Wintercraft: Legacy (19 page)

The gate groaned upon its hinges and resisted. It had been built to repel anything that was hurled against it, but this was its first true test. One sharp-eyed warden took up a position along the gate’s approach, drew back his bow
and shot arrows cleanly between the bars, taking down three of the six soldiers operating the ram, while more wardens closed in upon the gate to help defend it.

The once quiet city was alive with battle. Spilled blood stained the ground and trickled in rivulets between the cobbles as more wardens fell. The sky became a hailstorm of arrows. Infantrymen used ropes to scale the walls and swarmed over the warden bowmen, using their sheer numbers to their advantage. Blades flashed along the battlements as the enemy killed their way along them, and buildings were cracked and torn by pitch-slicked boulders, lacing the streets with flames.

Lookouts stationed high above the action could not help glancing towards the northern horizon whenever they had the chance, worried that Silas’ warning had come too late. The Night Train was still out there somewhere, but as the battle raged on its bright light did not cut through the darkness, delivering more officers into the fray. There was no sign of the engine, no sign of any assistance.

The wardens were alone.

In the deeper levels of the City Below, Silas felt the veil tremble as souls were delivered into it one by one. Death had spread across the streets above, but those whose lives were ending were not accepted easily into the peaceful unknown of the next world. The instability of the veil pulled them into the half-life instead.

Silas’ connection to the veil allowed him to feel the final moments of every man slain above him. The more
the veil weakened, the more the half-life shifted to overlap the living world, and the longer Kate and Dalliah were left to roam unchecked within the city, the worse it would become. Silas tried to close his mind to that part of his awareness and concentrated upon the task ahead of him.

The wardens of Feldeep were glad to have any reason to return to the surface, and when Silas had told them of the impending attack many of them had looked relieved. He had expected more of them to challenge his plan, but the current guards had been stationed there for months without relief. They were tired of the dark and more than ready to return to the city. Prisoner or guard, Silas knew what it was like to spend too long in that place. Officers were not meant to spend longer than a month at a time below ground, but these men had clearly been neglected by the council. Silas could understand their eagerness to be relieved of their posts.

After seeing the body of the dead warden, the remaining officers listened to Silas’ orders without question. Although most were reluctant to allow the prisoners out of their cells, they still retrieved the keys when Silas demanded them and a sense of anticipation moved through the prisoners sealed around the edges of that mighty chamber.

The siege had already begun. If there was to be any chance for the city, and for Albion, Silas had to move quickly. These people had been incarcerated for a long time. They wanted to breathe cool air and see the open sky. He had to convince at least some of them to do the very opposite of that. He hoped they would become fighters, but first they would be messengers.

The young warden handed Silas five iron rings, each one hung with twenty keys. The other wardens stepped back, standing between Silas and the nearest cells as he walked around the chamber, surveying the men and women imprisoned there. They were quiet, but they were strong. When Silas spoke, he did not need to raise his voice. Everyone in the place was silent, attentive and cautiously hopeful, listening for what he was about to say.

‘You are one of Fume’s greatest secrets,’ he said. ‘Every one of you has been locked away by order of the High Council because they needed to keep you under control. There are trespassers among you, whisperers and thieves. But I am not interested in your stories. I do not care what your lives were before this day. Some of you know me as the officer who brought you to justice. Others will know of the cell hidden on a deeper level beneath us, where I spent two years of my life “serving” the High Council with my blood and my bones.’

Edgar saw some hands shrink back from the bars as their owners remembered the days when Silas too was a prisoner: the echoes of torment and pain that filled the endless nights, the smell of seared flesh and the terror of long months spent wondering if they would be next. Stories of Silas’ time in that place were among the first shared with new prisoners. The denizens of Feldeep Prison could not fail to respect him for what he had endured.

