Anarch

Three: The Effects of the Dead

The alarms went off, screeching through the halls of the palace undercroft. Then they cut out again, just as sharply.

‘Feth’s sake,’ Baskevyl muttered. That was the sixth time it had happened in the last two hours. The Tanith personnel and retinue billeted in the cold cellars of the Urdeshic Palace were getting seriously spooked. They were well below ground in arched basement chambers beneath the palace’s Hexagonal Court, spaces once used to store wine and grain. There were no windows to look out of, no windows through which they could see if an actual attack was underway. Baskevyl was sick of asking the Munitorum work crews what the problem was, and sick of their vague answer of ‘probably faulty wiring’.

He set aside his half-finished cup of cold caffeine and got up to take another stroll through the billet and calm some nerves.

Blenner was standing in the archway of his billet area.

‘False alarm?’ Blenner asked.

‘Seems so,’ replied Baskevyl.

‘Again?’

Baskevyl pulled on his coat, and didn’t reply.

‘Are you, ah…’ Blenner began.

‘Am I what, commissar?’ Baskevyl asked.

‘You seem to be giving me the cold shoulder a little, Bask,’ said Blenner, trying a friendly smile.

Baskevyl turned and looked at the commissar as he buttoned up his jacket. His look did not return the friendship.

‘Not everything is about you, Vaynom,’ he said.

‘No. Obviously.’

‘We’re the personal company of the First Lord Executor,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Privileged and elevated. And this is what our privilege gets us. Stuck here in a wine cellar. There are matters to deal with that aren’t being dealt with. I have feth-all idea what’s going on, and I’m itching to re-join my company, which is out in Millgate somewhere, facing Throne knows what. So that might account for my demeanour.’

‘Of course.’

‘Unless there was something else you think might be weighing on me?’

‘Just…’ Blenner shrugged awkwardly. ‘Just the matter of Jakub Wilder.’

‘Because you executed him?’

‘Yes, Bask. That.’

‘He had just committed murder, had he not?’

‘He had. Poor Ezra–’

‘So I should think your field execution was entirely justified under the discipline code. You are a commissar.’

‘Is that… is that what Fazekiel is writing up?’ asked Blenner eagerly.

‘Her investigation is ongoing,’ said Baskevyl. ‘I can’t imagine how she could find in any other way. Unless there’s something you and Meryn aren’t telling us.’

‘Well, no. Nothing like that.’ Blenner cleared his throat. Baskevyl got the distinct impression that Blenner was glancing around in the hope of spotting a bottle he could pour a glass from.

‘Look, Bask,’ said Blenner. ‘The thing of it is… the thing of it is, morale really. And confidence.’

‘Go on,’ said Baskevyl.

‘Don’t make me spell it out, Bask.’

Baskevyl sighed. ‘Your specific assignment in V company,’ Baskevyl said. ‘A Belladon company. The colours band. Of which Wilder was c.o. You are concerned how they regard you now you’ve shot their senior. How any of us Belladon will regard you.’

‘Well, I mean, given the history,’ said Blenner. ‘Jakub Wilder, Lucien Wilder. An illustrious Belladon fighting family–’

‘Jakub Wilder was not a model soldier,’ Bask snapped. ‘He let the name down. He murdered, for feth’s sake. And attacked the person of the First Lord Executor’s daughter. You were doing your duty.’

‘I was.’

‘Then you and me, we don’t have a problem. Jakub Wilder brought shame to the Belladon contingent. Unless, as I said, there’s more to this.’

‘There really isn’t.’

‘Good.’

‘I’d still request,’ said Blenner cautiously, ‘reassignment.’

‘Reassignment?’

‘Attachment to another company. The boys of V Company keep looking at me like I’m a bad smell.’

There was a bad smell, all right. The background fug of sulphur from the volcanic vent the palace straddled was particularly noxious in the undercroft area. And the latrines had flooded again. Another technical issue the Munitorum work crews couldn’t adequately explain.

‘First of all, just bring them into line,’ said Baskevyl unsympathetically. ‘It’s not a popularity contest. Second, that’s not my call.’

‘You’re senior officer present.’

‘By rank, yes. But Daur has operational oversight of the Tanith here. Take it up with him if you must. Except don’t, because Ban’s not an idiot, and he’ll give you the same answer I just did.’

‘Where is Captain Daur?’ Blenner asked.

‘Fethed if I know, Vaynom.’

‘Is… is the girl all right?’

Baskevyl looked at him. ‘Gaunt’s daughter? Again, fethed if I know. Is that all?’

Blenner nodded. Baskevyl pushed past him to exit. He paused.

‘Any word from Hark?’ he asked Blenner.

‘I’ve heard nothing.’

