Salute the Dark

‘I do not mean the Lowlands,’ Reiner said dismissively. ‘Real war. Maxin is trying to take over the Rekef. Maxin is the true enemy.’ His eyes twitched about the room as though naming his fellow Rekef general might somehow conjure him up.

‘General Maxin,’ Thalric said slowly.

‘His orders, to kill you,’ said Reiner. ‘Not mine.’

Thalric remembered his last conversation with Daklan before the man had done his level best to kill him. Yes, Daklan had named Maxin as the source of the death warrant, but he had spoken of Thalric’s supposed patron as well. You could have protected me, General Reiner, he thought. His imperial conditioning was meanwhile subtly falling back on his shoulders, conjured up by the mere mention of his vanished rank and privilege.

‘So where does that leave me now?’ he said, and then added unwillingly but inexorably, ‘Sir?’

Reiner’s eyes alone acknowledged the concession. ‘We need capable agents,’ he rasped. ‘You are capable. Maxin had no right. You are mine. You are my major until I say otherwise.’ The speech seemed to exhaust him and he sank a little into his chair.

‘What do you want me to do, sir?’ Thalric asked him.

What could I give to you now? The secrets of the Lowlands… Stenwold’s plans… Che’s plans? I could take Che back from the resistance and make her in fact what they took her for in error: an agent of the Rekef. I could single-handedly secure the future of the Lowlands campaign.

He looked into General Reiner’s dry, barren face, and thought, But you don’t care.

‘Capitas,’ Reiner said. ‘I will send you to Capitas with false papers. The usual. I have work there for a capable man.’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Thalric. I’m back in. It was like a triumphant shout within his mind, the last months unwritten, wiped clean. He had never been cut loose from the army, from the Empire. He had remained loyal Major Thalric all this time, and the great cloak of imperial necessity had shrouded all his deeds in impenetrable rightness. But the rush of relief, of release, did not come. He waited for it eagerly but he was still wound up as tense as a bowstring inside. He felt sudden frustration with himself rise up inside. Can I not take this gift, now? Is this not what I wanted?

‘Sir, may I ask a question?’

Reiner nodded.

‘My work here at Myna, before – the removal of the old governor – I assume that you were preparing the ground. He was Maxin’s man?’

Reiner nodded again.

‘Good,’ Thalric said, and the slightest smile moved across Reiner’s face.

I’m back in, Thalric told himself. I’m back in. No more associating with lesser races, or running their errands. I’ve got power again. I can have my revenge on that Beetle whore-master and his Mantis executioner, and the whole bloody lot of them.

Another voice, so recently heard, said in his mind’s ear: It is not for you to criticize the Empire. It is not for you to put your petty personal concerns before the demands of your masters.

The thought was gall in his mouth. It cuts both ways, that does. It cut down to the lowest slave and servant, and it cut up all the way to the top. Empire over all. For the Empire, not for himself, not for a general, not for the Emperor, and not for the Rekef. And not for some grasping general’s bastard faction games!

Something inside him wailed in despair at his conclusions, losing a second time what he could hardly bear to lose on the first occasion.

‘General,’ he said, ‘when you sent me to kill my former friend Colonel Ulther I did not want to do it, but when I did so, at least it was because he was guilty of an actual crime.’

Reiner’s eyes widened and his mouth opened, but Thalric did not have time to wait for that hoarse voice to emerge. The flash of his sting-shot was concealed beneath the table, but the blast of it smashed the Rekef general’s chair into pieces even after it had passed through the occupant’s body.

Sixteen

He stepped out on to the sand, the sun suddenly bright in his eyes. He put a hand up to blot it out, and could then see the walls of the place curving away from him, scarred and blackened by years of abuse.