Faerie Wars 01 - Faerie Wars (4 page)

Then he saw the thing struggling in Hodge's mouth wasn't a butterfly.

What Pyrgus Malvae valued most in all the world was his Halek knife. Since the fight with his father, he'd had to work for every little thing and the crystal blade had cost him six months' pay on a bet.

The hideous expense was the fault of the Halek. They refused to make more than ten knives a year, and eight of those were replacements for old blades broken or beyond their use. The new blades were cut from cold spires of rock crystal in the Halek homeland, then polished to a blue, translucent sheen. Blood grooves were sanded down each side and the blade bonded to an inlaid handle. Then the knife was charged and dedicated by a Halek wizard.

The result was a weapon guaranteed to kill.

There was no such thing as a minor wound from a Halek blade. Once it entered a living body -- and it would pierce any known skin, hide or armour -- fierce energies coursed through the victim, stopping his heart. There was nothing it wouldn't kill, neither man nor beast. But there was a chance the blade would shatter. When that happened, the energies flowed backwards to kill the man who held it. Thus Halek blades were more often used in threat than anger, but they were always comforting to have when times got tough.

Pyrgus fingered the handle of his now. He had a feeling there was someone nasty watching him.

It was a weird place to get that sort of feeling. He was on Loman Bridge, the vast, creaking structure with its ancient shops and houses that spanned the river north of Highgrove. Day or night, the bridge was always thronged. It attracted bumpkins like a lode-stone. They wandered slack-jawed past the shops and houses, waylaid by trulls, thieves, cutpurses, pickpockets, huggers, muggers, card sharps, thimble-riggers and assorted lowlife, not to mention the packs of greedy merchants who were the worst of the lot. Goods of every description were on sale, but you had to learn to haggle -- and recognise rubbish. Each merchant was as expert at extracting gold from a purse as any thief.

"Ware!' someone shouted from above. Pyrgus stepped nimbly sideways to avoid the curdled contents of a chamber-pot slopped out from a high window. The move took him underneath the awning of an apothecary's cart and the feeling of being watched grew stronger. Pyrgus glanced cautiously around. He was surrounded by a thousand faces, most unwashed and none familiar.

'A little chaos horn?' the apothecary stallholder whispered.

Pyrgus glared at him so fiercely he took a step backwards. 'Sorree,' the stallholder said. 'Pardon me for breathing.' Greed caught hold again and his expression softened. 'Something else then? Gold attractors? A purple humunculus?'

Pyrgus ignored him and stepped back into the heaving throng. His instincts were screaming at him now and he trusted them. He quickened his pace, elbowing his way through the crowd. A burly man with a shaven head cursed and tried to grab his jerkin, but Pyrgus dodged aside. He pushed and shoved and shouldered, ignoring all the protests, until he reached the far side of the bridge and left the river. There were fewer people here, but he still felt he was being watched. He headed towards Cheapside, neck hairs crawling as he waited for the hand on his shoulder.

He knew what it was about, of course. Pyrgus had been caught leaving Lord Hairstreak's manor at an unsociable hour. Well, not caught exactly, but certainly spotted. The fact he was leaving by an upstairs window was probably what made the guards suspicious. Or it could have been that he was carrying Black Hairstreak's golden phoenix. Hairstreak wasn't the type to let anybody get away with that. He wasn't the type to go to court about it either. If his men caught up with Pyrgus now, he'd pay for the phoenix in broken bones and blood.

Pyrgus wasn't sure if he was safer among people or alone. The trouble with crowds was that you could never tell friend from foe. Not until it was too late. And Hairstreak's men could leave him pulped before anybody found the courage to intervene. Cheapside was crowded -- it was a warren of stews and music dens that attracted the best and the worst of the city -- and his instinct told him he'd be better somewhere he could see an attacker coming. He moved like a crab into Seething Lane, which was nearly always empty now on account of the smell. He hurried down the narrow street, then stepped quickly into the shelter of a doorway and waited.

He could see the head of the alley and the milling crowds of Cheapside. Nobody had followed him and he was just starting to relax when a broad form silhouetted at the junction. The man looked huge, but the other three who joined him looked larger still. Together they began to saunter down the alley.

There was a chance they weren't looking for him, but Pyrgus wasn't about to bet his life on it. He began to wonder if Seething Lane was such a good idea. There was no way he could get past the four men and back to Cheapside. But if he made a break south, he was running towards a dead end. Not so long ago the lane led into Wildmoor Broads, but since Chalkhill and Brimstone built their new glue factory there was no way through.

A thought occurred to Pyrgus. In all the best adventure stories, heroes trapped in doorways pushed the door and found it open. Then they went inside, charmed the pretty young daughter of the household and persuaded her to hide them until the danger was over. Maybe he should try that now. He pushed the door and found it closed.

Shoulder to shoulder, the four men filled the entire width of Seething Lane. Their movements appeared casual, but they were carefully checking every doorway they passed. In minutes they would be checking his. Pyrgus knocked softly, silently praying the pretty young daughter of the household had good ears. After a moment, he knocked again more loudly. The four men were so close now he could hear their breathing, which meant they could hear his knocking. They quickened their pace. Pyrgus kicked the door violently. When it failed to splinter he turned and ran.

'That's him!' one of the big men shouted. All four broke into a lumbering run.

Pyrgus was fast, but that just meant he reached the dead end quicker. Since Chalkhill and Brimstone built their smelly factory, Seething Lane ended in high metal gates, lavishly decorated with fierce warning notices about guards and lethal force. Why they needed that sort of security in a grotty glue factory Pyrgus had no idea, but Chalkhill and Brimstone were both Faeries of the Night, a notoriously suspicious breed. Besides which, they made a great fuss about the secret process that produced their glue. He grabbed the gates and found them locked. Behind him the running footsteps drew closer.

