Chris Wooding: The Iron jackal

‘We want her alive, remember?’ Jez said. ‘She can’t talk when she’s dead.’

‘ You talk and you’re dead,’ Pinn sulked, which, Frey had to concede, was a fair point.

‘Cap’n,’ said Malvery. ‘She’s getting awa-’

‘I know!’ he yelled. He’d been torn between chasing after her and the fear of running out into the open, in case the mercs had more guns. Malvery’s prompt was the spur he needed. His pride wouldn’t let him cower; not after they’d recognised him from the broadsheets.

‘Cover me!’ he shouted, and came out from behind the table at a run.

Malvery bellowed at the mercs. ‘Keep your damn heads down if you don’t want ’em blown off your shoulders!’

The mercs obeyed. Not many people argued with Malvery at full volume.

Frey pursued Ashua through the door, and found himself at the bottom of a square stairwell, warm and dim. He could hear Ashua’s boots echoing above him as she ascended.

The stairwell was tight, built around a hollow centre. Several storeys above, evening light filtered down from a squat, open-sided tower. Frey caught glimpses of movement above him: a bare arm, a flash of ginger hair. At one point, Ashua stopped, having heard his footsteps. She looked down the stairwell.

‘Bugger off and stop following me!’ she shouted, and fired a few shots into the gloom. Frey pressed himself against the wall until he heard her boots tapping upwards again.

By the time he got to the top he was out of breath, and the heat had increased noticeably. The tower was little more than a cap for the stairwell, with an arched doorway leading out onto the flat roof of the building. Ashua was already some distance away.

‘Hey!’ Frey called. ‘I need to talk to you!’

She swung around with a sarcastic and slightly desperate chuckle. ‘I told you,’ she said, ‘you can talk to this!’ Backing away, she raised her revolver, and squeezed off two more shots. The third time she pulled the trigger, the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

Frey waited a moment in the shelter of the stairwell, suspecting a trick. She pulled the trigger a few more times, more in hope than expectation, then shoved the revolver back into the waistband of her trousers. She looked around for a way to escape. There wasn’t one.

Frey stepped slowly out into the open. The sun was low in the foreign sky, painting the horizon in seething shades of red and yellow and purple. A landscape of rooftops spread out around him, a massive, stunning clutter of balconies and spires. Domes shone gold in the evening light. In the distance, a hexagonal stadium reared above its surroundings, rising from a sea of tumbledown apartment buildings. Most of the roofs were flat and strewn with junk: weary chairs, bits of boxes and washing lines. The one he was standing on had a chicken coop built from wood and strips of beaten metal. Long shadows reached through the surly heat, stretching across a scene of grubby magnificence.

The city of Shasiith.

Ashua was backing away towards the edge of the roof. Frey advanced, one hand held out to calm her, the other holding his pistol by his side.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said. ‘I just need some information.’

‘Right,’ said Ashua, almost to herself. ‘Information.’ Then, suddenly, she turned on her heel, ran, and jumped.

‘ Damn it!’ he snarled, and sprinted after her. Half of him hoped she’d lobbed herself off the roof to the street below – it would save him a chase – but she didn’t seem the sort for suicide. There had been purpose in her jump. She’d landed somewhere out of sight.

As he got closer to the edge the adjacent building came into view, its roof lower than the one he was on. He saw Ashua racing away, and accelerated. He had the bit between his teeth now. He was going to catch her.

The width of the street between the buildings only became apparent at the very last moment. It was narrow by Vardic standards, but it still seemed way too far to jump. Below him, people were crammed into a dirty and colourful market. They seemed very small, and very far away.

In that moment he almost faltered. His instincts howled at him to brake. He ignored them.

For a single horrible second, he was flying and falling at the same time. Then he hit the rooftop, harder than expected. His legs half-buckled, but he stumbled forward and somehow managed to keep his feet.

‘Just gonna hurt her a little bit,’ he promised himself.

There was a sturdy plank bridge linking this rooftop to its neighbour. Ashua scampered across it and stopped at the far end. Frey saw her struggling to prise the planks away. Sensing the opportunity to make up ground, he ran harder, lungs stinging and his scalp wet with perspiration. She wasted precious seconds before giving up and fleeing again.

Frey reached the plank bridge and crossed before he could think better of it. He couldn’t help looking down as he did so, and caught another terrifying glimpse of the crooked market lanes, people and animals far below. But it was only a glimpse, and then he was back on safe ground again.

There was a tumbledown shed ahead of him. A goat was poking its head out through a gap, chewing on a thin plant that had taken root in the cracks of the rooftop. Ashua was just vanishing round the corner. He put on a burst of speed and pursued her.

When he turned the corner, she was waiting for him.

He skidded and ducked as she swung a broken length of wood at his head. It crashed into the side of the sheauge of thd, bounced out of her hands and fell across his back.

It took both of them a moment to realise that she’d missed. She reacted faster than he did, and slipped away just before he could grab her. He followed, close on her heels, as she raced towards another rooftop. This time the building was pressed flush against its neighbour, its edge a metre higher. Ashua sprang up at it and began to scramble over. Frey caught her legs before she could.

‘Get off me!’ she cried, as Frey tried to drag her back down from the ledge. She thrashed like a cat in a bag. He tried to keep hold of her, but he was only using one hand, since the other was holding a gun. She got a foot free. Frey knew what was coming next. The inevitability of it was disheartening.

‘I just-’ he began, but was interrupted by a boot being driven into the side of his head.

‘-want-’

Kick.

‘-to talk!’

The third kick dislodged him, and she was gone in a scrabble. He staggered away, dizzy, blinking to clear the stars from his eyes.

‘What is it with women and kicking me in the face?’ he asked himself. He wiped his lips with his sleeve and spat blood. ‘Oi!’ he yelled at Ashua. ‘Get back here!’

She gave a little scream of exasperation as she saw him clambering over the ledge. ‘I’m not going to talk to you! Haven’t you taken the hint yet?’

He stood up, sweaty and soaked and in a considerable amount of pain, but doing his best to look defiant anyway. ‘I’m a slow learner,’ he said.

Ashua’s eyes went wide. ‘Amazing,’ she said. ‘Is that your comeback? You’re stupider than I thought.’

‘How stupid did you think I was?’

‘Slightly less stupid than I do now.’

Frey couldn’t think of an adequate response to that. ‘Look,’ he said, catching his breath, ‘how long is it gonna take you to realise that I’m not trying to hurt you?’

‘But you make such a convincing case, having shot two of my bodyguards. You’re still carrying a pistol, I notice. And there’s another pistol and a cutlass in your belt.’

‘How about I put them on the floor? Would you stop being so bloody skittish if I did?’

amp;lsqht= Roman"uo; I might. Try it and see.’

Frey took out his weapons and laid them down. It was all he could do to keep his temper under control. His lip was swelling, and his face was going to bruise. That meant he was going to look ridiculous for the next few days, and Frey was a man who didn’t like to look ridiculous. It pricked his vanity. His good looks were the one thing he’d been able to rely on all his life. The thought of having them marred, even temporarily, scared him. And besides, his face was really starting to hurt.