Fire Caste

by Peter Fehervari

  ‘How are you doing, greyback?’ Iverson asked from the threshold.

  ‘I’ve had better days,’ the Badlander wheezed through broken teeth. ‘You here to give me the Emperor’s Mercy then, Holt?’

  ‘Do you want it?’ Iverson asked, reaching for his pistol.

  Modine shook his head. ‘Nah, He ain’t exactly been good to me so far. Why start now?’

  ‘You know I should grant it anyway.’

  ‘Sure, but you won’t. Not unless I ask. And I ain’t asking.’ The Badlander chuckled wetly. ‘Sorry chief, I ain’t going to make it that easy for you.’

  ‘Duty was never meant to be easy.’

  Modine spat a gob of blood-flecked saliva. ‘You toast all them freaks?’

  ‘Most of them, but there will be survivors. There’s no telling how many.’

  ‘Well, I’ll take my chances.’ Modine raised a blubbery paw and grinned. ‘Besides, they might even see me as kin now.’

  ‘Why in the Hells would you want to live like this, man?’

  Modine gave it some thought, then nodded slowly. ‘I’ve never been much of a believer, Holt. The way I see it, when you’re gone, you’re done and there ain’t nothing more.’ He chuckled again. ‘Anything’s got to be better than that, right?’

  ‘You’re wrong, Modine.’

  ‘Maybe so, but if it’s all the same by you, I’ll see this through.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Modine shrugged vaguely. ‘I guess I’ll just sit here a while. See how things go.’

  How things grow…

  Iverson shook his head and turned away, but Modine stopped him with a sharp gesture. ‘You won’t forget what you promised me about that bastard Karjalan will you? You gave me your word back there, brother.’

  ‘I did,’ Iverson said.

  ‘Well then, I reckon that’s good enough for me.’ Modine threw him a languid salute. ‘I’ll see you around, Holt.’

  ‘I hope not.’ Iverson walked out, leaving Kletus Modine to Phaedra. He suspected She wouldn’t keep him waiting long.

  Day 67 – The Coil: A Silver Storm

  My search is almost at an end. The Confederates came to our aid at the eleventh hour and we purged the kroot as brothers-in-arms. And by the Emperor the purging felt good! I’ve been chasing shadows for so long that I’d almost forgotten the taste of an honest battle. I admit there was little glory in it, but if Phaedra has taught me anything it’s the value of truth over glory. This foe needed killing and my new-found allies obliged with thunder in their hearts!

  True to their name the Sentinels of the 19th descended upon the kroot like a silver storm. There were only nine, but every one was a titan wrought in miniature. My kinfolk have always had an affinity for fighting machines, but these riders surpassed the old tales. Riders? Surely that does them an injustice, for each man’s mastery of his machine was so perfect it moved like an extension of his own body. They raced and spun about with an agility that I never imagined possible for such hulking machines. We prowled the town together, burning the tainted igloos and cleansing the savages in droves. Only one Sentinel fell, its legs torn from under it by a dying krootox.

  Just one loss, yet even one was too many when they were already so few…

  Iverson’s Journal

  Dawn was breaking over the village when Iverson returned from his tryst with Modine. He found the Arkan cavalrymen gathered around the fallen Sentinel, cutting their dead comrade from the wreckage with a dignity that belied their ragged appearance. Reve stood at the edge of the circle, aloof and watchful as ever.

  ‘Modine?’ she asked as Iverson approached.

  ‘Gone,’ he said. He nodded a greeting to the Sentinel commander. ‘I believe we owe you our lives.’

  ‘We’ll take Boulter with us. Burn him downriver,’ the man answered obliquely. ‘There’s not much of him left, but I won’t leave one of my riders here.’ He glared at Iverson as if expecting an objection.

  He blames me for the death of his comrade, Iverson thought. Or he blames himself for making one of his own pay for my salvation. Either way, he’s wondering if I’ll be worth the price.

  ‘Are you Cutler?’ Reve asked the officer bluntly.

  The man looked up from the wreckage with a scowl: ‘Do you see any stars on my chest, lady?’

