by Anthony Ryan
“How bad was it?” Arberus asked, casting a dark glance at the city before moving closer to clasp her forearms.
He thinks I might have been raped, Lizanne realised with a pang of bitterness as she detected the reluctance in his tone. How terrible for him. “I achieved my objective,” she said, disentangling herself. “Now I have to secure him. Do you have it?” She held out her hand, ignoring the hurt that passed over Arberus’s face.
“Loaded with the finest product the Brotherhood could find,” he said, reaching into his pocket to extract the Spider.
“I should hope so.” Lizanne took the device and strapped it on, groaning in relief as she injected a dose of good-quality Green. “We need to gather the Brotherhood,” she said, straightening and striding off. “I suspect a difficult negotiation awaits us.”
• • •
“You can fuck right off, my dear.”
The Electress stood amidst a pile of gathered weapons, barrels and sundry valuables looted from the battle-field and the guard-house. The surviving Furies were arranged at her back, each now sporting a rifle or cavalryman’s carbine. Anatol had taken up position on Atalina’s left whilst between them stood the notably less substantial person of Tinkerer. The assembled ranks of the Brotherhood were drawn up behind Lizanne, along with Makario, who remained understandably nervous of placing himself in proximity to his erstwhile employer. Thanks to the losses inflicted by the constables and Imperial soldiery, the ranks of the Furies were somewhat thinner than Lizanne might have expected, meaning the two groups were roughly even in numbers.
“If this one’s such a prize,” Atalina went on, drumming her stubby fingers on Tinkerer’s head, “it’d be awful foolish of me to just hand him over to you, don’t you think?”
“The Ironship Syndicate will ensure you receive a substantial reward,” Lizanne replied.
“Your syndicate isn’t here,” the Electress pointed out then nodded at the assembled Brotherhood. “All you have is this pack of rebels and it’s sound odds they haven’t got a pot worth pissing in. Besides which, what use is gold now?”
The Electress raised her thick arms, gesturing at the corpse-littered field and the guard-house, which the former prisoners had been quick to set ablaze after a thorough looting. “You said it yourself, they can’t let this go unanswered. Right now there’ll be messengers galloping to the nearest garrison. Within a week there’ll be an army sweeping this province.”
“Then hadn’t you best be on your way?” Korian said, stepping to Lizanne’s side. A freshly stitched cut leaked blood on the Brotherhood leader’s cheek as he glared at the Electress. The injury and the comrades lost in the battle apparently left him in no mood for negotiating with those he plainly considered unworthy of his brand of liberty. “I’m sure there are plenty of farm-steads to pillage near by.”
“Oh pipe down, boy,” the Electress snapped. “You’re in the same midden-cart as us, if you hadn’t noticed. Whatever she promised you”—Atalina stabbed a blunt finger at Lizanne—“won’t help now. The Emperor’s soldiers will kill us all just the same. You let her take the Tinkerer and she’ll have ghosted on her way by nightfall, leaving us to the slaughter.”
Korian’s cheeks bunched as he switched his glare to Lizanne, the innate suspicion of all things corporate rising in his gaze. “She makes a valid point,” he observed softly. “What assurances can you offer that Ironship will provide the arms they promised? Our agents in Corvus tell us they’re about to conclude a treaty with the Emperor.”
“Merely a matter of convenience,” Lizanne said, hoping her off-hand tone masked the insincerity. In truth she had no idea whether the Board would approve the contract with these fanatics, nor did she care. Their struggle was a distraction from larger concerns.
“She lies!” Helina’s voice was shrill with what Lizanne recognised as the pitch of the recently mad. The small woman stood amongst the Brotherhood, clutching her wounded arm and staring at Lizanne with wild-eyed malice. Demisol and the rest of the Learned Damned had apparently fallen in the charge to the gate, leaving this crazed wretch as their only representative. “Trust nothing that issues from this whore’s mouth!” Helina spat. “You would do the revolution a great service by killing her here and now!”
