The Black jerked in response to the shout, head snapping to the top of the cliff. Clay seized the chance, bracing his legs against the rock and pushing clear of the cliff at an angle so that he swung out, body spinning. The Black gave an angry screech, fixing its gaze on him once again and flaring a pair of very broad wings, crouching as it prepared to launch itself clear of the ledge. Its mouth gaped wide, a dreadfully familiar haze appearing as it summoned the requisite gases from its gut. The flames blossomed at the same instant as Loriabeth let loose with a burst of fire from her repeating rifle. Clay had time to watch the Black’s head dissolve into a thick mist of shredded flesh and bone before the fire it had breathed caught the rope a few inches above his hands.
He could only continue to hold on and stare at the flames licking over the tightly braided cord. He watched it blacken and turn to ash, glowing strands unravelling and fragmenting in a strangely captivating sight that put him in mind of fire-flies rising from a field at twilight. As the rope snapped and he began to fall, he considered that for a last thought, it really wasn’t all that bad.
CHAPTER 32
Lizanne
The house Julesin had taken her to sat in the middle of Chandler’s Row, a promenade of decrepit terraced houses a few streets west from Sluiceman’s Way. Lizanne emerged to find a thick column of smoke rising above the roof-tops in the vicinity of the citadel. She could also hear a faint but constant crackle of rifle fire. A few confused inmates loitered near by in various states of indecision, mostly non-affiliated midden-pickers who must have fled the Ore Day parade when Tinkerer’s bomb went off.
“The citadel will fall within the hour!” Lizanne called to the dazed unfortunates. “If you want out of here you’ll need to fight for it. Spread the word.”
She turned as Makario stumbled from the doorway behind her, blinking rapidly as he gazed up at the pillar of smoke ascending into the grey sky. The Green had banished much of the pain left by Darkanis’s beating, but he was yet to regain his full senses. “Did you do that?” he asked in an oddly calm tone, one eyebrow raised to a quizzical angle.
“Yes,” she replied. “And I’m about to do a great deal more. Come on.” She took hold of his arm, hurrying towards Sluiceman’s Way and pulling him along.
They found the broad thoroughfare wreathed in a thick pall of acrid smoke and littered with both corpses and rubble. People ran past in panic, some deeper into the city, some towards the cacophony up ahead where rifle fire mingled with the sound of many voices raised in anger or fear. Lizanne saw a bright yellow flash in the smoke ahead, followed a split-second later by the boom of a cannon. She threw herself behind a part-demolished wall and dragged Makario down beside her, flinching at the multiple high-pitched whistles of canister-shot rending the surrounding air.
“So they didn’t manage to kill the gun-crews,” she muttered, poking her head above the wall. Somewhere a voice was screaming in the fog, the diminishing pitch of their distress telling of a mutilated soul fast approaching death.
“Such wonders you have wrought, my dear,” Makario said, Lizanne hearing the unrestrained reproach in his voice.
“I suspect we’ll both have a great deal to atone for when this is done,” she replied, tugging him upright. “Stay close. We need to move quickly.”
They ran from corner to corner and doorway to doorway, crouching low as bullets and canister tore at the drifting clouds of smoke, threading their way through rubble and knots of panicked inmates, all babbling rumours and confusion.
“They’ve started killing us all . . .”
“The Furies are trying to break out . . .”
“The Emperor’s ordered the Constables to execute everyone . . .”
“Might I enquire,” Makario said as they huddled behind yet another part-demolished building to avoid a volley of bullets. “Where exactly are we going?”
“I have to meet someone,” she said, moving on quickly and obliging him to follow.
“And then what?” the musician persisted. “Forgive me, but I doubt an easy stroll through the gates is on the cards just now.”
She said nothing and ran on, resisting the impulse to shorten the journey with a gulp or two of Green. Makario wouldn’t have been able to keep up. Besides, she would probably have need of every drop of Julesin’s supply before long.
She gave a small sigh of relief at finding Tinkerer exactly where she had told him to be: the exposed basement at the eastern end of Pick Street. He stood alone, regarding her with typical impassivity as she jumped down to join him. She expected some nervousness at the sight of Makario but Tinkerer merely glanced at the musician before turning to her. “You’re late,” he said.
“Unforeseen difficulties.” She jerked her head towards the river, away from the citadel and the continuing chorus of gun-fire. “Come along then.”
She led them to the muddy fringes of the river-bank then towards the grate beside the outlet pipe where she had first made her entry to Scorazin. “You have your other devices ready?” she asked Tinkerer. He stepped wordlessly to the grate, reaching into a sack to extract what appeared to be a rough-hewn lump of fist-sized clay with a short length of wire protruding from the top. He fixed the lump to the barrier’s heavy lock, working the still-soft clay around the contours.
“It’s advisable not to look,” he added before striking a match and touching it to the fuse, immediately stepping back and shielding his eyes.
Lizanne managed to turn away before the device ignited. Makario wasn’t so lucky.
“Owww!” he squealed. Lizanne opened her eyes to see him clutching at his own, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Thank you very fucking much, sir!” he fumed at Tinkerer, rapidly blinking his reddened orbs. “As if this day hadn’t been a sufficient trial already. What is that stuff?”
“A combustible copper-and-magnesium core with a dense silicate coating for insulation,” Tinkerer replied, seemingly unruffled by the musician’s ire. Lizanne looked at the grate, seeing a last guttering of sparks fall from the lock, which had been transformed into a steaming tear-drop of molten iron. She pulled at the grate, finding she had to give several hard tugs before it came free.
“Stay close and move fast,” she told them, stepping into the gloom.
She took one of Julesin’s vials from her pocket and sipped some Green to boost her vision before starting down the tunnel. Memorising the route to this entry point had been well within her expertise and following it out was a simple matter. They soon came to the second grate where Darkanis had left her that first day. Lizanne stood back, averting her gaze as Tinkerer affixed a second device to the lock. It was then that she noticed Makario was missing.
She hissed his name, enhanced eyes piercing the gloomy confines of the tunnels but catching no sign of him. Then her ears, also bolstered by the effects of Green, detected a faint scrabbling sound. What is he doing?
“Keep at it,” she told Tinkerer. “Don’t proceed without me.”
She moved away, making for the source of the scraping sound in a crouching run. Makario came into view around the next bend. The musician was on his knees, clawing barehanded at some loose brickwork in the tunnel wall with an energy that put her in mind of a giant rat. He glanced up as she approached, blinking his still-bleary eyes at her, an eager grin on his lips.