After the Fall (Raud Grima Book 2)

by Sophia Martin

  So at last one early morning I was sitting in a broken out garret staring at the street in Sudbattir, waiting for something to happen. When something finally did, for a moment or two I didn’t know for sure what I’d do. I’d got up early, gone to fetch one of my books—the red one—telling myself I’d just find a nice spot to read, and not concern myself with whether there was a hope of slashers coming round. Early morning was no common time to see them, on account of slashers having the habit of drinking and carrying on into the wee hours, and usually falling asleep by dawn. But then I seen some come round a corner.

  I almost managed to convince myself that what I was looking at weren’t no slashers and I should leave them be. There was a half a dozen, dressed in a strange assortment of nice silk jackets and trousers, fancy scarves, and old rotten cardies and fingerless gloves. They were making as much noise as they could manage, shouting and jeering and such like. So on any other day I’d have had no hesitation as to them being slashers at all. But there I was, sitting with my book, and I was thinking, “Maybe they aren’t. Maybe they’re just a bunch of stupid idiots pretending to be slashers.” But then three more of them come round the corner, and they was pushing a young boy from one to the next, laughing and carrying on like slashers do when they got a victim they intend on really playing with.

  And just like that my blood started burning like it hadn’t done for over a week.

  My sight went tinged all red and my teeth ground together, and I’ve no idea when I dropped the book nor how I made my way so fast to the street. I must have moved silent, for none of them heard. I picked my way to the next junction and leaned up against one of the higher walls still standing.

  The first three come upon me then, and their faces lit up to see me like they’d each just won at the races. I felt my own face smile back, and then the closest one—he wore a dark gray coat and a loose scarf what was stained a brown I’d come to recognize as old blood—he must have seen something amiss. He stopped sharp and one of the others run into him.

  It weren’t the gun I pulled from the holster I wore under my arm, but Raud Gríma’s dagger, which I must admit I’ve no memory of taking along with me when I fetched the book. The blade flashed as I freed it, and my heart leapt as though I’d learned to fly. And fly I did, or just about—I moved like I never have, like the rubble weren’t even there to hinder me, like I would never fall or make a mistake. The three of them lay at my feet ’fore you knew it. I’ve a very clear memory of each stroke, but I confess I’ve no heart to give you the details now.

  Three more come upon me as I was finishing off the first trio, and I switched the dagger to my left hand as my right grabbed the pistol. The gun never sounded so loud when I’d shot it before at nowt in particular—now it rang out like snaps of wicked thunder. The last of the slashers come to see what was afoot and I laid each low but one, who run the way they come like he seen a giant throwing lightning.

  The red tinge in my eyes lightened to a rosy gold, and I stood still in the street, out in the open, nice as apples, just standing among the dead. I gazed at each of them, my raging heart swollen with pleasure, drinking in the sight of the spreading pools of crimson.

  A rattle and clatter sounded to my right, and I whirled round.

