’t have seen as many bodies as I have today. Please, don’t do it to Rome – just please—’ He stumbled to a halt. He had no more to say. He waited in silence, aware of the weight of the fourth centuria’s gaze.

  Then Tadahito broke the connection.

  ‘You don’t know what you should do,’ said Noriko. She was standing looking down at him while Tadahito leant over the desk and put his head into his hands.

  ‘I must talk to Father,’ he said, in an exhausted moan, and was relieved only his sister was there to hear him sound like that.

  ‘I will tell you what to do. Cancel the attack. Let Una do what she says she can. Give them a little time to try. And bring her brother here. You already promised her you would look after him.’

  ‘How can I give up our plans now?’ asked Tadahito. ‘Isn’t it already too late? If they have a weapon like that – if we don’t strike again, they will respond to what we did in Enkono.’

  ‘Then we must bring the war to a peaceful end as soon as possible.’ Noriko laid a hand on his back and bent down so that their faces were almost level. ‘Look up,’ she said, and he did, and met her eyes. ‘If I can come here from Rome and make you listen to me, if you do this when I tell you it is right, then Marcus and I did not marry for nothing. And it was something more than a waste that I have been so far from home for so long.’

  Varius’ room was dark except for the chilly glow from the machines beside him. Una was still in the chair by the bed, with her head pillowed on her folded arms, resting on the mattress.

  Tadahito touched her shoulder. ‘Una,’ he said quietly, because that was what his sister called her now.

  Una woke with a blurred little cry of shock and looked at once to Varius’ face before blinking up at Tadahito.

  He said, ‘I’ve just been talking to your brother.’

  ‘You’ve sold us out, haven’t you? That’s what this is – you’re not who you said you were; you’ve been working with them the whole time. And we’re going to rot in some prisoner-of-war camp while you swan off with them and—’ Asper’s power of speculation failed and he finished, ‘You’re not even fucking Roman!’

  Sulien sagged, too tired to brace himself against how much this hurt.

  ‘You just fucking dare say that again—!’ said Pas, furious.

  ‘He’s a convicted traitor! Didn’t you ever watch longvision back home?’

  ‘We’d all be dead if it wasn’t for him,’ said Caerellius. ‘Whatever his real name is.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s what he says,’ Asper muttered.

  Six or seven of them rose to their feet, anger washing dangerously between them. Sulien tried, impossibly, to look them all in the eyes at once. He said, ‘The war’s going to end. You’re all going to live. Everyone’s coming home.’

  ‘Throw down your weapons!’ shouted a voice outside. A battalion of Nionian soldiers had reached the base.

  ‘Do as they say,’ said Sulien, dropping his own. ‘Line up in your octets. File out.’

  Slowly he led them outside into the dark, his hands raised. The flanks of the valley were lined with soldiers pointing guns.

  ‘Where is Novianus Sulien?’ someone called.

  ‘I’m here,’ Sulien answered, and behind him, Dorion whispered, with mock-cheeriness, ‘So, you’ll be on your way, then.’

  Sulien turned his head. ‘It’s not for long. I swear it’s not for long now. And the Prince promised me everyone would be treated well.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Dorion, ‘if he promised—’ The sarcasm wasn’t as scathing as it might have been, Dorion was handling it lightly, just cuffing at Sulien with it. But still Sulien hated the abandoned, let-down look on his face.

  ‘I don’t want to leave any of you behind. Listen,’ he said urgently, watching a Nionian captain making his way down towards him, ‘you can come with me.’ He looked past Dorion to Pas. ‘The three of us—’

  Dorion glanced from Sulien to the others and back and a little shudder went through him, but he said curtly, ‘No, I’m staying with them.’ His chin was raised, his shoulders squared.

  ‘All right,’ Sulien said, ‘look after everyone, then.’

  Pas asked slowly, ‘You really reckon you can stop all this?’

  ‘If you can, you’d better get on with it,’ said Dorion, shaking again, though now he was managing to smile. ‘You go with him, Pas, if they’ll let you.’

  The captain approached, already glaring at Sulien in obvious distrust. He beckoned him tersely out of the line. Sulien dragged Pas with him and said, ‘I need him to come with me.’

  The captain scowled and shouted something into his radio without answering Sulien. He gestured impatiently to his men and with com
mands and shoves, the Nionian soldiers began ushering Sulien’s centuria away up the hillside. Dorion looked back over his shoulder. Sulien’s throat tightened.

