The City Darkens (Raud Grima Book 1)

by Martin, Sophia

  I sighed and tried to find the most concise way of answering his question without provoking several more. I could not. “Bersi, I promise I will tell you the whole story someday. But for now, it is too long and too complicated, and we really should discuss what our next move is.” This last bit I directed to the other two adults in the truck’s cab.

  “Quite right,” Kolorma agreed. She took a deep breath. “We’re going to the base.”

  My heart constricted at the thought. The military base? It was suicide—but what choice did we have? I could see where her plan was headed before she described it.

  “We’ll meet the others there,” she said.

  “Who are the others?” Bersi asked.

  “One of them is the man your mother rescued from the prison,” Kolorma told him. “Another is the friend she did it for, and a third is a man you haven’t met or heard of, but who is a friend of mine and your mother’s. He gave us a place to stay once when we needed somewhere safe to go.”

  Bersi accepted this and settled against me, satisfied now with simply listening and eating.

  “Once we’re all together, we’ll have to creep in without being spotted,” Kolorma said.

  “With seven of us, that won’t be easy,” I noted.

  “There’s nothing else for it,” she said. “I mean to steal the aeroplane we returned in, as it’s big enough for us all, but I’ve no way of landing it anywhere but in the base, so there’s no way to bring it to all of you. You must come to it.” Kolorma sighed. “What’s more, we have to be quick about it. When night fell most of the planes landed, but they’ll take them up again now that dawn has come.”

  She didn’t have to explain why that would be no good for us. I only had to recall the aeroplane shot down that nearly killed us when it crashed into the building. The cheese I’d eaten became a stone in my belly.

  “The good news is, it isn’t a military plane,” Kolorma said. I wondered if that was really good news. A plane unequipped for combat would have no defenses in the hostile sky. “I don’t expect that anyone among the rebels or the military will have any use for it,” she continued, “and no one else will know how to fly it. So it should be sitting there waiting for us.”

  “Are we going to fly in an aeroplane, Mama?” Bersi whispered to me.

  I gave him a tight smile, squeezing his shoulders with my arm. “Yes, my dearling.”

  “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “I only saw one for the first time yesterday. One of the boys at the school told me about them, but I didn’t believe him.”

  Dihauti turned onto a wider street that was nevertheless far more difficult to navigate than the previous ones we’d taken, for it had been bombed. Buildings just a few car-lengths ahead lay in ruins, still smoking, the stones and other debris from the bombing strewn across the road. In the rubble I recognized a broken pianoforte and a wardrobe. Those buildings had housed people who neither belonged to the court nor the poor classes. Which side had piloted the aircraft that dropped the bombs on their homes? I’m sure it hardly mattered to them.

  Carefully driving through openings in the ruins, Dihauti took us past the devastation and on up the incline that led to the base. No one spoke for a time, until Kolorma broke the silence. “I think it best that I lead us into the base,” she said. “And for everyone else to hang back until I’ve secured the aeroplane.”

  “But you just said we must all go to it,” I protested.

  Kolorma gazed down at the top of Bersi’s head. “That’s true enough, but what good is risking the approach if they’ve leeched it of fuel or damaged it somehow?”

  Dihauti cut the wheel and took a turn hard, jostling us all and sending a sharp pain through my leg wound.

  A small group of people had suddenly darted out into the road ahead of him. There were three of them—two women and a man. As we passed, they charged the truck, and Dihauti had to accelerate to escape their grasping hands.

  “Who were those people?” Bersi asked, his face pale.

  “I don’t know,” I said softly. “But they were very frightened, and desperate. That’s what made them try to stop us.”

  “Shouldn’t we go back for them?” he asked. “We’ve room in the back of the truck, Mama.”

  My heart clenched. “That we may,” I said. “But we won’t have room for them in the plane. We would only be taking them to a more dangerous place if we brought them to the base, where we’re going.”

  “Is it very dangerous?” Bersi asked.

  I met his eyes, the color of the sea at night. I nodded. “Yes, my dearest. We must be very brave, and very careful, once we’re there.”

