by Col Buchanan
‘You think the chartassa alone can save us,’ interrupted Chonas. ‘That is what you mean, is it not? The famous Khosian chartassa, feared and respected by our many enemies. The Giant Killer, the Pathians called it. Defeat, the Imperials knew it as in Coros.’ Chonas shook his head sadly. ‘No, Marsalas. It is you who are mistaken. I may be a tired old politician. Our fighting esprit may be strong. But still the numbers cannot be washed away by some vainglorious gesture of defiance. Yes. The chartassa will make for a fearsome sight on the battlefield. And then they will die, all of them. And Khos will be lost to us for good.’
‘What choice do we have?’ snapped Creed. ‘Let them rape and enslave every town in Khos while we hunker behind the city walls? Is that what you would have us do?’
‘No, Marsalas. If we had any viable alternatives, it is not what I would have us do. But it is the terrible situation we find ourselves facing. Even now, the Imperial Fourth Army masses on the Pathian side of the Shield for a major attack on the walls. Listen to their guns! Listen! Have you heard such a thunder since the first years of the siege? They will be coming at the walls with everything they have now, and they will not cease this time – while you, you would take half our men into the field on some reckless venture in suicide.’
‘You will have General Tanserine, one of the finest tacticians in all the Free Ports, here to lead the defences. And with enough men to hold until our return.’
‘And what if you do not return?’
‘Then you must hold them off until more Volunteers can arrive from the League.’
‘And how will we do that without the reserves you are taking with you? No. We make our stand here in Bar-Khos. What we can spare, we will use to fortify and hold Tume. We will dig in and await aid.’
Creed flexed his jaw. ‘If we dig in, we may all be dead before reinforcements have time even to arrive. If we fight them, we can at least buy ourselves some time. Sweet Mercy, man! The Matriarch herself is here: don’t you realize what an opportunity that is for us?’
Chonas bowed his head as though he was no longer listening. On cue, a man stepped from the gathering of Michinè and approached the desk. He wore the stiff bleached garments of a city professional.
‘General Creed,’ the man announced. ‘If I may draw your attention to article forty-three of the Concordance: At all times, the defence of the Shield must be paramount when apportioning supplies to offensive or defensive operations.’
‘Who is this man?’
‘An advocate,’ explained Chonas. ‘We felt he might be able to shed some light on our differences, should any be remaining.’
‘An advocate?’
‘What the man is saying is this: we can refuse you blackpowder for those cannon of ours you wish to take into the field. It is written in the martial law.’
Creed was speechless for a moment. ‘You would let us meet them without guns?’
‘We are rather hoping, without cannon, you will not go at all.’
The First Minister looked at Creed from beneath his bushy brows. He leaned closer, and when he spoke, he did so quietly. ‘I know you, Marsalas. You have had enough of sitting in your chair behind the Shield doing nothing for all this time. You wish to have a proper crack at them, for all they have done to us, for the lives they have taken, for your own father who died fighting them abroad. You see this as a last chance to meet them in the open theatre of war and prevail. But it is a grand folly only. I implore you to see this now.’
General Creed sat back in his chair, disarmed by the truth at the core of the First Minister’s words.
He was not a person prone to self-doubt, but for an instant he entertained the notion that he was in fact wrong in all of this, and that Chonas was right, that he was leading them all to their downfall. Since hearing of the invasion a few hours earlier, and whilst everyone around him seemed on the verge of losing their heads, Creed instead had found himself thrilled by this sudden development in the war, this chance to make a fight of it.
The Michinè glared at him as he eyed each of them in turn.
It came to him that it wasn’t merely their fears that charged this sudden hostility towards him. He was the first Lord Protector in forty years to gain the full rights of his position under the terms of the Concordance – that century-old agreement forged between the Michinè rulers and their military commander. Now the scales had shifted without warning. With invaders on Khosian soil, Creed could do as he pleased with the army, never mind what the Michinè had to say on it. Predictably, these noble-borns were intolerant to such a turn of events, this sudden collective step down in the grand pecking order of power. And so here they were now, come to dispel such notions from him before he had a chance to exercise his new powers properly.
