Dogs Bite: Part 3

Sorren’s pain was kind enough to fade into dull agony after an hour or so, once treated. A strange concoction of emotions slopped around inside his skull. On the one hand, he felt ashamed that he’d let himself get stabbed in the back. By a man who’d looked half-dead before he’d had his face destroyed, no less. On the other hand, he felt a tepid ecstasy born from the fact that he was alive. A knife in the back was a difficult thing to survive, and he’d gotten very lucky.

Neither feeling could stand for long, however. The wound flared hotly every time he moved.

Thanks to Hotep, clean bandages cinched Sorren’s torso beneath his armour, and the stitching felt secure. Sorren was pleased; Hotep had proven his claims of being a passable sawbones and without him Sorren would probably have just bled himself unconscious. The good feelings were soured slightly by the coins Splint handed over to Hotep, with a nod of respect.

Bloody mercenaries.

The three of them were now making their careful way toward the gate. They avoided contact with the roving bands of looters by using side streets and circling around any sounds of activity. If they’d been noticed at all, they’d likely been ignored in favour of easier prey. Sorren was uncertain if that would last.

That uncertainty was the wind in his sails, pushing him onward through the pain. They passed burning squares, broken storefronts, and the odd manse, with screams and pleading leaking out into the street. The three of them cautiously checked each corner, and ducked into cover to let groups of whooping revolutionaries pass.

Eventually they spotted the first barricade, a few hundred feet down the street. Carts, crates and other debris had been piled into a makeshift wall, with spots for blue, red, and grey-uniformed men to crouch behind. It was easy to see the spears and flatbows at the ready.

The trio used a back alley and an ready-broken door to get into a two-story cobbler’s shop that was now as bare as a pauper’s cupboard. Sorren wasn’t surprised to find that shoes were in such high demand. From the second-floor window, they had a good view of the barricade itself, as well as the men who manned it

There were a few bodies scattered before the hastily erected structure, the red-fletched crossbow quarrels sprouting like autumn trees from dead flesh. The military men were now clearly in charge over the more domestic forces of the Grand General. The broad scarlet hat of an officer was visible, stalking around behind the improvised fortification, giving orders to the men, the blue-clad guardsmen and grey watchmen alike.

They looked tense. It was visible in their nervous shifting, frightened stares, and white-knuckle fists. These men were expecting the worst.

Night was falling, which didn’t help. Combining all this in his head, Sorren came to the obvious conclusion. He and his friends wouldn’t be getting through that barricade without a particularly clever plan.

Sorren leaned back against one wood-panelled wall, which his wound quickly informed him was a bad idea. So, he settled onto the floor instead. Splint squatted a few feet away, and Hotep casually relaxed against the one intact piece of furniture: a small stand built to display long-gone footwear.

“Could we perhaps head back to the bridge, collect a few uniforms and use those?” Hotep tried to sound hopeful, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Not walking around this place in Guard uniforms,” Splint grunted, shaking his shaggy head.

“…And that bridge is a good way away,” Sorren added.

“What if we rush ‘em?” came Splint’s own bad idea after a moment.

“You might be scary enough to not get shot. But me n’ Hotep would be as feathered as a chicken by time we caught up,” Sorren offered a grin, but it felt slightly hollow.

“What about the rooftops?” Hotep said, stepping over to a window before continuing. “Looks like we might be able to slip over those. I don’t see anyone watching them.”

“Hmm. Splint?” Sorren raised an eyebrow at the sturdy northlander.

Splint’s knees clicked as he stood and joined Hotep at the window. He had sharp eyes and good instincts about these kinds of things.

“Yeah. Looks clear enough,” the Red Counties man said after a long moment. He turned his head to Sorren in silent question.

“I don’t much like it, but I’d be a cockerel’s egg if I said I had a better idea,” Sorren admitted wryly. He stood, his own knees giving an audible complaint. His back gave another twinge, but he forced the pain down and moved to look out at the darkening cityscape.

