They reached Mkoll’s position. The scouts were ready to go in. Dremmond and Lubba prepped their flames. “On three—” said Gaunt.
“Wait!” Bonin voxed. “Movement. Up, to the left. The rafters over the far window.”
Before Gaunt had time to take a look, a shot zipped out of the mill and went over their heads, followed by another that smacked off a tie-beam Luhan was using for cover.
“Wait!” Gaunt yelled, just before his men started to return fire and hose the south face of the mill.
The shots had been las-rounds.
Gaunt adjusted the setting of his micro-bead. “One, who’s up there?” A pause. Faint static on the link. “One,” Gaunt repeated. “Identify.”
“Two-oh-three, one,” came the response. It was Raglon.
ELEVEN
THE DUTIFUL
“Cuu’s a fething maniac, Larks…”
—Trooper Bragg (deceased), on Phantine
She wouldn’t talk. She wouldn’t even take off her raincoat She allowed Larkin and Caffran to lead her into the gloomy kitchen and sit her at one of the chairs by the table.
She flinched as Rerval suddenly came in from outside. He looked at the old woman in confusion.
“She was hiding upstairs,” Larkin told him. “I was., patrolling and I heard a noise and I found her. She’s our ghost.”
Caffran poured a hot drink from the stove and set it on the table beside her.
“Drink up,” he said. “You look hungry. And cold.”
She looked up at Caffran slowly, her old eyes not blinking. There was something far away in her gaze that suggested she didn’t really see him.
“Drink up, ma’am,” said Caffran again, encouragingly. She didn’t. Her gaze returned to the glow of the stove plate.
“What do you mean she’s our ghost?” Rerval asked Larkin.
“Moving things, you know. Putting the plates away. She’s been here all the time, hiding from us.”
“How do you know?” Larkin shrugged.
“Hey, do you think she took the circuit out of my vox?” Rerval said suddenly. “Did you mess with my vox-caster, mother?” he asked.
The sudden voice made her flinch again.
Larkin took Rerval by the arm and tugged him back. “Have a heart, lad. She’s scared witless. I promised her we wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Of course we won’t hurt her,” said Caffran. “We won’t, ma’am.”
“Besides,” Larkin added, “I don’t see an old girl like this having the knack to disable a piece of Guard kit. Smash it, maybe. Lift the primary transmission circuit? I don’t think so.”
“Who the feth is she?” Rerval whispered. “Apart from being our ghost, I mean. Do you think she just came here to shelter?”
“Doesn’t feel like that to me,” said Larkin. “The way she cares about the place. Tidies stuff away, hangs up her coat. I think this house is hers. Her home.”
“But this whole area was evacuated years ago,” said Rerval. “That’s what the colonel told us. Why would she still be here?”
“Sometimes people don’t want to leave,” said Larkin. “Old, set in her ways, tied by memories to this place. Maybe she chose not to.”
“Then she could have been here for ages. Years.”
“Waiting for the invaders to come. Hoping they wouldn’t,” Larkin murmured.
Caffran looked at the frail old woman. She was still immobile, placid. Her hair was silver, almost white, pinned back rightly with small metal clips. Her clothes were clean, but old and faded, and her little leather buckle-on shoes were worn. He could see the sole was coming away from one of them. The only reaction she made, every once in a while, was to wince and look round at any loud noise emanating from the drawing room. The crash of a glass breaking. A thump. Brostin’s booming laugh.
We’re invaders, he thought, invaders in her home.
“Why’s her coat wet?” he asked suddenly. “What?”
“If she’s been hiding from us here, why’s she been going outside? In the rain? And if she’s been hiding, why hang her coat up where we can see it?”
Larkin frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe we should check around outside again when it gets light. The outhouse Ven mentioned. He said he thought someone had been sleeping out there.”
“Someone else?” asked Caffran.
“Maybe.”
“Should we tell Feygor about her?” Rerval asked.
“Feth, no! Not tonight. Not the state he’s in. Do you want to scare her even more?”
Rerval considered Caffran’s words. “No,” he said. “There must be some clue as to who she is. I’ll nose around.”
