Shadow of the Knife

by Jane Fletcher

  Ellen marched to the nearer barge—the Susie-Louise, according to the name painted on its side. A quick glance over her shoulder was just in time to catch the tavern door swing shut after Terrie. Smiling, Ellen left the docks, jogging through the dark streets of Roadsend. Her route crossed the Clemswood Road, taking her into the genteel district, north of the main square, where the best houses were found. However, the wealth faded rapidly and by the time she passed the square where the not so genteel Three Barrels stood, the roads were lined with shops and the homes of tradeswomen. The area was no longer so fashionable, although still far above the Northside slums where Ellen’s family lived.

  Ellen emerged onto Main Drove. To her right, the wide street went to South Bridge, on the way crossing the main square where the town hall, infirmary, and Militia station were situated. Was Lieutenant Cohen currently there, oblivious to events in progress? How would she respond when she found out? The thought made Ellen’s footsteps falter for a second, but this was not the time to engage in doubts.

  A short way to Ellen’s left, Main Drove terminated in a T-junction with Upper Dockside. The Diaz warehouse was less than a hundred meters away. However, rather than go directly there, Ellen crossed the road and ducked into an alleyway that ran parallel to Upper Dockside. After a short distance she turned down a side passage, tiptoeing silently through the shadows. She finally stopped at the end of the passage, with a clear view across Upper Dockside to the door of Diaz’s warehouse.

  No wagon was in sight. Was the letter a hoax? The closely packed buildings blocked her view of either moon, but Ellen was sure that 17 o’clock was not far away. She took a deep breath, trying to settle any nerves. The night felt heavy, closing around her. All Ellen could hear were the distant cries of a baby, the creak of a hinge swinging in the breeze, the scuffing of some vermin burrowing through a nearby pile of rubbish, and the thud of her own heartbeat. Then, faintly, came the unmistakable hollow sound of hooves and wooden wheels, clattering over cobblestones.

  The sound got louder and louder, until it seemed deafening in Ellen’s ears. At last the wagon rumbled into view. It was a standard two-horse cart, a style that could be seen all around the region, with boarded sides and large, eight-spoked wheels. Every farm had at least one. It could be used for transporting sheep or, as now, getting supplies from town. Two figures sat on the seat at the front. The driver pulled on the reins, bringing the horses to a standstill at the door of the Diaz warehouse. The woman sitting beside her jumped down.

  “The door ought to be left unlocked,” the driver said.

  “Right.”

  “The stuff will be piled inside.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. I heard the instructions too.”

  “You surprise me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t know if you were listening. You never pay any fucking attention when I tell you things.”

  “That’s ’cause you talk a load of crap.”

  Despite the words, the tone was light-hearted—friendly banter, rather than an argument—and although it was clearly said in jest, the exchange was enough for Ellen to know that this was not a normal pick-up. Whoever heard of an owner leaving the door to her warehouse open? Or not being present to count out the goods and sign the receipt? Yet it was not at all surprising if the instructions had come from the gang, to prevent the Knives from being seen by anyone who might then be able to identify them.

  Ellen felt her heart racing as she stepped from the passageway. Captain Aitkin had promised that the Rangers would be on hand. Ellen had seen no sign of them, which was according to plan, but supposing something had gone wrong? Supposing they were in the wrong place? Ellen offered up a prayer to the Goddess that nothing unforeseen had gotten in their way, and they were ready to jump on her signal.

  Both suspects were now hidden from view on the other side of the horses. The warehouse door creaked open. Ellen rounded the back of the cart, trying to make her footsteps ring loud on the cobbles. In the hope of keeping things as calm and controlled as possible, she did not want to surprise them too much. Yet even with the current critical situation, Ellen could not stop herself from checking the cart as she passed. She remembered Jo, the farm hand, fitting the new planks. To her relief, all the boarding was well weathered. Wherever the cart came from, it was not Broken Hills Ranch.

