“Got to get your mind off all this crap sometimes,” Lassiter said.
“This was a good one,” David said.
“Yeah, that Travis the Grave is crazy. No-one takes on an Endym that way,” Lassiter said, as though he had considered the tactical elements of a one on one fight with an Endym and worked out the best way. David almost thought to mock him, then realised that he had done the same thing many a time, as a boy, not too long ago, before the Carnival gripped him. It saddened him in an unfamiliar way to think of that boy – where was he now?
Dead as his father, and his mother.
“You hungry?” Lassiter asked and hurled David a bruised apple before he could reply. Lassiter grinned a proud and clever grin, as though this feat matched any conquest over an Endym. Perhaps it did. “Nicked ’em a week ago, valuable as gold, what with all this rain.”
David was starving. He wolfed the soft and floury fruit down. Lassiter tossed him another. David ate it more slowly. When he was done, while hardly full, he found himself wearier than he could have believed possible.
“Oh, and you might want this.” Lassiter slid a small package into his hand.
David almost wept.
“It isn’t much, but it’ll see you through the night.”
David didn’t ask how he knew, he just slipped the three dark pills into his mouth and dry swallowed them.
He yawned. Too early for the drug to take effect, but knowing that it would was enough to calm him. True calm would follow.
“You’re tired.” Lassiter said. “We’re safe enough here, won’t let nothing hurt you. You rest up, and we’ll talk properly when you wake. World’s changed for you, David. You’ve a lot of work to be done: if you’re going to live.”
David wondered just how Lassiter could know all this about him. Some of it was obvious, he guessed. After all, here he was in the darkest of the dark of Mirkton. Few came here because they wanted to.
He had questions to ask, yes. But not now. He’d run too far that night, and he was bone weary.
Answers for the morning.
And if Lassiter slit his throat in his sleep, well, at least he would be sleeping.
He knew there were worse ways to go.
The Dolorous Grey’s shrill whistle echoed down the streets. The sound tightened the muscles in John Cadell’s neck. He should have been anywhere but here, standing in the dimly lit vestibule of what was somewhat contentiously considered a safe house.
Surely, the last twenty-four hours had put paid to the concept. No place was safe for members of the Confluent Party, or their allies. Ha, there wasn’t a Confluent Party any more, just a list of corpses. And he was responsible. They’d died protecting him. That thought was enough to set the earth spinning. He yearned just a little for his old cage.
“All of them are dead?” Cadell was almost certain they were being watched. Well, let them come. Right then he would have happily broken a few Verger skulls and indulged his less than savoury hungers.
Medicine Paul nodded. His hands shook. Those hands, a perpetual reminder of what Stade was capable of. After all, Stade had ordered the severing of his index fingers ten years ago and ruined Paul’s career. He’d been a fine surgeon. Ultimately such punishment had merely strengthened Paul’s resolve. Stade had gotten that one wrong.
A burst of wind rattled the windows to the rear of the house. Medicine jumped. “All of them, except David.”
“Milde’s son? Where is he?”
“Beneath the bridge. I’ve a man with him.”
Cadell snorted. “Lassiter is hardly a man, he’s younger than David, scarce a tuft of hair on his chin. What is he, the last of your agents? The Council has its Vergers and we have boys and Old Men.”
“We’ve got you,” Medicine said.
“And you’ll jeopardise all of it for his son?”
“Warwick’s boy.”
“Hasn’t he suffered enough? He’s an addict for all that he’s barely a man. We’ve no use for him.”
Medicine glared at him. “You know enough of addictions, one would think, to feel some sympathy.”
Cadell nodded. Yes he did, though his were cruel and far bleaker than anything the boy was acquainted with. “You mock me and my purpose with this request, and you do nothing but ill to the boy. The son hates me, and with good reason. What happened with his uncle…”
“Cadell, everyone is dead. And it is precisely what happened with Sean… you could make amends.”
“Make amends! Make amends? This is no mere slight to be fixed with a kind word.” Cadell folded his arms. “I could refuse. Where I am going is dangerous. I’m dangerous.”
“You could take him to Uhlton.”
“My plans would have to go seriously awry before I ever did that. They hate me there.”
Medicine laughed, a little hysterically to Cadell’s mind. “You do have a way of making enemies.”
Cadell didn’t laugh with him. “I’ve already organised the Aerokin, the Mothers of the Air have agreed to my request, a miracle in itself. I could refuse what you ask of me. “
“But you won’t. You will pick him up from Lassiter and you will take him safely to Hardacre. You owe him and his family as much.”
Cadell had nothing to say to that, his hard eyes just stared at Medicine, and Cadell was surprised that Medicine held that awful gaze. “But you won’t refuse,” Medicine said.
And, Cadell knew he was right.
Chapter 4
A city twice lost, and more than double the tragedy. Here what should have been a bulwark of civilization, a clarion-call to the Roil’s defeat, became nothing more than a sad footnote.
What might have been becomes instead the thunderous ruination of a world. It is the historian’s duty to avoid hyperbole, but it is hard not to use such language in this case.
Dark was the loss of Tate, but darker days were to follow for all.
Something dropped heavily to the ground behind them. Margaret was ready with her rifle, but she did not fire.
The Quarg Hound squatted on its four legs, its head high as her waist. It splashed furiously in the water, then with a whine, rolled over dead.
The streets were still too cold, but not for much longer. The firestorm intensified, leaping from roof to roof, devouring houses and coolant in a terrifying quiet flame. Nothing crackled, everything hissed thin as a dying man’s last breath. Another Quarg Hound fell, landing on a Sentinel. Saved by his armour the man stumbled and swung to face the beast. It was already dead, slain with a single shot from Margaret’s rifle.
Howard blinked. “You’ve been practising.” He raised his gun and fired behind her. Another Quarg Hound died. “Good with the blade, but never so good with the gun.”
A wave of heat rushed over them, coming from the centre of the city. The ground rippled, Margaret fell.
Howard reached down to help her up, his mouth moved and she read his lips as much as heard him. “You all right?” Debris crashed all around; fiery shards of metal punctured houses and set tarred roofs burning. A nearby coolant tank caught alight. She could smell flesh burning, people dying.
But Margaret hardly noticed. Willowhen blazed, fires swirling around the ruin of two of the four Cannon. Tate’s heartbeat had grown wild and empty. She imagined the men and women up there, working frantically, desperately, because without the Cannon the city was lost. Screams echoed down to her, and laughter, human, but wrong, as though the Roil had warped it.
There wasn’t much time left. But for those distant cries, everything had grown silent. All around the crowded street people paused and stared at each other, weapons in hand. Margaret could feel their fear, and see it in their eyes. But then they got to work, they clambered onto the Wall Secundus and brought rime blade and gun to bear on Quarg Hound or Endym.