“Okay,” said Caffran. “Stay with her, Larks. I’ll go tell Muril about her and advise her to keep her eyes peeled for any other houseguests.”
Rerval and Caffran had both been gone for ten minutes, and Larkin had simply sat there in the kitchen with the old woman, listening to the rain and the spit of the stove. The wind was getting up again, and the thunder was rumbling closer.
Cuu was suddenly just standing there in the kitchen doorway. The old woman started, and Larkin looked up sharply.
“Hey, Tanith. Who’s your girlfriend?” Cuu said. His eyes were hooded and he swayed slightly.
“Go back to your drinking, Cuu,” said Larkin softly.
“We got hungry. I came for some food. Where’d you get this old witch from?”
“She was hiding,” said Larkin.
“Hiding? In the house? Gak. What’s she got to say for herself?”
“Nothing. Just go away.”
Cuu drunkenly flapped a hand at Larkin, his attention on the old woman. He leaned down, putting his leering face close to hers. She pulled away, avoiding eye contact.
“Stop it,” said Larkin.
“Who are you, witch? Eh? Speak up, I can’t gakking hear you? Where the gak were you hiding? Eh?” She drew back as far as the chair would allow. “Back off, Cuu,” Larkin warned.
“Shut up, Tanith. Come on, you old witch! Who are you?” Cuu reached out and grabbed her roughly by one thin shoulder. She let out a little gasp of fear. “Who the hell are you?”
Larkin leaned forward and grasped Cuu tightly by the wrist. He yanked Cuu’s arm back, tearing his grip from the old woman’s shoulder, and slowly rose to his feet, pushing the drunken Verghastite backwards.
“Get the hell off,” snapped Cuu, his attention switching entirely to Larkin. He fell back unsteadily, drink slowing his reactions, but quickly locked and pushed back. Larkin wasn’t giving.
“Get your hand off me, Tanith,” Cuu growled. “If you leave her alone.”
“Oooh, that’s it. You’ve done it now, sure as sure.”
Intoxication made him telegraph the punch. Larkin dodged it easily, and pushed Cuu right back across the kitchen. He fell heavily against the dresser and several plates and pots fell off with a crash.
“You piece of shit,” Cuu said, reaching instinctively for his blade. But his kit was lying back in the drawing room. In the instant it took him to realise the dagger he was groping for wasn’t there, Larkin had thrown a left hook that twisted Cuu’s head round and dropped him to the floor. Cuu lay there, moaned, and spat bloody saliva onto the red-glazed tiles.
Larkin paused. He could do it now. He’d even have a cover story. He could fething well-But the old woman was staring at him. Her hands were up over her head, protectively, though she was still sitting in the chair. He could see the glint of her eyes staring out between her gnarled fingers.
“Feth, it’s okay!” said Larkin. “He won’t hurt you. I swear he won’t!” He crossed to her and bent down, trying to calm her.
“Please, it’s okay. It’s really okay. I—”
He blacked out. There was a dull thump, like a muffled peal of thunder, and he blacked out.
He came to, sprawled face down across the table. The back of his head hurt really badly. His vision swam.
He tried to rise, but lost his balance and fell off the sid
e of the table onto the floor.
The fall saved him. Cuu brought the iron skillet pan down for a second blow and hit the table where Larkin had just been crumpled. The pan exploded the cup and sprayed porcelain shards and tepid caffeine across the polished wood.
Larkin tried to crawl backwards away from Cuu, but the Verghastite came for him, swinging the pan again. It caught Larkin on the shoulder. He kicked out at Cuu’s legs.
Cuu reached down and grabbed Larkin by the throat. With a snarl that flecked spittle out between his clenched teeth, Cuu hauled Larkin up and threw him against the side counter. He pinned Larkin with the flat of his forearm, and hit him with the pan again. Larkin squealed as he felt a rib go. Another savage blow and pain flared through his left elbow. But for that raised arm, the heavy pan would have mashed his face.
“You Tanith gak! You little shit! You stupid bastard!” Cuu rained down slurs and blows alike in a berserk fury.
