Scar Night (45 page)

Carnival was waiting for him, with Rachel in her arms. The assassin’s body was covered in wounds, glistening red through countless gashes defacing her dusty leathers. Her head rested on the scarred angel’s shoulder and her sword arm hung slack, the blade still dripping blood. She showed no sign of movement.

But as Dill’s approaching wings blew dust around her face, she looked up wearily and smiled.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Dizzy,” she whispered.

He returned her smile. Then he glanced at Carnival. Dust enveloped her face and arms, covering her scars. She looked exhausted, but her eyes seemed a shade lighter than he remembered, and he was struck by the strange thought that she was pretty. He opened his mouth to speak.

“Save it,” the other angel said.

They flew on up—through the broken city and into sunlight.

As if a floodgate in Dill’s mind had been opened, the memories of his previous life rushed back. He remembered clinging to a weathervane, turning with the wind under a darkening sky. He remembered circling his cell, carefully planting candles. Had he been so afraid of the dark?

He couldn’t now think why.

He recalled priests in black robes shuffling through dim spaces; a vaulted corridor where the bones of his predecessors looked down from tall pillars; and Presbyter Sypes, muttering and grumbling, but unfailingly kind; also Borelock’s whip; Adjunct Crumb’s perfume.

Where were they all now?

Everything he knew was being destroyed. Deepgate was in ruins. One quarter of the city had fallen. Chains, cables, and ropes hung from the edges where structures had been ripped away. Whole streets dangled over the yawning abyss. Just then, there was a mighty rumble and part of Lilley crumbled and fell. Fire engulfed the districts surrounding it, blackened chains interknitting with smoke. The temple itself tilted ominously, like a thin, cloaked figure bending to peer into a hole at its feet.

On the eastern perimeter of the abyss stood a vast machine the likes of which Dill had never seen. It was ablaze, funnels disgorging angry smoke from the summit of its yellow- and black-streaked hull. At its base long jointed arms held whirring cogs against one foundation chain, spraying sparks across the city. Deepgate’s armies were pouring around this behemoth, inching siege-towers and ladders closer. Warships harried it from above with waterfalls of burning pitch and showers of bolts.

“Devon,” Rachel said.

Carnival studied the devastation. “The bastard cut down my tree.”

Clouds of smoke rose over Deepgate and lifted the three of them up among the fleet of churchships. Missionaries stood on the decks, gaping down, but their airships made no move to engage the Tooth. They seemed to buzz through the smoke without purpose.

Rachel’s gaze moved between the churchships and the streets below. “Those cowards could at least help them evacuate. They’re doing
nothing
.”

Refugees were leaving Deepgate in droves. Crowds packed the streets in creeping, shuffling lines. Many carried their possessions with them, or drove donkeys laden with furniture, crates, and barrels. Thousands had already descended upon the army encampment, where a frantic lieutenant was shouting orders, ushering the refugees through the lines to where the camp encroached upon the desert. But thousands more were moving in the opposite direction, converging on the temple at the centre of the stricken city. Streams of people tried to filter past each other, till streets were either congested or completely blocked and fights were breaking out everywhere.

Four heavyset workers, en route to the temple, were cutting their way through a family trying to escape the other way. The wife was screaming over the fallen body of her husband. More casualties choked the lane behind, where a horse bucked and kicked among the jostling crowd.

“Someone should tell them what’s down there in the pit,” Rachel said. “They wouldn’t then be so keen to get to the temple.”

Carnival grunted. “They’d only hate you for it.”

They flew over the clogged lanes of the Warrens and high above the League of Rope, where fires raged far beyond the edges of the rent. When they reached the mountain-sized machine itself, they paused.

Battle raged below. Sappers were attacking the tracks of the machine with rams and lances, dragging beams from broken siege-towers nearer. Meanwhile, soldiers advanced, shields upheld, striving to reach ladders planted against the hull. Dozens of men fell under arrow fire. Grapples flew up, but most failed to find purchase on the smooth surface and clattered away.

Dill and his two companions descended. From the roof of the machine, a stairwell brought them down to a hatch.

Inside, resistance was heavy, yet the scarred angel and the assassin dispatched the men they encountered with appalling efficiency. Both the chain that united them and the sword glistened freshly with blood by the time they reached the bridge.

