City Of Ruin (9 page)

It wasn’t an ideal life, all the same. Gybson had family back on

Kullrún, in the garuda caves on the north-western coast. Two chicks to see fed well, another egg in the nest. The money was good, being employed in the Empire’s service, so they could afford a good life compared with their garuda kin. The last time he was on leave, his youngest had only just begun to fly: it had been a sprawling, messy attempt that led to Gybson having to swoop down in order to stop the little fellow splitting his head on the rocks below.

Talking to some of the other lads in the air force about his homeland always brought a vague nostalgia for the good old days when he just wanted to explore the skies, climb higher, travel further. And enjoy endless summers – when there
were
summers, of course. But he had been one of the garudas selected at an early age for military service, so those expansive days of soaring through infinite skies were soon over.

The harbour below was crammed with the old refugee vessels, making it difficult for the fishermen to navigate any of the channels exiting Port Nostalgia. All along Y’iren’s northern coast, military stations and warning beacons had been spaced at regular intervals, in case an invasion fleet should bank and alight some distance away from Villiren itself. Dragoon soldiers held these positions, just visible in their black, green and brown uniforms, operating in small patrol groups of threes and fours.

A flight heading directly north for any considerable distance was uncommon. Gybson’s usual missions involved patrolling the coast indefinitely, to observe if there were any marked variants in the progress of ice, if a passage could still be cut across it, and then to watch out for any attempted enemy crossings by boat, or if these Okun could traverse the water by other means.

Eventually having reached sight of Tineag’l, he glided along some distance above where the shoreline proper began, over ice sheets extending towards the mainland beyond. Nothing ever seemed to change along these shores: abandoned villages, the trails of blood faded into white, sometimes a lone cart.

Then he’d fly higher, safer, with grim knowledge of what came next.

Another quarter of an hour, and there they were, these Okun, their black armour a stark contrast against the dazzling snow. Their numbers had proliferated, a good three thousand in this first community – a tentscape with tendrils of smoke drifting above. Red-skinned rumel rode on horseback between them, apparently in command of this freak-show army. They had already cleared Tineag’l and wiped out every town and village across the island.

And yet thousands still approached, a thin line in the distance now, like a deep scar cleaving the landscape. The best part of ten thousand gathered within an hour’s reach of the southern shore – the nearest crossing point to Villiren.

By an adjustment of focus, he could see broadswords and maces, arrows and axes and spears. This was an army preparing for siege.

Further north still, the garuda headed across tundra and blue-hazed hills, mountains and gorges, across frozen lakes and rivers and snow-filled mining basins. The land was otherwise void of its population.

This was already known to the military. Local people had been systematically cleared, only the very young or very old being left behind, and even then only their carcasses – the bones tentatively stripped out of the bodies, then rejected. Evidence of this was occasionally provided by bloodstained banks of snow bordering empty villages or mining towns, and the garuda’s sensitive vision could pick out how the remaining people had been left, their bodies broken into awkward shapes, and then preserved by the cold. The irony of people being themselves mined on this mining island was not lost on him.

Now and then were seen pockets of the new race, these alien creatures, out scouting in small troops. Sometimes they would be accompanied by a rumel rider, steering his horse in the middle of their group, or narrowly ahead.

Theories had evolved quickly about why the rumel had been seen amongst them, but Commander Lathraea didn’t want this inflammatory information released to the public. Humans and rumels had been living alongside each other for millennia now – two bipedal creatures that shared a similar culture, but that symbiosis could crumble from time to time – racial tensions had always existed.

But since humans would always find ways to react in a new set of circumstances, to somehow take control of such uncertainty, he now feared a backlash against the rumel living in their midst.

*

This was as far north as the garuda dared go, for the muscles along his spine were beginning to indicate painful frissons of strain. Wind pushed more violently at his side, undermining his attempts at stability, his plumage ruffling thickly. It had taken him many hours to fly just this far, and the geography of the icescape had meanwhile begun to change. Contours of landscape fell flat as he cruised over level ice sheets.

But, at the farthest end of his vision, he could see something glow.

He adjusted his altitude, descending as he drifted landwards.

Unbelievably, a doorway existed in the fabric of the air itself, about the height of a two-storey building. Pale purple was constantly emitted, darker lines within denoting some kind of grid beyond, as if this manifestation was carved from mathematics. The very air around it vibrated – though that was something that the garuda gauged no human would be able to sense, therefore he would have trouble describing it to the commander. He banked into a circle, staying high enough not to be easily seen, icy wind rippling steadily underneath his hovering torso.

Gathered around the astonishing doorway were several regiments of this new race, rumel leaders riding among them on horseback. Now and then something could be seen amid the purple light, a shimmering silhouette barely noticeable against the sheer brightness; then out of this a single figure would march, becoming more definable against the surrounding snow, sometimes one of the Okun, sometimes a rumel. Where were they coming from and where were they going to next—?

An arrow was suddenly launched from below, and Gybson swerved just in time to see it clip the tip of his wing. Another came after it, but wasn’t so close, rising and then falling from the sky, like a dying bird.

He knew when to quit.

Hauling back and up, Flight Lieutenant Gybson retreated to the sanctuary of altitude, and retreated back to base to report.

