‘Alright. Is that it?’
The governor nodded. ‘Yes, run along.’
Aila picked up a slice of fruit toast from a dish on the table and strode to the door, as Ikara resumed eating her breakfast. She made her way to the rear of the palace where, amid a wing of crumbling and abandoned rooms, the small jail was located. It had been built to accommodate about a hundred prisoners, but often had more packed behind its walls and barred doors. She descended to the basement, and walked to the guards’ quarters. She nodded to the soldier on duty, who seemed half-asleep at his desk, then continued on into the prison wing. Ten large cells ran down each wall, and over two dozen prisoners had been crammed into every one.
The stench was vile, and she covered her nose with a handkerchief. The prisoners began calling out to her as soon as she appeared, stretching their arms between the bars to beg for water. Aila ran her eyes over them. Most were youths, though there were a few older mortals present as well, wrinkled and weathered in the way that afflicted them all if they were lucky enough to reach that age. Once she had despised them, now she pitied them. Their pathetically short life spans flowered and faded in the blink of an eye. A few of the younger ones in the cells before her would be dead within a month of arriving at the Bulwark; what a waste of their limited time alive.
‘Help us,’ cried a woman. ‘Please don’t make us go to the Great Wall.’
Aila glanced at her. What could she say? She was sending them to the jaws and talons of the greenhides; the governor had made her decision.
‘Are you Lady Aila?’ said another.
‘It is,’ cried a third, ‘she’s here to rescue us!’
The volume of cries and shouts increased; intense and insistent. Aila could see the faint glimmer of hope in their eyes, but they were wrong.
‘You knew Princess Yendra,’ said an older woman; ‘you fought by her side to the bitter end.’
‘Yes,’ she said, quietening the cells with a single word. She glanced around. ‘But then I was captured. I begged for mercy in front of the God-King and God-Queen, and they spared my life. I am the Adjutant of the Circuit now, and I work for Governor Ikara.’
The cries turned angry, and several of the prisoners spat at her.
‘Filthy traitor,’ one called out. ‘You’re worse than the rest of your damned family, because you know what you’re doing is wrong.’
Aila lowered her face, then walked back to the guard’s desk.
‘Wake up.’
The guard stumbled to his feet. ‘I’m awake, ma’am.’
‘I need to requisition two squads, and enough food and water for five hundred prisoners. Send a message to the canal terminal, we’re sending that lot to the Middle Wall by barge. I want them on their way to the Bulwark by lunchtime. No bribes, no exceptions. Understood?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, saluting and running off down the hallway.
Aila sat and put her boots up onto the desk. Despite the angle, many of the prisoners could still see her, and they continued with their insults and jibes. Their words hurt, because she knew they were true.
After organising the logistics of the prisoner transfer, Aila took a squad of militia and left Redmarket Palace. It was a ten-minute walk through the twisting, narrow streets to the Great Racecourse, the centre of cultural life in the Circuit. She saw the building loom above the roofs of the other buildings as they approached. It was the largest single building in the entire City, vaster even than some of the fortresses on the Great Wall, and bigger than any palace. Constructed from the same grey concrete as the rest of the Circuit, it spanned over a mile in length, and was several storeys high. Every evening the place bustled with thousands of people, come to watch the foot, dog or pony races, or to see a wrestling match, or, every ten days, to witness those sentenced to death by the governor being executed. The complex was riddled with tunnels and arenas large and small, with enough bars to satisfy the thirsts of everyone who attended. It sometimes made Aila despair, but gambling was a central part of the lives of most Evaders, and small fortunes changed hands every day within the enormous building.
