Col Buchanan - Stands a Shadow

‘I’m frightened,’ she admitted.

He held her tighter, though it wasn’t what she needed just then. Curl needed a stiff snort of dust, and some hard liquor to wash it down with.

‘Aren’t you afraid?’ she asked him, turning her head slightly.

‘No.’

How strange, she thought.

‘You still haven’t told me anything about you. I recall it was me doing most of the talking last night.’

‘Amongst other things. And no. I’m not much of a talker.’

‘You don’t want to tell me, is that it?’

A heavy breath. ‘It’s better this way, trust me.’

Curl rolled onto her back, her hipbone sore after lying against the hard tiles. Through the hole in the roof she saw an evening star glimmer in the darkening sky.

She turned her tired eyes on Che.

‘So, do you still think I’m beautiful?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Yesterday, when you were drunk, you told me so.’

‘Well, the important word there would be drunk.’

She feigned annoyance, and turned to roll away from him. Felt his hand rest on her shoulder and gently pull her back.

‘Curl, if there were a thousand beautiful women standing naked before me, you’d still be the one to catch my eye first.’

‘Oh?’

‘Oh.’

‘So that’s all that matters to you, pretty looks and a firm body?’

It was Che’s turn to scowl. His expression softened, though, with the flicker of a smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not with you.’

He seemed to mean it.

A scrape sounded from overhead, and the old farlander’s face appeared in the hole. ‘Che,’ he said. ‘A word with you.’

Curl watched as the young man climbed to his feet and stepped over to speak with Ash. She sat up and dusted herself off. Thought suddenly of a hot bath and a warm meal in her stomach.

The two men were arguing over something in equally hushed tones. Curl waited, staring at a web that hung in the shadows of the beams, a fat spider sitting in the middle of it, fishing the air for flies.

Che’s voice rose louder. ‘She might already be dying, you old fool. You’ll get yourself killed, and for what?’

‘ Because I must,’ hissed the old man.

They were both quiet for a moment, both angry. Che glanced down at her, and Curl pretended to look elsewhere.

Che offered the man an outstretched hand. The farlander hesitated, then took it. They shook, and as Ash withdrew his hand Che grasped his wrist suddenly. ‘It’s settled, between us?’

The old man studied his face.

‘I think, at least, that we are not enemies,’ he said.

‘Then that shall do,’ Che replied, releasing his grip.

Ash glanced once at Curl, and then swept out into the twilight.

When she stood next to Che, she saw the farlander walking lightly over the rooftop with his sword in his hand. A pair of imperial soldiers were drinking from a cistern in the street below. As they continued on their way, Ash began to stalk them.

At the end of the roof he stopped, looked down at a street they could not see. Gently, he lay his sword down, then plucked two tiles free, one in each hand.

He held his hands over the edge of the roof, as far apart as he could, then brought them together by an inch, judging something. He whistled down at the street.

Released the two tiles at the same time.

In an instant he was scrabbling down the slope of the roof.

‘Ash!’ Che called out to him.

The farlander stopped and looked back. ‘What?’

‘May you find your peace, old man.’

Ash swung himself off the edge of the roof, and then he was gone.

‘ Who are you?’ demanded the old priest an inch way from his face.

It was the thousandth time his interrogator had asked Bahn that question. For the thousandth time, Bahn told him who he was.

‘Bahn,’ he panted at the floor. ‘Bahn Calvone.’

It hurt when he talked, the wound in his cheek inflamed and tender.

‘And what is your rank?’

Bahn felt his hair being tugged back so that he faced the old priest. The man’s skin was creased with deep wrinkles, though it was scarred too from acne he must have suffered as a youth. ‘Lieutenant. Of the Khosian Red Guards.’

‘Yes,’ soothed the old priest, stroking his face. His vile breath made Bahn want to gag, to turn away. ‘But who are you?’

It was hot in the confined space of the tent. A brazier smoked near the far wall, and sweat beaded Bahn’s forehead. ‘I don’t understand,’ he sobbed.

The priest smiled and glanced at the Acolytes stationed behind the chair Bahn was strapped to. The Acolyte released his hair so that his head lolled forwards again, and he could see the bare earth of the floor. Through his eyelashes, he watched as the priest turned his back on him, his withered hands reaching out to the small table, across the vials upon it, the folded papers, the blades.

‘Are you a traitor?’ asked the priest without turning from the table.

Bahn felt a burst of fire in his stomach. He was going to be sick, he thought, right here at his feet.

‘Are you a traitor?’ repeated the man.

A fist struck the back of his head.

Bahn tried to focus. The sweat was pouring down his face now, mixing with the blood in his mouth. ‘No,’ he rasped. ‘I’m no traitor.’

‘Oh? So you would never be a traitor to your people?’

‘Of course I wouldn’t!’

The priest turned around. In one hand he held a slip of folded paper, and in the other a delicate curved blade. ‘Yet all men are traitors.’

He leaned towards Bahn’s face, and his thumb opened the folded slip of paper. Bahn drew back, his breath caught in his chest. He watched as the priest pressed his lips together and blew once across the paper. A fine white dust engulfed Bahn’s face. In his panic he sucked in a breath and the powder with it, and his mouth instantly went numb.

Colours, dancing on the edges of his vision. White light flickering in the midst of a gathering darkness.

Bahn lolled his head back, his body going slack. Hands steadied him from behind.

‘Now,’ came the distant voice of the priest. ‘Tell me again. Who are you?’

Che looked up at the hole in the roof. It was twilight outside, and the sky was a deepening shade of violet. Thick banks of smoke were rising into it as more of the city burned around them. The air seemed to be growing thicker with the smell of it. It was starting to sting his eyes.

They were out there somewhere, the Diplomats, circling around the area. He could feel their presence as a faint tickling sensation in his pulsegland, a kind of itch that could not be scratched away. It had been that way since the sun had first begun to set, though it had grown no stronger since then.

What are they waiting for? Che found himself wondering.

‘Those fires are getting closer,’ he announced, and Curl nodded, looking at his hand but not at his eyes. He was playing with her fingers as she sat before him, and she with his.

He watched her with affection. There was something vulnerable about this girl, behind her wit and her determined manner.

‘We should be going.’ he said, and tugged her hand.

She looked at him at last, and he could see her steeling herself for the task ahead, the streets that needed to be negotiated if they were to make it to safety. Che helped her to her feet as she held a hand to her mouth and coughed. The smoke was thickening.

They both stood there looking out, mouths hanging open in wonder.

To the north a few streets away, an entire row of buildings was alight; a line of fire that crackled and sparked and rose higher as it gained purchase on walls and furnishings, spreading through the buildings towards them. To the left it was the same, a street burning; to the right too. He and Curl seemed to be standing at the centre of a gathering inferno.