The City

by Stella Gemmell

  When they reached the House of Glass she unlocked the door and let them in. In her head she had rehearsed a little drama to conceal from Bartellus the fact that she had been out in the night. She put a finger to her lips. Frayling frowned and nodded. Then she rapped hard on the inside of the door, and waited until she heard her father moving about upstairs. Then she flung open the door, grinning back at the servant.

  “Frayling!” she cried dramatically, more loudly than was necessary.

  Then she fell back in terror, trying to close the heavy door again. But the three big men looming in the darkness merely pushed her to one side and walked in. Two had swords drawn, the third, a stout ruffian with a grey beard, had a nail-studded wooden club. He pushed the door closed behind them.

  The leader, a dark-faced man with an eyepatch, grabbed Em by the arm. “Where is the old man?” he asked. He glanced up the stairs. “Up there?”

  She shook her head, and he threw her down. She fell hard against the door and her head bounced off the oak. The world went dark for a moment and her limbs lost their strength. The one-eyed man turned his back, while the second swordsman raised his weapon to stab her. Then the swordsman fell as, with a shout, Frayling hit him round the head with his crutch. The one with the cudgel laughed briefly as his friend went down, then he casually swung the club at Frayling. The crippled man tried to get out of the way, for the club moved slowly, and it hit him a glancing blow on his bad hip. Frayling gave a scream of agony and collapsed at the foot of the stairs. Em shook her head clear and scrambled across the floor to him. The servant’s eyes were open but he seemed paralysed by the pain.

  Then there was a shout from above and everyone looked up. Bartellus had appeared at the top of the stairs. He took two steps downwards. Em watched him take in the scene below, then the old man retreated back to his room.

  The one-eyed leader, known as the Wolf, did not call himself an assassin, although he could not argue with anyone who did. He simply followed the orders of his protector, and if he was told to kill, well, he did so as efficiently as possible, without hatred or cruelty. He had no idea why he had been ordered to kill this old man who scurried up the stairs away from them, but he doubted it would take all three of them.

  The Wolf was once known as Casmir, an infantryman of the 18th Serpentine, who fought loyally for his City for more than fifteen years, first under the legendary Grantus, then his successor Victorinus Rae Khan. His final battle was a trivial skirmish in a small tribal village south of the Plakos. Afterwards the City warriors moved on, leaving at their backs a village of corpses. They also left Casmir, for he had taken a deep wound to the stomach and a blow to the head and he lay as if dead in his own blood. There he suffered for two days or more, dying slowly, though not slowly enough not to be aware when an impatient carrion crow took out his eye. Casmir was at last discovered by another troop of City fighters and, against all probability, survived. When he had recovered from his wounds, which took many weeks, he took time to hunt down all the former comrades who left him to die, those whose names he could remember. There were still some left to find, but he suspected they were dead already from other causes and his rage was less potent now, quenched by blood.

  His protector’s orders had been clear. “Kill the old man…and make sure he is dead!” This last was something of a joke between them. “And anyone else in the house, if you see fit.”

  The Wolf did not see fit to kill the girl. He did not kill girls without good reason. He was annoyed that Derian had stabbed at her, and amused that the cripple had downed the swordsman with his crutch. But he could not blame him when Derian leaped up and stabbed the cripple in the chest. The girl squealed like a rabbit on a stick.

  “Let’s see if there are any more mice in this hole,” the Wolf ordered. And, pointing at the girl, he said, “Bring her along.”

  Leading the way, sword raised, he stepped lightly up the stairs to the landing where he had seen the old man. He looked swiftly left and right. There was no movement. He could hear the stair treads creaking and the sound of Ragtail’s laboured breathing. He turned and put his finger to his lips. The girl opened her mouth to shout, and Ragtail dropped his grip on her arm and grabbed her round the head, muffling her mouth with his great hand. There was silence. The Wolf gestured to Derian to go to the left, while he slid into the right-hand room. A narrow bed, a chest and a threadbare rug. No one hiding.

  He stepped out onto the landing again and looked up the next flight of stairs. How many were there?

