City of Light & Shadow (25 page)

  Tom felt his determination waiver. The Demon was right; he could feel the fundamental truth of its words. Who had they been trying to kid? They never stood a chance. The Prime Master, the Council Guards, the Tattooed Men, even the Blade, they were all powerless compared to just one single Demon. The being before them was glowing, golden, magnificent. How had Tom ever thought to defy such a one?

  He slumped to his knees, knowing it was over. His life, his dreams, his future, they all ended here. He deserved no better.

  From beside him came a strangled, tortured shriek that sounded more animal than human. A small figure leapt at the Demon, a dark wildcat starkly outlined by golden light. Tom watched aghast as two slender arms rose and fell, and twin blades flashed silver against the gold.
Kat
.

  "Don't listen to it, Tom," she yelled, "it's sapping our will."

  The silver became blurs as Kat attacked, her blades puncturing the golden nimbus and slicing into the body within. She danced and twisted and sliced and cut and thrust, while the Demon bellowed his rage and pain.

  "Talent!" it shrieked. "You have
talent
."

  
Kat had talent?
Of course she did. Tom had never really thought about it before this but how else could a small girl ever rise to prominence in the ranks of the city's toughest warriors? The lethargy and sense of hopelessness which the Demon had induced started to lift. Tom's limbs were his own again. He rose from his knees, as did the guard beside him. Two facts were suddenly crystal clear: Kat had talent, and despite the Demon's sneering dismissal, that talent was hurting it.

  Tom gathered himself, drawing on the well of power which he still didn't understand but was beginning to accept as a part of him. This was no Rust Warrior. He knew that to best a Demon he'd have to muster more force than he'd ever called on before.

  He was almost there, almost ready to unleash his fury, when disaster struck. Presumably tiring of fending off Kat's blows, the Demon fought back. Kat's scream sent a chill down Tom's spine. A blast of energy shot from the Demon's nimbus, catching her full on and sending her hurtling through the air. Kat struck the unyielding wall with an audible smack and then slid down to lie motionless on the floor.

  "No!" Tom seemed to see it all happen in acute detail, as if Kat's limp form had moved in slow motion. In horror, he released the shackles restraining his talent and let loose with everything he had, feeling the energy surge through him but knowing he was too late, that he should have struck a split second earlier, when he still had a chance to save Kat.

  Perhaps the Demon was distracted by having to deal with Kat's unexpected assault, perhaps he hadn't expected Tom to attack with such ferocity. Either way, Tom felt his power take a hold of his enemy, overwhelming defences and inflicting damage. But the Demon wasn't finished yet. He rallied, stalling Tom's attack before he could fully press home his advantage.

  As Tom had expected, this was completely different from fighting a Rust Warrior or a human. The first time Tom had used his power in such a destructive fashion, when he had taken down the Warrior that killed Kohn, it had been a simple outpouring of hate focussed on the monster that had just murdered a friend. What he directed at the Demon was more intense, more sustained, more draining. This time the target didn't simply tremble and fall apart as the Rust Warrior had, it fought back; and Tom sensed that if he didn't prevail in this contest and do so soon,
he
would be the one doing the falling apart. The snag being that he wasn't at all sure he
could
prevail. The Demon was pure core, a construct fashioned from the stuff at Thaiburley's heart, whereas Tom had never been more than a conduit for that same force. His initial success had been due to the element of surprise, and he'd failed to make that really count. The Demon had recovered, and Tom could feel his own efforts faltering, his grasp on his enemy's inner being slipping away. Attack slipped inexorably towards defence, as it became increasingly difficult to hold off the Demon's strengthening assault, let alone press on with his own.

  The Demon clearly sensed as much. "Prepare to die, boy."

  Sweat trickled down Tom's face. He squinted against its salty sting. He clenched his teeth and fought with everything he had, stubbornly refusing to admit the possibility that it wasn't enough. At that moment thoughts of Kat and of Thaiburley's fate were the last thing on his mind. He was fighting for his life.

