‘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.’
‘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.’