by D. P. Prior
Shadrak lowered himself into the chair opposite the little man, took in every last detail of his feathered cloak. Huntsman had worn something similar, but this was no Dreamer. Not only was he too short, and his skin lacking that dusky hue, but they were on Aethir. Sahul was a million miles away. Least, it might as well have been. The Archon said Earth and Aethir were different realities, each dreaming of the other or some shit.
“Grab your things,” Shadrak said to Big Jake, not taking his eyes from the little man. “And tell Ekyls to do the same.” Though shog knew what the savage had to bring with him, save for his knives and a bloody carcass or two.
Big Jake knew not to waste time with questions, and headed straight upstairs.
Next Shadrak spoke, it was to the stranger. “Why are you here?”
The little man tilted his head to one side and studied him. Darkness swirled across his eyes like ink on water. It was hard to tell if he was vacant or sad, or perhaps a bit of both. Finally, he lifted a finger to his lips and looked about the room, as if someone were listening.
“This is bigger than either of us, Shadrak. I beseech you to stay your hand until the patterns of play emerge.”
“Do you?” Shadrak said, leaning across the table. “Kinda familiar, aren’t we? Only, you seem to think it’s all right bandying my name around, while I don’t know you from shog.”
“You know me. You just can’t remember.”
Shadrak pulled a pistol and took aim. “You got two seconds to give me a name, or I’ll make one up for you. It’s likely to start with, ‘Where’s his’ and end with, ‘shogging face?’”
The little man didn’t flinch. Instead, his eyes hardened into obsidian. “Bird is my name.” He raised an eyebrow to see if Shadrak betrayed any recognition.
He didn’t.
“That why you wear the cloak?” Shadrak said, spinning the pistol on his finger and holstering it.
“It is not.” Bird clasped his hands together on the table and let out a sigh. “I came ahead of a friend of yours. He seeks a favor, and I hope you will cede it precedence over any other requests you may have received.”
He knew? About the Archon? How was that even—?
“You already knew he was coming, didn’t you?” Bird said. A ripple ran through his feathered cloak, and he cocked his head. “People are approaching. Many people.”
Shadrak strained his ears, and sure enough, the distant thud of footfalls was drawing nearer. The psycher hadn’t lost the scent, after all. By the sounds it, half the legions in New Jerusalem were closing in on Queenie’s.
He stood and went to the window.
“Shit.”
Dozens of soldiers had formed a cordon across the street with their shields locked, and behind them, a couple of phalanxes were hurriedly forming. Sunlight glinted off more than a hundred bronze helms and steel speartips.
He started to turn toward the kitchen at the back, but Ekyls emerged from it, hatchet in hand.
“Soldiers,” the savage said. “Many soldiers. You want me kill?”
Big Jake came stomping down the stairs before Shadrak could answer. “You seen what’s outside?” If he’d packed anything, he’d left it in his room.
“Yes,” Shadrak said, meaning it for Ekyls. “Go kill.” What did he care if the savage got cut to pieces in the process? Least it would make for a diversion.
The rattle of a carriage pulling up outside had him turn back to the window. Albert was waving frantically from the passenger seat.
“Second thoughts,” Shadrak said, “get out. Go with Albert. Tell him to meet me at the rendezvous.” If they could get out of the city. The Senate’s forces had moved alarmingly quickly, and with such coordination, he wouldn’t have put it past them to have the city on lockdown already. Still, if anyone could get out, it was Albert.
Ekyls pulled the door open and ran to the carriage. Cries of “Halt!” went up from the soldiers, and a group began to advance on the savage.
Shadrak drew both pistols and let off a few shots through the window. Glass shattered and fell tinkling to the floor. The soldiers faltered, and the carriage sped off with Ekyls half-hanging out the doorway. It was just like Albert not to wait.
“Hold the fort,” he told Big Jake, holstering his guns. “They’re after me, not you.”
There was a flutter, and Shadrak caught a glimpse of a raven winging its way outside. Of Bird, there was no sign.
Big Jake shrugged, like he saw this sort of thing every day. That was his way. Even in the middle of a fight, you’d think he was half asleep. “You coming back?”