“You have no authority here, citizen,” Arberus told Helina, pointedly putting a hand on the hilt of his sabre.
“And what authority do you hold?” she snarled in return. “By all accounts you are nothing but this whore’s whore.”
Lizanne resisted the temptation to forestall any further insults via the expedient of smashing every tooth in Helina’s mouth, instead forcing a brisk but determined tone as she directed her words at Korian. “This avails us nothing. We have an agreement. Do you intend to honour it or not?”
“What if he doesn’t?” the Electress broke in, Lizanne turning to find a grin on the woman’s lips. It was a worryingly confident grin. “What if he tells you to fuck right off too? What will you do then, my dear? Use the Blessing to kill us all, perhaps? Got enough product for that?” She gave a meaningful glance to her right and Lizanne saw the reason for her confidence. Varkash was striding towards them from the direction of the blazing guard-house, a dense mob of Wise Fools at his back and a less orderly host of Scuttlers and sundry others on either side. Altogether, Lizanne estimated their number at well over three thousand people. Too many to kill, she knew. Too many to flee from.
“It seems to me,” the Electress went on, now fixing her gaze on Korian but speaking with sufficient volume to ensure the encroaching masses heard her, “we have a limited set of options. We can scatter, take to the hills and forests and scratch a living through banditry. Some of us might live a few years, most will find themselves captured and dangling from a rope within a few weeks. Or we can wait here where we’re certain to get slaughtered once the Emperor’s army turns up. Or we move on. The port city of Vorstek lies two hundred and fifty miles due east. Where’s there’s a port, there’s ships.”
“You propose seizing an Imperial city?” Korian asked with an appalled laugh.
“I don’t want to keep it.” The Electress’s gaze snapped to Lizanne. “Your Syndicate’s got plenty of ships, I hear. More than enough to carry us all away to a nice safe Mandinorian port. Isn’t that right?”
Lizanne watched Varkash come to a halt near by, the other escapees crowding in around to witness the scene. The huge Varestian crossed his arms and directed a steady gaze at Lizanne. He appeared to have emerged from the chaos without injury, and his gaze lacked the fury she saw in many faces. But there was an implacable purpose to it, a promise of inescapable consequences.
“Yes,” Lizanne told the Electress, once again hoping her tone concealed the lie. “I can arrange that. Dependent on his safe delivery,” she added, pointing at Tinkerer.
“Oh, Anatol will take very good care of him, be assured of that.” Atalina pinched Tinkerer’s chin. “As if he were a new-born babe.”
“I fail to see why the Brotherhood should take part in this farce,” Korian said.
“You get the arms she promised when the ships turn up,” the Electress told him. “But you also get something far more valuable.” She laughed and flung her arms out wide, encompassing the unwashed mob. “An army with which to relight the fires of revolution!”
• • •
“Two hundred and fifty miles,” Arberus said, scanning the sprawling and disorderly camp with military disdain. “This lot will be lucky to manage another thirty.”
“I wouldn’t under-estimate the Electress’s leadership abilities,” Lizanne cautioned. “In any case we have little option but to follow her course, at least until this army meets defeat, as it surely must before long.”
They sat atop a low hill a dozen miles or so from Scorazin where the Electress had ordered camp be made after a protracted and ill-disciplined march. The ranks had swollen to at least six thousa
nd souls. This was substantially less than the population of Scorazin before the escape, so many having fallen and many others opting to take to their heels rather than join the Electress’s expedition.
Scorazin had burned as they marched away. Although none of the army’s principal figures had ordered it, every structure capable of burning had been put to the torch before the march began. Lizanne understood the instinctive desire that provoked the arson, the deep-set need to wipe this place from the earth thereby removing any chance they might be returned here one day. Inevitably the fires spread to the sulphur mines, birthing an inferno of such intensity it could still be seen on the western horizon.
“It might burn for years,” Arberus mused, watching the yellow-orange glow flicker on the distant clouds. “At the very least the Emperor will have to find himself a new prison. You achieved that if nothing else.”
