‘Waddler!’
He heard another whistle from Hair, two shrill notes. He could see the end of Wellbottom, emptying into the daylight of Bottlemaker Street. A few minutes either way from there and they’d be out of The Maze. He tugged on Lilissa’s hand. ‘Come on!’ Fifty yards and they’d be out in the open. Forty yards. What passed for open in The Maze, anyway. Thirty. At least there’d be witnesses. There wouldn’t be any stabbings, not with witnesses. Twenty yards…
A shape stepped into the alley in front of them. Too much in the shadows to be more than an outline, but an outline was enough. Waddler.
‘Stop him!’ One-Thumb was gaining on them from behind. Waddler stood at the entrance, hovering uncertainly, but still in the way. ‘Get him, you prozzy’s hanker!’
Berren let go of Lilissa. He ran at Waddler. ‘Out the way!’ Waddler was all right. He’d never been one for this sort of trouble.
‘Grab him!’
‘Move!’
Waddler stayed where he was. He didn’t try to grab Berren, he simply didn’t move. Berren ploughed into him, bowling him over, bundling them both into the street. He staggered and lost his balance, rolling across the cobbles. He saw Lilissa emerge from the alley and stop.
‘Run!’ he shouted, scrambling back to his feet, pointing off towards the market end. ‘That way! That way!’ Waddler snatched at his ankles. Berren kicked him, turned and ran. One-Thumb was right behind them now.
‘I’m going to cut you, thief-taker boy. Gut you like a fish!’
He glanced over his shoulder. Jerrin was only about ten yards behind him, but Berren was faster and they both knew it. For a moment, Lilissa was on her own, ahead of them both. ‘Catch me if you can, leper-boy!’
A flash of motion caught his eye and then something barrelled into him from the side, sending him flying and knocking him halfway across the street. Then they were on him, Jerrin, the boy Berren didn’t know and Sticks. It could only be Sticks, blind-siding him like that.
‘Get the girl! Quick!’ Sticks ran off. Jerrin and the other boy grabbed hold of Berren. A few dozen yards down the street, an old pedlar watched them. He didn’t move, though, and then Berren was being dragged away into another alley. Somewhere quiet. Back behind him, he heard a shriek that could only be Lilissa. He struggled as hard as he could, but the other boys were both stronger. When he started kicking, Jerrin punched him in the face.
‘What do you want?’ he choked. They were well into the shadows now. Jerrin didn’t say anything. They just wrestled Berren to the ground and pinned his arms.
‘Get him up,’ barked Jerrin.
The new boy pulled Berren to his feet, holding him fast. One-Thumb slipped a knife out of his belt.
‘Thought you’d gotten away from us, eh? Thought you were clever.’
‘Who’s your new friend, One-Thumb? Is he your new arse or are you his? I can’t tell.’
Jerrin spat in Berren’s face. ‘We’re the Harbour Men. Told you that before. We got new friends now. What did we do, Mouse? What did we do to make you want to leave, eh?’
‘I’ve never seen him. He’s not one of Master Hatchet’s is he?’ Berren spat back. ‘Hatchet don’t know what you’re doing, does he? He’s going to tear your bones out, One-Thumb. ’
He’d touched a nerve. He saw that in Jerrin’s face, right before One-Thumb punched him real hard in the gut. ‘Yeh, we all got our little surprises ain’t we, eh? Who’d have thought, Mouse running about with a nice piece of soft skin like that. Who is she, Mouse? She your girl?’
‘Leave her out of this!’
‘Can’t, Mouse. Old Hatchet, he’s just a little fish. We’re a part of something else now. Something big. Got to do her too. Don’t mean I can’t have a bit of fun first though, eh? What’s she like, Mouse? She a screamer?’ He stood back and looked at his knife. Berren tried to lunge at him.
‘You touch her and I’ll kill you! I’ll rip off your head and spit down the hole!’
Jerrin shook his head. ‘Really? Maybe she just needs someone a bit better than you to look after her, eh? Mouse hides out in The Maze. You think I don’t know where to look? The word’s out on you, Mouse, you and your thief-taker. Every gang in the docks is out looking, but I showed you that place, Mouse. Remember? I always know where you go.’ He laughed. ‘What’d you do, you and your swanky shit-boots master, eh? What’d you do to get the dockside snuffers after you like this?’ He shrugged. ‘Not as I really care. Pay me for you in silver, they will. Not pennies.’
The boy holding Berren was getting restless. ‘Come on! Chop and grill him and be done with it.’ He had an accent. Like the men they’d hidden from the night before. Not from the city. Mudlarks again.
Jerrin shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’d have done you for the fun of it, Mouse, but now I get some nice shiny crowns for the pleasure. So thanks. Thanks for the money. Thanks for the girl. And now I’m going to rip off your head.’
The mudlark boy behind him tensed. Jerrin drew back the knife.
32
FLASHING BEFORE YOU
The River Gate. The Canal. Reeper Hill. As he lay dying, Syannis knew the missing piece of the puzzle. The reason he couldn’t work out how the Bloody Dag’s men were crossing the city was because they weren’t. They were going under it. Bloody long-winded and bizarre way to go about having a revelatory vision, that was, but he supposed there was no logic to that sort of thing. Not much use either, not when you were bleeding to death. A revelatory vision a few days ago about being stabbed in the armpit, now that would have been useful.
Something scraped his cheek, then his nose. Bloody stray cat again. He could hear it purring. Didn’t have the energy to shoo it away.
‘Syannis, Syannis, Syannis,’ it seemed to purr. ‘Not yet, not yet. This isn’t your time or your place.’ The cat spoke with a soft voice, sprinkled with a lilting trace of something foreign. He felt its whiskers tickle his face. A paw rested lightly on his lips. He opened his eyes for what he supposed would be the last time. A face stared back at him. A brown face with a hooked nose and a pair of wild lashing eyebrows streaked with white. An old face, from a long time ago. He smiled.
The face smiled back, but there was nothing welcoming in that smile. It was a greedy and hungry smile. Avaricious. Syannis could smell his own blood, thick in the air. The end was seconds away, the last flickerings of life quietly bleeding from him. Strange way to die, he thought. He had no idea where he was. Not lying in a gutter in the Kingsway any more, that was for sure. He didn’t remember walking the rest of the way, but maybe he’d made it after all. ‘Where the Bloody Khrozus…’
A flash of gold caught the moonlight. Then a flash of steel. A knife, with a strange blade.
‘I’m not done with you,’ said the voice. ‘Not yet.’
PART THREE
JUDGEMENT
33
THE VANITY OF LADY YGALA AN D THE UPSIDE-DOWN TEMPLE
‘Bye bye, Mouse.’ Jerrin’s fingers on the knife clenched tight. He hesitated, though. Perhaps it wasn’t so easy to kill someone held helpless in front of you.
The mudlark boy’s grip loosened. ‘Watch…!’ A shape rose up behind Jerrin and then a large piece of wood crashed down on his head. He dropped the knife and staggered, both hands clutching his scalp, moaning. Blood was