  The boy, eyes like moons, shivering, crouched behind a half-broken barrel. I met his wide-eyed stare, but I’d no room for compassion in the inferno I carried, so I turned from him and pulled out a knife, cutting the tattered and stained silk scarf from the neck of that first slasher. I would give it to Styrlakker as a token. I already knew he’d not be disappointed.

  ~~~

  Other slashers probably come across the bodies of the eight I killed ’fore the food-broker what told everyone in Sudbattir about it; in any case by that night news of them was on everyone’s lips. Underlings in Mosstown, as well, suspected it was me what slayed them on account of my coming home still not looking right after delivering the scarf to Styrlakker. Likewise plenty of them what live in Mosstown run errands or do other sorts of things on Styrlakker’s orders, and Styrlakker’s toadies probably had plenty to say about what they’d overheard when I told Styrlakker about all of it.

  By the time I woke the next morning, I weren’t feeling so pleased with myself no more, wouldn’t you know. Styrlakker’d said the remorse was normal—a good sign, else I’d be a slasher myself—but that weren’t no comfort, for I couldn’t face eating and no matter how I scrubbed with the rough wool cloths, I still felt like the blood I’d spilled stained every inch of me. When I closed my eyes all I seen was their faces. The grins what shifted to blank shock on the first three—the frown on the one whose scarf I took, for he’d seen that something was wrong. The fear on the ones what come round the corner next, wondering what it was they were hearing. Wide eyes. And the wide eyes of the boy—you’d have thought I’d take comfort in knowing I’d saved him a fate like the woman’s from the tunnel, but instead all I could see was the fear in his gaze. Like he was looking at a monster.

  Course, none of it bothered me at all at first. I told Styrlakker all about it, my heart still racing with the victory of it, and I went home and ate hearty, then slept like a lamb. No, not ’til the rage wore off, and I woke the next day, did I realize what I’d done. I never noticed all the blood, of course, just like the last time, and slept in it, by the Eye. I suppose my mum or probably Amma’d found a friend for Rokja to stay with, no doubt, so’s to keep her from the sight of me curled up in my gory clothes. I washed and washed, but I kept seeing Rokja come upon me as I slept, even though Amma said she never had. And I kept seeing the men I’d killed—the way they lay in the streets, the wounds I’d given them, and the awful holes from the bullets for the last ones.

  My only comfort was sitting with Gram, who labored still in his breathing, and had not woken for going on four days. I whispered to him of vengeance, of making them pay for what they had done to him, as if that would be a comfort to him in his fever and pain. I knew it weren’t, but what else did I have to offer?

  The day after that first morning of remorse, the gossips got hold of that boy. I’d been laying low, staying home as much as I could, save for a trip to the docks for some fish—paid for with Styrlakker’s coin, and not my usual fare, thank you very much. At least the whole mess was good for something. I don’t know where the boy was from, but some kona brought him down to the Undergrunnsby—for what reason I cannot imagine. She weren’t his mum, best as I could reckon, and I suppose she’d some need or other and thought his story good enough for trade. And she weren’t wrong, come to think of it.

  The result of it was, everyone got to listen to his story. Dag come by and related it to me. The boy went out alone in search of kindling, for a cold wind had picked up—nothing I’d noticed, but then, I’d not been paying much attention to the weather of late—and his parents feared an early frost and had nowt to start the fire. Even with Dag telling it, the story was starting to take on aspects of a legend, and I half expected elves and dwarves to make an appearance. Instead, the slashers nabbed him just outside of the Cemetery of the Holy Roots, which is full of trees and no doubt where he’d thought to find the wood he sought. They marched him south into the Lavsektor, down to Sudbattir, and into the street I was watching, though the boy never said owt about that. He just said the ones ahead of him turned onto a street, and outta nowhere come a couple of loud cracks, and the ones holding him hurried him on. ’Fore anyone could make any sense of what’d happened, they were all dead. All that was familiar enough, for it was just as I recalled. But then the part of the story what everyone leaned in for come next. The boy said he hid himself, terrified, seeing some person he couldn’t make out in the midst of the chaos and watching the others fall, ’til the person come walking through the middle of the street. The boy weren’t looking all the time, for he was hiding as best he could. But he risked a look, only to see a woman with brown hair approaching. At first, he couldn’t make any sense of it, and then he seen her eyes. They glowe
d, he said, first red and then fading back to a burning gold, like nowt he’d ever seen. And everyone agreed, Dag told me, that it could be none other’n me, when the boy described that. Dag seemed to think this would be as obvious to me as anyone else, and I said nowt to oppose him. The boy went on, Dag said, to claim I looked straight through him, as though I could not see him, possessed as I was by some great spirit or some such. I cut off one ear from every fallen slasher and walked away, without a care.

  A small part of me thought it a pity I hadn’t considered taking ears when I had the chance, but the rest of me was fair sickened both at the boy’s invention and that small part’s response. “I never took an ear!” I told Dag, who just shrugged.

  “They’ll believe you did, no matter what you tell them now,” he said. “Everyone what heard him speak is telling everyone what didn’t his story, and each is probably making up extras with every telling.”

  I groaned.

  “It’s like a storybook, ain’t it, Ginna? Them storybooks you always liked.”

  I shook my head. “No, Dag, but everyone knows stories in books and sagas, even the ones the old-timers recite, they’re full of extras and lies to make them better. This isn’t like that. This is my life.”

  Dag only shrugged again.

  After he left I puzzled over the bit about my eyes. So that was what people seen. Now I understood why everyone, Amma included, was fair troubled by the sight. Except for Styrlakker, who must have seen it more’n once and only seemed pleased. As if he knew what he seen.

  I watched Raud Gríma on more’n one occasion, when she come to Mosstown and gave out the spoils of some robbery or other. Her eyes never glowed, though she always wore the silk mask, and perhaps it obscured them. Still, I’d have noticed something was odd, wouldn’t I? No one had ever said owt about her eyes.

  It weren’t natural, eyes glowing red or gold or any other colour. Glowing eyes weren’t natural at all. Styrlakker knew something about them, but I doubted he’d tell me anything. Still, I had to try and ask, didn’t I?