A few passers-by nodded to her as she walked, keeping her skirt lifted to avoid the hem trailing in the open sewer running down the middle of the street. Rats, garbage, and open drains; she wasn’t sure which aspect of the slums she hated the most. The guards she had brought kept pace with her as she hurried along the unpaved streets. Surrounding the Great Racecourse was a wide, cleared space, that accentuated the height of the monstrous complex, and arched entrances ran along each wall. Aila turned right, and they walked round the narrower end of the building and down its iceward flank, where the shadows were never disturbed. Halfway along, stood a gargantuan statue of Prince Michael, the twin of one that the God-Queen had constructed in Tara. The building of the two statues had famously exhausted an entire marble quarry in the Sunward Range, and both had stood for over three hundred years. Aila imagined that the one in Tara was probably treated with devotion and respect. For the Evaders that lived in the Circuit however, the statue was a symbol of everything that was wrong with the City, and the local inhabitants routinely spat on the tyrant of Tara every time they passed.
Aila turned her gaze from the spittle-flecked base of the statue as they reached it, in case she was tempted to add to the accumulated deposits of saliva. The militia would inform her cousin of anything she did that was unusual or potentially disloyal, and spitting on the memory of Prince Michael was about as unpatriotic as it got.
She knew the truth, though; she had been there.
The syndicates were located in the lower depths of the racecourse, and they entered the building after leaving the statue behind. Aila led the guards down a series of dim passageways, passing a few seedy bars on the way. When she heard the barking from the kennels where the racing dogs were kept she knew she was close. They reached a door, and she pushed it open without knocking.
‘Joylen,’ she cried, pointing at the man amid a dozen or so of his colleagues; ‘hands above the table; you’re under arrest. Guards, secure him.’
The gambling bosses stared at each other and began to protest. Joylen’s eyes darted towards the window, but the militia were too fast, and two of them grabbed his shoulders and hauled him away from the table where he had been sitting.
‘This is outrageous,’ said an old woman, the leader of the syndicate. ‘On what grounds are you arresting him, Lady Aila?’
‘I have no idea. Governor’s orders.’
‘I know why,’ said Joylen, standing calmly as the guards pinned his shoulders; ‘it’s because I refused to pay the extra bribe that she requested at the Freshmist Festival. Half my takings, she wanted, instead of the usual third.’ He stared at his colleagues. ‘The rest of you paid it, didn’t you?’
No one responded.
‘On the subject of bribes,’ Aila said; ‘sorry, I mean insurance premiums, I’m here to collect this month’s. Get your wallets out.’
She watched as the members of the syndicate began to gather the money on the table.
‘What would your father think of you?’ said the old woman. ‘Or Princess Yendra?’
‘If either were alive then I wouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Ikara’s a parasite,’ muttered Joylen, ‘and you willingly do her bidding. She lives in luxury while the rest of us do all the work.’
Aila shook her head. ‘You call taking money from gamblers “work”? While we’re here, does anyone know anything about what happened to Olvin?’
‘And what’s in it for us if we do?’ said the old woman.
‘Depends on the quality of the information, but I’m prepared to negotiate. I’ll drop a hundred crowns from your premium if you have a good lead.’
The old woman shrugged. ‘There’s a chef by the name of Letwyn, and apparently his daughter was up to no good with one of Olvin’s guards, a miscreant called Bekker. The chef’s gone into hiding with his girl.’
‘Where?’
‘F
olk say near the old ironworks by the Midway Canal.’
‘And Bekker?’
‘Olvin’s mob bashed his brains out and left him floating towards the Union Walls.’
‘Did they question him first?’
The old woman shrugged. ‘How should I know? Maybe you should go and ask them?’
Aila reached into the pile of money on the table and threw fifty crowns towards her.
‘That’s only half of what you said.’
‘Generous, I thought.’
The old woman scowled at her, but Aila didn’t care. She had shown enough interest in the case that the militia could use to put in their report to Ikara. She wondered if she should search for the chef’s daughter. A nagging guilt was still eating away at her about the blame for what she had done being placed on the shoulders of an innocent bystander. She tossed an empty bag onto the table and nodded at the militia.
‘Gather it all up, then take the cash and Joylen back to Redmarket.’
‘Aren’t you coming, ma’am?’
