The Iron jackal

Twenty-Four

His past was still here, lying in wait.

The sight of the camp disoriented Silo. How many times had he come up this trail at the end of a day’s hunt, emerging from the rich green undergrowth to find this same clutter of huts waiting for him in the swelter of a late afternoon? It had been nine years since he fled this place, but those years were like the loop of a slipknot, vanishing to nothing with one sharp tug.

The camp had no name. They’d always just called it the camp. To name something was to give it permanence, and they’d always known they must be ready to abandon it at a moment’s notice, to drop their possessions and flee if the Sammies should ever discover them. No one thought they’d be here long.

Yet here they were.

Their three captors were young men, scouts, twitchy with pent-up aggression and eager to pull their triggers. They were new: Silo didn’t remember them. But the mere sight of his own people, even hostile ones, gave him a rush of pleasure that made his head light. And to hear them talk! The rapid, silken flow of syllables, washing over his senses, achingly beautiful in contrast to the ugly surrogate he’d been speaking so long that it had even invaded his thoughts.

But the men weren’t interested in conversation. They had their orders, and followed them rigidly. Strangers were to be taken captive and brought back to the camp. One of them seemed curious about how Silo and Frey had come to be travelling together, but his companion shut him up, and told the prisoners not to speak. Their leader would decide what was to be done with them.

But who’s your leader these days? That’s the question, ain’t it?

It was a question on which their lives might depend. Silo didn’t bother to ask. Knowing or not knowing, it wouldn’t change a thing, so it didn’t matter a shit’s worth. He kept his silence. The Cap’n did the same.

The trail wound up a slope beneath the dense canopy, heading into the heart of the camp. The buildings were made of wood and leaf thatch, arranged haphazardly wherever the massive trees would allow, nestled in the dim, blood-warm world of the deep jungle. Most of them were obscured, hidden by trunks and leaves, but even at this familiar edge, Silo saw new dwellings. The camp had grown.

Some things hadn’t changed, though. There was the pen for the domesticated ari’shu, Samarlan jungle-hogs, who rooted and snuffled in the earth among tery amp;o’she fat black chickens. There was the eating-round, a circular, open-sided hut where meals were taken. The men would sit on their mats in a strictly arranged hierarchy, with the most important closest to the centre, while the women sat wherever they pleased.

Further up, half-hidden by the trees, was the flank of the infirmary, where the witch-sisters treated the sick and the wounded. Next to it was the dreaming-house, where the children went to hear the tales of the old country, and to be taught of the grace of Mother. Silo had spent many a night there himself, listening to the witch-sisters tell of the time before the fall, before the Samarlans swept through Murthia and enslaved its people. Stories of Makkad, who led his armies to the walls of grand Ail and brought them down; stories of Elos and Kaf, whose journey of love and hate was the subject of hundreds of songs and cost thousands of lives; stories of Odadj, who’d slain the Bengist by plunging a spear into each of its three throats. An age of legends and greatness. It had swelled Silo’s heart to hear those stories when they were told to him as a child in the pens and work camps. They were scarcely less powerful as an adult.

Those stories were what bound his people together. Many things had been lost. Many arts and crafts had faded because there was no opportunity to practise them in slavery. The Samarlans had done their best to stamp out the old way of life, but they hadn’t succeeded. Not entirely. The Dakkadians had folded under the yoke and assimilated into their masters’ world. They had no language of their own any more, no culture left that hadn’t been copied from the Samarlans. But the Murthians had held on, over five centuries. It was death for a slave to be heard speaking Murthian, but they spoke it anyway, in secret. They had their own tongue, and their stories, and the promise from Mother that each of them would one day see the end to their bondage. Whether in this life or the next, or the next, or the next.

They kept the flame alive.

As the captives passed through the camp, people began to emerge from their huts, drawn by the news. They were mostly Murthians, a few Vard men, and even a pair of scrawny half-breed children, their skin a warm yellow-brown and their hair blond. Some of them looked in bad shape, walking with the support of their relatives. They seemed malnourished or sick. Even the healthiest were tired and haggard, and they watched the newcomers with a fearful curiosity.

He searched for people he knew. There were many strangers, but there were still plenty of people he recognised, and who recognised him in return with astonished expressions. Jaraz, who’d been a headstrong young firebrand, still here despite his reckless nature. Bahd, that sulky crank, pooching out his lips in disapproval. Ehri and Fal: the broad-shouldered huntress and the slender, thoughtful man who was her constant companion. She cried out his name as she saw him, and hurried to meet him, with Fal only a step behind her.

