As he expected, there was a cry at his appearance. He did not pause in his dash for safety, hoping to be dismissed as a trick of the light. Shadows could play tricks and an inexperienced guard could easily allow it to go uninvestigated. The cry was not repeated and no movement followed. Slave breathed a silent sigh of relief. The Tulugma following showed enough wit to allow the momentary distraction to fade before making their own entrance. Their training was good, and they all hid quickly without attracting any further attention. Myrrhini found her way to Slave and crouched beside him. She had the sense to say nothing while Slave waited for the next opportunity to move.
They were in a large open area that extended in a rough semicircle about twenty paces from the gate. The area should have been well lit and completely bare of any form of cover to prevent exactly what Slave and the Tulugma had just done, but this aspect of the city’s defences was lax. Three guards stood casually around a pole on the outer edge of the open area. Two were engaged in a low conversation, while the other was relieving himself against a wall. None of them were showing any interest in the door, the cry Slave’s entrance had caused, or the possibility that their city had been breached. Slave considered attacking them, just to teach them to stay alert, but dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred.
There were five torches burning fitfully opposite the main gate. They were mounted on poles and illuminated a roadway that led into the city between a row of buildings. Slave could make out two other exits from this area, one to his left and another to his right.
He touched Myrrhini on the arm, then gestured to the dark passageway to his left. She nodded her understanding and unsheathed her dagger. Slave grabbed her hand before the blade fully cleared the scabbard; the bright metal had reflected a sliver of light that danced on the wall opposite, too close to the casual guards. He shoved the blade back, but it was too late. The guard who had been relieving himself had noticed the light and was looking for its source.
‘Ha, Tripolides, did you see that?’ he said, too loudly, to one of the other guards.
‘Ya, seen it before. You’re huge, all the ladies are impressed. Put it away and stand guard, Elefterio.’
‘Na,’ Elefterio snapped. ‘That light, on the wall. Did you see that?’
‘Na. You drunk again?’
‘Ha, drunk on what? Not that swill the peasants are brewing. When was the last time you saw good drink?’
‘Saw it? The Photio had a flask in his hand when he went out to see the barbarian queen this afternoon. Good drink? Don’t remember.’
The other guard stifled a snort of laughter and made some quiet remark that did not carry. Slave decided he had heard enough and started to move.
Staying low, keeping to the shadows, he moved silently towards the alleyway. Myrrhini followed him.
Once in the narrow alley, the light from the torches in the open area faded. With the vanishing light, Slave felt his other senses surge into life. He felt the air, smelled and heard things he had almost forgotten existed. It had been too long since he was in this kind of darkness, under this kind of risk. He was in danger, he was in the dark — he was alive. He was infiltrating enemy territory with only his wits and his Claw.
He just didn’t know why.
The houses that rose on either side of him were dark and silent, with not even glimmers of light showing from between the shutters or out from under doors. It was as if they were all uninhabited, yet the smells of habitation were all around. He slipped silently through the night, making for the centre of the city, while the city waited.
Slave could not have told how he knew he was being watched from above any more than he knew it was a woman, but she watched him nonetheless. He felt her eyes on him, sensed her growing emotion without recognising it. She was waiting. He kept moving. Instinct took over completely. His eyes adjusted, his ears were attuned to every hint of sound, his nose was scenting like a dog’s and his skin was tingling with the awareness of every movement of air. With instinct came self-preservation and that meant forgetting about the Tulugma possibly blundering along behind him, ignoring the clumsy Myrrhini falling further behind with every uncertain step. They all faded, merging into the background hum that was night in Asnuevium.
His initial thoughts that Asnuevium was under siege were correct. The deeper he went into the city, the more people he heard. They were cowering inside their locked homes, guarding what scant food they had hoarded against starvation. He heard snatches of conversation, whispered words of warning, of fear, of hopelessness. He heard mention of the Night Hunters, people who haunted the dark streets, stealing from the unwary, killing the careless, looting the unprotected.
Slave kept moving quickly, noting the absence of the smell of decay, as well as the lack of rodents on the streets. A city under siege would, he had read, stoop to the level of eating the rodents, and the level of waste thrown out is dramatically reduced. He paused at an intersection of three alleys. The alley he was on continued towards the centre of the city but the other two went left and right heading for even darker sections. He sniffed, trying to identify the odd smells. To the left, Slave recognised the tang of a tannery. To the right was something quite different. He was running silently in that direction before he realised it. His Claw was in his hand and his breathing was already faster, even though he had not consciously decided what it was that drew him.
The houses here were single storey, smaller and somewhat less orderly. There was a ramshackle feel to the area, a sense of poverty and even hopelessness. He realised he had lost Myrrhini at the intersection and the Tulugma were heading towards the centre of the city where they would no doubt find out some interesting things, but Slave knew instinctively that there was something significant ahead of him out here in the poor quarter.