  The pallor of Bersi’s face only intensified, and he closed his lips tightly, draining them of color. I swore to myself that if we survived our escape, I would never allow him to be taken into danger again as long as I was caring for him.

  We crested the hill that would lead us into the base, and Dihauti parked the truck alongside the street, a few feet from another truck that lay on its side, windows shattered. As we exited the truck, three figures made their way from behind the overturned vehicle. It was Alflétta, Madr, and Liten.

  “You found her,” Liten said to Kolorma, beaming at me.

  “And she found her boy,” Alflétta added with a little wave to Bersi. He reached a hand out to me, and I took it, smiling at him. “I am so glad for you.”

  “And I am glad that you three survived the Tyrablót,” I said.

  “Thanks in large part to you,” Madr said. “And Dihauti, of course.”

  I introduced everyone to Bersi, who gazed at everyone with wide eyes and said nothing. We made our way down a narrow, winding stairwell, a few feet from the wrecked truck. I gripped the iron bar that served as a rail, trying to ignore my injury.

  “This can’t lead to the Undergrunnsby,” I said.

  “Indeed it does,” Liten corrected me. “It’s just an older construction than the main shafts.”

  Lights still functioned in the narrow circular tunnel the stairs led to. Kolorma arched her eyebrows at me. “You’ve never wondered how I secreted you out of the city that night you were injured?”

  Bersi’s face turned swiftly to me, and I stroked his hair off his forehead. “I had wondered about that, actually.”

  “It was no small trick, coming so close to the base without being caught,” Liten said. “But we did, and then it was just a matter of stealing a plane.”

  “Oh, just a small matter,” Madr muttered, rolling his eyes.

  “The level of difficulty will be reversed, now,” Kolorma said. “At the time, no one really worried about the aeroplanes, because the only people who could pilot them were already part of the military. Now, it’s easy enough to come this far, but I’ll wager the planes are under guard and the base is crawling with activity.”

  “Kolorma suggests that she go in first,” Dihauti said, and I saw Alflétta and Madr stiffen at the use of her given name. “She believes it will be very dangerous, and I agree. If the aeroplane is somehow unsuitable—”

  “You can’t go in alone,” I argued.

  “You are in no condition to accompany me,” Kolorma said, indicating my leg.

  I grimaced at it mirthlessly.

  “Besides, you have other responsibilities,” Kolorma said.

  “You know, it was my plane,” Alflétta pointed out. “Perhaps I should be the one to steal it.”

  “Nonsense,” Madr said firmly, eyeing everyone as if we had suggested it. “You haven’t been well since Grumflein. It’s enough that you’ve had to run around like a rabbit from hounds since yesterday.”

  Alflétta did have a gray cast to his skin. He looked exhausted.

  “But she shouldn’t go alone,” he protested.

  “She won’t go alone,” Dihauti said. “I shall go with her.”

  “As shall I,” Liten added.

  Kolorma sighed, then nodded at both of them.

  Liten produced two guns, handing one to Kolorma and one to
Dihauti, who shook his head, patting a bulge under his coarse jacket. Liten shrugged and handed the gun to me. I took it with a nod of thanks.

  “We all go as far as the tunnel will take us,” Liten said.

  Setting a brisk pace, Kolorma took the lead, followed by Liten. Dihauti grasped Bersi’s left hand, and I his right. Madr and Alflétta remained a few steps behind. The tunnel was like a long cylinder under the earth, wet, with a thin layer of slimy water at its base. I glanced at Dihauti as we hurried to keep up with Kolorma.

  “This tunnel isn’t always empty like this, is it,” I said to him.

  Dihauti raised an eyebrow at me. “If you are suggesting that at times it fills with sewage pumped from the base’s latrines and rubbish disposals, I will say that while you are most likely correct, it is best not to think about it.”

  I suppressed a shudder and urged Bersi on a bit faster despite the responding spike in pain from my wound, fervently hoping that the events of the last twenty-four hours had disrupted any kind of flushing schedule.

  At last we came to another stairwell, narrow and twisting like the first. We grouped around it, light from the outside pouring down on our heads.

