THIRTY-FIVE

Regara had barely left the medicae, the stitches still buried in his face, the small strips of gauze like off-white patches layering his skin. His ears had yet to cease ringing completely, the bombardment a dull echo in his cochleae. He walked with a limp, needing a cane to steady himself and not just on account of his leg. Having chosen one with a sword hidden in the shaft might have been a mistake though. Every step sent agony up his spine, his back still badly bruised and scarcely healed. The pain meds could come later. He wanted to be raw for this, like an exposed nerve.

He had a piece of folded fabric tucked under one arm. It was thick, dirty, scorched. A battlefield leaving from Gannad and, as it turned out, a gift. One he would repay in kind.

Regara found him in the vox-station engaged in hololithic discourse with a grainy rendering of the Martian magos, his manner brusque and unyielding. An argument. It proved brief, the meeting either nearing its end as he had entered the vox-station or curt to begin with.

A handful of vox-operators busied themselves at the periphery, listening to the headsets cupped around their ears, turning dials to improve audio clarity and otherwise heedless of the colonel in their midst. Grussman wore his uniform without panoply, dressed down with an unbuttoned jacket and no officer’s cap to help mark his rank. Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice Regara until he was standing in front of him.

‘Major,’ he said, taking off his eyeglasses to massage the bridge of his nose, ‘the hour is late. I am surprised to see you up.’ He went to pour a drink, a round bottle of Konis brandy sitting on a desk and within reach. There was only one glass but Grussman offered a pour to Regara, who refused.

Grussman shrugged it off, poured one for himself anyway. Taking a sip, he said, ‘I’ve ordered reinforcements from the West and East Army Groups. Staddish didn’t like it much but it’s not as if he had much choice, is it?’ He grinned, comfortable in his power. ‘Enghart was a good man, though. He could go far, that one.’ He took another sip of the brandy, sucked through his teeth as the alcohol bit. ‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’ He cast around, looking for someone to procure another glass. ‘Never a bloody deg around when you need one, eh?’ He puffed up his chest, smoothing down his jacket. ‘Big day coming, big day…’

Only then, as he was preening and imagining the coming glory, did he appear to notice that Regara had yet to speak.

‘So, major,’ he began idly, ‘what can I do for–’

Regara tossed the folded fabric in front of Grussman like an offering and it rolled open, revealing the half-burnt flag of the Agrian Diggers. Dust and dark flecks marred the shovel-and-pickaxe emblem. Then he turned as smartly as he could and stalked away.

‘It’s just war,’ Grussman called after him, too disinterested to remonstrate with him.

‘Yes, it is,’ Regara said to himself and left the vox-station behind.

He felt their contempt as he walked through the camp, barely fettered and not, he admitted, without cause. Though the dust had settled on Gannad, the ashes of an emphatic Imperial victory still redolent on the breeze, other matters of much longer standing remained unresolved.

Not for the first time since he began his walk, Culcis regretted not bringing Greiss or Hanmar. Even Drake and Resk would have been better than nothing, but they were all back with the other Volpone, making the most of their downtime before the march. Grussman had so ordered it, a rare respite that saw most troopers engaging in anything but as they indulged in this unexpected freedom before the trials of what would follow. Culcis could see it as he walked. It lay to the south, the next battle. The scouts reckoned on seven miles away. Seven miles across sparse terrain, the border of Karcas. Fires lit the wall in a flickering candescence, white against dark, cold flares in the night like icy beacons. It had never been breached and its gate had been sealed, entombed behind granite. A formidable barrier. Rumour around camp held that Grussman had an answer to that, but none knew what save the general himself, and his hand of covenants stayed close to his chest.

The smell of cook fires turned his head, the heady aroma of gruppa ladled into earthenware bowls and passed around tribal circles. Culcis walked around them, staying to the edges. Muttered words passed between the Agrians but none stopped him or voiced a challenge. He found her sitting alone, a bowl in her lap, a flask of something alcoholically potent, judging by the smell of her breath, held lazily in one hand. As her glassy eyes fell upon him, Culcis guessed she had imbibed more than a little.

