Darren Shan - The Saga of Larten Crepsley 1-4

But Traz had clocked the Crepsley boy’s every move. He anticipated the leap and adjusted his stance. When Larten threw himself forward, Traz simply let go of Vur’s legs – not thrashing now – and slammed a fist down on Larten’s skull.

Larten felt as if his head had been caved in. For a few seconds he came close to blacking out. He would have fainted any other time, but he knew Vur needed him. He couldn’t afford to fall unconscious. So, drawing strength from deep within himself, he shook his head and lurched to his knees.

Traz was surprised. He thought he’d killed the boy, or at least hit him so hard that he’d slump around simple-minded for the rest of his days. Even in the midst of his murderous fit he found himself respecting the way Larten hauled himself up, first to his knees, then to his feet. His legs were swaying like a drunk’s, but Traz admired the boy for rising to make a challenge.

The worst of the foreman’s rage ebbed away and he grunted. “Stay down, you fool.”

Larten moaned in reply and staggered forward. This time he didn’t try to hit the huge man. He was only focused on Vur’s legs. They were as still as a crushed dog’s and Larten knew he had mere seconds in which to fish out his cousin — if it wasn’t already too late.

Traz squinted at the advancing child. When he realised Larten was only worried about the drowning boy, Traz looked down and hissed. Vur Horston was no longer moving and no bubbles of air were trickling from his mouth.

Traz felt no guilt, merely unease. Though he doubted his employers would care too much if word of this incident reached them, there was always the possibility that they might decide he had gone too far. Releasing Vur’s legs, he stepped away from the vat and wrung water from the sleeves of his jacket, thinking hard.

Not being a man of the world like Traz, Larten thought there was still hope. He gurgled happily when Traz moved aside, then gripped Vur’s legs and dragged him out of the vat. His cousin was heavier than normal, his clothes soaked, and Larten was still dizzy from the blow to his head. But it only took him a couple of seconds to pull Vur clear and lay him on the floor.

“Vur!” Larten called, sprawling beside his motionless cousin. When there was no answer, he turned Vur’s head sideways and prised his lips apart to let water out. “Vur!” He slapped the silent boy’s back. “Are you all right? Can you hear me? Did he–”

“Silence!” Traz barked. When Larten glanced up, blinking back tears, the foreman added coldly, “There’s nothing you can do for him. The gutter rat’s dead. All that’s left for him now is the grave.”

As the world seemed to spin wildly around the dazed, sickened Larten, Traz faced the rest of the cocooners. He was only worried about protecting his job. He didn’t care a shred for the bedraggled remains of the murdered Vur Horston.

“Listen up!” Traz roared, glaring at one and all. “The savage little rat attacked me. Everybody saw it. I was defending myself and it’ll go bad with anyone who says different.”

Traz cast his gaze around, challenging the children to disagree with him. They all dropped their heads and Traz puffed up proudly. He had nothing to fear. None of these cowards would speak out against him.

“I’m going to hang his body off a hook out back,” Traz boasted. “I want you to study it long and hard before you go home. This is what happens to vicious fools who attack their foremen. We won’t be having any revolutions in this factory!”

Already, in his mind, he was exaggerating the boy’s act of defiance. He would tell the owners that several of the brats attacked him. Claim it was an organised revolt, that the Horston boy was its leader. Fake regret and say that he had to kill Vur for the good of the factory. Let them believe there were others who were plotting against them. If they believed there was a threat to their profits, they’d give Traz a medal for working so hard to suppress it.

Men of wealth were easy to appease. If you kept money flowing into their pockets, they backed every move you made. They wouldn’t care that he’d killed an orphan, not as long as he could put a price on the cur’s head.

On the floor, Larten was staring at Vur with horror. The dead boy’s right eye was closed, but his left was open a fraction, as if he was winking. Larten wished Vur was playing a joke. He wouldn’t mind if his cousin sat up and laughed at him for falling for the trick. Larten would cry with joy if that happened.

But Vur wasn’t acting. Larten had seen death many times — an older sister, children in the factory, corpses in the street waiting to be collected. There was no mistaking the chilling stillness of the dead.

“Out of my way,” Traz sneered, pushing Larten aside.

Larten hadn’t been focusing on Traz’s speech. He didn’t know what the foreman intended to do with Vur. In his bewildered state, he thought Traz was trying to help.

“It’s no good,” Larten whispered. “You can’t help him. He’s dead.”

Traz cocked an eyebrow at Larten and laughed. “Help him? Didn’t you hear me? I’m going to hang him from a hook and teach you all a lesson.”

Larten gawped at the burly foreman.

“Go home to your father,” Traz huffed. “Tell him he’s lucky I let you live. I could have killed you too for attacking me. But because I’m a merciful man, I’m letting you go.”

Larten didn’t move. He had been crying, but the tears dried up now and a cold fire ignited at the back of his eyes.

“Go on,” Traz said, picking up Vur and slinging him over a shoulder as if he was a sack of cocoons. “You can have the afternoon off. But be back here first thing tomorrow. And tell your father he can pick this one up on Friday — I want to hang him for a few days like a pheasant.”

As Traz turned away, Larten calmly picked something off the floor. He would never remember what he’d grabbed. The area was littered with every sort of cast-off — nails, old spools, broken knives and more. All he knew was that it was sharp and cool, and it fitted perfectly into his small, trembling hand.

“Traz,” Larten said with surprising softness. If he’d screamed, maybe the foreman would have sensed danger and jerked aside. As it was, Traz simply paused and looked back, half smiling the way he would if an old friend hailed him in a park on a Sunday.

Larten stepped forward and drove his hand up. The boy’s eyes were flat, as devoid of expression as Vur’s, but his mouth was twisted into a dark, leering grin, as something vile and inhuman inside him rejoiced at being set free.

When Larten lowered his hand, whatever he’d picked up was no longer in his palm. The object was now buried deep in Traz’s throat.

Traz stared at Larten through a pair of wide, bulging eyes. He didn’t drop Vur. Indeed, his grip on the boy tightened. With his free hand he tried to pull out the object that was stuck in his windpipe. But there was no strength in his fingers and the flesh around his neck was slippery with blood. His arm fell by his side. He opened his mouth and tried to say something, but only blood gurgled out.

Still staring at Larten, Traz fell to his knees, swayed for a moment, then slumped. He lost hold of Vur and the boy’s body rolled away from him.

The silence in the room was more frightening than any bellow of Traz’s had ever been. The children were transfixed. Vur’s death had been unexpected, but it hardly counted as a cataclysmic event in this factory of misery. But the slaying of Traz had shaken their world to its core. Nothing could be the same after this.

Larten licked his lips and began to lean forward. The hateful thing inside him wanted to retrieve the object from Traz’s throat and use it to stab out the dead foreman’s eyes. But as his fingers stretched out before him, he shuddered and blinked, then took a step backwards, shocked by what he had done and had been planning to do.