himself these days. And then the guns on the Mannian side had fallen silent, supposedly as part of the Empire’s period of mourning. To Bahn, it had seemed more as if they were catching their breath for the onslaught to come.
Bahn removed his helmet, set it down on a surviving crenellation next to him with a scrape of metal. A cistern was built into the battlements here, filled with rainwater, and he drank a few sips from a cup fixed to it by a chain. Sated, he leaned against the stonework and gazed out over the Lansway, lost in the tumult of his thoughts.
A far thunderstorm was trailing curtains of rain across the far end of the isthmus and the crust of hills that stretched away on either side of it: the very tip of the southern continent, and the land of Pathia, now ten years fallen to Mann. His hair blew about in the breeze as birds wheeled high and aimless in the sky above.
He ducked as a shot whined off the stonework near to him. Bahn turned to look at where it had struck, and saw Halahan standing there with the foot of his bad leg propped up on the rubble of the broken battlement, a hand on his raised knee, his other holding the clay pipe in the corner of his mouth, coolly studying a breath of dust drifting from the stonework next to his boot.
The Nathalese veteran leaned and spat on the chalky bullet-strike as though putting out a flame, then spoke to Bahn without turning to him. ‘Thinking of some poke?’
Bahn blinked, not understanding his meaning.
‘You seemed lost, a moment ago. I wondered if you were thinking of some lass.’
Bahn rose from his crouch and brushed his fingers through his hair and fixed his helm back on his head. He was careful all the while to remain behind the protection of the battlements. ‘You walk quieter than a mountain lion,’ he replied to the Nathalese man, before he realized what he was saying.
Halahan was gracious enough not to glance down at the hinged metal support that wrapped a good portion of his leg, but instead simply met his gaze. A dark humour played in the backs of his eyes, which shone with the dazzling dark blue of setting skies. Bahn had always liked the Nathalese commander of the Greyjacket brigade, had always respected his no-nonsense manner, without guile or self-importance – unlike so many of the other officers he knew within the army.
The colonel had been a priest once, or so he’d heard, though it was hard to see anything of the religious man about him now. Instead there was something windburned about his character, and something lawless.
‘I was thinking of that fleet in Q’os,’ Bahn confessed. ‘I was wondering if it would be setting forth soon, and if so, for where.’
‘You were wondering if it would be coming here.’
‘Of course. Aren’t you?’
Halahan seemed to laugh without showing it anywhere but in his eyes.
‘Is the old man back yet?’ he asked him.
Ah, thought Bahn.
‘No. And the council are flapping my ears off about it.’
‘I can imagine. It looks bad on them when the Lord Protector goes off by himself asking for League reinforcements.’
‘You think that’s what he’s doing there?’
‘Certainly. Amongst other things. What else can he do? The council would rather bury their heads in the sand. By the sounds of it they’re just hoping the Mannians invade Minos rather than here.’
Bahn offered a shrug, but the motion was lost beneath the shoulder-guard of his armour. ‘Maybe they’re right, then. Minos could be as much a target. They’re being hard hit as we speak.’
‘Aye, I’ve been following the reports. Imperial Diplomats running amok in Al-Minos. The Second Fleet engaged in a battle with sizeable enemy formations.’ Halahan sounded as though he didn’t believe any of it. ‘And the Third Fleet dispatched from our waters to help, it’s so bad. Handy that. If you wanted to slip an invasion fleet down here from Lagos unmolested.’
Halahan puffed on his pipe as the wind jostled his long grey hair about his face. It did not seem as though he was discussing the matter of their possible extinction here. Bahn had often wondered about these men who lived through war as though it were an ordinary life to them. How they were able to switch off their imaginations from the worst of fates that could befall them. How they glided through their lives whether in peace or in battle.
He was envious of anyone who exhibited such traits. Bahn never seemed to stop being frightened of the future and the war. And he certainly didn’t glide through his life; he trod furtively with his attention darting left and right, always concerned at making a false step or saying the wrong thing. Perhaps he should develop a taste for drinking more, like so many of his fellow officers. Or for the hazii weed, like Halahan always seemed to be smoking. Even now he could smell it in the odd twist of the wind.
A flight of skyships was circling over the city, far above the merchant balloons tethered to their towers, higher even than the wheeling birds. Bahn had dreamed the other night that he and his family had been aboard one of those magnificent flying vessels, heading towards the rising sun in search of sanctuary.
‘You know, don’t you, that every one of them has a private ship moored in the western harbour. Fast sloops with their crews on standby, in case the Shield ever falls.’
Bahn nodded absently. He listened to the cuff of the wind against his ears.
‘Still,’ he spoke at last, and his voice sounded fragile, ready to break. ‘The feint could be here, don’t you think? Minos could be their real target.’
Halahan studied him for a time, the humour gone from his eyes.
The man placed a hand on Bahn’s shoulder.
‘Better get your head straight, son,’ Halahan told him softly. ‘They’re coming for us all right.’
CHAPTER NINE
In the Company of Rats
The ship sped along on its south-easterly course with its sails straining fat with wind and its prow clipping through the rise and fall of the swells. Che stood by the rail with the salty spray hissing past the hull, the vessel thrumming beneath him as it bore them across the Heart of the World.
To others, he looked as though he was merely taking in the sea air on another day on their journey east. For Che, it was a form of meditation standing like this, his mind focused on the flow of his breathing and the senses of his body. It was a pleasure to be this way, so much so that a slight unconscious smile curled the corners of his mouth.
He didn’t dare do any more than this. Not here, not in the presence of so many of his peers. To squat down now on the main deck in the customary position of a Daoist monk, or a Roshun for that matter – kneeling with spine erect, thoughtless and still – would be an open challenge to them all. Remarks would be made. Something would be said to him by one of the Monbarri, threats veiled behind skilful questions of double meaning.
His feet rocking to the gentle swaying of the ship, Che could see the wheelhouse rising high before him in the mid-section of the ship, a legion of signal flags fluttering from the top of it. Behind him, at the stern of the vessel, the quarterdeck rose three storeys tall, where the stately cabins of the Holy Matriarch were located, along with those of her two generals. Sasheen was up there now, on the uppermost deck, taking in the sea air like Che himself, though she was seated in a deep wicker chair and wrapped in a heavy fur cloak against the bite of the wind, surrounded by white screens to shield her position. Between the screens, Archgeneral Sparus and young Romano could be glimpsed sitting on either side of her, engaged in conversation and attended by slaves. The Matriarch wasn’t looking at them as they spoke. Sasheen was watching the skyship that was passing overhead, one of their birds-of-war guarding the invasion fleet; a scattering of vessels that stretched ahead and behind as far as the eye could see.
He sensed rather than heard the approach of someone behind him.
‘Don’t dwell on it,’ came the quiet voice of a man. ‘It’s always much worse than you can imagine anyway.’
Che felt a moment’s irritation, and turned his head to see Guan standing there, the young man of the Mortarus sect who had come aboard with his sister as part of Sasheen’s travelling entourage. The priest stood
