TWENTY

Greiss lived up to his billing. He flattened his first opponent, a handy-looking Ohrek with a decent right hook but no stamina, and was presently about the business of dismantling his second when a master sergeant from the Pardus acting as referee sounded the clarion to end the round.

Sweating but puissant, Greiss retreated back to his corner where his seconds, Drake and Resk, waited with Munitorum-issue towels and a water-filled canteen. In the other corner, a battered-looking Slokan was tended to by a regimental medic. Culcis thought the man had more bruise than face at this point, but he was refusing to give in.

‘Stubborn, these Slokans,’ observed Hanmar.

‘Can you blame them? They’re hanging on to their last shred of honour. Would you be any different, corps… Would I?’

‘Our man has the beating of him,’ said Hanmar, so engrossed Culcis wasn’t certain he had really heard him.

The lieutenant’s gaze drifted around the stands while the fight was in recess. ‘A beast, wasn’t that what Rake said?’

A handful of officers had begun to leave, amongst them the milksop Brandreth, his blood a little thin for this sort of contest, as well as a few of the auxiliary captains, their interest waning at the same rate as their chances.

A throaty roar rippled through the crowd as the fight resumed and Greiss landed a telling blow, urging Hanmar to spring forwards in his seat.

Culcis furrowed his brow. ‘What happened to “barbaric”?’

Hanmar didn’t answer, too eager to witness Greiss pummelling the Slokan.

And he wasn’t the only one. The Agrian cohort had become more vocal ever since the contest began, their own challenger, a red-oak of a brute, having dispatched the Pardus’ best fighter with desultory ease. It wasn’t just a rush of blood brought on by staged violence; Culcis saw genuine belligerence striving to the fore. He was about to venture across the auditorium floor to let Regara know, when Fenk pushed past.

Culcis swore but kept his composure. ‘Leaving already? I thought you’d appreciate the blood sport, Fenk.’

‘Oh, I do,’ he said, pausing on his way.

‘Prefers to stab his enemies in the back, sir…’ murmured Hanmar, his eyes narrowed at the other lieutenant, who smiled back coldly at the veiled remark.

How the hells did he hear that? thought Culcis.

‘If called for, corpsman,’ Fenk replied, ‘but the truth is simpler. I prefer a fight with fewer rules and higher stakes, to know defeat means death. That’s a strong motivator, and a good measure of a man’s inner fortitude. The desire to live. This…’ he said, as if appraising the contest, ‘this is just spectacle with nothing more than pride at stake.’

With half an eye on the Agrians, Culcis wondered about that last part.

Greiss felled his opponent, the burly Slokan hitting the canvas like a shot auroch. The referee called it, and Fenk slipped away amidst the cheers and adulation. In his absence, Culcis looked for Regara, but the major had already left.

‘Something amiss, sir?’ asked Hanmar as the lieutenant rose from his seat anyway.

‘Nothing, corps. Too much wine at the feast,’ he lied. ‘I’m just headed to the latrines.’

Culcis watched the Agrians every step, hollering as they pushed their champion at the head of a growing mob and towards the ring.

It had been a long evening, and an even longer war.

So it was with no little relief that Regara retired to his billet, an old town house once owned by a scribe or notary, if the ink-stained furnishings were any judge. It was small, rustic but comfortable. Balis had found material for curtains and hung them expertly. There was even a large steel tub next to a hearth, a fire crepitating behind the grate.

Though he had tried, Regara could not put the clandestine meeting of the previous night from his mind. His thoughts strayed to it, to the faces of the men he had named afterwards. Not a one had refused, as he knew they wouldn’t. Requesting only volunteers had been a foolish gesture on his part, a notion of free will. In the Militarum, a man is free to serve and that is where his freedom ends.

‘Only in death…’ he said in a low, gruff voice and thought of Voke, whom, despite his faults, had still died with his honour intact. ‘Could any of us really ask for more, Balis?’

‘Death, my lord? Or duty?’

The valet had begun to run a bath, a pleasant steam rising off the surface of the water. Thin of frame and face, Balis had the plain features of a commoner but there was nobility in his bearing. An old man now, greyed around the edges, he still went about his service with alacrity and purpose.

‘Either, both… I’m not sure I discern the difference.’

Regara had stripped down to his uniform leggings and shirtsleeves, the rest of his attire slung upon the back of a chair for Balis to tidy and iron.

