“Myran, Myran. Say Myran.”
Slap.
This time Longinus looked at Rory. The shame and humiliation on his face were unbearable.
“Stop it!” she shouted.
Myran turned towards her, surprised. “You’re siding with him?”
“Looks that way don’t it? And if you don’t stop, I’ll kick your arse twelve ways from the Bazaar.”
Myran snorted. “So, Longinus, adding to your long list of idiocies, you now have a kid defending you. Alright,” she said to Rory. “I’ll bite. Let’s make this a game. Untie his hands,” she ordered Jake.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” asked Raynard.
“Do you really think I have anything to fear from either of them?”
“True.” Raynard returned to his rapier.
“I’ll make you a deal, Longinus,” continued Myran. “You say my name without stuttering and I’ll let you both go. Just like that. I’ll find another way to kill the Old Girl, and you can forget you ever had a sister. But if you stutter…” She slowly pulled out a mean-looking dagger, the blade grating against the scabbard.
Longinus made a strangled noise, and threw himself backwards. Jake grabbed his arms, holding him in place.
“I’ll cut you,” finished Myran. “Let’s see how well your little monkey defends you then.”
Rory squirmed and thrashed for all she was worth, but the man behind her kept her easily pinned in place.
“N-n-n-no,” stammered Longinus, eyes wide with terror. “Please m-m-muh-muh —”
“Well, that should count as a stammer, but I’ll give you three tries. We are related, after all. That was your first. Now give me your hand.”
She yanked his hand forward and held the blade near his palm. Longinus shrieked.
“Careful now, no sudden movements. Are you in such a hurry to see your own blood again? Hmm? Do you remember how shiny and dark it was? I always wondered how such a lily-livered coward could have such red blood. One of nature’s little mysteries, I guess.”
Rory thrashed harder, kicking back, but her captor only grunted, tightening his grip like a vice around her arms, making her yelp in pain.
“Make your second attempt,” said Myran.
“Puh-puh —”
“Puh-puh-puh,” she taunted. “You think that will sway me? Say it or get cut.”
Longinus closed his eyes, his forehead a knot of concentration.
“Mmmm-m-m —”
“That’s two,” she cried triumphantly. “You know what they say, third time’s a charm.”
Longinus looked around desperately, features contorted with fear.
Rory had an idea. She abruptly stopped her squirming and let herself fall limp, as though she had fainted.
“What the —” the man holding her fumbled his grip as he tried to catch her dead weight. She immediately wriggled, throwing herself forward, and she managed to escape his grasp. She sprinted over, and just as Myran looked up, she ploughed into her, head bent forward so that she head butted her right in the stomach.
Someone pounced on Rory, flattening her to the ground, and her lungs emptied themselves.
“Little shit,” wheezed Myran. “Hold her up.”
Rory was picked up from the floor by two pairs of hands, as she gasped for air.
“You do care for my brother, don’t you?” said Myran. “I wonder how much he cares about you. Let’s up the stakes. You have one more try, Longinus. You mess it up…” Myran’s blade danced a hair’s breadth away from Rory’s throat. “And it’s going to get pretty messy.”
Chapter 32
“What’s going on here?”
Everyone’s head snapped towards the room’s entrance. Rory never thought she would have been happy to see a guard’s uniform, but her heart positively soared at the sight.
“You’re late,” said Myran.
Rory’s heart landed in her boots with an almost audible thud.
“It’s not easy getting here unnoticed,” the guard replied with a scowl. “So what’s going on here? I’m not bringing anyone in if they’ve been butchered first. The deal was for me to make an arrest. I’m not taking part if they’re not in one piece.”
“It’s just a little cut,” said Myran dismissively. “We’re playing a game.”
“Then find another guard to do your business.”
He crossed his arms. Myran glared at him, looking all the more terrifying for her scar, but the guard simply scowled back.
