The chronicles of breed.., p.22
The Chronicles of Breed Box Set, page 22
part #1 of The Chronicles of Breed Series
I shrugged. “Just what the priest used to babble on about. In truth, I didn’t pay much heed. He talked too much for my liking.”
I was given a couple of cheap old knives and a pair of breeches and a shirt. The clothes were dark grey and made of soft leather. They were also the finest clothes I’d ever worn. For the first time in weeks, I actually felt good, which was due in no small part to the Annurashi’s healing. I was still weak, but I could see out of both eyes, my various aches had diminished, and my lung felt almost as good as new. I didn’t know what significance the new mark in my palm had, or how kindly Shallunsard would take to being usurped, but I could tell him what I told her, with the same confidence. I didn’t ask for what she did to me.
18
Leo and Clary bade me farewell before scampering off somewhere, leaving me alone with Cyrus. I wasn’t sure what to make of this garlanded wolf. He looked too much the bravo for me to take him seriously. What I couldn’t dispute was the map he owned detailing the main routes through Nightside and the sneaky sewer entrances and exits up to Dayside Valen.
From snatches of conversation I’d pieced together, and a few casual questions here and there, I’d found out that Nightside was divided into four quarters, each ruled by a duke. Like above ground, the dukes sat in council and made citywide decisions together.
“Are you paying attention?” Cyrus snapped. It was a fair call. I hadn’t been paying much heed while he droned on about patrols and rock falls, and all the usual, petty inconveniences that seemed to worry humans.
“Of course,” I replied.
He grunted. “Good, because I won’t be going over this again.”
“Pity. You have such a lovely speaking voice.” I have to say, he was quick for a human. To be fair to myself, I was still recovering from my injuries, but credit where it’s due, he was on me like a fly on shit as soon as the words left my lips. Without giving the slightest indication that he was going to move, he did, and I was pinned to the table with a blade across my throat before I could say— “Fuck, you’re quick.”
“I am.” He assured me. “And while we’re about the truth saying, let me tell you this, I do not like you.” He pressed the knife a fraction harder against my throat. “You traffic with demons, and like the cold-blooded, fucking lizard that you are, you don’t give a damn about anyone but yourself. Worst of all, for you, is that you have brought trouble to the house of my friend, which really pisses me off.” The pressure on my throat increased a notch. He held the blade there for an uncomfortably long time before letting me up. “Now don’t speak unless I tell you to because I find your lisping voice irritating, and if you so much as look at me askance I will end you. Is that clear?”
I might be a touch on the impetuous side, but contrary to popular opinion, I’m not a complete lackwit. I nodded and promised myself that before this game was up, I’d close this shitstain’s account.
According to my new best friend, the plan was to avoid the sewers by going up through a storm drain that fed into the underground river which ran through Nightside. Apparently, the main sewer routes in and out of Nightside were being more heavily patrolled by the clanks since the attempted robbery at the Hall of Heroes. This was said with emphasis as if I might have forgotten I was the idiot who’d made a turnip out of what should have been a peach of a job.
He told me that the storm drains had an inlet near the Sanguine Shadow’s monastery, but that it was difficult to get through. Again, I kept my mouth shut and didn’t express my doubts as to the veracity of his claim, or its lack of importance to anyone save a soft, human pus-sack like him.
I was informed that once we were inside the monastery, we’d still have to locate Tobias if he was there and alive. How I’d managed to survive all these years without Cyrus there to point out the blindingly obvious was a mystery. One useful piece of information he offered was about the woman who’d stolen the hammer and thrown me and the priest across the Hall of Heroes. Her name was Augustra Octarius. She was the leader of the Sanguine Shadow and as of three days ago, the favorite to become the next Eklesiastis of the Pantheon. As much as I needed the damn hammer, I wasn’t looking forward to dancing with her again.
