Honour guard, p.15
Honour Guard, page 15
EIGHT
The Wounded
‘As I have been called to the holy work, so I will call others to me.’
— Saint Sabbat, epistles
‘A fine, fair, bright morning, Colm, you old dog,’ Dorden announced as he walked into the little side room that had been reserved for the Tanith second-in-command. Early daylight poured in like milk through the west facing casement. The air was cool with the promise of a hot day ahead. A smell of antiseptic wafted in from the hospital halls.
There came no immediate reply, but then Corbec was a notoriously heavy sleeper.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Dorden asked conversationally, moving towards the cabinet beside the gauze-veiled bed.
He hoped the sound of his voice would slowly, gently rouse the colonel so he could check him over. More than one orderly had received a slap in the mouth for waking Corbec too abruptly.
Dorden picked up a small pottery flask of painkillers. ‘Colm? How did you sleep? With all the noise, I mean?’
The sounds of the relentless evacuation had gone on all night, and even now, he could hear the thump of equipment and bustle of bodies in the street outside. Every half hour, the ascending wail of transporter jets roared over the Doctrinopolis as bulk transports lifted away into the sky.
The considerable, gothic manse of the scholam medicae Hagias lay on the west bank of the holy river facing the Universitariat, and thus occupied the heart of one of the most populated and active city quarters. A municipal infirmary and teaching hospital attached to the Universitariat, the scholam medicae was one of the many city institutions sequestered by the Imperial liberation force to treat wounded men.
‘Funny, I don’t seem to be sleeping at all well myself,’ Dorden said absently, weighing the pill bottle in his hand. ‘Too many dreams. I’m dreaming about my son a lot these days. Mikal, you know. He comes to me in my dreams all the time. I haven’t worked out what he’s trying to tell me, but he’s trying to tell me something.’
Below the little room’s window, an argument broke out. Heated voices rose in the still, clear air.
He went to the window, unlatched the casement and leaned out. ‘Keep it down!’ he yelled into the street below. ‘This is meant to be a hospital! Have you no compassion?’
The voices dropped away and he turned back to face the veiled bed.
‘This feels light to me,’ he said softly, gesturing with the flask. ‘Have you been taking too many? It’s no joke, Corbec. These are powerful drugs. If you’re abusing the dose…’
His voice trailed off. He stepped towards the bed and pulled back the gauzy drapes.
The bed was empty. Rucked, slept in, but empty.
‘What the feth–?’ Dorden murmured.
The basilica of Macharius Hagia was a towering edifice on the east side of the Holyditch chelon markets. It had four steeples clad in grey-green ashlar, a stone imported from off-world and which contrasted starkly with the pinks and russets and creams of the local masonry. A massive statue of the Lord Solar in full armour, raising his lightning claws to the sky in a gesture of defiance or vengeance, stood upon a great brick plinth in the entrance arch.
Inside, out of the day’s rising heat, it was cold and expansive. Doves and rat-birds fluttered in the open roof spaces and flickered across the staggeringly broad beams of sunlight that stabbed down into the nave.
The place was busy, even at this early hour. Blue-robed ayatani bustled about, preparing for one of the morning rites. Esholi fetched and carried for them, or attended the needs of the many hundreds of worshippers gathering in the grand nave. From the east side, the breeze carried the smells of cooking fish and bread, the smells of the public kitchens adjoining the temple, whose charitable work was to produce alms and free sustenance twice a day for the visiting pilgrims.
The smells made Ban Daur hungry. As he limped in down the main colonnade amidst the other faithful, his stomach gurgled painfully. He stopped for a moment and leaned hard on his walking stick until the dizzying discomfort passed. He hadn’t eaten much since taking his wound, hadn’t done much of anything, in fact. The medics had banned him from even getting out of bed, but he knew best how he felt. Strong, surprisingly strong. And lucky. The ritual blade had missed his heart by the most remarkably slim margin. The doctors worried the wound might have left a glancing score across the heart muscle, a weakness that might rupture if he exerted himself too soon.
