The City (60 page)

Then they all stopped. For a moment Indaro did not know what she was seeing, and when she did her heart leaped into her mouth.

The tunnel in front of them was blocked, almost completely, by a huge plug of debris which allowed only a small torrent to escape to one side. Indaro could see a massive piece of timber, an oak tree perhaps, wedged sideways in a narrow spot in the tunnel. Rubble had built up behind it – branches, scraps of wreckage, metal and wood from houses, and pieces of bodies. Behind it the trapped stream had built up and now the whole tunnel reverberated with the groaning of the tortured mass of debris as it fought to hold back the weight of water. As they watched, horrified, the plug seemed to move. Indaro was sure she could see the tree shifting and she visualized it tearing free, hurtling towards her, followed by a black wall of watery death.

‘Back!’ Gil ordered, and with a will the soldiers started running the way they had come. Indaro found it almost impossible to turn away from the nightmare in front of them, as if by shifting her eyes from it she would release the massive weight of water at their backs.

The army hurried, all of them panicked by the threat behind them, but no one cut and ran. Gil and Elija were conferring as they went, Elija’s eyes darting to and fro, seeking a side exit from the dike. The groaning behind them seemed to intensify the further away they went. Indaro tried to tell herself it was an echoing effect in the enclosing tunnel. But she feared they had only moments to find a way out before the flood was released and they were all swept away like bugs in a drainpipe.

Above ground it was nearing midday. Somewhere in the world, perhaps, the sun was shining, but above the City heavy thunderclouds
smothered the daylight. It was raining all over the land. In the north, on the rocky coastline of the Little Sea, it rained on the encampments of two of the largest armies still in contention in this endless war – the City’s Third Imperial and the Odrysian Wolves. The Day of Summoning, would be the first day the two forces had not engaged in more than eighteen months. In the west it rained over the Salient, and the single boat whose crew waited patiently for any lost or injured soldiers returning from the caves. They would wait for another full day, then return with an empty boat to their home in Adrastto. In the south it rained on the Petrassi armies which held the City’s southernmost forests and mountains, and the two dams which flooded ever fuller, high above the level of the City, now straining against their weakening walls. And far to the east it rained on the citadel at Old Mountain, empty again now except for the small brown-skinned women who danced joyfully in the downpour, celebrating their goddess who brought forth plenty from the land and washed the blood of men from the world.

By the time the afternoon came, a paler darkness had settled over the City.

In its thick light Emly ran along a wide storm drain. The grey water was above her ankles and she was conscious of the loud splashing of her thin leather boots as she ran. The soldiers chasing her were making ten times the noise she was, but there was still a ridiculous temptation to be quiet, to tiptoe. She slowed to a halt and, chest heaving, stopped and leaned back against the wet stone wall. As her panting slowed she held her breath and listened for her pursuers. Nothing was running down there except for water. She peered back along the endless tunnel. She carried no torch, but ornate metal grilles high in the ceiling let in the grimy daylight in regular splashy pools. She could see only the line of high stone arches fading into the distant dark. No one.

She craned her neck, looking up at the grille above her. The iron was wrought in an intricate pattern of flowers and beasts. Such beautiful decoration to cover a drain, she thought. She wondered if she was under the Red Palace. She was pleased her sense of direction in the tunnels had not fled over the years. Tantalizing daylight filtered down towards her, a thick light filled with dust and grime. But there was no escape that way. The drain cover was far above her head.

She set off again, at a pace she thought the armoured soldiers would be unlikely to exceed. There were no forks in the tunnel, no side drains she could dive along to escape her pursuers. And, more worryingly, the drain was sloping inexorably downwards.

She thought back to the previous day. She had departed her new host’s house with the early morn. She had left a note for him, but she still felt guilty for abusing his hospitality. She resolved to herself to return when this day was over and apologize. The librarian, with his painfully humped back, had seemed a kind man.

She had left behind her few belongings and dressed in warm trousers, cinched at the waist for they were far too big, and layers of shirts and woollens. It would be warmer underground, she knew, whatever the temperature up top.

