Beyond the Central Canal stood the citadel, an ancient fortress on the crown of the rocky island. A moat circled the base of the small island in the form of a canal. It was empty of boats now that Vanichios had sent away his family and civilian staff the previous night.
His friend refused to be dissuaded from his decision to stay and fight. Even now, his remaining Home Guards pulled wagons of supplies inside the citadel for the forthcoming siege, while on the parapets the canvas covers were being removed from the ballistae and bolt-throwers. Despite Vanichios’s own belief, the Principari’s Home Guard had been deserting in droves throughout the night, so that less than half of them now remained for its defence. Vani-chios had cursed and called them cowards and dogs in their absence. With his eyes gleaming, he’d exhorted Creed not to evacuate the army from Tume, but to stand and defend the city by his side.
For a moment Creed had been swayed by his old friend’s passion. It was galling to run once more from the Imperials. Yet cold, common sense had returned before he could speak.
Tume was a grave waiting to be filled. To defend the city now would cost the lives of his surviving men, for the Al-Khos reserves were still three days away with their heavy cannon, too far to make a difference now. Meanwhile, word had just arrived from the gatehouse that the Imperials were starting work on rebuilding the half- destroyed bridge, even though the defenders were keeping them under fire. By their reckoning, the enemy could have it finished within a day if they pushed hard and recklessly enough. Creed had no doubt that they would.
It would be street-to-street fighting once they were across, with no telling how long the defenders could hold on as a cohesive force before it became every man for himself, his army disintegrating around him.
No. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
The general gazed down upon the Central Canal and the ferries moored there, those that had made it back from their last runs.
The tall boats were covered with gangs of work crews hammering and sawing wood as they fixed sections of roughshod armour into place, protection for the rails and boathouse on each hull. Colonel Barklee of the Red Guards strode amongst them, jumping on and off the boats to inspect the firing holes they were cutting into the wood, the only experienced marine officer that they had.
The boats would need all the protection they could get. Once the remaining civilians and wounded were lifted out, there was still the matter of evacuating the rest of the army. Some could be taken out by the skuds and skyships. The rest would have to cram onto the ferries and run the gauntlet of the Chilos river mouth, hoping to break through so they could drift south with the current to Juno’s Ferry, where Creed had decided to rally and draw a defensive line.
They were fortunate, in one respect, for they still controlled the skies, the imperial birds-of-war having withdrawn after a few initial engagements. How long that would continue, though, no one could know.
Creed was intent on getting everyone out by tomorrow morning, before the Imperials finished repairing the bridge.
Anyone still here after that would be on their own.
Curl liked this one. There was something lonely about him, and rootless, and wounded, though he carried himself well, with a kind of last-stand defiance in his eyes, and his honest laugher was infectious.
Who are you? she wondered as she watched Che play. He didn’t have the look of a Khosian. She noted the blond stubble on his scalp, shorn close like a military man. The eyes that were dark and quick beneath thin brows. The square handsome face. His fine hands.
For once, Curl felt the need for some male companionship. Or at least she had done, during the night when she’d wakened on the cold floor of the warehouse they had been quartered in with the wounded, chased from sleep by the ghosts of nightmares, the faces of young men crying out at her to save them. While some volunteers and monks from the city tended to the needs of the wounded, Kris had lain soundly asleep, the woman snoring, and Andolson too, with his jitar, whom they’d spotted when they entered Tume. He had informed them that Milos and young Coop were dead, and the rest of the medicos they had known likely scattered throughout the army.
Elsewhere in the cold space of the warehouse, she had heard a young man calling out from his own nightmares of the battle.
Curl had risen quietly, and had ventured out alone in search of some distraction. From a busy street vendor she had purchased a wrap of dross folded in graf leaf, and had taken it all before wandering towards the sound of drifting music.
Finding herself in the Calhalee’s Respite, she’d sat down at the game of rash with the grey dust blowing through her blood, and had played with half her mind on the game and the other half on the men around her, the young and pretty ones, and the spirited veterans.
She’d placed Che in the former category when first he had sat at the table opposite her and flashed his winning smile, and there and then she had thought, This one. The man played good cards, won more money than he lost, though in a loose uncaring way. And gradually she’d got into the game too. Played with him and the others with their cards and their coins, losing herself in the same way that she might have done with a man in bed, getting more drunk with every mouthful of the bitter Keratch she bought from the bar.
By morning the rash game had settled into an endurance event, the basement taverna calmer now that the soldiers’ needs had turned to food and sleep. Hot meals were doled up by the few remaining members of staff, with Calhalee the owner amongst them, the woman refusing all payment now. Lanterns were refilled around the room, though the natural light brightened from the glass floor so that it reflected in blue flickers along the ceiling and walls.
Men left the table and were replaced by others, but a core remained, the fat war correspondent Koolas amongst them, and the man Che, who appeared to be on a similar mission of drunkenness and distraction to her own, for he drank heavily.
Her thoughts spun slow and languid like the passing hours, her mind blown. She talked with Che and the other players at the table, making jokes and laughing in return; but all the while, some frightened stunned part of her was still standing on the night field of Chey-Wes, while around her men stabbed and hacked each other to death.
‘Tell me,’ she said to Koolas. ‘What can those of Mann lack that makes them wish to conquer the whole world?’
The man was scribbling something in his notebook while he played. He looked up with a start. ‘Hair?’ he suggested simply, before returning to his notes.
‘We have a story in Lagos,’ she went on. ‘The story of the Canosos. Of the end of the age. It tells of how a time will come when lies are seen as truth and truth is openly despised. A time when a host of dead souls rule the world in their own image. When only a few men and women remain to resist them.’
Koolas nodded absently. ‘I believe I’ve heard of it. Lagos ends up drowning in its own tears, am I right?’
Curl recalled that part of the tale too. Her face flushed, even as Koolas looked up quickly, and said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-’ His words trailed away, the man suddenly awkward.
‘There’s a similar story told in the High Pash,’ Che interrupted in his slurred, drunken voice. He was still cradling her skin of Keratch, which she’d allowed him to try. ‘About a Great Hunger that turns man against the world itself. Eres swallows them up in the end. All but those who resisted.’
‘I hope it’s true,’ she said, and she could hear the shaking hatred in her own voice, surprising her with its venom. ‘I hope that every last one of them is wiped from the face of this world.’
The man Che was watching her oddly, one eye partly closed.
‘I might have known I’d find you here.’
Curl looked up to see Kris standing there, the woman holding a cup of something in her hand.
‘Kris. Come and join us.’
The woman shook her head. ‘Not my thing. I’m just doing the rounds to see where everyone is.’
Curl reached over and retrieved the skin of Keratch from Che’s grasp. ‘Any word on when we’re pulling out yet?’
‘Tomorrow morning, Bolt just told me. He needs some medicos to stay until the last boats are leaving.’ She watched as Curl took a deep drink. ‘Better take it easy with that stuff. It’s getting crazy out there.’
‘Kris, it’s either this or scream at the top of my lungs for an hour.’
‘Still, watch yourself. Don’t go wandering around on your own.’
‘I won’t,’ Curl replied, as though she meant it.
Kris glanced to the man Che then back at her.
