City of Light & Shadow (6 page)

  "Do you know where we are? Have you any idea what this is?" He swept an arm wide to take in the looming presence of the Pits' amphitheatre, which stood dark and brooding in the sun globes' dawning light.

  Nobody responded, heads remained rigidly facing forward.

  "Well? Speak up, anybody?"

  "The Pits, sir!" the sergeant, Whitmore, replied.

  "Exactly right. The Pits, where warriors were pitted against the deadliest animals the world has to offer, where champion fought champion to the death, where life expectancy was measured not in decades but in days and weeks. The men you'll be working beside today are the winners of this darkest of all theatres. They're the ones who survived the horrors of the Pits and walked away to tell the tale. Some of them were there for
years
. So when you look at the man beside you and feel tempted to sneer at his barbaric appearance, at his primitive, unsightly tattoos, just stop to think for a moment. Reflect on the fact that the more elaborate and extensive those tattoos the more bouts a warrior survived, the more he triumphed. Today you will have the
honour
of working alongside some of the deadliest fighters Thaiburley has ever produced, professional killers whose skills were honed in the fiercest environment imaginable. They deserve your respect and by Thaiss they'll get it! Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, sir!" six voices declared in unison.

  Tylus pursed his lips, doubting his stirring words would make a jot of difference. He recalled his own deep-rooted prejudices when he first arrived in the City Below. If asked, he would have denied they existed; only once they were fully dismantled was he able to recognise that they'd been there in the first place. These lads would be no different, however well-intentioned they might be. Their entire upbringing would have constantly reinforced their sense of superiority over those who dwelt in the under-City. It was going to take more than mere words, no matter how stirring, to overturn something as ingrained as that. Only experience could do the job; but experience had to begin somewhere, and these six were about to receive a baptism of fire.

  "Sergeant, you and your men follow me." With that Tylus spread his arms, allowing the cape to unfurl. He felt lighter immediately, as if the cloak were eager to carry his body skyward and lift him above the rooftops. Seeing no reason to deny it, he bent his knees and leapt, soaring upwards. Behind him, the other Kite Guards did the same.

  There hadn't been time for him to get to know these men properly. He'd been assured they were among the best the Guard had to offer and had no reason to doubt that assessment, but it wasn't the same as knowing the man at your back and being confident of how he was likely to react in a given situation. Still, they had the weaponry provided by the arkademics plus the new slings, which they had evidently trained with, and there was no doubting that his little troop maintained a tight formation in flight. He felt irrationally proud of them as they soared over the rendezvous point just short of the Stain and came in to land in neat order. Surely those waiting couldn't fail to be impressed.

  If so, they masked it well.

  "About time you got here," Kat snapped.

  "Hardly our fault if you decide to be early," Tylus responded.

  Tattooed Men were milling around, while half a dozen ebony giants stood statue-still in a row before the crumbling wall of a derelict building. The Blade.

  Tylus went to talk with the man who had come to see them off: the Council's newest member, Master Thomas, supposed victim of the apparent murder that led to the Kite Guard being assigned to the under-City in the first place.

  "Sorry the Prime Master can't be here in person," Thomas said. "There's a developing situation in the Heights which he can't afford to leave."

  "Quite understood," Tylus assured him, while wondering what the situation might be. This expedition was the Prime Master's idea, and from all that Tylus knew of the man it was unlike him not to see a project through.

  In truth, he paid little attention to what was said after that – which, in any case, amounted to little more than a wordy "good luck" from what he did hear – his thoughts were focused on what lay ahead.

  Kat seemed all business this morning, which made the job of glossing over yesterday's events that much easier. He sneaked a sidelong glance at her as she organised the Tattooed Men. Despite his best intentions, the girl remained impressive and annoyingly hard to ignore.

  "Hello, Tylus," a voice said, snapping him out of his reveries.

