‘Of course,’ said Sworbreck. He felt so very tired. So very far from home. Adua, and his neat office with the clean walls and the new Rimaldi printing press of which he had been so
particularly proud. All so far away, across an immeasurable gulf in time and space and thinking. A place where straightening the collar seemed important and a bad review was a disaster. How could
such a fantastical realm occupy the same world as this slaughter-yard? He stared at his hands: calloused, blood-daubed, dirt-scraped. Could they be the same ones that had so carefully set the type,
inky at the fingertips? Could they ever do so again?
He let them drop, too tired to ride let alone write. People do not realise the crushing effort of creation. The pain of dragging the words from a tortured mind. Who read books out here, anyway?
Perhaps he would lie down. He began to shamble for the fort.
‘Take care of yourself, author,’ said Temple, looking grimly down from horseback.
‘You too, lawyer,’ said Sworbreck, and patted him on the leg as he passed.
The Dragon’s Den
‘
W
hen do we go?’ whispered Shy.
‘When Savian says go,’ came Lamb’s voice. He was close enough she could almost feel his breath, but all she could see in the darkness of the tunnel was the faintest outline of
his stubbled skull. ‘Soon as he sees Sweet bring Cosca’s men up the valley.’
‘Won’t these Dragon bastards see ’em, too?’
‘I expect so.’
She wiped her forehead for the hundredth time, rubbing the wet out of her eyebrows. Damn, but it was hot, like squatting in an oven, the sweat tickling at her, hand slippery-slick on the wood of
her bow, mouth sticky-dry with heat and worry.
‘Patience, Shy. You won’t cross the mountains in a day.’
‘Easily said,’ she hissed back. How long had they been there? Might’ve been an hour, might’ve been a week. Twice already they’d had to slink back into the deeper
blackness of the tunnel when Dragon People had strayed close, all pressed together in a baking panic, her heart beating so hard it made her teeth rattle. So many hundreds of thousands of things
that could go wrong she could hardly breathe for their weight.
‘What do we do when Savian says go?’ she asked.
‘Open the gate. Hold the gate.’
‘And after?’ Providing they were still alive after, which she wouldn’t have wanted to bet good money on.
‘We find the children,’ said Lamb.
A long pause. ‘Starting to look like less and less of a plan, ain’t it?’
‘Do the best you can with what there is, then.’
She puffed her cheeks out at that. ‘Story of my life.’
She waited for an answer but none was forthcoming. She guessed danger makes some folk blather and some clamp tight. Sadly, she was in the former camp, and surrounded by the latter. She crept
forwards on all fours, stone hot under her hands, up next to Crying Rock, wondering afresh what the Ghost woman’s interest in all this was. Didn’t seem the type to be interested in
gold, or rebels, or children neither. No way of knowing what went on behind that lined mask of a face, though, and she wasn’t shining any lights inward.
‘What’s this Ashranc place like?’ asked Shy.
‘A city carved from the mountain.’
‘How many are in there?’
‘Thousands once. Few now. Judging from those who left, very few, and mostly the young and old. Not good fighters.’
‘A bad fighter sticks a spear in you, you’re just as dead as with a good one.’
‘Don’t get stuck, then.’
‘You’re just a mine of good advice, ain’t you?’
‘Fear not,’ came Jubair’s voice. Across the passageway she could only see the gleam of his eyes, the gleam of his ready sword, but she could tell he was smiling. ‘If God
is with us, He will be our shield.’
‘If He’s against?’ asked Shy.
‘Then no shield can protect us.’
Before Shy could tell him what a great comfort that was there was scuffling behind, and a moment later Savian’s crackling voice. ‘It’s time. Cosca’s boys are in the
valley.’
‘All of them?’ asked Jubair.
‘Enough of them.’
‘You’re sure?’ The shudder of nerves up Shy’s throat almost choked her. For months now she’d been betting everything she had on finding Pit and Ro. Now the moment
might’ve come she would’ve given anything to put it off.
‘Course I’m bloody sure! Go!’
A hand shoved at her back and she knocked into someone and almost fell, staggered on a few steps, fingers brushing the stone to keep her bearings. The tunnel made a turn and suddenly she felt
cooler air on her face and was out blinking into the light.