Some people would see Villiren as a division of alleys and sections – determined by lines drawn on a map. Technically there was the Ancient Quarter, nestling under the long shadows cast by the Onyx Wings. North of that rose the Citadel, the imposing edifice where Malum was now headed. Saltwater and the Deeping lay just a few streets to the south, both districts dominated by the Screams. Further out on the opposite side of the wings there was Althing, and then Scarhouse south of that, a quarter where many decent traders lived. And beyond that, tucked just behind Port Nostalgia, with its harbour-front hotels that the Freeze had closed down, lay the Shanties, a district where the fishermen and stevedores lived, largely in poverty. And finally the various shades of the city, known collectively as the Wastelands – though they hadn’t been wasteland for thirty, maybe forty years at least. Multicultural niches had been established there, various pockets of exiles creating their own sense of belonging, like the Folke quarter or the Jokull district – unofficial names that meant little to the city’s developers. Beyond that again was the dark Abies-strewn Wych-Forest, a place that was eaten into constantly by the urban crawl outwards. And raising a peak within the foliage was the Spoil Tower – a pile of refuse so high it had become the highest point locally, harvested eagerly by gulls and the homeless.

Villiren was broken up into distinctive patches of territory, undrawn lines running across unnamed streets. Which you either dare not cross or else you were obliged to defend. This territorialism gave Malum and his gang a sense of belonging and, as in most major cities across the Boreal Archipelago, there was an underground complex of tunnels and excavated caverns for them to hide out in.

In fact, Malum did most of his work out of part of this basement network. In Villiren, you needed to ascertain the way down there from someone who trusted you. Then, a sidestep out of sight, followed by a downward journey from a certain corner of the Ancient Quarter. Such passageways were scored right through the heart of the city, guarded well by cloaked figures who knew their way around a blade.

Sporting three-day stubble, under his black surtout he wore a thick woollen tunic with the hood drawn up and his red bauta mask in place. A messer blade at his hip, he took the steps two at a time.

Eventually he came to the heart of the complex that was the Villiren underground. A gangland zone, a no-man’s-land, the place was constantly lit by a string of lanterns and biolumes, long passageways connecting cavernous dust-filled spaces in which the ancient houses were barely still standing, faded posters nailed to their doors. These stone facades remained only because the authorities were too scared to come down here and rip them apart.

Voices came to him through the hubbub as a few masked men nodded in his direction, or even stood up to give him vague acknowledgement. Others turned back to their tables, their faces anonymous behind their masks.

This place was a sort of decrepit tavern extending into a former marketplace, and had become a hang-out for mainly the two largest street gangs in Villiren – the Screams and his own, the Bloods. You could buy yourself the best of anything down here. Blades and drugs, ultra-strong alcohol and women, as well as decent cuts of reindeer and seal, or the more nutritious types of seaweed, for variety.

Three of his youngest recruits, none of them older than twelve, stood giggling over a crate of porno-golems. ‘Put those fucking things down!’ Malum shouted. ‘They’re not for you. Get out of here.’

He cuffed one lad around the ears and the three scampered off. Sighing, he realized his work here was endless.

Two of his men sauntered over to him, JC and Duka. The young red-headed brothers had been there from the beginning, when his business activities had turned to the darker side of life. Always ready to hand when he needed men to call in credit or clear up debts, they’d become his surrogate family early on, turning from callow boys into men he could trust. More to the point, they too had been
bitten
.

JC and Duka were now in their late twenties, and equally tall, but JC always wore a black mask while Duka wore none. They could almost have been twins, otherwise, but JC had tribal-motif tattoos all over his neck and chest, and possessed the most ferocious blue eyes, while his brother’s were green. JC therefore looked the tougher of the two, but in reality he was more mellow, even slightly spiritual, and this helped to disguise his alcoholism. The brothers had been through a lot together – turf wars and smuggling and suffering bad drug trips, and they treated Malum like a wiser, older brother. They came from a vast family and Malum had always been welcome at their table after he was first bitten – they helped to set him straight again.

He now greeted them both in hand-slang, fingers and palms crossing according to the old code.

JC spoke first: ‘Malum, how’s it going? Thought you was working with those soldiers.’

‘Not until midday,’ Malum growled. ‘I was hoping to meet up with Dannan first. Seen him anywhere around?’ The man he spoke of was the bastard son of a banshee, a man who consequently called himself a banHe.

‘Not seen him,’ Duka confessed, burying his hands back in his pockets.

‘Anything important?’ JC slurred, and Malum could detect an alcoholic glaze in his eyes.

‘Some union activity we need to interrupt. And I just wanted to make sure we’re in agreement before we go to meet the soldiers.’

Duka muttered, ‘None of us give a damn about what those soldiers are up to.’

‘We might not have a choice in the end, and that’s what I’m afraid of. Don’t even know what it is they’re fighting. They suspect trouble’s on its way here so who knows what they’ll want from us.’

‘Hey, will you need us all to fight too?’ Duka said.

Malum wasn’t a military man, and he had no concern about the Empire. His own turf was all he cared about. ‘Forget about it for now.’

‘Right,’ JC muttered. ‘Hey, last night we got ourselves a crate of pirated relics off a dealer who said he’d just been to Ysla.’

‘Where’s he now?’ Malum asked.

‘Dead,’ JC replied, as Duka disappeared down one of the nearby passageways. ‘We dumped him in the harbour last night with his coat pockets full of masonry.’

‘You drink him first?’ Members of his gang had a habit of draining their victims before Malum himself could get to question them.

‘Nah, he smelled of bad blood – cultist-tainted or something.’

Malum grunted a laugh. ‘Are the relics any good? I don’t want any of us killing ourselves for no good reason.’

‘We ain’t tested them yet.’ JC glanced behind him, where Duka reappeared lugging a small chest. With a grunt he dumped the box at Malum’s feet, and then looked up at him expectantly.

Malum rummaged carefully among the collection of odd-shaped metallic devices.

Customers were always stupid enough to buy pirated relics. They sought the dream device, the object that could improve their lives. Punters were even prepared to kill themselves – literally – for the chance to own some magic. Markets in the city thrived on ordinary people being selfish, and for the last ten years his gang had thrived on exploiting such weaknesses, making money through whatever nefarious means he could contrive.