Stands a Shadow (Heart of the World 2)

by Col Buchanan

  At last, Topo stopped floundering and lay limp in the settling water. Ché maintained pressure for a few moments more, then released the garrotte with a gasp.

  Panting, he kicked open the door of the stove beneath the heater and tossed in a log from the wooden bin that sat next to it, then after that as many more as would fit. Then he unlatched the lid of the pot to expose the warming water within. Quickly, he hauled the body out of the bath, with his hands slipping on its slick skin. Ché was strong enough for all his modest height; still, it was an effort to lift the dead weight of Topo into the great pot, to make it fit as the displaced water rose up around it, so he could replace and refas-ten the lid.

  By the time he was finished the flames of the stove were starting to roar. He imagined the smoke tumbling out of the chimney far above his head; hoped it wouldn’t draw Romano’s early return. He stepped from the bathroom and listened for the sounds of footfalls.

  Behind him, the bronze water-heater made a sudden popping sound. Ché stopped.

  Another thump sounded from within it.

  He’s still alive in there.

  Ché hesitated, at once caught in a moment of self-doubt. He glanced back through the doorway, struggling with an impulse to rush inside and unlatch the lid and haul the lad out from there.

  He fought it down. He’d spent too long at this already.

  Ché strode across the main cabin while a faint scream pursued him to the open window. It shook him to hear it; his hands trembled as he clambered out onto the balcony, cursing himself for his own carelessness.

  From the bathroom, the scream grew in pitch until it was consumed by the piercing shriek of steam that suddenly blasted through a whistle.

  In the early evening chaos of the Chir harbour, Ché waited in line before the thronged gantry, impatient to be off the ship so that he could sample some of the attractions of the ancient cityport.

  On the other side of the gantry, the dockside was awash with slaves manhandling fresh supplies onto the waiting ships, and a host of newly arrived immigrants from elsewhere in the empire, drawn to the island’s sudden land rush now that it was conveniently deserted. Through them all, in stamping columns, the grim, orderly troops of the Sixth Army marched aboard the transports in preparation for the dawn departure, when the newly combined army and fleet of the Expeditionary Force would set sail for Khos.

  He was first aware of trouble when he heard the distinct sound of shouting up towards the quarterdeck. He turned instinctively towards Sasheen’s quarters, saw that the Matriarch’s door was lying open, her honour guard nowhere to be seen.

  Ché swore under his breath, then bounded for the steps and the open doorway. He passed the two twins, Guan and Swan, standing at the top of the stairway with their expressions wholly neutral.

  Inside, the guards were struggling with a group of priests who were trying desperately to protect General Romano. The man raved beyond reason, his spit flying towards the Holy Matriarch, who sat in a chair flanked by her two personal bodyguards, watching his fury with a self-satisfied smile. Ché’s eyes widened as he saw a flash of a blade in the young general’s hand. A priest shouted and tried to grasp it. Beyond them, bizarrely, the severed head of Lucian sat balanced on a table, watching it all with an expression of manic glee.

  Footsteps sounded behind him as Archgeneral Sparus marched into the room. He took in Ché and the rest of the scene in a single unhurried glance from his eye.

  ‘I’ll kill you for this,’ Romano was screaming. ‘I said nothing I wouldn’t say to your face! Your son was a coward – and you, you are the—’ one of his fellow priests hissed and clamped a hand over his mouth. Romano heaved to be free of it while another priest did the same, two hands over his mouth.

  Ché stepped aside as the guards forced the struggling group backwards out of the room. Archgeneral Sparus stared at Romano without expression as he was dragged outside, then closed the door behind them.

  Clumps and curses on the steps outside. Silence settling.

  ‘He does not mean what he says,’ pleaded an elderly priest on his knees before the Matriarch. ‘He is intoxicated, and distraught at his loss. He’s lost his mind for a while, that’s all.’

  Sasheen flashed her eyes at caretaker Heelas.

