Anarch

Twenty-One: Many, Many are the Dead

People fled past the chapel door in terror. The sounds of battle and destruction from the floors below were like an approaching nightmare.

Hark looked in through the door as people hurried by behind him.

‘Clear out!’ he yelled. ‘Come on! It’s coming this way! Head to the west exit. There are destriers on the landing field! Move, now! This is a full evacuation! If you can’t make the carriers, get out of the building and hide!’

‘You heard him!’ Beltayn shouted. ‘Don’t dawdle now!’

Most of the retinue and the other survivors who had packed into the chapel had already fled. The remainder were too badly wounded, or still too deep in shock to understand what was happening.

‘You have to leave!’ Beltayn yelled. ‘This thing is killing as it goes! It’s just… just blades! Many, many are the dead!’

A few of them struggled to their feet and stumbled blankly towards the door. They had already suffered immeasurably that night. It was hard for them to comprehend that anything could be worse.

Beltayn steered them out.

‘Go! go!’ he yelled.

‘Take her! Bel, take her!’ Merity shouted, pointing to an old woman from the retinue who was staring numbly at nothing.

Beltayn ran to the woman, and got her on her feet, gently guiding her by the shoulder and the hand.

‘You too, Mam Chass,’ he said.

‘We’re coming,’ Merity called back. Two stretcher cases remained, unconscious, and too injured to walk even if they’d been awake.

Merity and Fazekiel crossed to them as Beltayn led the old woman out.

‘We can’t carry both,’ Merity said.

‘Then this one first,’ said Fazekiel. ‘We’ll come back for the other one.’

Merity nodded. ‘Come back? There’s a prospect. All right, take that end.’

‘I can help,’ said Meryn.

They looked at him. He’d come from nowhere. His face was sallow with fear.

‘Get some help, then, captain,’ said Fazekiel. ‘Another bearer, anyone, and we can carry them both.’

‘No,’ said Meryn. ‘You take that one. I’ll shoulder-lift the other. There’s no time to be lost.’

‘All right,’ said Fazekiel, turning to grip the stretcher’s handles. ‘I appreciate your help.’

Meryn nodded. ‘Help,’ he muttered. ‘That’s right. A night like this, it’s time to help yourself.’

‘What?’ Fazekiel snapped.

Meryn ran his straight silver into Fazekiel’s back. She gasped, and fell backwards as the blade came out again.

Merity stared at Meryn.

‘Oh, feth,’ she said.

Beltayn gently escorted the old woman along the panelled hall, passing the wardroom and then the chamber door where Hark stood with Laksheema and Auerben.

‘Get her clear, Bel,’ said Hark.

‘I will, sir.’

‘Everybody out?’

‘Almost!’

‘Then get out yourself. We’ll do the rest.’

Beltayn nodded, and hurried on his way. Hark turned to his companions.

‘How will we do the rest, do you suggest?’ Auerben asked.

Hark grunted. He pushed past them and entered the chamber. The medicae staff had been ordered out, but Curth still tended the Saint. Zweil sat nearby, hands clasped, murmuring a prayer.

The eagle perched on the back of a chair.

‘The feth’s that doing in here?’ Hark asked.

‘Not high on my list of priorities,’ replied Curth, without looking up from her work.

‘The thing’s coming, Ana,’ he said. ‘Coming right for us. We have to move her.’

‘Well, we can’t,’ said Curth. ‘She’s barely hanging on. I believe she’s healing her psychic wounds, or something is, but it’s slow and it’s uncertain. If we move her, she will die.’

‘Then… then we have to leave her,’ said Hark.

Zweil shot him a toxic look.

‘Absolutely not,’ said Curth. ‘I’ll stay with her.’

‘Me too,’ said the old priest.

Hark sighed. ‘I bloody knew you’d say that,’ he said.

‘You’re not going either, are you?’ asked Zweil.

‘No,’ Hark admitted.

He turned back to the doorway.