But he could not just lie in bed. This world, Hagia… It was coming to an end. The streets were full of military personnel and civilians trying to pack up and ship out the contents of their lives. There was fear in the air, and a strange sense of unreality.
He started to walk again, but had to stop quickly. He was still light-headed, and sometimes the wound ache in his chest came in bitter waves.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ asked a passing esholi, a teenage boy in cream silk robes. There was concern in the eyes of the shaven-headed youth.
‘Can I help you to a seat?’
‘Mmmh… Perhaps, yes. I may have overdone things.’
The student took his arm and guided him across to a nearby bench. Daur lowered himself gratefully onto it.
‘You’re very pale, sir. Should you even be on your feet?’
‘Probably not. Thank you. I’ll be fine now I’m sitting.’
The student nodded and moved on, though Daur saw him again some minutes later, talking to several ayatani and pointing anxiously Daur’s way.
Daur ignored them and sat back to gaze up at the high altar. The shortness of breath was the worst thing. Exertion got him out of breath so quickly and then he couldn’t catch it back because taking deep breaths was agony on his wound.
No, that wasn’t the worst thing. A knife in the chest wasn’t the worst thing. Being injured in battle and missing the last mission of his regiment… even that wasn’t the worst thing.
The worst thing was the thing in his head, and that wouldn’t leave him alone.
He heard voices exchanging hard words nearby and looked round. So did all the worshippers in earshot. Two ayatani were arguing with a group of officers from the Ardelean Colonials. One of the Colonials was repeatedly gesturing to the reliquary. Daur heard one of the priests say ‘…but this is our heritage! You will not ransack this holy place!’
Daur had heard the same sentiments expressed several times in the last day or so. Despite the abominable evil that moved towards them with the clear intent to engulf the entire world, few native Hagians wanted the evacuation. Many of the ayatani, in fact, saw the removal of icons and relics for safekeeping tantamount to desecration. But Lord General Lugo’s decrees had been strict and inflexible. Daur wondered how long it would be before a Hagian was arrested for obstruction or shot for disobedience.
He felt an immeasurable sympathy for the faithful. It was almost as if his wounding had been an epiphany. He’d always been a dutiful man, dutiful to the Imperial creed, a servant of the God-Emperor. But he’d never thought of himself as especially… devout.
Until now. Until here on Hagia. Until, it seemed to Ban Daur, the very moment an Infardi dagger had punched between his ribs. It was like it had changed him, as if he’d been transformed by sharp steel and his own spilt blood. He heard about men undergoing religious transformations. It scared him. It was in his head and it wouldn’t leave him alone.
He felt he needed to do something about it, desperately. Limping his way from the infirmary to the nearest temple was a start, but it didn’t seem to achieve much. Daur didn’t know what he expected to happen. A sign, perhaps. A message.
Such a thing didn’t seem very likely.
He sighed, and sat back with his eyes closed for a moment. He was scheduled to join a troop ship with the other walking wounded at six that evening. He wasn’t looking forward to it. It felt like running away.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar figure amongst the faithful at the foot of the main altar. It was such a surprise, Daur blinked in confusion.
But he was not mistaken. There was Colm Corbec, his left arm webbed in a sling tight against his bandaged chest, the sleeve of his black fatigue jacket hanging empty, kneeling in prayer.
Daur waited. After a few minutes, Corbec stood up, turned, and saw Daur sitting in the pews. A look of puzzlement crossed the grizzled giant’s face. He came over at once.
‘Didn’t expect to see you here, Daur.’
‘I didn’t expect to see you either, colonel.’
Corbec sat down next to him.
‘Shouldn’t you be resting in bed?’ Corbec asked. ‘What? What’s so funny?’
‘I was about to ask you that.’
‘Yeah, well…’ Corbec murmured. ‘You know me. Can’t abide to be lying around idle.’
‘Has there been any word from the honour guard?’
