Chapter Nine

FLEE LIKE YOU MEAN IT

Under the gaze of the Watcher and the lights of the Venerance cruiser, Aberan, Midge and I once more pelted the cobbles of Canarva. Twin fires raged in my ribs. My burns and cuts began to sting as we dashed from alley to alley. My vision blurred at the edges with every pound of my heart, and all the while, I looked all around for a glimpse of that blasted swordsaint. I saw her looming face in every shadow.

I’ll be honest: these are all excuses for what came next. We all know that even the finest of us, no matter how powerful or dignified, have all fallen arse over tit at some point in life. Even I, with my extensive experience and practice in the art of fleeing, was no different. Still doesn’t stop it from making you wince to remember, though, does it?

And so, in all my haste, as I rounded a factory’s corner, I tripped over a proud cobble, rolled, collided face first with a mound of sand, and knocked the wind out of my lungs.

As I spat sand, feeling distinctly moronic, Aberan hauled me up with more roughness than I expected and dragged me on. Midge was a stone’s throw ahead.

‘How did you know I was at Wrekham’s, Aberan?’ I asked.

‘I went wandering and thought I might find you here. Call it a hunch,’ growled my brother, almost breathless as I was but with fear instead of flight.

‘You didn’t trust me?’

‘Do you blame me?!’ he said, raising his voice as if Midge wasn’t there. Aberan could not look at me, but instead was fixated by the blaze. The flames had drawn crowds of gawpers from their taverns and their homes. By what I could glimpse, the fire of Wrekham’s mansion had spread to his neighbours and had now become a light so bright, it made half of Canarva’s torches and blightlamps redundant.

‘What have you done this time, Dwellin? Tell me you didn’t start that fire.’

‘Technically,’ I snapped back between breaths, ‘Pitius started the fire.’

Aberan’s hand grabbed at me, dragging me to a halt and my shoulder half out its socket. ‘They’ll hang you for this, Dwellin! They’ll hang the whole lot of us! Me included! What was this? Revenge against Wrekham? A way to stop me from going to the reverent? How could you possibly be so utterly selfish? What kind of pers—’

‘I am not being selfish!’ I yelled in his face. I could see his shock as I thrust the wooden box into his chest. ‘I did all of this for you, Aberan! For Riveno and the others.’

Midge was fidgeting at the end of the alley. I could tell the shock and consequences were eating into him. ‘We really don’t have time for this,’ he called to us.

Aberan stared at the box. ‘What by the bloody Watcher is this?’

I pushed it into his chest. ‘The answer to everything, Aberan. You heard what Wrekham said in his study, and how many shells he was going to earn from a treasure of his. This is Wrekham’s treasure.’

He held the box as if it was Blighted. ‘You stole this… Dwellin? After everything I’ve ever said?’

‘It’ll change our lives—’

‘It’s already ruined our lives, Dwellin!’

Aberan moved to dash the box and my prize on the cobbles, and I seized his hand to snatch the box back from him. ‘No! You can’t!’

‘Gone gods! They’ll kill us for this!’

‘Everybody who saw what happened in that mansion is dead, Aberan!’ I hissed.

My brother’s hand slipped from around my arm, and he fell back away from me his face a mask of doubt. ‘Yver? Ganner?’ he asked. ‘Wrekham? You… you killed them?’

‘I didn’t kill anyone!’ I shouted. ‘Wrekham shot Yver. I didn’t pull the trigger.’

‘You didn’t have to. This was all your idea, wasn’t it?’

‘It was that filthy Ganner that betrayed us. None of this was my fault!’

‘It never is,’ Aberan replied. ‘And Wrekham?’

‘Wrekham fell into the fire,’ I said, low and unemotional. ‘Just as he deserved for what he did to you.’

‘This is madness. You’ve got a devil in you, Dwellin. You did this for me, you say? Looks to me like you got your petty revenge,’ Aberan whispered, and in that moment I knew I had wounded him greater than Wrekham had.

