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  “Do you think anyone ever got what they wished for?” the other soldier asked.

  “I doubt we could find out,” Rick replied. “This double lunar eclipse is pretty rare.”

  Stann reached up a hand to grasp at the moonlight. Shadows danced on the stone behind him. “When I was a kid I told my mum that one day I’d be rich enough to buy her one of the moons. Just one, I wanted to leave the other for everyone else.”

  “Generous of you.”

  “Deluded too, even for a kid. There’s no way you get rich wearing this uniform.” He plucked at the triangular badge on his sleeve.

  The wind swept past them. It tugged at Rick’s trousers, moulding the dark cloth to his legs. Stann gazed upwards. “I still think there must be a better way of tapping the moons than this mining mission. Surely there’s a way of harnessing all the light up there? All those winds shifting the clouds around? We’d need a way of getting the power to these computers of ours to gorge on, though. You know, like an aqueduct for electricity.”

  “Nice idea, Stann. Maybe you can apply for Sci-Corps, the staff are short a few scars. You’ll bring the average up nicely.”

  “Back home they’re saying this lunar mining mission of yours is gonna turn the moons against us. They reckon for every chunk of rock we take, the moons are going to take a wish and twist it inside out. That people like you, the sparkies that worked on the project, are going to pay first and worst.”

  “It’s not my mission,” Rick replied. “And you Axeford folk were always a little too poetic.”

  Stann’s head whipped round, a finger jabbing towards Rick. “And you people from Tear always thought too much of yourselves. You’re no cleverer than all those bloody pigs you have there.”

  The moons slid across the sky. The crisp outline of his shadow lost its definition. “C’mon,” Rick said and pulled out a screwdriver. “Let’s get moving. I don’t want to get shot for the sake of an old tradition.”

  Stann spat between the battlements. The spittle arced through the air and was swallowed by the creeping mist below. “Lieutenant Chel wouldn’t shoot you for staring at the moons. He’d probably knock you around a bit but a few bruises make a man look good.”

  “I’m not talking about him.” Rick nodded towards the forest. The Weeping Woods were restless tonight. The branches twitched in the wind, moonlight shimmering on the leaves.

  “The Mennai?” Stann laughed. “Don’t have the balls. Not even these death-before-dishonour separatists we’re watching. I’d bet my left hand on that. I heard they’re using girls to do their dirty work now ‘cos their brothers and fathers are too scared. My mother has more testosterone than any man in this wretched country.”

  “Does that explain the moustache?”

  Stann grabbed a fistful of Rick’s lapels and yanked him close. He stank of sweat and grease and violence. “What did you say?”

  “Your moustache, Stann,” Rick said, struggling to keep a straight face. “You were unusually advanced in that regard. You know, nature and nurture, feeding the seed.”

  “You’re trying to be clever again, aren’t you, Franklin? Good job we go way back. I’d have given anyone else a little character around their eyes for that.” He shoved Rick backwards and held up his left hand. “Smells of respect. That’s what Dads used to say.” He held up the right. “Smells of disrespect.”

  Something cracked in the forest below. A handful of birds spilled out of the trees and disappeared into the night. The two men hunkered down. One lean, one muscular. One blonde, one dark. One angry to the other’s calm. They had been grudgingly inseparable since before either had teeth. Even now, in the military, they had ended up in the same unit.

  “What’s your infra-red camera say?” Stann whispered, peering round the crenellations.

  “It’s not working, none of the cameras on this wall are. That’s why we’re here, remember?”

  “Not that one, genius, your mobile one.”

  Rick held it over the edge of the ancient stone. Moss tickled the burn scars on his wrist. “Nothing there. Nothing human anyway. Maybe it’s the moons, come to take some pre-emptive revenge.” Rick chuckled. A thin sound that felt too loud when Stann didn’t join in. Healthy disrespect, he thought. That’s the way to deal with your fears. Never laugh at them; never let them laugh at you.

  “Still not funny,” Stann said. He tapped the small camera mounted on the wall. “They may not be working but they’d be a great place to hide something. Squirrel it away for a later date.”

  “Where?”

