Stands a Shadow

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Rendezvous

Curl stood on the rooftop of the warehouse while men scrambled up the rope-ladders onto the waiting skyship. The vessel was badly damaged, its hull scorched by fire and its rigging in tatters. Another ship was already climbing into the air in a sluggish lift-off, turning in a long curve towards the south with its deck crammed with soldiers.

It was the second run the ships had made since she had arrived there. Greyjackets and archers manned the edges of the roof, firing down at the imperial forces moving in on their position. More enemy forces were converging along the marina. It was clear it would be the last trip out before the building was overrun.

‘Who are you waiting for?’ asked a passing Volunteer, a man so haggard in appearance he could have been twenty years old or forty.

‘A friend!’ she shouted over the noise of the gunfire.

‘Girl, we have to go now – there isn’t time to wait.’ And he tried to pull her towards the ship.

‘Let go of me!’ she yelled in his face, breaking free from his grip. He looked startled for a moment, but then he gave up and ran for the ship.

Curl scanned the skies and could still see no sign of enemy skyships. She took a few steps closer to the edge, to look down at the surrounding streets and the marina, at the Imperials closing in. Some Khosian troops were still filtering towards the warehouse, many sprinting for it, others in squads performing fighting retreats.

Where are you, you idiot?

Curl didn’t know what to make of this man whom she had only just met, yet he seemed to pluck all the right strings within her. Certainly their lovemaking had been memorable in the long hours they had shared together, free-spirited and playful when not intensely passionate. Beyond that, though, who was he?

He was a mystery, and a dangerous one at that, she sensed.

Curl was well aware of how she’d fallen twice already for such men in her life. She was beginning to suspect that it was a trait not entirely good for her, for in hindsight they had both been selfish bastards.

Yet this was war, and she found that it was true what the soldiers said. War created exceptional circumstances. You felt a responsibility to live recklessly and fully, only too aware that you might never see another sunrise.

As though proof of this, her heart suddenly leapt when she glimpsed his face on the edge of the roof. Che was being helped along by a female Volunteer.

‘Che!’ she yelled as she ran to meet him. He was drenched in blood, and barely conscious. ‘Che?’ He lifted his head and tried to focus on her.

Get me out of here, his expression said.

Curl threw his free arm over her shoulder and helped the Volunteer drag him towards the ship.

One of the small scuds took off from the roof. Another fired its tubes, manoeuvring into the empty position. Men backed away to give it room.

‘Any sign of the old farlander?’ he croaked.

Curl shook her head. ‘He’d better hurry, wherever he is, if he wants to get off this island.’

The young man wheezed as though in laughter. ‘That old bastard? He’ll have a way out of this. He’s likely gone already.’

Ash charged the war-zel straight towards the front door of the house, slapping its rump hard with his sheathed sword.

He ducked low in the saddle as it burst through the door and clattered along the wooden floorboards of a hallway, hearing the shouts of pursuit behind him even as his mount bore him out through an open door at the back.

The animal snorted and took three great surges across an open yard. Ash kicked hard to urge it on, and it vaulted a fence with a leap and landed on the other side. The zel stumbled once, recovered its footing, then skirted a deserted plaza as crossbow bolts whined through the air from behind them.

Ash glanced back. Saw men pouring over the fence and riders emerging from the side streets around it.

The gunfire was closer now. He wasn’t far.

The animal’s flanks were bright with lather, its breath rasping in its throat. It felt good to be riding like this again, with the wind in his eyes and a recklessness in his blood like a reminiscence of youth.

‘Come on!’ he encouraged as the zel skipped over a mound of scattered baskets, took a street on the other side of the plaza with its hooves thundering along the boardwalk. He could see the marina at the end of the street now, its long quays supporting wooden poles with lit lanterns, entirely deserted of boats.

A cannon boomed, the sound of it rumbling along the street.

They emerged from the street right into a squad of imperial infantry. The zel burst through them without slowing. Ash spotted a warehouse to the right along the waterfront, with a skyship hovering over its broad roof lit by flashes of gunfire.

Men were sprinting over the roof towards the ship, climbing rope-ladders dangling from its hull. It looked familiar to him, that vessel. He squinted and saw the wooden figurehead on its prow. It was a falcon in flight.

I don’t believe it.

