Guns of the Temple (The Polaris Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

“That’s still heresy what you’re doing,” Taki said.

“Listen, Natalis. These so-called men of God exhort us to kill in His name every moment, but when the starving times come they’ll be eating the lion’s share of the rations and turning all of the water stores into piss. When the Imperials start gutting us in the alleys the priests will harass our corpses for alms. So on top of having to defend our burning homes we also have to indulge their sanctimonious bullpocky? Is that really just?”

“I…” Taki began. As much as he didn’t want them to, Draco’s words were beginning to make sense.

“Noel!” Hadassah shouted at a diminutive woman wearing an armored wimple and riding atop an indigo-painted main battle tank that rumbled slowly through the gates. Surprisingly, despite the noise, the woman waved back. After a short while, the massive rolling temple disappeared in the dust coming off the road to the Hot Gates. “See? It
does
work!” She swatted Draco in the arm.

“Fine, fine, you were right. I can’t believe you remember that,” Draco said, rolling his eyes.

“I’ll take your apology in the form of foot massages for a month.”

“I can’t abide feet. They’re disgusting and they smell.”

“Okay, Princess D.”

“Speaking of smelly feet, I hear the exarch’s going to be taking part in the battle down on the ground, along with the triada. Those godrotting idiots would’ve taken the exarch down with them had they a Behelit,” Draco huffed.

“Good! We should just pass the damned thing to the archangel Yuriel, then,” Hadassah grumped. “She can shove it up her—”

“Hold your tongue,” Lotte admonished with a swat.

“I meant the bitchy one, not
you!
”

“When’s the attack?” Taki asked.

“Day after tomorrow, dawn,” Lotte said.

“Fuck it. Start drawing up your wills,” Draco said, smiling sadly. Lotte put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

“Polaris of the Cloud Temple!” Lotte said. “The mighty Imperium stands at the gates, intending to take our country, our homes, and our lives. We are outnumbered and outgunned. Our nation sends us on a suicide mission we never asked for, and our names will be forever erased from the histories if we succeed. But I promise you one thing in recompense: the enemy will curse us for the rest of their lives. They will remember how we turned their easy day into a nightmare, and we will laugh at them from hell. Are you with me, men and women of the Dominion?”

In response, Taki fell to his knees and vomited on the cobbles. Draco raised an eyebrow and looked at the others, who wore similarly confused expressions. Lotte’s determined expression started to waver. Finally, Karma broke the silence.

“Well, it’s worth a shot, I guess…” he muttered.

Later that evening, Taki barely managed not to have his life ended by another lumbering tank. Like any other army encampment, the Dominion side of the Hot Gates was a sprawling, smelly mess where dust choked the air so thickly that it formed nostril-plugging clods in midair. He recalled reading about how more soldiers tended to die of disease than wounds sustained in battle. As he gingerly hopped over backed-up latrines cut into the dirt right next to communal drinking troughs with a single ladle for a thousand men, he was inclined to agree. Tents studded the grounds in almost random order, some large and ornate to house the better and richer companies of levy troops and mercenaries, and others merely simple affairs that tended to freeze inside at night. In almost all of them, however, one could find the writhing bodies of naked troops and their camp followers. So embarrassed had Taki been to chance on one encounter that he had tripped over a bundle of pikes and fallen right into the path of a rumbling metal behemoth.

He rolled out of the way just in time to prevent his head from being crushed by the treads. Taki considered shouting at the inconsiderate driver, but decided that opening his mouth would be useless and dangerous. The infantrymen escorting the rust-bucket looked surly and were probably itching to administer a gang-beating.

The important thing was to find Lotte. She had left him a message earlier requesting his presence near the canteen, ostensibly to discuss the best locations for deploying the Behelit. Though he thought it strange that his captain would want to talk alone rather than involve the rest of the squad, an officer’s wishes were not to be ignored. Dusty and still annoyed by his brush with death, Taki arrived at a small tent near the canteen and waited. Nearby, he heard the strains of fiddle music and smelled the odor of roasting pork. Life went on, regardless of impending battle or not.

