by Andy Graham
He adjusted the revolvers at his waist. The big irons he’d taken off Kayle’s still warm body back in the Bridged Quarter of Tye. Kayle’s death had been self-defence. He’d have killed me. Robbed my corpse like I robbed him. The revolvers were pressing into his gut, round about where the cancer was living. Baris traced a callused thumb over the wooden butt of one of them. Did bullets work on cancer? Maybe he could put one in his belly. Instead of poisoning it with drugs, frying it or slicing the fucker out, couldn’t he just shoot it? Would that shorten his odds from no hope to no chance?
Fucking revolvers.
Fucking disease.
A shit of a doctor called Neufeld had made the diagnosis shortly after Baris had joined the 10th. “Any attempt at curing you would no doubt kill you,” he’d said. “This cancer is an exquisitely aggressive type.” There was an irony there that wasn’t lost on Baris Orr or his imagination. The medic’s patient care had extended to letting the legionnaire know how much higher up the intellectual food chain clinical lead therapist surgeon colonel Dr Neufeld, PhD BAMF was compared to Baris Orr.
Neufeld had used foreign words. Old words. Long words with too many syllables. He’d made a game attempt to explain a few of them when Baris had started asking questions, too. Attempting to shove Neufeld’s framed PhD certificate up his arse could have ended Baris’s military career. So could the cancer, but Captain Aalok, the only person Baris had told, had pulled strings with the argument that ‘a dying man is a weapon money can’t buy’. Baris had stayed put in the 10th.
Orr snorted, and dragged a knuckle across his eyes. Not tears. Not quite. Just distilled anger. There was no point. You couldn’t cry that crap out of your body. He’d tried. Only the once.
A legionnaire off to one side shuffled in his seat. He looked ready to hurl. Most of Orr wanted to call him out for being a cowardly shit. Part of him understood. This Unsung unit was off. Stuffed full of boys as useful as dicks with no hole to piss out of. If vomit-boy across the aisle felt it, it must be bad. This whole chopper felt like it was the shit that was about to hit the fan.
Huge shoulders brushed up against his. Someone settled into the seat next to him, grumbling in a deep voice about not enough space, never enough space in the world, that a trip to Donia would probably mean more bloody tunnels and even less space. The tiny part of Orr that wasn’t hating on the world relaxed a little. He’d never admit to it, but he was glad that at least there was one person here he could rely on. At least he could count on—
Jamerson Nascimento pushed Baris Orr out of the way and buckled up his seat belt.
“You OK, dude?” he said to his buddy. Orr gave him a perfunctory nod and opened his eyes long enough to fly the eagle at the rope sergeant. It was the same sneering moron that had flown them to Donian Mountains last time. By the time the rope sergeant’s permanent scowl had deepened, Orr’s eyes were closed again.
“Guess you’re OK.” Nascimento wanted to talk, to crack a joke. That’s the way it had always been in the Legions. The worse the situation, the better the humour. Up until now.
The atmosphere in the chopper was dripping with nerves, sweat and bloodlust. One of the lads was dressed in a white vest and had a cigar stuffed into his mouth, his lips chomping on its damp, frayed end. Why’s he come looking like an extra from an action movie? Nascimento thought. The One Who Shouts Loudest, Shoots First and Cries Hardest. Another had the skin-too-tight, eyes-always-staring look that could only be got through steroids. Most of the rest looked, well, just young, that’s all.
A few had been handing out pills earlier. Nasc reckoned it was a cocktail of testosterone and pre-emptive painkillers. Anything to take the edge off the fear. Anything to add an edge to the thrill.
The door clanked open. Two men jumped in. The first was an Unsung private, Malakan his name tag said. The kid was from Donia, that was obvious. But there was something about him, something under the rattish quality of his face, the green tinge to his eyes and the harsh lines, that reminded Nascimento of someone. And that only made his sense of unease worse. It drove down from his belly to his balls. And that was never good.
