The City

by Stella Gemmell

  She could see the first scouts emerging again from the caves, clambering over the rocks on the north side of the river. They spoke to Gil Rayado and he nodded. He gestured to Indaro, and she jogged over to him.

  “The way seems clear. There are no lights, no sign of habitation. No sign of guards.”

  “Elija said the way was not guarded when he was here.”

  “Nevertheless,” replied Gil thoughtfully, “I am surprised. Security in the City has tightened a great deal in the last months. I expected to find a welcome party.”

  “Perhaps we will, farther in,” said Indaro and the leader nodded.

  “We must consider this good news,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  They were both aware, though there seemed no point in saying it, that the cave might be unguarded because it was no longer possible to get into the City that way.

  The supply master and his team had been breaking out crates full of the glass lanterns Indaro had been first shown back at Old Mountain. They were tall, with a narrow chimney, the base filled with flammable oil. Once lit they became very hot and each was mounted in a wood and metal cage which could be hung up or stood on a flat surface. In her years in the Halls Indaro was used to carrying flaming torches to see the way; they were dangerous and smelly and inclined to go out when it was most inconvenient. These were smaller and they shed more light, and they could be set down whenever there was a pause in their journey.

  Better still, each lantern lasted a precise period of time, so they could be used to mark the passing of the hours underground. Some had been lit at dawn, and the supply master and two of his team had been designated timekeepers, so they would know how close they were to their scheduled time limit of noon the following day.

  And, best of all, Indaro thought, in a battle the lanterns would make effective weapons.

  She turned back to the daylight, to see Elija standing at the mouth of the cave, a picture of indecision. She walked back towards him over the sharp rocks. His eyes were huge in his ashen face and he scarcely seemed to see her. She wondered again if he could be relied upon or if at some point he would have to be carried, their guide, their light in the dark places.

  “Elija,” she said, peering down at him, caught between sympathy and impatience. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded but did not move. She looked to Garret, jerking her head towards the depths of the cave. The soldier patted Elija on the back. “C’mon,” he said in his cheery way. “You’ll feel better when we get underway.”

  Thank the gods for Garret and his platitudes, Indaro thought, leaving them and turning to her troop. Her platoon was called Dawn and she was to take point, accompanied by Elija and his two bodyguards, Garret and a Petrassi soldier called Nando. They were all lightly armoured, for there would be much climbing to do, and each carried, in addition to his weapons of choice, a waterproof pack. Every third soldier held a lantern, and as they moved into the darkness of the cave, Indaro was very aware that their presence would be quickly known about if there were still Dwellers living there.

  Elija had copies of the plans in his pack, but they had spent so many hours poring over them that Indaro felt she could recall them all from memory. Their route would be dictated by what they found, but her hope was that they could follow the river upstream for the first few leagues, all the while it flowed due west, then, where it veered to the south, they would strike north, hoping to meet the great channel marked on one of the maps as the Fallowly Dike, on others as the Dark Water. This river passed, or had once passed, beneath the palace and was, she and Elija decided, their best chance of finding their way into the Keep. They had to assume all channels and tunnels were clear and negotiable. When they reached one that was barred by debris, or flooded, then they would divert their path and seek a new way.

  They had over a day and a half to travel seven leagues underground, as the stormcrow flies. It was not long.

  Gil, Mason and Fell had been dismayed when they heard the news that Bartellus had been captured. First Amita dead, then Saroyan, now this. The old man was not vital to their mission to kill the emperor. But Fell’s hopes for the future of the City, one that could recover from the death of the emperor and move forward in peace, rested on the general Shuskara rallying his old regiments, the Second Adamantine and Fourth Imperial, rotated into the City by Saroyan in the days before her death.

  Indaro privately thought the old man, if not suffering torture, would be safer in prison than he would have been in their original plan, entering the palace with Fell to confront the emperor. When—if—the mission succeeded and the Immortal was dead, then would be the time, she thought, to descend into the dungeons to find Shuskara and bring him out in honour.

  Taking a last glance at the lightening sky, she stepped into the shade of the cave and reluctantly let the foul air flow into her chest. The boats had landed on the north side of the river, the left bank. It was a commitment made several days before, for they could not be sure of being able to cross the river farther up. Elija had told them of the bridge which served the settlement of reivers, but could not know if it was still there.

  The north side of the river was the more difficult. The mudbanks to the south rolled out like a gentle plain as far as the eye could see in the gloom. Those on the north were steeper, and Indaro quickly abandoned any attempt to stay upright and, putting on gloves, clambered up the bank on all fours. She was painfully aware of the picture she presented to her men and thought it an inauspicious start to her command. They spoke together in their own tongue and she could only guess what they were saying.

  After a while the terrain flattened a little and she was able to stand. She raised her light high and peered towards the east. She could see nothing. She put it down and blinked a few times, trying to find some night-sight. At last she saw what Elija had described—shafts of weak daylight shining from the unseen ceiling of the cave onto a distant huddle of huts on the far side of the river. She turned to Elija and he nodded.

