by Andy Graham
Stann gestured to the wolfbark tree. “You, young Ray, have as much chance of counting the leaves on that tree as you have of being a champion at anything.”
Ray’s head dropped. He scratched one foot with the other. There was another hole in the sock. He’d have to darn it again. Lenka had told him that if he was old enough to be trusted with an axe to chop wood, he was old enough to hold a needle to darn his socks.
Stann poked him in the arm. “It’s smack time. Give me one more round to work off all that crap you’re going to eat tonight. You’re still weak and slow. Move quicker, hit quicker, think quicker. Remember: brains and balls beat brawn every time.”
The rest of that round was lost in a wheezing blur that had left him trembling long into the evening celebrations. Though he did recall that the girl with the curls had been impressed by the bruises on his knuckles. Very impressed.
Now, fifteen years on, deep in the Weeping Woods, Stann’s words and lessons had underpinned every move of this fight. The old trees, the wise trees, had watched Ray’s scarred, purple-eyed adversary slowly beat himself.
Off to one side the hulk of his opponent lay twitching on the floor. Red bubbles trickled down his chin. The man’s club had split in two, shattered by the venom behind his desperate attacks. For all his formidable bulk, he’d been slow and predictable. Ray had bided his time, taunting him, dancing away from the danger end of the club that lashed out in wild swings. Once he had got inside the arc of the club, his knife had done the rest. He hadn’t wanted to use a gloat shot with a knife, it was messy and painful, but as Stann Taille had said: “I want don’t work.”
Ray rolled onto his back. Each breath made him feel like his ribcage was going to crack. He glanced over at the man that was almost a corpse, at the hands clutching dark purple coils spilling from his belly. There was no elation at the win, just relief buried in a wave of nausea. He staggered to his feet as the children peered out from behind the tree trunk.
Ray had yelled at them to hide there, even though his attacker had been slowly circling away from them not towards them. It had been subtle. Ray hadn’t realised it at first. Stann would have called it ‘ring-craft’, manoeuvring your opponent into a trap without them even knowing it, he claimed it set the connoisseur apart from the brawler. Only this ‘reverse’ ring-craft had taken the kids out of danger.
“You OK?” Ray asked the boy.
He nodded.
“Where’s your sister?”
The boy pointed behind the fallen trunk.
“Go to her. I need to talk to this man.”
“Then you’ll take me to my mummy, like you promised?”
“Go to your sister.” Ray’s voice cracked. “Please.”
The boy frowned but went.
Ray retrieved his knife. His stomach clenched. It knew what he had to do before he did.
Clouds scudded across the sky. They were shot through with black, like ink that had been dumped into a glass of water. Dotted amongst the silver skin of the birch trees was the dull grey of an occasional wolfbark tree. Six months after Stann Taille’s almost-compliment all those years ago in Tear, Ray had gone back to the wolfbark tree in the village green and counted the leaves.
“Seven,” he’d said to Stann when he had next seen him. “There are seven leaves on the tree. I can be a champion now.”
The old man’s face had split into a smile. Long-forgotten laughter lines creasing around his eyes. He’d tousled Ray’s hair with his mangled hand. “Sometimes, kid, I think you’re going to be OK.”
Today, Ray felt everything but.
A dark pool was spreading under the Donian man’s body, illuminated by the light of the moons. Clutching his knife, Ray stopped just out of reach of the man’s limbs.
He’d seen the movies.
Gloat shot or not, you don’t do your victory dance too close to your fallen opponent, just in case the fight in his
(“Her!” shouted Stann.)
eyes hadn’t completely gone out.
“Why did you do this?”
The man’s chest stuttered. He lifted one hand away from his belly. Cutting through the night air was a muted red light. It was stained pink and yellow by the scarred flesh of the man’s wrist. The other hand struggled to hold back the crimson loops of his insides.
“Help.” The words bubbled from his lips. “Free me. Your knife . . .”
