Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise (21 page)

“That’s how you had that permission for the guns,” one of the gang leaders said. “You didn’t steal that order like you said. You’re Ministry. You conned us.”

That stung me into speaking. “I never said a damned thing that wasn’t true.” For once in my life.

“Maybe. But you didn’t tell us a lot that was.”

I was in fear for my life again, only this time from the men and women who were supposed to be on my side. I have such a way with people.

“No, I didn’t. But then you wouldn’t have helped, and these Storad here” – I kicked at a body within reach – “would right now be murdering their way through Under. Murdering and raping you and your families, and you’d have no guns. You want to hate me, fine, join the queue. I loathe what the Ministry stands for as much as you do. I’ll join you shooting a few cardinals when this is over. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let these fuckers into
my
city.”

It was touch-and-go there for a few moments, but in the end Quillan said under his breath, just to me, “You did me a favour, so fair’s fair.” And then louder, “All right. But don’t think I’ll let you off later.”

Not everyone agreed, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. At least there’d be men left in the square should the Storad try that way again. The rest of us followed the Special out on to the Spine.

The waft of cooking bacon wove its way up through the walkways, and I could almost see it in the air. It made me sick, and, a split second later, made all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. They were burning pigs again. In the tunnels. Trying to crack one, trying to find another way in. I wondered if the Storad in the city realised that no one on the Outside gave a crap whether the city fell with them in it. Because I wondered if the city could stand any more cracks, or whether one burning pig in the right place could make the whole city into one big Slump. They say the superstructure is built to withstand anything. They say… I’m pretty sure I only imagined the lurch under my feet, the faint rumble of masonry. Must have done, because no one else seemed to notice.

I kept my mouth shut and followed the Special to the Spine, aware that at my back were many men with guns, and now they had a reason to hate me. To them, I was Ministry. To anyone from Under – hell, to
me
– anyone Ministry wasn’t worth shit.

The Spine was empty here, unnaturally quiet. Before I’d buggered everything up, way back a whole few months ago, the Spine had been a bustle of carriages and people, hustling, jostling, Glow-powered adverts blaring out over everything. It had been nothing
but
noise and light. Since we’d got the Glow back on, it’d got back some of its life, but now, nothing. Unless you counted the corpses, but, except in very special and probably mythical circumstances, corpses do not count as life.

“Goddess’s tits,” Quillan whispered, and I didn’t blame him. Just on this one small section of the Spine, on this one little twist of the huge spiral, there must have been two, three hundred dead men gradually getting their fresh new shrouds of snow. Mostly bodies in Specials’ or guards’ uniforms. The Special who’d brought us here looked sick to his eyebrows.

A murmur ran through the men and women who’d followed, though it was hard to tell if it was shock, sympathy or a small and savage glee that finally the guards and Specials had got back what they’d dished out for so long. Probably a mix of all three.

I tried to think, but my brain seemed to be misfiring like my old carriage had a tendency to do. I wasn’t running on all cylinders, because everything kept swirling in my head, a black mass of
Oh fuck
.

I thought of Perak, of where all these Storad were heading, and who’d be top of their list to kill, and that jolted me back into thinking. For a bit, anyway. But not rationally, otherwise I wouldn’t have dropped myself right in it.

“Where’s Perak?” I asked the Special.

“Wait, you’re on first-name terms with the Archdeacon?” Quillan said, and they all took a step away from me.

“Yes,” I snapped back, throwing caution to the long drop underneath the walkway. “I am, because he’s my brother, my family – just like your family we all just fought for back there. And he’s from Under too, like me, and you, and if he gets the chance he’s going to change things – but he needs to live first. You,” I said again to the Special. “Where is he?”

“They were retreating up towards the lab, but the Archdeacon went up to Top of the World.”

The lab – shit, Lise was in the lab. Or had been. Maybe Erlat, if she’d actually listened to me, which I doubted. And the machines – the Storad knew all about the machines, thanks to Dench. Not a chance in hell they’d leave them untouched if they could get to them. I’d have rather blown them up myself than let him get his hands on them. So would Lise, which was my only consolation and no consolation at all.

Quillan came to my rescue then. “I say,” he said, slow and thoughtful as though feeling his way through his words. “I say we loot the bodies for any guns and weapons we can, then come up behind and break them from both sides.” He gave me the old side-eye. “And I say we keep on eye on this bugger too, just in case. No offence.”