‘Nothing through Prefectus channels?’

‘No, Bask.’

‘So we have no idea where Kolea is?’

‘We don’t,’ Blenner agreed.

The alarms suddenly went off again. They shrieked for a second before shutting off. Blenner flinched.

‘Feth that,’ said Baskevyl, and strode away.

Alone, Blenner leant against the door jamb and breathed out slowly, trying to calm himself. His hands were shaking, so he stuffed them in the pockets of his storm coat.

‘Nice chat?’ Meryn whispered.

Blenner jerked with a start. The Tanith captain was standing right beside him in the shadow of the archway.

Meryn grinned his crooked grin.

‘Don’t do that,’ Blenner hissed.

‘I’ve got something for you, Vaynom,’ Meryn said. He took a baggie of pills and stuffed them into Blenner’s top pocket. ‘Something to take the edge off.’

Then Meryn leaned in until he was eye-to-eye with Blenner, and the back of Blenner’s head was pressed against the stonework behind him.

‘I heard all of that,’ Meryn said. ‘That talk with Bask. You’re a fething idiot. How guilty do you want to look exactly? Play it chill, for feth’s sake. I’m not kidding, Blenner. If I go down, you go down. And if it comes to that, I think I can throw you to the damn wolves a lot more effectively than you can throw me. Are we clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ Meryn smiled. He raised both hands and smoothed the front of Blenner’s coat as if he was a tailor finalising a perfect fit. ‘Don’t make me have this conversation with you again.’

Meryn walked away, humming to himself. Blenner took out the packet of pills. Somnia. He took two.

He knew it would hardly be enough.

Long rows of cots had been set up down the lengths of the arched undercroft chambers. Heaters were running, and lumen globes hovered under the arches. The close air smelled of sweat and volcanic fumes and the damned latrines.

And fear. The whole retinue was afraid. Apart from the dirty business with Wilder and Gendler, everyone had heard the story about Elodie and poor little Yoncy. Some kind of monster out in the wasteland behind Low Keen had taken out an entire squad of enemy soldiers and almost killed them both too.

Baskevyl walked the length of the billet, pausing to chat with troopers and members of the retinue. He did what he could to reassure them. They did what they could to appear reassured.

Baskevyl spotted old Ayatani Zweil gingerly feeding scraps of dried meat to the regimental psyber-eagle mascot.

‘Fattening him up, father?’ Baskevyl asked.

‘Oh no, no,’ Zweil replied, offering another scrap and trying to guess which head would take it. ‘Gaining the beast’s confidence. Making friends, you see? I have named him Quil. He didn’t have a name. It’s short for–’

‘I get it,’ said Baskevyl.

‘It puts us on good terms, see? Makes us friends. So I can get close enough to groom him.’

‘Groom him?’ Baskevyl asked.

‘Groom him and maybe slip a garland of islumbine over each of his heads… ow! Bastard nearly took my finger off!’

‘Because why?’ Baskevyl asked.

‘I presume because he was hungry,’ said Zweil.

‘No, father. Why do you want to groom him?’

‘Well, because there’ll be a parade. When she gets here. We want the bitey little bastard looking his resplendent best.’

‘A parade?’

‘For the Beati, man.’

Baskevyl frowned. ‘Father, the arrival of the Saint is not open know­ledge. How did you find out? Who told you?’

‘No one,’ Zweil replied, his eyes fixed on the raptor as he held out another chunk.

He glanced at Baskevyl.

‘I’m ayatani imhava, major,’ he said. ‘One of her roaming chosen. I know these things. Just as I know the imhava are gathering in Eltath. Coming from all over. It’s taken years for some of them to get here, following the long routes of the Saint’s pilgrimage. I believe even some delegations of the templum ayatani are coming here too. Her priesthood, major, gathering at her side at the site of the victory.’

‘This is a victory?’ asked Baskevyl dubiously.

‘It will be,’ replied Zweil.

‘It doesn’t feel much like one.’

‘I didn’t say whose victory,’ said Zweil. ‘Oh, don’t look at me like that, major. I wasn’t being pessimistic. The paths of the esholi have not yet revealed the outcome of the future, even to those of her chosen, like me. All we know is, we should be at her side at this time and feth! Bastard! Shit! Bugger!’

‘Did it bite your finger again, father?’ asked Baskevyl.

‘I find it has a tendency to do that,’ said Zweil, sucking at his fingertip.

‘Maybe don’t put your fingers in its beaks, then?’

‘I’ll get a stick,’ said Zweil.

‘So you can offer the scraps at arm’s length?’ asked Baskevyl.

‘Oh,’ said Zweil, ‘that’s a better idea.’

