CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

“This place is wonderful.” Florin roared, waving his mug as though it were a marshal’s baton and the thatched wall’s tapestries. “It’s fantastic. By Shallya’s belly I’d forgotten how wonderful dry land felt!”

“Reminds me of Bordeleaux,” Lundorf remarked, provoking an explosion of drunken laughter from his friend.

Lorenzo took a sip of the fermented sugarcane that passed for brandy in this hovel of a tavern, then spat it out onto the damp earth of the floor. He was beginning to wish that he’d gone with Orbrant to search for supplies.

Although, had he done so, he had no doubt that Florin would have led his brother officer into some lethal excess or other. And Swamptown, despite the brothels and bars that formed its decadent core, was no place for excess.

 

They’d found the squalid settlement the previous day, just as the pack of pirate sloops that called the miserable haven home had found them. The verminous ships had closed in around Gorth’s flotilla as it tacked its way towards harbour, but a well-timed parade of the ship’s mercenary cargo had been enough to keep them at bay.

One look at the disciplined ranks of mercenaries, bristling with lethal combinations of steel and firearms, had put paid to the brigands’ dreams of loot. They had slunk off disappointedly, slipping over the horizon in search of easier prey.

Which had been lucky. Moments after the flotilla had tied up to Swamptown’s rickety bamboo pier the mercenary army had ceased to exist. In its place was a stampeding mob, an untameable rabble that had swept away into the grubby embrace of the malarial town and left their ships almost completely unguarded.

Colonel van Delft had wisely waited until the first and most violent of his men’s needs had been met before shepherding them to the billets he hastily arranged. Then, and only then, did he give his officers leave, and the freedom of Swamptown.

Swamptown. In naming the place the inhabitants had shown a surprising honesty. Their crudely built huts and hovels were riddled with termites and slimed with mould; even the newest stank of decay as they rotted slowly back into the ground from which they had sprung. They stank as they decomposed, each of them filled with the rank odour of rotten vegetation and other, more revolting things.

But if the air inside was dank, the air outside was even worse. After the dean sea breezes of the voyage the humidity here was choking, an asthmatic fog that droned with the constant hum of countless biting flies. Lorenzo’s battered hide had proved too tough for the insects, so they had feasted upon his companions. After just two hours ashore they’d covered them with an agonising itch of bites and incisions.

Swamptown. Even the streets oozed. Mud and shit sucked hungrily at their feet with every cloying step, insinuating itself into the damp leather of their boots and spilling over the cuffs.

“Wench,” Florin cried out, leaning back on the half barrel that served as a chair and banging his own filthy heels onto the table. “More drink for me and my friend!”

The tavern keeper’s wife, a scrawny woman whose grey hair Florin had already loudly compared to a rat’s nest, swapped a surly look with her husband before filling two more pots.

“You pay now,” she told them, banging the vessels down hard enough to slop a draught over the side.

“Of course we’ll pay now,” Florin crowed. “Although you can trust us. We’ll soon be rich!”

“To glory and gold!” Lundorf roared, snatching up his drink.

“Glory and gold!”

The woman wiped her hands contemptuously on her apron and swapped another glance with the tavern keeper. This time he winked.

“Yes,” she began, and with an obvious effort twisted her hatchet face into what could have been a smile. “I can see that you two lads are destined for riches indeed. Gold’s just waiting in the jungle for anyone with the courage to go and pick it up.”

“So we hear,” Lundorf nodded sagely. “And, by Sigmar’s left ball, we’re the men with the courage!”

“You certainly look like it,” she said. “Anyway, that’ll be a gold crown.”

Lorenzo choked on his drink.

“Certainly, my good woman,” Lundorf said, reaching for his purse.

“Each.” Her eyes barely flickered as she doubled the price.

“That’s too much,” Lorenzo managed to cough out, but she just turned on him, this time with a genuine smile on her face.

“And that’s too late.”

Lundorf rolled the coins into the mess of mud and spilt beer that slicked the table, and Lorenzo sighed.

“Another drink, lads?” The woman said, pocketing the coins.

But before any of them could reply, the thatched door of the hovel burst open, the twigs of its construction snapping as a crowd of men stumbled into the room.

