The Rot's War (Ignifer Cycle Book 2)

by Michael John Grist

  None of it helped. He'd never gotten close to Quill, always in the distance like the stars of his constellation, forever out of reach. The Decatate surrounded him at all times; keeping everyone at bay. Once he'd even tried to pass for a damask, but they'd rejected him for his scars.

  That had made him laugh. What were you now, if you couldn't laugh?

  He thought back to Lonnigan Clay. He'd been a different kind of challenge; a buccaneer in his day, a murderer of children and women, who would now rise up as a hero with the Saint. What did that mean, really? What was a hero, if he killed the innocent? What was a hero if he tupped damasks all night and murdered his own soldiers for falling asleep on a watch?

  There was always a bitter taste in his mouth, now. Trudging through ashes, he wondered again if Craley was even alive. She mattered. The people who'd come before that; Feyon and Alam, Freemantle even, didn't seem to matter as much. What was he doing this for, the figure on the Meran beach had asked him, and now he didn't know.

  Craley, perhaps. His daughter. What then if Craley was dead?

  There were no answers. Too many days had passed like this, lost in the uncertain flood of battle. How many Drazi had he killed while trying to fight closer to Lord Quill? He felt their simple thoughts as he killed them, every one. They weren't complex, but they had minds too. To die hurt them, and that hurt him, but still he kept on killing them.

  Now he had finally reached Quill, yet he felt no more sure of his approach than before. A desperate leap had pushed him through the Decatate line, followed by a stunning stitching together of maneuvers from Foucault and Hellophines, to stave off a blow aimed at the great Lord's head.

  He'd spoken with Lord Quill, but the exchange had been strange, like he was an actor on a stage recounting words expected of him. So Quill was a great man. A hero. What did that mean for him? Now he would join the Decatate, but how would that help him bring Quill into the army? Not even Craley knew how Quill had driven off the Drazi plague and ascended in his legendary chariot to the sky, ferrying eight damask with him. It was still a mystery some five hundred years later.

  Sen walked on, his arms and legs trembling with fatigue. He'd almost died so many times on the battlements that even death no longer felt real. He'd been cut and bitten, gouged and hammered, but somehow he'd always managed to slip a misericorde blade in where it mattered. So he fought again, and again, trapped in a ceaseless repetition he couldn't escape.

  He needed to sleep. He hadn't slept in what felt like weeks; but he didn't dare to try it, not after Craley. So the world turned, the battle churned, and everything happened again. Even here in the cinderfields he felt the sickening twist of inevitability. Once the richest districts of the King, they were fated to become the slums of Indura. He'd not read that in any history books, but it was obvious. Soon mogrified hovels would swell up from the ravaged land like cankers in an ague, carrying an echo of the Drazi infection within them. The King and his court were never coming back, leaving these diseased lands for the lowest of caste.

  It wasn't fair. Nothing was.

  Ahead a few revelatory lights hung at the edge of the cinderfields. These marked the King's Yore, where his palace had stood and the streets were clad with stone and marble. In time this would become the Slumswelters. Sen grimaced at the thought of a future version of himself running around those ghostly streets posting The Saint; round and round in circles.

  The Decatate billeted themselves in an impromptu bar at the yore's edge, in love with the romantic notion of faded glory on the brink of death. They slept in soot-stained apartments fit for Dukes, and brought in their own supply of liquor and damasks from the Boomfire via a misuse of Lord Quill's writ. Many nights Sen had stalked through the encircling rubble spying on them, trying to think of how he would get past them to Quill.

  Now he would become one of them.

  He emerged from the dark cinderfields onto a revelatory-lit Slumswelters street, where the revelry of the Decatate hung in the air like a fevery shroud. Here on the pavement lay a half-naked Stygeon sucking on a scarab stem. There slumped a Big-Eye, rolling cigars from the torn pages of a vellum book. He winked his big eye as Sen passed.

  The Sunken Jib was easy to find. It wasn't a true aling den, but an improvised one; once the counting house of a Court-level scrivener, it was built out of white Hasp blocks as big as Sen's forearm. Now it was a hollowed-out shell, skinned with a dirty patina of soot. The windows had been knocked through and its fine curtains and furniture were spread across the flagstoned street, charred and uneven. A Deadfaced youth with his armor peeled either side of him lay slumped on a leather chaise longue.