“None taken.” And I didn’t take any, because I don’t have to be told when the wind changes. I’m no leader, never have been, never wanted to be, because leadership equals responsibility and we all know how I feel about that. Besides, those men and women were gravitating to him like flies round shit and he seemed a solid enough guy. “As long as we go.”

So we rifled through the bodies, which was just as delicious as it sounds, and if nothing else we were better prepared. Had more people too when it came to it, because more and more were creeping along walkways to join us. Never did take long for word to get around in Under, and a loose crowd jostled behind, asking what was happening, or just joining in with getting guns. No doubt some were only nicking them, but by the end we had a decent-sized mob, and Quillan led us on and up.

We got to the level under the lab before we encountered any kind of resistance. By the looks of it, the Storad were arrowing straight for Top of the World. Take that and they had the city, or all the parts that mattered to them. Just as Allit had seen – Storad in Top of the World. And here I was, with the rising. That boy had a talent he didn’t appreciate, because it was what he’d seen that had given me the idea to try to gather Under together. Perak too, perhaps, though who knew what thoughts it had conjured in his twisting brain?

There was something about that trip, some sort of fraternity that I’d never been part of before. Shit, I’d always kept myself apart from pretty much everyone, and my excuse had been being a mage. But then the core of us had shared things in that square in the Buzz, shared blood and death and kill-or-be-killed. Maybe it was exhaustion, or the thought of having killed a man face-to-face and wanting to know I wasn’t alone, maybe it was the black creeping up on me unawares, but it was like nothing I’d felt before and I wanted it to stay. For the first time in maybe ever I felt a part of something, part of other people, part of the city rather than apart and alone, despised. OK, I wasn’t exactly Mr Popular and, let’s face it, probably never will be. But without Pasha by my side, his solid presence, I needed something to hold on to and they were it.

At the stairwell that led to the lab, there was a knot of Storad. Quillan had taken to this like a bird to air and he knew before we got there. There were gangs that ran Under that no sane man wanted to be up against, and this was a kind of fighting they knew – quick, quiet, take them by surprise. With the men that had joined us, more and more, the gangs were an unexpected addition. Maybe only there for the looting, or perhaps the chance at Top of the World when we were done, but they came, terrifying men with tattoos ringing their faces and eyes that had seen everything and hated it. Luckily, what they were hating right then were Storad.

Guinto asked one why he’d come, and got a growled “This is my patch, and even if it’s shit, no one takes it from me without a fight.”

With the gangs came their specialists. Men who could dismember another in three easy moves with knives so sharp the point vanished into nothingness; scouts who could blend into a shadow in the wink of an eye, who could communicate with their leaders seemingly without words, just signs and low coded whistles. The gangs didn’t get too close to each other, but they were there and that was the important thing. Mahala was theirs, and they weren’t going to let her go without a fight, whether the Ministry let them or not. They weren’t exactly the sort of people who took orders well, at least not Ministry orders.

Thanks to those scouts – and Halina too, because levitating is a handy way to reconnoitre – we didn’t walk straight into the knot of Storad guarding the way towards the lab. Instead, two of the gang leaders approached each other warily, spoke together for a moment and then, with a pair of vicious grins that made me want to drop my gun and put my hands up, beg for my life if I had to, they and their men went in. Not straight in, but from above and below, using arching walkways and shadowed doorways to launch themselves on an unsuspecting enemy that was used to fighting on the flat.

It didn’t last long. They didn’t even use guns, but their own very extensive collection of knives, clubs and nasty-looking spiky things. The two leaders sauntered back our way, wiping their weapons.

“One–nil to me, I think,” the first said.

“Yeah, yeah. Just you wait. My boys’ll slice the living crap out of every Storad between here and Top of the World. Bet you ten we get more than you.”

“You’re on.”

I was really quite glad they were on our side, and therefore nominally the good guys. Otherwise I’d have just found a corner to hide in until it was all over because they scared me more than the Storad, if I’m honest. Especially when I saw the mess they’d made. So matter-of-fact about it, like they were discussing the price of pigs.

