by David Hair
Two weeks later, his rehabilitation had apparently been accomplished. Of course he hadn’t given back all of his gold, and of course Lucia knew that, but they both pretended otherwise. She’d hidden his presence, but allowed him a secret audience, and to kiss her signet ring and swear allegiance to her – and her alone, he’d noted. She’d also given him a detachment of Volsai – although he only advised them, nominally, at least. No doubt their orders were to eliminate him at the first sign of betrayal, or maybe even as soon as his mission was complete. He was willing to take that risk, to be once again on the inside of the Sacrecours, the biggest gang in Yuros, with a mission that ranked higher in Lucia’s mind than all else . . .
Recovery of the empire’s gold from the remnants of the Second Army.
Now they were on windcraft south of Midpoint, tracking the deserters marching north across the bridge.
‘You are right, Magister Gyle,’ the woman beside him said, lowering her eyeglass. ‘The gold will be in the central wagons.’ Her name was Yrna Corloi, a Pallacian Volsai captain, and they were on the deck of a Rondian windcraft designed for two crew and six passengers. They had four more ‘Owls’ – warrior-magi of the Imperial Volsai – with them. Below, the column of deserters on the bridge were slogging towards Midpoint Tower. The Imperial Fleet was only days away, and the Keepers were readying the destruction of the Leviathan Bridge, just as planned.
His task was to recover the gold before they destroyed the span and sent all upon it into the sea. Corloi’s people had been watching the column for weeks.
‘They utilise all the wagons in the daily operation of the column,’ Yna Corloi went on, ‘but there are twenty that are always separate from the rest of the column and seldom entered, except by the same drivers. Which is exactly how one would treat an unmarked bullion caravan.’
Corloi had a businesslike manner Gyle liked; she was focused entirely on the result required and the most efficient way to deliver it. She was a comparative rarity as a woman in the circles she moved in, and displayed no hint of a softer side, from her cropped grey hair and lined face to her bony body. There was a touch of Elena to her, but he was utterly unmoved. He felt scarred from his brushes with woman of late.
‘Have the Keepers confirmed when they propose to begin their task?’ he asked.
‘Three days hence,’ Corloi replied in her flat voice. She knew exactly what was planned for the Bridge, and professed eagerness for the spectacle. ‘Magister Naxius himself has gone to Midpoint, to ensure that the solarus crystals have reached the correct levels of energy.’
Naxius? Is that snake still involved? ‘That doesn’t leave us a lot of time to seize the gold.’
‘The operation will take minutes if done well,’ Corloi replied. ‘We’ll have three warbirds and twenty magi. That will suffice. My people are the best in the empire – and we will have surprise on our side. I’m confident we’ll be successful.’
‘It would be desirable to take the bastard sons of Dubrayle and Korion alive,’ he suggested. He was rather fascinated by the notion that Dubrayle had a bastard; delivering the Treasurer’s head in a basket might be a way to a more secure future for himself. ‘There may be deeper levels to this that we’re unaware of, and obtaining a confession from one or both might have further advantages.’
‘That is a lesser priority than the gold, of course.’ Corloi sniffed. ‘But we’ll make the attempt.’
*
Ramon hadn’t intended to be awake at midnight, but he couldn’t sleep. He decided to try and walk himself into exhaustion, pacing back and forth, wrapped up against the chill. The weather had turned cold and clouds obscured the sky, sometimes sending flurries of rain and hail to sting their faces.
His worries focused on the following day, which would see them pass beneath Midpoint Tower. The scouts had reported a lot of aerial activity, but no one on the ground. He was increasingly convinced that the empire was going to try and stop them crossing the Bridge, even though their scrying showed no signs of other legions on the Bridge, or in Pontus.
He paused, leaned against the parapet and looked away to the north, where Midpoint Beacon was shining out over the tumult of waves and spray. The moon was reduced to a faintly gleaming disc above, its outline lost in a wash of silver. He wasn’t the only one awake: to the rear in the women’s caravan, the new mothers tended their newborns, and there were guards about.