  "I'm looking for Black," Sen said flatly to the Deadface. "Lord Quill sent me."

  "Did he?" asked the man. His eyes roved over Sen's face. "Inside, the Gawk. He's a mean one though." Sen started toward the Sunken Jib's smoke, and the Deadface called after him, his slack lips slurring the words. "Tell him Old Fireballs, not 'Lord Quill'. Nobody calls him that here."

  Sen entered the Jib's dusty, hollow bar room. He'd seen places like it all his life, glimpsed from outside on his posting rounds through the Boomfire. Once they might have scared him, but now it was just another place with people in it; dimly lit by a hanging revelatory, stinking of scarab smoke, floored with sawdust to cover up blood and vomit stains, but just a place.

  He found Black the Gawk sitting alone at the end of the bar, sipping cherry-red liquid from a shot glass. He was long and tall, with too much forehead. Nearby slumped a bartender who seemed half-asleep, bent over his one old beer pump.

  Sen pulled up the stool nearest to Black.

  "Amaranth?" he asked, pointing at his liquor.

  Black blinked, noticing the young man. He lifted his glass and held it before his eyes for a good while, as if he was studying the facets of a jewel. "Perhaps. It's hard to tell, now. Probably there's some Amaranth in there, along with other swill."

  He drained the liquid in one gulp, then slammed the glass down on the bar. The barman snorted in his sleep. Black threw the glass at him. It bounced off his head with a dull thunk, ricocheted from the bar top and smashed on the ground.

  The barman, an Exemious with his outer skin oozing with his inner organs, looked up sullenly, rubbing his head.

  "Two more," ordered Black.

  The Exemious busied himself fetching two glasses. He spit-cleaned their innards using a filthy dishcloth, then decanted more cherry liquid. Sen smelled the Amaranth vines, along with other assorted grains in a chaotic cocktail.

  Black lifted the first and shot it back. He glared at Sen, lifted the second, then shot it back also.

  "Get lost," he said.

  Sen regarded him with interest. At least this was unexpected.

  "Go on then," repeated Black, his long fingers waggling at the exit. "I'll not stand you a drink just because we're brothers in arms. Hop it."

  Once Sen might have been affected by this dismissal. In his early days of the siege it might have given him pause, but not now. People were all just bodies waiting to be burned. People died around him all the time, then came back reformed. He hadn't come this far to be dismissed so easily. "Lord Quill sent me to find you," he said in a flat tone, "for armor to join the Decatate. I'm not leaving until I get it."

  Black's long thin face curled into puzzlement, followed by a brief spike of anger, then settled finally into mockery. He swung his long arms out. "Armor for the Decatate!" he shouted, as though he were making the announcement to a large crowd, not an empty bar. "Armor for the Decatate, we have an inductee, somebody fetch his armor!"

  Sen watched the performance.

  Black's rolling eyes settled upon Sen. "It's just coming," he slurred. "It'll be here in a moment."

  Black tried to drink one of his shot glasses again, but found it empty. He banged it on the bar then hurled it at the barman again, who awoke and poured a fresh one.

  Sen simply watched.

  "Lord Quill said you'd induct me."

 
Black chuckled quietly. "Did he? Old Fireballs is a soft touch, son. Now get lost before you get my full attention."

  Sen leaned over and laid a hand over the top of Black's second shot glass.

  For the first time the big Gawk's eyes seemed to focus. He stared at the hand covering his glass, then followed the scarred forearm up to Sen's gray eyes. More than anything there was wonderment in his eyes, which made Sen want to laugh.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Getting your attention," replied Sen. "I'm joining the Decatate tonight. I need armor, tonight."

  Black's look of surprise shriveled into a frown. "There is no armor. There is no Decatate any more, don't you get it? Now get your hand off my glass before I cut it off."

  Sen didn't move.

