The young man walked over to the windows, setting the guns down on the floor.
He stood there a while, looking out.
‘Hey,’ said the voice under the table. ‘Help me up, will you? I’m under the table.’
‘What’re you doing under the table, Cullis?’ said the young man, kneeling to inspect the guns; tapping indicators, twisting dials, altering settings and squinting down sights.
‘Oh, this and that; you know.’
The young man smiled, and crossed to the table. He reached underneath and with one arm dragged out a large, red-faced man who wore a field-marshal’s jacket a size too big for him, and who had very short grey hair and only one real eye. The large man was helped up; he stood carefully, then slowly brushed one or two bits of glass off the jacket. He thanked the young man by slowly nodding his head.
‘What time is it, anyway?’ he asked.
‘What? You’re mumbling.’
‘Time. What time is it?’
‘It’s day time.’
‘Ha.’ The large man nodded wisely. ‘Just as I thought.’ Cullis watched the young man go back to the window and the guns, then heaved himself away from the great table; he arrived, eventually, at the table holding the large water-pitcher which was decorated with a painting of an old sailing ship.
He lifted the pitcher up, swaying slightly, turned it upside down over his head, blinked his eyes, wiped his face with his hands and flapped the collar of his jacket.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that’s better’.
‘You’re drunk,’ said the young man, without turning away from the guns.
The older man considered this.
‘You almost manage to make that sound like a criticism,’ he replied, with dignity, and the tapped his false eye and blinked over it a few times. He turned as deliberately as possible and faced the far wall, staring at a mural of a sea battle. He fixed on one particularly large warship portrayed there and seemed to clench his jaw slightly.
His head jerked back, there was a tiny cough and a whine that terminated in a miniature explosion; three metres away from the warship in the mural, a large floor-standing vase disintegrated in a cloud of dust.
The large grey-haired man shook his head sadly and tapped his false eye again. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, ‘Im drunk.’
The young man stood up, holding the guns he had selected, and turned to look at the older man. ‘If you had two eyes you’d be seeing double. Here; catch.’
So saying, he threw a gun towards the older man, who stretched out one hand to catch it at just the same time as the gun hit the wall behind him and clattered to the floor.
Cullis blinked. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I would like to go back under the table.’
The young man came over, picked up the gun, checked it again, and handed it to the older man, wrapping his large arms around it for him. Then he manoeuvred Cullis over to the pile of weapons and clothes.
The older man was taller than the young man, and his good eye and the false eye – which was in fact a light micro-pistol – stared down at the young man as he pulled a couple of ammunition belts from the floor and slung them over the older man’s shoulders. The young man grimaced as Cullis looked at him; he reached up and turned the older man’s face away, then from a breast pocket in the too-big field-marshal’s jacket extracted what looked like – and was – an armoured eye-patch. He fitted the strap carefully over the taller man’s grey, crew-cut head.
‘My god!’ Cullis gasped, ‘I’ve gone blind!’
The young man reached up and adjusted the eye patch. ‘Your pardon. Wrong eye.’
‘That’s better.’ The older man drew himself up, taking a deep breath. ‘Where are the bastards?’ his voice was still slurred; it made you want to clear your throat.
‘I can’t see them. They’re probably still outside. The shower yesterday is keeping the dust down.’ The young man put another gun into Cullis’ arms.
‘The bastards.’
‘Yes, Cullis.’ A couple of ammunition boxes were added to the guns cradled in the older man’s arms.
‘The filthy bastards.’
‘That’s right, Cullis.’
‘The… Hmm, you know, I could do with a drink.’ Cullis swayed. He looked down at the weapons cradled in his arms, apparently trying to puzzle out how they had appeared there.
The young man turned round to lift more guns from the pile, but changed his mind when he heard a large clattering, breaking noise behind him.
‘Shit,’ Cullis muttered, from the floor.