Ray glanced over his shoulder. Eyes flashed from behind the tree trunk. Heavy, red-rimmed eyes that shouldn’t belong to children. The kids ducked back under his cloak.
Ray took the man’s hand in his, gripping it with the overfirm handshake of a man determined to make a point. He dug his knife point into the man’s wrist, working it under the disc. The man’s fingers extended, locking rigid. Ray dug deeper. He levered the disc out, tugged on the thin copper wires that spread out into the flesh like a metal spider. A stream of blood trailed across the man’s palm.
“My eyes.” He rolled his head to one side. Pressed his face into the dirt.
Behind the man’s ear was a metal box. It was stamped with a number: seven. The same as the wolfbark leaves Ray had once counted. Claw-like legs were stapled into the man’s skull. Running from the box, over the ear, was a cable. It was trapped under a fresh scar by a cross-stitch of black thread.
The Donian villager’s breathing was shallower now, more infrequent. Ray knelt by the man’s head, gripping his knife in his sweaty palm. He traced the cable under the rough stitching to a tiny glass lens on one temple. In the chase and the fight, Ray hadn’t seen this. Now, the black pinprick within the dark glass seemed larger than the scars that deformed the man’s face.
“Someone’s watching?”
A muscle in the man’s face twitched. “Please. Let me die alone.”
“What’s your name?”
“Karil.”
Ray rolled the man’s head towards him. He cradled Karil’s chin, and leant down towards the lens. “Whoever you are,” he said through parched lips, “you’re next.”
He rested the tip of the knife onto the metal box. Slammed the heel of his hand into the hilt. The box burst off, shards of bone and flesh splintering with it. Karil’s back arched. His fingers grasped at tufts of grass, pulling out divots of earth.
As the tree branches rattled, Karil’s face softened. His body sank down into the ground, the sods of earth dropping from his fingers. In the haze of moonlight, the scars on Karil’s face looked like they’d been painted on.
Ray wiped his knife clean on the grass and sheathed it. Hands slipped into his, one on each side. Small and smooth, unsure. A tousled blonde head pressed into his thigh, facing away from Karil.
“Did you kill him?” the boy asked, the toes of one sneaker digging into the ground.
“Yes.”
“Was he a bad man?”
“No.”
The boy’s brow furrowed. “You shouldn’t kill good people. That makes you a bad man, too.”
Ray blinked hard, fighting back the bile in his throat. He pulled his hands free of the children’s and knelt down next to the dead man. He opened Karil’s eyes. It was the Donian way, so they could watch for the End Times. “I know.”
Captain Brennan pulled a phone out of his breast pocket, hesitated for a moment, then hit speed dial. “Sir? We have a problem.”
The tinny buzz of expletives filled the air. The captain positioned himself midway between the cages, free hand painting pictures in the air.
“Say, Orr,” Nascimento called. “Where did Ray Franklin grow up?”
“On a smallholding in the Towns.”
“Do you think that means Franklin qualifies as having farm strength or gym strength? Or is smallholding strength a different category to both? Could his hip-and-grip strength outwork the sun or just the sunrise?” Nascimento made a show of scratching his head. “I’m a little confused as to which is better now. ’Cos whatever type of strength Ray has, he’s just kicked that thing’s arse, even with his sprained ankle
and never-ending bad back. I kept telling him he should name that pain. Sophia was my choice.”
Orr scowled and turned back to one of the cages. Crackles appeared on his baton as he played with the on switch.
Seth spat into the wind, the gob of phlegm leaving a trail of saliva in the air. “Watch your lip, Nascimento.”
Nascimento’s face twisted into a smug grin. “Looks like the 10th aren’t quite as tame as you 13th think, Seth.”
“We’re all 13th here. Best remember that, Nascimento. And my name is Corporal Seth. Make that mistake one more time, and I will mess you up so badly your bitch mother won’t want to come visit you in the hospital. Or maybe I could visit her instead. I like them worn in. There’s more to play with, more roomy.”