He thought of all the times they had restrained him, had stopped him from taking on the enemy face to face, more concerned with preserving the status quo than in breaking the siege. He looked to Chonas, the Michinè’s expression eager beneath the great overhangs of his brows.
Aye, the First Minister might be a good man. But when it came down to it, he was still one of them.
Creed rose slowly to his feet. He was larger than these men before him, not in height but in bulk, and in his own capacity for action.
‘I will not stand by and do nothing while good people are put to the sword. My orders stand. We march in the morning.’
He held a hand up to silence them all, and felt a brief moment of satisfaction as their mouths closed again as one. ‘Gollanse!’ he called out.
His ageing orderly shuffled past the group of Michinè, escorting a man who was also dressed in the clothes of a city professional. He had a leather satchel beneath his arm, and a pair of spectacles on his bland, sharp, clever face.
‘Ministers, this is my own advocate, Charson Fay. If you have any legal issues involving my orders then please address them to him. He will construct a case file so that we can all meet together in open session of court upon my return.’
The general closed the drawer with the gun and stepped around the desk. ‘Now, if you will excuse me. I have an army to prepare for the march. Good day to you all.’
Creed strode from the room with the murmur of their discontent like music in his ears.
‘Is it true?’ someone shouted at Bahn as he stepped through the gates of the Ministry of War into the crowd of people gathered there. Behind them, horns were blaring from the Stadium of Arms, calling the city’s soldiery to action; faint wails between the concussions of the distant guns. Every dog in the city seemed to be barking.
‘Have we been invaded, Bahn?’ came the voice again as he pushed through the crowd. He saw that it was Koolas, the war chattēro.
Bahn brushed past the man without comment, but Koolas matched his stride as he headed for the path that would lead him down from the Mount of Truth. The war chattēro was sweating even in the cool breeze that ran in from the sea, the man too heavy to make the hike to the summit easily. His great paunch bounced beneath his shirt at the pace Bahn set for them. Still, Koolas had energy enough to laugh incredulously as they walked, and to sweep the curls of his black hair from his face in strands wet enough for it to be raining.
‘It’s true, then!’
Bahn scowled at him but held his tongue. Koolas made his living by writing news on the war for the copy-houses of the city, and for the proclaimers on the wailing towers of the bazaars. He knew that within an hour the news would be spreading like wildfire throughout the city.
It hardly mattered, he supposed, as they came down off the hill onto the Avenue of Lies. The horns were announcing a full call to arms, and everyone could hear them. The mood in the streets already seemed close to panic. Citizens bawled at each other in their haste to be home or at their local tavernas. Mothers were plucking their children off the streets. All about, he could see Red Guards hurrying towards the Stadium of Arms, and old retired veterans, the Molari, heading for the stadium too, bearing dusty shields and their long chartas bundled in o
iled canvases.
‘Come on, now,’ Koolas said to him amicably enough. ‘They already know we’re in trouble. All I’m after are some details so their imaginations won’t run wild on them. What are we up against here? Is it a raid or a full invasion?’
Bahn held up a hand to wave down a passing rickshaw. The bearer sped past him without stopping, the rickshaw empty of passengers. He swore under his breath as he looked around for another, finally managing to get one to stop for him.
‘Olson Avenue,’ he told the bearer quickly, and just before he climbed into the seat he made the mistake of glancing back at Koolas just once.
‘Fool’s balls,’ Koolas exclaimed as he caught the look in Bahn’s eyes. ‘Is it that bad?’ He sounded appalled, and for a moment Bahn was reminded that Koolas was more than a simple chattēro after a story, that he was Khosian too, born and raised in the city, with his own friends and family to worry over.
Bahn sagged within his armour. ‘One moment,’ he said to the rickshaw bearer, and stepped closer to Koolas.