“Aaaaaah, look who it is,” their leader sneered, lurching threateningly towards Lorenzo. “The bringer of the daemon.”

“Graznikov,” Florin cried out, his voice lifting with the cheerful ferocity of a hound that’s sighted its quarry. “Join us.”

Something in his voice cut through the Kislevite’s drunken belligerence, stopping him in his tracks. He regarded his rival with a certain wariness and tugged thoughtfully at his beard.

For a moment it seemed that perhaps, despite the drink and the euphoria of shore leave, the wary peace that ship’s discipline had enforced might remain between Graznikov and his rival. But as the Kislevite hesitated on the brink of violence Lundorf pushed him over it.

“I see you’ve brought your men with you, captain,” he said. “What will you lose for them this time? Their boots?”

“Or their breeches?” Florin asked.

The Kislevite’s flushed faced turned pale, the red that had suffused it melting away apart for two spots of rage that burned a warning on his cheeks.

“We come for the wizard, Lorenzo,” he announced with quiet menace, and there was a murmur of agreement from the men behind him. They sounded more excited than angry, more like men waiting for a dog-fight to start than a serious lynch mob. Florin felt a flicker of relief, and noticed that, so far, none of them showed any sign of drawing steel.

“What are you talking about, you fool?” he asked, shifting uneasily in his seat as he counted Graznikov’s men. A couple of them had followed their leader through the sagging arch of the doorway to stand beside him in a little knot. Many more waited outside.

“You heard the commander’s orders,” Florin called out, more for their benefit than Graznikov’s. “You saw what he did to that lunatic on the Hippogriff. Remember how long it took him to choke to death, and how he danced in the breeze. Touch my man here and van Delft will have you dancing that same jig. Don’t be an idiot.”

Graznikov scowled at the uneasy shuffling the reminder brought, and silently cursed his men for their cowardice.

“Idiot,” Graznikov spat. “You idiot. You bring this wizard on board, and he bring the daemon. The sea daemon.”

This time the murmur of agreement was muted, perhaps as each man’s thoughts turned to the murderer’s corpse van Delft had left hanging to rot. It hadn’t been pretty. Especially when the maggots had hatched beneath its skin.

“So,” Graznikov, changing tack, pressed on, “we won’t kill him. We just beat him. A warning for next time.”

He pointed an accusing finger at Lorenzo as more Kislevites barged into the room, eager for a better view. They jostled past their comrades who, as yet, seemed in no hurry to move any closer to the wizard.

Florin and Lorenzo looked at each other and then, turning in perfect time, looked back over their shoulders to the window that lay behind them.

“Ha!” Graznikov snapped with ersatz satisfaction. “You don’t deny it.”

“Deny the ramblings of a lunatic?” Florin snapped back. “Why waste my breath? Lorenzo helped us to fight the beast while you were still cowering below.”

“Lies!” roared Graznikov, taking a step closer.

“On three?” Lorenzo muttered into his pot, and Florin nodded imperceptibly. Lorenzo tapped his finger on the table once.

“Oh, I see,” Florin jeered at his foe. “So you did help us against the monster?”

A second tap, the sound damp upon the sodden table.

“I no bring it,” Graznikov growled, eyes narrowing dangerously, “No. Your Loren…”

But the third tap had already sent the two Bretonnians springing to their feet. The tavern keeper howled in protest as his table flew forwards, a rain of pots smashing onto the floor even as Lorenzo reached the window.

“Come on,” Florin shouted at Lundorf, grabbing his shoulder.

“I’m with you,” the warrior shouted back, and leapt at Graznikov.

Florin was halfway to the window by the time he realised that Lundorf hadn’t quite understood. He turned on his heel in time to see Graznikov’s horrified face disappear behind Lundorf’s attack, and to see the gang of Kislevites closing in around the two men like the fingers of a fist.

“Damn,” he cursed, the obscenity a statement rather than a battle cry. Then he flung himself into the melee.

His first target was one of the Kislevites’ sergeants. From the brown pelt of his beard to the heavy gut, which even the voyage hadn’t been able to strip away, he looked more bear than man. And although he was rounded with fat, there was no mistaking the muscle that bulged in his thick forearms, or the aggression that burned in his eyes.

