City of Hope and Despair (24 page)

  In the event, she did neither.

  Kat was looking across the courtyard, not focussing on anything in particular, when a flicker of movement caught her eye. She almost passed over it, but something made her look again, and this time there could be no doubt. A black stain was creeping down the far wall of the courtyard, an irregular patch of night which none of the lamps were able to penetrate.

  "The roof!" she yelled out. "Look to the roof, south quarter!"

  Whether alerted by her call or not, others had seen it now. There was pointing and exclamations among the crowd, which surged towards Kat as people scrambled to put distance between the south wing and themselves. The stain had gathered substance, swelling to become a soot-dark cloud which slid down the brickwork towards the ground.

  A flechette gunner opened up, sending a stream of silvered darts into the billowing mass. The thrum of crossbows sounded and a dozen quarrels sped in the wake of the flechettes. An inchoate shriek issued from the cloud, sounding like wind whistling through a narrow chimney but louder and somehow more aware. The form writhed and twisted, shifting shape in an effort to avoid the stream of missiles, which were chewing up the brickwork behind in a rain of chips and stony shards. Somewhere over there they'd deployed a flamethrower. Kat just hoped those wielding it could bring the weapon to bear and get a clear shot. It was an unwieldy contraption of valves and dials at the best of times, but she was itching to see what the Soul Thief made of a concentrated blast of fire. The flechettes and archers had managed to pin the monster down, preventing it from advancing into the square in pursuit of the fleeing people; and, judging by the increasingly plaintive sounds coming from the creature, they were hurting it, but Kat wasn't convinced they'd done any real damage as yet.

  She was working her way through the throng of talented, who had rushed to cling to her side of the square. She had no intention of actually attacking as yet, not wanting to get caught by any of the lethal munitions that had already been brought to bear on the monster, but wanted to be in a position to do so if needed. The longer they could keep the Soul Thief in one place the more chance there was of bringing other weapons into play. A firebomb shattered at the edge of the tattered blackness, splattering the ground and the wall of the house with burning oil, as well as a patch of the creature itself. There was no mistaking the pain in the shriek this time; and the affected patch of darkness
burned!
Where the breck was that frissing flame thrower?

  Kat had forced her way to the edge of the throng of people, reminded of their presence and their fear and their bravery when a girl immediately behind her sobbed. She suddenly realised that these people were no longer needed. They'd done all that could be asked of them without complaint and had succeeded, drawing the Soul Thief to where the Tattooed Men waited.

  Kat turned around and yelled, "Open the gates. Let these people out!"

  "Yes, let us out," someone in the crowd agreed. "Open the brecking gates!" Others picked up the call and soon the whole lot were demanding release.

  Kat glanced back towards the Soul Thief. The flechette gunner had ceased firing, presumably to reload. There now seemed little to hold the monster at bay, at which instant the very ground beneath Kat's feet shook as a huge dart, longer than a man is tall, erupted from one of the courtyard windows to tear across the intervening space in an instant, slamming into the Soul Thief and though the wall behind, bringing a wide section of it down. She just hoped there was nobody still standing in the room beyond. Despite a fresh shriek of anger and pain, the monster just flowed around the shaft of this enormous steel bolt and reformed. Kat knew the giant arrow had been fired from a steam-powered cannon which would take moments to reload. The occasional quarrel from a bow still flashed at the creature but without the incessant attention of the flechette gun this was no longer enough to keep her immobilised, and the black cloud, now looking vaguely human in shape, started to advance across the courtyard towards the trapped people.

  "Get this brecking gate opened now!" Kat yelled.

  Mercifully, another flechette gun opened up from the opposite side of the courtyard to the first, temporarily halting the creature's progress, and then a second fire bomb shattered on the flagstones in front of it. The flames danced up, partially hidden by the stunted iron tree which stood between Kat and the blaze, its crooked scantily-leafed branches momentarily resembling upturned hands, mimicking an appeal for mercy.

