Vengo’s eyes were blank of expression. His face was utterly devoid of emotion.
“Gun down. Now,” insisted Culcis, his tone level.
Maggon’s blood was spilling across the refectorum floor, wetting the boots of the men in line next to him, including Speers.
“Put it down, sergeant,” the corporal pleaded, hands up in a plaintive gesture for calm.
“Throne above, Vengo,” said Drado. “Just do it.”
Culcis had moved up alongside and saw Vengo’s left eye twitch. He shifted the bolt pistol, aiming for the next Harpine in line.
“Dogs in the sun…” he chuckled. “Need putting down,” and tensed the trigger.
Culcis shot him in the side of the head.
Vengo fell, the bolt pistol skittering out of his grasp for Speers to stoop, retrieve and disarm. The room breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Everyone stay where they are,” Culcis ordered. The other troops in the hall were too shocked to disobey. It wouldn’t last. The lieutenant crouched next to Vengo’s cooling corpse. “You see this?” he asked Drado, who squatted down next to him.
The left eye had a purple tinge, just like the cultists.
“Holy Throne…” breathed the corporal.
Culcis flashed a glance at the rest of the Harpine in the refectorum. It didn’t look good. Only Regara and Arbettan entering the room stopped things from getting really ugly.
Relief had turned to anger. There was shouting, accusation. Some of the men were pulling side arms—the ones who carried them, anyway. Others were seizing mess knives for improvised weaponry. Blood was in the air, that same metallic stink that laced the breeze around Sagorrah and the slums.
“Hold!” bellowed Arbettan. “By the order of the Commissariat, hold or I shall summarily execute anyone who does not.”
Regara’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw Vengo. “You did this, lieutenant?”
“He was mad, major. Something snapped.” He added, beneath his breath, “Look at his eye.”
The major stooped to regard the corpse. Surreptitiously he made the sign of the aquila. “Throne of Earth…”
He stood and swiftly about-faced. Commissar Arbettan stared at him through the blank, soulless lenses of his glare-goggles. Three of his shadows had moved in behind him, exuding menace.
“This is Volpone business,” said Regara, quickly. “I’ll deal with it.”
“Captain Trador dead, thirty of his men also,”—he looked down disdainfully at poor Maggon—“make that thirty-one. I’d say this is beyond the remit of the Royal 50th, major, wouldn’t you?”
Regara never moved. “That said, I will deal with this. I’d say you’ve enough to contend with in this camp at the moment, commissar, wouldn’t you?”
Arbettan didn’t looked impressed, or about to let it go. Two more cadets came out of the shadows.
“Your goons are outnumbered,” Regara told him. “We’ve dealt with commissars before. Are you really going to push this?”
A few tense seconds passed by, the air as thick as glue, before Arbettan scowled and left the refectorum, his shadows slinking after him.
“Thank you, major,” said Culcis once the commissar had gone.
Regara was livid. “Get them out,” he said, eyes wide with anger, “all of them. Right now. Including Sergeant Vengo. Report to my billet when it’s done. As soon as it’s done, lieutenant.”
Culcis nodded, “Yes, sir.”
“Speers,” Regara paused by the corporal on his way out of the mess hall, “a word.”
The major had done what he could to smooth things over with the Harpine. By the time Lieutenant Culcis had finished up at the mess hall, securing Vengo for transport and sending the men back to their billets, Regara had had several conversations with the Harpine officer cadre. Speers had left without word, on some errand for the major, so just Drado and Culcis were left to tramp from the refectorum to Regara’s billet.
They attracted scathing glances from the Guardsmen they passed on the way. Some of the regiments they hadn’t even seen before, yet they seemed to hold the Volpone, any outsiders in fact, in suspicion and belligerence.
Walking the densely populated avenues of Sagorrah, Culcis felt strangely exposed. “Quicken your pace, corporal.”
“Beg your pardon, sir?” asked Drado with an incredulous expression.
“You heard me. We are in hostile territory,” said Culcis. “Quicken your pace and keep your side arm ready.”