‘What do you want here, Volpone?’ She slurred, but only a fraction. The flames from the cook fires danced in her eyes. ‘Not good for you to be here.’

Nearly six hundred had perished in the bombardment but that wasn’t to what she referred.

‘Better here than in a dark alley,’ he said.

She glanced down at the weapons belt cinched around his waist.

‘I would ask are you headed to war, but we both know the answer to that.’ Makali set the bowl down; a few of the other Agrians stirred but a glance from their golova kept them at bay. ‘Though I am intrigued why you would come here to find it.’

‘Not to find it, to end it.’

‘Oh?’ She wiped her mouth with the back of her forearm.

‘In my culture, it is called bludwaage.’

‘Ah…’ she said, settling back down again, an easy smile on her lips as she took a pull of her flask. ‘You want to balance the scales.’

Culcis frowned, momentarily confused. ‘I didn’t realise you spoke Konis.’ He referred to the native tongue of the capital, Konisburg. ‘How?’

‘I don’t, but I listen.’ She offered the flask. ‘You want to partake, Volpone? You look like you could use it.’

‘I have no interest in your local grog.’ He sneered the last word without meaning to. It was a common word, unused to his tongue.

Makali sneered in turn. ‘I liked your superior better. You measure yourself to him, I think.’

‘Whom?’ asked Culcis, his eyes darting around the shadows, expecting trouble at any moment. This wasn’t unfolding as he had thought it would.

‘You know…’ She patted her leg with the flask.

‘Major Regara?’

Makali nodded. ‘Regara, yes. He is a good man, a wise man. I like him, even though he is a cripple.’

Culcis slid two inches of steel from his scabbard. She tsked and tutted, shaking her head.

‘Come now, Volpone, what will you do with that?’

‘I’m not here for you.’

‘And yet you have me.’

‘End it,’ he stated flatly, ‘end it or I shall.’

‘End what?’

‘This vendetta.’

‘I have no vendetta.’

‘Your cossacks then.’

‘They are not mine.’

‘They follow your orders, attacked me like dogs in the street when I was unarmed.’ Culcis eyed the dark again but no one moved, though all eyes were on him. ‘So I come to end it. Here, now. With honour.’

Makali moistened her lips as she reached the end of her indulgence.

‘You Volpone and your honour. There is no honour in death. Or in glory. It is just death.’

‘Then why does the death of your man matter so much?’

‘Because you had no right to it. His death was not yours to claim.’

‘But I didn’t kill this man, this… Uzra,’ he said, struggling with the name.

‘I know that. I’ve watched you long enough to know that, but I’m afraid that hardly matters, not to them.’

‘Then bring them out,’ Culcis demanded, ‘and let us see this done.’

‘I cannot “bring them out” any more than I can stop them coming for you. I don’t order these men. They have their own will. They choose to follow me… out there.’ She gestured to the darkness and the plains beyond the border wall that would be a battlefield come morning. ‘They are not here, Volpone. None who are care for your bludwaage,’ she said, her pronunciation flawless. ‘Recompense was promised, justice. It has not been delivered, and so we are where we are. They will come for you when you are unready. They will kill you as he was killed, alone and unarmed.’

‘And if I kill them first?’

‘More will come.’

‘And if it’s during the act? If I prevail and survive?’

‘Then there will be two more dead cossacks in the earth, but I doubt others would follow.’

‘You only doubt?’

‘I don’t know their minds.’ She turned her face back towards the cook fires. ‘You won’t find what you’re looking for here, Volpone. Begone, and pass my regards to your major. I hope he makes use of his gift. He is a fine man that one. I shall think of him later,’ she said, yawning as she brought the flask to her lips.

‘You are a savage breed, you Agrians.’

Culcis left her behind, Makali and the cook fires and barbaric culture he did not understand, but he felt the barb in her final words to him.

‘And yet you fail to see your own savagery.’

Aramis met him on the outskirts of the Agrian quarter.

