CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ensnared

The sun sank fast in these mountains. By late afternoon the shadows they cast were already pooling into a bleak onset of twilight.

The column of Commandos made camp by a clear stream. They had been travelling hard for a full day now, on foot mostly, since they had left their zels in the coastal foothills along with a few of their men. Mules carried the heaviest of their baggage, more footsure in these mountains than the heavy thoroughbreds they had left behind. Purchased in Cheem Port with their imperial coin, men were unloading them now, mostly items of food and small disassembled pieces of artillery. Orders, when necessary, were given by silent hand gestures from the officers, who were distinguished only by the insignia of rank tattooed on their temples.

One by one the last of the purdas returned. These were the elite scouts of the imperial army, named after the hooded cloaks they wore, which were camouflaged with breaks of colour and featherings of grass and foliage. Each was accompanied by a large wolfhound, bred for this work. The purdas reported the surrounding area to be clear.

Regardless, a double ring of sentries was posted around the camp, squatting hidden from sight in their improvised hides. No fires were lit. The men’s shelters were sheets of speckled canvas propped on sticks, each a lean-to just large enough for a man to crawl underneath and stay dry from any rainfall.

The Commandos worked smoothly and with little supervision. Their colonel, chewing on a plug of tarweed as he watched from the centre of the camp, gave a satisfied grunt before he left his men to it.

He headed away from the periphery of the camp towards the kneeling form of the Diplomat.

‘This is it, then?’ he asked gruffly, as he knelt beside the berry bush the young man was scrutinizing so closely.

Ché continued to stare down at the bush. He was dressed in simple leather armour beneath a heavy cloak of dyed grey wool. He wrapped it tighter about himself, and replied, ‘It is.’

Cassus, the colonel, drew one of the black berries towards him, still on its branch. ‘It looks remarkably like a skull,’ he observed of the white markings upon it. ‘I wouldn’t wish to put such a thing in my mouth.’

‘I don’t eat it. I prepare it correctly, and smear some of the juice on my forehead. It is lethal to use it any other way.’

The colonel held the berry for a moment longer then released it, causing the small bush to quiver. Cassus stood and considered the man by his side. Ché did not look up.

‘When will you take it?’

Some faint expression flickered across Ché’s face, and was gone before it could be read. Again Cassus wondered what was troubling him.

The colonel liked to think of himself as a perceptive man. He knew this guide of theirs was struggling with something, some concern that was only worsening as they grew nearer to their goal. He does not wish to be doing this, Cassus often found himself thinking.

‘In the morning,’ announced Ché. ‘The men will meanwhile need their rest. There’s no telling how fast I may travel, or over what kind of terrain.’

‘And you will be truly delirious the entire time?’

Ché’s lips parted, showing teeth. ‘Entirely out of my skull.’

The colonel did not like that, and he said as much. But he had complained before about this aspect of their mission, and the Diplomat had no further reassurances for him now. The man offered nothing but silence: it was not his concern.

Cassus turned and surveyed the camp, where the men had almost finished their preparations. Already, some were hunkering down beside their lean-tos to chew on their dried rations or talk quietly amongst themselves. Others had stripped off to bathe in the stream.

They had numbered eighty-two when they had first set out from Q’os: the colonel and eight squads of ten men each, a full company in all; plus one more to their number, this strange Diplomat sent to them from High Command. Two of the men had fallen ill during the voyage and therefore had remained on the ship; two more had been left behind to look after the zels; another had wrenched his ankle on the hike up into the mountains. Such losses were less than the colonel might have expected. That left him with seventy-seven men in all: not quite four platoons.

The colonel was worried, though. He had been worried even before they had set off on this hastily prepared mission. They faced upwards of fifty Rshun, according to their Diplomat guide. Fifty Rshun, on their own territory, defending their lives and their home. His Commandos might be the finest fighters in the imperial army, but he still disliked such odds.

Cassus had wondered why the Matriarch had not committed a full battalion of army regulars to back them up. A mission like this was surely best undertaken slowly, with large and overwhelming numbers. But he supposed the Beggar Kings of Cheem Port would have balked at such a force wishing to land at their docks, no matter how much gold was offered to them.

