Iron Jackal (2 page)

The city of Shasiith.

Ashua was backing away towards the edge of the roof. Frey advanced, one hand held out to calm her, the other holding his pistol by his side.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said. ‘I just need some information.’

‘Right,’ said Ashua, almost to herself. ‘Information.’ Then, suddenly, she turned on her heel, ran, and jumped.

‘
Damn
it!’ he snarled, and sprinted after her. Half of him hoped she’d lobbed herself off the roof to the street below – it would save him a chase – but she didn’t seem the sort for suicide. There had been purpose in her jump. She’d landed somewhere out of sight.

As he got closer to the edge the adjacent building came into view, its roof lower than the one he was on. He saw Ashua racing away, and accelerated. He had the bit between his teeth now. He was going to catch her.

The width of the street between the buildings only became apparent at the very last moment. It was narrow by Vardic standards, but it still seemed way too far to jump. Below him, people were crammed into a dirty and colourful market. They seemed very small, and very far away.

In that moment he almost faltered. His instincts howled at him to brake. He ignored them.

For a single horrible second, he was flying and falling at the same time. Then he hit the rooftop, harder than expected. His legs half-buckled, but he stumbled forward and somehow managed to keep his feet.

‘Just gonna hurt her a
little
bit,’ he promised himself.

There was a sturdy plank bridge linking this rooftop to its neighbour. Ashua scampered across it and stopped at the far end. Frey saw her struggling to prise the planks away. Sensing the opportunity to make up ground, he ran harder, lungs stinging and his scalp wet with perspiration. She wasted precious seconds before giving up and fleeing again.

Frey reached the plank bridge and crossed before he could think better of it. He couldn’t help looking down as he did so, and caught another terrifying glimpse of the crooked market lanes, people and animals far below. But it was only a glimpse, and then he was back on safe ground again.

There was a tumbledown shed ahead of him. A goat was poking its head out through a gap, chewing on a thin plant that had taken root in the cracks of the rooftop. Ashua was just vanishing round the corner. He put on a burst of speed and pursued her.

When he turned the corner, she was waiting for him.

He skidded and ducked as she swung a broken length of wood at his head. It crashed into the side of the shed, bounced out of her hands and fell across his back.

It took both of them a moment to realise that she’d missed. She reacted faster than he did, and slipped away just before he could grab her. He followed, close on her heels, as she raced towards another rooftop. This time the building was pressed flush against its neighbour, its edge a metre higher. Ashua sprang up at it and began to scramble over. Frey caught her legs before she could.

‘Get off me!’ she cried, as Frey tried to drag her back down from the ledge. She thrashed like a cat in a bag. He tried to keep hold of her, but he was only using one hand, since the other was holding a gun. She got a foot free. Frey knew what was coming next. The inevitability of it was disheartening.

‘I just—’ he began, but was interrupted by a boot being driven into the side of his head.

‘—want—’

Kick.

‘—to talk!’

The third kick dislodged him, and she was gone in a scrabble. He staggered away, dizzy, blinking to clear the stars from his eyes.

‘What is it with women and kicking me in the face?’ he asked himself. He wiped his lips with his sleeve and spat blood. ‘Oi!’ he yelled at Ashua. ‘Get back here!’

She gave a little scream of exasperation as she saw him clambering over the ledge. ‘I’m not going to talk to you! Haven’t you taken the hint yet?’

He stood up, sweaty and soaked and in a considerable amount of pain, but doing his best to look defiant anyway. ‘I’m a slow learner,’ he said.

Ashua’s eyes went wide. ‘Amazing,’ she said. ‘Is that your comeback? You’re stupider than I thought.’

‘How stupid did you think I was?’

‘Slightly less stupid than I do now.’

Frey couldn’t think of an adequate response to that. ‘Look,’ he said, catching his breath, ‘how long is it gonna take you to realise that I’m
not trying to hurt you
?’

‘But you make such a convincing case, having shot two of my bodyguards. You’re still carrying a pistol, I notice. And there’s another pistol and a cutlass in your belt.’

‘How about I put them on the floor? Would you stop being so bloody skittish if I did?’

‘I might. Try it and see.’

Frey took out his weapons and laid them down. It was all he could do to keep his temper under control. His lip was swelling, and his face was going to bruise. That meant he was going to look ridiculous for the next few days, and Frey was a man who didn’t like to look ridiculous. It pricked his vanity. His good looks were the one thing he’d been able to rely on all his life. The thought of having them marred, even temporarily, scared him. And besides, his face was really starting to hurt.

When he was done, Ashua eyed the weapons. ‘Now take three steps back,’ she said, shooing him away.

He took three steps back. She nodded in satisfaction, turned and bolted.

Frey swore the foulest oath he could think of, started to run after her, then stopped. He wasn’t leaving his cutlass behind, that was for damn sure. It was his most precious possession after the
Ketty Jay
: a daemon-thralled blade given to him by Crake, which fought with a mind of its own. He gathered up his weapons as fast as he could, jammed them in his belt, and set off again.

By now Ashua had sprung across to the next rooftop. As he got closer he saw there was a set of zigzagging stone steps cut into the side of the building. Ashua began scampering down them. If she got to street level, he’d lose her in the market.

He reached the edge of the building and jumped.

The moment his feet left the roof, he knew he was going to fall short. Heat and fatigue had robbed his legs of their strength. ‘Oh,
shiiiit
!’ he wailed. He’d always suspected they would be his final words, but he’d imagined himself delivering them in a slightly more masculine fashion.

He crashed into the edge of the rooftop, bounced off, and plunged towards the street. There was an instant of tumbling, of rushing air and overwhelming terror. Then he collided with something soft which wrapped around him, folding him in bright colours. It only held him for a heartbeat before something snapped and he was dropping again. He fell onto a second soft barrier, which snapped in turn, and then he hit the ground with an almighty crash, although happily with a lot less force than he’d expected.