“Let’s wait for night. As long as we’re quiet, we might make it. We’ll go over there, to the left. The balconies should be enough to get us over this street. Hotep, mind checking these stitches? Then see if you two can get your heads down for a spell. I’ll watch, not like I’d be sleeping with this anyway.” Sorren’s voice sounded false and uncertain to him, but his friends accepted his words without a second glance.

After a while, the sun was low enough to beat the sky into shades of bruised purple and grim, weary grey.

Sorren had dragged the shoe stand to the window and was resting against it, looking out at the soldiers below. The tension remained, but they moved with disciplined efficiency, setting out lantern poles and changing watches.

Say one thing for the Grand General, say that he knew how to train an army. Sorren found himself wondering about that as he maintained his vigil. The Grand General, Nepatino’s tyrant, must have been a special kind of man.

Grand General Oscari Glovella was famous across the Belt. The Imperial Army had lost three campaigns to him. Four of the other five free cities had suffered decisive defeats at his bloody hands. He’d even made a lightning march into the Buckle to force the surrender of a rebel Bulchev army, despite it being nearly twice as large.

This was all before he’d taken control of the city in what amounted to a near-bloodless coup. The man was undoubtedly one of the greatest strategic minds of his generation, and he’d been a hero to his people.

Sorren tried to imagine the kind of man the Grand General was. He’d have been a great planner, with a strong sense of purpose, and the charisma to make men follow him, even when they didn’t understand his methods. All qualities that you’d think would make for the ideal leader for a self-sufficient city-state.

It was shocking that he’d bungled running the place so badly. Talking to locals it quickly became apparent that the City of Dogs grew poorer, more violent and less stable with every passing month.

Mercenaries flock to warlords like gulls to torn fishing nets. They became as ubiquitous as the stray mongrels that gave the city its nickname. Now, Sorren wielded hindsight, and was forced to turn it on his decision to come here. His current predicament seemed inevitable.

A people pressured by a cruel and authoritarian leader. A city that grew more squalid whilst its citizens watched the palace bloom like a flower. The city was a mountainside burdened by thick, overripe snowfall. It would take only a single shout to send the whole thing collapsing into ruin.

The sun dropped below the horizon and Sorren continued to watch. Every so often, he would see motion in the deep shadows at the crossroads, a stone’s throw away from the flickering lights of the improvised bulwark. Despite his squinting, Sorren couldn’t tell much about the shapes. But he guessed they would be entirely invisible to the soldiers behind their well-lit barricade.

A few silvery glints flashed in the dark. It could have easily been dismissed as nothing. But Sorren’s gut went sour, nonetheless. That was the glint of a sharp edge being pulled from shadowed leather.

“Up you get, boys, we have to go,” Sorren said as he gathered his things and gave Splint an encouraging toe in the ribs.

His two companions rose without complaint, immediately tightening belts and checking armour.

“It could be darker.” Splint frowned as he peeked out at the draining twilight.

“Mob is coming to give that barricade another try. I reckon that distraction might be our best chance. If they break through, I’d rather be ahead of them.”

Once they had their gear, the trio moved to a window that would allow access to the neighbouring roof. They slipped out slowly, careful to keep the jangling of armour and the scrape of boot on shingle to a minimum.

Sorren was glad they could all manage a bit of quiet movement when needed. Truth was, being able to creep into or out of a battle was often more important than the quickness of your blade or the shrewdness of your plan. Splint was especially surprising, given his sheer mass—yet he moved with only the faintest rasp of cloth on steel.

Not long after, they’d gotten across the first three rooftops. The next building was a tall, blocky, and elegantly simple structure, much like the cobbler’s shop. This one did have a few more fanciful flourishes, however. There was one in particular that had brought them here: a broad balcony that stretched nearly six feet out over the narrow thoroughfare below.

Across the street was a shorter building. With a balcony of its own, it made the coming jump only unnerving, rather than utterly terrifying.

