Mutant City (16 page)

‘How you doing, sweetcheeks?’ The voice close to her ear was accompanied by the sour breath of somebody who’d had their fair share of the cheap drink sold in this place. ‘What’s a pretty little thing like you doing in here, huh?’

Tia decided it was best to ignore the man. Unfortunately the drunkard was too far gone to take the hint.

‘Ooh, the strong, silent type. I like that. Why don’t you and I –’

His mistake was reaching out and putting his hand on her waist.

Tia’s father insisted she learn self-defence from a young age, signing her up for classes with an ancient-looking Russian who, on the face of it, didn’t look capable of hurting a fly. What old Bogatyr lacked in vigour, he made up for in technique, skill and knowledge.

Tia shifted her hips, creating space between herself and the man. At the same time she drove the outer edge of her hand backwards, connecting with his most sensitive area. The air left his lungs in one big
Ooof!
and the man bent forward. As he did so, Tia brought her elbow up sharply and drove it forcefully into his face. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage and the man staggered backwards. Tia was still in motion. Spinning on one foot, she brought her other leg up and round behind her, catching the man solidly on the side of the head. Her assailant sank to the floor, where he stayed, eyes screwed tightly shut in a purple-red face as he clutched his head with one hand, his groin with the other.

A few people turned to look, but they quickly went back to whatever they’d been doing. Most of the customers weren’t even aware anything had happened. Clearly fights, like underage drinking, were an everyday occurrence at the Dog.

The barman returned. ‘Bella will see you.’ He nodded to a staircase at the far end of the bar. Noticing the flushed look on the young girl’s face, he stepped forward, leaning out over the counter to take in the man as he groaned and spat blood on to the floor. ‘Your work?’ he asked Tia.

‘He grabbed me.’ She gave the barkeep a hard look, as if defying him to take her to task.

‘Hey, no problem,’ he said. ‘The guy’s a pest. Some big shot from the city. Claims he’s high up in the council, and thinks that because he comes in here flashing a few tokens about, he can do what he pleases. Looks like he got his comeuppance. And from one of his own. Nice.’ He signalled to a pair of women, who came over. ‘Get this slimeball out of here. Tell him he’s no longer welcome.’

‘He’s barred?’ one of them asked, raising an eyebrow over her purple-coloured eye. She had a slight lisp and Tia guessed she could only be a few years older than her.

‘Yep. Don’t say it never happens, Bonny.’

Despite his groans and protestations, the two girls dragged the man out by his heels. From the side of the bar a small hunchbacked figure emerged carrying a bucket, from which he flung handfuls of sawdust at the floor to soak up the blood.

‘Thank you, Gram,’ the barman said when the hunchback had finished. ‘As efficient as ever.’ He poured a small glass of some cloudy green liquid, which was snatched up and drunk in one swallow by the bucket wielder who then slunk back into the shadows. The barman turned to Tia again. ‘Just take those stairs and knock at the door of Room 3.’

He picked up the glass and started polishing it again.

Tia rapped her knuckles on the door. She wasn’t surprised when it was a man’s voice that told her to enter. She did so, noting how the curtains were drawn over the window so the room she stepped into was dim and murky.

‘Close the door behind you, please.’

She reluctantly did so.

There were in fact two men in the room: one in a chair facing her, while a tall pale figure sat in the deepest shadows of the furthest corner.

‘Bella?’ Tia said, noting the slight catch in her voice.

‘I think we can dispense with the cloak-and-dagger routine now, don’t you, Ms Cowper?’

‘Tia, please.’

The man facing her paused. ‘I am Silas, and my friend over there is Jax. We have a mutual friend in Eleanor, I understand.’

‘She said I could come to you, that you would be a good person to know during my time outside the city wall.’

‘That depends on what you intend to do here.’

‘I’m a reporter.’

‘I know.’

‘I want to highlight the mutant plight. Show people inside the Six Cities what’s really going on out here. Make them understand that the Mutes are not the threat they are made out to be by the Principia and –’

‘Why?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Why do you want to do this?’

She frowned. She hadn’t expected to have to explain her reasons. ‘Because it’s wrong. Because it’s unjust. We
all
survived the Last War. Those topside had the worst of it then, and have continued to have the worst of things ever since. Regardless of what President Melk –’ she spat this last word as if forming it had left a bad taste in her mouth – ‘and his kind say.’

‘And you think your reports will make a difference?’

‘The best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.’

‘Roosevelt,’ Silas said with a nod. ‘Clever as well as pretty.’ He put his head to one side and frowned, as if contemplating the exchange that had just taken place between them. After a moment, he turned and looked towards the figure in the corner.

Tia was about to say something else when she felt a sudden and unusual sensation of nausea. Her stomach rolled and she involuntarily put a hand out to steady herself. The inside of her head felt strange: light and woozy in a way that made her vision swim. The experience was over almost as soon as it had begun.

‘Are you all right?’

She swallowed. ‘I’m fine. Just a little dizzy. Maybe I need to eat.’

‘A common problem out here in the slums – what with the food shortages.’

He looked across at the room’s other occupant again, and the boy nodded back at him. With that, Silas stood and walked over to her, holding his hand out. ‘Welcome on board, Tia Cowper. It’s good to have you with us.’

Rush

Half expecting to be spotted at any moment, Rush and Brick, having successfully escaped their prison, moved stealthily uphill, following the noise of the crowd. When they reached a copse on a ridge, they took cover behind the trees. Below them, in a clearing, they stared down at the event that had so galvanised the people of Logtown. What they witnessed was a scene of horror.

Men were standing around the edges of a pit dug into the earth, its sides shored up with wooden planks, shouting excitedly at a barbaric and cruel spectacle. A strong smell hung in the air: a pungent mixture of blood and fear and excitement.