  “The cameras, fool. It’s the last place you’d look for something. Who watches the watcher, right?”

  “Full of ideas tonight, aren’t you, Sub-Corporal Taille?”

  Stann grunted as the lens hissed as it refocused on something in the woods. He stared down his rifle sight. “Sure you wired them things up OK?”

  “Trust me,” Rick said. The smell of damp stone and decay was rank in his nostrils. This whole place just felt wrong to him. A bird hooted at the base of the hill, even that noise sounded off. “The fault must be somewhere else. I’m sure I know where it is. I just can’t place it.”

  “‘Trust me’, he says. If only.” Stann vaulted onto the wall and stared out over the forest canopy that stretched below the hill. “Come and get me!” His shouts faded into the leafy night. “I’d rather die of bullets than bickering.”

  “Get down, you idiot. If Chel catches you, he’ll give you a makeover not even your dog could love.”

  “I’m bored.” Stann dropped to the ground, grabbed a handful of gravel and threw it off the walkway. A soldier scurrying across the courtyard swore up at him. Stann hurled curses at the retreating figure. “I haven’t even had a decent fist fight since getting to this pile of rubble, given someone the old Stann Taille one-two, the stumble-and-feint routine.”

  “That’s beyond old. No one falls for that unless it’s a no-budget film company.”

  “This sucks,” Stann said. “The food sucks. Lieutenant Chel sucks and all this waiting around for something to happen sucks.”

  “We’re outside. It’s better than being cooped up in the barracks back in the capital. Something’s up, sure as eggs came before chickens. The riots and those walls they’re building there are just the start of it.”

  “Private Lee said the new walls around the capital are to keep us villagers out. He said they’re gonna put border controls in, that we’ll have to patrol them.” Stann bowed his head. His blonde hair looked green in the moon light. “Not sure how I feel about that.”

  “Orders are orders, Stann.”

  “I didn’t sign up to fight my people. They’re not my enemy. And when did the army tame you? I’ve barely seen you for a year, you get dumped into this unit out of the blue and you’re all obedient now?”

  “I don’t know why I’m here, either. I was told it was important, that’s all. My leave got cut short because of this posting. I missed my Rose’s fifth nameday.”

  “There’ll be plenty more for you to go to.” Stann peeled some moss off the stone and flicked it at Rick. “And don’t think that means I’m gonna forgive your dig at my mother. Some things are just not said. Wives, mothers, girlfriends and daughters are off limits.”

  “Stepmothers, mothers-in-law? Grandmothers? Your enemy’s mother?” asked Rick. “My great-aunt Eleanor is someone’s daughter and she’s a fearsome woman when she gets riled.”

  “Don’t complicate the theory. I break things, you fix things. Let me have my turn at the clever stuff for a change.”

  They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. The wind whipped the clouds into a frenzy. The same wind hissed through the leaves of the forest surrounding the castle. It swept across the top of the wall, buffeting Rick. Cold air swirled up his sleeves and dragged shivers down his spine.

  Stann stamped his feet. “This wind sucks, too. It makes me nervous. Not knowing why it makes me nervous makes me more nervous.”

  “My wife’s people
have a fairy tale,” Rick said. “They believe the wind is a collection of all the bad things that have ever been said. The stronger the wind, the more hate is being spoken. It’s the world’s way of cleansing itself or warning us.”

  “Yeah, well, your wife’s a bit odd round the edges.”

  Rick ran a thumb across the shiny skin circling his wrists. The scars prickled, like a thousand tiny scabs were being pulled off. “Off limits, remember? Thryn made her choice. Let it go, Stann.”

  The squawk of birds filtered through the leaves below. The thick forest was threatening to drown the ancient castle the soldiers had taken over a few weeks back. Fallen clouds seeped through the trees; slow, grey flames that licked at the base of the walls. Stann prodded Rick. “How did you keep your wife out of the immigration camps? You’ve always been cagey about that.”

  The scars around Rick’s wrists hurt now, a dull pain, a good pain, a pain with a purpose. It wasn’t very scientific but it made sense. “An ex of mine returned a favour. I threw in some extra wiring for a new camera system of hers and she pressed the right buttons.”

  “Beth?”