Splint was boosting Hotep up to the first balcony when they heard the sudden roar. Dozens of voices rose in a tempest of rage and spite, followed by the rumbling, swarming sound of feet hitting stone. At a glance, Sorren saw a monstrous, shadowy mass of people roiling in the shadowed distance

“Go. Quick!” Sorren hissed as he shoved Hotep up and over the railing unceremoniously. Then he spun, squatted down, and interwove his fingers to boost Splint up.

He heard the mob grow as the northman grunted his way upward. What had been dozens was now hundreds, and Sorren knew, with the certainty of an axe swing, that the barricade wouldn’t hold long.

Hotep and Splint each dangled an arm down, allowing Sorren to make quick—but not graceful—progress over the rail to join them on the first balcony.

Up close, the jump suddenly seemed a lot longer. Perhaps it was that their destination was clearly underlined by solid paving, which would make short work of whatever bones happened to fall onto it. Or perhaps it was that those flagstones would soon be swarmed by the ravenous, bloodthirsty horde.

“Shit,” Sorren muttered, but he kept the anticipatory twinge in his back off his face. “You first, Hotep. Splint might need a hand.”

Hotep nodded to Sorren’s words, gave Splint a cheeky grin and then hopped up onto the railing before he launched himself through the air.

He hung in space for a moment before catching the rail with his hands and the lip of the balcony with his feet. After a half-heartbeat, he vaulted over and gestured for Splint to follow.

For once the old raider looked perturbed. Sorren felt a strange satisfaction in that. Not out of cruelty; it was just a relief to see that the bastard had a broader range of emotions than a dull stone.

Splint growled something in the Raid Tongue and then followed Hotep’s example, except with a deal more flailing and markedly less grace. He managed to catch the other side, and Hotep grabbed his shoulder to help arrest his considerable momentum. After a moment, they were shoulder to shoulder waiting for Sorren.

“Shit,” Sorren repeated to himself.

Before he could make his attempt, something pulled all of their eyes down. A soldier in a red uniform was running up the street toward the barricade. He was panicked and bloodied, with a dozen or so howling men giving chase.

None of them seemed to notice any of the mercenaries above. The soldier tripped, sprawled across the paving stones, and was swarmed by the raving rioters. They started stomping. The soldier started screaming.

Typical. Fuck, it was bloody inevitable. Sorren thought with impotent indignance. The fellow had taken his tumble right below the balconies. Now, Sorren would be jumping, not only over a long drop to hard stone, but also a writhing mass of human cruelty.

He gave himself as much of a run-up as the balconies’ meagre breadth would allow. His feet beat the wood, even as the violence below grew to a shrieking flood.

Sorren’s back locked up as he threw himself into the air, and he fell just about as much as he jumped. By some kind of miracle, his front foot caught the balcony. Splint and Hotep each stretched to catch a fistful of his surcoat. The aging mercenary’s arms swung in ineffectual circles as he vainly tried to keep his balance.

Sorren felt his eyes stretch wide and he had to bite down on a girlish shriek. He refused to look down, but his imagination happily showed him images of the madmen below staring up with faces full of terrible, violent desire.

His companions yanked, and he flopped over the rail. Hotep grinned at him in a way that somehow said ‘That was close, Aminos’. Splint had already begun to climb around the side of the building to the neighbouring rooftop.

Hotep proffered a hand, and Sorren used it to rise before they followed the northerner.

Far below, Sorren caught someone skidding to a halt. A boy—maybe fifteen—flinched and glanced upward as if he’d felt or heard something. It didn’t seem like he saw anything, but regardless, his focus turned down to a single, silver sparrow. The coin glinted in the passing light of torches, and the boy snatched it up, vanishing it into a pocket.

They followed the street from rooftop to rooftop, and then dropped down into a wide yard surrounded by sloped roofs.

It was a gallows yard.

A tall, wide scaffold of dark, almost greasy-looking wood stood at the centre, surrounded by straw-strewn cobbles. A few benches faced it, to give whatever small audiences were allowed a place to sit and watch men die. No doubt there was money to be made in bets.

The Grand General’s escalating pace of hangings had grown to a point where making them public was just causing trouble. Entire chunks of the population would swarm the squares or parks in order to see who needed a neck stretching. But what started as near universal morbid curiosity evolved into a perfect excuse to cause a riot.

