Aijlan Read online

  Chel’s nose was a whisker away from Rick’s. The thin arteries in his eyeballs throbbed under the glistening white sheen.

  “I’ve always wondered, Richard, do you share beds with the animals too? It’d explain a lot about you peasants: your looks, brains, the smell of your women.”

  Stann looked away from the door, his face darkening. The jaw of the man next to him tensed.

  Chel stabbed his finger into Rick’s chest. “Just you wait until the captain returns, and I inform him about this farce. I understand there are some new disciplinary procedures being rolled out.

  “Still not gonna get promoted,” someone muttered from the line of soldiers.

  A muscle in Chel’s jaw twitched. He dropped the plug and kicked it behind the armchair. “Corporal Franklin, you will grovel your way into that corner, and pick that thing up. Then you will fix what you broke.”

  Rick saluted, wrestling with himself to keep his face smooth. This was a rookie’s mistake. He hadn’t done anything this sloppy since he was a kid. If he couldn’t focus here, how could he focus in a battle? Making this sin, and it was a sin for a military electrician, on Chel’s watch just made it that much more bitter.

  The lieutenant launched a string of expletives at the other soldiers as he headed for the exit. Rick ducked behind the armchair, scrabbling on the floor for the pieces of the plug. A blast of cold air chilled the sweat on the back of his neck.

  The door screeched open.

  Chel lurched to a stop.

  A black-clad figure, covered in twigs and leaves, stood in the corridor. Gun-grey eyes stared out from a mess of leathery wrinkles. The old man tossed a small bag at Chel.

  “Surprise,” he slurred in a thick Somerian accent.

  Chel caught the bag and looked down at it with wide eyes. Stann yelled. He launched himself at Chel. The room turned white. Then the gunfire started.

  IV - Better

  Rick’s ears were full of a hissing noise. The smell of burnt hair was thick on his tongue. He was losing his grip on his burden. It wasn’t heavy, just unwieldy and slick with blood. He hugged it tighter, fighting not to drop it.

  They had been pinned down at this junction for what seemed like hours. One soldier, dazed from the bomb, had already stumbled past him. She’d been sent dancing through the castle, her body gyrating in time to the machine gun fire rattling her torso. Rick hoped his lame plan would help him get round that fate.

  The ceiling shuddered. A burst of tiny stones pattered into his hair. The echo of another grenade faded down the next corridor into the smoke and dust. He stuck his head out of the alcove he was sheltering in, and glanced back at the guard room. Low moans drifted through the splintered door.

  Castle Anwen was in chaos.

  The shockwave of the explosion had hurled Rick into the corner of the room, sandwiched between the armchair and the wall. By the time his vision had cleared, and he’d levered the corpse-covered chair off himself, the guard room was quiet. Men and women lay dead and dying. One clutched at the glistening purple coils spilling from his belly, whimpering. Another was praying for the first time in his life.

  The bomb in the bag had torn Chel in two. Rick had found the lieutenant’s body in the centre of a fan-shaped pattern of soot and debris. The bomber hadn’t been any luckier. He’d stumbled as he tried to get away, the nails and ball bearings ripping him to shreds. The old man’s head lay in a corner. One gun-grey eye stared at nothing; a bent coin rested on the other eyelid.

  The explosion had killed or crippled most of the soldiers in the guardroom. Somerian bullets had done the rest. Then it got ugly. Aijlan reinforcements had poured in though the back exit, men and women, who, minutes ago, had been cooking, scrubbing, darning socks, and cleaning weapons. With that many people crammed into the room, there hadn’t been space to use rifles or revolvers. The fighting had descended into a slashing red hell of knives and bayonets. That much was obvious from the carnage left behind. The Somerians used serrated, triangular-bladed knives. The jagged puncture wounds they left wouldn’t close up, and bled freely. There were no nice deaths in battle. Heroism was a matter of perspective, but the soldiers had died horribly.

  Rick’s fingertips were burning. He wrestled his burden closer. Bits of it stuck to his skin. He gagged and forced down the acid in the back of his throat. “Now,” he whispered. “Just do it now, before you drop him. On three.”