After finishing the threat peppered briefing, Cyrus led me into the bowels of Leopold’s sprawling holding. The more I saw of Nightside, the more I was convinced that it could only exist with the knowledge and approval of those above ground. There was no doubt the cement that bound the two was gold, which made me wonder whose side the royalty of Nightside would stand on should war come to the city, particularly as Leopold was touched. It made me curious about his fellow dukes. I caught myself. I was starting to think like a schemer and that never went well from what I’d seen.
The gutterhaunt led us to some smugglers’ tunnels. The rough-hewn passageways smelled of urine and seeping water but were dimly lit by a few cracked and covered glowstones. The floor was smooth and firmly compacted from the passing of many feet over many years. In dingier side tunnels, I glimpsed the ghostly outline of barrels and sacks and lurking amongst them the bright beady eyes of dog rats and the occasional splatter of luminous fungus. Cyrus moved confidently and quietly. I was reasonably confident that I could beat him in a fistfight but blade to blade might be interesting. He didn’t talk much, save to point out holes, low ceilings, or how noisy I was, which was bollocks. For the most part, we walked in near silence. I still had a headache but felt better to be up and moving, even if it was with someone who might try to kill me at any moment. In fact, it was that aspect of our otherwise dull trip that kept me awake. The question was, did I wait until he made his move, or pre-empt him?
The cove was carrying enough blades to open a shop, and his assault upon my person told me that he knew how to use them. He even smelled mean, his scent being comprised mainly of meat, hard liquor, and blade oil. I felt better than I had, but I wasn’t at my best by any means, and my head was a constant aching reminder that I needed to find Tobias. I’d have to give killing this cove some thought and in the meantime, keep my guard up. About an hour into our little excursion, I heard the unmistakable sound of rushing water.
“Almost there,” he said and lengthened his stride.
A little further on, the tunnel widened to a crescent-shaped ledge. The ground had been worn away by the water pouring from a drain above us and into the underground river that flowed below. Cyrus stood on the edge, hands on his hips, watching me with measured disdain from beneath his hood.
“Over here, Breed,” he said like I might decide to go somewhere else. Dutifully I went and stood beside him.
“I take it we’re climbing up there?”
He sniffed. “Aye.” He pointed to the outlet of the drain some twenty feet above us. “We need to—”
Without over-thinking the deed, I straight-armed him off the ledge. I got the impression he turned his head, but the hooded cloak cut down his peripheral vision so that he didn’t see me move until it was too late. He grappled with air ropes as he plunged into the muscular torrent and vanished.
“Threaten me, will you?” I demanded of the raging water. It didn’t answer.
Had I been inclined to feel a crumb of guilt over settling Cyrus’s account, the climb up the wet wall and into the drain would have rid me of it. A few feet beyond the opening the tunnel was sealed by a grille and had been for about a century if the rust was anything to go by. I checked for cunning levers or false locks, even had a quick feel with magic to see if there was a glamor cast upon it, but no. Unless you were very thin or made of water, it was a dead end, and would have been my dead end, had I not beaten the cunny-bucket to the kill.
Relieved, annoyed and soaked, I climbed down and sat on the ledge. I had to go back, but I couldn’t return to Duke Leo, given he was the one who’d probably paid the late and unlamented Cyrus to scratch me. As I pondered my next move, I heard soft footsteps in the tunnel behind me. I leaped to my feet, blades in hand. Of all those I imagined it might have been, Tosspot wasn’t one of them.
Even though he’d bathed and was wearing clean linen, he still looked grubby, the grime he’d accumulated over years had been tattooed into his pel-poisoned flesh.
“Got yourself lost, eh, Breed?” He grinned his brown toothed grin.
“Have you been following me?”
“I was following both of you. You lost your friend as well as your way, eh? Very careless.”
“Fuck off, Tosspot. I’m not in the mood.”
“Don’t weep, demon. I know the way out.” He skipped on the spot. “Know the way t’the Shadow house. That’s where you’re after, ain’t it? Need t’ find the good father, eh?”
His appearance and offer of help was a little too timely. I tasted the air, just to make sure it really was him and not some sharp cove cloaked by a spell. It was Tosspot all right. No mere demon could replicate the frowsty stink of self-abuse that clung to the dirty old cull.
