Black Dawn

by Peter J Evans

  Gerard's face had become florid. He tried to grab Red's hand, to prise her fingers away from his, but he might as well have been trying to bend iron bars. "God!" he gasped.

  "Me," Red went on, "and the gentleman here were having a nice, private chat. Nothing that need concern you."

  Even as she said it, she was cursing herself. This had already gone too far - she should have gone with the pretence; looked shocked and then either left the tavern or tried to quiz somebody out of Gerard's earshot. It was too late for that, chairs were already scraping behind her as the other patrons began to notice something was going on.

  She let go, shoving the taverner back as she did so. He stumbled away, grabbing his hand and trying to draw a breath. As Red got to her feet he finally managed it, and gave forth a howl of pain and shock that rattled the shutters.

  "Crybaby," Red muttered. She'd not even broken any bones.

  Raulin was off his own stool now, and backing away from her. The show of strength had terrified him. Red turned to the door, but her way was already blocked. Half a dozen drinkers had left their places at the nearest bench and now stood staring at her, their faces a mixture of curiosity and anger.

  This was dangerous. If this went any further someone was going to get hurt. "I think," she said, in as a calm a voice as she could manage, "it's time I left."

  Someone stepped back, and for a second Red thought she was going to make it. That was before Gerard got his breath back for a second time.

  "She broke my bloody hand!" he roared.

  The gap closed up, and more people started to rise. One of the drinkers, a pug-nosed man with a pointed leather cap on his head, actually reached out and shoved her back towards the bar. "You're going nowhere, bitch. There's a debt to be paid."

  Red smiled at him. "If I throw a stick," she said politely, "will you leave?"

  It took a full second for him to realise what she had said, but once he did it had the effect on him that she should have been expecting. He snarled, and drew his fist back to punch her.

  A big, pale hand came down over the top of his head and drew him back. He yelped, put both his own hands to the fingers gripping his skull but like Gerard trying to remove himself from Red's clutches, he had no chance.

  "Be still," said Godolkin.

  "It's them!" Raulin was shouting, pointing a quivering finger first at Red, then at Godolkin and then back again. "They're together! It's them from the posters!"

  Red rounded on him. "Oh, you're a ray of snecking sunshine!" she snapped, just as something smashed into the side of her head.

  The shock of it, the suddenness of the impact sent her reeling sideways, and she had to grab the edge of the bar to avoid falling. The stink of ale filled her nostrils, and she realised that she was soaked with the stuff. Somebody had slammed a tankard into her.

  She shook herself, spun on her heel and planted a solid punch into the face of the man who had struck her. Not as hard as she could have done - at her full strength, she would have caved in his skull - but hard enough to fling him back into his fellows.

  For an instant Red, thought some sort of bomb had actually gone off, because without warning the air was filled with flying beer, crockery and shouting. Then she saw that almost everyone in the place had slung their drinks at her at the same time.

  She ducked, feeling mugs and tankards whirl over her head, and then came up swinging. Bodies were already piling into her, fists flying, heavy boots lashing out. She took a glancing blow across one shin, blocked two more with her forearms and then picked a target and snapped out one foot, her toes catching a man between the legs and sending him half a metre into the air. He fell away.

  "Godolkin!" she yelled.

  "Mistress?" She caught a glimpse of him through the mêlée, winding back for a punch. "You have orders?"

  "Yeah! No breakages!"

  He sighed. "Thy will be done," he replied, and treated his target to a perfectly aimed uppercut. Another of the tavern's patrons spun away.

  Red was striking out in all directions, pulling her blows to avoid killing anyone outright, but rapidly lessening the odds. With so many opponents she still had to take care - people were starting to use furniture and while there were no glass bottles in the tavern, the wooden ones could really hurt if they hit her full on. Gerard tried that as she put her back to the bar, but she saw his shadow on the wall as he raised the bottle and twitched sideways, grabbing it out of his hand and then jabbing her elbow back, hard. There was a meaty impact and a hoarse scream, in celebration of which Red ripped the cork from the bottle with her teeth, spat it away, and then took a long swallow of the contents.