  He cleared his throat and, pitching his voice at a conversational level, said, “Come down, old man. We have already killed the cripple. We will slit the girl’s throat if you don’t appear.” He had no idea of the relationship between the old man and the girl. She could be a serving maid and her slit throat a matter of indifference to her master. Still, it was worth a try.

  Then the darkness on the landing above them thickened, and the old man was standing there. He held a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. By his stance the Wolf guessed he knew how to use them. But it would make no difference. They had the girl, and it now seemed that she was the old man’s weak point. So it was all over, really.

  Looking back, it was not clear quite what happened then. One moment the old boy was standing, defiant but already defeated, at the top of the stairs. The next there was a whirl of movement. Ragtail went down, a knife in his throat. The pommel of the thrown sword, spinning end over end, hit the Wolf on the side of the head and he staggered and went down on one knee, dazed for a moment.

  “Run, Em!” the old man shouted, and the girl leaped up the stairs, racing past the Wolf, kicking him in the face with a flying heel. He stood up, shaking clear his head, and picked up his sword.

  The girl had disappeared into the darkness of the upper floors. The old man still stood in the same spot, only now he was unarmed.

  But then he charged.

  He took several running steps down the stairs, reckless as a child, and launched himself at Derian and the Wolf. Both men had their swords up, but the staircase was narrow and Derian was behind. With a jolt the Wolf realised the old man was going to hit him with the force of a runaway cart. He put both hands on the sword, bracing himself. At the last moment he saw the old man had padded his forearms with a coat, and he hit the upraised sword arms first, head down. Then he cannoned into the Wolf, and the three men crashed down the stairs to the lower landing, the old boy on top.

  Angry now, the Wolf scrambled from under the melee and leaped to his feet. His sword was lost, but Derian was up too and he was still armed. The old man lay on the wooden floor, winded by his fall, helpless.

  “Kill him!” snarled the Wolf.

  Derian grinned. “A pleasure,” he said. He stepped forward, then fell to his knees, howling in pain.

  The Wolf realised the cripple was not dead, and had crawled up the stairs and grabbed his lost sword. He had hacked it across the back of Derian’s leg, drawing blood, perhaps severing something. The Wolf shook his head. What a shambles! After his joke about making sure the enemy was dead. He almost laughed. He took out his dagger and, grabbing him by the hair, cut the cripple’s throat. Then he turned to the old man.

  “He was harder to kill than I thought,” he commented pleasantly.

  The old man watched him from the floor. He was pale and breathing heavily. He had found a dagger from somewhere, Ragtail’s perhaps, and held it by its hilt. A tough old soldier, the Wolf thought. Despite the shambles, it was a shame to kill him.

  Taking his time, keeping an eye on the dagger, in case the man reversed it for another throw, he retrieved his sword from the cripple’s dead grasp, glancing sourly at Derian, who was moaning and clutching at his injured leg.

  “I should have come alone,” he commented.

  “Who sent you?” asked the old soldier.

  The Wolf frowned. He would have liked to oblige the old boy with an answer, but loyalty meant discretion, and he had vowed never to tell his protector’s
name, even to a dead man.

  Instead, in a bid to be pleasant, he offered, “I will not molest the girl.”

  The man said nothing, just watched him with his pale eyes. Then he slowly levered himself to his feet. The Wolf let him. He had no wish to kill this man as he lay on the ground. The old boy took a knife-fighter’s stance and circled cautiously. The Wolf was thirty years younger than him, and armed with a short sword, but he treated the man with respect. If the events of this night had taught him anything it was never to take anything for granted.

  They were both right-handed, although the assassin could use his left hand with deadly accuracy. The Wolf thrust experimentally at the old man’s throat. The man weaved to the right, his knife leaping forward and nearly cutting the Wolf’s shoulder. He is game, thought the Wolf, and he is working on an old soldier’s memories. He smiled inwardly. If he were fifty years younger, he might give me problems. Out of politeness he turned his stance to minimise his profile.