‘No. There’s a boxing match starting soon that I want to see.’
The militia glanced at each other, then took the bag and escorted Joylen from the room.
Aila smiled at the syndicate. ‘See you next month.’
‘I don’t care, Naxor,’ she said from her seat in the back row of the dark arena, ‘I’m not going to work for your mother again; I hate her.’
Her cousin frowned from the next seat along. ‘My mother doesn’t hate you; you know that? She respects you.’
‘She’s a hypocrite. If she respected me, then why did she make me Adjutant to her useless daughter? I know she’s your sister, but Ikara’s a nightmare to work for. She’s more corrupt than the worst gang boss. Today she told me to select six innocent civilians and execute them publically because one of the bosses that pays her protection money got killed. What’s your mother going to do about that, eh? If Princess Khora can’t even control her own children, then how am I supposed to believe she can run the City?’
‘She has run the City for over three hundred years, Aila.’
‘Yeah? And look at what’s happened to it in that time. We’ve had shortages of just about everything, and prices have doubled in the last few years. People are going hungry again, and the Circuit is starting to boil over. Tell your mother that she should…’
‘Stop there,’ said Naxor, raising a hand. ‘If you have advice regarding the governance of the City, then I shall arrange a meeting where you can speak to my mother face to face. She is willing to do that; are you?’
‘No.’
‘Then save me the complaints, little cousin. Do you know that I’m the only member of our illustrious family that all of the others will speak to? You refuse to talk to my mother, or your brother, Lord Kano, or Duke Marcus, while the God-Queen won’t speak to the God-King, and Marcus won’t speak to my mother. I spend all my time passing messages between my relatives.’
‘When you’re not fetching champions?’
Naxor smiled. ‘Did you hear about the new ones I delivered a few days ago?’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘One of them was your fairly average skilled warrior; he’ll do alright, I think, but the other? By Amalia’s breath, what a find he was.’
‘Did you bring another one of those flying snakes?’
‘No, he’s a man. Taller than your brother; taller even than the duke. That’s all I’m going to say for the present; I’m sure you’ll hear more in due course as word spreads.’
‘Give me his name, so I can look smart when they tell me.’
‘I can do that. His name is Corthie Holdfast.’
‘They have strange names in the mystical lands of the gods,’ she smirked.
‘One day, Aila,’ he said, ‘I hope I’ll be able to tell you the truth about the work I do. I actually spoke to my mother about bringing you into the secret, as I feel you could help us with those powers of yours… talking of which, I heard a certain gang boss was murdered.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘but what do my powers have to do with that?’
He glanced at her. ‘Be careful, that’s all my mother and I ask.’
‘Wait, Khora knows?’
‘What you get up to in your spare time? I’d say she has a fairly good idea. The unsolved assassinations of major criminals in the Circuit oddly began around the time you became Adjutant, and, no matter what else you may think of her, you know my mother isn’t stupid. Don’t worry though, neither of us would whisper a word to Ikara about it. She may be my sister, but…’
‘Olvin had a lot of money.’
Naxor shrugged. ‘Isn’t that rather the point of being a gang boss?’
‘Over and above that. Someone had recently paid him a ton of gold for something.’
‘This is the first I’ve heard of it.’
‘Damn. I was hoping you might have an idea or two.’
‘I’ll make enquiries. Before you go, I want to ask you one more time to consider my mother’s offer. It’s time to put the past behind us, Aila. You have skills that could make a difference; more of a difference than you’re already making.’
‘What does she want me to do?’
‘Meet with her, and she’ll tell you.’
Aila shook her head. ‘Sorry, there are some things I can’t do, and one of them is forgive Khora.’
Naxor’s eyes tightened. ‘It’s regrettable that you think that way.’ He turned to the boxing match and made a face as one of the fighters was sent flying to the ground.
Aila took that as her cue, nodded to her cousin, and slipped away.
