Brothers of the Snake Read online

  'Twenty-three and you're dead.’ said Natus.

  'Not always.’ said Aekon. The older brothers looked at him.

  'What would you know?' Xander asked.

  'Nothing, brother.’

  Khiron began to strip. Scyllon and Xander started doing the same.

  'Twenty-three!' Pindor called.

  'I'm going in.’ Khiron said, handing his greaves to Dyognes.

  Will you shame him further?' asked Aekon, quietly. The squad members glared at him once more.

  'You've got a mouth on you today, youngster.’ said Pindor.

  'Our brother-sergeant's not doing this for fool's glory like we all did.’ Aekon persisted. 'He's doing it for the boy. But if he takes glory in it too, I think it might soothe his mind.’

  'Rubbish!' spat Xander.

  Khiron stared at Aekon. The sea breeze caught at his loose grey hair. 'You think he'd prefer to do this without help?'

  'I think he'd rather die than show weakness after what we've told him.’ Khiron glanced at the others. A few nodded.

  'Twenty-four!' Pindor called out. Scyllon and Xander began to run down the beach towards the water.

  'No!' Khiron yelled. They faltered and turned.

  'No.’ Khiron repeated.

  'But-' Xander began.

  'That's an order, brother. No one goes in.’ Scyllon and Xander trudged back up the beach. As he passed Aekon, Xander growled 'Fine counsel you give, brother. If Priad dies-'

  'He won't.’ said Aekon.

  'He's dead already.’ Natus said. 'Twenty-three and you're dead. No one's ever bettered twenty-three.’

  'That's enough.’ barked Khiron.

  They waited, past the call of 'twenty-five'. The sun burned their skins. The waves broke, and breezes stirred the treeline where the pale-faced petitioners waited, watching the veterans on the sand. Scale-birds circled and called overhead.

  'Twenty-six.’ Pindor whispered.

  There was a splash, far out, and they all stepped forward. Racing sail-fish broke the water again, scales glinting like glass. Some of Damocles turned away, not wanting to look any more.

  'Twenty-seven.’

  Aekon looked at Natus, knowing the brother was about to pronounce his doom-laden rule yet again.

  'There! There!' Andromak yelled.

  They saw head and shoulders break the surface thirty strides from the shoreline in a puff of spray and foam. The form vanished again, then resurfaced and began swimming slowly to the shore.

  The men of Damocles, all except Khiron, raised a lusty cheer. Xander punched the air with his fists.

  'Priad! Priad!'

  Priad struggled ashore. As he came up through the shallows, they saw why his swimming had been so laboured, and their cheer died away. Priad was half-carrying, half-dragging a limp, white form draped in sea-ribbon like a victory garland.

  This was no victory.

  The men ran down to him, and helped him to bear Pugnus's body up onto the sand. Khiron knelt over the petitioner, pulled away the slippery wreaths of sea-ribbon, and began to pump his chest. He opened Pugnus's mouth and cleared the airway, but there was no breath.

  'His third lung's seized and locked.’ Khiron said, pressing deep with his fingertips. 'It's a solid mass. No heartbeats.'

  'He might have deanimated.’ Kules said.

  'He's not had the tutoring.’ Andromak said. 'Besides, you think he could put himself under while he was drowning?'

  Khiron pressed harder. Pugnus gave a long, moaning gasp as air squeezed out of him.

  Khiron shook his head. 'Not respiration. Just the multi-lung relaxing and opening. He's gone.’

  No one spoke. Their eyes turned towards Priad.

  'Pick him up.’ said Priad.

  IV

  Something was going on. The urgent summons had already told them that much. As their transport descended into the great landing vault of the Chapter House fortress, they could see full scale preparations for war under way. Loaders and munition carriers milled about parked lift ships, and fighting vehicles were being marshalled up the deck ramps into yawning carriers. Service personnel bustled everywhere, taking orders from the equerries. Martial banners had been unfurled along the bastion wall. This was no commonplace undertaking.

  Priad led the company off the transport. Captain Phobor, dressed in plate and carrying a pair of marshalling flags, came over to their landing deck. In his gargantuan case of armour, he towered over all of them. His head was bare, his hair oiled and bound up to receive the war helm.

