Neal Asher - The Engineer Reconditioned

Dagon said, “Because the Owner brought you people here in the Greatship Vardelex so you could build a new life. Because soon the Owner will return for an accounting, to see that his strictures have been obeyed, that the contract you people have with him has been held to. Because before the end of this demicycle the Owner and his Proctors will once again walk the world.” Suen gaped at the stranger and tried to take in his words: all that her husband believed and had understood, and they burnt Tarrin for those words in the Square of Heros before the Cariphe’s palace in Ompotec. Stupid stupid words had lost Suen her husband, a son, a home, and would soon lose her her life. She could only run so far before the Cariphe’s people caught up with her. She looked at Cheydar: grey, old. How long could she depend on his strength? For how long had she that right? Soon the priest soldiers would be upon them, for their sport, and they would die. At least out here it might be a cleaner death. She studied this young man who called himself Dagon, out of nursery rhymes and bedtime tales, and thought about what he had said. The Heresy of Ompotec. Ironically the name of the only place where it was called heresy and where the Cariphe and all his sick minions dwelt. Verbatim, but for one tiny alteration. She glanced at Cheydar and wondered if he had noticed. This man had said you people rather than we. She felt cold and she did not want to ask the obvious question.

“If you come with us it may well be the death of you,” she said. She would give him every chance to go, every warning. This she told herself to assuage her guilt. “We have no hearth nor home—” Abruptly she stopped. No, it was wrong. “You cannot stay with us. You must go…” She gazed at him, straight into grey-green eyes that seemed too wise. That was it, she realised. Look away from him and he is a young warrior. Look into his eyes you know he makes only his own choices.

He nodded, then lifted a strong sun-tanned hand and pointed off to their left. “It is too late for me to walk away now. They will not allow it. Guilt by association you could say, not that they observe any code.” Cheydar leapt to his feet his hand slamming down on the butt of his sword. Eight men were coming towards them at a steady trot. Eight fully-armoured and armed priest soldiers of the Cariphe. Too late now for anything but survival.

“Into the rocks!”

Suen went to take her daughter by the hand, but her daughter stayed close to David and avoided this mothering. Instead Suen took up a weapons belt from which hung a dagger and a short crossbow. Cheydar took up his own air gun and trotted behind her, his sons following. Dagon stood by the fire watching the soldiers approach, then after a moment he followed the others.

“We need a vantage, a place to defend.”

Dagon pointed up into the rocks and scrub. “Up there.”

They took him at his word and scrambled that way.

“I will stay.”

As he helped Suen up the slope Cheydar watched him suspiciously. Dagon returned the look then grinned and disappeared into the scrub of bushes and cycads. Cheydar had no time for him now. The priest soldiers had broken into a run and were spreading out.

“Check your targets,” he told his sons. “Our friend is down there, if friend he be.”

“Of course he is, father,” said David. “He is the daybreak warrior.” Cheydar ignored that, cracked down the barrel of his gun, inserted an iron dart, then worked the hand pump on the charge cylinder. The leading soldier was close enough now. He brought the intricately carved butt of his gun up against his shoulder, flipped up the sight, then aimed and fired in one. The crack of the air gun was vicious and immediately followed by the horrible crunch of impact. A priest soldier staggered back with his hands coming up to a suddenly bloody face. There were two more cracks and a dart hit the rocks just in front of him and went whining over his head. He ducked down.

“Yes!” shouted Eric. Crouched down Cheydar saw that his son had hit one of them in the thigh. That one was struggling for cover. Another lay with a bloody throat. There had been no exclamation from David. The rest were now in cover provided by the bushes around their camp, and no doubt would be drawing close. Cheydar recharged the cylinder on his gun and put in another dart. Only in close fighting would he resort to the spare cylinders on his belt. His sons, he saw, were doing the same. He watched, allowed himself a little smile when he saw Eric aiming at a swiftly moving figure in black, then lowering his gun. Let us see what you are worth, Dagon. A scream was swift to answer him, followed only moments after by the gagging gurgle Cheydar recognised as the sound issuing from a cut throat. One or two? He wondered.

“Who is he?” Suen asked.

“Just a killer, out to make a name for himself,” whispered Cheydar, but it did not sound right. There was a yell. Two soldiers running, a figure standing. Eric aimed again and David knocked his gun aside with the barrel of his own. Cheydar felt a fist closing in his stomach. Now. It was beautiful, if death can be called that. The two swords; crescents of morning sunlight. One man down on his knees his forehead against the ground, the other man standing for a moment until his head toppled from his shoulders. Cheydar had only seen the second blow.

“Fast,” Eric breathed.

“Perfect,” said David, his observation analytical.

Cheydar had no words. His mouth was dry. He looked from the scene to see one priest soldier running away just as fast as he could. He levelled his air gun, adjusted the sight for the extra distance, fired. The man sprawled then crawled on for a little while, his back rapidly soaking with blood. He tried to haul himself up by the hard dark green leaves of a cycad, then he fell again. Cheydar turned to his sons.

“Go down, see that they are all dead. Get their supplies, weapons, all we might need.” There was nothing in the Code against looting the dead.

Steeleye was the name of the third moon, or the Still Moon, for since the time of its cataclysmic arrival it had remained stationary in the sky above, day and night. In appearance it was a polished ball of metal, and there was something ominous about it, something attentive. It had appeared in the time when Cheydar had trained for service, causing floods and earth quakes. It stood vigil in the sky when he learned bladework, unarmed combat, and the maintenance of dart guns. That time was exciting; change was imminent, things would happen… But the years passed, the tides settled and the ground ceased to shake. And the only change had been the growth in the power and oppressiveness of the Cariphate. It seemed like a betrayal to Cheydar. The moon just became ordinary. He turned his attention back from it to the conversation.

“He would not have allowed it. He would not allow the Cariphe to do the things he does. His Proctors would stop the killing. His Proctors would enforce His law.”

He could see Suen regretted the outburst the moment she finished. She shouldn’t have said that, but wasn’t it true? All that her husband had believed: a better time, a golden age that would come again. Suen closed her eyes and shook her head. Her anger was always greatest when she missed him most, but in Cheydar’s experience railing against injustice only brought it down on you.

“Why did the Proctors go away?” he asked, embarrassed and clumsily trying to move away from the subject of Tarrin’s execution as he poked at the fire with a stick. He wasn’t really interested in why the Proctors had gone away. He wondered if anything about those indestructible monsters of the past and their ten-thousand year old demigod master could have anything to do with him and his life.

“They did not go away. They are sleeping,” said Sheda with that certainty only a teenager can have.