‘Erm. If I could interrupt this little family discussion? Remember that not everybody who saw us is dead? We can do all the arguing you want back at the shop. I ain’t going to no noose or hotdeath for this mess,’ Midge hissed, his words an urgent stream as he pointed up to the sky. I wasn’t sure if he meant the Great Watcher was judging us or the Fist of Tempest hovering above the city. He put a hand to Aberan’s shoulders and my brother shrugged him away.

‘Better get used to running, thanks to you, little sister,’ he muttered as he took off across the cobbles. I looked back as I chased them, and glimpsed a shadow in an archway several streets back, watching.

*

Like the others the inferno had summoned outside, Riveno stood before the Buried & Lost with all the children at his back. Their eyes shone with the flames reaching above the spiked rooftops and chimneys. Smoke bloomed as though a volcano had erupted in north Canarva.

Riveno saw us coming immediately, almost as if he had been waiting for our return.

‘You!’ he barked, storming towards me.

I had prepared for this, lying in my cot at night, imagining a hundred ways I would explain to Riveno the result of my burglary. And although I hadn’t planned for betrayal and murder, I had a plan.

What I hadn’t prepared for was Riveno grabbing me by the collar of my shirt, capturing me in a vice grip, and lifting me from my feet so I was as tall as Midge.

‘Riveno!’ Midge yelled. Aberan still had enough of a scrap of feeling towards me that he took a single step to intervene. Riveno threw out a hand and gave my brother a look with his green eye that rooted him to the spot.

‘I should have known you were up to something,’ Riveno seethed. ‘Do you think I wouldn’t notice my map missing? Or your shifty glances with the others? I was inclined to think you were planning something harmless, mischievous maybe, but this?! Start talking, girl! What in the name of the Realms have you done to us?’

‘I did what you were too afraid to do! And we almost got away with it before Ganner sold us out!’ I gurgled. ‘All I wanted was Wrekham’s treasure. I thought it could help us, but Ganner told the baron we’d be there and it all went to shit.’

‘Where’s Yver?’

Midge spoke from while I struggled. His voice shook. ‘Wrekham shot her, Riveno. Shot her dead without so much as a warning.’

Before I could quietly thank him for keeping the blame off my shoulders, Riveno lifted me higher and squeezed tighter. A strange heat emanated from him. The dust spun around my suspended feet.

‘And what of Wrekham?’ he asked.

I spat out one word. ‘Dead.’ Even then, it still made me want to smile.

Riveno had the same disappointment in his face as Aberan. His green eye glowed. Cracks between the husk of half his face shone with a faint light. ‘I trusted you, Dwellin. I put a faith in you I haven’t given to a soul in decades. You could have been great, but you’ve become a thief. To steal from Wrekham is one thing, but do you think I can’t feel the magic in the fire? Do you think half the city didn’t hear the explosion in the mansion beforehand? You stole blightpowder from me and that is—’

‘I didn’t, Riveno! A woman in the sewers gave it to me. I never stole from you, I swear,’ I told him.

‘Then what of my map?’

He had me there. I bit my tongue to keep from blaming the dead Yver. In truth, the dead make the perfect scapegoats. They can’t speak for themselves. Well, most can’t.

‘Liar. Thief,’ Riveno branded me. ‘Murderer.’

‘Riveno—’

‘You’ve put a noose round every one of our necks. You’ll bring the Venerance and the nobles down on our heads like never before. They’ll punish the whole of the gutters for this.’

Riveno tightened his grip a fraction. The children of the Buried & Lost who hadn’t dragged their eyes from the fire did so now. They scowled at me, and yet I refused to cower. I knew what I had in my hands.

‘No, they won’t,’ I croaked, letting the box fall towards the cobbles. Riveno caught it in his spare hand and raised its lid.

I was the one who fell to the cobbles instead. Riveno stood over me, the open box in his hand and his eyes gawping in disbelief.

‘This is what you stole from Wrekham?’ he whispered, voice cracking.

I nodded. ‘Enough to buy our way out of trouble.’

‘Dwellin…’ Riveno said. ‘This is enough to buy half of Canarva.’

