The Blood Debt (49 page)

‘Cannon to the right of them,

cannon to the left of them,

cannon in front of them
—’

‘Pirelius!’ called a voice from above. ‘You have to listen to us!’

Pirelius waved a beefy fist at the sky and kept lurching onward. Heavy stone feet had thoroughly churned the ground they walked upon. Ahead, Laure loomed. Sal could see himself at the top of the Wall, near the guards dropping globes down on the man’kin. An artificial storm raged at the bottom of the Wall. Light flashed and thunder rolled. Clouds of dust rose up, dark and ominous. The beginnings of night spread across the floor of the Divide as the sun faded into the west.

‘Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell
—’

‘Pirelius! We need your help!’

Kail’s eyes lifted, giving Sal a glimpse of the heavy lifter descending over the fugitive and his hostage, testing the edges of the wake. Sal was surprised to recognise Marmion hanging over the edge of the gondola.

‘She says you’ll be well paid!’

Pirelius barked a vinegary laugh and kept singing.

From outside the vision Sal felt a hand tugging at his arm. It was Shilly, trying to attract his attention.

‘Are you all right? What’s going on?’

He did his best to focus on her. ‘I’ve found Kail. He’s showing me what’s going on down there.’

‘Is that Marmion with the Magister?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s
he
doing there?’

‘She must have brought him when the lifter came for her, since he knows more about the Homunculus than anyone. Or thinks he does.’

‘But —’

He waved her silent. Something was happening on the Divide floor.

A guard in black and gold leather armour had swung by rope from the heavy lifter into Pirelius’s bubble of safety. Pirelius taunted him loudly and brutally, while keeping the Homunculus carefully in the way. The guard circled both of them, trying to find an opening, but Pirelius was too canny. Feinting to his right, he kicked out with his left leg and caught the guard by surprise. He staggered back a step and was caught up in the relentless crush of man’kin. With a scream, he was swept away.

‘You morons,’ yelled Pirelius up at the dirigible. ‘You won’t get rid of me that easily!’

‘What do you want?’ yelled Marmion.

‘She took what was rightfully mine, and I want her to pay!’

‘Who?’

‘The Magister, you idiot. Tell her to talk to me herself, not cower behind some spineless lackey!’

Marmion’s head withdrew, then returned a moment later. ‘She has nothing to say to you.’

‘Really? We’ll see about that when I reach the bottom of the Wall. How are you going to keep the man’kin out when the charms stop working?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what this creature can do. You’ve seen it with your own eyes.’ Pirelius gave the Homunculus a push, sending it staggering forward. ‘It kills the Change, so it can kill the Wall. That’s all that keeps the man’kin outside the city. When I get close enough
—’

‘You’re an idiot, Pirelius!’ hollered a new voice. The Magister’s face peered over the edge of the gondola.

‘Ha!’ crowed the bandit. ‘You appear at last, you old witch! Now you realise the threat I am, you deign to speak. Well, I’m not listening. Nothing you can say will deter me!’

‘How about this? The Wall has already been breached; the man’kin are already inside the city. You’re wasting your time on a fool’s errand. You’ve failed!’

The sound of the Magister’s laugh was chilling over the crashing of the man’kin.

Pirelius wrenched the Homunculus to a halt. He craned his neck to see. The tunnel mouth leading through the Wall was obscured, but the number of man’kin milling outside it had obviously shrunk. They had to be going somewhere.

Although the city was under attack and its last defence had failed, just as Pirelius had hoped it would, the bandit seemed almost bereft. He looked from the Wall to the Magister and back again, a man who had lost everything, even one shot at retribution.

‘Let’s leave,’ said the Homunculus, speaking for the first time. ‘We’ll take you to safety. You can put all this behind you and make a new life elsewhere.’

‘Don’t listen to it!’ shouted the Magister. ‘You can have a life right here, right now. I’m prepared to make a new deal with you.’

