“As well as if we survive,” I said. “That question bothers me a bit more now, sir.”
“True,” he said. “But that’s as Talagray is. The fields of these lands are wet with the blood of many officers. And though we keep hoping the Empire grows more civilized, somehow it finds clever new ways to stay savage. Yet you’ve an advantage, Kol.”
“Because of my knack?”
“No. Because Dolabra’s decided to look out for you. Though she’s mad, count yourself lucky to be in her shadow.”
“I’m in danger because I’m in her shadow, sir.”
He laughed. “Suppose that’s a good point!”
We walked on. It was a queer thing, to know I had this knack; but any excitement I had was drowned in dread of all the threats before us. It was all too easy to imagine some shadowy figure lifting a stiletto to my skull and drilling a hole behind my ear, leaving a tiny, trickling spring of dark blood.
Finally we came to the tower entrance.
“It’s a defect as much as it is an advantage, you know,” Miljin said, “or they used to say so.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Memory in the muscles, I mean.” He squinted at me. “Apparently it only happens to engravers who have trouble engraving other shit—or so I’m told. The duelist I mentioned, he couldn’t remember songs at all. Not a bit of them. They were like a big blank space in his mind. Couldn’t whistle or tap his foot, neither. I guess it’s like everything else in the Empire—there’s always a trade-off.”
He waited for me to say something, but I did not speak.
“But you seem a keen sort,” he said. “Suppose you just got lucky, Kol.”
Then he told me good night, turned, and stomped off to his quarters.
CHAPTER 33
| | |
THE NEXT MORNING MILJIN and I met the Apoths’ contagion crew at the Talagray stables. There were six of them—four women, two men—all wearing curious armor of leather and glue-like grass that appeared to seal off their whole beings from the air, except for the heads. The leader of the group, a tall woman with a steely gaze, shook Miljin’s hand and introduced herself. “Signum Kitlan. Told we’re here to deal with contagion, possibly out in the Plains of the Path—that right, sir?”
“That’s right, Signum,” Miljin said.
“Can you tell me more about this contagion?”
“It’s a plant being used by an Apoth and a crackler. A spore, I’m told. Breathable. Similar to dappleglass.”
None of them seemed surprised or even intimidated by this. They just nodded, eyes flinty. They were so altered their faces were more purple than gray, and some of them bore strange scars on their faces and necks, patches of puckered white from some injury or another. They were easily the hardest-looking officers I’d ever seen.
“Where are we starting, sir?” Kitlan asked Miljin.
Miljin waved to me. My eyes fluttered as I recalled Ana’s briefing from early this morning, her teeth gleaming in a grin as she’d pronounced: One! There is only one crackler in service to the Legion stationed here in Talagray who hails from Oypat. A Militis Drolis Ditelus, stationed at a forward outpost close to the walls. And he’s had quite a lot of demerits recently. Can you guess what for?
I assume not for poisoning various imperial peoples with dappleglass, ma’am, I’d said.
To which she’d responded: Don’t be smug. No. He’s apparently been wandering off to do fuck knows what out in the Plains of the Path when he’s supposed to be at the wall. Fellow’s in deep shit, really! He has to be our man.
I relayed this information to the Apoths as we geared up to ride out, along with how dappleglass functioned: fertile and infectious when exposed to steaming water, but after its horrid bloom, it was safe. Again, they did not react.
“We find this crackler, this Drolis Ditelus,” said Kitlan. “He takes us to this traitor Apothetikal, and we find the contagion there and destroy it—that it, sir?”
“If it proves that simple,” Miljin said, “I’ll be overjoyed. But yes.”
She spat so profusely on the ground that Miljin looked impressed. “We’ll make it simple.”
We mounted up and started east, across the Plains of the Path, the same road we took to the medikkers’ bay just a few days ago. Our progress was soon blocked, however, for the road east was suddenly packed with teams of beasts—horses, oxen, and giant slothiks—all hauling something toward the walls. Or rather pieces of something, something enormous. At first I thought it was perhaps some kind of piping, huge and curving and carried on massive carts, but then I realized I was wrong.
It was a bombard. Segments of a bombard, slowly making its way toward the distant sea walls. A bombard so huge and so complex my mind could hardly grasp it.
“Huh,” I said aloud. “A titan-killer. Just like Captain Strovi said.”
“It’ll be devilish hard to get to this crackler with all that ahead,” growled Miljin. “We’ll have to cut across country. Come on.”
Our horses were none too pleased with the change in terrain, which made the going much slower. But as midmorning changed to midday we finally approached the forward Legion outpost, which much like the road was crawling with movement.
I studied the scene as we arrived. Panic hung heavy in the air. Legionnaires darted about with hurried, fraught movements, like people readying for some desperate escape. We reined our horses at the front gate and stalked inside, and after a few moments of Miljin’s hollering we were brought to the princeps of the outpost.
“Ditelus, sir?” she said. “You’re looking for him? Hell, get in line. I’d love to find him, too.”
“He’s missing?” asked Miljin.
“Yes. Again! With the quakes so hard that the mud dances at our feet, and the titan-killer churning up the road out there. I shall behead the bastard when I find him again.” The princeps paused to look us over. “If Iudex is looking for him, though, then he’s done something serious…” She looked back at Kitlan and her people, impatiently waiting behind us. “And you’ve a contagion crew with you?”
“We need to know where he is immediately,” Miljin said to her. “Is there anyone who worked with him who might know?”
She shook her head. “Everyone’s off to assist with the bombard. Engineers say the titan’ll be here in a matter of days, maybe hours. Ditelus’s whole cohort is long gone.”
I looked at the princeps, thinking. It had been weeks since I’d last interrogated a princeps—the smirking Otirios, back in Daretana—but it suddenly came to me easier now, with death and madness rumbling past the horizon.
“You’re Ditelus’s commanding officer?” I asked.
“I’m the operating officer of this outpost, yes, sir,” she said.
“So you would have been the one to write up his demerits?”
“Ah—yes? The Iudex manages demerits now?”
“He was marked for absences, correct?” I said. “Did you ever catch him coming back to the outpost after his absence?”
“I did, a couple of times.”
“What direction might he have been coming from?” I asked. “And is there anything out there?”
She fetched a map and pointed to the spot. “He was coming from the west, back toward Talagray. There used to be an old Legion fortress that way, decades ago, but it got destroyed during a breach. Killed a titan and it fell right on top of it. Some Legionnaires used to sneak out to the ruins to get sotted back in my day. You think he’s there?”
“Much thanks, Princeps,” said Miljin curtly.
We left, mounted our horses, and departed, pausing only for Miljin to give me the tiniest nod—Well done.
* * *
—
“WE’RE IN A bad stretch of land now,” warned Kitlan as we rode. “You see anything moving that isn’t grass or leaves, don’t go near. The Plains are rife with contagion. Worm pits and nests and hives abound. This whole bit of world wishes to eat you.”
“Are we allowed to be here?” I wondered aloud.