  The shafts of light were a mystery. They could not be cut through to the top of the cliff; it was too high. They must be cut diagonally into the cliff face. But by whom and for what purpose? Clearly not to illuminate this sad cluster of hovels. The shafts must have been there first, before the community grew up in their lukewarm light. The community was strange too. Since they lived so close to the sea, why not build outside, or in the shelter of the cave mouth, rather than deep in the dark, amid the shoals of sewage? Indaro shrugged to herself. It was not her problem.

  There was no sign of movement among the dwellings. From Elija’s report, the community was once bustling with activity. But now the shacks and huts looked empty and the only life that could be seen was the rats, a pack of which were even now streaming like water across the flats, and the ever-present flies.

  Indaro picked up her lantern and moved on. The farther they walked into the dark the thicker the air became and it was harder to breathe normally. Their feet were sinking into the mud and each step became a struggle. She heard the men cursing behind her. Elija, smaller and lighter than them all, was managing best.

  “Is it like this all along the bank?” she asked him.

  He shrugged, a slight movement in the gloom. “Maybe the going is firmer the farther we get from the river.”

  It took another two hours, measured by the light of the lanterns, to reach the wooden bridge which served the settlement. Indaro raised her light.

  “I’m glad we chose not to go that way,” said Gil, who had come up behind her. She nodded. The bridge was broken in places, wooden planks hanging off it into the slow-flowing river, and rotten where it remained. It would be possible for rats or cats to cross, but Indaro thought the mouldy, slimy timbers could not bear a person’s weight.

  “Perhaps that’s why the community was abandoned?” she offered. “It would not be easy to rebuild.”

  “Where is the entrance you used from the Halls?” Gil asked Elija.

  The boy pointed. “Over there. It
is directly east of the cave opening, for we could see the setting sun through it. This path leads to it.” He looked across the river. “I wonder what happened to them all,” he said.

  “Drowned in the floods, or cleaned out by the City’s patrols.” Indaro shrugged. “They’re all dead now.” She glanced at Elija and thought she saw a faint smile on his face.

  “I wish I could tell Amita,” he said.

  Chapter 36

  Emly rose slowly to consciousness. She lay in a narrow bed, warm under her heavy winter coat. Below her, in the kitchen of the bakery which had been their sanctuary for three days, she could hear the rattle of pans and the sharp orders and complaints from the cook and her husband as they prepared the day’s loaves. The sounds were comforting and Em fell asleep again.

  When she awoke a second time the rain, which had thundered on the roof tiles all night, had stopped. She opened her eyes to see the pink fingers of sunrise creeping through the dirty window. The attic room was filled with rosy light. Emly sighed and put her nose out from under the covers. The City was deep in winter, but the kitchen below kept the tiny room warm as its ovens once day began. Despite all that had happened, Emly had not felt so safe for many weeks.

  She lifted her head and craned her neck. Evan lay on the other bed, flat on his stomach, his face pressed into the pillow, one arm above his head, the other hand trailing on the floorboards. She could see the faded red of his jacket and the tow-coloured hair, spiking up all over his head. He slept, as always, like the dead.

  He had told her once that a warrior could sleep anywhere, yet be instantly alert when needed. She rolled over and ran her hand across the dusty floor, scooping up a pebble she had dug out of her shoe. She threw it at the sleeping soldier. It hit him sharply on the top of his head. He did not stir. She smiled.

  “Is it always your duty to rescue me?” she had asked him, when he had found her hiding among barrels at the rear of the Shining Stars Inn, their designated meeting place should some disaster occur.

  He had said gruffly, “It is no duty,” but she knew he was angry at himself for not being there to stop Bartellus being taken.

  “There were six soldiers,” she had assured him kindly. “You were outnumbered. It would do no good if you were captured too.”

  He had given her a long, unfathomable look, then said, “You haven’t had much to do with warriors, have you, girl?”

  She shook her head. He was the first she had ever met, apart from her father.

  The palace soldiers had come for Bartellus before dawn.

  They had been hiding in an abandoned stable, once the home of one of the cavalry units, now disused except by courting couples who coupled in the mouldy straw beneath them as the refugees waited silently above in the loft. Evan had furnished them with food and spare clothing. Em begged to be allowed out, although Bartellus showed no interest in leaving the loft. Since he was wounded he had aged and his memory had become poorer, and his legs were shaky underneath him. Emly saw him staring into the distance sometimes, his mouth moving as if he was talking to someone in his head. She knew he was once a great general, and he was a great man to her, but she could not believe he would ever lead troops again.

  On the morning of their capture Emly had gotten up early and climbed down into the body of the barn, to have some privacy to change her clothes when, on the other side of the wooden plank wall, she heard the faint stealthy sound of a sword being drawn. Bartellus was still asleep upstairs.

  She had screamed, “Father! They’re coming!” and ran for the loft ladder, but before she could get there two men burst in through the barn door and raced towards her, swords raised. She turned and sprinted to the rear of the barn, but the small door there opened and four more men came filing in. Trapped between them, she circled round one of the horse stalls and scrambled through the gap left by a loose plank that Evan had shown her on their first day there. It was big enough for a small man to get through, but, looking back fearfully from the street outside, she saw they did not try. Emly knew they were not interested in her. It was Bartellus they wanted, or rather Shuskara, the famous general.

