If he’d listened–
But no. He’d had an answer for everything. Your mind’s confused, Gol. The Ruinous Powers play games. Even the Archenemy wouldn’t lay a plan that elaborate. They couldn’t see the future and be that many steps ahead.
A brother would know his sister.
Kolea looked at Dalin.
That had been the clincher. The one that had really changed Gol’s mind.
A brother would know his sister.
‘What did she say to you, Dalin?’ he asked.
Dalin shook his head again, lips pursed, fighting back tears and daring not to speak.
‘Dal? Dalin? What did she say to you?’
‘It was all true, wasn’t it?’ Dalin sobbed. ‘It was all true and I didn’t know.’
Kolea pulled him close and wrapped his arms around him. Dalin wept against his chest.
‘Easy, Dal, easy,’ he murmured. ‘What was it she said to you?’
Dalin whimpered a response that Kolea couldn’t hear with the boy’s face buried in his chest. He eased Dalin back, wiped the tears from his cheeks, and looked him in the eyes.
‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘You can tell me. I’ll protect you.’
‘You can’t,’ whispered Dalin.
‘Of course I can. I made that oath, remember? The Kolea oath? Walk into hell to protect you.’
‘You couldn’t protect Yonce.’
‘Well, I couldn’t. Because she wasn’t mine, was she? But you. You are. You’re my son.’
‘Not really. I’m not really.’
‘Ah, so our road through life’s been an odd one. So what? That’s all right. Blood is blood. So come on, what did she say that upset you so much?’
Dalin stared at him.
‘She said there were two of them, papa,’ said Dalin.
Eighteen: In the Slow Hours
As a younger man, a mere colonel in the Calahad Brigade, Barthol Van Voytz had acquired a distrust of the night that had never left him. He was not afraid of the dark, and like any good soldier he knew that darkness could be an ally and a weapon. And back then, there had been a concrete reason. During the gruelling campaign through the Fenlock Forest, night had been the most dangerous time. The Drukhari butchers had always struck between sunset and sunrise. Ninety per cent of Calahad casualties had been taken after dark.
But it was the night itself. A part of it, specifically. Past middle night, there was always a period of particular blackness, with dawn just a hope. It was the worst time. He called it the slow hours. It was a time when a man might feel most lost, his very mortality at its most vulnerable. A man, say a young colonel, might fret away those creeping hours, awaiting almost certain attack, knowing his men were at their coldest and slowest ebb, aching for the dawn. A man might dwell upon the darkness, knowing it promised only ill. A man might have far too long to contemplate his own small soul, his human weakness, and the meaningless measure of his little life.
Standing in the war room of the Urdeshic Palace, that young colonel now just an old pict in a regimental archive, Van Voytz knew the slow hours were upon him again. The power had been down for over an hour. Fear clung to every surface. The palace, perhaps the most impregnable stronghold on Urdesh, was wide open. Eltath was under attack, and there was some unknown danger here, even here, inside the fortress.
And no solid data. They were blind, deaf and dumb. The shields had fallen. A grave moment for any commander to handle, but fate had decreed it should happen now. Past middle night, with sunrise still too far away: that particular heavy, slow and silent chapter of the night that took too long and was no friend of man.
He’d never checked – he was sure some rubricator or archivist could compile the data if he asked – but Van Voytz was sure that the Astra Militarum had lost more battles in the slow hours than at any other point in the diurnal cycle.
Lamps had been lit in the five storey chamber, candles in tin boxes. For all their sophistication, they had been reduced to candles in boxes. Personnel moved with stablights, conversing in low voices, working at repairs. The hall’s great windows were just paler blocks of darkness.
‘Any word?’ he said to Kazader.
‘Nothing from below, my lord,’ Kazader replied. ‘Last I heard, the Lord Executor, via Colonel Grae, requested full troop support to the undercroft.’
‘Which I approved,’ said Van Voytz.
‘Indeed, my lord,’ said Kazader, ‘but there is conflict. To maintain effective watch-security on the palace and precinct, we cannot afford to move companies from the walls or–’
‘Dammit, man. What about the evacuation?’
‘It continues as best we are able. Again, it is slow, of course, in these conditions.’
‘The warmaster?’
‘I have not had word, my lord.’
‘Has Urienz got him off-site or not?’ Van Voytz asked.
‘I’ll despatch a runner to find out.’
‘Do that. Kazader?’
‘Sir?’
‘Has any support been sent to the Lord Executor?’
‘Orders have been posted, my lord. With respect, I stress again that under these circumstances, it takes a while for men to be redeployed, and sufficient cover maintained along the bastion–’
‘How much has been sent?’
‘I believe Colonel Grae has three platoons of Urdeshi with him, sir.’
‘That all? I gave the damn order almost an hour ago, Kazader.’
‘My lord, as I explained–’
‘Screw your excuses,’ Van Voytz growled. ‘I’m a lord militant general, Kazader. I have theatre command here! I give an order, I expect–’
He fell silent. He could see Kazader’s expression in the candlelight. It was contrite, attentive. But it said Look around, you old fool, you have command over shit.
‘My lord?’ an adept called out.
‘Yes?’
‘We’re ready to test again.’
‘Do it.’
Van Voytz heard orders being relayed, and the clatter of main connectors locking into place. There was a pause, then a deep, bass-note thump of power engaging.
The glass tables of the strategium stations underlit with a flicker. The light throbbed, as unsteady as the candle flames, then stations lit up, followed by the main monitors, repeater screens and sub-consoles. The war room lights came back on at emergency levels. Cogitators began to chatter as operative systems refreshed and rebooted, and backed-up data began to scroll up the screens at an alarming rate, as though some information dam had broken.
There was a ragged cheer and some small applause from the war room staff.
‘Decorum! To your stations!’ Van Voytz yelled. ‘City reports to me in two minutes! I want an active read of Eltath security, and tactical appraisals in five. Vox?’
‘Systems up but limited, my lord.’
‘Live links to all company and division HQs in the Eltath theatre as soon as possible,’ Van Voytz demanded. ‘I want Zarakppan too, priority, and get me the fleet!’
The vox station coordinators hurried to obey.
‘Eltath overview on strategium one, please!’ Van Voytz ordered.
‘Compiling data composite now, sir.’
‘Shield status?’
‘We have power to the war room and battery defences, my lord,’ replied an adept. ‘Power supply will be restored to the rest of the palace in twenty minutes, barring further interrupts. Estimate void shields to power in forty-seven minutes.’
‘Make it thirty,’ snapped Van Voytz. He cracked his knuckles. Now they were in the game again.
‘Circulate the formal evacuation order,’ he said. ‘All stations.’ The power-break had gagged the order digitally. So far, he’d only been able to have it circulated by word of mouth and paper flimsy. ‘I want a progress report in three.’