  “Alright,” Kolorma whispered. “You four wait here, and stay out of sight of the opening. One of us will come back when we’ve determined the plane is functional.”

  I grabbed her hands as she was about to turn away. Aware of Bersi watching, I almost didn’t kiss her, and then the thought that something might happen, and I would have lost my chance, broke my inhibitions. I dropped one of her hands to slip my own behind her head, my fingers digging into her hair, and I pressed my mouth to hers. She wrapped her free arm around me tightly. “Be careful,” I whispered to her. She smiled at me and disappeared up the ladder, Liten and Dihauti going up after her.

  “You kissed Kolorma,” Bersi told me.

  I chuckled quietly, holding a finger to my lips as we moved away from the opening. “Yes, dearling,” I whispered in his ear as we stopped, Alflétta and Madr holding hands just as Bersi and I did. “I expect if all goes well you’ll see more of that where we’re going. Kolorma and I… care for each other a great deal.”

  A frown wrinkled his forehead. “But what about Papa?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  It hardly seemed the time to explain about his Papa, and with an internal promise that I would sit down with him once we were safe for a better explanation, I said, “Papa and I are no longer friends, my love. I am sorry, for that means you shan’t see him again.”

  Bersi’s frown remained for a moment, and then gradually cleared. “I don’t mind, Mama. I never liked Papa very much. And Kolorma is very pretty.”

  With a sigh I held him close. Now if we could all just find our way free of this place, we could start a new life.

  The waiting was awful. After resisting the urgent throbbing of my leg and the weariness that weighed down every part of me for as long as I could, at last I yielded and rested my back against the filthy wall of the tunnel. I kept my arms around my son, feeling his strong body warm against me, and tried not to let my mind conjure horrors as to what transpired above us. I wished I still had my little clock pendant, but if I had, I surely would have checked it every minute. What made the anxiety I felt far worse, was that after what felt like an hour, the sound of shouts filtered down to us, followed by a distant explosion. Dust fell into the wetness at our feet as the earth shook slightly from it. The base, I surmised, was now under attack.

  Mercifully, only a little time passed after that before Dihauti appeared on the stairs, waving energetically at us to come to him. I pulled Bersi along beside me, then climbed the stairs ahead of him, gritting my teeth as the jolt of stepping onto each higher stair made my leg throb.

  When I climbed out onto the ground, I saw two aeroplanes in the smoke-gray sky above, some distance to the south, I judged by the angle of the sun. They were headed our way.

  “Did someone steal planes from here, only to return to bomb us now?” I asked Dihauti as we helped Bersi out next.

  “No, I think those came from the mainland,” Dihauti said. “One dropped some sort of bomb but it wasn’t very big. I don’t think it was military-made. But they both have automatic rifles attached under their wings, and I expect with this second pass they’ll use them.”

  He eyed the planes with a concerned expression, then bent to give Alflétta a hand. We had come out behind a concrete building that looked like a cinderblock. No one was around, but in the distance I could hear shouts.

  As soon as Madr stepped onto the outside ground, Dihauti said, “This way.” We hurried behind him as he led us through a maze of cinderblock buildings to the airfield. I remembered there being far more planes when we landed there upon our return from Liten’s estate, but now there were only eight that I could see. Several figures in uniform ran around four of them to the far right of the field. Those must be the remaining military aircraft. On the far left were a couple of very small planes with two stacked wings, another somewhat bigger red plane with one propeller in front, and the large plane we had traveled in.

  The planes were all out in the open, and I saw that the hangar beyond the far left of the field, near the smaller craft, was a blackened shell. Someone had probably bombed it the day before, for it hardly smoked now. In any case, the hangar was destroyed. Dihauti pointed to it.

  “That’s where we’re going. There’s a stretch of field that’s open—I’ve run across it twice now and my luck’s held; third time’s a charm, they say.”

  We approached the edge of the field using the cinder buildings to shield us from view, but I saw what he meant. Soon we would have to run out in the open. As a rumble overhead began to grow, I looked up in response. The two planes were approaching. We had no time to hesitate.