  At the last moment, as his strength began to falter, a towering figure loomed behind the Demon, seeming to have come out of nowhere. Tom was so focused on resisting the pressure that threatened to break through and crush him that he only saw it dimly, the arm that rose and fell, the solid metal object brought down so forcefully on the Demon's head.

  The pressure disappeared. Tom wasn't in the mood to stop and wonder what had happened. He flew onto the attack, his remaining talent bludgeoning past the Demon's defences, only to find that he had penetrated something incomprehensible. Without meaning to, he found himself immersed in the Demon's mind, which itself was linked to the corrupted core. For a disorientated second Tom felt that he was connected to the whole city, that his sense of self had flowed and stretched to touch every point of Thaiburley at once. In that instant, Tom felt that he could encompass the whole world.

  Confused and overwhelmed, he panicked, desperate to regain some sense of equilibrium, to feel whole again. He lashed out, breaking and destroying, in the hope of triggering a return to normality. His outburst of blind violence ripped the Demon apart from within. The golden figure, driven down to its hands and knees by the blow to the back of its head, twitched and collapsed, hitting the floor face first.

  Was it dead? Was it breathing?
Did
Demons breathe? While Tom was considering these finer points of Demon physiology, the felled figure started to shimmer. The Demon sparkled and twinkled and melted away, fading as if seeping into the floor somehow, until it had completely disappeared. The whole process only took a couple of heartbeats, leaving no mark or sign that anything had ever been there. Tom assumed that the Demon had been reabsorbed by the core.

  Only then did he really turn his attention to their saviour. For a fleeting moment he thought of Kohn, but instantly realised this wasn't the kayjele he'd known. For one thing, the single cyclopean eye that dominated the giant's forehead was bright with intelligence and vision, not milky with the rheum of blindness.

  "Thank you," Tom said, with a shallow nod of gratitude.

  The giant still clutched in his right hand what appeared to be a huge steel wrench, which was presumably what he'd hit the Demon with. Tom barely registered the details. He was already hurrying over to where a crumpled black form lay pooled at the foot of a wall. "Kat?" No response.

  Tom crouched down and reached towards the still form.

  "Don't move her," Jayce advised. "She might be injured. If you move her you're liable to make it worse."

  Tom's hand hovered for a fraction of a second, but then completed the intended action and grasped Kat's arm. There was still no reaction. "We can't just leave her," he told Jayce. He'd left Dewar, he wasn't about to abandon Kat.

  He adjusted his grip, to hold the bare skin of her wrist. Warm, but then wasn't everything in here? Closing his eyes, he reached out with his talent, gently, a feather-light touch. Yes, she was still alive, but hurt, badly hurt, her life energy flickering and uncertain.

  Tom wiped his brow and licked his lips, tasting the saltiness of his own sweat. There was no one here to save her but him. Mildra had told him he could be a healer if he wanted, and Thaiss seemed convinced that he could do just about anything, but he'd never attempted anything like this and there was no one here to show him how. He sat back on his haunches and wiped the palms of his hands on his trousers. The bass boom of the semi-organic pump's latest inhalation vibrated through him like a mournful sigh.

  Still he hesitated, hands hovering just above her small black form. Perhaps leaving her here would be the best option after all. But then she might die of her injuries or fall victim to a Rust Warrior. No, he couldn't shirk responsibility, not this time. Sucking in a deep lungful of the warm, inadequate air, he took hold of her wrist again, closed his eyes and concentrated, attempting to feel for wrongness in her body. He sensed…
something
, an apparent anomaly, which he gingerly caressed away with a whisper of talent, ever conscious of how destructive his power could be and indeed
had
been whenever he'd summoned it in the past. He tried to be restrained and delicate, tried to smooth out the wrinkles in the flow of energy he could sense within Kat's body.

  Tom had no idea how much time passed before he sat back again. Nor did he know whether he'd achieved anything worthwhile. He wasn't a medic and had never aspired to be a healer. He hadn't received the sort of training that Mildra had and didn't know enough about anatomy to knit together bones or repair specific blood vessels the way that she was able to, but, in the absence of either training or direction, he'd done as much as he could.

