Olort spoke to two of the sirdars, and was directed to a side room. It was a small space, lined with shelves, with high windows facing the hollow mountain’s interior lagoon. There was a maritime desk, with an empty crystal decanter on a silver tray. Mkoll fancied this had once been the office of the port master or a shipping baron.
Mkoll pushed the heavy door shut.
‘Here?’ he asked.
Olort turned to the half-empty shelves. The books were all old, leather-bound ledgers. Fresh labels marked with the spiked symbols of the archenemy had been glued to their spines. Mkoll unbuckled his helmet and took it off.
Olort pulled a volume from the shelf, set it on the desk, and opened it.
‘This one,’ he said.
Mkoll moved closer to look. He placed the helmet on the desk beside the ledger, nodding at Olort to stand back.
The pages of the ledger had been treated and scraped to remove the old ink. Faint ghosts of the original writing remained. Over the top, fresh script had been added, the jagged characters of the Archonate’s tribal tongues. Symbols adorned the margins of the palimpsest, and in some places great effort had gone into the decoration of the words and letters that began chapters or sections. Illuminated images, rendered in different coloured inks, sometimes with a hint of gold leaf or egg tempera. Beasts with horns and wings and cloven hooves peered out from the shadows behind the large capital characters.
‘It will be meaningless to you, kha?’ Olort asked, amused.
It was dense, and the script hard to read. But a year on Gereon had taught Oan Mkoll more than the rudiments of the spoken language. He began to turn the old pages, running his finger along. He found lists. Pages of lists, with details beside what seemed to be names.
‘That word means “captives”, doesn’t it?’ he asked.
Olort nodded.
‘This gives names. These are Imperial names. Here, location of capture. The names of the Imperial units the men belonged to, where given.’
‘We are thorough,’ said Olort.
‘There must be a thousand names here,’ Mkoll said. ‘And this word, this indicates induction? Or a willingness to be inducted?’
Olort stepped closer and looked at the pages.
‘Kha,’ he said. ‘Those willing are held here…’
He slid his finger across the page.
‘…the holding spaces beneath the chapter house. These others, they are resistant but promising. Otherwise, we would not have brought them here. They are held in the livestock compound.’
‘A thousand or more…’ murmured Mkoll, reading on.
‘Do you suppose you have an army, Ghost?’ Olort asked, smiling broadly. ‘Is that your hopeless plan? To release them? Then what? Mobilise them to fight? Stage a revolt within the Fastness?’
‘A thousand men is a thousand men,’ said Mkoll.
‘A thousand starving men, unarmed. Beaten. Defeated. A thousand traitor sons of the Emperor. They would not follow you. And even if they did, they would accomplish very little. Unarmed men? Broken men? If this is your plan, you are no etogaur. I say again, give up, Mah-koll. Let me deliver you. You are alone at the heart of my Anarch’s bastion. The sons of the pack surround you. Give me the skzerret and discard these hopeless dreams.’
Mkoll ignored him. He skimmed on through the pages.
‘Nen, I see it now,’ Olort said. ‘Not an army. A distraction. Kha, kha… a distraction. That’s what you plan. Prisoners released, chaos and confusion. Mayhem. You care not for the lives of these captives. You would use them. Use their lives as cover for your own activities. But not escape. You would have tried that long before now. Not escape, but…’
He looked at Mkoll sharply.
‘You have come to kill,’ said Olort, his eyes wide. ‘Nen mortekoi, ger tar Mortek. These words you said to me. You see your fate as an opportunity.’
Mkoll continued to ignore him. He was reading on, and had come upon a small separate section divided from the other lists.
‘Enkil vahakan. That’s what you called me. Those who hold the key of victory. There are three names here.’
‘So?’ asked Olort with a sneer.
‘Held aboard the ship,’ Mkoll said. He peered closer to read the three names. He blinked in genuine surprise. ‘Feth,’ he murmured.
Olort lunged. The old crystal decanter smashed across the side of Mkoll’s head and hurled Mkoll across the desk face-first. He rolled, blood streaming down his neck, shards of broken crystal falling off him, and dropped to the floor. Helmet and ledger fell off the desk with him.
Olort ripped the skzerret out of his hand.
‘Help me here!’ Olort roared in the enemy tongue. ‘Help me here! Intruder! Intruder!’
Nine: Bad Shadow
Olort stabbed down with the ritual blade. Mkoll was blinded by his own blood, which was pouring out of the scalp wound the decanter had left. His head was spinning.
Somehow, he managed to block the stab with his forearm. The edge of the skzerret sliced his sleeve and broke the skin beneath.
Still shouting for help, Olort stabbed again, and again Mkoll blocked, grabbing his knife-wrist. Olort had Mkoll pinned under him. Mkoll grabbed frantically with his free hand, seized something, and swung it.
The sirdar helmet smacked into the side of Olort’s face. He lurched sideways. Mkoll hit him again, fending him off with his left arm and swinging the helmet by the chinstraps with his right.
The second blow clipped Olort off balance and made him yelp. Mkoll kicked out and sent him staggering back across the room.
Olort came back at him, hatred in his eyes. Blood was running down his cheek from a cut above the left cheekbone. He thrust in with the dagger. Mkoll, barely on his feet, blocked the thrust with the dome of the helmet, using it like a buckler. Olort jabbed again.
‘In here! In here!’ he was yelling in the Archenemy dialect.
The skzerret punched through the top of the helmet and dug deep. Mkoll twisted his grip and wrenched the dagger out of the damogaur’s grasp. The helmet, with the dagger transfixing it, bounced away across the floor.
Wide-eyed, Olort dived for it. Mkoll went for the damogaur, landing a glancing kick that knocked the diving man down short of his target. Olort landed on the floor and scrambled for the helmet.
Mkoll dived for it too.
He got his hands on the dagger’s hilt. Olort merely managed to grasp the helmet. He clawed at it. Mkoll wrenched the blade out. Olort’s hands got to it too late. All he managed to grab was the blade as it slid free of the helmet. The serrated edge sliced off all the fingers of his right hand.
Olort screamed.
Mkoll smashed the dagger back down again. It punched through the side of Olort’s neck. Mkoll turned his grip with a sharp jerk and tore out Olort’s throat. The scream turned into a gurgle.
Mkoll rose, dagger in hand. He was dizzy and disorientated. He was drenched in his own blood, and Olort’s was still pumping out across the floor in a pool of astonishing size. Mkoll heard hurried footsteps outside.
He kicked the damogaur out of the way. Olort rolled, still making ghastly sucking sounds. Mkoll opened the door. Two packson scribes were right outside. One had drawn a laspistol.
‘Voi tar karog!’ Mkoll yelled at them, stepping aside to let them in. They rushed in, not knowing what to expect, just that a sirdar had ordered them to assist him.
They halted. One almost slipped in the widening pool of blood. They saw a damogaur bleeding out on the floor, his throat cut through.
Mkoll punched the skzerret into the ribcage of the scribe with the gun. With his left hand, he grabbed the laspistol as the man dropped to his knees. There was no time to turn the pistol. Mkoll swung it instead, hitting the other scribe in the face with the butt of the gun. The packson reeled away, blood and spit flying from his lip, and bounced off the door.