Sardec considered this. He could see what Xeno was driving at. Having the humans know that one of the Exalted was in league with the powers of Shadow would be a blow to their prestige and thus their power. That was not needed with the winds of a new war blowing across the Ascalean continent. It was one thing for them to hear rumours about the Dark Empire. It was another thing for them to have proof of things their small minds were not capable of dealing with. Even so Sardec could not bring himself to lie outright. “I was not present at the kill, sir.”
“A very diplomatic answer. But you have seen the head?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you agree with me that it could belong to a half-breed.”
“It could, sir.” That was true. In death, it was difficult to tell.
Xeno smiled. “All things considered you did well, Lieutenant Sardec, as I would expect from the scion of such an illustrious family.”
Sardec searched for irony in Xeno’s words and could find none. “Sir?”
“This Zarahel may have slipped through our grasp but his wizard is dead, the Ultari is imprisoned deep below the earth and we have taught the hill-men a bloody lesson. That was the whole point of the exercise, and I would say you and your men have achieved your goals admirably.”
Despite himself, Sardec felt the praise affecting him. This was his first real solo field command and he was relieved at simply not having disgraced his family’s name.
“I will make sure Lord Azaar knows of your performance once he arrives.”
“Lord Azaar, sir?” Sardec could not keep the astonishment out of his voice. “The Conqueror?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. The Lord of Battles himself is taking command in the field. He’s a friend of your family, I believe.”
It was now evident why the Colonel was being so pleasant, Sardec thought sourly. The small feeling of pride he had taken in Xeno’s commendation vanished. The Colonel was playing politics. If Azaar was their new supreme commander, and their new supreme commander was a friend of Sardec’s family then it was only sensible for the Colonel to stay on good terms with him. Sardec made a swift calculation. He would prefer to be judged on his own merits but he knew that was impossible in the modern army. He would need all the advantages he could get. War was coming, and there would be a great deal of manoeuvring among the junior officers for promotion. Sardec meant to see that some of that glory was reflected on his House and on himself.
“He’s a friend of my father, sir.”
“Very good. I thought you would like to know that he will be taking up residence at Lady Asea’s palace. She is his half-sister.”
“I would greatly appreciate permission to send my card, and would request permission to visit the Lady, should she be kind enough as to request my presence.”
“I am sure we could see our way clear to that,” said the Colonel. He looked down at his papers. As all the junior officers knew it was a clear indication that the interview was over.
“You may go, Lieutenant,” said Xeno just to emphasise the point.
Chapter Twelve
The camp buzzed with rumours of the new commander. It seemed like every second person had something to say on the subject. Rik did not care all that much. He was tired and wet. He had spent most of the afternoon playing dead in a ditch while Hef and the lads stormed a makeshift emplacement. Sardec had ruled that he had been hit by enemy fire and ordered him to lie there face down in the mud, surrounded by stinging nettles. He was hungry. They were allowed only water and the smallest rations of the plainest of foods during the Mourning.
Rik already had plenty to think about. He had seen with his own eyes that most of the town’s carters had been hired indefinitely on the Queen’s Commission. General proclamations had been posted on every tree and tavern wall announcing that Her Majesty was paying good silver to any man in possession of a wagon prepared to do his patriotic duty. That could only mean one thing. Weasel put it in words.
“It’s war for sure, Halfbreed. They would not be doing all this hiring if it was not. There will be supplies to carry. I think I’ll pay the Quartermaster a visit.”
Perhaps he was thinking that where there were government contracts there would be money to be made or perhaps he still had hopes of organising a good drinking session. So far, despite his best efforts, Weasel had not been able to get either the advance he had hoped for or permission to leave camp. It seemed like the Quartermaster was busy using his influence elsewhere. The Barbarian swaggered after him.
There was still some light left. Most of the older men wanted back to their beds or their wives. The younger ones wanted to head down to the stream to flirt with the free girls. Rik begged off and headed to his billet, stripped and changed into his old tattered, patched uniform. He knew he should find one of the camp girls and pay her to wash his dirty tunic and britches, but there was nobody there, so he took the sack of books out of its hiding place, opened one volume and inspected it.
It was hand-written, in classic Exalted runes in a small crabbed hand. As he flicked through it he noticed that some parts were comprehensible, written in the vernacular. Others were written in High Exalted, a language favoured by scholars and wizards, and still others in the runes and hieroglyphs of the Elder Races. This volume had an air of great antiquity. The leaves seemed very dry, as if they might turn to dust at any moment.
A feeling of despair settled on him. How was he ever going to decipher this? His grasp of the vernacular was reasonable. Koralyn had taught him how to cipher it out well enough, claiming it was invaluable knowledge for a thief. Rik wished the former master of his first gang were here now. He wished he were still alive. Koralyn had been a wicked old bastard but he was the closest thing to a father Rik had ever known.
Rik had never really known his whole story, but he knew that Koralyn was well-educated for a thief in the slums of Sorrow and had not always lived there. In his youth he had travelled far before ending up becalmed, as he called it, in the City of Thieves. He claimed most consistently to have come from Harven Greatport in Northern Kharadrea, but then he had claimed to have come from a hundred different places at different times.
Being a compulsive liar was an occupational hazard for a thief, as he had always said himself. It had not saved him in the end though, and he had gone to an inglorious death, weeping and begging for mercy on the Lowgate Gallows. Rik had gone to watch the hanging, his head full of tales of daring escapes such as highwaymen always made in the chapbooks. He had considered all manner of rescue plans himself, but of course, they had never happened.
Old Koralyn had come out surrounded by a squad of soldiers, accompanied by the hangman in his black mask. There was no way anyone could rescue him. No one had even wanted to, not even some of his friends who were present. The whole thing had the atmosphere of a public holiday. The street and square were crowded, as were all the nearby windows. There were even boys sitting on the roofs and chimney pots. They had all come to witness the death, to look on at that primal mystery, the transition of one man out of life.
The hangman had read the text from the Scriptures about the Queen’s Justice and the punishment of the guilty. Koralyn had raved and begged without dignity. Rik had been so angry about it that he had half-wished the old man dead himself, and had felt guilty about it ever afterwards. Then Koralyn has taken the Drop. His body had been cut down. His head was cut off and stuck on a pike over the Lowgate as a warning to other malefactors. The crowd, having chatted and eaten its way through this exemplary lesson in royal justice, had dispersed to the taverns. Always good for business, a hanging, an innkeeper in the square had told him.
Rik had learned no lesson that day. The hanging of someone he knew had scared him just enough so that he did not steal anything for several days, until his belly had started to growl and he felt dizzy. He had snatched a watch from an old lawyer’s pocket as the man had taken him into a back alley looking for a blowjob. He had almost not gotten away with it. After that he had fallen in with the Old Witch and her gang of youthful pickpockets and thieves, and his education had really begun.
Rik shook his head. All of this reminiscing was getting him nowhere. He knew he was merely putting off the task at hand. He needed to make a start on this book if he was ever to learn something from it. If you don’t start, you can’t finish as the Old Witch had always said. It was getting dark but that did not bother him. His eyes had always been good in the dark.
