Stands a Shadow (14 page)

A far thunderstorm was trailing curtains of rain across the far end of the isthmus and the crust of hills that stretched away on either side of it: the very tip of the southern continent, and the land of Pathia, now ten years fallen to Mann. His hair blew about in the breeze as birds wheeled high and aimless in the sky above.

He ducked as a shot whined off the stonework near to him. Bahn turned to look at where it had struck, and saw Halahan standing there with the foot of his bad leg propped up on the rubble of the broken battlement, a hand on his raised knee, his other holding the clay pipe in the corner of his mouth, coolly studying a breath of dust drifting from the stonework next to his boot.

The Nathalese veteran leaned and spat on the chalky bullet-strike as though putting out a flame, then spoke to Bahn without turning to him. ‘Thinking of some poke?’

Bahn blinked, not understanding his meaning.

‘You seemed lost, a moment ago. I wondered if you were thinking of some lass.’

Bahn rose from his crouch and brushed his fingers through his hair and fixed his helm back on his head. He was careful all the while to remain behind the protection of the battlements. ‘You walk quieter than a mountain lion,’ he replied to the Nathalese man, before he realized what he was saying.

Halahan was gracious enough not to glance down at the hinged metal support that wrapped a good portion of his leg, but instead simply met his gaze. A dark humour played in the backs of his eyes, which shone with the dazzling dark blue of setting skies. Bahn had always liked the Nathalese commander of the Greyjacket brigade, had always respected his no-nonsense manner, without guile or self-importance – unlike so many of the other officers he knew within the army.

The colonel had been a priest once, or so he’d heard, though it was hard to see anything of the religious man about him now. Instead there was something windburned about his character, and something lawless.

‘I was thinking of that fleet in Q’os,’ Bahn confessed. ‘I was wondering if it would be setting forth soon, and if so, for where.’

‘You were wondering if it would be coming here.’

‘Of course. Aren’t you?’

Halahan seemed to laugh without showing it anywhere but in his eyes.

‘Is the old man back yet?’ he asked him.

Ah
, thought Bahn.

‘No. And the council are flapping my ears off about it.’

‘I can imagine. It looks bad on them when the Lord Protector goes off by himself asking for League reinforcements.’

‘You think that’s what he’s doing there?’

‘Certainly. Amongst other things. What else can he do? The council would rather bury their heads in the sand. By the sounds of it they’re just hoping the Mannians invade Minos rather than here.’

Bahn offered a shrug, but the motion was lost beneath the shoulder-guard of his armour. ‘Maybe they’re right, then. Minos could be as much a target. They’re being hard hit as we speak.’

‘Aye, I’ve been following the reports. Imperial Diplomats running amok in Al-Minos. The Second Fleet engaged in a battle with sizeable enemy formations.’ Halahan sounded as though he didn’t believe any of it. ‘And the Third Fleet dispatched from our waters to help, it’s so bad. Handy that. If you wanted to slip an invasion fleet down here from Lagos unmolested.’

Halahan puffed on his pipe as the wind jostled his long grey hair about his face. It did not seem as though he was discussing the matter of their possible extinction here. Bahn had often wondered about these men who lived through war as though it were an ordinary life to them. How they were able to switch off their imaginations from the worst of fates that could befall them. How they glided through their lives whether in peace or in battle.

He was envious of anyone who exhibited such traits. Bahn never seemed to stop being frightened of the future and the war. And he certainly didn’t glide through his life; he trod furtively with his attention darting left and right, always concerned at making a false step or saying the wrong thing. Perhaps he should develop a taste for drinking more, like so many of his fellow officers. Or for the hazii weed, like Halahan always seemed to be smoking. Even now he could smell it in the odd twist of the wind.

A flight of skyships was circling over the city, far above the merchant balloons tethered to their towers, higher even than the wheeling birds. Bahn had dreamed the other night that he and his family had been aboard one of those magnificent flying vessels, heading towards the rising sun in search of sanctuary.

