Sacrifice

by Christopher Mitchell

  Chapter 29

  No Way Back

  P lateau City, Imperial Plateau – 7 th Day, Second Third Winter 507

  Keira sat with her feet up on the window ledge, a mug of ale in one hand, and a weedstick in the other. She was up before noon, early for her. Rising as the sun was setting had become more usual since they had arrived in Plateau City to begin their wait. She gazed out through the open shutters at the quiet streets of the old Kellach quarter. Only a few thousand of her folk still lived within the city walls, a fraction of the previous number. Many tenements were burnt-out shells, and others lay abandoned, or had been taken over by Holdings squatters from the peasant districts.

  The signs of the Emperor’s brutal suppression of the quarter were still visible everywhere she looked, but the authorities seemed to have lost all interest in controlling what remained of the population. To her right lay the old Emergency Wall, built to protect the completed half of the city when Agang had invaded. It now functioned to separate the rich New Town beyond from the slums of the poor. The gates between were sealed shut, and Keira had never seen them open in the fifteen days they had been living in their tenement apartment.

  No soldiers or church wardens ever ventured into the poorer half of the city, and the folk there had taken the law into their own hands; and the slum districts were now controlled by a series of gangs, who fought over the few trades still making any money.

  Her gaze went to the towers of the Great Fortress, at the corner of the Old Town, where it dominated the southern half of the city. The imperial flag had been raised at dawn, a banner of white with a golden star.

  ‘You ever going to pass that?’ said Kallie.

  ‘Smoke yer own.’

  ‘I cannae be arsed making one.’

  ‘Tough shit.’

  Kallie turned to Flora. ‘Will you make me one, please?’

  The Holdings woman tutted and put down her book.

  ‘You’re much better at it than I am,’ Kallie said.

  ‘Fucksake,’ Flora said. ‘Pass me your stuff.’

  Keira chuckled as Kallie handed a leather pouch over to Flora.

  ‘We shouldn’t get too wasted,’ Flora said, as she began to prepare a weedstick. ‘We’ve got a lot of shit to do today.’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ said Keira, her eyes turning back to her view over the city’s narrow streets. ‘We have exactly one fucking thing to do today. Leave.’

  Kallie shrugged as they gazed out of the window. ‘You wouldn’t even know the Emperor was back,’ she said. ‘I thought there would be parades, or something.’

  ‘And where’s his fucking army?’ Keira said.

  ‘Hopefully lying dead on the plains of the Holdings,’ Flora said.

  ‘What’ll he do now, do you think?’ Kallie said.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ said Keira. ‘So far he’s flattened Rainsby, Frogland, and now the Holdings, but it looks like he’s run out of soldiers.’

  ‘I’m sure Ghorley could squeeze some more out from Rahain,’ said Flora. She smiled. ‘They should be freezing their arses off about now.’

  She passed Kallie the completed weedstick.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, lighting it. ‘He’s bound to have heard about what we did in Kell. The next army he raises will be heading down there, to get the mines running again. ’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Flora. ‘Depends if he’s got any Kellach mages.’

  Kallie frowned.

  ‘We know he’s been hunting mages again,’ the Holdings woman went on, ‘just like he did before. If he’s got a hold of the full set, then I’m not sure he’ll give a shit about whether a few lizards are feeling the cold this winter. I mean look around. Does it seem like the Emperor cares about actually ruling? The empire’s falling apart. Trade’s collapsed, there’s no money or food, or work. All those folk killed, just so he could get his hands on more mages.’

  ‘Is he going to use them to become even more powerful?’ Kallie asked.

  ‘Maybe he’s just getting rid of the competition,’ Keira said.

  ‘Kylon said he was trying to destroy the world,’ Flora said.

  Keira scowled. ‘Who cares what that wee prick said?’

  ‘Either way,’ Flora said, ‘the Emperor’s up in that fortress right now, with all the mages he captured from Rakana, Rainsby and the Holdings, and any others he had left over from the last time.’

  They gazed out of the window at the high towers of the fortress, gleaming in the morning sunshine.

  ‘If anything happens,’ Kallie said, ‘how will we know?’

