Саймон Морден - Down Station

‘He’ll come. Go and listen at the door again.’

He didn’t know what to do. It seemed like an age before Stanislav trotted back into the pit, though it was probably no longer than a minute. He was holding a hessian sack heavy with loot in one hand, and Pigface’s knife in the other.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ hissed Dalip.

‘Taking care of business. Catch.’ He threw the bag up, and Dalip caught it neatly, setting down beside him. ‘Now the knife.’

That, he threw slightly to Dalip’s right, so that it landed ringing on the floor. Then he reset the chair on the table, put the lantern next to it and climbed deftly up. He held up the lantern for collection, then both hands.

‘Pull.’

Dalip didn’t. ‘When you said… You’ve killed him, haven’t you? The other guard.’

‘You are so squeamish. Have you never seen Spartacus?’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘When the slaves revolt, they kill their overseers. They have to. They are owned. This is the only way. Now pull me up.’

Dalip looked at Mama, at Elena. He didn’t want to be a slave, and he didn’t want them to be slaves, either. He warred with himself, balking at killing, railing against what he’d already been forced to do. Of course Stanislav was right. He was squeamish. He’d never thought of himself as someone who’d kill even in a just cause. Southall wasn’t like that.

Clearly, wherever Stanislav had lived had been exactly like that. He was uncomfortably comfortable with violence. And they needed that. They all needed that. Without it, they were as good as back in their cells.

No matter what the others thought, then. He reached down and Stanislav clamped both his hands on Dalip’s wrist. He pulled him up, more difficult than Elena, easier than Mama. Once he could reach the parapet himself, Stanislav could haul himself over.

While he did that, Dalip collected the knife, and hung on to it. The bag contained Pigface’s club, and smaller knives from the kitchen, which he distributed. They were all armed now. Just how dangerous they collectively were was doubtful, despite the two corpses they were leaving behind.

‘Any sounds?’ Dalip asked Luiza.

‘No, nothing.’

‘Then we have to go. Find the bridge to the geomancer’s tower. Cross it without being seen. Then we find her, and—’

‘Take her hostage. Knock her out, tie her up. We need her to get past the dragon.’ Stanislav heaved the throne out of the way and raised Pigface’s◦– his, now◦– club. ‘If she tries to use magic on us, we might have to kill her anyway. Any one of us who has the chance.’

He lifted the latch on the door, and to forestall any further qualms or questions, swung it wide. ‘Bring the lantern, Mama. Hold it high.’

They were in uncharted territory now, outside what any of them had seen. The light showed mainly shadows, and the glimpse of stonework, a wall, stairs up◦– and another door. It rattled on its own, making them jump and step back, but it was just the mountain wind, whipping cold around the ill-fitting frame.

‘This must be outside, yes?’ Luiza felt the door for the latch, found an iron ring, and twisted it. The door resisted opening, then eased ajar. More of the cold air swirled in.

Stanislav crouched and peered through. ‘No moonlight. We need the lantern, but we must keep it low so that it is not seen. Remember, we must be quick and certain. If someone sees us, they have to be silenced before they can raise the alarm. Afterwards is too late. Once we have crossed the bridge, we search every room in the tower for her. And we take no prisoners but her.’

‘What about her steward?’ asked Dalip.

‘What about him? He is part of this, so you know what to do.’ He took charge of the door from Luiza. ‘I will go first, Dalip will go last. Watch for the dragon.’

Stanislav heaved the door wide and took a moment to check the bridge and the sky above it.

The bridge itself was clear◦– it ran straight and flat across from the pit to the geomancer’s tower, where there was another door. The waist-high parapet either side was going to give them some cover, but the tower loomed tall, and there were narrow windows that overlooked the bridge: anyone so much as glancing down would see them.

The top of the tower, with its conical slate roof, was almost invisible against the sky. There could have been a dragon wound around it, and none of them would have been any the wiser. The side of the tower to the right flickered with firelight, so they’d have to keep down, but Dalip wasn’t so worried about that as he was by the prospect of that far door being barred shut from the inside. If he was in charge, leaving doors to the slave quarters open seemed not just averagely stupid, but lethally so. It was the whole reason why they’d been going to strike just after one of the fights.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘we don’t even know if we can get into the tower. Why don’t I go across first and check?’

It made sense, and Stanislav could tell by the shifting body-language that the others weren’t now going to cross until they knew the way was clear.

‘Mama, give him the lantern so he can signal. Go, then, and quickly.’

Dalip found himself at the front, the wind dragging at the candle flame inside the lantern. He squeezed the knife handle and took one last look. That he couldn’t see a dragon was no promise that there wasn’t one. The lights at the windows in the door stayed constant, and there was no better time◦– or at least, it would get worse the longer he left it◦– to run.

He held the lantern low, so that it almost scraped along the walkway, and crouched down. It wasn’t far. He covered the distance quickly and quietly, and nestled the lantern in the corner of the door recess.

He listened and, on hearing nothing, reached up and turned the iron ring. The latch lifted on the other side of the door, he could hear that, but when he pushed, the door moved only a fraction before pressing against something immovable.

Dalip’s stomach tightened even further. He tried again, to make absolutely certain, but he’d been right the first time. The door was barred or bolted, and they weren’t going to be able to shift it.

He took a step back and looked up. There was a window slit right over the door, the same height again above it. He might, if he could get up there, squeeze through it, then open the door from the inside.

It seemed their only option, and they were running out of time. Sooner or later, someone was going to check where Pigface and the other guard had got to. Then there’d be no hope of escape, and certainly no going back to captivity.

He left the lantern where it was, and raced back to the others.

She could see everything. Every last leaf, rock, blade of grass. Every fold of the ground, every lake, the course of the rivers and the line of the ridges. Everything, like it was the map she’d painstakingly drawn and then had stolen from her.

The crows had kept up with her as they’d taught her how to flap and turn and glide and land◦– how difficult that had been, when she would fill her vast wings with air and snap them almost in front of her to try and brake herself. She ended up pinwheeling into the ground, and then going backwards, and then almost hovering in flight as she tentatively dabbed at the ground with her coal-black talons, unwilling to commit.

As she circled higher and higher, she left the smaller birds behind, and as she spiralled upwards, Down became a sheet of beaten copper, lit by the dying sun. She watched the shadows lengthen, deep pools of darkness stretch out and cover the land like ink, then the last threads of light hung on the western horizon while the forests and mountains settled into slumbering dusk.