Scar Night

29

The Scrounger

Mr. Nettle’s heart soared as his daughter picked herself up from the cell floor. She approached him warily, her face shadowed by the overhanging lid of the lantern at her hip. He felt like rushing over, scooping her up in his arms, and holding her tight.

He said, “I’m taking you home.”

“Balls you are.”

Abruptly his elation collapsed. This girl was too short, too slim, too fair. She moved lithely, with a grace Abigail had never possessed. And she wore the leather armour of a Spine assassin.

The assassin lifted her lantern and regarded him with shocking green eyes. Her face was skeletal. Bruises marched in a line from her neck to one side of her forehead. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

“You’re Spine,” Mr. Nettle said.

She studied him, her expression pinched. “I’m Rachel Hael.”

Mr. Nettle scratched the scabs amid his stubble. “You dead too?”

An odd look. Maybe this Spine didn’t know she was dead. He’d heard of ghosts like that, the ones who never settled easily in Deep, the ones who resisted. Often they didn’t realize they were dead.In denial, League folks said—but, then, what did those bastards know?

“You seen her?” he grunted.

“Who?”

“My daughter.” He leaned his big face closer. “She won’t be with them.”

Abigail would have fled once she’d seen those ghouls there on the bone mountain. He figured she’d be hiding down here in the tunnels below Deep, among the dead angels and their broth kitchens. The daft girl liked angels.

Rachel Hael dropped her gaze to his splint, the bones he’d found and tied to his wounded leg. Pain racked the flesh there as though she’d touched him. He shifted his weight and the crutch creaked.

She asked again, “Who are you?”

“Nettle. Is she here?”

The girl looked puzzled. “Are you one of Ulcis’s servants?”

He flinched at the name. The fat god was down here somewhere, sliding down the tunnels like a wall of mud, watching everything. Hungry. And Mr. Nettle had lost his cleaver. He spat, “No.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Was she stupid? “Abigail,” he explained. “I’m looking for her.”

“I don’t know who she is. Are you from above? From Deepgate?”

“Aye.”

The city was only a dream now. It seemed he had fallen for days, or even years. He must have slept as he fell, or maybe that was when he’d died—he couldn’t be sure. He’d woken when the angel bit him. Scrawny, evil-looking thing in dented armour, it must have caught him near the bottom. It had dropped him quick enough when he’d yelled and smashed a fist into its face.

Then he’d been lying in a crater of bones, dead as dead, with a bloody great bite-mark in his leg. Abigail hadn’t spoken to him since then, hadn’t told him where she was hiding. She was probably afraidthey ’d hear her. Or she was sulking.

His ribs felt tender from the fall, and his leg hurt like a tooth-puller had been at it with his tongs. Maybe it was infected: he didn’t know, didn’t much care. So he’d fixed it with a makeshift splint and gone off in search of his daughter. She was down here somewhere, and so was the syringe that held her soul. He’d find them both—dead or not, he was still a damn fine scrounger.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

“I fell.”

She stared like she didn’t believe him.

“Where did you get the keys?”

“Scrounged them.” Stole them . This was his own voice in his head now, and for that he was thankful. Abigail would be furious with him if she knew—just like her mother. He wouldn’t tell her about stealing keys, or any of the other things he’d done since he’d died.

The murders.

“Quiet,” he murmured to himself. “Can’t kill the dead.”

Someone sniffed, and then another voice came from the shadows: “Is it human?” This one had wings.

Scars.

Mr. Nettle recoiled. He looked for a weapon, saw none, so he hefted his crutch instead. His unsupported leg screamed in protest. He ignored it, ploughed forward.

“Wait.” The Spine pushed him back, strong for such a little thing. “She won’t hurt you.”

“Don’t count on it,” Carnival muttered.

He growled.

“I recognize him now.” The scarred angel rose from the ground. “My drunken assassin. Lost your cleaver, beggar?”

Mr. Nettle went for her.

A tearing pain in his leg stopped him dead. The assassin had a foot pressed hard against his injured thigh. He swung a punch at her—

—and found himself on his back, gasping.

“Enough!” This time Rachel Hael had him pinned to the ground, her heel digging into the cords in his neck. He tried to grab her, but she dug her heel in deeper. “I said, enough! Darkness take me, there’s plenty down here for you both to piss on without pissing on each other.”

Mr. Nettle noticed that her ankle was manacled to a chain. He twisted his neck, so his eyes followed the links. His grunt was almost a laugh: one bitch chained to another.

The Spine let him up again, handed back his crutch. “What happened to your daughter?”