  Evan had also shown them an escape route from the upper barn, down a rope attached to an ancient pulley which looked rusted and useless but which he had oiled in readiness for an escape. But Bartellus had had no chance to use it. He was probably still asleep when he felt a blade at his throat.

  Terrified that the soldiers might just kill him in the hay, Em watched from a distant corner until she saw the old man—still living—bundled into a black carriage. She followed the carriage as it rumbled through the streets, but it went where she feared—to a side gate of the Red Palace. She had sat down and cried then, feeling more alone and bereft than she had since she was a child. Then she got up and dried her tears and made her way to the Shining Stars Inn, where Evan found her at last.

  She lay on her side watching the soldier sleep. Tomorrow was the day he had been waiting for, the Day of Summoning, when he would join the rebel commander she had heard so much about, Fell Aron Lee, and enter the palace and kill the emperor. Bart was to have gone with them, and there was a small part of Em’s heart that was grateful that he would not, for it was, he said, a suicide mission. Evan had agreed with him cheerfully, but that would not stop them.

  She had noticed Evan’s manner towards her and her father was very different. With Bartellus he was relaxed and often witty. He teased the old man, mocked him sometimes if he thought it would stir Bart to greater effort, although Em never doubted his respect for him. His conversation was often coarse, and he entertained Bartellus with stories about warriors they both knew, battles they had both fought in, and jokes which were often obscure to Em.

  With her, though, especially if they were alone, he was grave and courteous, treating her with a respect she felt she had not earned. When she tried to tease him as she did Bartellus he would smile politely but otherwise not react. She had asked him once if he had children, and he had given her that long, impenetrable look and finally shook his head.

  She found herself thinking about him a lot. When he was with her she felt safe, and despite her fears for her father, happy.

  This was to be their last day together. That evening, after dark, he was to take her to the house of a man who would employ her as a servant. He was a kind old man, Evan told her, a librarian, who needed someone to cook and clean. She would be safe there under a new name.

  She was aghast. Until then she had refused to take the words suicide mission to heart. “Will you not come back?” she asked him.

  “If we survive,” he told her, gazing into her eyes to see if she understood him, “I will return for you when I can, but it might not be for a while, so you must be patient. Yes, we might not come back at all. There is another soldier you can trust. His name is Riis. I have told him where you will be. If he lives, he will come to you and see you are safe.”

  He fell silent, and she stared at him. “If,” he said at last, “no one comes for you after several days, then you must assume the mission has failed and we are all dead.”

  “And Father? What will happen to him now?”

  “I expect they have taken him to the dungeons. I will find him.”

  “The dungeons?” A flicker of memory teased the back of Em’s mind.

  “He will not be killed immediately, or he would have been left dead in the barn. And from tomorrow the palace will be in too much of an uproar for anyone to bother with one old man. If we succeed I will get him out. I promise you.”

  “We owe you so much,” she had said simply.

  He had shrugged, as if he did not care what she thought. He was so brave. She wondered if there had ever been a time in his life when he was frightened, or apprehensive, as she always seemed to be. She thought it impossible.

  So she lay in her bed and watched him sleep and willed the day to pass slowly. It had started raining again.

  Bart’s belly was empty when he was captured at dawn, and it was not long befor
e it began to cramp. He endured the pains stoically, trying to ignore them, trying to sleep on the cold wet prison stones, trying not to think. The cramps slowly drifted away, as he knew they would. It was not the first time he had been half starved.

  But when the torment of thirst started to claw at him, the old soldier abandoned his plan to give in and die. He rolled slowly over and sat up. He dragged out a shirt tail and tore off a strip to use as a bandage. The pain of forcing his broken fingers back into place was almost more than he could bear. He sat sweating and nauseous for a long while. Then, using one hand, he crawled over to the door. He felt around in the dark. The door joined the floor snugly; he could not even get a finger under it. But the cell had clearly been flooded more than once. Firmly putting aside that thought, he found the wood was soft, almost spongy in places. He picked at it with stubby fingertips, trying to find some purchase, but he merely got splinters in his good hand. He needed a tool of some sort. He started methodically searching the floor of the cell, first the drier part then, reluctantly, the flooded area. He found debris aplenty, all of it rotted and slimy. And he found the end of a narrow pipe where clearly water flowed into the cell or out of it again, but it was firmly cemented in.

  When he was close to giving up he found something hard under his searching fingertips. He held it, turning it round and round, feeling its contours. It was metal, thin as a pin but flaring at one end, about the length of his thumb. It felt frighteningly flimsy, but it was all he had. He dragged himself back to the door and started to pick at the wood.

  As he worked he realised he was not in the Dungeons of Gath, as he had first believed. Those dreadful dungeons were for prisoners who were to be kept alive, for torture, or for some other purpose of the emperor. To be kept alive they had to be fed, however frugally, and the doors to the cells were all reinforced at the base with metal, and fitted with grilles which opened for food to be slid in.