Elodie was helping several troopers from E Company to mop the outer hallway of the undercroft where groundwater had sopped up through the washhouse drains.

‘The Munitorum can handle that,’ Baskevyl said to her as he walked up.

Elodie leant on her mop. ‘In the meantime, the billets flood, major,’ she replied.

‘It’s a mess,’ he agreed.

‘They say it’s the heavy rain,’ said Elodie. ‘Backing up along the storm drains.’

‘Does that happen a lot?’

‘Apparently, it’s never happened before,’ she replied.

‘Well, then we’re blessed,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Are you all right?’

She shrugged and nodded. She didn’t look all right. She was drawn, as though she hadn’t slept much or well, and where her hands gripped the mop, Baskevyl could see that she’d bitten her nails off short.

‘I don’t know what happened, major,’ she said. ‘I still can’t get the stink of blood out of my clothes. The Sons of Sek were right on us and then… they were dead and the world folded up.’

‘Folded up?’

‘I passed out. I don’t know. There was a sound.’

‘What sound?’

‘Like a… a bone saw. I’ve seen some bad things, major, and been in some dangerous places, but that was the most terrifying thing that ever happened to me. Terrifying because I have no idea what it was.’

‘But the child’s all right?’

‘I haven’t seen her. She’s with Dalin, I think. I suppose she is. Yoncy never says much, but–’

‘But?’

Elodie looked at him.

‘She’s a very strange child.’

‘She always has been, mam.’

‘She says things sometimes,’ said Elodie. ‘Creepy things, really. I… I used to think that it was because she was just a child, but she’s not, is she? I mean she’s not a child anymore. She acts much younger than she is, like it’s a defence mechanism. A way to get people to like her.’

Baskevyl nodded. ‘To be fair,’ he said, ‘she’s had a tangled upbringing. What she’s seen in her life, I wouldn’t wish that on any child. If she acts young to make people like her, then it’s probably an effort to get some security.’

‘Maybe,’ Elodie replied with a shrug.

‘What?’ asked Baskevyl.

She shook her head. He felt he shouldn’t press her. Ban Daur was due back soon. Maybe she’d confide in her husband.

‘Do you know what a changeling is, major?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Like… in the faerie tales?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Sometimes, I honestly think she’s that. Not human. Switched at birth.’

‘Isn’t that… a little unkind?’ he ventured.

‘Of course it is,’ she agreed. ‘But you know the story about her, don’t you? Half the retinue was convinced that Kolea had two sons, not a son and a daughter. Naturally, that’s nonsense. But why would so many people think it?’

‘Hearsay?’ Baskevyl suggested. ‘Crossed wires? Stories getting mixed up?’

‘There’s no point asking Gol,’ Elodie said. ‘I think a lot of his memories are missing, you know, since Hagia. It’s as though he doesn’t even know his own children properly.’

‘He hasn’t been much of a father to them,’ said Baskevyl. He grimaced. ‘That came out wrong. What I mean is, he hasn’t had much chance. He thought they were both dead for the longest time, and by the time he found out they were alive, Criid had taken them on. Saved them both. Anyway, we can’t ask Gol.’

‘Is he still missing?’

Baskevyl nodded.

‘Look, don’t say anything,’ Elodie said. ‘I mean, what I said about Yoncy. Everyone’s on edge and I’m just jumping at shadows because of what happened at Low Keen. That shook me up, Bask, it really did. So this is just my nerves talking.’

‘I won’t,’ said Baskevyl.

At the far end of the undercroft billet, a space had been set aside for supply crates and piles of kitbags. The Munitorum had shipped in the personal effects of the Tanith troops still deployed in the field at Millgate. Bonin, Domor and Sergeant Major Yerolemew were sorting through the kitbags, working from a list.

Baskevyl knew what they were doing. The list was the casualty list from the Millgate action. The men were setting aside the personal belongings of the troopers who wouldn’t be coming back to claim them.

It was a miserable task, one they had to do all too often. The effects of the dead would be sorted through, dispersed, recycled where possible. Decorations would be returned to the regimental coffer. Personal trinkets might be given to close friends as mementos.

Baskevyl watched them work for a while, then admitted to himself that it was unkind not to help them.

They nodded to him as he came over. Along with Commissar Fazekiel, Baskevyl and Domor had endured a tough time together prior to the evacuation from Low Keen.

‘Any word on Gol?’ Domor asked immediately.

Baskevyl shook his head.

‘And we can’t even get a warning upstairs to the chief,’ Domor sighed. ‘Since when did Gaunt fail to respond to a request from the ranks?’

‘He’s First Lord Executor now, Shoggy,’ said Baskevyl. ‘He’s got a plateful.’

