by Ian Whates
So was he being a hypocrite? He'd been so discomfited by Richardson's talk of marrying Jezmina, even though the girl's demeanour belied her tender years, and more than a little embarrassed for his friend. How then did his own interest to Kat – his attraction – differ from Richardson's situation? Yes, she was older than Jezmina, but not by that many years, certainly not enough to make the thought a comfortable one.
For a surreal moment Tylus pictured what the future might hold in the unlikely event he and Kat were ever to develop a serious relationship – the reaction of his family and friends in the Heights. He imagined they would respond as he had to Richardson's happy news, with uncomfortable politeness and ill-concealed dismay, embarrassed for his sake. It would mortify his mother; she'd probably never recover from the shame. He could just see it now, as he stood in the cosy front room of the family home and introduced Kat to both his parents, the inevitable look of horror they'd share.
Actually, the relationship might almost be worth pursuing just for that moment. An unkind thought, but it brought a smile to his face when little else that morning had.
No, he was determined to be sensible about this, and forget his developing interest in Kat. It could only ever lead to disaster and significant embarrassment. Issie on the other hand, was a breath of fresh air. Even his mother couldn't fail to be impressed by an arkademic…
He shook his head, as if to dispel such thoughts, and turned his attention to the situation at hand, specifically to what Mildra was doing as she worked on the fallen men. He was suitably impressed by what he saw. She was obviously a highly talented healer and worked with competent efficiency. As he observed her, he couldn't help reflecting on how different people's lives were, all dictated by an accident of birth. Had he been born anywhere other than the Heights he could never have become a Kite Guard. There were no Thaistesses in the city's upper Rows, so if Mildra had been born there she would most likely have become an arkademic like Issie – a career that opened up the way to the Assembly, the administrative tier of the city's government. She might have been debating and implementing policy that affected millions instead of devoting her time and energy to a religion that few in the Heights even gave credence to.
This sort of disparity was something he would never have spared a thought for prior to his arrival in the under-City. He had never even realised that such institutionalised inequality existed in Thaiburley. All the more reason to bring the Kite Guards down from their lofty perches so that they could experience a taste of real life at the other end of the social scale. It reaffirmed his determination to get the new training school up and running as soon as possible.
Issie came over to join him. "The Prime Master has contacted me via the Blade."
Interesting; so the Prime Master was able to commune with the Blade at distance. Hardly a revelation, but not something Tylus had realised before. "We're to continue on and take out the second target," Issie said.
"Can you do that, lead us to this Insint thing, I mean?"
She nodded and showed him a crushed piece of mechanism. He recognised it immediately as the piece he'd recovered from the scene of the fallen sun globe during his early days on the streets. "This is part of the creature we're after. Once I attune myself, I'll be able to take us straight to it."
Tylus was duly impressed. "Is that something all arkademics can do?"
She shook her head. "No. Well, yes, to a degree. We all study the same disciplines but have aptitude in different areas of talent, and so tend to specialise in those. All arkademics have a basic grounding in resonance skills, but there are at most half a dozen or so who are as adept at it as I am."
He grinned. "Good for you."
"Why thank you, kind sir." Her smile in response turned sour almost immediately. "Mind you, look where it's got me." She glanced around meaningfully at the Stain.
"Don't dismiss the place so readily," Tylus advised. "The City Below has a habit of getting beneath your skin and surprising you."
The smile returned. "There speaks the voice of experience."
He laughed. "Guilty as charged."
"All right then, I'll reserve judgement, but this place is going to have to go some to change my mind."
Tylus grinned, his spirits lifted despite all that was going on around them.
"Mind you," she added, "at least this assignment has put us back in touch."
"So it has." And only then did he realise how grateful of the fact he was. His gaze slid beyond her. "I'm not sure the Tattooed Men will stick around much longer though, not without Kat to tell them they should."
"You never know. There was a little more to the message. Kat sent word that someone called M'gruth should take charge of the Tattooed Men and that they should continue working with us."
Tylus nodded. That made sense. "Anything else?"
"Yes, though it's a little odd. She said something about M'gruth not letting her down and making her wish she'd brought Shayna along…?"
Tylus laughed. "That sounds like Kat."
"Oh? Know her well then, do you, this Kat?"
"Well, I… that is…" The Kite Guard could feel his cheeks heating up as rapidly as his tongue turned ponderous and inarticulate. "We've seen a bit of each other lately, we had to in order to plan for this mission," he said, far more defensively than he'd meant to. Then he added, "I did save her life after all," before wondering why in Thaiss's name he'd blurted that out. Did he really expect it to impress a woman who spent her days approving and debating legislation which affected the lives of millions?
"Really? You'll have to tell me about that when this is all over."
"There's not really that much to tell," he said, silently cursing his big mouth. "Anyway, perhaps we'd better have a word with M'gruth before the Tattooed Men decide to up sticks and head back to the streets."
