After the Fall (Raud Grima Book 2)

by Sophia Martin

  Gaddi’s frown deepened. “Nothing of any interest to you.”

  “Oh no? I disagree. I think you’re awfully close to Styrlakker’s camp. Maybe you’re trying to have a look around. Planning something, are you? I suppose I should go tell some of the other toadies about seeing you. Maybe plan to keep an eye out for you?”

  Gaddi huffed with annoyance. “Don’t go sticking your nose into what you know nowt about, Ginna. I’ve business with Styrlakker, don’t you know.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Business, is it? Sounds unlikely. What business could Styrlakker have with a pirate?”

  Gaddi’s eyes narrowed further, ’til he was fair squinting at me, he was so piqued. “I’ll have you know I’ve much more to do than pirating, Ginna Alvör. In fact, I’m at the heart of the goings-on of this city, and I’ve only just returned to it a few days since.”

  “At the heart of the goings-on of the city?” I echoed, letting my voice show how little I believed him. “Oh go on, Gaddi. You’re putting on airs now. I’ve never had cause to complain of your business. And we’ve had a good time more’n once, and no mistake. But you’re no high-and-mighty ambassador and you know it.”

  Gaddi let out a groan of frustration. “You’ve no idea, Ginna! I’m putting my life at risk, you know. This isn’t just some lark I’m about, I’m not just pretending to something here.”

  “You’ve really lost me now,” I said, and shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. But I’ll still tell the others to keep an eye out for you.”

  “He’s thinking of making an alliance with some other bosses, did you know that?” Gaddi demanded. “No, you didn’t, did you! Acting like you’ve climbed outta the sewers, but you’re just one of his thugs, and he hasn’t told you a bit of it, has he.”

  “What’s an alliance?” I asked, like I didn’t know, for I’d an idea he’d be pleased to be the one to tell me.

  Sure enough, he puffed up like a proud bird. “It’s when some higher ups come together and agree to support each other, don’t you know. I reckon you’d never heard of such like.”

  “No, I never did,” I agreed, playing now to his vanity. “I never thought Styrlakker would even think of doing something like that. Why would he?”

  “Oh, it’s a wise idea, but it weren’t his,” Gaddi said, his frown gone now, for he was pleased with himself.

  “Weren’t it, though? Styrlakker’s listening to your ideas now, is he?” I said with a touch of my earlier skepticism.

  “No, it weren’t mine neither,” Gaddi said, “though I like to think I’m facilitating the whole thing well enough. It ain’t easy, on account of each boss’s got no trust for the rest.”

  “Who come up with it, then?” I asked. “Ekkill?”

  “Of course not. Ekkill’s no fool, but he’s no great strategist, neither.”

  “Not Atli,” I said, and I read it on his face.

  Gaddi’d no intention of saying so, but it was Atli, I was fair certain. “Never you mind, Ginna. And you’d best not say owt about it to anyone. It’s a secret, of course, and I’m off to do my part in it. You’d best wish me luck and leave it at that.”

  “You’ll need more’n luck, I reckon,” I said, for the thought of dealing with Atli made my stomach sick.

  Gaddi took it as a compliment, though. “Sure enough, it’s not just anyone’d do well in my place. You’ve got to know how to talk to each one of them, and each has his own quirks, wouldn’t you know.”

  “Well, may the Gods watch over you, Gaddi,” I said, quiet-like, for I’d lost my taste for the conversation.

  “Maybe I’ll be seeing you at the ship then, Ginna?” he asked as I started back towards Styrlakker’s shantytown again.

  “Maybe so,” I answered, though I feared I’d never see him again.

