The curator drew a breath and smoothed down his robes before he continued. 'Well, the deadline for the people of Khaturian to hand over Thayer came and went, and for a time they thought that Barbaden's threat had been a bluff.'
'But it wasn't, was it?'
Urbican shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'it wasn't. Marauder bombers flew in over the mountains and dropped a dreadful amount of bombs. They blew the city apart. You could see the fires from Barbadus. It was as if the whole sky was aflame, a terrible sight, just terrible, and, well, after that reports are somewhat confused.'
'Confused how?' asked Pasanius, scratching at his arm.
'No one I've spoken to seems to be able to agree on exactly what happened next or even how it happened, but Colonel Barbaden ordered the Falcatas into the ruins of Khaturian and when they came out six hours later, there wasn't a single soul left alive in the city.'
'He killed the entire city?'
'Yes,' nodded Urbican, 'seventeen thousand people in six hours.'
'What happened after the attack?' asked Uriel. The sheer scale of the dead was staggering.
'The Sons of Salinas, what was left of them, came down from the mountains,' said Urbican, shaking his head. 'Supposedly Sylvanus Thayer and many of his followers' families lived in Khaturian and, mad with grief and rage, he led them in one last glorious charge.'
'And they were destroyed,' said Uriel, guessing the outcome of that charge.
'They were, but what a magnificent, if futile, way to die: fighting the enemy with the green and gold of their cloaks flying out behind them as they charged,' said Urbican. 'But what chance did they have? They were guerrillas, not an army. Thayer and his men were pounded to ruin by artillery and then shot to pieces before noon. And that was the end of the resistance of Salinas. By the end of the week, we'd had Restoration Day over on the esplanade and that was that.'
'Except that wasn't the end of the resistance, was it?' asked Uriel, remembering the graffiti he had seen that said the Sons of Salinas would rise again.
'No, would that it had been,' said Urbican. 'The brutality of the Falcatas subjugation of Salinas is a matter of great shame to many of its former soldiers and the scars of that war are far from healed, Uriel. Thayer's second-in-command, a man named Pascal Blaise, took up where his friend had left off, although he doesn't have the weapons or training to be anything like as dangerous as Sylvanus Thayer.'
'Pascal Blaise?' asked Uriel. 'What does he look like?'
Urbican shrugged. 'I don't know, I've never seen him, but I'm told he's a shaven-headed man with a forked beard. Why do you ask?'
'I think I saw him during the attack on Colonel Kain's force when we arrived.'
'That wouldn't surprise me. The Sons of Salinas have an especial hatred for Verena Kain.'
'Why?'
'Well, she led the Falcatas into Khaturian,' said Urbican. 'Barbaden gave the order, but I believe it was her that went into the flames and carried it out.'
The bar was busy tonight. Cawlen Hurq had made sure of it. The buzz of conversation filled it and the smell of sweat and stale alcohol was powerful. Almost a hundred people filled the bar with noise, their conversations blurred into a raucous babble. Cawlen had six men with guns among the patrons and, as far as any place in Barbadus could be called safe, this place was safe. Pascal Blaise sat in a booth at the back, nursing a glass of raquir and wondering what had made him think this was a good idea.
'He won't come,' said Cawlen, 'not if he's got an ounce of sense.'
'He'll come,' replied Pascal. 'We have something he wants.'
'What makes you think he has any interest in her?'
'He was at her house,' said Pascal, taking a drink. 'He was looking for her.'
'So? That doesn't mean anything.'
Pascal knew Cawlen was right. There was no reason to think that Daron Nisato would come to the bar, except Pascal knew that he would. Daron Nisato, out all the men and women who had mustered out of the Falcatas, was the one person he credited with a shred of honour. He knew for a fact that Nisato had not been present at the Killing Ground massacre and had done all he could to learn the truth behind it.
Pascal scanned the faces that filled the bar, remembering the last time he had come here and the soldier of the Achaman Falcatas who had eaten the barrel of his pistol. The bloodstains had been cleaned from the roof, but Pascal could still see the impact the bullet had made on the roof beam.
'Guilt can be a great motivator,' he whispered.
'What?' asked Cawlen. 'Did you say something?'
'No, just thinking aloud,' replied Pascal.
Cawlen looked around the bar, his nerves jangling on the surface of his skin. 'I don't like it. What if Nisato comes here with a dozen enforcers? Everything we've done over the last ten years would be for nothing.'
'He won't.'
'You don't know that,' said Cawlen. 'It's too much of a risk.'
Cawlen was right, this was risky. He was exposed here. There was an undercurrent of fear and resentment in the bar; he could hear it in the too boisterous conversation and ever so slightly forced laughter. He could feel the peoples' fear and knew that part of that fear was thanks to him.
They were afraid of what might happen because of him being there.
Time was, these people would have done anything for him: helped his freedom fighters, provided them with food, shelter and information, but times had changed and ten years of misery and hardship had hardened a lot of hearts and eroded a lot of the goodwill he'd inherited from Sylvanus Thayer.
People were tired of war and he didn't blame them.
He was tired of it too.
The ironic thing was that he didn't hate the Imperium. For most of his adult life he had faithfully served the Golden Throne, making his own small contribution to the welfare of mankind. Then the Falcatas had come with anger in their hearts and blood on their blades and cut themselves into the flesh of the world.
A decade later, Pascal Blaise had lost the best years of his life fighting soldiers of an Emperor he had sworn to serve, but he was fighting them, not what they represented.
Pascal was not naive enough to think he could win, but he had come to realise that his fight had nothing to do with winning, and everything to do with justice. The guilty had to pay. It was as simple as that. The guilty had to pay and the natural order of justice had to be restored. He realised that none of the killing had been about anything other than that.
Yes, Cawlen was right, this was risky, but he was tired of killing and if this gesture could be the beginnings of an end to it, then it was worth a little risk.
'There he is,' said Cawlen, stiffening in his seat, his hand sliding to the pistol concealed beneath his storm cape.
'Ease up, soldier,' warned Pascal. 'We're not here for violence, and by the looks of it, neither is he.'
Daron Nisato had just entered the bar, his expression guarded and wary. The conversation dipped in volume as he ducked under the iron girder that served as a lintel and approached the bar. Pascal watched as the enforcer's eyes scanned the patrons with a lawman's gaze, sorting the threats from the chaff.
The enforcer could not know for sure what Pascal looked like, but his eyes settled on him and stayed there.
'He's good,' said Pascal as Nisato began to thread his way through the bar towards the booth. 'You've got to give him that.'
Cawlen grunted and rose from the booth as Nisato approached. The enforcer stopped at the table and said, 'I'm presuming it was you that sent the message to me.'
'It was,' confirmed Pascal. 'Sit down.'
Nisato glanced at Cawlen. 'Maybe I will, if you send your goon away. He's making me itchy and if his hand moves any closer to the weapon he's got under his cloak, I'll break it off.'