  Rick nodded.

  “Always the same story. Bribes, barter and blackmail, the oldest currencies in the world. Guaranteed they’ll outlive this new swipe-card currency the government is planning. Well, let’s hope for Thryn’s sake you love her more than you did Beth.” He clutched his hands to his chest and sighed like a bad actor. “You were smitten by Beth so much you were married to Thryn and expecting a baby within a year of Beth dumping you.” The words dissolved into a deep chuckle. “Private Lee called it ‘jilting the jerk’ before he got sent home.”

  “Beth didn’t jilt me. We were only engaged.”

  “Lee said you run like your knees are allergic to your feet, too.” Stann’s barrel chest juddered as he cackled. “Now, get a move on, sir, shift’s almost up,” Stann said.

  Rick squatted to double-check the cables on another camera. “I don’t get it. This camera’s fine, too.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Let’s do one more round.”

  “Time’s up. I’m hungry. It’s slop o’clock,” Stann replied. “Let’s go.”

  He loped towards the wooden door of a watchtower, rifle slung over his shoulder. Rick followed. He’d missed something. He knew he had. He just couldn’t remember what or where.

  Finish this shift, eat and then start by checking the monitor room again, he thought. It’ll be a simple solution. Most answers are.

  Stann slipped through the door. He slammed it shut and forced the squealing bolt home. Rick hammered on the wood, calling for Stann to open up.

  High above them, hanging proud amongst the constellations, the two moons were now clear of each other. Lesau and Melesau, fated to chase the same golden-skinned woman for eternity. The moonlight glinted off the cracked tiles on the turret roof of the watchtower Stann had just locked from the inside. It danced off the leaves of the oak, birch and wolfbark trees and filtered down to the forest floor, where animals scurried away from the rustle of dark leather boots.

  3

  Surprise

  Rick collapsed into the beaten-up armchair. It was more springs than stuffing but after a day in ill-fitting boots, it felt as welcoming as a hot bath.

  Between backpacks and rolled up mattresses, an assortment of foldaway green canvas chairs dotted the room. Everything was immaculate. Sleeping bags were stowed and eating utensils sparkled as best as dull steel could. The castle had been picked clean of as much grime as the off-duty squaddies could manage. Eight hours’ sleep. Eight hours’ patrol. The same again for food and chores. It never felt like an even split.

  The armchair Rick was sitting in was a puzzle. It wasn’t what you’d expect to find in an ancient, though well-preserved, castle. The chair was on the scrawny side but otherwise dry and smell-free, as long as you didn’t breathe in too hard. The soldiers had appropriated it and named it the Throne. There were days when they squabbled over it like over-sized two-year-olds.

  The rest of Castle Brecan had been filled with scraps of cloth, mould and the random detritus of forgotten inhabitants. There were other things in the corridors that the soldiers ignored. Lost things, whispers, memories and glimpses of movement that were never anything more than they should be. Then Stann had found a family of coffins in a hidden crypt. They had led to a series of predictable jokes about creatures of the night, and a dare. Private Lee had lost the dare.

  The jokes stopped the morning after Lee had spent eight hours trying to sleep in a coffin. He was sent back to Effrea-Tye, the capital city of Ailan, for a psych assessment. His wide-eyed drooling hadn’t been a problem, nor the gibbering, but Lieutenant Chel had drawn the line when the snaggletoothed private had professed an allergy to sunlight. It had thrown the squad off for days and brought Chel’s muscular brand of discipline thudding home.

  Lieutenant Chel had shouted himself hoarse at the soldiers’ indiscipline, their games and lapses in concentration. He had been right. It made a mockery of the military for the soldiers to lose it because one of their colleagues was a few bullets short of a bandolier. Chel’s predictable digs about sexuality and parenthood had been laughed off. But when the lieutenant had resorted to cliches and stereotypes about the Bucket Towns, it hadn’t gone down well.

  A soldier burst into the room, displaying the tobacco he’d just won off Lacky, a new sub-lieutenant. The gloating soldier stashed his winnings, high-fived his colleagues and gave his grinning audience a card-by-card account of how he had beaten Lacky. His pleasure in beating a city-born officer was palpable. And that, Rick reflected, was one of the main issues with the military.

