I smiled as the old verbal sparring started again then belatedly realising just how odd the three of us looked, bickering with one another whilst wearing coloured coded outfits and bearing heavy weapons. Letting go of Blood's hand I stepped to the front of our group and put on my most winning smile (totally ruined by the mask). “Are you and your men well watchCaptain? And for that matter are the civilians?”
The Captain bowed graciously. “My men and I are well and the vagabonds never made it within blades reach of the civilians, we are forever in your debt.”
“Excellent!” I said. “Now just for the sake of clarity... were those Crawlers?”
“Why yes ma’am! They’ve been following us for days!”
“Skull thought so.” I commented.
“Skull...?” Asked the Captain slowly but we ignored him.
“Ara’s right about how they act,” Blood said waving at the groaning pile of partially eviscerated drug addicts that now had a number of watch surgeons hovering around it. “No skill or discipline, they're barely even people anymore.”
“But their leader was using a clockwork crossbow,” Skull picked up the two halves of the priceless weapon and glared at Blood, “one of the rarest and most powerful weapons that can be made they cost enough to bankrupt a lesser noble house and it wasn't just stolen, note the change of cylinders,” she pointed at the fallen gangster’s pocket. “The Arch-Doge commanded that ticksteel weapons never be shipped with spare parts so precisely this couldn't happen. And yet here's a gang lieutenant just carrying some around.”
As I turned back to watch Captain, I heard Skull mutter, “I’ve always wanted one of those... and she just cuts it in half... can't she think with her head for once instead of her sword!” Smirking to myself under my mask I nodded at the Captain. “Might I ask... why did that man want you to come with him? Why did you attract Red-Razor's attention but nobody else?”
“I’m afraid I really couldn’t tell you ma’am,” replied the Captain softly. “As I have no idea myself but I have been attempting to locate and arrest him I suppose it is possible that he found out and was insulted, I understand he likes to kill his more bitter rivals personally.”
“Sounds absolutely charming,” said Skull as she looked around at the civilians who had crowded out of the watchhouse to gawk openly at us. “What else can you tell us about him or about the Crawlers for that matter? We’re rather running blind at the moment.”
The guard looked at us for a moment then nodded. “A recent report from the Arch-Doges’ office did say...”
“Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt Captain Pendleton.” Said a thickly built guardsman interrupted the Captain. A long scar which traced the right hand side of his face flushed red as he turned his pugnacious face towards us with evident disapproval. “But we need to start evacuating the civilians now if we have any chance of being out of the spur before it starts.
“Quite right Sergeant Peakings,” the Captain said sadly. “Take squads 4 and 8 and escort them to safety if you please, I will stay and oversee the decommissioning of our watchhouse.”
“You’re... shutting the watchhouse down?” I asked. “What about the Crawlers?”
Captain Pendleton sighed and looked around. “I wish it had not come to this ma’am but the Crawlers have very nearly seized control of the entire dock spur and the watch has proven entirely unable to stop them as such we are being recalled and... and the pyre-guard are being sent in with orders to level every stone grade district in the spur, and to spare no one.”
The Captain looked at us with tired, sad eyes. “I truly understand why of course, truly I do that does not mean I have to like it. I know that the most glorious Arch-Doge would only have approved this plan if there was no other choice; and that letting the Crawlers continue to control most of a dock spur would cause more harm than anything else but.... but there are still innocent civilians in those districts.”
I for my part was frozen with horror as he spoke. They were going to lay waist to an entire dock spur! How deeply embedded must the Crawlers be for this to be the only way to winkle them out? There would be thousands of deaths; for once even the pure blooded humans wouldn't be spared. Everyone the pyre-guards found would be massacred just to get the gangs... they’d kill Lydia too either just as collateral damage or they’d assume she was a recovering gang member and slit her throat. They’d even kill Ara, a thought which caused me a lot more pain that I expected even more so than the fact they might kill Lydia (who you must remember I had known for over a decade).
“Which is why the Captain’s been sending squads all week to try to get as many evacuated as possible before the pyre-guard hit,” said Peakings proudly cutting through my trance. “He's determined to get as many people to safety as possible.”
The Captain actually blushed, “I am merely doing my duty Peakings nothing more.” As he coughed polity I turned to Skull and whispered into her ear.
