The Iron Ghost (39 page)

‘By all the gods, what is that?’ cried Nuava.

The metal and stone creature dragged itself free of the hilltop, shaking off the earth and stone like a dog in a muddy puddle. Sebastian saw Edeian-rippled stone joined to huge pieces of iron, all covered in glowing runes and darkly shining words. He saw moving parts, held together by rivets and magic, and he saw two pairs of enormous glowing eyes, like violet-hued lamps against a stormy sky. Free of the hill, the Rivener looked like the offspring of a man and a beetle – a humanoid shape with six jointed limbs, covered in plates of black iron like chitinous armour. There was a glowing aperture in the thing’s head, a slot filled with swirling purple light, and just beneath that there was what looked like a caged platform. Sebastian caught one glance of Joah there, standing with his hands wrapped around the iron railing, and then the Rivener took three or four faltering steps, turning away from them. It was silhouetted against the red evening sky, a monstrous shape straight out of a nightmare, and then it was sprinting away from them, skittering across the hills.

Truss took the flask from his belt and held it between his hands. Heated by his wife that morning, he could still feel some remnants of warmth through his gloves. He unscrewed the lid and took a large gulp, wincing slightly as the warm grut burnt its way down to his empty stomach, before pushing the flask back through his belt loop. He’d have to pace the stuff; he was likely to be up here for several hours yet, and with little chance of anyone covering his post.

From his vantage point on top of Skaldshollow’s southern wall he could see soft snow-covered hills, the distant brown blur that was the riverlands, and the looming presence of the mountains to the west, seeming to smudge out half the noon-day sky.

To his left he saw Ninnev approaching on the back of her werken; it was her job to patrol the southern side, back and forth, back and forth, while he sat where he was, his own werken a quiet pile of rock beneath him.

‘Anything to report, Truss?’ she called as she grew nearer. She was a few years older than him, her black hair cut short above her ears, and she rode a werken shaped roughly like a giant bear. Its green eyes shone white in the brightness of the day.

‘Nothing of interest, Ninnev,’ he replied. ‘Unless you wish me to report a thoroughly frozen arse and an increasingly irresistible desire to throw myself off this wall?’

Ninnev smirked. ‘No one wishes to know the condition of your arse, Truss, believe me.’ She drew up close to him, the werken stopping dead in its tracks. ‘No movement out there?’

‘Nothing at all, honestly. I am sitting here waiting for the snow to fall.’

‘Well, it’s probably a good idea for you to sit tight for a while.’ She nodded at his werken. It had taken substantial damage during the attack, and now a goodly section of its back right leg was patched up with the substance they half jokingly referred to as ‘witch’s porridge’. It was a rough paste mixed by Tamlyn Nox herself, used to fill cracks and holes when a werken was damaged. After the attack a great number of Skaldshollow’s werkens were sporting ugly grey patches of the stuff.

‘Aye, I know. You’re right,’ said Truss, frowning slightly. ‘It just seems like I’m wasting my time up here. He isn’t coming back, or at least, if he is, he won’t just walk up to our front door. I should be down there, helping to rebuild, or drilling with the troops.’ Reaching down to his belt again, he passed the flask of grut across to Ninnev, who took a grateful sip. She passed it back with a nod. ‘Sitting here, staring out at nothing all day. Just doesn’t seem like the best use of me and my werken, if you see what I mean.’

Ninnev shrugged, as though she wasn’t quite inclined to agree one way or another. Despite everything, it was still difficult for them to question the Mistress Crafter’s orders.

‘Out of interest, what makes you think he isn’t coming back?’ she asked eventually.

Truss glanced behind her, looking down into the city. He could see the grey forms of werkens moving slowly up and down the streets, looking like drowsy beetles from here.

‘Why would he?’ he said. ‘We’re prepared now. We’re an entire city, with an army behind us and a force of war-werkens. He won’t take us by surprise again, and he is just one man. I don’t care how much magic he has, he is just one man.’

‘One man, over three hundred dead,’ pointed out Ninnev.

‘We let him in –’ He paused, swallowing the rest of that sentence.
She
let him in. ‘Who could have predicted that?’ He shook himself abruptly. ‘Bloody hell, but it’s cold up here.’

