Before leaving Wellham Ridge, Major Tavon had appointed the company commander, a captain from Averil named Regic, battalion commander, promoting him to major in an impromptu and illegal ceremony. She then ordered him to take what remained of her battered and footsore battalion along with his own platoons and march them all to Orindale’s southern wharf. When the newly appointed officer asked why, Tavon silenced him with a glare. ‘You will find out when you arrive, Major.’
‘Er, ma’am… you do understand that by taking the entire battalion to Orindale I am essentially abandoning our position in southern Falkan.’ Major Regic looked as though he would rather have been lashed to a torture-rack than be standing here before this foul-smelling, possessed woman.
‘It is of no matter any more, Regic,’ Major Tavon replied. ‘It’s time for this occupation force to move on.’ She turned to leave.
‘To move on, ma’am?’ Regic said hesitantly.
‘To move on,’ Tavon repeated, then shouted for Captain Blackford, who was never far away. ‘Come with me,’ she told him. ‘We need to get messages to Rona as quickly as possible. We’ll need riders, six of our best-’
‘We don’t have many left in any condition…’ His voice died away as he blanched and beads of sweat broke out along his hairline: he had interrupted her.
Tavon stopped, stood ramrod-straight and said, ‘I hope you realise what will happen if you ever do that to me again, Captain.’
Blackford swallowed; it seemed to take avens for his throat to open far enough to speak. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Good. I don’t care what condition they’re in. I want them ready to ride for Rona. This far east it seems a shame to wait until we’re in the capital.’
‘Good point, ma’am.’
‘Now, if you and Major Regic are through second-guessing me, I would like to get our cargo loaded on the first barge ready. Bring Captain Hershaw and one platoon of our healthiest soldiers.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The captain saluted. After her dough-headed forced march into the foothills, he knew without checking that there was not a full platoon of healthy soldiers left in the battalion. No matter; he and Hershaw would scrape together the strongest of the lot and encourage the major to grant them some much-needed rest on their journey downriver.
Now, standing a post on the barge Tavon had chosen to carry her precious cargo safely into Orindale Harbour, Captain Blackford watched large clumpy snowflakes fall on the Falkan capital in one of the coastal city’s rare snowstorms. The flakes dusted Major Tavon’s head and shoulders; she didn’t bother to brush them off. Blackford marvelled at how whatever it was that had purloined his commander’s body could stand so still for so long, staring out at nothing, perhaps seeing nothing, even ignoring the snowflakes that clung to her lashes and melted into her eyes. Tavon didn’t blink.
The barge passed through the city towards the harbour. Blackford and Hershaw huddled in one of the shack-like cabins. It was clear the major did not plan to remain in the capital very long. Before dispatching riders east towards the Merchants’ Highway and the Ronan border, Blackford had sneaked a look at one of Tavon’s hastily scribbled messages: using Prince Malagon and General Oaklen’s names, she had ordered the entire occupation army in the Eastlands back to Pellia as soon as ships could be commandeered and safe passage ensured. With a northern Twinmoon coming, tides would be high in the archipelago. If the army was needed in Malakasia, there would be no better time to order them all home than now.
Given the inanity of Tavon’s dispatches, Captain Blackford was determined to be as far from the major as luck and determination could get him before word of her exploits reached the officers in Orindale. General Oaklen, wherever he was this Twinmoon, would not appreciate any field commander using his name to direct entire divisions home to Pellia. Blackford guessed that the general had made his way back into Orindale; he might even be staying at the old imperial palace just off the river. He certainly wasn’t within screaming range of any of the messages Major Tavon had sent to Rona. She had run rampant over the battalion while they trudged through the snowy drifts south of Wellham Ridge. Here in the capital, with an entire palace full of Malakasian officers hunkered down for the winter Twinmoon, circumstances would be different; surely she wouldn’t be able to engage in random murders without drawing attention? He couldn’t guess what Tavon had planned for the barge or the stone table, but he was pretty sure that things were about to get much worse.
Puffy snowflakes fell about his face as he stood in silence, waiting for his commanding officer to direct him once again. He watched the city snowscape roll by. The barge was passing through rows and rows of trenches dug hastily two Twinmoons earlier, a blockade of the entire city by every available soldier in the southern divisions. Blackford’s own trench had been several hundred paces north of the Medera, hidden now by the snow.
Then came the imperial palace, a grand old edifice with its sprawling gardens – lying fallow under trampled snow – stretching out towards the wharf and the commercial districts. One wing had been destroyed recently in a freak explosion; Blackford had heard the blast from his trench. Now he could see boarded-up windows and one collapsed wall, the stones of which had been piled into a heap. On through a well-to-do neighbourhood; he wondered what people did to afford such homes, especially in an occupied nation. On his lieutenant’s wages – Blackford didn’t expect ever to see one Marek of a captain’s pay – he would not have been able to purchase even a quarter of such a home. Slate roofs, stone walls, multiple chimneys; who were these people? Business owners? Ship captains? They certainly weren’t soldiers. Most of them had probably worked out some kind of lucrative, symbiotic agreement with the occupation Tavon was gone.
Captain Blackford rushed aft and knocked on one of the dilapidated doors. ‘Hershaw,’ he hissed, ‘wake up, get out here.’
He ran to a corporal standing watch. ‘You there,’ he said to the startled soldier who’d jumped to rigid attention, ‘where is the major?’
‘Sorry, sir. If she’s not back there, where she’s been for the past two days, sir, I don’t know, sir.’
‘Rutting whores,’ Blackford muttered, leaving the corporal looking confused. He went back to rapping on Hershaw’s cabin. ‘Captain, I need you out here right away,’ he called again.
Nervous, uncertain, needing an outlet for his anxiety, Blackford started pacing and swearing. Wringing his hands, he mumbled to himself, ‘Rutting demonpissing… opening the whoring thing again… dead out here… godswhoring cold-’
On the riverbank above him, a heap of large barrels stood in haphazard arrangement outside a waterfront alehouse, a big wooden place with a sloping roof, and plenty of raucous noise coming from within. It looked, sounded and smelled like a lonely soldier’s spiritual redemption, and Blackford found himself longing for a tankard of ale, maybe two. That would set him right. He watched a boy, probably no more than seventy-five Twinmoons, hurrying out of a side-door to scoop a bucketful of what looked to be sawdust from the closest of the wooden containers. That’s for the floor, gods love ‘em, to soak up the blood and piss. He looked again for Hershaw, although for what, other than helping him calm down, he couldn’t say. There’ll be blood on this floor soon enough, he thought to himself. No sawdust here to soak it up, though.
They were about to pass under the massive arched bridge separating Orindale’s northern wharf and its fine taverns, expensive apartments and fancy businesses from the southern wharf, where the many tarred and scarred wooden fingers of the town pier reached out into deep water. Compared with the northern wharf it was a dingy, colourless place, yet this was where Orindale’s heart beat the strongest.