Herald of the Storm

FORTY-ONE

He was holding her down, his weight crushing her, squeezing the air from her lungs. She could smell his breath on her face, hot and sickly like meat left out in the sun. As he fumbled between her legs she wanted to scream, wanted to lash out, but she couldn’t move. It wasn’t fear that paralysed her, just a deadness in her limbs. Her eyes were wide, she could see his face leering down, his tongue stuck out like a slug, swollen and wet. He grabbed the inside of her thigh and squeezed. It was just to inflict pain, just to hurt her. Tears were coming now, flooding out across her face, but it didn’t stop him. His breath was getting more fevered, more ragged, and he was moving between her legs, his body heaving and writhing for position. As she moved her head, frantic and desperate, she finally managed to shake off the hand that clamped her mouth shut, but the scream wouldn’t come, lost in her throat as he …

Rag opened her eyes, heart pounding.

She could still smell him, still see him on top of her, but it was only a ghost.

A dead man?

The room was small but airy. A window was open somewhere: she could feel the breeze as it cooled the place; and a bird chirruped nearby.

Rag raised a hand to her face, wincing as she touched her eye, feeling the sting of her swollen flesh. Maybe raising her head would be a good idea, give her a look at her surroundings, see what was what. As she lifted it off the pillow, the room spun, her head feeling like a barrel of oil on top of her shoulders.

All right, maybe not such a good idea after all.

Where was she anyway? Some kind of infirmary? Someone’s home?

It wouldn’t do to give in to blind panic at a time like this, but Rag was most definitely on the brink. She knew she had to move, had to get out of here and quick. If she remembered right, Krupps had taken a right beating and it was the Greencoats what gave it. If they’d questioned him, he might well have told them everything; about the murder and the part Rag had played in it. She wasn’t about to hang around: a trip to the gallows weren’t inviting.

She willed herself to move, raising her head once more, feeling the room spin again but ignoring it. It was only dizziness — it couldn’t hurt her … but it appeared it was going to make her throw up.

The desire to lie back down was almost overwhelming but Rag fought it — fought it like she’d fought Krupps in that back alley, all desperate and like her life depended on it. This time, though, she managed to win out, holding down the sick.

There was a door — she could see it sitting there all spinny and blurry in her vision. All she had to do was get up, start walking and she’d be out before anyone knew it.

Rag braced her hands on the edge of the bed and pushed off, ready to land deftly and get the hells out of here. As her feet touched the floor her knees gave way, collapsing beneath her like dried twigs. She clawed at the sheets, gritting her teeth against the nausea and the dizziness and trying her hardest to get up but it was too hard, just too hard.

Tears began to well in her eyes.

No bloody tears, she thought. How am I ever going to get into the Guild if I cry like a baby every time something goes wrong?

The door opened with a creak and a young lad walked in. He was blonde and fresh faced, with a jug in his hand, probably water, probably for her, and he looked at her floundering there for a second. It was clear he had no idea what to do, and Rag didn’t really have advice for him, so she couldn’t really complain that he was just standing there, looking at her hanging from the bed sheets.

Without a word to her he ran off. She could hear him calling for someone at the top of his voice, telling whoever it was that the girl was awake.

That was it then: all over. They’d come back now and put her to the question and as soon as she could walk, which didn’t feel like it would be any time soon, they’d give her a short rope and a long drop.

Footsteps, quick and heavy — here it came. As he walked in she recognised him straight away, despite the blur of her vision. When he’d picked her up back in the alley she thought she knew his face. Now that she could see him proper, Rag was sure she knew who it was.

He was a big bastard: thick neck, short hair, face that had seen plenty of action. No wonder Markus had been so frightened of him. Rag barely knew the bloke and she was already scared.

When he picked her up, though, when he helped her off the floor and placed her back on the bed he was almost gentle, those eyes that could have looked so hard if he’d wanted only seemed to look concerned. It reminded her of when she’d seen him on Dancer’s Hill putting Markus in the ground. He hadn’t seemed so fierce then neither.

‘You shouldn’t try to move,’ he said in a deep voice that could so easily have sounded menacing if he’d chose. ‘You’ve taken a bit of a beating.’

Rag appreciated his concern, but the fact she was still in trouble certainly wasn’t lost on her. Any moment now it would start. How did you know Krupps? Were you with him that night? Did you join in the stabbing and the butchering too?

She braced herself for it, knew it was coming.

The young lad walked in behind him and the big fella turned around. ‘You just left her lying on the floor?’