Ninnev smiled. ‘Spoken like a native Skald. Do you have water in your veins like the Narhl?’

Truss laughed. ‘I’ve grut in my veins, mostly.’

There was a scrabbling on the wooden trellis that led up to the lookout post and a small, dirty head appeared over the ladder. It was a girl of about twelve years old, her hair cut close to her scalp. Her face was smeared with dirt and she wore a miserable collection of rags and furs. There was a bulky-looking pack slung over her back.

‘What’s this, then?’ asked Truss, bemused. ‘Have you come to take over from me, little one? Got sharp eyes, have you?’

Ninnev rolled her eyes at him. ‘It’s just one of Sal’s little brats,’ she said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Here to sell you hot bread and questionable meat, if I’m any judge.’

Truss shook his head at her and turned to the girl. ‘Is that it, little one? Have you brought something to save me from starving to death? Ninnev here would happily watch me fall off my werken with hunger.’

The girl just looked at him blankly, impervious to his light tone. She was probably simple, he reasoned. Sal often took in wastrels like that: orphans left behind by tragedy, or children that had simply been forgotten by everyone else.

Ninnev huffed with annoyance. ‘Well, speak up or get back down that ladder, girl. The top of the wall is no place for a lost child.’

The girl seemed to react more to Ninnev’s tone, and she stuttered into action. Coming over to them she shouldered off her pack and pulled out a package wrapped in brown cloth. Truss caught the faint but unmistakable aroma of freshly cooked bread. His stomach rumbled in response.

‘Bread, is it? Do you not talk, girl?’

She looked at him, eyes wide, before looking down at the stones beneath her feet and shaking her head.

‘Ah, well, I’ll take it. Go nice with a bit of warmed grut, I suppose. How much?’

Glancing back up she held out her free hand with three fingers pointing up.

‘Three bits?’ grunted Truss, glancing at Ninnev. ‘I see old Sal has been raising her prices. What, she got more brats to look after these days?’

Ninnev frowned at him.

‘I expect she has,’ she said pointedly. ‘Over three hundred dead, remember.’

‘Oh. Oh yes.’ Truss rummaged in a pocket, bringing out a handful of small copper bits. ‘Here, kid, take this.’ He leaned down as far as he could from the saddle of the werken, and the girl reached up. When her thin white fingers touched his he shivered compulsively. It was a little like being glanced by an ice-spear. ‘There’s five bits there, and give my regards to Sal.’

The girl shoved the pennies into a hidden pocket, before passing up the package of bread.

‘Go on now,’ said Ninnev. ‘I think you’ve made enough of a nuisance of yourself.’

The girl nodded rapidly, retreating so swiftly that she almost went backwards off the wall. Their last sight of her was her short brown hair being tousled by the wind as she made her way back down the ladder, and then she was gone.

‘Old Sal must be raking it in now,’ said Ninnev, ‘with all these extra hands.’

Truss shifted in his seat. His arse was still frozen, but the warm package of bread in his hands had brightened him a little.

‘Ah, you’ve a cold heart, Ninnev,’ he said mildly. ‘I hope she’ll be all right. Poor little mouse looks like she’s been through a lot.’

Ip scrambled down the ladder, holding the face of the woman in her mind as she did so. A small insult, perhaps, but Bezcavar was much in the mood lately to make note of small insults.

Once the girl was back on the icy ground she ran, weaving in and out of men and women slowly making their repairs to the city, around werkens trudging here and there with carts full of building supplies. It was important to keep moving. If you looked like you were on your way somewhere, people were less inclined to look closely. The watchers on the wall had been fooled easily enough; to these people she was just another orphan child, a victim of Joah Demonsworn’s brutal attack.

Joah. At the thought of him Ip’s face creased briefly into a scowl.

Where is he? What is he doing
? Bezcavar could feel his mind every now and then, a slippery, dark-red faceted thing linked to its own consciousness, but he had always been so difficult to read – in a way, his mind was the opposite of Siano’s. Where the young assassin had been all cold surfaces and chilly reflections, Joah was a bewildering honeycomb of thoughts, ideas, passions. The demon could never touch it for long without becoming lost.

He was greatly taken up with something, that was for certain, and it involved the pompous Lord Frith, but the demon could tell little more than that.