And speaking of pigs, that distinct smell of burning bacon wafted up to us again on the same breeze that took the snow and turned it into small powdery tornados. Burning pigs, in the tunnels. I didn’t imagine the lurch this time, because the men around me felt it too. A walkway ahead of us leapt free of its securing bolts and launched into the void, crashing down, smashing itself to bits as it bounced from building to walkway to building before the sound died away in the depths. No one said anything, but I was thinking, a lot. Mostly about how I’d rather be shot in the face than get dropped, screaming, down fifty levels or so when a walkway crumbled or a crack decided it didn’t like it down in the ’Pit and decided to burrow upwards.

The tremor in the city rumbled to a stop as though embarrassed, and I could breathe again. By now the sky was starting to lighten around us. Not much, because snowclouds still hovered over everything, made Top of the World a fuzzy mass above us, but enough to see by. Enough to render half the men speechless. Here we were just Over Trade. Over, and I doubted many of them had been anywhere near this far up. Even the factory workers would never usually get past the very bottom of Trade, at least outside the factories. There was always a guard ready to bounce you back down Under for looking wrong, talking funny, being in the wrong place.

I left them gawping and muttering at the marvel of the sky, grey and lumpy though it was. Quillan, Guinto and one of the gang leaders – the one with black swirling tattoos round his eyes and a snarling grin – came with me to see what had happened with the lab. Quite a lot, by the looks of it.

We’d put the lab somewhere discreet, out of the way, because mages were only newly legal and, well, we’d had trouble. But Dench had known where it was, how to get to it, the best way to get in. Maybe he’d have been better off if he’d stayed with the men he’d sent to try and take it, or perhaps they weren’t intending to destroy it, not this time. Maybe they were after the machines, the chemicals, all Lise’s devious little ideas for staving off the Storad. Who knew?

We approached the door, and it was obvious why that knot of Storad had been at the end of the stairwell rather than here – by the looks of things they had tried to take the lab, but had been beaten back and had decided to bide their time till they had Top of the World. Scorchmarks from their flamers arced over the door and wall surrounding it, but they’d made barely a dent. There was a small window by the door, smashed in, but the sill was washed in blood and other gloopy-looking things I didn’t like to look too closely at. Someone had made an effort to barricade the window while leaving enough room to shoot out of, and it seemed to have worked. Bodies enough littered the ground that it was tricky finding a place to put our boots without finding something soft and yielding – or, worse, squelchy – under them. From my cursory glance, it looked like someone inside was a very good shot indeed.

I conjured a mental map of inside the lab, trying to think if there was any other handy way in, but the rest of the windows had an open view over the top of Trade and even a monkey would have a hard time getting to them. Maybe the Storad would have been able to shoot from a few walkways that crossed that area, but even after that, they’d still have to come through the door. We’d picked the position perfectly. It only remained to be seen if anyone was still alive in there. The fact that it hadn’t blown up gave me hope that Lise, at least, was still all right because I knew damn well she had enough chemicals in there to give a herd of rhinos pause, and she’d use them rather than let anyone get their grubby little paws on her precious gizmos.

I got closer to the door, but not too close – whoever was that good a shot might not like me, and there was Lise’s expertise with booby traps to take into account. She’d almost killed me with them more than once, back when all this started, around about the beginning of the world.

The barrel of a gun poked through a gap in the barricade, and I heard a whispered “Thank the Goddess,” which isn’t a greeting I’d ever had before. Behind the door locks ground around, bolts scraped across and other sounds of complicated things being disarmed echoed across the gap. It seemed to take a long time. After Dwarf died, and again after the screwdriver incident, I’d made double damned sure that no one could get in unless Lise wanted them in, and was now glad I’d ignored all her protests about it.

Finally the door opened and a wary face peered round, then Allit shot towards me and almost had me off my feet in what I can only describe as the most enthusiastic welcome I’d ever had. Lise behind him was more reserved, but looked just as relieved as she grabbed for my hand and squeezed.

When I managed to untangle Allit from me, he got himself under control and I wondered at the new look to him. Softness knocked from the edges of his young face, and eyes that… He didn’t look like the same boy. He didn’t look like a boy at all.

“I didn’t let them get in,” he said, and then he grinned. “I saw them coming, saw where they were going to attack, so I made sure they couldn’t get through.”

“
You
did? Hmmph,” Lise said. “
I
was the one who salted the walkways with traps.” She grinned up at me, happy in her work. “Got the bastards a treat. All your magelets helped too, Rojan – good practice for them, and they did well. But the traps were mine.”

