by Simon Morden
‘I just thought …’
‘You thought wrong. It is this place, with its wolves and its dragons and whatever else.’ He looked pensive for a moment, disturbed even. ‘I thought this was a new start. For all of us. Perhaps it would be better if we just went home, yes?’
He jerked his head, and Dalip pulled the boilersuit back on. They were still alone, and Stanislav took up a place under the geomancer’s balcony.
‘Let us make use of this gift you have been given,’ he said, and crouched down, feet planted wide, forearms on his thighs and hands cupped. ‘Go and stand by the wall opposite.’
When he was ready, he nodded.
Dalip understood what was required of him. He pushed himself off the wall and started his run-up. Speed was good: he needed forward momentum, but what he wanted was height. Timing was everything.
He lightly jumped off one bare foot and pressed the other firmly into Stanislav’s already rising hands. He straightened his leg and swept his arms up. He was flying. He clawed his fingers, caught the edge of the balcony, and the rest of his body smacked hard against the stone. The impact tore him loose, and he bent his knees before he broke his legs.
Stanislav grunted his irritation. ‘You must hold on.’
‘I can’t. I don’t think anyone could. I haven’t got a grip of anything at all, and when I hit the wall, my hands just slide off.’
‘Is there nothing you can hold?’
‘The top of the wall’s too wide. If,’ he said, staring at his target, ‘I went straight up, I could hang there, but then I’d have to pull myself the rest of the way.’
‘You can do that.’
‘Yes, and the steward would be hitting me with his cane all the time. And she: we have no idea what she can do.’
Stanislav scratched at his chin, where a white beard was showing through.
‘Can you go higher?’
‘Can you throw me harder? And move a bit away from the wall. Ideally, I’d want to hit the top when I wasn’t rising or falling. If I can get my elbows on it, I can push myself up and over, before they can react.’
They took up their new positions. Dalip would have to run faster now, and timing was critical. The first time, he was too tentative, and missed the wall completely. The second time, he left it too late.
When they’d both picked themselves off the ground and thought about blaming each other for their bruises, they tried again.
‘Concentrate,’ said Stanislav.
Dalip bit back what he was thinking, that this was all too much like school except there, if he’d failed a chemistry test no one would have had him killed.
‘Just, just do your bit.’ He bared his teeth in a grimace and launched himself at the tiny sweet spot contained within Stanislav’s hands.
His heel connected and he pushed off hard. At the same time, he was propelled upwards. If he missed this, it was going to hurt.
He reached up, always closing on the wall. Then his head could see over. He bent his elbows, spread his fingers wide like nets, and slammed them on top of the parapet. He was still moving forward. He was almost bent double over the wall before his legs hit it. He started to go backwards, and no matter how much he scrabbled, his weight was always off balance, always dragging him down.
He slipped down the face of the wall with a gasp of disgust and landed in a heap at the bottom.
‘You had it,’ said Stanislav, standing over him.
‘I know I had it! You don’t need to tell me I got it wrong. I know I got it wrong.’ He angrily waved away an attempt to pull him upright, and got to his own two feet. ‘Again.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘No. Now. We practise until I can do it.’
‘But can you do it?’
‘Yes.’ Dalip was breathing heavily, and his humility regained momentary control. ‘Eventually.’
Stanislav chewed at his already bleeding lip. ‘Okay. Again.’
He didn’t manage it the next time either. The same thing happened. Almost, then he lost his grip on the smooth stone and the sharp edges. He couldn’t judge how many attempts he had left in him. He was tired. His legs hurt. He felt like he’d banged his ribs one too many times. And Stanislav couldn’t keep this up all day.
One more, then stop. Two more, then he’d slink back to his cell and lick his wounds.
He pressed his back to the wall on the far side of the pit, one foot against the stone work. Stanislav readied himself, gave him the nod, and tensed.
Dalip ran: step, step, step, then jump. He connected clean. He was in the air, and rather than trying to stay upright, he brought a knee up, turning his whole body sideways. His feet cleared the top of the wall, and he reached out with his hands, slapping the stonework as it passed underneath him.
He hit it hard, and rolled.
This time he didn’t fall far, just at the feet of the geomancer’s empty throne. He lay there for a moment, quiet and still, checking that he’d actually done it, and that he was alone.
The circular balcony wasn’t that deep, enough room for him to fit between the parapet and the chair, and the same space behind it. He could see a door, set into the wall in front of him. He pulled himself up and looked down at Stanislav. He glanced up, circled his finger and thumb for an okay, and purposefully stared in the direction of the pit door, which was merely ajar.
He wouldn’t have long. He circumnavigated the narrow balcony with its low ceiling, found no surprises, and ended up back at the only door. It was closed with a latch, which he lifted very slowly. He pushed, inching the door away from the jamb, listening at the crack he’d made for any sounds from the other side. The hinges groaned, and he ceased all movement. Nothing. No sudden clatter or shout of alarm.
