yelling as two orderlies either side of the man shoved the bleeding remains of his shoulder into the liquid.
‘Come on, climb back up to the wall with me. It’s not really healing you’re doing here, is it? You’re only pushing the dents out of the armour, grinding the chips out of the blades before tossing ’em back into the fray.’
‘Just hold the line, Mister Morris.’
The stocky Jackelian gave an ironic salute and loped back towards the fierce combat along the top of the battlements. Daunt had seen death before… on Jago, in his parish back home, in his trade as a consulting detective. But this destruction was on a different scale. He might as well have been the city’s commander, dispatching thousands to their end with a causal wave of a marshal’s baton. He took the boy’s cold hand in his, rubbing the fingers. ‘You have to be careful with murder like this, murder on an industrial scale. It can do things to you. Send you mad enough to start listening to the old gods, and that can land you in all sorts of trouble.’
I can’t die.
‘No energy is ever lost, young man,’ replied Daunt. ‘Only transformed. That’s how the world works.’
All along the battlements: screaming, yelling soldiers, and the thud of their rifles, the war cries from gill- necks, bayonets being thrust into gas masks and rebreathers as the battle desperately surged back and forth for control of the wall, just energy, trickling from one state to another. That was all it was. Trickle and flow, trickle and flow.
A passing surgical orderly kicked Daunt in the small of the back. ‘Get to the wall, Court man. There are more wounded who need carrying down.’
Daunt reached into his pocket and pulled out his bag of aniseed balls. ‘How about you, would you care for a Bunter and Benger’s?’
‘This is a war, Court man, a war. Get off your arse and help us.’
‘Yes. I am rather afraid this war belongs to me.’ He stood wearily up.
The orderly shoved a red crayon-like stick in Daunt’s direction. ‘Move down the line of wounded. Anyone you think can be saved, mark their forehead with a cross.’
‘Mark them all with a cross,’ said Daunt. ‘We’re pulling back. Prepare to move the aid station.’
‘Back, where?’
Daunt pointed to the volcano. ‘Inside there.’
He picked his way through the wounded littering the lawn, treading through the human debris of war, oblivious to the calls of the surgeons and their medical staff. Up on the gate’s keep, the command table holding the plans for the siege was nearly depleted of counters, only a few of the mayor’s staff left at the table and communication desk to push around the surviving units. The rest were at the battlements, firing desperately out into the wall of smoke. The mayor himself was unchanged, striding between the table and the defenders, a gas rifle cradled under his right arm.
‘Fall back,’ Daunt ordered the mayor, who was looking down at this strange foreigner with a mixture of curiosity and hostility. ‘Fall back to the volcano. There are chambers underground large enough to shelter the town’s population.’
‘This is our city, Court man,’ boomed the politician. ‘Our forefathers-’
‘I know, I know. Lie under the ground, died defending it, you’ll bring everlasting shame on our Lady of the Light. But here’s the thing. The battle of Clawfoot Moor. Same situation. Last great siege of the civil war, and the royalists lost, because just like Nuyok, your perimeter is too wide to mount an effective defence. The Advocacy has enough numbers to swarm over your city and your towers can’t be fortified adequately to hold them off. The volcano complex on the other hand had got limited access points and you can funnel your attackers down to narrow enough streams to make your rifles count. If you stay here and fight from your towers, they’ll become nothing more than coffins for your people. The Catosian city-state of Sathens achieved the same thing I’m proposing against a polar barbarian horde using the Valley of Egon’s slopes. Fall back now, while you can still control the wall well enough that the gill-necks can’t harry your retreat. Pull back your two great guns for protective fire to cover your withdrawal.’
‘Are you a general of your people, Court man?’
‘I understand war, good mayor. Well enough to know this is the only way the people of your city will survive the invasion.’
One of the communications signallers turned around. ‘Sappers have breached the wall on the forest side, a fifty-foot section collapsed. Gill-necks are emerging from the trees and trying to storm the rubble. We are being over-run and the city reserves have all been dispatched.’
‘The Court has always protected us.’ The mayor sounded as though he was trying to convince himself.
‘We will, I vow to you we will.’
It was on Daunt’s hands now. Failure or success. A pacifist general was leading the army to victory or defeat.
The barrel of a gun pushed Dick inside a large windowless cell, the space matted with dirty straw and scattered with a dozen unkempt prisoners in a variety of clothes. Algo Monoshaft was rudely shoved in after the officer.
‘I’ve seen better looking cells,’ said Dick.
‘It’s not so much a cell,’ said the guard. ‘More of a larder.’
‘The Mass must feed,’ agreed the second guard. ‘But we’re not fussy about our prey being alive, as long as your flesh hasn’t turned rancid.’
Dick looked at the thick metal door, sturdy enough despite turning rusty from the damp. ‘How many of you things are there?’
‘Not so many here. Where we come from, you have no idea.’ The guard tossed Dick his cane. ‘You’re solely among fodder in there, though. You can use your little toy to confirm the truth of my words. You won’t need the cane when it’s your turn to be taken. You’ll be able to tell who among you is the Mass quite easily, because we’ll be the ones dining on you.’
The creature masquerading as Sadly appeared, wearing the Court agent’s form again rather than Algo’s. ‘You’ll be pleased to know, I checked your cane and left you your Court-issue suicide pill underneath the detection mechanism. I have a wager with my brothers here. They think you’ll take it after you’ve seen us feed. I say you won’t.’
‘What’s the prize?’
‘The little sustenance that’s hanging on your scrawny bones is enough of a wager. I prefer younger meat myself, but waste, not want not, as Sadly’s old ma used to say.’
‘Choke on it, you jigger.’
Their laughter echoed outside as the cell door clanged shut.
‘Not to trust anyone,’ moaned the steamman. ‘I told you. I warned you.’
‘That’s been my bloody life, sir.’ My death now too, from the look of it.
The other prisoners in the chamber seemed cowed and cowering. It took a second glance from Dick to realize he recognized one of the figures. Vice-admiral Cockburn bore little relation to the commanding figure Dick has seen on the convoy’s flagship. An atrophied figure now, sitting rocking in his own filth. There were a number of plates shoved through the feeding flap at the bottom of the armoured door — the plates piled with cubed vegetables — turnips, parsnips and other root vegetables. Dick scooped up the plate to take to the gaunt officer of the fleet sea arm. ‘Eat, man. You’re wasting away here.’
‘Eat,’ giggled the vice-admiral through a scraggly grey beard. ‘You fool. They always take the fattest first. Don’t eat. Never eat the food.’ He spilled the plate angrily in front of Dick. ‘You’ll see, when they come to choose. They feed outside the door. You can hear them. You’ll be the first. Look at you, like a pie seller with that gut. You first.’ He broke down into a fit of snorting coughs and Dick reeled back. He was disgusted by how far the navy officer had fallen. Even the prisoners back in the gill-neck’s slave camp had held onto more dignity than this. How long had the officer been held inside here?
Algo’s metal skull swivelled around the room, taking in the dozen or so prisoners, ‘You have a device to detect the presence of vampires, sergeant? Inside your cane? Use it now, there are treasonists among us, my olfactory sensors can detect the stench of the enemy, and the fact that monster told us there are none in here merely confirms it to my mind.’
‘The enemy aren’t vampires,’ said Dick, checking his cane. ‘We’ve been calling them sea-bishops, an
