Chel led them back at speed, ignoring the thumping pain in his head and shoulder. Rennic seemed in a daze, Tarfel likewise. They stepped over a pair of steaming corpses in the hallway as they approached the battlement. Nobody spoke.
The bell had stopped. Shouting filled the court of confession, the crowds below roiling and chanting, jostling for a better look. Confessors and clergy mixed with commoners, a great seething mass of humanity joined for the spectacle, some in ghoulish glee, some morbid fascination. And somewhere out in the courtyard, a panicked duke, screaming for guards, screaming about a missing prince and assassins in their midst.
On the central platform, beneath the gibbet, whatever remained of Dalim had been cleared away, now freed from sin – and any other earthly consideration – in the sight of the Shepherd and her merciful servants. Palo stood flanked by a pair of brawny confessors, small and hazy in the snow-glare. Over her stood Brother Hurkel, the great tin monster on metal legs, his red little head capped with the white wolf pelt. On the far side of the platform stood the royal gallery. Chel could almost make out the golden blur of Prince Corvel, front and centre.
Rennic crouched on the battlement and rubbed his eyes, peering at the gatehouse at the wall’s end. He was sprayed in drying blood and looked drained. ‘It’s as before, no change. We still have a chance.’
Chel nodded. ‘Let’s light a bolt and get things moving, shall we?’
Sab hovered over them, her relief at their return tempered by their battered state. She seemed particularly disturbed by Rennic’s gory appearance, and wouldn’t meet his eye. ‘This way.’
On the platform, Hurkel raised his arms, his missing hand replaced by a two-pronged fork. He began bellowing of Palo’s crimes, real and imagined, to the baying of the crowd. Chel watched his theatrics, his absent hand, and thought for a moment of Loveless, feeling a sharp pang of something he couldn’t name. His glance fell on Palo, now half-strapped to the confessor’s table. Even at this distance he could see she was impassive, detached.
Rennic had taken the crossbow from Tarfel’s arms without a word, slotting the bolt and tweaking the string. His gaze matched Chel’s, watching Hurkel raise the glowing brand from the platform’s brazier, seeing it steam in the frigid air. Chel realized he was shaking.
‘Can we save her?’
Rennic’s head shake was a mere twitch.
‘We’d only die alongside.’
‘Can we do anything?’
‘We can get the fuck out of here. She’d want that at least.’ He clicked his fingers at Sab, startling her. ‘Fire, girl. Where’s the fire?’
‘What? I thought you meant you …’ Sab swallowed, and looked to her brother. ‘I can run and get a torch—’
‘Nine hells, girl, what were you doing while we were fetching the fucking weapon?’
‘Keeping out of sight! Not murdering anyone! Which is—’
The little Nort appeared between them, dragging the clinking sack. He looked up from one to the other, then to the crossbow in Rennic’s hands.
‘Please?’
Rennic raised an eyebrow but allowed the Nort to take the bow. He placed it flat, then fished in his sack for a few small clay pots and jars. He tapped out a handful of crystals from one, added a powder from another, rubbed his hands together – Chel noticed his palms were pale and smooth with scarring – then applied the mixed powder to the shaft of the bolt. He wiped his hands and held out the crossbow to Rennic.
‘Please?’
Rennic took back the weapon, frowning, and knelt to fire at the stacked fuel against the far wall. The Nort tapped his shoulder, one finger raised, then reached over with a tiny bottle in his hand. Trembling, he tilted the bottle, until a drop of something clear and acrid fell from its lip onto the powdered bolt.
The bolt began to steam, then smoke, and then it burst into flame.
‘Fuck!’ Rennic cried, almost dropping the weapon. Chel and Sabina fell back, recoiling from the alchemical stench. The Nort pointed at the far wall, hands urgent, and despite visible misgivings, Rennic lined up the shot through the caustic smoke.
He fired. The flaming bolt whipped through the air, leaving a plume of curling fumes, almost disintegrating. It smacked into the base of the stack, splintering into flaming shards, and almost immediately the stack began to smoke.
Rennic clenched a fist. ‘Fucking have that!’
If anyone had noticed the bolt’s passage, they made less noise than the clamour of confession. Chel exchanged glances with the others, then looked back to the simmering stack. Already white smoke was curling from within, the dry wood alight, licking at the green above.
‘Let’s give it a moment before people notice the smoke, then—’
The stack exploded. A ring of flame tore out from the base of the wall, a pulse of roaring energy ripping through the eddies of black and white smoke, tearing and stretching the atmosphere around it. A deafening crack split the air as pieces of splintered, flaming wood rained down on the shocked and screaming crowd in the courtyard.
