After the Fall (Raud Grima Book 2)

by Sophia Martin

  So I wondered at Gaddi taking me there, for if he meant for me to see my family off at a boat, why not dock at the city like he always did since the city fell? No Officers would arrest him for trying these days. He set such a pace I’d little enough breath to spare for questions, and I might have thought he did it with that in mind except I felt the urgency as much as he did, what with the invasion looming just hours away.

  The spoke he took me through was in fair shape. Only the glass ceiling overhead cracked here and there, but when we reached the Torc proper I gaped at the broken ceiling above. I’d not come to see it since the Rising, though I’d heard it was in a bad way. Sure enough, the buildings and street were rubble and flooded besides, but it was the curved glass above, a marvel I’d always admired, shattered by the bombings, what took my breath from me.

  “This way,” Gaddi urged. I tore my gaze from the pointed shards as big as the wings of aeroplanes pointing to the sky. And the sky, I noted, was growing dark. ’Tween handing out guns and crossing the city with Gaddi, it was midafternoon, and with the coming of winter, that meant nightfall weren’t far away.

  Gaddi stopped outside a building what still stretched tall enough to almost touch what was left of the ceiling. He gave me a glance then disappeared through the front door. I hesitated, wondering for a moment if he led me into a trap. But why bother? I was his, so long as my family was safe. Course, Gaddi might want to make me his and say to Hel with my family. But then, he had to have heard about my curse by now, hadn’t he? If he tried to trap me and go back on his promise, he’d learn of it soon enough if he’d not. That thought was enough to loosen my legs and I followed him into the building. He was up a winding staircase, at least two stories ahead, and as I looked up at him, he peered over the bannister and called down, “Hurry up, Ginna. We’ve not got all day!”

  Tired from so much I’d no heart to list everything, I pushed my legs to hurry up the stairs. Gaddi kept on ahead of me, then disappeared through a door at the very top. When I followed, I found we stood on the roof of the building.

  At one time this might have been a spot for maintenance workers to reach the ceiling. Now, there weren’t no ceiling no more at all in this spot—no shards or nothing. Instead we had a fair clear view of the ocean. In it floated a ship.

  Gaddi pointed to it. “There,” he said. “As promised.”

  I squinted at the ship and considered boxing Gaddi’s ears. “You take me for a right fool, you do,” I said, feeling tired and frustrated and angrier’n I might if I’d had some good sleep in the last week, which I’d not. Anger was dangerous, I knew, but I weren’t in the mood to care, and if my sight went red and brought on the end of Gaddi, all I could think at that moment was good riddance.

  “How’s that?” Gaddi said, all offended dignity.

  “And how’m I to know my people’re on there, I’d like to know?” I said, clenching my fingers into fists at my sides, the itch to knock Gaddi off the roof growing with each self-satisfied breath he took beside me.

  He gave me a smug grin, pulled a hand from his coat pocket, and waved a red scarf in the air. I turned back to peer at the ship.

  A figure waved a red scarf back, and after a moment, some more figures shuffled onto the deck—five of them. I might not have been sure about the four adults, but I knew the small one was Rokja. I knew the blue of her dress, the reddish-brown of her hair, the tilt of her stance. Like a fool I began waving my arms, and I thought I seen her raise one of hers in return. Tears filled my eyes and I bit my lips to try to force them back, clutching my arms around me. Gaddi mustn’t see—he knew he had me, but I couldn’t let him see how much I cared, all the same.

  Of course he seen, more’s the pity. There weren’t no hiding my feelings from him now. He had me, body and soul, and he’d use me for whatever end.

  “How will I know they’re still safe?” I demanded, my voice choked, betraying me all the more.

  “Still safe?”

  “What’s to stop your men harming them, or dumping them over the side?” I asked, a wild feeling in my chest. If Rokja, Kisla, Mum, and Amma escaped the city, if they found safety, I could face owt Gaddi or Leika or the Gods themselves decided to throw at me, I vowed. But how could I know Gaddi’d not betray me?

