How could he unlock the secrets intervening between their languages?
Ceasing their twitching, their gaze – or what he took to be their gaze – settled upon him. Bulbous eyes, glossy shells, all those alien features – he was almost frightened of their otherworldly qualities, but knew better than to mistake those for inherent evilness. People were not good or evil simply because of their physiognomy.
A thousand variants in ancient languages, he sifted through all the dialects he knew, while for long, breathless minutes they did nothing but glare at him: ‘Hello.’ Then ‘Greetings.’ ‘Peace.’ ‘Friend.’
A guard came to check on him every few minutes, but witnessed nothing of any interest. Jurro might have to accept that he could not acquire any intelligence for the pale commander, though the thought of returning empty-handed disappointed him. Eventually he tried responding to them in their own fashion, producing a series of surreal guttural clicks from the back of his throat. That finally made them sit up again, their motions coordinated. He could barely form a sentence, obviously missing key elements, but it might be enough to engage them. They stood up suddenly as the guard came to the door once more.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine,’ Jurro replied, waving the intrusion away dismissively.
Further progress, then, by resorting only to further clicks. His heart thumped as the creatures began to sound off in return. He finally began to believe he could understand their reactions. There was something almost recognizable there, as if a corner of his memory had been unlocked.
Who . . . are you? he thought they were saying. Why you here? How?
It was impossible to answer them properly, not because of a language barrier but because he couldn’t even answer those questions himself.
You shouldn’t be able to come through here.
Only we know how.
Their next word struck him hard when they addressed him as: Child. How could he be a child when he was thousands of years old? Had he, too, slipped through from some other plane of existence? There were books of theory on the subject, concerning the eleven dimensions through which reality could operate.
Suddenly one of the Okun moved nearer to him, began circling him, the other eventually following. They shambled with an awkward gait, feet scraping across the stone floors, yet their movements were synchronized. Throat sounds were emitted, bass and guttural and threatening.
Jurro rotated slowly, twisting his massive torso round to observe them, all the time throwing further attempts at communication towards them.
They had become suddenly unresponsive.
Simultaneously they lunged at him, collapsing him to the ground first as, in the periphery of his vision, he saw a guard come to the cell door. A pain such as he had never felt before surged suddenly through his body. The Okun stabbed their claws into his chest and began ripping him apart, shredding skin and fur, while smashing his head against the floor. How could he have been so stupid? He saw his own blood seep across the cell floor before he faded into blackness, wondering, philosophically, if this was finally true freedom coming his way . . .
*
Brynd was in the midst of planning training schedules when he was called urgently to the cells, all the time the accompanying soldier muttering something about the Dawnir and two dead guards. Brynd urged him to be clearer, but it wasn’t much help. They sprinted towards the cells, the other man now breathless, Brynd with his sabre in his hand. Then the soldier gestured to the grille in the door.
Brynd peeked in between the bars, then lurched back in disgust. ‘Shit . . .’
Jurro had been slaughtered, his carcass strewn across the cell. His entrails were exposed, the slick organs scattered around the room, his hide slopped to one side like a soggy rug. Thick, dark blood flooded half the floor. It was obvious from the other remains that two of the guards had been savaged as they tried to escape towards the door, their arms left outstretched, and all that was recognizable of the rest of the corpses was their faces.
‘I slammed the door so the things couldn’t escape,’ the soldier muttered, still in a state of shock at having witnessed such savagery. His hand was shuddering by his side. ‘I didn’t seal them in to die, I swear on the Emperor. They were dead men by the time I managed to get the door closed to keep those . . . those monsters in.’
Brynd sheathed his sword, rested his hand on the man’s thick shoulder and tried to make strong eye contact. ‘You did well to prevent their escape.’ Soothe him, for the sake of his sanity. ‘Who knows how much damage they would have done otherwise.’
A few minutes later, the guard had finally calmed, and Brynd turned his attention to the Okun, who huddled in a corner of the cell, up against the wall, almost dormant once again.
‘Fetch slop buckets and bring a few other men with you,’ Brynd ordered.
As the guard’s footsteps echoed down the corridor, Brynd slammed his hand against the metal bars in rage. One of the Okun looked up, curious, but lowered its head once again.
He was fucking stupid to have let Jurro in alone, despite the Dawnir’s insistence that he would be fine. This was no dignified way for anyone to go, was hardly a fitting death for such an exotic figure. He would have the Okun killed and their bodies given to the cultists to dissect.
*
That evening the Night Guard, along with dozens of Dragoons, lined up along the perimeter of a small quadrangle inside the Citadel, as they prepared to burn the Dawnir’s body on a towering pyre.
Brynd was particularly keen on giving Jurro a respectful send-off. The creature had barely been known by most people in Villjamur, but the two of them had shared many a conversation and discussed philosophy over drinks, whenever Brynd was not away on various expeditions. It was a curious friendship, between the beast and the albino, but they shared a bond over the fact that they both felt isolated because of what they were.