  It wasn't bad, surprisingly enough.

  She threw the bottle back over the bar and dropped into a crouch to sweep another assailant's legs from under him. Someone swung a stool at her while she was down, so she jumped back and out of the way, slamming two more drinkers into the crowd as she did so. The men they hit, predictably, forgot about trying to get to Red and instead started pummelling the new arrivals.

  The fight was spreading. Where a few seconds earlier everyone had been fighting Red and Godolkin, now a large number of them were fighting each other.

  Red shoved her way through the seething, striking mass and grabbed Godolkin. "Shall we leave them to it?"

  Godolkin aimed a straight-arm punch past her head, flattening the nose of a man behind her. "Now would seem as good a time as any."

  Together they began to make their way through the fight, trading blows with anyone who lashed out at them and ignoring those who had other opponents in mind. Not everyone was involved - Red tripped over two women who were frantically rifling through the pockets of the unconscious, and she spotted the red-haired man cowering under a table - but the majority of the tavern's patrons were either battering each other or recovering from being battered.

  Red slapped Godolkin's shoulder as they headed for a door alongside the bar. "You know what? That was the best fun I've had in ages."

  Godolkin turned a sour eye on her. "You reek of alcohol."

  "See? The sign of a great night out!" She threw a glance back over her shoulder. "Come on, let's get out of here."

  The air outside was still bitterly cold and full of snow. It hit Red in the face as soon as she tugged the door open, and almost stopped her as the heat had done inside. She forced herself into it, through the shock and out into the street.

  The sounds of the brawl, punctuated with the dry shattering of wooden furniture, muffled as Godolkin took the door and slammed it closed.

  They began to hurry away. Red refastened her robes, shutting out some of the chill and then reached under her hood and tugged the scarf from her head. It was beginning to itch. In fact, she was starting to itch all over. It had been a while since she had been able to shower, or in fact do anything more than splash a little cold water on her face and hands at a public washhouse, but that shouldn't have bothered her. In the lives she had led - street-scavenger, bounty hunter, fugitive - there had always been times when cleanliness wasn't an option.

  On the other hand, she was beginning to realise that the robes she'd found were carrying a sizeable population of local wildlife. Whatever was living in the fabric was starting to bite.

  There was a certain irony in that. Something was drawing her blood, which made a change.

  Godolkin's strides were long. Red was trying to walk normally, for the benefit of any passers-by who might take an interest, but it was impossible. She had to break into a run every few steps just to keep up. "Slow down, you big oaf!"

  "The brawl will attract marshals. Do you really want me to slow down?"

  "No." she peeked back over her shoulder, but didn't see anyone watching. "Yes. I don't know. Just shut up and let me think."

  It was a hard fact to face up to, but her expedition to the lower city had achieved little. She had confirmed a few facts about Daedalus and the Endura, but other than that she had gotten into a fight, learned nothing that had gotten her an
y closer to finding Harrow, and she hadn't even managed to sample the ale that Raulin had bought for her.

  Now she was hungry. She was so hungry that she had forgotten what not feeling hungry was like.

  Was the lack of blood affecting her mind, she wondered? Maybe she was running around like a headless bird because the weeks of blood-substitute had done her serious harm. Her concentration seemed to be failing and her senses weren't as acute as they should have been. She hadn't even noticed that Godolkin had been following her. In fact...

  She slowed for a second, almost stumbled and then hurried to catch the Iconoclast up. "Hey, Godolkin?"

  "Have you finished thinking?"

  "Hard to say but I was wondering..."

  "What?"

  "Are we being followed?"

  The Iconoclast made no outward sign that he was considering her question, just kept striding forwards with the same inward-looking frown that he normally wore. For a moment Red thought that he might not have heard her question, or that she was getting so addled that she had only imagined herself asking it.