  ~~~

  “He’s in a meeting,” the larger of the two toadies at the door to Styrlakker’s shanty said. I still hadn’t learned either of their names, but this one had a nest of red hair on his head and covering most of his face, so I thought of him as Red. The other had small twists in his light brown beard from a nervous habit of fiddling with it ’tween two fingers, so I named him Twist.

  “I’ll wait,” I told Red.

  He shook his head. “That won’t do,” he said, his voice deep as an empty cauldron. “He’s been at it for an hour and told us not to lift the blanket for at least another. You’ll be waiting all day.”

  I frowned and looked at Twist. “Who’s in there?”

  “Fucked if I know,” said Twist, and Red scowled at him, and then at me.

  “And what business is that of your’n, Alvör, might I ask?” Red demanded.

  “It’s all our concern what he’s planning, isn’t it?” I countered. “I’ll not be led like a blinded mule through some busy marketplace, only to find myself at the butcher’s.”

  Red grimaced and waved at some point beyond my left shoulder. “Go on, Alvör. We’ll not let you through and he’s not coming out. You’re no more use than a fly after a pig’s ear. Come back when it’s your turn to watch.”

  I gave him my best glare, but I’d no sense of the wrath at the moment, and I reckoned my eyes were without any sort of intimidating glow, more’s the pity. He just glared right back at me, and after a moment of that, I knew I’d never win. I huffed off as though they’d offended the konungdis, and then soon as I was clear of them, doubled round through a side tunnel and snuck in as close as I could without drawing their eyes.

  The tunnels were all dark, for the city lights were out as they ever were and Styrlakker weren’t footing the bill for oil lamps in all of them. It weren’t too much trouble to creep, low to the ground, in the shadows of the walls, ’til I was in the far corner on the outside of Styrlakker’s shanty, Red and Twist standing with their backs to me at the corners on the other side. Then it was just a matter of shifting things around a bit, careful-like so’s not to bring the whole wall on that side down on my head, and then I was easing my way into the dark layers separating the tunnels from the inside of Styrlakker’s hovel. When I was almost all the way through I stopped and listened. Sure enough, I could hear as well as if I were in the room.

  “And you’re sure about this, then?” come Styrlakker’s heavy voice. “Without any doubt?”

  “I seen it with my own eyes,” said another—a man. I’d heard the voice before. I knew it well, in fact, but hadn’t heard it in some time. “I was sitting at his table when he got the news, in fact. A pure shock for him.”

  Gaddi. The pirate. My old friend Ivarr’s boss. At one time, one of my regular customers—but ’tween them being at sea and my giving up whoring for murdering I’d not seen him in over two months. I closed my eyes and pictured him as I’d last seen him: a wiry man, lean of body, with short hair so pale even tonic couldn’t blacken it. What was Gaddi doing talking to Styrlakker? Did they have business together? Styrlakker had more connections’n I’d realized.

  “The enemy of my enemy…” Styrlakker was saying.

  “I know, I know,” Gaddi answered. “I’d not have predicted it either, but it makes sense, don’t you think?”

  “An alliance,” said Styrlakker.

  “Strength in numbers,” Gaddi agreed.

  I frowned. An alliance? I’d read the word before, mainly in histories. Who were they talking about?