  Gaddi pursed his lips, frowning as if I’d offended him. “You’ve so little trust,” he said.

  I grabbed the lapel of his coat and jerked him, wishing for the rush of rage to fill me. It didn’t, wouldn’t you know.

  “Letters,” he said through gritted teeth. “Let me go, Ginna. You’ve got my word, and I’ll see to it they write letters. I’ll have ships coming and going. They’ll carry any letters you write, and bring back the answers, eh.” He gestured towards the ocean.

  I released his lapel and cast a glance back at the ship, but the figures were gone, but for the one what’d waved the scarf.

  “They’d better answer the things I ask,” I said in a low voice. “And I’ll know their writing, and if they’re suffering, even if they don’t say so, Gaddi. And if you pull some trick of your’n—”

  “Luka’s Chains, Ginna,” Gaddi said, smoothing his coat. “I’ll not betray you. I’ve got no cause. I was planning to send that ship to the southern lands anyhow, only I weren’t going to do it for another week, but I moved up the schedule and it’s probably just as well. They’ll take them there and drop them off, and it’ll be up to yours to find a home and a living. I’ll send my man to check on them every so often and take letters, like I said. And if you decide to go back on the deal, he’ll take them a knife or a bullet, sure enough.”

  I locked my jaw closed on threats what wanted to come up at that, for I knew I’d no better choice. All I could manage was a stiff nod, though, but Gaddi seemed to think it was enough.

  ~~~

  Gaddi hurried us back, for it seemed there was a great meeting planned, and a meal to share to cement the alliance ’tween the factions. He told me bits and pieces as we moved, though conversation was no easy thing ’tween having little breath from running and needing concentration to manage the rubble.

  “We’ve got Ekkill, Halla Hundrbeinn, Hevatr Modvig, and of course, Styrlakker and Atli,” Gaddi told me as I was pulling myself through a tight space in a ruined part of the Undergrunnsby. I was glad for the way the concrete slab I was trying to move under covered my face when he said Halla’s name. The last thing I needed was to give away something else I cared about. Just hearing her listed in the same breath as real bosses made me want to scream and hunt her down right then and there. I’d not forgotten how she sent Ótti to her death, don’t you know. “There’s some what think Bjorn Hofdi might come in on it. Won’t know ’til tonight. Farthegn Valdrulf wouldn’t join, but then, he thinks he can stay out of all of it just keeping to the north tunnels.”

  Farthegn Valdrulf was the boss of the northern Undergrunnsby, more official-like’n Styrlakker was in the south, though I’d no doubts about who I’d rather have ruling me and mine, by the Eye. Valdrulf was sly and he’d no qualms killing to protect his own, and his own might just as well have been his property as his people. The kind to see a threat where there weren’t none, our Valdrulf, and likely as not to kill ’fore fully investigating, if you take my meaning. Just as well he weren’t joining the alliance, come to that, though I felt sorry for them what lived under him.

  Bjorn Hofdi has been on decent enough terms with Styrlakker; I was surprised he weren’t already part of the alliance. But I suppose he might balk at working with Atli, and if that were so I’d only more respect for the man’n before. Hevatr Modvig was the only woman boss in the city unless you counted Halla, and I weren’t about to do that. Modvig ruled the southeastern districts: Nordhafsida, Midderha, and northern Hafsida, all the ones right on the Torc’s opening and most likely to get the brunt of an invasion, so her participation only made sense, don’t you know.

  “And where is all this going to take place?” I asked ’tween grunts and such as I pulled myself through th
e crack.

  “The meeting?” Gaddi said. “The palace, of course.”

  That made me stop where I was, even though a bloody iron bar was pushing against my right kidney. “The palace? Atli’s lair, is it?”

  Gaddi snorted. “You didn’t think we’d all crowd into Styrlakker’s little hovel, did you? It not just the bosses going, it’s everyone, just about, except them what got jobs to do to prepare the defenses, and the rank and file. It’s all the toadies and the bosses. I’m surprised Styrlakker didn’t tell you you’d have to be there, too.”

  I didn’t think Styrlakker much cared for what I might do with my time no more, but I weren’t about to say so to Gaddi.

  “So the recruits’ll just wait like tame dogs at their posts while all the toadies and bosses have a dinner together?” I said, letting my disbelief colour the words as I resumed pulling myself through the crack. I had a time of it with the iron bar what wanted to tear a whole in the coat I’d got from Styrlakker’s supplies, and in me besides.

  “If they know what’s good for them,” Gaddi said, sounding fair certain. “Atli’s got more toadies than the rest combined, you know, and he’ll not hesitate to mete out punishment against deserters and the like.”

  “Deserters?” I echoed, finally free. I straightened my coat and Gaddi started moving again without answering me. It seemed a strange thing to call anyone what decided to abandon their posts deserters, as if they were real soldiers and not half-starved survivors of the city’s fall to begin with. Luka’s Chains, who was Atli to “mete out punishment,” anyway? But I had no say in the matter. I supposed if I went to this dinner, it’d be to my advantage in two ways. One, I’d see what the bosses had planned. And two, I’d get enough to eat for the first time in what seemed like a week, but was really more like three days. I was hungry and tired, and food might help me last a bit longer in the battle to come.