  Chel, Lacky and the rest of the officer class were drawn from the cities. The front-line soldiers hailed from the towns and villages, sometimes referred to as the Free Towns. The city-born called the latter the Bucket Towns, after a few practices that still lived on in more isolated areas. Private Lee had been that rare thing, a city-born soldier who had ended up on the front line. The rumour was that Lee’s posting was a punishment. His parents had made a public stand over the government reneging on a pre-election promise not to raise taxes. The promise had been dismissed as ‘campaign rhetoric’ and their only child, Lee, had been posted to the disputed border between Mennai and Ailan.

  Lee, as belligerent as a cockerel in the neighbour’s yard, had jumped at the coffin dare, unaware Stann had set him up. The private had been desperate to prove to the other soldiers that the government’s new laws banning myths and legends were justified. Like many city folk, Lee believed the Free Towns’ traditions were as substantial and welcome as a freezing fog.

  Rick shifted in the armchair. A spring was digging into his arse. Now matter where he moved, the spring seemed to follow him, adding to the unsettled feeling he’d had of late. Part of the problem was that he was finding this constant competition between cities and towns wearing, more so as his daughter got older. It didn’t make sense anymore. Weren’t they supposed to be on the same side? But if life-long friends like he and Stann had argued over everything under the moons, from toys and milk as kids to women and spirits as adults, what chance did anyone else have?

  On cue, the door squeaked on its hinges. It cut through Ray’s daydreaming and Stann strutted in. “Guess what?”

  “Sub-lieutenant Lacky’s promised never to play cards again?” Ray replied as cold air swirled around his ankles.

  “Yes, but wrong answer.”

  “Lieutenant Chel’s been promoted and we’re rid of him?”

  “I wish, but nope.”

  “Lee’s back?”

  Stann snorted. “Not a chance.”

  “You had a wash?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I give up.”

  “Sub-Colonel Chester’s been at it again.”

  Rick groaned. “What’s she done now?”

  “C’mon, Rick. Be fair. Chester’s not all bad.”

  “What then?” Rick wriggled in the seat. The damn spring had
a mind of its own. Maybe he should have a word with someone in Sci-Corps about weaponising the Throne. Death by armchair. Didn’t have a great sound to it.

  “The barracks are buzzing with rumours Chester’s about to be promoted again,” Stann said. “And she’s planning a new off-the-books arm of the military.”

  “Promoted? She’s not much older than us.”

  “So? Age doesn’t guarantee wisdom, my old man was proof of that. Chester’s proved herself already. Splitting the working day into three equal parts was a good idea. We actually get some rest now.” He frowned. “Well, some of us. Last I heard, Lee’s still refusing to sleep. Word is he’s going to be sent to some kind of camp. Apparently, they were interested in him as he’s a leftie.”

  “Sub-Colonel Chester’s new change?” Rick asked. He screwed an eye shut and wiggled his toes. The spring was now digging into a buttock and his foot was going numb.

  “Gyms for each regiment with new equipment. Not these antique banana barbells we’ve been using. They’re more use as macho fishing rods than anything else.” Stann held both hands up high, fists clenched. “When we get home tomorrow, I will be even more invincibler than I am now!”

  “Invincible, not invincibler.”

  “Nope. Invincibler. It’s even more than invincible.” Stann was grinning from temple to top hat.

  Rick couldn’t help but smile back. “It doesn’t work like that. It makes as much sense as saying you’ll give something 110 percent.”

  “Don’t be getting clever on me again, now.”

  “If you’re invincible that’s already kind of finite. I don’t think—”

  “Franklin!” a voice bellowed from the corridor.

  A series of hurried curses snapped round the room. Squaddies jumped up and gave each other a quick buddy check, straightening collars and doing up buttons.

  Stann’s smile vanished to be replaced by the look of looming violence he wore so well. “If you’ve done anything that gets us all stuck here any longer than we need to be, you’ll be sleeping in those coffins of Lee’s. I’ll nail the lid down ’til those ‘pretty brown eyes’ your wife loves so much go mouldy.”