Besides, perhaps the rumours back home were true. Something was astir in the capital. Companies were being reformed out of the remnants of others; men from the quieter outposts of the Empire were being recalled to Q’os. The rumour-mongers had talked of only one thing, and Cassus judged them to be right. He had taken part in more than one invasion himself.

Ché rose from his study of the bush and met the colonel’s eyes at last. Once more, Cassus felt himself stiffen under the young man’s cold and empty gaze.

‘The morning, then,’ agreed the colonel, speaking around his lump of tarweed.

Ché nodded and walked away.

Cassus watched as the young man staked out a lean-to well away from the others, and threw his pack beneath it. The man sat in front of his crude shelter with his legs folded, facing the last of the light, his hands clasped together, his eyes closed.

He looked like one of those fool-crazy monks of the Dao.

A few of the men took notice of what he was doing, as they had back on the ship. They nudged each other, leering quietly.

He’s a dangerous one, Cassus mused. I wouldn’t like to cross him. The colonel turned away, spitting upon the grass as he did so. Well, soon we will face fifty of his like.

He filled his lungs with mountain air, scanning the snow-capped ranges around their camp. He knew they were out there somewhere, hidden in some high valley behind their monastery walls.

Surprise, he thought as he contemplated this mission once more. It will all come down to surprise.

*

Nico awoke with a start.

The room flickered with gaslight. Ash sat on the floor, still deep in meditation, his hooded eyes fixed to the same spot on the door. Nico rubbed his tired eyes. He had no way of telling how long he had been asleep. An hour perhaps?

Someone shouted outside in the hallway, complaining with the loud senseless words of a drunk.

It was the only warning they had.

The door burst inwards with a crash against the wall, sending out a puff of chalky plaster. Nico’s body clenched with the sudden shock of it. He opened his mouth, perhaps to shout something, perhaps simply to gasp. Instead he found the strangest of things occurring: time slowed for him, hovering on the edge of that first instant.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Ash’s hand reach for the blade by his side. But Nico knew that it would encounter only emptiness. The sword was stowed in a canvas roll beneath the bed, where he had replaced it earlier after his return. In the doorway, he saw the white press of Acolytes as they rushed through it one at a time. Their robes seemed caught in mid-motion, like a painting, the folds in them given depth with shadows and highlights, the curious silk patterns in the cloth shimmering in the light. He saw the naked length of steel in the grip of the foremost man, brandished like an extension of his arm. An oily sheen ran along the blade, sea blue, corn yellow, moist-earth brown; while a reflection of the gaslight shone close to the hilt, like a miniature sun. He saw the man’s mask, and how its many apertures were in deep blackness save for the whites of his eyes – fixed now on the old farlander squatting on the floor, caught unarmed and unawares.

And then time whiplashed back to normal, and all was chaos and a great roar was filling Nico’s ears, shocking the senses from him further, and he realized that Ash was the source of it, still squatting there and doing the only thing possible as the lead Acolyte lunged at him with his blade.

It was a primal shout, like nothing Nico had ever heard before, like nothing he would ever have thought possible from a human throat. It was shaped and directed with such commanding force that Ash’s attacker was stunned for a moment, and dropped the weapon clean from his hand as though it had turned red hot.

It was enough to give Ash the second that he needed to jump up and grab the only loose furniture in the small room. A chair. He swung it full-force into the Acolyte’s face. Bones cracked behind the mask, and the man reeled backwards into those trying to push in from behind. The farlander charged into him, shoved them all back, with his own momentum, through the doorway. Somehow he got the door closed against their weight. He rammed his back against it, holding it shut.

‘Nico . . .’ he said with a measure of coolness that frightened Nico more than calmed him. ‘Throw me a coin, boy, quickly now.’ And he jerked his head to the washbasin, now out of his reach, where they kept the change needed to feed the room’s various coinslots.

Nico scrambled down from his bunk as Ash fought with the door, which shook violently and tried to jerk him out of its way. ‘Hurry,’ Ash hissed.

Nico reached the basin. He fumbled for a coin, not seeing any, and suddenly he feared he had already used their last – but no, his fingers found one where his eyes had not, and he plucked it up, tossing it to Ash.