Stand off, Ehri, warned one of the young scouts. ~ We’re taking him to ~ Quiet your voice, she said, dismissing him scornfully. She clasped Silo’s upper arms and looked him up and down, a grin of amazement spreading across her face. Then she embraced him.

You live, she said. ~ I don’t believe the thing I see before me.

I live, he said, and he couldn’t stop a grin of his own at the sound of Murthian words rolling off his lips. He stepped back and lifted up her hand: there was an intricate shape tattooed on her left palm, as he’d known there would be. He looked up at Fal, who was crowding in, offering heartfelt greetings over the protests of the scouts.

My deepest congratulations, he said.

Fal slid an arm round Ehri and held up his own palm, which bore an identical symbol to Ehri’s. Their own personal sign, unique to their love. Silo was gladdened at the sight. At least some good had come out of the tragedy, then.

You should not have returned, Fal said, his words in direct contrast to the look on his face.

Akkad?

He still leads us, said Ehri, her grin fading slightly. ~ He hasn’t forgotten.

Silo had expected no less, but the news was a blow all the same. ~ I must see him.

Wait, Ehri, who is this man? demanded one of the scouts.

Ehri and Fal exchanged a glance, then she shook her head. ~ You know your orders, she said. ~ Take them to Akkad.

The scouts nudged them into motion again. As they did, Silo asked ~ The others?

The warrens, Ehri replied, her face grim. That was no surprise, either, but the confirmation of what he’d always known came unexpectedly sharp.

Frey glanced at him as they walked up the trail. No one else came near. They hung back, staring.

‘Old friends?’ he asked.

‘Hope so,’ said Silo, looking over his shoulder. ‘Tell you the truth, I ain’t sure. But if they is, they the only ones we likely to meet.’

Akkad’s hut was new, larger, befitting a leader of men. It stood on a slope overlooking the camp. At its front, a covered semicircular balcony jutted out into the air, supported by tree-trunk pillars. It was an impressively elaborate construction, given their tools and circumstances. Not the kind of thing that suggested a temporary stay.

Akkad met Silo on the balcony. He sat in a heavy, crudely carved chair softened with hide throws, his back to the jungle. The sides of the balcony were open, and provided a hundred-and-eighty degree view of the shadowed greenery all around. To Akkad’s right stood his wife Menlil, and to his left were three children, a boy and two girls, ranging frls, and-eigom eleven to seven years old. A half-dozen others stood at the edge of the room: three bodyguards, a witch-sister, a hard-faced Vard that Silo didn’t recognise and a Murthian that he did. Babbad, who had once been a rival of his. No doubt he and the Vard were Akkad’s right-hand men.

Silo would have stood in their place, once. Now he stood alone in the gathering, without even the Cap’n for an ally. Frey was being guarded outside. Even Silo had only been allowed in after a thorough check for weapons.

Akkad had become careful. And he was very wary of Silo, it seemed.

We all thought you were dead, said Akkad.

Silo spread his hands. ~ Evidently not.

You should have stayed away.

So I’m told, he replied. ~ But this is my homeland. How could I?

Akkad’s penetrating stare never wavered. A gambler’s stare. Calculating him.

He seemed more careworn than Silo remembered, but he was still a powerful man. His jungle-stained hogskin jacket was sleeveless and left open for ventilation, showing a lean, muscled torso and big arms dense with tattoos. His tightly curled black hair shone with oil, thick despite his forty-something years. He had a sharp, beaklike nose and a short beard that tapered to a point. A handsome man, often fierce, but capable of great charisma when the occasion called for it.

Why have you come? Akkad asked. ~ To see to unfinished business?

I have no quarrel with you, Akkad. All that was long ago.

Akkad studied him closely. Working him out. He didn’t know what to make of Silo. Didn’t believe him. Couldn’t understand why he’d come walking in to the camp unprotected, after all that had gone before. He suspected a trick or a trap. Perhaps there was an army waiting in the jungle? Perhaps Silo had sold them out to the Samarlans?

That was Akkad. Always suspicious. Silo thought it best to keep him guessing for now. It wouldn’t be long before Akkad realised that he had no cards in his hand. His best hope had been that Akkad had left, or died, or been usurped in his absence. But Akkad was still here.

Silo had no fear for himself. Death didn’t worry him. But he wished the Cap’n hadn’t come along. He should have fought harder to keep Frey away from this place, forbidden him, even. But he’d decided long ago that his days of ordering people around were done. Nowadays, he only took orders, like a good little slave. He’d given up the right to tell people what to do.