“Killed,” he said, keeping one eye on Carnival. “Poisoner bled her. Need to find her before she gets herself in any more trouble.”

Assassin and angel exchanged a glance.

“The dead angels here,” Mr. Nettle said, and his eyes narrowed on Carnival. “They’re even worse than you.”

Carnival folded her arms.

Rachel Hael looked uncomfortable. “Your keys, will they open the other cell?”

The opposite cell, when he opened it, was dark and cold, and stank of violence. Blood had been spilled here, lots of it. Mr. Nettle shifted forward, on his crutch, to see better. “Abigail?”

Behind him, the assassin raised her lantern.

White feathers matted with blood were scattered all across the floor. Mr. Nettle bent down and started stuffing them into his pockets. You could sell feathers. Folks made pillows and warm jackets from them. And there were piles of them here, even though filthy. He’d have to clean all the muck and blood off first, but that didn’t matter. They were still worth scrounging.

Then he noticed the corpse in the corner.

The angel lay broken on a bed of straw, like it had been thrown there, its skin black and swollen, mouth and eyes gaping in frozen terror. Its wings had been ripped to shreds, as though a pack of dogs had been at them.

But there was a sword.

Mr. Nettle moved over to take it. That was worth more than all the feathers.

The Spine stopped him. “Don’t,” she said, her voice sounding strangely thick. She hunched down beside the angel and rested a hand on its forehead.

“Dill?”

Mr. Nettle grunted, and went back to gathering feathers. Over his shoulder he saw the assassin prise the weapon free from the angel’s grip. “They didn’t take his sword,” she said; then, angrily, “They didn’t even take his sword!” Then she laid the weapon on the angel’s chest. She didn’t once turn round.

There were more feathers than Mr. Nettle could collect. When his pockets were full, he staggered upright on his crutch. “There’s no more cells after these,” he said.

Carnival was eyeing his swollen pockets, her lips peeled back from her teeth like she wanted to rip out his throat. Mr. Nettle clenched a fist around the bones that formed his crutch. But the assassin stepped between them again. Her eyes were moist. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“Sword’s worth money,” Mr. Nettle said.

“Touch it, scrounger, and I’ll break your neck.”

Mr. Nettle gave the weapon a final, longing look before heaving himself painfully toward the door. A sword was no use to him anyway, not down here, not against all these dead things. Especially against the angels, a sword would be no use at all.

“Need to find Abigail,” he said.

“She’s gone,” Carnival snarled. “Forget her.”

“No.” Mr. Nettle towered over the scarred angel. He was twice her size. “She’s here. She’s all alone.”

Rachel Hael took his arm. “I’ll help you look for her,” she said. She glanced at Carnival, and quickly away again. “But first we need to find a way to cut this chain. And we need weapons.”

Mr. Nettle turned back to the sword.

“Not that,” Rachel said. “Leave it—it doesn’t belong to us.”

The scrounger grumbled. Women. No point even trying to figure them out. “Storeroom down the way,” he said. “Might find something there.”

* * * *

They left the cells behind them and hurried along a rough passageway hewn from naked rock. The lantern threw wild shadows ahead of them, like fleeing wraiths. Carnival sprinted up front, still dragging the chain. One wing slumped from her broken shoulder. Mr. Nettle hobbled on his crutch behind, trailing feathers. Rachel followed last, still lost in thought.

Anger curled around her memory of Dill lying broken and alone in his cell. Why hadn’t their captors taken his sword? It struck her as irreconcilably cruel. By ignoring the weapon, they’d diminished him.

And yet, even now he was dead, she hadn’t been able to take the sword herself—blunt as it was, it would have been better than nothing. But prising it from his dead grip had made her feel as cruel as those who’d so readily dismissed it. She cursed her dream. For a moment she’d felt sure she could save him.

She wondered what Carnival was now thinking. The angel—or demigod, if that’s what she was—stormed ahead of them as though she meant to tear apart the city of Deep with her bare hands. After that battle on the mountain of bones, Rachel didn’t doubt she was capable. It had taken an entire army to stop Carnival then. But now it was Scar Night.

And the scrounger? For his sake she hoped they didn’t find his dead daughter.

The lantern guttered: barely a drop of oil left. Unless they stumbled upon some illuminated tunnels soon, only Carnival would be able to see. The chain between them rattled like a death cough.

The passageway climbed sinuously through a hive of smaller tunnels and crawl-spaces. Dank currents of air whispered around them, carrying sounds so faint Rachel wasn’t sure she’d heard anything at all. Once she thought she heard someone sobbing, another time the chopping of knives. But always in the background, like a pulse, the hammering of metal in the forges. There were faint odours too, which were sickeningly familiar, but she forced those out of her mind and concentrated on keeping her footing on the weeping rock. After a while the passage levelled, and then, abruptly, it opened into a cavernous space.