The lad looked up like he had no idea what his own name was. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I’m not surgeon trained.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Denny.’ The big bloke turned back to her then, lifting a hand to her cheek as though checking it for fever. ‘My name’s Lincon,’ he said, all soft like. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Rag.’ She was caught so off guard she’d said it before she could stop herself. Until she’d tried to speak, Rag hadn’t realised how weak she was, how parched.

‘Go get some water,’ said Lincon, over one shoulder, and it was enough to send the young lad, Denny, scuttling off to fetch it. ‘You’re safe now, Rag. No one’s gonna hurt you.’

Rag didn’t know this bloke other than what she’d gathered from Markus. By all accounts he’d been a cold, hard bastard who’d treated that lad like shit, but when he told her she was safe, that no one was gonna hurt her again, she trusted his word like she’d never trusted no one.

Weren’t they going to question her? Hadn’t Krupps told them everything by now?

‘Where’s …?’ She could barely bring herself to say his name. What he’d done … what he’d tried to do. ‘Where’s …?’

‘Don’t you worry yourself about that no more,’ Lincon said. ‘He won’t hurt you again. He won’t hurt no one again; the serjeant’s seen to that all right.’

‘He’s …?’

‘As a doornail, love.’

Denny came in with the water and Lincon held up a cup for him to pour. Then he cradled Rag’s pounding head and lifted the cup to her lips.

As she drank, she could only look into his face, seeing those cold, steel eyes. She’d thought he was a monster, but he was giving her water, caring for her like she was his own.

No one had ever cared for Rag when she was sick before. She’d always been the one to act mother, always taken care of Chirpy, Migs and Tidge when they’d caught a fever or got a cut or a graze. It made her nervous, made her wary, but still she let him hold her head up and pour that drink right into her mouth. When the cup was empty he laid her head back down on the pillow.

‘Where is he now?’ she asked. Now she had some wet on her lips it was easier to speak.

‘As I said, he’s dead, love. You don’t need to worry.’

‘No, I mean his body. Where’s his body?’

Lincon looked around uncertain, like he didn’t really know how to answer.

‘Until someone comes to take him off for a burial he’s … erm … in our cellar. It’s cool down there, see.’

Rag closed her eyes. Nothing else to say. That was all she needed for now. Lincon sat with her for a while longer, at least as long as it took her to fall asleep.

When she woke later it was dark. What moonlight there was in the room showed she was alone again, and this time Rag knew she had to get up, had to use her legs no matter what.

She sat up in the dark and, holding her breath, slid off the bed and placed a foot on the floor, only breathing out when she managed to put some weight on it without collapsing. Both feet and she realised she could stand, a little shaky but not as bad as she had been.

Somewhere along the line she’d lost her shoes, but that was the least of her worries. Her head throbbed and in the dark she was going to struggle to find Krupps’ body.

Rag opened the door to the room and peered out. The corridor beyond was just as dark as her room. It was like this place was deserted. Typical Greencoats — never around when something was going on.

She stepped out, closing the door behind her, and moved along the corridor. It wasn’t long before she heard the sound of someone snoring. As she got closer she saw it was the young lad who’d come into her room earlier, Denny was it? He was slumped in a chair, arms folded, and at his side was sheathed a short blade.

Just what she needed.

Her eyes flitted from Denny’s face to the sword handle as she reached out, willing him to stay asleep. She grasped the handle, pulling it upwards, feeling it slide easy in the sheath, blowing out one long breath as the blade came free. Denny snored on as he was disarmed, and Rag allowed herself a smile as she tucked the blade under her arm and padded away down the corridor. He’d most likely be in the shit later for losing it, but right now Rag’s need was the greater.

‘We’re not taking him!’ The voice bellowed from a room to Rag’s left, and she barely had time to slam herself against the wall, hugging the shadows for dear life, as a door opened, illuminating the corridor. A tall man in a robe walked out, followed by a grizzled brute with one eye and half an arm. They was both clearly pissed off about something.

‘You’re the District Sexton; it’s your fucking job! What am I supposed to do with him?’ growled the one-eyed man.

‘Burn him in the courtyard for all I care, but unless you can afford the fee the city graveyards are full. And as I’ve said, the fee’s gone up.’

‘Since when?’ He was clearly growing angrier.

‘Since the recent influx of refugees from the four corners of the Free States. Most of them won’t last the winter. Not to mention the bodies that’ll be coming in from the north soon enough. The burial yards are full as it is. If you can’t afford it, you’ll just have to dump him in the Storway. Either way — you killed him, so he’s your responsibility.’

With that the robed man stomped off.