As the tub slowly filled, Regara reached for his gadulka. He held the thin neck of the instrument pinched lightly between the fingers of his left hand, its bowl nestled into his lap, the right hand taking up the bow.

‘Would you mind?’ he asked. ‘It will carry across the camp as you go about your duties.’

‘Far from it, sir,’ Balis replied with genuine enthusiasm. ‘You play beautifully.’

‘You’re my valet, not my flatterer, Balis.’

‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘I have little ear for music…’

Regara laughed and felt a lightness that had eluded him for weeks. Balis bowed, removing the major’s uniform from the chair and taking it with him as the lilting refrain of the gadulka played him out.

As Regara plied the bow across the strings he teased long, lingering notes into the evening air. A sorrowful legato to echo his mood.

‘I never tire of listening to you play…’

Though he looked up at his unannounced visitor, Regara did not stop. He maintained the pitch, the shifting of his fingers and the angle of the bow a careful choreography that drew out a gentle threnody for the dead.

Barbastian took a seat, and patiently waited for the musician to finish.

‘I am out of practice,’ said Regara gruffly, placing the instrument in its case.

‘It takes me back though, Vasquez. To the old days.’ He had a bottle and two goblets.

Regara raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that the ’55?’

‘Part of a commemorative batch, distilled for Slaydo’s interment as Warmaster. From Deviers’ private stock.’

‘Well, well, Filip…’ Regara took a proffered goblet and let Barbastian pour a measure. Regara inhaled deeply, relishing the flavour, and held up his drink for the toast.

‘Old friends…’ said Barbastian. His eyes flashed in the firelight. ‘Gratefully reunited.’

Regara nodded, a little reluctant but relenting. ‘Old friends…’

He took a pull, smacking his lips and sucking through his teeth. He blew out a breath.

‘That’s bloody magnificent.’

‘I thought you’d approve.’ Barbastian gestured to the bath. ‘I’m not disturbing you? The door was open.’

‘Not at all. Balis leaves it that way, he knows I like the night air.’ He gestured to the steaming tub. ‘I think he must use a flamer on the water, though. It’s bloody unbearable unless I let it stand for an hour first.’

Barbastian laughed. It was good sound. ‘A fine valet.’

‘He is,’ Regara agreed. ‘Been in my service for decades.’

‘A long time…’

‘And is that why you’re here, Filip, to recount old times?’

‘I don’t really know why I’m here, Vasquez,’ he said, getting up out of the chair and walking over to where Regara’s phonogram sat on his desk. ‘I have one of these…’ He slid his fingers across the polished wood, tracing lines and angles.

‘I’ve heard they’re popular amongst the officer class.’

Barbastian half turned to look at Regara. ‘Have you ever recorded anything on the cylinder?’

‘Speeches, briefings… that sort of thing.’

He smiled. ‘Your music?’

Regara shrugged. ‘Now and again.’

There was a moment of companionable silence between them, before Barbastian said, ‘I have missed this.’ Then his expression grew more ­serious. ‘And I am sorry for the deception.’

‘Ah,’ said Regara, leaning back in his chair, ‘so we come to it then. An assuaging of guilt. If that’s the case, you can leave the bottle.’

‘Take the bloody bottle for all I care!’

‘Hit a nerve, did I?’

‘You’re an obstinate man, Vasquez. And you hold a grudge like a damn greenskin.’

Regara did not deny it, but his feigned insouciance faded.

‘I seek amends, that’s all…’ Barbastian’s sudden edges softened as he lifted his goblet. ‘A friend in the war. You remember those?’

‘Barely…’ He chinked his goblet with Barbastian’s and felt the bad blood between them ebb.

‘Would you play another? A little less mournful, perhaps?’

‘Every man is a critic,’ Regara replied but a wry smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. He began, a frenetic staccato that saw the bow dancing like light across the strings.

And then they heard the explosion from deeper in the camp and all thought of music ended.

Greiss staggered as his head snapped sideways. Blood painted canvas in a red arc. He dodged the next blow, a hammer aimed at his bludgeoned face. One eye had swollen shut, gummed with blood. He reeled, frantically back-pedalling, trying to find room. Drake and Resk hollered from the sidelines, shouting instructions, warnings. He tried a counter-swing but his impaired depth perception saw the blow cut air. His opponent’s reply was savage, pummelling the body until it resembled tenderised meat. Greiss tried to use his arms to shield himself but they sagged like leaden weights, and he fell. One knee hit the floor and he made the fatal sin of using his hand to support his weary frame. An overhead swing crashed into his shoulder like a pendulum and he crumpled, all the way down this time, until his face touched bloodstained canvas.

