City of Ruin

T HIRTY-EIGHT

They scoured the streets house by house after nightfall, the Bloods, searching for vacant properties or rented accommodation where a Night Guard soldier and a cultist woman might have taken shelter, and all the while a snowstorm was gusting bitterly around them, never settling.

Malum had requested for his gang to embrace their more feral nature. His anger had connected with some deeper, weirder aspect of his vampyrism. They were masked and fuming and filled with purpose. They swaggered. They strutted and hollered out names to women heading home from the bars. They brandished hand-signals to intimidate the other gangs, who were hanging back in the shadows: Come fight us, you cowards. Fuck the Dog Gata Devils. There were stand-offs and mock scraps, name-callings and a sense of belonging. This was a subtle, directionless conflict.

Malum, wearing his surtout and mask and heavy gloves, flashed his blades in the eyes of the hesitant until they whimpered their responses to him.

'No, we ain't seen nothing.'

'Please, we're just two old sisters.'

'Fuck you doin' at this time of night? Oh, it's you, Malum – I didn't mean to be rude, I…'

He found out where all the slum landlords were located, those who had enjoyed licence from the portreeve to rip off the poor, who possessed no housing rights, and were without provision of firegrain for nights at a time. He beat them up because they were of little help to him, and maybe because they deserved it. One guy Malum decided he particularly despised was even chosen as a blood donor. In the man's new-built Scarhouse mansion Malum's gang gleefully ripped into him, punching their teeth into all his major veins and arteries. Malum took a glass from the man's own drinks cabinet, filled it with fresh blood, before raising it in a toast to his victim's good health.

*

Fifty gang members in all sifted through the likeliest streets anistricts. They kicked down doors, surprising couples who were rutting like animals; disturbed three old cultists who projected a net of energy into the doorway to block their entry; outraged a disgruntled rumel belonging to the Inquisition who was wearing some terrible-coloured breeches.

The first real clue he got was from a lonely fat tenement owner he caught entertaining himself with a porno golem – Malum vaguely wondered if it might have been supplied by himself: 'Yeah, they was here, the floor below, about two nights ago, though mainly the woman 'cos the fella keeps slipping off back to the barracks, like. But they only stayed a night.'

'Where'd they go?'

The man shrugged and meekly pulled the sheets across to try to hide the writhing pink golem as it fell off his bed, its overly made-up lips constantly mouthing coy surprise, touching its clay breasts. 'I heard them mention a hotel two streets west, I think, but didn't catch the name.'

*

They progressed with their usual clamour, retreating only froncounters with the routine patrols of soldiers, nor did they venturoo near the docks, where regiments were well established, thinkinrouble from the military men would cause too much distraction froheir simple purpose: to find and kill Beami and her lover. Was it al waste of time? Malum didn't much care – he possessed all thoney and resources he needed.

Ten of his men were searching a neighbourhood a mile away from the Ancient Quarter when, on the back of a tip-off, they finally found them.

Malum waited and focused, then spotted her silhouette appear in a mid-floor window of one of the more expensive hotels in the city, one set in a complex of vast gothic towers stalled in mid-construction. Her familiar shape was distinct against the soft light of coloured lanterns, as her hands reached for her hair, and presently a man was working his way around her body. It all seemed so oddly intimate, so detached, and all the while he had been haunted by the memory of her face. He wanted to kill them, to prevent them having what he himself couldn't give her. It was now a primeval competitive instinct, to prevent another man intruding on what he felt was his personal territory.

He sent one of his gang for reinforcements, waited a while, then he motioned for the rest of the boys to go in.

*

After bursting through the front door they ran through the receptioooms filled with trashy decor. Then they kicked ornaments aside aneaded up the stairs to reach the upper floors. Then, Malum glanceown the stairwell to see twenty more of his gang arrive.

Everyone inhabited the shadows. Beami was already waiting out in the long corridor, her lover standing behind, framed by the dim light coming through the open door. He was indeed a soldier in the Night Guard, this new man of hers, standing still with an arrow aimed towards them. He didn't look much, at first, just younger, more slender, a lean face, and Malum didn't know what to make of the fact that she had chosen to leave him for this guy.