Ashranc was a vast mouth in the mountainside, a cavern cut in half, its floor scattered with stone buildings, a huge overhang of rock shadowing everything above. Ahead of them, beyond a daunting
drop, a grand expanse of sky and mountain opened out. Behind the cliff was riddled with openings – doorways, windows, stairways, bridges, a confusion of wall and walkway on a dozen levels,
houses half-built into the rock face, a city sunk in stone.
An old man stared at them, shaved bald, a horn frozen on the way to his mouth. He muttered something, took a shocked step back, then Jubair’s sword split his head and he went over in a
shower of blood, horn bouncing from his hand.
Crying Rock darted right and Shy followed, someone whispering ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ in her ear and she realised it was her. She rushed along low beside a crumbling wall, breath
punching hard, every part of her singing with an unbearable fear and panic and rage, so wild and strong she thought she might burst open with it, sick it up, piss it out. Shouting from high above.
Shouting from all around. Her boots clanked over metal plates polished smooth and scrawled with writing, grit pinging and rattling from her heels. A tall archway in a cleft in the rocks, bouncing
and shuddering as she ran. A heavy double-door, one leaf already closed, two figures straining to haul the other fast, a third on the wall above, pointing at them, bow in hand. Shy went down on one
knee and nocked her own arrow. A shaft looped down, missed one of the running mercenaries and clattered away across the bronze. Snap of the bowstring as Shy let fly and she watched her own arrow
cover the distance, hanging in the still air. It caught the archer in the side and she gave a yelp – a woman’s voice, or maybe a child’s – staggered sideways and off the
parapet, bounced from the rock and fell crumpled beside the gate.
The two Dragon People who’d been shutting the doors had found weapons. Old men, she saw now, very old. Jubair hacked at one and sent him reeling into the rock face. Two of the mercenaries
caught up with the other and cut him down, swearing, chopping, stamping.
Shy stared at the girl she’d shot, lying there. Not much older’n Ro, she reckoned. Part Ghost, maybe, from the whiteness of her skin and the shape of her eyes. Just like Shy. Blame
it on your Ghost blood. She stared down and the girl stared up, breathing fast and shallow, saying nothing, eyes so dark and wet and blood across her cheek. Shy’s free hand opened and closed,
useless.
‘Here!’ roared Jubair, raising one hand. Shy heard a faint answering call, through the gate saw men struggling up the mountainside. Cosca’s men, weapons drawn. Caught a glimpse
of Sweet, maybe, struggling along on foot. The other mercenaries started dragging the doors wide to let them through. Doors of metal four fingers thick but swinging as smooth as a box lid.
‘God is with us,’ said Jubair, his grin spotted with blood.
God might’ve been, but Lamb was nowhere to be seen. ‘Where’s Lamb?’ she asked, staring about.
‘Don’t know.’ Savian only just managed to force the words out. He was breathing hard, bent over. ‘Went the other way.’
She took off again.
‘Wait!’ Savian wheezed after her, but he weren’t running anywhere. Shy dashed to the nearest house, about enough thought in her pounding head to sling her bow over her shoulder
and pull her short-sword. Wasn’t sure she’d ever swung a sword in anger. When she killed that Ghost that killed Leef, maybe. Wasn’t sure why she was thinking about that now.
Heaved in a great breath and tore aside the hide that hung in the doorway, leaped in, blade-first.
Maybe she’d been expecting Pit and Ro to look up, weeping grateful tears. Instead a bare room, naught there but strips of light across a dusty floor.
She barrelled into another house, empty as the first.
She dashed up a set of steps and through an archway in the rock face. This room had furniture, polished by time, bowls neatly stacked, no sign of life.
An old man blundered from the next doorway and right into Shy, slipped and fell, a big pot dropping from his hands and shattering across the ground. He scrambled away, holding up a trembling
arm, muttering something, cursing Shy, or pleading for his life, or calling on some forgotten god, and Shy lifted the sword, standing over him. Took an effort to stop herself killing him. Her body
burned to do it. But she had to find the children. Before Cosca’s men boiled into this place and caught the killing fever. Had to find the children. If they were here. She let the old man
crawl away through a doorway.
‘Pit!’ she screamed, voice cracking. Back down the steps and into another dim, hot, empty room, an archway at the back leading to another yet. The place was a maze. A city built for
thousands, like Crying Rock had said. How the hell to find two children in this? A roar came from somewhere, strange, echoing.