Ash caught it in one hand and in the same motion twisted and dropped it through the slot on the doorframe. He turned the key, and relaxed his stance only slightly as the lock clicked into place; hammering could be heard against the quivering wood, and Ash still pressed himself against it, clearly not trusting much to the lock’s strength.

Nico took a pace towards him, then turned and took a step towards the shuttered window instead. He stopped there, paralysed with indecision.

Ash frowned at him just as an axe blade cut through the door beside the old man’s head, spitting a shower of bright splinters. ‘The window, boy. The window!’

Nico didn’t have to be told twice. It was their only way out. He rushed over and pushed at the shutters . . . except they didn’t open, and refused to budge in his hands. They required a coin.

Nico cursed as he again fished in the sink for another one, though this time he knew he had used them all.

He turned to Ash blindly, wringing his hands, too panicked to think straight.

‘The purse!’ Ash hollered. ‘There! On the bed!’

Sure enough, when Nico fumbled open the purse he found a quarter amongst the other coins, and he took it to the coinslot, and tried inserting it with shaking fingers into the hole; but then he fumbled and dropped it, and had to chase after the thing as it rolled back across the room all the way to Ash’s feet.

Ash shouted something he didn’t hear. Nico scooped up the coin and returned to the window frame. His aim was truer this time and the quarter rattled out of sight. Nico forced the shutters open. He took a vigorous breath of air. Outside it was dark and thick with fog. He stuck his head out to look down at the alley some four floors below. He couldn’t see any way down, no fire escapes or nearby drainpipes.

‘We’re trapped!’ he cried, and leaned his head back inside just as something shattered against the frame. He stared at the broken end of a crossbow bolt as it clattered off the sill. Someone was shooting down at him from the opposite roof.

Nico scrambled back from the window.

Ash was shouting something about making a jump for it to the window opposite. The window in question was shuttered closed – and in a building a good seven feet away. Nico knew he would never have it in him to try such a leap.

‘Nico!’ roared his master, and Nico looked back to see the door was beginning to come apart around him, the axe blade chopping the planking loose.

He regained his feet, discovered that he had grabbed the fallen chair in his hands. He ran for the window and tossed the chair out into the night. The fog swirled in its wake as it crashed against the shutters on the opposite side. ‘Open up,’ he yelled after it, hanging back cautiously from the window. ‘Open up!’

The shutters parted just enough for a face to peer out. Nico saw an old man squinting across at him. It was the same old fellow he had seen on his first day here, constructing things from matchsticks.

‘Please,’ Nico shouted. He snatched up the money purse. With a heave, he tossed it across the alley and in between the shutters into the old man’s room. ‘Take it!’ he told him.

The shutters closed firmly once more. Nico almost sobbed, though, in truth, part of him was greatly relieved. Another crossbow bolt shattered the frame an inch away from his hand. He darted further back into the room.

Suddenly the opposite shutters opened wide. The old man grinned a toothless grin and beckoned with one hand. Then shuffled aside to make room.

Nico’s stomach dropped away. He thought of making that leap. It brought memories of his fall back in Bar-Khos, when he had pitched from the roof of the taverna. It was not the fall itself he recalled so vividly, because he had never been able to remember it much; it was the moment before he fell, when he had slid towards the edge and then hung there for an instant, scrabbling for a hold that never came to hand.

He could see Acolytes’ masks through the widening gaps in the door now, and Ash risking his neck with every chop of the axe that came through it.

‘I can’t do it,’ Nico told him.

Ash said nothing for a moment but, with the deepest understanding, he glowered. ‘Our blades then. Throw our blades across.’

Nico frowned, but he did as he was bidden. He turned his back and scrabbled under the bed for their weapons, dragging the canvas rolls out into the light. He made for the window and tossed them across to the room opposite.

He failed to hear Ash approach from behind – the destruction of the door was too loud for that. It was a surprise then when the old man dragged him from the window back towards the door, or what was left of it, and even more of a surprise when he picked Nico up by the seat of his pants and the scruff of his neck. He growled some farlander words of encouragement and charged for the window, with Nico yelling and flapping his arms as Ash swung him hard and sent him sailing out into clear space.