Chapter 6
First Day on the Job
Arrowhead Fort, The Bulwark, The City – 6th Mikalis 3419
Corthie peered into the night mist. Ahead lay the moat, and beyond that, out of range of the City’s artillery, was the vast sea of greenhides. On either side of him, members of the Rat Company were filing out into the space between the outer wall and the moat. A section of moat wall had been breached the previous afternoon, and the infantry had withdrawn behind the outer wall before they could be slaughtered. Corthie followed the other Wolfpack soldiers as they fanned out to flank the Rats. Wheeled and collapsible cranes were rolled out of the gate in the outer wall, and the Rats began assembling them in the darkness.
‘Quiet,’ growled an officer.
Corthie reached the moat wall. He was tall enough to see over the top without having to stand on the sentry platform, and he gazed out across the plain. The ground was littered with the corpses of greenhides. Many had been pulled away at sunset by their brethren, to be eaten out of range once night had fallen. Corthie had watched them from the walls, learning their simple daily pattern, and now he was barely a few hundred yards of flat ground and a moat away from them.
Ladders were brought up to the wall and lowered into the moat, as the first assembled crane trundled forwards. Corthie stepped up on the sentry platform and looked down into the dark depths. The water level had fallen by over three-quarters in the few days since he had arrived, and at that rate it would be empty in a couple more. So many greenhides had fallen in, that their bodies were visible in places, their rounded backs or thick limbs poking through the surface.
Corthie glanced up at the sky. It wasn’t the true darkness he remembered from his home, when nights were almost pitch black. Even with hours to go before dawn, there were still streaks of red and purple in the sky, and towards his right; sunward, as he was learning to call it, the patches were brighter still.
When the cranes were in place, two long moat-bridges were brought out through the gate in the outer walls. Rats carried them on their shoulders, with a dozen to each bridge. They laid them down by the moat wall and attached them to ropes dangling from the cranes. Winches lifted the bridges into the air, and the crane arms swung out over the moat in perfect silence. Corthie smiled. The whole operation had taken place in just a few minutes, and not a sound had been made by any of the dozens now behind the moat wall.
&n
bsp; The captain in command of the Wolfpack squadron raised his hand and gestured. The soldiers responded, scrambling up the wall and climbing onto the bridges. Corthie pulled himself up and joined the others. He knew his thin leather armour and light shield were designed for stealth, but against the talons of the greenhides he would have preferred something a little more solid. He had practised for years in full plate armour, and had been surprised when he had seen the more basic uniforms of the Wolfpack. Speed and silence saved their lives, he guessed, as he glanced down into the moat.
The other side of the bridge lay flat on the lip of the moat, and the Wolfpack fanned out, creeping over the plains. Corthie knew what was going to happen; it was only a matter of time before the greenhides were alerted to the desperate work of the Rats, as they began pulling the bodies from the moat. The crane arms swept back and forth, lifting the greenhides one at a time and depositing them onto the plain. Corthie saw Tanner to his right, and gave him a nod. Behind them, up on the battlements of the outer and inner walls, the infantry were getting their nightly entertainment, laying bets on how many Rats were going to get killed. Corthie had seen a chalkboard advertising odds, and had noticed his own death had been estimated at an evens’ chance. Everyone believed his powers were a lie, and he had neither confirmed it, nor tried to deny it. He rolled his shoulders and turned back to the greenhides.
The minutes passed. The Wolfpack remained low, watching the plains, while the heap of extracted greenhides was growing. Rats were circling the heap, dowsing it with tar oil in preparation for the inevitable retreat. The cranes were working at full speed, the Rats taking shifts on the winches that raised the corpses from the moat.
A crack ripped through the air as a strained rope snapped. The greenhide it had been lifting fell back to the bottom of the trench hitting one of the Rats and burying him under four hundred pounds of rotting flesh. There was a moment of stunned silence, then the rest of the Rats began pulling the cranes back from the moat wall in a frenzy of movement.
The Mortal Blade: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Magelands Eternal Siege Book 1) Page 8