‘You look like you could use a drink,’ she said, emerging from behind one of the tents. The section of camp designated for the Bluebloods was clean and well tended. Mil-serves roamed like silent waiters, attending to every task. Even the tents themselves were richly appointed, those reserved for the officers more like prefab structures boasting furnishings and ornate electro-sconces. The scent of fine meats wafted on the evening air from a nearby refectory tent.

‘You are the second woman to offer me that tonight,’ Culcis replied, his mood sour.

Aramis pulled a surprised well, I never face. ‘Your charms must be improving.’

He scowled at her, and she raised her hands in a placatory gesture.

‘That was uncalled for, I apologise.’ Her wry grin suggested she felt otherwise.

‘Really, sir. I prefer to keep a clear head.’

‘Your head is anything but clear, lieutenant.’ She caught his arm as he made to walk on, and their eyes met. ‘No ranks, no agendas. Just a drink.’

‘Is this a ploy?’ asked Culcis, squinting as if to see the truth of her intentions. ‘Some jape at my expense? I have not the disposition for it. Not tonight.’

‘A drink,’ Aramis reiterated, and gently steered him in the direction of the refectory tents. ‘I know so few of you in the Fiftieth, and Gavid is poor company around wine.’

Culcis raised a questioning brow, prompting her to elaborate.

‘He doesn’t drink.’

They laughed and found the nearest refectory tent.

It was dingy inside, a low hubbub of voices providing a subliminal hum to the bawdier exclamations of troopers deep in their cups. A gadulka was playing, a corporal Culcis recognised but couldn’t recall the name of playing a lively song that a clutch of men sang along to. An inksmith plied their trade, having set up shop in one corner where the sodium lamps blazed brightest. A brawny trooper gritted his teeth as the smithy tattooed his upper arm, the auto-needle an insect buzz in the background. He would do decent business tonight, the inksmith; a line had already begun to form. Every man wanted the same, the gryfon rampant. It had become his sigil; the hero of Lodden, the saviour of Mireland, conqueror of Gannad. Darian Deviers, son of Horator De Nesk Deviers. Volpone glory personified.

‘Tempted?’

Culcis smirked but shook his head. ‘I expect I’ll be one of the few that abstains.’

‘It’s said to bring luck on the bearer.’

He turned to face her. ‘Then where’s yours?’

‘Oh,’ she said knowingly, and gestured to a table, ‘I don’t believe in it.’

‘It or him?’

They sat down, a little out of the way, and Aramis ordered a bottle. The mil-serve brought it promptly.

‘I saw him kill Vauga, you know.’

Culcis leant back, intrigued.

‘It was not the stuff of poetry or song,’ she elaborated. ‘It was ugly and Ganza played his part in it too, the poor dead bastard, but a headless corpse is a fairly ineffective talisman.’

‘You sound cynical.’

‘Just tired, and probably more candid than is wise.’

‘Morale has improved.’

‘And I salute the Prefectus in their cunning arts,’ she said.

Culcis looked around. Several new faces were present with new regimental designations. Reinforcements from the west and east, Staddish and Enghart doing their bit. One of the east intake caught Culcis’ eye, young, like a raw recruit. Dark-haired, which was unusual for a Volpone. He sat alone and seemed to be looking for someone. When his gaze fell upon the lieutenant, he stared back, unflinching.

Something about the raw recruit’s manner felt awry. A soldier could usually spot another soldier in their carriage, in how they acted. This one had none of the usual hallmarks, and Culcis was about to mention it to Aramis when a crowd bustled in, a rabble of Talpa come to receive their ink. For a moment he lost sight of the recruit, and by the time the Tunnel-Rats had passed the soldier who was not a soldier had gone. Culcis briefly wondered if he had seen him at all as he massaged the bridge of his nose, grimacing.

‘Everything all right?’ asked Aramis.

‘Just need some sleep,’ he said, aware that he had barely caught more than an hour or two ever since the wirewolves. He regarded the bottle, hoping the peaceful oblivion he craved was somewhere near the bottom. It was of decent vintage. Not cheap, even by Volpone standards.