Nico arced across the alleyway. For an instant, he even thought he was going to make it.

He didn’t. The opposite window rose away from him before he could reach it, and all of a sudden there he was again, back in that nightmare moment he had feared most of all, falling fast to his death.

This time though, with sweet mercy, his outstretched hands clipped against something and managed to grab hold. It was the jutting windowsill, and he swung with a hard shock into the wall, and hung there by his fingertips, his bare toes scrabbling for a purchase against the coarse brickwork.

He glimpsed Ash leaping across the same space above his head, his cloak flapping as a flying bolt just missed him, diving headfirst into the room. And then he was there at the window, yanking Nico up and inside.

Nico lay panting on the floor. The old match man leered down at him, his gums chopping in excitement, as he sat on a bunk beside a replica ranch house built of matchsticks – and entirely ignored by Ash, as the Rshun kicked open the canvas roll to unfold across the floor, before he yanked out their two sheathed blades. He tossed Nico his sword as he struggled up from the floor, levelled his own just as the first Acolyte leapt through the window behind them.

Ash shoved Nico out of the way, and ducked a fast swipe aimed at his neck. He thrust his blade through the Acolyte’s belly, in and out, as quick as that. He kicked the man out of the way and lunged at another white-robed assailant, even as he, too, was leaping through. This one fared better. He batted Ash’s blade aside with one hand, forcing him to swerve from a return jab to the face.

They struck and parried in a fast exchange, blades scraping and ringing, scattering Nico and the old match man towards the door of the small room, and destroying the furniture all around them in their frenzy. Remarkably, the matchstick ranch house remained untouched.

Nico struggled for the door of the room and pulled it open. He had to get out of there.

He stumbled out into a dark corridor with his blade drawn. Ash knocked into him, stepping backwards through the doorway too, still fending off the Acolyte. A quick glance showed more of the attackers leaping across and into the room. The toothless old man was sitting back out of their way, clapping his hands with glee.

Nico ran off along the corridor, Ash close on his heels. A startled face at a doorway; another door slammed shut; a stairwell leading up and down. Nico leapt down the stairs, three steps at a time. He hooked his hand on the banister and swung himself around each turn, down one floor after another until at last he had reached the bottom. He could see his way to the front door at the end of a long hallway.

Ash grabbed him as he fled towards it. The old farlander jerked him back, pushed him in the opposite direction while white flashes came flying down the stairwell they had just left.

Washrooms, dirty sinks and scrubbing boards for clothes and a harsh smell of starch in the air; he could hear the whine of his own breath in his throat, the slap of his bare soles against the tiled floor as he turned this way and that; a moment of elation, a gaslight on the wall illuminating the back door of the building, and then Nico went bursting through it into a fog-filled night – and into a sudden eruption of noise.

Chips of stone flew all around him. He stood fixed to the spot, unsure of what was happening, or why his ears pounded under a quick succession of deafening cracks. And then he realized he was being fired upon by a great number of rifles. More rifles than he had ever heard before.

He would have been perforated with shots if Ash had not tripped him and sent him sprawling to the ground. They both crawled out into the deep fog, well away from the light spilling from the doorway. The fog obscured them from sight as shots whipped above their scalps. Behind them, the pursuing Acolytes hung back inside the doorway of the building, not risking themselves to the maintained volleys of fire from their colleagues. Ash and Nico crawled along the street. Nico did not even feel the pain of its rough surface in his knees and elbows. When they were far enough away Ash tugged him up on to shaky legs, holding firmly to his arm.

They made a run for it. There weren’t any street lights here, but still someone spotted them. Shouts rang out, and then the sounds of pursuit.

A shape challenged them from ahead, but fell in silence at a slash from Ash’s blade. Nico leapt the body, not giving it a second thought. More shapes, and Ash flicked out with his sword again, never slowing in his stride. Nico had dropped his own blade somewhere along the way. He didn’t care. A flyer passed overhead, just above the rooftops, black and fast enough to be seen through the fog, circling the immediate district.

The entire area appeared to be surrounded and they could spot movement whenever they passed better-lit streets than this one. As they came to a T-junction opening into a well-lit thoroughfare, the sound of firing brought them to a halt. They ducked back, seeing both ends blocked off.