Corbec shook his head. ‘Not a thing. Feth, but I…’
‘You what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, you started to say something.’
‘Something I don’t think you’d understand, Daur.’
‘Okay.’
They sat in silence for a while.
‘What?’ Daur looked round sharply at Corbec.
‘What what?’ growled Corbec.
‘You spoke.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Just then, colonel. You said–’
‘I didn’t say anything, Daur.’
‘You said “Sabbat Martyr”. I heard you.’
‘Wasn’t me. I didn’t speak.’
Daur scratched his cheek. ‘Never mind.’
‘What… what were those words?’
‘Sabbat Martyr. Or something like that.’
‘Oh.’
The silence between them returned. The basilica choir began to sing, the massed voices shimmering the air.
‘You hungry, Ban?’
‘Starving, sir.’
‘Let’s go to the public kitchens and get some breakfast together.’
‘I thought the temple kitchens were meant to serve the faithful.’
‘They are,’ said Corbec, getting to his feet, an enigmatic half-smile on his lips. ‘Come on.’
They got bowls of fish broth and hunks of crusty, huskseed bread from the long-canopied counters of the kitchens, and went to sit amongst the breakfasting faithful at the communal trestle tables under a wide, flapping awning of pink canvas.
Daur watched as Corbec pulled what looked like a couple of pills from his coat pocket and gulped them down with the first sip of broth. He didn’t comment.
‘There’s something not right in my head, Ban,’ Corbec began suddenly through a mouthful of bread. ‘In my head… or my gut or my soul or wherever… somewhere. It’s been there, off and on, since I was a held captive by Pater Sin, rot his bones.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘The sort of thing a man like me… a man like you too, would be my guess… has no idea what to do with. It’s lurked in my dreams mostly. I’ve been dreaming about my father, back home on lost Tanith.’
‘We all have dreams of our old worlds,’ said Daur cautiously. ‘It’s the guard curse.’
‘Sure enough, Ban. I know that. I’ve been guard long enough. But not dreams like this. It’s like… there’s a meaning to be had. Like… Oh, I dunno…’ Corbec frowned as he struggled to find adequate words.
‘Like someone’s trying to tell you something?’ Daur whispered softly. ‘Something important? Something that has to be done?’
‘Sacred feth!’ growled Corbec in amazement. ‘That’s it exactly! How did you know?’
Daur shrugged, and put his bowl down. ‘I can’t explain. I feel it too. I didn’t realise… Well, I didn’t until you started describing it there. It’s not dreams I’m having. Gak, I don’t think I’m dreaming much at all. But a feeling… like I should be doing something.’
‘Feth,’ murmured Corbec again.
‘Are we mad, do you think? Maybe what we both need is a priest who’s a good listener. A confessor. Maybe a head-doctor.’
Corbec dabbed his bread into the broth distractedly. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve nothing to confess. Nothing I haven’t told you.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘I don’t know. But I know there’s no way in feth I’m getting on that troop ship tonight.’
He’d stolen a few hours’ sleep in a corner of the western city infirmary’s entrance hall. But as the sun rose and the noise of people coming and going became too much to sleep through, Brin Milo shouldered his pack and rifle and began the long walk up the Amad Road into the centre of the Doctrinopolis.
Hark had told him to report to Guard command once he’d escorted the wounded party to safety. He was to present himself and arrange his place on an evacuation ship.
The city seemed like a place of madness around him. With the fighting over, the streets had filled up with hurrying crowds, honking motor vehicles, cargo trains hauled by servitors, processions of worshippers, pilgrims, protesters, refugees. The city was seething again, like a nalmite nest preparing to swarm.
Milo remembered the last, final hours in Tanith Magna, the same atmosphere of panic and activity. The memories were not pleasant. He decided he wanted to be out of here now, on a troop ship and away.
There was nothing here now he wanted to stay for, or needed to stay for.
A flustered Brevian Centennial on crowd control duties told him that Evacuation command had been established in the royal treasury, but the roads approaching that edifice were jammed with foot traffic and vehicles. The commotion was unbearable.