Then lightning flashed, tinged with the raw power of gnostic energy, searing his retinas as it blasted apart the Argundian cohorts slumbering on either side of the bullion wagons. Even as this happened, dark shapes dropped into view above, raining arrows down into the camp, while others leaped from the windcraft onto the Bridge, blazing light as they came. For a moment his tired mind refused to take it in, but then instinct took over, not least because he’d been expecting something of the sort. He’d not intended to be so close when it happened, though.
‘Wake up!’ he shouted, drawing his sword as he ran forward, as more and more bolts flashed down, scattering the soldiers. ‘Get out! Get out!’ he yelled, as dark shapes dropped all around him; all of them were wrapped in gnostic shields, more magi than the entire Lost Legions could deploy. He had a split-second as they converged in which he wrenched open his belt-pouch and fished for the glass vial.
A mage-bolt slammed into his shields and staggered him and he heard a grunt, not of surprise but satisfaction. A grey-clad figure drifted on Air-gnosis towards him, sword raised and another bolt prepared.
He flipped the stopper and tipped the fluid into his mouth, swallowed as he shielded another bolt. The unpleasant tang filled his mouth. Then he was fighting for his life, blade to blade. His attacker was dauntingly skilled, each bolt designed to unhinge his shields and allow the blade to slide through at another point. Firing off mage-bolts in the midst of a sword-fight duel took skill and concentration, but his attacker managed easily. Then their blades locked and the other man twisted with practised power while a dagger appeared in his other hand. It gouged into Ramon’s shielding like a carving knife slowly slicing through meat, then Ramon caught the man’s dagger arm by the wrist and tried to wrench it away.
The Imperial mage slammed his knee into Ramon’s groin and he almost vomited up the contents of the vial, but he forcibly swallowed it back down as the dagger was pressed to his throat and the man snapped, ‘Yield or die, Dubrayle.’
The startling fact that the man knew his father’s name made Ramon slam down his mental shields even as his body went rigid. He repelled a sudden blast of mesmeric-gnosis designed to cripple his mind. Their eyes met – the other man’s were a bleak grey – and they contended mentally before the dagger pricked his throat again. ‘Either I cut your throat, or you let me Chain you, boy.’
He made the decision to relent as the venom he’d ingested began to take away his choice. As he lay on his back and the Chain-rune began to form about him, he had a close-up view of the slickness of the Imperial attack. Most of their magi had formed a perimeter around the bullion wagons and all the crates were hurriedly checked then moved with kinesis into the windcraft while Seth’s Lost Legions were still trying to organise some kind of response amidst the confusion. Torches flared all along the lines, arrows whistled in, but the counter-fire was muted and sporadic. Then the pain of the Chain-rune left him in convulsions.
As he lay there, his awareness shrinking and his vision blurring, he realised that the grey-clad man was still kneeling over him, guiding in a windskiff. ‘Get him aboard,’ he ordered tersely.
‘The gold’s almost loaded, sir,’ one of the windsailors called, grabbing Ramon’s ankles. The Rondians dumped him like a sack of grain into the skiff and the craft rose, as with rising panic Ramon realised the enormity of what he’d just done to himself.
The grey-clad man vaulted over the sides of the windcraft nimbly, straddling him and looking down. He had lank brown hair and a ferret-like face, flushed with success. ‘Master Dubrayle
, I’m delighted to make your acquaintance,’ he said cheerfully. ‘My name is Gurvon Gyle, and you are my prisoner.’ Then his face went from smug triumph to worry as he took in Ramon’s slack features and glazed eyes. ‘Shit! He’s taken poison.’
41
Imperial Fleet
Leviathan
In northern Yurosian myth, the Leviathan is a giant sea-serpent who swims the ocean. It is one of the spawn of Shaitan, the universal figure of evil who features in both Yurosian and Antiopian religious myth. Massive beyond reckoning, Leviathan is said to be able to take bites out of the coastline, and whip up giant waves. One day, the sea-folk say, Leviathan will swallow the land, presaging the end of the world. But in Kore mythology, Corineus will slay the Leviathan, heralding the Days of Bliss.
ORDO COSTRUO ARCANUM, HEBUSALIM, 771
Midpoint, Leviathan Bridge
Akhira (Junesse) 930
24th and last month of the Moontide
Ramon Sensini woke in bleary waves of consciousness from a very strange and involved dream. He had dim recollections of questions, and a lot of punches to the belly. His stomach muscles were screaming. As more of his faculties returned, he realised that he was bound hand and foot and roped to a pair of metal rings screwed into a wall inside a small wooden room. From the sound of wind and the motion of the floor, he decided he was below-decks on a very large windship.