He lay where he’d landed, stunned. He was enveloped in a cocoon of tough fabric. Everything hurt. He couldn’t quite believe he was still alive to enjoy the pain.

Voices in a foreign tongue were hissing and shouting all around him. Hands reached in, pulling away the fabric. An awning. He’d been caught by a couple of them on the way down. Enough to slow his fall. Enough to save his life.

Lucky, lucky bastard
.

People crowded in on him, some angry, some concerned. Dakkadians, with their broad, pale faces, light hair and narrow eyes. Samarlans, with elegant features and skin black as pitch. He tried to untangle himself from the awning. The onlookers helped him up. Some were rougher than others.

Piles of earthenware pots surrounded him. Many of them were smashed. He ran his hand through his hair and looked about in a daze. He’d landed in the middle of a stall. The narrow strip of sky above him was almost closed out by awnings, but despite the shade the market was stiflingly hot. The air was heavy with churned-up dust and the babble of traders and customers.

An old, thin Samarlan – presumably the owner – began to berate him, wagging a finger in his face. Other people started arguing amongst themselves. None of it was in Frey’s language, so he didn’t pay much attention. He was still getting over the shock of the fall.

Then his gaze found Ashua, and he remembered his purpose.

She was running down the last flight of stairs to the ground, a dozen metres away. As if she sensed that she’d been spotted, she looked over her shoulder, directly at him. His mind sharpened to a hot, angry point. She’d nearly killed him. Her expression turned fearful as she saw the look on his face.

Suddenly the pain didn’t matter. The exhaustion and the shock fell away. He was going to
get
her.

The store owner grabbed his arm to stop him escaping. He had his cutlass out in a flash, holding it to the old man’s throat.

‘I’m not in the mood,’ he said.

The old man glared at him hatefully, but Frey’s eyes were harder still and the old man let him go. The crowd backed away, seeing he was dangerous. He retreated a few steps to make sure no one was going to come for him, then turned and headed off after Ashua.

He pushed his way through the swelter, shoving people aside when they weren’t quick enough to get out of his way. His body twinged and protested with every step as new bruises made themselves known. Roaming chickens scattered at his feet. Robed Dakkadians and finely-clad Samarlans passed by in a lurid blur. He almost tripped over a blind man of the untouchable caste, who raised a gnarled hand and a white-patterned face towards him as he passed.

Ashua was ahead of him, her ginger hair drawing his eye among the black and blond of the locals.

They turned into a lane which had been roofed with rough planks, creating a gloomy tunnel lined with stalls. Sharp sunlight beamed between the gaps in the planks, striping the citizens that bustled along beneath them. The crowd had thinned out here, to make space for a huge beast of burden. It was a leathery desert monster, all tusks and horns and armour, shambling through the dim world of the market. Two robed handlers, Samarlan nomads, walked in front of it, carrying pointed prods.

As Ashua hurried past she snatched a prod from one handler’s grip and shoved it hard into the beast’s hind leg. It bellowed, rearing and stamping, surprised by the pain. People began to scream and flee, piling over themselves in their efforts to get clear. Frey was almost knocked over in the stampede, but he rallied and fought doggedly through the pack. The nomads tried to calm the beast, which snorted and swiped its head at anyone within reach. Two Daks pulled an unconscious Samarlan out of its way before he could be trampled. Frey pressed himself close to the wall and edged along until the danger was behind him.

She’d gained ground on him again, but she was tiring now. He could see it in the set of her shoulders. When she tried to push through the people in the market they pushed back more often than not. She wasn’t as strong or as forceful as he was. The crowd was hampering her more than him.

He found a surge of energy, inspired by fury, and forged on.

Suddenly, the market spat them out into the open, and he found himself on a street that ran alongside a river. The city fell away towards the water in uneven tiers. Temples stood on the banks, their crowded steps descending into the murky flow. People swam among the cows and beasts that waded in the shallows. Women washed their clothes on the shore. Several hulking bridges spanned the river, cluttered with buildings both elaborate and rickety. The sun glittered redly on the wavelets, throwing a dazzling streak across the water.

On another day, Frey might have been impressed with the spectacle. But his whole world had narrowed to a single purpose, a bloody-minded need to catch this damned woman who had caused him so much trouble. Ashua was running along the riverside, with a low wall to her left. She was clutching her ribs, carrying a stitch, and she could barely manage more than a jog. Frey was still riding the adrenaline from his fall, and he renewed his effort, sensing the end was near.

She looked over her shoulder to see how close he was. As she did so, a Samarlan boy wheeling a small cart emerged from the alley ahead of her. She crashed into it, sending fruit and bags of seeds rolling and skidding everywhere. Before she could get back to her feet, Frey was on her. He seized her by the collar, threw her onto her back and pinned her to the ground, his cutlass across her throat. The boy yelped and fled into the alley.

For a long few seconds, they stayed like that, he on top of her, faces inches apart, both of them sweaty and gasping for breath. Frey, still scared and shaken from his brush with death, wanted to exact revenge for what she’d put him through; but now it came to it, he couldn’t think how. He was trembling with exhaustion. He was also aware that there was a young female beneath him, which was a good thing more often than not. The feelings that provoked diluted his anger a little.

She gave him a nervous smile. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘This is nice.’

‘Can we talk now?’ he asked, in carefully measured tones.

‘You’re really not going to kill me?’

‘No.’

‘Jakeley Screed didn’t send you?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I feel a bit of an idiot, now.’

‘You should.’

‘That’s, er, one man dead and another man maimed because of that little misunderstanding.’