  ‘Out,’ Heelas said to the kneeling priest, and lifted him with a tug of his robe to shove him outside after his master.

  A wet snort came from the severed head on the table. Lucian was trying to laugh.

  ‘And you,’ Heelas snapped as he crossed the room. ‘Back in your jar, little man.’ Heelas lifted the head in both hands and let it settle back amongst the Royal Milk.

  Moments passed without anyone saying a word. They looked to Sasheen, who no longer smiled, but instead glared at the door through which Romano had just departed. Her eyes flickered to Ché. She nodded, gracefully; looked to the rest of the priests still gathered in the cabin. ‘I have reason enough, as witnessed by all here, to execute him now and be justified in doing so.’

  ‘Matriarch,’ Sool said, bending close to her. ‘He will soon calm himself and see his position. That will be the end of it, if you let it end here. He will understand the message given to him. He will submit.’

  ‘It’s civil war otherwise,’ added Archgeneral Sparus. ‘In Q’os, once his family found out, and here, in the fleet, if his men caught wind of it. A third of the Expeditionary Force could turn against us.’

  Sasheen’s fingernails scratched along the ends of the armrests.

  ‘I will not forget those words,’ she said harshly. ‘I will never forget what he said to me, about my own son, to my face.’

  In the absolute blackness the rats fussed around him. Ash ignored the creatures, his ears keen for any sounds above. Every set of footsteps overhead was a story untold to him.

  It was his twenty-first day in this reeking bilge, at least by his own rough reckoning. Hours previously, he’d heard the thunderous racket of the anchor being dropped and felt the shudder of it through the timbers of the hull. At once, he’d experienced a sudden urge to climb out of his hole and make his way through the ship to the uppermost deck, so that he could see where it was the fleet had anchored; see too if he could leave the ship for good.

  He’d mastered the desire though. He knew he should wait until the silence of the crew heralded nightfall before he stole outside and chanced a proper look.

  In the deep hours of the night, when all was indeed silent above him, Ash decided it was finally safe enough to make his move. Fully clothed and with his sword in his hand, he left the bilge as quietly as he could, and carefully made his way up through the bowels of the ship.

  The weatherdeck was the most dangerous place for him to be, and Ash crouched low as he finally made his way onto it, checking the positions of the sailors on night-duty to fore and aft. He sucked down a lungful of air and almost groaned aloud from the freshness of it. Clouds blocked most of the stars overhead, but a dim light glimmered off the masts and the furled sails.

  He looked about him, blinking at the lights of a cityport that shone through the masts of the fleet. When he turned to seaward, his eyes widened to take in the awesome arch that stood with feet on either side of the harbour opening, and the clouds of barely visible mist at play beneath it.

  The Oreos, Ash instantly recognized, and knew they were in Chir, in Lagos, island of the dead.

  It was Khos, then. There was no other reason for the invasion fleet to be this far west, not unless they planned to wage a reckless war against the Alhazii and risk losing their supplies of blackpow-der. No, they were stopping here for supplies or men, before continuing onwards to Nico’s homeland; the boy’s mother and his people.

  Ash hung his head, and for a long time he didn’t move.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Old Country

  The ship was pitching through heavy weather again.

  Bilge water swamped his legs as it washed from one side to the other, causing the rats to scurry over him as the hull c
reaked and banged in distress.

  Ash lay in the darkness beyond time and place. In his mind, words formed as though they were being spoken aloud.

  He was having a conversation with his dead apprentice.

  I don’t understand, Nico insisted. You told me once how the R shun don’t believe in personal revenge. That it goes against their code.

  Yes Nico. I did.

  Yet here you are.

  Yet here I am.

  So you are no longer R shun then?

  He shied away from answering. He hardly wished to dwell on it just then.

  You can’t bring me back, you know, said Nico. Even if you kill her, I’ll still be gone.

  ‘I know that, boy,’ Ash replied aloud to the black echoing space, scattering the rats from him.