Transport shuttles shivered the sky as they lifted up over the holy city. A pair of navy fighters screamed overhead, low and fast.
Milo turned and headed for the scholam medicae where the Tanith wounded were being cared for. He’d find his own men, maybe Colonel Corbec, he decided. He’d leave with them.
‘Brinny boy!’ a delighted voice boomed behind him, and Milo was snatched up off his feet in a one-armed bear hug of crushing force.
‘Bragg!’ he smiled, turning as he was released.
‘What are you doing here, Brin?’ beamed Trooper Bragg.
‘Long story,’ said Milo. ‘How’s the arm there?’
Bragg glanced contemptuously at his heavily bandaged right shoulder.
‘Fixing up. Fething medics refused to let me join the honour guard. Said it was a safe ticket out for me, feth ’em! It’s not bad. I could’ve still fought.’
Milo gestured to the busy hallway of the scholam medicae Hagias they stood in. ‘Anyone else around?’
‘A few. Most of ’em in a bad way. Colonel’s here somewhere, but I haven’t seen him. I was in a bed next to Derin. He’s on the mend and cussing his luck too.’
‘I’m going to try and find the colonel. What ward are you in?’
‘South six.’
‘I’ll come and find you in a bit.’
‘You better!’
Milo pushed on through the hectic hallway, through the smells of blood and disinfectant, the hurrying figures, the rattling carts. He passed several doors that opened onto long, red-painted wards lined with critically injured Guardsmen in rows of cots. Some were Ghosts, men he recognised. All were too far gone from pain and damage to register him. After asking questions of several orderlies and servitors, he found his way to Dorden’s suite of offices on the third floor. As he approached, he could hear the shouting coming from inside down the length of the corridor.
‘…don’t just get up and walk off when you feel like it! For the Emperor’s sake! You’re hurt! That won’t heal if you put a strain on it!’
An answering mumble.
‘I will not calm down! The health of the regimental wounded is my business! Mine! You wouldn’t disobey Gaunt’s orders, why the feth do you think you can disobey mine?’
Milo walked into the office. Corbec was sitting on an examination couch facing the door, and his eyes opened wide when he saw Milo. Dorden, shaking with rage, stood facing Corbec and turned sharply when he read Corbec’s expression.
‘Milo?’
Corbec leapt up. ‘What’s happened? The honour guard? What the feth’s happened?’
‘There was an ambush on the road last night. We took a few injured, some bad enough Surgeon Curth wanted them brought back here. Commissar Hark volunteered me to ride shotgun. We got back here at dawn.’
‘Are you meant to return?’
Milo shook his head. ‘I’d never catch up with them now, colonel. My orders are to join the evacuation now I’m here.’
‘How were they doing? Apart from the ambush, I mean?’
‘Not so bad. They should’ve made it to the overnight stop at Mukret.’
‘Did we lose many in the attack?’ Dorden asked softly. His anger seemed to have dulled.
‘Forty-three dead, fifteen of them Ghosts. Six Ghosts amongst the injured I brought back.’
‘Sounds bad, Milo.’
‘It was quick and nasty.’
‘You can show me on the map where it happened,’ Corbec told him.
‘Why?’ snapped Dorden. ‘I’ve told you already, you’re not going anywhere. Except to the landing fields this evening. Forget the rest, Colm. I mean it. I have seniority in this, and Lugo would have my fething head. Forget it.’
There was a loaded pause.
‘Forget… what?’ Milo dared to ask.
‘Don’t get him started!’ Dorden roared.
‘The boy’s just asking, doc…’ Corbec countered.
‘You want to know, Milo? Do you?’ Dorden was livid. ‘Our beloved colonel here has this idea… No, let me start at the beginning. Our beloved colonel here decides he knows doctoring better than me, and so gets himself out of bed against my orders this morning! Goes wandering around the fething city! We didn’t even know where he was! Then he shows up again without so much as a by your leave, and tells me he’s thinking of heading up into the mountains!’
