Tane and Vuldon returned to their quarters, finding Fulcrom and
Feror sat across a table from each other, in a contemplative silence.
‘Which fucker told?’ Vuldon demanded.
Cautiously, Fulcrom explained what Feror had done while the old man stared at the table, not daring to meet their eyes while his guilt was aired. Neither of the Knights made a move to threaten the man, which either showed how much they’d grown into their role, or revealed how stunned they were.
‘Now what?’ Vuldon asked.
‘We go to get his family back for him,’ Fulcrom replied.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘Vuldon, we get his family back. You of all people know how important his children are to him.’ He wished he didn’t have to mention that fact, but it seemed to hit Vuldon where required.
‘Where’s Lan?’ Tane enquired, padding around to Fulcrom’s side.
‘Still with Ulryk.’
‘I suspect it’s easier for the old girl to keep away for now.’
‘You don’t hate her?’ Fulcrom asked. ‘You didn’t know her history.’
‘Oh, we knew everything, old boy,’ Tane replied with a wink, much to Fulcrom’s surprise. ‘These cultists yap like hounds to please us Knights. Who knows, the amount of information I took from those show-offs, I might have made a decent Inquisition aide after all.’
‘And it never bothered you?’
Tane shrugged.
Fulcrom glanced to Vuldon, waiting for his response. ‘I know what it’s like to be judged,’ Vuldon grunted. ‘She proved herself. Only thing that matters is a job well done.’
‘Whether or not the people of the city think that’s what matters is something else entirely,’ Fulcrom said.
‘No good crying over spilt milk,’ Vuldon declared. ‘Action’s better than us sitting here wondering what they think of us.’
‘What,’ Tane said, ‘we’re just going to ignore any of this happened?’
‘I’d say so.’
‘But we’re nothing more than the Emperor’s tools for propaganda and now that opportunity has gone.’
‘No,’ Vuldon snarled. ‘Well, yes, that’s true, but what else d’you expect from politicians? We’ve also done fuck-loads for this city, saved dozens of lives and halted just as many crimes, and I’m not giving up because of this. I’ll only stop when I’m dragged away — you can bury me in this outfit.’ Vuldon pulled at his shirt before turning to Fulcrom, who felt a spark of pride. ‘So,’ Vuldon continued, ‘do we get this joker’s family back or sit here like idiots?’ Vuldon tilted his chin to indicate the cultist, who was silent but wide-eyed.
‘We get his family,’ Fulcrom replied.
*
They headed into the caves undercover, an hour after Feror had gone ahead with his request to deliver information. He had given them an address across the road and been told to wait. It was a run-down shell of a room that overlooked the street alongside the Dryad Tavern, a three-floor joint deep in the new territory of Underground North. It was night, and the glass that lined the roof of the enormous cavern cast no light in the darkness. The street was empty and something didn’t quite sit right with Fulcrom: there was an absence of activity. With a couple of hundred thousand people within this cavern, he expected to see some of them.
According to the cultist, Feror was always taken to the top floor of the Dryad Tavern by hooded Cavesiders, where he would then reveal any information about the Knights: their movements, their general status — and, of course, their pasts.
‘How do you feel,’ Fulcrom asked the two Knights, ‘about the anarchists hijacking the People’s Observer?’
Tane wore a pained and tired expression. ‘It wasn’t fully correct, not that the people would really care. I don’t have any dealings with my father’s business. I frittered away all the money deliberately, because of where it came from, and I… Oh what’s the point?’
Vuldon mumbled, ‘I suppose in this case, the People’s Observer is generally closer to the true facts than the shit the Emperor’s been hawking around.’
‘Are you fit to put this aside and carry on?’ Fulcrom asked.
‘If you think the public will be fine with us,’ Tane said. ‘Let’s face it, most of what we were about was image and now look at it.’
‘Then maybe we can replace that with some substance,’ Fulcrom replied.
After that brief exchange, they focused on the window opposite, waiting for evidence of life on the top floor. Finally lanterns were lit and figures stirred on the inside, three or four of them.
‘Time to go,’ Fulcrom declared. ‘Tane, search the side rooms. It’s unlikely they’ll show him his family at first, but they’ll be nearby.’
Back into the streets. Tane followed the route up over fences and along the rear of the adjacent building, searching for a high entry point, while Fulcrom and Vuldon took the more difficult and obvious route of heading through the tavern.
The spit and sawdust joint was quiet inside, maybe five customers staring into their drinks at the bar in a fug of weed smoke, while the man behind it — a thuggish-looking brute dressed more like a bounty hunter, with close- cropped hair and earrings — tried to stop them from reaching a doorway leading upstairs.
‘Out of bounds, lads,’ he warned, jumping over the bar with a surprising athleticism.
He made a move to grab Fulcrom, but Vuldon intercepted him, grabbing the man’s fist in his own and punching his jaw, snapping his head back to one side. The man didn’t make a sound as Vuldon, with a pugnacious rage, jumped up and kicked him in the chest with so much force that the man flew backwards and smashed into the bar. Only a couple of the drinkers peered up from their pints to observe the racket.
Fulcrom and Vuldon headed up the stairs with stealth until they were on the top floor. Around the rim of one door, at the end of the corridor, Fulcrom could see light leaking from the room and, as they approached silently, voices beyond became prominent. One of the speakers was Feror.
‘Go,’ he whispered to Vuldon.
The Knight took a few steps back, then charged forward, aiming his shoulder at the door. It exploded open, revealing Feror at a table, surrounded by two men and a woman in dreary-coloured tunics, and who each instantly drew their swords.
‘I got ’em,’ Vuldon announced.
Fulcrom ran over to Feror and pulled him out of the ensuing ruckus.
‘Any idea where your family might be?’ Fulcrom asked, as Vuldon did something that caused one of the men to shriek in pain. Fulcrom didn’t wish to see what he was doing.
Feror, with a petrified look about him, could only shrug. ‘They must keep them nearby. They only let me see one of them at a time.’
They tried a couple of the other doors until they found a sparsely furnished room occupied by two young girls and a middle-aged woman. On closer inspection, Tane was at the far end of the room by the window, with his arm hanging out of it.
‘Go on,’ Fulcrom encouraged. Feror peered around cautiously before hurtling towards his family and pulling his daughters to him. They collapsed together on the floor in tears of relief.
Fulcrom permitted them a brief period of privacy.
‘What’ve you got there?’ Fulcrom asked, walking over to Tane.
‘Take a look, old boy,’ Tane replied.
Out of the cheap glass window, Tane was dangling one of the hostage-takers by his collar, and pressing one claw against the back of his neck. The man’s feet kept kicking the side of the building in fear — it must have been at least a thirty-foot drop below.
‘I’m debating whether or not to let go,’ Tane declared cheerily, and loud enough so that the man would hear. ‘Any thoughts?’
The man outside whimpered.
