Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Necromunda

Prologue

Chapter: One

Chapter: Two

Chapter: Three

Chapter: Four

Chapter: Five

Chapter: Six

Chapter: Seven

Chapter: Eight

Chapter: Nine

Chapter: Ten

Chapter: Eleven

Chapter: Twelve

Chapter: Thirteen

Chapter: Fourteen

About the Author

Legal

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In order to even begin to understand the blasted world of Necromunda you must first understand the hive cities. These man-made mountains of plasteel, ceramite and rockcrete have accreted over centuries to protect their inhabitants from a hostile environment, so very much like the termite mounds they resemble. The Necromundan hive cities have populations in the billions and are intensely industrialised, each one commanding the manufacturing potential of an entire planet or colony system compacted into a few hundred square kilometres.

The internal stratification of the hive cities is also illuminating to observe. The entire hive structure replicates the social status of its inhabitants in a vertical plane. At the top are the nobility, below them are the workers, and below the workers are the dregs of society, the outcasts. Hive Primus, seat of the planetary governor Lord Helmawr of Necromunda, illustrates this in the starkest terms. The nobles – Houses Helmawr, Cattalus, Ty, Ulanti, Greim, Ran Lo and Ko’Iron – live in the ‘Spire’, and seldom set foot below the ‘Wall’ that exists between themselves and the great forges and hab zones of the hive city proper.

Below the hive city is the ‘Underhive’, foundation layers of habitation domes, industrial zones and tunnels which have been abandoned in prior generations, only to be re-occupied by those with nowhere else to go.

But… humans are not insects. They do not hive together well. Necessity may force it, but the hive cities of Necromunda remain internally divided to the point of brutalisation and outright violence being an everyday fact of life. The Underhive, meanwhile, is a thoroughly lawless place, beset by gangs and renegades, where only the strongest or the most cunning survive. The Goliaths, who believe firmly that might is right; the matriarchal, man-hating Escher; the industrial Orlocks; the technologically-minded Van Saar; the Delaque whose very existence depends on their espionage network; the fiery zealots of the Cawdor. All striving for the advantage that will elevate them, no matter how briefly, above the other houses and gangs of the Underhive.

Most fascinating of all is when individuals attempt to cross the monumental physical and social divides of the hive to start new lives. Given social conditions, ascension through the hive is nigh on impossible, but descent is an altogether easier, albeit altogether less appealing, possibility.

excerpted from Xonariarius the Younger’s Nobilite Pax Imperator –
the Triumph of Aristocracy over Democracy.

PROLOGUE

Not all Underhivers are native-born children of the warm dark domain beneath Hive City. The teeming Underhive takes all to its bosom: the dispossessed, the hopeful and the desperate, all are equally welcome in the great dark depths.

Nor are all these souls simply condemned to it – there are those who choose the life of the Underhiver. It seems unimaginable that those who are rich and powerful might want to share the miserable equality of the downtrodden, yet there are such people: men with strange accents and unfamiliar names, or no names at all, men without a past, with an agenda of their own: hiding. searching. questioning, tasting the sweet fruits of danger denied to those who live in quiet splendour above the Wall.

Who can really say what drives the outlander who quietly sips his Wildsnake in a dark corner, away from the traffic and the cares of the world? None could say, because none would ask, or at least that’s how it should be.

But this was Ash Season, when the raging storms out in the wastes beyond the hive build to such intensity that they sweep through the hive’s lower reaches, turning the already filthy air into nothing more than an impenetrable grey haze in which no man should be abroad. Yet this stranger was, oblivious to it all, and that alone was reason enough to ask.

CHAPTER: ONE

‘What business?’ said Erket, slamming his tankard on to the bar as a sign of his growing impatience. Secretly, Erket had little stomach for the filthy slop it contained, least of all at the height of Ash Season, and hoped that a little might spill out over the sides and spare him the hurt of drinking it, or the indignity of leaving it unfinished. And slop out it did, though no one would have noticed amongst the puddles of filth that already covered the slime-encrusted, buckled old stanchion that served as a bar.

The stranger showed no such impatience or lack of stomach, calmly knocking back his Wildsnake, taking one last puff on his toxstick and raising his hat just enough to scratch the scalp beneath, before turning to the impertinent juve.

‘My business,’ the stranger answered at last. He was as calm as Erket was impetuous.

Erket’s rage flared instantly. His blood boiled and his face turned a furious red. If Erket had yet proven himself worthy to wear the full mask of a Cawdor, he might have hidden his face, and with it his growing rage. As it was, his skin painted an angry red halo around the black leather mask that covered his face around the eyes, and it was clear to all, not least this implacable stranger, that Erket was losing his temper.

It had been barely an hour since the stranger had arrived in Fall Sands, strolling out of the ash storms as though it was a clear day in the Spire. Already the entire town was abuzz with talk of the stranger, as mad or as brave as he must have been to risk the storms, alone and unaided.

Whilst others gossiped in doorways, Erket resolved to take a rather more direct route. So it was that he had found the stranger holed up in the Pipe Under Mile, Fall Sand’s only watering hole and, as Erket saw it, a place this stranger had no right to be.

‘And what business is that, outlander?’ said Erket, calmer than before. It cut at his pride to stay cool in the face of this arrogant outlander, but he was slowly beginning to realise that his failing temper just might be exactly what the stranger wanted. Still, he was livid inside. Here was Erket, and here was this nameless nobody who thought he could defy him. Him. Erket. Erket of the Union. The Union ruled this town, and in Erket’s mind, that meant he ruled the town, and he wasn’t about to let some wandering fool challenge that.

The stranger said nothing. His toxstick had gone out since he last drew on it, and he concentrated on relighting it. As he raised the small, sparking slate towards its tip, Erket snapped and smacked the stranger’s hand down, knocking the thumb-sized slate to the floor where it burned up in a phosphor green flash.

That was enough. The stranger was on his feet and in Erket’s face in the blink of an eye. His right hand clutched the collar of Erket’s robe, pulling it so tight around his throat that Erket could utter only an undignified gag where he had aimed for a furious curse. The stranger’s left hand flashed up to Erket’s face and wrenched the little mask off in an instant, meeting the frightened juve’s gaze with his own.

‘Now see here, little man,’ said the stranger. ‘My business is my business, and till I go asking you about yours, I reckon things are gonna stay that way. You got me?’ Everything the stranger said was measured, calm, and impossibly menacing. Erket writhed, but the stranger’s gnarled hand just tightened its grip, choking Erket and leaving him with no choice but to nod weakly and raise his hands in submission.

The stranger released him at once, sending the cowardly Erket plunging down on to one knee before he regained his balance, narrowly avoiding an embarrassing fall onto his backside. The leather mask fell from the stranger’s hand and landed at Erket’s feet, forcing yet another undignified stoop, then another as the nervous little juve first fumbled his mask before finally snatching it up in his terrified white fingertips.

The stranger just settled back down onto his stool, drawing deeply on the toxstick pressed between his lips. It was lit again somehow, though Erket could swear the slate had never touched it.

Erket staggered backwards, pulling the mask back on to restore his anonymity, if not his dignity. Behind him, the others were already on their feet, closing in on the scuffle, and Erket stopped with a jolt as he backed into the tall, muscular Lakatos.

‘What’s going on?’ said Lakatos.

Erket cowered and wriggled out of the way, perching himself behind Lakatos’s shoulder, without the nerve to answer the question. His leader could deal with the stranger.

The crowd that gathered around the outlander was vast. The watering hole was full, and it seemed almost everyone knew Erket while no one knew the stranger. The Pipe Under Mile was quite literally that, a section of collapsed pipe with a raft of fallen debris as a roof, so that it had no walls but rather a single circular exterior formed by the pipe itself. With the huge crowd surrounding the stranger, the little circular building took on the appearance of an arena more than a simple watering hole.

The Union was here to a man – a dozen of Erket’s Cawdor brothers and all the pistols, shivs and garrottes they could hide about their persons. Erket sneered viciously from his hiding place behind Lakatos. Now that damned outlander was going to get it.

‘What’s going on?’ Lakatos said again as he cast his glance directly at Erket. Erket had yet to master his cowardice and eventually it was the stranger who answered.

‘Seems your friend has a problem with a man enjoying a little Wildsnake in a storm,’ said the stranger, not even bothering to rise from his stool or turn and face Lakatos.

Silence reigned for a few moments before Lakatos sat himself down on the stool recently vacated by Erket and gestured for two more Wildsnakes. By rights, even for the Cawdor to be there was a sin, but with the claustrophobic terror of the ash storms playing on their minds, well, sin was virtually medicinal. The bartender clutched both bottles in one hand as he skimmed the lids from them with the edge of his knife before planting them down firmly in front of the burly Cawdor leader. Lakatos passed one of the Wildsnakes to the stranger and Erket’s heart sank, torn by a mixture of disappointment and anger while his face betrayed his utter bemusement. Why wasn’t the stranger getting what he deserved?

‘I just asked him his business,’ protested the confused Erket. Lakatos ignored him entirely.

‘Well, never mind my friend,’ said Lakatos, keeping his gaze fixed on the stranger. ‘We don’t have a problem with you getting your Wildsnake, Emperor judge us all,’ he said, covering his own sins with the hasty admonition.

‘What we got a problem with, is your face. We ain’t seen it round here before,’ he continued, raising the glass bottle to his lips while awaiting a reply.

There was still no sign of emotion on the outlander’s face as he turned to face Lakatos.

‘Well there’s a thing, ’cos I ain’t seen your face at all,’ he said, drawing attention to the black leather mask that covered every inch of Lakatos’s face. Combined with his dark robes, heavy breeches and worn leather gloves, Lakatos was a creature upon whom not an inch of flesh was visible. He was perfect, thought Erket.

In another bar, such quick wit would have brought raucous applause, but here it brought the most expectant of silences. The Union’s gangers pressed nearer while the bar’s other patrons flitted nervous glances towards the stranger and then towards the door, hurriedly averting their gaze if they caught his eye, or those of the assembled Cawdor.

The silence prevailed just long enough for Lakatos to finish his Wildsnake and return the bottle to the bar with a delicate clinking noise that ushered in the briefest of commotions.

The circular crowd broke into chaos as two of the Cawdor gangers, Durn and Rubik, dashed forwards and grabbed the stranger by the shoulders. He rose instantly from his stool to meet them, his fists in their stomachs as if about to fling off their grasps. Before he could do any such thing, a dagger was pressed to his throat, brandished by a third onrushing ganger, Antal, while two more pointed their rather decrepit looking autopistols at his head from where they stood at the edge of the crowd.

Erket grinned. Now this was what he wanted to see.

But this outlander was no fool. Against such overwhelming odds he simply slumped back down onto his stool, his shoulders still in the vicelike grip of the two Cawdor heavies, the dagger still held firmly against his throat and the pistols still trained right on him. He put up no fight as the two gangers wrenched the long, tattered coat from his shoulders and clamped his arms behind his back.

Erket was delirious with glee. That stranger had cost him in front of his betters in the Union, and now he was going to get payback. Cocky as only a juve could be, Erket stepped out from behind Lakatos and strolled right up to the stranger, knocking his hat from his head with a single swipe of his hand. Erket laughed and pressed his face close to the stranger’s, sneering viciously.

It was only now that he got a good look at him. With his broad-brimmed hat and long, dark coat, the stranger was almost as well covered as a Cawdor. Erket had mistaken him for thin, lanky. He was indeed tall, but the long sweep of his coat had hidden broad shoulders and a powerful frame. Three identical tubes emerged from his flesh just below the jawbone before disappearing into ugly, scabrous bionic ports in his chest, and his left eye was bionic too. The enhancements were certainly the worse for wear, but they were clearly well made, not some makeshift, Underhive bodge jobs.

The dark ochre of the stranger’s skin, coupled with his gnarled, stubbly features did much to hide the grime that covered his flesh, giving him a ruddy rather than dirty appearance, something with which all these mysterious outlanders seemed blessed – the ability to wear the inescapable dirt and grime of the Underhive like a carefully crafted badge of office. His lips and nostrils were covered in a fine layer of the toxic grey ash from the storms raging outside, though Erket presumed from the tubes emanating from the stranger’s throat that a mouthful of the stuff would do him little harm.

Most obvious of all was the stranger’s lack of any visible weapon, a sure sign of a hidden device on him somewhere. Erket stepped forwards and, while Durn and Rubik held him firmly, began to search the stranger. Sure enough, the small of his back hid a pistol, held in place by one of the half dozen fibrous chords that bound what appeared to be a once-resplendent breastplate on to his torso.

The armour was badly worn and the right side was missing entirely, while in many other places individual patches hung at odd angles, evidence of hasty, makeshift repairs. Nonetheless, the armour was clearly of a calibre higher than Erket had ever seen before. Behind him Lakatos squinted, viewing the stranger with the same curiosity as Erket.

Erket pulled the pistol from its hiding place. A bolt pistol: a heavy, shell-firing device, again a rarity, though nothing Erket hadn’t seen before. He glanced back at his leader to see Lakatos’s own bolt pistols displayed proudly in the holsters at his hips.

Erket dropped the clip and inspected the weapon. It seemed in perfect condition. It took much of the Union’s wealth and resources for Lakatos to maintain his brace of pistols, so for the outlander to keep just a single bolt pistol in working order was no mean feat. Erket thought for a second about taking this example for himself, though Lakatos’s stern glare made him think better of it. He passed the bolt pistol to Lakatos before rifling through the assortment of pockets that covered the stranger’s trousers.

Erket could find little of interest in the pockets (not even the spare sparkslate he was sure would explain that damned burning toxstick) but as he patted his hands against the stranger’s boot, he narrowly avoided a concealed dagger sheathed in the leather. Erket pulled his hand away on instinct, just as the handle and three inches of exposed blade popped from their sheath with a telltale hiss. Pleased with himself and his find, Erket took the blade by the handle and whipped it out of its hiding place, waving it menacingly in the stranger’s face before breaking into a deep belly laugh. Lakatos could keep the fancy pistol, thought Erket. This dagger would do just fine as a memento of the soon to be dead outlander who had dared cross him. Erket pushed the knife down inside the top of his own boot, stood, and returned to his vantage point behind Lakatos.

‘This isn’t all he’s carrying,’ said Lakatos. ‘A bionic eye like that is trained to a sight, and this pistol doesn’t have one. He’s hiding something.’ Lakatos gestured at the stranger’s bionic eye with the butt of the gun Erket had earlier taken from the outlander. Lakatos weighed the pistol in his hand for a moment longer before stuffing it under his own belt and stepping forward to where the stranger sat. Reaching him, Lakatos ripped the stranger’s coat sleeves clean off his arms with a single mighty yank.

Sure enough, an elaborate harness on the inside of the man’s forearm housed a second pistol, a mere stub gun, yet this one did indeed sport a laser sight, no doubt the one Lakatos was sure must be relayed directly to the bionic eye. Erket could feel the triumph of his find slipping away from him, and cursed himself for not searching the stranger more thoroughly, though he was too much of a fool to be angry at his own negligence and cursed the stranger instead.

Another ganger, Berzel, stepped forward from the crowd and plucked the pistol from its harness, before inexpertly attempting to remove the harness from the stranger’s arm; a task he quickly abandoned, leaving the harness hanging by a tangled mess of cord, half-disassembled with latches, bolts and springs falling from it as evidence of Berzel’s ineptitude. The patter of their fall was the only noise in the otherwise deathly silent Pipe.

Lakatos, meanwhile, was meticulous. He had the stranger’s coat spread out on the bar and searched it with a thoroughness that only made Erket even angrier with the damned outlander who had made such a spectacle of him, and in front of his gang no less.

Lakatos’s search yielded a handful of parchments, though none of them seemed to grab his attention, and he tossed them casually into a pile beside him on the bar.

‘Just kill him,’ yelled Erket. He was the only one stupid enough to shout such a thing, but it was clear that most of the assembled Cawdor were thinking pretty much the same thing.

‘No,’ said Lakatos, coolly stopping and turning to face Erket. ‘A man needs a pretty good reason, or a real big problem, to venture out in Ash Season, and I want to know what it is.’ Lakatos glared at the stranger, who dipped his head and aimed his gaze at the floor, remaining staunchly silent.

That much was true, thought Erket. It was a good three days walk through the storms from the nearest settlement. A week’s walk from the nearest settlement that wasn’t under Cawdor control. How the outlander had survived so long out there alone was something Erket couldn’t fathom, though in truth he didn’t much care.

Lakatos carried on searching the coat, drawing a dagger and ripping the garment’s seams open just in case its lining hid anything of interest.

Then he stopped.

Lakatos stared at the pile of discarded parchments for a moment, dropped the jacket and reached over and brushed the top three or four parchments out of the way. He snatched up the particular sheet that had caught his eye. In flinging it to the bar, Lakatos had accidentally dropped the parchment into a foul smelling puddle of liquid, probably the same filth Erket had cunningly spilled from his tankard earlier. The right-hand side of the parchment was soaking, and where the liquid ran it revealed something most surprising.

The surface of the parchment looked like nothing more than a plain old grant of passage, a simple docket the stranger had used some time in the past to cross, in this case, Orlock territory without difficulty. But the slop revealed another layer, hidden beneath the writing on the surface, and this was what caught Lakatos’s eye. He dragged the parchment through the puddle of spilled liquor, dousing the rest of the parchment to reveal the entire inscription.

It was a chart of some sort, a ledger with what appeared to be designation codes scribbled in the left-hand column, with a series of ticks, crosses and numerals filling the columns that ran out across the rest of the page.

Lakatos snatched up Erket’s half-full tankard from where it stood on the bar, and the juve breathed a sigh of relief as Lakatos poured its contents unceremoniously over the entire pile of parchments. His leader had disposed of the filthy stuff and spared Erket from drinking it without him having to suffer the indignity of refusing it.

Lakatos flicked through the pile, tearing many of the sodden parchments in his imprecise, leathery grip. He tossed many of them aside, but two more parchments revealed the same hidden layer as the first. One of these was another ledger, while the second took the form of an intricate diagram Erket couldn’t make out from his poor vantage point. Lakatos snatched up the magic parchments in his fist and turned to face the stranger.

The stranger looked up, his good eye blinking a little faster than normal, but his bionic eye remained still and he showed no other signs of nervousness, even now that Lakatos had apparently chanced upon his hidden cargo.

‘What are these?’ asked Lakatos, striding up close to the stranger.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m just the courier.’

Lakatos allowed himself a faint chuckle. Erket marched forward and parked himself right behind his leader, peering over his shoulder. This time, his voice was just a whisper.

‘Let’s kill him. We don’t need him. I bet we can sell these things for a fortune. Come on, let me finish him, boss.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Lakatos. ‘He’s got a fancy bolt pistol, but a busted up little stubber with a laser sight on it. That’s quite a thing to do, to put a sight on a battered weapon’ said Lakatos, beginning to pace in circles round and round the still restrained stranger.

‘Even if you were just the courier, someone like you doesn’t come cheap. These must be real important, don’t you think?’ Lakatos waved the parchments beside the stranger’s face, trying to frighten him with the sudden noise from behind.

‘Maybe they are.’ The stranger still held his nerve. He didn’t let his eyes wander, and even as Lakatos paced behind him, he kept his gaze fixed dead ahead. ‘I wouldn’t know. I just carry ’em.’

‘But real important to who? Where were you going?’ asked Lakatos. ‘That’s what bothers me. This place isn’t on the way to anywhere, and you don’t seem like somebody who got lost in the storm. There’s more to you, outlander, isn’t there?’ Lakatos’s intimidating black mask came within an inch of the stranger’s cold, hard stare. ‘Much more, I think.’

Lakatos raised himself to his full height, and with a casual flick of his gloved fingers he gestured to Durn and Rubik, their hands still clamped down on the stranger’s shoulders like ripper jacks to a kill. For a second, Erket was sure his leader had just given the signal to kill the stranger, and he snarled in delight, though he was disappointed that he couldn’t do it himself. Then, once more, the juve’s tumultuous temper raced skyward as he realised Lakatos’s real intention.

Durn and Rubik released their grip on the stranger and stepped back. The stranger took a moment to roll his shoulders in their sockets, working off the stiffness of the past few minutes’ detention. Then he rose from his stool and stood to face Lakatos.

‘You know what amazes me the most?’ said Lakatos rhetorically. ‘Just because a man has reason enough, is desperate enough, to try his luck out in the ash storms, doesn’t mean he’s going to make it.’

The stranger seemed to be paying little attention to Lakatos. Instead his foot slid across to where his hat lay on the floor. He slid his toe under the rim and kicked it hard upwards. Several of the Cawdor gave a start. Pistols were raised back to aim on the stranger’s head and daggers came forth from their sheaths while many of the bar’s other patrons dived for cover.

Not so Lakatos and the stranger. Both remained implacable. The stranger’s hand flashed out to his side, catching his hat by the brim and flicking it back onto his head with a single motion. Lakatos raised his hand and signalled to his gangers to lower their weapons. The stranger’s gamble had done little to shake Lakatos but, as Erket gazed around the room, it was clear that fear was the only thing holding back many of the other gangers’ trigger fingers.

‘What amazes me,’ said Lakatos confidently, ‘is that you came here at all, that you made it here, especially when, well… when…’ Lakatos’s voice trailed off. He was playing with his audience, confident he had solved this stranger’s riddle. At last he continued.

‘These stormy days are unpleasant,’ said Lakatos, a wry smile forming on his face. The other members of the Union gazed at each other half in shock, half in fear.

‘Yes,’ said the stranger, emotionless, but with a hint of a question in his voice. ‘For strangers to travel…’

Erket cursed and without realising it stamped his foot to the ground in rage. He could hardly remember the password at the best of times – something Lakatos reminded him of frequently – and here was this damned outlander. How could he know the password? He wasn’t one of them, he couldn’t be. Erket was sure he couldn’t be.

Lakatos obviously thought otherwise. Erket grimaced as Lakatos broke into a broad grin and slapped the stranger firmly on the back, clutching his arm warmly with his other hand and leading him out of the watering hole like a friend who had not passed this way in years. Berzel, Morden and the others rushed up to the stranger, thrusting his pistol and the tattered pile of parchments back into his hands, eager to appease him. Many patted him on the back, just like Lakatos had done, welcoming him warmly where minutes ago they would have thought nothing of slitting his throat.

Erket turned and spat on the floor as he watched the boisterous crowd leave the watering hole, the stranger in their midst. Damn that stranger, he thought. Damn that outlander.

CHAPTER: TWO

‘Yes, for strangers to travel,’ said the stranger, repeating the same ancient code that had just hours ago proved his allegiance and earned him entry to this hallowed place.

The other members of the Union clapped and hollered at the sound of this confirmation, delighted that a brother had arrived in their midst. Except, that is, for Erket, who just scowled in the corner. Lakatos caught sight of him and made a mental note to give the thankless urchin something truly unpleasant to do later.

‘Brothers,’ said Lakatos, rising from his seat at the end of the long plascrete slab that served as a meeting table in the poorly lit, poorly ventilated, claustrophobic little room that the Union called home.

‘Brothers, I give you Brother Jurgen,’ he said, reaching his hand out to the man to his left who had already risen from his seat.

Every one of the Cawdor gangers from the Pipe Under Mile was there, each seated around the table, barring Erket and the two other juves who were forced to lurk in the hall’s dimly lit alcoves. Besides these men, there were half a dozen others; long-standing members of the Union whose age and physical condition excluded them from the life of a ganger, though their place in the Union remained as assured as ever.

For all the relief he must have felt at finding a place amongst friends, Jurgen allowed none of his mystery to slip. He was not Cawdor – Lakatos knew that for certain, having questioned the stranger at length before bringing him to the Union’s hideout-cum-shrine. No, this Jurgen was what one might call a convert to the cause. Lakatos could decipher little more of his past than that. He was determined to find out what he could, in time, though for the time being he had little wish to push the subject so far as to alienate the newcomer. That could wait, thought Lakatos. This Jurgen was clearly a very useful man, and Lakatos had no wish to waste any time in bringing him before the Union and putting his considerable talents to work.

‘Brothers,’ said Lakatos, returning to his seat, ‘I give you a marvel of Jurgen’s making.’ He flung the parchments down the long table, their hidden ledgers and diagrams still visible on the damp paper. The other members of the Union leant forwards across the table, clustering round the parchments in small groups and scrutinising them zealously.

‘Go on, Jurgen,’ said Lakatos. ‘We are all of one mind here. Tell our brothers exactly what you told me.’

Jurgen leaned forwards over the table, his hands held wide as he began his explanation in his customary cool manner.

‘The charts, they’re dockets… invoices. The guilders use them to make sure their employees aren’t stealing anything. You can send out a caravan and an invoice with it, but whoever you send with it might just steal some of the merchandise and then alter the invoice to make it look like the stuff was never there.

‘The guilders give these to their employees instead,’ said Jurgen, pointing at the ledgers Lakatos had found hidden in the parchment. ‘The employees think they’re just plain grants of passage, so they hand them over, no question, when they get to their destination. The buyer at the other end, see, he knows about the hidden invoice. He checks it against the invoice in the shipment, and if they don’t match, well, then they know someone’s trying to rip the guilders off. Those invoices mean you can’t cover your tracks.’

‘And this?’ asked one of the older Cawdor, Hengar, waving the third parchment imbued with an indecipherable diagram, quite unlike the ledgers Jurgen had just described. ‘What is this?’