Not that it was to do him any good. Before he’d even thrown his first punch Florin’s thumb jabbed forward, finding the soft spot beneath the big man’s ear. His world disintegrated into an explosion of pain and bright light as he collapsed.

The next man turned in time to snap out a quick punch, the hard knuckles of his fist crunching into the gristle of Florin’s nose. But even before the first trickle of blood, the Bretonnian had ducked inside the man’s reach, close enough to smell the stink of his sweat as he raised a knee in a vicious jab that doubled him up with a howl of pain.

Ignoring the copper taste of blood and the sting of tears Florin fought on, ducking a punch, taking another on his shoulder. A knee drove into his thigh with a numbing thump that sent him staggering back into grappling hands.

With the wild energy of desperation pumping through his body he jabbed his elbow back, connecting with what might have been either a joint or a skull. But before he could strike again a fist stabbed into his stomach, ripping a terrible cry from his throat.

Through the pain and the nausea he forced himself into the attack. For a moment it seemed that he was alone, surrounded by a mob of Kislevites. But then, stamping on one man’s knee and jabbing the eye of another, he suddenly found himself beside Lundorf.

Although his face was streaked with shockingly bright splashes of blood, the Marienburger was fighting like a beast at bay, roaring with what might almost have been joy as he cracked skulls and ribs.

Despite the crush of bodies, Florin felt a terrible grin starting to spread across his face, the rush of adrenaline bunching his cheeks even as an elbow thudded into his face, leaving an immediate bruise.

He was beyond pain now. Even as the mob of Kislevites battered and kicked him from one side to the next he thought only of the next temple to crack, the next knee to pop or finger to snap.

Vaguely, a thought of no more concern to him than the colour of the serving girl’s hair came to him: he wondered if he’d die here, beaten to death by men who were supposed to be his comrades.

At least they had almost gained the door by now. At least they could use it as a pinchpoint, a funnel to stop their enemies surrounding them. At least…

Lundorf grunted with surprise and collapsed onto him like a felled tree. The two men lurched to one side, the heel of someone’s palm flashing forward to crush Florin’s nose as he caught his friend.

The Kislevites, seeing their advantage, surged forward. But a second later they stopped and pulled back, tumbling out of the tavern.

Florin, half crazed with the rush of combat, jeered at them.

“What are you waiting for? Cowards! Women! Come here and I’ll break your heads!”

But the only reply came from Lorenzo. “Come on, boss,” he said. “Give me a hand with Lundorf.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Organising our escape. Smell it?”

Through the blood and snot of his crushed nose Florin couldn’t smell a thing. He could feel it, though, hard on the back of his throat. Taste it once and acrid smoke of burning thatch could never be mistaken for anything else.

A glance upwards revealed tendrils of white smoke weaving down from the thatch, the heat of the fire gathering its strength for the holocaust to come.

“Let’s go,” he said and, dragging Lundorf between them, he and Lorenzo fled from the fire that secured their retreat.

 

* * *

 

The reveille was not a happy affair. It was held in a loading area of Swamptown’s harbour, a venue which had cost van Delft dear in bribes. And even though he had mercifully called it for mid-morning, late enough for the men to rest but early enough to avoid the burning heat of the midday sun, the assembled soldiery looked as wretched as so many re-animated corpses.

Two of them, at least, had an excuse. The malarial smog and cheap rotgut of Swamptown had succeeded where the voyage had failed. Their bodies lay neatly bundled in sailcloth now, fat blue flies already clouding the air around them.

Van Delft, resplendent in the neat green and gold broadcloth of his dress uniform, ignored the buzzing of the insects, much as he ignored the stifled groans and the occasional bouts of vomiting which were the only signs of life from his bedraggled army.

A day and a night were all it had taken to reduce them to this sorry state. A day and a night. And that bloody wizard hadn’t even bothered to turn up.

The commander, for perhaps the thousandth time in a long and varied career, wished that he’d stayed in the Emperor’s army. How much easier it was to command regular soldiers.

But to hell with that, he thought stoically, I regret nothing.

Anyway, at least the dwarfs seemed to have stayed in shape. Incredible, really, given the amount of ale they’d drunk. They stood in three neat ranks, the stubby block of their cannon resting to one side of them. The muddy sunlight glinted on its barrel, and gleamed on their guns, and shone on their axes.