Rennic whipped around, eyes locked on the Nort, the crossbow shaking in his hands.
‘What the giddy fuck was that?’
The Nort looked equally shocked, his mouth open, hands up in warding. Chel blinked away smoke-induced tears, feeling the air burning in his lungs. The crowd in the courtyard were panicked, fleeing, streaming for the city gate in a heaving mass, even as the last echoes of the explosion died away. In the gatehouse, the guards within were milling, unsure if they should be investigating or fleeing themselves.
‘We need to leave!’
Rennic nodded, immediately back on task. He stood, waving the others forward along the wall. Tarfel and Sab led, the Nort on their heels, his clinking sack slung over one shoulder, leaving him hunched and lopsided. Rennic went to toss the crossbow, then paused, his gaze returning to the platform at the courtyard’s centre. Chel followed it.
Hurkel stood on the platform, turning slowly, his big red face a picture of enraged confusion. Below him lay Palo, on the confessor’s elevated table. She was still, her free hand clamped around the dagger she’d plucked from his belt in the commotion, now standing proud from her chest. Blood pooled beneath the table, joining that of the countless hordes who’d preceded her, the table’s wood long since stained dark. She looked serene.
Rennic swallowed and nodded. His voice was a cracked growl.
‘Be seeing you, Palo.’
They ran for the gatehouse.
***
They didn’t stop running until they reached the outer walls, melded with the fleeing crowd from the citadel. People’s instincts varied – some ran for their homes, others for the river, some out into the countryside beyond – and it was only when they split from the free way into the back alleys that the human tide around them ebbed.
Chel jogged beside his sister, kidding himself that he was keeping her safe, his legs burning along with his lungs. He’d long since let the bloody sword drop, had kicked it away into an alley. He’d told himself that he needed to conserve what little strength he had, but beneath this rationale lurked an abiding desire to be rid of the thing that had little to do with any forthcoming need for self-defence. Sab kept easy pace at his side, ducking through the warren of adjoining buildings as they made for the Shanties gate.
‘What happened back there?’ she said, breath catching. ‘What did the Nort do? What else is in that sack?’
‘The Nort?’ Chel gasped, flicking a glance over his shoulder. The Nort was keeping up, his mysterious sack still shouldered and a look of determination on his young face, shuffling along beside Tarfel. Rennic brought up the rear, shepherding them along with a glower from beneath the hood of his pilfered cloak. ‘From his reaction, I’d say he was as surprised as us. Are you sure it was brandy in that barrel?’
She shook her head. ‘It came from the lower cellars. It’s usually where they keep the brandy … Shepherd’s tits, there were dozens of barrels down there … It cracked the wall, Bear. Did you see? It cracked the citadel wall!’
The Widowgate hove into view, a dark and stubby thing festering in the brutal New Wall. Rennic stepped ahead of them. ‘Who has silver? Anything valuable?’
Chel gave him an even look.
Tarfel slapped at his cloak. ‘I think I have a token somewhere, it’s a trifle really—’
Rennic waved him away. He slung the re-wrapped glaive at Chel, then stalked off toward the gate guards. The others huddled in the faint shadow of a workshop.
Chel found himself standing beside the little Nort. He looked down at the heavy sack, then found the Nort gazing up at him, a glare of challenge. ‘So, er,’ he coughed, ‘they let you keep all that alchemical stuff close to your cell? That was … er …’
The Nort said nothing, holding his gaze with unblinking eyes.
Rennic stepped out from the shadow of the gate and waved them forward. They hurried through, hoods down, while the guards studiously looked the other way.
‘What did you offer them?’ Chel asked as Rennic took back the glaive.
‘Promises,’ he said. ‘And we’ll be long gone before they realize they were dust.’
‘Ain’t that the way,’ Chel said. He was very tired. And hungry. Very hungry. ‘Does anyone have any food?’
***
The Shanties still reeked of smoke and soot, parts charred black and broken from Spider’s fire. Their ill-starred entry to the city seemed so long ago now. They crept through the winding labyrinth of nominally temporary structures, snow and charcoal crunching underfoot. Water dripped from somewhere, always seeming to be both ahead and behind. They saw no one.
‘What are you going to do about the prince? He can’t go back, can he?’
Sab was beside him again, her hand on his arm, helping him around a blackened spar as his stride faltered.
‘No. Not after that.’
‘And nor can I.’
‘No.’ Chel realized that he was feeling relief, a great wash of sensation, an unwinding knot of tension. His fingers tingled from it. He was free, and his sister was safe. ‘No, you can’t go back there.’
