by William King
Desperately he pulled the hill-man into the aisle and then realised it was pointless. If the conspirators came this way they would see the blood. He was alone in the warehouse, surrounded by an unknown number of foes, and a pair of fiends steeped in the darkest sorcery. It was time to get out.
He let go of the dying man, smacked him on the back of the head with the knife hilt as he fell, and then raced as fast as he could down the aisle, taking a sharp right to get out of direct line of sight as soon as he could. Behind him he could hear Zarahel’s voice, shouting; “Craymorne, are you drunk. The bastard’s drunk and passed out there. Get up! We’ve got to get going.”
There was a moment of quiet and Rik knew that the realisation that Craymorne was not drunk was sinking into Zarahel’s mind. He looked up, oriented himself on the skylight and headed towards it, throwing stealth to the winds, knowing it was useless now, and his only defence was speed.
“Intruders!” he heard Zarahel bellow. “Arm yourselves and search this place. We’ve got a killer on the loose in here.”
From the distance came confused shouts and the sound of running men. He raced through the gloom. Was this the aisle he wanted? Was this the one? Shadowy figures raced along the edge of the warehouse. He froze for a moment to let them pass and then rushed towards the island of sacks he had used earlier.
A glance upward showed the skylight above him. He reached up and pulled himself onto the pile of sacks, bounding up them as quickly as possible, trusting to the towering islands of stuff all around him to keep him out of line of sight for as long as possible. Below him lanterns moved and hill-men shouted to each other.
He scrambled to the top terrace of sacking and looked across. The bale from which he had leapt earlier had fallen leaving him a greater distance to leap to get to the next one. Under the circumstances, he did not have much choice. He sprang. For a moment, he felt the long drop below him, and then his feet landed on the bale. It tottered and began to shift under his weight, causing him to fall forward. He was right on the corner, and his own momentum was going to carry him to his doom. Ahead of him he could see the dangling rope.
He had only one chance and he took it, springing directly forward into thin air. He reached out to grasp the rope. He had a sickening view of the floor and the lanterns a long way below him.
For a heartbeat, he was certain that the fall would kill him. He clutched the rope and began to slip. Friction burned his fingers. He was certain he was going to run out of rope. There was a sudden sickening jar as his grip stopped his descent.
The rope swung sideways, pendulum fashion but he did not fall. He held on grimly, waiting for the momentum to die so he could climb upwards to the relative safety of the roof. All it would take would be for one of those men down there to look up and see his silhouette against the skylight. It seemed all but impossible that one of them had not done so already. It surely was only a matter of moments.
The swinging stopped. Barely able to maintain a grip with his blistered fingers he pulled himself up hand over hand. It seemed to take forever. He heaved himself up through the skylight wriggling desperately, certain that he would get stuck.
A moment later he was up and out on the slates, sliding forward, face first towards the edge of the roof. He pushed forward and down with his rope-burned hands, hoping to slow himself. Slates were driven up and away in front of him like a wave, tumbling towards the ground. The pain in his hands was excruciating but he managed to stop himself by hooking his toes over the edge of the skylight. After a few seconds of frantic scrambling for grip he oriented himself and hauled up the line. He quickly hooked the grapnel over the edge of the skylight and then began to lower himself to the ground below.
He hit the ground after what seemed hours of painful climbing. His hands burned. A figure stepped from the gloom, and Rik reached for his pistol.
“It’s me,” said Leon. “What the hell is going on? You look like you’ve been working in an abattoir.”
“Had some trouble inside. Give me my costume and try and get that bloody rope.”
Leon handed him his mask and robe and Rik swiftly donned it. As he did so Leon worked the grapnel free. What a fiasco, Rik thought.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the hell away from here before someone comes looking for us.”
They ran as fast as they could in their heavy robes and masks back towards the music and dancing of the Solace masquerade. Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, Rik saw the face of the man he had stabbed and the look the man had given him as the life went out of him. He felt a little sick, as he sometimes did after killing at close quarters, but he pushed the thought away. There would be time enough to dwell on things after they had made their escape.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zarahel raced around the warehouse. Who had the intruder been, he wondered, and where had he gone? All the doors were secured. No one had come or gone that way, of that he was absolutely certain.
Was it possible that Craymorne had been killed by one of his own people? Perhaps some old score was being paid off. The hill-men were touchy enough and given to feuding. No one knew that better than he. Or had some other faction managed to infiltrate his force? Were Bertragh’s men to be trusted? Was the factor himself?
He paused and scratched one of his blisters. They were getting bigger. He glanced at his bodyguards assembled in the loading area of the warehouse. They were angry and they were scared. They held their weapons ready. Like all true hill-tribe warriors, they were killers born and bred but none of them showed any signs of being the murderer. There was no blood on anybody’s clothing that he could see.
Craymorne had bled profusely and some of it would have gotten on to his killer. Zarahel’s well trained eye picked up no sign of that. That meant the killer was still at large. He ordered the men to split into groups and search the place again. Another thought occurred to him, looking at the location where the body had been found. It was very close to the counting house door.