  ‘There was an earthquake,’ Flora said, ‘and Keira lost her powers.’

  ‘You did?’ Kallie said, turning to her.

  ‘Aye. For a couple of hours.’

  ‘Must have felt terrible.’

  Keira thought back, and remembered the feeling of looking for her well of power, and finding it not empty, but gone. Relief had been her first emotion at the time, as if a great weight had been lifted from her, but now she was glad to have it back. She was going to need it.

  She shrugged.

  ‘Well, if it happens again,’ Kallie said, ‘we’ll hopefully be long gone from here.’

  Keira glanced at their bags, lying packed by the front door of their rented apartment.

  ‘The last stretch,’ she said .

  ‘Holdings for the spring,’ Flora said, ‘then we’ll see what the bastard’s done to it.’

  ‘And then maybe Frogland,’ Keira said.

  The two other women frowned at her.

  Keira shrugged. ‘Why not? I’ll have been everywhere else. I always wanted to see the world.’

  Flora shook her head.

  ‘Rakana? Really? I thought you wanted to avoid them?’

  ‘It’s not like I’d go around telling them who I was, ya daft cow,’ Keira said. ‘Just fancy seeing it.’

  ‘You might bump into Shella,’ Flora smirked, ‘the mage that Kalayne said you were going to meet.’

  ‘I wouldnae know her if I passed her on the street.’

  ‘I wonder if Agang’s found her yet,’ Flora said. ‘It’d be funny if he has, and then takes her back to Domm to look for you…’

  Keira laughed. ‘Aye, I can imagine the look on that uptight Sanang prick’s face when Kelpie tells him we’ve gone. And that old lizard bastard.’

  There was a rap at their front door.

  ‘About time,’ said Keira, as Flora got to her feet. The young Holdings woman crossed the room, and opened the door an inch, then unlatched the chain.

  ‘Good morning,’ said a large Kellach woman, entering. She was followed into the apartment by two enormous Kellach men, both armed.

  The woman glanced at the bags piled by the door. ‘All ready to go, I see?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Keira. ‘Have a seat. Want a drink?’

  ‘Aye,’ the woman said, ‘why not?’

  She sat by the window, and Kallie passed her a mug of ale. Her two minders stood by her shoulders, keeping their eyes on them.

  ‘Cheers,’ the woman said, raising her mug.

  ‘Aye, cheers,’ Keira said.

  They drank .

  ‘Everything’s arranged,’ the woman said. ‘Wagon, horses, supplies. Everything that was on your list.’

  ‘Everything?’ Kallie said, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘Aye,’ the woman said. She glanced at one of her guards and snapped her fingers. The man reached inside his overcoat and pulled out a longbow, wrapped in oilskins, and a quiver full of arrows. He passed them to Kallie, who grinned.

  ‘Thanks.’

  The woman shrugged. ‘That’s what five pounds of weed gets ye.’ She reached into her coat, and produced a large pouch. ‘And this.’

  Keira took the pouch, and looked inside. Gold.

  ‘That’s what’s left over,’ the woman said, ‘after taking off your accommodation, food, booze, the wagon and horses, and everything else. It comes to just over three hundred.’

  Keira nodded.
>
  ‘They grow weed in the River Holdings now,’ the woman said, ‘or at least they did before the Emperor went up there and kicked their arses. You sure about heading up there? It’s meant to be a wasteland.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Keira. ‘Looking for relatives. We were just waiting until the Emperor had cleared out.’

  ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Now that he’s back in town, you’re not the only ones getting the fuck out of the city. Folk remember what he did the last time he was here. Was thinking about relocating to Rainsby myself, if things get too rough.’

  ‘There’s always the tunnels.’

  ‘Aye, that’s what saved us last time, when the Emperor was going mental through the Kellach quarter. We sat tight down there until he’d left, and when we got back to the surface the streets were filled with bodies.’ She glanced out of the window at the towers of the fortress rising above the tenement roofs. ‘With that bastard back,’ she went on, ‘it’s no surprise folk are wanting to leave.’

  She sipped her ale. ‘Mind ye were asking if I’d keep my eye out for any odd-looking folk?’ she went on. ‘This morning I got paid a fortune by someone arriving in the city, and wanting to hide. While everyone else is leaving, this crazy fucker is paying me to stay.’

