The Trials of Trass Kathra (8 page)

“I will ’andle thees. You do what you ’ave to do.”

“My wife,” Aldrededor protested, “this is not some errant customer you are dealing with, Morg is a dangerous man.”

“And it is a long time since I have had the pleasure of keeling one. Now, do as I say, ’usband!”

The Sarcrean was about to protest further but it was too late, battle joined.

Before Morg could make a move on him, Dolorosa pivoted on her right leg, skirt flying, and delivered a roundhouse kick that sent the mercenary staggering back, snarling at a bloodied lip. It took Morg only a moment to recover and come at her, but Dolorosa was ready once more, meeting him with a flying kick that again sent the man staggering, this time flat on his back. As his wife roared and raced in with the intention of keeping Morg down, Aldrededor made the sign of the Gods and left her to it, heading for the locked stable door. Where it had proven problematic for Morg and his men, however, it was nothing for the ex-pirate. As the sounds of confrontation continued behind him the lock fell away before a series of rapid and deft gestures. The stable door creaked open and Aldrededor span back to face Dolorosa.

“Hurry, my darling. We have –”

The Sarcrean’s words dwindled into silence as he saw Morg had proven himself the better after all. He held Dolorosa in a neck lock, her back pressed against his front. The love of his life no longer looked furious or determined, only ashamed and defeated – and somehow old. Older than she had ever looked to him before.

Time, he reflected, was indeed catching up with them.

“Dolorosa...” he breathed, and then, to Morg, hoping that his wife had been right. “You will not kill her.”

Morg smiled coldy. “Perhaps not, Sarcrean. But if you do not surrender, I can and I will do almost as much...”

“Aldrededor,” Dolorosa hissed. “You must go.”

“Not without you, my wife.”

“My ’usband,” Dolorosa insisted, eyeing the shadows beyond the stable door. “You know what is at stake –
go
.”

Morg’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“What exactly is at stake, old man? I warn you, don’t make a move.”

Aldrededor’s eyes flicked from Morg to Dolorosa, lingering long and hard over his wife’s distressed face. But as their eyes met and he held her gaze he knew she was right. What he
should
have known, after Fester’s death, what that Morg would not hesitate to act.

Morg made good on his threat. Without any further warning, he shoved Dolorosa out in front of him and, as she stood there looking confused, two sharp blades – her own sharp blades – were thrust suddenly through her. Dolorosa stiffened, her eyes widened and, as the projecting lengths of the blades glistened with blood in the light of the sun, she made a sound that was not unfamiliar to Aldrededor but was nevertheless horribly strange.

“
Heeeeeeeeeee
...”

“DOLOROSA!”

“A crone as scrawny as this,” Morg said, “she’s lucky I missed the vital organs. She will, though, bleed to death unless I grant her medical attention. Now, old man, why don’t you show me exactly what’s in that stable?”

Aldrededor was about to do exactly that, caring about nothing other than getting help for his wife, when Dolorosa vigorously shook her head. The act clearly caused her great pain.

“Aldy,” she said, in a guttural voice, “do what I said. ’E will not let me die.”

Aldrededor swallowed rapidly. “
I cannot take that chance
.”

“You
must
. They cannot get their ’ands on the sheep.”

It would have been funny, had it not been so true, and Aldrededor knew it.

“If my wife dies,” he growled at Morg, “there will be no place you will be safe, no sanctuary you can hide in or shield you can cower behind. I will hunt you down, I will find you, and then and I will kill you.”

“Lika thees,” Dolorosa muttered weakly.

Aldrededor stared at her wavering smile, swallowed again, and immediately turned. He was inside the stables and slamming the door shut behind him before Morg could make another move. The rune-inscribed lock re-configured itself.

“You and you, get this woman in the wagon,” Morg snarled to his men, who had just relieved Hetty of her pipe and were working their way through what remained of the smoke. “The rest of you,” he added, releasing Dolorosa’s body and slamming his fist on the doors of the stables, “raze this thing to the ground.”

Morg’s men responded, and within a minute they had gathered torches and surrounded the stable. The soft thrumming of the flames of their torches was, however, drowned out from a growing sound from within the stable’s walls – a thrumming again, but this time one which made their heads ache and was quite clearly caused by something other than fire.

“What in the name of the Lord of All?” one of the Swords muttered.

The roof of the stables suddenly began to rise upwards, not from any mechanism designed to make it do so but from the sheer force and pressure of something rising inside. As the roof broke apart in broad splinters, the walls, too, began to press outward as if the something inside were turning slowly as it rose. The walls began to fall away like discarded cards.

Bowing to these pressures, the entire stable exploded outward and something rose from its ruin, a sleek flying shape the length of three carts, that then hovered in the sky. An uncountable number of black vents flapped on its side, shiny and looking like the shifting of reptilian skin, and on the underside of its hull, orange orbs pulsed.

The Swords, even Morg, staggered back. But Dolorosa, being dragged to captivity, caught a glimpse of her husband at the flying thing’s helm and smiled. Seeing the repaired
Tharnak
airborne once more, she watched as it hung there for a second, acknowledging her, before banking gracefully and disappearing above the rooftop of the
Flagons
.

