Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (48 page)

Silacia

Situated in the northeast of Rimoni, the mountainous kingdom of Silacia, though racially akin to the Rimoni, was a thorn in the Rimoni Empire’s foot throughout its existence. Ruled by criminal dynasties for as long as memory recalls, Silacia is still a byword for treachery. The familioso of Silacia rule through terror as effectively as any mage-lord.

M
ARCUS
B
ENSIUS
, B
RES
, 893

Silacia never sleeps. Nor should you.

P
ROVERB

Sagostabad, Kesh, Antiopia
Shawwal (Octen) 928
4
^th
month of the Moontide

Ramon Sensini peered about, his eyes jaded, as a scouting detachment of the Tenth Maniple of Pallacios XIII trudged into yet another devastated village, scattering the ever-present crows. The horizon in every direction was flat, the earth brown and bare of all but for a clutch of spindly khetri trees. Most of the houses had been torched, for no apparent reason. The well was dry. In the distance, the dust of the rest of the legion could be faintly discerned. The air was still and silent and the sun was beating down pitilessly. It was the fourth week of the march, Bassaz was well behind them, and Medishar somewhere north of a crossroads they’d passed the day before. So far they’d not seen a single enemy soldier, only a
thin trickle of hopeless and helpless refugees, stumbling from their path.

Pallacios XIII marched in the rearguard of Echor’s army, slogging through other men’s dust and leavings. The trail of destruction was worsening: burned-out buildings and charred fields, butchered beasts, and everywhere they went, corpses piled beside the road. Refugees stared at them with hollowed-out bellies and empty eyes as they passed.

Of the twenty-one legions assigned to Duke Echor’s wing, Pallacios XIII was the only Rondian one. Eight legions were from his home duchy of Argundy, dour spade-bearded men fiercely loyal to their duke. The next biggest contingent were from Estellayne, swarthy men with olive skin and fiery tempers akin to the Rimoni. There was little love between the Argundians and the Estella, who shared a border. The rest were two each from Noros and Bricia and one from Andressea. The legions of the vassal states were all well-drilled, but Pallacios XIII was not the only punishment legion from the central Empire; Andressea VI was too. Echor’s army had no Kirkegarde; few of the intelligent hulkas to ease the logistics, and no khurne cavalry. There were no winged constructs to provide aerial support either – all of those had ended up with Kaltus Korion’s army. Apparently the duke was furious, but when he had tried to demand some, he had been simply ignored by Korion.

The Crusade had shed any remaining glamour on the march eastwards. The Thirteenth were about two days behind the main body of the army, and the trail of destruction left no room for any false illusions about the romance of war. The magi began to be truly inculcated into the grim business of the military. Ramon was compelled to lop off the hand of a ranker for theft from another soldier, though far worse crimes against the natives went unpunished. He became expert at finding hidden food stores, though keeping his maniple’s wagons full meant leaving Keshi villages to starve. He loathed the headlong march more deeply with every day, but still they went on.

Ramon spent most of his days dealing with constant messages,
with his tribune, Storn, routing and rerouting consignments both legitimate and illegal across the continent. Pallacios XIII had quietly taken over much of the opium supply and as they hoarded the drug among the supply wagons, they watched the prices rise. New promissory notes were issued daily, and Ramon soon began to make his monthly payments to investors with those same notes, hoarding the gold so that the legionaries were still paid in hard coinage. He received so many requests from would-be investors, greedy tribunes begging for more, that he had to stagger entry. It was beginning to look like every logistical tribune in the army was corrupt – but Ramon was also aware that many innocents were being sucked into his scheme. He paid in gold to those he thought decent men, and gave his notes to the rest. And even the spices he had bought up and sent west were escalating in price, keeping his operation nominally profitable.

By the end of Septinon, Pallacios XIII had managed to purchase twenty hulkas off other legions to transport the gold and the poppy in their baggage train – not that Duprey had noticed. The other tribunes had begun coming to Storn for loans to up their investment. On paper, Ramon and Storn were already worth more than one hundred thousand gilden of promised money.

Keeping it quiet was the hard part, though money helped. Gold siphoned from the pay-wagons kept those close to the action quiet, and having control of the supplies meant they could bribe key contacts into silence. The threat of Silacian familioso did the rest, even here, and the one man who did threaten to talk stopped his threats after Kip broke his jaw.