He sensed the follower soon after he passed under an archway that bore a worn and damaged image of a wyvern carved across it. There was no clear purpose for the archway, but it looked ancient, so it was probably a part of the old city, its purpose long forgotten.
The follower was skilled and would usually have gone undetected, but Slave’s skills were far superior. From the way the follower kept edging to his right, Slave guessed he was hoping Slave would go left. The sign was subtle, indicative of a subconscious desire.
What is down to the left? An ambush? A hideout? Let’s find out.
Slave shifted direction to hide within a particularly dark patch of shadow. From within the utter black, where he simply could not be seen by anyone, he saw the man following him hesitate, unsure how his quarry had so completely vanished. After a moment’s pause, the man continued, moving quietly along in the same direction. When he had passed by, Slave slipped silently out of his hiding place and headed to an alleyway that lead away to the left.
Ahead, Slave could see a simple, apparently random, pile of debris that mostly obscured the alley. He moved into another dark patch of shadow and stopped, examining the obstruction. After a moment, he realised what he was seeing was not a pile of rubbish, but a well-constructed barrier. He squinted, then closed his eyes, concentrating on what he could not see. Yes, he realised, this was not just a barrier, it was a guarded barrier. There were three people — one woman, two men — hidden behind the barrier. They were armed and wearing metal armour: the smell of metal, lubricating oil and sweat-soaked leather was unmistakeable, as was the sound of metal scraping against wood, resulting from the careless movement of a sword. Slave opened his eyes and kept himself motionless in the darkness, observing the guards. Now that he knew where they were, he could make out patches of black within dark that were not caused by the normal light and shade variation of a moonlit night.
The three guards now visible to Slave were fidgety. One in particular seemed unable to keep still for more than a heartbeat or two. When he raised his hand to his mouth and tilted his head back to drink, Slave understood why. The man was drunk. After taking his swig, he gave a stifled belch. The sound and smell wafted over the still night air to confi
rm Slave’s suspicions. Whatever the guard was drinking, it was cheap and rough, designed solely for rapid intoxication, not taste or enjoyment.
Now, what is worth guarding down here? Slave wondered. The man who had been following him had disappeared into the distance, leaving him alone with three unwary guards. After watching them for a while, he knew he could take them easily and quickly. And quietly. That left whatever was waiting behind the barrier and he had no idea what that was.
After nothing had happened at or beyond the barrier for a long time, Slave decided. He crouched low and sprinted across the street. At least one of the guards was alert. The sound of a bow being drawn reached Slave’s ears, but he was too fast. He sprang over the barrier without slowing, landing in a forward roll. His roll took him a pace or two past the barrier. By the time he was balanced on his feet, the other two guards were ready for him while the archer had released her arrow and was busy switching weapons to a sword.
The first guard advanced with his sword in a clumsy high swing, so Slave slashed hard and fast under the swing, across his throat. The Claw opened the neck all the way back to the spine. The man dropped his sword and went down without a sound. Slave caught the dropped sword with his free right hand as he spun around. The momentum of his swing meant the sword was already moving and it took nothing to lift the point to take the drunk second guard in the gut. The guard’s own momentum meant the sword drove deep and his blood gushed out thick and warm down Slave’s arm. Slave released his grip on the handle and slammed the Claw down into the back of the man’s head. He, too, died without a sound.
The woman archer turned in time to see her two colleagues go down in a matter of moments. Her eyes went wide with fear as Slave, black against the night with his silver eye glinting in the moonlight, advanced on her. She saw her own death clearly in his hard stare. It was a testament to her bravery that she kept coming with her sword steadily aimed at Slave’s eyes.
From the way she failed to react, Slave surmised later that she did not even see him move as he dodged her sword thrust, stepped in under the weapon and slashed his Claw up through her body, opening her from pelvis to throat. The shock was enough to keep her silent long enough to die. Slave doubted she even felt the wound.
Slave stood over the three dead guards and regarded them. Why had he killed them without compunction? He could easily have passed without them knowing, but instead he attacked them with death in his mind. Instinct? Unquestionably, but since when did instinct override conscious thought so completely? In a fight, certainly, but in a decision made before engaging?
Curiosity now piqued, Slave crouched beside the woman’s body and examined it closely. In the dim light of Grada, she seemed normal, but as Slave went to roll her over, he realised why he had killed without thought. Whatever this woman might have been, she was not human.
Slave leaned over her open chest and looked inside. He could clearly remember the times Sondelle had forced him to watch dissections of living victims. What he was looking at inside this chest was like nothing he had seen before. He switched his attention to the others. Outwardly, there was nothing unusual about them, but he knew they were also not human. There was something distinctly wrong about them. It was this, their inhumanity, that had prompted his attack, his killing. Had his senses detected enough subtle clues to drive him to attack instinctively? Slave shook his head as he rose to his feet, wondering again just what Sondelle had made him. He gave the creatures at his feet another look, another thought.
What are you?