So, the tyrant—as tyrants are wont to do—decided that he’d do his dirty business in private. He didn’t slow down, though.

Despite the private nature, everyone knew that if you wanted to see folk ride the gallows horse, all you needed to do was slip a few coins into the right watchman’s hands.

Sorren had stood on such scaffolds a few times, though most of those times he’d been the man to do the hanging, not the hanged. He stared at the efficient, purpose-built, and well-used carpentry. A dispassionate monster of wood and nails, stalwartly awaiting its next meal. He didn’t doubt that it would soon eat its fill.

“Jingle, come on,” Hissed Hotep, waving him over toward the yard’s entrance.

Sorren shook off memories. But even as he jogged to join his friends, the hangman’s crack haunted him. That sound was the distinctive sign that a killing had been done right, and a life ended fast.

The shadowed backstreet beyond was quiet, and Splint gestured them to follow as he crept forward. They’d seen plenty of uniformed men moving to and fro among the larger, more industrial buildings as they got closer.

“We need a look at that gate,” Sorren said, stroking his chin.

Beckoning his companions to follow, he moved further down the alley. A ladder gave access to one of the large square roofs that bordered the clear area before the gate.

After reaching the top, the low wall surrounding the roof gave them the perfect perch. The darkness of the evening obscured much of the wide, open area before the gate, but torchlight and lanterns revealed the defensive positions. Formidable barricades loomed at each street entrance, and a layer of smaller bulwarks waited as a fallback position.

The barricade they’d seen before had been ramshackle and hurried, but these had been built with deliberation, and more importantly, time. Men in red, grey, blue, and even black moved under the watchful eyes of the red-uniformed army officers in their broad-brimmed hats.

Before the gate, a few tents had been set up beside the gatehouse. Boxes, racks, and sacks were piled among and around them. Men could be seen taking requisitions and handing out supplies to runners, who ferried their burdens to the forces guarding the streets.

A crisp shout echoed out from somewhere in the ordered chaos: a bellowed order to open up the western barricade. The men snapped into motion and dragged parts of improvised fortifications out of the way before a small group of riders entered the open courtyard.

“Scouts?” Splint asked with narrowed eyes.

“Reckon so.” Sorren watched the riders carefully. “That or they’re messengers. Not a job I’d envy.”

One of the new arrivals dismounted and was escorted by an officer toward the gatehouse. Sorren figured they were using the blunt, blocky structure as a command post.

“More importantly, if the gate is closed, how are we getting out, Jingle?” Hotep looked up at the looming shape of the gates.

The question landed like a wet towel on a dying fire. Sorren rasped a scarred hand over his stubbly scalp as he looked beyond the manned courtyard.

The wall stretched around the city’s edge, looking like a slice of clear night sky beneath the grim blackness of the clouds above. Small, flickering lights were scattered across the shadowed expanse like stars.

The realisation dawned on Sorren, and his mind worked it like frayed rope. Those lights were twinkling through the windows of the Barnacles, small homes that had sprouted up the walls like it was the hull of a ship. It was a risky way to live. The homes were cheap, and gave the poor the chance to live in better neighbourhoods, but if it came to a siege—or the rich folk kicked up a fuss—they’d be scoured away with the consideration a sailor gave to their namesakes.

Thoughts piled up, and then began to fit together as the aging mercenary squinted from Barnacles to gatehouse, and then to the tense, shadow-soaked soldiers before them.

“Well, looks as if these fellas are using the gatehouse as their command post. It’s also where the gate mechanism lives. Reckon the red-hats would be unhappy if we tried to get in and use it. The other option would be the wicket gates, but I think they’ll be in the gatehouse too…” Sorren looked up and the other two followed his gaze.

“We could try going over. That’d take rope. Patrols along the wall ain’t likely to be regular, with the barricades here taking the attention.” Sorren turned away from the wall to face his two friends.