  Still, I needn’t have, for I’d see quite a lot of him after that. Though I’m getting ahead of myself. A fair number of things happened ’fore I run into Gaddi once more.

  ~~~

  First, I turned back and made my way to Styrlakker’s door again. Red and Twist weren’t ripping happy to see me, but I never paid them any mind, for they’d no cause to keep me from speaking with Styrlakker anymore and they knew it.

  He was sitting in his velvet chair, a wrinkled stack of papers spread out on the table beside him, holding a few of them in his hands and reading. What surprised me was noticing the spectacles he wore. Amma wore spectacles to read—as did a few of the other older folks in Mosstown, them what could read, leastways. But Styrlakker weren’t old enough to need spectacles, it seemed to me. I started to wonder, then, if maybe he was older’n he looked.

  “Ginna Alvör,” he said when he looked up. I stood steady in the middle of his place.

  “Styrlakker.”

  He peered at me over the specs, raising his eyebrows. “And what might I do for you, may I ask?”

  Now that it come to it, I’d no words for the question I wanted to ask. I managed not to fidget, but it was a near thing.

  Styrlakker sighed and set the pages down on top of the stack. “I’ve no time for dithering.”

  Just ask, Ginna-girl. Won’t get no easier. I cleared my throat. “You’ve seen my eyes.”

  Styrlakker sat back, pulling the specs off so’s the end of one earpiece found its way to his mouth, where he begun gnawing on it.

  “You have,” I said, insisting. “I know you have. But you never say nothing. You never even react. Sure enough, you know what—you’ve some knowledge of—of what it means.”

  He frowned at me, then. “What what means?”

  I groaned and my shoulders dropped in frustration, though I’d no idea they were bunching up to begin with. “You know right well, Joar Styrlakker, and never pretend you don’t.”

  “Sometimes you’re the image of your grandmother, you know,” Styrlakker said. He put the spectacles back on and took up the pages. “Why don’t you ask her about it, then?”

  I was dismissed, and I knew it. I’d only run afoul of him if I stayed and demanded he answer. I smothered another groan and left, but at least I knew where to go next. Yet it made no sense. Amma? What might Amma know about my eyes? And what did he mean, I was her image? Amma never made a deal with Luka. That just couldn’t be.

  ~~~

  Amma was scrubbing the sheets I’d stained with blood, for the fourth or fifth time, no doubt, when I returned to our shanty a little while later. I watched her without saying nothing ’til she stopped and gave me a sharp look like the thousands she’s given me before.

  “What’re you gaping at, Ginna-my-girl?” she snapped. “You’ve nowt better to do’n watch an old woman work?” Ordinarily she’d have sent me off on an errand in the next breath, but she turned back to the washing instead. Nowt was normal since I’d given that woman in the tunnel Ótti’s laudanum. Ótti was gone. Gram was dying. I was a toady. Amma was afraid of me.

  Amma was afraid of me, I realized. How that’d even become possible was more’n I could fathom.

  I’d not moved, just standing there, watching her and thinking. At last, she stopped her work again. “What is it, Ginna?” she asked, this time not so sharp.

  “Styrlakker said you know why my eyes glow,” I blurted all at once, though the sentence’d not formed in my head ’fore it left my mouth.

  “Did he now?” she breathed, and rocked back from her knees so she was resting on her haunches, strong and graceful no matter her age.

  “Why would he say that?” I asked. “He made it sound like maybe you’ve—you’ve had them too.”

  Amma’s face became as hard as rock. “You listen to me, Ginna,” she said. “I’ll only say this once. I’ve no knowledge of what you’re speaking of. I never did. And I’ll thank you never to raise the question again.”

  “Amma, please,” I said, crouching down to make my gaze level with hers. “Please, I have to understand what’s happening to me.”

  Her face did not soften. “What’s happening is you’ve lost your way, Ginna-my-girl.
You’ve been taking wrong turns for years now. Oh, I know it’s been the only thing keeping this family afloat, sure enough, and I never said a word before about the whoring, for what other choice did any of us have? But this new work, for the boss. You’re killing folk, Ginna. It’s wrong—much worse’n the whoring ever was. Murdering and cutting ears—”

  I opened my mouth to protest, and closed it just as fast. What difference did it make that I never took an ear? I was murdering folk, just as she said.

  “—like a monster from a tale. I’d say it’ll lead nowhere good, but you’re already there. It don’t get no worse.”

  I’d nowt to say in response.

  “I’ve given it a fair bit of thought,” she said, and finally, her eyes softened, but they became so sad, I couldn’t look at them. “I think that when your friend… dies, Ginna… for I’m certain that’s what will happen…”

  My heart clenched when she spoke of Gram, but the words that followed shattered it.