The Wounded
‘As I have been called to the holy work, so I will call others to me.’
— Saint Sabbat, epistles
‘A fine, fair, bright morning, Colm, you old dog,’ Dorden announced as he walked into the little side room that had been reserved for the Tanith second-in-command. Early daylight poured in like milk through the west facing casement. The air was cool with the promise of a hot day ahead. A smell of antiseptic wafted in from the hospital halls.
There came no immediate reply, but then Corbec was a notoriously heavy sleeper.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Dorden asked conversationally, moving towards the cabinet beside the gauze-veiled bed.
He hoped the sound of his voice would slowly, gently rouse the colonel so he could check him over. More than one orderly had received a slap in the mouth for waking Corbec too abruptly.
Dorden picked up a small pottery flask of painkillers. ‘Colm? How did you sleep? With all the noise, I mean?’
The sounds of the relentless evacuation had gone on all night, and even now, he could hear the thump of equipment and bustle of bodies in the street outside. Every half hour, the ascending wail of transporter jets roared over the Doctrinopolis as bulk transports lifted away into the sky.
The considerable, gothic manse of the scholam medicae Hagias lay on the west bank of the holy river facing the Universitariat, and thus occupied the heart of one of the most populated and active city quarters. A municipal infirmary and teaching hospital attached to the Universitariat, the scholam medicae was one of the many city institutions sequestered by the Imperial liberation force to treat wounded men.
‘Funny, I don’t seem to be sleeping at all well myself,’ Dorden said absently, weighing the pill bottle in his hand. ‘Too many dreams. I’m dreaming about my son a lot these days. Mikal, you know. He comes to me in my dreams all the time. I haven’t worked out what he’s trying to tell me, but he’s trying to tell me something.’
Below the little room’s window, an argument broke out. Heated voices rose in the still, clear air.
He went to the window, unlatched the casement and leaned out. ‘Keep it down!’ he yelled into the street below. ‘This is meant to be a hospital! Have you no compassion?’
The voices dropped away and he turned back to face the veiled bed.
‘This feels light to me,’ he said softly, gesturing with the flask. ‘Have you been taking too many? It’s no joke, Corbec. These are powerful drugs. If you’re abusing the dose…’
His voice trailed off. He stepped towards the bed and pulled back the gauzy drapes.
The bed was empty. Rucked, slept in, but empty.
‘What the feth–?’ Dorden murmured.
The basilica of Macharius Hagia was a towering edifice on the east side of the Holyditch chelon markets. It had four steeples clad in grey-green ashlar, a stone imported from off-world and which contrasted starkly with the pinks and russets and creams of the local masonry. A massive statue of the Lord Solar in full armour, raising his lightning claws to the sky in a gesture of defiance or vengeance, stood upon a great brick plinth in the entrance arch.
Inside, out of the day’s rising heat, it was cold and expansive. Doves and rat-birds fluttered in the open roof spaces and flickered across the staggeringly broad beams of sunlight that stabbed down into the nave.
The place was busy, even at this early hour. Blue-robed ayatani bustled about, preparing for one of the morning rites. Esholi fetched and carried for them, or attended the needs of the many hundreds of worshippers gathering in the grand nave. From the east side, the breeze carried the smells of cooking fish and bread, the smells of the public kitchens adjoining the temple, whose charitable work was to produce alms and free sustenance twice a day for the visiting pilgrims.
The smells made Ban Daur hungry. As he limped in down the main colonnade amidst the other faithful, his stomach gurgled painfully. He stopped for a moment and leaned hard on his walking stick until the dizzying discomfort passed. He hadn’t eaten much since taking his wound, hadn’t done much of anything, in fact. The medics had banned him from even getting out of bed, but he knew best how he felt. Strong, surprisingly strong. And lucky. The ritual blade had missed his heart by the most remarkably slim margin. The doctors worried the wound might have left a glancing score across the heart muscle, a weakness that might rupture if he exerted himself too soon.