‘The High Council send you here to forget who you are,’ continued Silas. ‘Even when they let you go, there is no escape. They promise you freedom when your sentence ends, but no one who leaves these walls ever returns to
the life they left behind. The council will take every one of you and send you off to war rather than let you back into society. I have seen the hopes of “free” men and women fade when they are sent from the city to die upon an embattled shore. You are not waiting for freedom. You are waiting for death. I can offer you something different.’

Silas threw one of the key rings to the floor and the sound echoed around the prison walls. ‘The High Council want you to forget who you are. Now I want you to forget what you have done. Many of you have families within the city. Remember them now. The Continental army is here. Enemy soldiers are threatening our city and I want you to help me stand against them. If Fume dies, everything you have lived for will die with it. I want you to fight. Not for the High Council. Not for the country that let you suffer in the dark. You must fight for yourselves, for the lives of the people you left behind, and for the streets you once called your home.’

A small voice seeped from one of the rear cells. ‘What about the army?’ it asked. ‘And the wardens?’

‘The army is not coming,’ said Silas. ‘The wardens will fight to their last man, but it will not be enough.’

‘And the people on the surface?’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Will they fight?’

‘Many have already fled from the city,’ said Silas. ‘They did not know about the attack. They were driven out by visions of the dead. I doubt those who are left behind have either the strength or the inclination to protect what is at stake.’

‘Why come down here to us?’ asked the woman. ‘Why should we fight if they won’t?’

‘Shut up!’ a prisoner shouted a few cells away from Edgar. ‘Do you want him to change his mind?’

‘I want him to be honest with us.’

‘I need you to spread a message,’ said Silas. ‘The people of the City Below can help us in this fight. They do not know what is happening above us. I need messengers to bring the people of the understreets to the surface. We need numbers. We need strength. The residents of the City Below will not listen to me. Your voices will carry far farther than mine alone.’

‘And what happens after all this?’ asked the woman. ‘The wardens got me once. How do I know they won’t come after me again?’

Silas walked up to the woman’s cell and looked in through the bars, forcing her to step back, any confidence she had shrinking away.

‘You don’t know that,’ said Silas. ‘I am not here to pardon you for what you have done. I am here to recruit you. If you do what I ask, you have my word that no warden or collector will hunt you down until this crisis has passed. Beyond that, your life is your own responsibility. You will earn a short reprieve. I am not offering you protection. I am allowing you the chance to take responsibility for your own lives beyond this prison. Some of you will find your way back here, but others who embrace this opportunity will continue your lives in freedom. If Fume survives, you will live on knowing that you have earned every breath of clear air you breathe. If you continue to
respect your country, the wardens will have no reason to come for you.’ Silas found the ring with the woman’s cell key on it and separated it from the rest. ‘Or you can turn down my offer and I can remove your key from the ring along with that of anyone else who chooses to stay. Your cell will remain closed and you will regret this night for the rest of your life. If the Blackwatch find you down here, I doubt you will have many hours left.’

The prison fell silent. No one moved. No one spoke. The wardens stood quietly and Edgar saw the prisoners’ nervous eyes wandering along the corridor. They had learned to be suspicious. None of them had any reason to trust anyone outside the boundaries of their own cell. The silence allowed the cries of the dying to creep back into Silas’ mind. His fingers tensed, but only Edgar noticed the tiny glimmer of distraction in his eyes.

At last, one voice spoke up as a prisoner pressed his face to the bars and asked the question Silas had been waiting to hear. ‘What do you want us to do?’

‘These officers will unlock your cells,’ said Silas. ‘Those who are strong enough will make their way out of here and head to the City Below. Once there, you will spread the word. Warn everyone you see that Fume is under threat. Call them into action. Tell them it is only a matter of time before the enemy reaches their home. They will not stop at the surface. They will seal off the tunnels and leave every soul down here to die. You will rally the people of the understreets to fight and then you will join them. Lead them to the surface. Tell them to protect this city with every ounce of energy they have. This is no time
for enmity between ourselves. We must fight as one, or we shall die as one. Tell them the wardens will stand with them. Fume needs us now. We will not let her down.’

