The Black Dream

by Col Buchanan

  His words carried a force in them, and they struck tears into her eyes. She shut them forcibly, glad he could not see her from where he lay, that no one could see her.

  Gather yourself. This is no place for weakness!

  Skilfully, Kira sought out the well of black rage within her and dipped into it for strength.

  ‘I do not wish to discuss my daughter with you, old man.’

  A hiss from where he lay shackled.

  ‘Old man is it? Yet you are older than I, at least in terms of your proximity to death. Do not presume to forget that.’

  ‘After all we have been through, you would threaten me so openly?’

  ‘You mean because we used to rut, once upon a time, so long ago now that I hardly recall it, even should I wish to? Or because we went through the Longest Night together, and the early forging of an empire? Perhaps, Kira, I only mean that I have the Milk to keep me vital, whereas you have only your few years remaining to you. Perhaps I only mean you should think of taking the Milk at last, while it may still do you some good?’

  ‘You know why I do not partake of it.’

  ‘I do?’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Yes. You distrust the euphoria it brings about. You think it softens the divine flesh made sharp by Purgings.’ Nihilis coughed, laughing again perhaps. Drool was dribbling from his lower face along with the rivulets of water. ‘You think too much in absolutes,’ he continued. ‘Always too much the fundamentalist. I’m told it is why you and your daughter disagreed so often.’

  ‘I told you I did not wish to discuss Sasheen.’

  ‘I have little time for squeamishness, Kira. Your daughter is the reason our Khosian expedition remains in such a quagmire. She is the reason your family’s star is now on the decline. And yet still you wish to think favourably of her, simply because she was your flesh and blood?’

  ‘I will not say it again. Do not speak any more of this to me.’

  ‘Or you will do what? Pounce across this room and strangle me?’

  ‘I will do worse than that.’

  Easy, Kira. Easy.

  ‘Indeed? And what of the rest of your family? You know what would become of them if you took such an insane course of action.’

  ‘Then save us both our losses. Do not talk any more of Sasheen.’

  ‘Your grandson then? Cowering under his bed while the Rōshun came to slay him?’

  Kira stood more quickly than she had done in years, filled with the roaring rage that wanted to carry her across the room so she could bend down and scoop out his eyes with her thumbnails. But Nihilis hissed again, chuckling, pleased with himself that he had provoked such a reaction in her, and the sound stopped Kira dead before she took a single step.

  He could see her from here, if he turned his eyes to the side.

  ‘You are going to Khos, Kira. You are going there to sort out this mess that your daughter so gallantly left behind for us.’

  She stood there panting until she had regained some control of her temper, knowing that he had won, that he had got what he wanted from her. All these years and still she was a puppet on his strings. Kira stared down upon his frail body with its pierced and mutilated genitals and the scars from so many Purgings, loathing every fibre of his being.

  How could such a creature be the conduit for all that she believed in, all that had given her meaning in this life; the divine flesh of Mann?

  Her body trembling like a thing possessed, Kira listened to what he had to say.

  ‘The Expeditionary Force remains divided and at war with itself. Romano should have wrested control of the army from Archgeneral Sparus by now, yet still the squabbles continue over its command. For his own part, the Little Eagle refuses to cut a deal. Since we both know his obstinacy is due to some misguided sense of loyalty to your family, I am sending you there in person to break them from their deadlock, so they may carry on to Bar-Khos.’

  Pain in her palms from the bites of her fingernails.

  Focus your anger. He’s only using it against you!

  It was a disaster, this command he was giving her. It offered Romano a chance at the empty throne, a chance at being the next Holy Patriarch of Mann if he was able to take Bar-Khos. It was everything her family had been fighting against, through their support of Sparus in distant Khos and the local contenders here in the capital.

  Her old enemy Octas LeFall must have got to him at last, must have found a way to sway him.

  ‘You wish me to be the one to aid the LeFalls in their ambitions for Romano? You must be out of your mind. I will do no such thing.’