  Pas lurked at Sulien’s side, apprehensive.

  ‘These are all your men?’ the captain asked as a squad of Nionians pushed into the base behind them.

  ‘Forty-three of us,’ said Sulien, ‘and four of your men.’

  ‘Forty-three,’ repeated the captain, shaking his head in disbelief.

  One of the Nionian soldiers called out from the doorway of the base.

  ‘Come back inside,’ said the captain. ‘They are calling again from Axum.’

  Sulien beckoned to Pas, afraid he’d be swept off with the rest if he were left alone, and they followed the captain back inside the command centre. Tadahito would hardly be calling back to announce that he had changed his mind and was going to have the whole centuria shot, or that he would destroy Rome today after all; nevertheless, those were Sulien’s first thoughts, and his pulse continued to bang painfully even after he’d dismissed them. Gingerly, he lifted the headset.

  ‘Sulien!’ Una almost screamed into the longdictor.

  And Sulien dropped into the seat, with a long, worn-out laugh. He heard it sound less than sane, and couldn’t immediately stop. ‘There you are,’ he said, as if he’d been looking for her all this time and her absence had been surprising and unreasonable. ‘There you are.’

  ‘I didn’t know—’

  Now he could hear that she could barely speak, something was choking her.

  ‘The weapon,’ she managed, ‘I didn’t know you were there.’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t know,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? Is everyone safe? Is Lal with you?’ And he pushed back the chilly awareness of how long it had been since he had thought of Lal.

  Una said, ‘Varius—’ and her voice twisted away, agonised.

  Sulien leant his head against the back of the chair and shut his eyes. He asked, slowly, ‘Has he been arrested?’ and because she was trying to answer and still failing, he supplied, even more softly, ‘Is Varius dead?’

  ‘No,’ said Una, ‘no, he’s here, but he—’

  ‘Listen,’ interrupted Sulien fiercely, ‘he’s going be fine. Whatever’s happened, he just has to hold out another couple of days. Tell him he has to. Tell him I’m coming.’

  [ XIX ]

  ANANKE

  ‘There’s my sister,’ said Sulien, leaning close to the volucer window as it descended.

  Pas was sitting opposite him. He’d been quiet through the fifty hours of this long, sudden journey; Sulien, on the other hand, had scarcely stopped talking – he couldn’t stop himself. Pas had listened, solemnly, and Sulien was grateful for that, and glad Pas had guessed who he was. All these months he’d been in the army he had been content to get by without a past, but now, as they flew back towards it, from the Kosen Mountains to the coast of Hyouden, the relief and the fear of what he’d find kept boiling over out of him into words. He chattered feverishly about Varius, and the three times he’d saved Sulien’s life, and how typical it would be of him if he wouldn’t give someone else a chance, wouldn’t wait long enough for Sulien to help him now.

  Then they’d stopped again, for hours, at a Sinoan military base on the edge of the Arctic Sea, where no one spoke enough Latin to tell them why, and Sulien, distraught at the delay, paced and ground his teeth and explained to Pas how he hadn’t been in time to save Marcus, and how he couldn’t stand it if he were too late now, not after everything, it just couldn’t happen. And he rushed through a jumbled account of how he and Una had met Marcus in the flea-market in Gaul, five years before. And how neither of them had liked him much until what had happened in Wolf Step on the way to Holzarta, and then . . .

  But when Marcus died, he and Sulien had been half-estranged, only part of the way back towards friendship, and it was his fault, and now there was nothing he could ever do to put it right.

  Sometimes, though, something he said – about Drusus, or Marcus, or how he’d never said a proper goodbye to Lal, who was so sweet – would lead him back towards the war, and then he stopped, and he and Pas would look at each other in silence. The war crumpled language, and yet Sulien felt a faint, scared flicker of regret that they were leaving it.

  Una was waiting on the steps above the courtyard, her hair whipped about by the downblast from the wings. Her face was upturned, her body rigid with urgency and tension. But Sulien released a breath and, just for a moment, let himself sink comfortably into the seat. She would not look like that if Varius had just died.

  Flinching a little at the sight of the huge, ugly cross standing for some unfathomable reason outside the palace gates, he jumped down onto the paving before the volucer was fully settled on the ground and ran up the steps to Una. She did not take a step towards him; she remained fixed in place, waiting, too gripped with expectation to move, but as he reached her at last she lifted her arms with a stifled cry.

