Kolat shakes his head. ‘You’re the one who did the killing and hid the dead in the water. I just reported what I saw.’
It comes back to Wyck in flashes then. The rain. The cold. The smell of the dark, still water. The euphoria at surviving a fight that blackens and rots and turns to guilt and anger. There was a time he’d just push all that away. Let it sink, like the bodies. It’s not been so easy, lately. Not since the forges, and the pendant he took. Not since the look Jey gave him in the Sanctum. The same look Crys gave him when they took him away in chains. He was in the right when he made those kills, but he didn’t do it because it was right. Not really. He did it out of instinct. Out of the need to hurt, and be hurt.
He did it because he is splintered, like Awd said. Snapped.
‘That’s true,’ Wyck says. ‘But you still sold me out. Not only that, you tried to turn my own against me. That knocks the scales out. It means you owe me.’
Kolat’s shoulders slump a little. Whatever else he is, he is Antari, and he knows the value of an owing.
‘So report me,’ he says, bitterly. ‘Like you said before. Make it even.’
Wyck shakes his head. That bolt shell he carries is heavy, like walking into water with a pocketful of stones.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Even would be me telling your crew. The big idiot Curi. Vurn, and Lieutenant Frayn, with her holy soul. There are many things I’ll do, but not that.’
‘What, then?’ Kolat asks.
Wyck thinks about the next ugly fight. About enemies all around them, and the jaws of death opening wide and dark.
‘I want more stimms,’ he says. ‘As strong as you can come by. I want them every time I ask for them, with no thought of payment or owing, until I’m not here to ask anymore.’
Kolat scowls. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘No payment or owing, for as long as you’re here. You have my word.’
‘Good,’ Wyck says.
He turns to go, then, but he stops and looks back before he does.
‘Oh, there’s something else,’ he says.
‘What?’ Kolat asks, glaring at him.
‘If you try to come after me ever again, I’ll tell Zane that you were the one to rat us out.’
Kolat’s eyes go wide again. ‘You wouldn’t give me up to a cursling like her,’ he says. ‘To a witch.’
‘I would,’ Wyck says. ‘In a heartbeat.’
Kolat spits on the ground. ‘You are a bastard, do you know that?’
Wyck nods. ‘So everyone keeps telling me.’
Eighteen
Bale’s Heart
Raine watches through the armourglass as the surface of Laxus Secundus falls away beneath the bulk lander. The city of Defiance and the war-broken land around it become distant enough to look like a spreading stain, and then the lander breaks the cloud layer, and she loses sight of it altogether.
‘The rest of the regiment are under way, commissar.’
The voice belongs to Yuri Hale. Like her, the captain is also wearing a dress uniform. His is solid grey, save for a sash and beret in forest green. The icon of the Rifles pinned to Hale’s beret is made from painted enamel, and not from gold or brass.
‘You look ill at ease,’ Raine says.
Hale’s smile is wry. ‘It’s the ceremony of it,’ he says.
Raine turns and looks out to the clouds. They are thinning and breaking as the lander leaves the poisoned sky of Laxus Secundus behind.
‘It is the accepted protocol,’ she says. ‘When attending a strategium called by the Lord-General Militant.’
The summons had come shortly after Raine’s visit to see Fel in the infirmary, and it had been unequivocal. The entire regiment were to pull out of Defiance immediately, and report to fleet command for their next deployment. Raine remembers the closing line, stamped in red ink.
By order of Lord-General Militant Alar Serek. For the Bale Stars. For the Emperor.
It is an effort for Raine not to drive her fist into the armourglass of the viewport.
‘Perhaps it is protocol, but it still seems needless to me,’ Hale says.
Formality always does to the Antari, because their own ceremonies are an equaliser, not a show of power, and Raine knows that is exactly what the call to the strategium is.
It is Serek, showing them just how powerful he is.