The commander was impressed. Even their beards were well tended, trimmed and squared below eyes that were merry with contempt for their human comrades.

The last of the captains, Graznikov, reeled off what passed for a report. Had van Delft held an Imperial rank, and had Graznikov been his commissioned subordinate, the bleary-eyed Kislevite would have been awaiting his displeasure in the guardroom right now. Not because rumour suggested that he’d set fire to the town; a fire which still smouldered amongst the ruins of a dozen hovels. Not even because he’d incited his men to assault two brother officers.

No. The worst part of Graznikov’s outrage had been that he’d assaulted two men with twenty, and lost.

Mercenary or not, van Delft had considered having the man flogged. Or demoted.

Or perhaps even quietly removed.

But for now the commander just gave a curt nod of dismissal. He waited for the sorry excuse of an officer to stagger back to his company before strutting forward to address this ragbag of an army.

They stood before him, a hundred and twenty men, give or take. They came from every corner of the Old World, from the perpetual winter of the far north, to the perpetual summer of the south. But for now, through strange alchemies of greed and desperation, they were all comrades. Brothers.

They might not know it yet, but van Delft did. Once they entered the jungle Kislevite and Tilean, Bretonnian and Marienburger and dwarf, all these labels would become meaningless. They would be soldiers, that was all. Nothing more and nothing less.

And if they don’t unite… well, the commander thought, if they don’t unite in life then they most certainly will in death.

He allowed himself a smile of grim good humour at the thought before he began to speak.

“Gentlemen,” he said, his voice carrying with a practiced ease. “We are gathered here on the verge of a great adventure. In a little more than a week we will set sail once more, following the coast down to a river. And it is at the end of that river that our goal lies.

“And our goal, as you all know, is gold. Perhaps more gold than any of us will need in this lifetime.”

“I doubt it,” somebody called out to muted laughter.

“I did say ‘perhaps’,” van Delft shot back, to more, louder laughter.

Only the dwarfs didn’t laugh. At the mention of the wealth their faces had darkened with concentration.

Good, thought the commander, seriousness is what mercenary armies usually lack.

“The jungle will be hard work. It is thick. It might contain dangers. I commend you to your officers, who will spend the next five days preparing you for what is to come.”

Here he couldn’t help glancing at Captain Castavelli, and the score of Tileans that stood behind him. In marked contrast to the stained and stitched rags that served most of their comrades for uniforms, the Tileans wore luxuriantly coloured and elegantly tailored fabrics. Even the poorest of them had a wide, well tooled leather sash upon which to hang a rapier, and a broad-brimmed slouch hat forested with long white feathers.

Deep in the grim fastness of his Sigmarite heart van Delft was almost looking forward to seeing what the jungle made of their foppery.

“Let me remind you, too, that whilst our paymasters back home have generously provided for your food and passage, your weapons are your own affair. That being the case, from now on there will be daily inspections of all arms. Now, do we have any questions before we consign these, our two fallen comrades, to the ground?”

He paused for a moment, but the only answer came from the hum of the flies.

“Very well then. Captain d’Artaud, you look full of the joys of life this morning. Fall the men out.”

Florin, every muscle feeling bruised and every bone feeling broken, lurched to the front and croaked out the single word “Dissssssss—missed.”

The effort was almost too much for him.

 

The shop wasn’t so much a building as a stall that had gradually evolved. Its walls had been made by the two men who had built shops on either side, and the rustling palm thatch of its roof seemed to have grown pretty much by itself.

Still, despite the cramped conditions, it was a relief to be beneath its shade. The disturbing smells of the place were a small price to pay for a moment’s respite from the midday heat.

And the smells were disturbing. The peddler obviously ground up the pastes and potions from which he made his living in this very room. Strings of multicoloured herbs and vegetables hung from the ceiling in a thick forest of raw materials, interspersed here and there with the dried carcasses of lizards, or monkey paws, or other, stranger things.

Beyond the dangling tendrils of this confusion sat the great stone bowl of the shopkeeper’s pestle and mortar. It squatted against the far wall like some primitive idol, its owner sweating over it like a priest over a sacrifice as he prepared Florin’s order.