  He looked around to see a woman in arkademic's garb. She appeared to be around his age; brown hair worn short – as short as Kat's though not as ragged and spiky, rather it was well-cut and shaped in a sort of bob. She had a dark complexion, large almond eyes, and a slightly plump face, pleasant as opposed to overtly pretty. In fact, there was something vaguely familiar about that face… then it clicked into place.

  "
Issie?
"

  She laughed. "It's been years since anyone called me that, but yes, it's me."

  He joined in her laughter and had to resist the urge to hug her – she was an arkademic after all. "I don't believe this. It must be, what, ten years… twelve?"

  "At least. I haven't seen you since we moved away and I went to train as an arkademic. Look at you now: a Kite Guard!"

  "And look at you: an arkademic!" He was surprised and overjoyed. Issie's family had been neighbours and the two of them had virtually grown up playing with each other, but he hadn't thought about her in years. "So what
do
people call you these days?"

  "Well, that depends on who they are. Arkademic Haq for the most part, Isar to my friends, but they'd both sound a little odd coming from you, so let's stick with Issie, shall we?"

  Tylus was grinning despite the daunting task that had brought them here, delighted by this wholly unexpected encounter.

  Kat yelled something at the Tattooed Men and then said, "When you two have finished catching up, shall we get going – unless you've got some reason to hang around here, Kite Guard?"

  "None at all," he assured her. "Talk later," he said to Issie, who nodded in response as she was abruptly surrounded by the towering figures of the Blade.

  Tylus went to re-join the men, glaring in Kat's direction as he did so, reckoning that if she was determined to stay in this sort of a mood it was going to be a very long day indeed.

 

Kat and the Tattooed Men were the first to arrive at the rendezvous point. She was impatient, sensing that this was it, the day of reckoning for the monster that had murdered first her mother and now her sister, the callous creature who so casually altered the course of her life without ever knowing or caring that it did so.

  She felt well rested and alert, despite getting to bed later than intended the previous evening. As the sun globes dimmed to darkness, she'd slipped away from the Tattooed Men and made her way through the flickering twilight and long shadows of lantern-lit streets to a familiar door. Her knock was answered by an elderly woman, who showed her to a seat by a simple wooden table before making them both hot milky drinks.

  Kat had seen little of the apothaker since they parted company in an abandoned warehouse the night she went in search of Brent. She'd never asked what became of Sur Sander, reckoning that it was best left between the old woman and her conscience.

  Kat felt a strange kinship with this woman, a connection she found difficult to define. They both knew what it was to be cast out, they'd both known loss, and they shared a common enemy. Perhaps that was all it was. Perhaps that was enough.

  On the table in front of the apothaker rested a sheet of textured paper. Though it lay face down, Kat had seen it before and knew that the other side held a vividly rendered sketch of a young woman – Kara, the apothaker's apprentice, slain by the Soul Thief.

  "We're going to get her, Mother," Kat said softly. The familiar honorific was one she reserved for few people, but this was one woman who merited it.

  "You're going after it, you're going into the Stain?"

  "Yes."

  The apothaker took a sip from her mug as if mulling this over before replying, "Thaiss guide you then, girl."

  No recriminations, no reminder of their failure to hunt the monster down in the streets or the disaster that had been Iron Grove Square, merely a blessing. It reaffirmed Kat's high opinion of this enigmatic, brave woman.

  "Thank you. We've got some help this time, from up-City. She won't get away again. I just wanted to let you know." She deserved to know.

  The apothaker nodded. "And I'm grateful for your trouble."

  Kat couldn't resist saying, "No luck potions for me this time?"

  The apothaker shook her head and said, "No, you had my best last time, but…" and her hand strayed to the sheet of paper which she pushed across the table. "Here, take this with you."

  Kat stared at the paper, strangely reluctant to reach out and touch it. "I… I can't take this." It was all the woman had left of the girl she had doted on and raised as a daughter.

  "Yes you can. Look at it."

