by Peter Newman
‘Find out! Drag Doctor Grains off his deathbed, if you have to. This time tomorrow, I want answers. Now, any good news I can tell our people?’
Only Ezze’s smile lights the room, too-white teeth shining amid a sea of frowning faces. ‘The mother of my children started to cough the other day so perhaps Ezze has hope for new love! No? Too soon?’ His smile continues, undaunted. ‘Then there is only bad news. Trade is the blood of the city, yes? But you have closed the doors, blocked its flow. The people grow restless. It is not for Ezze that I worry, for Ezze is always prepared. But you must understand, great lady, that many live straight from the hand to the mouth. Trade must go on or they will starve.’
‘Get to the point.’
‘Tomorrow, the nomads and the caravans come. We must be letting them in.’
‘And expose them to the plague too? Out of the question.’
‘It is true, some may die. It is a gamble. But Ezze will take bad odds over no odds every time.’
‘No. There has to be another way.’
‘Ezze could arrange for a … ah how to say? A quieter market to be held outside the city. Ezze could buy the goods from our people and trade on their behalf with the others. Then everyone is happy!’
Tough Call has no illusions about Ezze’s motivations but her people need to eat. ‘Alright, make it happen.’
‘Ezze will need the help from those blessed with health and green skin. Perhaps Marshal Max and his many children could help poor Ezze with the lifting and moving?’
‘Maxi will go with you.’
‘Delightful!’ exclaims Ezze, his smile a shade dimmer than before.
‘Now get moving, the lot of you.’
They file out much faster than they arrived. Max pauses by the door, glances back. Tough Call watches the sweat weave its way down the creases in his forehead.
‘Well?’
‘I got some news, boss. Bad news.’
She beckons him closer. ‘Then keep your voice down, for suns’ sake.’
‘Right, boss.’ He squats down on his haunches in front of her but she still has to look up to meet his eyes. ‘My daughter, Jo-lee, opened the gates.’
‘What! When?’
‘Uh, just before I came here.’
‘I take it they’re shut again now.’ Max nods. ‘But?’
‘But she let some people in.’
‘Who?’
‘She don’t know. There were two of them, some kind of soldier and a girl carrying a sword that looked too big for her. Oh and they had a little pet goat with them.’
Tough Call is on her feet. ‘Was the soldier in armour?’
‘I think so. What’s wrong, boss?’
‘It’s the Malice, you idiot! The Malice is in my city and I bet I’m the last one on the council to know it.’
She makes for the door. ‘Meet me downstairs in twenty minutes with everyone you trust.’ Pausing, she turns back to the Usurperkin. ‘And Max, break out the weapons. The big ones.’
Remarkably, the kid is unharmed. He stands in an oasis of calm surrounded by chaos. Cheap crates have cracked easily, spilling their treasures. Fat beetle corpses glint like gemstones as they emerge into the light, a waterfall of insects, shrieking with voices of broken glass.
Bruise swears several times but the exact nature and colour of the oaths are lost in the cacophony. Vesper and Duet join him anyway.
The noise ends abruptly, leaving echoes to ring in their place, ear filling and awful.
Eventually, they too clear, allowing the sounds of the night back in. Girl, Harmonised and half-breed all strain to listen, hoping that the room has contained the worst of the disturbance.
A brief optimistic quiet is broken by the sound of footsteps returning, more careful this time.
Bruise goes a paler shade of purple.
Duet readies herself by the door.
The kid skips easily up the broken crates until he stands on the highest one, triumphant.
Someone knocks from the other side. ‘Open up.’
Vesper pushes one of the crates in front of it.
‘Open up, I say!’
Vesper grabs another but this one is too heavy for her to move alone. ‘Help me,’ she hisses at Bruise.
The half-breed’s face is a picture of incomprehension. ‘What’s the point?’
Duet keeps her eyes on the door. ‘Don’t make me come over there.’
Bruise is no stranger to threats, he assesses this one instantly and sets to work with uncommon vigour.