Suddenly, Cuu shrieked and collapsed off Larkin, dropping the pan with a clang. The metal frame stock of a Mark III las-rifle had just smashed up between his legs from behind.
Cuu hit the floor, convulsing and choking, tears washing down his screwed up face. He fell in a foetal position, clutched at his groin and threw up.
Dripping with storm water, Muril turned her lasrifle round so that the muzzle was pointing at Cuu’s temple.
“Any more from you, Cuu, any more, and I use this end on you instead.”
“What the feth’s going on?” demanded Caffran pulling down his cape hood as he came in through the kitchen door behind Muril. The old woman made a sudden dash for the open door, but Caffran intercepted her gently and sat her back down. She didn’t protest.
Muril helped Larkin up. He was shaking. One cheek was swelling and turning blue, and blood streamed from his nose The back of his head had left more blood on the countertop.
Muril dragged out a chair and helped Larkin sit down.
“Cuu… Cuu was gonna hurt her—” he stammered.
Muril looked round at Caffran. “Little bastard nearly beat Larkin to death. If we hadn’t come back…”
Caffran looked down at Cuu, who was still curled up and weeping out jagged groans. Every few breaths, he retched again and added to the expanding pool of liquid vomit around his head.
“Feth,” Caffran murmured. He was reaching down to grab hold of Cuu when Feygor and Brostin stormed in. They were both very drunk, more obviously drunk than Cuu had been. Feygor was having trouble walking. They reeled to a halt and blinked repeatedly, trying to take in the scene before them and understand it.
“Where’s the fething food, Lijah?” Feygor said.
“You want some food?” asked Caffran. “I’ll bring you some. Go back to the drawing room and I’ll bring you some.”
His head swaying back and forth like his neck was rubber, Feygor frowned and made several vague pointing gestures around the room.
“What the feth?” he barked, his augmetic voice box coarse and indistinct as it tried to cope with his inebriated sounds. He looked at the old woman and tried to focus his eyes. “Who the feth is this?”
“It’s likely we’re all guests of hers here, so show some respect,” Caffran said. “She’s old and she’s scared.”
Feygor snorted. “What’s with Larks? And why’s Cuu down?”
“Cuu was making trouble for the old lady,” Muril said. “Larks tried to stop him and he went wild with a skillet.”
“We had to subdue him,” Caffran added, hoping to take a little heat off Muril if necessary.
“Cuu was hurting the old lady?” slurred Brostin. The idea seemed to offend him.
“He’s drunk,” said Muril.
“No excuse,” said Brostin with great certainty.
“Who the feth is she?” Feygor wanted to know. He took a step forward, approaching her. Caffran stepped in and carefully steadied Feygor.
“She’s the owner of the house,” he said. He didn’t know that for sure, but it had a certain weight Feygor’s addled brain might take in.
“Where’d she come from?”
“She was here all the time. Hiding.”
“Fething spy!” Feygor said, clapping his hands. The old woman jumped. “No, sir.”
“I fething say so. Sneaking and hiding.”
“She was scared of us. Does she look like a Shadik agent?”
“Fethed if I know!” Feygor said. He stood straight and waggled a finger. “Lock her up somewhere. Lock her up. I’ll question her in the morning.”
“We can’t lock her up,” Muril began.
“Lock her the feth up!” Feygor spluttered. “Who’s in charge here, bitch?” Good question, Caffran thought.
Brostin tugged at Feygor’s arm. “You can’t lock her up, Murt. Wouldn’t be right. Not an old lady.”
“Kay, what then?”
“I’ll look after her. I’ll stay with her,” said Caffran. “You can talk to her tomorrow.”
“All right,” Feygor said, satisfied. He wheeled around, unsteadily, and wandered into the pantry. They could hear the smash of breaking jars as he foraged for food.
Brostin stood for a moment, and then followed Feygor out.
“Feth,” murmured Caffran. He looked over at Muril, who shook her head. Caffran bent down and hauled Cuu towards the door. He threw the coughing Verghastite out into the rain.
“Sober up, you little swine!” he snarled after him. Cuu lay in the yard, whining like a canine in the beating rain.