“So, we need to find rope? Then a way to the top of the wall?” Hotep’s scepticism leaked through, despite his best efforts.

“Aye. The barnacles can get us partway there…“ Sorren trailed off as a glint caught his eye.

The chains. The thought struck him like a sudden, cool but not unwelcome breeze.

Each gate was operated by a monstrous mechanism driven by winches that used long chains rather than ropes. The mechanism itself was no use, but those chains would extend all the way up to the top of the gate. It’d be a long way, but the chain would be easier to climb than rope, and the darkness would make them all but invisible from the ground.

“Alright, boys. Want to hear a bad plan?” Sorren offered a strained smile to his companions, then pointed toward the Barnacles closest to the guardhouse. “We go up over there…”

“From that one, we jump to the roof of the guardhouse. Use the chains to climb up to the top of the gate. Tie off the rope and climb down.” Sorren grunted and glanced from Hotep to Splint. Their expressions weren’t encouraging. “But we’ll still need rope

“There is probably some in all that,” Hotep replied after a moment, gesturing toward the stockpile near the gate.

“Too much light.” Splint’s grumble came almost absently as he tugged his greying beard.

Sorren nodded.

“We could try the Barnacles themselves. They use a lot of the stuff, so they probably got a supply.”

“Risky bet, aminos. Once we are there, we have committed,” Hotep replied, looking out across the expanse of shadowy, soldier-strewn space between them and the Barnacles.

Splint shuffled back from the roof’s edge and stood cautiously. He turned, looking around as if orienting himself.

“Wait,” he said, and he dropped off the roof where they’d climbed up.

Hotep and Sorren met each other’s eyes, bemused. A man called for a horse from the open space, and they turned toward the sound.

From the gatehouse, the rider who’d arrived moments ago strode out. A trio of armed men joined him as blue-uniformed guardsmen led out their horses. They wasted no time, kicking their horses into a gallop and pounding out into darkness across the clattering cobbles.

“That’s probably a good sign, Jingle. If it were still dangerous out there, they wouldn’t risk expensive horseflesh,” Hotep said. His moustached face, lit faintly by distant torchlight, had just the hint of a smile.

“How come you’re a lifelong mercenary, and still get to be optimistic, while I’m wondering if the building we’re on is about to burn down?” Sorren asked.

“Wine, mostly.”

“Wine? You’re drunk?”

“Not at all, aminos. But I remember a tale I was told about the vineyards in the southern Bulchev. Apparently, whenever there is an orphan, they are enslaved and dragged off to the hills. Forced to tread on grapes, fed only mouldy bread. They produce the juice that becomes the wine, but are given only dirty water to drink. If they steal a single grape or a single drop of wine, they have their hands chopped off.” Hotep nodded solemnly as if his little story explained anything.

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘what’, aminos?”

“I mean, ‘What—by the bloody baron of hell—do orphan wine treaders have to do with anything?’, eh?”

Hotep’s face split with a wide grin.

“Because I am lucky. I was not born in the east. I am not an orphan boy, and no one would try to chop off my hands were I to eat a grape or drink from a wine cup.”

Sorren found that explanation deeply unfulfilling, but couldn’t stop himself grinning right back.

Before Sorren could comment, they heard a dull thump behind them. Both men turned, hands going to blades, only for their tension to go limp immediately.

A coil of old hempen rope sat there innocently, and was joined by a frowning northman heaving himself up the ladder.

“Rope.” Splint offered, by way of explanation.

“Do I dare ask?” Hotep raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“Better not,” Sorren said with a shake of his head and a smile.

Looking at the rope, he realised it must’ve come from the gallows-yard. Not so innocent.

Splint looped the coil over his shoulder and joined them at the edge.

How do we get over there? Sorren asked himself as he scratched at the faint stubble creeping down his neck.

He let his eyes wander to the barricade closest to the wall. A thick strip of shadow stretched between the torchlight of the gatehouse and the barricade itself. It was like a little path of darkness, threading through the light. However, there would be eyes on either side, and they’d risk silhouetting against either light source.