  He eased himself forwards. Chel’s head, a dead weight on his neck, lolled back. His sightless eyes stared up at Rick. Even now, what was left of the lieutenant’s face seemed to smirk back, his sunken knuckles promising more character-enhancing beatings. No matter how much of a bastard he’d been to his subordinates, he hadn’t deserved this. Forearms cramping as he held onto the back of the lieutenant’s shirt, Rick leaned him out past the corner. A shot cracked the air. The dead man’s head exploded in a red cloud. Rick dropped Chel, spinning him across the floor. He flattened himself into the guard’s post set in the wall.

  The slow crunch of approaching feet got louder. Rick held his breath. He gripped the leather handle of his belt knife. Except for the fuller, it was smooth and unadorned. As civilised as one of these things could be. A gaunt Somerian stepped round the corner, rifle poised. He saw the legless torso and paused. Rick slipped out of the alcove, wrapped his hand around the man’s mouth, and slid the knife up through his ribs. There was no scream, just a gurgling sigh as the man crumpled. Rick lowered the Somerian to the ground, and slit his throat. The man twitched once and lay still, blood pooling under his neck.

  Get it over quickly. Keep it clean, dignified.

  Checking the corridor, Rick bent over the corpse to close his eyes. He would have done the same to Chel, if the top half of his face was in one place.

  Rick moved back into the alcove and tried his radio: nothing. He grimaced. “I guess whoever built this castle wasn’t thinking of radio reception when they made these walls this bloody thick,” he said, kicking the wall behind him.

  He had to get onto the battlements, out of this charnel house into fresh air. He wasn’t sure how many were left from Aijlan. Sub-Lieutenant Lacky had stumbled his way to the guardroom as Rick was picking his way through the bodies. With cherry-red bubbles frothing on his lips, Lacky had told Rick that most of the patrolling guards had died before they knew what was happening. He’d described how they’d fallen onto the cobbled inner courtyard like black-clad hail, crimson gashes across their throats. His hand had gone limp as Rick applied a hasty tourniquet. Then Lacky had slipped into unconsciousness.

  Rick peered round the corner. Nothing but shadows and smoke. Feet grinding on the dust, he stepped into the junction of the two corridors. He straddled Chel’s torso, legs akimbo. One of the lieutenant’s fingers crunched under Rick’s boot. He shifted his weight, lifting his foot out of the sticky mess congealing around the lieutenant.

  A snap sent shudders along the walls. Something slammed into his shoulder. It spun him round. Shards of stone bit into his flesh. Rick collapsed face first onto the dead man. The sweat on his cheek pressed into the still-warm slime on Chel’s. Rick’s shoulder hurt. Or was it his arm? He wasn’t sure. Something was numb that shouldn’t be.

  Feet thumped up the corridor. Rough hands turned him over. Smoke swirled around black leather boots. Blood was spattered across the front of dirty fatigues. A distant crash and shout faded.

  Rick’s breath came in short gasps. Each one tugged lines of fire into his shoulder. He hadn’t realised until now how much the corridor stank: blood, urine, and excrement. Maybe Stann was right, maybe he shouldn’t have taken that job working on the lunar mining project. Blinking the sweat out of his eyes, Rick stared down the muzzle of an old Somerian rifle.

  “No pretty speeches for you, Aijlan child,” a woman’s voice slurred. “I’m not supposed to waste time gloating, no matter how much I want to savour this.”

  The woman’s eyes were autumn brown, the same as Thryn’s, the same as Rose’s. Rick had insisted on
that name: Rose. He joked that it was the only decision about the child he’d been allowed to make.

  The woman’s head inched closer. Her face was smooth and unblemished, curly dark hair pulled back tight around her head. A scarlet sheen reflected out of her pupils.

  Rick wasn’t scared. He wasn’t sure what he felt.

  It was an odd mix of curiosity and numbness. That concerned him more than the woman standing over him, the black hole of the rifle barrel pressing into his nose.

  He’d read about people soon to be executed displaying an uncanny peace. The rational explanation was a hormonal release, a last-minute self-defence mechanism. It was a good theory. Would it be possible to test it, he wondered?

