Chapter Thirty-Four

IN THE STREETS of Port Knot, townsfolk ran from their homes and businesses. They didn’t stop to check on their neighbours. They didn’t stop to help put out fires. And they didn’t stop to assist the wounded. Instead, they ran aimlessly from one place to the next, seeking shelter. Loud bangs caused them to stagger as though they were swimmers pummelled by waves. Pillars of black smoke rose where buildings had been set alight.

Perty Hancock stuck close to the honey-hued walls. The home of the Blackrabbit Courant stood at the end of Five Brothers Road, behind Quarrier’s Run. Crossing it would be dangerous. While no road in Port Knot could be described as wide, Quarrier’s Run differed by being the most open.

Perty sidled along the Entry and waited. A thunderous boom from around the bend caused her to duck and cover her head. A trail of broken glass and splintered wood ran along the main road, and there, in the middle of it all, she spotted a flat cap. She sprinted to it, scooped it up, and carried on to the other side. She fixed the cap on her head and pulled it low over her eyes. She ran east, away from the centre of town. A few people with bloodied clothes huddling in shop doorways screamed when they saw her but she carried on past them.

She reached a long Entry that ran from the road and led directly to the back of the Blackrabbit Courant offices. A risky option, as once inside an Entry there was no way out but to continue through to the other end. Still, she preferred it to remaining out in the open.

She rang along the narrow lane. Cold, sand-coloured bricks on either side towered high above her. Washing lines stretched from one side to the other, hung with shirts and bedclothes which floated above her head like the ghosts of distant ancestors, watching her, egging her on, or perhaps trying to warn her away.

At the rear of the newspaper offices, she rattled a doorknob in vain. She held her newfound cap over her hand and waited for the rhythmic sound of cannon fire. Eight. A pause. Eight. A pause. She smashed a window as the eight blasts fired, reached in, and quietly unlocked the door.

VINCE RAN THROUGH the town, keeping away from the Entries and avoiding musket fire. He knew he’d be lucky to make it to the Blackrabbit Courant office without encountering trouble. On Pit Lung Lane, his luck ran out.

He hurtled around a corner and collided with an unsuspecting Gunbride, knocking them backwards into a shop window. Vince doubled back, balled his fist, and with one blow punched the Gunbride straight through it. The Gunbride landed inside the shop, with shattered glass jabbing into his back and arms. The shards stuck from his body like glass feathers.

Another Gunbride turned, ready to fire, but Vince knocked the pistol from his hand, grabbed his collar, and pulled him close, head-butting him. Vince’s tricorne cap fell from his head as the Gunbride’s nose broke and a tooth flew from his mouth. Vince kicked his legs from under him and punched his head against the cobblestones.

The man he knocked through the window recovered his pepper-box pistol but before he could shoot, Crabmeat sank his jaws into the man’s leg. The man shrieked and smacked the dog with his pistol.

Vince dived at him, pulling him through the broken window out onto the street, where he began to pummel the man’s head and chest. “Never—” Thump. “—touch—” Thump. “—my—” Thump. “—dog.” Thump. When the man stopped moving, Vince dropped him.

A musket shot rang out. Vince spun on his heels. A woman fell, clutching her chest.

“She was on your blind side,” James said, reloading his flintlock musket. He stooped to retrieve Vince’s tricorne and handed it to hm.

Vince grabbed James’s shoulder and squeezed it. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Courant. Exeter’s there.”

“We have more to worry about right now than him.”

Vince carried on walking. “Not alone. Reporter with him. Gunbrides can wait.”

“Why did you leave him with a reporter?” James asked.

“Exeter knows his life is in danger,” Vince said. “Hiding. Ms Hawksmoor offered to stay with him. Thought it would be safest place for both of them. And make a good story.”

James took Vince by the arm, pulling him to a stop. “Wait, I know you think Mr Exeter is in danger from the C.T.C., but everyone is focused on the Gunbrides attack.”

Vince fixed him with a steely gaze. “Not the C.T.C. Just Hancock.”

PERTY CREPT THROUGH the small and poorly lit ground floor of the Blackrabbit Courant building, careful not to make a sound. She hung her cap on a newel and clasped a handrail, ready to descend into the basement when a floorboard above her creaked. She slowly drew her sword and made her way to the other staircase where she hesitated. Across from it, she found a horological lift. She’d seen similar devices used for moving grain. She pulled the lever, sending the lift steadily up to the next floor. She hurried back to the staircase and crept up as silently as she could.

The distraction worked as she had hoped. Two figures had crouched behind a desk, with their backs to her. One was Alfie Exeter, the other was a young woman in a wheeled chair. Could it be Emmeline Hawksmoor, the reporter? Could Perty be that lucky? She paced along the floor, quiet as a cat. She struck out with her sword. Exeter ducked away at the last moment. He jumped to his feet and kicked Perty’s arm. She held fast to her blade.

Exeter hunched his back and held his hands wide open, ready to move again. “How did you find me?”

“Your commander gave you up before I sliced him from ear to ear.” Perty swished her blade through the air, narrowly missing Exeter each time.

“Vince is dead?” Exeter asked.

“Very much so,” Perty said, enjoying the lie. “I presume this is the nosy Ms Hawksmoor?”

With the flick of a lever, Emmeline Hawksmoor reversed her chair across the floor, away from the fight. “Who are you?”

“This is Lieutenant Pertinacity Hancock,” Exeter said. “The reason Mr Quaintance paid me to kill Sergeant Spradbery.”