“Unlikely. Least not for the foreseeable. Fargin’s in charge now. You know what to do.”
Shadrak ran for the stairs. As he reached the landing, he heard Big Jake’s rumbling voice welcoming the soldiers to Queenie’s. A gruff exchange followed. Hopefully, Jake wouldn’t do anything stupid.
Shadrak opened the window at the end of the landing and climbed out onto the drain pipe. Someone spotted him and yelled, but he scrambled up onto the roof and sprinted for the edge.
Pain exploded in his head, and he stumbled. Something rose up to his right. He reeled round, and there it was: the psycher, loping toward him with one arm outstretched, the other raised high and wreathed in black mist. It thrust its featureless head at him, and Shadrak screamed as white-hot needles stabbed into his brain. Images flashed up behind his eyes: Kadee, dried up and wasted, ulcerating bedsores weeping on the sheets; Bovis Rayn’s ruined face; Rhiannon’s fists hitting him over and over; and the thing that had attacked him on the rooftops before—a Thanatosian, the Archon had called it. It raised its gun too fast for him to even scream…
Shadrak tried to draw a pistol, but his fingers were numb, and he couldn’t grip tight enough to free it from the holster. He reached behind for the thundershot he kept tucked in the back of his belt for emergencies, but it wouldn’t budge. Cold crept into his bones, and the strength drained away from his body.
The psycher’s raised arm came down, and a fresh blast of pain ruptured Shadrak’s thoughts. His limbs shook, and his teeth rattled. Something warm oozed from his ears, and he could taste coppery blood in his mouth.
The psycher raised both arms this time, amid a swirl of charcoal haze.
Behind Shadrak’s eyes, Kadee wept—no longer wasted, but her eyes were wide with terror, and not all of it for him. Shadowy trees formed a backdrop behind her, and the skies above were swarming with dark shapes gliding down on leathery wings. Kadee’s eyes burned with intensity, and she yelled silently at him.
Something snapped, and Shadrak got a hold on the thundershot. It felt heavy. So heavy. It took two hands to raise it, and he couldn’t steady his aim. Summoning all his remaining strength, he pulled the trigger, and there was an answering boom. The psycher’s scream cut gouges through Shadrak’s mind, and he pitched backward over the roof.
He tensed against the impact with the ground, but when it came, it was softer than he’d imagined.
“Caught you, laddie.”
He opened his eyes onto a black great helm, flecked with green. Strong arms held him, cradling him like a child.
“Nameless!”
“Little birdie told me you had a spot of bother,” the dwarf said, his voice muffled by the helm.
Shadrak looked to the roof, but he couldn’t see the psycher. Had he hit it? Shog, he hoped so.
The tramp of many feet built to a roar around them. Nameless set Shadrak down and scooped up his axe from the roadside.
“Is this a bad time to ask for a loan?”
Shadrak holstered the thundershot, whipped out both flintlocks and sent a barrage of shots into the soldiers. Bullets pinged off shields, and the advance turned into a rout.
Nameless whistled from inside his helm and hefted his axe to his shoulder.
“Can it wait?” Shadrak said.
“Oh, there’s no hurry, laddie.”
Already, someone was barking orders, and the soldiers were reforming in discipline
d rows. Shadrak stole a glance at the rooftop. Still no sign of the psycher.
The soldiers at the back of the phalanxes broke off into a broad cordon, fanning out to cover every avenue of escape. Shadrak turned to see more soldiers stepping out from Queenie’s. He caught a glimpse of Big Jake giving a shrug through the window.
“So, what’s the plan?” Nameless said. “I take it you do have a plan.”
Usually, he would have; would have seen this sort of thing coming. But the Archon had pushed him too quickly, too far. Take any assassination lightly, and you ran the risk of it blowing up in your face; but the whacking of a senator—and the First Senator at that—demanded the highest level of planning. Weeks, it would have taken him to prepare for a job like that, not mere seconds.
He knew Nameless would have a plan; the only plan he’d ever seen the dwarf use: bash his way right through the center of the enemy and keep on bashing. But going down in a blaze of glory was the furthest thing from Shadrak’s mind; and the idea of giving Nameless his head went spinning off from the whirl of thoughts he was rapidly considering.