The strategium hall on board the Retribution-class warship Bale’s Heart is a monstrosity built from steel and gold. Banners hang from the vaulted ceiling, rippling in the recycled air. The gold thread catches in the starlight from the arched viewports. Baroque, detailed murals span the walls, wrought in paint and plaster and gilding. Raine sees Steadfast, and Paxar. Hyxx and Virtue and dozens of other battlefields. She might have been proud to see it once, to stand in this hall and look upon the crusade’s many victories, but now no matter where Raine looks, she sees only lies.
‘I have never seen a gathering like it,’ Hale says.
If he was ill at ease before, Hale now looks entirely discomforted. Raine sees the same look on the faces of every one of the four Antari captains sent to represent the regiment.
‘Not since Steadfast,’ Juna Keene says.
Like her captains, the Antari general is in dress greys, her rank marked by the white cuffs and lapels. She waits with her arms folded across her chest. Keene has been general since the day Raine joined the regiment. She is tough, and clever. A good commander.
‘You were there, at the reconsecration?’ Raine asks.
Keene nods. ‘I was not tithed long then, of course,’ she says. ‘But I saw it. Saw the Lord-General Militant confer the first of his Lion’s Honours. Saw them collapse the last bastion.’
She pauses, and a smile flickers on her scarred face.
‘When the dust rolled out from it we all put our hands into it and marked ourselves.’ She unfolds her arms, then draws one hand across her chest, shoulder to hip. ‘Here, to here,’ she says. ‘That was our own honour, to be marked as he was.’
Raine looks at the awe written in Juna Keene’s eyes. The awe that must have been written in her own, not so long ago.
Another lie, just like all of the others.
‘There are the Kavrone,’ Hale says, nodding to where they are taking their places.
Lukas Vander is among them, his wounded arm bandaged inside his greatcoat. He is in conversation with Kaspar Sylar. The Kavrone general puts a hand on Vander’s shoulder, just for a moment.
The gesture makes Raine wish she had left him to bleed in the Sanctum of Bones.
‘The Eighth Paxar,’ Hale continues. ‘Draxian Air and the Ghollite militia. The Scions of Steadfast.’
‘House Stormfall’s nobles,’ Devri says. ‘The court of the High King.’
Raine sees the nobles in their finery, accompanied by cherubim that scatter earth from their homeworld wherever they tread. She sees officers and commanders. Generals, marshals. Castellans and commissars. A hunched and robed cohort of Adeptus Mechanicus magi that vent steam and move on insectile legs. There are representatives present from every fighting force sworn to the Bale Stars Crusade. The enormity of it hits Raine, then. The vastness of Serek’s deceit. Because every soul in this room either serves him knowing exactly what he is, or they serve him in ignorance, as Juna Keene does.
Either way, they still serve him.
She is not just surrounded by victories and lies, but by enemies too.
Horns blare from the far end of the hall. Raine is reminded of the battle for the forges. It was only days ago, but it feels like weeks. Like years. Every soul in the strategium hall draws to attention, and Raine does so along with them.
Not a single person in the strategium hall speaks as the Lord-General Militant walks out onto the dais, flanked by two Lions of Bale in their carapace and furs and that kastelan automaton of his. The heavy refrain of the robot’s tread s
ounds like a dolorous heart. Serek is wearing his white dress uniform. White, like the pelt of Zane’s King of Winter, with the crimson sash slung across his chest. A mark of honour, and of faith.
Another lie.
‘Loyal souls of the Bale Stars.’ Serek’s voice carries clearly over the crowd. ‘Today sees us take the next step on our path towards victory. Towards the restoration and sanctification of this great sector.’
He looks out over the crowd. There are hundreds of people present, but still Raine feels Serek’s eyes fall upon her. It feels like being caught in the cold.
‘The shipyards of Laxus Prime are that next step,’ he says. ‘They have been held by the Sighted for over a year.’
There are murmured words at the mention of the Sighted. Curses and prayers.
‘They have corrupted the shipyard cluster,’ Serek says. ‘Given it over to heretic machines and their masters. One of the Nine crouches at the heart of it. It names itself as Ahxon-Pho. Fifth of Nine. It names itself That Which Creates.’