  ‘Oh, but you will.’

  ‘Send someone else. The words hardly need to come from me.’

  ‘You try my patience now,’ he gasped. ‘Quit this childish rebellion and do as you are told, woman. It is the only way you get to leave this room alive.’

  I must buy Sparus some time!

  Kira folded her hands within the sleeves of her robe and bowed her head in obedience, her stiff joints protesting with shoots of pain.

  I must send him a missive. Instruct him to finish Romano before I have arrived.

  ‘What is it, precisely, you would have me do?’

  ‘You are to compel the Archgeneral into agreeing on joint command of the Expeditionary Force with Romano. You are to inform young Romano that if they indeed take the city of Bar-Khos first, his claims to the throne will be respected here in the capital.’

  Kira’s throat tightened even as she listened to his words. She knew the Archgeneral would rather take his own life than share his command with the young pretender Romano. Nihilis might as well be sending her to kill him.

  Yet she was bound here, bound by whatever he told her to do, and her captivity only caused her hatred to boil.

  She tried to speak, then had to start again.

  ‘Surely, I could send a missive to achieve the same result?’

  ‘No. When you are finished with Romano and the Little Eagle, you are to oversee our operation in Bar-Khos.’

  Kira turned her head to one side in suspicion. ‘You wish me to enter the city personally?’ echoed her creaking voice.

  ‘I do. It’s vital that our operation there be in place by the time we surround the city. The traitors must be made ready. I want Bar-Khos before winter’s end.’

  Another scream sounded from outside. Nihilis glared at the ceiling, refusing with all his will now to blink at the concussions of water dripping down on him.

  She bowed her head again, pulled by his invisible strings.

  ‘I will do as you say, my Patriarch.’

  ‘I know you will. All that matters is the city, Kira. Do this for me and your family will remain in my favour. Make certain that Bar-Khos falls.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Left for Dead

  At first Cole thought he was lying on his hard cot back in his Lucksore cabin, but when he tried to move he found that he could not, and that a great weight pressed down upon him.

  Where am I then?

  There seemed nothing to go on, no light or sound of any kind, nor memories of how he had got here.

  Am I dead? Cole wondered absently, and the notion aroused a conflict of emotions deep within him.

  Far away a deep rumble sounded out. He could feel it in his bones, and in doing so some life returned to him. Cole knew where he was now.

  The longhunter cracked open his eyes. He was lying on a cot in an underground bunker, a room lit by a few low burning lanterns, with his ears pricking to heavy explosions rumbling through the ground above his head as they dislodged trickles of earth.

  He was back in Bar-Khos, deep beneath the walls of the Shield in the stifling confines of the tunnels, where he had been fighting since the second year of the siege as a Special; a husband and father stunned ever deeper into himself by the violence of war.

  Specials were snoring away fitfully in bunks stacked around the room. At a table, Ruby and Finch played cards for their usual exchange of minor sexual favours, while the do
gs lay curled on the matting of the floor, farting and dozing. All day long the Imperial Fourth Army had been assaulting the walls of the Shield above them, as they had been for three consecutive years now, and everyone expected something to happen down here too – a breach from the enemy tunnels, an enemy mine blowing up close enough to bury all of them alive. Yet all they could do was while away the hours as they waited for whatever awful thing was going to happen.

  Such was life for Specials garrisoned in a forward bunker beneath the Shield. Endless boredom and tattered nerves while they anticipated the very worst.

  Other ears were pricking as well as his own, those of the guard dogs curled together on the matting, where a single red-coated prairie lynx lay amongst them. When the big cat rose up at a distant sound and listened for a few long moments with ears twitching, Cole was the only one to notice. His eyes tracked the cat as she stretched and padded out through the open doorway, and then he was prompted to rise and follow after her, thinking to relieve himself as the cat herself no doubt intended.

