Mark Newton - The Broken Isles

‘Be assured we do.’

‘Good. I’m guessing your enemy knows this already since they’ve split their assault into two sections.’

‘At least two.’

‘So why do they not send their sky-city to deploy ground troops?’

‘It doesn’t move well across water.’

‘You could have mentioned this earlier!’ Brynd snapped.

‘The. . forces it uses require it to be above land, otherwise they have to adopt different fuel sources and it can very much inhibit their mobility. This works to our favour, for it may be that our attempt to land on board will be far simpler.’

‘And are we to attempt this boarding while the war rages?’ Brynd asked.

‘Yes.’

‘It feels wrong. We should be on our islands, protecting our people and our land and our children.’

‘This is not the time for seeking glories.’

‘This is not,’ Brynd growled, ‘about glory. This is about doing our jobs . We will stand alongside our people.’

‘You will have time for such matters, if you wish,’ Artemisia replied coolly, ‘but we should concentrate our primary efforts on where their communications are most focused.’

‘The sky-city,’ Brynd said. ‘I’m guessing that their military will mostly be concentrated on the invasion, leaving the sky-city less defended?’

‘Indeed that is so, much like our own. We strike when the battle is at its most intense, but it will not be simple,’ Artemisia replied firmly, and with outstretched arms she gestured to the cauldrons once again, which bubbled furiously.

A new scene then presented itself: there were clouds or white smoke at first, a hazy bird’s-eye view of landscape, rolling hills, snow-covered tundra perhaps, it wasn’t easy to discern. Then, dark patches of land.

‘What are we looking at now?’ Brynd enquired.

‘This is our army,’ Artemisia said, with pride. ‘One and a half million individuals, made up of several different races, all of whom are trained. . soldiers, I believe your word is, though we would call them mercenaries and conscripts, too. It is all we could muster at such short notice. More are coming, but we are currently engaged in the business of evacuating our largest city. It is not, as you may appreciate, a simple and clean effort.’

‘Indeed. .’ Brynd peered once again into the liquid, only to see a clearer context now: there was the coastline, along which Artemisia’s forces were gathered.

‘We are adjusting our tactics according to your advice,’ she announced.

How the hell are they doing that so quickly?

‘I can sense you are wondering how this may be so,’ she continued. If she was capable of pride, she was certainly capable of smugness at how her culture was more advanced than Brynd’s.

‘Not really,’ Brynd grunted. There was a chuckle from one of his soldiers. ‘But since you mention it, what facilities are you using?’

Artemisia described a complex system that seemed to cross shamanism with high technological genius. The elders were connected telepathically to the generals on the ground, where they in turn had cauldrons and methods of viewing the entire operation. There was a vast system of communication that her army depended upon, and Brynd remembered how the Okun, too, relied on an elegant form of contact with each other. It maintained their uniformity, their progress. Their devastating force.

Artemisia concluded, ‘We shall settle final tactics on the ground, then for our own operation — for which we have gained new intelligence and our cartographers have supplied us with internal maps of the Policharos. After this discussion, we may watch the first wave of conflict.’

‘What, we just sit up here and watch the war like spectators? Shouldn’t we be down on the ground, rallying the troops, boosting their confidence, giving direction?’

Artemisia translated this statement to the elders, who seemed greatly amused.

‘Our people do war on an enormous scale, Commander Lathraea. More often than not, if we are on the ground, any information we give would be too slow and ineffective. No, it is better we stay up here, and view progress through our usual means.’

Brynd did not like this at all. It was his way to be on the ground, with his own people, protecting his towns and cities from whatever forces assaulted them. It seemed an artificial warfare, conducted from a distance, as if he were one of the ancient gods.

I am no god , he thought to himself. We will fight alongside our people .

Fulcrom and Lan headed back to the Partisans’ Club in the morning. When they arrived, Fulcrom made up some excuse about having lost Lan’s necklace the night before and asked to take a look around to see if he could find it.

‘You look like decent sorts,’ the doorman said, and let them both in.

While he was there, Fulcrom planned to engage the owner in a conversation about the event with Malum. It pained Fulcrom to praise the scenes he had seen that night, to wax lyrical about what was at best small-mindedness, racism and violence. But he knew he needed more information about what Malum had devised next and this was his best — his only — lead for now.

The owner turned out to be a woman in her fifties. She looked as if she could have once been a starlet in her day, and there was still something about the way she moved, and the make-up she wore, that said she hadn’t fully left the stage alone. She had greying blonde hair, a huge smile and wide, pretty eyes. Judging by the look of her she liked her food now, and almost anticipating such thoughts she said, as they took a table by the empty stage, ‘I’m not what I used to be, you know. When you have your own cook, sometimes the temptation is too great!’

‘There’s no harm in liking a good meal,’ Fulcrom said.

‘You rumel might be able to cope, but it’s not that easy for me. Now, can I get you a drink? I’ve more than one handsome waiter around here somewhere. .’

‘No, that’s OK,’ Fulcrom laughed, ‘we shouldn’t be that long — hopefully Lan will find the necklace soon enough.’

‘She’s a pretty girl,’ the woman observed.

‘She is,’ Fulcrom replied. ‘If you want to get yourself something to eat or drink, don’t let me stop you.’

‘I don’t get enough exercise to eat and drink all the time! I used to be on that stage every night in my youth.’ She gestured with a wave to the dimly lit platform just behind.

‘You’ve some interesting shows these days,’ Fulcrom told her. ‘That one with Malum last night was different. Not your typical piece of theatre.’

‘You could put it like that. Must confess, I don’t normally like to entertain the likes of him.’

‘You disapprove of what he said? I thought it was. . interesting.’

‘Not his message, no,’ the woman replied, leaning back in her chair and drawing a leg over her other knee. ‘No, he speaks wisely on that front, does the young man. I make no issue about being scared of the aliens — most of us are.’

‘It’s understandable, given the times we live in,’ Fulcrom said. ‘So how did you end up hosting his. . well, his little show?’

‘Oh, he’s a regular here — well, he used to be before the war. That was his chair over there, by the wall.’

‘He had his own chair?’

‘He was in the gangs .’

Fulcrom nodded, pretending to understand the significance of her statement.

‘Those gang types,’ she went on, ‘tend to have their own way around these parts. You don’t mess with them.’

‘It shouldn’t be like that,’ Fulcrom observed.

‘That’s the way this city is,’ she said. ‘There’s no point in complaining about things.’