It seemed very much like a moment to grin. We could buy our way out. We could do whatever we wanted. We were safe. We were powerful, at last. I looked to Aberan, and his eye was wider than Riveno’s.

‘What?’ Midge barged in, looking down at the intricate scrap of gold I knew lay cushioned inside. ‘This little thing?’

Riveno snapped the lid on Midge’s fingers. ‘Did anyone follow you?’

I traded glances with Aberan.

Riveno barked again. ‘Did anyone follow you?!’

‘Reverent Lectra and her swordsaint saw us escape the mansion,’ blurted Midge.

‘But she doesn’t know we have Wrekham’s box,’ I objected, getting up from the cobbles and brushing my knees. There was a shake in my hands I couldn’t explain. I reached for my prize, but Riveno did not give it up.

He was staring at the distant blaze, eyes lost in the distance. He did not shout again. His voice was flat and cold as flagstones, jaw bunched. ‘She knows,’ Riveno replied. ‘Midge, get everybody gathered and get them out of here. Use the other door.’

‘What—?’ The big lad barely got a word in.

‘Do what I say, Midge! If Lectra is the person I remember her to be, it’s not safe to stay here any more. We have to run. No arguments. No complaints. Take only what you can carry and nothing that will slow you down.’

‘We’re leaving…?’ I began to say.

‘We haven’t a choice now. Get the others to the sewers and hide where I showed you. When you get the chance, leave the city. It’s not safe here any more. Lectra will hunt every one of us. Stop gawping and go. Now!’ Riveno pushed Midge away.

I watched my fellow gutter rats flood into the shop. Several were already whimpering with fear of the unknown. Aberan stayed statuesque by my side, face still furrowed like an ashfield. Midge lingered by the door, a few of the youngest children clinging to his legs.

‘What in the Realms is going on, Riveno? This makes no sense’ I asked. ‘I thought you said we could buy half the city. I thought we were safe!’

‘You thought wrong.’ The anger had fled Riveno. A cold serenity had come over him. ‘You might have beaten Wrekham, but you’ve come between a reverent and her prey.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Riveno seized me by the shoulders. ‘It’s a damnable godgear shard, Dwellin! Don’t you understand? Forget barons and nobles. Forget blightpowder and magic. This is the power of the ancients and chosen ones! That is what’s drawn Lectra here all the way from her lair. And it’s not just any godgear, either, by the gone gods. If I’m right, she won’t let this slip her grasp. Not now she’s close.’

I was stunned. ‘Wrekham had a godgear?’

Riveno looked past me, wary as a watchman, eyeing every alley mouth that led to the Buried & Lost. ‘A piece of one. One that was broken long ago for the danger it posed,’ he said, thrusting the box back into my hands. ‘And how Wrekham came by it, I’ll never know, but you need to leave, Dwellin. Now. Lectra can’t have it. She can’t.’

My mouth flapped like a fish’s. ‘I—I didn’t make a mistake after all,’ I said, hope slicing through the exhaustion, the muck, and the tide of emotions in my head.

‘Ask Yver that, if you ever see her ghost. You lied to me. You betrayed my trust and you shed blood tonight,’ Riveno told me. His gaze fell upon me, and I felt a stinging in my cheeks, creeping to my eyes.

‘But you got lucky. I don’t know if it was sheer chance or fate’s got a plan for you, but it makes me think that perhaps I am still right about you, in a way,’ he said. ‘You might just change everything after all. Whether it’s for the better, we’ll have to see, Dwellin Dorr. I don’t regret what I taught you.’

I never understood his forgiveness. Not then, and not now telling you this tale. Even my brother couldn’t seem to find the same in his heart.

Aberan stared daggers at Riveno. ‘This is all wrong,’ he muttered.

‘That it is, lad,’ my mentor growled. ‘Go. I will buy you time to make a run for it. Take your sister and hide with Midge and the others.’

‘You have to come with us. I have no idea what to do with a godgear,’ I protested, pulling at Riveno’s cloak as he turned away. He stared down at my pale and filthy hand, looking small against his stocky frame.

