City of Light & Shadow (26 page)

 
 

 
 
 

Tylus was beginning to wonder if he was really cut out for command. Oh, he appreciated the Prime Master's faith in him and still believed passionately in the Kite Guard School and all that it could achieve, but standing before a group of officers freshly arrived in the City Below and sharing the benefit of his experiences was one thing, leading a party of disparate components into the heart of the unknown Stain quite another. While Kat had stood beside him the responsibility was at least shared, but since she'd disappeared he felt that this was very much his expedition, for all that M'gruth was nominally standing in as her deputy. Which meant that if everything went horribly wrong, it would all be down to him.

  Not that he was about to show his doubts, especially not in front of Issie. He concentrated on appearing calm, wise and totally in command, and was grateful that she didn't seem to question the performance, presumably accepting this as the norm. For her part, the arkademic had spoken little since their journey resumed, clasping the wrecked mechanism in one hand and focusing intently on it as if able to fathom its deepest purpose. Presumably this helped her to trace its source. She now walked at the front of the party, surrounded by her knot of dark sentinels, speaking only to provide him with occasional and invariably terse updates.

  Their group was somewhat reduced. After consulting with M'gruth, Tylus had agreed that they couldn't continue with one of the Tattooed Men unconscious and an exhausted Thaistess in their midst, and they certainly couldn't leave the two unattended in the Stain. Sergeant Whitmore and his surviving officers had lifted Mildra and Petter aerially back to the more clement environs of the streets, utilising the new hammock-like slings the Kite Guards were equipped with, each passenger suspended between two officers. Petter, of course, was oblivious, but Tylus was impressed by how little fuss the Thaistess made in the face of what must have been a fairly daunting prospect. Despite the passenger being strapped into the sling, comfort and safety still relied on some skilful and synchronised flying by the two officers supporting them. The straps of the sling had to be kept taut, and that required some precision flying. Tylus wouldn't have fancied trying it.

  After the stress of the journey – the need to remain constantly alert and the series of small incidents that had dogged their progress, not to mention the vanquishing of the Soul Thief – the Tattooed Men had been glad of a break while they waited for the Kite Guards to return, as had Tylus and, he suspected, Issie. It gave them all a chance to catch their breath, to sip from canteens and munch on provisions. The Blade, as usual, stayed aloof.

  The respite had been short lived, with Whitmore and a single officer soon returning – the other two men having stayed behind to guard and see to the needs of the Thaistess and her patient. As soon as the pair touched down the group set off once more, in search of the mysterious Insint.

  Progress was steady; they were mercifully unhindered by any of the Stain's denizens. They might almost have been moving through a genuinely lifeless wasteland, although the experiences of the morning had shown otherwise. The only indication that they weren't alone came when a distant baying reached them, coming from the direction of the wall and the dark chamber that Tylus knew lay beyond. The Kite Guard looked to M'gruth for some explanation of the sound.

  "Demon hounds," the Tattooed Man supplied. At Tylus's blank look he went on, "Dogs the size of a big ox and just as powerful. Vicious breckers, too. They've been known to raid the streets from time to time for food. You'll know if they've caught our scent; there'll be a lot more howling and it'll get nearer faster than you'd believe."

  A comforting thought. Speaking of scent, the foul smell of the Stain seemed to be intensifying with every step, as Issie led them nearer to the river.

  "Hope this thing isn't aquatic," M'gruth muttered. "Wandering around in the Stain is all well and good, but plunging into the Yellow Thair definitely wasn't in the brief."

  The river at this point had gained the "Yellow" epithet due to the high levels of pollution and effluence its waters carried by the time they passed through the Stain. As far as Tylus could see the water wasn't actually yellow, the name intended as reference to the amount of urine it was said to contain, or so he'd been told.

  They were getting very near the Thair now. Ahead of them, a lone blood heron took off from the bank, scalding them for the disturbance. Tylus always found the ungainly way these birds launched into flight comical, as their long necks strained forward and back, almost as if grasping the air in front of them in an attempt to pull their heavy bodies skyward. Only once their wings settled into a regular rhythm did the neck straighten and the bird adopt a more dignified dart-like shape.

