by Andy Graham
Henndrik wasn’t joking. Malakan saw it. The sub-corporal must have too. He went pale and swaggered off, that little bit too cocky to be sure of himself.
“The rest of you, make sure the hostages are tied up properly.”
They did it in threes. Two men aiming rifles as another checked the handcuffs the Unsung had brought with them. They didn’t have enough pairs so three woman had been chained with two pairs and the rest of the rest of the captives tied up with strips of cloth. These men were also not stupid.
The Ailan doctor — Swann? — crawled over to the silver-haired girl to help. The kid had lost two teeth. “Shouldn’t have given the sub-corporal any lip, should she?” Malakan muttered to himself. As for the old woman who looked like the dead president, she sheltered the doctor’s child under her coat. To be honest, that bag of wrinkles freaked him right out. He’d almost fainted when a woman he’d seen doing the gallows dance stamped up to him and the major to give them some serious lip. It was just like she’d caught them scrumping apples from her back garden. Even nasty old Henndrik had been speechless at first.
“You think this is right?” The president’s sister turned her ice-blue eyes on the major.
“Looks right to me.”
“Then make sure to kill me soon or I will do to you what your man tried to do to her.”
“You so old and saggy you got a cock growing in your trousers, woman?” His men laughed and the major growled at them to concentrate on the job.
“I’ll cut yours off and use that. If I can find it.” There was no malice in her voice, just promise.
“Good one,” Henndrik said. “Not very original, mind, but still a good one. But you shouldn’t concern yourself with the girl. If I were you, I’d worry about what Randall Soulier’s going to do to you when he gets here. You may only be Bethina Laudanum’s body double as you claim, but I don’t think that our new president will let that affect his enjoyment too much.” He tilted his head to one side, it was the Friday-night look, the one drunk lads gave each other before beating each other stupid. Henndrik also had the same pseudo-politeness in his voice that was part of the ritual build up to pointless violence. “Got to say, though, whoever coached you was good. You’ve got Laudanum’s arrogance nailed.”
“A compliment coming from a man like you,” the old woman said.
“Your resemblance to her is uncanny, too. Except the real one now has a red mark just about here.” He dragged a thumb around his neck. As the old woman paled, Henndrik added, “Maybe Randall will give you a matching one.” And he wandered off to check on his men, leaving Malakan wrapped in the claustrophobic silence of the Donian.
The doctor had got the silver-haired girl sitting. With a nod of thanks, she pushed her hair out of her face and sat next to her friends. The silence continued. There was a part of Malakan that wanted to be cocooned within that quiet. He craved the solidarity like he had needed the solitude of the tunnels. There was another part of him that wanted to rip up the silence with shouts that they acknowledged him. Was it too late to go back? Right what he had wronged? His gaze sought out Brooke. Her silence was reserved solely for him. And that made his blood run cold. Standing by while someone attempted rape was too late for redemption, especially when one of them was raping one of yours. Even the Devil of the Lion’s Crest would not look well on this.
Malakan turned his back on the captives and sought the noise of the night outside — the sun owls and moon wolves, the crickets and waterfall, the things in the stone cauldron he had once run from. White light shone on the Dawn Rock, a dirty rusty-red thing that dominated the dust around it. The rock where people were judged. The rock that was now, somehow, watching him, sucking the excuses out of his soul.
“I hate this place.” He cursed. In his tongue, not the Ailan language. Love and hate were most honest in your mother tongue. The noise from the waterfall was louder, deafening him, drowning him. He plugged his fingers in his ears to block out the screeching and scratching and squeaking from the grass. Too much silence; too much noise. And from the tunnel that led to the centre of the Angel City, cutting through the noise in his head, came the tread of feet. The sentries posted around the top of the slope swivelled, rifles levelled. Ghost-like figures emerged single-file from the tunnel and assembled at the base of the boulder-strewn slope. Dotted amongst those boulders were the tribespeople who had died trying to save their colleagues.
“Sir? Major! Sir, come now, sir,” Malakan yelled.