‘That’s for the real valuable stuff,’ replied Jurgen. ‘goods so precious that the guilders send them in locked boxes. You need a code to open the lock, so they send it hidden like that,’ said Jurgen. ‘That way, even if someone steals the shipment, they can’t get into the boxes. I mean you can’t even krak these things open. They need the code and they wouldn’t know where to look for it. The diagram is a picture of the lock and the ciphers show you how to set the dial so it opens.’

Hengar leaned back in his chair and nodded, clearly impressed. Many of the other Cawdor continued to study the parchments, but it was clear all were similarly taken with the newcomer’s peculiar knowhow.

Jurgen turned to Lakatos and nodded, a gesture that he was finished. Lakatos stared at him for a moment and then erupted into laughter.

‘Oh, that is not quite all, is it, friend Jurgen?’ said Lakatos. ‘I think you missed out the most exciting part of the tale.’

Jurgen gave an uneasy sigh. He was clamming up again. They’d left him no choice but to explain the parchments, but he still didn’t seem any more willing to explain himself.

‘Come on,’ said Lakatos, ‘tell us all how you came to be throwing yourself upon our mercy.’

Jurgen wriggled uneasily in his seat. He hunched his shoulders and leaned forwards, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper as he continued reluctantly.

‘Every man has a past,’ he said. ‘It’s the Emperor’s mercy that he can leave it behind when he… finds a cause, you could say, so I don’t see as it helps any of you to know my past, just my situation. Fair?’ Jurgen looked up, casting his gaze around the table, looking in turn for each man’s response.

Most nodded, others shrugged, though none argued with his request. Whatever the stranger wanted to tell them would suffice for now.

‘Have you ever heard the tale of Alderman Greim?’ asked Jurgen, not waiting for an answer. ‘Greim worked metal and stone like a courtesan works the flesh. He was a genius, he could fashion anything. He fashioned this entire place.’

Several of the Cawdor gazed around the room, confused by the reference.

‘The hive, I mean. Alderman Greim built Hive Primus, or at least a hundred thousand proles built it just like he told them to. A lot of the hive was here before Alderman, of course, but in his life he rebuilt so much that what we have now is his work and no one else’s. Greim left his mark. He built the Spire, just as it is now, higher and more slender than they said was possible. No man has ever built anything more astonishing,’ concluded Jurgen. Several gasps of genuine astonishment rang out from around the room. Beneath his mask, Lakatos smiled, delighted that his new charge’s story so gripped the others.

‘And when it was finished,’ continued Jurgen, ‘Helmawr – Sadacah Helmawr as it was then – agreed that this was indeed the most astonishing work of man and that nothing would ever surpass it. Or, at least, Helmawr decided that nothing ever should surpass it,’ said Jurgen.

‘Nothing ever would, surely?’ came the baffled interjection from another of the gangers, Lirbus.

‘No, it’s not likely that it could,’ said Jurgen. ‘Unless, of course, Alderman Greim was somehow to surpass it himself. Suppose Greim had in mind to build something even finer, not for Helmawr, but for his own noble family. Suppose the House of Greim should surpass that of Helmawr in its splendour. Suppose there should be a second spire, even taller and more magnificent than the first. And suppose, Alderman Greim should be the one to sit atop it.’

Another astonished gasp followed. Jurgen continued, as relaxed in his delivery as Lakatos was smug in his discovery.

‘This was what Helmawr feared more than anything and so, with Alderman Greim’s greatest work finished, Sadacah imprisoned him within it; within the Spire he himself had built,’ said Jurgen. ‘Within its very walls. Not so much imprisoned, as entombed.

‘You see, Alderman Greim had fashioned something that Helmawr could never allow to be surpassed, or even repeated, and so Alderman Greim had to be disposed of.

‘So you see, in these cunning devices,’ said Jurgen, pointing at the parchments on the table, ‘I have achieved much the same: fashioned something that the guilders never wish to see understood by any but themselves, and so, they have decided that I must be disposed of.’

Lakatos leaned back in his seat, beaming with pride. The astonishment amongst the other members of the Union was palpable. They had accepted Jurgen as a brother, a fellow in the cause, and they had taken him for a man with knowledge, or one who trafficked in such things. They had taken him for a very cunning thief, perhaps, but not for a moment had they thought he might be the architect of such astonishing things as the guild ledgers he brought with him.

‘You made these?’ asked Hengar, not quite believing it.

‘Yes,’ said Jurgen confidently, ‘and I can again.’

Lakatos erupted into laughter from beneath his mask. A few moments later, the room was a riotous cacophony of laughter and applause. Cawdor men hammered their palms against the table and those that had them in reach snatched up the ledgers and waved them triumphantly in the air. All assembled realised the worth of this stranger – this Jurgen – and the secrets he brought with him, and all assembled well understood the power that his arrival promised them.

The din died down at last as Lakatos once more took to his feet. Two solid claps of his gloved hands silenced the crowd and Lakatos turned once more to Jurgen.

‘So then, Brother Jurgen, you say you can produce such marvels again. Will you?’ he asked. The room stood still for an agonising pause, smothered in silent expectation. After what seemed an eternity, Jurgen spoke.

‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘On one condition.’

‘Anything,’ said Lakatos.

Lakatos’s measured stride raised a terrible noise on the rusted metal beam beneath him, the haphazard collection of metal studs and shards of glass, which Lakatos customarily hammered into the soles of his boots, grating against the surface as he went. Lakatos thought it fitting. A chorus to announce his arrival, and sure enough two cloaked figures emerged from the shadows up ahead. Each brandished a torch in one hand and were bedecked alike in flowing, blood-red robes. Their faces were covered, hidden beneath tall conical hoods, which added much to their apparent height, and their menace. They were deacons, Redemptionists.

One clutched a chainsword in his free hand, its teeth grumbling and jolting a little as the weapon came to life, quickly forming a terrible, snarling blur as its bladed links raced away clockwise down the handle. The other clutched a pistol in his hand, its shape mostly obscured by the long folds of sleeve that hung down from his outstretched arm. Only the flickering blue pilot light at its tip gave the weapon away as a flamer. Even as he halted midway across the beam, Lakatos knew he was well within the flamer’s reach.

‘These stormy days are unpleasant,’ he called out, nonchalantly pulling the glove from his left hand as he did so. No reply came.

Lakatos hurled his glove down onto the beam, the heavy leather gauntlet kicking up a puff of ash and grime as it landed at his feet. Lakatos held out his bare hand, palm up, and gazed expectantly at the two cloaked figures ahead of him. Still no reply came.

When at last it did, it came first with a low grumble as the chainsword’s whirring teeth drew to a halt. Much flapping of blood-red robes followed, kicking up yet more of the fine ash that covered everything at this time of year, as the deacon on the right returned the weapon to a hanging clip on his belt. With his chainsword holstered, his hand plunged once more into the ungainly robes. A few more seconds’ fumbling and the hand emerged clutching a long, blackened iron rod, the outline of a three-pointed crown forming a brand at its tip.

The deacon reached out, holding the brand across the beam where his brethren bathed it in flame with the most delicate of touches on his flamer’s trigger. Even so, the burst raced towards Lakatos’s face and he felt his eyes become painfully dry in the searing air. Just when Lakatos feared he might have to blink, the flame died away. The deacon reached forward, holding out the brand, and Lakatos duly took it by its handle. Upending the thing, he plunged it straight into the palm of his bare left hand.

Once he might have winced, but now Lakatos just repeated the words as the brand seared the same old pattern into his already scorched flesh.

‘These stormy days are unpleasant…’ he said. Handing the rapidly cooling brand back to one of the hooded figures, Lakatos at last got the reply he had been waiting for.

‘Yes, for strangers to travel,’ said the deacon on the left, at the same time stepping aside and beckoning Lakatos to advance. The other deacon stooped quickly, half-bowing as he scooped up Lakatos’s glove from where it lay on the floor, handing it back to him in a gesture of deference before he, too, stepped aside and allowed Lakatos to pass.

Lakatos strode forwards confidently. His flesh was still searing hot, and he felt a little of the glove’s lining melt to his skin as he pulled it back on, though he showed no pain. He stepped from the end of the beam onto the narrow ’crete platform on which the robed figures stood.

Lakatos brushed past them, marching along the platform. The walls quickly closed in around him, so that after half a dozen steps it was more like walking through a tunnel than across the high platform he had reached by such a precarious route. Another few feet and the platform broadened, the ceiling above him shooting rapidly upwards to form the vertical wall of the next, higher dome into which Lakatos emerged.

Perhaps a dozen or so figures, robed like those at the entrance, crossed the steps at the centre of the dome, performing various rites and duties Lakatos had seen a hundred times. All were male. Nothing so unclean as a woman would be allowed within this hallowed place, for this shadowy arena was the latest territory taken by the Helm of the Emperor, a Redemptionist cult and masters of Lakatos’s every deed.

None of them questioned him – the deacons at the entrance were more than trusted to allow none to pass that shouldn’t – and so Lakatos was unhindered as he ascended the steps. At the top, a row of torches ringed the steps, each mounted on a stake stabbed into the floor, forming skewers through piles of the malformed skulls of mutants, heretics and deviants.

Lakatos had never visited this place before. The cult’s constant proselytising invariably drew the attention of what little authority existed this deep in the Underhive, and so the poor, honest men of the Helm of the Emperor were forced to continually move from territory to territory, taking each as a temporary hideout before scrutiny of their activities once again forced them to move on. Still, this unending exodus did nothing to shake the faith of the cult’s members. It was just another hardship they must endure to prove their loyalty to the Emperor, while their constant persecution was another mortal sin for which the unbelievers would have to be punished.

Everywhere the cult went it formed this makeshift temple in precisely the same manner. Lakatos, like many of the cult’s associates throughout the hive, recognised its layout immediately, even though he had last seen it a great distance from here, in a different dome entirely. He followed the outermost ring of torches and soon reached the top of the dome where a dozen or more slabs of rubble, sheets of scrap and collapsed sections of walkway had been dragged against the wall, piled together to form an unstable-looking shack.

Lakatos stooped as he stepped through the shack’s low doorway. He felt the whole thing wobble as his broad shoulders brushed against the two plasteel sheets that acted as jambs, and reached out a gloved hand to steady them lest the whole thing come tumbling down. He took two more steps – never looking up, never looking ahead – carefully measuring his advance by a series of marks scrawled on the floor before falling to the ground in genuflection.

‘Rise, Lakatos. You are welcome here.’ The words came the second Lakatos’s knee struck the cold stone floor. Clearly his master had no desire to make Lakatos stand on ceremony. This was a good sign.

As he rose, Lakatos cast his gaze across the marks on the floor: a single line scratched in the ground directly in front of him, and at either end a scrawl of arcane symbols. ‘Leader, Leader of the Cawdor’, they read. Beyond him three more sets of arcane symbols, each representing the spot where men more worthy than he might approach and kneel before their master. Master, bodymaster, grand master; ranks to which, Lakatos told himself, he would one day surely rise.

Lakatos stood to his full height and, with his master’s welcome, stepped beyond these ritual stations.

‘Grand Master Catafengi,’ he said. ‘Praise the Emperor that I go on in his service. Praise the Emperor that I go on in your service.’ Lakatos bowed his head a little as he concluded his well-practiced greeting.

The old man sat atop a throne that rose a little off the ground. Lakatos stopped himself. He had always taken Catafengi for old, though in truth he had no way of knowing whether or not he was indeed an old man. It was a question that troubled Lakatos greatly. How old did one have to be to attain grand mastery? Lakatos himself was no longer a young man, certainly not by Underhive standards, and had long thought his time must have come. Perhaps Catafengi’s arrival hailed just such an event.

‘You serve him well,’ said Catafengi in equally ritualised reply. ‘Tell me, loyal Lakatos, how is our latest acquisition?’

‘Well. Very well,’ said Lakatos. ‘Fall Sands is ours entirely, grand master. They pay what we demand and they keep their silence. It has been a most profitable acquisition.’

‘Very good, Lakatos, very good indeed,’ said Catafengi. ‘Would that all our brothers were as accomplished as you in their endeavours.’

‘Then all is not well elsewhere, grand master?’ asked Lakatos, hesitantly.

‘No,’ said Catafengi, ‘all is not well.’

Lakatos offered a quizzical sigh in response.

‘Handomel is dead.’

Lakatos was momentarily stunned into silence. ‘Handomel?’ Lakatos finally asked, more words rushing from his lips quicker than he intended, such was his surprise. ‘Dead? Who?’

Catafengi sighed and sank in his seat a little as if defeated by the question.

‘An enemy with whom I had not reckoned,’ said Catafengi in reply, long though it was in coming. ‘A man I do not know. A man named Lago.’

‘Why has he killed Handomel?’ asked Lakatos. ‘What does he want with us?’

‘This,’ said Catafengi, ‘I wish I knew. Handomel was never less than discreet. I cannot imagine he would have been careless enough to come to the attention of the watch, or the guilders. Handomel has ruled his territory with an iron hand for a decade. He has no natural enemy there. This Lago, I can only imagine, is either a new enemy, or a very old one.’

‘One of the other Houses?’ ventured Lakatos.

‘Perhaps, though I think rather it is a case of no House at all. Seems he came only to murder Handomel, and then disappeared without trace. He took nothing and made no claim to territory,’ said Catafengi. ‘His reasons for killing Handomel were clearly his own, and this troubles me greatly.’

Lakatos well understood the implication, and the reason for Catafengi’s concern. Catafengi and his cult wielded great influence. All the Cawdor gangs from a great distance in any direction served him, just as Lakatos and the Union did. While those who openly followed the cult might draw unwanted attention and find themselves perpetually hounded by the authorities, their agents across the Underhive acted on their behalf in dozens of settlements without drawing such unwelcome scrutiny. These gangs, like the Union, ruled over what territory they could, harvesting its profits not only to sustain their own hold on power, but also to fund the broader cult’s activities.

Subject to his master’s wishes, Lakatos ruled over Fall Sands, the settlement he and the Union had in recent months completely subdued, leaving its tremulous inhabitants entirely at their command. It paid well.

Handomel was Cawdor also, as was the neighbouring gangleader Addec, and each ruled over territory elsewhere within the cult’s domain. Addec’s territory – the greater part of the Ash Bluff and the Fulcrum Spike – bordered Fall Sands, with Handomel’s beyond that.

The Union and its counterparts were simple gangs, just like any other, but with virtually every Cawdor gang in the area similarly sworn to the cult’s service, they invariably fared far better than the disparate and quarrelsome gangs of the other Houses. With their mutual borders well defended, the other Houses presented little threat to the well-organised Cawdor. Little by little, this small corner of the Underhive was becoming nothing less than a single domain ruled over by the cult and its master, Catafengi. Any threat to one of these constituent parts threatened the cult in its entirety, and Lakatos well understood that Handomel’s murder heralded trouble for them all, not least his own territory of Fall Sands.

‘You wish for me to deal with this Lago, master?’ asked Lakatos expectantly.

‘Perhaps,’ said Catafengi. ‘First I would rather be certain of things in Fall Sands, Lakatos. You tell me things go well, but what have you to show me?’

Beneath his mask, Lakatos smiled. He reached down to his waist and drew forth a heavy, leather pouch. He passed it to Catafengi, watching the old man’s wrist sink with the full weight of the fifteen hundred credits the pouch contained: a fortune. Catafengi weighed the bag in his hand, clearly impressed.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘things have clearly progressed very well. Perhaps you are wasted in Fall Sands, good Lakatos.’

Lakatos’s gaze rose at once. This, more than anything was what he had waited to hear all these long years.

‘Master, you wish me to serve you elsewhere?’ asked Lakatos, showing his eagerness, convinced that his time had come, that at last he would leave the shabby dealings of gang life behind and join the cult proper as a Master of the Redemption. His foot shuffled around nervously below him, running back and forth over the second of those scrawled worship lines, the line for which he now clamoured.

‘I would,’ said Catafengi, purposely cool, ‘but I cannot leave Fall Sands without a leader. It is too valuable, and I would do nothing to weaken Addec further with Handomel already dead.’

‘Grand Master Catafengi,’ said Lakatos, his formality showing his desperate need. ‘I will attend to both matters at once, and then join you wherever you require.’

‘Both matters?’ said Catafengi.

‘Yes, master, both. And I will not delay,’ said Lakatos. ‘I will find Handomel’s killer and find a worthy successor for the Union forthwith. Someone who will ensure that Fall Sands is well guarded, and someone who will be well allied with Addec.’

‘Very well,’ said Catafengi. ‘Do so, and return to me here when they are done, Master Lakatos.’ He laboured the phrase in a manner that sent Lakatos into rapture.

Master. Master of the Redemption. One simple task lay between him and such a grand title. Just one, thought Lakatos, for in the matter of his successor he was quite certain that fate had that very same day gifted him the perfect candidate.

Lakatos’s step was uncharacteristically light as he drove on, head down, through the raging ash storm that confronted him as he completed his descent into the submerged dome of Fall Sands. The domes above were in little better repair, but at least their height lifted them clear of these accursed storms.

Crossing the haphazard ruins and exposed foundations of walls long ago lost to decay, Lakatos drew nearer to the settlement, where the maze of crumbling architecture at least offered some shelter from the howling gale.

Turning against the wind, he brought himself at last to what passed for the main street of Fall Sands and headed swiftly for the Pipe Under Mile. He did not reach it, instead stopping some distance short as he was confronted by a most curious sight in the street up ahead. The Union was there and a crowd had gathered. Lakatos smiled to himself as he caught sight of the figure at its centre.

Jurgen, it seemed, was causing quite a stir.

CHAPTER: THREE

‘This one?’ asked Berzel, completely disbelieving.

‘Yes, this one,’ Jurgen said for the third time. ‘Clear them all out.’

Berzel shook his head, still disbelieving, but did as he was told. He turned to the girl nearest to him, placing his large gloved hands on her delicate shoulders as if to drag her away. The situation seemed to leave Berzel clueless, and his inept attempt at moving the irate girl accomplished nothing more than earning him a slap in the face. The girl broke free of his grip and slunk back a few paces to where the other girls lurked against the wall.

Berzel stepped forward as if to grab her again, signalling for the other reluctant gangers to follow suit. As he did so the girl stooped, snatched up a chunk of rubble and hurled it squarely at Berzel. A moment later and all four of the ragged-looking women did likewise, pelting the confused gangers with a hail of rubble.

Into the midst of this chaos strode Lakatos, and Berzel winced at the sight of his leader’s return. Jurgen all the while stood calmly back, just in front of the crowd of bemused onlookers that had gathered on the other side of the street.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Lakatos.

‘Jurgen’s crazy. He wants us to clear out this place,’ said Berzel, jabbing a finger in the direction of the building behind him.

‘Need a place to work,’ said Jurgen, anticipating Lakatos’s next question, ‘and you did say anything,’ he said, reminding Lakatos of his earlier promise.

Lakatos paused for a moment before turning back to Berzel. ‘He’s right, give him what he wants,’ he said. ‘Give him anything he wants.’

Berzel threw back his head in astonishment. This was simply the most ridiculous thing he had ever been asked to do. ‘But… but… a brothel?’ he stammered incredulously.

Lakatos shrugged and walked off down the street, leaving his baffled gangers to evict the building’s irate tenants and give Jurgen his own peculiar choice of den.

Berzel grew tired of the ruckus and grabbed the girl again, more forcefully than before. This time she didn’t even let go of the rock and instead smashed it hard into the side of Berzel’s head with her fist. He flinched, angry more than hurt, since even the substantial weight of the rock added little to the girl’s feeble blow. Yet the embarrassment was enough to finally make Berzel lose his temper. He dragged the girl to the floor, wrenching her arms behind her back and carted her bodily across the road where he flung her slight form into the midst of the crowd of onlookers.

Berzel’s example finally convinced the other gangers that this wasn’t just some odd hoax ,and the whole lot of them crossed the dusty street to where the remaining women stood in the building’s doorway. These four were not quite as irate as the younger girl who raged at Berzel from the centre of the crowd, but they put up a fight nonetheless.

Having evicted the first girl single-handedly, Berzel thought that he was entitled to do little more than supervise the continuing scuffle. He could barely suppress a laugh as he watched Lirbus, Deveres and Morden all struggle to get sufficient leverage on the fattest of the whores, and nearly split his sides as the ungainly scrum toppled over, trapping Lirbus in what might have been considered a position of mortal sin.

As the other gangers at last dragged the unwilling molls away from the building, Berzel drew Jurgen near, leading him past the scuffle and into the newly vacated building.

‘Perfect,’ said Jurgen as the pair entered the three-storey building’s highest useable chamber. There was another floor above, but it was roofless and uninhabitable. Several floors, perhaps dozens, also lay beneath them, but at those levels centuries of ash from the raging storms formed drifts so deep that the area was effectively lost, drowned in ash. Indeed the ‘streets’ of Fall Sands were nothing more than the uppermost level of this ashen silt, compacted by the comings and goings of those unfortunate enough to dwell in such a place. With each passing year, those ‘streets’ rose as the storms hurled more of their sooty cargo over the settlement and in time, though perhaps not for some centuries, even the room in which Berzel and Jurgen stood would eventually be smothered and filled by this same choking ash. This was just how things were. The hive, the old saying went, rose upwards, ever upwards, while it’s people only ever fell down. The mounting rafts of ash around them were no exception, however gradual their ascent might be.

Berzel cast his eyes around the room. It was bare, the other members of the Union having already hurled what few furnishings there had been out onto the street, in the hope that their owners might follow without resistance. They hadn’t, and at the thought of it, Berzel was sure he could still hear the pandemonium out on the street below.

‘You could have picked an easier place to hide out,’ said Berzel, still annoyed at the newcomer’s choice.

‘Had to be this one,’ said Jurgen. ‘It’s the right shape and it faces the right way. See these?’ he said, pointing at a row of motionless, fan-bladed vents embedded in the wall. ‘These are just what I need. Gotta have the right atmosphere, the right ventilation, if the parchments are gonna come out right, y’see.’

Berzel was far from convinced but saw little point in arguing now the deed was done. Lakatos seemed taken with Jurgen, and Berzel was certainly impressed with what he had seen of his carefully crafted parchments. He was willing to give the stranger a chance, for now, even if that meant embarking on what had been undoubtedly the most humiliating episode of his time in the Union.

‘Let’s bring the supplies in, and then I can get to it,’ said Jurgen, and Berzel’s mind was at once back on the matter at hand.

‘He wanted us out,’ said Berzel. ‘Said he was gonna work in the dark, and I didn’t see much point in sitting there like a blind fungus.’

In actual fact, it had been hours since Berzel had left Jurgen, at Jurgen’s request, to allow the outlander to begin work on his masterpieces. Still, Berzel decided it was best not to mention how long ago that was, especially since he had spent most of the intervening time in the Pipe Under Mile with Deveres. Anyway, Lakatos had only asked him why he had left Jurgen, not how long ago.

‘Fair enough,’ said Lakatos, providing Berzel with an unexpectedly prosaic response. ‘There’s plenty more for you to be doing anyway, and for the rest of you.’

Berzel gazed around the room. The others seemed just as disappointed that there was yet more work to be done, just as reluctant as he was. Lirbus, in fact, still seemed to be suffering considerable back pain and Berzel wondered just how long he had ended up pinned to the street.

Berzel followed his route automatically. It was a task he had been assigned a hundred times before: visit Goddlesby and collect the taxes. But there was definitely something else going on.

Berzel put such thoughts out of his mind as he hauled himself up through the narrow access shaft that offered the quickest route to Mayor Goddlesby’s shack. He hauled himself onto the narrow ledge and pushed open the airtight, circular, steel door that shut Goddlesby off from the outside world. Berzel had long ago given up knocking when it came to Goddlesby, and the little creep knew better than to ever lock his door to the Union.

Upon entering, Berzel was not surprised to find that one of the women from the brothel – the particularly ample one who had nearly crushed Lirbus, in fact – had apparently taken up residence in Goddlesby’s ‘chambers’, as he termed the dingy little hole. Berzel was convinced that it was an old septic tank.

‘I hope you’re not paying for that out of our money,’ said Berzel, making a rather noisy entrance. Berzel’s sudden entrance clearly surprised Goddlesby and he nearly toppled from his chair. Still, thought Berzel, he couldn’t have been well balanced on it to start with, not with him being so small and having something so peculiarly large on his knee.

Goddlesby leapt to his feet, while the woman offered no more of a response than a highly professional frown.

‘N-no, sir. No, Mr Berzel… Not your money, no.’ Goddlesby was instantly all a fluster. He was terrified of Berzel, terrified of the Union, and he made no attempt whatsoever to hide it.

He instantly dashed across the room to the hole in the wall where he hid all the ‘taxes’ the Union obliged him to collect on their behalf. Goddlesby snatched up the sack of credits, and then was forced to stop, scrabbling on all fours as he gathered up all the credits that his nervous bumbling had scattered across the floor. Hardly composed, Goddlesby at least found sufficient equilibrium to drag himself to his feet and hurriedly presented the bulging pouch to Berzel.

Goddlesby’s eyes blinked at a furious pace as he waited for Berzel to relieve him of the sack and its contents. He was almost willing the Cawdor to take the credits and leave, but Berzel made him sweat. He took his own sweet time in taking the sack from Goddlesby’s outstretched hand and took even longer as he paced around the room, choosing a spot to count the loot. At length he chose Goddlesby’s desk, though two or three other flat surfaces were both nearer and more convenient to him. Berzel brushed past the ample woman, though he had no real need to do so other than to cause Goddlesby maximum anxiety, and sat himself down in the mayor’s rickety old chair.