If they could make it to the alley connecting 101st and 102nd streets, kick some poor bastard’s door in and go through to the other side… stick to the lanes and keep heading north and west…
He pointed a pistol at the shield wall to the right of the closest phalanx. Can’t have been more than two deep, and behind was a clear path to the alley.
“I shoot, you charge,” he said. “Then I’ll get your back.”
Nameless took a two-handed grip on his axe, rolled his shoulders. “Ready when you are.”
“Go!” Shadrak yelled.
He fired both pistols straight into the soldiers. This time, he wanted to do more than startle them, and he dropped four in quick succession. The rest buckled when Nameless barreled into them. A spear glanced off the dwarf’s helm. He weaved past a thrust, then hammered the axe head into a shield so hard, metal caved, and wood splintered on the inside. The soldier screamed and pitched to the ground, nursing his mangled arm.
Nameless was through, and before the soldiers could react, Shadrak unleashed another hail of shots, and they scattered for the shelter of the nearest buildings.
The phalanxes started to wheel; great lumbering things. Whichever idiot had ordered such a stupid formation was yelling to the four winds like it was someone else’s fault. As they started to break apart into a pattern that you could only call “every man for himself”, Shadrak singled out the commander and put a bullet through his gob. He half-expected a round of applause for shutting the shogger up, but instead, the men came at him in a seething, disorderly mob.
A few more shots kept open the channel between them, and then he was off on Nameless’s heels.
THE MAD MAGE
Nameless bent over and clutched his sides. His panting came heavy and fast, roaring like ocean surf inside the great helm. And shog, it stank in there. Everything stank: years of sour burps and hungry-breath that never seemed to dissipate through the eye-slit. When was the last time he’d cleaned his teeth? Aristodeus should have thought of that when he’d hatched his scheme to insulate Nameless from the black axe. Probably had. Probably thought it was funny.
“How many…?” His lungs burned, and a stitch like a spear-thrust lanced through his side. “How many alleys? Thought it was just the one.”
Shadrak was already halfway to the other side, no more than a shifting shadow in his hooded cloak. He hopped lightly onto the bottom step of an iron staircase that ran up the outside of a crooked building. One crooked building among many. Everything had taken on a twisted, bowed, and precarious look the instant they’d crossed into the wizard’s quarter.
“This is it.”
Nameless straightened up and pivoted so he could get a better look—another flaw with the helm. Most of the time, he could barely see where he was going, and he was constantly worried about embarrassing himself in a fight.
The buildings flanking the alley were tall and slender, kind of like the whores in Brink. Not that he’d been there—the whores, that is. He was a beard-man through and through. But the stonework: that was a thing in and of itself. Most of New Jerusalem had the kind of masonry he’d grown up with in Arx Gravis. New Jerusalem’s construction had been the parting gift of the dwarves to the first settlers; Maldark the Fallen’s final act before he vanished from Aethir. But the craftsmanship in the wizard’s quarter was as dwarvish as a shandy-drinking giant with no hair. There was a hodgepodge of misplaced buttresses, warped overhangs, and crooked lintels. Atop the roofs, tiles of different shapes and sizes glinted in the light of the suns. He caught his own reflection in a window of contorted glass. Made his belly look huge, and his arms as long as an ape’s. He knew it for what it was: some kind of illusion; but all the same, he sucked his gut in and pulled his shoulders back.
“You coming, or what?” Shadrak said, and bounded up the staircase to a round wooden door at the top.
“Just catching my breath, laddie,” Nameless said, taking a firm grip on his axe and lumbering up the first few steps. Iron creaked, and the railings shuddered. “This thing safe?” His hands found his belly again. “Think it’ll take my weight?”
Shadrak came down a step, eyes constantly moving, taking in every last detail on the rooftops, the ground, and back the way they’d entered the alley. “You need to get into shape. Now, hurry. Just because we lost the soldiers, doesn’t mean we’re out of this yet. They had a psycher, and it got my scent.”