  “What’s that? Did you hear something?” one of the women whispered from just inside the warehouse door.

  Ellen raised her voice. “Good evening. What’s going on here?”

  “Shit.” The word was hissed so softly that it would have been missed, were Ellen’s senses not on high alert.

  After a moment of shuffling, one of the figures appeared around the warehouse door, into the narrow gap between it and the side of the cart. The sight of Ellen’s uniform produced an instant reaction and the woman backed away. Her gaze swept up and down Ellen once more and then fastened on her face.

  “Shit,” she repeated.

  The feeling was mutual. Ellen recognized Trish Eriksen, Ade’s younger sister.

  “What is it?” The voice from inside the warehouse was louder, clearly anxious.

  “Fucking Blackshirts.”

  “They shouldn’t be—” The words cut off as the second woman sprung into view, diving for the cart.

  Ellen took a step forward, thinking that the two were about to flee. Instead the woman spun back, this time holding a cudgel in her hand. Ellen barely managed to avoid the vicious swipe, aimed at her head. She stumbled away, ducking a second blow that smashed into the side of the wagon. The woman came after her, again swinging her club. Ellen kept retreating frantically, until an uneven cobblestone caught her heel. Her footing slipped and she ended up flat on her back.

  “It’s them. They’re here.”

  Ellen was scarcely aware of what she shouted. Her entire attention was fixed on the advancing figure, looming over her. The cudgel was hoisted high, blocking out the stars. Ellen braced her hands on the ground, ready to shunt either left or right on the downswing. A sudden clamor from across the street made her flinch, but her eyes never left the weapon, lofted over her head. All else was irrelevant. Her assailant though, reacted instantly. The cudgel clattered on the ground, cast aside as the Knife whirled away and raced for the cart.

  It took a moment for Ellen to realize she was no longer in danger. She pushed herself up off the ground. On the other side of the street, a door had opened and a half dozen Rangers were spilling out. The two Knives had scrambled aboard the cart, but neither was yet sitting in place. One clung to the side. The other was sprawled face down across the seat, scrabbling for the reins.

  The Rangers were closing in. With no time left, the woman on the seat yelped to the horses, frantically snapping the reins like a whip. The horses surged forward, but before they had picked up speed, more Rangers emerged from an alleyway ahead. The driver was now kneeling, still struggling to get properly seated. She shouted, urging the horses on, but the animals were not so eager to plow into the advancing women.

  One horse reared up, pawing the air. The other was wrenched around by the momentum of the vehicle. Its back hooves skittered across the cobbles and only the harness kept it from falling. The cart slewed violently sideways, slamming into a wall. Something snapped with an explosive crack. A scream from the woman on the sideboard, caught between cart and wall, was cut short. The chassis teetered and then tipped over.

  More footsteps sounded behind Ellen. Rangers were arriving on all sides, running. But before they reached the cart, a figure pulled herself clear of the wreckage, ducked past the bucking horses and set off at full pelt. One of the advancing Rangers stood in her way.

  Moonlight glinted on something in the Knife’s hand. The memory of the blade sinking into Chris’s back flashed over Ellen. In panic, she opened her mouth to shout a warning, but she was not in time. Two figures collided in the moonlight, but it was the Knife who stumbled away, hands gripped to her stomach. Her knees buckled and she d
ropped. The other figure, the Ranger, was still upright, frozen in the “on guard” position, her sword outstretched. When had she drawn it? Ellen had not seen the motion.

  The wounded woman was on her knees, curling forward. First her head then her shoulders hit the ground. Convulsive spasms ran through her, heaving her onto her back. Fingers clawed the air. Her knee pulled up, heel raking across the cobbles and then stopped. The Knife’s leg flopped to the side and she lay motionless.

  Ellen pulled her feet under her and stood. Her legs were trembling with the effects of adrenaline. Her head spun and ripples of nausea unsettled her gut. She looked around. At least twenty Rangers were gathered in the street. The familiar figure of Captain Aitkin was by the cart, but then she turned and came over to Ellen.