  A few seconds later he nodded very slightly. "We are."

  "Sneck, I thought I was going barmy. Let's hope it's someone I can bite."

  "It is no professional, I can tell you that. Keep walking."

  Abruptly, he was gone. Red tried not to start at the suddenness of it. One second he had been striding along just ahead of her, the next he had vanished into the shadows. He must have ducked aside, into an alleyway or around the corner of a building. Many of the structures in the lower city seemed to have been built along very haphazard lines indeed, and every other wall was either out of true with its neighbour or separated by a shadowy gap. All in all, it was perfect ambush territory.

  Behind her there was a scuffling sound, and a yelp of surprise.

  Amazingly, the next thing Red heard was running footsteps. The idea that Godolkin might have actually missed his quarry was so startling, so unheard-of that she almost ended up doing the same. It wasn't until the runner was actually alongside her that she came to her senses, snapped out an arm and hauled the man off his feet.

  His momentum spun her around - he had been running very fast on those snowy cobbles - but she just used the spin to whirl him off his feet and slam him back against the nearest wall.

  As Godolkin had said, it was no marshal. It was, however, someone she recognised, although for a moment or two she couldn't tell where from.

  "Going somewhere?" she grinned, letting the man get a really good look at her fangs.

  He shook his head jerkily. In the lantern-light his skin looked even paler than Godolkin's although that might just have been fear. He was tall, taller than Red, but slender to the point of emaciation, and his hair was a wiry, copper-coloured thatch.

  The last time she had seen this man, he had been cowering under a table in the tavern.

  Godolkin arrived a few seconds later. He was carrying a stained jacket of some matted fur. "Forgive me, mistress," he growled. "This one comes apart under stress."

  "Neat trick." Close up, Red could see that the man was quite young, in his late teens, perhaps. "Now, do you want to tell us why you've been on our tail ever since the Pike Cross?"

  He nodded. "Aye, my lady. If you'll just let me go-"

  "No chance."

  "My lady, please..." His face was twisted in pain. To her horror, Red saw that spots of blood had appeared on his jacket. The man was bleeding from the chest.

  "Sneck," she muttered, and took her hand from him. He sagged back, pressing his fist against his sternum.

  "A moment, my lady," he hissed. "It'll pass."

  Red had to close her eyes for a second. The smell of fresh blood had set her mouth watering. When she opened them again, the boy was easing himself back into his hair coat.

  "Are you okay?" she asked him.

  He nodded jerkily. "Aye. It's almost healed, but when you caught me..."

  "Sorry."

  "I should have called you, my lady. I was afraid, after what you did to Gerard, but they told me I had to find you before the marshals did, so I had to let you get far enough away-"

  Red narrowed her eyes. "Who told you?"

  Trewpeny swallowed hard. "Daedalus, my lady."

  "Really?" Red raised an eyebrow. "Maybe tonight's not been a total bust after all. What's your name, kiddo?"

  "Trewpeny," he gasped. His voice was raspy, and heavily accented. "Anton Trewpeny."

  "Okay, Anton. Let's go and meet Daedalus."

  9. EYES AND EARS

  It was almost certain that Lord Makeblise had never met anybody like Judas Harrow before, but the reverse was definitely not true. Harrow had the measure of the Endura man within moments of their first meeting.

  Even though he had never progressed beyond the rank of novice-adept, much of the mutant's adult life had been spent in the temples of the Tenebrae cult. He had spent many years poring over the doctrines of mutant faith and militant anti-humanism, moving from world to world as his training regime dictated. He had studied pre-Accord history on Voshard and unarmed combat on the Relevine cloudscape; tactics on Epiphany, interrogation techniques and psychology on holy Imbros, and the legends of Saint Scarlet in the unending chant-caverns of Nertius Prime. For as long as he could remember, before that fateful journey to Wodan and his first encounter with Durham Red, his existence had been a continual cycle of travel and study, under more leaders and trainers than he could count.