“Well, there’s a thing,” Nameless said. Not the psycher. That was another thing altogether. It was the mention of getting into shape. “That’s what I came to see you about.”
“Too busy,” Shadrak said. “It’s a shogging struggle finding the time to keep myself trim, never mind training anyone else.”
“What?” The belly again. The midget was referring to his belly. Odd thing was, it felt solid as rock, carved from stone. He started to lift his chainmail hauberk but gave up when he couldn’t angle the helm enough to see.
“Not me. I’m fit as a fiddle, laddie. I want to train others. See, there’s this building in Brink that would make a perfect… What do you call it? Somewhere you can lift weights and spar…” Aristodeus had a word for it, though why Nameless had revealed his plans to that old coot, he’d never know. Well, he did. He had to pass the time somehow while he was being tube-fed.
“Can this wait?” Shadrak said. He turned back to the door and ran his hand over it.
“You know me, laddie.” Nameless clambered up behind. “No hurry. But there’s a need for it, I tell you. Not for the general public, mind. I can’t be done with all those whining fatties promising how much weight they’re going to lose and then tucking into a double-helping of pie and potatoes. It’s the soldiers I’m after. You might have noticed back there, but it’s the same all over: undertrained, out of condition. It’s no wonder I can put any five down without breaking sweat.”
“Only five?” Shadrak said, still very much focused on the door.
“Ten, then,” Nameless said. “Fifteen. Don’t want to be boastful. So, you think it’s got potential? Enough to make an investment? I was going to ask it as a favor, but seeing as you owe me—”
“Owe you?”
“For catching you, and for getting you away from New Jerusalem’s finest.”
Shadrak held up a hand. “No.”
“Oh,” Nameless said. That rather shat on his plans. “Thought you were some big guild-lord now. Surely a few hundred denarii—”
“I mean…” Shadrak pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Maybe. Later. Let’s discuss it later.”
He reached into a pouch and produced something tacky, which he rolled in his fingers for a few moments before pressing against the base of the door.
“What are you doing?” Nameless asked.
“Door’s warded with enough crap to keep an army out, and if I knock, he’ll just pretend he ain’t in.”
“Knows you we
ll, then, does he?” Though what kinds of connections Shadrak had in the wizard’s quarter didn’t bear thinking about. Just being there made Nameless’s spine tingle and gave him the urge to find the nearest crapper.
Shadrak stood back and gestured for Nameless to do the same. He slipped a pistol from its holster, then took a black cylinder from one of his belt pouches and screwed it onto the end of the barrel.
Nameless tensed as Shadrak pulled the trigger, but there was no thunderous boom. Instead, there was a rushing, popping noise. Smoke billowed from the sticky stuff on the door. It fizzed and burned, gave off a muffled blast and a burst of flame. When the smoke cleared, the door hung in ruins, and someone coughed and spluttered from inside.
“Magwitch, you old tosser,” Shadrak called out. “No magic, got it? Else I’ll string you up by your balls.”
Nameless bobbed the great helm in a show of respect. “Can’t say fairer than that, laddie.” He always admired a plain-talker.
Shadrak tested the floor with his boot before stepping inside.
Nameless hesitated, shook his head, and followed him.
He couldn’t see a whole lot. Not just because of the helm this time; besides the dusty light from the twin suns spilling through the wreckage of the doorway, the only illumination was a gloamy haze that limned everything in red.
A man lay on the floor, muttering and moaning. Looked a lot like a scarecrow to Nameless. He was bundled up in a long, dark coat with dozens of red flecks about the collar. No doubt they would’ve been white out in the daylight; probably, they fell like snowflakes from his mussy gray hair whenever he scratched. Say one thing for him, though: he had a beard you could hide a mountain in. Made Nameless want to poke about inside it for a gift, like he and Lucius had done with the sack of secrets Pa brought home every winter-fest. Back in the day.
The man searched about on the floor until he found his twisted spectacles and jammed them on the bridge of his nose. The instant he blinked his eyes into focus, he gasped and almost choked, then frantically tried to scurry backward on his arse.
Shadrak grabbed him by the ankle. “Hold still, Magwitch. It’s me.”