“Is it true about the treaty?” Lizanne asked. “Is the Emperor close to an agreement with Ironship?”
“The Brotherhood has a few agents within the palace, but their reports are often contradictory. One day it appears the Emperor is entirely lucid and receptive to the delegation’s suggestions, the next he’s raving and executing guardsmen and nobles on a whim. But most agree that, mad or not, he will sign the treaty, if he hasn’t done so already.”
“Then we have a chance of opposing the White in decent strength, at least until we can unlock the secrets in Tinkerer’s head.”
“You’re convinced he’s that important?”
Lizanne thought back to the chamber Tinkerer had shown her, the circle of skeletons, each one a Blood-blessed. “I believe his presence in Scorazin is connected to the Artisan,” she said. “And I doubt it was accidental. He has knowledge that can help us, I’m certain of it.”
“You place a great deal of faith in a long-dead man and a pale-faced youth.”
“In time faith may be the only thing that sustains us.”
Something in her voice must have concerned him for he moved closer, putting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her close. She allowed herself to be embraced, her earlier pique lingering but not enough to push him away. “I hardly slept,” he said. “The thought of you in that place . . .”
“Was better than the reality.”
He winced at the hardness in her voice, drawing back a little. “It seems all I can do is say the wrong thing. What would you have me do? Just tell me.”
“Find me a change of clothes for a start,” she muttered, slumping against him, letting herself surrender to exhaustion. “And,” she whispered as her eyes began to close, “a working and accurate timepiece.”
• • •
In the morning Arberus presented her with a set of cavalry fatigues, presumably taken from the body of one of the more youthful troopers. Lizanne peeled away the filthy overalls she had worn throughout her time in Scorazin, uncaring of any witnesses to her nakedness. She tossed the garment on the camp-fire before dousing herself with the bucket of water Arberus had fetched from a near by stream. The chill of it was shocking, but also added a welcome tingle to her flesh which she realised had become increasingly numb during her imprisonment. She rubbed at her damp skin, scraping away the grime and stink of the place, but somehow knowing some vestige of the scent would always linger. Blinds don’t wash, Clay had told her once in the trance. It seemed Scorazin didn’t wash either.
Arberus had also procured her a mount, a russet mare with the sturdy proportions and broad, hair-covered hooves of a cart-horse. “The Brotherhood can’t afford to be choosy over its mounts,” the major explained as Lizanne looked the animal over. She regarded Lizanne with soft brown eyes, issuing a placid snort as she smoothed a hand over her snout.
“As long as she doesn’t bite,” Lizanne said, climbing into the saddle.
The Electress’s army was already in motion, hounded to its feet by gang leaders turned captains. Varkash was most prominent among these enforcers of discipline, seemingly possessed of an ability to command instant obedience and quell grumbling with a glance. Despite their willingness to follow the Electress’s course, these weren’t soldiers and the host moved in a disorderly crowd, plodding east at an unimpressive pace.
“We’ve covered twenty miles since yesterday, I reckon,” Anatol said as they assembled at the Electress’s camp-fire come nightfall. Atalina seemed content to tolerate the presence of Lizanne and Arberus, despite the fact that they hadn’t been summoned.
“More like twelve,” Arberus insisted. “If that. These soldiers of yours move as if they’re on a holiday stroll. And,” he went on, nodding at a group of convicts near by who were busy squabbling over a bottle of wine, “many are too drunk to put one foot in front of the other.”
The Electress glanced at Varkash, who promptly strode towards the squabbling group. They instantly fell into silent stillness at his approach, apparently too fearful to run as he took the bottle from one of them and slowly emptied the contents over the man’s head. “Next time I’ll piss in it and make you drink it,” he said, smashing the bottle on the ground before walking back to the fire.
“Fear of him won’t be enough,” Arberus told the Electress. “Not when the fighting starts. If you truly want this to be an army, you’ll have to make this lot into soldiers.”
