The Broken Isles

FIFTEEN

Malum spotted the poster nailed to a decrepit noticeboard outside a Jorsalir church, deep in the Ancient Quarter.

It was late morning, the skies had just cleared after a quick shower, and the cobbles shone brightly in the sunlight. A flock of seagulls swooped by overhead. The day’s traffic had calmed after the throng of the dawn markets, allowing him to contemplate the notice in peace.

But Malum read the information in disgust.

The notice was a piece of pro-alien propaganda from the military; it played on the fears of the populace and tried to appeal to their sense of self-preservation. It explained what was happening with the alien peoples camped to the south of the city and that without their aid against the Okun — or worse — Villiren, and the whole island, might be destroyed.

How many of these posters were around the city, he had no idea, but the military were obviously trying to get the people to accept the aliens.

‘Imperial filth,’ he muttered to himself, and ripped the poster down, chucking it into a puddle.

Cheap tricks, he thought. I’m going to have to tear these down and raise my own game in the war to get people behind the gangs — and behind me.

Malum buried his hands in his pockets, and headed to an agreed meeting point outside a tavern.

Four members of his gang were loitering outside, one of them with a huge hessian sack at his feet. A black horse and a large, sturdy wooden cart pulled up a moment later, and the cloaked driver nodded to Malum. One by one, his comrades climbed up onto the back of it, the final one hauling the sack and carefully lowering it on board.

‘We’re good to go,’ Malum called over to the driver, then hopped onto the back.

The cart turned in a large circle and rode south-west through the city.

An hour later, they found themselves in scrubland, just beyond the poverty-stricken district on the edge of Villiren. There was nothing here but snow, mud and a few copses of trees. It was much colder in these exposed conditions, and much quieter, but at least the skies were still clear.

‘This’ll do,’ Malum shouted, and the cart drew to a halt. ‘Right, let’s get to it.’

The gang disembarked and began to set up the gear from the hessian sack. They unveiled a large harpoon catapult, one previously used for whaling, arranged it so that the tip pointed up into the sky at an angle of around sixty degrees.

Malum asked for the harpoon to be loaded to test it out.

‘Let it go,’ he said, and one of his men released a harpoon with a thunk — it rocketed into the sky, almost out of sight, almost touching the base of a passing cloud, before falling to the ground some distance away, beyond a copse.

‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘Good work, lads.’

They mumbled their thanks before loading it up with something else entirely — a relic they’d bought from a new cultist contact, a woman who worked from a rented apartment in Saltwater. It was a thin silver tube, with a pointed end, and in many respects looked exactly like a harpoon. The only difference was that when this reached the highest point in the sky, it would detonate, stunning anything within fifty feet.

‘How long till one comes, boss?’ one of his younger crew asked, a swarthy, grubby-looking guy not long out of his teens.

‘This is the route garudas take, and at least a couple come by after noon each day,’ he said. ‘We’ll just wait it out and fire when we’re ready. For now, just scan the skies and the first of you to spot one gets drinks all night on me.’

It was the better part of an hour and Malum continued pacing around the mud, contemplating his strategy.

‘Hey, Malum! One’s coming now.’

Malum stood by the catapult and gave the instruction to fire when it was within range. The avian drifted in an arc towards Villiren, a stark silhouette against the bright sky.

Thunk.

The relic was released and travelled right towards the bird — and, at its peak, the device gave a spark of purple light. The garuda immediately fell from its flight directly to the ground, and the gang began hollering their excitement.

‘Nice work, now let’s get over there,’ Malum said. ‘Tie it up, get a sack over its head, and load it onto the cart. We deal with the questions in the city.’

As the moon broke free of the clouds that night, while Malum pored over his crude accountancy, he was informed that the garuda was now fully conscious. They had dragged the brown-feathered creature underground, to one of their bolt-holes. There they stripped it of any Imperial armour, held back its arms, and his men laid into it, giving it several blows to the back of its wings, before striking it repeatedly in its stomach.

The thing gave off a hell of a noise, and Malum called away his men. Gripping a lantern, he stepped closer to the creature, which was slouched against the stone wall. He noted its impressive plumage and gently speckled face, its huge beak, muscular arms and torso.

‘You don’t talk, we get that,’ he growled. ‘But we know that you fuckers can write.’

He nodded for one of his men to bring a piece of paper and a pencil, and placed it on the floor in front of the garuda.

‘We’ll be back in an hour,’ Malum said, ‘and in that hour you will have written down all the movements of the alien races that are going on around the city. I want to know exactly what the threat is to Villiren, where this so-called threat is, but mostly I want to know if the Okun are anywhere near the city. And if you don’t, we’ll break off one of your wings.’

As he walked away, he whispered to one of the more senior of his gang, ‘Make sure you dump the body out of the city when you’re done. We can’t have gossip of this getting back to the military.’