‘It’s an invasion, that’s all we know right now.’
‘How many? Which army?’
‘Reports indicate it’s the Sixth Army from Lagos, with auxiliaries from Q’os.’
The man drew himself straighter. ‘How many?’ he insisted.
Bahn turned as though to walk away, but paused. ‘All I can say is that we’re calling up every man we can. We’re emptying the jails and stockades of veterans. Even the Eyes.’
‘What? Those murderers and lunatics?’
‘Any that can still carry a shield, aye.’
‘And the council, what do they make of it? I just saw a delegation go inside the Ministry.’
‘Does it matter? We’ve been invaded. It’s out of their hands now.’
Koolas rubbed his face ruefully. ‘Aye. And I’m sure Creed made that more than clear to them. There’s a man with a chip on his shoulder if ever I saw one.’
Bahn scowled, and left before the chattēro could ask anything more of him. He climbed into the rickshaw, and nodded to Koolas as the bearer pulled him past.
He offered the bearer an extra five coppers to make a faster pace of it, and sat back and tried to calm himself as the rickshaw wove between the bustle and traffic of the streets.
In the far north of the city, in a small avenue lined with cherry trees turned bronze by autumn, Bahn climbed down with a thanks to the bearer and stepped into the house that had been his family home for seven years now. The rooms were cool inside, everything still. A smell of incense still hung in the air from their small shrine to Miri, the Great Disciple who had brought the Dao and the Great Fool’s teachings to the Midèrēs.
His son Juno would be at the schoolhouse today. Upstairs, he heard his infant daughter begin to cry.
Bahn found Marlee in the backyard, turning the soil in their small vegetable patch as though oblivious to the distant horns, yet her movements were quick and frustrated.
‘Hey,’ he said to his wife as he slid his arms around her waist from behind. Marlee straightened against him, her body tense. ‘Can’t you hear her?’ he asked.
‘Of course I can hear her. She’s teething again.’
‘Need anything?’
‘No, we still have some mother’s oil left. I daren’t give her any more, though.’ Marlee turned around and looked up at him. Her smile faltered. ‘What is it, Bahn? Why the alarms?’
He heard the sigh escape his lips. ‘I haven’t long. I should be at the stadium right now helping with the preparations.’
‘Preparations?’
He squeezed her arm and could not speak.
‘Oh, Bahn,’ she said, and her eyes shone moist. ‘They’ve landed here?’
He nodded stiffly.
Ariale wailed even louder from inside the house. Neither of them could find any words to say. Marlee looked to her feet and took a deep breath of air, then looked up again. ‘I’ll go and settle her,’ she said quickly. ‘Then you can tell me how bad it really is.’
He reached out to stop his wife.
‘I’ll go,’ he said with a smile of sadness, and left to settle his daughter.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Enlistment
She had been a child – perhaps four years of age – when her mother had died giving birth to her youngest sister, Annalese. So young in fact that she could hardly recall the experience now, whether it had been day or night, summer of winter, quick or slow; nor even who had been there, and who had not.
Only the few moments before the end did Curl truly remember, and those moments were so fresh in her still that to recall them brought a flush of emotion from her beating heart.
Her mother, pale as moonlight, wasted and bloody on the birthing bed with her gaze fixed distantly on the ceiling above. The dark curls of her hair plastered around the sheen of her complexion. Her chest barely rising as she fought to breath, a faint rhythm growing fainter. Her nipples, dark and hard on stretch-marked breasts made plump with milk, the wooden charm hanging between them, a dolphin, shaped from unseasoned jupe. The newborn, screeching in the room beyond the open doorway.
In the end, her mother had seemed hardly aware at all as Curl gripped her hand and shed her tears over her prone, draining body. Just once their eyes had locked. For a moment, her mother had looked upon her daughter with a blink of recognition. She had gripped Curl’s small hand until it burned with pain, and had glared at her as though trying to impart something of meaning in her last moments on this world.