“I wonder if this stuff will work in the jungle?” Florin asked Orbrant, more to make conversation than because he had any doubt. The two of them had already tried out the lotion the day before, applying it to one arm whilst leaving the other clean. The mosquitoes had bitten a painful recommendation of the herbalist’s repellent into their unprotected skin.

Not that that discomfort could compare with the battered flesh and torn muscle that still had Florin hobbling about like an octogenarian. Even now, almost a week after the fight, the bruises still covered his body in the livid blues and greys of a stormy sky.

How satisfying it would have been to have unleashed his men’s indignant rage against the Kislevites, he thought. Satisfying but foolish.

In fact, in the days that had followed the fight, Florin had found that his erstwhile foes had started to regard him with a wary respect, bordering on affection. Some of them had even bought him and Lundorf a drink, although they had laughed uproariously when some of it had spilled from his numbed lips.

Even Graznikov had sidled up to shake hands, although his good humour had felt as false as a lead crown compared to the rough honesty of his men.

“I’m sure that it will work for a while, sir,” Orbrant said, breaking his chain of thought. “And anyway, my friends here tell me that in the jungle we will be grateful for any little comfort we can find.”

“I didn’t know you had friends here,” Florin raised an eyebrow, the gesture sparking off a twinge of dull pain.

“I met several new brothers at the shrine above the docks. They’re good men, although like all of us they’ve strayed.”

“How?”

“That’s their business, sir.”

Florin turned to regard his sergeant and tried, not for the first time, to fight off the feeling that this grim faced professional should be wearing the captain’s cloak instead of himself.

“I have often wondered, Orbrant, why it is that you left the priesthood. I imagine that your order felt the loss.”

“No man is indispensable,” Orbrant said, and stroked the smooth dome of his head thoughtfully. “As to why I left… well, it makes no difference to either you or the men.”

“I know, but I wonder anyway.”

Orbrant lapsed back into silence and watched the shopkeeper lean the pestle to one side, wipe his brow, and start to rustle through the hanging larder of his ingredients. After a moment he found the herb that he wanted and, spitting onto his hands with a practiced gesture, he went back to grinding.

“I am on a pilgrimage here,” Orbrant said, his voice a murmur beneath the grinding of stone upon stone. “You see that my head remains clean-shaven? That is because I have never renounced my vows. I have only taken myself away from the order for a while.”

Florin waited patiently as Orbrant pursed his lips and gazed at the far wall, as though hoping to find the words he sought there.

“I needed to hurl myself into this wilderness like a hawk into the void. I wanted to prove that my faith in Sigmar was as true and as strong as the hawk’s faith in the air which bears it up. Do you understand?”

“No,” Florin admitted and, to his surprise, Orbrant threw back his head and roared with laughter, his white teeth shining in the gloom. It was the first time he’d seen the taciturn warrior so much as smile, and his evident surprise kept Orbrant laughing even longer.

“I like you, sir,” he confided at length. “You’re the most honest rogue I’ve ever seen.”

“Thanks,” Florin snorted, trying to take it as a compliment. For a moment they sat in companionable silence, and then Florin said, “You don’t have to call me ‘sir’, by the way.”

“It’s best that I do. These are irreligious men we have. Lacking the guidance of Sigmar they need plenty of theatre to bear them up, and in that you and I must play our roles well.”

“But when we’re alone.”

“No, think no more of it. I will call you ‘sir’ and you will call me ‘sergeant’. Trust me, it is better this way.”

“Well then, sergeant, perhaps you’ll tell me why you so needed to plunge into this void.”

“Unfortunately,” Orbrant said, his features once more composed into the severity of the parade ground, “we don’t have the time. Look, this good man has completed our order and we’re due back at the companies’ lodging. We have to meet that merchant Ali. Do you remember, sir?”

“Yes,” Florin agreed, letting the subject drop as he struggled painfully to his feet.

 

Ali Ibn Zephier leaned patiently against the crumbling mud brick of the Bretonnians’ lodging. He remained as still as a lizard in the shade of the old warehouse, completely unmoving apart from the working of his plump cheeks as he chewed on a date.

From time to time his eyes moved in the shadows beneath his broad turban. They flicked from one end of the street to the other, or gazed at the masts of the ships in harbour, or rested on the little knot of his henchmen who stood guard on the handcart that contained their master’s merchandise.