  “Good job.”

  Ellen stood with her arms wrapped around her waist, trying to stop the shaking. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Did you recognize either of them?”

  “One. She’s a local girl.”

  “Trouble?”

  “She has been in the past.”

  The body of the Knife lay only a few meters away. Ellen stumbled across and stared down into Trish Eriksen’s open eyes. A Ranger was kneeling beside Trish, feeling for a pulse in her neck. At Ellen and Captain Aitkin’s approach she looked up and shook her head sharply, answering the unasked question.

  Aitkin turned to those gathered around the wrecked cart and called, “How’s the other one?”

  “Badly wounded, ma’am. She got squished between the wagon and the wall.”

  “Can she still talk?” Aitkin was walking over as she spoke, her voice dropping.

  “When she comes to, maybe. Her head took a bad knock.”

  Ellen looked away, blanking out the conversations around her. Trish Eriksen lay dead on the ground at her feet. Now Ellen recognized her voice. She had been the driver’s assistant, the one who never listened. In that respect, she had not changed. Trish had never listened.

  She was seventeen years old. A whole year younger than Ellen. The family used to live only a few streets away from Ellen’s until Ade’s behavior made them so unpopular with their neighbors that they had moved out of town, to an isolated cottage. Ellen searched for her first memory of Trish, and dug up an incident on the way home from school.

  Ellen had been six or seven, walking with her friends Denny and Tess. They had come across two older children holding Trish down, rubbing her face in the mud. Ellen and her friends had run up and the bullies had fled. Trish had been crying, tears and snot streaking dirt across her face. Nobody had said anything, but they all knew what the trouble had been about. Trish, like Ellen and her friends, was from the wrong side of Newbridge Road. Anyone would have known it from Trish’s grubby shirt, flapping slack around her neck, obviously inherited from an older sister. Some better-off children thought this made them good targets. Ellen and her friends had said comforting things and walked Trish home, holding the younger child’s hand and feeling very grown-up. Ellen had heard that Ade went out that evening, looking for revenge, and had taken it on the first child she had found, wearing clothes marking her as not from Northside. What would Ade do now?

  Trish had not, and never would have been a friend, even before Ellen joined the Militia. Trish had always been too willing to follow Ade’s lead. A large girl who had outgrown the children around her, she had come to rely too much on her fists. Ellen took a deep breath, trying to calm the spasms in her stomach. That reliance was what had let Trish down. She had charged at the Ranger, confident she could outfight anyone, confident she would always win, confident she could pummel the world into doing what she wanted.

  Trish had been in trouble most of her life, already arrested a dozen times. She had given Ellen a black eye in the course of one scuffle. Ellen swallowed the bile in her throat. She had not liked Trish, but seeing her dead was utterly final. So much about Trish had been wrong. Dead meant it could never be put right. All chances were gone.

  Ellen’s eyes stung, though no tears were there. She turned away, leaving Patricia Eriksen still staring up, unseeing, at the stars.

  Chapter Six—The Captured Knife

  “After what I’ve said to you, how dare you deliberately ignore me?” The volume of Cohen’s voice was enough to make Ellen flinch. “Running off like that? Leaving Corporal Rasheed without a word of explanation? Joining up with the Rangers for this...this shambles of an operation? What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “Captain Aitkin ordered me to, ma’am.”

  “She’s not your commanding officer.” Lieutenant Cohen leaned forward, glaring at Ellen. Her hands were balled in fists, white knuckles pressed on her desktop. “Why didn’t you come and inform me?”

  “She instructed me not to tell anyone.”

  Cohen pushed off her desk and turned away slightly. “She had no damned right to.”

  Ellen felt the tension in her guts ease a little, sensing that some of Cohen’s anger was now targeted at Captain Aitkin.

  Cohen paced across her room and then swung back to Ellen. “And Patricia Eriksen is dead. I’ve a good mind to go find the Ranger who did it and arrest her for murder.”