  “…after that, you’d best find a place elsewhere to live. For Rokja’s sake. I’m certain that Styrlakker’ll take you in. He’s brought a fair number over to live with him in his shantytown. Or find a room in some building what still stands above. Maybe escaping the sewers will do you good.”

  “Amma,” I gasped, my throat tightening closed so’s more words wouldn’t come. Don’t make me leave, I wanted to say. This is my home. Don’t force me out. But I thought of the fear I had, of Rokja coming in on me sleeping in bloody clothes, and I knew she was right.

  ~~~

  I’d no interest in living in Styrlakker’s shantytown. I was still my’n person, no matter what Amma thought I had become. But even as I looked for a place to live above, I felt my confusion grow. If I stopped living with my family, why continue to work for Styrlakker at all? And if I didn’t work for Styrlakker, why leave my family? But after a while I realized I couldn’t quit, even if it did mean I had to move. Styrlakker weren’t to blame for me being a murderer. He was just paying me for it, sure enough. I’d give Amma the money I made, or most of it, of course. They’d still need my help, even if I couldn’t live with them.

  It was on one of these outings, looking for a safe place for someone like me to live alone above ground, when the Gods seen fit to put Ótti in my path. Luka was laughing, and no mistake.

  I was coming out of a building I’d searched for signs of inhabitation—it had them, more’s the pity, with just-burned fires in stoves and the like—when I seen her coming up the street like a right duffer, just as if the city’d never fallen and there were Officers of Tyr about, keeping the peace. For a moment, I stood with my mouth hanging open in the doorway I’d been leaving. Ótti, all thin arms and legs, a loose blue coat fluttering around her like she was hardly there at all, her skin like polished marble, hair flowing in the breeze, just silk threads. The sight was so strange, I thought maybe I was dreaming, or gone mad at last. Maybe she’d disappear, like a wisp of cloud. But no, she kept coming.

  She was carrying a basket. It was like she’d gotten up that morning and decided to call every slasher to her in any way she could invent. A beautiful, weak-looking girl like her, and carrying a basket moreover. If they’d no appetite for her—and that was about as likely as a flying pig—they’d want the basket for sure.

  “Ótti,” I said at last, recovering enough to speak.

  Her gait hitched and she turned towards me, but she’d not noticed me in the doorway. She looked left and right, bewildered. It made me want to bang my head against the wall ’til it bled. She was like a babe toddling right into a fire.

  “Luka’s Chains, Ótti,” I said. “What are you about?”

  She seen me then, and clutched her basket tighter as if I was the one to go after it.

  “What’s brought you out here?” I asked, my feet finally responding to me when I told them to move. I made my way out to face her in the street. I thought of all the times I’d offered to take her with me when I went out to the docks or some such, and all the times she’d said no. I stared at her now and couldn’t understand what I seen.

  She lifted her chin as she looked at me. “Ginna. What a surprise.”

  Her voice was so cold, as if I’d done something fair awful to her and she was ill at seeing me. “You’ve got that much right,” I said. “I never thought to see you out here. And by yourself. What can you be doing?”

  Ótti gave a little huff and looked away, a gesture what tossed her hair over her shoulder right pretty-like. “I’ve business to attend to, nothing more,” she said.

  Which only made my eyes go wider. “Business?” I said. “And what might that be?”

  Ótti gave the basket a glance then turned a pinched look on me. “If you must know, I’ve a delivery to make.”

  “A delivery?” I echoed, now thoroughly convinced I’d gone fair mad.

  “You needn’t act so surprised, Ginna. I’m not completely useless, you know.”

  I gave my head a hard shake, more to try and clear it than to disagree with her. She didn’t even seem scared. I’d never known Ótti to leave our home without her nervous as a dog in a thunderstorm. “You may not be useless, but you’ve no sense. Walking out in the open with your ‘delivery’ as though you were strolling through a park!”

  Ótti scowled at me. “I’m in no danger!” she said. “I’m under Halla’s protection now.”

  “Halla’s protection!” I said, choking on the words. I looked around, for I’d forgotten just then where we were. This was… Nordlav. The northern-most district in the Lavsektor. Right. “Halla Hundrbeinn’s maybe got some influence in lower Sudbattir, Ótti, but she’s no one special in Nordlav.”