In her sheltered life with Bartellus she had learned little about the City and had trouble finding her way to Gervain in the dawn light. When at last she arrived at the entrance to the culvert she remembered from so long ago she breathed a sigh of relief. Looking round to see no one was watching she ducked her head and entered. Down there she was the expert and she felt a rising confidence as she stepped back into her home territory for the last time.

She had been unlucky to meet a guard patrol dawdling along quietly, perhaps on their way back to barracks after a long shift. The six men had spotted her as she saw them and, with eager shouts, they had set off after her. She knew they were chasing her not because she was a conspirator, or a Dweller, but because she was a girl. Her plight would be vile if they caught her and she might not survive it.

The roof was getting lower and the tunnel darker. Em felt a rising panic. In total darkness she would be lost, in every sense of the word. She would flounder around until she drowned in a lightless cistern, or fell unseeing from a treacherous ledge, or was found by the soldiers crying in a corner, begging them to take her.

She saw a thin pool of light quivering on the wetness in her path, and gratefully stopped again. She looked up. In the ceiling she could make out the open mouth of a high funnel. It was the size of a fat man. From it filtered a distant pearly light. She blinked and peered again, and thought she could see a sturdy bar across one side, perhaps the bottom rung of a metal ladder. Emly quickly unclasped from her waist a thin rope, stolen from the librarian, then unsheathed her purloined knife and tied it to the end of the rope. She took a deep
breath and calmed her body. Then she threw the knife up at the metal bar. It bounced off and clattered to the floor.

It was then she heard the sound she had dreaded: the distant grate of armoured boots on the stone of the tunnel, the grunt of soldiers still keen for the hunt.

She tossed the knife again. This time it didn’t even reach the bar. She scooped it up and tried a third time. The knife fell over the bar and wedged in the gap between the bar and the wall of the chimney. Holding her breath she carefully pulled on it – and it came free, falling and striking her hard above her left eye. Forgetting caution, she dropped her head back and screamed, the eerie sound bouncing off the walls of the tunnel, rippling the black water at her feet, making waves in the dingy air that surrounded her.

Dashing away the blood trickling into her eye, she tried again, and again the knife wedged between the bar and the wall. Em took a calming breath and jerked the rope. This time the ripple dislodged the knife and it fell neatly behind the bar, straight into her waiting hand. She quickly untied it then grabbed the double length of rope. Her years of working with heavy pieces of glass had given strength to her arms and shoulders, and she pulled herself up with ease. She was right, it was an old ladder. In moments she was tucked inside the high funnel, clinging closely to the side, drawing up the rope.

And moments later the soldiers tramped by beneath her. Not one head was raised. Then they had passed and she heard their boots splashing into the distance.

Emly looked up. Now she had a choice. After hours in that tunnel, stuck like a rat in a pipe, she could choose. Climb back down and continue her underground search for the dungeons, hoping there were no other patrols. Or climb, and find her way through the palace. Despite her anxiety for Bartellus, she convinced herself the best way was up.

The high funnel was old and the walls uneven. There were hand-and footholds, but they were crumbly and treacherous. It sloped a little, giving her some purchase, but was too wide. Climbing like a spider, arms and legs splayed awkwardly, she inched up the drain, heading for the distant light. Her legs and arms started trembling with the effort, but the funnel was getting narrower, making the climb easier.

At last she reached a junction of three ways. Bracing her legs
against one side and her back against the other, she rested her trembling arms. Her eyes were gritty with tiredness, and she kept blinking away blood trickling from the wound on her forehead. She could carry on going up, or take either of the side tunnels. None seemed lighter than the others. Water was running down all of them. Tentatively she cleaned the dirty fingers of one hand under the flow, then put her fingers to her mouth. Rainwater. She cupped her hand and drank.

In the end she chose the right-hand tunnel, because she had drunk water from it and felt she owed it her trust. It was as good a reason as any.

It became narrower very quickly and the going became more difficult. The flow of rainwater increased until she had to avert her head from the torrent for fear of being drowned. Her arms and legs shrieked with exhaustion as she levered her way up. Keep going, she kept telling herself, keep going. You must be near the top. The light was getting stronger.