Culcis had stopped halfway through the crowd, more like a baying mob by now, a sea of roaring Bluebloods urging their man to rise. To fight. For honour, for pride and all that hollow sentiment that soldiers cleave to in their darkest moments. Culcis had become entangled by it, wading through the bloodthirsty throng. He heard Rake, a shout like the peal of a bell, so singular and loud that it pierced the static. It made him turn, stop. Greiss had fallen. Throne, he looked like hammered shit, his black and purpled flesh marking out continents of pain on the map of his battered body.

He considered turning back, or heading for the ring itself. Hanmar had left his seat, the corpsman reacting by instinct. An injured man, a comrade, in need of his arts. They had to drag Greiss back into his corner, a stumbling, punch-drunk mess that refused to yield. They fed powdered stimms up his nose and he brightened fiercely, a sudden jolt that tripped his heart like a circuit and got him on his feet again.

Hanmar was arguing with the others, Rake holding the corpsman back whilst Dresk shouted into Greiss’ ear, but the large man kept shaking his head, determined to carry on. It was more than just the 50th, it was the Bluebloods’ honour that was on the table. Volpone glory.

‘Stop this…’ Culcis murmured, and even the crowd around him had simmered, as if sensing something. The Agrians roared all the more, and a few Volpone began shoving their mouthier rivals, turning their impotence for the fate of their kinsman into anger. The cooler heads of the line officers wisely intervened but the thread binding the two sides together was fraying.

The clarion chimed. Greiss got three steps out from his corner and stumbled. His opponent looked unscathed, the brawny cossack like a pillar of rockcrete. Tan skin like beaten leather, a beard that trailed down his chest like a hangman’s rope, he had a foot or more on Greiss and several inches across the shoulders. An anvil of a man, and just as unyielding, just as pitiless. He had tempered Greiss, the Volpone’s champion, and now he would break him.

Ensnared by the spectacle as much as the men around him, a terrifying thought seized Culcis by the throat and made it hard to breathe.

What if it’s revenge?

Uzra’s death had not been atoned for, and no culprit had been found. The Agrians wanted justice but they would take retribution instead. It didn’t matter whom. Searching the crowd, Culcis found no sign of Makali, so he had no idea if the golova had orchestrated any of this. Finding anyone in the unruly mass would have been difficult. Even Deviers had been swallowed by it.

Greiss fumbled his footing again, a slip that saw him almost fall. He got up by himself, but unsteadily, his eyes apparently faraway as he looked to a horizon only he could see. After one further step, the referee intervened with a hand on the sergeant’s chest. Greiss scowled, ineffectively batting away the referee’s hand with sluggish sweeps of his gloved fists.

The cossack meanwhile waited patiently, a killer dormant in the oak of his body, poised to act.

Culcis found himself heading downwards whilst the tension grew below as it did above. He reached the ring quickly, making far better progress when not fighting to cut across the tide. It was hot under the lights and men sweated in their stripped-down uniforms. The stink of blood and body odour was heady, nauseating.

Greiss was swearing, but slurring his words like a drunkard.

‘Emperor’s bloody mercy, Rake,’ Culcis snapped, ‘how did you let it get this far?’

Rake, and his cousin Dresk, looked pale as Valhallan snow. ‘He’s stubborn when his mind is made up, sir.’

‘Taming a bullgryn would be easier,’ Dresk cut in.

Culcis ignored them, moving on to Hanmar, who had managed to get Greiss to sit down so he could assess his condition.

‘He’s barely sensible.’

Greiss was murmuring, incoherent. Up close, the punishment to his body looked much worse. He was stitched together with thread and scraps of ruddy gauze. But he pleaded, in the fleeting moments of lucidity, the one eye he could still open saying, Please… let me fight.

Culcis laid a hand on the big man’s shoulder – it was hot like fire to the touch – and gently shook his head.

‘Any more of this, sergeant, and it’ll be the morgue, not the medicae. I can’t allow it. Honour be damned,’ said the lieutenant. ‘I’m ending this now.’ He turned, about to call over the referee when Captain Aramis intervened.

‘I propose a substitution,’ she uttered simply, having made her way down from the upper tiers during the furore. The referee frowned. ‘Take him out, sub me in,’ said Aramis, elaborating on the point. She had begun to unbutton her uniform shirt, revealing a vest underneath. Only now did Culcis realise she had brought her adjutant with her, and he had a pair of padded gloves hooked over his shoulder by the strings.

