Dan Abnett - Ghostmaker

Just now though, in one of the troop-ship's echoing holds with an audience of off-duty guardsmen roused from their cots and stoves all around, he was turning his charismatic tongue to something far more important. The pitch.

'Here's the deal, my friends, my brave fellow guardsmen, praise be the Golden Throne, here's the deal.'

He spoke clearly, slowly, so that his sing-song Tanith accent wouldn't confuse the other guard soldiers here. Three other regiments were sharing this transport with the Ghosts: big, blond, square-jawed brutes from the Royal Volpone 50th, the so-called Bluebloods; sallow-skinned, idle-looking compact men from the 5th Slamabadden; and tall, tanned, long-haired types from the 2nd Roane Deepers. Worlds and accents, separated by a common tongue. Varl worked his crowd with care and precision, making sure nothing he said was lost or misunderstood.

He handed the censer to Milo, who opened it. 'See now, a metal ball, with surface holes. The grain-lice go in the ball…' He tipped a couple from his jar out into the censer as Milo held it ready. 'And my young friend here closes it up. Notice how I've scratched a number next to all the holes. Thirty-three holes, a number next to each. No tricks, no guile… you can examine the ball if you like.'

Varl took the rusty ball from Milo and set it on the floor where all could see. A large washer welded to the censer's base stopped it from rolling. 'Now, see, I sets it down. The lice want the light, right? So sooner or later, they'll hop out… through one of the holes. There's the game. We wager on the number.'

'And we lose our money,' said a Deeper near the front, his voice twanged with that odd, rounded Roane accent.

'We'll all make a bet, friend,' Varl said. 'I will, you will, anyone else. If you guess the right number or get closest, you win the pot. No tricks, no guile.'

As if on cue, a bug emerged from one of the star-shaped holes and lit off onto the deck, where a Blueblood crunched it sourly underfoot.

'No matter!' Varl cried. 'Plenty more where he came from… and if you've seen the grain silos, you'll know what I mean!'

That brought general laughter and keen sense of suffering comradeship. Milo smiled. He loved the way Varl could play a crowd.

'What if we don't trust you, Ghost?' asked a Blueblood, the big ox who had mashed the bug. He wore his grey and gold twill breeches and black boots, but was stripped down to his undershirt. His body was a mass of well-nourished muscles and he stood two heads taller than Varl. Arrogance oozed from him.

Milo tensed. He knew that some rivalry existed between the Ghosts and the Bluebloods, ever since Voltemand. No one had ever said, but the rumour was that the Blueblood's own commanders, steering the invasion force, had ordered the barrage on the Voltis riverbed where so many Ghosts had died. The Bluebloods, so high and Emperor-damned mighty, seemed to despise the ''common born'' Ghosts, but then they despised everyone. This aristocratic giant, with his hooded eyes and bullying manner, had at least six friends in the crowd, and all were as big as him. What the feth do they feed them on back home to raise such giants? Milo wondered.

Varl, unconcerned, got down off the crates he had been using as a stage and approached the giant. He held out his hand. It whirred. 'Ceglan Varl, Sergeant, Tanith First-and-Only. I admire a man who can express his doubts… sergeant?'

'Major Gizhaum Danver De Banzi Haight Gilbear, Royal Volpone 50th.' The giant didn't offer to take the outstretched hand.

'Well, major, seems you've no reason to trust a low-life like me, but it's all a game, see? No tricks, no guile. We all make a bet, we all have a laugh, we all pass the voyage a little quicker.'

Major Gilbear did not seem convinced.

'You've rigged it. I'm not interested if you place a bet.' He swung his look past Varl and took in Milo. 'Let your boy do it.'

'Oh. Now, that's just silly!' Varl cried. 'He's just a kid… he knows nothing about the fine and graceful art of gamesmanship. You want to play this with gamblers!'

'No,' Gilbear said simply. Others in the crowd agreed, and not just Bluebloods. Some seemed in danger of walking away, disinterested.

'Very well, very well!' Varl said, as if it was breaking his heart. 'The boy can play in my stead.'

'I don't want to, sir!' Milo squeaked. He prayed his outburst had the right mix of reluctance and concern, and that it didn't sound too much on cue.

'Now then, lad,' Varl said, turning to him and putting a heavy bionic arm around his shoulders paternally. 'Be good now and play along so that the nice gentlemen here can enjoy a simple game.' Unseen to all others present, he winked at Milo. Milo fought the fiercest battle of his life not to laugh.

'O-okay,' he said.

'The boy will play in my place!' Varl said, turning back to the crowd and raising his arms. There was cheers and applause in reply.

They set to it. A larger crowd gathered. Paper markers were handed out and coin produced. Gilbear decided to play, as did two Roane Deepers and three of the Slammabadden. In the crowd, secondary bets were laid on winners and losers. Varl opened the censer and took up his jar.

Gilbear plucked it from his hand, opened it and dropped the lice out onto the deck, crunching them all underfoot. He held it out to one of his men. 'Raballe! Go fetch fresh lice from the silos!'

'Sir!'

'What is this?' Varl gasped, dropping to his knees and wiping away what seemed to Milo a real tear as he surveyed his crushed insects. 'Do you not even trust my lice, Major Gilbear, Blueblood, sir?'

'I don't trust anything I can crush with my boot,' Gilbear replied, looking down and apparently dangerously close to stamping on Varl too. A tidal change swept through the secondary betting, some of it in sympathy with the damaged Ghost and his crushed pets, some sensing trickery was routed and heaping money on the Blueblood major.

'You could have drugged them, overfed them – they seemed docile. You could place your money on the lower holes so that the sluggish things simply fell from the bottom as gravity pulled.' Gilbear smiled at his deduction and his men growled approval. So did several of the wily Slammabadden, and Milo was afraid the mood might turn ugly.

'I'll tell you what,' Varl said to the major as he got up. The Blueblood's second was returning with a jar packed full of agitated lice and semi-digested meal where he had scooped it from the dank silos. 'We'll use your pick of the bugs…and you can set the censer whichever way up you like.' Varl pulled a cargo hook from the crates behind him to use as a makeshift base. 'Happy?'

Gilbear nodded.

They made ready. The gamblers, Milo included, prepared to make their guess on the paper slips provided. Varl flexed his good shoulder, as if easing out an old hurt. A signal, the next icue.

'I'll play this too,' Caffran said, pushing forward through the huddle. He seemed to sway and he stank of sacra. Many gave him a wide berth.

'Cafy, no… you're not up to it…' Varl murmured.

Caffran was pulling out a weight of coins, rolls of thick, high-issue disks.

'Give me the paper… Hike a bet,' Caffran mumbled, slurring.

'Let your Ghost play,' Gilbear growled with a smirk as Varl began to protest.

It looked to all present like the Tanith showman had lost control of his simple game, and if there had been any trickery in it, any guile, then all of it was ruined now.

The first lice went in. Gilbear spun the censer and set it down. Markers were overturned. A Slammabadden came closest, closest to guessing the exit by three holes. Milo was nowhere near and seemed to whimper. Caffran raged as his money was scooped away. He produced more.