The door shut behind a man with a face as impassive as a brick. Nascimento suppressed a groan and closed his eyes. Maybe Orr was onto something. As he wedged his huge frame in between the steel supports running around the chopper, he tuned out the silence from the legionnaires around him. What he’d give for a bit of decent banter, even a swear word or two. Swearing was healthy, he’d read that in a study somewhere. But with that brooding brick of a captain here, any levity was unlikely.
He felt the sinking feeling in his stomach as the chopper left the ground, cracked his eyelids open and risked a glance at Captain—
Brennan jerked his seat belt tight. It cut into his belly. He pulled it tighter. It hurt. Not as much pain as Wu-Brocker was inflicting on the Famulus. Not as much pain as the Famulus had inflicted on his sister. But, still, pain. It wouldn’t bring Lena back. Pain didn’t solve anything or provide answers. The more pain he caused in his interrogations, the less he trusted the answers. People would say anything to stop the hurting. People would believe anything. Do anything. Brennan realised with a jolt that he no longer thought of his questioning sessions in the official term of whispering. It was interrogations now. Before long it would be torture. What did that mean when he stopped using the official terminology? What was the next step? Disobedience.
He tugged the belt tighter still. His feet were beginning to tingle, to fizz.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Four, three, two, one.
Three, two, one.
Two, one.
One.
Half.
Breathe.
Better.
He wasn’t even sure why he was hurting himself. Symmetry? Balance? It didn’t feel symmetrical or balanced. Life and death were not polar opposites. Some people experienced too much death in the former and others put their life into the latter. His lip curled into a sneer. He was thinking rubbish. That was the problem with removing balance; it created space for doubt. Doubt created space for thought. Thought upset symmetry. You break the law, you pay for it. That’s what society was built upon, that’s what Brennan was built on.
President Luke Hamilton had been breaking the law. He had deserved what happened. Brennan’s younger self (with a little prompting from an unseen benefactor in the shape of a revolver) had come to realise that. With threats of retribution whispered from Hamilton’s lips still hanging in the air — “No one likes a telltale, young man. Do what you’re told and no else needs get hurt.” — and ghostly, skinny-fat fingers pawing at Brennan’s ill-fitting pants, Young Brennan had finally made things right.
Old Brennan’s fingers clenched on the knife handle at his belt. Old Brennan could feel the lacquer in Hamilton’s hair crinkle in Young Brennan’s fingers. Old Brennan could feel the heat of Hamilton’s breath on Young Brennan’s belly. Young Brennan could feel the heat of his own tears splashing onto his naked chest. Old Brennan’s eyes shut with the click of a hammer being cocked on a gun.
The thunderous explosion that had followed that morning was as fresh today as it was then. As was the last look in that slug of a man’s eyes: equal parts pitiful, surprised, angry, sad and relieved.
The guards had found them like that: Young Brennan staring at the former president, the president-in-nothing-but-name, the remains of Hamilton’s face dangling from the rock-steady grip of a ten-year-old. Part of Old Brennan still wondered what had driven Hamilton to do what he did; Young Brennan had decided that particular cycle of behaviour ended there.
Hamilton had used the promise of a real gun to lure Young Brennan into his ‘playroom’ that first time. Young Brennan had used a real gun to kill him.
Symmetry; it was important.
He grabbed his belt buckle, the leather bit into his skin as he prepared to tug it tighter, and, with a whispering sigh, loosened it a notch. Sensation flooded back into his feet. He wasn’t sure how
that worked just because his belt was looser, but it felt good.
Outside of the chopper, Effrea, the capital of Ailan, was getting smaller. The Blind Clock Tower that towered over the old Palaces of Justice and Reason was proud and defiant. The chopper banked, bringing with it a rush of fresh air that smelt of freshly cut grass. Brennan fixed on that odour and tried to sift through the thoughts spinning in his head: Lena, Franklin, Malakan and the Donian people. Largest amongst these thoughts was—
Randall Soulier grabbed Jake’s hand, dragged him out from behind Benn-John and pulled Stella Swann’s child kicking and squealing through a soft rain of cobwebs that stuck and clung damply to his face. As the door to the underground room slammed, he had a brief, very lucid flash of horror. He had left the whimpering Famulus in the wax-model hands of Wu-Brocker.