It was a storeroom of sorts, stuffed with piles of mouldering detritus: furniture, bedsteads, bolts of cloth, crates and trunks full of random objects, stone trenchers and sinks, broken pottery, baskets of bottles, and more bottles containing everything from beads to teeth.

“Look for tools,” Rachel said to Mr. Nettle, “and weapons.”

“Quickly,” Carnival growled.

They set to work rummaging through all the rubbish, most of it smashed up or useless. Years of offerings, Rachel assumed, from the Avulsior’s ceremonies way above; payment for the privilege of watching pilgrims redeemed. There were examples of workmanship from every quarter of Deepgate: once-fine garments, wrought iron, ceramics, children’s toys, wooden sculptures, all heaped here into piles and left to rot.

Mr. Nettle found the poppywood chest.

Rachel could barely have lifted the heavy crossbow, let alone used it effectively, but the scrounger hefted it easily in one massive arm and grinned at her.

“Smith’s,” he explained.

“Belonged to a friend of yours?” she asked.

His grin faded. “Aye.”

There were three bolts with the weapon: a hunting crescent, a burner, and a poisonsong wrapped in oil cloth—though no markings to indicate which type of poison.

“Craw plague,” Mr. Nettle said.

She noted the way he watched Carnival from the corner of his eye as he spoke. Rachel gave him the hunting tip and carefully fastened the others to her belt. Chances were, the plague-bolt was dry—although still able to pierce—but the burner was worth more than any treasure.

“Should be hammers too,” Mr. Nettle said, peering into the chest. “Smith had hammers in here.”

“They’ve been taken. I suppose hammers are worth more to people living underground than a hulking great weapon like that.”

After all, what were they going to shoot at down here?

Rachel could have spent hours sifting through the storeroom for further weapons, but a look at Carnival’s expression drove her to urgency. After she’d fitted a fresh cord to Nettle’s crossbow, wound the windlass, and loaded the hunting tip for him, they set off again.

Tunnels branched and branched again until it seemed like they were negotiating the hollow roots of a tree. Carnival kept always to the widest passages, her wingtips scratching the rock on either side. It grew warmer, and gradually lighter, until Rachel spied fires burning in a chamber ahead.

“Turn off the lantern,” Carnival hissed. “Don’t you smell it?”

Rachel sniffed. Someone was cooking meat.

She realized the same smell had been there for some time. And then she realized she was salivating. Bile rose in her stomach at the thought. She glanced at Mr. Nettle. Had he noticed too? Did he know what the smell meant or had his mind blocked out such a possibility?

What will the truth do to him?

Carnival went striding ahead.

“Wait,” Rachel whispered.

Carnival ignored her, and the chain between them grew taut. Cursing, the assassin took off after her.

Liquids gurgled and frothed within huge, steaming cauldrons set around the edges of the cavern. The rock walls were seeping, and blood-coloured with the heat and light from coals burning under massive grates. A heavy butcher’s block occupied most of the available space between the cauldrons, its wooden surface deeply stained and gouged. Mercifully, there was no sign of any meat.

Carnival stood peering into one of the cauldrons. “Scrounger,” she said, squinting against the light.

“Don’t.” Rachel grabbed her arm.

The angel grunted.

Mr. Nettle joined them. He scowled at the nearby cauldrons, but did not appear interested in their contents.

He can’t face the truth. His mind isn’t capable of accepting it. Or maybe he’s just too damn stubborn. She wondered how long he’d already been down here, and what he’d eaten to stay alive.

Two stout doors led out of the opposite end of the cavern. One of them would doubtless be the cold room. Rachel studied the floor and saw grooves in the dirt suggesting that a number of heavy objects had been dragged through the smaller of the two doors.

Carnival approached this same door.

“Wait!”

But just as Rachel reached out to stop her, the larger door opened. And something clambered through.

The thing had to stoop low to squeeze its wings through the doorframe, moving its fleshless limbs in a series of crooked jerks. When it saw them, it dropped the bone it had been gnawing, straightened its misshapen body somewhat, and narrowed sulphurous yellow eyes. One side of its mouth drooped open to reveal a single pointed tooth. Between its white lips, a sliver of a tongue lolled like a bloodworm. Even here, in this already fetid air, the stink from the creature was overwhelming. Whatever it was, it was rotting .

Rachel then realized it was an angel—or had been once.