City of Dreams and Nightmare (11 page)

“That’s a shame,” the first nick said. “You see, we got business too. That kid you’re with looks an awful lot like the nick we’re lookin’ out for and there’s things we need to show the both o’ you. So your business will just have to wait.”

The group of nicks were already edging apart, nothing obvious, just little movements and shuffles that saw them start to fan out, their haphazard knot unravelling into a line.

Kat snorted. “So not only do the Thunderheads care about the Blood Herons these days, they run errands for ’em as well now, do they?” Her hand rested casually on her hip, close to one of her knives.

“It’s not like that.”

“How is it then?” The aggression was back in her voice, the challenge in her posture plain. “You explain it to me.”

The nicks at each end were easing forward, so that the line started to curve towards a crescent. Tom’s hand drifted to the grip of his own knife as Kat adjusted her balance, taking half a step back and in the process coming level with Tom.

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned, “or this’ll turn ugly.”

“Ugly for you, maybe. It’s five against two.”

She stared at the speaker, the nick in the centre, then swept her gaze across all of them. “You know me. Some of you’ve seen me fight. Do you really want to do this?”

The nick at the far end of the line, the girl, clearly didn’t. Her gaze flicked nervously towards her friends, presumably hoping for signs of a climb-down. Perhaps she had seen Kat fight before. Tom hadn’t, and could only hope that his companion was as formidable as she seemed to think she was.

With as swift and smooth a movement as he had ever seen, Kat drew her twin blades. Long, much longer than the knives he was used to, almost small swords. Kat now looked more warrior than street-nick, an image her next words did nothing to dispel.

“I fought in the Pits and lived. You know that. Why are you facing me?” The words were spoken calmly and seemed to carry more concern for the other nicks’ lives than her own.

The Pits
? Was Kat telling the truth, or playing on some popular myth? If true, how old must she have been? Tom had heard rumour of bouts in which children were armed and then child was thrown in against child or against slavering dogs and other creatures, but he hadn’t entirely believed them. Until now. Before this, such tales were merely a threat to instil obedience: “Do as I say or it’ll be the Pits for you.”

Looking at Kat, as she brandished the two blades before her and started to twirl them, expertly twisting them around each other in a blur of dancing steel, he believed her.

Somewhat belatedly he pulled out his own knife, almost embarrassed to do so. It seemed totally inadequate, little more than a toy in the present circumstances. None of the Thunderheads had drawn steel yet, but they hadn’t retreated either. Tom sensed that this was the key moment and guessed that the fight or flight question was currently crossing each of their minds. In their position, he knew which he would have gone for.

On impulse, he spoke, hoping to find the right words to tip the balance. “Maybe the five of you can take us if you want it enough, but what will that cost you? And who’s going to be first? Cos there’s no way the first one’s going to walk away from this.”

On cue, Kat smiled, emphasising the point. She was suddenly all menace, flash and steel personified.

“Oh look, he speaks,” the nick at the centre said.

There was a single snigger from the boy beside him but the girl at the end wasn’t the only one who looked nervous now. Glances flicked up and down the short line. What was holding them? Why hadn’t they backed down yet? A sneer, a token insult or two and then a cocky saunter in the opposite direction was what Tom would have expected, yet the nicks continued to hold their ground.

Suddenly, all that changed. The nick standing one in from the left, next to the girl, took a shuffling step backwards. The lad at the opposite end said, “Breck,” before he turned and ran, and then all five of them were in retreat, not sauntering as Tom had pictured, but running for all they were worth.

Kat laughed, a triumphant cackle. “Go on, you breckers, run!” She sheathed her knives with dramatic flourish. “That showed ’em!”

Tom wasn’t so certain. There had been a look of terror on the face of the first nick to turn and flee, one that appeared all of a sudden and, now that he came to think of it, he wasn’t at all sure that the nick in question had actually been looking at either him or Kat as he did so.

These thoughts percolated through Tom’s mind as he watched the five Thunderheads stampede away. These same thoughts were punctuated by a woman’s scream, just as Tom reached the conclusion that the nicks were not in fact running from him and Kat at all, but from something behind them.