“We can't let them destroy this place,” I hissed. “They’ll kill Lydia and Ara as well.”
“I know,” Skull murmured back. “I'm thinking.”
The Captain managed to pull himself together and turned back to us straightening a nonexistent crease in his immaculate bowtie. “Anyway.... I was escorting another group of refugees here when I espied an even smaller group that was being hounded by the Crawlers' abominable feral foot soldiers. My men and I stepped in to defend them and drove them back but the Crawlers seemed far more focused than I had ever seen them, they harassed us continually on our way back here and as you saw their numbers continued to grow even after we arrived.”
“Which is why we’re so glad you turned up to help us.” Added Peakings.
“Oh you’re welcome.” Said Blood with a happy wave (she really never takes anything seriously... must be nice). Next to her Skull was deep in thought.
“Captain Pendleton?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“If the Crawlers gang was to be destroyed or say driven away from Prasus would that be enough to suspend the march upon this dock spur?”
I looked up hopefully as the Captain paused for a moment with a thoughtful expression on his face then he nodded with a wide smile. “Why yes ma’am it would be, the Arch-Doge doesn’t want to hurt anyone but obviously he needs to think about the safety of the city as a whole.”
I tried not to vomit at that simpering lie; the fact that the Captain obviously believed it only made me feel queerer (although that could also have been the fear or the exhaustion). Skull no doubt felt the same but she was far better than me at hiding her emotions.
“Of course,” she said with only the faintest air of condescension in her voice which would have been entirely inaudible to anyone who didn't know her as well as I did. “So... Do you have any idea where the Crawlers might be based? Or if they have multiple bases which might be their main one?”
“I’m afraid we don't know where any of their bases are ma’am,” said the Captain morosely, “the Crawlers are somehow able to smuggle weapons and even soldiers into the city through our navy which is as I am sure you know the biggest and best trained in the world, they wouldn’t be able to do that if we could see the drop off point,” He shrugged embarrassedly. “We know... We know it's in the northern dock spur... somewhere.”
“So you’ve narrowed it down to about twelve miles of densely populated terrain with millions of hidey holes?” Asked Blood snidely.
The Captain didn't look offended; just sad. “That is the problem ma’am, the Crawlers don't seem to lay claim to specific locations just too large swaths of territory, we haven’t been able to narrow down even a direction they seem to be coming from. For a while we hoped we’d find evidence of more aggressive defence of some single location, which would logically be of more value to them, but no such luck.”
Suddenly I heard a susurration in the crowd behind me, it sounded like four or five people having a whispered argument. Turning I saw it was actually six and the sixth was walking over to us whilst two others tried to drag them back and three tried to stop the draggers.
“Uh Captain right, that's your rank? I... get off of me Jerry!... I think I might actually know where they are.”
Captain Pendleton looked wrong footed and pleased as he regarded the swarthy dark skinned dock worker. “Really? That would be incredibly fortuitous Mr...?”
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“Ah Foreman Thomas Worthy sir,” said the man making a passable imitation of a salute. “I used to work shipping and receiving up on the end of the Trade Winds district sir until all the docks there closed down after the Crawlers arrived. Me and some of me lads have been on the run since then and we’ve been seeing the Crawlers around the place but they’ve left us alone so far.”
“We’re too poor to steal from and too weak to recruit.” Said one of the men in the little huddle that now surrounded the former foreman.
“Right you are Keith,” continued Thomas, “anyway we was trying to find somewhere to bed down for tonight,” he looked upwards and scowled. “I guess last night now. We’d seen a few feral packs but likes I said they just looked at us, laughed a bit and left so I led my guys down to the waterfront to a private dock I used to work at... Been abandoned some twenty years sir so I figured...”
“We figured it was empty and had a roof and nobody was going to mind us sleeping in it.” Said another of the men defensively.
Captain Pendleton just nodded with a friendly smile. “Quite right sir you will find no disagreement from me.”
“And so...” said Thomas; sounding distinctly more cheerful now that words like breaking and entering and trespasser weren’t immediately in danger of being thrown around, “we pry open dock 6’s doors right? And it's all mouldy and the roofs have fallen in so we move up to 7 but that's got subsidence along the back and its arse is in the river,” at which the man rather charmingly stopped, blushed and turned to the three of us and half bowed. “Uh... begging your pardon ladies I should know to watch my language around the fairer sex.”
