Soldier's Memory

“She flew?”

“She flew.” Seth slapped the table with his mug. Deidre looked at him quizzically.

“Seth, you’ve always been a relentlessly, almost painfully honest man, but I think maybe you’re trying to pull one over on me,” she said with a wry grin. Deidre was a tall, sturdy woman of considerable will and strong Ishighetta stock. She was plain and unremarkable in most respects, but her sunny smile seemed to diminish the more cosmopolitan concepts of beauty accepted in the noble circles of the citadel. She was the perfect wife for Roland, inasmuch as she could routinely best him in physical combat – something they engaged in all too often.

“It was perfect. Perfect form, perfect motion – everything just as laid out in the medical journals. A real live Avian over the west river. And I was this close to getting her.”

Deidre continued clearing the dishes as Seth and Roland sat at the table. The technologist had been in rare form throughout dinner, rattling off long, fantastic descriptions of his encounter on the train. Roland mulled it over quietly, while Deidre attempted to temper the wild tale into something straightforward. She noticed that Seth had barely touched his food.

“Think about it. There hasn’t been an Avian sighted in the city for years. Even in the principalities you never hear more than rumors. Now one shows up on the evening train into Ashworld, and she’s carrying stolen military surplus. This could be monumental. If Ablach is making a move to support the Kait insurgency then it could mean a drastic shift in the political balance around the Uzumaki Sea. Not to mention the ramifications for the city watch. We’ll have to deploy the air navy over the city directly to monitor the sky – the potential for espionage is higher than ever be-“

“You reported it, yes?” said Roland abruptly. It was the first thing he had said since they started eating. Seth’s reined in his runaway analysis for the moment.

“I gave instructions to the guard officers and sent a messenger to inform Galen what was going on,” he said.

“And then you came here, when you should be reporting to the Imperial Guard directly.”

“And then I came here to see you.” Seth leveled a finger at Roland. “Because we’re going to find her.”

Roland leaned back and sighed. An uncomfortable moment stretched between them.

“I’ll set out a bed for you, Seth. The next train back isn’t until tomorrow,” Deidre said, taking the opportunity to leave the room. She looked worriedly at Roland before walking up the narrow steps of their apartment.

Roland leaned down in a conspiratorial hunch. “The laws of the pogrom are very clear on this. You should be back at the citadel reporting your findings to Larkspur and Command.”

“I don’t have any findings yet, that’s why I came to see you. I’m certain the girl is collaborating with whatever forces are working in Ashworld. You know this place better than anyone, and I figured you’d be up for a little direct action for a change.” Seth smiled at Roland’s stoic face.

“This isn’t about advancement or heroics, Seth. We’re talking about the safety of the whole city. Maybe I play a little fast and loose with my duties, and I’m happy to invite you along any time you want to break up a bar fight on one of your little slumming trips, but this is bloody serious work.”

“You know that if Command calls up the army they’ll swarm in here and drive away any chance of tracking these people down. But if we can capture the girl, or someone with connections to her, we can ask questions, get some information for Command.”

“People? Girl? Will you listen to yourself? We’re talking about animals here! Why in bloody hell do you always want to talk to them?” spat back Roland. “You think they’re interested in talking? In having a little academic heart to heart with Seth Delocke, the great trial champion? There’s a reason these things were purged from the city, Seth – we are at war with them. If you had lived through that you’d bloody well understand that we don’t have the luxury of talking. It’s kill or be killed.”

Seth sat stunned. Roland had always been the first to suggest going it alone, bucking authority on one venture or another. Seth never knew the lieutenant had such deep feelings on this one issue. Another off moment passed between the old friends before Seth spoke again.

“The Purge was a matter for the whole empire, Rol. I’m not so provincial that I didn’t know what was going on. The Delockes manage three counties – we played our part in that fight.”

“You weren’t in the city, Seth. You just don’t know what it was like.” Roland sat sideways to the table, as if keeping his distance. He tapped his fingers lightly on the wood surface. “I know what you did. You rounded up some folks, put them on wagons, gently encouraged them to move. Your family did its duty managing an exodus, but you were just a stop along the road. It started right here in Tarsis.” The lieutenant’s eyes drifted about the room, as if looking for a point of familiarity – an anchor to hold him in his warm apartment while his memory drifted back across cold years.

“When it began that winter, there were fires. Everywhere, fires. The Emperor’s proclamation went out and the citizens did their duty. They faced the threat of the Kait head on. Shops and meeting houses were turned out into the street. Wagons were put to the torch. The cats weren’t helpless, that’s for sure. They fought, and they fought hard. It was a long time in the coming, and I supposed they sensed it, prepared themselves. Avians, too, even a few Tsauur were there, hiding in the shadows. You know those wings you were going on about? They burn. They burn bright.”

Images of the green tanks under the Academy flickered through Seth’s mind.

“My father was a fisherman. We lived down by the old wharf on the east bank. He always had a soft spot for the critters. I don’t know why. Mum always said he liked to take in strays, feed them the small catch right off the quay. She was always yelling at him for that.

“Anyway, there was a bookkeeper near the waterfront what collected holy scrolls from Ablach and Kharak, always first off the boats from Cardiff Gorge. He was a Kait from Toriande. Had some kits that used to play around the fishing boats, probably hoping for a handout. For some reason Pa got it in his head to get the damn cat and his family out by boat before the mob got to them.

“But we didn’t get there first. It was a well-known place, and a hundred angry men must have filled that street in front of the wharf. They burned the shop, and the Kait ran for the docks. My father was all set to give them his skiff, his livelihood, just to get them free of the city. He stood there on the quay, holding the lines for them like a bloody angel of redemption. But it wasn’t just the bookkeeper and his family running toward us. It was a dozen revolutionaries that the old cat had been hiding there.” Roland gripped the edge of the table tight enough to turn the knuckles white.

“They drew steel and butchered him right there next to his boat. He must have seen it coming, because he pushed me into the water a moment before. All he wanted was to give them a fair out, to show his boy that there were bigger things than war and hatred and revolution – that there was also basic human compassion. And they killed him for it. Because they’re not human.

“You want to talk to them, want to ask them why they do it? Want to know why they creep back into the city and try to tear it down? Why every day I get up and tell Deidre I love her because I might take a mouthful of gunpowder before nightfall? Why these beasts want to sap us, kill us, skin us and burn what’s left?”

The soldier looked directly at the technologist, and Seth had never seen more serious eyes on his friend.

“Because if it were their city, I’d do the same.”