Саймон Морден - The White City

He tipped both men into the river, easy enough with the river’s edge only a pace away. He could just about hear the splashes, but only because he was listening out for them.

That had been… not easy, but necessary. He’d killed two men because they’d allied themselves to evil, even if they weren’t evil themselves. The alternative◦– making himself known, and trying to explain what he wanted to do◦– would have seen him dragged down, disarmed, and brought him before the Lords of the White City. He knew how that would end.

So there he was. The soldier-saint. The champion of Down.

Time to move on. The small cube-shaped shelters were the next obvious staging point. The path was woefully exposed, but the drifts of loose, pale talus were also a problem. He’d be heard crossing it, even if he couldn’t be seen.

Only one thing to do: run, and hope that Mary could keep them distracted. He sprinted the distance to the shelters, then dodged through them to the last in line.

He could see faint lights down near the river. Lanterns would ruin their night sight, which was good for him. Good for Mary, too, because rather than firing blind, she’d have something to aim◦– inexpertly◦– at.

He waited, and waited, and just when he thought she wasn’t going to do it, she did.

Several of the lanterns went out instantly, and others were simply dropped. Shouting and confusion followed, and one of the cries was sustained and insistent. She might even have hit someone, but it was more likely that they’d fallen and injured themselves as they ran for cover.

Three bullets.

Mary shouted again: ‘You’re a bunch of tossers!’

Confident she wasn’t going to run out of swear words any time soon, he looked at his route ahead. The road ran between the fields and buildings, down to the river turning. Not that way. If he plotted a course above but parallel to it, he’d arrive behind one of the compound walls, and in sight of his target.

There was no easy way to do it. He just had to negotiate an almost featureless surface and hope he didn’t trip. The slope from right to left was uneven and severe, and the shards of rock slid over each other all too readily.

The wall was a black slab. He turned and pressed his back against it, and tried to control his ragged breathing. It wasn’t the speed or the distance, it was his nerves. He listened over the sound of his beating heart, trying to work out what was happening around him.

The rocks stopped moving shortly after he did. The river was a distant hiss. Raised voices cut through intermittently◦– orders given, questions raised◦– and other noises of movement, some of which were coming from right behind him, on the other side of the wall. A door opening? A bucket being filled? Something wooden hitting something else wooden, but beyond that it was pointless to speculate.

He crept away, testing each step carefully, heading for the narrow gap between the uphill and downhill compounds. Beyond that was the deeper shadow of the circular building with no doors or windows.

Dalip’s world was now variations of shades of black. His dark-adapted eyes could pick out some of the differences, but he could barely see his own hands in front of his face. Much more use was the slight changes in sound and pressure. He could almost feel the size and shape of the structures around him.

Another shot broke across the valley. There was no immediate reaction that he could make out, but he was blind as to what was happening down by the river, and whether anyone had dared cross the stepping stones to the steps up.

No shout of defiance followed, either. She was feeling the strain as much as he was.

Two bullets.

He moved between one building and the next, and there it was, just ahead. She’d already told him that it was useless to look for a way in, because there wasn’t one: he wasn’t going to waste time and court discovery by checking for himself, but there had to be an entrance somewhere. His best guess was that the round building was the oldest in the valley, and that year-on-year erosion had buried the door under the ever-encroaching slippage of broken rock.

He wasn’t going to start digging, because he assumed someone had already done that. All he needed to find was the start of that hole. It would be disguised. It wouldn’t be heavily guarded. It might be made so secure with future technology that he didn’t stand a hope of breaking in.

Opposite the curve of the outside wall was a long, low building, bent around in a sympathetic arc. It could easily be mistaken for a series of workshops or garages, except for the absence of doors. Thin slit windows punctuated the line of the wall, but it was ferociously dark inside and peeking in revealed nothing.

When he reached its far end, and around the corner, he found it. A door, locked somehow, and as he ran his hand over it, he couldn’t feel a keyhole. Yet from its proximity to the round building, it seemed the most likely candidate. When he pressed against the wood, there was no give at all. This was no ordinary entrance. He’d have to find an alternative way of getting in.

Another shot. Muted this time, echoing over the valley but started away from the edge. She’d been forced back on to the plateau.

One bullet left.

Once she’d used that, the rifle became an empty threat. It could keep people at bay in case it was still loaded, but it would only take one brave or foolhardy person to call her bluff and it’d be over.

He pushed at the door again, just to make sure, and felt its cool indifference to his urgency.

The roofs of all these buildings were constructed in the same way, with thin, flat leaves of overlapping stone. It should be possible to lever some out of the way to make a hole. If he could climb up in the dark, and if he could dismantle the tiles without being spotted◦– and after that, if he didn’t break something important in the fall◦– then he could finally see what was so carefully hidden.

Mary was risking everything. So should he. He sheathed the machete and ducked back around the wall so he was as hidden from view as possible. His fingers ran over the wall, probing for handholds, and when he found two, he tried to find somewhere for his foot.

But he couldn’t see what he was doing, and every moment outside meant more chance of him being discovered. Every move was tentative and painfully long to execute, and he had no idea, face pressed to the rough stonework, how far up he’d gone or how far he had left to go. It wasn’t as high as Bell’s tower, and if he slipped here, he wouldn’t die. He’d just have to pick himself up, bruised and battered, and try again, and hope.

He reached up, felt the overhang of the eaves, and clutched at it with a vice-like grip. This was when he was most likely to tumble backwards. He moved his other hand from its secure hold and slapped it on to the smooth, dusty roof tile. If the pitch on it had been any greater, then it would have been pointless even to try. He pushed down: his feet drifted clear of the wall, and he was now suspended awkwardly over the drop.

He didn’t want to dislodge himself with any sudden movement. He gradually brought one leg up and got it over the lip. He was spreadeagled, one foot dangling, one just about maintaining its grip. He moved his hand higher, feeling for anything that might improve his stability.

Then he let go of the eaves, and he didn’t immediately slide off.

He was up. Destroying part of the roof was going to be inherently noisy. There was nothing he could do about that. Better it was done quickly.

He eased out the machete, and using his fingertips to guide him, he squeezed it gratingly between two tiles just shy of the ridge. He lifted it a little way, then used his hands to heave it out. The other tiles around it clattered back into position, and he rested the loose one against his knees, letting gravity pin it.