I assume not for poisoning various imperial peoples with dappleglass, ma’am, I’d said.
To which she’d responded: Don’t be smug. No. He’s apparently been wandering off to do fuck knows what out in the Plains of the Path when he’s supposed to be at the wall. Fellow’s in deep shit, really! He has to be our man.
I relayed this information to the Apoths as we geared up to ride out, along with how dappleglass functioned: fertile and infectious when exposed to steaming water, but after its horrid bloom, it was safe. Again, they did not react.
“We find this crackler, this Drolis Ditelus,” said Kitlan. “He takes us to this traitor Apothetikal, and we find the contagion there and destroy it—that it, sir?”
“If it proves that simple,” Miljin said, “I’ll be overjoyed. But yes.”
She spat so profusely on the ground that Miljin looked impressed. “We’ll make it simple.”
We mounted up and started east, across the Plains of the Path, the same road we took to the medikkers’ bay just a few days ago. Our progress was soon blocked, however, for the road east was suddenly packed with teams of beasts—horses, oxen, and giant slothiks—all hauling something toward the walls. Or rather pieces of something, something enormous. At first I thought it was perhaps some kind of piping, huge and curving and carried on massive carts, but then I realized I was wrong.
It was a bombard. Segments of a bombard, slowly making its way toward the distant sea walls. A bombard so huge and so complex my mind could hardly grasp it.
“Huh,” I said aloud. “A titan-killer. Just like Captain Strovi said.”
“It’ll be devilish hard to get to this crackler with all that ahead,” growled Miljin. “We’ll have to cut across country. Come on.”
Our horses were none too pleased with the change in terrain, which made the going much slower. But as midmorning changed to midday we finally approached the forward Legion outpost, which much like the road was crawling with movement.
I studied the scene as we arrived. Panic hung heavy in the air. Legionnaires darted about with hurried, fraught movements, like people readying for some desperate escape. We reined our horses at the front gate and stalked inside, and after a few moments of Miljin’s hollering we were brought to the princeps of the outpost.
“Ditelus, sir?” she said. “You’re looking for him? Hell, get in line. I’d love to find him, too.”
“He’s missing?” asked Miljin.
“Yes. Again! With the quakes so hard that the mud dances at our feet, and the titan-killer churning up the road out there. I shall behead the bastard when I find him again.” The princeps paused to look us over. “If Iudex is looking for him, though, then he’s done something serious…” She looked back at Kitlan and her people, impatiently waiting behind us. “And you’ve a contagion crew with you?”
“We need to know where he is immediately,” Miljin said to her. “Is there anyone who worked with him who might know?”
She shook her head. “Everyone’s off to assist with the bombard. Engineers say the titan’ll be here in a matter of days, maybe hours. Ditelus’s whole cohort is long gone.”
I looked at the princeps, thinking. It had been weeks since I’d last interrogated a princeps—the smirking Otirios, back in Daretana—but it suddenly came to me easier now, with death and madness rumbling past the horizon.
“You’re Ditelus’s commanding officer?” I asked.
“I’m the operating officer of this outpost, yes, sir,” she said.
“So you would have been the one to write up his demerits?”
“Ah—yes? The Iudex manages demerits now?”
“He was marked for absences, correct?” I said. “Did you ever catch him coming back to the outpost after his absence?”
“I did, a couple of times.”
“What direction might he have been coming from?” I asked. “And is there anything out there?”
She fetched a map and pointed to the spot. “He was coming from the west, back toward Talagray. There used to be an old Legion fortress that way, decades ago, but it got destroyed during a breach. Killed a titan and it fell right on top of it. Some Legionnaires used to sneak out to the ruins to get sotted back in my day. You think he’s there?”
“Much thanks, Princeps,” said Miljin curtly.
We left, mounted our horses, and departed, pausing only for Miljin to give me the tiniest nod—Well done.