  Ellen said nothing. Saying as little as possible seemed the most sensible option. However, she recognized Cohen’s words as empty blustering. Trish Eriksen was a known criminal who had died with a weapon in her hand, attacking a member of the military. Not only would no magistrate find the killer guilty, but she would be likely to issue a reprimand to the arresting officer for wasting the court’s time.

  “What about the other one? The prisoner they took away? Was that Adeola Eriksen?”

  “I don’t think so, ma’am.”

  “You don’t think so? Don’t evade the question.” Cohen’s voice raised yet another notch. Ellen’s ears were ringing. “You know what she looks like, don’t you?”

  “It was dark and I only got a quick look at her during the engagement. Afterward she was badly injured. Her face was a mess, so...” Ellen finished with an awkward shrug.

  “The whole damn thing was a mess.” Cohen turned away, then glanced back. “But she was definitely still alive at the end?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then she belongs here in the station, not up at the Ranger Barracks.” Cohen turned her head toward the door of her office and bellowed, “Rasheed!”

  The door opened and Terrie’s head appeared around it. Judging by her smug expression, she had heard all Cohen’s side of the discussion—folk on the other side of town had probably caught some of it. “Ma’am?”

  “I want the entire Militia, looking smart, assembled here for eight o’clock sharp. Let them know.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Terrie ducked back out of the room.

  Cohen glared sourly at Ellen. “You can go too. But don’t think this is the last you’re going to hear about the matter. Be here with the others at eight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ellen slipped out of the room, feeling surprised that it had gone so easily. She had been expecting a much harder time. For all the shouting, Cohen had made no mention of disciplinary action, not even as a vague threat.

  Terrie was still in the briefing room. She looked as if she had been on the point of leaving, but at the sight of Ellen, she leaned her shoulder against the wall and sneered. “You had a fucking nerve. Ditching me like that. Do you know how long I spent looking for you? I thought you’d fallen in the river or something. Instead you’d run off to play with the Rangers.”

  “I’m sorry. I was under orders.”

  “Under orders.” Terrie mimicked a whine. “That was from the fucking Rangers, wasn’t it? Well, you don’t take orders from the Rangers. You take them from Lieutenant Cohen or you take them from me. In the future, if you’re out with me, you let me know what’s going on, or I’ll be puppy walking you on a leash. Get it?”

  “Got it.”

  Ellen refrained from adding anything more, although various thoughts shot thr
ough her head, not the least being that it was hard to keep officers informed if they were in the tavern, knocking back beer. Terrie had also missed that she had merely indicated she understood what had been said rather than agreeing to act in a different fashion in the future.

  For her part, Terrie had not finished. “It’s what, less than a month till you finish your probation?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re counting on joining the Rangers.” Terrie said it as a statement of fact. “You think Aitkin will put in a good word for you. You think you’ll get to swan around in that fucking uniform. I tell you, the Rangers are a bunch of overrated, arrogant jerks.”

  If you think that, why are you so upset at not being allowed to join them? Again Ellen did not voice her thought.

  “They made a right foul-up last night, didn’t they?”

  “In what way?”

  Terrie looked taken aback. Clearly she had not expected Ellen to offer any sort of dissent. She floundered for a moment. “The...the…you know, Trish dead, and all.” She glared at Ellen, and returned to the attack. “You think they did a good job? Your head needs seeing to. You youngsters think the Rangers can walk on fucking water.”

  “No. But they stopped a gang of thieves from getting supplies. They killed one. Took the other prisoner. They’ve confirmed it’s the big Eastford gang working out here. I don’t see why you think it’s a mess.”

  For a moment, Terrie looked as if she was about to be sick, but then her usual surliness returned. “Stupid little brat. You’ll learn better—if you live that long.” She yanked the street door open. “Come on. You heard Cohen’s order. You find Thorensen and McCray and tell them. I’ll see you here at eight. Don’t be late.”