Then it went out.

Her limbs froze and for a moment her brain shut down. She whimpered, and tears coursed down her face, drowned in the river of rainwater. Her arms and legs scrabbled frantically at the walls of the funnel and she struggled up a little further without thinking, fuelled by fear and dread.

Above the constant sound of water in her ears she heard something she recognized: a gritty rumbling noise. Then the light came on again and she looked up. She had reached the top of the drain and above her was a plain metal grating, barely wider than her shoulders. And above it – daylight. The sound was of a cart rumbling away. It must have halted over the grille for a moment, blocking the light.

Inching her way up, arms above her head, feet and knees braced against the sides, Em stretched and touched the cold bars of the grille with the tips of her fingers. She pushed. It did not budge. She pulled herself up closer and pushed again – and the grating failed to move a fraction.

There was a new sound now from the world outside: thunder rolling over the City. Icy rain lashed down and gushed into the drain on to Emly’s raised face. She spluttered and coughed and ducked her head to keep it clear, but it was hard to breathe.

She shoved her fingers through the thick bars of the grille and
wiggled them frantically. ‘Help!’ she screamed, careless now of capture. ‘Help me!’

Suddenly the grating was snatched away by an unseen force, and a hard hand reached down and gripped her wrist. She found herself being pulled out of the pipe like a cork from a bottle. She was set on her feet, blinking in the light, coughing up water.

‘What were you doing down there, lad?’ her rescuer asked jovially. He was a burly man, bearded and shaggy, but not dressed as a soldier. With her hair plastered close to her body, he thought she was a boy in the dull light.

‘Hiding, sir. Hiding from my master,’ she blurted out, head down.

‘Down there? Should have drowned, idiot boy. Who’s your master?’

Emly thought frantically. ‘Blacksmith,’ she muttered, hoping it was a suitable answer.

It seemed to be the right thing to say, for the man grunted and said, ‘Old Oren. Mean bastard.’ Then, quite kindly, he said, ‘Get along then. Can’t escape him like that. No getting out of the palace now, lad. It’s all locked down.’

Em nodded gratefully and turned and ran off into the nearest patch of darkness. Her spirits soared. She was in the palace!

BARTELLUS’ STUMPY FINGERS
were so cold he was unable to feel the pin he was digging with. He stopped from time to time to bring it to his lips to ensure it was still there. The metal spike tasted of long-dead meat and Bart wondered again how many lives had ended in the cell.

After a long time he had made a big enough hole in the base of the door to get one index finger in. He pulled at the door and thought he could detect a slight movement in the rotten wood. He started working on making the hole bigger. He dared not use the hand with the broken fingers, even though they no longer pained him. Time was when the bones would have started to heal by now, but that was long ago. He could not risk breaking them again – he must give them a day to mend. So he worked one-handed, awkwardly leaning on one elbow.

As ever his mind retreated to the past, to his glory days – the battles of Coulden Creek and Petrassa Fields, when he had led armies of tens of thousands, Fell riding at his side, when the City’s armies were invincible and Shuskara owned the world. When he had learned from Broglanh, just a few weeks before, that Fell was leading a mission to kill the emperor and that he had a part in it, he had exulted. Time, and its ravages on his body, had for eight years forced him to accept the role of Old Bart, the fond father, master only of his own household.
To stand at the head of an army again, sword in hand, a whole man, was an ambition he had no longer even dared cherish.

He ignored his misgivings about the assassination plan. He believed in Fell and believed he could kill the emperor. If it could be done, Fell would do it. And the plan took advantage of the emperor’s curiosity and pride. When Shuskara had known him, known him as a friend, the Immortal had been easily bored and would quickly fall in with any suggested entertainment. Confined now to the palace, an old sick man, it was said, he would be intrigued by Fell, with the thought that the man might be his son. He would not be able to resist meeting him, even though he would suspect a ruse. But the follow-through, two hundred men, unknown Blues, smuggled in through the Halls to take on the Thousand? The slim element of surprise could not weigh heavily enough to even those odds, thought the old general.