  ~~~

  It was a strange thing, walking into the palace, as though I’d every right.

  The palace was near to completely destroyed on the outside in the bombings. ’fore that, it was a monster of a building—a step-pyramid almost as big as the entire Godahúshá district just north of it. From each corner grew a squat tower—tall as the pyramid, but near to half as wide as well, so you’d not think of it as tall so much as massive. Folk what come to visit Helésey back in those days were stuck dumb when they seen the palace, it was such a sight. All gold, cut with designs, with rolling staircases and ever busy with robots and courtiers coming up and down.

  None of the towers still stood now, and the pyramid itself had gashes in it bigger’n most of the city buildings. It didn’t look gold no more, neither, for dust covered every inch of it, as well as stains what probably weren’t all blood but might as well’ve been.

  The rolling staircases never rolled no more, but we climbed a still one all the same and entered in the Grand Hall, which up ’til then I’d only ever read about and seen illustrations and even a photograph of. And in one of the screens of the Machine, come to think of it. I’d never have guessed I’d ever see it with my own eyes, don’t you know.

  I weren’t alone, of course. I walked in Styrlakker’s company, for Gaddi and I had parted ways when we reached Styrlakker’s settlement some time before. There were a dozen of us with Styrlakker, including Dag, who I stayed near to, though we didn’t talk. When we entered the Great Hall I seen Ekkill surrounded by at least twenty toadies, and fat, nasty Bolli Gríss nearby with about half a dozen of his own toadies with him. Then I seen Halla Hundrbeinn surrounded by as many, and Ótti standing at her side as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  Just seeing her there made my heart start thudding like I’d run up every one of them damned stairs. She looked good—she looked like crystal and porcelain and fine silk, a doll fragile as any I’d ever seen in the finest Torc shops, to tell you true. And the way she held on to Halla’s arm—she was proud. Proud to be Halla’s girl. Something shriveled inside me at the sight.

  After that I lost interest for a little while, but soon enough my need to know what the bosses had planned won out over sorrow and I started looking around again. Some more folk had come in after us, and now we had Modvig and her people—about another twenty, maybe a few more. Then Hofdi come in leading near to thirty toadies behind him and something in my chest loosened. I’d not have held it against him if he’d stayed away from Atli, but having him join meant our forces were stronger, and it might mean we really could trust Atli after all. I’d never thought on how much respect I had for Bjorn Hofdi ’til that moment, but I had to own I did respect the man and his judgment. He always played Styrlakker fair, and if he thought the alliance was worth joining, maybe we had a chance after all.

