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.