With one great swipe of his gauntleted right hand he swept a whole clutter of documents from Goddlesby’s untidy desk, sending all the little man’s affairs crashing to the floor. Another brush of his gloved palm cleared the dust from the surface and Berzel at last dumped the sack’s contents out on to the desk.

Berzel took a well-timed eternity counting out the credits, first putting them into piles of five, then counting the piles, and then starting all over again when the tally he hastily scratched into the desk’s surface seemed to disagree with the currency before him. All the while Goddlesby sweated, and all the while his cheap consort frowned.

At last, Berzel looked up from the stacked credits.

‘It’s short,’ he said.

Goddlesby’s face flashed to white in an instant and a terrified gulp was the only noise he could muster. He dropped to his knees and scampered across the floor. Berzel thought at first he was fleeing, until the little man reached the hole in the wall where he stashed the credits and began frantically scrabbling through the rubble that surrounded it. Sure enough, wedged in a crack in the floor, was a single credit. Goddlesby whisked it out of its hiding place and leapt to his feet, breathing a sigh of relief.

‘Must have missed it,’ he said, handing the filthy metal token to Berzel.

‘I mean really short,’ said Berzel.

Goddlesby gulped again.

Berzel calmly scooped all the credits back into the sack. Last of all he fatefully dropped in the lone escapee Goddlesby had just scavenged up from the floor, allowing the menacing clink of its fall to ring out before stepping out from behind the desk and pacing across the room to where Goddlesby trembled in fear. Berzel drew his knife and held it to the mayor’s quivering cheek.

‘It’s short, but I reckon your eyes will just about cover it,’ said Berzel.

Goddlesby let loose an agitated squeak and flinched away before Berzel’s hand closed round his throat.

‘It… it… wasn’t me…’ sputtered Goddlesby, at last mustering the courage to speak. Berzel said nothing, but slowly released his grip on the man’s neck and turned away chuckling.

‘Who was it then? Huh? Who was it, her?’ Berzel jabbed his dagger in the direction of the large lady in the corner who was still frowning for all she was worth. Goddlesby flinched terribly as Berzel moved the dagger, fearing his time had come, though he finally found the courage to reply.

‘I… I…’ Goddlesby just stammered. The woman gave him a moment, though it was obvious that Goddlesby clearly wasn’t the kind of man to defend a woman’s honour and so she erupted in a fit of rage.

‘You little toad,’ she bellowed, storming across the room. ‘I haven’t touched a damn credit and you know it.’

Goddlesby wriggled in Berzel’s grip, unsure who was the most threatening: the stocky Cawdor ganger or the outraged dame rushing towards him.

‘Oh lord, oh lord,’ said Goddlesby, mumbling before breaking into a desperate wail. ‘I don’t know what happened! I just don’t know. It can’t be short, it just can’t be!’

‘I know little man, I know. Same time next month,’ Berzel said, releasing the little man from his grasp. They both knew full well every credit was there, and yet the little urchin couldn’t bring himself to swear it once Berzel got nasty. Berzel could not stop chuckling to himself as he clambered back out of the mayor’s grubby little hole and headed back towards the Union’s ganghouse. He lived for moments like this, making weaklings like Goddlesby fear for their lives, good reason or no. Besides, Berzel’s treatment was nothing compared to what Goddlesby could expect from the woman he had just as good as accused of ripping him off. Berzel chuckled again as he thought of Goddlesby taking a beating, having the life thrashed out of him by that hussy of all people.

‘Every cred,’ said Berzel. ‘What did you expect? That little maggot Goddlesby was so terrified, he was virtually begging me to take it off him. It’s all there, every single cred, just like every time, Lakatos. You know you can trust me.’ Berzel smirked as he slammed the bulging bag of credits down onto the table.

Lakatos said nothing. He gave the bag one long look before knocking it over with a sweep of his gloved hand, sending credits shooting across the table to where the fidgety Erket sat playing with his weapon.

‘Count it out,’ Lakatos said to Erket. ‘Half a share for each man and the rest divided two-thirds, one-third, okay?’ Erket gave a resentful sneer as he snatched up a handful of the metal tokens and started to pile them in front of him. Berzel wasn’t sure whether Lakatos meant to count the stash to check it was all there, or simply to apportion it. He knew every single credit was there – he had counted it himself – but he still grew more than a little nervous every time he returned to Lakatos with the haul.

As he followed Lakatos away from the table, Berzel made sure to push over the first half a dozen piles Erket had counted out in front of him. Erket sneered and looked ready to leap to his feet and strike Berzel. Lakatos’s eyes were instantly pinned on him, though, and the juve clearly thought better of it, and instead simply returned to counting the credits, cursing Berzel under his breath.

Lakatos dropped to his haunches beside a fire that burned in the corner of the room and Berzel followed suit. The blaze was held within the remnants of what must have once been a pipe that ran up the height of the building. Now it was broken off just a metre or so above the floor and formed the ideal site for an ad hoc stove of sorts. Lined with whatever flammable scav the gangers could find, it provided the only fire in the building, though the effluvium that drifted down the south-west corner for the same three hours every day provided some additional heat and the mould lining the ceiling gave off additional light in the form of its eerie, green phosphor glow.

Berzel watched Lakatos snatch a giant rat out from the flames, skewered on a rusty metal spike and burned to a crisp. He ran his knife precisely down its belly. A second and third cut and he had severed the rat clean in two, throwing half to Berzel who picked fussily at it as they spoke.

‘Your friend Jurgen has a very odd choice of hideout, Lakatos,’ said Berzel, still put out by the morning’s events. He had every intention, though, of fathoming his leader’s intentions, and began with this circumspect broaching of the issue.

‘Yes,’ said Lakatos, ‘he does, but he has some rather unusual talents, which I’m not willing to waste. Give him what he wants, Berzel, whatever he wants.’

‘Very well,’ said Berzel, increasingly unconvinced by the outlander, and of Lakatos’s faith in him.

‘Besides,’ said Lakatos ‘it certainly doesn’t pain me any to see that little den of sin purged.’

Berzel squirmed uncomfortably, trying to find a reply that would seem neither defensive nor too much of a protest. As it was, his awkwardness was easily avoided, thanks to the arrival of Morden.

‘Morden,’ said Lakatos, seeing him enter by the door closest to Erket, ‘come.’

Morden predictably swiped at Erket’s neatly counted piles as well, and Berzel breathed a sigh of relief. The chances of the stash actually being counted were diminishing rapidly as Erket’s rage flared and his concentration vanished. It was the same every time. Berzel counted the stash when he collected it, but never quite trusted himself enough to be sure he hadn’t made some mistake, and mistakes, he well knew, were something Lakatos simply did not tolerate. Still, no matter. Now it would be Erket’s mistake.

Morden strode over to the two older gangers and similarly fell to his haunches in front of the fire. Berzel picked one last choice morsel from the rat’s carcass with the tip of his knife before tossing the rest – a good half of what he himself had been given – to Morden. He had been in the Union far too long to wait to be told to share with his brothers. Lakatos might be a strict master, but he was a fair one, and greed was not tolerated.

‘You sent for me, Lakatos?’ said Morden.

‘Yes,’ replied Lakatos. ‘There is work to be done, and plenty of it.’ Lakatos raised his head, gazing past the other two gangers. ‘Erket,’ he yelled, ‘have you counted those shares out yet?’

Erket muttered something under his breath before replying. ‘Yes, master. All here.’

Berzel chortled to himself. Erket was as predictable as he was cowardly. He was more scared of making Lakatos wait than he was of miscounting the stash and had simply lumped the credits into piles without counting them.

‘And the rest?’ asked Lakatos.

‘Two-thirds, one-third, right here,’ said Erket.

‘Bring it to me,’ said Lakatos, holding out his hand and gesturing as though he expected Erket to have already anticipated his demand. Erket would learn, thought Berzel, but probably the hard way.

Erket dashed across the room to Lakatos, both hands clenched out in front of him. Erket’s left hand comfortably held the one-third while with his right he struggled to prevent any of the rather more cumbersome two-thirds share from slipping from his grasp. Sure enough, at least two – and quite probably four or five – credits fell from his grasp as he ran.

Beneath his mask, it was clear Lakatos was frowning. He held out his hand impatiently, snatching the one-third chunk of credits from Erket and dropping them deftly into a pouch taken from his pocket, and returning the pouch to his pocket just as quickly.

Erket looked around desperately for somewhere to offload the increasingly hard to grasp two-thirds. Lakatos frowned and jabbed a thumb at Morden, and Morden reached out both his own palms to take the credits from the struggling Erket. Morden pulled them close to his body, pressing them against his stomach before pouring them carefully into his lap. From there he transferred them safely to a purse drawn from the belt around his waist.

‘Take them to Addec, clear?’ said Lakatos. Berzel thought he saw a look of disappointment creep across Morden, his shoulders sagging and his head dipping.

‘In the storms, Lakatos?’ asked Morden, disbelieving.

‘Yes, in the storms,’ said Lakatos angrily. ‘It must be done.’

Morden sighed and Berzel felt a hint of pity for the man. No one ever ventured out in the storms. What Lakatos was asking was terrible. Still, better him than me, thought Berzel, and he considered this further proof of big things happening, though he needed little convincing. Of that much he was already convinced. Sending him out to collect what the townsfolk owed might be nothing new, thought Berzel, but for Lakatos to send Morden out of town – and in the middle of Ash Season no less – meant something was definitely going on: something big. Berzel puzzled his leader’s motives and listened intently in hope of them being revealed.

‘Take Addec the credits and ask him what he knows of a man named Lago, understand?’ Morden just nodded. ‘Good,’ said Lakatos. He stared at Morden for a moment before Morden realised that he was meant to leave that very moment. His shoulders seemed to sag further before he picked himself up and headed for the door, clearly not relishing the trip ahead of him.

‘Lago?’ asked Berzel.

‘No matter,’ said Lakatos. ‘At least it shouldn’t be.’

At that, Lakatos looked up. Berzel followed his gaze. Jurgen had joined them, though he hadn’t made enough noise to give himself away. Berzel was a little spooked but hushed the gasp that formed on his lips beneath the heavy leather of his mask.

‘Jurgen,’ said Lakatos. ‘Good. Do you have them?’

‘Yes,’ said Jurgen, reaching into his pocket and pulling out several vials of inky black fluid. Lakatos gestured towards Morden with his knife, who was about to head out the door, and Jurgen passed the vials to him. Morden seemed uncertain what to do with them.

‘Jurgen will explain all to you, Morden, don’t worry,’ said Lakatos before turning to Berzel. ‘Go now, Berzel. Your work is done for the day.’

Berzel nodded and left the room, stopping only to snatch up his humble share of credits from the table as he passed. He was curious about the vials and no mistake, but he certainly wasn’t foolish enough to ask, certainly not when Lakatos had told him to leave. He’d already pushed his luck by asking at mention of the name Lago, and Lakatos certainly didn’t seem keen to answer that question. He figured he would find out the answers soon enough.

CHAPTER: FOUR

Morden flung back his head, dipping slightly as he stepped under the broad walkway and at last entered the cleaner air. To Morden, after three days of arduous trekking through the storms, the relief was ecstasy.

Addec’s territory lay well below the level of Fall Sands but, by a fortunate quirk of fate, was not nearly so wracked by the seasonal ash storms. Its outer reaches were annually besieged much the same, but the derelict industrial domes at its heart suffered little.

The area had once formed the lungs of the hive, housing thousands of recycling and decontamination units. Their vast chimneys rose up the outside of the hive like arteries, returning the best of the air to the best of places above. These systems had long ceased to function, and even the zones they once purified were now derelict, or else consumed by the hive city sprawl, but the architecture of the place still afforded its inhabitants some benefits.

Disused siphons, vents and convection chambers rose up for hundreds of metres above the dome, creating a more powerful current of air than could be found elsewhere in the Underhive. At the dome’s base, ancient tunnels led deep into the rock below, creating a cyclical movement of gas and air throughout the dome, which, for the most part, created sufficient atmosphere to repel the raging ash storms beyond.

The walkway under which Morden walked had once been a bridge of the type commonly found over liquid channels in the heavily industrial areas of Hive City. Indeed, the bridge’s abandonment had clearly been swift and the walkway remained partly raised at one end, so that anyone traversing it would find themselves faced with a leap at the end. There was no need to go over it anymore, though, since its channel long ago dried up and Morden simply strolled down the plascrete trench and from there went into the narrow gas separation ducts that the channel had once fed.

Beyond these ducts there was no ash, and Morden breathed deeply. A welcome luxury after three days spent crossing domes so riddled by the storms as to be virtually ash bound. Such a journey was unheard of, and Morden still had precious little idea why it was so urgent that he was sent. He could have died and his pride demanded there be a damned good reason for such a sacrifice.

Then again, thought Morden, the outlander had braved the storms just days earlier. Perhaps Lakatos knew that they weren’t quite so ferocious as to be lethal at the moment. Or perhaps he didn’t care.

The outlander, Jurgen. Morden reached his hand into his pocket and fingered the vials Jurgen had given him. He had virtually forgotten that he still carried them and breathed a sigh of relief as he found they were undamaged. They hardly seemed a worthwhile reason for such a dangerous trek, but reason they were, and their value was deceptive.

Morden emerged from the ducts and found himself in a square – the exposed floor of a building no longer blessed with walls – where peddlers and street hawkers assailed the passing crowds. It was a good time to be selling. The ash storms cut the settlement off from the outside world. Even the guilders wouldn’t be passing through in this weather and those with something to sell, no matter how illicit or how scandalously overpriced, invariably found a buyer at this time of year.

No matter the wondrous commodities to be had, every pair of eyes fell instantly on Morden as he emerged into the crowded courtyard. He was Cawdor, and in a town like this, that alone gifted him a certain air of dread, but he was mystifying also. The black leather of his gloves and mask, and the deep blue cloth of his robes were similar, but not quite like those worn by Addec and his men, and this most subtle of differences made Morden’s appearance more disconcerting than a genuine stranger’s would be.

Morden cast his gaze across the crowds as he passed, playing on their fears and letting them worry themselves stupid just a little more than was strictly necessary. At length he crossed the square and disappeared from view behind the ruined walls that surrounded it.

Morden had not been in the Fulcrum Spike for fully four years and he remembered little of it. He had been certain that he at least knew the way to Addec’s residence, but as he meandered through the ruins beyond the square he became less certain.

A gang tattoo, scrawled on the wall up ahead of him, was instantly recognisable, though. The flaming skull logo was Addec’s, with the crown atop its brow a nod to Catafengi and the broader cult. Yet when Morden had seen it last, this logo had marked Addec’s own hideout. Now Morden saw it again, he found it marking nothing other than a crumbling stone wall, a chasmal pit beyond it, and two more crumbling walls to either side.

Nonetheless, Morden was convinced that this was the place. A rudimentary dig through the rubble at the crater’s edge revealed little more than a handful of spent bullet casings, and Morden was satisfied that whatever had destroyed the building was an accident or the passing of time, and nothing more sinister. Decay was the way of things in the Underhive.

Morden could only presume that Addec had left the place long ago, and hid elsewhere within his territory, yet where that might be he had little idea. Given that he had just swaggered past the town’s inhabitants like a vengeful daemon from the pit, Morden decided against going back to ask directions and was determined to wait it out.

He leant against the wall and allowed himself a short rest after the arduous slog through the storms. If his entrance had accomplished one thing, it had created enough of a stir to ensure that somebody would be looking for him, and he simply decided it best to wait until they found him.

‘Brother,’ came the voice. ‘Brother,’ it came again, this time accompanied by a vigorous shaking of his shoulder.

Morden slowly opened his eyes, coughing a little as he did so, thanks to the ash that had clearly settled in his lungs since he escaped the storms. He looked up groggily, straight into the face of a brother Cawdor.

‘These stormy days are unpleasant,’ said the other Cawdor.

‘Yes,’ said Morden, slowly rising to his feet with the aid of an outstretched hand, ‘for strangers to travel.’ He was greeted with a sturdy pat on the back as the other Cawdor pulled him upright.

‘Fitting, don’t you think?’ said Morden, though his wry sense of humour seemed to pass the other man by entirely. He was dressed in long black robes, only the hood showing any colour, and that a brown so dark as to be almost black. His gloves and mask were lighter, though, of a rich tan leather. He was one of Addec’s men.

‘What brings you here, brother...?’ asked the Cawdor.

‘Morden,’ replied Morden. He wasn’t sure whether the man was questioning his motive or his identity, and so voluntarily answered both. ‘I must speak with Addec. I bring news from Lakatos.’

‘Very well,’ said the other Cawdor. ‘Come with me.’

Even seated, Addec was a tall man, though rather more slender than the bulky guards around him. He made much of his height with his choice of full robes, rather than wearing the cape and breeches for which most Cawdor opted. Instead, his hooded cowl lay atop long robes with three layers falling in tiers towards the ground. The uppermost garments were blue and open at the front, while beneath heavy black robes covered Addec entirely and hung so low as to drag on the floor when he moved. His sleeves, likewise, possessed a great deal more hang than was really needed and it all conspired to produce a rather sinister appearance. Had Morden not once served Addec, he might very well have been overwhelmed upon arriving in his dimly lit room.

As it was, Addec was pleased to see the old man again. Morden had served him loyally and had never truly wished to leave, though he understood the need for it. The Helm of the Emperor had ambitions, and those ambitions had placed the fate of Fall Sands in the hands of an ambitious, but still inexperienced leader named Lakatos. Back then, it was decided that the young man would benefit from a seasoned lieutenant like Morden in a way the experienced Addec simply would not.

It all made perfect sense and Morden had gone willingly to assist the young Lakatos as was Catafengi’s wish. In his heart, though, Morden had always been uneasy about changing gang allegiance in such a way. They might all serve the same master, but loyalty was loyalty, and deep down Morden still considered himself one of Addec’s men. He only hoped that Addec thought of him likewise.

‘Greetings, old friend,’ he said, his hands upraised as he approached Addec where he sat in the corner.

Addec simply nodded in reply, but the cold sombreness of it did not unnerve Morden. Addec had always been a man of great reserve, and he had aged greatly since Morden last saw him. His calm detachment was to be expected.

‘What tidings do you bring, Brother Morden?’ asked Addec. Morden unstrung the pouch from where it had hung on his belt for the past three days and passed it to Addec.

‘By Lakatos’s request, Addec. He thinks you may well be in need of it,’ said Morden.

‘Perhaps,’ said Addec. ‘Perhaps.’

‘I also bring a question, Brother Addec,’ said Morden.

‘A question of Lago?’

‘The very one,’ said Morden. ‘Tell me, what do you know?’

‘That he killed Handomel, that much I know, though I suspect Lakatos knows as much already and that is why he has asked.’

Morden said nothing. He had no idea Handomel was dead though thought better than to evince his ignorance to Addec. He hoped his silence would prompt Addec into further admissions, but none were forthcoming.

‘Where can I find this Lago?’ asked Morden.

Addec just shrugged. ‘I do not even know who he is, let alone where he could be found,’ said Addec, clearly sensing that Morden knew little of matters thus far.

‘Who does?’ asked Morden. ‘Who saw the killing? Handomel’s men? Some of your own, perhaps?’

‘None. No one saw it,’ said Addec. ‘No one saw him.’

‘What?’ said Morden, his ignorance of the matter suddenly surfacing amidst his consternation.

‘Handomel was a fool. He did not take enough care and he paid the price for it. There were none there to help him, or even to see his end,’ said Addec.

Morden was sure that Addec wasn’t being deliberately cryptic, but he spoke in a manner typical of one of his age, and his meaning was often obscured to more youthful ears.

‘How do you know this Lago did it?’ asked Morden, an obvious next question, but one Addec seemed unlikely to answer without prompting.

‘His name was written in Handomel’s ashes,’ said Addec.

Ashes? The impulse to ask Addec what had happened to Handomel was almost irresistible, but Morden suppressed it. He was certain that he would regret asking if he did find out just how Handomel had met such a grizzly end in any case.

‘Lakatos will want more,’ said Morden, trying to avoid direct questioning.

‘Then perhaps,’ said Addec, ‘he will have to find it out for himself. I do not know who this Lago is, nor do I know what he wanted with Handomel, but I know that Handomel was not the wisest among us. I’m sure his demise was his own doing. I am not so sure we need to trouble ourselves with this Lago now that he has taken his scalp.’

‘But perhaps…’ said Morden, uncertain. ‘I mean, another gang…?’

‘Yes,’ said Addec, ‘I think that might be the greater danger. With Handomel gone, our enemies may well fancy their chances, but we have always fought the other gangs, and we will continue to do so. We will do so all the more effectively if we do not distract ourselves with this Lago.’

‘I am sure you are right, wise Addec,’ said Morden.

‘These credits,’ he said, shaking the pouch Morden had given him, ‘will do much to make sure Handomel’s gang survives these difficult times. I will arm them myself and ensure they find a suitable successor. Be vigilant, Brother Morden, but do not be worried. This is Cawdor territory. Is this all, Morden?’ he asked.

‘Not quite,’ said Morden, reaching into his pocket. He drew nearer to Addec, only pulling the vials from his pocket once he was so close to the old man that he alone would see them. The stuff had an odd look to it. The light came through the vials in strange ways and the liquid’s colour seemed to shift and deepen closer to the edges where it should have been lightest. Addec peered at the vials from arm’s length though his eyes were clearly not all they had once been and so Morden passed him one for closer inspection.

Morden’s voice fell to a whisper.

‘These are crucial times, Addec, and Lakatos wishes that we take no risks in our business,’ said Morden, doing little more than repeating what Lakatos had told him before sending him on his way. ‘We are to use a new system for messages, Addec, a secret one: one only Lakatos, myself and you are to know about.’ Morden felt little need to mention Jurgen, though the system was his and the vials Morden clutched were fruits of Jurgen’s labours.

He passed the vials to Addec. ‘Write in this ink and only this ink,’ he said, ‘and write on scrap, something any man might be found carrying. Once you’ve written a message, wait an hour and it will have vanished. Don’t worry, just have your men bring us the message and we’ll uncover it. If you receive such odd-looking sheets from us, here’s what you must do.’

Morden reached into his pocket again and pulled out a folded parchment, one of Jurgen’s earlier works, given to him by way of example. Addec massaged the paper between his thumb and fingers, as if expecting it to peel away or crack wide open and reveal its secrets. It didn’t. It simply creased, tore and hung limply from his hands.

‘It’s just parchment,’ said Addec.

Morden pulled a canteen from beneath his robes and sprinkled a few drops of water on the parchment, smearing it over the surface with his gloved hand until the whole thing had a sheen of water across it. He passed it to Addec who at once saw the message hidden cunningly within.

‘Impressive,’ said Addec. ‘I understand. This will remain a closely guarded secret. Go now.’

Morden nodded, dipping a little as he did so, so that his knee brushed the floor for the briefest of moments before he turned and left the room. He had never said goodbye to Addec, not even when he left his ranks, and he had no intention of doing so now. The old man was wise, and Morden was sure he would see him again.

There was no time to waste in returning his news to Lakatos, yet Morden thought it simple madness to venture into the ash storms again so soon. Night was as good as day in the Underhive, and a few hours recuperation would do little to delay Morden. So he found himself seated in the Chapel, as the younger members of Addec’s gang termed their hideout.

Morden knew almost none of them. Most were too young to remember him. Those few gangers who survived from Morden’s day had mostly risen to the point where they attended Addec in his chambers across the dome. The separate hideouts were a peculiar quirk of Addec’s that Morden had almost forgotten. Still, he was glad to be able to rest in safety without burdening the old man further.

One of the juves drew near to Morden, holding out a bowl of fungus soup. Morden took it in both hands and placed it on his lap. He took the rusty spoon out of the bowl and discarded it. The trick with fungus soup was to drink it quickly before the foaming chemical reactions in the broth made it too hot to drink. To do this, Morden cupped the bowl in both hands and swiftly chugged it down. He placed the empty bowl on the ground in front of him and looked across the room to see two rather less savvy gangers wincing in pain as the poisons released by the fungi reacted with one another and burned their tongues.

A figure appeared in the doorway, though the heavy shadows there hid his features from Morden. At the sight of him, the juve raced over, offering a bowl of the same potent broth, but with a brush of his hand the figure declined. Perhaps it was another youngster, perturbed by the sight of his inept friends burning themselves.

Except, as the figure drew near, Morden could see he wore the fuller mask of a more experienced ganger and what he could see of his face was well-worn. A scar on his chin, already well healed, spoke of years living the life of a ganger.

A scar on his chin… Deeran, realised Morden with a start. It was Deeran, come to see him. Morden leapt to his feet and grabbed him by the hand.

‘Hello, old friend,’ said Deeran as Morden greeted him. ‘I missed you at the old man’s place.’

‘I wasn’t there long,’ said Morden. ‘There seemed to be little he could tell me.’

Deeran frowned and gestured for Morden to return to his seat atop the worn stone steps at the rear of the Chapel. Deeran swept his cloak aside and perched himself beside Morden.

‘Perhaps,’ he said with a definite air of concern in his voice, ‘but I fear there is a growing gap between what the old man knows and what he wants to admit to himself.’

‘What?’ said Morden.

‘He dismisses talk of danger too lightly, simply because he is too tired to deal with it,’ said Deeran, needing little prompting. ‘Lago’s threat is real enough, but Addec is blind to it.’

‘Who is this Lago?’ asked Morden.

‘No one really knows, that much is accurate,’ said Deeran. ‘A bounty hunter, almost certainly. He seemed to act alone, and only sought Handomel’s blood. I can’t imagine another gang would be so discriminating.’

‘Then Handomel made his own trouble and paid for it?’ asked Morden.