He whipped around, to find himself confronted by an apparition out of nightmare. A great beast was pacing towards them – still some distance away, but coming closer. A dog, at least in appearance, but on a gigantic scale. Oxen were far from common in the City Below but Tom had seen a few in his time, even stroked one once, and this dog was as big as the tallest ox he’d ever seen. Sandy-brown in colour, its fur looked coarse and wiry, while it had long legs and a body that tapered to a slender stomach, and a thin tail which was currently held out rod-stiff behind, but it was the front end which truly impressed: all barrel chest, compact neck, thick muscle, and broad mouth bristling with teeth.

Tom was vaguely aware of people hurrying away beyond it, though one woman, presumably the source of the scream, huddled against a wall sobbing. By the look of things she need not have worried. The creature ignored her. Its gaze was fixed firmly on Tom.

“Oh, Thaiss!” Kat exclaimed from beside him.

“What the breck is it?” Tom hissed.

“A demon hound, from out the Stain; they raid into the city from time to time, but I’ve never known them to come this far.”

Tom started to back away, “It’s as mean as it looks, I suppose?”

“Worse. They’re vicious as demons and twice as hard to kill.”

“Seems to me those Thunderheads had the right idea.”

“Yeah, I was thinkin’ the same. Come on!”

With that they were both running, following in the wake of the now vanished Thunderheads.

Tom could hear the hound behind him and risked a glance back, only to be horrified at how quickly the beast was catching them. It had broken into a gallop, long strides eating up the ground. Then it barked; a sound that rolled forth like the tolling of a giant bell, deep and dark and more chilling than any sound Tom had ever heard before.

“It’s coming!” he called out, shouting the obvious in his panic.

“We need to get off the street. Can’t outrun it,” the girl yelled back. “There!”

She darted to the right, choosing an alleyway between two buildings. On impulse, Tom went in the opposite direction, running into the alley’s counterpart on the left-hand side, reasoning that if they split up at least one of them might get away.

He dared to hope that they both would, that the dog would keep going, that it had not been chasing them at all and they were simply unfortunate enough to be running in the same direction.

No such luck.

He charged forward and was just registering the fact that this was a dead end, that there was a solid wall directly ahead, when he heard the hound follow him, its breath and the click of claws on the hard ground sounding louder and closer in the confined space of the alley. He ran on, desperately looking for a way out – a doorway, something to climb – but there was nothing.

The wall was coming up fast, the demon hound even faster. Why hadn’t he followed Kat? At least then there would have been someone with him and he wouldn’t have been alone when he died.

He turned to face the hound before quite reaching the wall, determined not to be run down and killed without knowing precisely when the death-stroke was descending. The beast had slowed, perhaps realising that its prey was trapped. It padded forward steadily, confidently, head lowered, the hackles on the back of its neck standing proud, mouth curled in a snarl and eyes glinting with the promise of death. A long strand of viscous drool hung from the monster’s mouth, stretching down towards the ground, and steam rose from its hide, giving the impression that the beast was newly emerged from some fiery realm of hell.

Tom still clutched his knife – he hadn’t had a chance to put it away since the confrontation with the Thunderheads. He now thrust it out before him. Little more than a gesture of defiance, the blade might perhaps be useful for picking lodged food from between the demon hound’s teeth, but he doubted it would achieve much else. Still, the knife was all he had, and he might as well give as good an account of himself as he could. Perhaps he might even get in a good blow or two and cause this brecking dog some minor hurt before it tore him apart.

He crouched, knife held in his right hand, left arm slightly raised, ready to provide balance. A rumbling growl started to gather somewhere deep within the hound, a crescendo building towards the inevitable bark which, when it came, was so loud and fierce that it startled Tom even though he was expecting it, causing him to miss what might have been his best or possibly even his only chance, as the dog raised its head to release the sound. For a split second the beast’s throat was exposed, but before Tom could think to react the head came down again and the opportunity had passed, with him still rooted to the spot.