He dared himself to push a little more, when he heard Stanislav’s extravagant throat-clearing. They hadn’t agreed on a warning, but it couldn’t be anything but. No one must know that he could escape the pit, until the moment he did so. Dalip pulled the door shut and sprinted for the edge. He lay on the top of the parapet, and swung himself over. His nervous fingers slid, and he fell the rest of the distance to the floor, which was where Pigface found him.
He turned his gaze between Dalip and Stanislav with an expression of disdain. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Dalip looked like he was resting, propped up against the wall. Stanislav had his stick in his hand, as if berating the boy for being weak. He snorted, and turned his back on them.
‘You’ve had enough for one day,’ he said.
‘We decide that,’ said Stanislav. He threw his stick at the door, where it clattered near to Pigface’s head.
‘Push it too far, Slav, and I swear I’ll do you.’
Stanislav shrugged, flexing his shoulders. ‘Come, then. It will end up as before, with my hand on your throat and you gasping for air.’
Pigface half-turned, and hesitated.
Dalip picked himself off the floor. ‘We shouldn’t be fighting each other. We know who the enemy is.’
‘And who’s that, little lion man?’
‘Your mate Charlie worked it out, didn’t he?’ He dusted himself down. ‘I’m just sorry I wasn’t quick enough to save him.’
Nor quick enough to save himself from waking up in the night, cold but sweating, as a phantom boar tore through his own guts.
Pigface took the apology with a shrug. ‘Stupid bastard got himself stuck the wrong side of the door, didn’t he?’
‘You know that’s not what happened,’ said Dalip. ‘She trapped him in here, held the door shut, then watched him die. Maybe you should ask her why she did that.’
Genuine fear washed over Pigface. He shuddered and shook his head.
‘I’m not stupid.’
Stanislav grunted. ‘No? Stupid enough not to realise that you are a slave like us. Can you leave the castle for somewhere else? No? Then you
just have a better class of prison.’
Again, Pigface turned to leave, and couldn’t quite bring himself to go.
‘What is it? You want more?’ demanded Stanislav, but Dalip waved him quiet.
‘When’s the next fight?’ he asked.
‘No one knows. She’s been in her rooms, last few days. She’ll tell us when it’s time.’
‘What about the steward, the man with the cane?’
‘He’s around. More than usual.’
Dalip beckoned Pigface closer. After a moment’s reluctance, he crossed the pit floor, but still remembered to stand out of lunging range.
‘Is this the life you want for yourself? When you ran from whatever was trying to kill you in London, and you had your new start, is this what you imagined?’
Pigface worried at the ball of his thumb with his crooked teeth and listened very carefully.
‘Because this isn’t what I want. I want to go back home, but if that’s not possible, I won’t live like this. I didn’t run from the fire to become a pit-fighting slave in some witch’s dungeon. Do you understand?’
The guard nodded slowly.
‘You can get in the way, you can ignore us, or you can help us. Up to you. Just remember what happened to Charlie before you run off to the geomancer.’ Dalip bent down and retrieved his stick. ‘You’re as expendable as we are.’
Pigface left the room this time, shoulders slumped, back bent.
‘It will not work,’ said Stanislav. ‘I have met men like that before. They are broken. They prefer living in their own shit than the trouble of cleaning themselves off.’
‘If we don’t have to fight them too, it’ll be easier. Easier still if they’re with us.’
‘You cannot count on Pigface, or any of the others. Our plan will not include them because they will let us down.’ Stanislav punctuated his speech with finger-jabs into Dalip’s chest.
He knocked the man’s hand away. ‘I don’t know where you get this from, but not everybody is a …’
‘Bastard? There are two kinds of men. Corruptible bastards and incorruptible bastards. That is all.’
‘What are we, then?’
‘We make common cause. Pigface has already shown his true self, so we do not trust him.’
‘Why should I trust you, then? I mean, I don’t really know you. We just happened to be in the same shift. That, and we survived together.’
Stanislav walked away, ostensibly to retrieve his stick. He scooped it up, and idly scraped the thin end against the wall.
Dalip persisted. ‘Like where did you learn to fight with a knife? Some of the things you say, they’re … hard. Like nails hard.’
‘My history is the other side of the door, and that is where it will stay. The wolfman was right when he told us all that matters is what we do now. You ask me to help you train, yes? How and why I can do that, is something you do not need to ask.’
Dalip wanted to know. He wanted to know how a railway engineer with an Eastern European accent and a better command of English than most English people knew which end of a pig to stick with a knife. He also didn’t want to know, because none of the scenarios that he was constructing were ones in which Stanislav had been a good, decent man. By not knowing the truth, he didn’t have to make a decision.
And, he discovered, he was content with that.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s none of my business.’
‘That is not true. However, it is not relevant for now. When we have killed the geomancer, her dragon and her steward, freed the slaves and escaped from the castle, then perhaps we can talk more.’ Stanislav raised his stick. ‘One more bout.’
‘I’m tired.’
‘You think that matters to your enemies? You think they will wait while you have a little sleep, a meal? When you can fight exhausted better than they can fresh – then we can stop.’
Dalip ached. He was tired and hungry and dirty. His hair, normally washed and combed every morning, was a bound rope thick with oils. His boilersuit was becoming stiff with sweat and dirt. His kachera … he was ashamed of them. He should be clean. It was one of his sacred duties.
