by Tom Fletcher
Spider lifted his scuffed violin case up onto the table. ‘Let’s play,’ he said, ‘and wait, and drink.’
10
Arbitration
The audience was drunk and raucous. There was clapping and cheering, condensation dripping down the whitewashed walls, the smell of liquor thin in the air. Alan looked out over them as Eyes got comfortable at the drum-kit behind him. A crowd of outlaws, misfits, loners and freaks. There were faces he recognised, people who made the House of a Thousand Hollows their home, their community, and then there were transients, drawn to the House looking for hot food and a roof over their heads, for once. The amps clicked and buzzed as Spider plugged in two mics, one for Alan and one for Snapper – a rare treat, thanks to Maggie letting them use the House’s generator. Spider swayed back and forth over by the amps, generating feedback, and as it merged with the sound of the crowd, Alan felt his breastbone begin to resonate, and grinned. Eyes was adjusting the drums, bringing the hi-hat in a little bit, lowering the stool, absentmindedly running his sticks over the skins. Spider handed Alan his guitar and he took it in both hands, then lifted the strap over his shoulder. He waited until he could hear Spider’s violin and plucked a string. It sang out clear, falling into Spider’s swirling notes in just the right place. There was a structure to the music, a pattern; they just had to find it – and then it happened: they were there. It felt like magic as his fingers danced up and down the neck. His playing was clean, even if the amps were fuzzy.
He moved back to the microphone and looked out across the bar. The whisky was hot in his belly. People were gorging themselves on Maggie’s chilli now, great red bowls of the stuff, cooling their throats with copious quantities of beer, but a few of the regulars had started stamping their feet in time to the beat that had emerged from the tumbling notes. It was fast and low, a version of Black Pyramid that always went down well.
They were three songs in when the first scream rang out. The music faltered and Alan opened his eyes. He gazed around the newly silent room. The oblivion he’d been working towards vanished. There were strange new people in the room. They looked familiar, but they were in utterly the wrong context and so he couldn’t put a name to them. Not at first. Then – Arbitrators. Fucking Arbitrators. And that one there, behind the bar, standing where Quiet Diaz had been, all red with fresh blood, was lifting its arm at him, Alan, and putting a megaphone to its lips.
‘If your players surrender themselves,’ it said, its magnified voice raspy, ‘we’ll leave you in peace.’
The crowd were all staring at him again, but now with very different expressions on their faces. Arbitrators stood all around the room, bows pointing at particular members of the audience, holding them hostage.
‘What have we done?’ Alan said into the mic, but not confidently enough. He sounded weak. He cleared his throat and spoke again. ‘Why do you want us?’
An arrow flew into and through a fat man’s neck. He gurgled, flailing about, splattered chilli everywhere, then and fell off his stool and out of sight. A moment later blood fountained up, followed by more screams, and the room erupted. Tables overturned as half of the room rushed towards the stage and half ran roaring at the Arbitrators.
Alan gripped the mic’s wire in his fist and swung the mic around. It looked like a vertical black disc, just hovering there, but when the first stage invader – a gaunt, long-haired man with silver hoops in his ears – scrambled up onto the low wooden platform, Alan let the mic fly and it crunched into Long-hair’s mouth. He fell backwards, spitting teeth. Alan didn’t have time to gather it back up all the way – more audience members had turned Arbitrator and were clambering over Long-hair to get at him. They’d probably never liked him anyway. He wanted to look up and see how the rest of the crowd – the good ones – were faring in their fight against the Pyramid scum, but he couldn’t.
He cracked another bastard in the temple with his makeshift mace and wrapped its cable around the neck of another, then he realised that Eyes and Spider were at his side and Spider was thrusting something into his hand. The knife was long and curved and vicious and perfect – perfect for fighting the enemy, at least. Not fellow Discarders.