He needs to hurry up, whatever it is
, Bezcavar thought.
I can’t hide out here for ever.

Leave, then
. It was Ip’s voice, her real voice, so rarely heard now. In truth, the demon was startled to hear it.
Why don’t we just go?

And travel across the frozen wastes by ourselves? Your child’s body could not live through it, as well you know.

We are clever, together
, replied Ip.
We could find supplies, a map. If you would just let me come forward a bit . . .

Enough.
Bezcavar let its true shape surface inside the child’s mind, just for the barest moment – something monstrous and blind surfacing from the darkest part of the ocean – and felt Ip scuttle back to her hiding places.
It is not your place to question me.

Ip fell silent then, and Bezcavar was glad.

Rounding another corner, they came to Sal’s hovel, a low draughty building that the other children said had once been a butcher’s shop. Certainly there were strange, dark stains on the stones and the place seemed to perpetually smell of blood and mouldering flesh. Sal herself was sitting on a stool by the front door, a basket full of wrapped loaves on her lap, her bony hands wrapped around the rim in a vice-like grip. She was a withered prune of a woman, half lost inside the dusty black robe she wore, but her skinny frame hid a particularly vicious kind of strength; she may have looked ready to drop dead at any moment, but old Sal could clip a child around the ear with deadly accuracy, and her well-placed pinches always left colourful bruises. Ip could testify to that herself.

‘There you are, my newly minted pain in the arse.’ Sal was well spoken, her voice sharp at the edges. Not for the first time Bezcavar wondered who she really was, and where she’d fallen from. ‘What have you got for old Sal?’

She reached out and grabbed hold of Ip’s forearm, squeezing until it was painful.

‘Here.’ Hurriedly, Ip reached into her pocket and held out the copper bits she’d made that day. Sal snatched them up, offering her a brief, snaggle-toothed grin.

‘No messing about from you, is there, my little earwig? That’s what I like to see. Any talk from around the town? Anything we should know from up on the wall?’

‘They’re bored,’ she said. ‘Waiting to see what will happen. They’re trying to be prepared.’
Not that that will help them, when Joah returns.

‘Well, Bestina,’ Sal crooned the name as though she knew very well that it was false, ‘you’d best get below before we’re all murdered in our beds, hadn’t you?’

Knowing that hesitating would earn Ip a bruise, she turned away and headed through the shadowed doorway. Inside were a few dirty rooms linked by a corridor, and scruffy children lurked in every doorway. Most of them eyed her with distrust, or plain boredom; most of them were too hungry to care about the latest addition to Sal’s orphans. Ip headed past them to the steps that led to the cellar, and walked down into the gloom; something about the dark and the smell of old blood comforted Bezcavar. In the corner, three children whose names Ip did not know were playing a game with stone markers. As she watched, one of them obviously lost, skimming his stone off into a dusty corner, and the other children merrily punched him on the arm, hard enough for Ip to see tears start in his eyes.
That’s the thing with children
, thought Bezcavar, watching as the older two found that the game of beating the loser was more fun than the game of stone markers,
they are so open to the idea of cruelty they barely even have to think about it.

Standing apart from them in the shadows, Ip’s face split into its first genuine smile since Joah had vanished.

Little demons, every one.

‘Let me see her!’

Frith barged Sebastian aside, and he was still strong, despite how ill he looked. Sebastian drew away. Wydrin was lying on a pile of blankets they’d thrown down, her eyes shut, her hands open with the palms facing up. Always pale, now she was a sister to the snows that lay about them. Every freckle stood out on her face with alarming clarity.

‘Fetch me my silks. Now.’ Frith glared at them all, his grey eyes fierce. ‘You must have some left?’

Sebastian, glad for his hands to be doing something, rummaged through one of their bags until he came up with a handful of long fabric strips, all inked with mages’ words. Frith snatched them from him, dumping all but one on the ground. Mendrick stood facing them, his stone body utterly still. Prince Dallen cleared his throat.

‘My friend, I am sorry, but surely—’

‘Be quiet,’ said Frith. He tied the remaining strip around his hand and immediately a warm orb of pink light grew from the centre of his palm. Laying his hands on her chest, the pink light grew, flowing around her body like thick honey.