Col Buchanan - Stands a Shadow

He reached his free hand back, felt his fingers press against her face. He hooked his thumb and scooped it viciously into her eye. The woman’s grip loosened a fraction.

Che roared and pushed against the white-hot pain from his hand as he forced the garrotte off him.

He staggered to his feet as Swan did likewise, grasping a spilled chair for support and then the mantelpiece above the hearth. He turned just as she lashed out with the garrotte. The end of it wrapped around the hilt of his knife and she jerked it from his grasp. It was hard to stand now. Swan was doing little better. Her eye was a black mess running with blood.

A blow struck his cheek, stunning him. Che shook it off as he blocked another punch, then another. He came out of his stance seeking a target, only to find her straightening with the knife in her hand.

Back he staggered, hopping again on his good leg as she dragged her own wounded limb across the floor after him. The knife was poised in her hand. It was a sliver of steel shining in the candlelight just beyond the range of his stomach. He shook his head to clear his dulling vision. Sweat scattered off him.

Che backed through the door of the bedroom with Swan slowly closing the distance. She lunged at him suddenly. He was only just quick enough to sweep the blade aside. His foot caught against the prone body of Guan and he tripped backwards, shoving Swan to the side as he fell.

Gasping, he pushed himself off the floor again as Swan did the same. He managed to get a knee under his weight, then flailed his good hand around until it grasped the bed. Up, onto his feet, grunting and straining from the effort, seeing Guan’s body lying there. His balance lurched around a spinning point. His vision receded until he teetered in the darkness of his own head. He bore down on it, applying focus, seeing a crack of light appear like a doorway.

He came through it, and saw Swan coming at him with the knife.

A desperate sidestep, a slippery grip of an arm and a foot out-thrust to trip her. They fell hollering towards the floor with Che riding her down with all his weight.

The stick of wood shot through the back of the woman’s neck with a crunch of teeth and bone. She quivered once, as though in a delayed shock, then lay there perfectly still.

A soft whine of air escaped her lungs as her body deflated.

Che gasped for a breath and rolled himself clear. He lay for some moments with his remaining energy flooding out of him, his mind beyond thought or reason.

He had the shakes when he finally regained his feet. He looked down at the two dead Diplomats. Swan was sprawled with her face pressed against his brother’s, their bodies extended in opposite directions. They looked as though they were two lovers kissing.

‘ Here I am!’ Che spat at them with a hard slap to his chest.

In the shadows by the side of a minor canal, Ash finished his preparations and listened to the sounds of revelry in the distance. He observed the tall mansions on the opposite side of the canal, where priests walked past lit windows in suites they had made their own. Above the rooftops of the fine buildings, the rock of the citadel rose into the night air. Sasheen’s flag was still flying up there.

A window opened, and a woman threw the contents of a chamber pot out into the water. Someone was singing in the room behind her. Ash maintained his stillness, confident that he was hidden by the shadows, until she withdrew again and closed the window, cutting the song off in mid chorus.

Quickly, he removed his clothes and placed them in a neat pile beside his weaponry. Next to them sat a small wooden keg filled with blackpowder; a mine he’d appropriated from a Mannian munitions cart.

Goosebumps rose on Ash’s skin from the caress of cold air, and he rubbed his arms and legs to generate some warmth. His breath was visible in the shimmer of lantern light cast across the black surface of the canal.

The lakeweed had been shorn here to create the vertical sides of the waterway. Beams of wood shored them up further. He sat on the boardwalk at its edge then gently eased himself into the lukewarm water. It felt good against the tensions of his muscles, the abrasions on his skin, so he simply rested there for a while, near delirious with the relief of it. Beneath his feet, down in the depths of the clear water, he could see the distant glimmer of lights. He kicked to stay afloat, watching the brilliance of them between his toes.

When he felt ready, he rose up and grabbed the mine and pulled it into the water with a splash. He shook his face clear and checked the line of fuse that hung from a tarred hole in the bobbing keg; it floated out across the surface and up to the boardwalk above him, where it was tied around his Acolyte body armour, and then to a heavy portable reel fixed to boardwalk by a knifeblade, where the rest of the fuse line was tightly coiled.

He pulled on the line of fuse until the armour toppled into the water with another noisy splash. It sank instantly, and a moment later pulled the mine down with it. Ash looped a portion of the fuse around his wrist while he breathed hard and fast. He felt the tug of the line against his hand, and dived beneath the surface, letting himself be pulled into the silent depths while the reel of fuse played out above him.

His eyes stung, and he blinked and forced them to stay open. His chest tightened as he dived deeper, drawing nearer to the rock all the time. The lights were bleeding from windows of thick glass far below, carved from the steep flanks of the rock the citadel stood upon. Ash kicked towards them as he dropped, pulling the line with him even as it pulled him. He knew he had one good chance at this.

He scattered a shoal of fish from his path, and then at last he felt the weight slacken in his hand as the armour settled on the ledge of one of the windows. The mine spun slowly close to the glass. Ash uncoiled the line from his wrist and swam down. He chanced a look inside, saw a brilliantly lit chamber of couches and chandeliers; a priest talking to another; a pair of Acolytes next to a doorway.

Ash struggled to drag the armour to one side and the mine with it, so it would be less likely to be spotted.

His chest was bursting now. He kicked off for the surface, stars flashing in the edges of his vision. It took longer than the descent. He recalled his panic on the sinking ship; the weight of the world’s water pressing him down.

Ash floundered when he resurfaced, gasping with lungs that still did not seem to be working too well. The noise of the city returned to his draining ears, and he looked about and was grateful to find the side street still deserted.

In vain he tried to pull himself out of the canal, found he couldn’t manage it, couldn’t breathe hard enough to restore his energy.

He settled himself in the water. Calmed his breathing and tried once more. Ash rolled onto the boardwalk wheezing for air. He sat up, rested his arms against his knees and let his head hang between them. He stared at the little pools forming where the lake water dripped from his skin.

A man cursed not far away. Shapes at the dark end of the street, someone relieving himself while others waited, talking drunkenly.

Ash looked at the line of fuse hanging in the water. All he needed to do was slice through it and toss it in the water and run.

The knife suddenly drew his attention, standing as it was with its tip buried in the boardwalk. Its blade was stained dark with the blood of the priest he had murdered in the previous hour.

How many had he killed now in his pursuit of retribution? he wondered with a start.

He couldn’t recall; had lost count somewhere along the way; had made them something less than human, faceless, without worth. The two camp followers he had felled during the battle – simply to be clear of them – were nothing but vague impressions now, save for the crisp sound of a kneecap breaking.