‘I don’t want to use this!’ he shouted, brandishing it in front of him. ‘Not on you. Fuckers, listen to me! We’re the Discard! We don’t—’
He was interrupted by the whistle of an Arbitrator arrow, and then a beefy woman with sunburned arms smashed a pint glass over his head. ‘No!’ he wailed. He tried to smack the side of her head with the flat of the knife but it twisted in his hand and cut her deeply across the face. He felt it stick on her cheekbone and the sensation ran through his hand and his arm all the way down to his stomach, where it felt like nausea. She went down and he stepped backwards, using the knife as a threat, as a shield.
Eyes appeared to be suffering similar reservations, but not Spider. He was stabbing and slashing and running people through without even blinking, without even breaking a sweat. He had a knife in each hand: not curved, like the one he’d given Alan, but straight and razor-sharp. Eyes was armed with a small wood-axe, but he was using the back of the head like a club.
Who were these arseholes coming for them? Did they not see that if they worked together, they could easily overpower the Arbitrators? Were they so craven? So traitorous?
A man came at him with a chair leg; Alan ducked, cracked his attacker’s knuckles with the knife and then, once the man had dropped the chair leg and was grasping his broken hand with his good one, Alan stood up and kicked him hard in the bollocks. The man doubled over and Alan got him on the back of the head with the knife hilt. With each blow he landed he felt less guilty – the adrenalin, maybe. Ultimately he had to defend himself, whether he was being attacked by Discarders or not. Spider was moving methodically, gracefully, ruthlessly, and then suddenly nobody was attacking Spider any more. They’d got the message. That was the way to do it: scare the bastards away.
But, in truth, the crowd was in chaos. Now that the band members were defending themselves properly, the rush to get them had slowed. And the Arbitrators were beating their way in from the back; those who’d been eager to capture the performers were being crushed by others who were just trying to get away from the merciless, well-trained attentions of the Arbitrators. Those Arbitrators without bows had an array of other weapons attached to their belts – cudgels, knives, and short-swords – and they were employing all of them enthusiastically; those with bows were no more restrained.
Had the Discarders been single-minded, they could have given the Arbitrators a good run for their money. Had they been prepared, and sober, and single-minded, the Arbitrators wouldn’t have stood a chance. You didn’t get by in the Discard without learning how to fight. But they’d been taken by surprise in a safe place; they were drunk, confused and divided – it was a rout, and a bloody one. Dead House inhabitants lay everywhere, slain by arrows, by blades and by trampling feet. It wasn’t impossible that some of the more experienced and less particular Discarders – and Green knew there were a few of those – had taken the opportunity to settle old scores.
Alan surveyed the damage from the rear of the stage, where he had his back to the wall. Spider, next to him, gave him the side-eye. ‘Don’t think because they’re Discarders that they’re your friends. We’re not all on the same side.’
‘Should be, though,’ Alan said.
‘Why? Most Discarders couldn’t care less about the Pyramid. Many would like to live in it. They don’t feel like you do. Remember that.’
The tall helmets of the Arbitrators were getting nearer, closing in on them. ‘I don’t know why they want us,’ Alan said. ‘If it’s because of me, I’m sorry.’
‘The way Spider fights, it ain’t no problem,’ Eyes said. ‘Just let him kill ’em all.’
Spider shook his head. ‘We can’t win this one,’ he said. ‘Close combat I can do. Close combat with an arrow in my leg – no.’
‘You reckon they want us alive, then?’
Eyes asked.
‘If they wanted us dead, they could have done it more easily than this.’
‘They’re not having me alive again,’ Eyes said. He was as white as his shirt and shaking like a leaf. ‘Not this time. Not this time. Give me a knife, boys, to turn on mesel’.’ His knees went. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘These fucking bastards. Look what they’ve done to me already.’ Alan tried to help him up, but his legs wouldn’t take his weight. ‘Let me just sit here. Leave me be here on the floor. If I didn’t have such a tremble I’d play dead, that’s what I’d do. Here – give me a knife so I don’t have to play at it.’
The Arbitrators beat down the remnants of the audience and finally emerged into full view of Alan, Spider and Eyes. They stood in a solid semicircle just before the stage, their armour spattered with blood. Their tall helmets gave them the air of strange, long-necked creatures. Moans and coughs filled the air. The room stank of blood and vomit.