Devon was hunched over a skeletal contraption, shifting levers, his attention fully on events outside. A bearded man with a heavily tattooed face stood to one side. When he saw them, his single eye widened in surprise and he murmured a warning to the Poisoner.

“Please come in,” Devon said, without turning. “I’ll be with you in a moment.” He pushed and pulled a few more levers before he turned to face them.

Outside, the grinding of metal ceased, the cutters lifting into view before the bridge windows.

“This is Bataba.” Devon indicated the bearded man. “Heshette shaman and leader of those you slaughtered on the way in.” He eyed the fresh blood on Rachel’s sword. “I tried to warn him when we saw you approach. Providing you with an escort would have been less messy.” He gave a little shrug. “Now he is angry, of course, and no doubt blames me.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “On the day Deepgate falls, an angel, a leech, and an assassin rise from the pit.” He looked from one to the other, before his gaze finally settled on the chain between Carnival and Rachel. “Scar Night must have been interesting.”

“Why are you doing this?” Rachel lowered the point of her sword to the floor. With her other hand she slipped the hood off the poisonsong bolt at her hip.

Devon snorted. “It’s what they want. Look.” He punched his stump at the window. “The faithful are converging on the temple. The faster I cut, the more eager they become.”

“Half the city is trying to escape.”

“And if they do escape, I won’t pursue them. I’m not unreasonable.”

“Ulcis is dead,” Rachel said. “His archons are dead. There’s nothing left down there.”

Devon raised an eyebrow. “You found some evidence of that?” He seemed unconvinced. “A tomb?”

“I drank him,” Carnival said.

Devon frowned, cupped his chin in his hand. His eyes flicked from Carnival to the floor and back. Then he looked up, amused. “You drank him?” There was now an edge of uncertainty in his voice. “You drank a god?”

“I could manage another,” she said.

Dill sensed blood in the air, the pressure of violence, like water building behind a dam ready to burst. And in response he felt something building inside himself, a force pushing back. Hadn’t there been enough blood spilled? Too many lives already lost? He’d had enough. “No,” he said firmly. “No more killing.” He faced Carnival. “Let him go. Let them all leave.”

“I think it’s beyond that now,” Devon said, not unkindly.

“Enough!” Bataba snarled. He grabbed Devon’s shoulder, swung him round. “The city—finish it.”

Rachel said, “There’s nothing underneath Deepgate but bones, shaman.”

“Bones!” Devon laughed. “What am I supposed to do with bones?” But his gaze then fixed on the freshly healed wounds on Dill’s chest. “The angelwine,” he said, “you found it?”

“Dill died,” Rachel explained. “It revived him.”

“Died?”

“I’m afraid I left your hand behind.”

Dill was stunned.
He had died?
His memories were now crystallizing. He remembered the fight on the mountain of bones, the pain in his chest before he blacked out. And then he remembered waking in the dark cell. Was there anything between?

Something…

A void, darkness. But he had a sense that this darkness cloaked other memories, lurking there just out of reach. “How long was I dead?” he asked.

“Days,” Rachel said. “Maybe a week. I don’t know.”

“What do you remember?” Devon asked.

“Darkness.”

“That’s it?”

Dill tried to shake the fog from his head. There
was
something else. A dream of shadows moving. Had there been a glimmer of light? Voices?

Devon frowned. “That is not good enough.”

Behind him, Bataba suddenly leaned across the skeletal controls, reached for a lever. “None of you,” he shouted, “have any faith!”

The Poisoner wheeled. “What? No—” He reached for the shaman’s sleeve to stop him, but his stump was unable to find purchase. Bataba clicked the lever forward.

Engines roared.

Devon and the shaman were now struggling, fighting over the controls. The Tooth lurched, tipped forward, and suddenly they were over the precipice and falling.

33

POISONSONG

T
HERE WAS A
moment of confusion, when Rachel found herself flat against the bridge windows, then pitched back fiercely as the chain at her ankle snapped taut. She struck the rear wall and air burst from her lungs.

A juddering groan from outside. The Tooth rocked, slipped, and settled upside down. The huge machine had been snared, barely, in Deepgate’s remaining web of chains. Through cracked windows in the wall opposite Rachel saw the mighty links of a foundation chain among the tangle, and pitch darkness below it. One of the links had been half-sheared by the machine’s cutters.

The partly sheared link was opening, stretching.