'What do you want, Malum?' Beami demanded.

'For you to die.' Malum's hand moved instinctively to his messer blade and he began to bare his fangs, but suddenly his urge to appear normal took over once again, and he let his rage subside into a blend of feelings that he couldn't identify. He was a mess.

Beami said, 'Can't we talk?'

'That's all we ever did.'

'No,' she corrected, 'that's what we never did.'

He glanced around at the reaction of his men, catching one or two raised eyebrows and uncertain expressions appearing on their faces. Well, now, this was awkward, to be unmade, to have his marital life laid bare in front of the guys. What next must he endure?

Suddenly Duka tried to throw a knife from behind but the soldier released his arrow in the same heartbeat. Duka screamed, the offending hand now a ruined, bloody mess, and the knife fell uselessly to the floor.

This soldier was a damn good bowman, that was for sure.

'Leave us be,' the Night Guard growled.

'Fuck we will,' Malum snarled back. A few of his men shuffled forward, pirated relics brandished in their grasp.

Tre, a young blond rookie, began to transform a brass cylinder and set it glowing.

Malum could just about make out the anger flaring on her face as Beami made a circular gesture, and lines of luminescence began to form, air tightening in strands to create an undulating wave of purple light.

'You dare to use your fucking relics on me?' she sneered, as if the years of disgust and pain had suddenly accumulated, gathering momentum, ready to be unleashed within the next moment.

Tre darted forwards and hurled his relic and, slow and surreal, the device exploded into tiny electric nails. Beami raised her hand to command her light-lines, then raked her arm down, whipping air. The nails collapsed around her, clattering to the floor or against the wall behind her and the soldier, leaving a near-perfect circle of remaining wall that was not ruined. Her strands of light remained afloat. Tre stared dumbly as the Night Guard's next arrow thumped through his thigh, pinning him to the floor. He screamed and ripped off his mask and clawed at his leg.

'Don't try that stuff with me, Malum,' Beami snapped. 'I don't know how you've managed to get your hands on those things.'

'I've got contacts,' he growled. He was getting really pissed off with her. She should be dead by now, her body stiffening in a shallow grave alongside her new lover.

'Why don't you just leave us alone?' she snapped.

Two of the Bloods fired off their crossbows: swift bolts were caught in the strips of light and hung there. It was difficult to see properly in the darkness, but Malum crouched by the wall and prepared to take out the soldier himself. The Night Guard soldier continued to bury his arrows in members of the Bloods with a frightening efficiency, and Malum wondered how he could see so well in this light.

Beami dispersed her electric strands in wide arcs, filling the corridor from wall to wall, and she gradually shifted this barrier of light forward so that Malum's men could only retreat-

– Suddenly an explosion: one of the outside walls shattered, filling their confined space with masonry dust, while a sharp blast of winter air blew inside. Everyone stopped, and began whispering urgently in confusion.

'Fuck was that?' someone coughed.

Shouts drifted up to them from the street below, men giving orders, a woman screaming-

– A whistle, then a dull explosion.

Malum scrambled backwards through the rubble, stepping over the bloodied limbs of two of his fallen men, and looked out through the broken wall on the city facing the coast. All over it there were soldiers, moving like a plague of rats infesting Villiren, their footsteps clumping in unison across the streets. A bell began to toll, deep and resounding, bringing the city to a standstill.

'What's going on, Malum?' someone asked.

He had no idea. Several of his gang stood by his side, staring in shock at what had happened, and only then did he register the fact that something had struck the outside of the hotel. It seemed absurd something could hit a building at this height.

By his feet, a man was buried under the shattered wall, his mouth opening and closing but no words were generated, and on realizing this very fact, the man's face creased up in agony.

Strange, Malum thought.

Another whistle, another explosion, somewhere down to the right: a two-storey row of cheap flats coughed up dust and smoke. There came more screams, and soon further alarm bells were tolling.

Malum scrambled back into the damaged corridor, noting the absence of Beami and her soldier-lover. He kicked in the door to find their room abandoned.