  ‘I see no insignia of any kind,’ Reve replied, glancing pointedly at the rider’s fur-trimmed flying jacket. The garment was a gentleman’s affectation, expensive and flamboyant, but it had weathered Phaedra better than its wearer. Haggard and wolfish, the man looked like a pirate dressed up in his victim’s finery, yet there was a faded arrogance about him that betrayed his blue blood. There was blue in his eyes too – the lurid indigo stigma of a Glory addict.

  ‘I may be a Throne-forsaken renegade, but I’m not Ensor bloody Cutler,’ the commander said. ‘The name’s Vendrake.’ He straightened up. ‘Captain, 19th Arkan Confederates.’ He made it sound like a challenge.

  ‘Iverson,’ the commissar said. ‘And this is Cadet Reve. We’ve been looking for you – all of you – for quite some time.’

  ‘Maybe we didn’t want to be found.’

  But that’s a lie, Iverson thought. After all, you came to us, Captain Vendrake.

  ‘That’s unfortunate,’ he said, ‘because I’m here on the Emperor’s business.’

  Vendrake’s eyes narrowed. ‘And what would that be, commissar?’

  Iverson hesitated. If he misread Vendrake these men would kill him where he stood. ‘That would be justice, Captain Vendrake.’ His words hung in the air like a whiplash waiting to fall. At the corner of his eye he saw Reve’s hand inching towards her pistol. Surely you’re not such a fool, girl?

  Finally a sour smile touched Vendrake’s lips.

  ‘Justice?’ He sighed with what might have been relief. ‘Well then, say your piece and be done with it, commissar.’

  Day 68 – The Coil: A Barbed Alliance

  ‘You’re no renegade, Hardin Vendrake,’ I told him, ‘and neither is the 19th.’ They were simple words, but true – the right words for the moment.

  Of course words won’t be enough to win these men over, but they broke the ice and Vendrake agreed to take me to Cutler. For all his hostile bravado I believe it’s what he intended all along, so why the games? I sense there’s more than brinkmanship going on here. It’s almost as if Vendrake wants me to judge him. There’s an edge of darkness to the man that runs deeper than his devotion to the Glory. Dead Niemand believes he is insane and I’m inclined to agree, but he’s the only lead I have. Besides, he tells me his comrades are just two days upriver so I’ll have my answers soon enough.

  Iverson’s Journal

  ‘You won’t like what you find, commissar,’ Vendrake said. In the violet fungal light his features had a ghoulish cast. Iverson couldn’t quite tell if he was grinning or not. ‘Actually I think you’ll want to shoot the lot of us.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Iverson said, regarding the riders hunkered down around him on the banks of the river. Their Sentinels loomed over them like a second circle of judges. It was the first night of their journey together and the unspoken trial was in session once again. ‘Do you think I should shoot you, Captain Vendrake?’

  ‘Does it matter what I think?’

  ‘Maybe not, but tell me anyway.’

  ‘Well then…’ Now Vendrake was grinning. ‘What I think is this: we’re not what you’d call heroes of the Imperium anymore. Not heroes of any stripe or colour in fact.’

  ‘But you’ve been fighting the enemy,’ Iverson said.

  ‘Because they’re here to fight.’

  ‘The enemy will always be here to fight. It’s the way of things.’

  Vendrake snorted and took another swig from his canteen. He’d been working his way through it all night and Iverson guessed it wasn�
�t filled with water.

  ‘Sir, if I may?’ The speaker was Silverstorm’s second officer, Pericles Quint. ‘Despite Captain Vendrake’s misgivings, please rest assured that the 19th has not strayed from its tradition of courage and honour. We have harassed the rebels at every opportunity…’

  ‘Oh quit whining, Quinto!’ Vendrake snapped. He obviously despised his subordinate and Iverson could see why. Clear-eyed and clean-cut, Quint was his captain’s opposite, the epitome of an Arkan noble confident of his place in the scheme of things. According to Vendrake the man had once been overweight, but there wasn’t a trace of fat on him now. While Phaedra had sucked the vigour out of Vendrake, She had seemingly whipped Quint into shape.

  ‘It needs to be said, sir.’ To the commissar’s trained ear there was the faintest tremor in Quint’s voice. ‘We have stayed true to Providence and the Imperium.’