‘Perhaps, but if he had brought a bounty upon himself, how come this Lago never claimed it?’

‘How do you know he didn’t?’

‘Claim the bounty? On a pile of ashes? The guilders normally ask for a little more proof than that,’ said Deeran. He was right.

‘I suppose he could have taken the head, or the hands,’ he continued, ‘but I really don’t think it was a simple bounty.’

Morden swallowed hard as Deeran spoke. He didn’t like what he was hearing, and he liked less the fact that Addec hadn’t told it to him. Reporting this to Lakatos would not be easy.

‘Somebody wanted Handomel dead and they hired this Lago to do it,’ said Deeran.

‘Then it’s still the same,’ said Morden, slightly relieved. ‘Handomel made trouble and paid for it. So it wasn’t the guilders, it wasn’t a bounty exactly, but somebody wanted him dead and now he is. Lago’s gone, job done, surely?’

‘If it was just a bounty, I could believe that, but who wanted Handomel dead, and why?’ said Deeran. ‘Without that, who’s to say what happens next? Who’s to say Lago’s gone?’

‘You’re spooking me, Deeran. Why do you think Handomel was killed? What are you saying?’ asked Morden.

‘I’m not sure, old friend, really I’m not,’ Deeran replied, ‘but I was with Handomel’s men two days ago, and things are not well there. He has no clear successor and Vilhame and Coyne are already at one another’s throats.’

‘Catafengi won’t stand for a leadership contest,’ said Morden.

‘I don’t see how he can stop it,’ said Deeran. ‘To pick one of them would alienate those loyal to the other. What then? Kill them? And divide our number further? No, no, this is all very bad. We are faced with strife, Morden, and I can’t help but wonder if this wasn’t exactly what this Lago wanted.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Morden.

‘Well, suppose he’s working for another gang.’

‘There’s hardly another gang left within five domes of here,’ said Morden. He was right. The allegiance of Cawdor gangs had all but eradicated the competition.

‘That’s true,’ said Deeran, stroking the scar on his chin as he spoke, ‘but there are plenty who remember what we did to them, plenty who escaped and set up elsewhere. Who’s to say one of those gangs hasn’t come back, and Lago with them?’

‘They’d have attacked us as a gang. They would have raided Handomel’s territory,’ said Morden.

‘Yes, yes, perhaps you’re right,’ said Deeran, rising from the steps, ‘but I’m still worried that we are turning a blind eye to a grave threat.’

‘If you’re so worried, how come Addec isn’t?’ asked Morden.

‘Addec is old,’ said Deeran, his tone almost one of anger. ‘Were he anywhere else, he would have left this life long ago. It is not for one of his years to be leading a gang in this stinking hole,’ he said, clearly upset. Addec was, after all, his father.

‘But we are more than simple gangs, are we not? And the pacts we have struck allow no return to the city,’ he continued. ‘He has spent his life in the service of Catafengi. The House will not take him back now. They cannot take him back now. Too many eyes up in Hive City look upon us. We must not allow them to see our grand old House consorting with the Redemption.’

Morden stared at Deeran in disbelief. His anger sounded dangerously close to something Morden didn’t even want to contemplate.

‘I’m as loyal as you, old friend, don’t mistake me,’ said Deeran, ‘but the places above fear the Redemption and they will not deal with it, or its agents. That we Cawdor serve the Redemption might be an open secret, but it is a secret nonetheless, and it must remain that way. It would destroy our House for it to be otherwise.

‘As it is, my father must see out his days down here. We will all have to, in time. Perhaps it is a curse that he has lived so long at all; it tires him now. He chooses to turn a blind eye to danger because he no longer has the strength to fight it and this I fear is why he talks so lightly of Lago and Handomel.

‘Heed my father’s words, Morden, as you wish, but do not assume that that is all there is to it. Promise me that much?’

Morden nodded meekly and Deeran departed. Suddenly the ash storms seemed like a more inviting prospect.

The storms were not as fierce as Morden had feared. Here and there he could even see the remnants of his own tracks. In harsher weather, they would have vanished in mere hours. He had made good time and just two days travel had brought him close to Fall Sands, though he dreaded reaching it.

Deeran was his oldest friend, but time had clearly changed him and Morden was uncertain what to make of his prophecies of doom. Likewise, he trusted Addec’s judgement completely, and was greatly reassured by his apparent calmness, but deciding exactly how much of this tale to relate to Lakatos gave Morden great cause for concern.

He shut such thoughts out of his mind and concentrated instead on the matter at hand: navigating the ash storms without becoming lost entirely.

The gusting winds had moved many of the deepest drifts eastwards and where on the way out Morden had been forced to traipse endlessly over high dunes, he found his return journey a flatter one, along something of a temporary valley between the great walls of ash.

The one drawback of this easier lie to the land was that it badly obscured his vision in almost all directions. Elsewhere, this had proved less of a problem, since the low roof of the dome had been visible and Morden had followed its slowly rising curve out towards the centre. Now that he approached Fall Sands – itself in the middle of the dome – the roof was entirely obscured by the raging, ash-laden winds above, and he could not be entirely certain of his direction.

Morden periodically scrambled up the dunes to either side, scanning for landmarks over the short distance he could actually see. Two or three such ascents had proven fruitless, and a fourth was looking similarly disappointing. Morden followed the crest of the dune along for a distance, though it was terribly hard work since such bluffs were made of only the softest, least compacted ash, and Morden sank knee deep with each step.

Still no landmark presented itself, but there was something. At the base of the dune, down the opposite side to which Morden had ascended, there ran a second broad, flat valley, like the one he had been trudging down. Elsewhere, the ground to either side simply drifted off into a sea of dunes and Morden hoped that the occurrence of a second such valley might mean he was nearing home. He shimmied down the dune’s side, deciding to take this second valley as his new course and he plodded on down it.

Perhaps an hour or two passed before Morden found tracks, leading away from him down this temporary channel. They were not his own, as he had first thought, for the print of the boots didn’t match his. The only other person he could imagine that had been out in the storms was Jurgen. Perhaps this was the route by which Jurgen had first entered Fall Sands.

Morden’s step quickened, heartened that even if he wasn’t close to Fall Sands yet, he was at least on the right track. He followed the footprints closely and was glad to see they continued unbroken for some considerable distance. The wind, too, in this trench seemed far less biting, as if it were being held back by the abnormally high dunes, which formed to either side, and Morden found the going a good deal easier.

Following them for several hundred metres more, the tracks shortened, the feet falling closer and closer together as if their maker were tiring rapidly. Soon, they were virtually overlapping; prints made by a man doing little more than staggering forwards. Morden then realised in utter disappointment that the tracks vanished entirely.

He stopped dead on the spot, gazing around. Morden had continued to periodically ascend the dunes and look for landmarks. Perhaps Jurgen had done the same, breaking his tracks. Morden took a few careful steps forwards, but the trail did not restart. He turned and started clambering up the dune to his right. Any tracks here would have faded away rapidly, but at least if this was the spot where Jurgen left the track, Morden might be able to glimpse Fall Sands.

The dune was high and his feet sank with each step. He was barely halfway up when his lead foot failed him and Morden fell onto his side, slipping some metres back down the dune’s side. He cursed but wasn’t hurt, and quickly regained his feet. He gazed up the dune and as he did so, something terrible greeted his gaze.

Where Morden had fallen, the ash had slipped away, falling down the dune beneath him and leaving a great empty furrow in its side. Within that furrow, Morden saw a body: a dead, lifeless body. His boot must have struck it as he climbed, and that was what had caused him to slip.

He scrambled up to the body and hauled it out of the thin covering of ash that remained on top of it. The fine flakes of ash, blowing this way and that in the howling winds, had eaten away at the body, eroding its very flesh, and the skin in most places was nothing but a mass of tiny lacerations, leaving the body a horribly flayed, bloody mess. Some places were worse than others, presumably since those parts buried the deepest had been least affected, but the face was in tatters and only the body’s substantial frame gave it away as male.

Pulling open the thick black jacket in which the body was clothed, Morden was quite surprised to find it armoured. Competently made – if unspectacular – flak armour covered the chest and the arms as far as the elbows. Patting the legs, Morden was certain the same armour extended over the thighs as well: a pretty useful suit.

Morden began to search the body for clues as to its identity. The man was well equipped, and his pockets were filled with ammo as well as several other pieces of equipment such as grapnels, binoculars and a tox-detector, none of which had done their owner any good, of course.

Fumbling around inside the jacket, Morden pulled out a wad of papers. The high winds rushing over the steep sided dune whipped the uppermost sheets from his hands before he could read them and Morden wisely turned his back to the wind, holding the papers in the shielded area between himself and the body. He could find nothing to identify the man, but as he unfolded the largest of the parchments he gawped in amazement.

It was a wanted poster, of the kind issued only by guilders, and staring back at Morden from its centre was the face of one Jurgen Ducott, the outlander Jurgen to whom he had been introduced just days before. Morden already knew Jurgen was a wanted man but he was stunned nonetheless, firstly to find that bounty hunters were so close on Jurgen’s trail and secondly to find that, according to this poster, Jurgen was not wanted for fleeing the guilders, but rather for forgery. Something was not quite right.

The rope bit into Morden’s flesh as his shirt again came loose and rose up over his stomach. He clumsily stuffed the cloth back inside his belt, trying to keep the taut, rough rope away from his skin. It was hardly a dignified end to his journey, but Morden was damned if he was going to carry a stinking body all the way in to town. As it was, the soft ash offered little resistance, and the body glided along behind Morden, sled-like on the end of the rope tied round his waist.

Two great crowned pillars – in fact a crumbling building with cornice in tact – rose up ahead of Morden and, passing beneath it, he found himself once more in Fall Sands. He had clearly not been following Jurgen’s route after all, but the dead man was at least on the right track, if too late, and Morden had found the settlement with little difficulty by continuing in the same direction.

He was greatly reassured to be back, and concerns over how much to reveal to Lakatos had vanished from his mind. Having found the body of a man who died in the storms, Morden unsurprisingly found it easy to concentrate on his own well being. Only now did he start to concern himself again with what news to report. In any case, he had much more to discuss than just Handomel.

He had gone no great distance into the settlement before Erket and Lirbus emerged up ahead. Morden blocked sight of the body, but the unusually large puffs of ash kicked up in his wake and his own peculiar gait clearly caught their attention and they both hurried down the street towards him.

‘You’ve brought us back a present,’ said Lirbus mockingly.

‘Yes,’ said Morden, ‘and you can carry it the rest of the fragging way.’

With that, he cut the rope loose from around his waist and marched off ahead. Lirbus and Erket gazed at the body, and then at Morden, and then at each other.

Erket rolled the body off his shoulder and slammed it down on the table, Lirbus having opted to ‘get the doors’ on the short trek back to the ganghouse. Lakatos, Morden and the others were already assembled around the table, though Jurgen was absent, still consumed by his curious ciphers. A fact for which Morden was immensely thankful.

Lakatos looked down at the body, one gloved fist pressed to his face, index finger across his mouth. He said nothing, prompting Morden to explain with a simple nod of his head instead.

‘He was out in the wastes, dead already, but I have no idea how long. He could have been there weeks, or the ash could have done this to him in hours. His tracks were still fresh, though, so I guess not long,’ said Morden.

‘Who is he?’ asked Lakatos.

‘Nothin’ on him to say,’ said Morden, ‘except…’

He flung the wanted poster down on top of the dead man’s chest. Lakatos and most of the others leaned closer. There was silence for the second it took them to make out the face before an astonished gasp rang out from the assembled Cawdor. Lakatos raised his head, staring at the ceiling in contemplation and stepped away from the table. He began to pace around but said nothing.

‘He’s a liar,’ yelped Erket. ‘Damned outlander’s a fraud.’ He seemed ready to go on with his vitriol, but a swift slap across the back of the head silenced the irksome little juve. Morden wasn’t sure who had slapped him but certainly thought it a wise decision. He manoeuvred himself closer to Erket, in case further chastisement was needed. Morden needed to keep a tight rein on this discussion and he wasn’t going to let the chip on Erket’s shoulder derail that.

Deveres stepped away from the table, shuffling over towards the door where Lakatos paced. The others followed, forming a loose crowd at the end of the table where the body’s feet lay.

‘What do you make of it, boss?’ asked Deveres.

Lakatos frowned as he looked up. ‘I’m not sure…’ he said. His voice trailed off as he began to pace again. ‘This can wait. Morden, tell me about Lago.’

Morden coughed. ‘I asked Addec and…’

His voice trailed off as his and every pair of eyes in the room turned and focused on the figure that had just appeared in the doorway. It was Jurgen.

‘Lago?’ he asked, before noticing the unusually attentive crowd around him. ‘Did you say “Lago”? What’s going on?’

Morden placed his hand firmly on Erket’s shoulder, almost holding him by the neck, just in case the juve had any rash ideas about making this his moment. The room remained utterly silent as Lakatos turned to Jurgen.

‘Lago?’ asked Lakatos. ‘Who is Lago? What do you know about him?’

‘He…’ Jurgen seemed, for the first time, a little nervous. ‘He’s the bounty hunter the guilders sent after me. They tried to kill me in Fortune Caves, but I escaped, so they sent him after me. He nearly caught up with me in Dead Man’s Hole a month ago. That’s when I fled and ended up here.’

‘They sent Lago after you?’ asked Lakatos, his emphasis clear to Morden but meaning little to Jurgen or the others.

‘Yes,’ said Jurgen, more nervous than before, ‘and he won’t stop till he gets me. He’s a psychopath. He doesn’t do it for the bounty. He thinks he’s some kinda saint, out to get all the sinners. He won’t stop till he’s killed me. What’s going on? Why are you talking about Lago?’

Lakatos raised his gloved left hand and snapped his fingers. A moment of scuffling followed before Morden pushed his way through the crowd, wanted poster in hand, and passed it to Lakatos. Erket was the least of his worries, and Morden strolled over to stand between Jurgen and the door, just in case.

Lakatos remained as calm as ever as he passed the poster to Jurgen. Jurgen paused for a moment, staring at the poster. His lips didn’t move as he read it, making him an accomplished reader by Underhive standards, thought Morden.

‘Well I’ll be damned,’ he said at last. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘Is it true?’ asked Lakatos.

‘Is it true that I’m wanted?’ said Jurgen. ‘You know it is. That’s why I came here, to get away from the guilders.’

‘Is it true,’ said Lakatos, ‘that you are a forger?’

‘See here,’ said Jurgen, still rattled, ‘the guilders can’t go saying “Wanted: Jurgen Ducott for writing us an unbreakable code” now can they? Soon as they do that, they give themselves away, and everyone knows about the code. They might not know where it’s hidden or how it works, but they’d know it exists.

‘Now where did you get this? And what’s this talk about Lago? Did he give you this?’ he finished.

Lakatos stepped back. He held his arm to his side, pointing towards the table, and instantly the crowd of Cawdor gangers parted, revealing the body. Jurgen squinted in amazement before strolling up to the table and running his hands over the body.

‘We found the poster on him, Jurgen. That dead guy was carrying it,’ said Morden.

‘Oh no,’ said Jurgen, peering into the dead man’s eyes. ‘This man works for Lago.’

CHAPTER: FIVE

‘This is one of them?’ asked Catafengi as he stooped over the body dumped unceremoniously on the stone floor. ‘You are quite sure?’

‘Quite sure,’ said Lakatos. ‘He had Handomel’s name and likeness in his pocket when we found him. He died out in the storms, between Handomel’s territory and mine.’

‘Hmm,’ said Catafengi. ‘It was my understanding that this Lago had acted alone in killing Handomel.’ Catafengi returned to his throne and sat himself down in it, all the more puzzled.

‘Lago alone killed Handomel, yes,’ said Lakatos, ‘but it seems he does not always work alone.’

Catafengi bowed his head a little. ‘What does he want with us, Lakatos? What does he want with us?’

Lakatos shook his head. ‘I do not know, master, but I will find out soon enough and I will remove this thorn from our side. Do not worry.’

‘Very well, Lakatos,’ said Catafengi. ‘Do not fail me.’ Catafengi nodded, as if dismissing Lakatos, but he remained.

‘There is one more thing, the other matter, master,’ said Lakatos.

‘The other matter?’

‘Yes, master. The matter of my succession.’

‘Hmm,’ said Catafengi, surprised by Lakatos’s boldness. ‘I fear this is a little premature while we have an enemy upon us Lakatos.’ The pair remained silent, eyeing one another for a moment before Catafengi relented.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Is it Morden?’

‘No, master,’ said Lakatos. ‘I thought that had you wanted him to succeed me, you would have named him.’

‘Very wise,’ said Catafengi. ‘You have read my intentions well, but then who have you chosen? I am not so sure there are any who are ready for it, Lakatos.’

‘There is one,’ said Lakatos. ‘I am quite certain. He is a new recruit, master, and a most promising one at that. He has served me well this past time. I have brought him here to meet you. More than that, I think he may well hold the key to dealing with our other predicament.’

‘Oh?’ said Catafengi, raising his head, his curiosity piqued.

Lakatos bowed and turned back towards the door. He stood in the doorway, motioning to someone outside. As he returned, a second man followed; a strangely garbed man that Catafengi had not seen before.

‘Grand Master Catafengi,’ said Lakatos, ‘I give you Brother Jurgen.’

The second man halted some distance away and dropped to his knee, bowing his head and remaining motionless on the cold stone floor. Catafengi shuffled over to where Jurgen knelt and scrutinised him closely. He had none of the garb of either a Cawdor or a Redemptionist and his appearance troubled Catafengi greatly.

‘A convert?’ he asked.

‘Yes, mas–’ began Lakatos, before Catafengi’s upraised finger silenced him.

‘I ask the newcomer,’ he said.

‘Yes, master,’ said Jurgen, never lifting his gaze from the floor. ‘I have journeyed far and I have often been made unwelcome. I have gone amongst others who didn’t know my allegience, master. Forgive me.’

Catafengi paused for a moment’s thought. This Jurgen seemed honest enough and he was certainly not the first of the cult’s members to go plainly into the wider Underhive.

‘Very well, Brother Jurgen, you are welcome here,’ Catafengi said at last. Jurgen gave one last nod of his head in appreciation and rose from his kneeling position, daring at last to look upon Catafengi.

‘Tell me, Brother Lakatos,’ said Catafengi in a tone of voice designed to test Lakatos’s patience, ‘what has our new recruit done to impress you so?’

‘Jurgen…’ said Lakatos.

Jurgen stepped forwards, drawing a wad of parchments from his pockets. He unfolded them and removed the top two sheets. He held them out in his hand, offering them to Lakatos who waved him off. Jurgen instead passed the sheets to Catafengi directly.

Catafengi inspected the sheets. One was a wanted poster of the sort typically posted by guilders. The other was a simple grant of passage and Catafengi remained unimpressed.

Jurgen drew near, taking the sheets back from Catafengi, though holding them at arm’s length the whole time, like the reluctant grasp of a conjuror who presented his offerings from a distance so as to allow no hint of trickery. Jurgen even spun the sheets on their corners, showing them front and back to Catafengi as he backed away. Catafengi nodded and waved his hand for Jurgen to continue. The spectacle was amusing if nothing else.

Jurgen pulled a canteen from his coat and, finding it difficult to both open the stiff canteen and hold the parchments, he passed the sheets to Lakatos who held them by their corners in the same ginger manner. Catafengi was intrigued as to why the pair of them seemed so suspiciously proud of these simple parchments.

Jurgen tugged at the canteen’s stopper. It came away with a high-pitched plop and he raised the canteen over the parchments and emptied the contents over them, dousing them so that both sheets quickly became heavy. The sheets folded in on themselves and hung from Lakatos’s grasp like heavy rags.

Jurgen took one sheet from Lakatos, pulling it taut by its sides, and walked back towards Catafengi. Lakatos did likewise, straightening out the sheet he held in his own hands as he went.

Jurgen passed his sheet to Catafengi, who was increasingly baffled by the display. He frowned as he took the sheet, less than thrilled to have the paper dripping all over his robes. He held the paper out in front of him and was instantly aghast.

A verse, copied word for word from the ancient ideologum that Catafengi had furnished Lakatos with long ago, was hidden beneath the wanted poster’s surface, apparently embedded in its very fibres in an ink that had remained invisible until wetted.

‘Astonishing,’ said Catafengi as Lakatos passed him the second sheet. It similarly bore hidden text revealed by the dousing.

‘They are quite undetectable and they will allow us to communicate freely with our friends all over the hive. Even our friends in the highest of places, master,’ said Lakatos. ‘There is simply no danger of their contents being uncovered. They are of Jurgen’s making, master,’ he continued. ‘We have a ready supply of suitable documents, master. They merely need impregnating with Jurgen’s magic.’

‘Impressive,’ said Catafengi, his mind boggling at the possibilities offered by this new recruit’s peculiar talents.

‘There is more,’ said Lakatos. He nodded again to Jurgen and the newcomer drew another sheet of parchment from his pocket. He unfolded it once more and, this time without waiting for a prompt, handed it directly to Catafengi in his throne.

Catafengi took the sheet from Jurgen, pulling it close to his face so that his old eyes could make out the dark print on the grubby parchment. He gawped in astonishment, which quickly turned to anger.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ he barked. ‘Lakatos, what have you done?’

In his hands, Catafengi clutched a wanted poster, just like the rather more anonymous example with which Jurgen had demonstrated his hidden writing. This one, however, was instantly familiar, bearing as it did, Lakatos’s masked countenance on its sepia background.

Lakatos chuckled as he approached the old man. ‘I thought it a rather good likeness,’ said Lakatos. ‘Don’t you? He’s as much an artist as a forger, our Jurgen,’ he said.

Catafengi raised his head and, through his tall, conical hood, glared at Lakatos with one eye. ‘Then this is a fake?’ he asked at last, only slowly starting to understand.

‘Quite,’ said Lakatos. ‘Though I wouldn’t call myself innocent of everything it says.’ He gave a deep belly laugh as he finished, far too proud of his own foolery for Catafengi’s liking. This Jurgen, Catafengi thought to himself, was proving rather interesting.

‘I didn’t have it in mind to make it known to the others,’ said Jurgen, ‘since you never know who you might need to fool, but I thought it only right and proper that I avail myself to Lakatos.’

‘And I, you,’ Lakatos said to Catafengi in turn.

‘Good, good, good,’ said Catafengi. ‘You are right, and I am glad none know about your forgery. Indeed, you never know how much more smoothly things might pass, the fewer people know about them. We will keep this our secret,’ he said. ‘Understand?’

‘Yes, master,’ said Lakatos.

‘Yes… master,’ said Jurgen. It took a swift dig in the ribs from Lakatos to elicit the address but Catafengi cared little. He only really enjoyed the formality when it came from arrogant fools like Lakatos.

‘You see,’ said Catafengi, ‘we must be careful in all things not to reveal ourselves. We have many enemies, many troublemakers who need to be removed, but to act against them openly invites scrutiny. We must wait until an opportunity gifts itself to us. Until now, that is…’

‘Master?’ asked Jurgen.

‘If our enemies also happened to be wanted by the guilders, it would be rather easier for us to deal with them, would it not?’ said Catafengi.

‘Of course, master,’ said Lakatos. ‘We could strike them down with total impunity, if only they were wanted by the guilders.’

Catafengi detected the same smug tone in Lakatos’s voice as in his own, and the pair both turned quizzically to Jurgen. He took a moment before nodding in reply, a wicked smile forming on his lips. Clearly, he understood the plan.

‘Then I will go at once, master,’ said Jurgen, ‘and make wanted men of our enemies.’

‘Patience Jurgen,’ said Catafengi, turning to Lakatos. ‘And the other matter? What does Jurgen know of it?’ asked Catafengi.

Lakatos stepped forward with a start. He had clearly forgotten it.

‘Ah, ah yes,’ he blurted. ‘This Lago is not unknown to you Jurgen, is he?’

‘No, not at all,’ said Jurgen. Catafengi leaned forward, listening closely as Jurgen began his tale of Alderman Greim, followed by his own. He continued with the tale of Lago on his tail and a half dozen daring escapes from his clutches. Catafengi remained silent as the tale concluded, careful to give away nothing of his own feelings.

‘If I were a rash man, Jurgen,’ he said at last, ‘I might jump to the conclusion that it is you who has brought Lago to our little corner of the hive and brought this trouble upon us.’

Lakatos gulped. His arrogance had led him to overlook this rather obvious conclusion and Catafengi enjoyed watching him squirm. In the end, it was Jurgen who answered the accusation.

‘Perhaps, master,’ he said, ‘but I do not think you are a rash man.’

Catafengi was impressed. Jurgen clearly hid a wisdom easily the equal of any possessed by his other servants. Still, Catafengi was not yet sure of his motives.

‘Lago may well be looking for me,’ said Jurgen, ‘but I didn’t bring him here. I have never heard of this Handomel, and I don’t know what Lago wants with him. Seems to me we’re in this together.’

This much at least made sense to Catafengi, and he was satisfied that Jurgen was not more trouble than he was worth, though the mystery of Handomel’s demise still troubled him greatly. Even if Jurgen didn’t know the answers, Catafengi felt sure he was the man best placed to discover them.

‘How, then, do you suppose Lago’s bounty hunter found you here?’ asked Catafengi.

‘Well,’ said Jurgen, ‘I can’t be sure he did. Could just be blind luck. The fool got lost out in the storms and just happened to be carrying my poster on him when he did.’

Catafengi nodded. It was certainly possible.