It seemed mad to take that kind of risk. But at the same time, when your bet was already in, and the cards were slim on odds, you still had to make the play. None of that stopped you from wishing for better cards though.

“We’ll creep across there,” Sorren said, pointed out the shadowed area to his friends.

“We should be quick.” Splint was focused on the nighttime cityscape behind them, and not the route ahead.

“Listen, aminos, do you hear that?” Hotep asked, nudging Sorren.

Sorren strained his ears, thankful they weren’t as faded as his eyes. Over the quiet, ordered bustle of the defences, he caught a sound that was becoming disturbingly familiar. The rising, raging song of a crowd turned mad.

It was getting closer.

Motion drew Sorren’s eye, and he saw men gathering on the two northern barricades. They’d been lounging, chatting, and fussing with minor tasks only moments before. Now they gripped spears and peered into the black, night-drenched streets.

The three mercenaries left their rooftop perch without another word. They clambered down into the side street, and crept into a gap between two buildings. It was too narrow even to be called an alley, but led to the darkness they sought.

The howl of the mob grew louder.

“To your positions. Eyes front!” a voice bellowed somewhere beyond the end of the narrow gap.

Sorren froze at the shout, but he was up front. He had to move. He guessed—or hoped—one of the officers had simply noticed the men at the other barricades, gawking at the opposite side of the courtyard.

Reaching the plaza, Sorren peeked out carefully. Silhouettes moved back and forth on either side, the light behind them making it hard to tell which way they faced. He could see at least a dozen men loading flatbows.

“Hey, Jingle,” Came a lightly accented whisper from behind.

“What?” Sorren hissed, shoulders taut.

“We should not try to sneak over. We should just walk. If we creep about, they will know something is wrong. If we act like we belong, they might ignore us, no?” Hotep said, quiet and insistent.

“Right.” Sorren was sceptical, but it made a ludicrous kind of sense.

Just another bad hand.

He moved out of the relative safety of the gap and started forward.

Sorren did his best to stride with purpose. To move like a man who belonged. Cold sweat trickled down and pooled at the small of his back, making his wound sting. But strangely his gut was settled.

Cries of alarm came up from the north side. He kept going. He didn’t dare look and he didn’t speed up.

He reached the halfway point, silently praying that the sounds of motion and shouting nearby were nothing to do with his group. The tension in his neck ratcheted as he resisted the urge to look. To run. He had to stay focused. He just needed to get to the rope ladder hanging from one of the Barnacles.

There were only a few, measly strides left. Then something caught his eye, forcing his head to turn. A flashing, flickering orange glow bloomed beyond the nearest barricade. He kept moving, but the world seemed to slow to a crawl as that old sourness filled his gut.

A mass slammed into Sorren’s shoulder, sending him sprawling onto the cobbles. The glow resolved into a flaming wagon that hurtled into, then through the barricade and the soldiers like a forge-hot spearhead. It blew past screaming men and broken timber, before rolling right over the spot Sorren had been standing.

Burning wood, cloth, and other unidentifiable debris exploded across the north side of the courtyard. The rapidly disintegrating wagon roared away from Sorren, and, for a moment, he could see nothing else.

Someone grabbed his gorget and dragged him upward. Splint, picked out in flickering shadow and angry orange light, made sure Sorren was steady before reaching for the rope ladder.

Sorren turned to see Hotep catch up, a wild look in his eyes. In the courtyard, men and women poured through the destroyed barricade, screaming in the firelight like demons.

The aging mercenary sent Splint up first with a slap on the back, and drew his falchion. All was chaos. The rioters spread out, attacking each barricade from the inside whilst still more barrelled in from beyond. It was all painted in surreal, infernal shades of yellow and red as nearby buildings rapidly caught the blaze.

Only once Splint was up, and Hotep had followed, did Sorren sheathe the blade to begin his ascent. But even as his foot hooked the first rung, three or four men spotted him. They had been picking over the bodies left behind the destroyed barricade. Now they held flatbows and bolts, and were moving towards him with cruel smiles scorched into flame-lit faces.