The Arb with the megaphone stalked through to the front. The plumage of his helmet was silver; all the others wore blue feathers in theirs. He had somebody with him, held in a headlock: the serving boy, just a kid.
The Arbitrator pointed at Alan again, but with a sword this time. ‘Alan. You and your companions are to come with us back to the Pyramid.’
‘For what? Is this an arrest? What have I done?’
‘An arrest? No.’ A raspy laugh. Alan thought the voice was male – more likely male than female, anyway – but he couldn’t be entirely sure. ‘Use your brain, worm. We cannot arrest anybody in the filthy Discard, because in the filthy Discard there are no laws and we have no jurisdiction. This is not a legal operation, worm. This is a strike. A seizure. A kidnapping.’
‘Somebody must want me for a reason, though.’
The Arbitrator didn’t speak. Its face was invisible behind its mask, and so its expression could not be read.
‘You don’t know, do you?’
Raspy spoke again. ‘Take them,’ it said. ‘Alive.’
The Arbitrators moved slowly forward, swords drawn. Their lack of speed wasn’t down to caution, or fear: it was entirely deliberate. Their steps were perfectly synchronised. Down where he was on the floor, Eyes wrapped his arms around his head and moaned.
The way they’d handled this did not bode well for their expedition, should they ever get to go.
One of the Arbitrators reached over its shoulder and drew forth what looked like a bag of some sort, but then it passed it to its colleague on the right and when it took hold of it, Alan saw that it was in fact a very finely webbed net. They spread the net out amongst themselves, each holding it with their left hand whilst keeping their blades in their right. Once the net was distributed, they stood still. They were about six feet away.
‘Throw down your weapons, Discard scum,’ Raspy said into the megaphone. He had the point of his sword pressed against the boy’s stomach. The boy’s shirt was soaking wet with either sweat or spilled drink. A pale pink blossom marked where the sword’s tip had already broken his skin. ‘You’ve got enough blood on your hands already, don’t you think?’
Alan felt as shaky as Eyes looked. He glanced around the room, his gaze settling on nothing. He didn’t know what he was searching for. A way out of this? But there wasn’t one. And Raspy was right: there was blood everywhere.
‘You did this,’ Alan said quietly, ‘not us.’
‘You tell yourself that if you must. Soon you won’t be able to deny the consequences of your actions, or of your words. Now. Put your knives down.’
Alan knelt down and put his knife on the floor. Spider followed suit. Eyes had already dropped his axe.
‘Hands on the back of your head.’
They complied.
The Arbitrators resumed their approach. Alan found himself watching their feet as they got closer. In the Pyramid the Arbitrators went barefoot or wore light strappy leather footwear, but they’d donned boots for their sojourn into the wild. They were less of an advantage than they’d thought, most likely; they were obviously more worried about getting moss or insects on their skin than they were about speed or balance.
Not that their lack of speed or balance had thwarted them in any way.
By the Builders, they were fucked. What a mess. And still Alan didn’t know for what. He was staring at the Arbitrator’s boots in front of him, right in front of him, racking his brains, when he suddenly felt something brush past his head and his view of the boots was obscured by a tattered grey cloak.
Between him and the Arbitrator stood a short cloaked figure with its hood up. The Mapmaker? The newcomer’s arms hung at its sides, but its hands were empty of weapons, though the nails were long and curved and wickedly sharp. They were painted pale green: the green of lichen, of verdigris. Chunky, skull-shaped rings of the same colour and others – pastel pink, silver – decorated the fingers.
The blocked Arbitrator laughed. ‘What is this? A child?’ The laughter was picked up by the others.
Alan’s heart sank. Not salvation, then. He tensed his legs to jump up and swing the child – a girl, judging by the hands – behind him. If she wasn’t in the way, then perhaps they wouldn’t hurt her. Perhaps.