‘Pushing the boat out, are we?’ he said as Aramis poured two glasses, and putting the strange encounter from his mind.

‘What else are Militarum wages for?’

‘You know, I am seeing a different side to you, major.’

‘Ione.’

‘Ione,’ he corrected. ‘The last time we spoke using our first names you had a mind to put me in my place.’

‘You were an arrogant prick, Armand. I see some personal growth though, so there’s hope for you.’

‘Such a relief.’

She smiled, a little sad, a little weary. Her mood changed, became less frivolous.

‘They say this might be the end of it.’

‘The war? Voke said that about Lodden.’

Aramis nodded. ‘If you believe the talk, this is it. The border wall represents the last true bastion of the enemy. Rakespur will fall quickly after it’s taken. The fortress is little better than a ruin.’

‘If you believe the talk.’

‘Yes, the talk.’

‘I don’t think you brought me here to discuss tomorrow’s battle.’

‘Are you a Konisburg man, Culcis?’ she asked, her conversational dancing keeping the lieutenant on his toes.

‘I have spent time in the capital, before I shipped out. I studied there, military history.’

Her eyes widened a little, and she leaned back, the glass cupped ­lazily in one hand. ‘My, my, a scholar.’

‘Not exactly. The subject interested me, but the female intake at the universitariat was prodigious.’ He gave a facial shrug, part apology, part insouciance.

Aramis gave a snort of laughter. ‘Of course. There are only women at the universitariat now, barring a few of the lectors of course. The men are all gone to war, singing “Volpone Glory” all the way to the Departmento recruiters.’

‘You’re here.’

‘My family is at Pascolon. If I wanted to keep the lands bequeathed to me by my late husband, I needed a military commission. And rank. So I achieved both, but I don’t relish either.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. My husband passed long ago and I am a damn fine ­officer. I’ll make a difference in this war. By my sacrifice, my family back on Volpone is kept safe. I cling to that in the small hours when sleep will not come, but you know a thing or two about that,’ she said, and Culcis was reminded of their first meeting during one of his nocturnal wanderings.

‘I saw it in your eyes,’ she explained, recalling that night, ‘a man trying to mask his pain, not a gadabout on the prowl.’

‘I could have been both.’

She drank, conceding the point, and poured another. Then one more for Culcis too.

‘I feel numb,’ she said. ‘Numb to loss, to pain. Throne, sometimes I wonder how I can feel at all.’

‘Anger is a feeling,’ said Culcis, his quiet voice at odds with the words.

‘I can’t live by anger alone.’ A pause and then, ‘There will be no search,’ she said at length and apropos of nothing. This was the root of it then, the reason for their drink, and Culcis saw his own pain reflected in her face.

‘Hauptmann and the others,’ he assumed.

‘Designated mortis relictus as of this evening, hence…’ She held up the glass, already half drained.

‘I owed him money,’ he said, and felt stupid for doing so.

‘You knew him?’

‘We played cards now and then, covenants. It had been a while. He was a bastard at cards. Hard to read. Always beat me.’

‘He was the first face I met upon redeployment. I gave him fuel.’ She smiled at that, but it was melancholy like all the others. ‘Did you know his first name was Velas?’

‘I always just called him Hauptmann.’

‘I should like to have known him better. I regret I’ll probably never get the chance.’ She raised her glass. ‘Velas Hauptmann.’

‘Velas Hauptmann,’ Culcis replied.

‘May the Throne watch over him.’

A brief companionable silence fell between them until another voice intruded.

‘Such a waste…’

Isaac Shiller stumbled into sight, wobbling the table as he collided with it on unsteady feet. Russet-cheeked, dishevelled, he had been at it a while. His breath was so potent a Chimera could have run on the fumes.

‘A waste of what?’ said Aramis, her annoyance thinly veiled.

Shiller pulled an ugly face, slurred, ‘Can’t decide.’ He leered at Aramis, seemingly unconcerned that she outranked him.