‘We make a stand here,’ he said.

‘I was already planning to,’ rasped Auerben. She had a lasrifle in her hands.

Hark nodded. He pulled out his hold-out gun.

‘We make a stand with that?’ Laksheema asked, looking at the small weapon dubiously.

‘It’s not about size,’ said Hark. ‘No, I’m lying. Right now, a tank would be good. I feel you’ve got something effective up your sleeve, inquisitor. And I don’t mean that metaphorically.’

Laksheema raised her right wrist. The lamplight glittered off her ornate bangle.

‘Antimat disruptor,’ she said. ‘Xenos manufacture. Very small, but size isn’t everything, as you say. I used to believe these could stop anything. But I burned out the other one on the first machine.’

‘It’s better than nothing,’ said Hark.

They took up station in the doorway. The wailing swish of blades was coming closer.

Merity backed away from Meryn very slowly. The candles in the chapel flickered.

‘What did you tell her, eh?’ he hissed. He glanced down at Fazekiel. ‘Don’t worry, I know. I’m a Ghost. I read lips for a living.’

‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Merity.

‘Taking advantage of an opportunity,’ Meryn replied. ‘You heard Bel. Many, many are the dead, like the old song goes. All cut up to ribbons. Death’s everywhere. Who knows what the final body count will be? Who knows what dirty little secrets will die with the dead tonight?’

‘Meryn… Flyn…’

‘Don’t Flyn me,’ he said. ‘You’ve got me good. But some secrets are meant to stay secrets, you see.’

‘I think you might have gone fething mad, captain,’ Merity said.

‘I think I’m perfectly sane,’ he replied. ‘I’ll take my chances. I’m quick on my feet. A little straight silver, and my secret’s safe. I’ll be gone, out there, in a destrier, running clear. What are two more corpses in a bloodbath like this?’

He stepped closer. She backed up. He smiled. Her eyes darted around. Relf’s carbine lay on a cot nearby.

He saw where she had looked.

‘Don’t even,’ he said.

Merity faked right then darted left for the cot. Meryn lunged at her, missing by a slim margin.

Merity forward-rolled across the cot, just as she had been taught in the relentless basic training drills aboard the Armaduke, back when she’d been a novice trooper called Felyx Chass.

She came up gripping the carbine. She aimed it at him with a grin. Then her face fell.

Meryn was aiming back at her. He’d snatched up Fazekiel’s pistol from the medicae cart.

‘Drop the carbine,’ he said. ‘I’d rather do this quietly. People might question gunshot wounds.’

‘Let them question,’ said Merity. ‘You bastard.’

Meryn fired. The gun clacked, empty. I don’t think I can protect you again. He remembered Fazekiel saying that, down in the undercroft.

The stupid bitch had meant she’d used up all her ammo.

He threw himself at Merity, the war-knife slicing in.

The carbine bucked in her hands. The muzzle flare was intensely bright in the gloomy chapel.

Rapid fire shots tore into Meryn, puncturing his torso six times and shredding off his left arm at the elbow.

The final two went into his face, destroying his look of indignant surprise.

‘Gunfire,’ murmured Hark.

‘Las,’ agreed Auerben.

‘It was close,’ said Hark. ‘Sounded close. Throne, it must be nearby now.’He glanced back at Curth and Zweil, vigilant at the Saint’s side. He smelled, very faintly, the scent of islumbine. He put it down to his frantic imagination. But the idea reassured him.

‘I can hear it wailing,’ said Laksheema.

‘I told you it was close,’ said Hark.

‘Very close,’ the inquisitor replied. ‘So why can’t we see it?’

‘What are you showing me?’ asked Marshal Tzara above the din of a war room seething with activity as it tried to rebuild its strategic overview of the Eltath zone.

‘Pict capture,’ replied Biota. ‘It has just come in. Vox operation received it two minutes ago, so I brought it to you directly.’

‘What is it?’ she asked. She stared at the on-screen image. It looked like a fuzzy map of an island. Graphic enhancement had compensated for the nocturnal view.