Three of the pig-dog creatures – boarnogs, Forkhand had called them – were in the pit. They were thickset beasts, covered in short, wiry bristles, with small black eyes set deep into heads that looked too big for their bodies. Large curved tusks protruded from their bottom jaw, so the overall effect was of an animal more porcine than canine, except they growled like the wild-dog creatures Rush had occasionally seen near the farmhouse where he’d grown up. Two of the trio had taken up positions on either side of a massive creature, some bear-like mutation that was chained to a pole in the centre of the arena. The third was lying on its side, blood pooling around it, its flanks heaving and jerking as it struggled for breath. The bear-thing was far larger than the boarnogs and easily outweighed them, but even with one of them seriously injured, their numerical advantage allowed them to dart in and attack the animal’s blindside, tearing and worrying at it until it swung about with a claw or brought its huge head round to defend itself. When that happened, the other would dash in from the rear. All of the animals were already bloodied from their injuries, their coats matted to their skin.

Men, most of whom appeared to be extremely drunk, were betting on the outcome of the fight, shouting out the name of the side they thought would win and handing over food tokens or credits to a group of men wearing red scarves who moved among them, acting as bookmakers. Even from where they hid, Rush and Brick could sense the excitement in the spectators. There was a cheer as one of the boarnogs leaped up to sink its teeth into the shoulder of the bear-thing, the victim roaring in pain and bucking around to try to shake its attacker off. Blood ran freely from the wound, the sight of which seemed to ignite a new wave of betting.

Rush could see Kohl standing on a small stage at the edge of the pit. The mayor was holding a cone-shaped instrument up to his mouth and bellowing out to the crowd, commentating enthusiastically on the horrors and whipping them into a frenzy.

Rush fought the need to throw up.

‘Where’s Dotty?’ Brick asked him in a voice that expressed his own outrage at the scene.

The younger mutant scanned the ridge until he spotted what appeared to be a number of wooden cages a stone’s throw away from where they stood. ‘Over there, I think. Let’s go. Maybe we can get her out while everyone is distracted.’

The smell was the first thing to hit them: the harsh stench of animal faeces liberally mixed with a wet, mildewy odour. There must have been about thirty or forty cages, some stacked two or three high. Not all were occupied, but those that were housed the saddest, most miserable creatures Rush had ever laid eyes on.

Most of the cages contained boarnogs, who had with few exceptions been scarred or mangled in some way. Many had teeth or parts of their ears missing, and one or two appeared to only have one working eye.

‘Wait,’ Rush said to Brick, halting him just in time for them to avoid being seen by a man who was also lurching towards the holding area. Ducking down behind a couple of empty cages, they watched as the drunkard turned his back on them and began to relieve himself up against one of the enclosures. At the sight of him the caged pig-dogs began attacking the walls of their cage, smashing against the bars in an effort to get at him.

These creatures hate the men here
, Rush thought to himself.

There was a terrible roar from the direction of the pit, which was echoed by an eruption of noise from the crowd. The man cursed, quickly finished what he was doing and hurried away to find out what he’d missed.

‘We have a result!’ Kohl shouted out, the megaphone amplifying his voice so it could be heard over the cheers. ‘The boarnogs are victorious!’ There was another cheer. ‘Gentlemen, if you please, a little hush. We have a night of murderous mayhem for your entertainment this evening. The bar is still open and serving drinks, so fill your glasses, folks, because up next we have a new challenger! A specimen brought here from beyond the mountains. A creature we have not encountered before! It’s our next fight, so get a drink and hurry back.’

Rush knew he had mere moments if he was to get Dotty free. He hurried from his hiding place, hissing her name and frantically looking around him into the cages’ dark interiors. Spinning about when he heard the rogwan’s familiar
hurgh
, he almost cried aloud as her face appeared at the bars of a cage a short distance away. The doors to the crates were secured by thick wooden rivets pushed through a clasp. Rush pulled out the one holding Dotty’s cage door, almost falling over backwards when the rogwan leaped out at him and licked his face with her rough black tongue.

‘Quick, Brick!’ he said, beckoning the big guy over. ‘Get Dotty out of here. Take her down to the ferry. Not the one we came on, the one on the other side.’ They had to get out of there before it was too late.

‘What about Rush?’

‘I’ll be along right behind you. Now go!’

‘These animals,’ Brick said, patting his leg so Dotty would come to him, ‘they don’t belong here with these bad people.’

‘You’re right. But if we’re going to do anything about that, I need you to take Dotty now, OK?’ He shrugged the backpack off his shoulder and handed it to his friend.

‘Rush got a plan?’

‘Don’t I always?’

Brick gave him a nod, and without another word set off down the road leading out of Logtown with Dotty at his heels.

Rush watched them go for a moment before turning to face the cages again. ‘OK, boarnogs,’ he said to them. ‘Let’s see how much you really hate these loggers, shall we?’ He focused on those wooden rivets, concentrating his mind and connecting with as many of them as he could . . .

Rush was shouting as he ran full-tilt down the hill, his arms windmilling to keep him upright. Blood flowed from a cut on his right thigh, but he appeared not to notice. There was a shout from the top of the hill as somebody spotted him, and five or six men set off in pursuit.

Brick and Dotty were waiting on the quay, watching, their attention half on Rush, half on the mayhem unravelling behind him. They had the boat to themselves. A ferryman had been on duty, but he’d taken one look at the rogwan and Brick as they pounded up the jetty towards him and wisely decided to abandon ship.

On the hill, boarnogs were running everywhere, attacking anyone foolish enough to get in their way. Men were crying out in panic. A huge specimen could be seen under a tree, angrily eyeing the men who’d scrambled up into its boughs to escape. When one man lost his grip and fell, the boarnog set about him, goring at his body with its tusks until his screams abruptly stopped.