  Keira nodded, drinking her ale.

  ‘And that wasn’t the only weird thing about him,’ the woman went on. ‘He had two folk with him, a shabby looking Rahain guy, and a Holdings girl.’

  ‘That’s not that weird,’ Flora said. ‘People are mixing more with each other all the time.’

  ‘Aye,’ the woman said. ‘This Holdings girl was only a bairn, but, and ye don’t see that often.’

  Keira frowned.

  ‘A Kellach guy with a wee Holdings girl?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What did the guy look like?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘Twenties, miserable bastard. Was wearing a long black coat.’

  Keira spat out her drink. The woman raised an eyebrow, wiping ale from her leg.

  ‘What was his name?’ said Flora.

  ‘I didn’t ask,’ said the woman. ‘Just like I’ve not been asking you lot any questions. One thing the guy did ask me though, was if I’d seen a Rakanese woman that he’s looking for.’

  ‘Do you remember what she was called?’

  The woman rubbed her chin. ‘Cilla?’

  ‘Shella?’

  ‘Aye, something like that. I told him to go down to the docks. There’s not many frog folk left in the city, but that’s where she’ll be if she’s here, I told him.’

  Keira tried to think, but she couldn’t imagine how the news could be anything but bad.

  ‘Where are they now?’ she said.

  ‘In the tunnels under the Old Town,’ the woman said. ‘I offered him a big apartment, after all he had plenty of gold on him, but he said wanted to stay hidden. ’

  Kallie smirked. ‘And yet you’re telling us about him.’

  ‘You’re leaving,’ she shrugged. ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘We’re not leaving just yet,’ said Keira. ‘We’re going to visit the Old Town first.’

  ‘Hold on,’ the woman said. ‘He’s paying me for protection. I can’t be having ye going round and beating him up or anything.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Keira said, ‘we just want to talk to him. Will ye show us where he is?’

  The woman frowned. ‘Aye, alright.’ She gazed at her. ‘No trouble, mind.’

  ‘It cannae be Kylon, surely?’ Kallie said, as they walked along the quiet streets towards the Old Town.

  ‘I fucking hope it is,’ said Flora, ‘otherwise we’re wasting two hours for nothing. We should be on our way.’

  ‘We will be soon, my wee Flora,’ Keira said. ‘Patience.’

  ‘And this bag’s heavy,’ Flora said. ‘I packed it thinking it was going straight onto a wagon. I wasn’t expecting to be lugging it around town.’

  The large woman raised an eyebrow at Keira. ‘Does she always complain?’

  ‘No,’ Keira smirked. ‘They take it in turns.’

  The woman grinned. They took a right, crossing over an open sewer running down the middle of the street. Keira crinkled her nose.

  ‘I’ll not miss the fucking smell,’ she said.

  They passed an alley with a long row of burnt-out tenements. Their roofs had collapsed, and the blackened walls looked like they could follow at any moment. At the end of the street was the Old Town wall, cutting across the Kellach quarter, and running up to where the Emergency Wall sealed off the New Town. The gates to the Old Town were open, with no one guarding or watching who passed back and forth.

  They went through, and the character of the city changed. The streets were narrower, and the buildings lower and older. The fire damage was also less severe, the Emperor having restricted his rampage to the Kellach quarter, but the poverty and squalor were as bad as anywhere she had seen, even Rainsby. The population were mostly Holdings, with a few scattered Kellach and Rakanese. Many were crippled, and sat on street corners, begging.

  Compared to the quiet streets of the Kellach quarter, the Old Town was bustling. A few market stalls had stock for sale, and several taverns and shops were open for business. More were boarded up and closed however, and the food being sold was poor quality at exorbitant prices. They pressed on down a busy thoroughfare, then came to a square. Ahead loomed the gates and walls of the massive fortress. It stood at the corner of the Old Town, its other side facing the New.

  Its gates were closed, and though no soldiers were on duty outside, the local populace were giving the building a wide berth. Every window on the Old Town side had been bricked up, and the building seemed lifeless.

