by Stephen Hunt
‘That could have gone better,’ muttered Paetro.
Duncan watched the dead bodies dragged out of the chamber by hoodsmen. ‘He should have spared them?’
‘He should have ordered his guards to imprison the fools, lad. Kept his dignity. Questioned the diplomats and determined if that was an accident or an assassination attempt gone wrong. They’re only good for worms now, and we won’t have won any friends in their country.’
As the tribute ceremony recommenced, the applause and ovations sounded hysterically overdone, supplicants coming forward even more nervously. Now the emperor had been roused into a killing fury, his hands bounced angrily around the throne, with little seeming to satisfy or impress him. The diamond throne seemed too small to contain Jaelis’s rage. His dark mood infected the rest of the guests, as well. Duncan realised why so many of the local nobility stood on the tiered balcony floors above the throne room. It was a lot easier to stay out of the way of any crossfire. Somehow, the distance didn’t seem enough to protect him; but Duncan guessed that it would be dangerously impolitic to be seen to leave now, as much as he wished he could. What a stupid end to Cassandra’s young life that that be… catching a stray bullet fired by her homicidal grandfather. Duncan’s attention on the ceremony wavered as another party came up to the railings. Baron Machus led the group, and in his retinue Duncan spotted the woman who had been haunting his dreams. Adella! He felt a sudden surge of elation at seeing her face, again. Even in these laughable circumstances, with the woman kept as the virtual prisoner of Helrena’s oaf of a cousin. Helrena began talking to her relative, Lady Cassandra listening intently to what was being said. Duncan found a moment to slip over to Adella. She positively glowed in a red gown, all pleats and folds, slit at the side to reveal her long legs; her hair bundled high in the same fashionable style as Helrena’s vindictive mother-in-law. When she spotted Duncan, a strange look crossed her powdered white face – embarrassment mixed with chagrin. She should have felt none of those things. Duncan understood that Adella had as little choice in the matter of where she ended up a slave as he did.
‘What are you doing here?’ blurted Adella, as she backed away from the prince’s entourage.
‘Princess Helrena took me for a house slave,’ said Duncan. ‘After I saved her daughter from a kidnapping by Circae.’
‘I thought you must be dead,’ said Adella. ‘I heard from one of the baron’s servants that there had been an escape attempt in the sky mine; how everyone involved was killed by the Vandians.’
‘It was Carter, along with Noah and Eshean and a couple of old hands from the station. Only Carter survived – although how, I’ll never know. We found him wandering around the volcano days after he should have been dead, no water or food on him, claiming he’d watched the others try to fly to freedom on a transporter during the eruption. He always did have the luck of stealer, that one. Carter had been hinting to me that an escape was in the offing, but I told him I’d have nothing to do with it. Using an eruption for cover was clever, but the dead zone got its name for a reason. Besides, I could never leave without you. I would rather have died in the mines than leave you behind!’
She wiped a tear from her eye; and Duncan couldn’t bear to ask if it was for him or Carter. It was stupid, feeling jealous of Adella’s affections towards the preacher’s son. She had been made the property of a Vandian noble, yet Duncan could muster few feelings of jealousy towards Baron Machus. The baron was only a boorish thug, his fists out to paw at whatever he found pretty and diverting. While Carter, whipped and probably starving and broken by now for his part in the escape attempt, far away in the sky mines; Carter, he could feel envy towards. Because Adella had chosen him voluntarily. Not forced into his service as a slave. But freely chosen the man.
Duncan reached out for her. ‘I’m still alive and now I’m here in the capital with you.’
She shrugged his hand off her shoulder. ‘I’m glad, but you mustn’t do that around Baron Machus. He would have you whipped to within an inch of your life just for looking at me.’
‘It would be worth it.’
‘You have to think of yourself now, Duncan, not me. Everyone we know is trapped inside the sky mines, toiling in that floating inferno. And we can still be sent back there if we fall foul of the wrong people.’
‘I’m going to get Willow out, too,’ said Duncan. ‘Try and find her a place inside Helrena’s household.’
‘Good. That’s all we can do now… survive. You have to forget me.’
Duncan’s heart was breaking. ‘How can I ever do that?’
‘That’s what you need to figure out. Nothing good will come of you having feelings for me.’
‘I don’t know if I can?’
Adella shrugged. ‘You must. Think of Willow back on the station if it helps. Nobody else will save her from being worked to death.’
Duncan felt his body slump at her words. This was his life leaking out of him. ‘And what about you?’
‘It isn’t so bad here.’ Adella indicated another three young beauties in the prince’s retinue. They were dressed similarly to Adella; except their gowns were yellow, green and purple. Each appeared to be of a different nationality, like a set of exotic dolls collected by the noble oaf. Adella’s voice lowered. ‘Machus is easily bored and easily diverted. His ambitions outstretch his intelligence by a wide mark. He cares nothing of class or status or breeding in the women he surrounds himself with, we’re just pretty baubles that glitter for him. Half his wives were slaves when they were first taken into the household.’
