The Broken Isles

needed food to the people of the city.

‘It might not look much at the moment,’ Brynd said, ‘but this is a vision compared with what it was like when you first arrived.’

‘I remember it well.’ Eir’s expression was unreadable. She looked impassively across the scene for some time without speaking. Then, she said, ‘When I left Villjamur, I had only positive memories of my father’s once-glorious Empire in mind. This is not exactly how the family dream went, I’ll admit.’

‘I didn’t realize you were so attached to those dreams,’ Brynd said.

‘Neither did I until recently,’ Eir replied. ‘Still, I think I need to face reality, don’t you?’

‘Having escaped your own — very public — execution, traipsing halfway across the Archipelago to get here, and brought our only hope of an ally — I’d say you’ve faced reality.’

‘You’re very kind to me, commander — you always have been. I always found it easier talking to you than any of the guards who were attached to myself and Rika. Your loyalty to the Jamur lineage has been unquestionable. And now, even now. .’ She gestured to the thronging iren. ‘Even now you rebuild this in our name.’

‘Come. Let’s head down this road — there’s a lot more to see.’

There were sectors of the city so badly damaged by the war that, after the clearance of rubble, there was nothing left but a skeleton neighbourhood. Stubs of stone were scattered irregularly throughout one region heading towards Port Nostalgia — or what was left of it.

There was little to remind them that these streets were once inhabited.

‘This place saw the worst of the fighting,’ Brynd said. ‘And remember I told you about the huge being that emerged from the city and trailed out towards the sea?’

‘It came this way, then,’ Eir realized. ‘By Astrid, it must have been enormous.’

‘I never saw it myself,’ Brynd said, ‘and the reports that came in were inconsistent. Those who witnessed it first-hand suggested it was some primitive sea monster made of crackling light, though that sounds like an exaggeration to me. Whatever it was, though it nearly killed the Night Guard while we were saving people, it also took a chunk of the enemy forces occupying this sector of the city. It did us a favour, in the end. Somewhere we must have had some remarkable allies.’

‘Both fortuitous and. .’ Eir paused as she took in the scale of devastation.

‘Just fortuitous,’ Brynd added. ‘Everything that was here can be built again, more or less. They’re only buildings. The alternative was much less appealing.’

A unit of Dragoons wearing bright-red sashes rode by quickly on horseback, five men in all, and another followed a few moments later, moving much more slowly due to pulling a cart. Each of the riders saluted Brynd as they passed and offered the Sele of Jamur, before moving on down the street.

‘What’s going on here?’ Eir asked.

Brynd considered the question. ‘We should follow them. I think you should see this as well.’

They turned in line behind the Dragoons, pursuing their cautious route through the debris. The group continued for several minutes, eventually approaching the fringe of a more built-up region, one that had not been totally decimated. The terraced houses were largely featureless, flat structures, with once-brightly painted wooden doors now covered in dust and flecks of blood. Many doors had been scrubbed clean again by returned owners, though one of them still had an arrowhead embedded in the wood. One road was relatively clear, with a small pile of rubble in one corner.

At the far end, where the Dragoons were now heading, a dust cloud floated above an end-terrace, which had recently collapsed. A few neighbours had clustered around to examine the damage without offering much help, but the Dragoons dismounted and began to clear them out of the way, before they set to work.

Brynd and Eir came closer to see that half the end house had just buckled over. It was an area of about fifteen feet wide now reduced to a mound of stone, with broken furniture jutting out of the gaps. It wasn’t the first time this had happened since the war, and wouldn’t be the last.

As the skies clouded over and the dust settled, the Dragoons set about climbing further into the debris. Four soldiers formed a chain along which they passed chunks of masonry. Brynd and Eir dismounted from their horses, approached the scene and offered their help.

‘Nah, you’re all right. We’ll have this sorted soon, commander,’ said a tall, bearded officer with a wry smile. ‘It’s our job, like.’

With a remarkable nonchalance they continued the chain of operation, the heavy men grunting as they moved some of the heavier stone back first. Two of the other soldiers had run further along the street to flag for civilian assistance and, after returning unsuccessfully, one of them was sent on his horse to fetch more troops.

Brynd turned to Eir. ‘This has been the main operation since the war — clearances of property, of streets, seeing that structures are safe. We tried to keep a log of all the progress, though it probably isn’t as efficient as I’d like.’

‘These are people’s homes, though. How do you log the emotional distress this causes?’

He knew what she meant. He led a life of numbers and logic, and in the clean-up he couldn’t afford to take such things into account.

A middle-aged woman with straggly brown hair and dressed in heavy, drab robes, burst forward onto the scene. She dropped her bags, and began to wail into her hands. Brynd watched as she sank to her knees on one side of the collapsed building, crying, ‘My boys, my boys.’

Eir rushed over to the woman and knelt by her side. Brynd watched the former Stewardess of the Empire hold her as the woman emitted great, heaving sobs into her shoulder.

Seeing Eir react to such raw human emotion, and so quickly, made Brynd contemplate whether the sheer scale of these losses, or even the war itself, had began to numb his senses, and chisel away at his compassion. The Night Guard were enhanced in any number of physical ways, but the ability to offer a shoulder to cry on did not seem to be one of them.

The soldiers eventually uncovered the dead bodies of two teenage lads and loaded them gently onto the cart. Their mother, with Eir still gripping her hands tightly, leant on the cart, pressing her tearful face into one of the boy’s dirtied, bloodied shirts.

While this continued, Brynd walked along the street to knock on the doors of several of the houses.

Two people answered, only one of whom knew the woman well enough to take her in. It was an elderly woman who seemed fit and healthy and sane, and Brynd told her what had happened, pressed a few coins into her hand, 10 Sota in all, and instructed her to buy food and look after the woman.

As he returned to guide the woman towards this temporary sanctuary, he thought to himself, If I keep opening my purse like that, for every dead body, I’ll have nothing left. .

Brynd and Eir rode back in contemplative silence. Eir’s mood was different now, though he couldn’t tell how exactly.

‘Are you glad you came out here, to see all this?’ Brynd asked eventually.

‘Glad is not perhaps the right word, but I am certainly grateful for what you’ve shown me. I’m happy you’re going about things the way you are — seeing that these people have jobs, houses and food.’

‘I’m not as alert to human and rumel needs as yourself, Lady Eir. You were very good earlier.’

‘Well, such emotional things probably aren’t necessary for a military man when you’ve so many other things to worry about; but you have compassion in your heart, and that is what these people so clearly need. Compassion.’

I’m glad someone thinks that, Brynd thought, as they neared the imposing Citadel.

‘If what Artemisia tells us is true,’ Eir continued, ‘if another war is genuinely coming, what will happen here in Villiren?’

‘I’m not sure I follow,’ Brynd said.

‘To these people, I mean. Will they be expected to fight again?’

‘Some will be more willing than others.’

‘And the rest of the island — the rest of the Empire’s citizens?’

‘I don’t know yet, Lady Eir. Although Artemisia’s people could provide significant support, we should plan for