  “On my back,” I told Bersi, who obediently wrapped his legs around my waist once I’d swung him up. Luka, may you find my success in this venture amusing, I thought, and began to sprint.

  We all ran, but I was slowest because of my injury and Bersi’s weight. Dihauti saw me lagging as he turned and checked on us over his shoulder, so he crouched and waved Madr and Alflétta by him, waiting for me to catch up. As I did, the aeroplanes came overhead and a rain of bullets hit the short grass, burying themselves in the soil. I stumbled, crying out as I landed on the bad leg. Dihauti grabbed Bersi and raced to the burnt out hangar. I scrambled to my feet and followed. By the time I reached its shelter, I was sobbing with pain and panic.

  Kolorma waited there, and she took me in her arms, murmuring soothingly.

  “Why isn’t she in the cockpit?” Dihauti asked Liten in a fierce whisper.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Liten said, pointing.

  I followed his finger. Six men wearing the silver and black uniforms of the vigjas of Tyr circled our aeroplane, and they were armed. Standing at the plane’s side, waiting for them to open the portal for her to climb aboard, was Finnarún Vaenn.

  “That trollop isn’t going to take our plane,” I hissed.

  Kolorma followed my gaze. “She survived the Tyrablót,” she whispered to me. “I must say, I am impressed.”

  “She’s about to take our only way out of here,” I whispered back.

  “Is there another plane we could take?” Dihauti asked.

  Kolorma pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “The red one’s almost big enough,” Alflétta said. “It’s an old Svala 1-A. But it seats four, plus its pilot, and even with our young friend on his mother’s lap, it would be too heavy to try to pack six adults in it.”

  “I don’t mind being cramped,” Madr said.

  “It’s not a matter of comfort,” Alflétta said with an indulgent smile for his lover. “That plane could barely manage the weight of a full complement of passengers already. An extra three hundred pounds could well prove disastrous.”

  “Then we fight for Kolorma’s plane,” Liten said, Before anyone could respond, Liten stepped out from behind the protect
ion of the hangar’s blackened wall and shot three of the uniformed men, one after another.

  “Great Gods,” Alflétta gasped.

  “Liten!” Kolorma cried, then the remaining three men opened fire on him.

  Grabbing Bersi, I huddled behind the remaining wall of the hangar. Madr and Alflétta did likewise, but Liten and Kolorma used the wall to shield them as they each darted out, firing.

  I could not see what the uniformed men were doing nor where they were, but I gathered from the curses Kolorma and Liten spoke that they were moving around the plane. Liten leaned far out from the safety of the wall and shot his pistol. He jerked back just as they returned fire, and Kolorma grabbed his arm, whispering to him. He shook his head and leaned out again, but this time, a swarm of bullets hit him.

  Liten gave a cry and fell, his body exposed to the enemy.

  Kolorma rushed towards him and I lunged, just catching the sleeve of her coat before she could bare herself to the gunfire. She raised her pistol over the edge of the broken wall and returned fire. Crouching beside Kolorma, I had a better view of the aeroplane and the people we fought for it. The vigjas, if that’s really what they were, scattered, and Vaenn followed suit, but they headed round to the other side of the plane, where there was the other door that they could use to board it.

  “They’ll get inside!” I said, but there was nothing we could do. We approached with caution to see if Liten was still alive, just as the propellers on the plane began to spin.

  Liten lay in his own blood; it spread from his body in a dark stain. I thought of covering Bersi’s eyes, but the sadness I felt looking at Liten’s unmarred face, his curling mustache, made my arms too heavy to lift. He had been kind to me. I remembered lying on the table in the machine’s laboratory as he gently helped me realize that I carried another child. Without him, I might not have known my own secret, and that knowledge had been so important to my survival—I knew, without Liten, I might not have survived at all.

  Tears flowing down her cheeks, Kolorma’s face was contorted with grief. Liten had been her friend; maybe her lover, as well, although I no longer believed it likely. Dihauti, too, grieved. It was from Dihauti that I had first heard Liten’s name; Dihauti had praised him for saving the banners from Frigga’s temple. Liten, acolyte of Frigga, brave until the end.