He wasn’t alone; there was another man chained as he was and bound to a hook on the opposite wall. He was slumped over, looking at Ramon with grave, reserved eyes.
Ramon knew him: it was Alaron’s father. ‘Vann?’
Vannaton Mercer winced, as though he’d hoped that Ramon would somehow prove to be a figment of his imagination. But the spell was broken now; the illusion had spoken. ‘Ramon? It is truly you? Holy Kore, what are you doing here?’
‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ Ramon groaned. ‘You were supposed to be safe . . . we hoped—’
‘Some hope! But you’re alive – when Gyle brought you in here, he thought you were dying. They tried to neutralise the poison but they weren’t at all certain they’d succeeded . . .’
‘They must have done enough,’ Ramon replied warily. ‘We shouldn’t speak. There may be listeners.’
Vann still wanted to talk, though. ‘Why do the Volsai think I know anything about the Scytale of Corineus, for Kore’s sake?’ Pain flared in his eyes. ‘Is Alaron . . . ?’
Ramon slowly rubbed a thumb to his palm: the Silacian hand-sign that all was well. Vann nodded faintly, just once. They fell silent as Ramon tested the Chain-rune; it was strong, and his gnostic senses were blinded, though he did wonder if . . .
Vann spoke again, interrupting his train of thought. ‘Listen, I’ll tell you my story anyway. I’ve already told them a hundred times: I was pulled off the road by Jean Benoit during the early months of the Crusade. He’d heard that Inquisitors were asking about me, and Alaron too. He put me in a safehouse in Pontus and kept me stocked up – wine, food and gossip. But a couple of weeks ago, with no explanation, I was handed over to the Owls. They’ve been questioning me, but I know nothing about what they keep asking.’
‘So Benoit sold you out, or one of his underlings did.’
‘Who knows? Anyway, they’ve not really hurt me yet: I think because they know I’m telling the truth. I think I’m just insurance. But the day before yesterday they rushed me here.’
‘Yesterday? How long have I been out?’
‘You’ve been in here with me for a day. This is the first time you’ve been awake in – well, perhaps two days?’
Ramon groaned. What if I spoke . . . then they’d know all about Alaron and the Scytale . . . Which would explain why they’d rush Vann here. ‘Vann, they’re going to use you to get Alaron to turn himself in. They’ll already be trying to contact him.’
Vann looked ill. ‘What’s he done?’
‘I can’t say, but think about it and you’ll work it out.’
Sol et Lune, we’re screwed. Alaron will surrender the Scytale to save his father, and then Lucia will unleash all her rukking Volsai and Keepers and the rest on Seth.
Time passed in an agony of bitterness, that all he’d done – that they’d all done – was going to fall short.
Then the door opened and a pair of burly windsailors clambered in, wrenched them both from the metal rings, and hauled them out into a narrow below-decks corridor. They were permitted to piss in the privy, then manhandled up a flight of steps and into a small room, richly appointed by windship standards. The Imperial Sacred Heart was embossed on every fixture, in gilt and paint, and the timbers were polished walnut, exquisitely finished. The seats they were made to kneel before were cushioned in purple velvet with gold tassels, imperial colours.
Some rich bastard’s ship . . . I guess we’re about to find out whose.
The door opened and three people came through. The first was Gurvon Gyle. He was on his toes, quivering with nervous energy, wide-eyed and alert as he took in the room and the captives. Then he faded into the background as a far more arresting pair, a man and a woman, entered.
Ramon’s eyes went wide.
The man was young, in his twenties, with smooth cheeks and a mousy beard, a weak chin and furrowed brow, slightly stooped beneath the weight of a heavy gold crown. He was clad in heavy velvets and ermine, purple and red with a Sacred Heart embroidered on the back of his cloak. He flinched at seeing Ramon and Vann, as if the sight of them was offensive.
‘Mother, who are these men?’