“How d’you propose we do that?” she enquired.
“Some proper organisation for a start. Divide them into regiments and the regiments into companies, each with its own captain. Each company will march together and camp together. Also, you need to take charge of the supply situation. At the rate this lot are consuming the food taken at Scorazin they’ll be starving within two weeks. Gather the supplies into carts and appoint a quartermaster to ensure equal shares are rationed out. You should also start sending foraging parties out to gather more. And,” he added with a glance at Varkash, “make sure any drunkenness is harshly punished.”
“Seems sensible,” the pirate said to Atalina in his nasal twang. “Haven’t flogged a man in years. Preddy sure I can remember how, dough.”
“No,” the Electress said. “These people threw in with me on the promise of freedom. Start showing them the whip and they’ll soon decide they might as well try their luck on their own. Still, getting rid of the booze is a good idea. Go through the camp in the morning, smash all the bottles you can find. Most’ll still be too groggy to object. As for the rest of your suggestions,” she said, turning back to Arberus, “I’ll leave to you. It’s your plan, you make it happen.”
• • •
Arberus divided the army into five regiments of roughly a thousand soldiers apiece. Each regiment consisted of five companies of two hundred soldiers and tended to reflect the soldiers’ prison-born allegiances. The First and Second Regiments were mostly Furies and Wise Fools whilst the Scuttlers made up most of the Third. The remaining companies had also been formed around a nucleus of survivors from the minor gangs. Those not allotted a regiment, mainly the older convicts and others unsuited to fighting due to infirmity, were organised into what Arberus called a logistics train of cooks, cart-drivers and medical orderlies. There were no qualified physicians amongst them but the pressures of life in Scorazin had produced a surprising number with hard-earned skills in the healing arts. Several were whores from the Miner’s Repose, all familiar with various restorative concoctions and the tending of minor wounds. Arberus placed the perpetually rancorous Silvona in charge of the army’s medical services. Being the oldest, and by far the most vocal, the others tended to defer to her in any case.
Arberus was also quick to establish a daily routine, having the companies roused shortly after dawn and attempting to educate them in basic drill before breakfast. There were several former soldiers in their ranks who found themselves quickly elevated to sergeants charged with forming the companies into a semblance of military order. Morning drill was followed by a short breakfast after which camp would be broken and the d
ay’s march commenced. Arberus insisted on organising the army into a column and ordered the sergeants to ensure no soldier wandered more than two yards from the line of march. He also set a punishing pace, marching them for two hours at a time before permitting a half-hour’s rest. Inevitably, the sudden introduction of discipline produced an upsurge in grumbling and some outright dissent, though most of it died down after Varkash beat one man unconscious for throwing a handful of dung at Arberus’s horse. Those not inclined to open disobedience, but also finding the strictures of military life not much to their liking, had taken the opportunity to desert during the second night, though not as many as Lizanne would have expected.
“Forty-four failed to answer the morning roster,” Arberus reported at the Electress’s nightly conclave.
“Send me after them,” Anatol said to her with a murderous grimace. “Forty-four severed heads would be quite the lesson.”
The Electress shook her head, puffing on one of the increasingly scarce cigarillos to be found. “What lesson? That I’m just as bad as the constables? No, Annie, old love, let them go. The Emperor’s soldiers will find them soon enough.”
“And learn our destination in the process,” Lizanne pointed out.
“Can’t be helped. There’s too many to track down in any case, and we don’t have time to be pissing about.” She took a final draw on her cigarillo, wincing in regret as she inspected the smoking fragment before stubbing it out. “What else, General?” she asked Arberus, employing a title Lizanne noticed many were now using to address the major, and not all with the same ironic lilt.
“The supply situation is still worrying,” he said. “Rationing has reduced wastage, but we’ll need a great deal more if we’re to make it to Vorstek.”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking about that. Those buggers we killed back at Scorazin, the light-horsey wotsits.”
“The Thirty-eighth Imperial Light Horse,” Arberus supplied.