  Nico fell silent for a time. Ash rocked with the violent motions of the ship, bracing himself with his hands and feet, trying to calm himself.

  Tell me, master Ash, came Nico’s voice again. What was it that you did before you became R shun?

  What I did?

  Yes.

  I was a soldier. A revolutionary.

  You never wanted to follow a different path? A farmer, perhaps? A drunken owner of a country inn?

  Of course, Ash replied.

  Which one?

  I am tired, Nico. You ask many too questions.

  Only because I know so little about you.

  A sudden sharp tilt of the ship pressed Ash against the hull, though he barely noticed it. He spat brine, wiped his face dry, glared back into the darkness.

  Before I was a soldier I raised hunting dogs for a time. We lived in our cottage, my wife and son. I tried to be a good husband, a good father, that is all.

  And were you?

  Ash snorted. Hardly. I made a better soldier than I ever did a husband and father. I was good at killing. And getting others killed.’

  You’re too hard on yourself. I knew you to be much more than a killer. Your heart is kind.

  ‘You do not know me, boy,’ snapped Ash. ‘You cannot say such things to me, not now, not ever.’

  The freezing water washed over his head once again, shocking him into the present. Ash floundered for a moment, puffing his cheeks in and out as he fought for a breath. He clutched the ledge he lay upon and heard the rats squealing in terror. Moments passed as he lay there panting.

  He wondered if Nico was still with him.

  ‘Boy,’ he croaked.

  In the blackness, the sound of the handpumps could be heard drawing water from the bilge up to the decks above. It was hard to talk above the noise.

  ‘Nico!’ he shouted.

  I’m here, I’m here.

  ‘Tell me something. Anything. Take my mind from these things.’

  What would you like to know?

  ‘Anything. Tell me what you wished to be before you became my apprentice.’

  Me? I suppose a soldier, like my father. Though I had a dream of being an actor for a while. Travelling the islands, performing for my living.

  Ash sat up, tried to wedge himself tighter against the tilting hull. ‘I did not know that,’ he confessed.

  No. You never asked me.

  The bilge water was crashing around as waves now. The rats squealed ever louder.

  ‘You should have left, Nico, back in Q’os,’ Ash shouted as he shook the water from his face. ‘When you returned that evening and told me of your doubts. You should have left me!’

  I know, said Nico. But I couldn’t.

  ‘Why not?’

  A thoughtful silence followed, then a quiet voice that he clearly heard amidst the noise.

  Because you needed me.

  It was a storm, and a bad one. The hull banged with the violent impacts of crashing water, and creaked and groaned as its prow lifted free from the crests of waves then dropped shuddering into the deepening troughs. Stinging seawater poured into the bilge from gaps in the planking above his head. His boots and clothing were drenched through. His cloak was belted tight around his waist, along with his sword.

  His ears hurt from the noise of the storm. Through it all, Ash could hear men running and shouting in panic overhead.

  He tried to cling to the side of the hull but it was hopeless. Soon he was swirling about with the struggling rats in bilge water that had now risen up to his stomach.

  Ash realized how desperate the situation was when he heard the rats pattering up the walls to escape the bilge entirely. Perhaps he should have followed their example, but he wasn’t a rat, and he could hardly go unnoticed. Instead he clung to the sides when he could, and washed about when he could not, and vomited from the awful motion of it all and the saltwater he couldn’t help but swallow. Like a nightmare, he felt the level of water creeping gradually up to his chest. At last he could stand it no longer. He began to fight his way towards the steps.

  It ended more violently than he had expected.

  The ship shuddered violently as though it had struck something, throwing him off his feet as he fell engulfed in shifting water.

  Ash floundered, righting himself, and then from overhead came the heart-stopping sound of wood being torn asunder, and a thunderous noise like a waterfall roaring towards him, shaking him to the core and terrifying him in that first instant of approach – and then the hatch exploded open and the sea was flooding through it, and Ash was swept up by the boiling surge all the way to the very back of the bilge.