M'gruth took the news of his promotion with customary stoicism, but he could really have done without the responsibility just then. Having shot two of his closest friends in the heat of battle he'd have much preferred to keep a low profile, and being put in charge of the Tattooed Men was hardly the way to achieve that. He couldn't even question the authenticity of the instruction either, not when it came parcelled up with a quip about Shayna like that.
"Thaiss," Ox grumbled. "We must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel for leaders if she's put you in charge."
M'gruth was inclined to agree, but he wasn't about to admit as much.
"Promise me one thing," the big man continued.
"What?"
"If you decide to shoot me again, do it properly next time, will you? I don't want to have to go through this again. It hurt like frissing hell!"
"Don't worry, I've no intention of going anywhere near the flechette guns, not for the rest of this outing at any rate." M'gruth had taken the first opportunity to hand the borrowed weapon back to the gunner he'd snatched it from when he went charging in to rescue Kat. Some rescue.
Ox grunted. "Suppose we should be grateful for small mercies."
M'gruth felt mortified by what he'd done. Both his victims had survived, but only thanks to the ministrations of the Thaistess. He had no idea what he would have done if they hadn't. Ox had been hit by two darts: one in the arm and one in his side. The second had still been embedded in the wound, but the Thaistess had drawn it out as if her hand were magnetized, and then set about healing her patient.
Ox was as strong as his namesake and he was sitting up almost immediately, declaring himself fit and anxious to get going. His main concern appeared to be the fact that the wound on his arm had disrupted the pattern of tattoos covering the limb. Mildra's healing talent had knitted the two sides of the wound together, leaving a small ridge of pale skin: newly formed scar tissue, which naturally bore no tattoos.
"See that?" Ox had said, pointing at the break where the scar line crossed his precious pattern. "You did that, M'gruth."
A fact he was all too well aware of, but, by M'gruth's reckoning, if a small breach of
his tattoo was all the big man had to complain about after being shot he was doing all right. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for their second casualty. Petter had also taken two flechettes, but both in his abdomen, and he'd lost a lot of blood. The Thaistess had spent an awful lot longer working on him than she had on Ox, and by the time she'd finished she was clearly exhausted. As for Petter, he'd shown no signs of waking up.
These were anxious moments for M'gruth. "Is he going to be all right?" he'd asked as the Thaistess stood up, her work evidently finished.
She'd nodded, wearily. "Should be. I got to him just in time. Another minute or so and we'd have lost him, but failing any setbacks he ought to be fine. All he needs now is some sleep, the chance to recuperate."
"Sleep?" M'gruth glanced around at the deceptively deadly wasteland surrounding them. "Is that all?"
"Yes," she replied, evidently missing the irony. In fact, she staggered and looked fit to drop herself. M'gruth reached out to steady her. "By the look of it, he's not the only one. Thank you for all you've done," he added, suddenly conscious that he hadn't actually said as much before.
It was obvious that neither Mildra nor Petter would be going anywhere for a while. M'gruth and the other Tattooed Men were all for abandoning the mission, but then Kat's instruction arrived, telling them to continue under M'gruth's command; and that left them with a problem.
Kat's spectacular disappearance had nearly put paid to the mission in any case, but Mildra had calmed things down, explaining that Tom would have taken her to see the Prime Master. Doubtless M'gruth wasn't the only one who remembered the boy from the time they'd found him with Kat at one of the safe houses just before the sun globe came down so they knew the pair had history. Besides, this was a Thaistess offering them reassurances; one who went on to cement their respect by saving two of their own. Experience had taught the Tattooed Men the value of pragmatism. They couldn't do anything about Kat's disappearance, not right now, so they'd get on with what they could do something about; but they wouldn't forget.
In any case, Kat was a Death Queen. She could handle herself.
The Blade shattered spectacularly. A loud crack sounded and ebony shards exploded in all directions. To Tom they looked like glass, as if the Blade had been no more than a khybul sculpture, a fragile figurine of blackest crystal smashed apart by a giant hammer. He flinched instinctively, covering his eyes and turning away from the blast. At the same instant a lance of pain burnt across his upper arm. A razor-sharp piece of debris must have hit him in passing, slicing through shirt and flesh alike to leave a bloody red line as testament to its passage. He dreaded to think what that would have done had it caught him full on.
This time the Rust Warriors' attack had been more co-ordinated, the sort of thing he'd feared at their first encounter, the sort of thing they must have pulled at the playground. A force of glowing figures had blocked the way ahead. All bar two of the Blade had immediately surged forwards to engage them. As soon as they had, more attackers came from behind. Tom had seen at least four of the Warriors reduced to russet flakes before the glow from another successfully engulfed one of the ebony giants, which had led to the dramatic explosion.