‘But it’s urgent,’ Domor stressed. ‘The fething ordos sniffing after Kolea’s blood.’

‘Daur’s on it,’ said Baskevyl. ‘He’s promised to take the matter right to Gaunt, first chance he gets.’

‘If the fething ordos are sniffing after Gol’s blood,’ said Bonin quietly, ‘getting word to the chief isn’t going to help. They’ll have him. That’s what they do.’

‘Cheerful,’ said Domor.

Bonin shrugged. There was nothing cheerful about him. With Mkoll gone, Bonin had been made chief of scouts. But that was only a title. Circumstances prevented Domor, Baskevyl and Bonin from re-joining the main regiment elements in Millgate. They all felt the frustration of being stuck, inactive, away from their companies. Out in the field, Caober or Vivvo would be running scout operations.

Bandmaster Yerolemew was looking grim too. The old, one-armed sergeant major was working methodically through the kitbags. Jakub Wilder had been his direct superior. Baskevyl could feel the shame hanging on the old man’s shoulders, and the responsibility. Yerolemew was acting lead of V Company for the duration.

‘Damn,’ the old man whispered. He’d just unzipped a kitbag.

‘What?’ asked Domor.

‘It’s Mkoll’s,’ Yerolemew replied.

‘I’ll take that,’ said Bonin. ‘Don’t sort it.’

Yerolemew zipped the bag back up and handed it to the scout.

‘You know the procedure, Mach,’ Baskevyl said gently.

Bonin nodded.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘But Mkoll’s MIA. He’s not dead. Not until we find a body. Until then, I’ll take care of this.’

‘What are you doing?’ asked Dalin.

He’d found his sister standing alone in the hallway outside the billet area. She was staring at the broad flight of steps that led up into the palace.

‘Papa’s coming,’ she whispered, not taking her eyes off the steps.

Dalin breathed out heavily. Yoncy had a habit of calling everybody ‘papa’ or ‘uncle’. He was getting sick of it. It had been cute when she was small, but she was a young woman now. With her hair shaved short after the recent lice problem, she looked like a teenage pilgrim. What did they call them? Esholi?

Dalin wanted to tell her to stop it with the infantile chatter. It was grating. She showed no sign of puberty yet, but she was getting taller. She was only a head shorter than he was.

But he refrained. Something bad had happened to her at Low Keen. He decided to cut her a little slack.

‘Gol will be here soon enough. Tona too,’ he said.

‘Papa said to wait for him, Dal,’ she said. ‘He would send word. I have to wait and listen for him.’

‘What happened at Low Keen, Yoncy?’ he asked.

‘Papa said it was time. I don’t want it to be time. I don’t want it, Dal. But he said it was. And he said I had to be brave about it. Then the men came, so the shadow fell.’

‘The shadow?’

‘The bad shadow, silly.’

Dalin gritted his teeth. ‘Please stop it with the baby-talk, Yonce,’ he said. He remembered a dinner on board the Highness Ser Armaduke, now genuinely years ago, and a drawing she’d made for Gol Kolea. She’d talked about a bad shadow, like it was her new bogeyman.

Of course, she had just been a child then.

Yoncy looked at him.

‘It’s not baby-talk, Dalin,’ she said. ‘You know. You know what Papa says too.’

‘What’s that on your neck?’ he asked, reaching forward. She flinched back.

‘Nothing,’ she said.

He could see a sore patch of skin around the base of her throat.

‘Is that the eczema again? Yoncy? Has it come back?’

Before the mission to Salvation’s Reach, Dalin had given her a medallion, a souvenir of the Saint. She’d proudly worn it around her neck until it had been lost. The metal of what had undoubtedly been a cheap, mass produced medal had caused a reaction and given her eczema.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t hurt.’

‘Come inside,’ Dalin said. ‘We’ll find some food.’

‘I have to wait here,’ she replied firmly. ‘Papa told me to wait here for him. It’s time, and he wants to talk to me. You should wait too, Dalin. He’ll want to talk to you as well.’

‘Gol may be a while yet,’ Dalin said.

‘I don’t mean Gol. Not Papa Gol. I mean Papa.’

‘Who… who is Papa, Yoncy?’

She looked at him so fiercely it made him recoil slightly.

‘You know,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you listening to him too?’

Dalin raised his hands and backed away. She’d clearly been much more upset by the incident than he thought. He’d ask someone about it. Maybe Doctor Curth when she returned. It was some kind of trauma. He’d seen it in soldiers before.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right. You stay here and wait for… for Papa. I’ll go and get you some soup.’

She nodded.

‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘I love you, Dalin.’

‘I’m your brother. You’re supposed to.’

She smiled.

‘I do what I’m supposed to do,’ she said, and then turned back to stare at the steps.