  ‘He’s in there, is he?’ said Keira.

  ‘Aye,’ said the woman. ‘The queen’s back too. He captured her up north and brought her home.’

  ‘I bet she’s fucking ecstatic about that.’

  The woman chuckled. ‘There’s rumours that she’ll be hanged at a big public execution, but that’s all it is, a rumour. No one knows what the fuck’s going on inside, and anyone who tells you different is a liar.’

  They went down a side lane, losing sight of the fortress. They reached an old tavern and the woman knocked. The door opened, and a man looked them over.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he bowed to the woman, and let them in. They went to the kitchen, and the man pulled away a rug, revealing a trapdoor beneath.

  Flora shook her head. ‘Right under their fucking noses.’

  ‘That’s right, little lady,’ the woman smiled.

  The man opened the trapdoor and they climbed down. The woman left one of her minders by the entrance to the trap door, and the other followed along. At the bottom of the ladder, she led them through a series of winding tunnels, well lit by wall lamps. They passed chambers and caverns where supplies and weapons had been stock-piled, and rooms where folk huddled and hid. They went down another ladder to a lower level, where damp from the Inner Sea stained the walls, and left puddles on the rocky ground.

  ‘Here we are,’ the woman said, pointing to a cavern with a curtain pulled across the entrance. ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘you’re here to talk. If you feel the need for violence, come back out here, and we’ll negotiate, but for now the occupants of this chamber are under my protection. Don’t forget it.’

  Keira nodded.

  The woman snapped her fingers, and her minder pulled the curtain back. Keira walked through, followed by Kallie and Flora.

  The chamber was lit by a single lamp. There was a row of low pallet beds, with bags sitting on two. There was also a table, with four chairs. On one sat a Rahain man, who looked up as they entered.

  ‘Baoryn, ya auld bastard!’ Keira cried, throwing her backpack to the ground. ‘I’ve not seen you in years.’

  The Rahain man stared at her.

  ‘This is Baoryn,’ Keira said to Flora and Kallie. ‘Met him in the Brig Pass. He was a prisoner, but joined our side. Was always a useful wee bast
ard, back when we were fighting the Rahain, as they’d never be expecting one of them to be working with us.’

  Keira laughed, then noticed that Baoryn hadn’t moved an inch since she walked in, his features frozen. She walked over to the table and sat. Flora and Kallie pulled off their packs, and slung them to the ground.

  ‘Hi,’ said Flora to the Rahain man, who didn’t respond. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Talkative fellow, isn’t he?’

  She and Kallie sat at the table. Baoryn started to edge backwards.

  ‘So,’ Keira said, ‘where the fuck is that arsehole?’

  ‘Who?’ Baoryn muttered, his tongue flickering.

  Keira smirked. ‘Don’t give me your shite, ya wee lizard fuck, ye know fine who I’m talking about.’

  His eyes darted to the curtain at the cavern’s entrance .

  ‘Thinking of running?’ Keira said. ‘Try it. I’ll be more than happy to beat the information out of ye, if ye don’t feel like talking.’

  A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.

  ‘Keep yer hands on the table where I can see them,’ Keira snarled. She drew a knife from her boot, and poked him in the ribs. ‘Now, I’ll keep this simple. Yes or no answers. First, you came into the city with Kylon, right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And a wee Holdings girl?’

  He paused, and she jabbed the knife a fraction deeper. He flinched. Kallie moved her seat round so she was behind him, and held her own knife to his back.

  He nodded.

  ‘My niece?’ Keira said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are Daphne and Killop alive?’

  ‘Yes,’ Baoryn said. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Thank fuck,’ she said. ‘I thought you being here meant they’d been killed or something.’ She shook her head. ‘Still, them being alive means that either they asked you to take their child into danger, or you stole her. Which is it?’

  Baoryn said nothing.

  ‘Ye stole her, ya fucking pair of shitstains?’ Keira said, her eyes tightening. She moved the knife up to his throat. ‘Now answer this, ya bastard. Where are they? What’s that fuckhead doing with my niece?’

  Baoryn shook his head, and his eyes flickered towards the back of the cavern. Keira frowned, and stood.