The Fade

18

I'd already made arrangements for myself, Feyn and Nereith to work the salvage dump for this shift. A few favours, a few promises. Easy enough. Juth, the publisher with the deformed leg, helped me out again. I tried to swap with him and he was curiously resistant to the idea, but he helped me get three others to swap instead.

He works alongside us at the dump as we wait for our moment, sifting through the debris with gloved hands, pretending to know what we're looking for. Feyn seems absolutely calm, and Nereith is doing a good job of hiding his feelings, but I'm wound up so tight it's hard to breathe. This time I'm risking more than myself.

I calm myself with silent chants and try not to notice that Juth is giving me plaintive glances. He suspects something's up. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get three of us onto the salvage dumps without raising some eyebrows, especially after our display last time we were here.

I keep a lookout for Arachi descending from his office. This will be the last time, I tell myself. The last hour of my life I spend in this sweltering, dirty air, pounded by the percussion of the hammers, the clashing of chains and the hiss of burning metal plunged into cold water. I'll get out of this place and I'll get Feyn out too, or I'll die trying.

I see the door at the top of the stairs open, and a thrill like a physical jolt runs through me. We're on.

The next few minutes are an agony of suppression. Only Feyn seems not to care. I suspect his philosophy runs along the lines of if anything goes wrong, it goes wrong; why worry about it? But nothing is going to go wrong. I tell myself that, and I've almost started to believe it when the Overseer and his guard come striding along the walkway behind me. Then:

'Take me with you,' Juth whispers.

I swear inwardly. I knew it. I pretend not to have heard, hoping his courage will fail and he won't ask again. He's a timid sort; it might happen.

'Take me with you,' he says, loud enough that Nereith looks up.

I stop work and stare at him, cold.

'You're getting out, aren't you?' he persists.

There's no point in lying. Very shortly, the three of us are going to disappear, and everyone at the salvage dump is going to know what's going on. There were already rumours that I'd escaped before, but Nereith spread a story that I was being kept for observation by one of the scientists, and my reappearance seemed to corroborate that. After all, what kind of lunatic would break out of a prison only to break back into it again?

When we make our move, nobody here will say anything. It's us against them, and anyone who overtly takes the guards' side will find their continued survival a very unlikely prospect. I've no doubt that Charn might put a word in the right ear, secretly, when he realises that we've left him here to die; but I plan to be away from Farakza before this shift is over. By the time Charn realises we've cheated him, we'll be gone. He'll only know when the alarm goes up at the end of the shift. One person can go missing without raising suspicion. Three? The only woman in the forge, the only SunChild and the only Khaadu? No chance. We're all too distinctive to go unmissed by the guards for long.

'I can't,' I say to Juth.

His narrow face firms in determination. 'You can!'

'You're lame,' I reply. 'You'll be a burden. You'll get us killed.'

Nereith is following the conversation closely. Our voices have dropped, but he's lip-reading. Feyn is glancing towards the Overseer and the guard, who is coming down the steps from the walkway to carry out his usual inspection.

'I could tell him,' Juth says, indicating the Overseer. 'I could tell him right now.'

'I could kill you in such a way that it'd look like a heart attack. No one would notice.'

'A dead slave? You don't need that kind of attention.'

Normally I could spot a bluff from a man like him, but I'm too wound up and he's too nervous and agitated. Threatening him was stupid; it's only firmed his resolve. The next decision has to be made fast and I just don't know.

'Don't do this,' I whisper. 'I take you or you tell, either way you kill us all. Don't get involved.'

The Overseer is surveying the workers now, making approving noises. Then he notices us. It's impossible not to. We're making no noise, but the tension of the stand-off is visible and palpable.

There's a desperate pleading in Juth's gaze. He knows this is his only chance to avoid a horrible death. A man with a lame leg won't last long in here. The weak and the unusually strong are first on the list for experimentation. He's not a bully by nature but fear has forced him to adopt the role.

Then he sags, and the fevered light in his eyes goes out. I turn back to the salvage dump, and so does he. The Overseer watches us for a few moments more before deciding not to dirty his hands with prisoner squabbles. He moves on, the guard trailing behind him.