‘I’ll be right behind you,’ he said.

Even then, I knew it was a lie. That sentence is never anything but a lie, but I saw no way to change his mind.

‘Run, Dwellin!’

My stubborn nature reared its head. ‘No. We all go.’

‘Riveno Reck!’ came a booming call. Between the buildings, framed by smoke and fire, stood the swordsaint Orzona. Gone was her cloak and hood. She stood tall and gleaming in her intricate armour. The gems in its metal shone bright like lizard eyes.

Riveno pushed me behind him, shielding Aberan and I from Orzona. ‘Whatever you’ve come to do, Orzona, leave the others out of this,’ he called to her. ‘It’s me that you want.’

A lithe figure appeared beside the swordsaint, treading slowly through the ash in long, sweeping steps. Reverent Lectra shook a long finger at us.

‘On the contrary, Riveno. It’s not you we’ve come for. What would I possibly want with a dried-up traitor without a useful bone in his body?’

‘The shard is not yours to claim, Lectra. You know that.’

Lectra smiled, showing us filed teeth. ‘Wrong again. I have taken more of an interest in your young friends behind you,’ she answered, leaning sideways to look at us. ‘Hello there. And what are your names, children of the Realms?’

Riveno growled over his shoulder. ‘Run. I won’t tell you again.’

Orzona drew her blightcore pistol and cocked it before I had taken a step.

Lectra sighed. ‘There’ll be no more running this evening. I find it entirely too tiresome. You will show yourselves to me, children, or I will have you and this old relic put down quicker than a sick hound.’

Aberan stepped out from behind Riveno. My stare snapped to him, but I’d come to realise a blightcore pistol was an incredibly compelling reason to do what you were told. I inched to the side, my face a deep scowl.

‘Your names. Give them to me.’

‘Aberan Dorr,’ spoke my brother. My gaze snapped to him.

The reverent looked at me with her unblinking emerald eyes. ‘And you?’

‘None of your business,’ I told her.

Lectra regarded me with a smile. ‘And seeing as you are holding what is rightfully mine, girl, I think it is my business.’

‘Leave them alone,’ said Riveno, spreading his arms. Again, the air grew hot. I heard the crackling of his gnarled skin as he clawed the air.

‘I do not take orders from the likes of you!’ Lectra screeched in a burst of incandescence. She recovered herself immediately, smoothing some dust from her robes. ‘Come closer, Aberan Dorr,’ Lectra ordered, beckoning slowly. ‘Let me have a closer look at you.’

‘Aberan, you can’t,’ I whispered.

But fists clenched, Aberan did what he was told, scuffing the cobbles as he approached the reverent. Lectra’s smile widened with every step until he halted a spear’s reach from her.

‘The one-eyed child,’ mused Lectra. ‘And in your sister’s hands, a golden prize. How fortuitous indeed. You, Aberan Dorr. You are a child of prophecy, do you know that? One eye taken for gold token’s sheen. You could be a chosen one, Aberan, and if so, I can make your life one of power and fame. With me, we can accomplish great feats together. Would you like that, Aberan?’

I hated my brother for failing to shake his head. ‘Don’t trust her, Aberan,’ I shouted.

Lectra chuckled. ‘Or would you rather remain in the streets with garbage and thieves?

‘I won’t let you take him, Lectra,’ Riveno growled. He moved to block Aberan, but Orzona matched him. Her blightcore pistol crackled as she spun its cog. The godgear vambrace on her other arm hissed as pieces of the metal unfurled and shifted places. Riveno did not falter. I didn’t recognise the man who stood his ground, fingers like stretched talons. A swordsaint and a lead bullet stood facing him, and somehow he looked ready for both.

Lectra clapped her hands. ‘I say let the boy decide! He can speak for himself, can he not?’

‘He’s not going anywhere with you, woman,’ I snarled.

Aberan’s voice was low and hoarse. ‘If I come with you, my sister goes free and unhurt.’