  Outside in the main tunnel he saw the heavy metal door that blocked the way ahead, where the tunnel extended even further beyond the city walls, out towards the enemy. To one side of the door the sentry sat on a chair with his chin resting on his breastplate, lightly snoring. Cole couldn’t recall the man’s name, hadn’t bothered to learn it; just another replacement brought in to replace the last. He picked up a shard of gravel from the planking on the floor and tossed it at the soldier’s helm with a thunk.

  ‘Next time you fall asleep on watch I’ll slit your throat myself,’ he declared to the surprised and blinking young man.

  Cole followed the cat into a side passage, a dead end where the latrine was to be found. But he found the latrine passage buried in blackness, and he swore at whoever had allowed the lantern to go out and went back for a lit one. The sentry was dozing again where he sat.

  This time he picked up a rock the size of his fist, and threw it with all his might at the man’s helm.

  ‘Stay awake!’ he hissed down at the soldier sprawled on the floor, and for good measure he kicked the chair to pieces so the man could no longer rest in it, and because it felt good.

  Panting, Cole returned to the latrine with a lantern held aloft before him, flooding the darkness ahead with its yellow flickering circle of light. The air was fetid here, and dank. He turned a corner and walked on until the edge of light swept across the back of the prairie lynx. The red hair along her spine was standing up in ruffs, and she was fixed to the spot and staring at something while a low, barely audible growl rumbled from her throat. His hand grasped the hilt of one of his hooryas, and he took another cautious step forward to stand beside the cat.

  Cole grunted in surprise.

  A man was standing in their way with his broad back turned to them. It was another Special, for the creases in his black leathers glistened in the lamplight that Cole held out towards him.

  The man stood perfectly still, arms dangling by his sides.

  ‘Mani?’ Cole said to the figure ahead. ‘Is that you?’

  Nothing. No movement or response. Cole could hear a wet noise in the gloom, like something bubbling. His nose flared at the harsh metal scent of blood. The cat growled now, low and menacing.

  With careful slowness, Cole pulled the hoorya from his belt, gripping the hilt so that the curved blade fitted around his knuckles and the edge of his hand.

  ‘Mani!’ he whispered with sudden fear.

  Movement. The figure toppled against the side of the tunnel then slid down it. The cat cried out loudly.

  The enemy – they were here!

  Too late he sensed someone dropping down at his back, and then a pain sliced into Cole’s throat as a wire wrapped around his throat.

  He dropped the lantern in fright and reached a hand to the wire that was suddenly choking the life from him while the cat snapped at someone ahead. Across the planking of the tunnel floor the lantern rolled and nearly went out, save for a wan glow around the quietly desperate scuffles of their boots.

  Panicking now, Cole shoved himself backwards and crushed his attacker against the side of the tunnel, feeling the hotness of blood seeping down his neck. He slashed wildly behind him with his hoorya but hit only thin air, though he managed to loosen the garrotte with his fingers, just enough to gain a desperate sip of breath. The cat was tearing away at someone now with her claws. A third figure came out of the darkness and flashed in front of his vision.

  Cole felt a blow to his side, once, twice, three times, before he looked down to see the knife blade darting through his leathers. No pain from the blows but simple shock at what he was witnessing. His own blade lashed out in frantic effort. Cole couldn’t breathe. The wire seemed to be cutting his fingers in two. Later, he would be left with a ragged scar across his throat that would cause people to stare in wonder that he hadn’t died from such a wound. But that was later, and this was now, and a knife was again being thrust into his side repeatedly while a hand held his own blade at bay.

  Die, kushing die, his assailant behind was grunting into his ear in accented Trade, while Cole kicked out with his boot at the man stabbing him from the front. The blind staggering terror was overwhelming. Every fibre of his body sang of its impending death.

  But now the cat had a toothy grip on the enemy hand holding the knife, and the shouts of Cole’s comrades were sounding along the tunnel blessedly close. The garrotte around his neck loosened a fraction more.

  This was the moment, Cole’s watching, delirious mind reminded him with calm detachment.

  This was it, right here, when you could take no more of the war.

