Guns of the Temple (The Polaris Chronicles Book 1) (31 page)

Chronicler dashed over, kicked the Behelit out of Taki’s hands, and lifted him off the ground by the throat. Hecaton growled and spat as she attempted to claw her way to them.

“Strange that you survived that. Perhaps there is more to you than meets the eye,” Chronicler said, tilting his head in curiosity. One of his hands drew back, fingers pressed together and pointed straight for a penetrating blow. “Regardless, I will correct my mistake now.”

The starspeaker in Taki’s belt pouch buzzed to life. A woman’s voice and a disembodied melody filled the silent devastation all around.

“Ooh, baby do you know what that’s worth? Ooh Heaven is a place on Earth.”

“I think…it’s for you,” Taki said, bubbling bloody froth. His expression inscrutable, Chronicler relaxed his spear-hand, took the small relic, and pressed a flashing button.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“I am Amilia Gillette.” Her voice possessed a disembodied quality, but the heavens had aligned well enough for her words to be clear. “I am a minister of the Argead Dominion, and wielder of the God Hand. I assume this is the Chronicler?”

“I have the Behelit, Minister. Does this inconvenience you?”

“No, it does not. The device has already broadcast your coordinates. The God Hand is ready for launch from the holy sepulcher of Ooss. It can arrive at its destination within five minutes. The reach of the purging sutra within it covers far more territory than even you will be able to traverse. If you do not do as I say, you and the entire Liberation Army are dust.”

Chronicler released Taki from his grasp, and the boy fell to the ground in a sputtering heap. Hecaton regained her feet and lurched over to Taki’s side. He tried to speak with her, only to be shushed. Warmth and relief suffused his body with the transfer of her prana to him, and he realized that she was uncharacteristically attempting to save him.
So she can kill me later?
He laughed, and it was painful.

“Where is your master, the basileus?” Chronicler asked.

“His Grace has perished in an accident,” Amilia said without a hint of irony. “As such, his exarch and nobility have sworn fealty to me. I will not, however, presume to call myself basileus until the appropriate mourning period has passed.”

Chronicler was silent for a moment, before bursting into grim laughter.

“If only we had a zakhiragch like you back in my homeland, Minister. It seems we are at an impasse. If I do not do as you say, I and many others will die. But you will also lose your last line of defense. The Padishah will send more soldiers, and you will hang by your guts as surely as the moon evades bullets. So how do you propose we resolve this disharmony,
Your Grace?
”

“I am ready to surrender the Dominion to the Osterbrand Imperium. However, I will only do so with stipulations. Withdraw your army and call your master to the table, or your next visitor will be a mushroom cloud.”

The starspeaker went silent for the last time. Chronicler grimaced and tightened his grip to crush it into slivers that glimmered as they fell through his fingers. He stared at Taki for a moment, as if debating whether to kill him. Hecaton tilted her head, as if inviting him to try. Chronicler sniffed, and turned away. He strode over to a battered Aslatiel, who stood painfully at attention despite the blood staining his torn tunic.

“Alfa Gruppe, cease hostilities. Assist the enemy wounded and withdraw to the staging area. I must speak with our master.”

“Chronicler, I never grow tired of seeing you upstaged by crafty women,”
Hecaton said in their shared tongue. She wiped a streak of blood from her lip into her forearm. She squatted and lit another hand-rolled cigarillo, puffing on it as smugly as she could.
“I’m surprised and yet disappointed. You’re still just someone’s lapdog, even as old and crusty as you’ve become.”

The old man curled one of his hands into a fist, but relaxed it in the same breath.
“Unlike you, my dear wife, I am no traitor. If you’re going to spend your life running away, then at least make offerings to Golden Peach’s soul.”

Hecaton stood and spat a gob of scarlet on Chronicler’s boots.

Taki’s eyes widened in terror – would the two start their horrific brawl yet again? This time, he would not survive. He’d already cheated death so many times that it was heresy to survive again. He gritted his teeth and prepared for the end.