Pirelius looked up at her with hatred in every line of his face. If he had his way, the heavy lifter would be struck from the sky and crumpled like paper, killing everyone aboard. Sal could feel his loathing even through Kail’s mind. The time for songs and bravura had passed. His grim determination to hurt the Magister consumed him.

Gradually, a smile formed on his face.

‘You want me to help you,’ he said as the dirigible drifted lower over him.

‘Yes.’

‘How have they got in? A tunnel?’

‘We need you to close it, stop them coming through.’ The Magister’s eyes glittered. Her expression was haughty, even when asking for aid. ‘Do it, and you walk away free. Both of you.’

‘No!’ said Marmion, lunging forward to take the Magister’s arm. Guards pushed him back.

‘You have my word on this,’ the Magister said to Pirelius, ignoring the Sky Warden.

Pirelius’s laugh was no less chilling than hers. He raised the knife so it pressed against the Homunculus’s neck. ‘Your word is worth less to me than the life of this monster. I should kill it now and rid the world of both of you.’

‘And die yourself, without its protection? Your posturing doesn’t impress me, Pirelius.’ The Magister’s voice betrayed not the slightest fear that he might do as he said. ‘I’m a businesswoman. Let’s talk business or the next thing I drop on you won’t be a guard.’

Pirelius spat in the dirt. ‘Hag.’

‘I have no idea what you think I did to you, but calling each other names solves nothing.’

The bandit pushed the Homunculus into motion. It staggered forward like a sleepwalker. ‘This isn’t over,’ Pirelius said. ‘We will have a reckoning.’

This the Magister didn’t grace with a reply. Her head retreated and the heavy lifter surged smoothly forward.

Sal dropped out of the vision. Someone was shaking his shoulder again. He blinked and focused on the real world.

‘What is it?’

Shilly pointed over the interior side of the Wall, a worried look on her face. He was startled by the transformation in the city. Fires were burning where the man’kin had broken through the Wall. Thick smoke belched along the city streets. The city guards had fallen back several blocks as a heavy tide of man’kin filled the streets. Creatures of all sizes and shapes swarmed over the cobbles of Laure, an irresistible mass of living stone.

The press was formidable. Those man’kin that could escape the crush, did. Some climbed up onto roofs and took station on the eaves, roosting like gargoyles. Others weren’t content to sit only a floor or two up. They leapt from building to building, seeking ever-higher vantage points. At least two were scaling towers just a handful of metres away from the Wall itself.

That
was a concern. Sal backed away as a large, fat man’kin with a cherubic face climbed hand over hand to the top of a nearby tower, the ease of its movement belying its sheer mass. From that vantage point, it turned to look at them with dead, stone eyes.

‘Oh, shit,’ said Shilly, gripping Sal’s upper arm painfully tight. ‘I think it’s about to —’

She didn’t finish as, with a crunch of stone and a roar of effort, the man’kin leapt across the gap between them and onto the Wall.

* * * *

The Man’kin

‘Earthquakes, bushfires, flash floods, hurricanes:

we ignore these signs at our own peril.’

THE BOOK OF TOWERS,
EXEGESIS 10:24

un!’

The command came from the leader of the guards, and Skender didn’t hesitate to obey. The sight of the giant man’kin — at least four metres high and weighing several tonnes — launching itself from the tower was enough to make him move. The force of its leap was sufficient to topple the tip of the minarette it had been standing on, sending bricks and tiles crashing down onto the streets below. With a deafening crunch, the broad chest of the man’kin struck the edge of the Wall not metres from where he stood. Its fat fingers scrabbled for purchase and caught the guard rail. Metal twisted with a painful squeal but held. Stone ground against stone, and the man’kin hauled itself up onto the roof.

Skender, running almost backwards, hypnotised by the creature’s massive strength, tripped over the ragged hem of his robe and fell awkwardly onto his side. Shilly shouted something but he couldn’t hear her over the heavy thudding of man’kin feet. A guard threw one of the light-globes into its back. Bright energy flashed, followed by a surge of heat so powerful Skender averted his eyes.