  *

  Cole tried to mutter something as he came to his senses, something from a time long gone now. But he found that blood and dirt had filled his mouth, and he coughed and spat to clear it.

  The longhunter opened his eyes and saw only motes of colour floating in the utter blackness. Fear clamped his insides, for the taste of the dirt reminded him of where he truly was now. Not the tunnels beneath the Shield but deep inside a kree hive. Buried in a collapsed tunnel after the belt of grenades had all exploded behind him.

  He’d been left for dead by the others, he realized. Buried alive.

  Panic seized him so entirely he shook from it, and for the longest of times Cole simply lay there gasping and quivering from the shock of his predicament, his worst of fears made real. For Cole had lived these moments before in his mind, imagining how his companions had felt before they had suffocated, those he had left trapped in tunnels that had come down on them.

  Guilt, that age-old guilt of the survivor. From that one stabbing emotion came other thoughts and feelings, and from those, Cole was slowly able to gather himself together. At last a cool numbness settled over him like a blanket of frost, and in his mind he started to ask the questions most in need of an answer.

  How could he get out of here?

  When he tried to move, Cole could feel the loose earth and rocks covering much of his body. The longhunter stilled himself for a moment, his panted breaths loud in his ears. He could hear the sound of nearby scrabbling from behind.

  It was the kree, busy clearing out the debris that blocked the passage.

  Cole groaned as he tugged his arm until it came loose with a spill of earth and rock. Not broken, thank Mercy. Just badly bruised. There was some space around his head, it seemed. Shifting about, he felt something damp pressing against his face – a bladder of Milk split open before him. Cole stretched his neck out and slurped at the puddle of Milk and grit, wetting his lips and tongue with the stuff.

  A soft glow filled his belly, and he felt better for it, enough at least that he could think straight.

  Get out of here before the kree find you. Get to the surface before the others leave without you.

  With a sharp gasp the longhunter pulled himself a tiny fraction forward; the whole earth shifted around his legs, and he found it an easier effort than he’d been expecting. He was
near the edge of the collapse where the rubble remained loose, and with renewed hope he dug his elbows into the dirt and pulled again, then repeated the process until he had dragged himself free from the debris which trapped him.

  Now there was a foot of clearance above his head. Cole moved faster, scraping his scalp against the top of the tunnel. He slithered forwards until the shifting surface began to slope downwards, hissing at the returning sensation of his limbs.

  He was startled when his hand settled on a mound of fur, recoiled back from it.

  It’s the cat. It’s only the cat.

  In haste he shoved aside the earth and small rocks until her head was clear of them, and he could cradle it in his filthy hands.

  His companion was still warm to the touch. She was barely breathing though. Behind them the sounds of the kree were getting louder now. Summoning his strength, the longhunter dug with his hands, not caring for the skin that he tore loose, digging fast until the cat was clear.

  On all fours he scrambled back for the split skin of Milk and returned with it to the cat. Hastily he held it up and dribbled a few drops into the animal’s muzzle, praying that it worked.

  As he did so he was picturing the tunnels of the Shield again, and that first time she had saved his life in the desperate darkness. And how he had taken her home with him after that to the family farm, rescuing her from a war he could no longer abide – a war for which he had then deserted his wife and young son Nico.

  The Milk was too fresh to have much of an effect, but it was enough.

  She whimpered. Fluttered her ears. Seemed to breathe a little easier.

  ‘Come on, girl,’ he told the cat gratefully and scooped her up into his arms. ‘It’s all right, I’ve got you now. We’re going home.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Reese’s Worthless Bastard

  ‘Go on now!’ the woman called out to the zel straining to haul the wagon up the steepening road.

  Her call still echoing across the land, Reese rose from the shaking seat and flicked the reins across Happy’s back, clicking her tongue as the animal’s shod hooves slipped on the wet stones and the wagon rocked slowly upwards, the empty potcheen bottles in the back tinkling noisily where Los had padded them poorly with hay.