  There were murmurs of assent from the other riders and Iverson wondered if Quint was angling for a power play. If so, Vendrake seemed blind to the threat. Or perhaps he just didn’t care.

  ‘Do you really think an Imperial commissar will give a damn for anything you have to say, Quinto?’ Vendrake scoffed.

  He’s speaking to Quint, but I’m the one he’s really asking, Iverson realised. Why are you so eager to be condemned, Captain Vendrake?

  ‘Tell us about Cutler,’ Reve interjected. ‘Is he at your camp?’

  Vendrake squinted at her. ‘You seem mighty keen to meet the Whitecrow, lady. Now why would that be?’

  ‘He is your leader, is he not?’ Reve said.

  But is he your target, Reve? Iverson wondered.

  ‘Colonel Cutler is…’ Quint began.

  ‘Quite dead,’ Vendrake interrupted. Reve stared at him and he laughed, a harsh, humourless bark. Nobody joined in. ‘No, don’t worry girl, I’m just messing with you. As far as I know the Whitecrow is still breathing, but some things can wait. In fact this…’ he swept his arm across the gathering, ‘this can all wait. Let’s see what the Raven makes of you.’

  ‘The Raven?’ Reve asked.

  ‘Oh don’t worry cadet, you’re going to love her!’ Vendrake hauled himself up. ‘She’s always full of questions too.’ He turned towards his Sentinel. Out in the Mire all the riders slept in their machines. ‘I’ll see you at dawn.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell us about Trinity first, captain?’ Iverson’s words struck Vendrake like cold water. When he turned his grin was gone.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trinity,’ Iverson said. ‘It’s on the regimental records – a backwater town razed by the 19th. If I recall correctly it happened right at the tail end of the war.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘There were questions. A military tribunal.’ Iverson was watching Vendrake closely. ‘I thought it might be important.’

  The captain swayed, looking unsteady on his feet. His men were silent. Even Pericles Quint kept his mouth shut.

  ‘Captain?’ Iverson pressed.

  ‘That town died after the war, commissar,’ Vendrake said. He paused, thinking about it. ‘Or maybe long before. I’m still not sure which it was.’

  ‘And was it important?’

  ‘No,’ Vendrake looked at him with eyes like broken windows into Hell. ‘No, it wasn’t important.’

  But Iverson saw the lie. For Hardin Vendrake, Trinity was the most important thing of all.

  ‘He is sick and almost certainly tainted,’ Reve said when they were back aboard the Penitence and Pain.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Iverson said, ‘but Vendrake is our only lead.’

  ‘Why do you always retreat to “perhaps” or “maybe”, sir?’ She sounded exasperated. ‘Doubt and you will falter, falter and you will fall.’ It was a quotation from the Commissariat Primer.

  Does that mean you’re the real thing, Reve? Iverson wondered. Or have you just done your homework? And does it matter either way?

  ‘Sometimes “maybe” is the best we can do, cadet. Sometimes there’s no knowing the truth.’

  She was indignant. ‘Then we act regardless. Hesitation is a greater crime than error.’ Another quotation. ‘Your pardon, but you think too much for a commissar, sir.’

  He was silent for a long time. ‘Yes,’ he replied finally and realised he meant it. ‘Yes, I fear you’re right.’

  ‘Then you agree? You will act?’

  ‘I believe I must,’ he said sadly. ‘Goodnight to you, Cadet Reve.’

  That night, like most nights, Hardin Vendrake dreamt of murdering the town that was already dead. And yet again the nightmare began the same way.

  His Sentinels reached the outskirts of Trinity at the head of an unravelling grey snake that stretched back almost a kilometre. Most of the men were so dazed with cold and starvation they could barely walk, let alone hold a formation together. The last of the Chimera sleds had given out four days ago, the last of the horses a day later. After that it had fallen to the Sentinels to haul along the wounded carts. It was an inglorious task that they rotated dutifully, but fuel had run as dry as blood by the time they reached the town.

  Vendrake felt his heart leap at the sight. It almost made him forget the cold. He’d killed his Sentinel’s heater days ago to save on power and the cabin had turned into an icebox. He was swathed in furs like a barbaric mummy, but his fingerless mittens left his hands vulnerable and the tips were blue with cold. Like any rider worth his salt he wouldn’t sacrifice dexterity for comfort, but he guessed frostbite was just a hair’s-breadth away. But the town was closer.