Knocking turns to pounding and soon the door shakes in its frame. Vesper and Bruise bolster it first with crates, then their own bodies.
The pounding gets stronger, more rhythmic. The strikes of a ram. Each jolt is felt through the door, through the barricade, through their shoulders. And yet, they hold.
The pounding stops. Voices are heard on the other side of the door, the unmistakable sounds of orders being given. A new noise begins, like a helicopter’s engine, high pitched and spinning and fast.
Unnoticed by the others, the sword on Vesper’s back twitches, an eye opening as if nudged awake.
‘Is there another way out?’ yells Vesper.
Bruise just looks at the floor.
‘Could we try talking to them?’ The question elicits a choked noise from the half-breed, part sob, part laugh.
‘Then what are we going to do?’
‘Save your breath,’ replies Duet, ‘for the fighting.’
Tough Call hefts the long tube onto her shoulder. Silvered scroll-work runs its length, beautiful symbols unread for more than a millennium. It has been twelve years since she last held it and unlike her, it hasn’t aged a day.
A squad of young Usurperkin stand with her, weapons appearing normal in their oversized hands. Several of them are smiling.
Max is still sweating and not from the exercise. ‘Bad news, boss.’
‘What now?’
‘I got the weapons like you said but some of them are missing.’
Her knuckles whiten around the launcher’s grip. ‘Someone broke in?’
‘Dunno boss. Nuthin’s broke. But they took some of our big guns.’
Before she has time to retort, they hear the sound of spitting metal, deep and fast.
Tough Call turns towards the sound. ‘That came from the north quarter. Go, go, go!’
Humming slugs of metal punch through the door, a swarm of singing death, shredding it and the crates behind. One goes through Bruise’s shoulder, another through his leg, tossing him across the room. Vesper barely has time to register the blockade disintegrating in front of her. The sword hums angrily on her back, a counter-note to the singing bullets, urging them away. But the sword is sheathed, its voice muffled. Bullets bend but not completely, stinging an ear, grazing a thigh. Vesper throws herself to the floor, arms and legs spread flat.
A few seconds later, the pain kicks in.
The kid wobbles on his collapsing perch, bleating and jumping clear.
Duet stays by the door, crouched low, waiting. Bullets chip away at the wall, inches from her head. She doesn’t move, body clenched in expectation of more injury. This time, she is lucky.
As quickly as it began, the gunfire stops, though the engine continues to whine in the background.
Through the shattered mess of the doorway, people come, hooded and darkly dressed. In their arms they heft guns that are too big for them, long nosed and elegant weapons of another age, meant for better things.
Two clamber over the wreckage, intent on Vesper and the sword at her back. One stays in the doorway, covering them.
Duet kills him first. Her blade flicks out, finding the spot just below his chin. Blood washes over his chest in a sudden gout.
Unaware that their comrade has fallen, the two men close in on the quivering girl. She tries to back away from them but they raise their weapons and she stops, defeated.
From their left comes an angry bleat, followed by the sound of a small head connecting with
a knee, the knee buckles with an ugly crack. While one drops, screaming, the other swings round his gun to take revenge on the kid. Instead of a small animal, he is surprised to find Duet there instead, her sword arcing towards his face. Instinct alone saves him as he brings the weapon up.
Sparks fly and her sword lodges deep into the gun, sticking there.
Both try to pull their weapons free. Neither succeed.
The other man on the floor recovers quickly. He realises he has dropped his gun.
Vesper realises this, too.
They both grab for it, both get a hold. Vesper cannot compete with the man’s strength but she grips it tenaciously as the man tries to shake her off. Vesper’s teeth jangle against each other, her arms jerk angrily in their sockets, but she holds on.
The man changes tactic. He releases one hand and punches Vesper in the face.
The girl screeches, her grip loosens.
The man pulls back again but hears an angry bleat to his left. He turns to find the kid glaring at him, head tilted, rushing forward.
