Farlander (52 page)

Ash raised a hand to his forehead and began to massage it. ‘The Temple?’ he said, as though to take his mind off the pain. ‘Did you have a chance to gain any information?’

‘I watched its perimeter for a few days,’ she whispered. ‘Then I told Baso and the others what I’d seen. The truth is, it can’t be done.’

‘Baso managed it.’

‘Yes,’ she hissed. ‘And how far did he get?’

Ash said nothing to that.

‘We don’t even know if Kirkus is still inside.’

‘The Seer believed so, before we left Sato. So we can only assume Kirkus remains there.’

They fell silent as a bather entered the main changing room outside, whistling loudly and seemingly by himself. More soon followed him, arguing about the choice of brothel to visit next. Ash stooped to peer beneath the cubicle door.

‘Listen to me,’ he whispered as he sat up again. ‘We leave when they do. If we are attacked outside, you must both make a run for it, and I will do my best to hold them off. Nico knows where to go.’

‘I do?’

‘The hostalio, Nico. Get to the east docklands, and anyone there can direct you to it.’

They waited for a few heartbeats, till Ash nodded, then all three pulled up their hoods and slipped out of the cubicle, following the group of men out into the street. The twilight had thickened into night but at least it had stopped raining. Instantly they turned in the opposite direction to the one the party of men was taking, and casually strolled away.

Nico could sense hidden eyes watching their progress; whether it was down to actual intuition, he could not tell. Serèse began to chatter, either out of nervousness or as a ploy to make them appear more ordinary. Her words sounded odd against the backdrop of that dark street poorly lit by gaslights.

‘Your name,’ she said to him, ‘It’s Nico?’

‘Yes. You remembered.’

‘It means
canny
in the old tongue, does it not?’

Nico swallowed a dryness in his throat, scrutinizing a shadowed doorway to their left. He muttered that it did.

‘And are you?’

‘Am I what?’ He could have sworn he had seen a shadow shift just then.

‘Canny, I mean. Do you see into people’s motives?’

‘So my mother would have me believe.’ Nico continued to watch their surroundings from under his hood, and fought hard not to look back along the street.

Ash seemed to sense his struggle. ‘Do not look back,’ he hissed. ‘Keep prattling.’

Nico did his best to resume the conversation.

A puddle splashed behind them, even as Serèse opened her mouth to say something.

‘We’re being followed,’ she whispered instead.

As Nico fought the urge to run, Serèse began to hum something beneath her breath. It sounded like an old nursery rhyme Nico had heard as a child.

‘Take my arm,’ Ash ordered by his side.

‘Why?’ Nico asked.

‘Because I can barely see.’

Ash didn’t wait for a response, but took Nico’s hand and placed it on his own arm. The old man was squinting as though trying to peer through a dazzling light.

A zel-drawn tram clattered by over to their right, casting a sickly yellow light on to the street. Its carriage was far from full, the windows framing the occasional face that peered out into the darkness without expression, lost in its own world . . . As soon as it was gone two cloaked figures were there in its place, walking directly to cut them off.

‘What?’ snapped Ash, feeling Nico’s grip tighten.

‘Two more, in front of us.’

‘Then change our course,’ growled the old man.

Nico guided them left into a side street. Serèse was silent now. Ash loosened his cloak, brought his scabbard ready to hand. Nico did the same, wondering at himself as he did so. His whole body was trembling. He remembered to focus on his breathing.

The side street ran along the rear of a broad marble building, its grand façade adorned with gargoyles with faces fixed in grotesque grimaces. Music could be heard through the glowing windows, some form of opera not unlike something Nico might have heard back in Khos. Above the sound, barely audible, came the clacking of iron-shod footfalls from behind. Nico cast a glance over his shoulder to see five figures striding after them.

‘Master,’ hissed Nico, as further shapes stepped directly into their path only ten paces ahead. Regulators, undoubtedly.

A rasp of steel in the night air. Blades glimmered. ‘Halt,’ instructed a voice. ‘You’re to be placed under arrest, all of you.’

‘Keep walking,’ instructed Ash as he cast his cloak from his shoulders. They advanced towards the Regulators in front, even as those behind closed the distance. ‘You will have to fight, both of you. Remember your breathing, and once you see a clear space, make a break for it, understood?’

It was no plan at all, as far as Nico was concerned. He gripped the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword for some vague reassurance, ready to draw it as he was trained to. Nothing any longer seemed real to him.

One of the figures raised a pistol in his hand. A pistol. ‘Halt!’ he shouted again.

Ash: ‘How close are they?’

‘Six paces.’

Nico jumped in shock as something exploded next to his head. In front of them, the pistoleer cried out and tumbled backwards to the ground.

Serèse tossed her own smoking pistol away and drew a long hunting knife without breaking stride. Nico paused, marvelling at the sight of her – and then Ash sprang into action too.

In one seamless movement the old man drew his blade and ducked, with foreleg bent and hindleg stretched back, and raked his sword across a man’s belly; still following through the same motion, he deflected a down-coming blow from another Regulator, turned away the blade, stabbed out.

Nico missed what happened next. By then he was in the thick of it himself. He swerved from a slash as he had been endlessly drilled to do, felt the cool breath of the blade as it passed his face.
This is real,
his mind suggested.
These men are trying to kill me.