That he was here did not sit well with me, and neither did his claim to have followed me and Cyrus without either of us spotting him. Unfortunately, time was prancing on like a homebound urux and I needed to find the priest.
“Show me, and be warned, I’m in a killing mood, so you cross me at your peril.”
He laughed and skipped along the tunnel. Again, I got the distinct impression that I wasn’t being taken seriously. We doubled back to the last branching passage. It turned out that Cyrus hadn’t led us far wrong. Perhaps he’d intended to do for me then find the priest himself. Tosspot turned off the main path and through a side tunnel to where a fissure had cracked the roof in a much earlier collapse.
“So how did you know this was here?” I asked, nosy as a lurcher. Tosspot smiled, got out his pel pipe and licked the sticky residue from the bowl.
“I bin exploring, having a look-see while you were playing with fairies.”
“Eh? You mean the Annurashi? I’d love to hear you call her that to her face.”
Tosspot capered like a drunken puppeteer was yanking his dangle. “You’re moving up in the world, Breed. Up, up you go.” He flapped his spindly arms. “I’m going to find Clary, get her to cadge me some pel from her mousy dimber damber.”
“Aye, you do that. Oh, and Rubin.” He stopped, spun on his heel and eyed me suspiciously. “Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me, eh?”
He just laughed and skipped out of the tunnel. I chimneyed up the fissure and along a narrow crawl space that had been hacked out of the rock. The old lunatic hadn’t played me false, the tunnel came out on the other side of the grilled storm drain. From there on it was only a matter of wading through relatively clean runoff water that flowed ankle-deep along the outlet. I say relatively clean, I still had to dodge the occasional floating island of fatty and decaying agglomeration, but I felt more at home here than I did wandering around Nightside or Dayside Valen.
It was dark when I crawled out of the drain. As Cyrus promised, it came out beside the monastery which was surrounded by a culvert overflowing with trailing vines of red viper’s tongue. I could hear singing coming from the building. It was the usual loud, pompous dirge favored by religious culls although the singing was nowhere near as pompous as the temple itself which was a gilt-edged nightmare.
The whole edifice had been painted a lurid shade of red. It was so screamingly bright that even at night it hurt my eyes to look at it. But that wasn’t the worst thing about it. Oh, my no. Some demented genius had decided to imbed spells into the walls, which wasn’t unheard of except these spells weren’t wards. The monumental waste of money had been spent on a purely decorative effect and I use the term ‘decorative’ loosely. I watched as every few seconds, deep red shadows rippled around the building. It was horribly, tastelessly literal.
Like a competent glazier, I quickly spotted an open casement. Satisfied that I was unobserved, I scaled the wall and took a look-see inside. As befitted an order dedicated to a shadow, the prayer room was dark and joy of joys, it was also empty. I hopped inside as another ripple of shadow crossed the building.
Getting inside was always going to be the easiest part of this venture. Finding the hammer was the tricksy bit. It might take all night to search the place room by room, so I resolved to lay hands upon one of the sanctimonious little arseweevils and persuade them to tell me where it was being kept. I was about to go hunting when I heard footsteps coming towards the door. I dived behind the altar as the door opened and a couple of gospellers bumbled in.
“That went really well, didn’t it?” His voice was strained like he was carrying something.
“You think so? I thought the choir was off tonight and Prenam’s sermon was the same one he gave last week.”
“Was it?”
“Aye. Don’t you remember? He quoted Chankuk the Venerable’s speech to the masses at the slaughter of Riven Eye Gorge.”
“I don’t think he did.”
“He did, I’m telling you, he just swapped a few paragraphs around.”
“Well, I liked it. Yay, I say unto thee that rivers shall choke on the corpses of our enemies and we shall know glory.”
“You missed a line.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did. After the rivers shall choke on the corpses, there’s a bit about flowing with blood.”
“Not in Prenam’s version.” I’d heard enough.