She grunted, and they walked on in silence for a time.
‘How did you get into this mess, Bear? Last time I saw you, you were in the favour of two princes, destined for great things. Why do I next encounter you as a condemned traitor to the crown? Did you get very drunk?’
‘We … I think we made things worse.’ He swallowed. ‘But what about you?’ He felt anger rising in his voice, now they were free, now the immediate danger had passed; a hot, raw frustration born of ignorance and insecurity. ‘You were a fucking Rau Rel spy? Did you consider for a moment the risk—’
She put a hand on his arm, drew him to a stop, and his words died. She met his faltering gaze with steady, moist eyes. ‘Bear, we’re all growing up fast.’ One hand ran down his cheek, lingering at the scar on his lip, the broken bulge of his jaw. ‘I’m glad I can still recognize you. How are you, really? Are you all right? I’m so sorry I couldn’t … Things took so long to arrange …’
He put his hand on hers, then wrapped his arms around her, and wept for the first time in all of it, in all the weeks of captivity, misery, and doubt. He cried on his sister’s shoulder until he was a heaving, empty husk, and felt her sobbing against him in return. He realized he was talking, mumbling, forming the words ‘thank you’ over and over into her cloak.
‘We’re not out yet.’ Rennic shook his shoulder, drawing him gently away. Chel looked up in tearful defiance, but he saw his emotion mirrored on the big man’s face, his own eyes glazed with unshed tears. His voice was little more than a whisper. ‘We need to keep moving, little man.’
Chel sniffed, nodded, and on they pressed, the weight of the Shanties pressing down around them. He remembered the children he’d seen playing therein, their rhymes and songs.
We were supposed to be lucky.
***
Sab led them up into the hills, away from the slabs of the walls and the malignant gaze of the citadel’s tower. She’d recovered some of her poise, and chattered as they climbed, of what she’d seen within the citadel, of her covert operations for the Rau Rel. Chel paused for breath at the edge of the woods, looking back over the city beneath its pall of winter smoke, now thickened by the alchemical plume from their distant intervention. Below them, the main road wound around to the ruined old bridge, clad in ugly stacks of wooden scaffolding, then away toward the gates. Small structures lined the road, thin poles, dotted at the top with …
‘Best not look too close,’ Rennic muttered from beside him. One of his knees seemed to be giving him trouble. ‘You won’t want to risk recognizing anyone.’
Of course: they were heads. Dozens upon countless dozens, girdling the road like fence-posts.
Sabina was following his gaze, and Chel heard her breath catch. ‘The bastard,’ she hissed. ‘The unconscionable … Why didn’t you stop him?’
Chel turned, his mouth already framing an earnest defence, but her words were addressed to Tarfel. The prince stood slumped, panting and pink-cheeked from the climb, eyebrows raised and eyes wide.
‘Me? What could I do?’
‘You’re his brother! Who else can stand up to him?’
Rennic pushed himself back upright. ‘Let’s hope our fates don’t rest on this little piss-cloth,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s get where we’re going, get to someone who can actually make a difference.’
With a pointed look at the prince, Sab led them into the woods. Before long, they reached a clearing, where she came to a hesitant stop. It looked deserted, and the sun had long since disappeared behind the hills; if it had been cold before, the coming night promised something altogether worse.
Rennic strode ahead, into the clearing, fierce eyes scanning the trees in the dying light.
‘This is the place?’
‘It should be.’ Sab crinkled her nose. ‘I’ve never actually been out here …’
‘But?’
‘But I left a message in the usual drop. They should know we’re coming.’
‘Depends if there was anyone left to listen. As our friends along the road can attest, King Corvel has been busy.’
Something rustled in the gloom beyond the clearing, and Rennic froze, hands gripping the glaive. Chel felt his pulse quicken but nothing more. His muscles were spent, his very bones exhausted, and he’d long since given up on the idea of food. He wanted to lie down on the ground and let the world wash over him. Beside him, Tarfel whimpered.
A hoot came from somewhere around them, a formless owl, too loud, too imprecise. Rennic unfroze, a broad grin spreading across his face in the twilight. He visibly relaxed, letting the end of the glaive rest on the ground, then put one hand to his mouth and hooted in return.
A figure detached from the darkness of the trees, striding across the clearing with a sun-bright smile. Even in the low light, Chel could recognize Whisper’s lithe gait anywhere, the springing confidence in every step. She raced to Rennic, embracing him with silent affection, while he let the glaive fall.
The bushes beside him rustled and crackled, then an orange-haloed figure emerged blinking into the clearing. ‘All right, wankers?’ said Lemon. ‘How’s tricks?’