He reached down by his feet for some fist-sized rocks, which he wrapped into the cloth, then pressed it down into the water. A stream of bubbles popped the surface as it sank. For that moment, only he knew Down’s secret. He had to share it, and he had to share it with her.
He moved closer, until their heads were touching.
‘I know we’re still sitting in a river, but you have to listen to this, in case it goes even more wrong in the next few minutes. Down is broken, and something in the White City has broken it. Because of that, portals keep ripping away from Londons, destroying both the portal and the London in the process. If we can stop that happening, we might fix Down so we can use the portals to travel both ways. It doesn’t matter if you believe me, or even understand me: that’s what the map says. If it was me, I’d try the circular building first. Okay?’
He pushed himself away and saw her nod, and shiver, but the nodding was what he needed.
He now had to work out how to sneak up on something that was impossible to kill, get a rifle away from it, and then try to kill it. Possibly in that order, but he was open to suggestions.
Mary mouthed the word ‘fuck’, mimed stabbing something, and held up her empty hands. She’d lost her dagger. As a weapon against the Lords of the White City, it was pretty useless, but something was always better than nothing.
He dragged out his machete and held it out to her, handle first.
She frowned and shook her head.
He made the ‘take it or else’ face, the one his mother used on him when he was refusing another helping at dinner. She took it.
He picked up two more rocks from the riverbed, one in each fist. It didn’t matter that they were sharp. It mattered that they were heavy enough to cause damage, and dense enough that they weren’t going to shatter. He jerked his head at the riverbank, and he crept out, keeping low. She did the same, but with more muted cursing.
The path was just above them, rising on its way into the valley. He glanced up at the sky. The eclipse was almost finished: the disc was brightening at the edges, and the sky fluttered with pearlescent rays. There was enough light now to see that someone had built a barricade across the path, just at the gorge mouth. There was a figure crouched his side of it, and he could make out the shape of a barrel pointing into the air.
He pointed to the path, pointed at Mary. He touched his chest and held his hand down and to the left. She scraped her hair away from her face, adjusted her dress, and moved with cat-like grace on to and along the path, stalking her prey.
He advanced more slowly, picking his way through the shrubby undergrowth, watching where his feet fell, turning and bending to avoid branches.
The figure at the hastily constructed barricade◦– made from fallen branches and slabs of stone◦– didn’t move so much as a twitch, and the closer Dalip got, the stranger it looked. There were no brightly coloured robes: instead, the whole body was covered head to foot in black. The rifle wasn’t trained on the narrow path ahead, but up at the sky. The shape of it made it looked crumpled, not alert.
It looked asleep.
Crows. It was Crows. It wasn’t one of the Lords at all. Dalip had just assumed that it would either be the ferryman or one of the others on guard, unblinking in their watch. Instead, it was Crows who’d got the rifle from the ferryman. He’d shot and killed one of the pirates, bottling them all up in the valley, still blindly refusing to let the maps◦– and the reward he expected◦– go.
Dalip motioned for Mary to slow down. He moved quicker, not worrying about little noises like scratches against his clothing or the rustle of leaves. He climbed the last of the bank, and stood behind Crows’ prone form. He bent down, put one of the rocks on the ground, then held the other one high.
Mary put her hand under his arm to stop him from smashing Crows’ skull open. He looked at her: surely this was necessary, surely this was justice for Luiza. Striking now was the safest course for anyone who’d ever had the misfortune to cross Crows’ path, before he could open his mouth, tell his lies and weaken Dalip’s resolve.
And hadn’t he vowed to do this? Hadn’t he sworn that he’d kill Crows? Even if it meant killing him while he slept. Didn’t Dalip have the right, the duty, the responsibility, to see that it was done, on behalf of Crows’ victims, past, present and future?
It wasn’t how he imagined it would happen. Yet here he was, and he should really get on with it.
Mary still held his arm. She shook her head, very slowly, very slightly, her gaze not leaving his. She wasn’t going to fight him, but neither was she going to let him do this. If he killed Crows, their friendship would be over. If he didn’t, he’d blame her later when Crows would inevitably be Crows.
‘Just… stand back,’ he said. ‘You don’t even have to watch.’
‘No. You can’t. Take the gun.’
‘When he’s dead.’
Crows stirred, and suddenly started, as if he knew he shouldn’t have been dozing. His hands flapped like birds’ wings as he tried to sit up and control the rifle simultaneously. Dalip reached out and closed his fist around the rifle’s midsection, tearing it away from Crows’ tenuous grasp. He tossed the rock he was carrying aside and brought the stock to his shoulder.
The safety was off◦– he checked◦– and the bolt already home. He looked through the sights at Crows’ panicked eyes.
‘Shit. Dalip,’ said Mary.
‘Army cadets. Turns out it was good for something other than being shouted at for an hour a week.’
Crows backed up, pressing himself as far as he could into the barricade. He cringed before Dalip, turning his head up and away so that he wouldn’t have to look at the rifle’s muzzle.
Mary kicked his feet. ‘You… you… bastard.’
‘They made me,’ he said quickly. ‘They made me. I swear this to be true.’
Dalip’s finger curled through the trigger guard. Mary couldn’t stop him now. Only he could stop himself.
‘You could have said no,’ she said. She stopped kicking and swiped at him with the flat of the machete. ‘Or you could have said yes and lied, like you usually do.’
One shot, anywhere in the chest. At that short range, even Dalip couldn’t miss.
‘Do you know what you’ve done?’
‘What I had to. Nothing more.’
Dalip could feel the curve of the cold steel trigger. A slight squeeze, and he could end this futile interrogation.
Crows glanced at him, saw him tightening his grip, and shrieked: ‘Mercy! I beg for mercy.’
But as he shied away, covering his face with his hands, his gaze briefly crossed the space behind them.
Dalip turned, fired, worked the bolt to extract the still-smoking cartridge, and fired again.
The ferryman staggered. His clothing had puffed twice◦– two palpable hits◦– and he pressed the tip of his finger against one of the holes, feeling its size and shape. He looked up at Dalip, who dragged the bolt back, pushed it forward again.
There was no blood. Each bullet should have been enough on its own. Third time lucky.
He sighted carefully, aimed for the centre of mass, felt the kick against his shoulder, ejected the spent shell.
Now the ferryman’s expression changed from one of morbid curiosity to one of neutral indifference. He slipped to one knee, then toppled over on to his back, his leg caught under him at an unnatural angle. He lay still, and didn’t move again.
Dalip chambered another round, and spun around. Crows had gone. He’d leapt the barricade, and was running as fast as he could towards the White City, his black robes flapping around him.