But Pater-Retiari was becoming impatient: the flood of opium he’d been expecting was not yet forthcoming, and he started sending messengers with demands, familioso thugs. Ramon gave them gold, always less than they wanted. Right now, Pater-Retiari did not dare threaten him or his mother. He was becoming, as he had hoped, too vital to displease.

Ramon had always been told the biggest danger with dealing in the poppy was becoming enslaved to it yourself, but he’d never
touched it, not once in his life, and no matter the temptations, his personal discipline held. He didn’t use the drug, and he made sure Storn and his aides didn’t either.

I’m doing this for a reason,
he reminded himself daily.
One day I’m going to bring down an avalanche of shit on both my ‘fathers’. Then I can buy Mama’s freedom and we’ll be out of this at last.

A call brought Ramon’s attention back to the present: one of the Tenth Maniple scouts had come trotting in, his horse lathered about the mouth and gasping. Ramon reined in his own mount and waited; his beast could do with a rest too. The scout, Coll, was a rough-faced man with lank hair about a bald crown. His head was draped in cloth like a native Keshi, but his cheeks were still as red as his cloak. ‘Afternoon, Magister Ramon,’ he said tiredly. ‘Any idea how far ahead the legate is?’

Ramon tossed the man the flask of water he’d recently refilled, and Coll accepted gratefully, as Ramon reported, ‘Knuckles is up with the First. A mile, maybe more. Have you found something?’

Coll grinned; ‘Knuckles’ was Duprey’s nickname in the ranks. ‘Aye. An Inquisitor Fist, herding around forty refugees, all women and children. No men, but there’s a whole mess of crows squabbling over something down a gully, and more jackals there than I’ve seen in one place before.’ He looked vaguely sickened. ‘I couldn’t get close.’

Ramon took his flask back and swallowed a mouthful himself. ‘It’s not wise to mess with Inquisitors,’ he observed.

Coll looked away. ‘That’s sure’n right, lad.’

The groups of Inquisitors roaming the countryside were not attached to any legion; they had apparently been given a mandate by the Church to ‘seek out heresy’ – any prisoners or large group of refugees or civilians were supposed to be reported to the nearest Inquisitor Fist, but Ramon had noticed that Duprey was particularly slack in doing so. Ugly rumours abounded: that those sent to the Inquisitors were not to be found afterwards, but such accusations were always whispered. No one had ever stood up and asked the questions out loud.

It was yet another thing, eating away at them all. The march was
taking its toll on Pallacios XIII’s fifteen magi – or the new recruits, anyway; Duprey and Marle were experienced veterans with a job to do, and were all business. Baltus Prenton and Lanna Jureigh also appeared oblivious to the atrocities they encountered, like the bodies of two mutilated girls the scouts found on the outskirts of Bassaz, or the dead family near a watering spot outside a nameless village near the Medishar crossroads, all with cut throats apart from the father, who’d pushed a knife into his own heart. Or the twelve-year-old boy they’d had to hang after he’d managed to kill the ranker trying to rape him. Kip also displayed a practical stolidity in the face of horror, as if all this was familiar to him. The Schlessen were warlike people, most of their aggression directed towards each other, so perhaps this was truly nothing to him.

The Andressans grew more insular and pricklish, and Coulder and Fenn more obsessive in their gambling, shutting reality away. Seth Korion was perpetually throwing up, and the chaplain, Frand, was barely less sensitive, his voice always at the edge of breaking as he prayed each morning over the maniple standards. Renn Bondeau seemed to deliberately court insensitivity, staring at each body, touching it, sniffing it, as if to make himself accustomed. Ramon found himself, if not exactly mimicking Bondeau’s fixed purpose, at least striving for indifference. It wasn’t easy.

The one who struggled most was Severine Tiseme. She’d become so highly strung that none of the men would bed her any more, and each morning Lanna Jureigh had to coax her from her tent, calming her down after nightmares of fear and blood. During the day she became increasingly frivolous and girlish, as if reverting to childhood.

