They would probably intercept the spacecraft; the Culture itself — the Xenophobe, probably — would use effectors on it… the decapitation strike was bound to fail…
"What should we do, sir?"
But there was always a possibility…
"Hello? Hello, sir?"
Another explosion shook the citadel. He looked at the handset he held. "Sir, do we go ahead?" he heard a man say, or remembered a man saying, from long ago and far away… And he had said yes, and taken on a terrible cargo of memories, and all the names that might bury him…
"Stand down," he said quietly. "We won't need the strike now," he said. He put the handset down, and left the room quickly, taking the rear stairs, away from the main entrance to his apartments, where he could already hear a commotion building.
More explosions shook the citadel, dislodging dust around him as the curtain wall was breached and breached again. He wondered how it would be with the regional headquarters, how they would fall, and whether the raid to capture the high priests would be as bloodless as Sma had hoped. But he realised even as he thought about it all that he no longer really cared.
He left the citadel via a postern and entered the great square that was the parade ground. The small fires still burned outside the tents of the refugees. In the distance, great clouds of dust and smoke floated slowly into the grey dawn sky above the curtain wall. He could see a couple of gaps in the wall from here. The people in the tents were starting to wake up and come out. From the citadel walls at his back and above him, he could hear the crackle of gunfire.
A heavier gun fired from the breached walls, and a huge explosion shook the ground, ripping a great hole in the cliff that was the citadel; an avalanche of stone thundered into the parade ground, burying a dozen tents. He wondered what sort of ammunition the tank was firing; not a type they'd had until this morning, he suspected.
He walked on through the tent city, as the people appeared, blinking, from their sleep. Scattered firing continued from the citadel; the vast cloud of dust rolled over the parade ground from the great tumbled breach in the towering walls. Another shot from near the curtain walls; another ground-quaking detonation that brought a whole side of the citadel down, the stones bursting from the wall as though with relief, falling and tumbling in their own rolling dust; released, returning to the earth.
There was less firing from the citadel ramparts now, as the dust drifted and the sky slowly lightened and the frightened people clutched at each other outside their tents. More firing came from the breached curtain walls, and from inside the parade ground, within the tent city.
He walked on. Nobody stopped him; few people really seemed to notice him. He saw a soldier fall from the curtain wall to his right, tumbling into the dust. He saw the people running this way and that. He saw the Imperial Army soldiers, in the distance, riding on a tank.
He walked through the clustered tents, avoiding people running, stepping over a couple of the smouldering fires. The huge breaches in the curtain wall and the citadel itself smoked in the increasing grey light, which was just starting to take on colour as the sky burned pink and blue.
Sometimes, as the people milled and streamed around him, running past, clutching babies, dragging children, he thought he saw people he recognised, and several times was on the point of turning and talking to them, putting out his hand to stop the snowfall effaces rushing past him, shouting after them…
Suddenly aircraft screamed overhead, tearing through the air over the curtain wall, dropping long canisters into the tents, which erupted in flame and black, black smoke. He saw burning people, heard the screams, smelled the roasting flesh. He shook his head.
Terrified people jostled him, bumped into him, once knocked him down so that he had to pick himself up, dust himself down, and suffer the knocks and the shouts and screams and curses. The aircraft came back, strafing, and he was the only one who stayed upright, walking while the rest fell to the ground; he watched the puffs and bursts of dust fountain in lines around him, saw the clothing of a few of the fallen people suddenly jerk and flap as a round hit home.
It was getting lighter as he encountered the first troops. He dodged behind a tent and rolled as a trooper fired at him, then got back on his feet and ran round the rear of a tent, almost bumping into another soldier, who swung his carbine round too late. He kicked it away. The soldier drew a knife. He let him lunge and took the knife, throwing the soldier to the ground. He looked at the blade he held in his hand, and shook his head. He threw the knife away, looked at the soldier — lying on the ground staring fearfully up at him — then shrugged and walked away.
Still people rushing past; soldiers shouting. He saw one take aim at him, and could not see anywhere to go for cover. He raised his hand to explain, to say there was really no need, but the man shot him anyway.
Not a very good shot, considering the range, he thought as he was kicked back and spun round by the force of the impact.
Upper chest near the shoulder. No lung damage, and possibly not even a chipped rib, he thought as the shock and pain burst through him, and he fell.
He lay still in the dust, near the staring face of a dead city guardsman. As he'd spun round, he'd seen the Culture module; a clear shape hovering uselessly over the remains of his apartments high in the ruined citadel.
Somebody kicked him, turning him over and bursting a rib at the same time. He tried not to react to the stab of pain, but looked through cracked eyes. He waited for the coup-de-grace, but it did not come.
The shadow-figure above him, dark against light, passed on.
He lay a while longer, then got up. It wasn't too difficult to walk at first, but then the planes came back again, and though he didn't get hit by a bullet, something splintered somewhere nearby, as he passed by some tents that shook and rippled as the bullets hit them, and he wondered if the sharp, puncturing pain in his thigh was a bit of wood or stone, or even bone, from somebody in one of the tents. "No," he muttered to himself as he limped away, heading for the biggest breach in the wall. "No; not funny. Not bone. Not funny."
An explosion blew him off his feet, into and through a tent. He got up, head buzzing. He looked round and up at the citadel, its summit starting to glow with the first direct sunlight of the day. He couldn't see the module any more. He took a shattered wooden tent pole to use as a crutch; his leg was hurting.
Dust wrapped him, screams of engines and aircraft and human voices pierced him; the smells of burning and stone-dust and exhaust fumes choked him. His wounds talked to him in the languages of pain and damage, and he had to listen to them, but paid them no further heed. He was shaken and pummelled and tripped and stumbled and drained and fell to his knees, and thought perhaps he was hit by more bullets, but was no longer sure.
Eventually, near the breach, he fell, and thought he might just lie here for a while. The light was better, and he felt tired. The dust drifted like pale shrouds. He looked up at the sky, pale blue, and thought how beautiful it was, even through all this dust, and, listening to the tanks as they came crunching up through the slope of wrecked stones, reflected that, like tanks everywhere, they squeaked more than they roared.
"Gentlemen," (he whispered to the rabid blue sky) "I am reminded of something the worshipful Sma said to me once, on the subject of heroism, which was something like: "Zakalwe, in all the human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this simple fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots."" He sighed. "Well, no doubt she didn't say every age and every state, because the Culture just loves there to be exceptions to everything, but… that was the gist of it… I think…"