Had the killer been listening there, and had Craymorne found him? The thought that someone might know about his plans rocked Zarahel. More than that, the speed and silence of the killing argued for the work of a professional. Perhaps the assassin was a member of the Scarlet Lotus society or another of the Realm’s secret police.
Perhaps this was the work of the Brotherhood of the Wyvern who always opposed the Basilisk when they could. If word reached the wrong ears, there would be big trouble indeed. Perhaps he could work a divination to find out what had gone on here, but that would take time, and if the killer was a professional he would be warded. Anyway, he had got everything he had come here for. The books were his.
He came to a quick decision. The situation here was untenable. He turned to Bertragh.
“Get everything you need to travel. We are leaving here. Now!”
The merchant did not look at all surprised. He merely nodded his head. He had obviously come to the same conclusion. Zarahel’s respect for him increased. Bertragh was not young. He lived a very comfortable life here, yet he was prepared to give it up at a moment’s notice in the service of the Brotherhood. It was what he had sworn to do, of course, but nonetheless Zarahel was impressed. He had known much younger, fitter men who would not have been quite so quick to accept the new realities of the situation. Of course, Bertragh also realised what would happen to him if they were betrayed to the authorities.
It meant abandoning those men who had gone into the city in search of revenge but it served the fools right. Word could be got to them later. Marla would see to that. If they were caught and put to the question, there was nothing they could tell the Inquisition. They were not privy to the Brotherhood’s true plans, let alone his own. It was time to cut his losses and leave.
Having made the decision, Zarahel was immediately prepared to live with it and the consequences. Still, he would have given a lot of gold to know who the intruder was, and still more to be in a position to cut the man’s tongue out or introduce him to his p
et.
Rik entered Mama Horne’s and looked around for Rena. She was nowhere to be seen. He felt a flicker of disappointment. Still, it was probably for the best. He had disposed of his blood-soaked tunic on the way here, and washed his face and hands in a rain-barrel, but he wanted time to look in a mirror and check he had left no more tell-tale marks of his night’s activities. And he wanted to get his hands cleaned and bandaged too.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he saw Weasel and the Barbarian coming across the room towards him.
“Where have you been?” asked Weasel. “We were starting to wonder if some hill-man was cutting your private parts off with his knife.”
“Personal business,” said Rik. He reinforced the warnings to silence he had given Leon on the way back, with a look. Weasel noticed it and shrugged.
“You’ll never guess who came in,” said the Barbarian.
“I’m not even going to try. Why not tell me?”
“Only half our bloody junior officers, is all,” said Weasel.
“Exalted? Here?”
“Aye. They’re slumming on Solace night.”
“Can’t say as I blame them,” said the Barbarian.
“Who is it?”
“Sardec. Jazeray. Marcus. Paulus. Wankers, the lot of them.”
“It would be a shame if anything happened to them,” said Rik.
“Now don’t even think that,” said Weasel. “There’s things that have been done here tonight that would not bear the slightest investigation by the powers that be.”
You don’t know the half of that, thought Rik. He wondered whether he should tell his comrades about what he had overheard. He was not at all sure. There was really not a lot they could do about it. They could not run and tell the authorities without giving away what they had been up to. The most sensible course of action was simply to shut up and stay shut up.
Part of his mind gibbered about the possibility of Uran Ultar being raised. He tried to tell himself that there was no chance of that. Zarahel was a human, not a Terrarch. There was no way he could perform the necessary sorcery even if he did possess the books.
But the man himself had thought differently shrieked the fear-filled part of his mind. Rik shook his head. He did not want to be here if the demon god was unleashed. He did not want to visit the dungeons of the Inquisition either. Why could he not have left well enough alone, he wondered? Why had he bothered to preserve those damned books in the first place?
“Cheer up, Halfbreed,” said the Barbarian. “It’s Solace night and you’ve money in your pocket. It can’t be all bad.”
“For once you’re right.” Best leave tomorrow’s worries for tomorrow, Rik thought. “Have you seen Rena?”
Sardec rose from the bed. He felt replete and he felt soiled. Some of the effects of the alcohol and the drugs had had worn off, enough for him to realise what he had done. He looked down on the naked girl all too aware of what she was.
How had it come to this, he wondered?
Looking at her, he knew. She was not like his other lovers. Her breasts were larger, her hips wider than a Terrarch woman’s. And yet she was beautiful, and there was something about her that moved him to lust in a way that they had not. It was the fascination of the forbidden, he thought. His shame was an integral component of his lust, not its mirror image.
He began to put his costume back on, aware too that it was to blame for this as well. It had provided him with a disguise. It had taken him out of himself. It had, for this one night, given him a new identity. He had become someone else, but now it was time to return to reality, to put this sordid event behind him, and make sure that it never happened again.
He looked at the girl. She looked at him, empty eyed, and he wondered what she was seeing. Did she despise him? Did it matter? Who was she to judge him? There were other matters to be thought of, things he had never dealt with before. What was he supposed to do about payment? How much? Was that why she was staring at him- did she expect coin?