And this man, this gadfly, wouldn’t let him rest. Dalip wasn’t lazy. He worked hard, at everything, as was right and proper. A moment’s respite was all he wanted.
‘First strike?’
‘Then make sure it counts. None of your dabbing at me.’
Dalip assumed his stance, and so did Stanislav, and they began to circle each other. Now, the older man seemed tireless: relentless would be a better word. Driven. Determined never to lose. He was the same last thing at night as he was first thing in the morning, pushing himself, and pushing Dalip. He saw any slackening of the regime as intolerable weakness.
Dabbing indeed. He’d show him dabbing.
They feinted, lunged, dodged, retreated. Dalip remembered what Stanislav had said about getting tired, and making mistakes. He was already tired, so he ought to just close and attack, but the older man was still a stronger and faster and moreover, a filthier fighter. There was nothing pure about his style – whatever worked.
Then he was aware of being watched; a slight change in the air, a presence behind and above him that Stanislav in his singular focus hadn’t spotted.
In that moment, he was distracted, and his opponent struck, trying to tangle his feet and push him back against the wall. Dalip fell, but rolled out of the way before the stick poked his stomach, or his neck, or his groin, or his kidneys, or sideways into his ribs. So many ways that he was vulnerable, so many ways to be killed.
‘She’s here,’ he said, and Stanislav, thinking it might be a trick, ignored him and tried to rush him again. In his haste, he left himself open. Dalip dropped, thrust his arm up and delivered a palpable blow that would, had it not been a blunt piece of wood, gone up under the sternum and into the heart.
It was one of the few times he’d won: it left Stanislav winded, and him with sore fingers.
‘She’s here,’ he repeated, holding out his hand for Stanislav to grasp.
And she was.
Even by the candlelight, it looked as if she’d been beaten. Her face was battered, two black eyes, one she could barely see out of, a ragged purple cut on her pale forehead, her jaw swollen and seemingly misaligned. Her hair, normally straight and golden, was dishevelled and patchy, as if clumps of it had been cut or torn out. What could be seen of her shoulders and chest were mottled in colours from black to yellow.
She was staring down at the two men, just as they were staring up. Then she turned and left, slowly, painfully. The door up on the balcony opened, then closed again.
‘Soon,’ said Stanislav. ‘As soon as we can. We may not get a better chance.’
21
She dragged herself back to the castle. At times, it was literally that: when her legs were too tired, too painful to use, she’d pulled herself from one tree to the next. Her back – why did it have to be her back where she couldn’t see – felt strange. Numb one minute, burning the next. If she knew anything about dragons, which she didn’t because how could she, she guessed that whatever wounds she had were infected, and that she was going to die soon.
Which was, she considered, a fucking stupid way to go. Not that she wanted to go at all. She was eighteen and everything that life had so far thrown at her, and everything she’d thrown at life, had taught her that she was immortal. Stupid, irresponsible, impulsive, angry, alone: but immortal all the same. No matter what she did, no matter how much trouble she got herself into, nothing was actually going to kill her.
Not even the fire that drove her to Down. She’d watched other people die in flames, but it hadn’t claimed her.
And now she was going to get blood poisoning, like some skanky needle-marked junkie. Unless Crows showed up and helped her.
She’d shouted for him.
Softly, because she didn’t want her voice to carry as far as a wolf ’s cry, but he never came.
Eventually, after stumbling and falling and crawling and rising, she recognised where she was, and spotted the unfinished crown of Crows’ tower through the forest. She hoped he’d be there. She was still hoping when she passed under the gateway that hadn’t been there when she’d left. She still hoped when she banged her little fist against the dark stained wood of the door, which also hadn’t been there before.
But the door opened slightly with her knocking, and she knew he wasn’t there.
It didn’t stop her from shouting for him.
‘Crows, you bastard. Why didn’t you tell me about the fucking dragon? Crows? Crows!’
He didn’t come, and she slumped against the door frame, immediately falling forward because she knocked the cuts on her back. The waves of pain left her on her hands and knees, gasping and nauseous.
She could feel fresh blood leaking down her sides, soaking into what remained of her boilersuit. She needed water. She wouldn’t feel so dizzy, so exhausted, if she drank more than the few scooped handfuls she’d managed from tiny, earthy-tasting rivulets. And she needed food, whatever she could find. Most of all she needed the pain to subside so that she could move again.
When she woke up, she was face down on the cold, hard stone and the shaft of sunlight through the open door had moved around. Her lips were dry, her mouth parched, her tongue stuck. She almost choked as she gasped, and her coughing was enough to make her whole body ache.
The rest, enforced and reluctant, had helped. She could now creep on all fours back out of the door – with difficulty as she seemed to blunder and sway into either the wall or the door as she tried to pass through – and across the pavement towards the spring.
It had, like the gate and the door, improved itself. From the trough that had contained the run of water before, it had become a circular pool. The water poured out of a stone spout at one side, and out again at the other, into a gutter that carried it through the now-impressive wall.