‘You know, don’t you, that every one of them has a private ship moored in the western harbour. Fast sloops with their crews on standby, in case the Shield ever falls.’

Bahn nodded absently. He listened to the cuff of the wind against his ears.

‘Still,’ he spoke at last, and his voice sounded fragile, ready to break. ‘The feint could be here, don’t you think? Minos could be their real target.’

Halahan studied him for a time, the humour gone from his eyes.

The man placed a hand on Bahn’s shoulder.

‘Better get your head straight, son,’ Halahan told him softly. ‘They’re coming for us all right.’

CHAPTER NINE

In the Company of Rats

The ship sped along on its south-easterly course with its sails straining fat with wind and its prow clipping through the rise and fall of the swells. Ché stood by the rail with the salty spray hissing past the hull, the vessel thrumming beneath him as it bore them across the Heart of the World.

To others, he looked as though he was merely taking in the sea air on another day on their journey east. For Ché, it was a form of meditation standing like this, his mind focused on the flow of his breathing and the senses of his body. It was a pleasure to be this way, so much so that a slight unconscious smile curled the corners of his mouth.

He didn’t dare do any more than this. Not here, not in the presence of so many of his peers. To squat down now on the main deck in the customary position of a Daoist monk, or a R
ō
shun for that matter – kneeling with spine erect, thoughtless and still – would be an open challenge to them all. Remarks would be made. Something would be said to him by one of the Monbarri, threats veiled behind skilful questions of double meaning.

His feet rocking to the gentle swaying of the ship, Ché could see the wheelhouse rising high before him in the mid-section of the ship, a legion of signal flags fluttering from the top of it. Behind him, at the stern of the vessel, the quarterdeck rose three storeys tall, where the stately cabins of the Holy Matriarch were located, along with those of her two generals. Sasheen was up there now, on the uppermost deck, taking in the sea air like Ché himself, though she was seated in a deep wicker chair and wrapped in a heavy fur cloak against the bite of the wind, surrounded by white screens to shield her position. Between the screens, Archgeneral Sparus and young Romano could be glimpsed sitting on either side of her, engaged in conversation and attended by slaves. The Matriarch wasn’t looking at them as they spoke. Sasheen was watching the skyship that was passing overhead, one of their birds-of-war guarding the invasion fleet; a scattering of vessels that stretched ahead and behind as far as the eye could see.

He sensed rather than heard the approach of someone behind him.

‘Don’t dwell on it,’ came the quiet voice of a man. ‘It’s always much worse than you can imagine anyway.’

Ché felt a moment’s irritation, and turned his head to see Guan standing there, the young man of the Mortarus sect who had come aboard with his sister as part of Sasheen’s travelling entourage. The priest stood dwarfed by the ship’s great masts and sails that diminished half the sky.

‘And what’s that?’ Ché enquired drily.

‘The invasion. You’ve never been to war, have you?’

Ché simply shook his head.

‘I was there with my sister, the last time we invaded the Free Ports. It wasn’t a pretty sight.’

‘You were in Coros? You hardly look old enough.’

‘No. We hardly were. Our father was the commander of the fifty-fifth Lights. Bringing us along was his idea of an
education
. And we learned, all right. We learned what a warhead could do to the integrity of his skull.’

His father, Ché reflected. It was rare for a priest to speak of a father; to even know who the man was.

He saw that Guan was waiting for him to ask more, so instead he said nothing. He wished only to be left alone.

It was Guan who broke the silence. ‘You don’t know what I’m saying, do you?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘Then you’re not alone. The people on this ship seem to have no idea of what they’re getting into either. These aren’t some northern tribesmen that we plan to invade here. Or an army of Lagosian insurgents, for that matter. These are Khosians, with the finest chartassa in all the Free Ports. They’ve fought off more invasions than most of the southern nations combined.’