A Jorsalir priest rattled out a sermon and mumbled a few prayers, then someone played a funeral hymn on an accordion. Melancholy notes wafted across the courtyard as a torch was lowered to the base of the pyre, then flames took shape and billowed upwards. Green-blue smoke sizzled free from the creature’s corpse, before dissipating up into the black sky, while the remnants bubbled and spat as the fire ripped into the fat. Presently there would be nothing left of this ancient creature.
When everyone fell away to retire for the night, Nelum approached the commander as he stood on the rampart overlooking the remains of the pyre.
‘Sir, did he ever obtain any information from those things?’
Brynd shook his head. ‘No.’
Nelum sighed. ‘For the love of Bohr, he was just about our only hope of understanding what they might be.’
‘You think this is a good time, at Jurro’s funeral, to get annoyed with the lack of progress on that front?’
Nelum muttered something that might or might not have been an insult.
‘Did you say something?’ Brynd pressed.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘You’d do well to remember your position.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I keep the Night Guard as a close family, and I’ve kept you close to my side recently, but that shouldn’t mean we confuse our positions in the regiment. I hope I’m clear on the matter.’
‘Indeed, commander,’ Nelum snapped, his lips thinned as if suppressing a biting retort. ‘My apologies.’
TWENTY-ONE
For the men and women of the Seventh and Ninth Dragoons, the day commenced in a sombre mood, and didn’t much improve from there. These soldiers had landed on the coast of Folke four days ago, after returning from a failed invasion of the Varltung nation, where thousands of comrades had died under the ice sheets as they attempted to claim another island. All in the name of the Empire and empire building. The official story was that the tribal nations had gathered along the edge of the ice sheets and rained arrows down on those drowning in the frozen waters. But some suggested there were no enemies in situ,
that this was merely to provide reason for the Emperor to launch a much larger and more brutal invasion.
A mild sleet seemed to make the air above Villiren rattle, with grey skies smothering every point of the compass. The Dragoons were now lined up to attention, forming precise rows in the colossal quadrangular courtyard of the Citadel, framed by the wide granite arches and pillars. Awaiting further instructions they stood in silence, soggy, muddied, still mourning the dead.
Brynd remembered reading the great poets from an era when the sun was stronger – translations that had survived collapsed civilizations and forgotten languages, rhetoric and drama that injected glory into the legends of war. Bitterly he wondered if many of those writers had actually stood in the front line of any battle.
*
The troops began moving directly into the city, first in their tens and then in their thousands. Many empty structures in Port Nostalgia needed to be taken over in the name of defence. Citizens looked on in misery as the soldiers shuffled into their positions. This was an invasion of their normality – and the mood of the city changed perceptibly. The mere presence of the military seemed to augur death and decay.
Days of rigorous training continued in camps scattered to the south of the city, in Wych-Forest, manoeuvres practised in accordance with Brynd’s detailed instructions, based on military traditions and his own theories. Such staged combat scared the richer districts into holding late-night meetings where landowners would protest. Seafront shop and bar staff pleaded for the army not to take over their homes, as if not realizing how important the front line of the city would be in staging a defence.
Did people ever see beyond their own everyday lives? And why should they, Brynd reflected, when it seemed enough to just stay alive in these harsh conditions?
Extra food had been imported through military protected networks, to prevent prices from soaring in the city proper, but he was careful, too, not to fix prices, because such artificial lowering could lead to severe shortages later on.
But there was always food, strangely. Good cuts of meat were imported from massive agricultural settlements beyond the suburbs, which Brynd had never known existed. Portreeve Lutto had indeed prepared his city well, and no matter how grossly he acted, no matter how much of a buffoon the man appeared, there was clearly an active, useful mind in that bloated head.
Brynd had recently been impressed by a shield design employed by many of the local tribesmen, and which had subsequently entered the culture of Villiren. It was called a hoplon or an aspis, depending on who you spoke to, and was crafted to a circular design that Brynd deemed more efficient than the longer traditional variety. So the city’s armouries went into mass production, and he ordered a different type of helm to be manufactured at the same time, one allowing a much greater range of vision, completely without unnecessary adornments – just a simple, skull-gripping design.
And day in, day out, Priest Pias’s sermons delivered throughout the Jorsalir churches had proved potent in driving home a message Brynd otherwise did not care for: religious propaganda. Leaflets were simultaneously scattered around the city, carrying the same message:
I beseech you all – join hands with the soldiers now prepared to lay down their lives so that we & our children may continue to walk our streets as free citizens. Opportunity to guarantee your soul’s salvation is to be found currently at the Citadel, where you can sign up & collect sacred weaponry from the heroic soldiers who have always protected this Empire & have fought off the devilry of the repugnant, unevolved races for thousands of years. Their glory can be yours, too, with the opportunity to fight hand in hand with them. The future of our city lies in YOUR hands. Either you are with US or you are with this new race of invaders. Think not of this life but of the FUTURE & I promise you safe passage to the hereafter.