He opened his purse decisively and flipped a silver coin to her. He caught the flicker of disgust and perhaps shame on her face. She made no attempt to catch it.
“That will be sufficient!” he said, hoping it was and hoping it sounded decisive. He did not want to show weakness in front of this human woman.
She nodded to him. Part of him felt appalled at the way he had behaved. It was not the way he had been brought up. Suddenly, he did want to face the others gambling in the room. He wanted out. He put on his mask and opened the door.
As he did so, someone walked past. He was tall. Even masked and costumed he moved like a Terrarch. He turned and looked through the door, and his eyes appeared to widen in surprise. Sardec nodded amiably to him and passed on down the corridor, leaving the figure looking at the door that had swung shut behind him.
Rik glared at the door and was tempted to open it. A strange cold rage filled him. He had recognised Rena on the bed, just as he had recognised Sardec in his costume. The stab of jealousy caught him completely by surprise. The memory of Sabena and her lover came flooding back. He felt an urge to kick open the door and go in and berate the girl. He felt the urge to follow Sardec and punch him to the ground despite the pain in his hands.
Instead he did nothing. He merely stood there. Numb. He had been stupid to have expected anything different from a girl in her profession. He was an idiot in fact. This had been a predictable thing. The girl was, after all, a whore.
Whore. Whore. Whore, he thought, repeating the word as if it would give him some comfort, feeding his anger so that it would burn away his pain. This, he thought, was one of the worse nights of his life. He had failed in his effort to get the books, learned secrets he did not want to know, and now had seen Rena in bed with the Exalted he most despised.
He cursed. He did not know why he had expected anything different. This, after all, was the way the world was. The Terrarchs got what they wanted at whatever the cost. Humanity could go to hell.
He cursed the damned books and his obsession with them. Maybe if he had stayed behind with Rena this would never have happened.
Who was he kidding? Sardec was a Terrarch noble. She would have walked out with him even if Rik had been standing right beside her.
He stalked off down the corridor, filled with an overwhelming sense of defeat and failure. Let Zarahel raise his bloody demon, he thought. Let him smash the whole world to flinders. Why should he care?
He was going to get drunk.
Chapter Thirty
Sardec woke the next morning with the worst hangover of his entire life. He stared at the window and realised he was back in his own room at the camp. He could not remember how he had gotten there. He was conscious of a deep feeling of shame, although he was not entirely sure of what he had to be ashamed about.
Slowly, memory of the events of the night before came back to him, and he recalled the girl, and all the rest of what had happened afterwards. There had been a great deal of drinking, and the press of rough costumed bodies around him. He realised now he had been very lucky indeed to get back to the inn unscathed.
He felt as if his whole life had changed. He thought of sweaty bodies, of lust, his own and the girl’s. The memories still carried an erotic charge that aroused him and made him feel even more ashamed. He rose from the bed, aware that the banging he heard was not entirely caused by his throbbing head. Someone was pounding on the door.
“Wait a moment,” he said in his most commanding voice. He studied himself in the mirror. His costume was crumpled, his features pale, but there was no sign of the shame he expected to be visible there. He had half expected the mark of it to be branded on his brow but he looked completely normal.
“Come on, Sardec, open up” The voice belonged to Paulus, and the tone Sardec thought was unduly familiar. Of course, he realised Paulus was going to be that way from now on. He had knowledge of Sardec’s weakness and it bound them now.
Sardec threw open the door. Paulus, dressed in
his costume britches and a shirt, his weapons were strapped on, stood there.
“What’s the hurry?” Sardec asked as languidly as he could.
“You’ve slept well,” said Paulus.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s long past midday. Your little romp last night must really have taken it out of you. Still, these human girls are insatiable, aren’t they? We were surprised when we found you had gone off on your own. We didn’t think you would have had the strength.”
Sardec just looked at him, knowing he was going to have to get used to this jocularity but not liking it one little bit. Another thought hit him; it was past mid-day. He had duties, there were men to supervise, it was time to get back.
“The Colonel wants to speak to you,” said Paulus, almost as an afterthought.
“What about?”
“He didn’t say, but I think something has come up. There’s a messenger down below from the Redoubt.”
“Maybe I should get into uniform first.”
“I would hurry if I was you. He said it was urgent.”
Sardec took a seat in front of the Colonel’s desk. This time it was just the two of them, no clerks, no servants. The paperwork was neatly stacked away.
“I have just received a message from the Lady Asea,” said Xeno. “You and your men are to be prepared to leave from her palace tomorrow at dawn. You are going back to the mountains.”
“Very good, sir.”
“You may take as many wyrms as necessary and you should be prepared to investigate the mine. Requisition what you need. I will approve it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And Lieutenant Sardec…”
“Yes, sir.”
“Be very wary of the Lady Asea.”
“Sir?”
“She is a very deep Scarlet, Lieutenant.”
“I never knew that was a crime, sir.”
“Let us just say it is less fashionable now than it once was. The Queen is no longer an impressionable young woman. The complexion of the court is changing. The Greens have more influence these days.”