For a short time no one spoke, and Silas felt the creeping fingers of the black spreading into his mind. His eyes darkened in the shadows as the veil edged closer to the living world, letting him see through the part of himself that was sealed away. Horrors bled into his mind like poison, but only Edgar noticed the change in him. When Silas’ eyes became dark Edgar knew something was happening and he stepped forward. He took the keys from Silas’ hand as if he had been ordered to do it, and handed them out to the nearest wardens.

‘You heard Officer Dane,’ said Edgar. ‘Those who are with us, stand at the front of your cells or sit and raise your hand. Anyone who wants to stay here, turn away when an officer approaches. Take your positions now!’

The chamber exploded with the sound of desperate voices.

‘I’ll fight!’

‘I’ll go!’

‘I’ll do whatever you ask!’

The prisoners’ shouts rang from the walls. Bars shook. Feet stamped. No one wanted to be left behind.

The wardens did as Silas had commanded and opened the cells in groups of ten, allowing the prisoners to filter out into the chamber in manageable numbers. Some of them stepped awkwardly out of their cells and took a few moments to take a last look around their prison before heading towards the door. Others collected up tiny
belongings that had reminded them of their past before scuttling out, and those who were not strong enough to walk far unaided were helped along by others who had not yet been physically ravaged by their time in the dark.

The wardens escorted each group to the ladder that led up into the shallow levels beneath Fume’s streets. A warden positioned at the top of the shaft directed them to the tunnels leading to the deeper understreets, but most headed the opposite way, fleeing straight towards the surface. For them, the promise of freedom was too potent to resist, but there were at least two dozen who chose to do as Silas asked. His words had earned him temporary allies in the most unlikely place.

Those men and women spread out through the tunnels, following directions that were carved high upon the walls, heading for the most populated areas of the City Below. Word of Silas’ fears for the city spread through every cavern and trading post, down through the Shadowmarket and along the underground streets. No one knew who the messengers were, but fear of war was enough to make them take their news seriously. In less than an hour, whisperers had spread the word so far that leaders of the different cavern communities were called to make decisions for their people. Guards who kept order within the settlements announced their willingness to fight and soon the original messengers were forgotten.

The City Below was rallied by thoughts of its own self-preservation and the people of Feldeep soon became as invisible as they had always been. Their identities would
not be remembered by history, although their actions were set to shape everything that was to come.

The wardens headed to the surface to join the battle for the eastern gate, leaving Silas and Edgar alone in Feldeep. Silas would have gone with them, but he could no longer trust his own eyes. The connection to his broken spirit was lasting longer than it had the first time in the council chambers. Even if he had trusted himself to join the fight, his responsibilities lay elsewhere.

‘Give any man or woman a good enough reason to fight and they will fight,’ he said. His eyes were distant and his words were clipped as though he was in pain.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Edgar gestured to a low bunk in one of the cells. Silas’ eyes fell briefly upon the bars of the open door serving the small room.

‘No,’ he said. ‘The Skilled are taking their positions and the wardens will soon have the reinforcements they need. Now is the time to play our part.’ He stood tall, rolling his shoulders back and managing to look more fearsome than ever.

‘Do you know how to find Kate?’ asked Edgar.

Silas looked down at him, his eyes still blackened by the veil. ‘Kate is everywhere,’ he said. ‘The city is listening to her. It is reacting to her. It knows where she is. Now, so do I.’

He walked the length of the prison chamber like a phantom. Terrors surged like bloodied masks at the edges of his vision, leaching from a place where nightmares became real and horrors felt by one soul could bleed into others close by. He recognised the screams of one spirit in
particular: his former mistress, Da’ru Marr. He had dragged her soul there and left it. He was responsible for the wrenching horrors that twisted her soul, but he pushed her aside, refusing to be distracted by her cries.