A long, ragged line of Hoyden and Resistance stood noiselessly at the base of the slope, staring up at the Unsung. “What are they doing?” Henndrik came running, stood hard up to Malakan, so close that he could smell the stench of the Ailan man’s armpits. It smelt like the evil was leaking out of him. “This another one of your hokey traditions, boy? Standing still and not saying shit?” Henndrik’s rifle nudged Malakan between the legs, too firm for it to be accidental. “You going quiet on me, too? Better not be.”
“Silence isn’t one of our traditions.” Malakan pointed. “That is.”
A handful of Hoyden had broken off from the statue-like gathering at the base of the slope. They formed a circle around one of their fallen. A white-skinned man that could only be Lukaz opened the man’s eyes and words drifted through the night.
“Honest as a blade.”
“Loyal like fire.”
“Soft as frost.”
“What the fuck’s that?” Henndrik said. The sentries were looking for orders. Muttering. Fingers twitching.
“Preparing the fallen for the End Times,” Malakan replied.
“The what?”
“The Final Battle.”
“Not going to be a battle. Going to be a rout.” The major barked an order at his men and hissed in Malakan’s ear, “You know them; you watch them.” Malakan grit his teeth as the man stalked off. The Hoyden moved up the slope to the next body. The rifles swivelled to follow them.
“Creepy fuckers,” one muttered.
“Fuck this shit,” a second replied, his finger wrapping around the trigger.
“No!”
The rifle kicked. The retort slammed around the rock bore. The wind howled through the mountain, leaves spinning in spirals and spitting dust. One of the Hoyden fell, scrabbling at the black mess that had been his throat.
“Enough!” Henndrik sprinted back. “Next man to fire gets it from me.”
“Sir, look.”
Without saying a word, the Hoyden laid their newly fallen colleague on the ground, opened his eyes and formed a circle around him. The Words of Farewell drifted up the slope, carried on a fickle wind. “Watch,” Henndrik said, voice strained. “Watch and then watch some fucking more. They’re up to something.”
The group moved on to the next body, a woman with tight loops of midnight-coloured hair. Malakan’s top was soaked in sweat. The Hoyden formed a circle.
“Calm like a storm.”
“Peaceful as a wolf.”
“Cold like fire.”
The rest of the Hoyden and Resistance at the base of the slope watched the sentries who watched back. The guards watched the captives who watched the guards, and all the time the thundering, scratching noise of the mountains grew in Malakan’s ears. He could feel that noise in his teeth. Just as he could still taste Henndrik’s stench on his tongue. “What are you up to,” he whispered. “What plan is this? What the—”
“—fuck are they doing?” Nascimento whispered, he was stripped to his waist. The serpents tattooed across his shoulders and chest writhed darkly in the night.
“We wanted a diversion,” Ray replied.
“What’s wrong with a fight? This is just creepy.”
“Guess that’s the idea. And you got to give it to them, it worked.”
Ray, Nascimento, and a handful of Resistance and Hoyden crept out from the shadows that clung to the base of the rock face and into the small orchard by the waterfall. Shielded from the cave that held the hostages by the Dawn Rock, they slid behin
d the crashing curtain. The midnight black water spat white-flecked darts at them.
The water splashing down the narrow passage was cold. The pool in the cave at the end of that corridor was colder still. As Ray dived in, the green-tinged light from the odd rock lining the pool faded into blackness. Seconds later, he emerged, shivering and ravaged by gooseflesh into the Resting Room.
Rows and rows of statues, each slightly larger than a normal person stretched back until the blue-green light from the pool and the red from the thin seams in the walls faded to black. The figures held rocks, were scarred, wore armour, clutched rifles and flintlocks. “They really have people in them?” Nascimento whispered, wiping water off his skin.
Ray gestured to the one with a thick beard that blended in with his mane of hair. “That holds Brooke’s elder brother, Kames. He was shot by a 10th legionnaire.”
“No wonder she’s got issues. You two gonna have to do some talking at some point.”
“Martinez said the same thing.”
“Martinez is right.” One of the Resistance spluttered to the surface. Nascimento grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him out of the water. “Reckon he’ll come?”