Quillan looked surprised for a second, obviously taking in Lise and Allit’s youth. “You did a good job.”

“Very good,” I added, and Allit rewarded me with that look of hero worship that I remembered from the days when Perak thought the sun shone out of my arse. Goddess be damned, it felt good. “Is everyone all right? Erlat?”

“Cabe?” Quillan asked. “Is he here?”

“Yes, he’s here, came in quite handy – did you know he can bend things just by thinking about it? No? Not quite like Rojan does things, but pretty good all the same. Anyway, we’re all fine – well, a couple of injuries,” Lise said. “Nothing too much. Dendal used the first-aid kit from the pain lab to patch people up. And Erlat’s here – she’s good with that gun. I don’t think she missed once.”

Quillan and the gang leader, Yagin, conferred behind me, then Yagin said, “We need somewhere to fall back, in case. Always have a bolthole, and one you can defend, right? We’re going in, up, but if you like I’ll leave a few of my lads here. First, a regroup and a plan of attack. A little reconnoitre – I’ll send my scouts off, see what they can find, then we’ll decide how to go about dissecting these bastards.”

The thought of which made my back itch – those “lads” were murdering machines. But I didn’t say so. I was only too glad to have someone protecting the lab because I knew, sure as shit stinks, that I wouldn’t be able to persuade Lise, Dendal or Erlat to make a try for the Mishan gate.

“Who else have you got?” I said, and followed Allit in, wanting to make sure with my own eyes that Erlat was all right.

Quite a few, was who else. Yagin’s eyes almost popped out of his head when one of Erlat’s girls wandered past and winked at him. Her seductive dress and elegant make-up were at distinct odds with the gun she had ready in her hand, and the blood splashed all down her front. It wasn’t her blood.

Yagin looked at Lise appraisingly, then back at the dead Storad. “You did that?”

Lise bristled, pulled herself up to her not very tall tallest. “Damned right. Well, OK, some of the others are good with a gun. But I was the one who designed and set the quicklime traps.”

“Quicklime? I like your style. Could do with a girl like you, after.” I saw the look of wicked appreciation spark on his face as he took in her more physical charms, and had to tell myself, Look, she may be your sister, but she
’
s grown up.
And
she
’
s good at being devious and underhand, blowing things and people up. She can handle him.

And she did. “Join the queue, and be prepared to pay a lot for my expertise. Now, what were you planning? I’ve got any amount of things you might want.”

His lips broke into a grin, insolent and waiting, but he didn’t look so threatening then.

A few brief words and I left Lise and her new friends at one of the workbenches. I kept an eye on Yagin, just in case, but he behaved himself; in fact he seemed a bit in awe of Lise, as well he might. They cleared the bench of all the detritus of a genius at work and set up a sort of operational base. Perfect place for it too. In the brief snatches when the snow stopped, we could gaze down from the lab over Trade, could see anyone on the Spine from there up to Clouds and beyond, at least until it disappeared into the lowering haze.

Younger lads were sent scampering over walkways to see what they could find, who was where, and whether the who had any weapons. Others were sent under Guinto’s direction to gather who they could, fire them up with his Goddess talk perhaps, get them out of their homes and fighting, as they always had, only this time for… maybe for nothing. Then again, Under always seemed to fight for something and end with nothing.

I was glad to leave them to it because now I was no more or less use to them than any other man with a gun in his hand. All I had going for me was a pulse pistol I daren’t use unless I felt like going the way Pasha had, and a life-long, deep-seated hatred of the world and pretty much everything in it. Hatred and cynicism had got me a long way, but I was tired now. More tired than I could ever recall, and without even the luxury of loathing the Goddess for dumping all this on us from a great height. It wasn’t her that had done it, and my hate seemed to have run dry.

It wasn’t hard to tell where the Storad had got to – a dark mass on the Spine, moving confidently, but not so quickly that they weren’t doing their best to rout anyone to either side. No one seemed to be stopping them. Maybe not much point, if Allit was right. Maybe part of Perak’s plan to draw them in. I hoped so. We could see the mangled mess of the gates from here too, just, but the pass, the road and what was coming along it were mostly hidden by Heights and rendered dim in any case by the weather.