Around Tom, the battle continued with ferocious intensity. The other Blade were still pouring munitions into the Rust Warriors, who were doing their best to fight a way through the deadly hail and come to grips with their opponents. The sound was deafening, the speed and intensity of combat bewildering. Tom felt lost, a midget cowering in the shadows and gawping as Titans clashed. He searched desperately for Kat and spotted her, leaping, ducking, her twin swords flashing in the glare of flickering fire one instant and violent explosion the next as they stabbed and cut. Death Queen incarnate. If the violent demise of a Blade had given her any pause it didn't show. She looked to be loving every vicious second of this. Tom braced himself against a wall, feeling the core carton press into his back and suddenly wondering what would happen if it were to be opened accidentally. He shifted position, his gaze still followed Kat. He knew deep down she was only here because of him, whatever the talk of reward, and that she could die at any second for all her skill and athleticism. That was one death he never wanted to have on his conscience.
Beside him a shape started to form. The goddess. He clamped down on his thoughts, willing her to disappear, refusing to let her manifest. This was one situation he wanted to deal with on his own. After a few intense seconds the shimmering form evaporated, the pressure eased, and he could concentrate on the fight once more.
Tom could scrap with the best of them. He was used to tussles with opponents armed with clubs, knives and chains, but this was something else. His knife remained in its sheath. It might as well have been a toothpick. Violence on this sort of scale would never come as naturally to him as it did to Kat, it seemed, but he was conscious of the fact that everyone else was pitching in and he was fed up with being little more than an impotent bystander. He had to try and do something.
Close by, a Rust Warrior was locked in battle with one of the Blade – impaled on a shaft of steel protruding from the Blade's wrist. The Rust Warrior glowed with silver light, as if it were attempting to overwhelm and mimic the Blade in the same way it might an unprotected human. The attempt was wholly ineffectual, the glow stopping where it met black metal, but the Rust Warrior was slowly inching along the dark shaft of the lance, apparently impervious to the fire being poured upon it from the Blade's other outstretched hand.
The Rust Warrior was almost in reach of its opponent's body, and Tom had already seen the likely result if that happened.
He focused on that one Warrior, closing his mind to all other distractions. He reached inside himself, feeling for the inner strength he'd drawn on when confronting that first Rust Warrior on the banks of the Thair, the one that slew Kohn. It came more easily this time, the welling of power, and he flung it towards the enemy. The Rust Warrior stopped in its struggles; the aura surrounding it seemed to dim and the fire pouring from the Blade's uplifted hand finally took hold. The Warrior caught fire, shrivelling where it stood. The flames collapsed in on themselves as if the towering figure they burned were nothing more than a hollow and insubstantial effigy.
Within seconds the fire had died and all that remained was a russet swirl of floating ashes.
Tom didn't pause. He concentrated on the next glowing figure, drawing on his hate and disgust and frustration, using the emotions to shape his power. This one stopped moving, convulsed, and then died as ebony blades swept through it. The third one simply exploded; a violent burst of light and heat that Tom flinched away from even though he wasn't that close. An instant before screwing his eyes shut the image of one of the Blade in silhouette, limned by the blossom of fire beyond, burned itself into his retinas. He opened his eyes again but was still partially dazzled, that image remaining with him. He tried to blink, to clear his vision, knowing that until he did he was going to be useless, not to mention vulnerable.
A figure loomed above him. Rust Warrior! Every nerve screamed the giant's identity. But Tom hesitated. He remembered what he'd done to Dewar on that bleak mountainside by the ruined temple, how he'd struck out blindly with his power and damaged a companion, possibly forever. He didn't want to be responsible for that sort of mistake again. Before he lashed out he needed to know for certain this wasn't one of the Blade come to protect him but an enemy, but his vision just wouldn't clear. Then it did, enough for him to register the glowing hand reaching towards him. Enough for the realisation of imminent death to surge through his mind, the horror paralysing him. He couldn't think, couldn't move. The hand seemed to move in slow motion, as if to deliberately prolong his suffering. Still his limbs were frozen, his thoughts too sluggish to draw on the well of talent inside that might just save him.
Something flashed downward: the blade of a sword, intercepting the reaching hand, slicing through it at the wrist. The hand dropped away, losing its glow as it fell. There was no spurt of blood, no dripping ichor, not
hing to indicate injury; just a severed stump. The reprieve freed Tom of his stupor. The weight of his doom lifted in an instant and he could breathe again, he could think. Though the eerie glow remained and the stump still advanced towards him, death no longer seemed inevitable. Instead, he defied it, he reacted. He attacked the Rust Warrior, finally unleashing his talent, not simply using it to crush and destroy but to repulse, to deny, to negate. The stump withdrew, the giant figure staggered backward. Still Tom kept up the pressure, forcing the Warrior away. He was vaguely aware of Kat being there, of her screaming something at him, but he couldn't spare the attention to decipher what. With a final effort he flung his enemy from its feet, sending the giant flying backwards. Now he did kill, reducing the Warrior to a burst of heat and light and a flurry of bloodied flakes. Realisation sank in that he was only alive thanks to Kat's intervention. He couldn't believe how close the touch of death had come and he was determined to make this reprieve count. Surviving such a close call had invigorated him, he felt more awake, more alive than he had in an age. And Tom hadn't finished, not by a long shot.