  'You're late.’ he said. 'Lagging behind all the others by two hours. I expect better of Damocles.’

  'I stand rebuked, brother-captain.’ said Priad, taking Phobor's steady gaze. 'I await censure.’

  'No explanation? No excuse?'

  'We are late answering the summons. I cannot hide that. There is no reason to excuse it.’

  'Twenty stripes for your back, Priad. Ten for each in your command. But first, you-'

  He halted. Six of the petitioners, in their white chitons, were carrying Pugnus's body down from the transport on a bier.

  A death?' asked Phobor.

  Yes, brother-captain.’

  'Make your report to the lexicania. Make it good. But first, as I was saying, report immediately to the strategoi.’

  "What's happening?' Priad asked.

  "War's happening. Now get on.’

  Priad sent the petitioners to their dorms, and his men to the barrack hall to ready themselves. Clad only in his red chiton, Priad walked the marble colonnades of the fortress moon and attended the strategoi.

  Sweet incense had been lit in the censer bowls to propitiate the spirits of war, and petitioners were raising a slow, heartbeat pulse from kettle drums behind the awning. The armoured roof of the chamber had been closed, though that was merely symbolic.

  In the vestibule of dark brown and black tiles, squad officers were gathering, most in full plate, to listen to the news and cast their ballots in the ancient, chipped kylix that stood ready on its plinth in the centre of the chamber. The officers were taking carved faience tokens from the wall rack and tossing them into the old toasting cup. Priad heard the stone tokens drop with a plunk. Each token denoted a phratry squad, and by placing it in the kylix, an officer declared his squad battle-ready and eager to be considered for the honour of selection. At the end of the period, the two-handed cup, wide-dished upon its pedestal foot, would be taken to Seydon and the selection made.

  Priad saw Strabo, heavy in his armour, placing Manes squad's token in the pot.

  'Brother, what is the number?' Priad asked as his comrade came over.

  'Twenty-five squads.’ Strabo said, unable to disguise the excitement in his voice.

  'Twenty-five?' Priad had not known the Chapter field such numbers in his lifetime. Not in one place. In the great age of the Reef Wars perhaps, but in modern times? Even at Eidon they'd raised only six.

  'For what undertaking?' Priad asked.

  'Full war with the greenskins.’ Strabo smiled. War with the swine! A mass incursion, so they say. A plague. It is reckoned Seydon himself will lead the order. We are sent to Ganahedarak to pitch combat with them there.'

  "We, brother? Are you so confident?'

  'Manes squad is due selection.’ said Strabo. 'We deserve a slice of this glory, and Manes has not been in such fettle for years.’

  'I send you luck.’ said Priad.

  'And Damocles?' Strabo asked. 'Surely your brothers are itching for a taste of this? Cast your ballot. Let it be Manes and Damocles, shoulder to shoulder, like the old days.’

  Priad half-smiled and nodded. He stared at the casting kylix for a long time.

  The Great Bell of the Fortress was tolling. There was no chamber, no hall, no basement in the Chapter House of Karybdis where it couldn't be heard.

  To Priad, walking the shadowed hallways of the western barracks, it sounded like a dull gong, but that was merely due to his distance from it, and the thick bastion walls that
stood in between him and it. The Great Bell was the size of a drop-pod, and a team of twenty servants in the belfry were hauling on the geared pulleys to move the striker.

  The toll announced that the period was over, and that the Chapter Master had made his selection for the order of battle.

  In the ante-room of the barrack hall, Damocles was gearing. The brothers stood amid the trestle frames, anointing and casing themselves. Klepiades and the other petitioners were serving them, working as earnestly and devotedly as regular Chapter House attendants. Hair was being oiled and braided up; hands, forearms and torsos bound tight with straps of leather and linen. Plug points were being lubricated, feed lines fixed across skin with flesh staples, armour plates dutifully connected and locked into place. The petitioners were polishing eveiy segment of armour with oil cloths, burnishing the surfaces to an almost mirror-quality gleam. Each segment was ritually blessed before it was clamped in place. Myrtle leaves and camphor burned in dishes around the alcoves, filling the air with perfume.

