Wood fetched his sword, then returned to the edge of the roof. Glancing down, he watched Lorna start to move, her broken, snapped shape starting to writhe, beginning to squirm. Somebody ran to her, and she gradually climbed disjointedly to her feet and glared up at him.
'Hell's balls!' Wood snapped, and ran for the far end of the roof. Here, he knew, there was a tunnel he could use to escape. But what to do? Where to go? How could he fight such creatures? How could they die?
And it came, in a flash of brilliance. Of inspiration.
He would travel the city, and gather to him those who still lived. The criminals, the smiths, the soldiers, the market traders. And they would arm themselves.
And they would fight this scourge.
With a new objective, a military objective, Command Sergeant Wood loped off into the darkness.
Jalder was Falanor's major northern city and once a trading post connecting east, south and west military supply routes, known as the Northern T. Sitting just south of the formidable Black Pike Mountains, and separated by the Iron Forest, Jalder had been the first city hit when the vachine invaded south from the mountains and their stronghold, Silva Valley, and using their albino ranks, the Army of Iron.
Since that invasion, where General Graal had used a mixture of blood-oil magick and cunning, first to take out the northern scouts and guards, then to infiltrate Jalder's Northern Garrison and slay the entire regiment based there with not a single loss of life to his own army – since those days, months earlier, since the flooding of magick summoned ice-smoke which chilled and killed, and allowed soldiers to run riot capturing and murdering the vast majority of Jalder citizens – well, for those that remained, life had been unbearably hard.
It could have been expected that all would die, such was the hardship in Jalder. The ice-smoke froze people in their beds, froze traders selling wares at market stalls, murdered children playing in the street. And those not killed had been rounded up by the Army of Iron, and even worse, many were eaten when a unit of rogue cankers broke free and rampaged through the streets, ripping out throats and snapping off heads.
The Army of Iron had moved south, leaving behind a token garrison of three hundred albino warriors and five ethereal, ghostly Harvesters in order to patrol the deserted city of Jalder, mopping up stragglers and warning Graal of any military activity behind his advancing lines.
Twelve weeks had passed.
And incredibly, some people had survived.
They lived in sewers, and attics, in the tanneries and deserted fish-stores, they scuttled like cockroaches beneath the floorboards of once-rich, proud dwellings, they hid in the towers of Jalder University, in the dungeons of Jalder's Marble Palace, in the Dazoon Clocktower and the old guild spice-houses. They scrabbled for food like vermin, dressed in rags, their weapons rusted. But they survived. They existed. And slowly, warily, they began to fight back.
The resistance was led by a small, narrow-faced man known simply as Ferret. He was slim, wiry, but incredibly strong for his size after a life of hardship as a thief, a pit-fighter, and later in His Majesty's Prisons, including a stint in the terribly harsh Black Pike Mines. What Ferret lacked in brawn he made up for with speed and accuracy, dirty-fighting and the ability to use his mind. In those first days when the ice-smoke rolled through Jalder, he had been safe in the dungeons – until two albino soldiers went through the cells systematically killing all prisoners. When they came to Ferret, he'd been curled in a ball in the corner of his cell, crying, begging for his life, covered in snot and sores. The two soldiers opened the cell, and one studied his nails whilst the second moved in for the kill – gurgling as Ferret leapt forward, out-stretched fingers punching through and into the soldier's throat. He took the dying warrior's sword, hefted it thoughtfully, and split the second albino's skull straight down the middle with a single blow. Turning back to the first man, with finger-holes through his oesophagus pouring white blood, Ferret took hold of his hair and hacked free his head.
Three months ago.
Three months!
How things had changed. How life in Jalder had changed for those poor unfortunates still left. The Harvesters roamed the streets, directing the patrols. Many of the humans remaining were soon killed… killed and harvested. The old, frail, weak, scared. The children had proved resilient; good at hiding, and learning quickly to kill in packs with youthful ferocity, and without remorse.
And gradually, they had all come to Ferret. This small man, this skinny man, with his lank brown hair and pockmarked features like the arse of a pig. He was one of the downtrodden, one of the underdogs. But hell, Ferret had come good. Ferret had shown that it was all about the mind. All about planning, and thinking, and instruction. Not simply violence, but the planning of violence.
Ferret gathered those stray and directionless men and women and children to him; he organised them into groups, the children into food foraging parties, the woman into units who practised with swords and bows during the day, and mended armour and fashioned arrows by night. They discovered underground tunnels near the river, and set nets to catch fish thus providing fresh food and protein. They used the old furnace chambers of the tanneries to cook their food, so that smoke and fumes would be carried up high brick chimneys and away on distant winds. They slept, huddled together under old furs and blankets the children found in rich merchants' houses, and always with weapons to hand. Once, a unit of five albino soldiers found a sleeping pit – the battle had been fierce, but short, with twenty people slaughtered including one of Ferret's trusted 'Generals', as he liked to call those he promoted and put in charge.
In those first days, the resistance had numbered maybe five hundred: the strays in the sewers, those hiding in attics and cellars, shivering in the cold dark places. Now, they were no more than two hundred. Slowly, systematically, they had been rooted out and killed. It depressed Ferret more than he could ever admit, and now, as he sat in his little control centre deep within an old tannery building, cold, silent, the huge cauldrons empty, the fires gone out, he waited with three of his Generals for his best weapon, his most trusted ally, his most vicious soldier – a twelve year-old girl they called Rose. Beautiful on the outside, but sharp with thorns beneath.
Rose was a slim, quiet thing. But she had proved herself time and again as the most capable soldier in Ferret's resistance. She was superb at gathering intelligence: where albino soldiers would patrol, if there would be Harvesters, what was happening in the outside world. She had her own routes through the city, and Ferret did not ask. Her results were what counted, and Ferret did not need to know the details.
All he knew about Rose was that her parents had been killed when she was young, maybe four or five years, and she had survived in the city from that early age on her wits and intelligence and intuition. She was a born killer, despite her angelic appearance. She was dangerous beyond compare.
Her tiny bare feet pattered down the corridor, and Rose glided into view; warily, for she was always wary; but with an easy and confident manner. She was a girl in tune with this odd underground environment.
'Hello, Rose.'
'Ferret,' she said, her dark eyes glancing to the Generals, then around the room. 'Nice hideout.'
'You have information?'
'Of course. You have payment?'
'Yes.' Ferret smiled, his narrow face breaking into genuine humour. Never trust anybody who did something for free, he thought. With Rose, he had to buy her information. Usually with precious stones, which he had children through the city scouring rich merchants' deserted houses to find so he could keep this particular human gem in active service.
Ferret tossed her a small velvet bag of rubies. 'Here you go.'
Rose snatched the bag from the air, and looked around suspiciously. She frowned, then seemed to relax. Ferret tuned in to her senses; he had never seen her frown. Was there something wrong? Had she seen, or sensed, something he had not?
Ferret felt his alertness kick up a few degrees. He loosened his sword and knife at his belt, but kept the smile on his face for Rose. He glanced to the three Generals; all huge men and proven warriors, despite their soiled garb. It was hard to keep clean fighting from the sewers. They stunk like three-week-dead dogs. All except Rose, that is. She was perfectly clean, her simple black clothes fresh as virgin snowfall, her shoulderlength black hair neatly brushed. Nothing about her indicated a covert lifestyle of information gathering, and the secret murder of albino soldiers.
Rose tipped the rubies onto her small, white hand. They looked wrong, somehow, sitting there in the girl's palm. Then, in one swift movement she ate them, swallowing with a grimace, and glancing up to Ferret. She allowed the velvet bag to drop to the stone floor.