“Never say her name again,” Hecaton whispered. “Don’t make me brain you! Git out!”

Chronicler was flinty-eyed, but he turned to leave.

Taki let out a ragged breath. So uneasy had he been during the exchange between the two ancients that he had failed to notice Aslatiel looming overhead with sword unsheathed. Taki flinched on instinct, recalling their first encounter. Instead of going for a decapitation, however, the man knelt and extended his free hand to touch Taki’s face. As Taki felt fingertips brush gently against the healing wound on his cheek, prana started to flow, and the lancinating pain in Taki’s chest began to subside.

“We meet again, Taki Natalis.”

“Are you angry at me, Aslatiel van Halcon?”

“Quite the opposite. It’s obvious that you’ve changed since we last talked, and that you’ve also had a hand in changing things around you.”

Taki grimaced and looked away. “At too high a price.”

“Yet you have your integrity intact. That’s rare in this world.”

“Integrity means little without strength. And I lack it, sorely.”

“Then start by improving your swordsmanship,” Aslatiel said. He gracefully turned his kriegsmesser onto its side and presented it to Taki, blade facing politely away from the intended recipient. “We owe you a new blade, anyway.”

His hands trembling, Taki accepted. It felt light and strong, balanced on his fingertips. “Thank you.” He looked back up at Aslatiel. “Why are you doing this?”

Aslatiel smiled and opened his mouth to say something else, when an enraged Lucatiel pounced and began to drag him away by the scruff.

“Bastard!” she snarled at Taki. “Stop seducing my brother. I’ve got your number! I’ve got your ass!”

Taki blinked in amazement, and then started to blush. “I’m not doing anything!”

Lucatiel leveled one of her pistols at him and sent two rounds into the soft earth at his feet. “Man-whore!”

Aslatiel could only shrug. Taki clutched the kriegsmesser to his chest and started to laugh. It was a bizarre ending to what had been an impossible day.

The field hospital stank of putrefying bowel. The groans of the wounded melted onerously together into a single, uninterrupted dirge. It had been less than a day, and already the survivors knew that their homeland was lost to the Imperium. Everyone had seen the padishah arrive earlier on board his shining golden-crimson flying carriage. As the sublime relic had descended on the battlefield in the thick of the Liberation Army, the cheer could be heard all the way on the Dominion side. Although actual negotiations with the new basileus—called “The Usurper” by some—were still ongoing, the conclusion was inevitable. The official counts were not ready yet, but the whispers were of two thousand Argead dead. The Imperials had supposedly lost nearly double that number, though by the high spirits in the opposing camp, one would think they had lost only the least-loved officers.

Despite the shock of defeat, most Argeads only wanted to go home. Preparing their homesteads for the winter was a task that most of the men fighting that day needed to get back to. Empires rose and fell, but the seasons did not wait. Taki counted himself among the lucky ones from the battle, for at least he was able to walk, albeit slowly and burdened by a nagging ache in his trunk with every breath. The others were still fresh from the surgeons’ ministrations and confined to bed. He had been helping change their bandages. It was a welcome distraction from the fact that he had nearly wiped two armies off the face of the earth on the orders of the Usurper. He sat at Lotte’s bedside, attentively dabbing blood away from a weeping gash on her forehead.

“Natalis,” Lotte said. She sat up in her cot, her expression sleepy. The shock of seeing her rise despite elephantine doses of laudanum from earlier nearly made Taki knock over a stack of linens. For the second time, and now up close, he could see just how many scars she wore on her back. Tracks of white and pink with the stars of old bullet and bolt wounds. A map of the battles of her life.

“Captain, you shouldn’t be up, you need to rest—”

She shushed him.

“I feel better now. I’m a quick healer. How is your chest feeling? The major told me that what the Chronicler did to you has killed many more powerful men.”