  All activity ceased as Priad came in. The brothers rose to their feet to face him, most of them half-suited in their armour. Priad saw his own case of armour supported ready on a trestle, polished to a spectacular finish, his power claw on a smaller trestle to the side.

  'Twenty-five squads, so we were told.’ Khiron said at last, breaking the expectant hush. 'Damocles is battle-ready.’

  'What is the undertaking?' Xander asked, his golden eyes bright.

  'The Chapter makes war on the greenskins.’ Priad replied. There was an eager mutter. 'The Master himself leads the battle chosen to combat.’

  'A momentous day.’ said Pindor, old enough to remember the last time such a grand muster had been made.

  What are our orders, brother-sergeant?' Andromak asked. He was holding the squad standard in his huge, gauntleted hands. 'We are ready for you to begin the rites.’

  Priad did not blink. 'Damocles has not been selected.’ he said.

  The silence that followed had a heavy, painful quality.

  'Damocles has not been selected?' Xander repeated slowly, as if he could make no sense of the words.

  'We have not been selected for this undertaking.’ Priad said.

  'There's been an error made!' Andromak spluttered.

  'An error?' cried Natus. An insult more like! Damocles is one of the Notables! This spits on our honour!'

  The others began to add their voices to the complaint. Khiron remained silent, watching Priad with hooded eyes.

  'Twenty-five squads, and we didn't rate?' Xander raged. 'This is a joke! To think the Chapter Master would select even the ten best squads, the five best, and Damocles not be one of them!'

  'The Chapter Master did not select Damocles.’ said Priad, 'because I did not cast our token into the kylix.'

  Khiron sighed. Xander looked fit to strike at Priad, his face seething with uncomprehending fury. Scyllon placed a firm hand on Xander's arm to stay him.

  'Why?' asked Kules.

  'An officer casts his ballot to announce his squad is battle-ready' Priad stared at them all. 'Damocles is not battle-ready. Not at all.'

  'The hell you say!' Xander exclaimed.

  'Watch that mouth.’ Khiron growled. 'The brother-sergeant's word is law in this room.'

  'You feel cheated of glory?' Priad asked them. 'Good. By your own admission, all of you have revelled in the empty glory of the trench. You have given in to your own weakness and pride. You are not fit to advance under the standard.'

  'That's nonsense!' Andromak cried. 'It may be forbidden, but the trench is an old, respected honour test! There will be dozens of battle-brothers selected today who have done it!'

  'But they have not openly confessed to their officers. Besides, each and every squad leader commands by the terms of his own conscience. I do not expect a high standard of behaviour from Damocles. I expect a flawless standard of behaviour. Strip off your armour, and make ready for practice drills. Expect at least a month of primary regimen. And there will be stripes to take before the day's end.’

  'Is this punishment?' asked Aekon.

  'No.’ answered Priad, 'it's atonement. When I think you've restored your honour, and mine, then I might approve you as battle-ready.’

  V

  The moon Karybdis seemed to fill half the night sky. It shone with a glassy, perfect clarity through the cold air.

  Priad perched on the top of an outcrop of dark blue ice, the bronze cleats of his ice-boots chipping into the surface, and pulled his furs around him. He gazed up at the fortress moon, and fancied he could still see the light wakes of the departing battle-barges, making way on their undertaking, bound for glory.

  Imagination, of course. By his estimation, the battle company had left at least five days earlier. He hadn't even allowed Damocles the consolation of attending the embarkation parade.

  He rose to his feet, his lungs full of biting winter air, and looked back down the white glow of the glacier with his night-adjusted eyes. This was Kraretyer, greatest and mightiest of the glaciers that snaked their gigantic bulks out of Ithaka's southern pole into the frozen, ice-littered seas.

  There was no wind, but the temperature was eight below due to the emptiness of the sky. In the far west, above the Oikon Ramparts, snow-bearded frost giants that formed the central massif of the polar region, the twinkling stars were hazy, as through a fine mesh. An ice storm was brewing, fillings its cheeks with the purest, lethal cold of the polar heartland. It could be on them in an hour, cutting like a swarm of blades.