There's nothing I can say. No thanks would be enough. Juth is letting us go, and his last faint hope goes with us. That's not an easy thing to give up. I've seen people go mad clinging to that final glimmer of self-preservation. I've seen people die and take everyone down with them. It takes courage to accept the inevitable.

Nereith and Feyn are both watching me. We're ready to go. I'm about to give the signal when Juth grabs my arm. He pulls out a tattered, sweat-crinkled envelope from inside his shirt and pushes it into my hand.

'Please,' he says.

I glance at it and slip it inside my top. The address is in Veya. I don't ask how he obtained the paper. By the looks of it, he's been carrying it around for some while, hoping to find a way to get it to the outside. He must have always known he had no chance of making it himself.

'I will,' I tell him.

'Deliver it by hand. Promise me.'

I feel I owe him that, and Veya is where I'm headed eventually anyway. So I promise. Then he lets me go, his fingers trembling. I wish I could save him, but I can't.

I pull off my gloves, scan for guards, and motion to the other two. They down gloves and we walk calmly out of there, across the walkway, into the red shadows of the forge machinery. The other workers watch us go, and I know in their hearts each of them is either cursing us or wishing us good fortune.

Getting to the foot of the stairs is easier than it was before. I know where I'm going, and both Feyn and Nereith can handle themselves. Feyn has natural camouflage and he's utterly silent; Nereith isn't trained in stealth but he's certainly not clumsy. There's a certain grace about the way he moves.

There aren't any guards in sight as we make the short dash between the machinery and the stairs. I feel a slackening of tension in my gut as we slip into the cover of the waist-high metal barrier obscuring the steps from the forge. We hurry up the stairs, crouched low, and when I reach the top I pull out the key that Charn made and it turns first time. Little things like that give me a good feeling. We can do this.

Once inside the Overseer's office, I shut and lock the door to the forge. Nereith and Feyn take in the dingy room with the same faint puzzlement as I did the first time I was here. The key to the other door is on the hook again but I don't have time to mess about with threads and candles like before. I'll have to leave the door unlocked and the key in it. He's left it there before, so maybe he's absentminded enough to think he forgot to turn it. Hopefully he won't notice until he leaves at the end of the shift anyway. The plan's not as neat as I'd like, but that's the way it has to be.

I scout out the corridor, check it's clear, then lead Nereith and Feyn to the storage room where I left my slave's clothes. I open the door slightly, slip in, then let them past after. I'd left a clay shard where it would be shifted by the opening of the door. Nobody has been here while I was away.

'Stay here until I get back,' I tell them as I dress hurriedly in the dark.

'Where are you going?' Nereith asks.

'Creating a diversion.'

Suitably attired, I head out into the corridors. I'm not nearly as confident as I was last time I was here. By now the girl who originally owned these clothes will have been missed, and undoubtedly Ellya will have told the other slaves she was last seen storming off to find me. This dress is dangerous now. I have to avoid the other slaves if at all possible, and hope I don't bump into any Gurta who knew my victim well enough to care about her disappearance.

It's a short distance, and the only person I see is a guard, who doesn't even glance at me. My luck's holding.

I find a linen room I'd selected on my last excursion. This is where clean sheets and blankets are stored after drying. Shelves of fabric line the walls, awaiting pickup by slaves. The Gurta are fastidious, obsessive about cleanliness and elaborate ritual, and that means having people to look after them. They've used slaves, of one stripe or another, since their histories began.

The shelves are only half-full when I get there, but it's enough. All the slaves are out cleaning the rooms of the dignitaries. I walk in, take the lantern down from the wall, smash it on the floor at the foot of a set of shelves and walk out again with the fire already beginning to catch on the bed sheets.

My journey back is as unhindered as my journey there, and it's with some relief that I return to the storage room where Feyn and Nereith are waiting. I strip and pull on my travelling clothes again, then tie my hair up with a thin blue scarf. The time for deceptions is over; I'll stand or fall with these two. There's a certain comfort in that.