“Hail!” Karma said, and approached. On his arm was a young woman wearing an airy linen skirt and a yellow blouse topped with a jade shawl. Taki raised an eyebrow at the sight. He was pretty sure Karma and Hadassah had become romantically involved, though none had said for sure. So what was Karma doing with a camp follower on his arm?
Should I stay out of it? But Dassa’s my… I wouldn’t call her a friend… Well, I don’t know about that.

“Gillette,” Taki said, “have you seen the captain?”

Karma gave a conspiratorial wink. “I actually left you that letter.”

“You did? But it had her signature on it. You didn’t…”

“Forge it? No, she signed it willingly but allowed me to write what I needed to get you to come out here.”

“For what purpose?” Taki narrowed his eyelids.
Some kind of intrigue?
The last thing he needed right now in the face of impending death was to be caught up in another plot.
Oh God, is he acting in the minister’s stead? She’s his mother, after all. I have to be careful.

“Relax, Natalis,” Karma said. “We—I mean no harm, and intend no foul play. I just heard that you were a virgin, and I thought it unjust for you to perish without ever experiencing a woman’s touch. It is one of the few things we tainted ones are given the right to enjoy, no?”

“Aye,” Taki said, regretfully. “But what can I do about it right now?”

“You’re a dense one, aren’t you?” Karma chuckled. The camp follower eased off his arm and curtsied to Taki. “Meet Andromeda. When she heard your tale, she couldn’t help but feel compelled to do you a favor. And, some 'grad also helped.”

“Greetings, milord,” Andromeda said, and Taki blushed. Her long black tresses enchanted him, but most appealing to him was that she seemed devoid of the hard-eyed look that most camp followers seemed to develop over the years.

“H-hi,” Taki said, awkwardly. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“Relax, Natalis,” Karma chuckled. “This is a gift we all got you. Even Captain Cake chipped in. We’re not all bad people. Not all the time, anyway.”

“Master Karma is an honorable man,” Andromeda said. “Now come with me, milord. I’ll relieve you of your burden and give you a nice memory to take into battle.”

Taki blinked, and allowed her to take his hand. Karma waved jauntily and disappeared. Her touch felt unreasonably intoxicating, and his heart thundered in anticipation. Andromeda opened the flap of her nearby tent, and ushered him in.

Though the outside was simple canvas, the interior was lush, with a lining of velvet and fur, and a generous-sized mattress set out on an elevated wooden pallet, complete with goose-down pillows. Even the sheets appeared to be of high quality, and Taki could not see any obvious lice or fleas studding the surface. A nearby armoire even sported a mirror of polished steel, mostly devoid of imperfections. Taki half-expected Andromeda to simply start taking off her clothes, but instead, she gently eased him to the edge of the mattress and sat him down.

“Master Karma tells me this is your first time,” she said.

“I’ve seen a woman without her clothes,” Taki mumbled.

Andromeda giggled, although not maliciously. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, milord. It means you’re free of pox, and you’ll have a gentle touch. I like those qualities in a man.”

“Well,” Taki said, “I’m glad?”

Andromeda gently turned his face toward her and pressed her lips to his. Taki felt a band around his chest constrict and drive the air out, and he grew lightheaded at her touch. She pressed on, and started to slip her blouse off.
Finally,
Taki thought, as he swelled with anticipation.
Finally, I’ll be rid of my curse! Thank you, Karma! Thank you, everyone! I forgive you for everything!

“I’m telling you, he totally finished in his britches,” sounded a faint voice in the periphery. Taki’s ears pricked up. Sometimes, he regretted having better senses than normal humans.

“You’re underestimating his virgin resolve. Endure for my sake, Onani-Master Natalis!”

“Shush! You’re too loud! He’ll hear us for sure!”

“I spent too much on this to lose to the likes of you, Emreis.”