Drado noticed the looks they were getting too, now. He brushed at the rust rime on his jacket nervously. The ruddy scum on his boots was making them feel leaden; so too was his anxiety.
“My heart is pounding,” he admitted.
“Just combat tension,” Culcis replied. Drado’s body knew it was about to get into a fight before his mind did and was preparing for it.
A group of tankers, brawny-looking men with oil-smeared features and olive drab fatigues bearing a split-skull motif, jumped off their armour rigs where they’d been loitering. They looked like engineers, carrying wrenches, cutting torches and other tools. A boxy Chimera lay open with the guts of its engine strewn across a blanket. The machine parts were gummed with the ruddy substance marring the Volpone’s boots and uniforms.
The tankers didn’t seem to care.
“This way,” said Culcis, taking them down an empty side street, between two unoccupied billet houses.
Drado followed, even though it wasn’t the direct route to the Volpone camp.
“Wait,” the lieutenant hissed, ducking them into an alcove. The area was thick with native structures, mostly disused warehouses and stockyards. “Sir, what are you—”
Culcis silenced him, crept deeper into the shadows of the alcove, eyes on the street. “Wait,” he insisted.
A few minutes later, the tankers swaggered past, still tooled up and looking for the Volpone.
After they were gone, headed further down the street and bypassing Culcis and Drado completely, the lieutenant pulled them out of hiding.
“Come on,” he whispered, breaking into a jog and doubling back.
“They were going to kill us, weren’t they?” said Drado.
“I don’t honestly know, corporal. Whatever they had in mind, it wasn’t good.”
Culcis and Drado made for the Volpone billet with all haste. They took an oblique route, keeping away from crowds and sticking to the side streets, hugging the shadows when they could. It took a while.
Sagorrah was headed for meltdown. Over a million Guardsmen, armed and armoured for war, approached the brink, and Culcis had no idea why.
Though Regara glowered from behind his desk, Culcis was relieved to have finally reached the major’s billet.
His retainers had appointed the Volpone headquarters at Sagorrah well. The gatehouse had been gutted of debris. Thus cleared, the major’s men had added luxuriant carpeting, portraiture and the fine blackoak desk Regara was currently leaning on. There were charts and data-slates strewn upon it. A plump-looking leather chair, with a blackoak frame to match the desk, sat idly behind him. A pair of cooling units lost somewhere in the shadows of the room’s periphery hummed dulcetly and kept the ambient temperature pleasant.
In one corner, a chaise longue with a small table sat next to it. There was a decanter on the table, the crystal vial stoppered to prevent the wine within becoming exposed to the air. Against the opposite wall, a steel rack where the major stowed his hellpistol on a holster and his uniform jacket and storm coat.
Anterooms were hinted at beyond but right now the focus was on the scowling major and the slew of intel on the desk before him.
They were late, much later than Culcis had intended. Explanations would have to wait. Regara wasn’t about to heed them.
“We can be agreed, I think,” said the major, “that this is no ordinary spate of insubordination afflicting Sagorrah. Something is at work here that goes beyond boredom and disaffection. Sergeant Vengo’s death was proof enough of that.”
&n
bsp; “He hadn’t been the same since Monthax,” offered Pillier, filling in for the deceased officer. They all remembered Monthax, and the eldritch storm. No one could truly say they’d been unaffected by it. Vengo, it seemed, had suffered worse than most. It had unhinged him, somehow left him vulnerable to whatever malady was plaguing the depot.
The four other men present—Regara, Culcis and their aides—all acknowledged it but no one spoke further. Some battles, glorious or not, were best left unremembered.
The major spread his hands over the data-slates and parchment reports in front of him. “We have here the bulk of Arbettan’s incident reports concerning the appalling lack of Sagorrah discipline. Corporal Speers,” he added, gesturing to his aide, who was sporting several cuts and bruises, largely lost to the half-dark of the room, “was kind enough to procure them for me.”
“Does Arbettan know?” asked Culcis. If the commissar had knowledge of this transgression it might make whatever the Volpone had to do next difficult, if not impossible.