‘Ione…’ he started to say, but she cut him off.

‘You address me as captain,’ she said firmly but without anger.

‘Captain,’ Culcis corrected, ‘you can’t mean to do this.’

Aramis spoke to Culcis but looked at the referee as the adjutant started to wrap her hand. ‘Militarum pugilism code states that if the opponent agrees then a substitute may stand in for another fighter if they are unfit to participate.’

‘Substitution is usually before a fight, not during,’ said the referee, clearly awkward at being spoken to by a woman officer.

‘That’s not explicit in the code,’ said Aramis, as her other hand was bound.

The referee looked to Culcis, desperate for some help and unsure how to handle the situation, but the lieutenant had no leverage. ‘Please reconsider,’ he said.

Aramis pulled on a glove, her adjutant lacing it. ‘I do not require rescuing, lieutenant.’ She donned the second glove and it was pulled tight. ‘Not by any man.’

Then she stepped up, tying her hair back, making her intentions clear to the Agrians, who watched with amusement.

‘Well then?’

The referee shrugged, effectively putting the question to the other side. In a rare moment of emotion, the hulking Agrian smiled. And nodded.

Aramis entered the ring with a deft sort of grace that suggested she was born to it. Her second – a man Culcis had since learned was called Henessey – looked calm but had an edge of apprehension, like he was holding his breath.

Greiss had been wheeled away on an old ammo cart, Rake and Dresk pulling, Hanmar staying with them all the way to the medicae. Up in the stands, neither Deviers nor any of his cohort had made any sort of move. Culcis sensed the general wanted this as much as any of the Volpone stunned into abrupt silence. Even the Agrians had simmered, though a few made snide comments, gesturing to the obvious mismatch in the ring.

She had to crane her neck to meet the Agrian’s gaze, a child regarding a giant. It was like a fable brought to life, but Aramis looked far from intimidated as the referee laid out the rules of the contest.

They broke apart, Aramis calmly retreating into her corner. Culcis caught her eye – he must have looked deathly pale – and she winked at him.

He’ll kill her… he thought. He’ll kill her and all this will turn to madness.

The clarion sounded.

Aramis quickly advanced, body low to present a smaller target. She weaved aside from a desultory right hook, planting a trio of rapid body blows into the Agrian’s left side. He weathered them with barely a grimace, a shoulder barge pushing Aramis back onto her heels and off balance so she barely dodged the follow-up swing. Culcis saw the veneer of quiet confidence slip. Seizing his advantage, the Agrian pressed his attack, a flurry of blows that rained against air, but one glanced Aramis’ shoulder and she staggered.

A roar erupted from one part of the crowd, as the rest held their breath or looked to their officers to intercede, but there was nothing Deviers or any of them could do. They had allowed Aramis to commit to this course, she would have to see it through.

The Agrian moved well for such a large man, his long strides covering the expanse of the ring easily and quickly. It severely impeded Aramis’ advantage in speed, though she slipped in close to land a pair of jabs to the right flank. He let out a grunt, his movement slightly stiffening, but otherwise appeared unaffected. He flung her back, using his bulk and superior strength to boss her around. She was ready for it this time and danced away and out of danger. A haymaker veered close, its passage disturbing a strand of hair.

A second swing followed the first, the Agrian putting in more effort. His face pinched with pain and then turned to stone again.

Maybe she did hurt him?

Then came a third swing, a thunderous cannon of a punch that Aramis had to use both forearms to block. She cried out, skidding backwards on the canvas, half slipping on Greiss’ still-drying blood. Scenting weakness, the Agrian came for her, an overhead followed by an uppercut that she barely dodged. A rapid return jab caught him in the solar plexus and elicited a sharp grunt. He backed up a step, breathing hard.

A cut above Aramis’ left eye bled a jagged line down the side of her face but she kept her eyes on the Agrian, who came on again as relentless as a storm, exerting his strength and superior size just as he had done with Greiss.

Unlike Greiss, Aramis didn’t try to compete in an arena where she was obviously outmatched. She ducked away again, skipping sideways, looping under the heavy blows that rattled like pistons, trembling the air. She landed another jab, finding a way inside the Agrian’s immense reach, sharp and quick like a sting. He winced, a bruise rapidly blossoming in the place where she had struck. She darted back before he could counter.

The clarion sounded, ending the round.