‘Hold!’ shouted the leader of the guards. Skender blinked and looked up into the giant statue’s face. It stood over him, so close he could reach out and touch its leg. A globe thrown now was just as likely to kill him, and the first didn’t seem to have done any damage at all.

‘MAWSON,’
the man’kin said in a voice like mountains falling.

‘Sal set him free,’ Skender protested, scrabbling backwards on his hands and feet.

The man’kin followed as though tied to him with string. Its expression was blankly intimidating.
‘MAWSON FRIEND.’

‘He’s our friend, too. He wouldn’t want you to hurt us.’

The man’kin shook its head and reached down with one bulbous hand. Skender tried to run but barely made it upright before massive stone fingers wrapped around his torso and pulled him into the air.

‘No!’ Its grip was tight. He could hardly draw breath enough to shout, ‘Don’t!’

‘MAWSON FRIEND MUST:

Skender felt himself raised up high. He closed his eyes, nerving himself for being dashed to the stone. He thought of Chu and was glad she wasn’t there to see this.

‘MAWSON FRIEND MUST LOOK.’

The moment of his death didn’t come. He remained suspended in the air, firmly contained by the creature’s stone fist. His many bruises complained, and for once he was grateful for it. While he hurt, he remained alive.

The man’kin shook him.

‘MAWSON FRIEND MUST LOOK NOW!’

The creature’s leaden words finally sunk in. Skender opened his eyes. The man’kin held him disconcertingly high above the top of the Wall. The view was almost as impressive as it had been from under Chu’s wing. The spreading stain of the man’kin horde darkened the streets below, while the mass of living stone outside had shrunk to less than a quarter its original size. The twins and their captor cut a straight line through them, with the Magister’s heavy lifter following discreetly above.

The man’kin shook him so hard his teeth rattled in his head. The world swung jarringly around him. When it settled down, he was staring to the east, at the Hanging Mountains. The sun was fading into the west, wreathing them in shadow. The ridge of clouds he had seen from the heavy lifter was still banked hard against the distant peaks — a permanent fixture, perhaps — but now something else was visible. A tendril of white led down from the mountains. It looked like the mountains had grown a tail. The tail wound through the foothills and out into the plains, following a zigzag course that reminded him of something he had seen before. It took him a moment to remember where.

The white tendril was following the path of the Divide, as he had seen it from the wing. It wasn’t actually white, but dirty brown with a foaming edge. The foam reflected the sky back at him, making it appear bright against the surrounding plain. The leading edge was growing visibly nearer.

‘Oh, shit,’ he said, the enormity of what he was seeing momentarily freezing his capacity for thought.

‘Skender?’ called Shilly from far below. ‘Answer me!’

‘You can put me down now,’ he told the man’kin.

‘LOOK?’

Skender took in the face of the giant creature as it deposited him gently back on the Wall. Its face wasn’t built for expressiveness, but now he could see that it was worried, not angry.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I looked, and I saw.’ He recalled the man’kin shouting among themselves as they argued over whether or not to kill Sal.
The Angel says we must keep moving,
one had said. And the stone pig that had spoken to him afterwards had tried to explain:
We are saving ourselves.

‘That’s what you’re doing in the Divide, isn’t it?’

‘ANGEL.’

It could take a while for the creature to build up the verbal momentum to complete a sentence. Skender turned instead to Sal and Shilly, who had left the guards standing at a cautious distance and pressed forward to help him. Gwil Flintham was a dot in the distance, still running.

‘I’m okay,’ he told them. ‘I think this big lug was sent up here by Mawson. There’s something coming down the Divide, out of the mountains. It’s huge, and it’s frightened the man’kin.’

‘Frightened
them?’ echoed Shilly disbelievingly.

‘ANGEL SAYS.’

‘Remember that the man’kin don’t see time the way we do. They see it all at once, in a big tangle, and it’s hard for them to tease out individual threads. Before we left the Aad, Mawson told me that he and the other man’kin were afraid of the one from the Void, the Homunculus. That’s what I
thought
he meant, but I was wrong. They know that when the twins come, something else, something terrible, is going to happen. And it’s on its way right now.’