“Fine,” she said at last. “Let’s get them to the holding area.” She patted Longinus on the cheek. “You got lucky, brother. You live to bleed another day.”
A bag was stuffed over Rory’s head, her arms pulled behind her back and her hands bound.
“You pull anything funny this time and I’ll wring your little neck,” growled a voice by her ear.
She was led forward, and winced as she thought she was about to walk into a wall, but to her surprise they turned and she felt stone beneath her feet. She couldn’t work out which way they had gone. She hadn’t seen a way out of the chamber other than back out to the sea, but soon her footsteps echoed against stone walls and she knew they had to be in the tunnels.
She did her best to keep her bearings, to map out a path in her mind, but they twisted and turned and she quickly felt totally and utterly lost.
“This is a very pleasant stroll,” she said through the bag. “Very kind of you to show me around, where are we going exactly?”
A grunt and a cuff to the head were her only response.
Eventually they came to a halt, and the bag was yanked from her head. She gasped and staggered back.
An abyss yawned in front of her just a few feet away. To her right was Longinus, his face a blank mask. He didn’t even seem to register the gulf in front of him. Behind him was Jake, but he was pointedly looking away from Rory.
The other side of the chasm was a sheer rock face, with a lip sticking out at about the same level as they were now.
“The interesting thing about the tunnels,” said Myran, appearing from behind Rory, “is how much there is to discover within them. Did you know, for example, that it was a machine found in the tunnels that gave us the idea for steam engines?”
Myran walked over to a lever that protruded from the edge of the gulf. Beneath it, a rectangular copper block extended three feet over the abyss. She pulled the lever, and with a hiss and the smooth sound of oiled metal, a smaller block pushed itself out, extending further over the abyss, and then another, and another, until a bridge had telescoped out all the way to the lip at the other side.
“Walk,” she said, gesturing at the bridge.
“Wait,” said the guard. “That’s silk. I’ll be having that.” He ripped Longinus’ green silk waistcoat open, popping off all the buttons, and pulled it off his back, leaving him with only his shirt. Longinus didn’t protest.
Jake prodded him forward.
“You heard your sister,” he growled. “Walk.”
Longinus obeyed. His face had the kind of deadened resignation of someone who had lost everything. His boots rang out on the copper bridge, and soon enough he reached the stone platform. Rory also found herself pushed towards the bridge; she didn’t put up a fight either, not wanting to risk being thrown over the side. The bridge was wide enough and she had never been afraid of heights, but as she walked across it, she began to find it really quite narrow. She was all too aware that the bridge could get pulled back beneath her at any point, but she resisted the urge to move quicker. The darkness on either side was so thick she could almost feel it on her skin, as if it was calling to her, whispering for her to jump or fall.
At last, her feet stepped onto firm rock, and she exhaled, only then realising that she had been holding her breath. Immediately, the bridge retracted with a hiss. She turned to see Myran at the lever with her three cronies behind her. The guard was there too, frowning at them with his arms crossed.
“They’re all yours,” said Myra
n to the guard. Rory could hear her surprisingly well across the chasm. “Wait for my signal to bring them in.”
“And their things?”
Myran nodded to Raynard, who handed over Rory’s dagger, her grappling hook and silk line, and her purse. Longinus had obviously not had anything of interest on him when they brought him over. The guard looked this over, obviously disappointed.
“You’re getting paid enough for the job,” said Myran. “Don’t get greedy.” There was a low note of threat to her voice.
Myran threw one last look at Longinus before leaving, the three men following her.
The guard pocketed the purse, slung the waistcoat on the back of a chair that was leaning up against the rock wall, and sat down.
He had kept Rory’s dagger with him and began to examine it. Rory clenched her fists at the sight of his large hands touching it. It felt like the most personal of violations. He ran a finger along the blade, testing its sharpness, and Rory felt it as clear as if he had run his finger down her spine.