‘Aberan, you can’t do this!’ My shout broke from me as a yelp. I looked to Riveno, but his face was a mask of hatred for the reverent.

Lectra held her palms face up and open. ‘Of course, my child. I am a reverent of the Holy Realms. My word is my bond.’

‘You’re a liar, Lectra. That’s all you do. Don’t you trust her, Aberan!’

I remember those precious moments as if they were branded into my hands. The slow shift of my brother’s stare to mine. The weight of his gaze. The stretching silence broken by a heart-rending scrape of Aberan’s foot as he walked towards the Reverent Lectra.

I stared at my brother with mouth agape, frozen in disbelief. There was guilt in Aberan’s eye, but not enough to change his mind or move his feet. I could see a tear brimming, but I had never seen him stand straighter. The sloping hunch we browbeaten gutter rats take on had disappeared.

Twice now that evening, I had been betrayed, and this time by my own blood. I swayed on my feet, dizzied almost to the point of falling. All I’d wanted was some shells, to take some power for myself, and a little pinch of revenge. If fate had planned all this, I quite fancied setting her house on fire, too. My face burned with my fury.

‘How could you?’ I breathed, but he failed to answer me.

Lectra welcomed my brother with a light touch of his shoulder, as though she rested a blade upon a board. ‘You’ve chosen well, child. The Great Watcher will smile upon you,’ she promised. ‘And now you, sister. Give me the box and I will let you leave free and unharmed. Perhaps I will even spare this old man at your side, and forgive him his crimes. Come along now.’

‘No,’ I said, taking three steps backwards while I watched Lectra’s demeanour slip.

‘The Great Watcher commands it, girl!’

‘No.’

‘Then it is simple,’ Lectra sighed. ‘I did not want any violence, but it appears you are insisting. By my holy rights, I will take the box by force. My Orzona here is quite adept at exacting the Great Watcher’s justice. It is not pleasant to watch, I can tell you. I think you would prefer to hand it over to me now.’

Aberan bristled. ‘You promised,’ he growled.

Lectra swept her own pistol from beneath her cloak and cocked it. She kept it close to her shoulder, aimed upwards at her own cruiser. ‘My promise is dependent on your sister, Aberan. Make her give me the box.’

‘Dwellin—’

‘Don’t you dare,’ I snapped at him. ‘Not now.’

I saw him snapping moments before he did. Even if I had ruined his life, let him down time and time again, at least I had helped him find his voice.

‘For once in your life, do what you’re told!’ he bellowed at me. I saw Lectra smile and wanted to carve it off her cheeks.

‘No,’ I said for the last time, and drew the cleaver from its hiding place in my trews pocket. I caught Riveno’s glance at the edge of my vision.

The reverent signed our death warrants with a shrug and a single word.

‘Orzona.’

The swordsaint moved only her finger. The blightcore pistol unleashed its pent-up power, splitting my ears with its explosion. I seized up, expecting Riveno’s body to strike the cobbles, but the bullet never reached him.

I gawked at Riveno, whose bare hand was now outstretched and aglow, the colour of forge-heated metal. Molten lead dribbled to the cobbles at his boots.

‘I knew it!’ I couldn’t help but yelp.

‘Still got it,’ Riveno growled through his strain and concentration. He swung his other hand to bear as Orzona fired until her pistol was empty. The streets rang with the thunder of the weapon, yet bullet after bullet melted inches before Riveno’s glowing hands. An undulating wall of intense heat hovered at his fingertips, shield-like. In his other fist, raised to the night sky, a fierce fire began to burn. With his hood thrown back and his cloak streaming, ash and dust whirled around him in a halo. Cobbles were scorched black beneath his boots. His true form was unveiled at last, and I was so astonished I almost forgot to take cover.

With a roar, Riveno released his magic. A raging ball of flame dashed for Orzona. The swordsaint did not fade or cower. With a jerk of her arm, the godgear vambrace revealed its own more ancient power. Within three agitated heartbeats, the dark metal unfurled like a fan, forming a circular shield with shining teeth around its edge. She raised it just in time for the spell to hammer into her. The magic detonated like a firefountain. Cobbles were uprooted and tossed aside. Vengeful flames sent Lectra and Aberan running for cover. Orzona was driven backwards with her boots scraping in the ash, and when the flames faded, all that remained was a blackened shield, and a swordsaint who was very much alive.