‘Well, it could be a breakthrough,’ said Biota.

‘It is an island, sir,’ snapped Tzara. ‘An island in a sea. My concern is the Eltath theatre. Bring me data on that!’

‘Please look,’ said Biota. ‘These images were captured by the battleship Naiad Antitor during a routine orbital sweep ten minutes ago. That’s Coltrice Island, a cone atoll west of the Eltath Peninsula, at the southern end of the Sadimay archipelago. It’s a dead volcano, hollow inside. Used in ages past as an agri-town and safe harbour, thus sometimes called the Fastness–’

‘Your insistence on detail bored me yesterday and it bores me today, tactician,’ Tzara warned. She kept glancing at the station chiefs who were holding signals in the air. ‘I’m coming!’ she cried.

‘Observe here,’ said Biota, enlarging the image with his fingertip and enhancing the thermal contrast. ‘On the last routine sweep, twenty hours ago, the island was cold. No heat read. No human activity. Look at it now, Marshal. We think it was cloaked by some form of masking field or cloak device, which has recently failed.’

‘This is heat?’ asked Tzara, peering in.

‘Indeed, a venting plume.’

‘Volcanic?’

‘The cone is extinct.’

‘So what?’

‘We think it’s a ship fire, mam,’ Biota said. ‘An engine fire or significant internal heat damage.’

‘A ship…’ said Tzara. She frowned and peered again.

‘Quiet!’ she yelled over her shoulder at the war room bustle. The noise subsided. ‘A ship, tactician?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Biota. ‘If I enlarge again… like so… you’ll see the shadow here. I’ll enhance contrast. A shadow, under the projection of the cone lip. That’s a shift-ship of considerable tonnage. A fast cruiser.’

‘Is it one of ours?’ she asked.

‘We’re waiting for confirmation,’ he replied. ‘A damaged vessel might have run to cover there and been unable to signal its position. But…’

‘But?’

A hand reached in past them, and enlarged a spectrographic code in the side-bar of the main image.

‘That plume is venting high levels of iridium matroxon,’ said Macaroth.

‘My lord,’ said Tzara, pulling herself upright.

‘You are quite correct, my lord,’ said Biota.

‘That’s fuel burning,’ said Macaroth. ‘Our ships burn a standard antium-beronel intermix. That’s an enemy ship, and it’s been hiding as close to Eltath as it can get.’

‘Is it him?’ Tzara asked.

‘We’ve searched for the bastard everywhere,’ said Macaroth, ‘and he’s cowering on our very doorstep. Marshal?’

‘My great lord?’

‘Link me to the fleet,’ said Macaroth. ‘I wish to call in an annihilation strike in the next thirty minutes and wipe that island off the face of Urdesh.’

Merity lifted Fazekiel up, and wiped the blood off her face and out of her mouth.

‘Luna? Luna?’

Fazekiel blinked weakly.

‘That really hurts,’ she whispered.

They heard the wailing rush of blades nearby. It was very close.

‘Oh shit,’ whispered Merity. ‘It heard us. It heard the shots. It’s coming.’

‘Leave me,’ said Fazekiel.

‘Balls, I will!’ Merity replied. She tried to hoist Fazekiel up, but the woman had blacked out and become a deadweight.

‘Come fething on!’ Merity snarled.

‘I came looking for you,’ said a voice behind her.

Merity looked around in surprise.

It was Dalin.

‘Oh, thank Throne,’ she said. ‘Please help me, quickly. We don’t have much time.’

‘Papa’s dead,’ Dalin said.

Merity laid Fazekiel back down gently and rose to face Dalin. His face was blank with shock. He appeared to be bleeding. She couldn’t tell where he had been wounded, but his hands were dripping with blood. Drips spotted the floor around his feet.

‘Oh, Dal,’ she said. ‘Gol? He’s dead?’

‘Papa’s gone,’ he said.

