Sirus turned as Morradin strolled clear of the trees, a rifle slung over his shoulder as he dragged the corpse of a small deer behind him. Best leave the savages alone, lest you attract the ire of our White god. I think he prefers them as they are, don’t you?
Sirus withdrew his thoughts from the warrior with a pulse of gratitude. The tribal failed to reciprocate, Sirus feeling him striving to close his mind as he returned to his companions. The group of tribals cast uneasy glances at Sirus as they retreated into the jungle. Like most of the indigenous contingent they preferred to live in their own groups at a remove from the main camps.
Might be the last one of these buggers left on this rock, Morradin commented, dumping the deer carcass next to his camp-fire. It had been a familiar story with every island they took, an abundance of game quickly denuded by so many hungry mouths. Since the fall of the King’s Cradle they had begun a westward expansion of the White’s dominions, taking six large islands in quick succession. The loss of their Blood-blessed king seemed to have had a demoralising and divisive effect on the Islanders. Individual settlements still resisted fiercely, many with modern arms provided by the Ironship Protectorate. But the disciplined and well-organised opposition they had faced at the Cradle was gone. Without appropriate training and tactics to make the best use of their weapons they could only delay the inevitable. Consequently, the White’s army had soon made good its losses and begun to swell its ranks, despite the efforts of the Maritime Protectorate.
“Another bombardment this morning,” he told Morradin, speaking in Varsal as a deliberate jab at the marshal’s undiminished snobbery. “A sortie by three frigates against the encampments on the northern shore, all blood-burners. We lost nearly a hundred Spoiled until the Blues chased them off.”
“I’m aware,” Morradin replied in pointed Eutherian. “Nuisance raids only. If they were smart they’d cram every soldier in the Protectorate onto their fleet and send them to crush us. Instead they seek to moderate their expenses in the vain hope the Islanders will do the job for them. Typical corporate thinking.”
Sirus detected an undercurrent of unease in the marshal’s thoughts. Since his conversion Morradin had developed an ability to shield his mind from all but the most persistent intrusion, employing the mental discipline and rigidly organised mind of a career soldier to impressive effect. But even he couldn’t suppress every emotion, especially his fears which Sirus found to be surprisingly potent for such a celebrated hero of the empire. Latching onto the unease, Sirus tried to probe further, stripping away the surface feelings of undimmed hatred of his continued enslavement to catch a glimpse of the deeper sensations beneath. He managed to capture only one image before Morradin clamped down on his thoughts with a snarl of rage.
“Who do you imagine you are, boy?” he grated, Sirus finding himself staring into the barrel of a revolver. Morradin’s voice quivered with anger but his arm, and the pistol, remained steady. The marshal’s emotions were raging now, ego-stoked fires of indignation burning so bright Sirus almost expected smoke to start pouring from his flared nostrils. “I have flogged men to death with my own hand for the merest flicker of insolence,” Morradin continued in a strangled whisper. “And yet you paw at me with your filthy, vulgarian mind and expect no punishment . . .”
That’s enough now, Mr. Marshal.
Sirus followed Morradin’s gaze as it flicked to the right, finding Katrya standing with a rifle at her shoulder, the barrel levelled at the marshal’s head. Sirus’s entire company of two hundred Spoiled were falling in on either side of her, all raising their rifles to aim at the same target. Sirus felt a murmur ripple through the camp as the sudden discord spread from mind to mind. For a moment there was a swirl of uncertainty as each individual calculated their allegiance. Some former soldiers retained an ingrained sense of loyalty towards their one-time commander, but it was a grudging, resentful attachment to servile custom many were quick to discount. Amongst the Morsvale townspeople there was no such sentiment, long-held grievances and detestation of the Imperial yoke bubbling to the fore with rising heat. The Islanders, of course, had no sympathy of any kind for the marshal whilst the tribals regarded the whole episode with a confused indifference. Despite the joining of thousands of minds, it took less than a second for the decision to be reached and the decision was unambiguous. The army had chosen a new general.
Morradin staggered as the collective will bore down, groaning in pain as he slumped to his knees, the pistol slipping from his grip.
Kill him, darling, Katrya told Sirus, her mind shining with pride and exultation. She came to his side, proffering her rifle. What use is he now, anyway?
A shadow fell on them then, large enough to blot the sun as great wings beat the air to raise dust into a dense fog. As one the army subsided to its knees, forced into subservience by a will far greater than their own, bodies and minds seized by a vise of all-consuming fear. To his surprise Sirus found he had been spared and so stood staring up at the hovering form of the White, rendered black against the midday sun. Although the White had somehow contrived to exclude him from the wave of terror that laid his comrades low, Sirus was not immune to fear. The intoxicating rush of alarm that had seized him during his confrontation with the Shaman King returned now to birth a tremble in his limbs, though he managed to keep his eyes raised, unwilling to succumb to any craven inclination in what he fully expected to be his last moments.
He could feel the White’s displeasure, poised like an executioner’s blade, but coloured once again by the familiar sense of frustration. The small creatures under its sway were once again proving troublesome and it didn’t understand why. Sirus grunted in disgust as the beast’s mind touched his own, rummaging through memory and sensation with clumsy violence, soon fixating on his various interactions with Morradin, each one soured by mutual antagonism. The White issued a faint hiss that might have been a sigh, or another expression of annoyance, before withdrawing its intrusion from Sirus’s mind. It paused for a moment and Sirus experienced a wave of confusion as it forced its thoughts into a comprehensible query, its attention now firmly fixed on Morradin’s cowering form.
Still . . . useful?