  A new weapon opened up, a streak of blue light crackling across the courtyard, seeming to catch a corner of the Thief before spending itself against the far wall. Kat turned her head away and blinked to clear her dazzled vision of the afterimage. When she looked back, the broiling mass of darkness that was the Soul Thief seemed to have grown, swelling until it towered over the residual flames from the firebomb. Flechette darts passed through it now with no visible effect, as if the creature truly were composed of nothing more than smoke.

  Then the black cloud detached itself from the ground and started to drift towards Kat and the crowd of talented, floating over the burning oil and the iron tree, drawing ever closer. Until now, everyone had stayed remarkably calm, but people's resolve finally started to wilt and for the first time people around Kat began to panic. Somebody screamed, and the sounds around her grew increasingly desperate. "For Thaiss's sake get that gate open!" the woman closest to Kat shrieked.

  As if in response, the two gates finally moved. Kat had no idea whether this was the work of Tattooed Men answering the calls of the crowd or simply the people at the front working out how to release the locks for themselves, nor did she care. At least these folk would have a chance to escape.

  Her relief was short-lived, as a fresh wave of screams and shouts erupted – from the front of the crowd, near the gates. Kat couldn't see what was happening. She was too short and so was unable to see over the intervening mass of people, but something was obviously wrong. Desperate for more information she jumped in the air but still couldn't get high enough to make anything out beyond the fact that nobody seemed to be leaving yet, despite the gates being open; and the screams and curses and shouts of desperation were only getting louder.

  Kat looked back at the Soul Thief. The bitch was almost upon them. A few more seconds and her foremost dark tendrils would be directly over the crowd. No more blue lightning had leapt forth to oppose her, and Kat wondered if the weapon had only been good for that one shot.

  The night abruptly lit up, as a stream of fire erupted from one of the windows to her left, like the breath of some indignant dragon. The flame thrower! Somebody had finally brought it to bear. The heat was intense, even though Kat stood some distance away. The nebulous form of the Soul Thief was enveloped in flame. The black cloud burnt and sparked and crackled, visibly contracting, curling in on itself like an injured spider drawing in its legs. And the thing screamed. A high-pitched shriek of torment which cut through every other sound and caused Kat to wince, as it hurt her ears. She watched with a sense of elation as the still-smouldering bundle of darkness plummeted to the ground.

  Yet it fell almost on top of one of the talented, a young woman who screamed and tried to back away but couldn't go far because of the press of bodies around her. A tendril of smoke reached from the diminished Soul Thief, to curl around the foot of the hysterical woman. This seemed to act as a tether and within an instant the creature's entire remaining substance flowed along that tenuous link to engulf the woman in a nebulous greyblack mist. The mist began to darken immediately, gathering substance. Brief seconds after the cloud had surrounded the unfortunate soul, it released her. A desiccated husk dropped to the floor as the now stronger, larger Soul Thief streamed away from this first victim to attack another.

  "No!" Kat screamed.

  This couldn't be happening. The fire had come so close to killing it, and yet the monster was already restoring itself by feeding on the talented, and with this many of them here, Thaiss alone knew how much feeding it might do. People started to scatter, fleeing the creature and moving away from the gate, enabling Kat to catch a glimpse of the front of the crowd. A solid line of armed men stood across the exit, blocking the gate and penning the talented in.

  Who in Thaiss' name were these men? What the breck was going on?

  Kat hesitated, torn between the urge to attack the Soul Thief directly and her desire to ensure these people could escape the courtyard. Before she could make up her mind, the decision was made for her. A jet of flame engulfed the Soul Thief once more. It wasn't indiscriminate, but it was all-consuming, as fire tends to be. The Soul Thief and the poor man she was currently feeding on were engulfed, and several people beyond were caught as well. Whoever wielded the weapon had obviously realised that the only way to save the majority was to take the monster down, no matter what the cost. Screams of agony joined those of terror. The cloud of darkness detached itself from its latest victim, a high pitched wail issuing from the creature as it burned, a sound which rose above the human voices. The Soul Thief then fled the withering flame by racing across the intervening ground to smash through the nearest window and into the building itself. A fresh stream of fire pursued it, playing across the smashed window and leaving the surrounding frame and brickwork blackened and charred once the flames relented.