‘Twat,’ mumbled the grizzled brute, as he set off in the opposite direction.

Neither of them even noticed Rag was there.

Before the door could swing fully closed after them, she moved forward, jamming her arm inside. Once she’d slipped through the gap, Rag squinted against the lantern light that illuminated the room, until her eyes adjusted. Her heart began to beat a little faster as she spotted the dark passage leading downwards.

She picked up the lantern off the table and stepped down towards the cellar. It smelled stale, and she wrinkled her nose against it, but considering there was a dead body down there, at least it didn’t stink of rot.

Or she hoped there was a dead body down here. If not she was in deep shit.

The lantern did its job piercing the darkness as she reached the bottom of the stairs, but it didn’t stop the ominous feeling in her stomach. The walls were covered in damp, and somewhere she could have sworn she heard a rat squeak.

This all paled when she saw that in the centre of the cellar, lying on a wooden table, was a body. She couldn’t see its face — someone had draped a brown woollen blanket over him — but Rag knew who it was, lying there in the dark and the cold.

Her courage almost gave out right then. She almost dropped the blade and turned and ran back up the stairs.

Almost.

Weren’t no one going to do this for her. Weren’t no one ever going to do anything for her again. This was her chance. Her one last chance.

She sat the lantern to one side and walked forward. Any moment she expected the body to move, to sit up and throw the sheet aside and look at her and say, ‘All right, Sweets? Shall we carry on where we left off?’ And then he’d take her by the throat and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.

But Krupps didn’t do that, because he weren’t there no more. There was a body all right, but it weren’t him. Krupps was gone now, off to wherever bastards went when they died.

All that was left was meat on a slab.

With that in mind, Rag reached out and grabbed the edge of the sheet. No point in doing it slow, prolonging the act, and she pulled it aside, showing Krupps to the world. Or at least what was left of him.

She hadn’t been far wrong about meat on a slab. Those Greencoats had done a job on him all right. His face was a mess of blood, the flesh all blue and black beneath, his mouth hung slack and she could see the teeth within smashed and ruined. Weren’t nothing of his eyes but swollen lumps.

Rag looked at him for a while, wondering how she felt about this. He’d tried to do her in, right enough, but she still couldn’t bring herself to hate him totally for it. If she’d had the guts and the strength, wouldn’t she have done the same to him?

Right now, though, she didn’t feel nothing for him. And for what she was about to do Rag reckoned that was just about the right way to feel.

The blade suddenly felt heavy in her hand, but she lifted it anyway, pausing to take a breath before sinking it into his neck as he lay there. Krupps didn’t make no sound or protest as she went at it, carving him up like a hunk of meat. The going was tough even though the blade was keen all right, but she guessed cutting a head off weren’t no easy thing. There was less blood than she’d expected, and she reckoned that was a blessing — she still wasn’t good with blood. As she continued, Rag resorted to using the blade like a saw, heaving back and forth like cutting through a log, and it seemed to be the best way. There was bone and gristle in the middle — that was the hardest to get through — but when that was done, the rest was easy.

Once she’d sawed right the way through that neck to the table beneath, Krupps’ head moved all of a sudden. Rag stepped back, just watching as it rolled right off the table and hit the cellar floor with a thud. She stared at it, wondering what to do next, feeling the weight of the knife in her hand, strangely tempted to start carving other bits off him, but there weren’t no time for that.

Rag grabbed the brown blanket he’d been laid under and rolled the head inside, wrapping it up tight. A bloodstain appeared in the wool, but there weren’t nothing she could do about that now. Besides, it was dark and with any luck no one would even notice.

Leaving the blade behind, she grabbed the lantern and made her way back up the stairs, only too glad to be leaving the cellar behind her. Someone was going to get a big surprise when they went down there later, and she almost laughed as she imagined them shitting themselves in fright at finding a decapitated body.

Once at the top she ditched the lantern and opened the door to the corridor beyond. It was still dark and quiet, no sign of anyone, and Rag slipped out, letting the door close behind her.

She had no idea where she was, or how to get out, but it wouldn’t do to stand around and wait for someone to give her directions. She padded along quiet as the grave, her bare feet making barely a sound as she worked her way around the building, into a wide courtyard. There was still no Greencoat in sight as she hurried across the yard, spurred on by her fear and her excitement, her bruised face and fuddled head all but forgotten.

The yard led out onto the street, a quiet street she didn’t recognise, but it didn’t matter. She was out now, and she had her prize and it would all be worth it.

As she ran, with the filth of the streets squelching beneath the soles of her feet, she got to thinking that all her troubles were almost finished.