Silo had no words of comfort for him. He’d learn, just as Silo had. Or he’d die.
Around the corner of the building was an area of clear ground in front of the gates to the slave pens. The Daks were dug in deep here. There were machine gun emplacements on the walls, and bunkers surrounded by stone barriers at ground level. A pair of tracked flatbed vehicles were parked near the gates, for transporting the slaves from pen to quarry. Plenty of cover for the thirty or forty guards that defended the gates, but almost none for the Murthians if they tried a frontal assault.
This is where the Daks were going, he realised. This was their emergency plan. They knew that if anyone invaded the camvaded thp, they were either coming to free the men in the prison, or the slaves from the pens. Since the invaders were Murthians, it was obvious which they’d go for. The Daks had been caught off-guard by the Cap’n’s plan, but they’d regrouped here, and Silo couldn’t see any way to winkle them out that didn’t end in a shitload of dead Murthians.
His gaze roamed the surrounding area, and then settled.
Unless…
He caught sight of Ehri and Fal, hiding close by. He made his way back through the buildings towards them, avoiding the open ground. There were still Murthians and Daks battling here and there, but he avoided the gunfights and soon reached Ehri’s side. She looked back at him, her expression unreadable.
We cannot attack with those guns there, she said.
We have to get through somehow, said Fal urgently. ~ Listen to them.
Silo could hear something between the sporadic rattle of gunfire and the explosions from overheard. A distant hubbub of shouted voices. The slaves on the other side of the gate. They sensed the chance at freedom, and they’d roused.
He felt a surge of fierce pride at the sound. The Murthians weren’t like the Daks; they would never lie down and submit to slavery under the Sammies. So many generations they’d been under the yoke, yet they were still angry, still eager for the fight. Once, he’d thought a more subtle approach might have been more sensible, that their mulelike resistance to being ruled would be the very thing that kept them in chains for ever. But, hearing those voices, he knew he’d been wrong. The smallest compromise would have been the first step to giving up. And his people never gave up.
He surveyed the ground in front of the gates. Several bodies lay there, Daks and Murthians, blood seeping into the dirt. Too many had fallen on the Murthian side already, som e of them barely adults, killed in the first battle they ever saw. All of them here on his account, because of his plan to attack Gagriisk.
He thought he should feel something, but he didn’t. Where was the crushing weight of responsibility? Where was the guilt he’d been so terrified of all these years? He’d never wanted to be a leader again after his failed coup against Akkad. He’d become a follower instead, for fear of repeating the same mistake and inviting another tragedy. But now here they were. People were dying because of him. And he looked on their bodies, and nothing happened.
He was a violent man who led a violent life. That was the way of it. Handing off responsibility was just a chickenshit evasion. How many people had he killed on the Cap’n’s behalf? A fair few, he reckoned. The Daks brutalised his people all their lives, but in the end they were slaves too, and only following orders. Did that make them innocent? Not in his eyes. So how did being a follower excuse him from responsibility, just because he let someone else make the choices?
Lead or follow, it didn’t matter half a damn. People lived and died, regardless. If those kids didn’t die because of him, they’d likely die some other way pretty soon. In the end, all a man was responsible for was himself. And that went for everyone.
Well then, he thought. Raise your voice, or don’t.
I have an idea, he said.
Tell us, said Fal.
Silo pointed. Beyond the open ground there were a few more small buildings, and visible behind them was the anti-aircraft gun emplacement, set atop a shallow rise.
I think that gun could be more usefully employed.
Ehri and Fal exchanged a glance. Silo saw the grin in Fal’s eyes.
Lead on, old friend, he said.- We’re with you.
Thirty-Three
Time was running out.
Jez’s eyes were better than anyone’s, but even she couldn’t see through the dazzle of the bulldozer’s lights as it came grinding towards them. She’d managed to shoot out two of the floods, but it was a waste of time and bullets. The lights all merged into the glare, making them indistinct and hard to hit. The bulldozer would be on top of them before she could take them all out.
She couldn’t see any way to get past it, either. Guards hid behind it, using its metal body as a shield, the way their targets were using Bess. The crew would be butchered if they tried an assault. Even if Bess led the way, that vehicle was big enough to crush her under its plough, and the instant they broke cover the bastards crouching overhead would shoot them.
She could smell the fear-sweat on her companions. This wasn’t the kind of scrape they could skip out of with a daring plan and a bit of luck. They were out of options, and genuinely scared. Pinn was the only exception. He laughed at death for the same reason he laughed at complex mathematics: it was all a bit too much for his brain to handle.
She popped up and aimed a shot over Bess’s hump. No good. The mist foiled her again, and she had to duck away from a volley of return fire.
Bess was virtually impervious to small-gauge rifles like the Daks had, but she moaned in distress all the same as she was peppered with gunfire. Crake muttered soothing things to her and occasionally yelped as a bullet came too close. It was a miracle no one had been hit yet.
But the bulldozer was getting nearer, and the folds of the quarry wall would be scant protection once the enemy got an angle on them.
She racked her brains for an answer. A sharp smell filled her nostrils, derailing her train of thought. She looked over her shoulder, and saw that Pinn was crouched down, holding a tin full of some kind of transparent jelly in the hand of his wounded arm. With his free hand, he was dipping bullets into it. When he was done, he struggled to put the tin back in his pocket, and then began loading the drum of his revolver.
‘Pinn?’
‘Flame-Slime!’ he cried over the gunfire. He snapped the drum closed and spun it for effect.
‘What?’
‘Professor Pinn’s Incredible Flame-Slime! Don’t you remember?’
‘Yes, but what are you doing with it?’
‘Fire-bullets!’ he said.
‘You’re making incendiary bullets? What’s the point?’
Pinn shrugged. ‘It’s gotta be useful for something.’ Then he stood up and aimed. ‘Watch.’
‘Wait, Pinn, don’t!’
But she was too late. He fired the gun. A flaming bullet, like a tracer round, shot away into the murk.
‘Ha- ha!’ Pinn cried triumphantly, after he’d pulled himself back into hiding. ‘Told you it’d work!’
Jez pointed at his revolver. Flames were licking out of the drum, where the other bullets had caught fire. Pinn yelled and lobbed the blazing revolver away. It skittered to the edge of the rock shelf and came to a halt with its barrel facing towards them. A moment later it went off as the bullet in the firing chamber ignited, sending it skipping over the edge and away.
Pinn looked down at his bound arm, resting in its sling. Blood was seeping into the white fabric. His chubby face was grey. Lodged in the wall behind him, the bullet was still on fire.