Carnival and Dill had been thrown into opposite corners of the bridge, and were now picking themselves up, dazed. The Heshette shaman lay unmoving between them. Devon was hanging from the control bank fixed to what had now become the ceiling.

Rachel heard the snap of cables and chains, and the Tooth lurched, slipped a fathom. The foundation chain groaned, the sheared link opening further. Rubble showered past the windows.

Devon swung above her, cursing, as she dragged herself to her feet and staggered over to the windows, calling out to Carnival, “Help me break the glass.”

Carnival and Dill joined her, while Rachel smashed her sword hilt against the scorched pane. When it didn’t break, she tried again harder, putting every ounce of her strength into the blow. Nothing happened. “What the hell is this made from?” she cried.

“Let me.” Carnival took the sword and struck the window a vicious blow with it. A fresh crack appeared among the others, but still the pane did not give.

“This isn’t working,” Rachel said. “Try the corridors. We need to find another way out.”

Just then the Tooth shuddered once more. Lesser chains broke, cables whined. A grinding, screeching of metal, and they sank another fathom.

“No time,” Carnival said. “We’re about to go down.” The muscles on her arms bunched as she drove the steel hilt into the pane, again, again, again. A crack widened. Carnival snarled, pummelled the pane furiously, faster than Rachel could see. Then she broke away, panting.

“It’s giving,” the assassin said.

“Not fast enough.”

“Let me try.” Dill had moved in to crouch beside Carnival, his blunt sword in his hands.

“Back off, idiot,” Carnival growled.

But Dill ignored her this time. In both hands he raised the heavy weapon, and brought it down, point first, into the pane. The bridge rang with the din as the window exploded outwards.

Carnival stood and gaped at him.

“Out!” Rachel grabbed Dill’s torn chain mail, and piled him through the window. “Now you,” she said to Carnival. “Go, before—”

The sound of snapping chains cut her off. The Tooth fell so abruptly that Rachel was thrown upwards. Her elbow cracked against something hard; her knee collided with her chin. The room spun, and she was bounced off a wall, or the ceiling, or the floor—she didn’t know which. Then something wrenched hard at the chain holding her ankle. Still hanging on to the window, Carnival was dragging the chain towards her. Wind screamed around her through the broken pane.

For an absurd moment Rachel felt like shouting,
Get out of here. Just leave me
. But of course Carnival couldn’t leave without her. They were still chained together. Carnival was intent on saving herself.

The Poisoner’s hand grabbed Rachel’s hair, yanked her back. “You can stay with me a while, Spine.”

Devon had his stump wedged into the skeletal control panel. His cold eyes narrowed on Rachel. She reached for her sword, but it was gone, the bamboo tube gone too. And then she remembered the poisonsong at her hip. She tore the bolt free from its straps.

Devon sneered. “You think that’s going to make a difference?”

Rachel jabbed the bolt behind her, missed him. The bridge pitched and tumbled, knocking her against the controls, but Devon held on firmly.

“Let go of me, you—”

Carnival heaved on the chain till both Rachel and Devon were pulled free. For a heartbeat Rachel was weightless, then she thudded against the gaping window, beside Carnival. Devon slammed into her back. She felt a spear of pain in her side, heard Devon gasp.

One end of the bolt was embedded in her side, driven deep between two ribs; the other end had punched through Devon’s jacket just below his heart. They were both bleeding, and five inches of blood-soaked shaft separated them.

No! Where is the tip? The Craw plague? Which end?

Devon’s face creased. Flecks of spittle flew from his lips. He hooked a punch at her, all of his weight behind it, but his stump swished by an inch from her nose.

“Damn it!” he roared.

Then Carnival was dragging her through the window, out into open air.

D
ill dived after the huge machine, wings closed tight, the tip of his sword piercing the air before him. Cutting wheels, dusty tracks, and the scorched expanse of the Tooth’s hull all tumbled below him. This thing was as large as the temple, spinning end over end as it fell. He veered to avoid one huge funnel, then dived again.

He momentarily glimpsed the bridge windows.

“Dill!”

Carnival swooped above him, and called down, “I have her.”

His wings snapped out, and he slowed, allowing the great machine to fall away into darkness.

The scarred angel held the Spine assassin’s limp body tightly in her arms.

“Rachel?” Dill gasped, staring at the blood dripping from a wound in her side. She didn’t move or open her eyes, and he couldn’t tell if she was still breathing.