  The old man’s knife flickered forward and the Wolf instantly took his chance, weaving and thrusting for the man’s chest. But the old man’s blade slid against his, deflecting it, and in that moment the old man stepped in and threw a ferocious punch with his left fist which rocked the Wolf backwards to the edge of the down staircase. He teetered, getting his balance, and the old man moved forward. The Wolf recovered and stepped back down two steps to give himself room.

  In that second he saw the old man reverse the knife and pull his arm back to throw it. Good, thought the Wolf, as he swayed easily to the right. The knife thunked into the sloping ceiling beside his head. The Wolf, short sword in one hand, grinned and looked the old boy in the eyes as he dragged the knife out of the ceiling. Then he leaped forward with his sword. The old man raised an arm to defend himself and the Wolf thrust the dagger into his side. He felt it ram home through flesh and muscle and the old man sagged against him. Carefully, the Wolf helped him down to the floor, leaving the knife lodged in his body.

  He ran back down the stairs to Derian, who was dragging himself to his feet.

  “Go find the girl!” he commanded. “Or do I have to do everything?” Derian was pale and could barely use his right leg but he nodded and swallowed, and started limping up the stairs to the upper storeys. The Wolf looked around the shabby rooms on the ground floor. There was a workroom, with pots of paint and foul-smelling potions. He piled several of them in a haphazard heap, then emptied one pot over the others. He had no idea if it was flammable, but it smelled as though it ought to be.

  He glanced through a gap in the boarded-up window. Dawn was breaking. He could see the buildings on the other side of the alley and the early birds were beginning their song. It was a good time to be out in the City, walking through the waking streets to the sound of birdsong, he thought. Then he remembered Derian and scowled.

  He ran up the stairs, flight after flight, glancing left and right as he went. He found his man on the top floor. He had discovered the girl and was laboriously tying her to a heavy chair with a rope he had found. She was crying and struggling, and Derian cuffed her round the head as the Wolf arrived.

  “What are you doing?” the leader asked, amazed.

  “I thought you’d want to ask her questions,” Derian replied sulkily.

  “Questions? About what?” Derian shrugged, staring at the floor. The Wolf shook his head in wonder at the stupidity. The gods defend me from imbeciles, he thought.

  “It is nearly dawn,” he said. “We can’t be seen here.”

  He returned to the hatch in the floor. Derian asked, “What about her?”

  The Wolf shrugged. “What about her? I told the old man I would not molest her,” he said. “I keep my promises.”

  They went back down through the building, stepping over the body of the old man on the first landing. On the ground floor the Wolf grabbed a candle and threw it on the pile of paint pots. Disappointingly, nothing happened for a moment. Then he saw a thin blue line of light surge across the floor. There was a small explosion of flame, then quickly the whole pile caught alight.

  He opened the side door and together they stepped out into the fresh new morning.

  Chapter 20

  The pool of blood was widening, and soon it would start to sizzle.

  Bartellus lay on his side watching with interest as reflected flames flickered on the shining slick surface of the blood pool.

  He was curled up, hands clutched protectively round the dagger embedded in his side, trying not to move, trying not to breathe. When his chest moved he could feel the blade rasp against a rib. That broken sword is the only thing keeping you alive, sir. Bartellus could still see the officer’s white anxious face bobbing above him as he was carried off the battlefield. He had wanted to pull the weapon out, to ease the pain. He had known his lifeblood would gush out with it, but it seemed not to matter. The young officer had restrained him, holding gently on to his hands.

  Now the old man was lying on the landing below the second staircase, and from the sounds below him, roaring and crackling, he knew the ground floor of the House of Glass was well alight. The flames were crawling up the wooden walls of the stairwell. Pulling the blade out would mean a quick death. A better choice than burning alive. Emly would understand. She would not blame him.

  He pictured his daughter’s face. Then he realised he could not remember when he had last seen her. He tried to concentrate, but his thoughts were swirling like water in his head. He could not stay focussed on Emly. He kept seeing the young officer. What was his name? Gilliar? Gellan?

  There was an explosion in a room below him, and a blast of hot air warmed his face. Paint, perhaps, or the chemicals Em used on the glass. He opened his eyes. He had to think of Emly. Where was she? Why was he thinking about her? Her bare feet. Her bare feet running up the stairs. Suddenly he remembered the attack in the night, the two men, the fight, the blade in his side. Emly fleeing.

