Iron Angel

Caulker watched in horror and fascination as Anchor lashed out again. For a heartbeat the big man’s hand seemed to close upon the apparition’s wrist and grip it, but then his hold on the creature dissolved and the archon was free once more. It raised its massive sword again…

…and screamed as daylight pierced its armour like flames through parchment. The battle-archon faded. A final terrible shriek resounded among the mud-brick houses, and then nothing remained but dust.

The big man stood motionless for a long moment. Then he examined his fist and sucked at a bleeding knuckle. “The dead are tricky opponents,” he said to Caulker. “It is like fighting a memory, or a nightmare. Not easy. We are lucky it is not nighttime. Such shades can only survive for a brief time in daylight.”

He was smiling now. Something in that smile warned Caulker, for the twist of those black lips evinced none of Anchor’s previous mirth.

“My friend,” the giant said ruefully, “you have now sent the poor angel to join his ancestors in Hell.” He swept his gaze across the pile of mud and timbers. “A door to the Maze will soon open there. Hell is coming now, yes? So we must go.” He sighed and squeezed the nape of his neck, then shrugged. “Iril is Iril, we do not interfere. But now you have a problem, I think. You owe me an expensive soul. You are-what is the word-undoubted to me.”

Caulker rose stiffly. “Indebted,” he said.

“Good. Yes, this is what I mean. But come; let’s talk more of this scarred angel and her companions. I will buy lunch: hearty food for sailors such as us. Crab salad, I think, with chowder and strong fishbeer.” He slapped his huge belly. “You can recommend a good quiet place? A nice broth shop where we can speak?”

The cutthroat thought of all those restaurants, taverns, and broth shops in the better part of town: the many establishments from which he’d been ejected for filching and cursing and fist-fighting over the years. And then he lifted his eyes from the giant, up the monstrous rope, past the seething red crabs and the climbing form of yet another dead assassin, to the creaking, gabbling wooden skyship which filled the heavens over Sandport.

“One or two places spring to mind,” he said.

7

THE WORST ASSASSIN

'Who are you?” she asked.

The angel’s head lolled drunkenly, and Rachel was answered only with a mocking red grin. Dill had bitten his tongue during his torture. Except…this person wasn’t Dill, she reminded herself. He leered at her through the young angel’s eyes, but there was nothing in that savage expression which belonged to the friend she formerly knew.

Rachel blamed herself. She had given him angelwine, filled him with a cocktail of other souls which had now bubbled to the surface. But if Dill was still in there, she would pull him back.

“I asked you a question.”

The angel sniggered and spat a gob of blood on the floor. “I think I’m intoxicated by your beauty,” he slurred. “Or is it from the pain? I’ve not felt my nerves burn like this for a thousand years.” His tongue lolled over his teeth. “It’s quite something.” He tried to rise from the pallet, then collapsed back again.

“It’s the dogweed they’ve given you,” Rachel said. “Try to concentrate. Look at me. Who are you?”

“Who am I?” He fumbled for her breast, but she pushed him away. “Who am I, you ask? Gods…who am I? The scourge of every filthy Mesmerist? My message! Where am I?”

“You’re in a Spine torture cell in the temple. You’ve been drugged.”

“Ohhhhh…” He shook his head. “That means nothing to me. Come here, woman.” His bloody hands reached for her.

She slapped him away again. This is useless. She needed him lucid and able to walk without stumbling if they were going to get out of here alive. Rachel got up and went over to where the corpse of the Spine master lay crumpled against the wall. Most of the poisons in the old man’s apron had been smashed during their fight, but she still searched through them thoroughly. There had to be something she could use to bring the angel round. The Spine employed an extensive array of drugs during the tempering process, and not all of them were designed to disorientate and confuse the victim.

When she found the tiny green vial, she almost kissed it.

“Take this,” she said, trying to place the bottle in his hand. “Just a sip.”

He waved his arms wildly in protest, and then gave her another wet grin.

She hissed. “Open your mouth.”

“Open yours, sweetling.”

Rachel squeezed the angel’s jaw hard, forgetting for the moment that the jaw did not belong to the person in the cell with her, and tipped a little of the clear liquid down his throat.

“Rrrrrrr.” He screwed up his face and spat.

“There,” Rachel said. “Now we might be able to have a proper conversation.”

She could see the drug working. The angel convulsed once, then gagged, then he sat up. He stared hard at her for a few moments, his black eyes full of loathing, then said, “You’ll pay for that.”

“I rather think you’ll thank me for it. Who are you?”

“None of your damn business. Where is this place?”

“Answer my question and I’ll answer yours.”

He snorted, but then he noticed the five Spine corpses strewn around the chamber and stiffened. Now he glanced back at her, warily. “I am Silister Trench,” he said.

Trench? It was an unusual name. Rachel did not think she’d heard it in Deepgate before. “That’s a start,” she said. “There are a hundred things I need to ask you, Trench, but this is not the place to do it. I’ll make this simple: If you value that body you’re currently occupying as much as I do, then you’ll come with me now. There are more assassins in this place than I can count, and they all want to stick needles and other pieces of metal into you.”

“And who are you?” he asked.

“I’m the worst of them.”

Leaving the temple was surprisingly easy. There were so many newly tempered acolytes that none of them had yet learned who anybody else was. In the Spine leathers she stole from a supply room, Rachel looked like any other Adept. She was allowed to pass unchallenged. A cassock she snatched from one of the old priests’ quarters served to cover the angel’s blood-caked wings and his disfigured hands. No one thought to question an Adept leading a hunchbacked old priest out into the city. Of late the Spine had taken to traveling with priests for holy protection at night.

Dusk was barely upon them, but the roiling smoke clouds overhead brought darkness early to Deepgate. Rachel hesitated at the temple exit. The sky fumed black and crimson, and she could see yellow and green chemical fires burning in the east, sending torrents of silver sparks up from the Scythe. The sound of explosions rumbled over the city. Red mist veiled the ruins of Bridgeview and Lilley, and shadows moved silently among the chains.

The consciousness inside Dill tried to move the young angel’s wings, and let out a gasp of agony. “My flesh is bruised and raw,” he complained. “My wings…Your ignorant assassins have damaged me.” The Spine chain-and- burr cuffs had bitten deeply into the muscles and tendons behind his shoulders.

“They’re not your wings,” Rachel muttered as she stared at the burning city. Deepgate teemed with ghosts from the abyss, countless thousands of them. Shades capered among the twisted metal and rubble like wisps of living darkness. She half heard sighs and shouts and cruel laughter: intangible voices hiding among the crack and rumble of stone, the creaking chains, and the roaring fires. Would that she had a real priest with her now. A holy man might keep Iril’s shades at bay, protect them against the madness of the abyss. These phantasms would cajole and torment them.

And worse?

If she believed the priests’ tales, then yes-much worse. The Church of Ulcis had gone to great lengths to protect Deepgate against Iril’s influence. Yet here it was in the streets before her, undiluted and dangerous.

She could turn around and go back into the temple, a crumbling hive full of Spine assassins who might well have discovered her escape by now, or she could set off into that uncertainty stretching before her.

“Let’s go,” she said.