  The young woman stroked his face with the muzzle of her rifle. Rick lay still, and she scowled.

  “This is for what you did to me, to my mother, and my people.” Her finger tightened on the trigger.

  Rick’s breath caught in his throat.

  “And the Somerian People’s Council wish you well in the afterlife.” The woman’s face twisted into a grin, white teeth standing out against the blood and camouflage paint. “Oh, I forgot,” she whispered. “You’re not allowed to believe in things like that anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?” His lips were dry. He tried to lick them. His tongue felt like a rasp.

  “Your government is about to take your gods from you. I heard it a few days ago. They’re going to take from you what they’ve already taken from us: hope.” She shrugged, the tip of her tongue flicked along her lips. “So, there is no afterlife for you. I guess this really is the end. As your brother soldiers said to me: my dear, you are well and truly f—”

  She shuddered: once, twice, three times.

  Her finger convulsed on the trigger. A single bullet grazed Rick’s ear. The tiny cut on his earlobe gushed blood down his neck. The Somerian woman looked down at the blood streaming from her abdomen. She dabbed at it. The blood dripped off her hands. Her eyes rolled backwards in her skull, the autumn brown changing to winter white. She slumped into a heap on her colleague. Her face softening into that of a little girl asleep.

  Dragging himself up the corridor, rifle in hand, was an Aijlan soldier.

  “That’s the problem with war films. Gives people a sense for melodrama. Doesn’t belong in real war. Do the job, don’t talk about the job.”

  Stann pulled himself over to the fallen woman. He pulled his bayonet off his rifle, and slammed it through each of her eyes. Her back arched. Her mouth split wide. With a slow sigh, she sagged back down to the floor, her fingers letting go of the old rifle. Stann grabbed his bayonet with both hands. The metal squeaked as he tried to wiggle it free of the second eye socket, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “How you doing, Stann?” Rick asked.

  “Speak louder, Franklin. My eardrums are shot.”

  “How are you?” Rick shouted.

  “Near deaf,” he said, spitting on the floor. “I told you I’d cover you, but I wasn’t sure I was going to make the shot. My aim’s a little off.” He held up the ruined end of his left arm. Three fingers were missing, crudely bandaged with rough linen.

  “Your aim’s as good as it always was.”

  “I was aiming for her head.”

  “And your leg?” Rick shouted. A stab of pain flashed from his shoulder into his neck.

  “Fine.” Stann shook his head and stared at Chel’s corpse. “I can even wiggle my toes. At least it feels like I can. I guess I may not be hitting Chester’s new gym tomorrow after all.”

  Rick looked past Stann, at the trail of blood smeared down the corridor, the mangled limb.

  “You’ll be fine,” Rick said, keeping his voice upbeat. He checked his friend’s bandages. “We just need to get you out of here.”

  “‘You’ll be fine, Stann,’” the other man mimicked in falsetto tones. “That’s just what you said about those cameras and computers. ‘They’re fine.’ I was there on the battlements, and after you checked the plugs in the monitor room. I watched you filling in the report while we waited to go check out the rumours about Lee.”

  “It was a mistake. I was tired,” Rick said.

  “You’re a soldier. You’re supposed to be tired. And I thought the great Frederick Franklin never made mistakes. You always get the girl, get the promotion, always got the right gig going on.” His voice was rising, spittle dripping down his chin.

  “You’re in shock, Stann. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and you’re high on pain killers.”

  “Blood, yes. Memory, no.” Stann’s lips curled back over his teeth. “This is your fault, Franklin, all of it: the bomb, Chel, my leg and hand. You did this. I saw you hiding under that armchair.”

  Rick checked the bullets in his revolver and shoved it back in his holster. Slinging Stann’s rifle over his shoulder, he stooped down to pick up his colleague.

  “Get your filthy Tear hands off me!” Stann said, struggling against him.

  “I made a mistake, but I didn’t set off those bombs, Stann. Didn’t pull the triggers, either. And I would never hide, you know that.”

  Rick grunted and hauled his friend over his shoulder. He steadied himself against the wall, fighting the dizziness that washed over him with the pain.