‘They’re just a pair of common traitors,’ the woman replied. She had a pleasant but subtly forbidding face, framed by perfectly styled honey-blonde hair set with a diamond tiara. Her dress was cream-coloured, with a matching gem-encrusted cloak, and like Gyle, her eyes were everywhere at once. ‘I said you didn’t need to be here.’
Sol et Lune . . . the emperor and his Sainted Mother . . .
Emperor Constant’s mouth twisted sullenly. ‘You never tell me what’s really happening.’ He grabbed Vann’s hair and yanked it cruelly. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Vannaton Mercer,’ Vann gritted. ‘Widower of Tesla Anborn of Norostein.’
‘Another Noroman cowpat!’ Constant sneered. ‘I’m sick of them!’ Then his eyes narrowed. ‘Anborn? Berial’s line? Is this man related to that traitor-woman in Javon? What was her name?’
‘Elena Anborn,’ Gurvon Gyle replied, a touch reluctantly.
Constant snickered lewdly. ‘That’s right: the bint whose purse you were stuffing.’ He flapped his hands disgustedly, then looked at Ramon. ‘Who’s the Rimoni?’
‘He’s Silacian,’ Mater-Imperia Lucia said, with grim satisfaction. She stepped before Ramon and slapped him, a gnosis-strengthened blow that almost took his head off. He found himself up against one wall, his cheek throbbing scarlet and his brain rattling inside his skull. ‘Not so cocky now, you filthy smear of slime!’
Ramon strained at his bonds with futile rage, biting back a retort.
‘You know him, Mother?’ Constant asked irritably. ‘Who is he?’
‘This is Ramon Sensini . . . the bastard son of Calan Dubrayle.’ Lucia smiled in satisfaction. ‘I’ve wondered whether these constant crises in the Treasury are being manufactured by Dubrayle to create opportunities for himself. Now we find his own bastard embroiled in his plots. A confession from this piece of filth will be enough to bring his father down.’
Constant grinned as comprehension hit him. ‘I don’t like Dubrayle. He’s too smart. I don’t like clever people.’
Ramon spat blood on the pristine floor. ‘Luckily you’re surrounded by idiots.’
Constant kicked him in the belly and his vision went white as his holders dropped him and he fell to the floor. ‘Don’t you dare insult my mother, you heathen scum.’
‘Are you sure she’s your mother?’ He grinned recklessly.
The next kick cracked at least two ribs.
‘Enough!’ Lucia snapped. ‘He’s baiting
you, dearest. He thinks that he’s got nothing to lose.’ Her voice became sly. ‘He’s quite wrong. I’ve seen the reports: he’s got a daughter down there. Julietta, isn’t it?’ Mater-Imperia’s reptilian eyes fixed on his. ‘Her future promises to be very, very brief.’
No, not my daughter—
Constant smirked, then yawned. ‘Then hand him over to the torturers. I’ve got better things to do than dirty my boots on him.’ He sauntered out, whistling.
‘The empire’s in wonderful hands,’ Ramon managed to gasp.
‘It is,’ Lucia replied. ‘We’ve prepared a confession, to be despatched to Pallas. You will add any relevant names we’ve omitted to the list of conspirators before we shatter every bone in your body then drip acid over you. Believe me, the Master Torturer will keep you alive, conscious and able to feel for far longer than you imagine. You have mocked me; there is a price to pay for that.’ She turned to Gyle. ‘How long until the Keepers are ready?’
‘About four hours,’ Gyle replied. ‘The power in the solarus crystals will reach their peak two hours after midday.’
Through the pain and the mental anguish, Ramon wondered what they meant.
‘Excellent,’ Lucia said smugly. ‘We’ll bring these two out to watch. I want the Silacian to see the deaths of his daughter and his entire deserter rabble.’ She turned to Gyle again. ‘How much gold was recovered?’
‘Seventy crates of ingots, Holiness. I estimate two hundred thousand gilden, at pre-war prices. That’s now worth millions at today’s gold price.’
‘Extraordinary.’ She looked at Ramon, faintly impressed, then at Gyle. ‘When he’s dead, I want his skull dipped in gold, as a souvenir.’ Her eyes went to Vann. ‘As for this one: keep trying to make contact with his son and let him know that we have him. Tell him if he tries to intervene, his father dies.’