Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [8]
Hu’s expression darkened. ‘Warlords and privateers,’ he growled. He flashed a look at the representatives of these same men, before his attention settled on Granger. ‘What is wrong with you?’
‘A minor injury, Emperor,’ Granger replied.
‘Did I give you permission to speak?’
Granger looked at him coldly. Evidently the witch wasn’t the only one who needed a lesson in diplomacy. ‘You addressed the hall, Emperor,’ he said. ‘And I was the logical person to answer your question.’ From the corner of his eye, he saw Banks cringe.
Hu glared at him. ‘I know you, don’t I?’
‘Colonel Granger, Emperor.’
A knowing smirk came to the emperor’s lips. ‘Weaverbrook,’ he said. ‘1432. You’re one of the Gravediggers.’
Granger nodded.
‘Weaverbrook 1432,’ Hu said. ‘The largest loss of Imperial troops in my whole campaign.’
‘I believe it was the second-largest loss, Emperor.’
Hu snorted a laugh. ‘Is that so? For a man who spent more time digging holes for his dead comrades than actually fighting, you don’t sound particularly remorseful, Colonel.’
‘My men fought bravely,’ Granger replied. He could see Banks shaking his head urgently, Swan and Tummel shifting uncomfortably. They didn’t want Granger to say what he was about to say. But he said it anyway. ‘We took the villages and the outlying farms, as ordered. We secured the peninsula to Coomb, as ordered. We arranged an armistice, and I delivered your terms to the Evensraum Council myself. My men were jubilant but exhausted, and I regret we were ill equipped to withstand the naval bombardment you ordered on our position, Emperor.’
Silence filled the hall, only to be broken a moment later by a laugh from the Haurstaf witch.
‘Forgive me, Colonel,’ Banks said, ‘but why did you have to open your goddamned mouth?’
They were walking along a corridor in the City Fortress. Gem lanterns hung from the rafters, but they were ancient and provided scant illumination in this gloom. Moonlight filtered through a line of small grimy windows that overlooked the Naval Dockyards and the dragon cannery. Even from here, Granger could hear the pounding of the factory machines and smell the blood and salt.
‘Did you not see the warlords’ men?’
Granger marched ahead.
Banks went on, ‘You might as well as commented on the size of the emperor’s cock.’
Granger’s boots splashed through a puddle. The floor above held tanks of Mare Lux brine to accommodate sharkskin prisoners of war for experimentation, but the old vats leaked constantly, sending trickles of toxic seawater down through the fabric of the building. Damp stained the corridor walls. Chocolate-coloured ichusan crystals had already begun to form in places.
‘Actually,’ Banks said, ‘it might have been less of a problem if you had—’
‘That’s enough,’ Granger said.
Banks blew between his teeth. ‘Hell,’ he said. ‘At least I’ll take the image of his face to my grave. However soon that’ll be.’
‘I said, that’s enough.’
They found the surgeon in Recovery Room 4. He was leaning over Creedy’s head, feeding gauze into the wounded man’s eye socket. The sergeant reclined on an enormous adjustable chair, clutching a tray full of bloody surgical implements in his lap.
‘That looks like a good clean wound, Sergeant,’ Granger observed.
‘Hurts like a bastard, sir,’ Creedy replied. ‘But I’ve had worse.’
The surgeon looked up. ‘I thought it best to avoid the risk of anaesthetic,’ he said. ‘In this case the arrow has cauterized the wound quite nicely.’ He sighed. ‘We don’t see many injuries like this any more.’
‘You sound disappointed,’ Granger said.
The other man made a non-committal gesture. ‘Void arrows make such lovely wounds. Much cleaner than a sword cut. Much less prone to infection.’ He withdrew his bloody fingers from Creedy’s eye socket. ‘Hand me one of those bandages, will you?’
Granger took a bandage and a couple of snap-pins from a box on a nearby trolley. ‘I’ll finish this off,’ he said. ‘Get yourself cleaned up.’ He