The damn woman had escaped him.

*

Beami and Lupus sprinted at full-tilt past bewildered citizens. Hiuiver strapped tight to his back and bow still in hand, he was nopeaking to her with great urgency. The bell was calling him back the Citadel.

The war was beginning.

Something hit a building somewhere above their heads and stonework crashed a full forty feet behind them.

What the fuck caused that? Was it a missile of some description?

Beami turned and noticed a ruined cafe ahead, still smouldering from the heat of an explosion. People milled around outside, children crying, men shouting muddled orders, and shattered glass was crunched into the thin layer of snow. As they watched, three men and a woman were being hauled from the rubble to safety. Beami and Lupus approached these survivors to see if they needed any further help, but when they tried to respond, no sounds came forth. They faced each other aghast, pointed to their throats and gave a silent scream.

All three had been muted.

Beami gazed up at the sound of another whistle: a missile was heading through the air directly at a ruptured firegrain pipe, where it impacted to send a thin stream of liquid fire deep into the sky, lighting up the cityscape. They ducked instinctively as bits of stone clattered down. Silence, briefly, then the tolling bells recommenced. Lupus whistled for a fiacre to take the voiceless injured somewhere for treatment.

The lovers sped to the Citadel.

*

Brynd listened to the reports that flooded in regarding those caughp in areas where the missiles had impacted, that many could no longer speak. Their voices had been completely purged. A name for the device had been quickly created by witnesses: mute bombs.

A squadron of five garudas had been sent flying off to investigate precisely where the bombs were coming from. How could any regular commander plan a retaliation against such weird technology? Brynd had never even heard of missiles being fired over such distances, and to such a devastating effect. This suggested a level of warfare beyond the scope of the Empire's armies – a concept altogether unthinkable in any previous campaign.

Brynd immediately sent a missive requesting the help of the cultist Blavat, knowing full well he would soon need whatever relics and skills or advice she could supply. Messengers were then dispatched to round up any other cultists available in the city, offering a high reward for their skills.

There was not yet any direct invasion, no Okun had crossed the water, and there had been no landings further along the coast. Large-scale casualties seemed inevitable, though the orders from Villjamur were clear: Minimize the death toll, but make sure the city does not give way – it is too important a trading centre for the Empire. If you do lose the city you must build up forces to retake it, and fight for it until the last man stands. Which wasn't very helpful, of course. Brynd officially militarized the front lines of the city, ordering Port Nostalgia and the Shanties to be cleared of any remaining civilians who were not prepared to fight. Those who joined up were issued with basic weaponry by the Regiment of Foot, and civilian militias were formed according to pre-prepared schedules, with appointed commanders selected from the lower regiments of the Imperial forces.

All approaching routes to the newly militarized zone were shut down by the Ninth and Seventeenth Dragoons. The escape tunnels out of the city were checked for roof falls after the explosions. Deep underground settlements, a mile south of the southern wastelands, were directed to be populated by those wishing to flee – he could not have them dying in the tundra above. Over the centuries much had been made of these ancient mining excavations, and the military had recently opened up the more stable shafts to provide shelter.

With a deep sigh, Brynd stepped onto one of the observation platforms of the Citadel, where members of the Night Guard had gathered behind the battlements to examine the intermittent flashes from far off. The mute bombs had come in ones and twos at first, then accumulated, but by now had all but ceased. He had estimated around fifty explosions in all, and wondered how many citizens had been silenced. Anticipation and concern was clear to see from the expressions on the soldiers' faces. Now and then Nelum had given him disapproving glances, but Brynd, as always, buried his problems as deep as he could. This was not the time to be thinking about the issue of his lieutenant.

Lupus and that woman had joined them ten minutes earlier, bringing a vital, first-hand report on the mute bombs. When he first arrived, Brynd had been angry because he had brought Beami – then she explained she was a cultist, and soon persuaded Brynd that she could be of use.

Criers were dispatched into the city to repeat the message: every man and woman will be needed in the coming conflict. Even a child if he or she can hold a sword well enough.

Because he had no idea what else might be coming.