But he could not just lie in bed. This world, Hagia… It was coming to an end. The streets were full of military personnel and civilians trying to pack up and ship out the contents of their lives. There was fear in the air, and a strange sense of unreality.
He started to walk again, but had to stop quickly. He was still light-headed, and sometimes the wound ache in his chest came in bitter waves.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ asked a passing esholi, a teenage boy in cream silk robes. There was concern in the eyes of the shaven-headed youth.
‘Can I help you to a seat?’
‘Mmmh… Perhaps, yes. I may have overdone things.’
The student took his arm and guided him across to a nearby bench. Daur lowered himself gratefully onto it.
‘You’re very pale, sir. Should you even be on your feet?’
‘Probably not. Thank you. I’ll be fine now I’m sitting.’
The student nodded and moved on, though Daur saw him again some minutes later, talking to several ayatani and pointing anxiously Daur’s way.
Daur ignored them and sat back to gaze up at the high altar. The shortness of breath was the worst thing. Exertion got him out of breath so quickly and then he couldn’t catch it back because taking deep breaths was agony on his wound.
No, that wasn’t the worst thing. A knife in the chest wasn’t the worst thing. Being injured in battle and missing the last mission of his regiment… even that wasn’t the worst thing.
The worst thing was the thing in his head, and that wouldn’t leave him alone.
He heard voices exchanging hard words nearby and looked round. So did all the worshippers in earshot. Two ayatani were arguing with a group of officers from the Ardelean Colonials. One of the Colonials was repeatedly gesturing to the reliquary. Daur heard one of the priests say ‘…but this is our heritage! You will not ransack this holy place!’
Daur had heard the same sentiments expressed several times in the last day or so. Despite the abominable evil that moved towards them with the clear intent to engulf the entire world, few native Hagians wanted the evacuation. Many of the ayatani, in fact, saw the removal of icons and relics for safekeeping tantamount to desecration. But Lord General Lugo’s decrees had been strict and inflexible. Daur wondered how long it would be before a Hagian was arrested for obstruction or shot for disobedience.
He felt an immeasurable sympathy for the faithful. It was almost as if his wounding had been an epiphany. He’d always been a dutiful man, dutiful to the Imperial creed, a servant of the God-Emperor. But he’d never thought of himself as especially… devout.
Until now. Until here on Hagia. Until, it seemed to Ban Daur, the very moment an Infardi dagger had punched between his ribs. It was like it had changed him, as if he’d been transformed by sharp steel and his own spilt blood. He heard about men undergoing religious transformations. It scared him. It was in his head and it wouldn’t leave him alone.
He felt he needed to do something about it, desperately. Limping his way from the infirmary to the nearest temple was a start, but it didn’t seem to achieve much. Daur didn’t know what he expected to happen. A sign, perhaps. A message.
Such a thing didn’t seem very likely.
He sighed, and sat back with his eyes closed for a moment. He was scheduled to join a troop ship with the other walking wounded at six that evening. He wasn’t looking forward to it. It felt like running away.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar figure amongst the faithful at the foot of the main altar. It was such a surprise, Daur blinked in confusion.
But he was not mistaken. There was Colm Corbec, his left arm webbed in a sling tight against his bandaged chest, the sleeve of his black fatigue jacket hanging empty, kneeling in prayer.
Daur waited. After a few minutes, Corbec stood up, turned, and saw Daur sitting in the pews. A look of puzzlement crossed the grizzled giant’s face. He came over at once.
‘Didn’t expect to see you here, Daur.’
‘I didn’t expect to see you either, colonel.’
Corbec sat down next to him.
‘Shouldn’t you be resting in bed?’ Corbec asked. ‘What? What’s so funny?’
‘I was about to ask you that.’
‘Yeah, well…’ Corbec murmured. ‘You know me. Can’t abide to be lying around idle.’
‘Has there been any word from the honour guard?’
Corbec shook his head. ‘Not a thing. Feth, but I…’
‘You what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, you started to say something.’