'What will happen?' Feyn asks, and it takes me a moment before I realise he means: Now what?

'We wait. Sooner or later somebody's going to notice that I've just set one of the rooms on fire.'

A distant scream, exquisitely timed, and Nereith actually starts laughing, which sets us all off. We keep it muffled, but we really can't help it. It's that slightly hysterical laughter you only get when you're scared out of your wits. There's nothing like it.

Then we hear footsteps outside, racing, and we all hush at once.

The footsteps recede quickly. Someone is ringing a bell. Another pair of runners pass by our door. People in the corridors between here and the junk room where I stashed the slave's body are rushing to the summons. Everyone helps in a fire, slaves and guards and scholars alike. This is my way of making doubly sure that our short journey is made unobserved.

We wait in the dark, as still as the barrels and jugs and coils of rope that hunker half-seen all around us. We wait, and wait, and when we hear no more footsteps, I say: 'Now,' and we're gone.

I'm a veteran of breaking into and out of places, but the way it's done is by not taking chances, by being prepared. The parts of this plan that kill me are those in which I have no option but to put my head into the fanged mouth of chance. And we haven't even got to the really dangerous part yet. That waits for us outside.

Two guards burst through a door into the corridor right in front of us.

I knew it. Fucking typical.

It takes a moment for them to register that there are three escaped prisoners loose in the fort, but they go for their swords quickly. Still, I have the advantage of surprise. I was already running at them when the door opened. The first only just has his hand on his hilt when I drive the heel of my palm into his nose, spearing the cartilage into the front of his brain. His stunned gaze empties and he crumples.

The second guard pulls out his sword and takes a slice at my neck, hoping to take my head off. It stirs my hair as I duck, then I grab his outstretched arm at the wrist and punch into his armpit, between the iridescent armour plates of hardened sap. Hit a Gurta hard enough in the right spot and you can stop their heart. My aim is good, and I've got a lot of hate behind that strike.

I stare down at their lifeless faces, their pinched features white, cheekbones tinged with blue. Two for you, Rynn. It's not even a start.

'I see your reputation was not exaggerated,' Nereith says dryly, as he grabs hold of the wrists of one of the dead guards. 'Let's get these bodies out of the way.'

We put them in a storeroom, barely bothering to hide them. We don't have time. Nereith takes up one of the swords, but I tell him to leave it. The extra weight could make the difference between life and death, if we get as far as the river. He obeys without complaint. I'm not sure he knows how to use a sword anyway.

The last section of the dash is unhindered. Doors slam distantly, voices echo down the corridors, but we reach the spiral stairs without incident and head down into the thick darkness. The junk room is as I left it, though the air is faintly putrid with the scent of over-ripe decay. The slave in the chest is beginning to go off. Feyn notices it instantly, looks towards the chest and then back at me, a question in his black eyes.

I shake my head. Don't ask.

The drop from the window isn't a problem for any of us. This part is as safe as it gets. Due to a trick of the fort's construction, it's dark enough that we can't be seen from the yard: a convenient fold in the architecture, shadowed from the shinehouse that rises above the fort.

We gather against the wall, hunkered low. Ahead of us is the yard, scattered with piles of crates and sacks, busy with workers. A storage silo yawns on the far side, fed with cargo from the carts. The men yell bawdy jokes at each other, the answers returning in chorus since they've all heard them many times before.

'I'm going to get closer,' I tell Feyn and Nereith. 'Come after me when I give you the signal.'

With that, I scamper along the wall. With my black clothes and dusky skin I'm almost invisible. A quick rush to the cover of a netted heap of boxes gets me a good angle on the activity. There's a covered wagon nearby, its tailgate hanging down, half-loaded. Sheaves of metal rods are being slung into it with little care or delicacy. Behind them are several tied crates beneath a loose tarp. More slave-made weaponry and machine parts, on their way to the Borderlands? Perhaps.

