‘If you feel like that about it, why waste time making a stupid scene?’ Wantage snapped.
‘Because I’m second in command here and I make what scenes I like,’ Roffery answered.
‘You aren’t second in command, Ern,’ Marapper said, explaining in kindly fashion. ‘There’s just me in command and you lot following, equal in the sight of the law.’
At this Wantage laughed jeeringly and Fermour said, ‘So if the pack of you have stopped bitching, perhaps we can move out of here before someone discovers us and settles all our troubles for good.’
‘Not so fast,’ Complain said. ‘I still want to know what that valuer is doing here. Why doesn’t he go back to his valuing? He had a soft job; why did he leave it? It doesn’t make sense to me: I shouldn’t have left it, in his place.’
‘But you don’t happen to have the guts of a frog,’ Roffery growled, straining against the priest’s outflung arm. ‘We’ve all got our own reasons for coming on this mad jaunt, and my reason’s none of your business.’
‘What are you making such a fuss about anyway, Complain?’ Wantage shouted. ‘Why are you coming? I’m dead sure I don’t want your company!’
The priest’s short sword was suddenly between them. They could see his knuckles white from his grip on the handle.
‘As I am a holy man,’ he growled, ‘I swear by every drop of rancid blood in Quarters I’ll Long Journey the next man that speaks.’
They stood there stiff with hostility, not speaking.
‘Sweet, peace-making blade,’ Marapper whispered, and then, in ordinary tones, unhitching a pack from his shoulder, ‘Strap this harness on your back, Roy, and pull yourself together. Ern, leave your dazer alone — you’re like a girl with a dolly. Soften up, the lot of you, and start walking with me. Keep in a bunch. We’ve got to get through one of the barriers to get into Deadways, so take your lead from me. It won’t be easy.’
He locked the door of his compartment, glanced thoughtfully at the key and then slipped it into a pocket. Without another sign to the others, he started to walk down the corridor. They hesitated only momentarily, and then fell obediently in beside him. Marapper’s iron stare remained firmly fixed ahead, relegating them all to another, inferior universe.
At the next corridor junction, he turned left and, at the next but one, left again. This led them into a short cul-de-sac with a mesh gate filling all the far end; a Guard stood before it, for this was one of the side barriers.
The Guard was relaxed but alert. He sat on a box, resting his chin on his hand, but directly the five came in view around the corner he jumped up and levelled a dazer at them.
‘I should be happy to shoot,’ he cried, giving the standard challenge. Eyes hard, legs braced, he made it sound more than a cliché.
‘And I to die,’ responded Marapper amiably. ‘Tuck your weapon away, Twemmers; we are no Outsiders. You sound a little nervy, methinks.’
‘Stop or I fire!’ the Guard, Twemmers, called. ‘What do you want? Halt, all five of you!’
Marapper never paused in his stride, and the others came slowly on with him. For Complain, there was a certain fascination about it that he could not explain.
‘You are getting too short-sighted for that job, my friend,’ the priest called. ‘I’ll see Zilliac and get you taken off it. It is I, Marapper your priest, the agent of your doubtful sanity, with some well-wishers. No blood for you tonight, man.’
‘I’d shoot anybody,’ Twemmers threatened ferociously, waving his weapon, but backing towards the mesh gate behind him.
‘Well, save it for a better target — although you’ll never have a bigger,’ said the priest. ‘I have something important here for you.’
During this interchange, Marapper’s advance had not faltered. They were now almost on the Guard. The wretched man hesitated uncertainly; other Guards were within hail, but a false alarm could mean lashes for him, and he was anxious to preserve his present state of misery intact. Those few seconds’ indecision were fatal. The priest was up to him.
Drawing the short sword swiftly from under his cloak, Marapper with a grunt dug it deep into the Guard’s stomach, twisted it, and caught the body neatly over his shoulder as it doubled forward. He hoisted it until Twemmer’s limp hands knocked against the small of his back, and then grunted again, with satisfaction.
‘That was neatly done, father,’ Wantage said, impressed. ‘Couldn’t have improved on it myself!’
‘Masterly!’ Roffery exclaimed, respect in his voice. It was good to see a priest who so ably practised what he preached.
‘Pleasure,’ grunted Marapper, ‘but keep your voices low or the hounds will have us. Fermour, take this, will you?’
The body was transferred to Bob Fermour’s shoulder; he, being five foot eight, and nearly a head taller than the others, could manage it most easily. Marapper wiped his blade daintily on Complain’s jacket, holstered it, and turned his attention to the mesh gate.
From one of his voluminous pockets, he produced a pair of wire cutters, and with these snicked a connection on the gate. He tugged at the handle; it gave about an inch and then stuck. He heaved and growled, but it moved no further.
‘Let me,’ Complain said.
He set his weight against the gate and tugged. It flew suddenly open with a piercing squeal, running on rusted bearings. A well was now revealed, a black, gaping hole, seemingly bottomless. They shrank back from it in some dismay.
‘That noise should attract most of the Guards in Quarters,’ Fermour said, inspecting with interest a notice, ‘RING FOR LIFT’, by the side of the shaft. ‘Now what, priest?’
‘Pitch the Guard down there, for a start,’ Marapper said. ‘Look lively!’
The body was hurled into the blackness, and in a moment they had the satisfaction of hearing a heavy thud.
‘Sickening!’ exclaimed Wantage with relish.
‘Still warm,’ Marapper whispered. ‘No need for death rites — just as well if we are to continue to claim our life rights. Now then, don’t be afraid, children, this dark place is man-made; once, I believe, a sort of carriage ran up and down it. We’ve got to follow Twemmer’s example, although less speedily.’
Cables hung in the middle of the opening. The priest leant forward and seized them, then lowered himself gingerly hand over fist down fifteen feet to the next level. The lift shaft yawning below him, he swung himself on to the narrow ledge, clung to the mesh with one hand and applied his cutters with the other. Tugging carefully, levering with his foot against an upright, he worked the gate open wide enough to squeeze through.
One at a time, the others followed. Complain was the last to leave the upper level. He climbed down the cable, silently bidding Quarters an uncordial farewell, and emerged with the others. The five of them stood silently in rustling twilight, peering about them.
They were on strange territory, but one stretch of ponic warren is much like another.
Marapper shut the gate neatly behind them and then faced forward, squaring his shoulders and adjusting his cloak.
‘That’s quite enough action for one wake, for an old priest like me,’ he said, ‘unless any of you care to resume our dispute about leadership?’
‘That was never under dispute,’ Complain said, looking challengingly past Roffery’s ear.
‘Don’t try and provoke me,’ the latter warned. ‘I follow our father, but I’ll chop anyone who starts trouble.’
‘There’ll be enough trouble here to satisfy the most swinishly stupid appetite,’ Wantage prophesied, swinging the bad side of his face towards the walls of growth about them. ‘It would make most sense if we stopped yapping and saved our swords for someone else’s stomachs.’
Reluctantly, they agreed with him.