‘Something I don’t think you’d understand, Daur.’
‘Okay.’
They sat in silence for a while.
‘What?’ Daur looked round sharply at Corbec.
‘What what?’ growled Corbec.
‘You spoke.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Just then, colonel. You said–’
‘I didn’t say anything, Daur.’
‘You said “Sabbat Martyr”. I heard you.’
‘Wasn’t me. I didn’t speak.’
Daur scratched his cheek. ‘Never mind.’
‘What… what were those words?’
‘Sabbat Martyr. Or something like that.’
‘Oh.’
The silence between them returned. The basilica choir began to sing, the massed voices shimmering the air.
‘You hungry, Ban?’
‘Starving, sir.’
‘Let’s go to the public kitchens and get some breakfast together.’
‘I thought the temple kitchens were meant to serve the faithful.’
‘They are,’ said Corbec, getting to his feet, an enigmatic half-smile on his lips. ‘Come on.’
They got bowls of fish broth and hunks of crusty, huskseed bread from the long-canopied counters of the kitchens, and went to sit amongst the breakfasting faithful at the communal trestle tables under a wide, flapping awning of pink canvas.
Daur watched as Corbec pulled what looked like a couple of pills from his coat pocket and gulped them down with the first sip of broth. He didn’t comment.
‘There’s something not right in my head, Ban,’ Corbec began suddenly through a mouthful of bread. ‘In my head… or my gut or my soul or wherever… somewhere. It’s been there, off and on, since I was a held captive by Pater Sin, rot his bones.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘The sort of thing a man like me… a man like you too, would be my guess… has no idea what to do with. It’s lurked in my dreams mostly. I’ve been dreaming about my father, back home on lost Tanith.’
‘We all have dreams of our old worlds,’ said Daur cautiously. ‘It’s the guard curse.’
‘Sure enough, Ban. I know that. I’ve been guard long enough. But not dreams like this. It’s like… there’s a meaning to be had. Like… Oh, I dunno…’ Corbec frowned as he struggled to find adequate words.
‘Like someone’s trying to tell you something?’ Daur whispered softly. ‘Something important? Something that has to be done?’
‘Sacred feth!’ growled Corbec in amazement. ‘That’s it exactly! How did you know?’
Daur shrugged, and put his bowl down. ‘I can’t explain. I feel it too. I didn’t realise… Well, I didn’t until you started describing it there. It’s not dreams I’m having. Gak, I don’t think I’m dreaming much at all. But a feeling… like I should be doing something.’
‘Feth,’ murmured Corbec again.
‘Are we mad, do you think? Maybe what we both need is a priest who’s a good listener. A confessor. Maybe a head-doctor.’
Corbec dabbed his bread into the broth distractedly. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve nothing to confess. Nothing I haven’t told you.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘I don’t know. But I know there’s no way in feth I’m getting on that troop ship tonight.’
He’d stolen a few hours’ sleep in a corner of the western city infirmary’s entrance hall. But as the sun rose and the noise of people coming and going became too much to sleep through, Brin Milo shouldered his pack and rifle and began the long walk up the Amad Road into the centre of the Doctrinopolis.
Hark had told him to report to Guard command once he’d escorted the wounded party to safety. He was to present himself and arrange his place on an evacuation ship.
The city seemed like a place of madness around him. With the fighting over, the streets had filled up with hurrying crowds, honking motor vehicles, cargo trains hauled by servitors, processions of worshippers, pilgrims, protesters, refugees. The city was seething again, like a nalmite nest preparing to swarm.
Milo remembered the last, final hours in Tanith Magna, the same atmosphere of panic and activity. The memories were not pleasant. He decided he wanted to be out of here now, on a troop ship and away.
There was nothing here now he wanted to stay for, or needed to stay for.
A flustered Brevian Centennial on crowd control duties told him that Evacuation command had been established in the royal treasury, but the roads approaching that edifice were jammed with foot traffic and vehicles. The commotion was unbearable.