  They really were close to the river, and there was nothing obvious to suggest their target was on its banks. Suddenly M'gruth's glib comment seemed all too plausible. What would they do if the wretched thing was somewhere in the middle of the Thair?

  The stench wasn't the only thing that had increased as they drew nearer the river. So had the number of insects. Tylus slapped at his neck, where another blood-sucking pest had just bitten him.

  "It looks as if they even grow their insects bigger in the Stain," M'gruth commented from beside him.

  Tylus looked in the direction the Tattooed Man indicated, to see a swarm of oversized bugs coming towards them from the direction of the Thair. Something about them didn't look quite right. Their flight was too direct, too purposeful, and the way the light from distant sun globes winked off their carapaces here and there suggested they might even be somehow metallic.

  A number of things clicked into place. "Those aren't insects," Tylus said. "We're under attack. Kite Guards, with me!"

  Tylus took a few hurried steps forward and sprang into the air, spreading his arms as he did so. Immediately he felt the familiar sense of lightness, and his feet lifted from the ground as if that solid surface had somehow slipped from under them. In the corner of his eye he saw Whitmore and the other remaining Kite Guard follow suit.

  They didn't have much time, with the small swarm closing fast. Tylus climbed as steeply as he could, trying to get above them. Down below, others were reacting. He heard M'gruth shout for Ox to ready the flamethrower, and four of the Blade strode forward to meet the metallic insects, which Tylus suspected were the same as the crushed mechanism he'd recovered from the site of the sun globe disaster, the one that Issie clutched even now.

  A pair of the metal beetles detached from the main group and started to climb to intercept the three Kite Guards. Terrific. Tylus had been intending to try out the other new weapon – aside from the bombs – that the arkademics had supplied them with, but using it against individual bugs was going to take a lot more accuracy than aiming for a swarm.

  The problem with using any sort of weapon while flying was that in order to stay aloft you had to keep your arms out and the cape stretched taut between limbs and body. The moment you started waving your hands about doing something else, such as firing a weapon, you lost control and risked to plummeting straight down to a hard landing. Tylus had no idea
why
this was the case given that the supposed science behind the capes was decidedly suspect to say the least, but it was. This meant that the choice of weapons for a Kite Guard was limited and use of even their traditional equipment such as puncheons and net guns while on the wing took a lot of practice and involved an element of risk. So the arkademics had come up with something new especially for this outing, a weapon that didn't require the bending of the elbow or manoeuvring of the arm.

  As Tylus saw the two metal bugs climbing towards him he stopped trying to gain altitude, levelling out and then banking, dipping his left shoulder, swivelling so that his right arm was above. He brought his left arm down slightly so that it projected straight out from the shoulder, and then gazed intently along it, using its length to aim by. As the nearest bug came into sight he balled his fist. A beam of pale, bright blue light shot from a small nozzle mounted on his wrist. Breck! He'd missed the bug by a fraction and the thing was closing fast. Resisting the temptation to panic, he shifted the arm downwards slightly, and the blue beam licked against the bubble of metal, which was now no more than a couple of arms' lengths away.

  The instinctive adjustment almost spelled disaster, as in bringing his left arm down Tylus' right arm automatically went up and he started to roll. He quickly corrected but in the process lost sight of the bug. He had visions of the thing still coming straight at him and tensed, expecting to feel metal latch onto his leg at any moment and inflict who knew what damage; but then he saw the thing dropping back towards the ground, a wisp of smoke trailing behind it. In fact, both the bugs that had been arrowing in to intercept them were now heading groundward. Whitmore had evidently dealt with the second. Realisation struck home. The arkademics' weapon actually worked!

  Tylus had no idea what the blue light was supposed to do, but he knew it was something the arkademics had developed after studying the crushed mechanism he'd recovered. He'd been assured that it would prove effective against similar technology, but such assurances were easily given by folk sitting comfortably back in the Heights. This was the first time the weapon's effectiveness had actually been put to the test. Thankfully, it seemed to have passed with flying colours.