Ramon offered his flask to Coll again, and when he handed it back, they looked at each other meaningfully. ‘Forget what you saw,’ Ramon told the scout. ‘You saw nothing, right.’

The scout sighed heavily. ‘Right you are, lad.’

The matter would have rested there, if a windskiff had not scudded across the skies at that moment. The single figure at the tiller wasn’t Baltus Prenton; the pilot’s robes were pale blue and her brown curly hair flew like a banner.

Ramon stared after Severine, and then Duprey’s voice rattled in his mind.

He opened his eyes and saw Coll looking at him superstitiously. Ordinary men always found the way magi communicated unnerving. ‘You all right, Magister?’

‘I’m fine, Coll. Stay here and wait for Knuckles.’ He jabbed a finger towards the skiff, already receding into the middle distance. ‘I’ve got to go after Her Ladyship.’ He heard the sound of hooves pounding back from the east, then Kip thundered through the middle of the wrecked village, hurtling after the now-distant skiff. He looked excited to be doing something other than marching. Ramon spurred Lu and took off after him.

It took them ten minutes to find the skiff, and they immediately wished they hadn’t. Severine was standing alone, facing ten armoured magi, each sporting the Sacred Heart on their tabards: an Inquisition Fist. Most were men, but there were women too. None were young, but all had the timeless youth of the pure-blooded. They were mounted on khurnes, the horns gleaming in the sun as they sat in a perfectly straight line behind their commander, who was listening silently as Severine railed at him.

Wonderful
, Kip snorted, then his amusement died as he peered past the Fist Acolytes to where some forty Keshi refugees waited, their faces anxious. Most of them were female, but there were a handful of old men, and they all cowered silently under the spears of a detachment of soldiers. Ramon felt his throat tighten.
Sol et Lune, this is not good.
There was nothing he needed less than Inquisitorial attention.

He raised a placatory hand as he trotted towards the group. Two Acolytes immediately barred his path, their khurnes stepping before him and lowering horns. ‘Is this harpy yours?’ one asked, a cold-eyed man with a perfectly formed square-jawed face, immaculate hair and a duelling scar worn like a trophy.

‘We are from Pallacios Thirteen,’ Ramon replied steadily. ‘Mistress Tiseme is our farseer.’

‘She should turn her eyes elsewhere,’ the other Acolyte, a grey-haired woman with a smooth face, remarked irritably. ‘Before we pluck them out.’

Severine’s flow of invective faltered when she saw Ramon. ‘Get Duprey,’ she called.

‘He’s on his way.’ Ramon saluted the Fist Commandant. ‘Sir, is there a problem?’

‘Is there a problem?’ Severine echoed sarcastically. ‘These butchers are the problem.’ Her face had a nauseated expression. She stabbed a finger at the Fist Commandant. ‘I know what you’ve done.’

The Inquisitor looked Ramon up and down. ‘You are?’ His voice was chillingly deep.

‘Sensini, Tenth Maniple, Pallacios Thirteen.’

The Acolytes in front of them snorted and he saw them snickering amongst themselves. ‘
The tenth,
’ the Fist Commandant said with heavy contempt. ‘You are not welcome here. Go back to your march.’

Ramon looked at Kip. The Fist Commandant outranked them utterly, but they were answerable only to Duprey. ‘Legate Duprey ordered me here, Inquisitor,’ Ramon replied as steadily as he could. ‘We’re obliged to await him.’

The Inquisitor’s stony face creased with displeasure. ‘Very well.’ He glanced sideways to the line of Acolytes, and then his eyes went beyond, to a tall robed figure who had emerged from one of the huts. A bald man, skeletally gaunt, with piercing eyes, and a livid brand burned into his forehead: the Lantric character
Delta
. There was something utterly desolate in the man’s eyes. When he realised he was being watched, he flinched and shrank back into the hut.

Who in Hel was that?

Then he saw Severine’s face: she’d seen the man and gone white. She hurried towards him. ‘Where’s Duprey?’ she demanded anxiously. ‘How far away?’

‘You’re the farseer,’ Kip growled unsympathetically.

Ramon felt much the same – she was a spoilt little brat, the sort he’d grown up loathing – but there was something going on here and he’d seen in his own land the result of what happened when Inquisitors were given a totally free hand.