Transport shuttles shivered the sky as they lifted up over the holy city. A pair of navy fighters screamed overhead, low and fast.
Milo turned and headed for the scholam medicae where the Tanith wounded were being cared for. He’d find his own men, maybe Colonel Corbec, he decided. He’d leave with them.
‘Brinny boy!’ a delighted voice boomed behind him, and Milo was snatched up off his feet in a one-armed bear hug of crushing force.
‘Bragg!’ he smiled, turning as he was released.
‘What are you doing here, Brin?’ beamed Trooper Bragg.
‘Long story,’ said Milo. ‘How’s the arm there?’
Bragg glanced contemptuously at his heavily bandaged right shoulder.
‘Fixing up. Fething medics refused to let me join the honour guard. Said it was a safe ticket out for me, feth ’em! It’s not bad. I could’ve still fought.’
Milo gestured to the busy hallway of the scholam medicae Hagias they stood in. ‘Anyone else around?’
‘A few. Most of ’em in a bad way. Colonel’s here somewhere, but I haven’t seen him. I was in a bed next to Derin. He’s on the mend and cussing his luck too.’
‘I’m going to try and find the colonel. What ward are you in?’
‘South six.’
‘I’ll come and find you in a bit.’
‘You better!’
Milo pushed on through the hectic hallway, through the smells of blood and disinfectant, the hurrying figures, the rattling carts. He passed several doors that opened onto long, red-painted wards lined with critically injured Guardsmen in rows of cots. Some were Ghosts, men he recognised. All were too far gone from pain and damage to register him. After asking questions of several orderlies and servitors, he found his way to Dorden’s suite of offices on the third floor. As he approached, he could hear the shouting coming from inside down the length of the corridor.
‘…don’t just get up and walk off when you feel like it! For the Emperor’s sake! You’re hurt! That won’t heal if you put a strain on it!’
An answering mumble.
‘I will not calm down! The health of the regimental wounded is my business! Mine! You wouldn’t disobey Gaunt’s orders, why the feth do you think you can disobey mine?’
Milo walked into the office. Corbec was sitting on an examination couch facing the door, and his eyes opened wide when he saw Milo. Dorden, shaking with rage, stood facing Corbec and turned sharply when he read Corbec’s expression.
‘Milo?’
Corbec leapt up. ‘What’s happened? The honour guard? What the feth’s happened?’
‘There was an ambush on the road last night. We took a few injured, some bad enough Surgeon Curth wanted them brought back here. Commissar Hark volunteered me to ride shotgun. We got back here at dawn.’
‘Are you meant to return?’
Milo shook his head. ‘I’d never catch up with them now, colonel. My orders are to join the evacuation now I’m here.’
‘How were they doing? Apart from the ambush, I mean?’
‘Not so bad. They should’ve made it to the overnight stop at Mukret.’
‘Did we lose many in the attack?’ Dorden asked softly. His anger seemed to have dulled.
‘Forty-three dead, fifteen of them Ghosts. Six Ghosts amongst the injured I brought back.’
‘Sounds bad, Milo.’
‘It was quick and nasty.’
‘You can show me on the map where it happened,’ Corbec told him.
‘Why?’ snapped Dorden. ‘I’ve told you already, you’re not going anywhere. Except to the landing fields this evening. Forget the rest, Colm. I mean it. I have seniority in this, and Lugo would have my fething head. Forget it.’
There was a loaded pause.
‘Forget… what?’ Milo dared to ask.
‘Don’t get him started!’ Dorden roared.
‘The boy’s just asking, doc…’ Corbec countered.
‘You want to know, Milo? Do you?’ Dorden was livid. ‘Our beloved colonel here has this idea… No, let me start at the beginning. Our beloved colonel here decides he knows doctoring better than me, and so gets himself out of bed against my orders this morning! Goes wandering around the fething city! We didn’t even know where he was! Then he shows up again without so much as a by your leave, and tells me he’s thinking of heading up into the mountains!’