At the same moment, Duet’s visor bursts into light, stunning her opponent. He blinks at her, catching brief snapshots of her movements. Her left hand dropping. Blink. Returning, a knife jutting from it. Blink. Stabbing, down, stabbing down. Blink. Mercifully, he feels only the first of the three strikes.
The Harmonised whirls around to find the last man on his back clutching at a broken nose while the kid watches as if daring the man to sit up.
Duet finishes him quickly and returns to the doorway.
Vesper’s breath comes too fast and she begins to shake. She looks left, then right, then again, not really seeing. Finally her eyes settle on Bruise’s foot, flopping sadly out of some wreckage. The girl closes her eyes. She takes another breath, slower this time. She opens her eyes and stands up. Her legs still tremble but they manage to get her across the room.
Bruise is a crumpled mess. Blood oozes from his wounds and veins stand proud on his arms and chest, the juices inside them vibrating. His mouth moves but no words come.
‘Get down,’ shouts Duet. ‘We’ve got more coming.’
Legs suddenly weak, Vesper grabs at the wall for support. ‘How many?’
‘Too many.’
Max sets Tough Call down on the rooftop. She moves to the opposite edge and raises the long tube until the scope is level with her eyes. Through it she sees a cluster of figures fanning out, stalking towards a warehouse. They are hooded, dressed for stealth, unrecognisable. Their weapons however, are all too familiar.
On the opposite side of the street are three more men and a mounted gun, its barrel spinning with soft song. A relic from another age, a treasure.
Her treasure. Hers and Verdigris’, stolen.
‘Have your people ready to go on my signal.’ She makes a few adjustments to her aim, tracking slightly ahead of the group.
Max nods, signalling his marshals crouched in the alley below.
‘We giving them a warning, boss?’
‘No Max. They took our weapons and are using them against our city. We’re not going to give them a warning, we’re going to turn them into one.’ The silvery tube is light and she is strong but even so it is hard to aim steady with only one hand. Luckily for Tough Call, her weapon does not require pinpoint accuracy.
The shell fires, seeming to bulge slightly in the air, as if taking a breath.
It lands a little to the right of the group and slightly in front.
Before her eyes shut she catches the frozen moment: hooded figures, tensing, crouching, one trying to dive clear.
The next moment the figures are gone, a portion of the street too, replaced by a red-walled crater. Above, a thousand shreds of fabric float down like blossom, like black snow, mingling with broken glass and dust pluming from cracks in the shattered walls of the nearby warehouse.
Max watches, mesmerised, until she kicks him into action. As he gives the signal to his troops, she notices the blood trickling from his ear holes. Frowning, she lets the weapon slide back over her shoulder to hang from its strap and touches her own ears, relieved that her fingertips remain dry.
She returns her attention to the street. The men around the gun are slowly getting to their feet but by the time they realise the threat the Usurperkin are already on them. Outnumbered and outsized, the battle is short and unfair. Just the way Tough Call likes it.
A thick finger is raised to the sky and Max grunts in approval. ‘They managed to catch one alive.’
‘I’m impressed.’
The Usurperkin shows her a row of wide, blunt teeth. ‘Yeah, they’re gettin better.’
She jumps onto Max’s back, gripping on to his neck with her arm and his chest with her legs. As soon as she is on, he clambers down the building, hands and feet sure in the dark.
They go first to the recaptured gun, already being dismantled and packed away. Two corpses lay together, the bodies wound riddled, more reminiscent of sacks than men. A young Usurperkin eyes them suspiciously, almost hopeful they will give him an excuse to fire again.
‘Good work, kids,’ says Max. ‘Let’s see the live one.’
A hooded figure is proffered, held in the air like a large doll. One shoulder droops, broken, the other seems only marginally better.
Tough Call slaps Max on the shoulder. ‘By the time I get back, I want to know everything they know. Who they work for, how big the operation is, how they got past our security. Everything.’
‘Sure, boss. Where you going?’
‘To see what all the fuss was about.’