  With a groan he lifted his head and saw flames all around him. He slowly rolled over and onto his knees. The agony in his side made the world lurch and he paused while it righted itself again. Then, on all fours, flames reaching for his clothes and grasping at his hair, he slowly crawled up the stairs.

  There were thirteen stairs. On the next landing he rested, still on hands and knees. He could not let himself lie down, for he knew he could never get up again. He peered around him, looking into the bedrooms on either side. No sign of Em.

  “Emly!” he cried, but there was little breath in his lungs and it came out as a whisper. He pressed on up the next flight, inching his way, outpacing the fire only by moments.

  Finally, after eons, he reached the bottom of the wooden ladder which led to Em’s attic. He looked up and tried calling her name again, but the effort made him cough wretchedly. Agony surged through his body and darkness covered his eyes. He could not climb up there. It was impossible.

  Then he heard something above him, a regular rasping sound like someone scouring a pan. He listened hard. There was silence for a while, then the sound started again. It gave him hope, and a little strength, and he forced himself up the steps, one agonising rung after another, clinging on with bloody hands, his feet dragging as if weights were tied to them. After an age he reached the top and peered over into the attic.

  Emly was roped to a heavy wooden chair, which was lying on its side. She was gagged and her hands and feet were tied. She was rubbing the ropes around her wrists against the sharp corner of a metal chest. She was facing him and when she saw him her eyes widened above the filthy paint cloth they had used for a gag. The old man forced his feet up the last few rungs, then slid across the wooden floor towards her, his pain for a moment forgotten. He fumbled at the back of her head to unknot the gag then, angered by his weakness, wrenched it roughly off over her head.

  “Hands! Hands!” she whispered, terrified, and her eyes looked beyond him and he saw the flames reflected in them.

  His thick clumsy fingers worked at the knots in the rope. His blo
od gave them grip, but he was weakened by his wound and rendered incompetent by his fear for her, and it took precious moments to untie her. When she felt the rope loosen she tore her hands free and unwound the rope at her waist, then bent to free her feet. Bartellus looked behind him. Flames were roaring up from the stairwell, setting fire to the wooden rafters above and crawling across the ceiling. Smoke was pouring across the floor.

  Emly was free. She bent down to him and grabbed his arm, his shoulder, on his uninjured side.

  “The window!” she whispered.

  He shook his head. The thought was preposterous. “I cannot,” he told her, his voice muffled and rasping from the smoke.

  She grabbed his face and pulled in close to him. “I will not go without you!” she said, her words firm and uncompromising.

  He sighed and, resting on her thin shoulder, he stood and struggled across the workroom to the window. She threw it open and helped him onto the wide sill. He gazed down. Blue Duck Alley was far below them, and down there he could see excited faces looking up. In front of them the latticework bridge stretched in the darkness to the opposite building. Impossible.

  “I cannot,” he told her. “This is a path for cats, and deliverance for you. But not for me.”

  “I will not go without you,” she repeated, and he heard the iron in her words. She started pushing him out of the window, beating at his back with her fists, shoving with her shoulder. He tried to hold her, to thrust her in front of him onto the bridge, but even her frail strength was too much for him.

  He could feel himself dying, but he could not take her with him.

  With a huge effort he reached up with his left arm and caught hold of a wooden beam. He felt her lift his boot up onto a secure foothold, then, with a groan, he swung himself up onto the bridge. He clung on, riding out the pain, forcing back the darkness in his head. Emly was right behind him, placing his right hand then his right foot on the beams of the bridge. He moved his weight to his right side, and she immediately took his left hand, guiding it forward again. They were high above the alley now, with nothing but dark air between them and the cobbled stones. His head felt a bit clearer, and the night air cooled his burning side. He stretched forwards and took one more shuffled pace. On the far side of the bridge he could see two young boys watching him from an open window. He could hear thin cries, like the mewing of gulls. They were shouting at him, their eyes wide with excitement. He guessed they were egging him forward.