‘You’d marry him!’ Duncan was shocked at the notion, despite himself.
‘And how much choice would I have in the matter? Easily forgotten and easily discarded is as good as it gets, here. I have food and I have an easy life. That’s more than most possess, even the lowborn citizens here.’
‘I’ve seen how crowded and violent it gets out in the capital’s streets,’ said Duncan.
‘Then you know. Think with your head, not your heart. If you ever loved me, promise me you’ll stay alive for me and for Willow.’
‘I will,’ whispered Duncan. It was agony watching Adella slip back towards the coterie of women in the prince’s train. She was alive. That would have to be enough for them both, for now. Adella didn’t even dare to glance back as the prince’s group walked away.
Paetro appeared and pulled Duncan back towards their party. ‘Do you know that woman?’
‘She’s called Adella Cheyenne; she’s from Weyland too. We were captured and transported to the sky mines together. She caught the eye of the baron there and was taken for a house slave.’
‘I know who she is,’ said Paetro. ‘You should choose your friends more carefully.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She was not taken by Machus, lad. She was given to him after she earned her freedom from the sky mines. Princess Helrena does not allow such slaves in her household. If you can sell out your own tribe, you’re perfectly capable of selling out your mistress if the temptation arises.’
‘Adella’s sold nobody out?’
‘Why do you think the woman was removed from the sky mines? There was an escape attempt; a group of miners who stole a transporter to attempt the dead zone crossing. She was aware of it and she betrayed the plot. The conspirators were watched and executed when they tipped their hand. For the woman’s collaboration she was promoted to the position of house slave, as required by imperial law. But we are not required to take such slaves in personally. Helrena should have sold the woman at the market, but Machus wanted her. More fool him. It is always easier to betray the second time around…’
Duncan rocked on his feet from the sheer shock of the soldier’s disclosure. The tears that had come to Adella’s eyes when she realised that Duncan and Carter were alive. Had she really believed them both dead… by her own hand? And by her own treachery?
‘You must be wrong,’ Duncan spluttered. ‘Adella couldn’t do that, she wouldn�
��t. She loves us, both of us…’ It was a mistake. A terrible mistake. ‘That must be a tale the baron concocted to justify seizing Adella and taking her away.’
Paetro shook his head, sadly. ‘That is not how things are done in the imperium. In adversity, you often learn what mettle you and those around you are made of. In the legion, it was never the ones you thought would break and run that disappointed you. Battle made mice of many lions and the reverse, as well. You can only know which kind of man you are when you reach that point.’
‘Adella loved us,’ sobbed Duncan. The truth of what had happened dawned on him with a terrible clarity, a truth as crystalline as this strange palace. It all made sense. The peculiar sequence of events. How the escaping transporter had been located and destroyed with such ease in the middle of an eruption, when the patrol ships usually gave the stratovolcano a wide berth. Adella disappearing from the sky mines shortly before the escape attempt. And here she was, safely ensconced with the baron’s household, believing both Duncan and Carter had perished in the escape attempt she had snitched on. And they would have died, too, if events had gone differently by a hair’s width. If Duncan had taken Carter up on his thinly veiled hints of seizing their freedom. If the pastor’s son didn’t possess the devil’s own luck. To escape the sky mines Adella had sentenced both men who loved her to death. Willow too, by proxy, without Carter or Duncan to look after her. He found that harder to forgive than his own narrowly averted fate.
‘There are things that people can love more, lad,’ said Paetro, unhappily. ‘Like living. You’d be surprised by what a man will do to live. And a woman, too.’
Zanasi looked grim. A gad scout had entered the encampment on the flat, rolling savannah shortly before, and he must have brought bad news. Whatever the intelligence was, it had yet to infect the almost celebratory gathering ordered by the tribal elders. Jacob had only been out in the grasslands for the best part of two days… and there were still new tribes arriving hourly, drawn by the news of the so-called Jok’s arrival. Tonight was the gathering of their elders, what passed for a grassland parliament out here in the wilds. For some among the expedition, matters were proving a little too celebratory. Sheplar had revealed a mighty appetite for the raw honey wine served by their hosts. He was currently being ministered to by Khow, who was mixing a woodland remedy as best the gask could from local ingredients. Jacob wouldn’t have pegged the mountain aviator for the type, but people surprised you that way, sometimes. At least it wasn’t a habitual weakness. Maybe the shock of Sheplar discovering he could once have been outflown by the beggarly bard had proved too much? Nothing shook a man so much as having his preconceptions overturned.
Jacob stopped Zanasi as he paced past. ‘What is it?’