The young man went over to the bottle-strewn sideboard. He loaded up with as many full bottles as he could find and returned to where Cullis was snoring peacefully under a pile of guns, boxes, ammunition belts and the dark-splintered remains of a formal banqueting chair. He cleared the debris off the older man and undid a couple of buttons on the too-large field-marshal’s jacket, then stuffed the bottles inside, between jacket and shirt.
Cullis opened his eye and watched this for a moment. ‘What time did you say it was?’
He buttoned Cullis’ jacket up halfway. ‘Time to go, I think.’
‘Hmm. Fair enough. You know best, Zakalwe.’ Cullis closed his eye again.
The young man Cullis had called Zakalwe walked quickly to one end of the great table, which was covered by a comparatively clean blanket. A large, impressive gun lay there; he picked it up and returned to the large, unimpressive form snoring on the floor. He took the old man by the collar and backed off towards the door at the end of the hall, dragging Cullis with him. He stopped to pick up the oil-stained bag full of weaponry he’d sorted out earlier, slinging that over one shoulder.
He’d dragged Cullis halfway to the door when the older man woke up, and with his one good eye fixed him with an upside-down bleary stare.
‘Hey.’
‘What, Cullis?’ he grunted, heaving him another couple of metres.
Cullis looked round the quiet white hall as it slid past him. ‘Still think they’ll bombard this place?’
‘Mm-hmm.’
The grey-haired man shook his head. ‘Na,’ he said. He took a deep breath. ‘Na,’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘Never.’
‘Cue incoming’ the young man muttered, glancing around.
Nevertheless the silence continued as they reached the doors and he kicked them open. The stairs that led down to the rear entrance hall and out into the courtyard were of brilliant green marble edged with agate. He made his way down, armaments and bottles clinking, gun bumping, dragging Cullis down step after step, the big man’s heels thumping and scraping as he went.
The old man grunted with each step, and once mumbled. ‘Not so damn hard, woman.’ The young man stopped at that point and looked at the old man, who snored and dribbled saliva from the corner of his mouth. The young man shook his head and continued.
On the third landing he stopped for a drink, allowing Cullis to snore on, then felt sufficiently fortified to continue the descent. He was still licking his lips and had just grabbed Cullis’ collar when there came an increasing, deepening, whistling noise. He dropped to the floor and hauled Cullis half on top of him.
The explosion was close enough to crack the high windows and loosen some plaster, which fell gracefully down through the triangular wedges of sunlight and pattered delicately on the stairs.
‘Cullis!’ He grabbed the other man’s collar again and leapt backwards down the stairs. ‘Cullis!’ he yelled, skidding round the landing, almost falling. ‘Cullis, you dozy old prick! Wake up!’
Another falling howl split the air; the whole palace shuddered to the detonation and a window blew in overhead; plaster and glass showered down the stairwell. Half crouched and still pulling Cullis, he staggered and cursed down another flight of stairs. ‘CULLIS!’ he roared, tearing past empty alcoves and exquisitely rendered murals in the pastoral style. ‘Fuck your geriatric ass, Cullis; WAKE UP!’
He skidded round another landing, the remaining bottles clanking furiously and the big gun knocking chunks out of decorative panels. The deepening whistle again; he dived as the stairs leapt up at him and glass burst overhead; everything was white as the dust whirled. He staggered to his feet and saw Cullis sitting upright, scattering plaster shards from his chest and rubbing his good eye. Another explosion, rumbling further away.
Cullis looked miserable. He waved one hand through the dust. ‘This isn’t fog and that wasn’t thunder, right?’
‘Right,’ he shouted, already leaping downstairs.
Cullis coughed and staggered after him.
More shells were arriving as he reached the courtyard. One burst to his left as he emerged from the palace; he jumped into the half-track and tried to start it. The shell blew the roof off the royal apartments. Showers of slates and tiles hammered into the courtyard, turning into little dusty clouds in their own tributary explosions. He put one hand over his head and rummaged in the passenger’s footspace for a helmet. A large chunk of masonry bounced off the engine cover of the open vehicle, leaving a sizeable dent and a cloud of dust. ‘Oh… shiiiiit,’ he said, finally finding a helmet and jamming it onto his head.