The tunnel beyond was as quiet as dust. It didn’t stop Benn-John’s incessant muttering in Randall’s ears. The orderly’s voice seemed to be stuck there like the staples that now held one of the Famulus’s eyelids open. With each step Randall took, he heard Benn-John’s voice.
“Left,” as his left heel hit the floor.
“Right,” for the other.
That was better than the alternating sniffing and snivelling from Jake Swann. Much better than the screams, which were leaking through a crack in the soundproof door. The corridor led to the lift. The lift scraped up the shaft to another corridor. This corridor led to the green emergency-exit sign that Brennan had thought meant run.
“Left. Right. Left. Right.”
Benn-John’s words were now out of synch with Randall’s footfalls. They were too late, too early, or, worse, in reverse: a left to his right and right to his left.
Randall dragged Jake Swann past the poster of the never-sleeping, ever-watchful, always-working, never-satiated recruitment sergeant. They headed towards the glow of light that framed the door to the surface.
It opened onto the riverbank. Light shimmered across the diesel black water of the River Tenns. He’d always associated the river with the smell of oil and salt, sewage and failure. They were all there today, but cut with something else. It took a while for him to pinpoint it. It smelt summery, fresh, hopeful. Then he got it. “Freshly mown grass?” He scratched his chin. “I didn’t think there was any real grass in the city.”
At the back of his brain, tucked away behind the mess of thoughts about Benn-John, Brennan, Henndrik, Ray Franklin and any number of other people, his political and business minds were busy examining taxation and regulation options on real grass. Randall could convert the muse berry factories into grass-seed factories. Sell seeds annually (sterile, of course, so people who wanted a lawn would have to come back when their grass died). And tax it. How? By the square metre or by the blade? He laughed, thinking about how many jobs the latter could create. And if the official grass counters didn’t like their job, they could be stripped of their citizenship for turning down gainful employment.
“Where are we going?”
It took a second to realise the boy had asked him a question.
“Where are we going? To my mummy?”
“Yes, Jake. We’re going to see your mummy.”
“Will I see my daddy and my sister?”
Randall smiled wolfishly. “Maybe, but we’re definitely going to see my brother. And then, I’m going to kill him.”
“Where are we going?” The blank expression was back. It was as if the kid hadn’t heard a thing Randall had said.
He tousled the kid’s hair and came to a decision he should have made hours ago. “My office. I need to make a few calls. Captain Brennan is about to get a change of orders to something with more steel and less subtlety. And then, little boy, you and I are going to—”
25
The Angel City
“The Angel City of the Donian Mountains. As much as our people have a capital, this is it.” Kaleyne offered the assembled Unsung legionnaires a slight dip of her head. Even that attempt at civility seemed to pain her.
As Baris Orr accepted the woman’s thanks, Brennan looked back the way they had come. On the other side of the gates, a creaky wooden ramp ran down from the hill fort to a wide expanse of open grass that was cut toenail short. The grass separated the Angel City from the woods beyond, where Brennan had left a couple of snipers as a precaution. The woods sprawled across the Donian Mountains, a rugged carpet of greens and browns and golden sunlight, rich with the smell of damp soil and the rustle of leaves in the breeze. It unnerved Brennan. Unlike people, nature was unpredictable.
The ramp cut through the three huge terraces that surrounded and supported the Angel City; each held a trench. One of the three held an oozing black liquid that sucked the light out of the air. A matching trench in the second terrace was filled with garish flowers. One legionnaire, a man who, in an inexplicable display of utter stupidity, had come dressed for war in a bright white vest, had picked one of those flowers and posed for his colleagues. He’d stuck it behind his ear, clamped the stem between his teeth and then, as his comrades hooted and squealed with laughter, shoved it through his underwear so it came out of his zip.
“Wanna sniff my stamen?” he’d yelled.
His hand had broken out into a bubbling rash. The skin above his ear, too. His lips had swollen up to the size of bananas. As for his ‘stamen’? Even Brennan winced at the agony of what the man was now going through.