“Oh, shit,” Sorren breathed as he scrambled upward. Then he bellowed, “Crossbows!”

Inside of the wallside hovel was a cramped room filled with clutter. Another ladder led from this Barnacle up into the network of others, all connected with old rope and repurposed wood. A trio of snapping thunks made Sorren jump, just as Hotep was starting up the second ladder. The thin, ramshackle wall between them and the open air had a pair of new holes, along with the metal tip of a crossbow quarrel piercing the wood at eye level.

Shit.

Splint spotted it as well. He and Sorren exchanged a look, before the northman began searching the room. Sorren leapt for the ladder and heaved himself up as fast as he could, hoping to reach the dubious shelter above before the bastards had reloaded. He clambered onto the walkway that bridged two hovels, just beside the entrance—where Hotep stood, gesturing feverishly for him to hurry. Stone shattered in a spray beside his head, chips nicking his cheek and forehead. With a curse, he scrambled past Hotep with renewed, itching vigour.

One more. The one above them, and then a jump down to the guardhouse roof.

Sorren looked down, and couldn’t see Splint yet. He saw motion, but before he could focus on it, another volley of bolts slammed into the wood around him.

The steel point of one of the killer quarrels had stopped only an inch or so from Hotep’s thigh. Sorren and the moustachioed mercenary traded looks of shocked relief before Sorren frantically waved him on and looked back down.

The hatchway of the hovel below was suddenly filled with a dark and unfamiliar shape. It was a man. His head flopped horribly on a too-long neck. Splint shoved upward, simultaneously climbing the rope ladder with one hand and dangling the corpse back over his shoulder as a grotesque shield. A bolt thudded into the dead man, but the northman moved upward without hesitating.

Hotep was nearly onto the next roof, using his lanky frame to clamber up directly while keeping as much of the Barnacle between him and the reloading death below.

Splint joined Sorren, dropping the bolt-pricked corpse to smash into the room below as he heaved himself through the doorway. The new, broken hole revealed the dark shapes of men pursuing them.

More crossbow shots hammered into wood and cracked against stone. Their aim was growing wilder, the darkness obscuring their targets the higher they went.

They needed to move. It was only a matter of time before dumb luck caught up with them. Splint hauled himself up the ladder while Sorren leapt to grab Hotep’s proffered hand. Even crouched low atop the final hovel, they could see the gatehouse roof. It wasn’t all that far, but they’d have to catch the edge with their hands, and dangle their arses out into open space.

Hotep leapt first, his long legs helping him to swing up and roll over the lip smoothly. Sorren flinched as a bolt smashed into the corner of the gatehouse. He rushed forward heedlessly, hoping to get into the air before his mind rebelled. The pain in his back was like a white-hot brand, and his mind offered him images of coming up short, tumbling down to his death. But he got his fingers onto the edge, and Hotep wasted no time hauling him up.

Sorren looked back to see Splint’s silhouette hunkering down on the hovel’s roof, bolts hammering into the wood and stone around him.

“Come on, you oaf!” Sorren shouted.

Splint rolled his neck, began to rise, and Sorren could see him mouthing words through his iron-grey beard.

A flicker of motion made the old raider flinch. Red fletching dyed black by the night sprouted from his upper arm. Splint didn’t scream, but he stumbled and nearly fell from the Barnacle.

He crouched in the shadows, hand on his wound.

Sorren’s stomach sank.

Splint couldn’t make it onto this roof with his arm pinned to his torso, let alone up the long chain. A hollowness opened in Sorren’s skull, that he tried to fill with vain denials.

The northman’s face was barely visible, but Sorren thought he saw him nod to himself. He rose again, and Sorren felt a mad flood of hope. But Splint didn’t attempt the jump. Instead, he unhooked the coil of rope from his injured arm, and tossed it over the gap.

Wordless horror tore out of both Sorren and Hotep as splint turned back. Pursuers swarmed the ladders, struggling up. The bowmen below had either exhausted their supplies or lost interest.