‘Or it could be the guilders know more than I reckoned,’ said Jurgen. ‘I swore myself to the Redemption long ago, but I did my best to keep it from them.’

It was a familiar story to Catafengi’s ears. The Redemption had adherents throughout the hive, from the very highest families of the Spire to the very lowliest dregs of the sump. Only two things united this disparate congregation: their unrelenting devotion to the Emperor’s good works, and the hateful persecution that their beliefs invited from the rest of the hive’s population. To those who did not believe, the Redemption was a dangerous, destabilising cult. They loathed its influence and feared its unseen agents, and hence punished all those who made their devotion known. Catafengi bitterly hated this ill treatment of his brothers, but he understood their need for secrecy and thought no less of Jurgen for his secret loyalty all these years.

‘I could be wrong,’ said Jurgen. ‘Perhaps they always knew I was secretly faithful. If they did, then Lago’s just going through the list, I guess, and checking out every Redemptionist refuge he can find. He might not even know I’m here yet. Maybe that’s how Handomel ended up crossing him.’

Catafengi paused. This was compelling speculation. ‘Very well,’ he said at length. ‘Jurgen, take one of Lakatos’s men to meet what remains of Handomel’s gang. Find out from them what you can, and then decide how to proceed. Once the matter of Lago is in hand, we can progress.’

‘Progress?’ asked Jurgen. From his post behind Jurgen’s shoulder, Lakatos nodded deferentially, but Jurgen was as yet unaware of the greater scheme unfolding around him. Catafengi had no desire to waste his time explaining and was mercifully relieved when Lakatos hurriedly stepped forwards in interjection.

‘Yes, ah, Jurgen, there is much we must tell you.’

The three of them strolled over the cracked steps at the base of the dome. Most people averted their gaze as Catafengi passed. He seldom left his shack these days, and even those that travelled with him would be more accustomed to seeing his rarefied litter than the man himself. The red-hooded men that scurried around, trying to look busy in the presence of their prophet, would take Lakatos and Jurgen for great and powerful figures to have drawn Catafengi from his chambers, and it was an impression Catafengi certainly wished to cultivate.

When the time for crusade came, it was men like Lakatos and Jurgen to whom he would have to entrust much of his plan, and any faith in them he could inspire now would be priceless. As much as he sought to introduce Jurgen to the ways of the cult, it was just as vital to introduce the cult to him. He foresaw greatness for this Jurgen… Great and fiery things indeed.

‘These are our brothers, Jurgen,’ Catafengi said. ‘These are our brothers who bear the mantle openly, and they suffer greatly for it,’ he said.

Jurgen looked away in thought.

‘It is the reason, no doubt, that you are before me dressed as you are,’ said Catafengi. ‘I think you know well how our faith suffers at the hands of unbelievers?

‘The unbelievers hound us, in the name of the dark things in their hearts and in the name of that bastard Helmawr. They fear us because our faith in the Emperor is so great that we resist their lies and do not blindly serve them when it is not what the Emperor asks. Helmawr acts for himself, and all who work for him do likewise. They are infidels, cowards and traitors. They do not serve the Emperor as we do, they enact nothing of his will but that which will make them fat and bloated, or sate their perverted appetites and fulfil their wicked desires. And yet they hound us.’

At this, Lakatos raised his gloved palm, firmly patting a passing Redemptionist on the shoulder as if in a sign of solidarity. It will take braver actions than that, thought Catafengi, though he refrained from pointing it out. Lakatos was arrogant and prone to gesture, but he was faithful and his well-aimed zeal served Catafengi well.

‘We are not alone, of course. Our enemies prove their own cowardice in that they dare not fight us when we come in the guise of that brave House, Cawdor. That is why you are so important to us, you and your kind,’ Catafengi said.

‘You see, Jurgen,’ he continued, ‘it is not solely Lakatos who has pledged himself to our cause, but there are many like him all about this place. The time is coming when, all together, we will act.’

‘Master?’ asked Jurgen.

‘That we can hide ourselves away here is thanks to the hard work of Lakatos and his Union, and Addec and the others like them. It allows for time away from prying eyes, for the time to plan and to prepare for what is coming. Do you know what is coming, Jurgen?’

‘Redemption is coming. Redemption comes for us all,’ said Jurgen, his voice strong and certain in his words.

‘Very good,’ said Catafengi, ‘but it does not come quickly or easily. Nor does it come quietly when not called for. It comes by blood and sweat, and sacrifice. It comes by crusade, Jurgen, it comes only by crusade. That is what is coming: the crusade for redemption.’

Catafengi watched for the newcomer’s reaction, but it was muted and hard to place. Indeed, Lakatos, who had heard such words many times before, seemed the more startled. Perhaps he detected in Catafengi’s voice the imminence with which he saw events unfolding.

‘I do not think we need wait long before our crusade begins, brothers,’ he said at last, as much to confirm Lakatos’s suspicion as to inform Jurgen. Jurgen, he was sure, understood already, no matter how recent his arrival. Great things. Great and fiery things.

‘You see,’ Catafengi continued, the three of them still strolling slowly across the rubble at the foot of what once must have been a considerable causeway. ‘You see, there have been many crusades, many brave and devout martyrs, Jurgen. They came as raging tides of fire and they swept away much that was unclean, but like all tides, they were driven back. It will not be this way for us, Jurgen.’

‘Emperor wills it,’ said Jurgen.

‘Indeed he does. That is why he has gifted us such territory as we now hold: Fall Sands, the Fulcrum Spike, the Ash Bluff, the Seven Domes of Fire. We bear all these things in his name, though to our enemies they appear divided and spread amongst many gangs. All the Redemption holds, they take from us, the unbelievers, but all Cawdor holds, they fear to touch, the cowards.

‘That is why they do not drive us out as they have our brothers. They do not realise what they face. They do not realise that we are so many, and when the time comes, they will be too few to stop us, I am quite sure.’

‘I am sure there is no one who could stand against us, master. We are well prepared,’ said Lakatos, his arrogance and craving of attention forcing him to butt in when he had little to say.

‘Indeed we are, though there are yet a few preparations to be made,’ said Catafengi, ‘and that is your job, Jurgen, to complete our preparations so that our crusade may begin.’

‘Me?’ asked Jurgen, his voice hinting at a modicum of surprise.

‘Yes,’ said Catafengi. ‘I have decided that when our crusade begins, Lakatos will be at my side. The Union will have its part to play, however, and it is you who must direct it. Are you ready for this responsibility?’

‘Yes,’ said Jurgen, ‘as the Emperor wills it, so it is done.’

‘Very good, Jurgen. Very good. There was a man named Handomel, what do you know of him?’

‘I’ve heard a thing or two from some of the others,’ said Jurgen. Lakatos hissed his annoyance. Still, thought Catafengi, if nothing else it proved Lakatos had at least chosen the most tight-lipped of his apprentices for a successor. This would prove a wise choice, he was sure.

‘Handomel is dead,’ began Catafengi, ‘and I am not sure that any of those he has left behind is yet ready to complete his work: our work. I will not have one hand with a missing finger before we begin, Jurgen. Just as Lakatos has made sure of the Union’s strength, we must be sure that Handomel’s men are still strong without him.’

‘You wish me to replace Handomel, master?’ asked Jurgen.

‘No, Jurgen, no. I simply wish to know that Handomel has been replaced by one of his own. Someone with whom you can deal.

‘Unity has always been our strength, Jurgen. Communication is vital to that, and your secret messages will do much to bolster it. It is the Emperor who dictates this crusade, but it shall be I who interprets, and as I do so, word must be spread. It will be up to you, Jurgen, to see that all our brothers know their roles without our enemies discovering them.

‘You must make contact with whoever is fit to succeed Handomel – at once, or you may wait until Lago is dealt with, I leave it to you – but then you must share your secrets with them so that we will have a network. Then you must spread word across it, exactly as I tell you, when I tell you. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, master,’ said Jurgen. ‘I understand everything.’

‘We have already made such preparations with Addec, master,’ said Lakatos, quick to interject.

‘Good. Soon we shall begin, but quietly at first. You will produce wanted posters for the most dangerous of our enemies, and we shall eliminate them without suspicion and leave their gangs leaderless. Then we shall begin in earnest. Are you ready to begin?’

‘Yes, master,’ said Jurgen. ‘I am ready for all of this.’

‘Very well,’ said Catafengi. ‘Go now, and do as I have said. Our crusade begins soon.’

‘Yes, master.’ Jurgen dropped to his knee in a hasty bow. He rose quickly, instantly turned on his heel and was gone, hurrying across the steps.

Lakatos tarried a moment longer, stopping on the steps as if awaiting Catafengi’s approval. Catafengi was well pleased with Lakatos and his actions, but had little desire to bolster the man’s ego further and granted him no more than a single nod. This was enough, and Lakatos was gone. Their destiny awaited them all and all knew it was within touching distance.

Catafengi breathed deeply of the smoke-laden air around him. Exhaling, he felt more powerful than he had in decades. His time was at hand, a time for great things. Great and fiery things.

CHAPTER: SIX

‘Deveres!’ Lakatos shouted the name even before he reached the entrance to the ganghouse. Deveres didn’t think it especially wise to let him shout it again and quickly scrambled down the ladder from his perch on the roof.

‘Go with Jurgen,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ said Deveres. ‘Where?’

‘The Ore Chasm. Jurgen is going to see Handomel’s gang.’

Deveres’s heart sank. All around him he heard titters of laughter. Only Morden offered a sympathetic half-smile.

‘In the storms?’ asked Deveres, though having seen Morden sent out just days ago he knew any protest was pointless.

‘Yes,’ said Lakatos, ‘and take this stinking thing with you.’ Lakatos kicked the bounty hunter’s mutilated body where it lay on the exposed iron skeleton of the building’s plascrete floor. ‘Get rid of it.’

‘No, we’ve got to get right away from the track,’ said Jurgen. They had trudged through the ash for the entirety of the previous day and Deveres was sure there was no way anybody would find the body out here anyway. He had little stomach for a journey right out into the dunes.

‘There’ll be hell to pay if anyone finds out one of Lago’s men is dead. For a start, there’ll be a hundred damned bounty hunting idiots looking to cash in on all his unfulfilled contracts. Those contracts include me, and the rest of you I shouldn’t wonder, so let’s make sure we leave him where no one will ever find him.’

Deveres wasn’t sure the rotting corpse they hauled behind them deserved quite such an effort, but Jurgen was stubborn on the matter, to the point of seeming almost fearful, and Deveres saw little point in going against him.

‘Who the heck is he, anyway?’ asked Deveres.

‘I don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him before. He works for Lago.’

‘Lago?’ asked Deveres. ‘I mean, I know he’s a bounty hunter, but what makes him so special?’

The pair trudged over the shallow bluff to their left, heading away from the more easily traversed route, which followed so far.

‘Lago is something else,’ said Jurgen. ‘He was the guilders’ first choice of hired gun for the most part. Back in Glory Hole, they used to say the only guilders not using Lago were the crooked ones; the ones Lago was probably already after.’

The ash began to drag at Deveres’s feet and with each step he seemed to be sinking deeper into the stuff, but Jurgen marched on, trying to get further and further from the track. At least with Deveres’s lagging, his section of the rope was going slack and Jurgen was doing most of the pulling. Deveres reluctantly followed him, jogging along so as to stay close enough behind for him to be able to make out what Jurgen was saying.

‘They trusted him, too, in a way you just can’t trust a hired gun. When I was still working for the guilders, Lago was the man they chose every time someone ripped them off. If one of the shipments came in not matching the inventory in the cipher, then Lago was the one they put on it.’

They crossed another spine of dunes, Deveres almost tumbling down the opposite side as he incautiously ran over its crest. Ahead of them, there was nothing but an endless, shifting sea of ash and Deveres was sure this would be far enough, but Jurgen slogged on.

‘He was quiet, see, no fuss. Never left a clue as to why he’d come or gone. The guilders wanted it that way. You make too much mess knocking off the kind of people that he was knocking off, and someone’s gonna join the dots, gonna realise that the guilders are onto whoever’s ripping them off. If that happens, well, it’s only a short step until someone realises how the guilders got onto them, and that was a secret worth protecting, like I told you.’

‘Is that why they set him after you?’ asked Deveres. They’d stopped walking – or rather Jurgen had stopped walking and Deveres had followed suit – and both men gazed around them. The dunes rose up in every direction, one after another, in waves. The winds were stronger here too, causing the dunes to grow and melt away right before their very eyes. There was no danger of navigable tracts here.

Jurgen pulled a shovel free from the kit roped to his back and dug its blade down into the ash, leaving the tool standing firmly upright as he delved into his pocket and pulled out a curious looking metal triangle. He fiddled with the metal object before dropping it to the ground at his feet as he answered Deveres’s question.

‘I reckon so. See, the guilders kill me, and people are going to wonder why. What did I do? What did I have?’ he said. ‘Bounty hunters are scum for the most part, in for what they can get. If they had the faintest idea that the guilders were after me for something I took, they’d find it. They’d have found those parchments. I could have bought my life by sharing the secret with whoever caught me, and where would the guilders be then?’

Deveres and Jurgen both churned shovel after shovel of ash, but it was hard going. The high winds drove ash across the shallow hole and seemed to fill it almost as quickly as Deveres could dig. Jurgen was having better luck, though. Deveres looked across at him. He seemed to be almost digging across the ground, creating a shallow angle so that the winds worked with him, blowing the ash clear of what was already dug. Deveres did likewise and saw the hole deepen quickly, though it took him a minute more to realise he should really be piling the ash downwind of the hole.

‘Not Lago, though. They trust him,’ said Jurgen, still shovelling away vigorously. ‘I bet they sent him after me to make sure I was done for, and to get the parchments back. You know, apart from me, I bet he was the only non-guilder who knew about those things,’ he said, patting his pocket in a brief break from the backbreaking digging. Deveres dug on, though he was making nowhere near the headway that Jurgen was.

‘Except for all of us, now,’ said Deveres, his speech slightly rushed as he struggled for breath, exhausted by the heavy going with the shovel.

‘Yeah,’ said Jurgen, laughing, ‘except for all of you, and that’s just fine by me,’ he said.

The hole was still remarkably shallow, but Jurgen seemed satisfied. He said nothing, but laid down his shovel and moved over to the body, stooping by its feet. Deveres followed suit, bending down and grabbing the dead man’s shoulders. He spoke as they shuffled towards the freshly dug shallow grave.

‘Where in the hell did this Lago come from?’ asked Deveres. ‘I’ve met plenty of bounty hunters, and they weren’t anything like you describe.’

They stopped at the hole’s edge. The body was heavy and neither man waited more than a moment before unceremoniously dumping it into its ad-hoc resting place.

‘No, perhaps not,’ said Jurgen, picking up his shovel and pushing the first shovelful of ash back on top of the body. ‘Truth is, I don’t really know where Lago came from. I doubt anyone does. I heard a few things though.’

Deveres grabbed his own shovel, turning ash into the hole, but for the most part he found kicking over the great heaps with his feet to be more effective. Jurgen fell silent. Deveres looked up from his shovelling and Jurgen at last continued his story.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I heard one time that he was from the Spire, a bodyguard of sorts, but that his master was betrayed and killed, and all his men with him.’

‘Except Lago?’ asked Deveres.

‘Except Lago,’ said Jurgen. ‘He escaped and made it down here, and ever since he’s been loyal to whoever it was he served, or loyal to something they asked of him maybe. Or loyal to a cause, an ideal. Kinda like he thinks he serves the dead or some crazy bull like that. Except he picked the wrong cause,’ said Jurgen, laughing.

‘Amen to that, brother,’ said Deveres, before returning to the body in the hole before them. ‘Loyalty like that is a pretty rare thing down here, so I guess it stands to reason that he’d have to be from up there.’

‘You think it’s any different up there?’ said Jurgen, and Deveres paused for thought. It was a rhetorical question, though, and Jurgen carried on.

‘Then again,’ Jurgen said, ‘another time I heard he wasn’t even real, and that every time the guilders wanted to put the frighteners on someone, they said Lago was after them. Anybody the guilders hired, they got to be Lago until the job was done. Then again, others say he’s real, but not really human. They say the guilders kinda just grew him in a vat to do their work for them, so who’s to say?’

‘Maybe he’s already dead. Maybe he died out in the storms just like this guy,’ said Deveres, dropping his tool to the ground as the last shovelful of ash filled the hole. The howling winds had already transformed the landscape around them, and bare seconds after the implement hit the ground it was covered in ash. The hole – or rather the shallow grave of this unfortunate bounty hunter – likewise was instantly indistinguishable from the ground around it, and Deveres was quite certain it was a job well done. He looked up from the ground to congratulate Jurgen, but he was nowhere to be seen.

‘Jurgen!’ he yelled out. ‘Jurgen!’ But there was no reply. Deveres turned around but there was still no sign of Jurgen. Damn these storms, he thought to himself as the wind bit at his face and the ash clogged his eyes. The wind had picked up dangerously and Deveres could hardly stand. Where the hell was he? Where the hell was Jurgen?

Deveres almost leapt out of his skin as he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. He realised that, when he had turned away from the grave, he had completely lost his bearings, and even turning back on the spot he couldn’t be sure he faced the same direction in which he had begun. He gave a silent prayer that Jurgen had him in his sights all along.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get back to the track.’ Jurgen dropped to his haunches, almost kneeling in the ash. By his feet was the curious, triangular metal object which Deveres had seen him drop when they first reached the spot.

Jurgen held another curious metal implement in his hand: a skeleton-like rack of metal rods. Jurgen pulled at it with his gloved hands, unfolding the contraption. When he had finished, Deveres saw that it was a triangular frame, a little larger than the other triangular object, with the rods forming odd little legs of different lengths.

Jurgen placed it over the first triangular object and pushed it down into the ash until the triangular frame at the top clicked with the object’s edges. With that, Jurgen tapped it, and pulled the block and frame away, curiously leaving the rods in the ash. Deveres stared in amazement.

Jurgen pulled out one particular rod, taking great care to pinch it at the point at which it left the ash. He held it up to his face and by the awkward way in which Jurgen seemed to be moving his fingers up the rod, Deveres presumed he was measuring something. Jurgen froze for a moment, rubbing his chin before he at last rose to his feet. As he did so, he swiped the triangular object over the rods and they all leapt out, clinging to it. It seemed as though the object was a magnet of some sort. With that Jurgen was off, pacing across the dunes. Deveres dashed to keep up.

‘What was that?’ he asked.

‘An old ratskin trick I picked up,’ he said. ‘We can’t just go back the way we came, ’cos we can’t really be sure which way that is. Besides, winds this strong will be pushing at us all the way we walk, pushing us off course, maybe pointing us the wrong way, you know?’

Deveres well understood what he meant.

‘That little trick catches the ash up against its edge, so I can see where it’s come from, and how much of it’s piled up. Gives me the direction of the wind, its speed and the amount of ash it’s shifting. It’s enough for us to correct our course as we walk. You got me?’

Deveres nodded enthusiastically, though in truth he had barely heard half of what Jurgen had said, let alone followed it. He couldn’t care less what he was on about. He was just relieved to be following someone with such a grasp of the treacherous conditions that surrounded them.

‘I’ll show you sometime,’ he said. ‘It might come in handy.’

Jurgen’s route had been quick enough, but it had brought them to what appeared to be a different track entirely, not at all where Deveres had expected. They had saved a great deal of time, according to Jurgen, but the drawback was that this next stretch would be all the more perilous for it, through the worst of the storms across a dome so ancient and so long abandoned that it no longer even had a name. Indeed, it wasn’t even really a dome anymore. Places like this were normally called deeps, for they surely didn’t deserve even the semblance of order that the word ‘dome’ conjured up.

They were the most decrepit edges of the Underhive, their architecture so utterly blasted, so totally collapsed to nothing, that they had become shapeless wildernesses with nothing to distinguish one region from another. They were uncharted and unchartable, and what form they originally took could only be guessed at from the intact domes further inhive. They were not nearly as deep as the sump or the lower regions, but at least there a constant trail of effluvium and by-products from the city above created areas of sufficient interest to attract settlements and, once in a while, even provided sufficient resources for people to survive.

Not so here. These forgotten edges of the hive’s broad base benefited from no such run-off and were dry, blasted wastelands that Deveres could only imagine were every bit the equal of the terrible ash wastes that lay beyond the wall of the hive. He didn’t know for sure since he had never left the hive, but he couldn’t imagine the outside being any worse.

Indeed, right now, he wasn’t very far from it. This western edge was where the ash actually entered the hive. A sheer wall covered with colossal turbine downshafts, that in an earlier age inhaled clean air from the atmosphere outside, now did nothing but leak the ruined atmosphere’s foul detritus into the hive itself. That was why places like this had been abandoned, when the terrible smog of centuries in the world outside had built to such a level that it kicked back into the ventilation system. That was when the great and the good abandoned such places. They rose above them, building over the regions they could not repair and the people they had no desire to save. No matter the poison outside, the Spire always rose above it while those beneath it drowned. That was how Deveres felt now, drowned.

Jurgen seemed unperturbed, and Deveres was grateful that the ropes they had used to drag the bounty hunter’s body out into the dunes were still tied around their waists. More than once he’d fallen to his knees and had been dragged over by Jurgen as he ploughed on ahead. Right now it was the only thing allowing Deveres to keep up with Jurgen.

The next stretch lasted less than an hour, but Deveres was a wreck by the end of it. Jurgen had led them right to the very wall itself, reasoning that being under the vast downpipes was probably the safest place to be. He was right, since their immense size meant they launched their ashy shot some hundreds of metres into the air, creating a kind of sheltered area directly beneath them where the air was still, though remained choking thick with dust.

Now that they were at the foot of the wall, all Deveres wanted to do was sleep. There was little chance of that, though, as Jurgen kept up his frantic pace. It was too much for Deveres and he soon fell to his knees again. This time he didn’t stand, but instead gathered what remained of his strength to pull back hard on the rope, halting Jurgen’s furious march and drawing him back towards him.

‘What’s up?’ asked Jurgen as he returned to the kneeling Deveres.

‘Rest,’ said Deveres, barely able to muster that one word.

‘Fine,’ said Jurgen, replying in a terse tone.

‘Come on,’ said Jurgen. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Huh?’ said Deveres, slowly waking up as Jurgen shook him by the shoulder. He rubbed his eyes and stretched his sore shoulders, finding the strength to stand. ‘That’s it?’ he asked. It felt like bare minutes since they had stopped to rest.

‘That’s it,’ said Jurgen. ‘Let’s go.’ And with that, they did.

The winds seemed a little less severe as they continued their trek, or perhaps Deveres was better rested than he thought. He was grateful that they had avoided the worst of the storms, but following this southerly route along the wall had left them with a rather longer journey to the Ore Chasm than Deveres would have wanted. Still, he knew from taking the route in kinder seasons that the most direct route lay through half a dozen high-roofed, open and exposed deeps, and he couldn’t imagine how much worse the storms would be there. Three days in and Deveres was close to exhaustion. He was sure he wouldn’t have lasted three days by any other route.

Jurgen, though, seemed as strong as ever and his pace never slackened. Deveres struggled increasingly to keep up and soon found himself forced to jog to match Jurgen’s walking speed. More than once Jurgen had offered to slow down, but Deveres wasn’t about to admit weakness and, despite his exhaustion, he knew full well that if he didn’t keep up the pace they could be out here for days, and he dreaded that more than anything.

After another hour or two the landscape changed. A change in the direction of the wind, as often happened towards the end of the Ash Season, had driven the dunes up against the hive wall itself, as though the escaping winds had sucked the dunes up against it. Furrows close to the wall, which had previously allowed safe passage, were quickly vanishing before their eyes as the pair were forced to cross the treacherous drifts, further draining Deveres’s failing strength.

The dunes seemed to grow in size as they ploughed on, some of them so sheer that the men were forced to run in order to climb up them. One, two, three dunes in a row presented mounds so high that they could not be crossed at all and so the men’s route became increasingly circuitous.

Another dune hove into view, smaller but all the steeper for it. Jurgen raced up, skidding a little but moving with sufficient momentum to carry him over it. Deveres followed, racing up the side, but his legs gave out. He crashed to the ground right atop the dune. He flung his arms forwards and rolled his bodyweight over the crest so that he wouldn’t just slide back down to the ground and managed to haul himself down the other side. Clumsy as it might be, he had at least crossed the dune.

He pulled himself to his feet and gazed ahead. Jurgen was nowhere to be seen. He reached down to his waist, but the rope was gone. He cursed himself. He had untied it before drifting off to sleep earlier on. The rope’s bulky knot had been uncomfortable, pressing into him as he lay, and in a moment of folly he had untied it.

‘Jurgen!’ he yelled out. ‘Jurgen!’ But there was no reply.

Deveres turned around but there was still no sign of Jurgen. Damn these storms, he thought to himself as the wind bit at his face and the ash clogged his eyes. The wind had picked up dangerously and Deveres could hardly stand. Where the hell was he? Where the hell was Jurgen?

CHAPTER: SEVEN

Coyne ran his fingers uneasily over the clip, turning it right round three hundred and sixty degrees, and pushing it back in until he heard the satisfying click, before pulling back down on it and beginning the manic pattern all over again.

The gun had barely left his hand since Handomel died. Since Handomel was killed, that is. He’d reached for it the second he found the body – or at least what was left of it – and his finger had clutched the trigger every panicked step of the way back to the hideout. There had been no reports of Lago since then, but that didn’t reassure Coyne any, and for the first few days he had cradled the gun day and night because of it. Now he cradled it for another reason. He cradled it because Vilhame cradled his pistol just the same, and the pair hadn’t taken their eyes off each other for hours.

