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.