He couldn’t afford to dwell on that though, he had to concentrate. The hound gathered itself in preparation to charge or pounce and Tom realised his time had run out. He decided to go low, in the hope that he could somehow slip beneath the hound’s attack and strike at its underbelly or perhaps throat, if he got the chance.

Suddenly the dog’s growling changed to a yelp of pain and the beast leapt into the air, twisting as it did so, its back legs coming down alarmingly close to Tom, who instinctively shied away, pressing up against the wall. The hound landed awkwardly, one back leg buckling beneath it, and Tom saw that the beast was injured, fresh blood streaming from a deep wound in the suspect leg. At the same time, he realised there was somebody else on the opposite side of the beast.

“Kat!”

So intent had he been on the monster and his own imminent demise that he hadn’t even noticed her approach. Nor, apparently, had the dog, though it certainly had now. The hound turned its attention to the girl, ignoring Tom, presumably concluding she represented the greater threat. It might be injured, but the demon hound was by no means beaten. It attacked the girl – a lunge hampered by its unsound leg. Teeth snapped on empty air as the girl danced back, twin blades flashing towards the dog’s face but missing in turn.

“Come on, kid, hurry up and get out of there!”

Easy enough for her to say. She didn’t have an injured and riled demon hound between her and the only way out.

Tom edged forward, debating whether he could slip past the beast, but its bulk still blocked most of the alley. He looked left then skipped across and looked right, but there simply wasn’t room. Whichever way he went, he would be all but touching the hound. It would only need the beast to turn its head as he passed – one snap of those jaws and he was a dead man.

“Come on!”

“I’m trying!”

At the sound of his voice the hound looked around, as if remembering him again. Kat took her chance and leapt in, but the hound’s head whipped back towards her and Tom heard the girl cry out, though he was unable to see what was happening, how badly she had been hurt, since his view was blocked by the hound itself. He had to do something.

So thinking, he reversed his grip on the knife and flung himself onto the monster’s back, smelling damp fur and feeling warmth and muscle and coarse hair beneath his arms and thighs. The hair he clung to, while he stabbed down with his knife again and again.

The hound toppled, not through any blow he had struck but because its leg buckled, the boy’s weight evidently too much for an animal already coping with an injury. It didn’t fall sedately like some severed post, but instead writhed and thrashed and snarled and snapped. Tom was thrown off, barely pulling his arm away in time to avoid it being caught and most likely pinned or even broken beneath the wounded beast. And still it fought. Feet kicked at him, claws like great blades that could surely have disembowelled him narrowly missing his head as he ducked and cowered and shrank against the wall. Kat was there, screaming as her twin knives rose and fell, blood trailing from their blades. A string of ruby droplets arced towards Tom, spattering his face and hair.

He wiped the warm moisture away with one hand while, with the other, frantically searching for his knife, which had been dropped during the stomach-lurching confusion of the hound’s fall. At the same time he kept one eye on the back leg nearest him, the uninjured one, with its fistful of razors that were flailing unpredictably as the beast struggled to regain its feet. Not that the hound was paying any attention to him at the time. The fight was now all about Kat; but if those claws were to catch him by accident as the foot thrashed, he’d be just as dead as if the attack had been deliberate.

Finally his fingers closed around the familiar hilt. Back pressed against the wall, he scrambled to his feet, ready to rejoin the fight, but it was already over. The great hound lay dead, and Kat peered at him over the corpse.

In fact, she glared at him. “Its shoulders? Was that the best you could do? You leap on its back and try to stab it in the breckin’ shoulder? Have you any idea how much fur and skin and muscle a demon hound has there? It probably didn’t even feel your knife.”

“Well I had to try something!”

“Fine, but you go for the underbelly, the throat, the eyes, or the sinews in the leg like I did to start with – they’re the only soft spots a demon hound has. You don’t go for its frissing shoulder!”

“Well it’s a lot of breckin’ good your telling me that now! We haven’t all had the advantage of learning stuff like that in the Pits, you know.”

The girl snorted. “Advantage? I’ve never heard it called that before.”