The blanket that covered his cargo had grown hot to the touch beneath the burning eye of the Lustrian sun, but Ali remained unconcerned. He’d been in this trade for long enough for fear to give way to caution, and for caution to give way to a careless fatalism.

In this, at least, the sharpness of his wife’s tongue had been a help.

When he saw Florin and Orbrant come around the corner he spat out the stone of the date he’d been chewing and walked over to meet them. The baggy sleeves of his shirt hung down from his arms as he threw them wide in greeting.

“My friends,” he called, his singsong accent rich with professional charm. “How are you today? You look very well.”

A cynical smile pained Florin’s battered face.

“Really?”

“Of course, old friends always look good.”

“But we’ve only known you for a week,” Orbrant said.

Ali sighed inwardly. These barbarians had no idea of manners.

“Just as you say, my old friend.”

“Have you got the powder?” Florin demanded, interrupting the pleasantries.

“Of course. But, so sorry, noble sir, I have to ask for more than the price we mentioned.”

“The price we agreed on, you mean,” Florin said, strolling towards the hand-cart.

“Just as you say,” Ali agreed without missing a beat. “Demand has never been greater.”

“How great?”

“Forty crowns a barrel.”

“Is this a joke?”

“So sorry,” Ali shrugged, starting to lose patience with this barbarian’s lack of manners.

Florin sighed. The coin he’d collected from his gunners should have been enough for four barrels of finest black powder. As it was, they’d barely manage two.

“We shook hands on twenty-four crowns a barrel.”

“Yes, but then things changed. I give you my oath that if you don’t buy them at forty somebody else will.”

“A word with you, sir,” Orbrant said and led Florin out of earshot. “I have coin for the powder. We should take all that we can.”

“You have seventy crowns?”

“Yes.”

For a moment Florin wrestled with the temptation to ask how a priest, a penitent whose only possessions seemed to be a warhammer, a razor and a frayed old robe, had come by such an amount.

“We will take a receipt and I will reclaim the money from the company share at the end of the expedition.”

“Well, yes. All right. Thank you, sergeant.”

Orbrant nodded and waited for Florin to lead the way back to the merchant.

“Very well, Ali. Seeing as we’re friends I’ll give you thirty crowns each for the barrels.”

“Would that I could,” the merchant wrung his hands, pleased that his customer was at least attempting to be polite. “But if my wife found out she would sleep with her legs closed for a month.”

“Yes, women are never reasonable.”

“Even if I sold them to you for thirty-eight a barrel she would call me a fool and a squanderer of our daughters’ dowries.”

“And if I paid more than thirty-two, my men would kill me for a thief as soon as we entered the jungle.”

For a moment the two men stood and frowned, perhaps saddened by the thought that the world was cruel enough to drive them, two old friends, to such an impasse.

It was Ali who spoke first.

“I tell you what I might be able to get away with,” he said, leaning forward conspiratorially. “As well as the powder I have some other things. Weapons of great power.”

“You are truly a man of resource,” Florin nodded, impressed.

“Yes,” Ali nodded modestly and lifted the corner of the blanket, which covered his wares. As well as the fat barrels of powder there were two square boxes huddled within the handcart. The merchant lifted the lid of one to reveal three rows of iron spheres nestling in the deep straw packing.

They were the size of ripe pineapples, but they were black and smooth and almost featureless. The only flaws in their round perfection were the white fuses that grew like pigtails from the top of each of them.

“Look,” said Ali, lifting one up with the air of a conjuror that has just pulled a rabbit from a cynic’s empty hat. “Bombas! All the way from Cathay, where they use them to hunt dragons.”

“Then they’re probably full of damp,” Orbrant muttered.

Florin, who by now was deep in the flow of the poetry of the marketplace, turned on him.

“For shame, sergeant,” he scolded. “Our friend here would never sell poor quality goods. I just wish that we could afford to buy them.”

“Sorry sir,” Orbrant said.

“But you can afford them,” Ali smiled happily. “For you I will make a gift of a whole box. My wife doesn’t know of these treasures, so I will take my loss from the forty you will pay me for the powder.”

“My men will weep when I tell them how poor we have become,” Florin complained, drawing the negotiations to an end.

“They will weep more if they go into the jungle unarmed,” Ali observed, helpfully. “Although not for very long.”