When Caffran came back into the kitchen, he saw that the old lady was carefully picking up the objects that had fallen during the fight. Pans went back onto the dresser. Shards of china were picked up one by one.
“She just started doing that,” Muril said, dabbing disinfectant pads from her field kit to the back of Larkin’s head.
Caffran watched. The old lady threw the broken cups into the kitchen waste, and then swept up the bits she couldn’t pick up with a dustpan and brush. She took the skillet Cuu had used to beat Larkin and hung it back on its hook over the stove. Then she shuffled into the wash house and re-emerged with a mop.
Caffran stepped forward and took it from her. She gave it up without resistance. “Let me do that,” he said, and started to clean Cuu’s spew off the tiles.
He wouldn’t watch her do that.
It was well past midnight. The electrical storm had returned with a show of force even greater than the previous night. Rerval gave up his search of the upstairs. There was no sign of anything personal apart from the old furniture and bedclothes. Wardrobes were mostly empty except for a few dry pomanders rolling about their floors. Just about every upstairs room was damp, some saturated, from the leaking roof. Trickles of water streamed down. The air stank of mildew and rotting linen.
He played his flashlight around the halls and the walls of the rooms. There were few pictures, but in places his light revealed the pale oblongs where pictures had once hung. There was an ormolu clock on the mantle of one bedroom. It had stopped at half past four. The gilt decoration showed two soldiers in plumed hats, standing either side of the face and supporting it with their hands.
He found a linen closet where the old, piled sheets were generally dry. There were a few items of kit and some hotshot clips stacked in the corners. This was evidently where Larkin had chosen to make his lair.
Rerval left it alone.
He saw the attic hatch, and got a chair. Pushing up through the hatch, he shone his light around. The attic was swimming. Many tiles had gone. His beam picked out black, mouldering rafters, streams of rainwater and stacks of rotting junk. He decided not to waste his time.
He wandered back to the stairs. How had she lived here for so long? Alone? Had the isolation snapped her mind? Was that why she wouldn’t speak?
He went down the stairs, avoiding the plinking pots and water catchers. Lightning flashed.
Lamp light was shining from the half-open drawing room door, and he could hear voices and the clink of glasses.
br /> A paler light was coming from under the dining room door.
Rerval switched off his flashlight and drew his laspistol. He put his hand on the door knob and carefully opened the door.
A single candle was guttering in the middle of the long dining table, its twisting flame reflecting off the dark, varnished top.
Piet Gutes sat on his own halfway down, his head in his hands. There was a half-finished bottle of red wine next to him, and some pieces of paper spread out on the tabletop.
“Gutes?”
Gutes looked up. He was drunk, but that didn’t completely explain the redness of his eyes. “You all right, Piet?”
Gutes shrugged. “Doesn’t matter where you go,” he said, “it always finds you.”
“What does?”
“The war. You think you’re so far away it can’t touch you, but it finds you anyway.”
Rerval sat down beside him. “War’s our life, you know that. First-and-Only.”
Gutes smiled bitterly. “I’m tired,” he said.
“Get some sleep. We—”
“No, not like that. Tired. Tired of it all. When we got sent out here—”
“Aexe Cardinal?”
“No, Rerval. The woods. This mission. When we got sent out here, I was thankful. We might get a few days, leave the war behind. Get out from its embrace. And when Ven and Jajjo found this place… feth, it seemed like a little paradise. A little paradise, just for a day or two. I’m not greedy.”
“Sure.”
Gutes drummed his fingers on the table top and then took a swig of the wine. He offered the bottle to Rerval, and Rerval knocked back a sip himself.
“Everything’s okay from far away,” Gutes said. “I mean, when you get back far enough, nothing matters.”
“I suppose,” said Rerval, handing the bottle back to Gutes.
“I was far away when Finra died. And little Foona too.”
“Finra? Your wife?”
“No,” Gutes chuckled. “My daughter. My wife died eighteen… no, nineteen years back. I raised Finra on my own, you know? Did a good job, I think. She was a beautiful girl. And Foona. A little darling, my first grandchild.”