“Martinez?” Ray replied. “Of course. Question is, how many people is he bringing with him and how well armed are they? Seeing as Chester let us down, I hope Martinez has found himself an army somewhere.”
A Hoyden slid out of the pool, knife clamped between his teeth.
“So you gonna talk things over with Brooke when this ends?”
“Not straightaway.”
“Yeah, that’s my plan, too.” Nascimento beat his chest with one fist. “When I get Mayka alone again, this ape and her are getting primal before we do any talking.”
The last of the party emerged from the water. A Hoyden, green water running down the scars across his skin in streams, pointed: “This way.”
Silently, the men and women ran through the lines of waiting statues to the pool that connected to the Council Chamber. The water lapped at the base of a man’s statue depicted with his arms crossed across his chest and a high-necked shirt. “Looks like a vampire,” Nascimento whispered.
“Sacred place, Nasc. Remember that. Keep your mouth shut.”
“So sacred you and Brooke did a little old-school screwing over in the corner back there?”
“How did you know that?”
Nascimento grinned, white teeth sparkling. “I didn’t. I do now. You really screwed Brooke here? Watched by a statue containing her dead brother? Dude, you got bigger balls than I thought.”
The Hoyden pointed at the pool. “We go.”
“And the main tunnel to the Council Chamber?” Nascimento asked. “The one not filled with water. The one I can walk through?”
“That way.” The Hoyden pointed into the darkness. A patter of falling rocks echoed towards them.
“You sure, Nasc?”
“It’s a no-brainer. Better to attack them on two fronts, you know that. And I never liked all that swim training we did in the Rivermen. I lift weights well; I also sink well. Take care, Franklin.”
“Getting sentimental on me, Nasc?”
“Nope. It’s your round.” And he was gone, padding away into the darkness with one Hoyden leading the way. Ray lowered himself to his waist into the ice-cold water. The chill spread through his groin into his belly. There was no light in this water, no underwater rocks to glow and lead; this was blacker than the hells. Sucking in air, he dived in, and the darkness closed over his head.
35
Brothers & Bullies
Sub-Corporal Jonn Nonnweed wiped the blood off his face. His nose felt twice the size it should be. That silver-haired bint must have broken it proper. Strong for a little girl, she was. His snout must look like a melon or something. Leastways it’d give him a chance to come up with a good story. Probably get a good sympathy fuck out of it if he played it right. “Bastard Donians. Donuts more like.”
There was a pool of water at the back of the cave, just shy of where the tunnel he was to guard started. Major Henndrik had told him to watch the tunnel but Jonn was busting for a piss, that post-fuck piss that was almost as good as what went before. ’Cept in this case he was a fuck short. Henndrik had sent him to guard but the pool was dark and smooth, too smooth really. He could make some nice ripples in that pool, maybe even trace letters in it. He licked a drop of blood off his top lip. He’d start with ‘bitch’. He could probably add ‘suck this’ given he was full to bursting. Placing his rifle and helmet against the well, he fished himself out of his trousers, still half-hard, and let out a long sigh of relief as he got to it.
The steam twisted up from the splashing water, and Jonn Nonnweed reflected that life in the Unsung was pretty good. He’d been a private in the 10th Legion before this. Good bunch of men, the Rivermen, excepting for a couple with delusions of niceness. He moved onto the letter c. The ripples were spoiling his hoped-for effect but the idea was what counted. Usual practice when shifting legions was to demote recruits so’s they could learn the way the new guys battered their bread.
“Battered. Not buttered. Good one that.” He sniggered. Jonn had done more than his fair share of battering. Maybe why he’d been moved to the 13th. And moved onto the next letter. At this rate he might even be able to add punctuation. Liked punctuation, did Jonn. Couple of bubbles in the water kind of looked like full stops already. Wanted to be a writer when he was younger. Dumb idea. No money in it. Even less pussy. Breaking things and hurting people was where the money and the moistness was at. “The crack of gold.” He sniggered and the letter h wobbled in the water.