“Sorry about your colleague,” Kaleyne said, in a tone that said she wished she could feed the entire patrol those flowers.
“He was a dick.”
Kaleyne’s smile was genuine. “It’s good to see you again, Baris.”
The corporal looked down and scuffed up some dirt with the toe of a boot. He’s embarrassed, Brennan thought. Baris the Butcher, the hard nut of the Rivermen is on the verge of blushing because an old woman is pleased to see him.
“I recognise young Nascimento here,” Kaleyne said. “But no one else.”
“Pleased to see you, ma’am.” Nascimento didn’t make eye contact either.
Unusual for him. Brennan had a natural gift for reading people’s reactions, a gift he’d honed in his years of torturing them. Nascimento might be pleased to see Kaleyne but Brennan suspected this would be under different circumstances. The big man needed watching. There had been too many coincidences already involving Nascimento and the dice of fate favouring the people he was supposed to be fighting. Orr was different, reliable and violent but difficult to read. Brennan couldn’t isolate the drive behind Orr’s nastiness. That was one of the reasons he’d given Orr command: power brought out the truth in people.
“And who else have you brought?” Kaleyne asked. The morning light glinted off the steel clips that dotted her hair, the metal of each one twisted into a different shape.
“Just legionnaires,” Orr said.
“Legionnaires from a different legion to the last time you were here.” The lines around her green eyes tightened. “We have heard of the Unsung.”
“We’re here for your protection, ma’am.” Orr’s thumb rubbed tight circles over the butts of the revolvers at his belt.
Kaleyne’s tinkling laugh spilled across the ground. The men and women who had been stalking the palisade behind the legionnaires joined in. The noise cocooned them in a swathe of mocking hoots. Kaleyne held up a hand and the laughter died. “Protection? I was hoping you could come up with something better than that, Baris.”
“From the Monster-the-Mountain. The thing that was Professor Shaw.”
“This Monster is less of a threat to us than you.”
“I have my orders, ma’am.”
“From whom? And are you really in charge here?”
Orr’s left eyebrow was twitching. A tell as obvious as a giant neon arrow. Keep it together, Corporal, Brennan thought.
“No, I don’t think you are in charge. You’re pretending to be in charge. Why, Baris? Who’s the real leader here and why is he hiding?”
Kaleyne’s gaze scoured the gro
up. It settled on Brennan, weighing, assessing him as he did her. And to him, it was plain. This woman wouldn’t break. He could ‘whisper’ as loud as he liked, use the sharpest of his tools to squash, stretch, squeeze and slice the soft, warm bits that everybody protected, but this woman wouldn’t break. She would die hard.
“This man,” Kaleyne said, pointing at Brennan. “He’s your—” and then Private Malakan stepped out from behind Nascimento. Hissing filled the air where there had just been laughter. Kaleyne twitched her shawl tight. “I see you have once more brought one of our own back.”
Malakan spat a thick lump of phlegm on the floor. “I’m no superstitious peasant, woman. I’m a legionnaire of Ailan.”
“You are a traitor to your people. At least your sister has remembered her roots.”
“She always was the golden girl, wasn’t she? No way I could live up to her perfect memory once she’d been taken.” In the distance, a rumble of thunder rolled across the forest. The air was thick and humid. Malakan’s rattish nose twitched as if he could smell it. “My sister’s a fucking bitch whore like her grandmother.”
Orr backhanded Malakan across the face.
“Get your hands off me. I’ll—”
Orr grabbed Malakan by the hair and kneed the private in the balls. Malakan staggered to the floor, aided by Nascimento’s bumbling back step.
“While I’m in command, we will not harm or disrespect our hosts.”
Good try, Orr, Brennan thought. Both the acting and the violence. I’d have bought the former if you hadn’t looked at me as you said it. The latter was well done.
“Not harm us?” Kaleyne asked mildly. “You will excuse me a certain amount of disbelief on my part, given the past between our peoples.”
“It’s true, ma’am,” Baris replied. “We’re not to harm you. Those are our orders.”