The already weakened structure creaked with strain. One looter was on the ladder beneath Splint. The old raider drew his axe and, without even a shout, chopped the rope ladder from its moorings.

The man who’d been climbing screamed as he fell. His comrades shouted and hollered in surprise, and the rickety structure groaned violently under the impact.

Then Splint followed.

He did so with characteristic ferocious silence. Axe raised high, the old raider dropped feet first toward the confusion below. How he landed, or whether his strike met flesh, was lost as his massive frame smashed the crowded, fragile hovel into kindling.

Screams joined the general cacophony as one hovel smashed into another, dragging doomed men down to crash into the unyielding cobbles below.

Hotep and Sorren stared. The broken pile of wood and bloody flesh had swallowed Splint entirely. There was no sign of him among the remnants.

“Come on, Hotep. We gotta move.”

The blonde mercenary took a moment to react, his attention fixed on the chaos below. Sorren was doing the same, unable to discern revolutionary from soldier, but they all churned and killed together. Hotep finally stood, expression solemn and eyes glittering. Then he gripped the thick chain that stretched up to the gate’s top. He began the long climb in uncharacteristic silence.

Sorren looked down at the coil of rope, Splint’s last gift.

He let his friend gain some height as he gathered the rope and satisfied himself that they were forgotten.

The chain was cold in his hands and too thick to wrap his fingers around, but he could grip it well enough to make his way up. The shoulders of each link worked like knots in a rope. The pair climbed upwards, the world growing darker as the fires below shrank with distance.

About two-thirds of the way up the immense chain, Sorren began to fear he wouldn’t make it. His arms were burning with strain, his hands slippery with sweat, and there was a cold, stinging wetness on his back that could only be blood.

Every heaving pull was a struggle. Sorren argued internally with a little voice that said: just give up.

He could let go and fall into peaceful oblivion. But he kept climbing, following the vague shadow of his friend above.

By the time Sorren reached the top, his shoulders shook and were numb as old, dead wood. The rest of his muscles raged more fiercely, now that the labour was nearly done. But his climb was all but over, finally. With a hand from Hotep, he dragged himself over the internal crenellation, and flopped down onto the wall-walk.

Hotep was leaning on the wall’s battlements, his face pale and beaded with sweat.

Sorren wanted to speak, but nothing came out. They were both exhausted, and even if they hadn’t been, seeing Splint die had made any words feeble.

Instead, Sorren struggled to his feet and just nodded to his friend. Understanding and grief made Hotep’s return nod slow and heavy. Sorren joined him and took a moment to look over the city.

By the sun’s light.

It was a vista as harrowing as it was beautiful. The city stretched out before him like a shadowy carpet, interspersed with great gouts of dancing, growing flame. The sky was a strange, murky mirror. All black smoke-stained clouds tinged a dull red by the flames below.

The burning nipped at Sorren’s sense of smell like a rat at a corpse. The sounds of screams, faint and unsettling, rode the wind in waves. Sorren stood in awe of the destruction, cold sweat prickling his face and dry blood cracking on his back.

They stayed like that for a long time, watching fires ebb and flow, rioters clashing with uniformed men, and smoke drifting above it all in great, black plumes. Both men gasped when the looming, graceful shape of the palace suddenly exploded into blue flames that seemed far more alive than the rest. It seemed to twist and writhe with malice. A hateful, unnatural fire that hungered.

The two mercenaries exchanged a look, eyes wide with shock and primal fear.

Wordlessly, they turned their backs on that abominable sight and shuffled to the outer battlements. Sorren pulled Splint’s last gift from his shoulder, and together they worked to tie it off around one of the crenellations. When he tossed the free end off the wall and watched it reach all the way to the dusty ground, relief washed over him and left him laughing breathlessly.

“I will let you go first, Jingle. I don’t want you getting too tired and then falling on me. I’d rather just die of old age waiting for my turn.” Hotep’s grin was a genuine one, though it was worn thin by sadness and exhaustion.

Sorren couldn’t help but return the expression before he grabbed the rope and began the long, difficult climb.