Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

Given the inanity of Tavon’s dispatches, Captain Blackford was determined to be as far from the major as luck and determination could get him before word of her exploits reached the officers in Orindale. General Oaklen, wherever he was this Twinmoon, would not appreciate any field commander using his name to direct entire divisions home to Pellia. Blackford guessed that the general had made his way back into Orindale; he might even be staying at the old imperial palace just off the river. He certainly wasn’t within screaming range of any of the messages Major Tavon had sent to Rona. She had run rampant over the battalion while they trudged through the snowy drifts south of Wellham Ridge. Here in the capital, with an entire palace full of Malakasian officers hunkered down for the winter Twinmoon, circumstances would be different; surely she wouldn’t be able to engage in random murders without drawing attention? He couldn’t guess what Tavon had planned for the barge or the stone table, but he was pretty sure that things were about to get much worse.

Puffy snowflakes fell about his face as he stood in silence, waiting for his commanding officer to direct him once again. He watched the city snowscape roll by. The barge was passing through rows and rows of trenches dug hastily two Twinmoons earlier, a blockade of the entire city by every available soldier in the southern divisions. Blackford’s own trench had been several hundred paces north of the Medera, hidden now by the snow.

Then came the imperial palace, a grand old edifice with its sprawling gardens – lying fallow under trampled snow – stretching out towards the wharf and the commercial districts. One wing had been destroyed recently in a freak explosion; Blackford had heard the blast from his trench. Now he could see boarded-up windows and one collapsed wall, the stones of which had been piled into a heap. On through a well-to-do neighbourhood; he wondered what people did to afford such homes, especially in an occupied nation. On his lieutenant’s wages – Blackford didn’t expect ever to see one Marek of a captain’s pay – he would not have been able to purchase even a quarter of such a home. Slate roofs, stone walls, multiple chimneys; who were these people? Business owners? Ship captains? They certainly weren’t soldiers. Most of them had probably worked out some kind of lucrative, symbiotic agreement with the occupation Tavon was gone.

Captain Blackford rushed aft and knocked on one of the dilapidated doors. ‘Hershaw,’ he hissed, ‘wake up, get out here.’

He ran to a corporal standing watch. ‘You there,’ he said to the startled soldier who’d jumped to rigid attention, ‘where is the major?’

‘Sorry, sir. If she’s not back there, where she’s been for the past two days, sir, I don’t know, sir.’

‘Rutting whores,’ Blackford muttered, leaving the corporal looking confused. He went back to rapping on Hershaw’s cabin. ‘Captain, I need you out here right away,’ he called again.

Nervous, uncertain, needing an outlet for his anxiety, Blackford started pacing and swearing. Wringing his hands, he mumbled to himself, ‘Rutting demonpissing… opening the whoring thing again… dead out here… godswhoring cold-’

On the riverbank above him, a heap of large barrels stood in haphazard arrangement outside a waterfront alehouse, a big wooden place with a sloping roof, and plenty of raucous noise coming from within. It looked, sounded and smelled like a lonely soldier’s spiritual redemption, and Blackford found himself longing for a tankard of ale, maybe two. That would set him right. He watched a boy, probably no more than seventy-five Twinmoons, hurrying out of a side-door to scoop a bucketful of what looked to be sawdust from the closest of the wooden containers. That’s for the floor, gods love ‘em, to soak up the blood and piss. He looked again for Hershaw, although for what, other than helping him calm down, he couldn’t say. There’ll be blood on this floor soon enough, he thought to himself. No sawdust here to soak it up, though.

They were about to pass under the massive arched bridge separating Orindale’s northern wharf and its fine taverns, expensive apartments and fancy businesses from the southern wharf, where the many tarred and scarred wooden fingers of the town pier reached out into deep water. Compared with the northern wharf it was a dingy, colourless place, yet this was where Orindale’s heart beat the strongest.

When Hershaw finally emerged, Blackford nearly ran him down. ‘She’s gone,’ he barked.

Hershaw blanched. ‘Gone? What do you mean she’s gone?’

‘I think she’s in there.’ Blackford nodded towards the ramshackle cabin that housed the mysterious stone table.

‘Oh, gods-rut-a-whore.’ Hershaw ran his fingers through sleep-tousled hair and started straightening his crumpled uniform. ‘What do we do?’

‘I don’t know. Wait? Take cover? Swim for shore?’

The corporal Blackford had startled remained at his post, but he was staring at the two nervous officers, obviously straining to hear what was being said. His superiors were not instilling him with much confidence.

The barge passed beneath the stone bridge and, moving quickly with the current, slipped out the inlet and into the harbour.

With the corporal watching, Hershaw tried to project an air of quiet confidence and leadership; instead, he looked like someone with bad stomach cramps, trying his best to stand upright.

Blackford said, ‘Let’s send him.’

‘Who?’

‘Him.’ He nodded towards the anxious sentry.

‘Send him where?’

‘The imperial palace, the old Barstag place. It’s not far from here. He could sound the alarm, rally the whole division, tell the whole story, General Oaklen’s dispatches, Pace’s murder, all of it. But we need to act quickly-’

The barge moved towards a group of mooring buoys several hundred paces offshore; it would be too far to swim in this weather. They had either to convince the corporal to slip over the side right away, or one of them would have to go themselves.

Hershaw pressed his lips together in a tight smile, made eye-contact with the soldier and waved him over It was too late. A low resonating humming sound began behind them, coming from the major’s quarters. Blackford and Hershaw braced themselves for something terrible, but even so, they both jumped when the first ship, a Malakasian schooner moored nearby, began to break apart.

Mark slogged through the muck, stepping over exposed roots and fallen trees, all the while trying to get to the centre of the marble trough, to the bridge. He hadn’t noticed the bridge last time; he had been distracted by the tadpoles with their tumours, and the snakes chasing them down. But the bridge was there, lit by the glow coming from the top of the shallow rise. It spanned the marble trough, a short arch also made of marble, a miniature version of something he might have seen in Venice, the Ponte de Rialto… but Mark decided to cross there, nevertheless. He didn’t want to be back in that water again.

Why have a bridge if I don’t need to use it? Mark thought, and wasn’t surprised when someone answered; it sounded like him.

Now you’re thinking. Why don’t you come up here with me?

He stopped near the edge of the nightmarish koi pond. It was longer than he remembered and lined on both sides by rows of marble columns. Shaker, baker, candlestick-maker columns? Neo-classical. That’s it. Neo-classical columns, the ones like they have in front of the Capitol Building in DC, hell, they’re all over DC, marble bones holding the place up.

That’s not the right place, Mark.

Blow me; I’m busy.

The bridge was a trap; it had to be. He could jump this trough. It wasn’t more than four or five feet across. Hell, he could step over it, step through it. He’d already been elbow-deep in the thing, and as long as there were none of those snakes – he was fairly sure the crippled tadpole sperm were no threat – he’d be fine.