  Tylus was almost disappointed to see the main group of metallic bugs – a dozen or more – flare briefly and brightly as they drew close to the four Blade. He had no idea what the Blade were doing to them but it was as if the bugs hit some invisible barrier a few steps ahead of the four ebony figures. The bugs died in a ripple of tiny flashes and then dropped to the ground, depriving the Kite Guards of the opportunity to try out their new weapon on a larger group of targets.

  With the immediate danger averted, Tylus flew on to the river, hoping to gain some clue as to where the metallic bugs had come from. He scoured the bank and the terrain between the group and the water but there was nothing to see. He came back and touched down, leaving the other two Guards aloft to watch for any further threat. The bugs had surely been no more than an opening salvo.

  Following M'gruth's comment about hoping their quarry wasn't aquatic and the direction the bugs had come from, Tylus fell into the trap of assuming their enemy lurked somewhere in the depths of the Thair. As they reached the banks of the river – still a considerable waterway even if diminished from the great river that flowed into the under-City – he found himself scanning the water, searching for a hint of something breaking the surface. So the attack, when it came, took him by surprise, though it shouldn't have done. After all, it was hardly the first time this trip they'd been ambushed from beneath their feet.

  The thing that surged out of the ground almost at the tips of the Blade's toes was very different from the scorpion/snake/human hybrid that had attacked them before. That one had looked to be a hotchpotch of parts harvested from various creatures, stuck together if not at random then certainly with little thought of aesthetics. This one had far more the appearance of a complete, planned entity; though whether the entity was organic or mechanical was more difficult to determine. Tylus had the impression, though, that this might once have been human, that machine parts had somehow been grafted onto and into a human body to create an obscene fusion of the two. It was bigger than the previous creature; broader, more powerful and less sinuous.

  As soon as it appeared, the creature – presumably this Insint they were hunting – leapt upon the nearest Blade, grasping the black figure in metallic claws; and then it seemed to fall apart. No, nothing so dramatic, Tylus realised. The legs that gripped the Blade detached, or rather the part of the thing's body they belonged to did, leaving behind a spindly mechanism vaguely similar to the Maker's creations that had subverted the street-nicks so effectively, but bigger, much bigger. Nor was it alone. An identical contraption broke away from Insint's other side and latched on to a second of the Blade. It occurred to Tylus that these may perhaps have been the templates for the Maker's smaller mechanisms.

  Everything was happening at once. Tylus had the impression of a broad back, metallic but resembling a beetle's carapace. It might have been gleaming and bright once, but was now tarnished and scratched, and it even showed a hint of rust at the edges. This creature was old, an impression only emphasised by a series of indentations that ran down the thing's back like symmetrical pockmarks. From some of these rose more of the small beetle-like mechanisms that had attacked them before – no more than half a dozen this time. The bugs sped straight towards the Tattooed Men who, reacting far more quickly than Tylus had even thought to, were advancing on the scene, coming to help the Blade.

  Belatedly, Tylus remembered himself, spread his arms and took to the air, hoping to use the arkademics' weapons as they were intended, against Insint. Behind him, the other two Kite Guards did the same. Only as he took to the wing did he see four great forms rushing towards the party from behind. "Look out!" he yelled, just as the pack of demon hounds smashed into the ranks of the Tattooed Men. Tylus watched as two of the men went down, disappearing beneath impossibly huge canine forms. Another screamed as slavering jaws crashed together, tearing away an arm amidst jagged white bone and flying blood.

  Insint was in constant motion, its movements surprisingly quick for a creature so large. The two detached elements of the creature were wreaking damage. The first Blade attacked had collapsed to the ground, the spidery mech poised above, its legs puncturing the Blade's tough hide. Energy crackled between and around them. The second Blade remained on his feet, arms clenched around the main body of the mech, holding it at bay while some of the spear-tipped legs latched onto the Blade's torso and others scrabbled for purchase. Again bolts of energy surged between them but it was unclear who had the upper hand; they had evidently fought their way to an aggressive stalemate.