‘This is my time, Coyne,’ said Vilhame, his own manic fondling of his pistol betraying his attempts to present a menacing calm. ‘You know Handomel would have picked me, if he’d lived. You know he would have. Don’t make this any harder.’

‘Handomel’s not here to pick you, you dumb frik,’ said Coyne, nerves showing through his genuine anger, ‘and it doesn’t seem like anybody else is picking you either.’ Coyne didn’t dare take his eyes off Vilhame, but he felt the support of the half dozen gangers shuffling around behind him.

‘I’m picking,’ said Frork from his position behind Vilhame’s shoulder.

‘And me,’ said Chem next to him.

That was how this had all begun, with an honest attempt to stop the strife. Handomel’s death left a terrible vacuum, and tempers threatened to fill it. Coyne had been successful enough in getting the others to agree to a vote, but he hadn’t been so successful in making it stick. It was six to two in his favour, but the two backing Vilhame were Frork and Chem: the former carrying a heavy bolter, the latter a heavy stubber. Those two weren’t the smartest, so perhaps they thought their vote should count for more than the others. Either way, they figured Vilhame was the winner, and now the rules had changed. This was not going to be decided by a vote.

That had always been the difference between Vilhame and Coyne. They had always acted as Handomel’s left and right hands, but they were totally unalike. Both possessed unrivalled leadership qualities, but Coyne practised the smart, savvy kind of leadership, where Vilhame acted as a fighting general, a ‘follow me and no going back’ kind of leader. In Handomel’s day, they had complemented each other perfectly. Coyne’s cunning, his shrewd reasoning and quick wits used to get them out of trouble, Vilhame’s fearlessness came into its own when the trouble had to be dealt with head on, while Handomel ruled over the whole bunch with his legendary oratory.

Handomel was more a preacher than a leader, and Coyne had always seen him going that way towards the end. He certainly hadn’t seen him going so soon.

They weren’t playing by Vilhame’s rules yet. A few minutes of pointed pistols had quietened them down and left the entire gang stuck in the current standoff round the table. But they weren’t playing by Coyne’s rules anymore either, and the longer this went on, the more chance Vilhame would just finish it his way – swiftly and violently. It was impossible to tell who would be the winner in the midst of this chaos, and Vilhame was smart enough to know that, and so for now at least, Coyne could still try to win this battle with his wits alone.

‘It’s not as simple as that, is it Vilhame?’ said Coyne. ‘This isn’t just about who replaces Handomel. This is about who serves Catafengi, and you know it as much as I do.’

The others round the table shuffled nervously at the mention of his name. Some knew nothing and cast questioning glances to one another. Others knew the name, but feared to hear it mentioned so openly; and some still doubted the wisdom of doing so. That the gang – like all of House Cawdor – served the Redemption was no secret. That they served Catafengi and his cult in particular was not, however, common knowledge.

Coyne and Vilhame were well acquainted with Catafengi, having been Handomel’s deputies and also his intermediaries, and they had dealt frequently with the master. The others, however, were either ignorant or scared of him and so Coyne used his name like a weapon.

Sure enough, Frork and Chem became immediately uneasy at the mention of Catafengi. They were more than happy to use their brute force to pick their own leader, but to pick Catafengi’s disciple? Perhaps even pick the wrong one… The oafish, muscular pair suddenly seemed far less certain of themselves as the realisation dawned on them that this was exactly what they were doing.

‘Frag it!’ yelled Vilhame as he rose from his seat. He spun his pistol in his palm, brought it instantly to a trigger grip and pointed its charred barrel directly at Coyne’s head. In an instant the cluster of gangers behind Coyne raised their own weapons, every one of them trained on Vilhame. Coyne remained seated, resisting the urge to raise his own weapon. He knew full well this rash display was Vilhame’s old battle savvy coming to the fore.

Vilhame had gambled and Coyne knew it. He’d aimed his weapon, but gambled that the others wouldn’t shoot him instantly, and so he had created the standoff. All Vilhame needed was for Frork and Chem to let their tempers get the better of them, and Coyne and his supporters would be riddled with holes before they could get a single shot off.

But Coyne had already made his own play. He’d made his point. Frork and Chem knew they could triumph with brute force and heavy weapons right there and then. They would live, and Vilhame would be leader. And after that? How could they be sure that they were supporting the right man? Coyne could read the uncertainty in their eyes – kill him and what would Catafengi say? It was a question they clearly didn’t want answered.

Vilhame could still shoot his own pistol, of course, but he’d only get a single shot off before Coyne’s men gunned him down, and then what would Frork and Chem gain by opening fire? Coyne, it seemed, had won the battle. Brains over brawn. Vilhame could still unleash his own customary havoc, but it would be suicidal. Coyne was ready to lay down the final challenge.

‘Seems to me,’ said Coyne, ‘we could resolve all this with another vote. Bullets aren’t going to sort this, are they boys?’ He cast a stern glance at Frork and then to Chem. Their body language conceded defeat and even Vilhame seemed to realise he was undone. He holstered his pistol and returned to his seat.

Boom.

It was as though Coyne could hear nothing but that single word whispered inside his own head. Blinding light flared around him, but the world seemed silent as he fell to the floor, a searing heat racing over his flesh. There was something before the boom, though, the last sound he could remember: breaking glass.

The window. A frag grenade had crashed through the window just as calm had returned, and now the chamber was engulfed in chaos once again. Vilhame, Frork and Chem were nowhere to be seen. The latter’s heavy weapons lay burnt and twisted on the floor as the only evidence of their recent, explosive demise. The table at which they had been sitting pinned Coyne to the wall. One splintered corner was buried in his thigh, pinning it to the floor, while the table’s top lay flat against his chest, face and left arm. Only his right arm remained clear of it, and he wriggled it up and down desperately to prove to himself that he was still alive. Coyne’s head was pinned facing to the left, however, leaving his right arm out of sight, and his frantic grabbing at the air was not visible to him.

After a moment or two the panic subsided and Coyne drew his right arm closer to his body, wriggling it into the gap between the table and the wall. Coyne exhaled and arched his back against the wall as he began to push with his right arm, and the table tilted forwards. It moved enough to release his head from the painful pressure, but at that upright angle it suddenly seemed as if it might come crashing back down on him all the harder. He had no time to waste, and Coyne roared in pain as he used his impaled leg to give him the extra push he needed to tip the table up and away from him, sending it crashing back to its original place in the middle of the floor, albeit upside down. He slumped back against the wall and breathed deeply, not yet daring to gaze down at his mangled leg.

The smoke had begun to clear and ahead of him he saw a pair of figures moving quickly out of the door, lasguns in hand. Scarr and Track had been caught in the blast too, but mercifully were flung clear, and without any rubble to trap them they quickly returned to their feet and dashed out in the direction of the unknown attacker. Whether it was by vote or default, Coyne was the leader now, and he realised that he couldn’t leave the survivors to deal with it alone.

He reached his arms up behind him, his fingers finding their way into the mass of holes and cracks that covered the wall’s plascrete surface, giving his battered arms precious leverage with which to draw himself up onto his feet.

His right leg was a terrible mess, a gaping wound filled with scorched wooden splinters, and its tattered ligaments screamed with pain as he brought his weight onto it. His left leg remained as strong as ever, proving the value of the bionic one Doc Vesty had fitted for him a decade ago. The pain made it almost impossible to walk, and Coyne quickly found himself resorting to a hastily improvised gait, leaning the knee of his wounded right leg against the sturdy adamantium of the left. This provided a kind of moving crutch and allowed Coyne to stagger forwards in something of a cross-legged hobble.

His steps were pained and hurried, and interspersed with desperate lunges for the wall and the doorway. Coyne took every opportunity to grasp any solid structure he could see to take some of the pain off his horribly wounded leg. In this fashion he lurched out of the door and gazed out across the tangled mass of metallic walkways that ran for hundreds of metres in front of him. Track was kneeling down by the doorway, his gun pointed purposefully out into the dome, providing cover for Scarr who was already far up ahead, picking his way over the gantries in pursuit of some half-glimpsed enemy.

‘Where are the sentries?’ asked Coyne, his voice an agonised rasp, rising uncontrollably in pitch and tone as intermittent shivers of pain tore through him. Track just frowned in reply and Coyne realised his error.

The juves had always feared Vilhame. He was a terrifying bully and the careers of more than one of the gang’s own juves had ended at his hands. Coyne had relied upon such terrified youngsters for support and it had been his idea to call them in from their sentry posts so that they could participate in the vote for leadership. Now they had all paid the price for such a lack of vigilance.

The pain in his leg grew again, and Coyne rested his hand on Track’s shoulder as he rose and started to shuffle forwards carefully, taking up a new vantage point from which to better cover Scarr’s advance. A heavy V-shaped tunic hung across Track’s shoulders and over his robes. Coyne tugged on it. Track understood his meaning and quickly cast the thing off, passing it to his wounded leader.

Coyne drew his knife from his belt and slashed through the tunic’s cloth, cutting a metre-long strip from it with which he bandaged his leg as best he could. The pain was still agonising, but at least it seemed constant, and he could hobble forwards without collapsing in pain. He followed Track as he moved out onto the slender gantry that connected the gang’s den to the wider dome beyond.

Track made a quick hand gesture and disappeared up a ladder at the gantry’s edge, quickly rising out of sight. Up ahead, Scarr lurked behind a broad, circular pillar at the centre of a hexagonal platform that formed a hub in the dome’s centre, from which six walkways radiated at every level. Scarr waved his hand in a downward motion and it was clear to Coyne that their attackers were lurking somewhere on the level below (the den being located on the fifth of six largely intact levels). Coyne shuffled as far across the gantry as he could without exposing himself completely, just far enough to draw a line of sight down onto the platform below Scarr. He chanced a quick glance upwards and saw Track on the level above, two gantries away, so that their combined lines of sight covered virtually the whole lower level. Both men nodded and Scarr nervously stepped out from behind the pillar, beginning the perilous descent down the ladder mounted on its side.

Instantly, a harsh report sounded and the noise of bullets ricocheting off the ladder rang throughout the dome. Scarr lost his grip, swinging sideways so that only one hand and one foot remained on the ladder. He hung perilously between floors, but at least he was able to press his body close to the pillar, escaping from sight.

Track unleashed two rounds of his own lasgun, and Scarr wasted no time in shimmying the rest of the way down the ladder under such cover as it provided. Scarr disappeared from sight as he dismounted onto the lower platform, and Coyne hurried forward as best he could to take up a new position on one of the crossing gantries that turned the already confusing web of walkways into a veritable maze.

Coyne shuddered as a heavy clanking noise streaked over his head, then sighed in relief to see it was only Track, likewise taking up a better position as the trio nervously stalked their prey. That they had this chance at all seemed like a miracle to Coyne. Surely in the confusion of the blast, their enemies could have gunned them down to a man. Unless, he thought, barely believing it, they weren’t enemies at all.

He was quickly given reason to discount the theory as a shot thundered into the walkway beneath him, denting the mesh panel that hung down at the gantry’s edge. The shot had come from the far right hand side of the dome, the complete opposite direction from which the last shot had come, and Coyne was suddenly afraid they were surrounded.

The same thought must have struck Track and Scarr, for both gazed nervously at Coyne, their confidence gone now that their careful advance seemed to have come undone. They were too few to avoid being surrounded, thought Coyne, but he could at least reassure the other two and give them a fighting chance.

He took a frag grenade from his belt and hurled it high into the air, watching it arc towards the source of the last shot. It must have detonated in the air, the noise of its crimson blast ringing out before any tinkling of a grenade hitting the floor could be heard. The edges of those distant gantries were briefly illuminated, but no living thing showed itself in the blast and Coyne couldn’t be sure there was still anyone down there.

It would have to do, thought Coyne. It would have to do.

Coyne shuffled forwards again, nearing the platform directly above Scarr. This has to be a trap, thought Coyne as he advanced, but why? Surely they were sitting ducks in the moments of panic following the blast. This made no sense, no sense at all.

Two more shots rang out from ahead of them, aimed at Scarr, and there was only a moment’s pause before another round rang out, followed by a dull groan. Coyne leaned over the platform’s edge to see Scarr fallen to the ground beneath him, clutching his leg. He had been hit.

Damn it, thought Coyne, and without wasting another second he raced down the ladder, his hands and feet skimming down its smooth edges. He simply had no time to climb down it properly. Coyne was nearly sick with pain as the soles of his boots struck the platform below, his wounded right leg crumpling with the force.

He didn’t bother getting back to his feet, and just hauled himself along the tightly spaced steel bars that formed the platform until he reached the prone Scarr. A bullet wound punctured his thigh. The wound was burnt black at the edges, though not nearly neatly enough to be a las-blast. Scarr had been hit by a solid shell, nothing fancy. That at least gave Coyne hope that they might have a chance.

It was a short-lived hope. As he stared at Scarr’s wound, a terrible shriek rang out above him and he looked up to see Track teetering on the gantry’s edge, his arms upraised, his lasgun falling from his grasp. It seemed to hover in midair for a moment before plummeting downwards, its heavy bulk giving off a deep tolling sound as it bounced off gantry after gantry. The weapon rushed past Coyne and Scarr where they crouched on the platform.

Track followed a second later, plunging to the ground from his perch on the highest level. He looked lifeless as he fell, and Coyne prayed that he was indeed already dead, for he had seen men survive a fall even as great as this one, and that would be the cruellest fate of all.

Scarr looked up terrified, his tear-stained eyes begging Coyne to help him. Coyne was certain that there were two groups. One up ahead and to the far side of the platform that had earlier shot at Scarr when he went beyond the pillar; and a second group almost directly beneath the building whose upper storey housed the gang’s den. It had been this second group that had gunned down Track as he approached too close to the gantry’s edge.

There were three ways out of the dome: one to the rear-right gantry, one to the front-left one, and one straight ahead. Either of the diagonal exits would, by Coyne’s reckoning, bring them into the sight of both groups. The exit up ahead, although presumably occupied by their enemies, was at least shielded from view by the base of the six-tiered platform on whose fourth tier Scarr and Coyne sheltered. They would have to go that way.

Coyne crawled on his belly, rounding the pillar, and approached the platform’s far edge. Scarr scrabbled along behind him. Nothing. No shots. He breathed a sigh of relief. The enemy was still clearly beneath them, and staying low had kept Coyne out of sight.

Scarr crawled on past Coyne, laying his body over the top of the ladder going down. He nodded, and Coyne hurled another frag grenade, this time in the direction of the entrance. At the sound of its blast, Scarr rolled his weight over the ladder and plummeted down to the next level in a necessarily haphazard scramble. He landed, rolled onto his knee and unleashed a volley of las-blasts, just enough to buy Coyne the time he needed to follow him down the ladder.

There were no covering positions from here on in. Coyne just rose up, hauling Scarr up by his hood to follow, and ran down the gantry as fast as he could, his laspistol unleashing shots into the darkness ahead. Scarr followed and Coyne hoped that this weight of fire would be enough to open up the way ahead.

Fifty metres of agonising stagger and he reached the elevated doorway that led out of the dome. He grasped its black metal edge and pushed his gun barrel quickly around to the other side: no one. Whoever was here had been driven off. That at least would give him and Scarr time to escape.

Breathless but relieved, he turned back to tell Scarr they were safe.

Scarr was dead. His body lay outstretched on the metal walkway, just metres from Coyne. He lay face down, his hood covering his face, but torn wide open at the back where a fist-sized hole pierced cloth, flesh and skull alike. Dum-dums: nothing else could have left a hole in his head like that, not without a blast.

‘Shit,’ yelled Coyne as he dragged himself round the door. How had they hit Scarr from there? It made no sense.

As he pondered it, his hand ran over a series of indentations in the metal of the broad buttress beside the door. They were fresh marks, the only part of the whole thing that glinted silver. Taking his glove off, Coyne could even feel a little heat coming off them. Ricochet marks.

They fell with an unnatural regularity, all centred around the same spot, none of them more than a hands-width apart. A horrible realisation came to Coyne at last.

The burn marks around the wound on Scarr’s leg was from a solid shot. The noise of pistol fire directly beneath him while bullets came from up ahead… Scarr killed from behind as they fled… There weren’t two groups at all, just one. Not even a group. Just one person.

A handful of masterfully aimed shots had ricocheted off the bulkhead, filling the air around Scarr where he stood earlier on the platform and creating the impression of two separate shooters, while all the while their enemy closed in from behind. Only solid shot could do it, since las-blasts would never ricochet like that. That was a professional’s trick.

Coyne started to run, dropping his glove to the floor such was his panic, but it was too late. A vice-like grip wrenched his arm backwards while a sharp, stabbing kick cleaved into his wounded leg. He fell to his knees and dropped his laspistol all at the same moment, landing painfully and rolling on to his side. One word ran through Coyne’s mind as he rolled onto his back and tried desperately to scramble his way backwards. One word ran through his mind as a hefty boot slammed down into his chest, pinning him to the walkway where he lay. One word ran through his mind as he gazed up into the face of the terrifying figure that stood over him, stub gun aimed at Coyne’s head. One word ran through his mind as the final shot rang out: Lago.

CHAPTER: EIGHT

‘Done?’ said Lakatos. The sudden raising of his voice caught Durn’s attention. He looked up to see Berzel and Lirbus enter the hideout.

‘No problem,’ said Berzel, dropping his heavy sack on the table. Durn had little interest in the stash of credits Berzel had collected; he’d learned to wait for his own meagre share to surface. It saved disappointment. He nodded a brief greeting to Lirbus and then carried on sharpening the stash of shivs on the table next to him, until mention of a familiar name caught his attention.

‘I told Goddlesby, just like you said, next week’s money better include Bok’s share, or the pair of them are gonna pay for it,’ said Berzel.

Bok, thought Durn. What were they doing taxing Bok? Durn had been around long enough to remember when the Union first took over Fall Sands. He had a bionic left arm to remind him of how well Bok took the news when they first demanded money for his ‘protection’.

‘Good,’ said Lakatos, reclining on his stone chair, ‘and what did the little rat have to say to that?’

‘Well, he kicked up a hell of a stink,’ said Lirbus. ‘Said Bok will never pay. Says he can’t make him, says it’s not his fault, all of that.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ said Berzel. ‘Goddlesby has never dared once step out of line.’

‘Not quite true, Berzel,’ said Lakatos. ‘He’s managed a good few mistakes in his time, and I’m sure more than a few of them have been wilful.’

That was more than true, thought Durn to himself, putting down a shiv and walking slowly to the middle of the room where he could hear more easily. He rubbed the metal of his left hand with the rough skin of his right. He had Bok on his mind.

‘Perhaps we can help poor little Goddlesby out,’ Lakatos said, ‘just this once.’

‘What?’ asked Berzel.

‘Well, maybe we ought to explain to Bok how all of this works. Besides, way I see it, he owes us plenty enough in back-taxes to justify a visit,’ said Lakatos. ‘See to it.’

With that, both Lirbus and Berzel left the room.

Durn grinned from ear to ear to think of Bok getting his comeuppance at last and, as he returned to his table and picked up the next shiv, he ground it against the stone all the more vigorously, picturing Bok and thinking of how the Union owned him. It would be just a matter of time before he stepped out of line, and Durn hoped he would be the one to set Bok straight.

‘You too, Durn,’ said Lakatos from behind him. Durn dropped the shiv in an instant.

‘With them?’ he asked. ‘To Bok’s?’

‘No, I mean there’s work for you, too,’ said Lakatos, reaching into his pocket. He produced three sheets of parchment, offering them out at arms length. Durn paced towards his leader, taking the sheets from him and flicking through them. They were wanted posters from the guilders.

‘It seems,’ said Lakatos, ‘that some of these here good townsfolk have been doing things they shouldn’t have, and it seems like some of those things are going to catch up with them.’

‘You want me to bring them in, claim the bounty?’ asked Durn.

‘No, no,’ said Lakatos. ‘No need for that. In fact, we’re going to do all these good folks a favour. Tell them they’re safe, that the guilders won’t be coming for them. We’re going to protect them, but they’re going to be paying a little more from now on, understand?’

Durn laughed a deep and wicked laugh, the only sign Lakatos needed that he understood. He stuffed the wanted posters under his belt and headed out of the door.

Olbert Dirk. Hmm, he always had been a shifty little so and so. Morten? Durn found it hard to believe old Morten had gotten himself into trouble with the guilders, but there it all was in writing on the wanted poster. It also struck him as odd that three such men should find themselves wanted all at once.

True, Ash Season often had the effect of leaving Fall Sands woefully behind the times, and the season’s lifting would often be accompanied by a rash of news flooding into the town, but the storms hadn’t yet lifted, and the sudden emergence of these wanted posters struck Durn as rather odd. No matter. Durn didn’t give a damn what these people had done, he was going to bleed them dry for fear of the guilders and he was going to enjoy every moment of it.

He flicked to the last poster as he strolled through town. Lam, now there was a natural born victim. He would begin with Lam.

Durn crossed over the broad street and turned left into the maze of metal gantries that extended outwards like a cliff-face colony at the very edge of Fall Sands. These gantries were in fact the remnants of disused cranes, deployed in an ultimately fruitless attempt to save the failing dome, and the machines themselves were abandoned just as quickly as the dome they had been intended to rebuild.

Centuries had passed since then, and where the standing cranes had once been a bare-bones skeleton, they had since been filled with a mass of rusted insulation and blackened, scrap metal skin. Their own beams were crisscrossed with dozens of others; girders flung down to create walkways between the pinnacles. Makeshift habs had sprung up all over the structures, occupying engine rooms, control boxes and maintenance baskets. Still other habs had been fabricated from scratch: sheet metal bolted to the hollow steel frames to provide four untidy walls and a shaky roof for their desperate occupants.

Generations of such down-and-out ingenuity had made the gantries home to a teeming mass of humanity, clinging on precariously, high up this most distant edge of the dome. It was a desperate place looking for all the world like it should fall at any second. It never had, but it was named such nonetheless: the Falls. The ageless drifts that butted up against it in turn eventually caused the place to be called Fall Sands.

Durn loved this place. He had been born in Hive City, in a high-hab. When he first entered the Underhive, he had lurked for a long time with a gang at Wind’s Edge, a dome surviving on the site of an abandoned space dock, where the wind howled ceaselessly across the forest of docking pylons. Being high up was where Durn felt safest, where he felt the thrill most keenly, and the Falls were as high as it got for him these days.

He strolled out onto the nearest gantry, instantly feeling the elevation. From here he could look out over half a dozen domes unfortunate enough to lie further down than Fall Sands itself. Some were abandoned, but some thrived, at least by Underhive standards, and it was an open secret that soon enough these domes were destined to become part of the Union’s territory, too.

There was no rush, though. The sheer height of the Falls made attack from below impossible, and having made the curious plateau of Fall Sands their own, this was a building time for the Union. The din of battle and the nervy rush of forays out into another gang’s territory, that would all come again, but not yet. Grand plans were being laid, and Durn was content to wait and see them unfold at the will of his betters.

He dreamed of such things as he swung down from the gantry, onto the crisscrossing support girders beneath, which functioned as a makeshift ladder. He swung himself down by his hands, descending twenty metres in mere seconds. From here he swung inside the structure, descending now by an enclosed ladder until he reached Jop Lam’s little hab.

A row of tiny turbines, each no bigger than a man’s hand, lined the deck at floor level, turning in the wind. As they spun, ash and muck caked onto the blades. As the blades turned, they ran through a row of stiff brushes mounted behind them, shaking the detritus into a grubby trough full of liquid below. Lam was a sifter, and the filth collected in this trough would be painstakingly drained, strained and sifted to harvest whatever miniscule specs of precious ores and minerals the ash storms carried in their grey haze.

As Durn stepped out onto the deck, Lam’s arm snaked out from the window cut into the shack’s iron front wall. He held a shallow, mesh-bottomed pan in his hand with which he scooped a load of the stuff out of the trough. As he drew the pan back inside, he caught sight of Durn and dropped the pan in sheer fright, giving voice to a girlish shriek as he did so.

‘Now that’s no way to greet an old friend, is it Lam?’

‘Get away from me!’ yelled Lam, slamming the shutter across his window. In his panic he seemed not to have noticed that the door remained open, and Durn stepped inside to see the little man cowering by the portal. He leapt in fright as Durn approached.

‘Unh! What do you want?’ he asked, fear etched into his grubby, whiskered face. Lam had always been terrified of Durn. Back in the early days, when the Union had first come to this place, there were plenty who thought they could put up a fight, thought they could resist the Union’s rule, and these were people that, one by one, had been made to disappear.

The Falls had been one of Durn’s favourite places for making people disappear. It was three hundred metres down to the next dome, and the fall never left enough of a man for anyone down there to notice the slit throat or shiv in the guts that had really killed them. Accidents, on the other hand, were commonplace in the Underhive, and the victims of such unfortunate tumbles never aroused any suspicion or unwanted attention.

That was when Durn had first met Lam. He remembered seeing the scrawny man’s terrified eyes gazing out of that same little window as Durn clambered down on to the deck and unceremoniously hoofed a troublesome settler’s warm corpse off the edge. He’d hurled it from high above, but Durn had been new to the business back then and a dull thud had told him the body had landed on something only halfway down – leaving it there was a risk Durn couldn’t take. He’d clambered down by the exact same route he had just taken and found the body slumped on Lam’s deck, its shattered legs hanging unnaturally off the edge. His second push had been decisive and from there he’d watched the thing tumble out of view, dusting off his hands and congratulating himself on his good work. It was then that he’d turned to see Lam quivering on the other side of the window. A swift threat of the same treatment had left the old sifter terrified of Durn ever since.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Lam, unnerved by Durn’s long pause.