Nico cowered against a wall, trying to find a hiding space that was not there. At every shot fired, his body tensed in expectation of instant pain. Ash pulled him roughly out into the street. They crossed it moving as low and fast as they could. Cries from both ends betrayed the occasional victims of friendly fire.

A building ahead, squat and uglier than most in this city. Its doorway was without a door, black as night. They fell through it into a stinking space without light, sparks flying and chips of stone raining down from the outer edges of the doorway behind them.

They stumbled deeper inside, the dimly seen walls covered in the faint impressions of graffiti. It was a public latrine, with a row of privy holes ranged against one wall.

Ash strode to the rear of the small building, where a few grimy narrow windows ran high up along the back wall. He smashed one with the hilt of his sword, cleared away the jagged edges.

‘We must split up, boy. I am much faster on my own. If you hide I can lead them away from you.’

Nico cast a glance about him. ‘Hide? Where?’

Ash swept his gaze along the row of privy holes, in a single wooden bench covered with dubious stains. The old man tugged at it till he had wrenched the bench up from its mounting. The smell was enough to make him gag. Beside him, Nico began to retch.

As his master confronted him, Nico backed away, appalled, from the expression on his face. He knew what Ash was proposing, and started to shake his head slowly, with determination.

‘You want to die here?’

‘Don’t leave me then. We’ll make a run for it together.’

‘We are trapped, Nico. We must be creative and find a way out of this for you at least. Now, get in.’

‘I won’t do it.’

‘Please, Nico. Listen, they come.’

It was true. The sound of footfalls could be heard, pounding along the street outside.

‘Now!’ commanded Ash, and entirely against his will, Nico felt his body step over to the gaping space of the exposed privy.

A hard shove sent him toppling into it, where he landed on his back. His body settled into a sodden, stinking mound which had the consistency of mud, and which tried to claim him. He retched again, and this time he vomited.

‘Hush!’ whispered Ash from above him as he lifted the privy bench back into place.

Nico clamped a hand across his mouth, gagging and shivering in silence. ‘Make your way to the docks when it is clear,’ instructed Ash through one of the holes. ‘You will see a statue of one of their generals – you cannot miss it. I shall meet you there at dawn if I can. But if I do not return, Nico, then leave this city. Go home to your mother. Live a long life and think well of me.’

The old farlander tossed down a purse of coins. It clinked mutedly in the foulness next to him.

‘Farewell, my boy.’

‘Master Ash!’

But Ash was gone. Nico could hear him slithering out through the window, and then footsteps scraped by the entrance, and someone shouted, and they were after him.

Others remained behind. Lamplight flickered through the holes overhead; shadows passed by, the scuff of heavy boots and the closeness of shouted commands echoing in the reeking space immediately overhead. Nico closed his eyes and tried to breathe in without gagging. He tried, with all his will, not to think of what they would do to him if he was caught.

Light flickered against his eyelids, but by the time he had gathered enough courage to look upwards it was already fading.

The chase moved on. The room overhead became dark and silent.

He waited. He heard more shots in the distance. A scream. People shouting.

Nico lost track of time. He found that not moving at all was the best way to minimize the sensation of the ordure against his skin. He lay in perfect stillness, trying to breathe without actually breathing.

He wondered how Ash fared, and was certain, despite the sheer scale of the trap set around them, that his master would find a way clear of it. That at least gave Nico some hope.

Dogs barked. Again voices. Nico’s heart stopped in mid-beat as footsteps returned to the entrance.

‘They searched in there already,’ came a woman’s voice.

‘Those idiots? They might be good at waving their swords around, but I doubt their skills at observation.’

Boots scraped overhead once more. A lamp flickered, casting shadows.

‘Where is Stano? Did you see him?’ The woman’s voice sounded worried.

‘Aye, the Rshun ran him through in the fog. Bad luck, that.’

‘Dead?’

‘He looked it.’

The woman seemed displeased at that. ‘When we catch these bastards, I will have first crack at them.’

‘Be my guest.’

The voice was directly overhead now. Lamplight shone through the hole. Nico cringed away from it.

A face appeared. Its eyes met his.

Suddenly, teeth shone bright.