Nascimento looked at Seth calmly. “I was 10th Legion before I got dumped into this outfit. Some of the things we fought would make your nightmares incontinent. We didn’t prey on starving waifs and strays in the night. And we certainly didn’t make cheap threats like juiced-up teenage boys in a cock-waving competition.” He matched Seth’s gaze. “Was that the phrase you used?”
The nervous chattering from the caged people had died down. The lines on Orr’s face were tight and harsh.
“But, for you,” Nascimento continued, “on behalf of my former colleagues, I’ll make an exception and make a cheap threat. Say something like that about my mother again, and I’ll rip your face off and stuff it so far up your arse the doctors won’t know which end to feed and which end to clean.”
Seth’s fingers closed around the hilt of his knife. He pushed his forehead into Nascimento’s.
“Seth, Nascimento, step away from each other. Now.” Brennan’s voice cracked through the night air.
The muted hubbub from the cages buzzed in the night air.
“That was an order!”
Nascimento winked at Seth and saluted his captain. Brennan jabbed his phone at them. “Any more of this and both of you are going home in one of those cages. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sort your differences out and start behaving like professionals. Seth, go watch the stock.”
Seth pulled his baton from his belt and stalked off.
“And don’t knock them around too much, Seth. They were expensive.”
“Guess even kidnappers and people smugglers have got to eat,” Seth called back.
Nascimento shot Orr a look. “Expensive?” he mouthed.
Before Orr could reply, Brennan clicked his fingers in front of Nascimento’s face.
“Above your rank, Sub-Corporal. We got new orders. You and Orr get your stuff together. You’re so convinced the 10th Legion are the best of the best, you go get Franklin. You can hurt him but don’t kill him. He might have beaten that thing, but we know where he is now.”
7
Lesau & Melesau
The wooden trapdoor shut with a click. The Clock Tower, which marked the entrance to the society’s subterranean home, stretched high above Lena. The twin moons, Lesau and Melesau, gleamed through a hole in the clouds. If you were squinting — and she was — the hole kinda looked like a face. The moons could be its eyes. One moon was scarred for some reason she’d forgotten. That made it look angry.
“What did you say they called this secret society?” Lena asked the VP. Her head was thick and fuzzy. She wasn’t sure whether that was from the alcohol or the lack of sleep.
“The Ward.”
“Why?”
He flipped up the collars of his coat. “Ask the woman who runs it.”
“She called tonight my maiden visit, my first visit. She calls herself something funny, doesn’t she? The famous, the femurs—”
“The Famulus.”
The look he shot her made Lena feel like she should know what that word meant. She wrapped her arms around herself, gripping the fabric of her jacket. “This is a bit of a first for me. I hope you don’t think I do this a lot, hooking up with men like this, like you.”
“We’re just talking.”
At the moment.
She wasn’t sure if he had said it or she had thought it.
“I don’t really talk to strangers. My big brother, Jamie, doesn’t like it. He says I talk too much. He doesn’t say much, though, so we kind of balance out. He likes balance and symmetry. He’s a legionnaire. Maybe you know him?”
“There are lots of legionnaires, Lena. Besides,” — the VP switched on his smile again, rows of pristine, sharp teeth that glistened in the moonlight — “I’m not a stranger. You know who I am.”
Yes. She did. But she wanted to say it was hollow knowledge, the false experience and sense of familiarity the TV and the internet gave you. She daren’t. Best not challenge him, easier that way.
Lena shuffled on the spot, her high heels digging into the flesh around her ankles. Why did looking good always have to be uncomfortable? A gust of wind tore a strip of tinsel off one of the street lamps. The VP glanced at his watch.
“Did I say I know the woman who runs the Ward?” Lena asked. “The one in the sky-blue cloak, not the smaller woman behind the altar. I didn’t see her face. Did you see her face? I don’t mean I know her. I might if I saw her face—”
“You would.”