  “Shows what you know,” Ótti said. “Halla’s going to take over all of the Lavsektor, and you’ll never see it coming. No one’d dare trouble me, they all know I’m her girl now.”

  I run my fingers as deep into my hair as they’d go, for what I wanted more’n anything was to shake her ’til she cried. “Where’re you off to, then? I’ll go along with you.”

  “There’s no need,” she said, prim as you please. “I’ll be on my way now, as well.”

  “Ótti, just let me walk with you.”

  She gave me that scowl again. I’d not seen it many times before, for it weren’t meant to convince me to do one thing or another. “I’ll not have you walking with me, Ginna. I’m not your girl no more. I’ll be on my way. Good day to you.”

  Her words hit me like a slap and I watched her go, stupid as a cow. When she turned the corner, I realized that I’d have to follow her and it made me want to cry. “Fuck this for a shit day,” I muttered, and started creeping after her quiet as I could, both to keep her from noticing and to avoid the attention of those I hoped to protect her against.

  All the while my mind worked over the meeting like it was a puzzle to solve. Had Halla lost all sense, sending Ótti out like a lamb to be butchered? Had she grown so weary of Ótti that this was her solution? The more I thought about it, the less the latter made sense and the more some variation of the former had to be right. Halla must be that convinced of her own influence, she thought Ótti safe enough for the errand. What, by the Eye, had got into her? That question troubled me some as I darted from one shadow to the next, always within sight of Ótti. Last I heard Halla was wearying Ekkill with raids on some of his toadies’ places. When had that changed? What made her think she’d have the Lavsektor to herself sometime soon?

  No answers to them questions come to me, more’s the pity, and soon enough Ótti stopped outside a building and looked around like a perfect duffer, making it plain to see she’d lost her way. But after a moment or two she started walking again, and it weren’t much farther after that. She made her way into an undamaged building and I had to wait a time so’s she’d not notice me go in after her. There were stairs and I guessed at the floor she’d climbed to, putting my ear to each door. My luck—or to be precise, Ótti’s bad luck—decided it for me when I heard her voice rise. Whatever deal Hal
la’s customers had with her, they chose not to honour it when they seen Ótti, I reckon. Like a piece of spun sugar, she was, and what brute in this ruined city would pass up a chance to taste her?

  In a blink my vision went red as before and I felt the rush of my blood rising with anger and anticipation. My heartbeat, already ripping fast from worry for Ótti, doubled in speed. I could smell blood in my nostrils, taste copper on my tongue. I would have them. All of them.

  I’ve no memory of the door, whether it was open or shut, and if it was shut, how I managed it. I seen Ótti on her knees on the floor ’fore two ragged-looking slashers—no fine silks for them—her face a mess of tears. I needed nothing else to release me from any hesitation. The dagger was in my hand ’fore I counted how many of them were there—I’d cut two throats fast as taking two steps. Red stained the walls. But there were too many of them and I had to use the gun again, though the rage called for a blade over bullets. This time I took their ears.

  Only when I’d sliced the last did I hear her screaming. The red had faded to gold again and I turned and rested my eyes on her. Some of the blood had stained her white skin, some had caught her hair, and tainted her blue coat in places. Her face was a mask, twisted with the screaming. It made no sense to me, and I had no words to give her, so I left.

  ~~~

  If I’d felt remorse before, it was nowt to the horror what come to me when I realized what I’d done—what Ótti seen. I hid up on the top of the broken stairway and cried ’til I slept, for I’d no interest in returning to Mosstown. I woke and wept some more, just laying on my side, looking at the stone what hid my books and things. Sleep come to me again after a time, but when I woke there was more blarting, as though I’d never stop. Nothing’d been right since I’d helped that woman. And I knew, sure enough, that nothing’d been right since the city fell, or even before, if I’m being honest. Not since our old blue-eyed landlord cast us out of our home in Gronicks. And all of a sudden, I wanted to see if that old building’d survived. I’d never thought to check before.