“Eat a dick, both of you! I wanna see ‘em
cuddle.
”

“Dassa, are you actually getting into this?” Someone chortled. “You’re a bloody romantic, aren’t you?”

“You creeps are killing my delicate lady-boner.”

Taki leapt from the edge of the bed and stormed over to the tent flap, through which he could now see the impressions of three bodies pressed against the canvas. He grasped the edge of the cloth and whipped it aside. Hadassah tumbled in first, followed by Karma and Draco into a pile of limbs. Taki clenched his teeth and his eyes moistened.

“I hate you all! Go die in a fire!” he shouted, and bolted from the tent, leaving a confused Andromeda behind to also glower at the trio.

Taki ran to the edge of camp with his face burning and his nose leaking. He almost barreled head-on into a Pantheon lieutenant, but did not stop to apologize. His pride had been grievously wounded, and he wanted most of all to run away. From his squad, from Andromeda, from the Behelit, from Amilia Gillette, from impending death. When he ran out of breath, he finally crouched in between a pair of barrels and dry-heaved while tears fell from his eyes. He wanted to find an endless pit and jump into it until he could curl up into a ball in the gullet of the fallen Lucifer, trapped in eternal ice at the center of the earth. Judas had it good there: he didn’t have to deal with this much humiliation.

“Natalis?” Lotte asked from behind. Taki turned and glared at her fiercely. She scrunched her brow and approached. “What’s wrong?”

“You know what’s wrong, Captain! I thought… I thought you all were trying to
help
me, but—” He sniffled and sucked a stalactite of snot back into a nostril.

“Oh no, what did they do?” Lotte sighed, and crouched down beside him.

“Begging your pardon, but don’t play ignorant with me. Gillette showed me the letter with your signature on it.”

“That? He told me he wanted to give you something nice because he felt sympathetic after how the triada treated you. I assumed he wanted to buy you a courtesan, and I gave him leave to do so. Did this not happen?”

“Oh Captain,” Taki sighed, and wiped his eyes. “He did, but they were all trying to…to
watch
me! And they were taking bets on how long I’d last.”

Lotte rolled her eyes. “
Idiots.
I don’t suppose I can convince you that they actually meant well? Karma showed me what he was going to spend. Seven rounds of thirty-ought-six: enough to buy the only girl in camp without the pox. But it looks like they all shot themselves in the foot, yet again.”

“He spent that much?” Taki brought a hand to his mouth to hide his grimace.

“And now he’s out the full amount. But that’s their fault, not yours,” Lotte said with a knowing smile. She stood and offered her hand. “Walk with me for a bit. I want to stretch my legs after a rather dry and uninteresting meeting with our commanders.”

Taki nodded, and rose. Unlike Andromeda’s silky softness, Lotte’s grip was callused throughout. Lotte felt warmer, though. They walked in silence past mounds of night soil left by the cavalry and grog lines redolent of sweat, until she came to an outcropping at the northern edge of the camp, and motioned for him to sit down beside her.

“You can see the Imperial camp in the distance,” she said, and pointed far north. Taki strained his eyes. Despite the puffiness around his sockets, he could see flickering, almost ethereal specks of torchlight in the otherwise uninterrupted darkness. “And that outcropping is where you’ll use the Behelit.” She shifted her finger to a rest over ledge overlooking the pass.

“Right over the bottleneck?” Taki asked. “Won’t that be heavily contested?”

“Our side will pay dearly for every step. History says that whoever controls the hills near the pass wins the day. So that’s where we’ll be tomorrow.”

Taki swallowed and shivered, despite the balmy night air. He looked over to Lotte.

“Are we doing the right thing?”

“Who can say? In the fire of battle lies purity. I’ve always found my truth there. But I can tell that you might think differently these days.”

“I…I will follow your orders no matter what. You are my commander, and no one else.”

“Thank you, Taki Natalis,” Lotte said. She inhaled and ran a hand through her hair. “So, were you at least able to lose it?”