“I mean I know the femulus—”
“Famulus.”
Lena’s fingers clenched. A nail cracked. “Whatever. She, the Famulus, is the one who invited me. We work together at the police station. She’s dead quiet at work. I never thought she’d be so loud off duty. And all those tattoos up her arms. You never see them under her uniform. Didn’t realise she was so skinny, though. Dad would say she’s a few scraps of skin away from a skeleton. He likes his little sayings. All the family do. Gran would have said someone like you has a smile that could warm your heart—” She felt a warm, twitchy glow at her brazenness.
“—and a scowl that could rip you apart,” the VP finished. “That’s an old one. The man who raised me used to say his first wife stole his heart, but not before beating it blue and leaving it bloody. Your family got any new sayings?”
“Your parents don’t sound very nice.”
“My adoptive dad was a drunk and a bully. My adoptive mother was the closest thing to an angel you would ever meet. You say your brother Jamie likes balance. The kind of balance and symmetry I grew up with doesn’t work for children. My father killed my mother. I killed him. That kind of balance and symmetry does work.”
Lena hugged herself. “You’re joking, right?”
“Of course.” The smile was back.
“And your real parents?”
“My birth mother gave me up when I was an infant. My real father’s dead.”
The warm, brazen glow she felt faded, leaving her colder than before. “Why are you telling me?”
“You won’t tell anyone.”
“Of course not.”
“That wasn’t a question.” His glistening smile was gone.
“No, no, I won’t.” She cast around for something to fill the silence. “The Fam-u-lus.” She was careful to get it right this time. “Does she really run this Ward? I told you I know her right?”
“Just about a second ago, or a lifetime depending on whose ears are hearing this.”
Lena blushed and rushed the words out. “All those people doing what my colleague wants. I’d never have thought that, not in a month of feast days. You?”
No reply. He just stared at her with those odd-coloured eyes, eyes she wasn’t sure were mentally undressing her or eating her. He trailed a fingertip along the smattering of pox scars over her right eyebrow. “Cute.”
His phone rang. He whipped it out of his pocket in a flash and hooked it to his ear. “Sir? We have a problem.” Lena heard the tinny voice as the VP stalked off.
She was left alone with the empty chatter of her words hanging in the air. She shivered, wishing she’d thought to wear something warm rather than fashionable. They had both left their cloaks underground in the Ward. White cloaks, not sky blu
e. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself. She was going to have to get a new one; this one was getting too tight across her chest.
This really was a night of firsts for her. First time at the Ward. First time she’d gone out without telling her big brother where she was going. Well, not quite the first, but she’d rather Jamie didn’t know about the last time. But this was definitely the first time chatting with the VP. She kind of hoped it wouldn’t be the last. Possibly. She wasn’t sure where she stood on that yet. Neither was her body. Various bits of her were thumping or tingling, or dry or wet. But— She gave herself a mental thumbs up. “The world’s not that bad, really. Who’d have thought, me chatting to the VP, and him confiding in me, too.”
He’d told her real secrets, that must mean something, right? She wanted to tell someone. Anyone. Just wait till she told Jamie. Maybe she could use her new connections to get him a promotion at last.
The vice president was standing in a pyramid of light. The street lamp glittered with frost and tinsel. Judging by the slashing gestures he was making, it didn’t seem like a happy phone call. He grabbed a strand of tinsel and yanked it to the ground.
“Tinsel.” Lena stamped her feet. “Maybe it’d make a good scarf to keep this bloody wind off my neck.”
It was unusual to see decorations on the streets these days. The government claimed the expense wasn’t worth it, that the money could be spent on health. That was a lie, even Jamie had agreed, and he was the most law-abiding person Lena knew. Both of them had laughed when the guy with the plastic-looking hair who had privatised the health service had made that claim.