Speers grinned, revealing a bloody tooth. “Not unless he can find where I stashed two of his enforcers,” he said. “Which he won’t.”
“While we were waiting,” Regara gave Culcis a dark look, “I had Sergeant Pillier draw some conclusions.”
Pillier came forwards into the light from a glass-shaded desk lamp and pulled a map of the Sagorrah depot from under the morass of files.
There were small red dots littering the map, denoting areas were incidents of violence and discord had been reported according to severity and frequency. Pillier had been busy. Culcis didn’t realise they were quite so late, but swallowed his shame and concentrated on the map.
“Can you see something in it, lieutenant?” asked the major. “A pattern, perhaps?”
“I see a void,” he said, not looking up. He pressed his finger against a section of map which had an absence of dots. “Who resides in this part of the camp?”
Regara had a list of where the billets had been assigned and to whom. He was smiling, a smug grin affecting his noble countenance. “It’s the Kauth.”
The rest of the room stayed silent, awaiting Culcis’ reaction.
“The Longstriders? But they aided us out in the slums, saved our collective arses, major.”
Regara dropped the list on top of the map and leaned in. “Facts are, there’s no way insurgents could get so close to the promethium wells without help. What we saw with the Harpine, the way they were turned, and Vengo…” Regara let that one float a little before he went on, “Someone in this camp is opening the door for these attacks.”
“And the Kauth are suspects because they’re not affected?”
“It is because they are not affected that suggests they can operate even in the same conditions that are debilitating every other man jack in this slinking cesspit! How else do that unless you are the ones propagating the taint?”
Culcis frowned. “But we are also still ourselves, sir.”
Regara straightened and pushed out his chest. “We are Volpone, lieutenant. We are not like the dogs shackled to this gnarled stick of an outpost. Our breeding and superior training keeps us immune.”
“Fell that to Vengo, sir.”
The major flushed with anger but mastered it quickly. He seized his lapel and pulled on it, exposing the rust rime to the light. “It is this, and this,” he added, showing the scum on his boot. “The air is filled with it, the entire camp polluted by something as pervasive as the sand in the desert. We have been here for a matter of days, lieutenant. The Kauth have been in the reserve for much longer than that. They should be as crazed as the rest of the Guard.”
The smile returned. It was as if all of Regara’s private theories and suspicions about the feral regiment had been suddenly and conclusively confirmed.
“It has to be them,” he said.
Culcis wasn’t so sure but kept it to himself. Instead he said, “The mood in the camp is reaching fever pitch. Drado and I were almost attacked walking from the mess hall to the billet. It was why we were so late.”
Regara’s eyes narrowed and his smile thinned to a mirthless flat line. “I’m sending thirty men to the Kauth billet. We’ll apprehend these traitors ourselves since Arbettan is evidently incapable.”
“Only thirty?” asked Culcis. “The Longstriders are scum but they are skilled in the art of killing. Thirty men would put us at roughly equal strength.”
“Have some backbone, lieutenant!” snapped the major. “You are Volpone, more than the equal of any man in the Guard, especially a ragged band of savages like the Kauth. Besides,” he added, calming down, “we can’t risk a show of greater strength. If the camp is as volatile as you say it might spark a reaction we can’t control easily.”
Culcis nodded his acceptance.
“Lieutenant,” said Regara, “I want you and Sergeant Pillier to take three squads to the Kauth billet and bring them all back here—under force of arms if necessary—for interrogation. Take Speers with you, too.” The corporal smiled. It put Culcis in mind of a gore-shark. “His ruthless streak is bound to come in useful.”
“Ever since we met, I’ve wanted to scrag a few of those savages, sir,” he said, blissfully ignorant of the irony in his words.
“Right here, lieutenant,” said Regara, ignoring the bloodthirsty corporal, and prodding the area of the map where the Kauth were located. “Take all necessary steps to apprehend them,” he warned. “All necessary steps.”
Speers tossed Culcis a lasgun from the armoury, and the lieutenant caught it deftly, checked the power gauge and shouldered it before taking his leave.