Aramis returned to her corner, breathing hard and beaded with sweat. Henessey mopped the blood off her face and tended to the cut above her eye.

‘You’ve made your point,’ said Culcis. ‘Stop this. I don’t much care if you outrank me. What will it prove when this ends in your death?’

‘What part of “I don’t need saving” did you fail to understand, Culcis?’ she said, staring down her opponent, who looked a little ragged himself. As his seconds rebound the wrappings on his hands and lathered unguents on his bruised ribs, Culcis could tell the Agrian was reappraising the other fighter.

‘You’ve played your cards now,’ Culcis continued, ‘you won’t be a surprise to him any more. He knows what to expect.’

Aramis held off the cloth wiping the blood from her face so she could turn and look Culcis in the eye.

‘Who said I had played any of my cards, lieutenant?’

Culcis shook his head. ‘This is insane. You’re going to get yourself killed and then this entire place will go off like an incendiary.’

‘Then you’d best be ready for when it does,’ she replied as the clarion sounded again and the second round began.

The Agrian swept in hard with a flurry of jabs that Aramis struggled to weather. She evaded well, though one punch scraped her shoulder and she dropped it just a fraction. A savage cross sailed by her head again but rather than back-pedal out, she crept in, inside the Agrian’s guard. His arm pistoned like it was spring-loaded but wrapped across the back of Aramis’ neck, a wet slap of flesh instead of the bone-shattering impact he had aimed for. She shuffled around the Agrian’s body, letting his momentum carry him off balance with the ferocity of the failed cross.

And then she struck, unloading a flurry of heavy jabs into the bruised ribs so fast it made it hard to count. A yelp of pain escaped his lips, panic slowly contorting his features. Aramis chained her punches, the flurried jabs blending into a sharp cross that struck her opponent across the jaw, opening him up as his guard collapsed and a viper-fast hook hit his face even as it was turning from the first hit. Another cross, low to the body. Something snapped, releasing a pinched cry of agony. Then another hook, into the stomach. His body jackknifed, surrendering to the pain, and as his chin dipped Aramis unleashed a brutal uppercut.

Bone cracked, and the jaw bent sideways, the left cheek bulging to accommodate a violent dislocation of the mandible.

He didn’t fall straight away, the mind too slow to heed what his body was saying. He faltered for a few seconds, listing this way and then that, before the legs bowed then buckled, simian arms hanging limp and ineffectual. Canvas trembled, a felled oak brought to ground, his unconscious form unmoving.

Utter silence reigned in an arena of over four thousand. A single shout stirred the tumult that followed.

‘Volpone glory!’

Then they were all shouting it, a cry of disbelief and pride, but not Culcis. He looked to the crowds, to the Agrians who felt cheated, twice slighted in their eyes. Denied justice and now vicarious retribution. In the end it was too much.

After what happened, no one would remember who threw the first punch, but a brawl broke out amongst the spectators, Agrian and Volpone. Heathens against the genteel, though to Culcis’ mind the barbarity was equally apportioned. Deviers called for order, but even his voice found little purchase on minds given over to fury. Grussman and a squad of Guardsmen went with him, heaving men bodily as they strove to reach the heart of the violence and put an end to it.

No one saw Rensaint stumble into the agora, dishevelled, a gash upon his forehead. They saw his quarry, or at least Culcis did. A bloodstained man in slate-grey fatigues and a black vest. First Son. Tempestus Scion. Raving. Madness in his eyes, he plunged into the throng of warring men. He broke a wrist attached to a hand that tried to hold him, then crushed a nose in the face of one who got in his way. He snapped the neck of a third, so fast Culcis was still processing what had happened as he choked a fourth with a savage blow to the throat. Slow realisation wormed its way through the crowd and some of the brawlers stopped fighting, suddenly alert to this new threat.

‘Sentiwa mai!’

The raving became words, but none that Culcis knew. He was moving too, making for the crowds, wishing he had a pistol…

‘Sentiwa mai!’

An object in the Scion’s hand, small and innocuous. Deviers headed to the cause of the commotion, Grussman and the others a step or two behind him.

‘Sentiwa mai!’

The object was a frag grenade, its priming light blinking red. Red for danger. Red for fire.

Rensaint fired a gun, an old stubber that discharged thunderously into the air. It echoed, rolling through the agora, and soldiers turned to see him take aim. And what an Emperor-blessed shot it was, a single bullet, a heart shot that dropped the Scion where he stood.

And for half a second, Culcis dared to breathe.

During his exhale, the grenade exploded.