Ché was in no mood for horror stories of war today. The man simply wished to show off, to notch himself a little higher than Ché.

‘I see. A people to be feared.’

Guan stared hard at Ché, and Ché stared out to sea.

‘I’m wondering if you’ve balled anything lately, Ché? You seem a little uptight.’ And Guan smiled suddenly, as though that would make it fine to say these things to him. ‘Or perhaps you’re getting plenty enough from the Matriarch herself?’

Ché allowed a scowl to show in his eyes.

‘You’re either a fool or a lunatic, Guan. I think your Mortarus training leads you too close to a worship of death.’

Guan shrugged without care. A fool, then, Ché decided. ‘I see you don’t deny it.’

Ché turned away from the man, refusing to be drawn into this conversation. He wondered once more if Guan and his sister were not in fact Regulators in disguise, and if Guan was merely playing at being a careless fool. Indeed, Ché had been surprised at this man’s insistence in befriending him, had wondered if perhaps he had been tasked with watching Ché during the long voyage to Khos.

Guan sighed as though ridding himself of frustration. ‘Have you eaten yet?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Later, then. We can share a drink perhaps, and find ourselves another game of cards. It’s your turn to lose, as I recall.’

‘Perhaps,’ responded Ché.

He waited until he heard the man walking away, then gradually relaxed again.

It was often this way with his peers. Even a few moments of simple chatter could seem like a squabble over spilled milk. How could it not be? They had been raised knowing three things above all else in life: their own self-importance, their freedom to pursue every desire, and their voracious need to defeat each other. Always they would look for ways to better him, to manipulate him; it grew tiresome after a while, when all he wanted was some honest companionship. It made him as hostile as they were.

The price, of course, was one of alienation, but Ché had found the alternative to be even worse: alienation from his true self. He felt lost when he was with these people for too long, weakened in his own struggling convictions.

Guan was wrong about one thing. The men and women on board were hardly ignorant of what they were facing. He could feel it all around him, the tension in the air, the quietness.

Ché’s gaze roamed up to look at the Matriarch again, the woman still listening to the talk of her two generals. Romano was a dangerous one to bring on this expedition. The young general was the greatest contender to Sasheen’s throne; hence, Ché suspected, she had elected to suffer his presence during the campaign, fearing what troubles he might foment during her absence from the capital. But he was to be feared here too, for with him had come his contribution to the invasion force, his own private military company of sixteen thousand men. If it came to it, they would be loyal to their paymasters, Romano and his family, before even the Holy Matriarch herself.

Such a dynamic could only provoke tensions on a long voyage such as this one. Sasheen and Romano despised each other at the best of times, even when they conversed with seeming civility. Ché wondered how long it would be before they were at each other’s throats, and before he himself was dragged into it.

He tried to breathe all the nonsense from his head and return to the peaceful state of before. It was no good. His calm mood had been spoilt.

Ché made his way through the sailors and marines and priests on the weatherdeck and headed for the forward hatchway. On his way he passed a squad of Acolytes training naked in the sunshine, serious young men and women much the same age as himself, with a handful of older veterans amongst them. They were taking turns sparring with each other, or limbering their muscles while they waited their turn.

‘Watch it,’ one of them snapped as he backed into Ché.

For an instant, Ché wanted to grab his arm and break it.

‘Eat shit,’ he snapped back at him without breaking step.

Before Ché descended the steps he noticed Sasheen eyeing him from her vantage above. She raised a flask of wine in a toast, and he bobbed his head at her, and quickly descended.

Blackness smothered Ash for every day and night he lay down there in the bilge of the ship, this fat rolling transport where he’d stowed himself aboard as the fleet had left Q’os harbour. Blackness, and a closeness of air so foul it was hardly fit to inhale, and a battering of noise never-ending: the ballast of sand and loose gravel shifting against the hull; the creaks and bangs of the hull; the splashes of the rats in the darkness – all of it conspired to unhinge him.