Sergeant Pillier and Corporal Drado followed close behind. Speers lingered a little at a glance from his commanding officer. “Make sure he follows through on this,” whispered the major. “Bloody the dogs if you have to, but bring them here to me.”
Nodding, the corporal then turned on his heel and went after Culcis and the others.
The Longstrider billet was deserted. It sat at the edge of Sagorrah Depot in a pitch that was little more than a scrap of barren earth. It was a contrast in styles to the opulence of the Volpone’s billet, particularly Major Regara’s accommodations. Scattered tents and doused cook fires defined the space. It was untidy and ragged, just like the men stationed there. The emptiness, its isolation from the rest of the camp only added to the eeriness of the place.
Once he was certain there was no one around, Culcis investigated further. He saw totems, fetishes, trophy racks and other disturbing evidence of the Kauth’s feral nature, littered throughout the billet. And there was blood too, dark streaks like pronounced veins webbing the sand having dried in the sun. The metallic stink was as pervasive here as it was anywhere in Sagorrah.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” said Drado as he and Culcis were exiting their third empty tent. Speers, from another part of the billet, came jogging over to them. The Volpone had fanned out, tackling the area in teams of two and three, checking each and every one of the thirty or so tents pegged around the billet.
“Something isn’t right,” the corporal hissed.
“What do you mean?” asked Culcis. “What is it?”
“We’re being watched. I can feel it.”
Sociopathic as he probably was, Culcis had also learned to trust Speers’ instincts over their years of service together. The man had a knack for sniffing out trouble, as well as finding and creating it.
“All right,” he said, scanning the shadows at the edge of the billet, seeking enemies but finding none. “Tell Sergeant Pillier and have him alert the men. We’ll turn this sorry hole inside out if needed.” Culcis was reminded of the feeling he’d had walking past the tankers, the sense of impending violence.
Speers nodded and got about halfway to Pillier when a shout came from one of the other troopers. The Longstriders had returned and were making their way back to the billet in force.
“Greetings, Volpone,” said Hauke, extending a hand and giving Culcis a warm smile
.
The lieutenant refused it and kept his arms by his sides. “You never returned from the slums that first time we saw you, did you?”
Hauke shrugged, affecting a placid, easy mood. His men, now fully arrived in the billet and squaring off against the Bluebloods in packs, were entirely more restive. “It seemed a shame to leave so soon. Much more to find, Volpone.”
“Your insolence is reason enough for your being apprehended,” Culcis told him, “but Major Regara has some questions for you concerning another matter.”
“Oh yes? Tell me, Volpone, what questions are these?” A flicker of annoyance marred Hauke’s feigned bonhomie. Both the Kauth and the Volpone tensed, anticipating trouble.
“That’s for the major to tell you, sir. You need to come with us. Right now.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then this camp is about to get a sight bloodier than it already is.”
Hauke’s eyes narrowed as he considered what he regarded as a request and not an order. “I like you, Volpone. We will come.”
Culcis tried to mask his sudden fluster but failed. “Very good then.”
As the Kauth relaxed, Hauke looked to a pair of nearby hills, overlooking the billet. He made a noise like a shrieking prey-bird and two sentries emerged from their hiding place, each shouldering a long-las.
Culcis hadn’t noticed, but Speers had taken up a position by one of the tents, his lasgun aimed at the very selfsame spot in the hills.
“I had ’em, sir,” he said, lowering his gunsights now the Longstriders had revealed themselves.
Culcis wasn’t sure about that. He was only glad Hauke had been so gracious about being taken into Volpone custody. The spilling of more blood was the last thing Sagorrah needed. But he suspected it wasn’t done with it, not yet. They made for the Volpone billet and only disarmed their prisoners once they’d arrived.
Major Regara was poised at the threshold of the makeshift holding room where they’d put Hauke and his three officers. He looked nonplussed at Culcis. “They submitted without a fight?”
“Yes, sir. The Kauth captain stated he would be pleased to converse with you.”