She wanted to leap across the chasm and wrench the dagger from him, but since she didn’t have springs in her feet to make her jump that kind of distance, she was going to have to bear it. She turned away with some effort to look at Longinus.
He had curled up against the rock, drawing his knees in to himself. Rory sat next to him, but he didn’t acknowledge her.
“Longinus,” she whispered, “you alright?”
He wouldn’t meet her eye, staring instead at the rock beneath them. With his right hand, he swept the dust away from its surface. Rory left him to it. Now was not the time to worry about him. First things first: they had to get out. She had no idea how long they had until Myran gave that signal.
She stood up, pretending to stretch as she examined the rock behind her. It was so smooth that climbing it would be difficult, even for her. And anyway, it led nowhere. She walked from one end of the stone platform to the other, which only took her a few strides to achieve.
“What you doing?” called the guard.
“Stretching my legs.”
“Well, you better get used to confined spaces.” He laughed, as though this had been a particularly sharp display of wit.
“Seagull-pecked cretin,” she muttered.
She sat back down. There was no way off that lip other than by having someone pull the lever. They were well and truly trapped.
* * *
After a while, Rory began pacing again, trying to find something, anything, to get them off the platform.
“You sit back down,” called the guard, standing up. Bastard was still holding her dagger.
“What difference does it make?” she called back.
“You sit back down or I’ll come over and make you.” He pulled out his rapier.
“Sod off,” Rory murmured, but too low for the guard to hear. If he came over with his rapier, there wasn’t enough space for her to dodge him, and getting punctured with holes wasn’t on the day’s agenda.
“Longinus, I’m all out of ideas here,” she whispered. “You got to help me.”
He continued staring at the ground.
“And no talking!” shouted the guard. “In fact, move to the other side. Go!”
Rory glared at him, but did as she was told.
For a while, she contented herself with coming up with every imaginable insult for the guard, and that helped somewhat. Unfortunately, not with their situation.
She didn’t think she’d have too much trouble provoking him into coming to the platform. The problem was that she couldn’t work out what to do then. She couldn’t get over the fact that he was armed while she wasn’t, and that she had no way to get away from him.
What she needed was to get him to extend the bridge, but stop him from reaching the platform. She looked around her for any loose stones that she could throw. She shifted towards Longinus and leaned forward.
“Get back to your spot,” shouted the guard, standing up. “I said no talking. Don’t you make me come over.”
Rory was gratified to see that in his annoyance, he had put her dagger down. That was a start.
She shifted back to her spot, having confirmed that there were no rocks for her to throw. She fiddled with her medals, and came up with another two insults for the guard.
And with an idea. She took off one of her medals, the largest one she had, kissed it for luck, and held it in her right hand by its leather thong.
“You keep threatening to come over,” she said, “but all I can see is a lot of talking and not a lot of doing.”
“Shut up,” said the guard at once. “Do you want me to come over, is that what you want? Maybe I ought to teach you some manners.” He drew his rapier again.
“Ha,” replied Rory. “You think waving your blade around over there’s gonna scare me? Seems to me you’re the one that’s scared of us, and so you should be, too. You know he’s the Viper, right?” she gestured at Longinus. “The real one, I mean. And I’m a famous swordfighter. Ain’t nobody too stupid in Damsport to cross blades with me. You’re lucky they took my dagger from me, or right now you’d be counting down the last seconds of your life.”
“Right, you asked for it. Your friend can get arrested on his own.”
The guard pushed the lever and the bridge extended. Before it had even reached the platform, his boots thudded on the metal. Rory’s entire body was tense. She waited for him to reach the halfway point of the bridge before she spun her talisman by its leather thong in a circle overhead.
The guard, seeing her purpose, hurried forward, but she loosed the medal in his direction. It hit him square in the face, and he staggered back, one boot slipping at the edge of the bridge…
He regained his balance. A rivulet of blood ran down from his eyebrow where the talisman had hit him.