He yanked the reins and aimed for the building as he kicked for speed. With the zel racing beneath him, he glanced at a scud to their left circling the marina, firing rounds of grape-shot. A smatter of plumes rose up from the nearby water, splashing down on the boardwalk as they charged along it. Ash shook his head dry and looked for a way onto the roof. He spotted a stairwell on the side of it, a few men still clambering upwards. He wondered if Che and the girl had made it.

Suddenly the zel screamed and pitched forwards.

Ash spilled from the saddle and rolled on the hard boardwalk with his sword still in his grasp. He leapt to his feet and looked back at the animal as it reared on its side. Blood ran from a wound in its flank. He saw the Imperials racing towards him.

Ash turned and sprinted for his life.

The skyship was starting to move under its tremendous load of rescued men, the propulsion tubes burning ever louder along its hull. Below it, the warehouse roof was in the final stages of being overrun. Some Khosians hadn’t made it. They were making their last stands back to back.

Men still dangled from the rope-ladders of the rising ship. One fell off, landing amongst a group of Imperials, who stabbed and hacked at him in a frenzy. Soldiers shouted down at their comrades who clung desperately to the ropes with their legs kicking air, reaching their hands out to them.

Che sat with his back to the starboard rail while a medico tended to his leg. Curl crouched next to him, not seeming to mind the odd bolt or shot that clattered against the hull. The girl had her arm around him. Her touch felt good to him; warm and vivid. He did not want to look at the rooftop below.

‘ Look! ’ Curl suddenly shouted, pointing down to the warehouse roof.

He turned his head to see what she was pointing at.

It was Ash, stopping short as the ship nosed away.

‘ Trench! ’ the old man bellowed.

Che struggled to his feet. He pushed away the medico as the man cursed and tried to hold him down.

‘We can’t just leave him,’ Che snapped frantically, and looked around for someone to shout at, to tell them to turn back. But he could barely see beyond the heads of the men pressing around him, and he knew in his sinking heart that it was useless.

In impotence, he turned back to watch.

They were high enough now for the entire warehouse roof to be framed in his vision. The streets around it were alive with Acolytes and soldiers, the rooftop itself an island awash with them.

In their midst, the lone farlander’s black skin was a stark contrast to their white robes.

Che saw the old man’s blade glitter silver in the darkness, the Roshun stepping into the spaces he was cutting through their masses.

‘Merciful Mother,’ Curl said, and she gripped the wooden pendant around her neck.

Che barely heard her over the roar of the tubes. The ship banked sharply towards the far shore, and the lone figure of Ash grew smaller in size, a dot that vanished amongst them.

Ash’s instincts took over. For a time his attention was focused so intensely on what he did that no part of him was aware of his own self in the midst of the carnage. He knew no fear, nor conscience, nor even spite, as he moved freely without distinctions of mind and body and blade in a performance of one, weaving their patterns as he ducked and darted and killed in a gradual movement towards the very edge of the rooftop.

Around him his opponents fell shooting blood – without feet, hands, arms. They fell without heads. They fell with their stomachs unravelling into their cupped palms. They fell in silence as though asleep. They fell in shouted protest.

They did not stop falling.

‘Back!’ Ash snarled as he spun from the edge of the roof, his feet tottering dangerously over the side.

‘Back!’ he spat again with a shake of his blade, gore sheeting off it.

They listened, at least enough to hesitate, to pull up short. Ash gulped down air as men joined them with crossbows, a few pistols. He wiped the blood from his face, spat it from his mouth. Every part of him drenched in it.

They panted and eyed the crimson-soaked vision with something approaching awe.

A soldier pushed quickly to the front, an officer by the tattoos on his face. ‘Who are you?’ the man enquired.

He sounded genuinely curious.

Ash took in the ragged assembly around him, the crossbows and guns aimed at his body. They looked scared, most of them. Scared and tired.

‘Drop your weapon,’ ordered the officer. ‘Do it now, or die.’

Ash thought it over for a moment, then straightened from his fighting stance and lowered his sword. A flight of geese were crying somewhere in the night sky. He looked up, but couldn’t see them for all the clouds. He felt the breeze run across his face like a breath from the World Mother. His expression softened.

‘You should know,’ he said, looking up at the officer as he sheathed his sword. ‘That I would take my own life first.’ And with the guns and crossbows aimed squarely at his chest, he did the only thing left to do.

Ash jumped.