‘I shall contemplate your words, commander,’ the priest said. ‘If some great evil, as you say, is coming to this city then I hear your concerns. I shall talk to some of the other priests, and see what they come up with regarding our scriptures. For a greater good, as you say.’
‘For a greater good,’ Brynd echoed.
*
A cold night, again, as horses belted through the dark, their hooves slipping on ice. Two fiacres clattered by, the riders barely looking his way. Thugs loitered wherever streets intersected, converging in the language of the streets, that queer Jamur-tribal hybrid. Amongst these nocturnal scenes, he wondered vaguely what had happened to Private Haust, the young blond man who had disappeared.
Brynd was wearing civilian clothing, thick cotton layers, of an earthy brown colour, a hood so that he could hide his face as he walked, so he would blend into Villiren, even, as on the night that saw the underground fights, using a paste to darken his exposed skin, to hide the fact he was albino. Nothing he could do about his red-tinted eyes though, so he had decided to wear a full-face gnaga mask.
Constant stress was crippling him and the logistics of the military operation were overwhelming. Night after night, the other soldiers could unwind in taverns all across the city while he imprisoned himself with charts and reports, saw to the needs of thousands of others who remained ignorant of how he was serving them. He had slept maybe eight hours only over the last three nights.
Well, not this evening. Tonight he sought relief.
After exploring a few tip-offs, he was striding towards a certain featureless building, with a facade that could be found in any city throughout the Boreal Archipelago. Anonymous-looking. There were two men standing behind the door leading to his destination, big guys with daggers ready at hand. Behind them lay a dark corridor. A few discreet words were exchanged, tentative and searching sentences, then they let him in.
The first room was lit by just two cressets, on opposite walls, and a couple of tea-light candles set on each of the tables. Always the same, these places. Dark enough for the hypocrites to escape into their fantasies without ever being caught – which annoyed Brynd, since these might be the very same men ready to label others as being ‘abnormal’.
Bender, queer, faggot.
Words loaded with a pain that burned inside his head. In his darker moments he could hardly blame them – there were times he could hardly tolerate himself. But such words were spoken every day with a casual thoughtlessness, often issuing from the mouths of those he worked with and trusted.
How could the world be so consciously loathing of such a natural emotion, merely on the word of some very old text? Other cultures, Brynd was certain, would not forbid such desires.
Shirt-lifter, mincer, fairy.
Was he a weak man? Was he weak for wanting sex, wanting to pay for sex? No. It was safer that way, a transaction which would secure his anonymity.
From behind a doorway, music drifted into the main bar. He poked his head in briefly, saw a violin player and a man clutching a small drum belting out a few folk rhythms, could smell the intense aroma of arum weed and spilt vodka. There were a few candles at the far end, nothing in between but shadows gliding through the darkness. His heart rate picked up, matched the intensity of the drumming. Sudden nervousness kicked in, and for a moment he considered walking out again, back to the barracks, ignoring this side of him like he had so often before.
In a fake accent, he asked someone nearby where he could go to pay for it. Directions were issued, gestures barely discernible in the dimness. He felt his way around the corridors until he reached where he hoped to be. A moment later, he’d chosen his man, one with oil glistening on his skin, slightly perfumed with patchouli, a scent aiming to relax him.
‘Don’t worry if this is your first time.’
‘It’s not.’ Brynd tried not to laugh. How much cock had he sucked by now? He couldn’t remember. He threw the man some Sota coins – and didn’t even look at how many.
They found a room shrouded in darkness, with a decent enough bed, and everything proceeded by touch. Brynd liked that, his vision removed, it meant his other senses were heightened. Liked the feeling of not having to make decisions, of following someone else’s orders. The man tried to remove Brynd’s mask but a firm grip on his thick wrist thwarted the gesture. Instead, Brynd tilted it slightly to one side, and kissed him . . . and his primitive instincts dispelled that inert, empty sensation he felt with a complete stranger, because this was now a body at least, another man, more than he’d known in a while: meat and tongue and cock. This one was thuggish and direct, and Brynd tenderly explored the thick ridges of muscle moving against him, the thick arms around his waist. Fuck, that feels so, so good . . . Brynd turned, reaching behind his body, and eased the man’s dick out of his breeches and wanked him until he was hard.
‘You have protection I take it?’ Brynd asked. A few movements to one side, and the man-whore was safe. A trustworthy establishment, at least. He made sure some oil from the man’s torso acted as lubrication and, as he leant forwards on his knuckles, he purged his mind of thoughts.
*
Brynd departed with no attempt at conversation, no goodbyes, just headed back out through the confusing dark corridors – smacking straight into the cold night air of Villiren, back into his normal life. A quick fuck to relieve the built-up stress – or replace it with guilt, whatever.
As he left, he couldn’t help but think he was being followed. Maybe it was his paranoia. These streets could do that to you, but still . . .
Was there actually someone there?
In the shadows?
THIRTEEN
Another row with Beami, another bad start to the evening. All she ever did was spend her time with those stupid relics, tinkering away at them, trying to make some money. Like they needed any more of that – she wouldn’t listen to him though, just wanted to do her own thing. Those kind of interests didn’t seem to matter at the start – back before the ice, she’d loved the stability he allowed her, his wild edge, his passion and exuberance. And tonight came another pointless discussion on the state of their marriage before he stormed out.