‘News from Hangel. The grand duke has finally given up searching the city after discovering the escape tunnel under his feet. He has dulled his anger at being duped by murdering every prisoner in the dungeons. The slaughter wasn’t enough for his tastes, so he proceeded to order one in every three gads inside the royal city thrown over the mesa’s side. In the lower city, his men are now torching the homes of all suspected sympathisers. Males, females, children – there are none being spared.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jacob. ‘If Major Alock has his way, Hangel’s army won’t linger long carrying out revenge attacks. They’ll be coming out of the city.’
‘I agree. What do you think our chances are against their forces?’
Jacob glanced around the village and the hundreds of campfires burning on the plains beyond. So many fires it was as though a constellation had been laid down on the dark savannah. But numbers aren’t going to be the issue. ‘They will be advancing with riflemen. Your spear-bows are fine for bringing down prey out here, but your rate of fire isn’t any better than a crossbow, with a range a quarter that of an old breech loader. If Hangel’s army is sensible enough to engage at a distance, they’d slaughter every warrior here and suffer only powder burns on their fingers.’
‘To date, we have fought them by remaining concealed in the grass, two or three warriors at a time. We attack with poisoned bolts from cover and then retreat as far and fast as possible, allowing the regiments of Hangel to empty their long guns into the dirt. When their farmers steal our land, they never forget every day they leave their homes may be their last.’
‘Harassment from the fringes is fine, but when Hangel’s army comes out in force, your only real choice will be to retreat.’
Zanasi sighed. He rubbed his face, now scrubbed clean of all the pink dye he had used to conceal his half-gad heritage. ‘It is not just rifles my cursed father possesses. The grand duke’s mills have been turning out cannons and bombards as well as war wagons, great iron carts which resemble armoured turtles, mounted with weapons and driven by foul-smelling engines. Hangel has not used them yet against us. No doubt the grand duke thinks they are still his little secret. If so, he would have been better off not working so many slaves to death during their manufacture.’
‘We call them tanks. I saw one once, broken down and rusted, a real ruin. Not fit even to be smelted down into swords. Tanks consume an unholy amount of metal during construction.’
‘Tanks. A fitting name. Would that Hangel’s tanks were so corroded…’
No. The imperium would be supplying high-grade metals to its covert ally. It seemed the same evil that had claimed Carter had crept out towards them here, advancing like a restless shadow over this beautiful landscape. ‘They’re best used in squadrons, like cavalry, and flanked by boots on the ground.’
‘Jok says that you are a high priest among your countrymen, a pastor. It is a martial order you serve in?’
‘Just well-travelled, friend. None of this is God’s work, I’m damned if I’ll say that. This is the business of men.’
‘You sound like your gask brother.’
‘Well, he’s right.’ And damn me if this coming fight isn’t like another old comrade. One I’m far too glad to greet.
Zanasi gazed down at the twin pistols just visible from under Jacob’s duster. ‘Your weapons resemble an ancient plough, worn as thin as a bone blade through repeated use.’
‘Maybe they’ve had too many owners.’
‘Jok has forgotten who he is. And so, I think, have you.’
‘I’m just a man trying to save what’s left of his family.’
A whistling noise sounded from behind a ring of simple circular wooden huts, something wooden being whirled fast on the end of a twine. ‘The diviners are ready. Are you ready to meet my people’s priests, pastor?’
Jacob followed the war leader towards the council. ‘More so than Sariel is, I reckon.’
The old bard was already in front of the diviners, still trying to claim his title as King of All Stories rather than the messiah the tribes had him pegged for. Sariel’s torn clothes had been darned and mended by the locals, and he looked even more beggarly with patches of zebra leather across his cloak as he stood with his back to the campfire, a semicircle of the grassland shamans seated cross-legged in front of him, their faces concealed by wooden masks glowing like devils in front of the fire.
Zanasi knelt on one knee in front of the diviners. His attention seemed focused on the gad in the centre, his face hidden like the others by the wooden mask, but his body bent and ancient even by the standard of the tribe’s elders. His tiger-patterned skin salted silver wherever it was visible under the crimson robes.
‘Narlrem,’ spoke Zanasi. ‘As you have commanded, I bring before you the companion of Jok… Jacob of Weyland.’
‘The companion of the prince of players,’ protested Sariel.
The ancient diviner, head of the council, swayed where he sat. ‘This man is both more and less than that. He is companion to Jok. He is Ogan, the twice-born.’
Twice-born? There was an element of truth to that, although once-almost-dead would have been a more accurate description. But the locals desperately needed their prophecy to be true and would distort whate
ver they saw now through the lens of belief. Jacob had an inkling of how Sariel must be feeling right now.
‘I’m not a spirit,’ said Jacob. ‘Just a man who’s lost everything and is working to save what he has left.’
‘We all carry spirits within us,’ said the diviner. ‘All. Zanasi’s spirit is the finder of things. He discovered the golden spear-bow put aside by the sleeping warrior. He discovered Jok in the fastness of the Hangels. And he has also discovered Ogan, the twice-born, who walks unwillingly in the shadow of Jok’s greatness.’