‘Invited to dine? Doors left unlocked?’
The man nods.
‘That’s it?’
Another nod. The ADC is getting worried. Which means whoever sent him outranks this officer. He’s worried enough to start shuffling his feet.
‘When does it run out?’ The only question to matter.
The lieutenant grins. ‘When you take it back.’
‘What if I didn’t give it myself?’
‘Your colonel?’ He obviously knows about us. I guess everyone in the Wolf’s Lair does. Even those who didn’t make the retreat when we did.
‘Sir,’ the ADC sounds anxious.
‘Wait,’ the man demands.
The ADC does.
‘Interesting question.’ I have his attention back. ‘Until his death, certainly. After that? Keeping parole would show respect.’
‘But personally . . .?’
He shrugs, turns to go. Then looks back. ‘Personally, we both know it’s a crock of horseshit. It ends when you decide so.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s what I thought.’
He returns my salute with a smile.
Our boots ring on the stairs as we go up a level. Officers that outrank me move aside. Must be the glare on my face and the urgency with which the ADC leads me across a lobby and towards a new flight of stairs. He’s on the general’s staff, that much is obvious.
Those who don’t watch me, watch him pass, and mutter.
We’re in a long corridor.
Huge portraits of Wolf Brigade COs line both walls, with gilded frames and brass plaques giving each a name and his dates. These are counted in the years then ruled by OctoV, the glorious, victorious and undisputed.
Doesn’t say undisputed what.
The wolf skin begins five commanders ago, the grey jacket lined with leather three COs before that. The brigade’s first two commanders wear no uniform. The ADC stops when I stop, and hesitates, too nervous to tell me to hurry.
He opens his mouth to protest when I tap the final picture.
It’s life-size, with a flat and shiny surface, like a news screen that has frozen or a holo cube that has lost its ability to rotate.
The man in the picture wears a bulky suit, like OctoV’s in that statue at the Emsworth landing fields. He even has the same bubble helmet. What he doesn’t have is OctoV’s ship.
‘What’s that?’
‘Wolf’s landing.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘That weird shape behind him . . .’
‘A hexagram, sir.’
That’s the shape of the handle of Leona’s key. See, I knew he was the kind of ADC who would know stuff like that.
‘Actually, sir, it’s probably a hexatope.’
‘A what?’
‘Reroutes reality through six dimensions.’ He blushes. ‘Well, that’s what we’re taught at the Academy.’
‘And the man next to it?’
‘Major Wolf,’ the ADC says softly. He could be talking about a saint.
‘Major?’
‘Before he became a general.’
‘He went from major to general? That’s some promotion.’
The ADC stares at me, to see if I’m mocking him. He’s afraid to tell me to hurry up, but not so afraid that he won’t defend Major Wolf’s reputation. A man dead seven hundred years, or six or five, or however long it is.
‘I mean it,’ I tell the boy. ‘I’m impressed.’
His nod says that’s natural and we pass a door I remember leading to General Luc’s study and head for another flight of steps. There’s daylight at the top, and a huge H painted on the deck to say I was right, the round tower doubles as a copter pad.
‘Sir,’ the ADC says. ‘I’ve got Lieutenant Tveskoeg.’
When Colonel Nswor is sure I’ve registered his glare, he returns to scanning the horizon. The H-pad has an inbuilt ground-to-air defence system, but a trooper still sets up a belt-fed on the parapet to face the courtyard. Beyond him, a corporal manoeuvres a rocket launcher into place, using handheld controls.
Hydraulics are meant to damp the recoil and prevent the launcher from skidding, but the way he double-checks wires used to shackle the unit suggests they’re less than successful.
The launcher has four barrels, like goat tits, fed from a single magazine holding eight rockets. A dozen magazines sit on a trolley. The launcher faces outwards, which is interesting, but not as interesting as the fact other launchers are appearing.
‘Sir . . .’ Major Whipple hands the colonel his field-glasses.
Scanning the horizon, Colonel Nswor nods when he finds what he’s looking for. Everyone else has to wait until the copter comes into sight. It’s sleek and grey and flying so low it raises dust as it skims the dirt.
It is bigger than it first looks.
There’s a lazy thud to its rotor that speaks of untapped power. Twin cannon hang both sides of its nose, and the flight window is a narrow wrap tinted the same grey as the sides.
‘The general’s own,’ the ADC whispers.
I could have guessed that for myself.
Only General Luc’s not aboard, because he’s down below inspecting his engineers’ handiwork. Having climbed onto the viewing platform, he seats himself in one of the two chairs. Then he stands and nods to Sergeant Toro. It seems the view is everything he wanted.
‘Prepare to receive our guests,’ the colonel snaps.
An NCO shouts orders and the honour guard comes to attention.
Banking as it reaches the mountain, the copter starts a twisting approach that tracks the spiral road towards the gates, hugging the rock as it goes. Impossible to tell if the pilots are AI or human, but they’ve obviously done this before.
Maybe the flight path is tradition.
Most of the pointless things you find are.
As the copter skims the road, a rocket launcher starts tracking its movement. So maybe there is a logic to that approach pattern after all. Like a dung-fly dance, get it wrong and you get eaten.
‘Present arms . . .’
The cockpit membrane slides back and slabs of chitin shift as the craft settles and its wheels touch the deck. The first person out is Debro, the second is her daughter. The guard behind them holds a pulse rifle, sloping down.
‘Sven,’ Debro says.
We air-kiss. Then Debro grabs me and hugs me tight.
‘Why isn’t General Luc here?’ she hisses. ‘Surely he has the manners to meet his bride?’
‘He’s busy inspecting the scaffold.’
It takes her a second to understand my words.
Now, I’ve seen Debro angry and I’ve seen her outraged. I’ve seen her stark naked, standing in steely silence, while a guard cavity-searches her. The only emotion she showed then was to shiver at the icy wind that blew through our underground corridor. Didn’t think Debro did shock.
‘Who for?’
‘One for Vijay. Another to seat the audience.’
‘How could he?’ she hisses. ‘After Aptitude agreed.’
Debro glances back at her daughter, who wears a simple white dress, and complicated braids. Apt’s losing her battle with tears.
Behind me, Colonel Nswor and his men remain at attention. Only the trooper manning the belt-fed has the honesty to stare.
‘Vijay refused Aptitude’s offer.’
Debro’s mouth drops open. ‘What?’
‘He denies her right to sacrifice herself.’
She doesn’t challenge my statement. In fact, Debro accepts it without question, turning away to wrap one arm round Aptitude’s shoulders. Mother and daughter stand side by side, then face to face, their foreheads touching.
Seeing them like that makes me want to kill someone. Their escort must read that in my face, because he grips his rifle tighter. We stare for the second it takes me to remember him for later. And then he steps around me to present himself to Colonel Nswor.
‘Reporting with your prisoners, sir.’
‘Prisoners?’ Stepping forward, the Wolf Brigade officer backhands him so hard the man goes down. ‘They’re guests,’ he says furiously.