  Her bones seemed to click and grate when he put his arms around her, as if over these last months they had been shaken or dragged a little out of true, but she held onto him with almost bruising strength, then pulled back and stared at him, speechless but dry-eyed, while Sulien was crying again a little, barely noticing it.

  ‘Varius,’ he said, and Una led him into the palace at a run.

  Something had changed, and it worried Varius that he couldn’t make out what it was. His throat felt scraped and sore – something had been pulled out of it. There was still a stripe of pain along his back. His lips were cracked and dry. There was a reason for these things, almost in reach, but there was something else that was more urgent, something harder to understand, and yet simpler, better . . .

  He drew in a soft, easy breath, and the air felt clear and rich as music as it filled his lungs. And then it occurred to him that the last thing he had known was that that he had been battering out his strength against the vast weight piled on him, and now it was gone. He seemed to float incredulously above the place where it had held him down.

  He might almost have thought he had died, that this was what it was like, except that when he moved, he could still feel the residue of pain, diffused through his muscles. And someone was holding his hand, and had been for a long time. Varius rediscovered the light pressure of cool fingers folded round his with drowsy happiness. He remembered, dimly, how hard he’d had to work for each heartbeat; it had been so good to feel that someone was there.

  He opened his eyes, and saw Una standing over him with a tall, tired, sunbeaten young soldier in a dusty uniform beside her. Both of them were staring at him as if he were doing something remarkable.

  Varius smiled vaguely at them both and found his eyelids sliding shut again.

  Then he realised who he’d seen, and without quite being able to open his eyes again, he smiled more broadly and said, ‘You’re alive.’

  They both laughed. Sulien said, ‘Well, you were the idiot who forgot how to breathe.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Varius said peaceably, and they laughed again, though when he lifted his eyelids again he saw how Una’s smile kept falling apart.

  ‘Don’t say sorry,’ she said, ‘just don’t do that again, ever—’

  It was Una’s hand holding his, of course. Varius was not at all surprised by this, and yet he stared at her with calm wonder, hardly knowing why, until at last she blinked nervously and looked away. He tightened his own fingers on hers.

  His jaw was rough with stubble, snagging on the pillow when he turned his head. ‘What day is it?’ he asked, and then lifted his head sharply, horrified. ‘Rome—’

  ‘It hasn’t happened,’ said Una quickly. ‘Sulien stopped it. Sulien and Noriko.’

  ‘How?’ asked Varius, and looked back to Sulien. The burst of shocked energy had been too sudden, and exhaustion welled back as it lagged away. He croaked, ‘How are you here?’

  And they began telling him, and Varius was frustrated when he realised there was not
hing he could do to keep himself from falling asleep before he had understood anything after Sulien began, ‘We were in the desert . . .’

  Una and Sulien went into one of the ante-rooms further down the passage. Except for the small laundry room that Una had run to three days before, there was nowhere more private to go; there was a bedroom for her somewhere in the palace, but she had never let anyone show her the way there and didn’t know where it was.

  She tried to say something, but it collapsed into a sigh and she sagged against a wall and let herself slide down it until she was sitting on the polished floor. Sulien ignored the bloated velvet furniture and sat down cross-legged in front of her. They did nothing but look at each other with rickety smiles that ached and shouldn’t have lasted, but somehow held up.

  Sulien said, ‘You look more tired than him or me.’ Una’s hair was matted, her skin dull. There were bruise-coloured bulges under her eyes.

  ‘You haven’t looked in a mirror yet then,’ said Una. Her nose twitched with a tired pretence of disapproval. ‘And you need a bath.’

  ‘You’re hardly one to talk, you know.’

  Una exhaled a silent laugh, and then slumped even more heavily. She rubbed a hand over her face and resumed gazing at him, the ripple of the smile gone now, only the tiredness and sadness clear as glass beneath. ‘Oh, Sulien—’ was all she could say for a long time. And then, very quietly, ‘I wish you’d never had to go.’

  ‘But I did have to, didn’t I?’ Sulien closed his eyes as every spurt of gunfire and blood, the scream of the Onager and the fields of the dead jarred through him. And he thought of his last sight of his men, being marched away along the valley, and took a heavy breath full of his promise to bring them all home. And he looked at Una and could tell she had felt at least some of this; she was leaning towards him, her eyes wide and black and, for her, unusually soft. ‘I wish it had never happened,’ he said, with a little thump of his fist against the marble floor, ‘of course I wish that. But since it did, I don’t think I’m sorry I was there.’