Whatever they were, they were dead now, so Slave had other things to think about. He left their bodies and slid into shadow once again, moving deeper into the alleyway they had been protecting.
Everything here beyond the barrier felt different. The houses were closer together, the alley itself was narrower, the air was thicker with a strange, almost animal smell and, above all, the noises were peculiar. There was none of the low muttering that had been so common from behind the other parts of the city. Rather, the sounds had a distinctly orderly character to them, as if it were not conversation so much as chanting.
Slave moved silently along the cracked pavement, listening to the sound as it slowly became clearer and louder. It was a chant — a low, growling sound of barely human quality. He came to a door where the sound was loudest. It was still quiet even here, but its source lay well beyond this door. Slave rested his hand on the wooden door, feeling its rough texture, its varying temperature. For it to feel so different, he guessed there had to be someone leaning on the other side. He looked to the left, the right, up above the lintel. The wall above was old and offered numerous handholds. It would be an easy climb up to the roof. From there, he might find another way in. He started to climb.
The roof was flat, and guarded by three people in all black garb not unlike that of the Habigga. The two at the front of the building were not merely watching, they were waiting for him, obviously having seen him approach the door. For a moment, Slave felt stupid about his stealth, realising he had been watched all the way, but he had little time for such self-flagellation.
As soon as his head cleared the level of the roof, a foot swung at him from the darkness. Slave felt the air current an instant before the foot made contact, allowing him to shift slightly so that the blow was only glancing. Had it landed flush, he would most likely have ended up flat on his back on the ground below. As it was, he was stunned and his grip on the wall was weakened. His reflexes took over and he heaved himself up over the edge.
A grunt and a shifting of feet by his head alerted him to a sword being swung, so he rolled fast to one side. He crashed into the other guard as the sword slammed into the roof to his left. His impact sent the guard on his left staggering back while the swordsman swore at the painful jarring from striking the hard roof. Slave took the chance to spring to his feet. His Claw flashed in the moonlight as it swung in a lethal arc that opened the guard’s throat. Blood erupted from the severed vessels in the neck, splattering over Slave. He did not bother wiping it off as he turned his attention to the other guard, who had recovered his balance.
The guard came at him fast with his sword point low, aiming at Slave’s crotch. Slave swung his Claw down, across the blade’s path. The weapons clashed with a scattering of sparks and the sword was forced aside. The guard overbalanced slightly as his sword slid past Slave and staggered into a shatteringly powerful blow to the side of his head. Stunned, he let his sword slip from his fingers to fall loudly onto the roof and reeled sideways as if drunk. Slave slammed his Claw deep into the back of the guard’s neck.
The sounds of the fight had alerted the other guard. He ran towards the far side of the roof. Slave sent his Claw spinning through the air to bury itself in the back of the fleeing guard. He set off across the roof to reclaim his Claw and find out where the guard might have been going.
The Claw caught on a bone as he pulled it out of the body, causing Slave to pause. In the couple of heartbeats he was crouching beside the body, he noticed a faint whiff of an unexpected scent.
‘You left me behind,’ Myrrhini scolded quietly as she floated down to land beside Slave. ‘I had to look into Eztli-Ichtaca to find you.’
‘And the Tulugma?’
Myrrhini shrugged. ‘You left them behind, so I did the same.’
Slave wrenched his Claw free of the dead guard’s body and stood up. ‘Did you see anything about this place?’
‘Darkness, a profound darkness. There is something disturbingly wrong here.’
Slave gave a low grunt, shifting his gaze to the edge of the roof. He saw the top of a ladder. ‘There,’ he said, pointing.
‘What?’
‘Ladder.’
‘What ladder?’
Slave shook his head and made his way towards the ladder. Myrrhini followed slowly, as if feeling her way. By the time Slave had reached the ladder, Myrrhini was barely halfway there. He spared her a brief look then put her out of his mind as he made his way down.
A door?
Slave approached the glowing line carefully. It was the base of a closed door. A shadow flickered across the line of light. Slave stopped, watching the movement. There was someone waiting on the other side of the door. He waited, disciplining his breathing and holding himself utterly motionless. The flicker behind the door stopped too. For a long moment, nothing moved on either side of the door, but then Myrrhini started to float down beside the ladder.
Myrrhini dropped to the roof. The person behind the door moved again. Slave’s guesses firmed with the shifting shadow across the bottom of the door. He did not move as Myrrhini whispered loudly.
‘Slave? Where are you?’
As the shadow beneath the door moved again, Slave silently shifted aside, his Claw appearing in his hand as if by magic. When the door opened, the waiting guard managed to put his foot down outside before the Claw took him. Slave caught the body before it hit the roof and lowered it without making a sound. Myrrhini bit off her gasp as she watched with wide eyes. The light spilled out from the open door, illuminating the roof, the ladder and Myrrhini. Slave looked inside before gesturing once for her to follow him. Without waiting to see if she did so, he slipped through the doorway and into the empty, torch-lit corridor beyond.
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