  Atli appeared above on a balcony what ran the length of the Great Hall over monstrous double doors tall enough that a man on another’s shoulders would never stoop to pass through them. Atli held up his hands like he thought he was the High Vigja, and everyone stopped talking to listen to him. It made my stomach tight.

  Atli was tall, with short hair he kept slicked back with tonic he acquired the Gods knew where. The tonic obscured his hair’s colour, but I gathered from his pale eyebrows it must be a common enough blond. He had a thin mustache and his clothes—all scavenged from courtiers’ closets, no doubt—were perfect and clean: a white shirt, rose scarf, black dress coat with tails, and black trousers. Probably silk. His face was long, his chin moreso’n average, so it had a wolf-like character to it.

  “Friends,” Atli called out.

  Our faces all turned to him like he was our hope. Only I’d no such faith in Atli. Too many a time, I’d watched the screens as I done some exchange with Spraki, and I seen enough to know Atli for what he was: a killer. The kind what loves to kill, to hurt, and not god-touched for it, neither. Watching him now, my heart took to beating as fast as before when I seen Ótti and the edges of my vision went gold.

  “This is an historic day,” Atli continued. “Today, we cement our alliance. We defend our city. We take control of Helésey! A new age begins today.”

  A new age under Atli was worse’n any age before him, as far as I was concerned. When did making this alliance mean we were all bowing to him? I looked around, and the expressions on the faces of Styrlakker, Ekkill, Hofdi, Modvig, and even Bolli Gríss made me feel a bit better. They all looked like someone’s pinched their arses, sure enough, and I knew the night weren’t over yet. Atli might have staged this first bit so’s he’d come out above everyone and pretend he had the rule of us, but the bosses weren’t going to hand it all over to him so easy-like. As I scanned the faces, though, I noted that Halla Hundrbeinn’s expression lacked the same quality. She wore a little half-grin, for all the world like the cat what ate the canary. What promises had Atli made her?

  I narrowed my eyes. Of course. That would explain her over-confidence, sending Ótti to run her errands as if nowt could touch her or her’n. She’d some deal going with Atli. Whatever it was, I didn’t like that look on her face. I promised myself then and there I’d have it out with Halla ’fore the night was over.

  Atli invited us all to walk through the double doors into the “feast,” as he referred to it. As a mass we all did so, and it made me uneasy, everyone doing as Atli bid, though I couldn’t say what we’d have done differently, had it been up to me.

  There were six long tables set up in a room bigger’n the Grand Hall—so big, my mind stumbled over it like it couldn’t quite accept it. You might have fit all of Mosstown in that room, shanties and all, and had some space left over for dancing. For I knew it for a ballroom, despite the shock it gave me, don’t you know. The floor was like a puzzle of inlaid woods, all different kinds and colours, polished to shine in golds and deep browns, reds and near-whites. The pieces fit together to make patterns and designs—I recognized a line of upward-pointing arrows for the symbol of Tyr; Eiflar and Galmr’s favorite symbol, what you used to see everywhere you looked in the city ’til it made you want t
o scream. Seeing it now gave me a queer, sick feeling, like the nightmare of Helésey under Eiflar was still alive under all the rubble, still breathing, just waiting to come back. For the first time since the slashers begun making themselves known I didn’t miss the Officers, not one little bit.

  All down the walls on either side of the ballroom were alcoves shielded with heavy, purple velvet curtains. Purple was Tyr’s colour—you’d see it on the Officer’s uniforms and anywhere else the royals wanted to remind people of Tyr’s supremacy. By the Eye, I hated that colour. I wanted to turn from it now, but the best I could do was try to watch the bosses and not pay it too much mind.

  The tables were each just short of a quarter of the length of the hall, made of heavy, polished, dark wood, and not of the design popular under Eiflar, for their legs were carved to look like realistic trees with twisting, gnarled branches, leaves, and flowers. The benches what ran along their length on each side were made to match. Them tables and benches come from a time ’fore Eiflar and even his father, I reckoned, for both of them had done away with the nature-loving fashion of the former age in favor of geometric designs and stylized patterns.