There is a machine wail from the representatives sworn to the Adeptus Mechanicus at the name. At the word creates. Their cry is static laced with sorrow and rage. Serek waits for it to pass before he continues.
‘The shipyards have turned aside fleet actions, and naval strike wings. They have held fast in the face of every assault. They are a jagged peak to conquer.’
Every member of a regiment in the hall is looking to Serek and awaiting the order that will send them to conquer that peak. They yearn for it. Raine can see it in their unblinking eyes.
‘To take the shipyards will require a determination like no other,’ he says. ‘A ferocity, and a capacity to achieve the unachievable. It will require great sacrifice, and it will require blood.’
Serek glances to the plastered, gilded walls.
‘Just as it did on Drast,’ he says. ‘To break the unbreakable fortress of Morne. Just as it did to collapse the Sighted’s stronghold on Gholl. To survive the Laxian forges, and the fires of Hyxx.’
Raine keeps her eyes forwards, but she knows that around her the Antari officers have become completely still. Reverent. Serek’s eyes fall upon them again, and this time Raine knows that he is looking at her. It is more than cold, that stare.
It is monstrous.
‘The Laxian shipyards are a legend waiting to be written,’ Serek says. ‘And the honour of writing it will fall to the Eleventh Antari Rifles.’
Serek draws his sword and raises it over his head. He roars a cheer that is picked up by every soul in the strategium hall as they turn to face Raine and her regiment. The sound of it is deafening. Baleful. Like being surrounded by a storm. As one, the Antari drop to one knee and bow their heads. Raine is a heartbeat behind them, but she doesn’t bow her head at all.
‘For the Bale Stars,’ Serek shouts.
Raine knows the response as everyone in the hall does, but she has never felt the kind of rage she feels now in saying it.
‘For the Emperor,’ Severina Raine roars in return, her voice joining the storm.
The five Antari officers are swept up and celebrated, congratulated by pilots and adepts and soldiers alike. Every soul in the room wanted that honour and the chance to spend their blood in the crusade’s name.
In Serek’s name.
Raine watches it happen, one step removed as she always is. The movement of people around her, the noise, it feels like shell shock. Like being the only one to see that the water has been poisoned, but unable to say a word as every person at the table drinks from their cups.
‘Severina Raine.’
Raine looks away from her Antari at the sound of her name, to the man who speaks it. To the man dressed in white, wearing a crimson sash and carrying a gold-hilted sabre at his hip. To the man whose ice-blue eyes glitter like cut gems. No, not the man.
The monster.
‘Lord-General Militant,’ Raine says, and she makes the sign of the aquila.
Serek’s face doesn’t change. He takes a step forward so that he is close.
‘At ease,’ he says, and the words seem deliberate.
Five paces back stand Serek’s armed guard, his ever-present Lions of Bale, and his kastelan automaton. Behind them stand the other attending representatives of High Command, sworn to serve him. Araxis, the High-King of House Stormfall. Lord-Castellan Caradris. General-Primary Hu-Sul, of Gholl. Last of all, Raine catches the mismatched eyes of Veris Drake. The Lord-Marshal acknowledges her with the sparest of nods. She wears a single pin on the lapel of her crimson uniform, wrought in gold and jet.
The Lion’s Honour.
Raine has never felt less at ease, or more alone.
‘Strange,’ Serek says. ‘That it feels such a long time since last we spoke.’
Like before, it is an effort to hold Serek’s stare. An effort not to take that gold-hilted sabre from him and cut him down where he stands. Raine knows that she would never land the blow. That she would be shot dead by his Lions and crushed by his kastelan, or be torn apart by the hundreds of souls in the strategium hall that are sworn to him. She cannot fight him. Not here, not now.
But that doesn’t mean that she will back down.
‘Much has happened, lord,’ Raine says. ‘Much has changed.’
Serek smiles then, that same arctic smile that she once wished to earn.
‘It is inevitable,’ he says. ‘For things to endure, they must change.’