‘Lamb?’ She clawed sweaty hair out of her face.
Someone gave a panicked screech. There were people spilling from the doorways now, from the low houses below, some with weapons, others with tools, one grey-haired woman with a baby in her arms.
Some stared about, sensing something was wrong but not sure what. Others were hurrying off, away from the gate, away from Shy, towards a tall archway in the rock at the far end of the open
cavern.
A black-skinned man stood beside it, staff in hand, beckoning people through into the darkness. Waerdinur. And close beside him a much smaller figure, thin and pale, shaven-headed. But Shy knew
her even so.
‘Ro!’ she screamed, but her voice was lost. The clatter of fighting echoed from the rocky ceiling, bounced from the buildings, coming from everywhere and nowhere. She vaulted over a
parapet, hopped a channel where water flowed, startled as a huge figure loomed over her, realised it was a tree-trunk carved into a twisted man-shape, ran on into an open space beside a long, low
building and slid to a stop.
A group of Dragon People had gathered ahead of her. Three old men, two old women and a boy, all shaven-headed, all armed, and none of them looking like they planned to move.
Shy hefted her sword and screamed, ‘Get out o’ my fucking way!’
She knew she wasn’t that imposing a figure, so it was something of a shock when they began to back off. Then a flatbow bolt flitted into the stomach of one of the old men and he clutched
at it, dropping his spear. The others turned and ran. Shy heard feet slapping behind her and mercenaries rushed past, whooping, shouting. One of them hacked an old woman across the back as she
tried to limp away.
Shy looked towards that archway, flanked by black pillars and full of shadow. Waerdinur had vanished inside now. Ro too, if it had been her. It must have been.
She set off running.
In so far as Cosca had a best, danger brought it out in him. Temple hurried cringing along, sticking so close to the walls that he would occasionally scrape his face upon them,
his fingernails so busy with the hem of his shirt he was halfway to unravelling the whole thing. Brachio scuttled bent almost double. Even Friendly prowled with shoulders suspiciously hunched. But
the Old Man had no fear. Not of death, at least. He strode through the ancient settlement utterly heedless of the arrows that occasionally looped down, chin high, eyes aglitter, steps only slightly
wayward from drink, snapping out orders that actually made sense.
‘Bring down that archer!’ Pointing with his sword at an old woman on top of a building.
‘Clear those tunnels!’ Waving towards some shadowy openings beside them.
‘Kill no children if possible, a deal is a deal!’ Wagging a lecturing finger at a group of Kantics already daubed with blood.
Whether anyone took any notice of him, it was hard to say. The Company of the Gracious Hand were not the most obedient at the best of times, and these times in no way qualified.
Danger brought no best from Temple. He felt very much as he had in Dagoska, during the siege. Sweating in that stinking hospital, and cursing, and fumbling with the bandages, and tearing up the
clothes of the dead for more. Passing the buckets, all night long, lit by fires, water slopping, and for nothing. It all burned anyway. Weeping at each death. Weeping with sorrow. Weeping with
gratitude that it was not him. Weeping with fear that it would be him next. Months in fear, always in fear. He had been in fear ever since.
A group of mercenaries had gathered around an ancient man, growling unintelligible insults through clenched teeth in a language something like Old Imperial, swinging a spear wildly in both
hands. It did not take long for Temple to realise he was blind. The mercenaries darted in and out. When he turned, one would poke him in the back with a weapon, when he turned again, another would
do the honours. The old man’s robe was already dark with blood.
‘Should we stop them?’ muttered Temple.
‘Of course,’ said Cosca. ‘Friendly?’
The sergeant caught the blind man’s spear just below the blade in one big fist, whipped a cleaver from his coat with the other and split his head almost in half in one efficient motion,
letting his body slump to the ground and tossing the spear clattering away.
‘Oh God,’ muttered Temple.
‘We have work to do!’ snapped the Old Man at the disappointed mercenaries. ‘Find the gold!’
Temple tore his hands away from his shirt and scratched at his hair instead, scrubbed at it, clawed at it. He had promised himself, after Averstock, that he would never stand by and watch such
things again. The same promise he had made in Kadir. And before that in Styria. And here he was, standing uncomplaining by. And watching. But then he had never been much for keeping promises.