  He smashed against the hull, spluttering for air. His arms flailed out, his feet scrabbled for purchase. Ash managed to right himself, and he tried to push his way back towards the steps. It was hopeless, though. The full weight of the sea pressed him back, squeezing him flat against the hull with such force that it was all he could do to gasp for a dry breath of air.

  The timbers of the ship began to groan with a different pitch. The ship tilted nose-first, rolled onto her side at the same time.

  She was going down.

  Ash drew a breath in the last few feet of air between the churning surface and the planks rushing towards his head. The water was freezing, leeching the strength from his muscles. Despite himself, he began to hyperventilate, so that he swallowed air and water.

  Ash allowed the brief moment of panic to flood his body with vitality, and then he pinched it off with a practised command of will.

  His head struck the planking above. Still the rush of water felt like a slab of rock pressing against him. He would have to wait for the ship to flood before he could swim out through the hatch.

  It was no easy realization that, as the rising water finally submerged him.

  Even beneath the water he could hear the torment of the ship’s hull. Ash clung to his precious lungful of air, and kicked towards the hatchway.

  The pressure in his ears increased. He knew the ship had sunk beneath the surface, was dropping now to the seafloor. With increasing haste his hands scrabbled along the planking in search of the hatchway. For an eternity he grasped at wood, unable to find the way out. Again that repression of panic.

  His hands groped against emptiness and he pulled himself through it. Something floated against him and he pushed it away. A body, drowned already.

  Ash swam towards where he thought the ceiling should be. Objects brushed against him, the sacks and joints of meat that had been hanging there. He pushed through them, found his hands grasping steps; pulled himself upwards through another opening. By memory he knew that he was in the galley passageway now, with steps at its far end leading to the upper deck. He swam with all his strength, his ears throbbing from the increasing pressure that wrapped him like a skin of stone. His lungs were on fire. Another body drifted across his path and he pushed that one aside too. This time it moved – hands jerked out at him, grasping for life. Someone was still alive down here.

  Ash broke free from the grip. He reached out, grabbing a face – rubbery lips, a nose, bristly eyelashes, hair. He grabbed a handful of that hair, and with his feet he pushed off hard. An eternity passed as he
dragged the flailing sailor along to the end of the corridor. He came to the steps, unmistakable against his touch.

  With a final kick, Ash dragged them both clear of the sinking ship.

  He opened his eyes a fraction, ignored the stinging pain of the saltwater. He gazed upon an endless darkness; like looking into death.

  He had no way to tell which way was up, for light and weight were an absence here. His mouth tried to open for air. Ash clamped his jaw shut, his chest throbbing with a white heat.

  This is it, he thought for an instant. This is it!

  A flash in the distance. Without thinking he turned that way.

  It flashed again, making him wince with its brilliance, though it was gone so quickly he was aware of it only as an afterimage in his eyes. It had been distant.

  Ash frog-kicked with his remaining strength towards it.

  His lungs were bursting when he breached the surface, and his throat rasped once for air before he was pulled under again by the sailor’s weight. He regained the surface and fought to stay there.

  It was night, and rain and waves lashed down on him. Ash pulled the sailor closer, but the man was dead. As lightning broke the darkness he glimpsed a face staring calmly at the sky.

  Ash closed the sailor’s eyes and released him to the sea.

  A wave lifted Ash’s body. For an instant he saw the scene laid out before him; a coastline of white cliffs, dark coves, a few pale beaches, a fire burning on top of a hill – and the fleet, strung out across it, thrown into disarray by the raging sea. The ships were making for the shelter of a bay, but some had been blown off course, and seemed in the process of floundering on outlying rocks.

  His strength all but spent now, Ash tried swimming for the shore and a beach he could see there. But after only a dozen strokes he had to stop, panting for breath, too tired to carry on. His head slipped beneath the surface. He fought free of it.

  Debris was floating all around him. He threw his arm over an upturned stool, found he had barely the energy to cling on to it. The swell lifted him again. He turned his head to see the waves rolling in.