Orzona spat on the ground in mockery. She raised her shield, and with a clench of her fist, the teeth around its edge began to spin. The whirring became a ghoulish shriek until the metal was a blur.

Sparing a moment to howl ‘Run!’ at me, Riveno slammed his fists together to ignite an inferno that spun around his arms. I tried to run, I really did, but I could not leave Riveno. Nor could I leave Aberan, even despite his betrayal.

Orzona began to charge. With all the snorting and pounding of a stampeding kumi lizard, she closed the gap between her and Riveno in ten steps flat, and brought her shield down over her head like a lumber axe.

Riveno dodged the vicious edge and let it bite cobbles instead. Sparks fountained around the swordsaint and the alchemage. Locking the shield with his foot, Riveno swung his flaming fists for Orzona’s face. For her bulk, she ducked and weaved like the tail of a whip. It was her forehead that struck Riveno first, square in the face in a second’s gap between attacks. A thwack from her shield sent him sprawling, but the old man was far from defeated. He was on his feet in a blink, hammering at Orzona’s shield with spells that sent searing shockwaves across the street. Step by step, the swordsaint was forced back. Parts of her shield began to buckle and glow, and between the blasts of magic against metal, I heard Riveno’s cry of rage.

‘Dwellin!’

It was Aberan. I could see him standing beside Lectra in a hollow of a doorway. Though magic filled the street, their stares were fixed on me. Lectra’s was one of narrowed scrutiny. Aberan’s was pleading. He beckoned to me.

‘Do what she says, sister! Don’t be a fool!’

‘I tire of waiting! You can stop this now, girl. Return to the Great Watcher what is his, and you will be spared,’ yelled Lectra, as she levelled her pistol at me. I saw Aberan reach for the woman’s arm, but Lectra smacked him across the jaw and sent him sprawling. At the far end of the street, I saw white-armoured prosecutors flooding towards the commotion.

Riveno spared one of his spells to hurl in the reverent’s direction. The lapse in his onslaught cost him: Orzona’s shield sliced into the bark-like skin of his right arm. Orzona felled him another time, kicking him in the nose and turning his face bloody.

‘Riveno!’ I cried.

The alchemage collapsed to his knees, and though the flames still raged in his hands, the saw edge of the shield hovering a hair from his face kept him down. ‘Get out of here, Dwellin! It’s all on you now!’ Riveno yelled at me, teeth bared and mouth full of blood. ‘Get the shard out of this city. Hide it, destroy it, do whatever it takes!’

A pistol-shot thundered. I felt the wind of a bullet grace my cheek. Like I said: a pistol can be quite the motivation, and with my choices boiling down to either running or staying and dying, my instincts chose for me.

They chose wisely. Another bullet struck the cobbles where I had stood seconds before. I ran for the Buried & Lost with my head firmly over my shoulder, my eyes glued to Riveno as he raised his hands wide as if in surrender. I knew him too well to believe it, and it seemed the same was true for Orzona. Before she could bring down her godgear shield for a killing blow, the alchemage erupted in flame. A wall of fire spread across the street. The shockwave hurled me through the doorway of the Buried & Lost.

The last I saw of Riveno was him kneeling in the shadow of Orzona. The swordsaint braved the flames to put an end to her enemy, shield raised and grinning at her victory. Before I could witness the death of the man who had saved me from the gutters, the reverent’s third shot shattered the lantern over my head and showered me with glass. I was forced to run with Riveno’s last roar of pain biting at my heels.

With tears streaking my face, the box held so tightly in my hands its corners broke my skin, and the bells of Canarva filling my ears, I careened through the streets. Death’s shadow had followed me enough that night. I was adamant his cold claws would not touch me. Riveno’s final words rang in my head with every step. Whatever it takes.