Salute the Dark

‘There are some soldiers coming over here, in a hurry,’ Che said helpfully. Thalric straightened up and went across to the hatch, slipping back the catches that held it shut. As he pushed it open, the rain drove down hard, but he flashed his wings and pushed himself up on to the barrel-like hull of the Cleaver. There were indeed soldiers coming, a full dozen of them, some on the ground and some in the air, all brandishing spears. He waited patiently for them, feeling the rain soak into his hair, into the arming tunic beneath his mail. As soon as they saw that a Wasp had emerged from the unknown flier their headlong approach slowed a little, and then a sergeant alighted before him, with a salute.

‘Excuse me, sir, we weren’t notified-’

‘You wouldn’t have been,’ Thalric cut him off. ‘I require lodgings for three, an engineer to repair this vehicle, and a meeting as soon as possible with your duty officer. Oh, and round up some doctors. Local ones would be best.’

The sergeant blinked at him. ‘I’ll first have to ask who you are, sir, and what’s your authority.’

And here goes the dice. ‘Captain Manus, sergeant, on my way to Capitas. Rest assured the duty officer will get all the details he needs.’

The sergeant was still not convinced, but in Thalric’s experience they seldom were. Nevertheless the man sent some of his men off to relay Thalric’s requests, which was perhaps as much as could be expected.

‘Good,’ Thalric commented. ‘Now get two of your men inside the flier. I have a casualty that needs to get under cover without delay.’

He dropped back inside ahead of them, confident that the sergeant would follow to keep him in sight, and that he would get his chance to win the man over then and there.

The sergeant and his man came next and stopped short, staring suspiciously at Achaeos and at Che.

‘Is there something wrong, Sergeant?’ Thalric asked sharply.

‘Sir, these are-’

‘Servants of the Empire, Sergeant,’ Thalric said firmly. ‘There is a war on, you may have heard. Some places are no longer safe for servants of the Empire.’ He placed just the right stress on the words because, of course, an officer of the imperial secret service, the dreaded Rekef, would never say it, not straight out, but there were always times when it paid to be recognized for what they really were.

The sergeant was clearly not a stupid man and it was fairly well known how the Rekef Outlander employed agents of all races. Now his hurried salute and his issuing orders to his men provided all the reassurance Thalric needed.

Shortly thereafter, Thalric had Achaeos safely stowed in an infirmary, with some of his Moth-kinden kinsmen staring nervously at him from around the door, and Che sitting at the man’s bedside. By that time Thalric himself was standing before the local Rekef Outlander officer.

The man was another sergeant, and Thalric could not believe his luck. He guessed that Tharn merited the barest minimum of Rekef presence, probably making do with this one man alone. Nobody cared about such backward little places. As far as the Empire was concerned, the garrison here was merely to keep the Moths from bothering Helleron, so the Tharen governor was only a major and the Rekef had better things to do. He would feel ashamed, later, of the way in which he now browbeat the wretched Rekef sergeant, but maybe that aggression was something he had been needing to get out of his system for a long time.

And news travelled fast. After that, when he strode the corridors of Tharn, now lit with hastily cobbled-together gas-lanterns, the locals and the conquerors alike gave him a wide berth, pointing him out to each other as the Rekef’s man. In the shock of relief, he almost forgot that it was not true, and that Che and Achaeos were even there. Instead he went to the suite of rooms he had commandeered, with good-sized windows cut into the outer wall of the mountain, and waited there for the information he had requested. For what else would the Rekef’s man do, after arriving, but receive reports and pick the local intelligencer’s brains?

Che had wanted to stay with Achaeos throughout, but the Moths refused to tend him in her presence, finding that a Beetle-kinden in their halls was more of an insult than any number of Wasps. Only after she had reluctantly withdrawn did his people begin their business with him. The doctors arrived before the inquisitors: administering salves and poultices, chants and charms, two full days of careful ritual and healing skill. By the time the questions started Achaeos was fit enough to raise himself up on one elbow. He was able, at least, to look his questioner in the eye.