“Rachel!”

“The reservist encampment,” Carnival said. “We’ll find a doctor there.”

“But you’re still chained to her. The army will kill you.”

Carnival grunted, then took off skywards, her wings thumping like war drums.

Dill followed. As armies went, he supposed, it wasn’t so big.

T
he Tooth juddered and shook and spun as it plummeted, but the Poisoner knew he would survive the fall. It might hurt, break every bone in his body, but he would heal eventually. He was more than a man now; broken bones meant nothing to him. For the angelwine boiled inside him. He could hear the souls clearly now, furious and raging, and every one of them had his own voice. They were a part of him. He realised they always had been.

He would find a way back to the surface, even if it took a hundred years. If he had to climb the entire abyss wall with rope and grapple, so be it.

And then he’d finish what he started. If Ulcis was dead, then the rest of the faithful would join him in oblivion. He’d hunt down Rachel Hael and make her suffer for her crimes. And Carnival: he’d lock that leech in a cell and watch her own hunger tear her to pieces. This fall was nothing more than an inconvenience. He had brought down the city. He had beaten them.

So he clung to the shattered window and waited. The Tooth toppled end over end, struck the abyss wall with a jolt that smashed the rest of the bridge windows. Devon still hung on. Air ripped and whistled through the broken panes, buffeted him, and tore tears from his eyes. Still he hung on.

Soon now, surely. The abyss couldn’t go on for ever.

He felt light-headed, nauseous, blood leaking from the wound in his chest. He squeezed the flesh there together, and watched it begin to knit, the skin healing. He grinned: mortal wounds were nothing more than scratches. Any amount of suffering could be endured, for a time. Devon knew this, it had been his life’s work. Work he might expand upon now that he had so much time ahead of him. There was so much, in this life, still to learn.

An odd, shivering sensation crept up through his chest. The nerves there had begun to feel frayed.

A second wound suddenly opened, an inch below the first. A trickle of new blood emerged.

Strange
. Devon clamped his hand over the wound, felt it start to heal again.
That’s better. A temporary aberration, nothing more
. The bolt had clearly been poisoned. Which sort of poison? He racked his brains. It didn’t matter. The new wound was healing. All his wounds would heal in the same way. He gritted his teeth against an impact that could only be moments away.

A terrible itching sensation swept through his torso, his arms, as though his entire upper body was swarming with lice. Five more wounds opened: three on his chest, two on his upper arm. He felt the skin break, felt fluids soak into his shirt. The poison was spreading. Or was it a disease? Devon moistened his lips, sweat beaded his forehead. He shook his head in confusion. These new lesions were already healing too.

The Tooth plunged deeper into the abyss, booming loudly whenever it struck the side wall. Devon clung on, sheathed in sweat, and itching all over.

Dozens of wounds were opening now. On his chest, his back, his arms and legs, and his face. They would heal soon, he knew. His wounds would always heal.

M
r. Nettle joined the other dead at the bottom of the abyss. His newly-mended crutch sank among bones and rubble as he struggled up the slope. Chunks of debris still fell in places, but there appeared to be a lull, so perhaps the worst had passed. Deepgate glowed far above him, full of promise.

Abigail’s soul had been stolen from him—for now. In a way, he was pleased it had found a temporary home in an angel. The daft girl liked angels. But he would find that soul again after he’d found her body. He’d have his daughter back. He was a scrounger. He could find anything.

The bonecrawlers ignored him. They were too busy sifting through the recently fallen treasures, pulling out sheets of tin, broken furniture, chains, and timbers from the mounds of bones and ash. Some were shouting or fighting over their finds. Others merely sobbed, or lifted their faces to Deepgate and prayed. Ulcis was dead, but many had found a new god in his wake. The city, after all, had given them everything.

High overhead, a great shadow filled the circle of sky. Something stirred in the air, a faint tremor that reverberated through the abyss. The bonecrawlers felt it too. All were staring up now. The shadow grew larger until it blotted out the light from above. The scavengers watched in awe, lifting their arms in homage while the darkness grew deeper.

Returning his attention to his search, Mr. Nettle hobbled on up the slope, his leg twitching with pain, his crutch slipping and sinking. He still had Abigail to find, somewhere. Somewhere, she was here. And she was near. He knew it. He could feel it in his bones.