Morg stared after it, his lip curling in anger. He stared at the
Flagons
and then at his men.

“Burn it. Burn it all.”

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE
R
ED
C
HAPTER’S
cull of Kali’s friends was swift and simultaneous. Their targets tracked by Eyes of the Lord, squads of Freel’s mercenaries struck across the peninsula at the same time Gregory Morg raided the
Here There Be Flagons
.

Exiting the Three Towers in Andon, on his way to a certain club in the Skeleton Quays for an engagement he hoped he couldn’t get out of, Poul Sonpear spotted a number of spherical shadows scudding about his own as he progressed down the alley he used as a short cut. He immediately dropped into phase, thinking himself safe in the half realm accessible only to members of the League of Prestidigitation and Prestige, and was somewhat surprised to be joined there by four black-clad figures – shadowmages, by the look of them. Sonpear began to muster defensive spells – skull shield, ball of immunity, flash – but his assailants were ready for him. One countercasted with slow, another with silence, while the final two physically wrestled him against a wall, restraining him while a scrambling collar was clamped around his neck.

Sonpear recognised the collar as proscribed technology, Old Race, and as he felt its effects numbing his faculties, his mind raced. Why was he being targeted? Who were these men? What did they want? There was only one possible answer, and he tried, but failed, to send a telepathic warning to the one person with whom he maintained a permanent link. The message that would never be sent was,
Kali, they’re coming for us
...

E
LSEWHERE IN
A
NDON
, Jengo Pim lay on his bed in the Underlook Hotel, clutching his greasy knife as he imagined the Hells Bellies writhing before him. The hideaway of the Grey Brigade was unusually quiet, most of his boys out on jobs for the night, leaving only twelve or so snoring in nearby rooms. As Pim gnawed on the leg of meat his knife skewered, swilling it down with a chunky Allantian red, there was an unexpected creak from the floor below. The thief frowned, then shrugged – the Underlook was an old building, prone to shifting. He rejoined his fantasy, wiping juice from his mouth with a satisfied sigh, when a second creak – this time the drawn out, pressured creak of foot on floorboard – impelled him to extract his knife and slip off the bed, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

He moved onto the landing and stared down the main staircase. As he did, a candle was snuffed below, then another and another, until all was black. A shape – possibly more than one – flitted through the darkness. Visitors, Pim thought, but no problem – the old hotel didn’t take kindly to
unexpected
guests.

Pim tapped gently on bedroom doors, rousing sleepers, and then flipped a lever on the wall. A dull clank and ratchet sound signified that all of the traps on the ground floor were now active, and as his men slipped silently down the stairs with garrots tensing and daggers gleaming, he was confident that caught between a rock and a hard place, whoever had checked into the Underlook this night had no chance.

A series of screams met him from below, and protesting cries as traps were tripped, but a chill went through Pim as he realised the voices in both cases were those of his own men.

He called out – no reply. How could a dozen of the best thieves in the business be taken out so easily? His mind raced, trying to identify who might possess a strong enough grudge against the Grey Brigade to launch such an offensive. It was only at the last moment, after he had slowly taken the stairs himself and swift, shadowed figures came at him, driving him to the floor with a yell, did he realise what this was all about. Her name, as blackness descended, was the last thing that passed his lips.

“Hooper!”

A
S
P
IM’S ROAR
echoed through the Underlook, Martha DeZantez knelt by her daughter’s graveside in Solnos. There was no body in the grave, but that didn’t matter, because it was here that Gabriella was remembered in spirit, next to the grave of the man she had loved, and it had become a place of peace and remembrance. She would find no peace today, however, as for a second her heart seized as she heard Gabriella’s voice, as clear as day, warning her against something, and then shadows loomed suddenly over her. A second later all that remained of her presence was a flower with a broken petal lying on the ground.

I
N
F
AYENCE,
A
BRA
Sarkesian had just wheeled his Abra-Kebab-Bar into its lock-up for the night, woeing the takings of the day, when a shadow at the rear of the storage area caught his eye. The lock-up had provided an emergency bolt-hole for Kali Hooper on more than one occasion, he dropping awnings to hide its existence the moment she rode into it, and his heart lifted to see she had sought his shelter once more. But the face that emerged from the shadows was not Kali’s – not even close.

S
O IT WENT.
Peninsula wide from Oweilau to Malmkrug to Turnitia, Vosburg to Freiport to Volonne, anyone with recent contact with Kali Hooper, however minor, simply disappeared. But not everything went according to plan. At that moment in Gargas...

A
GLOVED HAND
prevented the bell on the door of
Wonders of The World
from tinkling as it opened. Yan DeFrys motioned his heavily armed men into the shop in silence. He’d been told his target was a strange one, rumoured to possess a faculty for bodily transformation, and had decided his best tactic for capture would be to simply overwhelm him. He’d hoped to have all of his men inside before he was alerted but it seemed that was not to be. Though the shop had appeared empty through its windows, the old man was suddenly there, appearing as if by magic.

Yan DeFrys sneered. With a shock of white hair and beard, and what looked like a pink horse blanket over his shoulders, the old man shuffled about the shop waving a feather duster over piles of stock.
This
was his target?