  He jumped down from the outcrop onto the rink-flat surface of the glacier itself, smooth violet ice dusted with a skin of powder snow that seemed almost luminous in the moonlight. His cleats kicked up flurries of it in the still air, and he steadied himself on his blade-pole. He waited for Damocles to come into view.

  Priad was clad in an insulated bodyglove, boots, mailed ice-gloves and a hooded mantle of snow-leopard furs. The brothers of Damocles enjoyed no such luxury.

  They came in sight, jogging hard across the flatness of the glacier shelf. Bare feet, aching from contact with the ice, bare legs and arms and hands, simple chitons of thin, red linen. They wore frost-shawls, tied like sashes around their waists, supporting small pouches of simple utility items and bronze ice axes. They were panting, cheeks raw and pinched, sweat freezing on their upper arms and brows. Each man was lugging a thirty-kilo block of ice on his shoulder.

  Priad watched them approach. He struck his blade-pole into the ice, and unhooked the sling scales from his waist-belt, shaking out the canvas loops.

  The men came closer. As Priad expected, Xander was in the lead by some distance, Andromak and Dyognes behind him, then Kules, with his odd, almost waddling manner of running. The rest of them played out behind. This was the sixth time in three days they had run this drill, and each time Xander had made the best showing.

  Xander ran up and came to a halt, his bare feet, blue-numb, scuffing in the snow. He slid the block off his shoulder, leaving the folds of the chiton there clinging with meltwater.

  'Brother-sergeant,' he gasped, supporting the glistening block in his hands.

  Priad fitted the canvas loops around the block, supported the scales by the brass hook, and let the weight swing free. The gauge read thirty-one and a half kilos.

  'Pass.’ said Priad, letting the block fall out and smash on the ground. 'Go dig your burrow.'

  Xander nodded, too cold to speak, and limped away, pulling out his ice-axe. He headed for the snow banks on the far side of the glacier.

  Dyognes arrived next, outrunning Andromak for the first time. Andromak was close behind, and had to wait as Dyognes's block was weighed.

  'Thirty-one and one hundred, a pass.’ Priad said. Dyognes nodded, grateful, and respectfully waited while Andromak got his reading.

  'Thirty and seven hundred. You pass too.'

  One by one, the men reached Priad. The drill was simple enough: each man had to hack out a block of ice with his axe, then run
with it down twenty kilometres of the glacier. Who came first and who last was not the question. The block simply had to weigh in excess of thirty kilos by the time it was measured at the finish. There was no weigh-in at the start. Each man had to gauge the weight of his block by eye and common sense, allowing for that part of it that would be lost to melt during the course of the drill. Underestimate, and the block would be less than the crucial thirty kilos by the time it was delivered. Indeed, on the first day, Aekon's inexperience led him to cut a slab that couldn't have been more than twenty-seven kilos to begin with.

  But overestimation was a handicap too. Cut too much of a margin of error, and the runner would be labouring under far more weight than he needed to manage. On his second run, Aekon compensated for his initial error, and brought back a block that was over thirty-eight kilos. He had barely been able to stand by the time he arrived.

  Failure to meet the thirty-kilo cut-off required a candidate to repeat the drill, alone if necessary, as many times as it took for him to get a pass.

  Pindor and Khiron, the oldest men, were the last to finish. Pindor's slab weighed in at a fraction over thirty, the lightest load, but legal. Priad passed him, and he went to join the others, digging resting holes in the snow bank with their axes.

  Khiron's block weighed twenty-nine and nine hundred.

  The Apothecary tossed it aside, so that it splintered on the ground, and turned away, taking a deep breath. Though he was as aggrieved with Khiron as with the rest of them, Priad had felt it unseemly for the Apothecary to participate in the common drills. But Khiron had rejected any notion of favoured treatment. He had demanded to be tested on a par with the others. As a result, he had re-run the drill twice in the past two days.

  'Pass.’ said Priad.

  'It was not.’ Khiron replied, without turning round.

  'I say it was. Get to your burrow.’

  'I was unsuccessful. I am required to repeat the test.’

  'Brother, there's a storm coming in...'

  'Let it bite.’

  'Damn it!' Priad said. 'Do as I tell you! Your blasted stoicism-'