It seemed to be the right thing to say, which didn’t make me feel any better about lying to him. Quillan hefted his gun and gave a determined nod. A few others who’d listened in looked much the same.
I’d picked here for a reason. The inner gates weren’t far away, and anyone coming through had two choices which way to go. Straight on to the Spine which spiralled its way from Top of the World right down to Boundary, and which I knew from listening in to Perak and Malaki was filled with as many men as he’d thought he could spare. The men at the gates would fall back to the Spine in the event of the gates failing, and hope the Storad followed them. Then they might go down, but I doubted it. If they did, we could be there in moments across a handful of walkways. But I didn’t think they would – what was there Under for them? Instead, I thought they aimed to control the Spine from there on up. Whoever controlled that area controlled the city, and from there it would be a matter of working their way to Top of the World like Allit had seen, and then the city was theirs.
The other way from the gates led directly to the Buzz, to this junction overlooked by bars and whorehouses, gambling dens and shops which in better times could have sold you all you could dream of, and a few things you couldn’t. Malaki had been of the opinion that the Storad wouldn’t bother coming this way, not at first. Maybe he was right – I figured they would want to block it off at the least – but if they didn’t come I had ways of making them, at least some of them, or we could move forward and block them off, corner them between two forces, the guards in front and us behind. Halina and I hadn’t planned any further than that because once people start moving, start making weird and crazy-arsed decisions, plans go out of the window.
A signal from Halina, who I’d had stand on a walkway by the top of the plushest whorehouse in town, right at the point where the Storad would make their choice on which way to go. The signal was that the Storad had split, and some were coming our way. Every man and woman tensed, and whispered prayers to the Goddess filtered into the silence. I almost wished I believed so that I could pray too, told myself not to be so stupid and said a prayer to Namrat instead. Even I believe in death. My prayer went Fuck off, you furry bastard, you aren’t eating me today. I can’t say I put a whole lot of faith in it, but it helped a bit.
The first of the Storad inched into the faint light from a last lonely Glow at the end of the street. He was big and mean-looking, with a face the colour of curdled milk and hair so dark it dissolved into the shadows around him. Fluttering snow alternately hid and revealed him, making him seem almost imaginary. Bits of metal armour jangled and clanked as he moved – he was real enough. I gripped my gun so hard I almost cracked a knuckle as he crept forward, more and more Storad appearing behind him. Crap, there seemed like a whole battalion of them, watchful and wary, trying to peer into every crevice. They looked like they did this every day of the week, whereas all I had were people who merely tried to stay alive on any given day. I wondered who had the edge in that contest, and then realised I was about to find out.
I waited till I couldn’t wait any longer then signalled to the walkways that criss-crossed the little square.
There’s one thing about living in a city like Mahala, one that grows more upwards than it does outwards. It gives you a real sense of the possibilities of threats from above and below as well as those on your level – the ever-present threat of being mugged from overhead will do wonders for that. Something these Storad were about to find out.
A series of wild, blood-curdling screams echoed round the square and something very like heavy rain poured down over the Storad. Very like rain in that it was wet, but not like it at all because rain doesn’t usually stink that badly, or have lumps in it. The Stenchers kept on whooping and pouring the contents of their reeking vats to the last drop, leaving Storad blind, choking and probably unable to work out which way was up as several were knocked from their feet by the deluge. It was suddenly slippery underfoot, and getting back up seemed to pose them a few problems. If I hadn’t been so stomach-clenchingly scared, I’d have laughed till I had no breath left.
As it was, I pulled the gun and as one man we leapt into the fray.
The thing about episodes like that is you can never remember them clearly. That battle flashes across my mind in a series of moving portraits with occasional thoughts as a running commentary. The only things those flashes share are the stench of shit and the gentle fall of snow.
I recall pulling my gun and hoping I didn’t need to use it, all while knowing I was going to have to. I kept groping for my pulse pistol on instinct, then remembering: no magic, not if I wanted to stay sane and alive, no matter that the black was whispering to me, the shadowy tiger was stalking across the snow-ridden square, the throb of my hand was filling me up with juice I couldn’t afford to spend.