‘Oh, you know why I come down here,’ said Durn. ‘I need to give my throwing arm some practice.’

Lam squealed in fright. He knew well enough what that meant. Having seen the effect on Lam the first time, Durn had ever afterwards made a point of dragging new members of ‘the ole disappearing gang’, as he called them, down to this particular deck, no matter the extra effort. To Durn it was more than worth it every time he saw the terror in Lam’s eyes when he was forced to watch another bye-bye dive.

Durn had always told Lam it was his turn next, told him he was getting old and that when he couldn’t lift the big ones anymore, he’d be lifting a little one like Lam instead. He toyed with Lam, grabbing him by the collar, hauling him off his feet and instantly bringing to mind that well-aged threat.

He hauled Lam towards the door, the old sifter’s feet kicking frantically in the air. He stopped in the doorway, reached into his pocket with his free hand and thrust the wanted poster into the terrified man’s face.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘any idea what this is about?’

Lam nervously opened his eyes, having shut them tight in fear of his imminent plunge. He squinted and Durn could read his lips as he struggled over the words on the poster in front of him. He squeaked as he reached the end and saw his own picture. Durn dropped him to the floor of the shack.

‘I… I… It’s not me, it’s not me. I don’t know what this is,’ said Lam.

Durn just laughed. ‘Well let me tell you,’ said Durn. ‘It says here, you are wanted for the “unauthorised peddling of uncertified ore, the trafficking of which has resulted in the contamination of guild supplies.” Now that sounds pretty serious to me, Lam, and, oh look, yes,’ Durn continued. ‘They are offering a reward for you… dead or alive. Now I’m thinking that makes you a pretty big catch.’

‘It’s not me, it’s not me,’ Lam said. ‘I haven’t done anything!’

‘No?’ said Durn. ‘Well it’s your picture. Look at it, right there.’

Lam began to sob.

‘Well, look here, Lam,’ said Durn. ‘Seeing as we’re such old friends, I’m going to help you out. I don’t think you did these things it says, so I’m gonna look after you. Me and all the Union boys, we’re going to look after you. Who could get you with us looking out for you, Lam? Eh? Who? No one, that’s who, not with us protecting you…

‘I mean, think of it Lam. Think of all the terrible things you’ve seen happen round these parts and yet you’ve always been safe, haven’t you, Lam?’ The fact that almost all of those ‘terrible things’ were acts in which Durn himself had a hand was something he chose to omit, but Lam seemed to get the point regardless.

‘I didn’t do it,’ said Lam, still sobbing.

‘And I believe you, Lam, I told you,’ said Durn. ‘And I’m going to help you. But you’ve got to do something for us in return.’

‘What?’ asked Lam, leaping to his feet.

‘Pay up.’ Durn’s voice lost every pretence of civility. It was a snarling, menace-laden demand, a growl bringing instantly to mind every terrible thing Durn could possibly do to Lam, if he didn’t pay up.

Lam sank to his knees. He was skin and bones, his poverty was obvious, but he clearly realised he had no choice. He dragged himself over to the metal counter that ran along the wall and provided the room’s only furniture, and pulled open one of the ill-fitting tin drawers wedged into its side. Durn saw him scoop his hand along the bottom of the drawer and instantly held out his own hand. Lam winced and dropped three credits into the bigger man’s gloved palm. Three measly credits. It was nothing to the Union, but it was doubtless all Lam was worth. The fact that he had paid up at all was enough to show Durn’s mission had been a success.

‘I won’t be coming back,’ said Durn, letting false hope well up in the sorry spectacle before him, ‘but you’ll be paying Goddlesby the same three credits extra each time he comes calling. He’ll see it gets to us.’

Lam fell against the wall, sobbing, and Durn was on his way, smirking as he had seldom smirked before.

Durn’s evil smirk remained as he bowled through town, pushing his way through the crowds like the petulant bully he was. Lam had been easy, and Morten had protested little more and tried even harder to keep hold of his credits, while Dirk had given him the kind of murderous look to rival Durn’s own. But it had been three easy scams in the end, just as Durn knew it would be. Nothing could dampen his wicked spirits. Nothing, that is, until he saw her.

Her. Scoosme, standing in the street, raging and stamping her feet at the bartender who blocked the door back into the Pipe Under Mile. She wasn’t just trying to get in. It was all too obvious from her drunken slurring as she yelled that she had been there for some time already, and it didn’t look like it had been her choice to leave. Oleg, the younger of the two bartenders that worked in the Pipe, held the doors barred firmly shut behind him as the stroppy girl flung herself against his chest, pounding his shoulders with her fists and trying desperately to squeeze past.

Durn wasn’t close enough to make out every word of what she was saying, but the little he could pick out, coupled with the accusatory stabs of her finger, made her meaning all too clear. Scoosme was one of the girls from the brothel, though Durn hadn’t seen her there during the eviction. Drunk and bitter, she stood in the street railing at those amongst the settlement’s inhabitants who had long made use of her services, only to turn their backs and feign ignorance as she was cast out. Durn shuddered and a terrible fear rose up inside him. Guilt, and then anger, replaced it soon enough.

Scoosme had a point. She was only in Fall Sands because the business was good, and would have left long ago if so many of the locals hadn’t been willing to indulge, as Durn knew all too well. But Ash Season was as lonely as it was long, and girls like Scoosme were an affordable comfort. It was little surprise the town offered such rich pickings.

As Durn drew nearer, her words became more audible, though no clearer, thanks to the drunken garble of her furious tirade. The bartender held her at arms length while Scoosme lunged forwards, yelling over his shoulder at the patrons inside.

‘You’ve let them do this, you fraggin’ idiots! They’ll take every credit you’ve got,’ she cried, pointing at the approaching Durn in his distinctive Cawdor robes. ‘At least I gave you something in return, you bastards!’ she yelled.

With that, the bartender had clearly had enough and pushed her away harder. Scoosme’s drunken legs failed her as she tried to walk backwards and she stumbled, falling to the ground and rolling backwards, feet over head. She lay sprawled on the ground, much the worse for wear, as Durn passed.

He didn’t notice her get to her feet. At least, not until she was right behind him, pounding her tiny little fists against his back. He turned and snatched at her wrists, pinning her arms together in front of her body. Durn was all set to fling her to the ground and carry on his way, until he looked into her eyes. She gazed back and he realised a terrible truth.

She recognised him.

How could she possibly recognise him, thought Durn? He had only ever gone there barefaced, so that no one would know who he was. Now, in the middle of the street, robed from head to toe with just his stubbled chin on show, how in the name of the Emperor could she have picked him out as one of the dozens of men who passed through her establishment every week? Every week for years, if Durn was honest, though he shuddered to think of how it was all catching up with him.

‘You…’ she hissed, and there was no escaping the fact that she recognised him, plain and simple. He prayed for a second that he had mistaken the look in her eyes, but there was no doubting it. She knew him instantly, and the name ‘Caldus’ – which he had always used as his alias when he was with her – formed on her lips. She broke one hand free of his grasp and struck at his face with her grubby hand, desperately trying to get hold of his mask.

‘You, you’re the worst of them, you fragging hypocrite,’ she yelled.

He forced her hand away but didn’t loosen his grip on her. He couldn’t let her carry on in this state, not now that she knew who he was, and not now that she knew one of her clients was also one of the gang who had turfed her out of her premises that very morning!

Durn wrestled the girl down to the ground and dragged her to the narrow shaft opposite the Pipe Under Mile, an easy feat given her diminutive size and drunkenness. Rusted girders lined the shaft and Scoosme squealed as the sharp metal cut her bare feet. Durn let go his grip on her, letting her fall to the floor. He stood at the shaft’s entrance, making quite sure she couldn’t burst back out onto the street and continue her tirade.

‘You bastard!’ she yelled. ‘You’re one of them, and after all the times you’ve…’

Durn hurriedly shushed her, pushing his hand over her mouth, and she slumped drunkenly back against the wall of the shaft, clearly exhausted by her outburst.

‘You won’t get away with this,’ she said, more calmly as Durn slowly removed his hand. ‘I’m going to tell every single one of them just what you do, just how you like it and just what you–’

Durn dropped to his knees and thrust his gloved hand over the girl’s mouth once more. She mumbled through it, but the sound was indistinct.

‘Shut up,’ said Durn, whispering in her ear. ‘Emperor damn your lies. I’ll kill you if you say such things again.’ Some of the struggle seemed to go out of the little waif and Durn chanced to remove his hand from her mouth.

‘What’s the bigger sin, you coward? Killing a girl or paying her to–’ she said with a crazy look in her eye before Durn’s gloved palm once more silenced her.

‘Once more, and I’ll kill you right now,’ he said. He felt her laugh a crazy drunken laugh as once more he dared to remove his glove.

‘You won’t,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper, as if playing along with Durn’s desperate plea for secrecy. ‘You can’t kill me with all these people watching.’

Durn turned his head slowly to peer over his shoulder. Damn the girl, she was right. Her earlier outburst hadn’t gone unnoticed and a crowd now milled around outside the Pipe. They certainly wouldn’t try to stop him, he was too feared for that, but Durn didn’t exactly relish explaining to Lakatos why he was seen killing the little tramp or, rather, explaining why he had killed her at all.

‘Go away,’ he said, spitting the words as loud as he could without the crowd overhearing. ‘Leave here.’

‘Make me,’ she said, laughing. ‘Make me go away.’

Durn ground his teeth together, but he knew there was no other way. He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the credits he had scammed from Lam, Dirk and Morten. He looked down at the tokens in his hand, knowing he would regret it, but thrust them at Scoosme all the same. He had no choice.

‘Now leave,’ he said, ‘and if you ever come back, I will kill you.’

With that, he pushed past her and walked further down the shaft, deciding it best he return to the ganghouse by another route entirely.

Durn took an age making his way back. He dallied at every opportunity, wracked his brains endlessly for a way to make the credits back and present them to Lakatos, so that no one would ever know he’d bought off that little hussy to ensure her silence. He thought about shaking down some of the other townsfolk, extorting yet more credits from them to cover his earlier indiscretion, but he didn’t really have dirt on any of the others to guarantee their compliance. He wasn’t afraid of them fighting back, but one of them might just have enough spine to speak out against the excessive taxes, and he was in no mood to explain to Lakatos exactly why he was re-taxing the townsfolk.

He was so lost in his troubled thoughts that he hardly noticed when he had reached the Union’s hideout and, his heart pounding with fear, he stepped inside. Lakatos was in his ‘throne’ – the worn stone trough in the corner – and Durn unleashed a deep sigh as he stepped in.

‘Done?’ asked Lakatos.

‘Done,’ said Durn.

‘No problems?’ asked Lakatos.

‘No problems,’ said Durn. ‘They’ll be paying Goddlesby the extra every week, just like you said.’ Durn toyed with the idea of telling Lakatos that he hadn’t collected any ‘back-taxes’, that he didn’t realise that was what Lakatos meant, but in the end he decided acting stupid probably wasn’t the best bet.

At that instant, a voice rang out from the doorway behind him, the voice of a saint.

‘You better listen up, Lakatos,’ said Jurgen, striding into the room full of purpose with a rather bedraggled looking Lirbus in tow. ‘It’s all gone down,’ said Jurgen, ‘and it’s not good, not good at all.’

Lakatos leapt to his feet and paced across the room, stopping face to face with Jurgen. Durn couldn’t believe his luck. Lakatos was engrossed, and Durn’s mission and the expected profits were all but forgotten. Both Lakatos and Durn listened intently as Jurgen began one of the most horrifying tales Durn had ever heard.

‘All of them?’ asked Lakatos, clearly disbelieving Jurgen’s frantic account.

‘All of them,’ said Jurgen, sternly. ‘You’re lucky I heard the ruckus, or you could add Lirbus here to that tally.’

He was right. Lirbus’s tale had been no less harrowing either, thought Durn.

Durn had never heard anything like it: how Deveres got lost in the storms, how Jurgen found Handomel’s gang, the Scarlet Skulls, dead to a man and fled as fast as he could, only to run right into the gunfight at Bok’s. Durn had spent most of the week in the hideout and he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Deveres since he set out. He wasn’t back yet and, though no one dared say it, it was plain he wasn’t coming back. There was no point looking for him, either.

‘Damn it, damn it, damn it,’ said Lakatos, his voice rising as his anger grew. He slammed his fist into the wall next to him and paced back and forth.

Durn was sure Lakatos was going to explode when Jurgen suggested that some of the Scarlet Skulls might have killed each other in a leadership challenge. This certainly angered Lakatos, but he seemed to find the suggestion sadly predictable.

Durn had listened to Jurgen and Lirbus’s earnest accounts, all the while expecting Lakatos to smash them down at any second, to blame them for the catastrophe, but he seemed more ready to criticise the dead men for their idiocy. This surprised Durn greatly. Perhaps his own indiscretion would receive the same leniency, if ever uncovered. Slim hope, he told himself.

Lakatos continued to pace back and forth. No one dared speak, not even the outlander, while their leader racked his brains for what to do next.

‘Addec needs to know,’ he said. ‘If the Skulls are gone, he needs to take their territory and quickly, else he’s unprotected. Someone has to tell Addec,’ said Lakatos. ‘Durn, go to Addec; tell him what happened. Tell him he has to capture Handomel’s territory, now.’

Durn wasted no time in following his leader’s orders, ducking out of the door and making good his departure, or rather his escape. If the matter of the newly raised taxes hadn’t been forgotten already, it surely was now, and with Addec’s place three days travel away, there was no way it would ever be remembered by the time Durn returned.

He had gotten away with it, he thought to himself as he dashed away from the hideout. He had gotten away with everything.

He’d had just about enough for one day. The taxes were an unexpected chore and the meeting with Scoosme was an unexpected problem. Durn had gotten away without his philandering or his pilfering being uncovered, but he was thoroughly exhausted by the whole thing.

He couldn’t get out of the ganghouse quickly enough with the guilty memory of Scoosme and those missing credits racing through his mind. Despite that, he could do without the effort, and obvious danger, of venturing out in the storms.

Durn, though, was no native of this cesspit, the Underhive’s most miserable depth. He was Hive City born and venturing this far down required the use of a dozen ancient routes with their myriad turns and doublings.

For creatures pitiful enough to be born in this lowly pit, crossing the derelict domes, which bore the worst of the storm’s fury, must have seemed like the only way, but Durn was not convinced. He was sure that he could find another route, crossing the hive at a higher level in domes that were free of the Ash Season’s tyranny, before descending into Addec’s territory by means of the high vents of which Fulcrum Spike formed the base.

He ascended the ladder at the rear of the ganghouse, first reaching its roofless second storey, which he was forced to ascend by means of its protruding window frames. Then he trod his way carefully along the crumbling wall’s top edge, bringing himself to the neighbouring building where a solid ladder allowed him to ascend in safety once more.

Three more storeys and he left the ladder to cross a broad, if not entirely stable walkway, which crossed the settlement’s main ‘street’. In fact, this street was nothing more than an agglomeration of ash, dirt and rubble piled so deep that it had buried the floor of the dome and its lower storeys entirely, creating a flat, even surface where in fact it should be the same irregular, haphazard mix of walkways, beams and ladders as were found at greater heights. Solid ground was something Underhivers rightly feared – being found naturally only out in the deadly ash wastes – and Fall Sands’s pretence of it did much to add to its reputation as a place to avoid.

From this height, the falseness of the ‘floor’ was apparent, and Durn could clearly see that the apparent first storey of buildings, like Jurgen’s hideout and the ganghouse, were in actuality the seventh or eighth storeys of this lost generation of buildings for which the dome was constructed.

The thought of it caused Durn to cast his mind back to Jurgen and his peculiar choice of hideout. Jurgen had picked the building for its location, saying his work required certain conditions like the right ventilation. Durn wondered whether these ‘conditions’ included underground rooms where complete darkness could be found. It seemed a reasonable enough idea and Durn well knew that the brothel was one of the few buildings in Fall Sands that still possessed an accessible lower, now subterranean, floor. The likes of the ganghouse had become flooded at lower levels with the same tide of detritus that gave the dome its dusty streets, but a handful of buildings had been in sufficiently good repair to resist the filth’s incursion, and so came to possess labyrinths leading down to what was once ground level. Perhaps this was why Jurgen so prized that particular building. The Emperor knew, its basement had once been Durn’s favourite part of the building, too.

Without thinking, Durn cast his gaze down towards the street in general and the brothel in particular. His heart froze in terror.

Scoosme crossed the street, a heavy iron bar in her hand, heading straight for her former place of employment.

The crazy bitch just wasn’t going to let it lie and Durn had no choice. Fortunately, getting down was much quicker than getting up. He dashed to the walkway’s edge where a small, but nonetheless dangerous leap brought him to a platform pinned against the uppermost reaches of the same pipe that, at the dome’s floor, contained the Pipe Under Mile. Here, a tangle of other pipes and conduits, mostly no thicker than a man’s arm, ran down the outside of the much larger ‘Pipe’. Durn wrapped his legs around the nearest one, crossed them at the ankles and grabbed the pipe with both hands as he began his perilous descent.

His gloves allowed him to slow his slide before he let go his grip and dropped the last couple of metres onto the corrugated iron sheet. It butted out from the side of the pipe, forming a roof for one of the many ramshackle, temporary outhouses that constituted the Pipe Under Mile’s guest quarters.

A few astonished gasps from below did nothing to slow Durn as he plunged from the roof and dashed down the street, staying out of sight thanks to the tangled maze of structures that extended outwards from the base of the pipe.

It took Durn a moment to spot Scoosme, but he found her easily enough. She marched up the tiny alley alongside the former brothel, iron bar still in hand. Durn slunk through the shadows behind her and edged to the alley’s entrance, peering round cautiously.

Ahead of him, Scoosme wedged the iron bar into the rusted up wheel in the centre of the building’s back door. The wheel clearly hadn’t been turned in years, but with the bar for leverage, the girl’s tiny form had just enough force to budge it. A few minutes more strenuous heaving at it, and the back door was open. Scoosme pulled the iron bar clear of the wheel and strode in, looking just as angry as she had been when Durn first saw her perhaps an hour earlier.

He waited a moment after she disappeared inside and then slipped out from his hiding place. Half-crouching as he ran down the alley, Durn slipped inside the wide open door. He’d always known that he would have to deal with Scoosme sooner or later, and it looked like she had just made it an awful lot easier for him.

CHAPTER: NINE

‘What the…?’ Scoosme pushed at the door but it didn’t budge. She stepped back and gazed up the wall above, though she couldn’t make out anything untoward. One more push and, with no further luck, she banged her palm hard against the door several times, yelling out in between thuds.

‘Lenka! Lenka!’ No reply came. ‘Banya! Gully… Morla?’ Scoosme’s voice faded from a powerful yell to a confused, hopeless mutter as she called out the names of the other girls. No reply.

She looked around for some clue as to what had happened to them, but there was nothing. She followed the wall to the corner and turned down the narrow alley that ran alongside the building, though she knew full well that the door on that side had been locked for years.

‘Step away,’ came a voice from behind her. She turned to see two cloaked and hooded figures standing at the street’s edge: Cawdor.

‘Step away,’ the taller of the two repeated. ‘This is our territory now,’ he said.

‘What?’ asked Scoosme. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We already turfed your friends out and we made quite a mess of them, too,’ said the shorter one, walking slowly towards her as he spoke. He was far smaller than the other Cawdor – shorter than Scoosme herself in fact – but he had a vicious, sinister sneer that suggested a soulless, hateful wickedness deep inside him. Scoosme was afraid of him in a way she wasn’t normally afraid of any man.

‘Don’t make us do the same to you,’ said the wicked little man.

Scoosme gave a moment’s thought to making a dash for the door and seeing if she could get inside. The second Cawdor, further back on the street, drew his pistol and gave her good reason to drop the idea. Still far from sure what had happened in the days she had been absent, Scoosme shuffled back towards the street, feeling a hint of revulsion as she wriggled past the sinister little man who sneered and leched at her all the way. She stepped out into the street and slowly ambled off, turning and looking back every few steps, uncertain and desperately scared for her friends.

For the life of her, Scoosme couldn’t fathom why the Cawdor had ordered her and the girls out of their modest little place. As she knocked back her fourth Wildsnake in quick succession, she wasn’t getting any closer to working it out, either. It had been like this all day, since dragging herself into the Pipe Under Mile after those two robed thugs had turned her away from her former home-cum-workplace.

Sure, the Cawdor despised fornication in all its forms, but they were smarter than to openly attack its purveyors. Half the dens in the Underhive were operated by guilders anyway, and those that weren’t were obliged to provide the guilders with any hospitality they desired free of charge, just like everything else in the Underhive. With the guilders involved, everyone just turned a blind eye to such things. Sin was, after all, simply too profitable to be prevented.

Everyone knew House Cawdor was in thrall to the Redemption, but its members were careful never to make such an allegiance obvious. Cawdor was a respectable House, a bastion of Hive City, but the Redemption was banned and its members outlawed, and there was but a fine line dividing the two. No Cawdor wanted to cross it. Attacking a brothel so blatantly would probably serve to do just that.

Besides, if the Union was on some kind of moral crusade, Scoosme was sure they would have made much more of a point of it. As it was, she had simply been thrown out into the street with not so much as a judgement passed on her profession.

All the Cawdor seemed to be after was the building, but as Scoosme knocked back her sixth Wildsnake, even that didn’t make sense. They couldn’t want the building for their hideout. It was right in the middle of town and would be useless for that. Everyone knew the Union was holed up on the edge of town, right atop the only reliable route into and out of the dome, exactly where they needed to be to keep their iron grip on Fall Sands.

There were other ways in, but not without knowing the intricacies of the derelict tunnels and vents that lined the dome. Scoosme had found her way through these very tunnels when she first came to Fall Sands, by accident as much as anything, and she doubted greatly that any rival gang would manage to traverse them. No, the Union was best off where it was, guarding their only flank, and besides, when she found the brothel it had been all but deserted. The gangers would have been all over the place if they’d taken it for a hideout.

The seventh and eighth Wildsnakes offered few answers and, as Scoosme sat in the Pipe Under Mile growing increasingly bitter and angry, she was left with only more questions. After the ninth, tenth and eleventh Wildsnakes, Scoosme thought that it might be a good idea to ask her questions out loud.

‘Do you know who I am?’ she yelled at the wrinkled woman behind the bar.

‘Excuse me?’ the woman replied.

‘Do you know who I am?’ Scoosme repeated. ‘He does,’ she said, jabbing a half empty Wildsnake bottle in the direction of the bartender. The woman – his wife – snorted and turned to face her husband, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

‘Ask him,’ said Scoosme, not willing to let it lie. ‘Ask him who I am and ask him what I do,’ she continued. ‘He knows. They all do. Bastards.’ She swept her arm in a wide arc, casting an accusatory hand at virtually everyone in the watering hole, and then promptly fell off her stool. They hardly even looked up anymore. Virtually everyone in the place had heard Scoosme engage in this exact same rant many times before. This was always how it started, and pretty much how it ended, too.

‘That’s enough,’ yelled the bartender, dashing out from behind the bar to silence Scoosme before she could reveal any more of his little indiscretions to his wife. He scooped her up from under the arms and dragged her to the door. Scoosme was not unconscious and regained her feet somewhat as he dragged her. As they reached the door, she had enough of her senses about her to fling her arms out wide, holding on to the doorframe, refusing to leave, making it almost impossible for the bartender to make her.

‘You know,’ she slurred as she struggled to keep her grip on the doorframe. ‘You all know. You do, Jeb, you know,’ she yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at one of the bar’s older patrons, and that was her undoing.

‘You know, Deak.’

With her hand raised to point at another hapless passer-by, she relinquished her grip on the doorframe and the irate bartender at last succeeded in barrelling her out onto the street.

She landed in a crumpled pile on her knees, but she was full of the unnatural energy of one drunk on Wildsnake. She leapt to her feet and dashed back towards the Pipe’s still swinging door.

Inside, the bartender glanced over his shoulder and saw her coming. Before she could reach the door he was back outside, his stanchion-like arms pinned across the doorway. She crashed into him as she ran and he grabbed at her, pushing her away as she desperately tried to wriggle past and get back into the Pipe.

Scoosme knew how drunk she was. She yelled curses from deep within her subconscious and even her own brain registered little of what she said. She was lost in a haze of anger and hate. She bawled through the Pipe’s door. As nonsensical as her drunken wails might have been, the accusatory stabs of her finger made her meaning all too clear. Drunk, bitter and angry she stood in the street railing at those amongst the settlement’s inhabitants who had long made use of her services, only to turn their backs and feign ignorance as she was cast out. She could see the guilt and fear on all their faces as she railed on.

They all owed Scoosme, she decided, and she wasn’t going to let them forget it. She was only in Fall Sands because the business was so good. She would have left long ago if so many of the locals hadn’t been willing to indulge, as those sorry fools feigning ignorance in the Pipe knew all too well.

And yet, when she had needed something, they had all turned their backs. They had left their sins at home, while her home was taken from her. She railed at their indifference, their abandonment, and their betrayal. That’s what they had done, she thought. They had all betrayed her, and she was going to tell them so.

‘You’ve let them do this, you fraggin’ idiots! They’ll take every credit you’ve got,’ she cried.