“You little —” He snarled and ran forward, reaching the platform before Rory had time to take another medal off.
She tried to duck out of his way, but she couldn’t move fast or far enough. His rapier sank into her left shoulder. She cried out in pain and wrenched herself away, blinking at the spots that danced in front of her eyes.
The guard marched towards her.
“And now —”
Before he could complete his threat, Longinus crashed into the guard’s side and sent him teetering back to the edge. The guard hovered there for what seemed like an impossibly long second, before he pitched over with a wail.
“Thank you,” Rory said to Longinus, dizzy with relief.
She brought a hand to her shoulder and it came back red and sticky.
Longinus threw up all over her boots.
Chapter 33
“It’s already stopped bleeding,” Rory called as she tried to tie Longinus’ waistcoat around her left shoulder with one hand. She grabbed one end with her teeth, pulling it into a knot with her right hand. On the other side of the clockwork bridge, Longinus huddled against the rock wall, breathing heavily.
Rory pulled the knot as tight as she could around her shoulder. It was a pretty poor job, truth be told, but it was the best she could do. For now the waistcoat staunched the wound well enough, and she would have to hope they’d get out quick enough for her to get help. Asking Longinus was out of the question.
“There, it’s all tied up. There’s no more blood,” she lied.
She picked up her dagger, and it was like welcoming an old friend. The purse unfortunately had disappeared with the guard, but she still had her grappling hook and line. Those went back around her waist, where they belonged.
“I can smell it, I can smell the blood,” said Longinus.
“Alright, I’ll step further away, but you have to come. We can’t risk Myran finding us here.”
Longinus winced at the mention of his sister’s name. “Really? I thought you wanted to work with her,” he said, not moving from the wall.
“No, I don’t.”
As soon as she said it, Rory realised how true that was. She felt a dull emptiness no
w where, for years, the dream of meeting the Scarred Woman again — Myran — had sat within her.
This wasn’t the time, she chided herself.
Rory grabbed the guard’s vapour lamp and moved away from the bridge, towards the opening from which she and Longinus had arrived. She made sure to stay close enough so that the lamp shed light for Longinus to see the bridge clearly.
“Now come on,” she called. “We got to go.”
Longinus stood up, his shirt vomit-stained, his face haggard. He looked as though he had aged ten years.
“Go further,” he said.
Rory obeyed. At last, he stepped hesitantly onto the bridge. Rory kept an anxious lookout down the tunnel for fear that Myran or one of her cronies might return.
“You go on ahead,” said Longinus once he had crossed the abyss, “and I’ll follow. I can’t be near you with the…with that —”
He dry retched, covering his mouth with a shaky hand.
“Alright then, just follow my light.”
Rory walked off down the tunnel, holding the vapour lamp in front of her. The tunnel was made of sandstone, great big blocks of it, arranged so that the tunnel was perfectly square.
When she reached a junction, she closed her eyes and tried to remember which way they had turned on the way over, but her memory was little more than a jumbled mess of confused impressions. She settled for the left, hoping that wasn’t leading her back to Myran.
* * *
Rory moved with more and more difficulty. Her left arm was growing cold and numb, her makeshift bandage soaked with blood. The dizziness was getting worse, and she kept having to blink to focus her vision.
The vapour lamp cast a yellow circle around her, but beyond that the darkness was absolute. Further behind, she could hear Longinus moving, following the light.
It was lucky the tunnels were so dark or he would have seen that his blood-saturated waistcoat had begun to drip, leaving a red trail behind Rory that was eagerly sucked up by the sandstone.
When she reached a junction and saw the mark on a stone to the left, Rory made to turn right, but she saw a mark there too. She began to despair. She had been marking her way at each junction for a while now, but no matter which way she went, she always found herself somewhere she had been before.
The Viper and the Urchin: A Novel of Steampunk Adventure (Bloodless Assassin Mysteries Book 1) Page 18