City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [82]
A Jorsalir priest rattled out a sermon and mumbled a few prayers, then someone played a funeral hymn on an accordion. Melancholy notes wafted across the courtyard as a torch was lowered to the base of the pyre, then flames took shape and billowed upwards. Green-blue smoke sizzled free from the creature’s corpse, before dissipating up into the black sky, while the remnants bubbled and spat as the fire ripped into the fat. Presently there would be nothing left of this ancient creature.
When everyone fell away to retire for the night, Nelum approached the commander as he stood on the rampart overlooking the remains of the pyre.
‘Sir, did he ever obtain any information from those things?’
Brynd shook his head. ‘No.’
Nelum sighed. ‘For the love of Bohr, he was just about our only hope of understanding what they might be.’
‘You think this is a good time, at Jurro’s funeral, to get annoyed with the lack of progress on that front?’
Nelum muttered something that might or might not have been an insult.
‘Did you say something?’ Brynd pressed.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘You’d do well to remember your position.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I keep the Night Guard as a close family, and I’ve kept you close to my side recently, but that shouldn’t mean we confuse our positions in the regiment. I hope I’m clear on the matter.’
‘Indeed, commander,’ Nelum snapped, his lips thinned as if suppressing a biting retort. ‘My apologies.’
TWENTY-ONE
For the men and women of the Seventh and Ninth Dragoons, the day commenced in a sombre mood, and didn’t much improve from there. These soldiers had landed on the coast of Folke four days ago, after returning from a failed invasion of the Varltung nation, where thousands of comrades had died under the ice sheets as they attempted to claim another island. All in the name of the Empire and empire building. The official story was that the tribal nations had gathered along the edge of the ice sheets and rained arrows down on those drowning in the frozen waters. But some suggested there were no enemies in situ, that this was merely to provide reason for the Emperor to launch a much larger and more brutal invasion.
A mild sleet seemed to make the air above Villiren rattle, with grey skies smothering every point of the compass. The Dragoons were now lined up to attention, forming precise rows in the colossal quadrangular courtyard of the Citadel, framed by the wide granite arches and pillars. Awaiting further instructions they stood in silence, soggy, muddied, still mourning the dead.
Brynd remembered reading the great poets from an era when the sun was stronger – translations that had survived collapsed civilizations and forgotten languages, rhetoric and drama that injected glory into the legends of war. Bitterly he wondered if many of those writers had actually stood in the front line of any battle.
*
The troops began moving directly into the city, first in their tens and then in their thousands. Many empty structures in Port Nostalgia needed to be taken over in the name of defence. Citizens looked on in misery as the soldiers shuffled into their positions. This was an invasion of their normality – and the mood of the city changed perceptibly. The mere presence of the military seemed to augur death and decay.
Days of rigorous training continued in camps scattered to the south of the city, in Wych-Forest, manoeuvres practised in accordance with Brynd’s detailed instructions, based on military traditions and his own theories. Such staged combat scared the richer districts into holding late-night meetings where landowners would protest. Seafront shop and bar staff pleaded for the army not to take over their homes, as if not realizing how important the front line of the city would be in staging a defence.
Did people ever see beyond their own everyday lives?