He’d warned Frey. Frey hadn’t listened. So it was on the Cap’n what happened to him.

I saw many sick people outside, Silo said.

The days are cruel, said Akkad.

An old Murthian saying. He was giving nothing away.

Yet your numbers have become greater.

They have.

And have you given your home a name, yet?

Akkad’s eyes tightened a fraction. ~ We have.

Silo nodded to himself. It was as he suspected. This was no longer a hideout, a place for dangerous men, plotting war on their oppressors; this was a village.

Akkad took his silence as a judgement. ~ Things have changed since you left us, he said, a hint of anger in his voice. ~ We plan for the future now.

The Vard looked down at his feet, then away. A tiny movement, but Silo spotted it. Seems at least one of you ain’t too keen on your plan for the future. Reckon there were a lot that weren’t keen on it back when I was here, neither.

If Akkad wasn’t going to give away any information, he’d have to divine it himself. He decided to push a little.

I recognise many faces I knew in the past, he said. ~ It’s a credit to your leadership that so many have lived so long in these violent times.

The Vard’s gaze flickered up to meet his, just for a moment. The man didn’t know Silo, except perhaps by reputation, but he suspected what Silo was implying.

Akkad did, too, and now the anger in his voice was more than a hint. ~ They are alive because I kept them safe, he said. ~ Alive to enjoy their freedom, instead of living out their next lives back in the slave pens and work camps. You would have driven them to their deaths.

Silo said nothing. He didn’t need to. Akkad had been too quick to defend himself, and he noticed the minute flickers of uncertainty on the faces of the people in the room. All except Babbad, whose face remained rigid.

~ Where have you been, Silopethkai? Akkad asked at length.

Akkad used his full name. Formal. Distancing himself from the friendship they’d once had.

Vardia, Silo replied.

I had understood that our people were not welcome in Vardia.

I did not say I was welcome there.

It felt strange to talk like this. Fencing was a part of Murthian conversation, and he was out of practice. The language was precise and elegant compared to Vardic, which was constantly rearranging itself, buried in slang that changed like the seasons. Murthian was an old and static tongue, rigid and dignified.

And now you have returned, said Akkad. ~ Walking from the jungle as if nothing has happened. All those deaths on your head, Silopethkai. Do you imagine they have been forgotten?

I did not kill them, Silo said.

Yes, said Akkad. ~ You did.

You had the choice.

I had no choice! he said, his voice rising as his fist came down on the arm of his chair. The men and women in the room looked uneasy.

Akkad’s gaze locked with Silo. Silo saw no remorse in the eyes of the man who had once been his friend. No regret at all. And so Silo looked away first. Because if Akkad felt no responsibility for what had happened, then Silo carried enough for two.

There were things that weighed on a man’s soul. He’d hit a woman he loved, once, while in the grip of one of the wild rages he used to get. He’d never stop being ashamed of that. But that didn’t even come close to the events that led to him fleeing this place nine years ago. Fifteen lives, friends and companions, all lost that day. And while he didn’t actually kill any one of them, he might as well have done, the way it turned out.

Do you remember Gagriisk? he asked eventually.

Of course I do, said Akkad. ~ It is a name burned on the heart of every Murthian. Those who did not escape and leave their people’s conflict behind them.

That was a provocation too far. ~ I see little evidence of conflict here, said Silo, looking around. ~ There are many ways to escape, Akkad.

But Akkad didn’t rise to it this time. ~ You lost that argument, Silopethkai, he said. ~ Good men and women died for it. Now speak your piece, and then I will decide what to do with you.

Gagriisk is one of the most notorious murder-camps in Samarla, said Silo, for the benefit of the Vard in the room. ~ Hidden in the poisonous mists of the Choke Bowl. Many years ago, we talked of an assault on that place.

You talked of an assault. A bloody and suicidal one. As was your habit.

Silo let it pass. Akkad’s churlishness only hurt himself in the eyes of his followers. He didn’t remember him being so prickly and easy to rattle. His eyes went to the children standing alongside him. Perhaps eleven years of fatherhood did that to a man. Or per a and leavhaps it was the sight of his old friend and old enemy, back from the grave.

We obtained a map, said Silo. ~ A map that showed the location of the target in amid the vast, shrouded wastes of the Choke Bowl.

I recall.

I have come to ask you for that map.

Akkad looked at him for a long time. Silo could see the gears in his mind working, trying to figure out the trick.

And what if I refuse? said Akkad, when he’d finally tired of trying to outguess his opponent.