  With the Soul Thief having slipped beyond her grasp again, choice was no longer an issue; Kat had only one immediate enemy to deal with. She forced, slid and wormed her way through the panicked crowd of people, not hesitating when she reached the front but instead launching herself straight at the line of armed men. Her erupting from the crowd with twin swords at the ready seemed to wrong-foot them for a second – all the time she needed. Kat caught a glimpse of white open mouths crudely daubed on black shirts. The Fang! Then the thrill of combat roared through her blood, bringing her fully alive and suppressing other thoughts. For the next few moments all she was aware of were blades to block, openings to strike at and adversaries to disable and kill.

  The twin swords became an extension of her body, moving as rapidly and unerringly as their wielder, as she struck and parried, blocked and thrust, rolled and twisted and then struck again.

  A lull in the fighting allowed her to pause; a degree of sanity returned as she took stock of the situation. Kat was dimly aware of four, perhaps five men having fallen to her blades, and she'd suffered a raking cut to her left shoulder – a blow that narrowly missed taking her ear off – but that had only acted to goad her on at the time. She remembered laughing as the sting of steel kissed her skin, before blithely cutting down the man responsible.

  The line of those penning in the talented had broken. The remnants of a melee surrounded her, small knots of struggling figures while many more lay unmoving on the ground. She assumed people must have followed her lead and taken the fight to the Fang. Beyond the gate she could see figures scurrying into the night, so at least some of those who had come to help would make it home.

  A figure reared up to her right, face contorted in a snarl, sword already descending. Kat stepped to one side, thrust with her right-hand blade – knee flexing, arm fully extended – then pulled the sword back and let the body fall. She walked across towards the gaping door that gave access to the house proper, hacking down in passing another of the Fang who had two of the talented backed against the wall, fighting for their lives. The pair smiled their thanks and then made good their escape, joining the steady flow of people fleeing Iron Grove Square.

  Kat felt she'd done as much as she could here. It was time to find the Soul Thief and finish this.

  She stepped into the building, to find the floor of the small gate room littered with bodies. Five or six of the Fang and one Tattooed Man: Adam, one of the oldest and one of the first people to take her under his wing when she was consigned to the Pits. The next room was larger but told much the same story. Heavy fighting had taken place here. She counted seven dead Fang and two of the Tattooed Men. How many of these frissing Fang were there and what the breck was going on here?

  She came to a stairwell and heard the unmistakeable sounds of combat from two directions – on the ground floor ahead and from the stairs above. As far as she knew, Chavver was upstairs.

  Kat raced up the flight, taking the steps two at a time. Once at the top, she saw the suggestion of fighting – of raised arms and falling swords – cast in silhouette against the wall ahead, like some staged battle scene performed by shadow dancers; though she had little doubt this one was for real.

  She charged along the corridor, growing angrier with every step. It had all been going so well until the Fang intervened, trapping the talented and now, apparently, attacking the Tattooed Men. Whatever their part in this, she determined to make them pay, dearly. Judging by the number of bodies she was again stepping over – four more scattered along the corridor – it seemed the process had already begun. They must have brought a small army with them. But why?

  As she turned the corner she gained a partial answer. A Tattooed Man sat collapsed against a wall: Rel, badly injured, most likely dying. Two of the Fang lay dead at his feet. A little further along Chavver and M'gruth stood side by side, holding off a group of the Fang and a figure Kat instantly recognised.

  "Brent!" Images of the man crossing a city square in conversation with a Fang flashed through her mind and she cursed herself for not pursuing the matter at the time. Too late for regrets now. She leapt forward.

  At her snarled exclamation the two nearest Fangs turned to face her. Kat went in low, thrusting upwards simultaneously with both blades, slipping under their guards and running the pair through.