Priest Pias, Arch Pater of the Church of the Jorsalir
Later still: there was to be the initiation of a new recruit to the Night Guard, whose addition would bring the total back to twenty, the minimum figure acceptable in Brynd’s mind. Being selected to join the elite regiment was the highest attainment a soldier could hope for. It signified someone possessing extraordinary skills in close-quarter combat, but also a supreme degree of physical fitness, outstanding tactical judgement, and the ability to endure extreme mental and physical torture. Once the potential recruit had been accepted, only then did the real hardships begin.
Night Guard soldiers were expected to undergo enhancement.
Tiendi was stripped down to her breeches and vest top in a stone-tiled chamber at the lowest level of the Citadel. She was due to become the first female Night Guard to be ordained for years – there were simply not that many women in the army who could physically reach the required levels. Having risen to sergeant within six years, Tiendi was long overdue for this promotion: during four campaigns on the southern islands, she’d proved extremely proficient with the sword, diligent out in the field, and had saved the lives of no small number of her comrades. And she was only twenty-seven. She would retain her rank, although it was meaningless since, with the exception of Brynd, all Night Guard were considered equal.
Blavat, the cultist who had accompanied the soldiers from Villja-mur, was busy working in a corner of the room with two or three of the standard relics she needed for the procedure. Brynd had seen it performed so often now – had seen it done to himself, of course – but he was certainly not a cultist, and did not understand how the devices worked. He had brought with him a few vials of the precious fluids for the necessary injections.
The impending ritual followed an antiquated tradition, involving a stylized liaison between cultists from the Order of the Dawnir and the senior military official, which went back several hundred years. It went back so far, in fact, that no one really knew how it had all started, but it had succeeded in binding the Empire to one of the major cultist orders.
Tiendi was beckoned to lie down on a thick stone table positioned in the centre of the room, while all her comrades-to-be stood around her in a circle, watching. A few cressets burned steadily, casting enough light on the procedure, but not so much as to make the scene seem eerier than it should have been. She was strapped down, the muscles of her pale, lean body tensing, and her chin-length blonde hair bunched up to one side.
Blavat’s gaze was utterly focused as she assembled her bits of equipment around the new recruit, cautiously adjusting some settings, deciphering the technology. Two metal plates were attached to Tiendi’s forehead, whilst a brass syringe was poised just above the base of her neck. Blavat deftly flicked the switch on a cylinder resting behind Tiendi’s head.
Then she was injected.
Tiendi screamed and clenched her fists, saliva appearing in a thin line across her cheek. Her body flared into a network of purple, as if a luminous web clung to her skin, forcing a surreal display of veins and arteries. The soldier tried to reach up to her face, but her arms were restricted by the straps, biceps bulging under the strain, and all the time Blavat stared nonchalantly at the spasming body of the young woman before her. Brynd watched with concern – this was not always a procedure without casualties.
Once Tiendi’s screams died away, once her throes had diminished, she was unbound. She rolled off the table, collapsed sweating onto the ground and begun hugging her own body, scrunching up her eyes to hold in the tears. Gradually, the trauma wore off, and she began to gape around the room as if discovering the view for the first time.
Brynd knew what was happening, that she was becoming accustomed to the enhanced vision, more perceptive of details in both shadow and highlight, of colours at the limits of the spectrum – seeing the entire world so much more clearly.
He smiled as the rest of the Night Guard swarmed around Tiendi, patting her on the back and genially welcoming her into their elite brigade.
TWENTY-TWO
Randur slapped down a mug on the table next to the settee. Munio woke and immediately gaped at the flames. They were roaring away in
the fireplace, the spare logs neatly stacked to one side, even the mantel thoroughly cleaned. Randur had transformed this part of the manse into something almost habitable.
‘Ah,’ Randur remarked. ‘I see the princess awakes from her slumber.’
‘The hell hour is this?’
‘Late afternoon, nearly time for dinner.’
Munio pushed himself to test his feet, swaying gently as he came to terms with the new day.
‘Is that baking bread I can smell?’
‘Yep.’ Munio probably couldn’t remember the last time he had smelled such a heavenly aroma. To be honest, neither could Randur.
Munio leant over to pick up his mug of tea from the side table. ‘This will not do. The day must begin with something a little stronger.’
‘You’re a total pisshead – and that’s why your life’s such a mess.’
Randur shuffled through into the kitchen, where he found Eir intent on working through some Vitassi moves with a ladle. He humoured her, as they clattered around the room.
‘No, no,’ Munio called out to her from the doorway. ‘Eir, your left foot is all over the place.’
She whispered something to Randur, then made to leave the room.
‘Don’t go on my account,’ Munio yelled after her.
‘I’m just going for a walk with my sister. You two need to catch up.’
‘Is she around somewhere – Rika?’ Munio struggled to contain his eagerness.
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