His body took over. He drew his sword and with his next step thrust it forwards. He felt resistance and then he was through it – a face grimacing inches away from his own. It was a man, a human, impaled on his blade. The man struggled. Nico could feel his desperate movements through the hilt of his sword. He would have let go out of disgust if he hadn’t felt a sudden lightness in his grip as the man pulled himself clear of the blade, gasped as though in relief, then sat himself down on the ground.

Nico backed away from him.

He felt arms lock around his neck, pulling him backwards and downwards as his sword was knocked from his grasp. He hit the cobbles, a weight pressing on him, a man’s stinking breath in his face as someone else held his legs. Cursing and struggling, Serèse was thrown to the ground next to him.

Nico wrenched his head free and lifted it enough to catch sight of Ash.

The farlander was still on his feet, cutting a dance through the cloaked men gathered round him. Nico watched him in awe as did the Regulators pinning him down. For a moment it looked as though the old man couldn’t be stopped, his movements so fast there was no chance to react to them, his own actions seeming to pre-empt all others that occurred around him.

But there were too many Regulators, and anyway, Ash could barely see. He missed with one strike and suffered a cut across his left arm, a sudden slash that would have taken off the limb entirely had the old man not somehow known to swerve aside in time. He took the wound with a grunt and a defensive sweep of his blade. A blackness dripped in the dim light from the sudden rent in his sleeve.

‘Run!’ the old farlander hollered, unaware that both his companions had been brought down. Another sword struck Ash, the flat of the blade crashing into the side of his head. He reeled, bounced off the wall, came off it with a snarl and his blade already lashing out. The Regulators jumped back beyond his range.

One drew a pistol, took careful aim at Ash’s kneecap.

‘Master Ash!’ shouted Nico in warning, trying to fight free as the Regulator squinted and pulled the trigger.

There was the slightest of delays before the blackpowder charge ignited . . . and then something wholly unexpected happened.

A giant of a man crashed on to the scene. With a single swipe he took the top of the pistoleer’s skull off, so it flapped against his cheek on a vivid hinge of raw scalp. The weapon fired even as the pistoleer toppled to the ground. The shot flew high. The giant charged onwards into those pinning holding down Nico and Serèse.

It was Baracha, and behind him came a wild-eyed Aléas. As though felling wood, Baracha heaved and chopped with his oversized blade. Aléas followed him, covering his back, jabbing and cutting left and right. Ash pressed the attack.

On his back, still numbed by shock, Nico watched the three R
shun cut down their opponents in a grimly indifferent silence. Within moments, every Regulator was down.

A roar of applause erupted from inside the opera house. The perfomance drawing to a close.

Nico kept shaking, and his stomach heaved as he looked across the bodies bleeding out on to the cobbles, unable to stop gagging at the copper stench of it. His man was there somewhere, he knew, the one he had struck down. He could not even tell which one it had been.

He heard retching and turned to see Serèse vomiting against a wall. It surprised him to witness that.

Ash was cleaning his blade on a cloak of one of the fallen. Baracha just stood there, breathing heavily, and looked at his daughter with obvious relief. Around them, on the wet cobbles, the fallen men coughed, wheezed, struggled to move.

‘A fine mess,’ the Alhazii growled at Ash. ‘It’s as well we’ve been keeping our own watch on the house. I feared this might happen when you finally arrived. You did not take adequate precautions, old man.’

Ash sheathed his sword with a firm shove. ‘It is good to see you too, Baracha.’

A shrill whistle sounded in the distance.

‘Perhaps we should leave our chit-chat for a later time?’ This from Aléas.

Nico picked up his fallen sword. It took him several attempts to grasp it then he noticed the blood on his hands, and wiped his palms against his tunic. It would not all come off. He tried to sheathe the blade but he could not seem to manage it.

Ash settled a hand on his arm. ‘Just breathe,’ said the old man.

‘Yes, master,’ Nico said, and slid the blade home.

‘Tomorrow then?’ Ash said to Baracha.

‘Aye, tomorrow – and be sure you take proper precautions this time.’

With quiet words, Ash instructed Nico to lead the way.

*

Ash’s wound continued to bleed badly on the way back. He and Nico tried to stem the flow, but still the blood ran down to his hand, dripped from his glistening fingers. Ash refused to catch a tram back to the hostalio, considering his wound too conspicuous for that. He clenched a torn-off piece of his tunic against the wound for the entire journey back, making no complaint on the way. They stopped twice at deep puddles at Nico’s insistence, where he tried to wash the gore from his own hands as best he could.

‘Can you see again yet?’ asked Nico, as he shook his hands dry.

‘Yes, my sight clears.’

‘I don’t understand. What’s wrong with you exactly?’

‘
Nothing
is wrong with me. I told you, I suffer from head pains. If they get bad enough they can make it difficult to see.’

Nico did not press him further, not while his master was still in obvious pain.

When they at last reached the hostalio almost an hour later, they were bone-weary and beyond. They made it past the dozing night attendant without trouble, clambering up the four flights of stairs with thoughts of nothing but collapsing on their beds.

They first locked the door of their dark room with a quarter taken from the pile of loose change Ash had left in the washbowl for their purposes. They then fed another quarter into the slot beneath the gaslight, and lit it with a match. Another coin was necessary to unfold Nico’s bed.

Before they could sleep, though, they needed to attend to Ash’s wound. Nico used yet another quarter to run the spigot and fill the washbowl with water, the remaining coins still lying at its bottom. Meanwhile Ash took out the medico pack and rummaged through it for sterilized bandages, a vial of pure alcohol, also a needle and thread.