Col Buchanan - Stands a Shadow

Now Bahn and the rest of them hoped for another miracle from this man.

‘General!’

They turned just as they were nearing the command tent. Two Khosian cavalry scouts were approaching with a civilian rider in between them, a man with a bandana around his head and a gold ring in his ear. They drew to a halt before Creed with the nostrils of their zels snorting vanishing clouds of steam. ‘A Mannian ambassador, General,’ one of the riders announced. ‘He wishes to speak with you. We’ve searched him for weapons already.’

All three of them studied the civilian who sat slouched in his saddle, something of the brigand about him.

‘Greetings to you, Bearcoat,’ he declared with a rueful grin.

‘Come on now, you have to tell us more than that!’

‘Leave it alone, will you? It’s embarrassing.’

Curl laughed along with the other men and women in the warm space of the medical tent. They were seated around the surgical table with their cards and coins before them, their pallid faces shining in the light of the single lantern that hung from the roof.

Andolson was playing on a jitar at the back of the room, crooning something obscene and ridiculous about the fallen king of Pathia. Kris stood next to a side-table, a collection of bottled wines and leather mugs arranged before her, carefully adding to each of the mugs drops from a medicinal bottle of sanseed. As for the rest of the medicos, they mostly chattered across each other, hands waving drunkenly over the table, parting the thick coils of hazii smoke that filled the tent.

Young Coop stumbled out once more to be sick.

‘A damned waste of good wine!’ Milos hollered after him.

They were a strange bunch, these medicos of Special Operations whom Curl had fallen in with. Many had painted symbols and words onto their black leathers; the Daoist circle of unity, or quotes from all manner of sources, some even Mannian. Their hair was as often long as it was short, their faces scarred, their tempers hot, their moods unpredictable. Long inured to working in the tunnel systems beneath the walls of the Shield, they were a wild and troubled group of individuals, and they’d taken to Curl easily, and she to them.

The woman Kris was making another round of the table with her concoction of drinks. ‘Some more, madame?’

‘Thank you,’ said Curl, and accepted the offered mug and took a welcome sip from it. The wine was strong, but still she could taste the small amount of sanseed within it; liquid dross, essentially, used as a painkiller for the wounded. ‘If I’d known I could get this stuff for free I would have enlisted a whole lot sooner.’

‘That’s why old Jonsol enlisted,’ quipped Milos. ‘Isn’t that right, Jonsol?’

Jonsol was leering at her from across the table. The grey-haired man leered at every female within talking distance of him, though, and Curl’s scowl was a light-hearted one. Jonsol leaned back and howled at the canvas roof like a forlorn dog.

Curl had been fortunate from the outset, for the story of her outburst in the recruitment office had preceded her. The medico corps of the Specials had assumed she was a hot-tempered bitch not to be messed with, and she’d seen no reason to disabuse them of their illusions.

‘I’ll call,’ Jonsol said loudly, and threw in a few coppers. Only he and Curl remained in this hand, and the final card lay face-up on the table between them. A High King.

Curl spread the three cards in her hand face-up on the table. More laughter sounded as they realized she had won once again. Curl acknowledged their praise and curses as she swept the small pile of coins towards her.

‘You’re a fool, Jonsol. You walked right into it all over again.’

‘She might be a pup but she can play, I’ll give her that.’

It was true, she could play a decent game of cards. Though in fact tonight, for the sheer thrill of it, Curl was cheating. Every other time it was her turn to deal, Curl used one of the many shuffling tricks her old lover had once shown her to stack the deck in her favour. She was doing so well at it, in fact, that only one of them seemed to have yet noticed, and that was Kris, who simply watched with a knowing amusement in her eyes.

They all looked up as the tent flap parted and Koolas the war chattero stepped inside. ‘Mind if I join you?’ he puffed.

Exaggerated groans sounded from around the tent. ‘There must be a hundred games of rash in this camp tonight,’ chirped Milos. ‘And yet always you come to us.’

‘Well now,’ replied Koolas as he found himself a free seat around the table. ‘That’s because you medicos have all the good drugs.’

Jeers and catcalls exploded around him. Kris gave him a bow and began to fix him a drink of wine and sanseed, while Andolson changed to a different song, making up the lyrics as he went along. He crooned about the fat war chattero who was so in love with battle he rode along just to watch it.

‘Besides,’ Koolas called out, ‘I’m thinking of doing a story on you all. The medicos. The unsung heroes who go out there alone amongst the killing to save who they can, or to steal the jewellery of those who they can’t.’

Amidst the jeers Milos hollered, ‘Unsung fools more like!’

‘Aye, well, if it was truth the copy-houses wanted then I’d write of it. My thanks,’ he added, as Kris brought over a drink.

They were shouting him down when Major Bolt stepped into the tent.

‘Popular tonight,’ muttered Milos as the tent fell silent, and Kris hid the bottle of sanseed behind her back.

‘At ease,’ Bolt told them all. ‘I’m just here to see how you are. See if you need anything.’

‘We’re fine, Major, just fine,’ said Andolson languidly from behind his jitar.

Bolt surveyed each of them in turn. His eyes lingered on Kris for a moment, her hands behind her back. ‘Carry on, then,’ he said.

As he turned to leave he gave Curl a sidelong glance and a tug of his head.

She ignored the comments around her and followed him out through the flap.

Outside in the fresh air, Curl experienced a strange moment of transition. Suddenly she stood once more in a camp of war, and the memory of what they were doing, and what still faced them, came slowly back to her. Out there somewhere was the imperial army.

She shivered, the goosebumps rising on her flesh, and held an arm across her chest.

‘How are you?’ Bolt asked. ‘You seem to be fitting in well enough.’

‘They’re good people,’ she replied, looking up at him only briefly. She was always nervous in the company of this man, for she could never tell what he was thinking.

‘Here,’ he said, and handed her something. She looked down and saw a wrap of graf leaves in his outstretched hand.

‘I noticed the markings,’ he said, looking at her nostrils, which were less reddened now that she had left the city, and her supply of dross had run out. ‘It’s just a little muscado. It’ll help take the edge off a little.’

‘I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘Really.’

‘Take it,’ he said, and she so she did, and slipped the folded leaves into a pocket. ‘You’ll be glad of it once we see some action, and we start running low on those bottles of sanseed.’

She looked up into his grey eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Bolt stared hard at her.

‘I’d better get back inside,’ she told him.

After a moment he nodded, his expression still blank. Without a word he turned and strode away.

They gathered in the warmth of the command tent, the space heated by the black iron stove that squatted in one corner, its chimney running up through the roof. A plain, square table stood in the middle of the tent, covered with maps and notes for the march. Bahn swept them up quickly to put them out of sight. Creed took the weight off his feet by sitting back in his wicker chair. Halahan sat on the edge of the table, his leg-brace squeaking. The Nathalese colonel was clearly fighting down his anger.