“No doubt. Well then, friend Ali, perhaps you can show me how to use these bombas whilst my sergeant here scrapes together the last of our gold.”

“My pleasure,” Ali beamed delightedly. He should have known that things were never this easy. “But I fear that we can’t light one of these fuses here or we will damage the buildings hereabouts.”

“We’ll use the old well behind the barracks. The water’s too foetid to use.”

“Alas, the water would extinguish the fuse.”

“We’ll drop it into the bucket.”

“But the bucket would be destroyed.”

“No matter,” Florin decided. “Come, my friend, let’s light one of these up.”

So saying he selected one of the bombs and led Ali unhappily away to the well. Of course the bomb might work, he told himself. It wasn’t as if he actually knew that it wouldn’t.

If only his customers would save his wares until the day of battle, he reflected as they approached the well. That way they would avoid so much disappointment.

Long term disappointment, at least.

“Here we go,” Florin said, tossing the weight of the bomb he’d chosen from hand to hand and peering into the well. The bucket was gently rotting away, suspended on its rusted chain perhaps four feet beneath the crumbling wall that surrounded it. An easy enough target to drop the bomb into.

“I wonder, my old friend, do you have a tinder box?”

“Use one of these instead,” Ali said, handing over a small ivory box of sulphur matches. “They’re safer than a shower of sparks.”

“Of course,” Florin nodded and took the box. Resting the bomb on the edge of the well he struck one of the matches and then, shielding the flame from the sultry dampness of the breeze, he bent down to light the fuse.

It burst into life with an impressive hiss. The white twine of its length blackened beneath the bright star of a flame that worked its way steadily downward.

Holding the thing as delicately as if the iron of its body were as fragile as eggshell, Florin leaned over the side of the well and dropped the charge into the bucket.

“Let us stand back a little way,” Ali advised, and the two of them drew back. They waited in breathless anticipation as the distant hiss of the fuse spluttered and died.

They waited a little longer.

Ali felt a trickle of sweat run down his spine and swallowed nervously.

“Perhaps the fuse was loose…” he began to explain when, with absolutely no warning, the bomb exploded.

The power of the explosion was concentrated and reinforced by the confines of the well. Unable to escape in any other direction the fire roared upwards, a volcano of destruction that threw a great gout of shrapnel and shattered brick high into the air.

“It worked,” Ali gasped, but Florin was too impressed to hear the relief in his voice. Even now, after the first impact of the explosion, smoke was still vomiting up out of the well’s charred mouth. With a grin of delight Florin walked cautiously towards it, the cries and rushing feet of his men unheard beneath the ringing in is ears.

“Friend Ali,” Florin shouted over his own deafness. “I can see why your word is so valued.”

The merchant had the presence of mind to snap shut the surprised gape of his jaw as he hastened to Florin’s side.

“Perhaps you would like to buy the rest of the bombs?” he began innocently, the patter of falling debris unnoticed around him.

“No, one box will be enough,” Florin said, patting him on the shoulder.

“But…”

“Come, my sergeant will pay you the balance.”

The merchant cursed himself. If he’d have known that any of those damned things actually worked…

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear—” he tried again, but Florin merely smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “You did. Ah, here’s Sergeant Orbrant. And a score of my men. Look at how sharp their halberds are, friend Ali.”

“Yes indeed.” The merchant nodded miserably as Orbrant handed him a purse that was five hundred per cent pure profit. He stowed it within his shirt and, cursing his men to get a move on, trailed out of the compound like a broken man.

Even the thought that the rest of the bombas were probably as useless as the first two he’d tried didn’t lend him much cheer. That one explosion should have been enough to double his price.

He was still sulking two days later when, waved off by a desultory rabble of whores, peddlers, beggars and pick pockets, van Delft’s expedition were rounded up and herded back into their ships. Although their destination was supposed to be a secret the whole town knew where they were going.

They were going to the southern jungle.

Oblivion.

“What a waste,” Ali muttered later that night, his thoughts haunted by images of the expedition’s coins and armour mouldering away between cleanly picked bones.

“Yes,” his wife surprised him by agreeing. Her own thoughts full of the bronzed young men that were carrying that wealth into the doom of a Lustrian jungle. “What a waste.”