Shouldn’t be new rules in a new legion, to be fair, but that’s the way it worked. And with the Unsung so short of real men, Jonn Nonnweed (or Non-Jonn to his friends) had been promoted to sub-corporal and he was ever so mighty proud of those new stripes. Had sent his official girl a series of pictures of him in his new uniform. His favourite was one with his foot up on a rock, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, rifle resting against his knee. Once the swelling in his nose went down some, he’d send her another one. Maybe he could say he got the break saving Major Henndrik. “She’ll love that. All the chicks love Henndrik. Leastways the ones who’ve never had to spend any time with him,” he added with a furtive look over his shoulder. They tended not to sit straight for a few weeks after. “But I can be the hero who saved the hero.”
Yup. Life in the 13th was pretty good. Nonnweed’s grin faded. There was an awful lot of bubbles in that water. Looked like a comma storm. More bubbles than ripple. Looked like a rock in there, too. Not seen that before. A rock that was getting bigger.
Cock still in hand, he bent forwards to see—
Ray Franklin broke the surface of the water without a sound. Facing him was a pair of black leather boots. The owner of those boots had his cock in one hand. The yellow arc of spraying piss spluttered. “What—” the man said. Ray grabbed his legs and yanked him into the pool. The splash echoed around the cavern.
“Quit fucking around back there, Nonnweed,” someone shouted.
Four more heads surfaced, two Hoyden, two Resistance. They’d lost a woman on the way, her trousers snagging on an underground rock spur. The swimmers gasped for air, saw Ray struggling to hold a pair of boots still in the water and formed a circle around the thrashing legionnaire. His thrashing got weaker, slower, stopped. Ray and the others held him still for another thirty seconds before pulling themselves from the pool.
“Nonnweed,” someone called. “Henndrik told you to—” A lieutenant stepped round the corner. Ray slipped from the shadows and clamped his arm around the man’s neck, locking his hand against his other bicep. The voice of his old wrestling instructor was clear in his head, a man who believed you learn most in training when you lose.
“Their throat goes inside your elbow. Squeeze. That cuts off the blood supply to the brain. Inflate your chest. That takes away a bit more space. Hold for long enough, they go to sleep. Hold
for longer still, they never wake up.”
Ray lowered the lieutenant’s lifeless body to the ground.
“We got rifles,” one of the Resistance whispered.
A Hoyden shook his head. “Not enough space. Too much rock.” He pointed to stalactites hanging from the ceiling. “What are you doing, Franklin?”
Ray had smeared dust across his face and bare arms and was pulling on the dead man’s tactical vest. It was a tight fit, but it’d do. “Going to free Brooke; she’ll want to fight.”
The Hoyden grabbed his arm. “And now you look like them. How do we know who’s who?”
“Guess.” As nonchalantly as he could, Ray strolled round the thicket of stalagmites and into the main cave.
Beyond the thrones, one fallen, two still standing, the hostages were bunched into a circle in the centre. Karaan was lying off to one side, alone and shivering. “Let me help him, please. He’s dying,” a woman said. Stella. She was next to Laudanum. The old woman’s gaze flicked around the cave and settled on Ray. The briefest of nods in his direction, and she struggled to her feet, hands bound behind her back. “Doctor Swann’s right. This man needs help.”
“Get back in line, dearie.” And Laudanum was shoved back to the ground.
She stood again. “I said—”
“Don’t care what you said, don’t care who you look like, either. Back in line.”
The two-handed shove sent her sprawling into the silent people. Ray kept walking. Keep it casual. You belong here. Focus. He saw Mayka squatting on the far side of the circle. A breeze stirred the dreads on her head. A young girl with long silver hair was attempting to clean the blood off her own face with a rag. All she was achieving was smearing it around her skin. Outside, next to the smouldering pile of corpses, the sentries were watching Lukaz and the others at the base of the slope. And then he saw Brooke. Her attention was fixed on a dark-skinned Unsung legionnaire sitting on a rock. The man and his rattish nose looked no happier now than he did when Ray had seen him running through the forests.