A cart is just being let in through the gate. For a short time I watch and wait, observing the lax rhythm of the labour. Seeing where they go, who they stop and talk to, when the best moment would be to make a run. I'm thankful that they leave their carts at the edge of the yard, to make space for other traffic. There's a lot of peripheral clutter. If not for that, we'd never even get near.

I wave at the others and they scuttle, low and quiet, to my side. We're well hidden here, as long as nobody decides to look behind the crates. And we're beyond the point where I can even consider the possibility of failure. There really is no going back.

'That one?' Nereith asks, peering around the side of the boxes at the wagon.

'Good as any,' I say. We can make it in a dash. With luck no one will spot us. I've been relying far too much on luck lately, but in the absence of preparation it's the best thing I have.

It's all about expectations. Nobody expects three escaping prisoners to stow away on a wagon. I doubt half of these Gurta even know there's a prison inside Farakza. As long as we're not seen, we have every chance.

'Ready?' I say to Feyn, because he's first to go. I have to be last. I have to pick the times.

Feyn nods. I look out and around. The wagon obscures most of the courtyard; the loaders are heading back to the warehouse.

'Go!'

And he's off, running low to the ground, not looking anywhere but at his destination. It's a matter of instants but the time stretches like putty. Then he's up on the tailgate, disappears inside, gone as if he was never there. The chila tethered to the front of the wagon murmurs, tossing its furred head. But no alarms. No cries.

'Go!'

Now it's Nereith, and he's a little slower. Those seconds scrape by like fingernails on slate. I'm not watching him, only the warehouse door where two workers have stopped and are talking.

I look back, and Nereith is gone. He's made it.

My turn. I keep my eye on the workers. They're looking over at the wagon now, and one of them is heading back.

Then I hear a grunt from the chila, and someone very close by hollers to one of his companions: ~ Move it! I'm getting old just watching you, you lazy molchon ~ Many Gurta insults are untranslatable; they have a wide and colourful variety.

I skirt around the boxes to find the owner of the voice clambering into the chila's saddle. He pulls on his gloves and picks up the reins. Getting ready to leave.

My ride is about to depart without me.

I race back along the boxes, just in time to see a scar-faced Gurta approach the rear of the wagon. He takes hold of the tailgate, swings it up and locks it. ~ No more ~ he calls to the driver. ~ Let's get going ~

The driver cries a command and snaps the reins. The chila takes the weight of the wagon and begins to lumber forward. Just as it begins to move, the scar-faced Gurta hops up on the tailgate and climbs inside, pulling the flaps closed behind him.

I break cover and sprint. It's barely travelled six spans, but the extra distance has opened up a terrifying view of the courtyard. I can't tell if any of the workers witness my dash. It doesn't matter, because if I get this wrong I'm dead anyway. I vault up on to the tailgate, thrust aside the flaps and lunge in.

The scar-faced Gurta is bent over as I come at him, occupied with tying some metal rods together. Of the stowaways there's no sign. He turns at the sound of my approach, his face shadowed in the gloom of the wagon. I rush him in the cramped space. Shock registers on his features. It's the expression he dies with.

I try to muffle his fall but he knocks rods into a noisy tumble. ~ Everything alright back there? ~ the driver calls jovially. I freeze. Waiting. The wagon rolls onward.

Silence. Silence. And still silence.

I let out a breath. The driver probably thinks he hadn't been heard, and he doesn't care enough to persist. We're still moving. I don't dare shift the body for fear of making more noise, so I creep to the back where I find Feyn and Nereith hidden behind some crates, under tarp. Nereith's calm facade is paper-thin now. He knows how close that last one was.

I hunker down with them, and we cover up and wait. Moments later, we hear the driver call out. ~ Good luck tomorrow, friends! I envy you the honour of meeting an Elder! ~

I think of the 'honour' I would have suffered, had I met him. I can't help a shiver.

~ Good journey ~ the guards call back. They're separated from us by nothing but the hide that covers the wagon.

We never even slow down. Past the gates, past the walls, and out of Farakza. My heart is punching at my gut. I can't believe we've got this far.

But there's one more obstacle before we're free. And it's the worst of them all.