  If he had not been so regrettably human, Lord Makeblise would have done very well in the Tenebrae.

  He had the dedication for it. Instead of the dogma of mutant superiority and the unswerving devotion to the Scarlet Saint, Makeblise's beliefs revolved around the protection of Igantia and the avoidance of God's perceived wrath. In essence, though, it was the same. He would quite happily wipe the city clean of life, as long as it protected the status quo, and would use to its utmost the very technology he had declared anathema. He was intelligent, resourceful, duplicitous, hypocritical and a committed, murderous fanatic.

  In fact, very much like every Tenebrae cult-leader Harrow had ever met.

  While this was not exactly a comforting thought, it did at least remove any notions he might have had about trusting the man. Harrow harboured no illusions about Makeblise's intentions. Any outside influence was a threat; there was no room for any other worldview in the mind of such a man. Harrow knew very well that he was only alive because he was slightly more use to the Endura that way. Once the balance tipped in the other direction, that would be the end of him.

  Harrow also knew that there was a pretty good chance he could escape this prison he found himself in, if he put his mind to it. The doors were sealed with the kind of mechanical locks he could crack with two pins, and his short journey through the place had already given him a reasonable idea of its size and layout. As long as he was quiet, and only killed the minimum number of guards on his way out, he could probably be away from the place within a half hour of starting.

  After seeing what the sanctum contained, though, he knew that he could accomplish far more by staying where he was.

  Without some way of repairing the ship, Durham Red was lost. There was only so long she could survive on a world as isolated as Gerizim, and in a city as backward as Igantia. She and her companions needed to find whatever this planet had to offer in the way of leftover technology, and find it fast.

  Ironically, Judas Harrow had wound up as the one who could do that most effectively. If he played this right, he knew he could do more good sitting down here in this dungeon, surrounded by crumbling machines, than he ever could out in the open.

  He also knew that if he made a single mistake his life would be forfeit.

  He would have to tread carefully but after his time in the company of Durham Red and Matteus Godolkin, such things came naturally to him.

  Verney, the Sanctum's previous occupant, was a woman. It had been some time before Harrow had learned this, because she wouldn't come out
of the corner.

  Makeblise had departed soon after Harrow had agreed to help him, although he obviously had no intention of leaving him alone in the sanctum. He had called a guard in to stand watch.

  This wasn't much to Harrow's liking, but he had to admit it was fairly inevitable. He was sure, in fact, that Makeblise would have preferred more than one guard in the sanctum, just to be sure of cutting him down if he tried to damage any of the Endura's precious machines. The only thing that stopped him was the size of the chamber - what with the various benches and tables, the racks of mouldering equipment and the big, central table, there simply wasn't room.

  Not to mention Verney, his other companion, although with the ragged figure continually hunched in the room's far corner, it was easy to forget she was there at all.

  Harrow had other things on his mind. The temperature, for one. He'd still not been given any of his clothes back since leaving the dungeon, and the sanctum was desperately cold. After a minute or two he realised that Makeblise wasn't going to come back, and if he wanted anything done from this stage on he would have to do it himself.

  Harrow wasn't even entirely sure what it was he was supposed to do. Makeblise had left him with only the vaguest instructions about repairing and improving the sensorium, as though he expected Verney to fill him in on the details. The woman was still hiding however, which left Harrow in something of a fix.

  He already had his own agenda for this place, of course, but to pursue it immediately and openly would mean death. No, this was a game he had to play very carefully indeed.

  It would be better, though, if he could play it while not freezing to death. "Guard? If I'm to work in this dungeon, I'll need clothes."

  The guard's helm was a tall bullet of polished steel, broken only by a thin eye-slit. It turned slowly towards him. "I'm no servant."

  "Then I suggest you find one. Lord Makeblise took considerable pains to bring me here. Would you have his efforts wasted?" He held up his hands. "I can do nothing if I'm palsied with cold."