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Drop by drop he blackens the pigment of our souls.
I bend in front of a Gray with two cauterized stumps for legs. “You look like you got between a Telemanus and a pint of whiskey, legionnaire.”
“Fear so, sir. I’d be back in the fight, had we the gear.”
If he were a Gold or Obsidian, he’d be back in the fight by month’s end, but we can’t spend our near-extinguished supply of prosthetics on regular infantry. Bad investment. I once thought the greatest sin of war was violence. It isn’t. The greatest sin is it requires good men to become practical.
“I still see it, sir. Like a ghost tail.” The Gray rubs his eyes, remembering the Fear Knight’s firebrand. “Bright as day. Can’t sleep a wink.”
“You and me both. But next time you open your eyes, it’ll be Mars you see. You’re from Hippolyte, yes?”
“Born and bred in the jade city, sir.”
“Then we’ll share oysters and cigars there soon. I promise.” I pat him on the shoulder, murmur something inconsequential, and move on. I stop before an old Red man with a thin quilt about his shoulders despite the heat. Bald but for a crescent of thin gray hair, he rolls a burner with practiced ease. His eyes flick back and forth as he realizes I am there. He takes in a sharp breath. “Is it you?” He holds out a hand. I take it in mine. His burner begins to shake from nerves. I set my hand on his and motion a woman to toss me her ring lighter. The end of the burner curls with smoke as I give the old Red a light and toss the lighter back.
“Looks like you’ve had a day,” I say.
He takes a deep drag. His hand steadies. “I’m Red, sir. Been blind most of me life. I’ll get on fine-like. If there’s other mouths need feedin’, don’t worry about me. I don’t die.”
His accent…
“What mine are you from, legionnaire?”
He grins. “Yours, as it happens.”
“Lykos?” I search his face. The crow’s feet around his eyes are peppered with blood-fly bites. “What’s your name?”
“Don’t ya recognize me, sir?” He takes another drag from his burner. It glows, burning hot and fast. His hand holds it the same way it did the day Eo died, between his ring and pinky fingers. I feel the movement of the deepmine winds. The smell of rust and swill. An echo of Eo’s laughter. It’s been a long time.
“Dago,” I whisper. “Dago of Gamma.” Could it really be the Helldiver I worshipped and loathed as a child? The man who taught me the meaning of defeat? Who won thirty-two laurels? Now here, on Mercury, in my army. Fifteen years later. For him it looks like it’s been forty. His age makes me feel the years.
“In the bloodydamn flesh, sir.” He shivers from his wound but manages that slash of a smile. Few teeth remain.
“What are— How long have you been—”
“Since Mars, sir. Five years.”
“And you never thought to find me.”
“Man ain’t shit if he slags with a Helldiver that’s got his eye on the laurel.” His laugh becomes a cough. “But you got it now, sir. Damn well you do.”
“Sir.” Felix, a pristine Gold of my bodyguard, appears behind me. Hailing from a minor house pledged to House Augustus, he is a dour cynic of a man. Just past forty, he has little love of the lowColors. But he is loyal to my wife, and he is Martian. These days there is no more trustworthy a breed. Two dozen more Gold bodyguards tower clean and strong as gods at the edge of the sea of the blind. The zenith and dregs of humanity. I feel guilt that I choose the zenith instead of my own people for protection. Practicality, again. “Your shuttle is ready to depart. Your…fellow traveler is growing restless.”
I want to stay, ask a thousand things of Dago, but I can’t. I barely have time to visit the men as it is. Time was you could walk among the wounded and find Sevro sprawled in drink with them playing Karachi, poorly. His absence is felt everywhere, not just in the field. So many gaps for me to fill.
“Reaper…” Dago motions to me. I crouch back down. He pulls open his thighpack. Two cannisters sit inside. One filled with Martian soil. The other empty for his own ash. Most Martian soldiers fear dying on an alien sphere. How many corpses have I seen shriveled after bombardments, their hands clutched around home soil? How many cans of ash have I sent back to Mars to be spread in the sea? Dago offers me his home soil. It even smells of Mars, that faint hint of iron.
“I can’t take that,” I say.
“Where’s your can then, eh?”
“Left it on Luna. This vacation was unexpected.”
He takes a handful of the soil and reaches out to me. “It’s from Lykos.” He coughs blood into his quilt. “Yours as much as mine. Bring it back and we’ll share a dram and some gob, eh?” He reaches for my hand, and flattens it so he can give me half of his dust. “Mars is with you, till the Vale.” Others hear his words and begin to thump their chests over their hearts in the Fading Dirge, except it is an inversion. Not the fast beating to a slow stop as in death, but a slow pace quickening to a racing beat. I’m about to say something to Dago, when he lights another burner and blows the smoke in my face like old times.
“No time for words, sir. You got killin’ to do.”
I clench my fist around the dirt. “Till the Vale.”
