They met further opposition upon leaving the beach, warriors charging out of the roiling smoke alone or in small groups, crying out their war cries as they hacked and stabbed. Sirus could pick out the words “Ullema Kahlan” amongst the furious babble as the Islanders were shot down or bayoneted. These suicidal attacks were costly but barely slowed the Spoiled advance, Sirus ordering a halt at the sight of Morradin’s Red circling a large stockade.
Resistance continued as they surrounded the stockade, the Islanders eschewing their mad charges in favour of sniping from tree-tops. Sirus felt the rush of a passing bullet, which splintered the trunk of a tree a few inches from his head. His Spoiled-born eyes and reflexes reacted with automatic swiftness, picking out the dim shadow of the marksman perched atop a tall palm-tree, Sirus’s bullet taking him between the eyes a half-second later. He ran to the body, retrieving the man’s rifle for inspection. The words Silworth Independent Arms Company Mark VI .422 were engraved in Mandinorian on the brass plate fixed to the stock, an image he instantly conveyed to Morradin.
Standard Protectorate issue, the marshal mused. It appears Ironship have been making new friends. Explains where they got those cannon from.
Sirus turned his gaze on the stockade, which was in fact a substantial fortress of thick wooden walls standing twenty feet high. Meaning they’ll have more in there, he thought.
Of course they will. Sirus could feel Morradin’s keen anticipation. But that means they’ll also have a great deal of powder. Continue to mop up the perimeter. See if you can actually capture a few. I sense our drake god isn’t altogether happy with today’s butcher’s bill.
? ? ?
The battery of cannon fired at once, muzzle flashes bright in the gloom as they cast their shells at the fortress. Sirus saw the projectiles strike home, each aimed with expert precision to impact on the same point. Over the past few hours repeated salvos had torn a large splintered rent in the fortress’s south-facing wall, but as yet had failed to craft a breach. Morradin had initially intended to launch a massed assault, ordering the army to cut down trees and fashion scaling ladders, but then the White arrived.
Sirus could feel the great beast’s simmering discontent as it soared high over the trees before finding a perch on the flanks of the volcano. Whilst the White would occasionally form thoughts into coherent words, for the most part its intent was divined through the emotions it conveyed. They consisted mostly of different shades of anger with the occasional pulse of satisfaction. So far the only joy the White exhibited came when it looked upon its clutch of infants and even then it was a dark, near-alien sensation; more like a swelling of sympathetic hunger as he watched the juveniles feast on yet another unfortunate captive. But now its feelings were far from joyous. The entire Spoiled horde stiffened as the White shared the sight of the many bodies littering the shore, colouring the images with a sharp note of dissatisfaction, most of it directed at Morradin.
So they set their ladders aside and brought up their small train of artillery to begin the long process of blasting a breach through the fortress’s thick wooden walls. Morradin, unable to keep the stain of frustrated blood-lust from his thoughts but nevertheless keen to placate the White, ordered Sirus to take a third of the army and commence a hunt for captives. Most of the live Islanders they found were suffering from incapacitating wounds or severe burns. The unscathed or lightly injured proved a difficult quarry, fleet of foot and familiar with the many hiding-places offered by the island’s dense forest and rocky coast-line. When cornered the fugitives were often suicidally unwilling to succumb to capture, several sinking a knife into their own throats as their pursuers closed in. By nightfall they had barely three hundred Islanders bound and awaiting conversion, less than a fifth of the casualties suffered in the initial assault and subsequent fighting.
The general lack of success resulting from this attack made Sirus consider the true level of the White’s intelligence. It had been clever enough to spare Morradin and put his generalship to use, but was apparently unable to discern the particular characteristics that had once caused the marshal to be dubbed “The Butcher” by his own troops.
It is limited, Sirus realised, careful to accompany the thought with as many images of the day’s slaughter as he could. He had learned that the more visual stimulus crowded his thoughts the less his fellow Spoiled were able to discern his reasoning. It doesn’t really understand us, any more than we understand it.
Do you have to? Katrya asked, drawing back with a painful wince.
Sorry. Sirus muted his thoughts and she settled against him once more. They had found a resting-place near the cannon, a hollow created by the roots of a large tree that would offer welcome shade from the sun come morning.
He killed his wife, you know, Katrya mused as the cannon blasted out another salvo.
Who? Sirus asked.
Majack. Strangled her a few years ago when he was drunk. Thought she’d been tupping his sergeant. He wrapped the body in an old carpet and dumped it in the jungle for the Greens, told everyone she’d run off with a sailor. It’d been bothering him ever since. I think he wanted to die.
Then he got his wish. This particular memory of Majack’s had escaped him as he had never felt the need to exchange more than the most basic thoughts with the former soldier. He shared that with you? he asked.
He dreamt it. Kept it buried deep down when awake, but you can’t bury your dreams.
Sirus summoned another collage of imagery as her thoughts birthed an inevitable conclusion. But this time his memory shield wasn’t enough.
Yes, she told him, entwining a scaly hand in his, I see yours too, my darling. I see who you dream of every night. But I also see that, in your dreams at least, you see her as she really was. Not how you wanted her to be.
? ? ?
Another full day’s pounding with the cannon and the breach was finally opened. It seemed far too narrow for a successful assault to Sirus, just wide enough for two men at a time, but Morradin’s commands left no room for discussion. In common with previous assaults Sirus’s company had been chosen to make the first attack. As he formed his troops into a narrow column Sirus allowed himself the suspicion that Morradin, driven by their mutual detestation, might well be attempting to orchestrate his death.
Not my choice, boy, the marshal informed him, reading his mind with ease. It seems you hold the favour of our White god. The perils of having such a disciplined mind, I suppose. The rest of these morons don’t respond half as quick as you.