Three months ago.
Three months!
How things had changed. How life in Jalder had changed for those poor unfortunates still left. The Harvesters roamed the streets, directing the patrols. Many of the humans remaining were soon killed… killed and harvested. The old, frail, weak, scared. The children had proved resilient; good at hiding, and learning quickly to kill in packs with youthful ferocity, and without remorse.
And gradually, they had all come to Ferret. This small man, this skinny man, with his lank brown hair and pockmarked features like the arse of a pig. He was one of the downtrodden, one of the underdogs. But hell, Ferret had come good. Ferret had shown that it was all about the mind. All about planning, and thinking, and instruction. Not simply violence, but the planning of violence.
Ferret gathered those stray and directionless men and women and children to him; he organised them into groups, the children into food foraging parties, the woman into units who practised with swords and bows during the day, and mended armour and fashioned arrows by night. They discovered underground tunnels near the river, and set nets to catch fish thus providing fresh food and protein. They used the old furnace chambers of the tanneries to cook their food, so that smoke and fumes would be carried up high brick chimneys and away on distant winds. They slept, huddled together under old furs and blankets the children found in rich merchants' houses, and always with weapons to hand. Once, a unit of five albino soldiers found a sleeping pit – the battle had been fierce, but short, with twenty people slaughtered including one of Ferret's trusted "Generals", as he liked to call those he promoted and put in charge.
In those first days, the resistance had numbered maybe five hundred: the strays in the sewers, those hiding in attics and cellars, shivering in the cold dark places. Now, they were no more than two hundred. Slowly, systematically, they had been rooted out and killed. It depressed Ferret more than he could ever admit, and now, as he sat in his little control centre deep within an old tannery building, cold, silent, the huge cauldrons empty, the fires gone out, he waited with three of his Generals for his best weapon, his most trusted ally, his most vicious soldier – a twelve year-old girl they called Rose. Beautiful on the outside, but sharp with thorns beneath.
Rose was a slim, quiet thing. But she had proved herself time and again as the most capable soldier in Ferret's resistance. She was superb at gathering intelligence: where albino soldiers would patrol, if there would be Harvesters, what was happening in the outside world. She had her own routes through the city, and Ferret did not ask. Her results were what counted, and Ferret did not need to know the details.
All he knew about Rose was that her parents had been killed when she was young, maybe four or five years, and she had survived in the city from that early age on her wits and intelligence and intuition. She was a born killer, despite her angelic appearance. She was dangerous beyond compare.
Her tiny bare feet pattered down the corridor, and Rose glided into view; warily, for she was always wary; but with an easy and confident manner. She was a girl in tune with this odd underground environment.
"Hello, Rose."
"Ferret," she said, her dark eyes glancing to the Generals, then around the room. "Nice hideout."
"You have information?"
"Of course. You have payment?"
"Yes." Ferret smiled, his narrow face breaking into genuine humour. Never trust anybody who did something for free, he thought. With Rose, he had to buy her information. Usually with precious stones, which he had children through the city scouring rich merchants' deserted houses to find so he could keep this particular human gem in active service.
Ferret tossed her a small velvet bag of rubies. "Here you go."
Rose snatched the bag from the air, and looked around suspiciously. She frowned, then seemed to relax. Ferret tuned in to her senses; he had never seen her frown. Was there something wrong? Had she seen, or sensed, something he had not?
Ferret felt his alertness kick up a few degrees. He loosened his sword and knife at his belt, but kept the smile on his face for Rose. He glanced to the three Generals; all huge men and proven warriors, despite their soiled garb. It was hard to keep clean fighting from the sewers. They stunk like three-week-dead dogs. All except Rose, that is. She was perfectly clean, her simple black clothes fresh as virgin snowfall, her shoulderlength black hair neatly brushed. Nothing about her indicated a covert lifestyle of information gathering, and the secret murder of albino soldiers.
Rose tipped the rubies onto her small, white hand. They looked wrong, somehow, sitting there in the girl's palm. Then, in one swift movement she ate them, swallowing with a grimace, and glancing up to Ferret. She allowed the velvet bag to drop to the stone floor.
"The albinos know where you are," said Rose.
Ferret felt a thrill of fear course through him, tugging his senses like drugsmoke, pounding through his head, flowing like molten lead through his veins.
"What? This place? They know about this place?"
"Yes," said Rose, and glanced around. As if nervous. Ferret had never seen her do that before; never seen her portray anything but the utmost calm, secure in her knowledge that she was unobserved, had not been followed. Now. Now she was different. She was out of character. Ferret grimaced, as he realised the emotion she carried like raw guilt. Rose was scared. "They are coming for you," she added, almost as an afterthought.
"Tonight?"
"No. Now. Now!"
Even as the words brushed past her lips on a warm exhalation of air, so there came a scream of bricks and torn steel, and a shower of rubble cascaded into the underground chamber. Bricks clattered in the control centre, dust billowed, and Ferret and his generals had drawn weapons, were standing ready, as one of the vampires leapt snarling from the dust, so fast it was a blur, hitting one general in the chest and bearing him to the ground with talons slashing open his throat. The large man convulsed, started to thrash, choking on his own blood, on geysers of blood as he flopped around, arms and legs kicking, but pinioned to the ground as if the vampire was a heavy weight.
Ferret licked dust-rimed lips. The vampire was tall, thin, with white skin and a near-bald head. Long ears swept back, and it turned a narrow, elongated face towards him, eyes red, fangs poking over its lips and with a start, with a jump that nearly kicked his balls through his belly, Ferret realised this was Old Terrag, once a butcher down on the markets by the Selenau River, an expert with a cleaver by all accounts, and now an integral part of the resistance in Jalder. Old Terrag was one of Ferret's most trusted men. Now, he had changed…
The vampire snarled, lowering its head as the cutopen general slowly ceased his thrashing, blood dropping from fountain to bubbling brook, and with a blink the huge war hammer hit the vampire in the face, sending it catapulting in a flurry of limbs across the room. Ferret glanced at Blaker, and gave a nod. The huge general had kept his wits about him and crept through the billowing dust. Even when Ferret had not. Shit. That won't happen again. Well, over my dead body. Especially over my dead body!
Ferret glanced back to Rose, but the young girl had gone. "Damn," he snarled, as the vampire hit him in the back and his face smacked the stone floor, hard. Stars flashed through his skull, and he was blinded. He could hear scuffling, hissing, snarling, and Ferret jacked himself up and began to crawl. There came a crack, like wood breaking, and a terrible scream. This was finished off with a gurgle. Ferret searched around for his sword, and as his vision cleared his fingers curled around the short, sturdy blade. He found a wall, and realised most of the lanterns had gone out. Smashed. Only one weak flame burned, and Ferret scrambled around until his back was to the wall, and he crouched there, sword touching the ground, looking, listening. Use your brain, damn you! Think!