She beckons for two of the uniformed Usurperkin to join her. Max’s children move to flank her, taking position as naturally as him and his sister do. Pride swells in his chest as he turns back to the prisoner, flexing his fingers and feeling the knuckles complain. ‘Right, let’s get this done. If I know the boss, we haven’t got long.’
The kid blinks. He is laying on his side. Something bad has happened, a terrible noise, followed by the urge to fall over. Dark eyes dare to open and a small head lifts up, cautious. Everything seems fine now. He stands quickly, blinking against the dust, coughing.
He sees his kind mother slumped in a pile of rubble, clutching at an injured thigh. He sees the one coloured like a giant plum quivering alongside and, by the broken doorway, the other one, part buried. She lies very still, helpless, one arm jutting from the rubble.
The kid trots over to her, watching carefully.
The arm does not move.
The kid turns a hundred and eighty degrees and one leg kicks out, hoof sparking against an armoured shoulder. There is a drowsy groan but nothing more. He kicks it again and the hand reaches for him. Skipping away lightly, he snorts in satisfaction.
Helpless, the hand becomes a fist that shakes at empty air.
From outside a voice calls out:
‘My name is Tough Call. I run this city. The people that attacked you are done. What happens next is up to you. If you come out, we can talk. Might even be we can come to an arrangement, save ourselves any more bloodshed. If you stay in there, that’ll put me in a difficult spot. It’s late, I’m tired and, to be honest, I’d rather lose what’s left of the warehouse you’re in than any more of my people. So, what’s it to be?’
The kid yawns. The woman’s voice is far away and doesn’t sound angry. Nothing for him to worry about. He sniffs around for some food. His good mother’s face is twisted to one side, staring at the big eye in the sword on her shoulder.
Both eye and human seem fixated on each other, allowing the kid to nose in pockets without interruption.
He hears the voice outside talking again but ignores it, having found something that bears further investigation.
‘I appreciate you might be wondering if you can trust me. Truth is I can blow you up anytime I want. It’s not nice but that’s the way it is. So you got nothing to lose in coming out and, for what it’s worth, I’d much rather we do things the civilised way.’
The kid is a
lmost there. He worms his snout deeper into the pocket, and nips.
Vesper screams, attention suddenly very much in the present. She swats at the kid, who scampers away wearing a hurt expression. The girl is too busy to notice, peering down the front of her trousers with a troubled expression.
At her shoulder, an eye closes.
Vesper breathes a sigh of relief and let’s go of her waistband. But relief is short lived. ‘Duet?’ she asks quietly. ‘Duet?’
The Navpack is pulled from her pocket, switched to torch mode. The light swings across the broken room, first illuminating Bruise’s prone body, then Duet’s buried one. She realises the Harmonised is speaking but the words are too muffled to make out.
From outside, the voice speaks again. ‘This is your last chance to do things peacefully. I hope you’re going to take it.’
‘What?’ says Vesper rushing to the side of the doorway. ‘Who are you?’
‘As I said, my name is Tough Call and I want to talk.’
‘Tough Call? The leader of the rebels?’
‘That’s the one, though I haven’t been a rebel for more than a decade now.’
‘My uncle told me about you. He was a rebel, too!’ The girl steps out into the doorway, immediately picked out by three white lights. She holds up a hand to shield her face, squinting through her fingers. ‘My friends are hurt, they need help.’
‘Come out and stand aside and keep your hands where we can see them. My marshals will see to your friends.’
Vesper complies, relieved tears pricking in the corners of her eyes. ‘Thank you.’
Tough Call walks over, a strange look on her face. ‘We’ll do the pleasantries later; right now, I got a question that you better have a good answer to.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Your uncle, you said he was a rebel?’
‘That’s right. I think he misses you.’
‘Huh. You sure that’s true? Not many rebels left Verdigris on good terms. You better hope your Uncle was the exception. What was his name?’
‘Harm.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A shielded essence lamp is the only light in the room. Little Ez holds it up, casting a pale glow across the oversized bed. The covers are expensive, a strange mix of stripes and spots cut from the hide of a creature so bizarre and rare, some consider it a myth.