‘As have your words,’ Raine says. ‘You told me once that in order to endure you must be a creature of faith. Unbreakable.’
She takes a breath.
‘Words I have lived by,’ she says. ‘Words I have bled for, and killed for.’
‘Words are powerful,’ Serek says. ‘That is what you said to me in the forges. People will die in the name of them.’
He looks to where the Antari officers celebrate with the others. The hall rings with cheers and cries of devotion. Raine’s heart is cold and still.
‘I meant what I said,’ Serek says. ‘The shipyards are a legend waiting to be written. A glory that will be remembered and celebrated. The names of the dead will adorn the Hero’s Mount on Steadfast. It is a deed worthy of your mother’s memory, wouldn’t you say?’
Raine’s hand actually twitches this time with the need to kill him. With the want to go for that sabre. Serek smiles again. Behind him the kastelan’s power fists twitch too, in response. It must be slaved in more ways than just by commands.
She has no threat left to offer, but that of words.
‘When I was first assigned to the Rifles, I thought them desperate to burn,’ Raine says. ‘They believe so strongly in the fates given to them that they seemed fatalistic, almost foolish.’
She looks at the Antari officers now in their plain greys, with honest reverence on their faces. With their scars and their beliefs worn plainly in their skin.
‘I underestimated them,’ she says. ‘I have broken the unbreakable with them. Toppled bastions and tyrants. Burned cities, and bled traitors. I thought at first that they were entirely other, but they are not. Not in the ways that matter. Not in the way of our hearts.’
She closes her hand into a fist over her heart.
‘Because we are fierce and loyal.’ She looks back to Serek. ‘And never to be underestimated.’
The Lord-General Militant laughs then. The sound sends cold fury through Raine’s core.
‘Good words, Severina Raine,’ he says. ‘Very good words.’
And then he turns and walks away from her, disappearing back into the baying crowd.
Gloam, before
When Severina arrives back at her dormitory, there is something amiss. A box, sitting on her low, flat cot. It is unmarked, save for the scuffing of transit and the prints of dirty fingers.
‘Where did this come from?’ Severina asks.
‘It was here before me,’ Illariya says.
She is sitting cross-legged on her own cot, reading from a sheaf of prayer papers. She doesn’t look up from them.
‘Has anyone touched it?’ Severina asks.
Now Illariya looks up. She has a scowl on her face like always. It accentuates her scars.
‘Why would they?’ she asks. ‘It is addressed to you. More special treatment, I expect, for the last of Thema Raine’s precious daughters.’
Severina has fought Illariya many times, in training and outside of it, but on this day, after visiting the punishment cell and seeing the traitor that she once called her sister, she does not fight. She does not raise her voice or lose her temper. She just stares at Illariya instead, with her heart aching.
‘Get out,’ she says, coldly. ‘Now.’
There is an instant of unease in Illariya’s face. She rolls up the prayer papers and slides off her cot.
‘I will get more peace in the chapel anyway,’ she says.
She leaves quickly, without looking back. The wooden door shuts heavily behind her. Severina barely hears it, because all of her attention is devoted to the box. She crosses to the cot and sits down beside the box. Takes a breath. Then she picks it up and puts it on her lap. It is not very heavy. Not enough to contain weapons. Something slides around inside it when she tilts it, gently.
She should take it to the abbots. Progena are supposed to give up their personal effects. They are given everything they need by the scholam. Uniform. Training. Weapons.
A home, when nothing else is left to them.
She should take it to the abbots, but she doesn’t. Instead Severina breaks the seals on the box, and lifts the lid.
And then her heart truly does ache.
Inside the box is a book titled ‘The Many and Gloried Astra Militarum Regiments of the Bale Stars’. It is worn and foxed, with cracks in its leather face. The foiled letters have worn smooth. Severina takes the book out with care and moves the box aside. The smell of the book is the smell of old parchment and candle-smoke. Of nights spent reading, long past when she should have been sleeping.
Honourbound - Rachel Harrison Page 34