Right there and then, he wanted to go out and sleep with some other woman, and aside from the obvious repercussions, here was the real bite: that was just the kind of thinking that had got him into this mess. Years ago that was all he ever did, floating from woman to woman, uncommitted and angry, and just for a moment he anchored on one. He had that intense fling with an alcoholic chain-smoker . . . what was her name? It didn’t matter. He used to let her strike him. That was before he discovered she was in a constant state of anger because of repressing her urges for vampyrism.
Ultimately, it was a disease he caught from a cheap fuck. Those were his low days. While he was wasted on drugs, he’d asked her to bite him – he’d pleaded with her and, despite her refusals, she had eventually capitulated. Her fangs appeared and she plunged them into his neck – but because of so much alcohol in her blood and too many substances in his own, something went wrong. There was some failure in transmission.
And he wasn’t infected properly.
That woman left him the next day and he never saw her again. Whatever had caused his vampyrism was only passed on at half strength, so he didn’t possess a full-time urge to drink blood. His rage increased in intensity, his muscles hardened over a single week, his ageing process slowed – but it never felt complete, and now neither did he. It was as if his life, from that point, became one endless longing for something more. When his gang brethren begged to become infected with his bite, they too received this diluted strain, they too became only half vampyr.
It took him a while to become accustomed to his new body, and he had sought help from a witch, who assiduously treated his wounds in exchange for a large fee. Vampyrs were not immortal, she had warned, and they were susceptible to many other ways of dying . . . That, she concluded, was why they were so rare.
This was no
fairy tale, then, nothing to romanticize. He was a violent monster.
*
Through the second-floor doorway, Malum glanced southwards across the roofscape. Lights glistened intermittently, showing him a glimpse of a city residence, of someone’s life conducted within. Moonlight would steal a moment to expose some silhouetted figure leaping from building to building, on a mission he could only guess at.
Malum sat straddling a chair, gripping the backrest, clenching his jaw against the pain. He had insisted on the door being left open to let in blasts of icy winds – even so, sweat lined his forehead. An arum-weed roll-up burned in one hand, and he took a drag whenever the stinging became too much. At times like this he was grateful that his mask covered only the upper half of his face.
An old man wearing a white gown and with a steady hand was applying a woodblock design to Malum’s naked back, adding layer upon layer of black ink to his exposed skin, then scraping with chisels or gouges. Pain pulsed through his body, before it was dulled by whatever it was within his body that rendered him not fully human.
The man painfully grafted art under Malum’s skin: symbols, decorations, every line of tattoo loaded with meaning and intent. He was assiduous in his scraping. Jars of pungent, coloured ink covered the table to one side. The artist’s slippers shuffled constantly on the tiled floor. Diagrams of designs papered the walls, fluttering in the wind.
Malum took another drag of the roll-up, flicked ash to the floor.
This time he had requested a tribal dragon, a fearsome representation of non-Empire deities, building on an elaboration of designs that crept from the base of his spine up to his shoulder blades.
‘Hey, Malum, you got a moment? I got some news.’
Malum looked up as one of his scouts approached him from behind.
‘Sure. Go on, speak. He can’t hear you. He’s deaf.’ Malum tilted his head to indicate the old artist. ‘Move round the front so I can see you.’
The scout moved into view, by the open doorway. It was one of the older, skinnier men in his service.
‘Well, what have you got?’ Malum inhaled some more arum weed.
‘It’s about the soldier,’ the scout said. ‘The leader.’
‘The commander?’
‘Yeah,’ the scout said, and smirked. ‘You gonna love this. I followed him like you said. And you was right.’
‘And what was I right about?’
‘The soldier was seen going into one of them places where men buy men. For . . . you know, sex.’
Malum contemplated this information for a long moment. His instinct had proven right and, well . . . it just wouldn’t do. There was no way he was going to allow his men to fight for someone like that now, was there? It just wasn’t right. Malum then considered how he could arrange to confront the albino about his despicable activities.
*
Malum didn’t bother going to bed much. Instead he slumped in a chair, reading or smoking, or contemplating the bottom of his glass of vodka. Beami had been playing with her relics all night anyway, and recently it seemed easier if their lives didn’t cross paths. Fine with me.
No, he needed to be up particularly early this morning, the day of the strike. His tattoo had begun to heal quickly and form a scab – such were the beneficial side effects of being what he was: unnatural. He stretched himself, to induce a more alert state, then began checking his gear – three short blades, one messer, a knuckleduster – not much but he was skilled enough with his fists and with his fangs should he need them. A different mask for today: dark blue, like all those belonging to the Bloods would be wearing. Brown leather coat, thick boots.
A quick breakfast and he was out the door. The skies had cleared and the sun was purpling the day. This would be a crisp morning. Sometimes it seemed as if this ice age wasn’t natural, as if it could somehow be the amalgamation of a thousand cultists trying their best to reduce the entire land to freezing temperatures. You’d get the occasional breeze that promised spring, but that was soon beaten back by another more chilling.