  “You might as well have.” Stann’s head dropped onto Rick’s chest.

  “Stay angry, Stann. Stay awake. We’ll talk this out later. I’m going to get you home, to Edyth, to Donarth, your boy. Rose is smitten with him. You never know, when those two are older they could marry.”

  “Never, never.” Stann’s voice trailed off into a series of indistinct murmurs, each quieter and more bitter than the previous.

  V - Tea

  The drawbridge rattled down across the moat. The clank of the freshly greased chains was lost in the thud of chopper rotors. The wood hit the ground. Clouds of dust burst into the air. Leaves swirled in the early morning mist snaking though the forest.

  Standing under the portcullis, silhouetted by powerful search lights, stood a soldier gripping a rifle. Battered, beaten, but unbowed, he staggered across the planks. A limp body hung over one shoulder. The soldier collapsed onto one knee, pain twisting his face. He inched himself back onto two feet, and staggered down towards the waiting line of Aijlan soldiers. The image lurched to a halt.

  “I still think we should have put the bit where, what’s his name again?” a deep voice asked.

  “Franklin, sir,” a woman replied.

  “That’s it, kind of forgettable really. Shame that. I still think the bit where Franklin stands up should be in slow motion. You know, make it look more dramatic, more lifelike.”

  “I think the public would have noticed, sir. This is genuine footage.”

  Edward De Lette pulled his diary towards him, and flicked through the dog-eared pages. “Nonsense, the flock have been force-fed so much electronic fodder no one would’ve questioned it. And it’d look better. I agree with you about the dramatic music, though. We’ll save that for the army promo vids.”

  Middle age had not treated the president well, Beth thought. The dramatic widow’s peak he’d had in his early thirties was now receding into a spectacular example of male pattern baldness. The cut-glass cheekbones were drowning in red, sweaty flesh. A few years ago he had proudly joked that his shirts no longer fit around his chest and neck due to early onset middle-aged spread, brought on by a diet of benching, curls, and shrugs.

  “Why bother doing anything else?” De Lette had asked. “Most of my dealings with the public are done from behind a desk; the cameras never see my legs. And those meet-the-public walkabouts of my predecessor were more hassle than they were worth. Even I found those designated protest zones hypocritical.”

  “They were to allow the public the right to free speech, sir,” Beth had pointed out.

  “Well, allow them or don’t allow them. Not this stupid pretence at listening, all this attentive ignoring,” he’d said with a dismissive flick of his wrist.

&nbs
p; Since then, Beth had been promoted to her current position, and De Lette’s middle-aged spread had sunk to his midriff, chased by a collection of chins. The long hours and endless wine-based dinners had taken their toll. His new bespoke suits — made on expenses — helped a little, but couldn’t offset the worst of the visual damage.

  “I sacrificed my strength for that of the nation,” the president had said early in her tenure. “My family for everyone else’s. My wife knew what she was marrying, and the kids have never known anything else. The losses in my lifestyle are the sacrifice the sheep would never be prepared to pay for power. Everyone knows what’s involved, but they all choose not to see it. Not that it’ll matter for much longer. Soon they won’t want to wake from the warm embrace of their blissful myopia.”

  Beth winced at the memory of those words, delivered one late evening surrounded by too many empty bottles. His eyes had been backlit with a fervour that had made her shiver. She’d not heard anything else on the subject of his sacrifices or the myopia of his flock since that night. She still wasn’t sure if it had been a genuine moment, or some kind of play for her.

  De Lette waddled over to a chair in the corner, the cloth on the inside of his thighs protesting as it squeezed against itself. He plopped himself into the chair.

  He had inherited it from a relative in Somer, the country they were unofficially at war with. The chair was part of a tradition that appealed to him for some inexplicable reason: an heirloom and middle name was passed down from father to eldest son, or mother to eldest daughter. De Lette was neither. The chair was ugly and uncomfortable, a sprawling mass of carved wood that would make even a bonfire queasy.

  De Lette clicked his fingers at her. “What time does Franklin arrive? It says three p.m. in the diary of deceit, but that was five minutes ago. I thought these soldiers were taught that early is already late?”