I smiled at that and made that little side to side wave motion that universally means don't worry about it. “It's quite alright.”
The man nodded still looking a little sheepish and continued, “anyway me and the lads smashed down 8’s door and found the entire place was filled with these weird crabs about the size of your head and they started wavin’ their pincers at us so we scarpered sharpish so there we was tired and nearly giving up and then... then we tried 9,” The man's voice choked up noticeably, “the second... I mean the SECOND we touched that door, Crawlers everywhere! I mean everywhere! On the roof, rising out of the river, pouring out of the buildings, coming up out of damn manholes. You name it a Crawler was on it or in it. Those big brutes with the bows and the ferals both... most of the lads... they didn't make it.” The man looked down with tears just visible on his lashes and the one previously identified as Keith took over.
“We ran for it, ran like the abyss was pulling us in, ran until our legs near gave out under us, but they still kept coming, we thought we were done for. Then we ran right into the Captain who saw off the Crawlers that was chasing us.”
“But they kept following us,” said Thomas again; visibly pulling himself back together. “They just kept coming more and more of them. I’ve never seen ‘em like that before. Usually the Crawlers don't bother us, it's like I said… we just aren’t worth it, even the bigger groups what got something the Crawlers need... they just take that and go away again no fuss if people don't try to keep a hold of what they want. But this... they wanted us dead no matter how many of them died to get us, they just kept hurling those damn drug heads and the big gangers at us and the Captain.”
He looked at us with wide grateful eyes. “If you three ladies hadn't turned up I don't think any of us would have made it. Thank you.”
I found myself blushing somewhat under my mask whilst we helped people. We did it by one remove (by taking down nobles) so we really weren’t used to seeing people’s gratitude up close like this.
“Welcome!” Blood piped up cheerfully, as unembarrassable as ever.
Behind us the Captain was talking to one of his men
“Did you hear that Wentworth?” he said joyfully, “that must be the place; they’ve never responded like that before to any of our forays!” He turned back to Thomas. “Foreman Worthy, how many Crawlers would you say?”
The foreman smiled sadly. “Maybe ten or twenty times as many soldiers as you have Captain and that was just outside, when I was the foreman of Dock 2 we had maybe five guards outside and ten inside so....”
I watched the Captain deflate his bearing of martial zeal becoming once more bitten down in panic and empathetic concern. “Damnation, we have no choice, we must continue with the evacuation.” As he turned back to his men I turned to my friends.
“It would save Lydia.” I said quietly.
“And they aren’t expecting something like us...” said Blood, tapping her mask with an obvious implication. “If it came down to it I mean.”
“And everyone knows,” said Skull slowly. “That when the lord of a fortress boasts that a thousand men couldn't breach its walls you don't send a thousand or two thousand or even ten thousand, you send ten. An obstacle for an army is nothing to a squad.”
We looked at one another and in that moonlit moment we came to an unspoken accord.
“Well then,” we both turned as Blood rolled her shoulders and sliced her swords through the air. “How about we make some pointed introductions?”
I remember smiling at her and being so thankful that she was totally back to her old self, “that wasn’t your best.” I teased gently as we turned and walked away.
“I’m afraid I cannot allow that.”
The three of us turned slowly to regard Captain Pendleton. I remember that my hand coiled around my mace handle as I wondered if we had been wrong to save him. Then he bowed floridly to us.
“I mean no disrespect to your fighting skills but you are civilians, as a watchman I simply cannot allow you to place yourself in harm’s way even for the safety of others. That is our job not yours.”
Blood stood still for a moment then raised her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Very honourable of you, Captain.”
“Thank you for saying so ma’am.”
“Very honourable... but I have a counterpoint.”
As the Captain turned his attention to her politely, Blood seized me and Skull around our waists. “How are you going to stop us?” She laughed happily and launched us skywards. We landed with a thump back on our original overlook.
I staggered slightly then found myself grinning at the astonished faces below, I sketched a quick salute to them and then three of us turned and ran into the darkness. Towards Dock 9, towards destiny and... Though we didn't know it at the time, towards a whole mess of trouble and a lifelong friend.