Silo had entered the camp with no answer to that, but an answer came to him now. ~ If you refuse, you won’t receive the medical supplies that I offer you in exchange.

The witch-sister raised her head sharply. Akkad glanced at her and scowled. His brow darkened as he turned back to Silo. ~ You presume to offer us help?

I offer you a trade. You appear to be in need of supplies. Food, too. I can get them for you.

Murthians kept their feelings off their faces, as a rule, although Akkad had always been too passionate to learn it well. Silo’s expression was rigid. He let nobody see that the gift he offered was something he’d just thought up, and that he had no idea how he would actually deliver it. But it wouldn’t be a difficult thing to fly back to Vardia and buy or rob what they needed. It would cost them two days, perhaps, but without that map they might lose two weeks trying to search for Gagriisk.

Murthians were good at hiding their emotions, which made them seem inscrutable to foreigners, but they were also adept at detecting them. He looked around the people assembled on the balcony. Tiny shifts in expression, unguarded instants, told him what he needed to know. His offer had caught their interest keenly. The sickness must have been worse than he imagined. Only Babbad seemed unswayed, but that was hardly surprising. He’d always been unfailingly loyal to his leader, and would never forgive Silo for what had passed.

But the only opinion that mattered now was Akkad’s. He got slowly to his feet, rising out of his chair. He looked to his wife, who was pleading him with her eyes. Then he gave his answer.

Quite a crowd had gathered on the path that led up to their leader’s hut while Silo was inside. Frey had watched them trickle up from the camp below, faces anxious, as if they thought something of great importance was going on inside. He was being guarded by two of the young Murthians who’d captured them earlier. His pistols and cutlass had been taken from him. No one spoke to him or answered his questions. All he could do was wait, and trust that Silo knew what he was doing.

The sight of the engineer being led from the hut at gunpoint was not encouraging. ht= Silo knew

A fierce-looking Murthian emerged from the hut after him, and addressed the crowd. There was general consternation at his words, and many glances thrown sideways at Frey. Then one of the scouts gave him a rough shove, and he was pushed along in Silo’s wake. He thought about calling out to his friend, but decided it would only get him a rifle butt in the kidneys.

So they were being taken somewhere. Great. He was as much in the dark as ever. Being a leader was hard enough for him, but it certainly beat being the feller who didn’t get to know shit.

It seemed like most of the camp was following as he and Silo were led along a barely visible trail through the jungle. Silo was the object of everyone’s interest: Frey was an unimportant afterthought. It pricked his pride a little, even in their current predicament.

He soon lost track of which direction they were going. For a time, there was only the maddening sound of the insects, the distant hoots and growls of things he’d rather not meet, the heat in the air and the damp clothes sticking to his body, the steady trudge of his boots on the red earth.

Then he saw a face he recognised. The Murthian woman who had greeted Silo so enthusiastically in the camp. She’d fallen into step alongside him. She was a striking woman, with the body of an athlete and broad shoulders. Her face wasn’t exactly the kind of beautiful that Frey went for, but it had a statuesque quality about it that was hard to ignore. She had the same umber skin as Silo, and thick black hair in coiled ringlets, held back from her face with a beaded band.

‘You speak Vardic?’ he asked. He remembered how she’d cowed the scouts before, and hoped he wouldn’t get hit for speaking.

She looked him up and down, her eyes cold. ‘Yuh. Name’s Ehri.’

‘Frey. Can you tell me what’s happening?’ he asked, when his escorts didn’t seem inclined to interfere.

‘We goin’ to the warrens,’ she said.

‘The warrens? Like rabbit warrens?’ Frey asked hopefully, envisioning fields and daisies.

‘What down in them warrens, it ain’t rabbits,’ she replied.

Frey cursed. ‘I bloody knew it wouldn’t be rabbits.’

She studied him, apparently unimpressed. ‘What’re you to Silo?’

‘I’m his capt-’ he began, then corrected. ‘His friend.’

‘You the reason he came back here?’

‘Reckon he was trying to help me out. I’m in a certain amount of trouble, see. Long story.’

‘He must think a lot o’ you, to set foot in this place again.’

‘What is this place?’ Frey asked. ‘What happened here?’ He motioned towards Silo, a bald, lean figure just visible through the trees and the crowd. ‘Who is that feller?’

‘You don’t know? Thought you were his friend?’

‘Hey!’ Frey said, offended. ‘I’m friend enough to respect his privacy.’

She considered that for a time, then turned to his escorts. ‘You idiots don’t speak a word of Vardic, do you?’ she asked. One of them sneered and said something in the fluid, musical tongue of the Murthians. She ignored him and spoke to Frey again.