Then the first Arbitrator to laugh started screaming. Something wet and warm drenched Alan’s head and face: a shower of blood. The girl was gone, and so was the Arbitrator’s face. He staggered around, his skull in full view, clutching at his ripped throat. Alan stood up. The girl was leaping from one Arbitrator to the next, landing on each like a cat might before swiping at their throats with her now gory hands. She wasn’t blocking any blows directed at her, merely sliding out of the way like something inhuman, like oil. The blows landed instead on the Arbitrator she’d just leaped from. She was standing on shoulders, hopping from the tops of helmets, somersaulting in mid-air, surrounded at all times by a fine mist of Pyramidder blood.
Her hood was down. Her pale blonde hair was cut into a severe fringe across her forehead and the sides of her skull were shorn to the same line. A heavy plait whipped around her head. She’d smeared pink dye into the skin surrounding her large eyes and was shining red up to the elbows. A high-pitched humming sound vibrated through the air. Alan thought maybe it was coming from the girl, but he couldn’t be sure. She was moving too fast for him to make out her facial expression with any certainty, but he thought she was smiling.
Raspy was bellowing at his subservients, but they weren’t listening. Two archers shot at the girl but their arrows sank into the flesh of her target instead. Then she was on one of the archers, sitting on its shoulders. She ripped its helmet off, revealing a woman’s face, and stuck her thumbs deep into the woman’s eyes. She roared and staggered backwards, slipped on something and fell. The attacker placed her hands on the top of her victim’s head as she went over, rose into a handstand and cartwheeled forwards.
Alan shook himself and grabbed his knife. Eyes and Spider had already rejoined the fray and those Arbitrators left standing were looking decidedly shaky. Alan clambered on top of a table to see where Raspy had got to; he was at the side of the room, holding the megaphone to his face as if he were about to speak but saying nothing. The boy was gone. Alan jumped onto the next table and booted an empty pint pot in Raspy’s direction. It was an unexpectedly accurate shot, but Raspy ducked and the glass shattered harmlessly against the wall behind his head. But Alan came up fast behind it and pounced on Raspy as he stood back up. He grunted through the mask as they both went down. He had his sword in his right hand but his right arm was pinned beneath him. Behind them Alan could hear more movement, and shouts, crunches, gurgling, screams, and then more screams. Alan straddled Raspy, hilted him in the wrist and took the sword away as Raspy’s fingers spasmed open. He slid it under Raspy’s breastplate, increased the pressure, felt something give and heard Raspy groan. But he couldn’t do it. Not now, not like this. This wasn’t self-defence.
‘You’re a worm,’ Alan breathed into Raspy’s ear. ‘You’re a Green-damned maggot.’ He with
drew the sword and placed it against the prone man’s neck. The sounds of combat had stopped, but Alan could hear dripping. Lots of dripping. He took Raspy’s mask off. Beneath the mask was a middle-aged man, pale, sweaty. He was looking at something behind Alan. His eyes were wide and his lips were wobbling, as if he was about to cry.
‘What just happened?’ he whispered. ‘What the fuck just happened?’
Alan made sure not to turn around. He leaned in and forced a big, merciless grin. ‘This is the Discard, son,’ he said.
11
Blood Drunk
It was as if all of the alcohol that had been in the blood that ended up flooding the Cavern Tavern had somehow got into him, Alan thought. He was staggering and reeling; he did not know where he was. He hadn’t wanted anybody to die – but then, nobody did, did they? Nobody really wanted that, did they? All of the death had intoxicated him in a thoroughly unpleasant fashion. It was like the end of drunkenness: the fuzziness of sounds, the swirling rooms, the desperate trying and failing to make sense of things.
He was sick, and sick again. Vomit splattered down a stairwell and sprayed against a wall. He was not drunk; this was the bodily aftermath of being exposed to so much sudden and gory death. He was trying to get away from it. Not to escape justice – just the scene of a kind of violence he’d never dreamed of before. Though that wasn’t strictly true. He had dreamed of it, of course. His dreams were full of such horrors. And the real horror of his dreams was that he was the cause of it. And here he was, in reality now, the cause. His body was moving but his mind was not controlling it because his mind was paralysed with remorse. It was like a toad, frozen prior to being cooked.