  “It’s something to consider, sure enough,” Styrlakker said. “Look here, I’ll write something out, and you’ll take it to him, right? And then we’ll see what he says. Maybe there’s profit to be made.”

  “Just keep in mind, you’re not the only one he’s approaching,” said Gaddi.

  “Maybe not, and maybe he’s not the one I should be dealing with, then,” Styrlakker said. “I’d just as soon sit down with Ekkill.”

  “If he has his way, you’ll all sit down together.”

  “I want assurances. It’s one thing to talk alliances, and another to find I’ve been shunted aside when all’s said and done. I know his mind. I’ll not trust him on his word alone.”

  “Give me the message. I’ll see that he gets it.”

  There was a rustling. I imagined Styrlakker rising from his velvet chair to hand Gaddi an envelope. They must have moved away, for I heard their voices still, but couldn’t make sense of owt they said.

  Ekkill. Styrlakker spoke of meeting with the boss. And whoever he and Gaddi were discussing, he must be another boss, too. There were plenty to choose from in the city. So Styrlakker was considering allying with one or more of them—no doubt to shore up against the coming of Leika-konungdis. It sounded like a good idea to me.

  But who was this other boss? They’d spoken of him as though the whole thing was his idea. Styrlakker didn’t trust him, but then, what boss would have Styrlakker’s trust?

  My mind ran to Atli. They never thought to ally with him, did they? They couldn’t. Atli’s toadies were worse’n any slasher, and it was on account of Atli himself. More’n once I’d seen him with his toadies going after some poor victim on a screen in the Machine. Atli was nowt but a slasher with a mind for tactics. He’d captured the palace and the surrounding districts and he’d more weapons’n any other boss in the city. He was fair dangerous, and no one I’d want anything to do with. Better that Styrlakker ally with some other bosses and storm the palace, put an end to Atli once and for all.

  I heard Gaddi leave—much sooner’n hour, I thought with some bitterness towards Red—so I hurried to escape my hiding spot fast as I could. It weren’t as easy as you might hope on account of how I’d squeezed myself in to begin with and the structure itself weren’t especially stable. Once I was free, I stopped and had to think a moment on whether to follow Gaddi and ask him, subtle-like, about what I’d heard—or go on back
round to ask for an audience with Styrlakker again.

  Styrlakker’d still be there in a while, I decided, though I was fair itching to talk to him right away. Gaddi I might not track down again anytime soon. He’d usually be a bit easier to find than Ivarr, when they were in port, for he’d stay on his boat mostly. But it sounded like he was running errands for Styrlakker now, so who could be sure what he’d do?

  I took a side tunnel at a jog and hurried round to catch him a fair ways down so’s to avoid the ears of Styrlakker’s camp. I come out quick-like just in front of him, and took him by surprise, for he jumped a bit and then fixed me with a hard glare.

  “Ginna Alvör! Name of Gods, it was a near thing to a heart attack you gave me!” He snapped, huffing a bit.

  “Hullo, Gaddi,” I said with a grin.

  He smirked at me and then let his mouth loose into a real smile. “Well, you’re a sight I never thought to see while I was down here. But this is where you live, ain’t it?”

  “Over a bit, in Mosstown,” I said.

  He stepped in closer and took hold of the lapel of my cardie, tugging it so’s I’d come to him. “I’ve no time for you now, girlie, but if you’ve a mind to meet me later at the ship…”

  “Haven’t you heard, Gaddi? I’m not a whore no more,” I said.

  “Come into money, have you?” he asked, frowning.

  I shook my head. “I’m a toady now, for Styrlakker.”

  Gaddi scoffed, moving back and to the side like he meant to slip by me. “That’s a laugh. What’s your game, then?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him an appraising look. “I’ve no need to explain myself. Ask around if you don’t believe me. But I suppose you’ve no interest in anything Styrlakker does anyway, do you now?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “No, I don’t suppose so.”

  I looked away down the shaft as though I’d no interest in continuing the conversation. “I was just on my way there now, to take up my watch. What’re you doing in these tunnels, may I ask?”