‘I agree.’
Slowly, Rag, Shirl and Essen turned to look at Harkas, whose rumbling voice was rarely heard by anyone.
‘Eh?’ asked Essen, when they’d finally got over the shock of Harkas speaking.
‘Rag’s right,’ he rumbled on. ‘We can’t let them open the Lych Gate.’
‘Look,’ said Essen. ‘Leave the thinking to us, all right. Trying to stop them opening that gate is madness. We’ll all be better off just leaving it alone. Bastian’s done a deal. The Guild and anyone in it is safe. We just have to sit tight and ride this one out.’
‘You can do as you please,’ Rag said, feeling more confident for Harkas’ support. ‘But we’re gonna stop them while we have the chance. You in, Shirl?’
Shirl stared at her. Then at Essen. Then at Harkas.
‘I’ve still got family in the city. They won’t be safe when the Khurtas come. I guess I’d best help.’
Rag turned back to Essen. ‘That’s three to one. You still out?’
Essen shook his head. ‘I ain’t having nothing to do with this and you can’t bloody well force me.’
‘Ain’t no one gonna. But you’d best keep your mouth shut about what we’re gonna do.’
Essen glanced at Harkas, who just stared, all silent and intimidating. Then slowly he nodded.
‘Right,’ said Rag, ‘that’s that then. We’ve got some planning to do. But first I’m gonna see if we can get more recruits.’ She stood up, feeling the weariness of her night creeping into her limbs, but she pushed it back. ‘You two meet me at the main square in Eastgate in two hours,’ she said to Harkas and Shirl. Then she looked at Essen. ‘You best stay the fuck where you are.’ Essen didn’t answer.
With that she was gone from the tavern and out on the streets. The cold crept into her bones, seeming that much crueller after the heat of the night before. Her big toe in particular, sticking out of her shoe as it was, seemed to feel the chill most of all.
She stopped in the street, kicking off both shoes and leaving them there. She’d spent most of her life padding round in bare feet, and she’d never liked the way the shoes made her feet feel anyhow.
As Rag made her way south through the city to Dockside she saw what the Khurtas had done to the place. She’d seen first-hand what fire had done to the Rafts. Now she saw what it had done to Dockside and the Warehouse District. Weren’t a house on any street that had got away unscathed. Some were reduced to rubble, others to ash. Every roof had at least half the slates missing and by the time Rag reached Slip Street she began to think this was a fool’s errand. When she saw the state of the Silent Bull, she slowly raised a hand to her mouth.
The tavern where Chirpy, Migs and Tidge made their home was flattened like cow shit. The buildings on either side were still standing, more or less, but the Silent Bull was nothing but a pile of bricks and smashed timbers.
Rag staggered forward, stumbling through the wreckage. All she could think was that her lads must have been on the roof, minding their business, when a ball of flame came and took them all out in an instant. At least it would have been quick. Or that’s what Rag kept telling herself.
In the distance another ball of fire came flying over the wall, and Rag watched as it smashed into something on the other side of the district.
This had been stupid. No one was still in Dockside, and even the lads wouldn’t have been dumb enough to stay here with those ships in the harbour raining all kinds of shit down on the south of the city.
She turned to leave.
‘I told you it was her.’
Rag spun at the voice, glancing around for a sign of whoever owned it. At first she couldn’t see nothing, thinking her ears were playing tricks on her, and then she noticed him standing there. Tidge, face and hair all black, standing at the edge of the wreckage. Chirpy and Migs came into view then, looking at her all suspicious, but she didn’t care. She ran to them, grabbing hold of Tidge and Chirpy in a headlock and squeezing them till they started to struggle. She kissed their filthy heads, feeling the tears of relief flood her eyes.
‘You gone fucking soft?’ said Migs as she tried to reach out for him too.
Rag laughed. ‘Yeah, I think I have. I thought you were all …’
‘Yeah,’ said Chirpy, looking pleased to see her. ‘We would have been if we hadn’t been out on the rob. Every house round here’s left empty. Easy pickings.’
‘Not every house,’ said Tidge. ‘Boris stayed in the Bull after everyone had left.’ He gestured to the wreckage. ‘He’ll be in there somewhere, flat as a fucking fart.’
‘He was always moaning about his weight anyhow,’ said Migs. ‘Don’t have to worry about that no more, do he?’
‘What about Fender?’ asked Rag.
Migs shook his head. ‘Ain’t seen no sign of that cunt since before the Khurtas got here.’
Rag had thought that would be the answer. They didn’t need him anyway. She was here now. She would look after them.
‘What you doing here anyhow, Rag?’ Tidge asked.
She smiled at him. ‘I’ve come for you lot,’ she replied.
‘What?’ asked Migs. ‘Come to see if we’re still living in the lap of luxury?’ He gestured around at the carnage.
‘No,’ Rag said with a smile. ‘I’ve come to see if you want to help save the city.’
TWENTY-ONE
A moment of quiet reflection. It was all Janessa had wanted. Part of her felt selfish for it. There was so much still to do, so much planning, so much to know, to organise, but she needed a moment alone.
The gardens had been her father’s sanctuary; there seemed no reason why they shouldn’t also act as hers. Even though the shadows of dark memory lingered here — the sickening touch of Azai Dravos, when he had looked into her heart, into her belly and found her unborn child — she still took solace in the place. Besides, she had killed Dravos; struck the head from his shoulders and stood the survivor. That was a victory she could revel in.
Thoughts of Dravos faded as she stood within the winter garden. The chill of the air did not bother her. She had dismissed her Sentinels and Kaira was elsewhere, most likely taking some deserved rest after her labours during the night. Janessa was alone, the weight of her armour and her sword gone for just a brief amount of time.
She breathed deep, remembering what it had been like before all this. Before she had lost Graye to betrayal and murder. Before she had lost her father to the hand of Amon Tugha. Before River had abandoned her.
For that tiny moment, as the cold breeze caressed her face and swept through her red curls, she was carefree again. There was no city in peril, no savages at the wall.
Should she have taken her chance weeks ago and fled the city? It would have been so easy. A swift horse or passage on a ship. Enough gold to make a new start, a new life. All this would have been as nothing — a past she could have left behind. There had been a chance, when River had asked her to run away with him. At the time it had seemed a difficult choice but now, in that garden, with the weight of ten thousand lives resting on her, she could hardly believe she had hesitated.
That chance was gone, though. Now there would be no swift horse. There was no caravel to carry her to safer shores. So she would take this moment and savour it. Breathe it in, despite the stench of death and fire that was carried on the air. Who knew when she would get another chance? Who knew how long this moment might last?
‘I also find the quiet moments are the best.’
Janessa turned, her daydream shattered. Leon Magrida stood watching her from beneath the naked branches of a willow. Baroness Isabelle’s son smiled at her warmly but it did nothing to stifle the cold on her skin. He too had lived at the palace since the Khurtas had set Dreldun on fire but thankfully, unlike his mother, Janessa had seen little of him in the past days of strife.
Her eyes scanned the gardens but there was no sign of anyone else. How he had made it past her Sentinels she had no idea. He certainly had a talent for lurking unseen. The thought did nothing to put her at ease.