  Kat did reach out then, taking the corner of the sheet and turning it over. To find herself staring at a beautifully depicted face as anticipated; but this wasn't Kara. The face was rounder, the eyes more intense, the lips a little thinner and the hair shorter and more ragged, spiky even. The image was still striking, but it was unmistakable… "
Me
?"

  "I had to draw it from memory," the apothaker explained, "but I always did have a good eye for detail. I'm still not entirely happy with the hair but it'll do."

  "It's stunning," Kat assured her. She stared again. "Do I really look like this?" Although she recognised her own features there was a wild beauty in the face as rendered by the apothaker, a defiant splendour which didn't match her own self-image.

  "I only ever draw what I see."

  Kat wasn't sure what to say. There was a depth of beauty here which she felt embarrassed by, convinced it was more in the beholder's eye than her actual face.

  "I'm too old to go traipsing across the Stain, but if you take this with you at least a part of me will be there when you give that bitch what's coming to her."

  Kat had to smile. There wasn't a hint of doubt in the woman's voice, no suggestion that the venture might possibly fail.

  She lifted the picture from the table and hesitated.

  "Go ahead," the apothaker said, evidently anticipating her thoughts. "Fold it up by all means. The image shouldn't smudge."

  Kat did as instructed, and then slipped the paper into a pocket as she stood up. "I'd better be going. Busy day tomorrow."

  They both got to their feet, the apothaker surprising Kat by coming around the table and hugging her. As they embraced, Kat was very conscious of just how frail the older woman felt, though there was a smile on her face as she stepped back and said, "Give her hell!"

  Kat had to suppress a shiver, struck by a sense of déjà vu. These were exactly the same words the apothaker had said to her ahead of the debacle at Iron Grove Square, before Chavver was killed. She could only hope that things would go a little differently this time.

 

Kat's hand strayed unconsciously to her pocket, fingering the edge of the apothaker's folded picture as she shared some banter with the men. The chosen dozen had been split into three teams of four, each with a specified lieutenant – divisions that would mean nothing until the fighting actually started but which would give them shape and discipline when hell came a calling. This was how she and Chavver had always organised the men, a leftover from the Pits when small groups of disparate individuals had needed to gel quickly into cooperative units to stand any hope of surviving.

  The Prime Master hadn't turned up to see them off but another Master had, Thomas, and he'd brought the promised six members of the Blade with him, their dark towering presence impossible to ignore for all that they stood silent. When she'd considered them at all, Kat had always imagined the Council of Masters to be a bunch of ancient and wizened men and women, but Thomas looked to be a good deal younger than that, a man still in his prime. The same was true of the person he brought with him, a slightly stocky, round-faced woman wearing the pale blue robes of an arkademic.

  "This is Arkademic Haq," Thomas said. "She'll be accompanying you into the Stain."

  "Like hell she will," Kat responded. "Nobody said anything about us taking a civilian in there with us."

  "Sorry, I probably didn't phrase that very well," Thomas said, with a grimace and an apparent degree of humility which surprised Kat. "The arkademic isn't here to penalise or handicap you in any way, far from it; she's essential to your mission."

  "I devised the whip you see," the woman said, "the one which somebody used against your Soul Thief. I'm attuned to it, drawn to those elements of the whip she absorbed when it struck her. I can feel it even now, pulling at me."

  "The arkademic has kindly agreed to help us, despite the considerable risks involved. If anything, you might want to thank her."

  Kat scowled. She never had reacted well to advice, especially when it concerned her own behaviour. "I expected the detector to be in a box or something, not in a person."

  "Sorry, it doesn't work that way," Thomas replied.

  Kat glared at the arkademic, not remotely intimidated by his status. She hadn't reckoned on this. The need to safeguard a non-combatant would change things drastically, ensuring that at least part of their force would have to be tied down, static, prepared to take a hit in order to protect the defenceless.