Hands in his pockets, he strode towards the arranged meeting point, by the corner of the iren on the border of Althing and Saltwater. The strike would be heading down from Port Nostalgia towards the Onyx Wings, which was an impressive distance, and would take them past some of the wealthiest zones of Villiren. Past the houses of wealthy businessmen.
Fifty or so of his men were already gathered, in their dark-blue masks. A lot of the strikers would be wearing masks too: no one wanted to be recognized by the authorities while causing political trouble. As individuals they could suffer, so united they would make their stand – and such unification would now be their downfall.
Malum gave the instructions. They’d blend in with the strike movement, by now a large crowd, and pretend they were part of the protest. Lutto had given instructions for soldiers from the Regiment of Foot to guard much of the rich property nearby, so lesser ranks of the Inquisition had been delegated here. Tensions existed though because the military were trying to get the citizens on Lutto’s side, so he had ordered them not to attack civilians. Therefore only the gangs could perpetrate violence. Dannan’s crew turned up too, black-masked and keeping to themselves. Pretty soon everyone had massed, and they knew exactly what they would be doing and where to go.
*
Slipping across the border of Althing and through much of the social housing, they headed north to the Shanties: where the strike action was scheduled to start.
Rumels and humans, workers of the ocean, of deep and open-cast pits, metal-smiths and construction workers and stevedores, there were much more than the predicted thousand here. At least four thousand were crammed in between the back of the cheap terraces and the industrial warehouses, and they were angry and loud and organized, young men mainly, because poverty didn’t allow them the chance of ageing.
‘Fuck Ferryby’s,’ some chanted. And ‘Broun Merchants kills workers!’
Painted signs were brandished aloft, demanding improved wages and better protection and rights – for an end to the employment of slaves, lowering their wages. There were declarations of the numbers who had died during the last ten days at their workplaces. Some proclaimed that cultists were using their magic in order to be rid of regular labour.
This busy industrial zone had ground to a halt.
Red sunlight streamed across the seething masses like a premonition of the spilled blood Malum had planned. A nod directed across Malum’s own ranks and the Bloods and the Screams proceeded to merge with the strikers’ procession, flowing in gradually then dispersing.
Bodies crammed tightly, there wasn’t much room for fighting in this mass. Someone blew a conch and several announcements were called just out of earshot. The noise level altered as the crowd began to march. There was a strangely positive mood: most participants seemed peaceful, seemed to have found their purpose here. They drifted on past the stench of the fish warehouses, stepping across the fresh marine brine that washed constantly over the cobbles. Surrounding structures became taller and narrower, displaying a little more elegance in their design. Malum shoved himself towards the edge of the ranks, eyeing the soldiers drawn up to one side, standing neatly, in sparse rows, shields locked.
Not yet . . . Not until the Citadel is in sight.
The crowd chanted slogans at the soldiers and the Inquisition. They called them abusive names for not being on their side, for not supporting the ordinary people who had to forge a living in this hellhole. Malum didn’t give a shit what they said: he just did whatever was needed to collect a fat pile of coin.
There it was, the Citadel itself, the massive structure that stamped its authority on Villiren. Malum moved swiftly into action, and began pushing and shoving those around him.
‘Hey, watch it, cunt!’
‘Fuck you doin’?’
Malum ignored them. Instead he pointed out anonymous faces declaring loudly that the Inquisition had infiltrated the crowd. Paranoia exploded across the packe
d street. Malum drew his messer blade, and the woman next to him shrieked at the sight of it. Another man drew his own blade defensively and, at closer than arm’s length, Malum struck the other weapon aside, punched him in the neck, and cut his stomach open. The stricken man collapsed to the ground as the movement of feet continued surging over his back. Another fell, then another. Just across the way Malum could see one of the Screams intensifying the violence. He was through the throng, hacking away at spines randomly.
The crowed turned on itself. People began striking out at their own brethren. Nearly everyone nearby was holding some sort of crude weapon – he saw strips of chain and cheap swords, iron bars and broken bottles. They had come ready to fight but probably had not expected it to start within, and suddenly all those masks guaranteeing anonymity and solidarity didn’t seem like such a good idea. No one knew who to strike out at. Their target became anyone.
The soldiers meanwhile remained impassive ranged along the sides of the streets, as the strike procession turned into a bloodbath. Malum got down to serious work: carving out at the most violent-looking individuals or those holding up placards or those shouting slogans the loudest. He ripped his blade through throats, sliced open guts, stamped skulls into the cobbles, all the time feeling the pressure of his fangs, and his animal instincts liberating themselves.
He moved freely, slicing up the crowd – stopped to lift a young child out of the way – before continuing with his butchery. One giant of a man grabbed Malum’s collar and hauled him up, so Malum turned his head and sank his fangs into the attacker’s wrist. As the giant dropped Malum with a roar of insults, he stabbed his blade upwards into the man’s neck, who tumbled down to the ground in a spray of blood.
Malum wiped his mouth.
A good number of people had been injured or killed by the time he spotted at least five of his gang members. That was the sign: once they could see a handful of each other, they should get out of there, quick.
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