It only took us a handful of minutes to find the right dock thanks; primarily to Hermiosa. The huge white raven had thundered out of the sky as we went about getting ourselves lost and after a brief consultation with Blood had led us unerringly across the moonlit rooftops towards a very much more distant part of the shattered and battle scarred district. Even from our lofty perch on the rooftops above the rubbish strewn streets we could see the damage and decay of the place, broken windows, rubble filled doorways, burned out buildings. Blood even claimed she saw a skeleton just lying on the street but we... aren’t so sure[91].
If the route was ominous the dock itself was strangely... ordinary. I was utterly baffled. It was so ordinary I might have found it boring without the tension cracking along every nerve and muscle. Physically it was a dock like any other private dock in any of the four dock spurs of Prasus, a wide wooden warehouse made from Earl wood reinforced with bronze plating then heavily varnished which was open at one end to the sea. Huge heavy doors kept the landward side safely locked whilst allowing ships to sail directly into the covered warehouse portion of the structure to unload.
From where we stood looking along the ragged edge of Prasus I could see a good two dozen of these docks edging the entire Trade Winds district, some were covered with ships like flies on rotting meat and some (like this one) entirely empty and abandoned but they all looked nearly identical. The only difference was a huge number stamped in faded red ink on the vast sliding doors of each warehouse and before us was printed the number nine... and the fact that this one had a good two dozen ferals lurking in the shadows all around it (obviously after the near miss with the refugees they weren’t taking chances anymore).
I could tell that neither of my companions had any idea what to do here and to be honest it was a bit outside of our training and expertise. We could generally sneak or fight our way into any noble house without fail but their guards and traps tended towards the trendy rather than the deadly and they preferred amphora’s to armour but this was the headquarters of a deadly gang (whose leader was apparently a special forces commander from a foreign land) known for its brutality, affluence and cunning. It was... rather more intimidating than infiltrating the duchess DeFru’s latest masked ball.
I honestly don't know what we would have done or how it would have turned out if we hadn't seen the light. It was faint and dim, almost like a banked fire and it hadn't been there when we first alighted on the rooftop[92]. Skull was the first to notice and pointed us towards it. “Any idea what that is?”
As we approached it was clear what it was. In that fetid alley there was a crouched and cloaked figure who was watching the warehouse as well. Tucked away behind a jutting wall, on a barrel next to them, was sat a tiny candle. Its expertly placed angle would mean it was invisible from the ground but the walls of the alley scattered the light up into the air.
We dropped down silently behind the figure. Say what you like but after a few months of thievery training I could move quietly when I wanted to. All three of us landed like falling leaves with Blood in the lead and we advanced towards the figure.
Like I said we didn't make a sound, not a peep. But somehow as we prowled across the piles of broken glass, discarded rope and old rotten takeout, somehow the figure knew we were there. It suddenly spun to face us with a long barbed knife in each of its hands.
Blood didn't hesitate for a second of course. As Skull stepped up close to me and I fumbled with my mace the first ten blows had already been struck. Blood and the cloaked person danced to and fro across the alley as their blades crashed together again and again.
I saw instantly Blood was on the back foot (even novice swordswomen that I was back then) and I could tell what the problem was. Just like with Skull, Blood had tried her usual opening gambit which was to simply overwhelm her enemy with her nigh on superhuman speed and strength. Skull had beaten her with skill and grace but this person (whilst slower than her) seemed just as strong as she was.
Even I watched Bloods rapiers locked with the figures' daggers and they strained against one another with such force I feared the cobblestones beneath their boots might crack. I had and still have no idea how the match would have ended because just as they went to break away and readdress a cloud moved in the heavens and a shaft of moonlight filled the alley freezing them in place (I will point out to save Blood some face in your eyes that it was very dark and only about ten heartbeats had gone by since we’d landed so this was the first time she could see her opponent clearly).
I remember seeing Blood start noticeably as the light hit her opponent before cringing backwards with what looked like real fear written across her form.
“Oh no not you!”
Her opponent dropped a dagger and reaching up tapped Blood on the nose.
“Boop!” Said Ara cheerfully.