‘Kell-er-mane,’ Olort said, switching to the clumsy language of the foe, of which he had some small measure. ‘An offer. Renounce your god. Assent now, pledge fellowship to He whose voice drowns out all others, and keep your life.’
The captive swallowed hard, but didn’t reply. He stared as if he didn’t understand.
Olort tried to look encouraging. He had unclasped his leather mouth guard so that the captives could see and appreciate the honesty of his smile.
‘Cap-tain Kell-er-mane,’ he said. ‘Repudiate, and pledge. Thus, life is yours.’
Kellermane mumbled something. Olort leant in to hear.
‘Join you?’ Kellermane asked in a tiny voice.
‘Yes.’
‘A-and you won’t kill me?’
Olort looked solemn, and nodded.
‘Th-then I swear,’ stammered the captive. ‘Yes. Please. Yes. I w-will s-serve your Anarch…’
Olort smiled and stepped back, the blood pool swirling around his boots.
‘Vahooth ter tsa,’ said Olort. Bless him.
One of the Sons took out his ritual blade, the hooked skzerret of the Sanguinary Worlds, and opened the captive from throat to sternum with one downward slash. The man convulsed, useless noises of dismay and loss coming from his mouth, and collapsed. Arterial spray hit the temple wall and jetted across the faces of disgusted saints.
The Sons let the body fall.
How simply they fold, Olort thought, when faced with something so brief as death. Where is their trumpeted mettle? He whose voice drowns out all others has no use for cowards.
Olort resumed his place, hands behind his back.
‘Kyeth,’ he said. Next.
The Sons waded back across the chamber and left. Two more entered, a sirdar and a packson flanking another captive.
This one didn’t look promising to Olort. His black hair was matted with blood and dirt, and he evidently carried several minor injuries. But at least he walked unaided. The Sons didn’t have to drag him or frog-march him.
Olort approached, noting how the prisoner refused to make eye contact. There were no rank pins or regimental patches on the man’s torn black fatigues, and the paper label was missing.
Olort glanced at the sirdar.
‘Khin voi trafa?’ Where is his label?
The sirdar shrugged apologetically.
‘Let’he het?’ Olort asked. Circumstances?
‘Tyeh tor Tulkar, damogaur magir,’ the sirdar replied, and continued to explain that the captive had been taken alive after fierce fighting in the boat-docks near the Batteries. He had fought, the sirdar said, like a cornered ursid.
Interesting after all, thought Olort. A man of courage. He reached for the captive’s dog-tags. The captive did not flinch.
Mkoll. Recon. Sergeant. Tanith First.
‘Mah-koll,’ Olort said, in the foe’s ugly tongue again. ‘An offer. I make this now. Renounce your god. Pledge fellowship to He whose voice drowns out all others, and keep your life.’
The captive did not reply.
‘Repudiate and pledge,’ said Olort. ‘Do you understand?’
The captive remained silent.
Olort considered things for a moment. The man was evidently strong. He had borne a great deal. He had not broken. This was the mettle that the Sons watched for. He whose voice drowns out all others had no place for cowards.
But some could be too brave. This man stank of a silent defiance that would not submit and could not be broken. That was the way of things. Most were too weak. Some were too strong.
Olort glanced at the sirdar, who already knew what was coming and was unfastening his skzerret.
‘Vahooth ter tsa,’ Olort instructed.
The blade flashed up. Olort abruptly stopped the sirdar’s hand.
He had noticed something.
The captive had an insignia pin after all. A small dark badge fixed to his torn collar. It had been blackened to dull its gleam, which is why Olort hadn’t spotted it at first.
He unfixed it. A skull, with a straight dagger placed vertically behind it.
‘Mortekoi,’ he said. Ghost.
‘Magir?’ the sirdar asked, blade poised.
‘Ger shet khet artar, Sek enkaya sar vahakan,’ said Olort. This is one of the special ones, the ones He whose voice drowns out all others has told us will lead the way to the Victory.
Olort looked at the pin again, then slipped it into his tunic pocket.
‘Voi het tasporoi dar,’ he ordered. Make him ready for transport.
The sirdar nodded and sheathed his blade.
Olort looked at the captive.
‘Mah-koll,’ he said, with a soft smile. ‘Ver voi… you are a ghost, kha? A ghost? Mortekoi, kha?’
The captive looked directly at him.
‘Nen mortekoi,’ he said. ‘Ger tar Mortek.’
Olort jerked backwards. The sirdar and the Son started in surprise, and looked at the damogaur, bewildered. The Imperial had just used their language fluently. I am no ghost. I am death.
Mkoll lashed out with his right hand. The brass hook-pin that had once fastened his missing label had been straightened and concealed in his palm. He punched it into the packson’s neck just below the ear.
The Son reeled away, yelping and clawing at his neck. Mkoll was already turning on the sirdar. He grabbed the sirdar’s right wrist, snapped his arm straight, and twisted, forcing the officer over in a helpless, painful stoop. Mkoll brought his knee up into the officer’s bowed face.
The sirdar dropped to his knees, lifting a spray of blood. Mkoll maintained the arm lock, reached over the officer’s hunched back, and yanked out his skzerret.
He pivoted, locking the arm in a tighter twist with his left hand, meeting the charging Son with his right. The packson still had the pin jutting out of his neck. The ritual blade sliced through the Son’s throat. He staggered backwards, blood jetting between his clamping hands, and fell sideways, lifting waves that churned the surface of the blood pool.
Olort lunged at Mkoll. Mkoll kicked him in the gut and folded him up. Everything was slick and sticky with blood. The kneeling sirdar managed to wrench his wrist out of the armlock.
He tried to tackle Mkoll. Mkoll blocked him with a forearm, grabbed him just below the left elbow, and forced him to turn with another twist. The sirdar barked in pain. He was rotated. Mkoll forced the trapped left arm up like the lever of a pump, and punched the skzerret hilt-deep in the sirdar’s armpit.
Mkoll wrenched the blade out, and the sirdar dropped on his face in a violent splash. Olort was trying to back up, trying to rise, trying to breathe. He floundered in the blood pool.
He pulled out his sidearm, but Mkoll kicked it away. Mkoll grabbed him by the front of his soaked tunic, dragged him to his feet and slammed him back against the mosaic wall. He put the skzerret to the damogaur’s throat.
The saints watched, eyes wide.
No one was coming. The Sons in the anteroom outside were used to cries of pain and dismay echoing from the chamber.
‘What did you mean… special ones?’ Mkoll hissed.
‘Voi shet–’
‘My language!’ Mkoll whispered. ‘I know you have some. Why are we marked out by your Anarch?’
‘Khet nen–’ Olort gurgled.
Mkoll pinned him by the throat with his left forearm, and used the edge of the ritual knife to cut open the seam of the damogaur’s tunic pocket. He fished out the Tanith pin and held it up for Olort to see.
‘Why does this matter?’ he growled.
‘Y-you are the ones,’ Olort gasped. ‘He whose voice drowns out all others has identified this. You are enkil vahakan. You–’
‘Those who hold the key of victory.’
‘Kha! Kha! Yes!’