‘I think you should leave, Isaac.’ Culcis scraped his chair back and stood. ‘Let me escort you to your lodgings.’

‘Sit your arse down,’ snapped Shiller, dismissive. ‘And you’ll refer to me as captain.’

‘When your conduct is befitting your rank, he will,’ said Aramis, but gestured for Culcis to resume his seat, which he did.

‘A waste of your station…’ Shiller slurred, as if the last part of the conversation hadn’t happened. He smiled, a lopsided, sleepy curl of the mouth. ‘Out here in these slums. It’s unseemly.’ His lip curled. ‘What makes you think you belong with any of us?’

‘Now see here, I don’t care what bloody rank–’ Culcis began, about to rise again until Aramis gestured for calm and he sat still, simmering.

‘You smell like you’ve drunk enough for the three of us, Shiller,’ she remarked, turning her attention to the captain, taking a measured sip, ‘and it has impaired your already mediocre judgement. You see, I know your kind, the bullying hypocrite, the sort of man too afraid to face the ghosts of his lesser nature and so he hides them behind some vice or other.

‘The kind of man who beats on the weak and the frail and the ones who can’t fight back so that he can feel strong. In charge.’ She barely moved throughout the tirade, save to take another sip. She didn’t even look at him. ‘I could pull rank here, chastise you in front of all these men and do it noisily. I could reprimand you for being a piss-arsed drunken lout who’s forgotten his breeding and has mistaken vulgarity for presence. I won’t. I don’t need to. I see you, Shiller. I know what you are. Now leave, before I lose my temper and I really dress you down a peg.’

Shiller seethed, his face even redder than before, fists clenching and unclenching with impotent anger. He looked about to say something but turned away instead and left without another word.

Culcis watched him depart, his turn now to make the well, I never face. He also said, ‘Well, shit… that was quite something.’

‘I think I’ve had enough drink,’ said Aramis, her eyes on his. ‘At least here.’

‘What do you propose?’

‘I’m tired of feeling numb, Armand. I want to feel something else… or just something.’

‘I know what that’s like.’

‘I have a bottle of vresk, nicer than this one, back in my lodgings.’

‘I would gladly share it if that’s what you’re asking,’ he said.

She held his gaze. ‘Well, I won’t promise sleep…’

Aramis left, finishing off her drink, not waiting for the lieutenant.

After a few moments, Culcis followed.

Fenk didn’t partake in the revelries. He haunted the fringes, the shadows, instead. A massive intake of recruits and reinforcements had come in from the other army groups and he watched them trail into camp in their perfect ranks. These soldiers had seen little of the war so far. He could tell by their bearing, the raised chins and unblinking eyes. So proud. Grussman was leveraging everything he had on this, pulling every string. He didn’t want to be another Voke. But he spent men like coin and he was an inveterate gambler on a winning streak. He liked risk, enjoyed the thrill of it.

The grey host stirred, an itch rather than a compulsion, though the time was coming. He would have gladly killed Mattias Grussman, given the chance.

As if the thought of the man had brought him forth, Fenk’s attention turned to movement in the dark. Quiet, unassuming. Clandestine. And definitely Grussman. He walked briskly and away from the crowds. None saw him, save Fenk, but the general was unaware he was being observed. A simple uniform, rest attire, nondescript.

Fenk followed.

He knew how to pass through a camp unremarked and unseen, but Fenk had to admit that Grussman knew his arts, too, in staying hidden. After a few turns and a fairly circuitous route, the general arrived outside an officer’s tent. It wasn’t Grussman’s, and that in itself was curious. A light burned softly within. Fenk sank back into the shadows as Grussman turned, looking to see if he was being watched. Believing all was well, he parted the tent flap and Fenk caught the suggestion of other men awaiting him by the shape of the shadows within. Narrowing his eyes, he thought one of them might be Major Enghart, meeting his master at the door like a good lapdog.

‘Fascinating…’ uttered Fenk, and slipped back into the night.