When he opened the window to investigate, the area outside was quiet. No one walked the narrow, lacklustre streets. Was it possible he was being spied upon?
TEN
Malum was enjoying a card game with JC and a choleric trader called Gall, who was bleeding Sota and Lordil coins across the table. Malum didn't need the money, just liked to win, although sometimes he wished that these types didn't let their fear of him get in the way of a good game. Gall did a little work for the Black Eyed Dog mineral franchise, and some said that he dealt in slaves, though Malum had never seen much evidence of that.
There was a glass of blood to one side, from which he took a swig, savouring the metallic taste. Down here, none of this gang made any effort to hide what they were. In one corner of the room, watching the door, was Mundi, a tribal kid no older than ten who'd become orphaned after the rest of his tribe was slaughtered by Imperial soldiers. He normally sauntered around with a spurious arrogance, carrying his machete with casual ease.
Mundi stepped aside as two of the youngest recruits came clambering in to the rear of the dimly lit bar, and Malum studied the two youths from behind his mask. They were both blond: Jodil the chunky one, while Din was skinny. Fourteen and fifteen years old respectively, they wore thigh-length leather coats and the same brand of paduasoy hooded jumper that Malum had bought for them on their initiation. Annoyingly, they kept wearing crude home-made fangs to blend in with the fully ordained members of the Bloods, but Malum didn't discourage their enthusiasm.
They now seemed nervous, each shifting his weight from foot to foot, hands buried deep in their pockets. He liked the kids. There was a deep sense of loyalty in them, which derived from the fact that they'd both lost their fathers to the sea and didn't have much else in the way of family. They had drifted, he had caught them and nurtured them. A lot of young recruits came to him that way.
Malum slung down his cards as JC stood to berate the two for disrupting the game.
Malum placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Leave it, it's fine.' He gestured for JC to sit back down again in his seat. Then, to the kids, 'What's wrong?'
Jodil, the thickset one, spoke through the pauses in his breathing. 'We lost Deeb. We was down by the boneyard. To keep watch to see if any of those dicks from the Screams was being brought in there this morning after that fight. Then Deeb tried it on with these two weird old men. And… And…'
'Slow down.' Malum moved over to them both and placed a paternal arm around each shoulder. 'Sit, and speak a little more clearly.' Soothing tones, close body contact: the things these young street-warriors most needed right now. Malum glared at the fat trader until the man picked up what was left of his coins and slunk out of the bar. The young Bloods took their seats.
'Now' – Malum leaned forward across the table, his arms folded, seeking eye contact – 'what happened to Deeb?'
'Dead,' Din murmured.
'He's gotta be,' Jodil agreed.
Malum pondered their body language. 'You don't seem convinced.'
'Those two old men,' Jodil continued, 'they was fucking around with these graves. There was one that was already open.'
'Criminal's grave?' JC offered.
'They all are at the boneyard,' Malum grunted. Anyone who broke the law was buried, not burned, so that their souls remained trapped within the city: an imprisonment during the afterlife.
'Whatever,' Jodil continued. 'Deeb went over to see what was going on and he started calling them all sorts of names.'
'Why?'
'You know what he's like. He's a dick. Gives them all this attitude.'
'The men, what did they do? Did you get a good look?'
'One was bald,' Din said, 'but we didn't get a proper look at the other. They was wearing too many layers – all dark shades.'
'And what did they do with Deeb?'
'They grabbed him by the neck, snapped it just like that, and threw him in the grave.'
Malum gestured for them to go on.
'Then there was a flash of something. Cultists, we reckoned at the time. Then Deeb was lifted up out of the grave by three of the things that was already in them.'
'What, the corpses?'
The youths both nodded.
'What were you two doing at the time?'
'We shouted something but we couldn't move. It's as if there was some sort of wall between us. We swear we tried to get to him. We tried to throw rocks over it, but only a few managed to get near them. Even that small crossbow of mine wouldn't shatter it.'
Malum nodded. 'Then what happened?'
'Deeb looked dead. He shouldn't have been able to move. His neck was broken and his head was hanging at an angle. His eyes was closed, too. The things to one side of him were really decayed. They looked like melted men with their skin peeling off. The three of them came towards us and that's when we legged it back here and didn't stop. We could hear them men laughing at us as we left the boneyard.'
Everyone waited for Malum's next words to fill the painful silence, but no one made eye contact.
He had heard about these sorts of situations before, but they tended to amount to just rumours, fanciful stories designed to intimidate others, yet he'd recently heard about something similar happening on Jokull, with dead people walking across the tundra, but that was too far away to concern him.
Knowing what it was likely to have been, he eventually declared, 'Cultist necromancers. That's what they sound like. In the boneyard, raising the dead, killing one of our gang members.'
'What shall we do?' asked the skinny youth, hunching his shoulders, retreating into himself. 'Could go back again, see if they return?'
Malum stood up, stretched his legs. 'The Bloods, we're family remember. If one of us goes down, I go down with him. We respect and support each other. But dealing with necromancers, well… that's something way out of what we normally have to contend with.'
None of them would be equipped to fight people like that. He had a pact with a few cultists, a deal arranged to make their lives more comfortable in exchange for a little help, but he didn't think that they were worth wasting on a power his own guys wouldn't be able to comprehend. Necromancers were rare even in the weird and fucked-up world of cultists. His decision now would be to do nothing, but he would promote these youths up a level for at least trying to fight off a necromancer to help their already dead friend.
ELEVEN
'Lady Rika, you want to say a little prayer, or something?' Randur muttered. 'Might make the snow stop.'
He gazed out across the treeless plain, at a stolen glimpse of sunlight – at skies turning the colour of a rusted sword, providing the only distraction from the same bleakness they had travelled through for so long now. Pterodettes circled terns that circled pterodettes in avoidance manoeuvres. In such vast open skies there was nowhere to hide.
'From the sound of your voice,' Rika said, 'I assume you are having some fun at my expense, Randur.' Her black cloak rippled in the breeze, revealing an ornate medallion attached to the robe underneath, a reminder of the wealth she and her sister were once used to.
'Not much, if I'm honest,' Randur replied, catching a wry smile from Denlin.