  His scalp itched with perspiration and his damp clothes clung to his body. He'd have given anything for a sip of cold water, but all he could really think about was Kat. He squatted there and simply stared at her, willing her to get up, to say something, to simply move…

  Her eyes suddenly twitched and then shot open. "Kat?" He grinned, relieved and more than a little pleased with himself. "You're all right."

  "Says who?" she asked, tentatively pulling herself upright, wincing with pain. "If this is all right…" She sat with her back against the wall, breathing deeply. "… then life sucks. What happened to the golden guy with wings?"

  "Our kayjele friend over here arrived in the nick of time and thumped him with a wrench and then I finished him off with my talent."

  "Bully for you." Kat stared at the kayjele, eyeing him up and down. "Big brecker, isn't he?"

  "Yeah, they do tend to be."

  "Is he gonna come with us to the core?"

  Tom hadn't even considered that, but he shook his head, knowing the answer. "Doubt it. He'd have to crawl through the corridors. Besides, his place is here, tending the pump. That's what the kayjele do in Thaiburley."

  "Shame. I've got a feeling we're going to need muscles like that before we're through." So saying, Kat clambered carefully to her feet, face a study in concentration as she did so, one hand holding her side. "Broken rib by the feel of it. Where's Shayna when I need her?"

  "Sorry, I did my best."

  She stared at him, wide eyed. "
You
healed me."

  He nodded. "Sort of, at any rate."

  She grunted, still feeling her obviously tender rib. "I'd say you've still got a bit to learn."

  "Don't worry I know." He bit his lip, reminded of his own inadequacies. "Are you going to be all right to go on?"

  She gave a bitter laugh. "Trust me, kid, I've fought mire bears, dragon worms and murderers carrying far worse than this. It could do with being strapped up, though, if you want me to be much use from here on in. Have we got the time?"

  Tom nodded. "Sure." Who knew how much time they had? It felt as if they were in their own world here, completely cut off from events elsewhere. What difference would a few more minutes make?

  She obviously read his expression. "That'll be a 'no' then, but we'll make the time anyway, right?"

  He grinned. "Right."

  "Well… turn around then!" She shooed him away with her hands. "I'm gonna have to take my top off. You, too, soldier boy," she said in Jayce's direction.

  Tom and the guardsman both hurriedly shuffled round to stare at the wall. Tom couldn't help but be amused at Kat's coyness. In the Blue Claw, the kids would wash and scrub each other and change clothes without any thought of modesty, the few girl members doing so as readily as the boys. Nudity had never been an issue for him, but Kat's asking them to look the other way had suddenly made it one.

  After a short period of rustling and grunting, Kat said, "Kid, I'm going to need a hand here."

  "I'll have to turn around."

  "Of course you will, genius. I'm hardly gonna let you grope over my body without seeing what you're doing now, am I?"

  As Tom spun quickly back towards her, he just knew his cheeks were burning. Thankfully, Kat didn't seem to notice. She had wrapped her chest and side in bright white bandage, with evident efficiency. "You carry
bandages
with you?" he asked, impressed by such foresight.

  She looked at him, puzzled. "Doesn't everyone? Now, just hold this, where my hand is, and don't be afraid to press. If you let go the whole breckin' thing will fall apart and I'll have to start again."

  Tom gingerly reached out to where Kat's hand held a section of pristine whiteness in place against her own side. His fingers lay over hers, which then slipped out from underneath as he took over. They'd held hands once, to escape from a group of nicks, but that was then and it had just been a ruse. This was somehow more intimate. Tom's breath caught in his throat, and he struggled to keep his hand from trembling.

  "Remember," she said, "press hard."

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  The seconds seemed to ooze past with viscous slowness rather than flowing at their normal pace, but eventually, after what seemed to have been an age, she'd finished, fastening the final length in place with a pin. "Thanks. You can let go now."

  "Oh, right." He pulled his hand away sharply, as if he'd just burnt it on something.