They’d brought a lamp with them but it was small and cast more shadows than light and so I risked a peek from behind the altar to check where they were before I made my move. There were two of them stacking books on a shelf. I leaped from my hiding place, grabbed one by the neck and bashed his head against a wall. The other I punched in the mouth before he had a chance to shout. The one I was holding went limp, but the other was staggering about, moaning and clutching his face. I let go of the unconscious one, drew a knife, and slapped the moaner on the pate.
“Shut your yap or I’ll vent you,” I said. That got his attention and very wisely he did just that. I slid the door bolt and gestured for him to sit. “Right, you, where’s Augustra stashed my fucking hammer?”
“I, I don’t know.”
I slapped him on the head again, a little harder this time. “Don’t tell me you don’t know, or I’ll clip those shells from either side of your head as they are apparently a waste of skin and I hate waste. Course, I’ll have to cut out your tongue first, just to keep the noise down.”
“Shekeepsthehammerinherstudy,” he blurted. Tears smeared his red eye make-up and ran down either side of his snot-bubbling nose.
“Slow down.” I slapped him again.
“Her study. Third floor, big door at the end of the hallway, you can’t miss it.”
“Good lad. Best close your eyes, eh?”
Blubbering, he closed his eyes and fell to his knees. “Please, don’t k—”
I laid him out with a punch and stripped his robe before divesting the other cull of his garb. I put on the one that looked to be the closest fit and tore the other into strips which I used to bind the pair of them. As usual, my feet stuck out of the bottom of the robe, but it was blessedly dark in the hallway, and I managed to reach the stairwell without bumping into anyone else. All the noise seemed to be coming from the lower levels. The air in here was thick with the smell of incense laced with pel and the underlying odor of unwashed human.
I crept up the stairs, beneath the painted arrogance of gilt-framed hierarchs who stared down disapprovingly from the walls. My feet sank into a carpet, so luxurious it felt like I was walking on clouds, the walls were likewise draped in a fortune of red silk.
If the intention had been to make the place look imposing it had failed. It looked more like a high-class brothel than a temple. Of course, I didn’t know much about the order of the Sanguine Shadow. It might very well have been one of those sects where to fuck is to pray, in which case it had struck a reasonable balance. The Pantheon had hundreds of cults, all competing for patronage and membership. Each had their own unique twist, but the sex and drug cults were always popular.
A splinter of light squeezed from under an imposing door at the end of the hallway. I drew my blades and hoped Augustra wasn’t in. Alas, I was out of luck. A woman’s throaty laughter rang out.
I listened at the door. There was no way I was going to rush her. Like Tobias, she was a sorcerer, and like him, she could burn me down to the nub before I got within a yard of her. I sheathed my blades and had a look through the keyhole.
Standing against the glare of a roaring fire was Augustra. She was wearing a loose red robe and had a dildo strapped around her nethers. More importantly, above her on the mantelpiece was the Hammer’s hammer.
“Just sign the confession and I’ll stop. Unless you don’t want me to?” She smiled at someone I couldn’t quite see. I angled myself and managed to see that the unfortunate cull she was talking to was bent over a table. His brown, homespun robe was pulled up around his waist and his drawers were bunched around his ankles. I heard chains rattle and gagged shouting. My headache vanished in an instant. It was Tobias. I’d forgotten all about the poor cull.
Augustra adjusted her borrowed member. “Still won’t? Then you leave me no choice.”
There was more muffled shouting.
“Don’t blame me. Your father said he’d kill me if you have so much as a bruise when I hand you over, but I must have that confession. You see my problem?”
He shouted almost intelligible curses. I could see he was shaking, straining against his bonds.
Augustra laughed. “And you a priest. What would Saint Bartholomew think? Now, where were we?” She walked over and squared her hips behind him.
It was an ornate door, heavy, highly decorated, inlaid with shell and polished bone. Funny, the things you notice in those rare moments of absolute clarity. As well as beautifully decorated, the door was also unlocked. It took me just three quiet strides to reach her. I didn’t bother to announce my presence, swear any oaths, or make any promises, I just snapped her neck.