  Then Vendrake spotted the major waiting by the side of the road like a grim gatekeeper and knew something was wrong. Of course Cutler wasn’t the Whitecrow back then. His hair was still coal-black and he didn’t wear misery like a mantle, but his fate was already closing in.

  ‘Level the town, captain,’ Cutler called over the wind. ‘Bring it down and burn it.’

  ‘Burn it…’ Vendrake echoed hollowly.

  ‘Except for the temple. Leave that to me.’

  ‘And the people?’ He was too tired for shock.

  ‘Burn them too.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ And he was too tired to try.

  ‘That’s for the best, captain.’

  Vendrake hesitated just once. ‘Is this right?’ he asked. But he must have been too tired to care, because he didn’t remember Cutler’s answer. Didn’t even remember if Cutler had answered at all. What he did remember was leading the cavalry into Trinity and putting the town to the sword. And when the locals fell upon them, hacking at their metal steeds with axes and hatchets and even lesser weapons, he put them to the sword too. He was numb to their fury. The cold had made him invulnerable to doubt.

  His invulnerability lasted until a putty-faced maniac leapt onto his steed from a collapsing rooftop. The attacker howled in futile outrage as he battered at the Sentinel’s canopy, then pressed his molten features against the windshield. Pressed so hard it began to come apart.

  Which, the face or the windshield?

  Lost somewhere between the dream and the cold, Vendrake couldn’t tell where flesh ended and glass began. He only knew he mustn’t let that furious dissolution reach him. Desperately he tried to shake his attacker loose but the degenerate hung on like a leech, his wild eyes glaring hate and hope like dark-bright beacons in a whirlpool of vitreous flesh. And then the windshield began to bulge inwards…

  ‘Belle du Morte signing in,’ the vox crackled suddenly.

  At those words the world ran down like a failing machine. The sounds of battle distended and faded to silence. The face outside/inside his windshield congealed into stillness, becoming a tortured sculpture framed against the frozen flames devouring the town.

  ‘Leonora,’ Vendrake croaked, dimly aware that this was a new twist on the nightmare. Something he hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Another
night, another murdered town,’ sang the voice of his dead protégé and lover. ‘Tell me, which slaughter felt better, Hardin?’

  ‘It had to be done,’ he said. He was vaguely sure that was true. Hadn’t someone important once said so? Cutler perhaps. Or maybe poor dead Elias Waite…

  ‘That’s not what I asked, Hardin.’

  ‘You can’t be here, Leonora. You joined us after the war ended. You weren’t ever here.’

  ‘But you’re here. And that’s all that matters, dear Hardin.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Vendrake said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the monstrosity carved into the windshield. There was hatred frozen in its eyes like an insect trapped in amber. It was a voracious, crawling thing, eager to escape so it could make a nest of his skull. ‘I don’t understand…’ he repeated in a whisper.

  ‘That’s because you’re trying too hard, Hardin.’ The dead voice giggled at the chance alliteration. ‘It’s like staring at the sun. Look right at it and you’ll go blind, but catch it in the corner of your eye and you’ll see the truth of things.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘That you were blind all along and always will be!’ Her laugh was like the swish of rotting velvet. ‘The world is broken and there’s no fixing it. The puzzle makes no sense and nonsense is our only hope.’

  ‘You’re not… Leonora.’ He struggled to string the thoughts together, let alone the words. His hand fumbled for the service pistol taped to the dashboard.

  ‘Don’t be cruel, Hardin!’ she chided. ‘But no matter, you’ll know me when we meet.’

  ‘You’re… lying.’ His hand closed on the gun.

  ‘Of course… I’m not!’ She giggled again. ‘Either way, I’m coming for you. Perhaps it was true love after all…’

  He tore the pistol free and levelled it between the mad eyes petrified inside his windshield.

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to do that!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you?’

  Vendrake had no idea, but he did it anyway.

  The two Sentinel riders keeping watch by the riverbank heard the pitiful shrieks coming from Vendrake’s machine, but neither spoke up or moved to intervene. They were used to their captain’s nightmares.