Perty sliced the air, missing Exeter’s chest by a hair’s breadth but removing a button from his coat. It sailed through the air and tapped down the staircase. He stumbled backwards but quickly found his footing. He lifted a box of blackened printing blocks and threw it at her. The box smashed against a pillar, casting lettered blocks onto the floor.

“You couldn’t even kill one drunken dolt without being seen,” Perty said. “Why are you cowering in the dark here? Why didn’t you leave town the moment Vince’s back was turned?”

“Vince told me Quaintance had sent someone after me. It’s why I agreed to hide here.”

She struck out again but Exeter deflected her blow. “Hah, the big oaf lied to you. Quaintance doesn’t care about you.”

“He didn’t send you?”

She sliced her blade through the air again. “Of course not! I hired him. I’m not his assassin! It’s just as well you’re pretty because you are not very bright.”

Something thwacked into her back. She turned to find Ms Hawksmoor holding an ink roller with a scared look on her face. Perty slashed at her with her sword.

Ms Hawksmoor screamed and dropped the roller. She clasped the open wound on her arm and pulled the lever on her armrest, sending her chair whirring backwards. “Why did you want Spradbery dead?”

“He was a bottle-headed hog,” Perty said. “He thought he could soften me up, full of false apologies and flattery.”

“So you had him killed?”

“I needed to show the Council how the Watch wasn’t up to the task of protecting this town. Swan and Godgrave were scheming behind the Council’s back, getting him ready to take over. I couldn’t take the chance that it wouldn’t go ahead.”

Ms Hawksmoor backed farther away. “Why did it matter so much to you? So much you were prepared to kill to make it happen?”

“Because this is little Perty Hancock, the daughter of Hangman Hancock,” Exeter said. “Her dad killed a man, hung him from the rafters until his neck broke. Everyone knew about it. Used to make fun of her for it.”

“Fun?” Perty hacked again and again at Exeter, missing each time as he hopped away. “They didn’t make fun, they spat at me. They threw rotten meat at me. They hid dead mice in my clothes, in my food. I had my hair set on fire twice by Spin Gastrell and his snotty brother! But now I’m in charge. And I’m going to make this grotty little town pay.”

Ms Hawksmoor distracted Perty for just a moment and from behind, Exeter grabbed Perty’s arms, pinning them down. Perty reared up and kicked Hawksmoor in the stomach, sending her hurtling backwards and smacking against a heavy desk. Her chair tipped over, spilling her out. She cracked her head loudly on the edge of the desk and crumpled to the floor.

“That’s one,” Perty said. She stamped on Exeter’s foot and broke free from his grip.

Another boom shook the glass in the window frames. “Lambshead and his friends found the engine. As distractions go, I think you’ll agree it’s a good one.”

“They’ll destroy the whole town.”

“Good,” Perty said. “It’s no more than it deserves. I’ll sing in its ashes.”

“I can’t believe you did all this because some children were mean to you when you were young.”

“It’s not just the children. The adults were just as bad. Talking about me. Pointing. Whispering. They made my mother’s life a living nightmare. Is it any wonder she left? There’s a sickness in this town. A vein of malice running deeper than the mines. And I’m going to cut it out.”

Exeter dived at her again but in one fluid movement, she spun on her heels and jabbed the sword under his ribs. The blade emerged from his back, red and slick. He sank to his knees and toppled face first onto the floor. Blood pooled around him where he lay.

Perty laughed and wiped her face on the back of her hand. She could scarcely believe it. The luck of finding Ms Hawksmoor here. She’d planned to pay her a visit later. Good-for-nothing busybody printing her business for all and sundry to read. She deserved to be done away with.

Perty wiped the blood from her blade and sheathed it in her belt. By the shiny base of a copper lantern, she fixed her hair into place, straightened her collar and sleeves, and dusted down her coat. Well, Lambshead’s coat, really. She’d need to get rid of it shortly. She’d needed his clothes to blend in with the townsfolk, and he’d needed her uniform to help get him inside the C.T.C. headquarters and steal the siege weapon.

By now, the Sentinels should be engaging the enemy in the south side of town. They would likely have called in everyone from the Garrison. She could slip back inside and change into her spare uniform. Then she would head off to find that blowhard, Godgrave, and help him kill Lambshead and anyone else causing a nuisance.

Calmly as could be, she marched downstairs, retrieved the cap from the newel, and walked out the front door into the street. She hummed a little as she walked. She hoped the Gunbrides wouldn’t flatten all the theatres. When the dust settled, she quite fancied taking in an opera.

With all of the chaos around her, she hardly registered the boom of the musket shot that struck her. She had thought it just a bang like any other that had been popping off all morning. The cobblestones jumped up to greet her as her legs gave way. She wanted to stand, to run, but try as she might, her legs simply refused to move. Next, her fingertips tingled as her arms gradually turned completely numb.

She lay there on her side as boots ran by, narrowly missing her face. Skirts ruffled over her head, people screamed, and somewhere, somehow, music played. She was certain of it. Two Gunbrides walked past her, pointing their pepper-box muskets at her. One barrel still had wisps of smoke, probably from the shot which felled her.

In the middle of Quarrier’s Run, in the town she hated more than anything in the world, and humming along to Handel’s Agrippina, Lieutenant Pertinacity Hancock of the Blackrabbit Sentinels closed her eyes for the last time.