Taki glanced down at his own body. Nearly his entire torso was covered with dark purple bruises. “Just a little soreness, that’s all. I’m more concerned about how everyone else is doing. I heard Draco’s leg got broken, and…”

“…And it’s a little greenstick fracture. I’ll be walking tomorrow, whether the sawbones like it or not!” Draco said, pulling aside the dividing curtain hiding his bed. True to his word, his right leg was bound up in a bulky plaster splint. He busily pried at the edges with his fingers in an effort to scratch an itch underneath.

“Karma almost gave him a sponge bath by accident!” Hadassah snickered, also woken by the noise. Before she could say more, she turned pale and gagged. Earlier, the surgeons had forced her to swallow a potent elixir of garlic extract for prognosis. They could smell no leakage from the wound, so she was likely to live. So they had said, at least.

Draco shuddered. “I’d rather have a wanking from one of those Alfa.”

“Blow me, Emreis. You’d be lucky to get a sponge bath from me. You need one, too,” Karma said. He flipped Draco off with his unwounded hand.

“You lot…” Taki gingerly tied a new length of gauze around Lotte’s head. “I almost got you all killed. Shouldn’t you be angrier? Why are you acting like nothing happened?”

“Natalis,” Draco chuckled, “Almost getting killed is part of this job. Or were you asleep for that part of the academy?”

Taki sighed. They still didn’t get it. “I was working for minister Gillette in secret. That’s why I was given that damned Behelit. I nearly threw away everyone’s lives.”

Lotte shrugged. “So what do you want me to do? Smack you? I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Yeah, and you won. The minister is the basileus now,” Hadassah said. “So it all worked out in the end. We’re going to hit her up for favors since she owes you one, and therefore, owes
us!
” She cackled and rubbed her hands together. Friction made the smell of garlic waft around the room again, and she stuck her tongue out in disgust.

“Aye,” Draco said. “We’re all up for a hanging anyway, so what’s a little treason going to add? And maybe we’ll be forgiven now, right? Basically I agree with Dassa.”

“My, good sir. You’re matured impressively since our last meeting. Maybe you’ll be able to socialize with women who aren’t completely insane,” Hadassah said.

“Oh be quiet, you damned garlic-chugger.”

“In truth, Natalis, we all suspected you were up to something, but we trusted you,” Lotte said. “You’ve fought alongside us and bled with us. Or was your bluster about reclaiming the unit name all for show?”

“Even though we’ve lost? Even though the Dominion is no more?” Taki asked. “I might’ve cost you all your futures. What if we’re all forced into the streets tomorrow?”

“Calm down,” Karma said. “Changes don’t happen overnight, even with new overlords. We’ll simply have to take things as they come. More than likely, we’ll be back at the Cloud Temple in a fortnight, but hopefully not peeling potatoes. After all, why should the exarch care now?”

“I’m pretty sure we’ll be peeling,” Lotte said. She took one of Taki’s hands in hers. “In any case, I’ve been thinking, Natalis. You may have been forced to join us, but you’ve become our friend. You also have talent and guts. So even though the rank may not mean anything when the Dominion Army is dissolved, I’m using my authority to promote you. You are now Cornet Natalis, an officer candidate of the junior grade. Congratulations,” She smiled. “Sorry, I don’t have the official insignia on me, but I’ll update it on the ledger as soon as I can.”

“Now you have to take us all out for drinks!” Hadassah said. “Better have saved up,
sir!”

“It’s customary! After all, if you’re going to be ordering us around, you have to get us sauced up,” Draco said. “Or we’ll frag you for sure.”

Taki grit his teeth, tried not to cry, and failed miserably.

A week later, Tirefire the Lesser was back in the same dank, smelly room they had started in. Freshly washed tubers rolled from a chute into a large wooden tub, and the door periodically opened to let the scullion through to pick up the remnants. Torches flickered dimly overhead.

Taki panted to lessen the heat scorching his palate. What he had just tried to eat tasted and smelled unlike any other food in the world to his knowledge, and it was damnably good. The others seemed to agree, since now they all violated an earlier pact to never eat potatoes again.

“Emreis, how the hell did you think of doing this?” Taki asked as he went for another deep-fried sliver of potato.