‘We have to go, Dalin,’ she said, stepping towards him.

‘There’s nowhere to go,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand any part of this. It’s all just chaos in my head.’

‘I think you’re in shock, Dalin,’ she said. ‘You’ve been through too much. If Gol is… and Yoncy…’

‘She was my sister,’ said Dalin.

‘I know. You believed that for so long. We all–’

‘She was my sister,’ he repeated.

‘Let’s go, all right? Dalin? Let’s go. You’re not feeling yourself.’

‘I’m not myself,’ he said.

‘Of course you aren’t–’

‘I came to find you,’ he said, ‘because I don’t understand anything. I don’t know any more. Except I know I trust you. I like you.’

‘I like you too,’ Merity said.

‘I think I might have been in love with you.’

‘Oh,’ she said. She smiled. ‘Might have been?’

He shrugged, expressionless.

‘I want to understand,’ he said. ‘And you know.’

‘Know what?’

‘You know what it’s like,’ he said. ‘To hide yourself. To hide your real self. Hide it inside and look like something else.’

‘That?’ she said. ‘Oh, that was just a game. It was childish, and I regret it.’

‘Childish,’ Dalin echoed. ‘Everything’s childish. Just games. Games that Papa makes us play.’

Merity turned to Fazekiel. Dalin grabbed her arm. His grip was strangely hard.

‘Ow,’ she said in surprise. ‘Let me go, Dalin.’

He didn’t.

‘That hurts. Please, let me go.’

He released his grip.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone. But Papa’s dead, and I miss his voice. He’d tell me what to do. He’d explain it all to me.’

‘Some things… they can’t be explained,’ Merity said. ‘Life is cruel and hard. It’s unfair. You just do what you can.’

He thought for a moment.

‘The difference,’ he said. ‘The difference between you and me. You knew what you were hiding. You did it on purpose. I never knew. I never knew at all. I never knew what I was hiding.’

‘I don’t understand, Dalin,’ she said.

‘Papa’s dead,’ he said. ‘He can’t explain it. I thought you could. But you can’t either.’

He raised his left hand. It was soaked in blood.

The sword sliced through him from behind. Dalin lurched, ripped almost in two. His face remained impassive. Gaunt hacked again, driving the sword of Hieronymo Sondar through the husk of Dalin’s body. He struck repeatedly and without mercy, until the Ghost was mangled on the floor.

Merity screamed. ‘Oh Throne! Stop! Stop! What the feth are you doing? What the feth are you doing?’

‘Get back,’ said Gaunt. ‘Get well back. He was vulnerable for a minute. He wanted to talk, so his defences were down.’

‘You killed him!’ she yelled. ‘You fething sliced him to ribbons–’

‘Look!’ Gaunt hissed.

She looked.

There was no blood, except the blood that stained Dalin’s hands. The deep cuts in his body revealed nothing but odd, dark strips, like thin metal leaves sheaved together. The ends of his fingers on both hands were split, as if they’d ruptured from within. Gleaming points, like the tips of scissor blades, protruded from the frayed skin.

His eyes were still open. A dull yellow light, like a pulse of neon, flickered inside his severed torso.

‘Oh, Throne,’ Merity whispered.

‘Inquisitor?’ Gaunt called. Laksheema stepped into the chapel, followed by Hark and Baskevyl. Baskevyl gently drew Merity aside. She gazed at Dalin in utter bafflement.

‘That was a risk, my lord,’ said Laksheema.

‘A chance,’ Gaunt replied. ‘His guard was down. Please, while he is still dormant. The self-repair is rapid and alarming.’

Laksheema nodded. She aimed her right hand, arm outstretched.

‘Look away,’ she said.

The disruptor made a high-pitched squeal. A steady, pencil-thin beam of blinding mauve energy lanced from her wrist and scored into Dalin Criid’s body.

She kept it burning for almost a minute, until there was nothing left but cinders and flakes of ash, like the soot in an empty grate.