‘Who was he?’ she said quietly, her eyes on the captive walking ahead of them. ‘He was a hero.’

Frey did a double take. ‘ Him? ’

‘I was still young when he turned up in camp,’ she said. ‘Right away, we knew he was dangerous. I mean, people were afraid of him. He had that madness in him. Like when someone’s so angry they can’t stand it, so they bury it under a whole pile o’ calm.’

Frey thought about that for a moment. ‘ Him? ’ he asked again.

‘I guess you don’t know him that way.’

‘You bloody guess right!’ said Frey. ‘The Silo I know wouldn’t get angry if you cut his feet off and hung ’em round his ears.’

But is that really true? Didn’t he chuck a Sammie off a roof once? Hasn’t he been stewing ever since you hijacked that train? Shouldn’t you really have paid a bit more attention?

‘So what did he do?’ he asked, when it became clear that Ehri wasn’t in a hurry to speak again.

‘What he did was kill Sammies and Daks,’ she said. ‘You didn’t never see nobody wanted revenge as bad as he did. For what they did to our people, what they did to his family, to him. He wanted blood off ’em, and he got it. Akkad, he was the leader back then. At first, he was worried about Silo, but he saw how the camp got inspired by him. Other people, they worried about gettin’ enough to eat, about hidin’, about all kinds o’ things. Silo, he just wanted to get even. That kind o’ single-mindedness, you gotta respect it.’

She was looking ahead as she said it, and there was something in her voice, a hint of wistful fondness. Frey thought she’d felt more than respect for Silo at one time. He might not have been the most perceptive of individuals, but he reckoned he knew enough about women. Well, all except Trinica, anyway.

‘So what then?’ he urged. He was amazed to hear of this side of Silo’s character. He wondered what other secrets he might unearth about the rest of his crew, if only he could be bothered to dig.

‘Akkad felt which way the wind was blowin’, I guess,’ said Ehri. ‘Took Silo under his wing. Eventually he got to be second in command, and by then they was great friends. Silo was always there with some new plan, some way to sabotage this or blow up that. Awful good at solvin’ problems, he was: he could overcome anythin’ if it meant he got to kill some Sammies or free some of our kin at the end of it.’

Frey put the pieces together. ‘This Akkad feller, he’s still your leader?’

‘Yuh.’

‘So I’m guessing he and Silo had a falling out?’

‘You could say. See, Akkad was always puttin’ the brakes on Silo. He saw himself as the sensible one, lookin’ out for the good of the settlement, makin’ sure we didn’t risk too much, makin’ sure most of us came home alive. And that was fine by us, don’t get me wrong. The two of them, they were some combination.’

She motioned towards the fierce-looking man Frey had seen before, whom he assumed to be Akkad. A woman and three children were walking near him, picking their way through the undergrowth.

‘Then Akkad had a son,’ she said. ‘I guess that was what did it for him. Suddenly he had something to protect, something to really protect, and he wouldn’t take no risks no more. I mean, he put the brakes on everythin’ Silo tried.’ She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sniffed. ‘Pretty soon it became obvious what he was about. He wanted to stop hittin’ the Sammies. Called it a pointless waste of life, that we couldn’t do no good that way. It was like a fly bitin’ a rushu, goin’ up against the Sammie Empire.’

‘And Silo didn’t like that,’ Frey guessed.

‘Lotta people didn’t. Split the camp. Some reckoned we’d do better to build a new life here in the jungle, try ’n’ make the most of what freedom we had. Some of us, it didn’t sit well that we should be hidin’ while our kin were out there bein’ worked to death. One of them was Silo.’

‘Reckon I see where this is going,’ said Frey. He squinted as a spear of sunlight found its way though the canopy and dazzled him.

‘Yuh,’ Ehri replied. ‘So did Akkad. Silo, he never wanted to kill Akkad. Just wanted to knock him off his perch. But Akkad din’t see it that way. A bunch of ’em, they tried to take over the camp, but Akkad outsmarted ’em. Some got away, but they was all caught or killed in the end. ’Cept Silo. The rest that were still alive, Akkad made an example of ’em. Took ’em to the warrens.’

‘The warrens without the rabbits?’

‘The same.’

Frey steeled himself. He had the unpleasant looming sensation that usually accompanied imminent bad news. ‘And what happens in the warrens?’ he asked, wincing.

‘What you think happens?’ She frowned at him. ‘You get eaten.’

Frey sighed wearily. ‘Bollocks.’