Furnace (Hunter-Killer #1)

Chapter 40 - The Songs of the South

The celebrations ran deep that night. From the heights of Commissariat chambers of the Forge to the temporary camps in the inner city shiner flowed, songs were sung and the names of all those who had given their lives to protect the city were held in reverence.

The River would be ferrying a great many new souls tonight.

Huge swathes of the city now lay in ruins, brutal street to street fighting having virtually levelled entire districts. There were bodies to be cleared away, dead to be buried and machines to salvage. There were homes to be rebuilt, vast grids of vital infrastructure to be replaced, defences to be repaired and roads to be remade. It would take months to heal – years even – but heal it would.

So those who had survived the battle wanted one night to forget all that. They had earned the right to smile in the face of the grim and grinding days ahead.

Ryke and his pilots were no exception. Stamm Basin rang with sounds that he had almost forgotten over the long siege of Brekka. The entire Hunter-Killer barracks had been converted into a gigantic bar, flowing freely with both the authorised beverages from their commanders and a score of different, dubiously dangerous blends of shiner. Music blared from within: twanging, thrumming strings combining with the keen of low pipes and singing voices. Feet stamped with the rhythm of dancing, the beat echoing across the concourse and up into the dark.

Much of the Hunter-Killer party had spilled out of the barracks, where more tables and chairs had been haphazardly strewn and more drinks flowed. Out there the members of HK-Rupture gathered in a lose semi-circle, scattered on seats and benches around a long table that was rapidly filling up with empty bottles and canteens.

Ryke banged his canteen of shiner down on the table in time with the music currently leaping from Norville's purloined wavesinger. The instrument lay across his lap, a crafted cuboid of metal and wood with a long neck and six taut strings. His left hand danced spider-like across the finger board while his right strummed and plucked a jaunty tune.

The others clapped and stamped in time, whooping encouragement as Thaye and Preese performed a wild drunken jig around them, linking arms as they whirled and skipped between the chairs and benches. Ryke had to lean back sharply as they hurtled past, almost overbalancing and tipping backwards were it not for Brigg catching the arm of his chair and easing him forward again.

Eventually the duo spun to a halt, collapsing onto the bench they had vacated and gulping at their drinks with applause raining down on them.

"Hell of a day, boss," Brigg chuckled, clinking Ryke's canteen against his own.

"Glad to have you here," Ryke told him before taking a drink. He swallowed down the liquor, his eyes lingering on the other pilots one by one. "Did you ever think things would go this way? That ... all this might happen to us?"

"Riverlords, never," the burly pilot laughed. "Just a couple of mad mech-jockeys when we turned up that day, weren't we?"

"Yes we were."

"I don't really know what I thought would happen. I just thought I'd become a pilot and fight Scraegans. Seemed like the decent thing to do, you know?"

Ryke nodded slowly. "And I just thought I'd be getting some payback."

"War's a complicated business for the likes of us, eh?"

"I'll drink to that."

As he raised the canteen to lips again, however, he spotted something in gloom that made him pause. He waited, narrowing his eyes until he realised what he was looking at. A column of heavy transport crawlers rumbled ponderously by the barracks, engines growling and with members of the engineering cadre handing from guard rails on their flanks. Some dragged immense flat beds loaded with cranes, diggers and bulldozers.