There was a speakhorn fastened to the gate above the lock, but Pyrgus knew better than to get into conversation with some gluehouse guard. Without bothering to glance behind, he jumped on to the gate. The combat shirt and breeches he was wearing underneath his jerkin made him look like some great, green insect as he climbed.

Despite the fierce notices, the only thing on the other side of the gate was a spacious sweep of cobbled yard surrounded by the factory buildings. Although the place was new -- opened no more than a month or two ago -- it somehow managed to look old. Grime clung to every surface. Beyond the office buildings he could see the squat glue-oven chimneys belching foul black smoke. Chalkhill and Brimstone Miracle Glue would glue anything to anything.

It would be only a matter of time before his pursuers reached the gate. He didn't think they'd climb over, but they might bribe a guard to let them in. In any case, he couldn't afford to hang around. He was about to make a dash across the yard when a fat rat darted from one of the buildings. It had got no more than six feet when a cobblestone exploded.

Pyrgus froze as chips of stone and bits of rat rained down on him. Chalkhill and Brimstone had laid
mines
around their factory? He shivered. He'd been about to run across those cobbles.

What were Chalkhill and Brimstone trying to hide? A minefield was more than Faerie-of-the-Night suspicion, way more than anything you'd do to protect a formula for glue. What was going on in the factory?

A uniformed guard emerged from a doorway, fastening his trousers. Pyrgus was in plain sight and too terrified to move, but the man was looking towards the crater in the courtyard where the mine had exploded. All the same, it was only a matter of seconds before he'd look in Pyrgus's direction. Where to go? What to do? With Hairstreak's men in Seething Lane, he could hardly climb back over the gate. But if he tried to cross those cobbles he risked blowing himself to rat-sized bits.

The speakhorn blared suddenly.

'Coming,' the guard shouted sourly, but without turning round. He reached the crater and stared down into it as if he hoped to find some clue as to what had triggered the mine. He was moving without any great haste.

There was no way Pyrgus could stay standing where he was. Once the guard turned, he'd be spotted. He wasn't sure which would be worse: Chalkhill and Brimstone's fury at finding someone trespassing in their factory or Hairstreak's men exacting rough justice for the missing phoenix.

The speakhorn sounded again, louder this time. 'All right! All right!' the guard called out impatiently.

A scary thought occurred to Pyrgus. Not every cobble was a mine. The rat had run at least two yards before it got blown up. If he ran too, he might get lucky.

Or he might not.

Another scary thought occurred to Pyrgus. Suppose he didn't run. Suppose he jumped. Suppose he bounded like a kangaroo. That way he wouldn't touch so many cobbles and so cut down his chances of triggering a mine.

He glanced around and estimated he was about thirty feet from the nearest doorway. If he covered six feet with each leap, he'd touch down on just five cobbles altogether. How many cobbles were mined? There was no way he could know, but surely it wasn't likely Chalkhill and Brimstone had booby-trapped one cobble in five.

Or was it?

No, of course it wasn't. If he only touched five cobbles altogether, he had a chance -- a very good chance, a very,
very
good chance -- of reaching the doorway in one piece. The rat must have crossed at least ten cobbles before it got blown up. And even then it probably wasn't a very lucky rat. A lucky rat could have crossed fifteen, twenty, maybe even thirty cobbles safely. Pyrgus had to ask himself, was he a lucky rat? He also had to ask himself, would the door he was aiming for be locked?

The speakhorn blared and kept on blaring. It was the perfect time to move -- the noise would cover any sound he made. Pyrgus leaped.

The world went into slo-mo so he watched with terrified fascination as his leading foot approached a cobble, then gently touched the cobble, then slammed down hard on the cobble. He winced, but the cobble failed to explode.

Then he bounded off again and watched with horror as his foot landed full force on a second cobble ... which also somehow failed to explode. In the middle of his third leap he saw the cobblestone beneath him was a different colour from the others and closed his eyes as he approached it. He landed, stumbled, trod on three more cobbles --
three! --
but somehow bounded off again.

Then the slo-mo stopped, everything blurred and seconds later he was standing in the doorway. The guard was headed for the gate, amazingly not caring where he stepped on the cobbles, his muttered complaints suddenly audible as the speakhorn silenced.

Pyrgus pushed the door. It opened.

He was in an empty whitewashed corridor. There were doors along the right-hand side and, with the first one he tried, his luck changed massively. He found himself staring into a cupboard lined with uniform white coats, the sort issued to glue-factory workers. He noticed that the coats were tagged and suddenly realised why the guard could walk safely through the minefield. The tags had to stop the mines exploding. It was the only thing that made sense -- there would have to be
something
so the ordinary factory workers wouldn't get killed. He grabbed one of the coats and shrugged into it.

Pyrgus closed the cupboard door and took time to have a little think. Tag or no tag, he wasn't going back the way he came. He'd have to find another way out.

He was still looking for it when he stumbled on the secret of Chalkhill and Brimstone's Miracle Glue.

With his white coat and tag, Pyrgus discovered he could go anywhere in the factory and nobody showed the slightest interest. All the same, he was careful to keep to himself, and do nothing that would arouse suspicion. Mostly he walked with a confident air as if he knew exactly what he was doing, where he was going. The trouble was he didn't really have a clue and, far from discovering an exit, he found himself wandering deeper and deeper into the maze of factory buildings.