Make the most of this life, my daughter, her eyes had seemed to say to Curl in the years to come. Follow no path but your own!
And then she had passed into sleep, and into death, and into the ground.
The years after that were dim too in Curl’s memory, as though some shroud of forgetfulness had covered her world. Only glimpses remained.
Her father, silent and spiteful, no longer the man he once had been, losing himself in his work as the local physician. A house without joy or happiness or laughter. Foot-creaks on floorboards; everyone treading lightly. And beyond the confines of their family grief, soldiers passing through the village; priests of Mann shouting sermons, decrying the old faith; rumours of war and rebellion like thunder in the distance.
At thirteen, her aunt and younger sisters celebrated Curl’s coming of age.
It was her aunt, whispery and wise and subtly beautiful, who had explained to Curl the budding of the moon’s cycles within her body, who had taught them all how they would some day become women. On that night of celebration, the woman had made a gift to Curl of a simple lump of wood. It was a knot from a fallen willow, she had explained.
‘Carve it tonight,’ she said, ‘when you are alone. Finish it before you sleep.’
‘What will I carve?’ Curl had asked in wonder.
‘Whatever you like, sister’s-daughter. Whatever brings warmth to your heart.’
When the others went up to bed, she sat on the deep rug in front of the hearthfire, a little drunk on the apple cider she had been allowed to sample for the first time, and with her father’s smallest carving knife and polishing stone, began to carve the piece of wood in whatever way seemed most appropriate. Hours passed fleeting; the fire dwindled until it was only ashes glimmering with the memory of heat.
She awoke where she had fallen asleep before the hearth. It was still night. Her aunt was lifting her into her arms. The woman had wrapped a blanket about her and was carrying her up to bed. Curl’s two sisters slept soundly in the other bunk.
‘What have you carved?’ her aunt whispered as she placed Curl beneath the blankets. Curl opened her hand to show her.
In her palm lay a simple figurine the size of her thumb, a woman of plump, fulsome curves. There were few discernable details in the carving, merely the vague contours of shape. The breasts were big. The belly swollen.
Her aunt smiled. Kissed Curl’s forehead.
‘Your mother would have liked that,’ she told her. ‘It’s a fin
e ally indeed. Now make sure you wear it always, and may it look out for you when you most have need of aid.’
Curl slept, knowing she would remember this day for the rest of her years.
Later, during the coldest nights of deep winter, her father began to visit Curl while her younger sisters feigned sleep across the room.
And so their world changed once more.
For Curl it was a winter of bitter dreams and darkness, marking more loss in their lives, not least of all a father.
In the spring of the following year, they found him hanging by the neck from the rafters of the smokehouse. They stood there, all three of them, gazing up at his gently spinning body clad in his old and handsome wedding garments, his shoes freshly polished, his hair neatly combed across his balding head.
Against his chest hung the wooden dolphin charm once carved and worn by their mother.
The morning the soldiers came, Curl was out gathering sixbell in the fields that overlooked the town of Hart, where her aunt had taken them to live following their father’s demise.
She was hoping to ward off the chance of pregnancy with the little blue herb, for she was secretly seeing a man in the town by then, a married wagoneer more than twice her age. That morning she wandered far, ranging over the hills in her searching, spending quiet hours slowly filling her pocket.
It was only upon her return that she noticed the smoke filling the sky ahead like storm clouds. Hitching up her skirts, she hurried over the crest of the last hill and gasped in incomprehension at what lay before her.
The town was on fire. White specks of soldiers surrounded it, and they were moving inwards.
The screams of its people fluttered like bird cries on the wind.
Curl thought of her aunt and her sisters down there. She thought of their faces as the soldiers and flames approached them. She doubled over in anguish and thought she would be sick.
Curl hid all day in the grasses, listening to the sounds of the town’s folk dying even as she pressed her hands to her ears. At times the shame of her guilt became too much, and she would try to rise as though to go and help them. But each time she froze, unable to move any further. She wept until she could weep no more, and then she grew numb, and silent.