  "All right," said Black resignedly, leaning back clumsily to draw the gladius at his hip. Before he could reach it Sen lifted the shot glass and slammed it into his forehead. The glass shattered and flecks of blood spat out, tumbling the unwieldy Gawk from his stool. He fell awkwardly, but rolled fast to come up with the gladius in his hand, a wicked grin spreading on his face.

  "Come on then," he said, and lunged.

  He was fast, and Sen barely managed to get his misericorde up in time to deflect the blade. The Gawk lurched forward and Sen backed away swiftly, until he was out of the Sunken Jib's smoke and on the street.

  "Decatate!" he called, shouting into the dark. "Decatate!"

  Black emerged from the smoke of the aling din after him, dark blood painted down his long white face. "What are you calling them for?" he asked. "They're my men. They'll not help you."

  "I don't want their help," Sen replied. "I want them as witnesses."

  He shouted three more times as the big Gawk approached, until a few groaning figures drew in. One, a Malakite wearing heavy chains, called for them to shut up. A Balast urged them on. The Deadface young man who'd told Sen where to find Black angled his seat to watch. A straggly arena formed around the two of them, and furniture was scraped to the side.

  Black had stopped pursuing him now, and just stood in the weak revelatory light, his gladius slack in his hand. He looked around at the few figures gathered around them.

  "I think this it," he said.

  "Lord Quill sent me to join the Decatate," Sen announced. "He told me to come to Black for armor. I'm here for that armor."

  "All right, lad, we're past that now," said Black dismissively. "Draw your spikes."

  Sen drew his spikes. Even holding them made his arms weary. "Just remember what I said."

  The Gawk grinned. "I never forget last words."

  The crowd gave a few half-hearted cheers, and the towering Gawk advanced, gladius outstretched. He was several feet taller than Sen, with a longer reach and a longer blade to boot. But he was drunk. His eyes were still sharp and his reactions fast, but he wasn't as fast as Sen.

  Black came in softly with the gladius hanging down by his side, luring Sen into his strike radius and hiding his true reach, all the while muttering about the armor he'd fetch for him.

  "Nice cuirass we'll get you, two greaves of silver straight from the King's trove, and mail, of course we'll get you mail…"

  Sen allowed himself to be lured in, holding his misericordes warily and watching the Gawk's weaving frame intently for the first hint of movement. The Gawk jerked forwards, back, and laughed. He made faces at Sen, playing to the crowd. Somebody threw a cobblestone and it hit Sen low on the elbow, knocking his left spike free to clatter on the street.

  Black lunged in then, his gladius darting directly at Sen's face.

  Despite the sudden pain in his elbow Sen was ready, and leapt forward at an angle, so the gladius blade lanced scant wing beats from his face. For an instant he stood within the exposed arc of the outstretched Gawk's arm. He swung his remaining right spike into reverse stance even as he launched himself upward, jumping to crunch the weapon's metal haft into the big Gawk's chin.

  Black's teeth cracked together, his head was forced up and he took a lurching step backwards. He brought the gladius back round in a vicious sweep but Sen ducked under it easily and fired another blow with the spike's haft into the teetering Gawk's armpit.

  Something crunched and the arm flapped useless to his side, the gladius clattering to join Sen's misericorde on the ground.

  Black stepped back quickly.

  The crowd around them fell quiet, engrossed. Probably they hadn't expected that. Sen hadn't either, and it was good. This wasn't like fighting the Drazi. This was real.

  The Gawk circled, reaching up to finger his jaw tentatively while keeping Sen in his sights. Crumbled pieces of his own teeth came away with a little watery blood. He looked at this for a moment, then turned back to Sen with growing anger in his face.

  "All I want is some armor," Sen said.

  "There is no damn armor!"

  Black charged then, his one good arm drawing a curved dagger from a shoulder strap. He slashed it down through the air where Sen's head had been, reversed his grip with a quick flick of the wrist, then leapt forward side-on, jacking the knife out like a cracking whip.

  Sen spun to the side but wasn't ready, taking a deep gash from the lightning fast blow on the upper arm, which began to bleed freely. The figures gathered around gave a staggered hurrah, and the Gawk laughed.

  Sen held up his one remaining misericorde, showing his reverse grip to them all. "I could've already killed him twice!"

  As he spoke the Gawk leapt, covering the distance between them in a heartbeat and bearing down with the dagger poised. At once Sen went limp and let his body fall to the earth, so Black stabbed down upon nothing. Overbalanced, he stumbled over Sen's body, and Sen reached up to seize the Gawk's dagger arm, forcing his fall under control. There was a smack as Black's body hit the cobbles, a flurry of movement, and then Sen was kneeling on his throat, the misericorde tip slicing into his cheek.

  Sen breathed in hard. "All I want," he repeated, controlling his breath in a tight voice, "is some Heart-blasted armor."

  The soldiers gathered about gave a confused cheer. The Gawk stared up at him defiantly, then the Deadface was right there at Sen's side, startling him. Casually he lifted the misericorde tip from the Gawk's cheek.

  "You should sharpen these," he said. "I'm Black. Let's go see about your armor."

  The crowd cheered feebly again, then the Gawk was lifted out from under Sen and carried back inside the aling din. In moments only the street was back to how it had been.

  He definitely hadn't expected that. This new Black set off walking, and Sen followed. What had just happened?

  "Lord Quill sees potential in many young soldiers," Black said over his shoulder, as Sen fell into step behind him. "We can't let them all join the Decatate."

  "So that was a test?" Sen asked, rubbing his sore elbow. "I almost killed him."

  "A test of sorts," slurred the Deadface. "Also sport. Though we wouldn't have burned you in the Manticore, just sent you back to your regiment humbled. I'm thankful you didn't kill Efraius."

  "The big Gawk," confirmed Sen. Black nodded. "And if I had, what then?"

  Black stopped in the shadow of a two-story folly tower, rife with gargoyles. "Then I would have killed you."

  He said it as a fact. Sen met his eyes and nodded understanding. They walked on, through silent Yore/Slumswelter streets until they reached an empty structure that was much like the others.

  "This was Quill's house," Black said. "Before the Drazi." He pointed to the front garden, which had been cleared of ash. There were low humps of dirt lying in neat rows, each with a small white stone at their heads, barely visible in the moonlight. A graveyard.

  "Quill has us bury the Decatate here. The house is already full, after we pulled up all the floorboards. There's not a lot of space left in the garden, but then there's not a lot of us left."

  Sen surveyed the graves. Above some were pieces of tarnished silver armor, a gladius, a caulk.

  Black pushed through
the gate. "City of the dead. Here." He strode to a nearby grave, where a set of silver armor lay. "This was Fat Kal's." Black toed the white stone at the grave's head. "He went down two days ago. I managed to pull his body back before the bastards dragged it down. You'll have his armor."

  "Thank you," Sen said. A long moment passed.

  "Pick it up then."

  Sen knelt. The armor was heavier than he'd expected; a full chest and back plate, shoulder pauldrons, with greaves for arms and legs. He turned a round disc that had to be a hip-guard in his hands. It looked like some ornate plate from the Gravaile mansion kitchen, though dented and stained.

  "No helmet," Black said in a flat tone. "We don't wear them in the Decatate; too much periphery vision lost. Now carry it back to the Jib. There'll be some food in the morning. Learn how to lace it tonight, clean it up, sleep well, then we do it all again tomorrow."

  Black started away.

  "Oh," he said, stopping and speaking again over his shoulder. "I saw you fighting toward Quill today. I've been watching you every time you popped up. Know that I had a bolt trained on your head for the duration. I watch him all the time, just so you know."

  He continued away.

  BATTLE II

  Sen woke to a bugle call before the dawn, to the jostle and thump of movement in the house around him, uncertain where he was. Sleep was a risk, but he felt better for it, and the Darkness had not crept too much closer in the night. The worst of the fog in his head had cleared away, and he almost felt like himself again. For a moment he even thought he was back in the millinery and the revolution was just beginning. Feyon would be waiting downstairs to say goodbye.

  There was no Feyon.

  Food was served on the street from a brazier, weak oat broth with straggly shreds of old lamb-fat and crusty brown bread. Sen ate with the Decatate in silence, and strapped on the armor. At Black's command they gathered, and Sen walked with them through the cinderfields. The Deadface didn't look at him.