The stupid bartender, Oleg, held her at arms length while she lunged forwards, yelling over his shoulder at the patrons inside. He flung her back a little, and the jolt turned her head. She gazed down the street. Up ahead, a figure approached, garbed from head to foot in his distinctive Cawdor robes. She pointed yet another jabbing digit at the approaching ganger and continued her ranting.

‘At least I gave you something in return, you bastards!’ she yelled.

With that, the bartender had clearly had enough and pushed her away harder. Scoosme’s drunken legs failed her as she tried to walk backwards and she stumbled, falling to the ground and rolling backwards, feet over head. She lay sprawled on the ground, feeling much the worse for wear, as a long shadow fell over her.

The Cawdor, she thought, and suddenly her strength returned. Righteous anger wasn’t the sole preserve of the Redemption and she had plenty.

The Cawdor ignored her and the shadow he cast moved quickly away as she scrambled to her feet. He didn’t notice her, or pretended not to, until she was right behind him, pounding her tiny little fists against his back. Now she had his attention.

He turned and snatched at her wrists, pinning her arms together in front of her body. She suddenly realised how much larger and stronger he was than her, and realised, too, that she had absolutely no idea what to do next. She struggled in his grip and stared him right in the eyes, her lips getting ready to spit in the bastard’s face.

She stopped suddenly. She stared him straight in the eyes and she realised something extraordinary.

She recognised him.

His face was covered by one of those ridiculous masks the Cawdor always wore, but it was him nonetheless. He was robed from head to toe with just his stubbled chin on show, but she couldn’t fail to pick him out as one of the dozens of men who passed through her establishment every week. Every week for years, come to think of it. This was one of her most regular visitors, and she simply couldn’t fail to recognise him.

‘You…’ she hissed, struggling to bring a name from her mind. She thought for a second that perhaps she had been mistaken, but as his eyes opened wide in terror, there was no doubting it. She knew him instantly, and now the name came to her.

‘Caldus,’ she said, though in truth the word had barely formed on her lips before her speech descended into another bout of drunken shrieking. She screamed madly as she renewed her ineffectual assault on him.

She broke one hand free of his grasp and struck at his face with her grubby hand, desperately trying to get hold of his mask.

‘You, you’re the worst of them, you fragging hypocrite,’ she yelled.

Caldus forced her hand away but didn’t loosen his grip on her. She couldn’t break free of his powerful hold, but she wasn’t going to give up. She wasn’t going to let him get away with it, not now that she knew one of her clients was also one of the gang who had turfed her out of her premises!

Scoosme kicked and screamed as Caldus wrestled her to the ground and dragged her to the narrow shaft opposite the Pipe Under Mile. She could do little to fight back given her diminutive size and drunkenness. Rusted girders lined the shaft and Scoosme squealed as the sharp metal cut her bare feet. Caldus let go his grip on her, letting her fall to the floor. Scoosme leapt at once to her feet, dashing back towards the street, but Caldus stood at the shaft’s entrance, making quite sure that she had no way out.

‘You bastard,’ she yelled. ‘You’re one of them, and after all the times you’ve…’

The Cawdor hurriedly shushed her, pushing his hand over her mouth, and she slumped drunkenly back against the wall of the shaft, exhausted by her outburst. She hardly cared what happened now.

‘You won’t get away with this,’ Scoosme said, more calmly as the man slowly removed his hand. ‘I’m going to tell every single one of them just what you do, just how you like it and just what you–’

At this, the Cawdor dropped to his knees and thrust his gloved hand over Scoosme’s mouth once more. She mumbled through it, but doubted anyone could hear her.

‘Shut up,’ Caldus said, whispering in her ear. She could smell his breath as he did so and she was more convinced than ever that it really was Caldus, or whatever his real name might be. ‘Emperor damn your lies. I’ll kill you if you say such things again.’

The struggle went out of Scoosme and she relaxed her tense, aching muscles. She remained still and quiet for a moment and sure enough the man removed his hand from her mouth, but Scoosme wasn’t done yet.

‘What’s the bigger sin, you coward? Killing a girl or paying her to–’ she said with a crazy look in her eye. Almost instantly, his gloved palm muffled her voice again.

‘Once more, and I’ll kill you right now,’ he said.

Scoosme unleashed a crazy drunken laugh. That didn’t scare her, not anymore. She continued to laugh and Caldus once more dared to remove his glove.

‘You won’t,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper, playing along with his desperate plea for secrecy. ‘You can’t kill me with all these people watching.’

The man turned his head slowly and peered over his shoulder. Scoosme giggled as he at last saw what she had been looking at the whole time. Her earlier outburst hadn’t gone unnoticed and a crowd now milled around outside the Pipe, staring straight at the burly Cawdor and scrawny girl scrapping in the shadows.

She knew the crowd wouldn’t try to stop him, they were all too terrified of the Union for that, but she gambled that he couldn’t be seen killing her. That would leave too much explaining for him to do, not least to his own saintly masters, she thought. They might not care a jot for her life, but they would have precious little mercy for one of their own using one sin to cover another. She giggled as the man cursed and thumped his fist against the wall of the alley. He had clearly come to the same realisation.

‘Go away,’ he said, spitting the words as loud as he could without the crowd overhearing. ‘Leave here.’

‘Make me,’ she said, laughing. ‘Make me go away.’

With that, ‘Caldus’ thrust his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handful of credits. He hurled them at Scoosme.

‘Now leave,’ he said, ‘and if you ever come back, I will kill you.’

With that, he pushed past her and walked further down the shaft, clearly thinking it best to avoid the gathering crowd. Scoosme just lay back on the girder beneath her and laughed her crazy, drunken laugh.

Dergen Reck ran the kind of trading post that every dreary, hopeless little settlement this deep in the Underhive seemed afflicted with. It was a ramshackle little heap. The kind of place apparently stocked with everything except what you wanted. Its sole selling point was that it catered to those unable to afford Bok’s rather more varied and reliable wares sold from his shack on the edge of town.

Reck’s wares could hardly be described as new, but they could hardly be described as old either. Useless, busted or trashed would be more fitting descriptions for the vast majority of Reck’s stock. An array of pistols was on the table nearest the door, each had the wrong kind of bullets helpfully laid out next to it, in a vain attempt to disguise the fact that Dergen’s collection of pistols seldom complemented his supply of bullets. The sharpened shards of scrap metal that populated Dergen’s prize ‘knife rack’ – which was what he called the slab of resin into which they were all stabbed – and the free homemade sheaths with which each came, were all so shabbily made as to virtually guarantee injury to the user should he be fool enough to actually try and wear one.

Least promising of all was the collection of ‘Rare Items and Specialities’ that littered the counter: the much vaunted bionic eye with its ominous offer of ‘free installation’; the ‘reconditioned’ grapnel with its snapped cable hastily tied into a cumbersome knot halfway down; and the ‘master-crafted’, one-of-a-kind, archeotech hand-flamer. Its fuel canister bore an uncanny similarity to the seltzer bottle that had mysteriously gone missing from the Pipe Under Mile some weeks earlier.

Scoosme wondered how a hopeless little shack like this kept its roof on, let alone stayed in business. In truth, she knew full well that Reck survived by selling weapons to hopeless wretches like herself.

Scoosme perused the pistols on the table, if perused meant picking up and looking at items which one had no idea how to use. The first one she picked up was heavy to the point that she almost dropped it. The second one, well, she could hardly tell which end was which and thought it best to return it quickly to the table, nervously lying it on its side to make sure both ends were pointing away from her. The next was more promising: a little stub gun. She’d seen one like it before. Lenka used to carry one, and it was the only kind of gun she had ever held in her own hands. This one was similarly dainty, though not nearly so clean and shiny as Lenka’s cherished ‘special’ had been.

Nonetheless, she found its similarity reassuring – that, and the fact that stub guns could fire virtually any bullet you could cram into the chamber, making Dergen’s idiosyncratic stock-keeping less of a problem. Besides, she only needed one bullet. Well, maybe six just to make sure she wasn’t squeezing on the wrong chamber. She picked up the stubber and spun it open.

Beside its resting place on the table was a pile of bullets: a particularly ill-matched mix of shapes and sizes. She went through the pile, one bullet at a time, checking their fit into the gun’s chambers and, when she had a bullet safely nestled in each of the six, she strolled out of the shop, loaded stub gun precariously in hand.

Dergen was not foolish to sit behind the counter, or indeed in his own shop. Most weeks, at least one passing imbecile would request a test firing, invariably inside the shop’s four shaky walls. As a result, Dergen was always to be found perched on an ammo crate outside, taking payment from those who left the shop alive.

Scoosme strolled up to him, waving the pistol with ill-advised nonchalance.

‘How will you be paying for it?’ asked the toothless old trader, a seedy twinkle flashing across his foggy, cataract-grey eyes.

A disappointed sulk spread across his face as Scoosme dumped a handful of credits onto the chest beside him. She gave a disgusted humph, turned on her heel and marched off down the street. As she reached the corner, she whipped her skirt up to the thigh and jabbed the little pistol into her suspenders. It was hardly necessary to hide the weapon, but she had left the old man two credits short, after all.

Scoosme crossed the street and walked calmly past the Pipe Under Mile. As she passed the grate on the door, the bartender caught sight of her and dashed forwards to intercept her. She didn’t enter, though, she just blew the man a kiss and passed on by.

Fools, the lot of them, thought Scoosme.

The Pipe’s collection of ramshackle outbuildings – at least half of them had collapsed – provided fine pickings for any scavenger and so Scoosme stopped to rummage through the nearest heap of rubble, quickly finding a twisted old iron shank that would be just perfect for the job at hand.

She scurried down the alley, right up to the rusted metal door at its end. It was part of the same building as the brothel, though exactly which room was behind it, Scoosme couldn’t be sure. No one had used this particular entrance in living memory.

The door itself was large, very large. It had no handle but was instead operated by means of a wheel in its centre. Pistons and bolted arms ran over its rusted, grey metal surface, connecting to the wheel at the door’s centre so that by turning it pressure might be relieved and the door unlocked.

Scoosme already knew she had no hope of opening the door by hand, and so instead thrust the iron bar down behind the rail that ran around the wheel’s outer edge. She jammed it sideways so that the bar rested against one of the many winding handles running round the wheel’s circumference. In this way, the bar formed a solid lever at right angles to the wheel itself.

She pushed hard against the bar but it didn’t budge an inch. Another good push and the winding handle tore clean off the door, sending the metal bar tumbling to the floor and Scoosme with it. She shrieked as she stumbled but was not perturbed. Dusting herself off, Scoosme again thrust the bar into the wheel, butting it against the next winding handle down. By chance this second choice actually seemed to be a better angle and Scoosme was able to put all her weight over the bar, pushing right down on it.

Fortunately, this second winding handle was not riddled with the rust that had torn the first from its bearings and, with the bar pressed down hard on it, the handle drove the wheel ever so slowly clockwise, away from the frantically straining Scoosme. Flakes of rust fell away from the wheel as it ground slowly round, and it seemed for a moment as though the whole thing might simply canker and fall away like so much crushed rubble.

She managed a full half turn before trying to push the door itself. Nothing. She persevered with the metal bar, though having turned the wheel almost two-thirds of a rotation caused the angle to be awkward. Scoosme was forced to position herself behind the wheel, on the opposite side to the iron bar and, with her feet and back wedged squarely in the door’s frame, she continued to pull, rather than pushing on the metal bar, using every ounce of her little weight to drag the iron bar agonisingly past the upright position.

At last it came and the iron bar fell away, coming loose as the wheel reached a full turn. It was sufficiently loose that Scoosme could turn it herself, using the winding handles at its edge. Dropping to the floor from her precarious perch between the jambs, she did just that, and in a moment the heavy girders, locking pistons and plated hinges that covered the door began to creak and grind to life.

A second later and Scoosme was forced to leap back out of the way. Quite to her surprise, the door did not open outwards, but upwards, and with the wheel loose enough for it to do so, the whole thing lifted up in an eerie levitation.

The building alongside – one of the Pipe’s derelict outbuildings – had clearly been built in the long years since this wheeled door last opened. The door rose up when opened, but its edge jammed hard against the neighbouring building before it could even become horizontal. Having slumbered so long, the heavy mechanisms of its lock were in little mood to give up now, and the force drove the adamantium door right into the masonry of the outbuilding next to it, carving a rut almost a metre long out of the building’s wall. At last, though, the outbuilding’s structure proved too much and the door froze, less than fully open, stuck in place against the wall. With its uppermost edge buried in the plascrete of the outbuilding, the door was as firmly jammed open as it had been jammed shut minutes earlier.

Scoosme cursed, not because the door was only partly open – its vast size meant that even half-open it formed a perfectly adequate entrance – but because she had intended to close it behind her. Scoosme could do without drawing attention to her little reclamation attempt, and leaving the door open would do that. She cursed again but could do nothing more about it and cautiously hopped over the door’s raised lip and into her former residence.

The room she entered was not really a room at all. Its walls were entirely metal, seamless and airtight, and barely three metres ahead there was a second metal door identical to the one she had just come through. This one, mercifully, was caved in, hanging awkwardly through the doorway itself, as if sucked through by some unbelievable pressure. In fact, it probably had been, for two airtight doors so close together could only mean an airlock for access to whatever volatile substances the building had once been used to cultivate, harvest, or process.

She’d seen something like it before, near the sump, where such chambers could occasionally be found to still contain their precious chemical treasures. Extracting them was tricky, though, and when Scoosme used to prowl the explorator’s shacks along the sump’s edge, she more than once heard tell of foolhardy prospectors sucked to their doom by incautiously breaking the seal on such airtight containers. They would be stripped to the bone by a rushing torrent of chemical filth from within, released by the colossal pressures built up inside over centuries of ill-maintained containment.

She shuddered to think that such dangers could lurk even here in Fall Sands, though on reflection there was no reason why they shouldn’t, and she merely offered thanks for finding this particular container cracked, empty and entirely harmless.

Scoosme passed through the second, cracked door and found herself on a high gantry that ran along all four walls of a perfectly square, high-ceilinged room. Beneath the gantry, the room was full of ash. Clearly this had once been some store or silo, and the gantry was used for inspection and access. She had never been in this part of the place before. In the depths of the building, some bleed or run-off pipe must be cracked open, thought Scoosme, allowing the whole system to fill with ash and creating this curious dusty reservoir over which she now stood.

The ash rose up to just a metre or so below the gantry, presumably level with the street outside. Here, though, without the hundreds of feet pounding daily over it, the ash was not nearly so compacted and its fine flakes moved almost like liquid in a pool. Waves and ripples cavorted over the ash reservoir’s surface, occasionally spitting puffs of ash up into the air, as gas from the decrepit pipes below finally wriggled its way free at the surface. It was all rather disorienting, and Scoosme hurried down the gantry along the wall and out of the room at the other side.

As she entered the next room, Scoosme heard a heavy thud behind her. She halted and her hand shot down to her thigh where the stub gun nestled against her leg. She considered drawing it and then banished such thoughts. The door by which she had entered hadn’t been opened in decades and, Scoosme told herself, the first few gusts of wind to pass this way in so long would surely cause a little noise. The door’s locking and opening mechanism probably hadn’t completely given up the fight either, and Scoosme reassured herself that the noise was almost certainly just some crank still clunking uneasily against the jammed door. The ash pool, likewise, had a curious life to it: foaming, spitting and frothing, and offered up a few eerie sounds of its own. With this in mind, Scoosme was quite sure that she was alone, and the noise was nothing more sinister than the cacophony of decay.

This new room was small and offered only two exits, neither of them doors. A ladder led upwards on the wall to the left, while opposite that a small ventilation shaft was set into the wall. The shaft was too dark to see down, but a waft of familiar scent made Scoosme certain of her bearings. She was behind the rooms proper: the rooms that she had known in her time in the building, and the shaft led directly to one of the living rooms off the corridor leading from the front door.

Scoosme wandered over to the shaft. The creepy noises still coming from the rooms behind her frayed her nerves, no matter how much she told herself that no one was there, and so she cast a quick glance over her shoulder before flinging her arms up and hauling herself into the ventilation shaft.

The shaft was surprisingly clean. The gentle breeze that perpetually drifted through it allowed less ash to settle here than elsewhere, and Scoosme dragged herself along without difficulty. A few more minutes and she emerged into a familiar room at last.

The bar, or what passed for it in an establishment like this. Tall metal urns mounted on the wall had been used to ferment all manner of noxious house specials, though Scoosme now realised that they once must have acted as release vats for whatever chemical soup had lain in the reservoir before the ash came. Suddenly the taste of the house cocktails she drank day and night to numb the mind was a little less appealing.

The urns were bereft of liquor now, though they were not disused. What had once housed Scoosme’s noxious cocktails now contained a concoction of an entirely different kind. The urn nearest the ventilation shaft contained an inky black mixture, much thicker than water and surprisingly cool to the touch. The next urn held a liquid of the same consistency, though it was bright red in colour. The other urns each held similar formulations, varying in colour and occasionally consistency.

Scoosme dipped her finger in the farthest urn as she glided through the room. It was the consistency of water and she thought for a time it might be drinkable, though placing her finger on her tongue she discovered the liquid was not nearly rank enough to pass for drinkable liquor. She spat on the floor and wiped the rest of the muck off on her dress. It dried as it touched the cloth and, although deep brown in the urn, the liquid’s colour faded, lightening almost to the colour of her dress. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the fact that the liquid made hard patches on the supple cloth, it would have been entirely invisible once dry.

She stole on through the room and out into the main corridor. At last her ears picked up on a definite sound above her and up the stairs. Scoosme pulled the pistol from its hiding place and sneaked slowly up the metal stairs towards what had been her and the other girls’ boudoirs.

Nearing the top of the stairs she gazed straight ahead into the first room. She held the pistol out in front of her and inched through the door. It was empty except for a number of pieces of tattered parchment hanging from wires that were crisscrossing the ceiling. Most appeared blank, except the parchments on the foremost wire, all of them bearing lines of still-wet black ink on their surfaces. Scoosme couldn’t read, however, and could make out nothing more than this.

She shuffled back out of the door, turning into the long corridor that ran right to the front of the building with care, so as not to reveal herself too quickly. Rooms lined the right hand side of the corridor, while the left simply continued on from the metal staircase by which she had come up.

She passed the doorway of the next room on the right. It was dark and empty, so she gracefully sidled down the corridor towards the sound of what was now the only noise she could hear – a faint, wispy scratching sound, accompanied by movement. The next room down the corridor, Lenka’s room, was also empty, and the sound grew louder as Scoosme continued on down the hall.

The fourth room yielded what Scoosme had been looking for: the outlander. She saw him as she nervously peered round the doorframe. He sat at a large table in the middle of the room, facing away from her. His shoulders were hunched over as he worked at something in front of him on the table. The scratching noise broke off as the outlander raised his left hand and brought it inadvertently into sight. In that hand he held a long stylus mounted on a metal arm attached to the desk. Miniscule cogs in the arm whirred as the outlander guided the stylus away from his body and dipped its tip into a pot of black liquid beside him: the same liquid Scoosme had seen in the urns downstairs.

The outlander returned the stylus to its place in front of him and the scratching noise resumed. Noise enough, thought Scoosme, for her to make her move. She tiptoed into the room, her bare feet padding softly on the grimy floor, the pistol held out in front of her. She got to within a metre of the outlander when he seemed to sense something and raised his head. No matter. She was close enough.

‘Bastard,’ she yelled, aiming the gun straight at the back of his head.

He showed no panic. The outlander calmly rose from his seat and turned to face her, moving sufficiently slowly so as to show no threat, and seeming completely unfazed.

‘What do you want?’ he asked calmly. His voice had poise and measure of a sort seldom heard in the Underhive. Scoosme had heard voices like it before, though. She was sure of it.

‘I want you out,’ she said. ‘This is my place, mine and the girls’. Get out.’

The outlander seemed to smirk a little and Scoosme’s finger tightened round the trigger, suddenly afraid he had something up his sleeve.

‘It won’t do you any good,’ he said. Whatever game he was playing, he was winning and Scoosme could feel her courage ebbing away.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked timidly.

‘This place. Being here will do no good. It’ll be better if you leave, I promise you that,’ he said.

‘You don’t scare me,’ she said, half-lying. ‘Not you and not those Union thugs. Damn ’em all to hell, they don’t scare me!’ She waved the pistol threateningly but the outlander didn’t flinch.

‘So shoot me,’ he said, and at last she could place it, his voice, his peculiar accent. There was only one other she knew like it, and that was Morla’s. She’d never known where Morla was from, or why she spoke the way she did, but her speech had always had a power to it. It was like a well-crafted weapon in its way, and there was only one place in the hive where the tongue was a weapon. That certainly wasn’t Fall Sands, and yet the outlander spoke in that same measured tone that sounded at once both wise and cruel.

‘Go on, shoot me. That’ll show them you’re not afraid,’ he said. Scoosme stared into his eyes – both real and bionic – but his gaze was almost too vexing to bear. Then she realised with horror that he wasn’t looking at her at all, but right past her shoulder. He was staring past her shoulder at something, or someone…

Oh frag, she thought, as a gloved hand clamped down over her mouth and she felt the cold steel of a dagger pressed to her throat.

CHAPTER: TEN

Lirbus hated sentry duty, especially sentry duty on the front door. No one would ever be stupid enough to attack the front door, so what was the point of posting sentries there? At least on the other sentry posts you had something to do. It had been months since anyone seriously threatened the Union, but before that, sentry duty had at least offered a few good shootouts. Even now, sentry duty on the more distant posts at least offered the opportunity to loose pot shots down into the crowds of townsfolk to keep them on their toes. Not so on the front frikking door.

Worse still was the fact that Lirbus was assigned sentry duty on the front door with Erket. Juves were bad enough. Erket was the worst. Lirbus had met humble juves – the kind so eager to please you quickly wished they weren’t – and he’d also met cowardly juves. He could live with either of them since both did as he told them.

Erket was a gobby little runt, owner of an ego inversely proportioned to its owner. He never let his gun down once the whole time he was on sentry duty, his scowl always just a little too serious, his grip on the pistol just a little too tight, his posture keeping it just a little too close to his crotch. All of this gave Lirbus ample reason to dislike Erket. Everything else Erket did gave Lirbus reason to distrust him, as well as dislike him.

It wasn’t long before Erket seemed to have another urge to show off his weapons. He continued to cradle his pistol in one hand, but now drew his knife and held it upright, clenching it in his left hand. He sat rigidly upright, every muscle in his body straining as he dutifully grasped his pistol and knife. Exactly what he sought to achieve by doing so was beyond Lirbus, but it seemed to please Erket. With his knife held upright like that, Lirbus wondered whether he could slap Erket hard enough on the back of the head to make him stab himself. He slipped the magazine of his autopistol down into the palm of his glove in anticipation of the attempt.

He wouldn’t get the chance. Lakatos and Morden strolled into view up ahead, and Lirbus thought it best not to brain one of the juves in front of their leader and his most trusted ganger. At least, Morden always used to be Lakatos’s most trusted ally. These days Lirbus was starting to wonder whether the outlander might have usurped Morden’s position.

As they drew nearer, Lirbus could see Berzel scurrying along behind them, the shorter man hidden behind the imposing Lakatos and Morden.

‘Take one of these two with you,’ said Lakatos as he passed. Lirbus knew instantly what that meant. There was work to be done, and he could either go with Berzel or be left here with Lakatos. As a leader, Lirbus thought the world of Lakatos. As company, he left much to be desired. Lirbus leapt to his feet before Erket could even loosen his grip on his pistol and heartily slapped Berzel across the back of the shoulders.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘what needs doing?’

‘Taxes,’ was Berzel’s smarmy reply. Behind him, Lakatos slumped onto the rusted metal steps beside Erket. He was, at least, fair in his sharing of duties, and Lakatos was never one to shirk the sentry’s post.

‘Put that knife away, you idiot,’ Lakatos said to Erket and Lirbus couldn’t help but chuckle out loud as he turned to follow Berzel down the ladder to street level.

‘Wait,’ said Lakatos, and a wave of fear passed through Lirbus; fear that his smirking had been taken as disobedience. Berzel hauled himself back up the ladder and the pair stood patiently in front of their seated leader. As ever, he seemed in no rush, but eventually pulled out a folded-up parchment from where it was tucked under a cord around his arm.

‘You can tell Goddlesby he’s got a new donor,’ said Lakatos. Berzel took the parchment and unfolded it as Lirbus peered over his shoulder. ‘And tell him to be sure he collects.’

Lirbus squinted. His reading wasn’t the best, especially not with the fancy language the guilders used, but he nonetheless recognised the document as a wanted poster, and he immediately recognised the face as that of the trader Gern Bok, a longtime thorn in the Union’s side.

‘I will,’ said Berzel. He tapped Lirbus firmly on the shoulder, folding the parchment back up before Lirbus had managed to make out what Bok was accused of. Berzel scampered down the ladder towards the dusty streets below and Lirbus wasted no time in following suit.

‘Put that knife down,’ was all Lirbus could hear as he descended out of earshot, still tittering to himself.

It was a journey Lirbus hadn’t made often. Collecting ‘taxes’ from Goddlesby was Berzel’s job, really, and he was no friend of Lirbus’s. Today, though, faced with the choice between Berzel and Erket, Lirbus was glad to pick the former. For his part, Berzel seemed less objectionable than usual. Perhaps he was also counting himself lucky not to be charged with the feckless little juve as a companion.

Lirbus followed Berzel and hauled himself up through the narrow access shaft that offered the quickest route to Mayor Goddlesby’s shack. He rose from his knees as he stepped onto the narrow ledge and pushed open the airtight, circular steel door that shut Goddlesby off from the outside world. It seemed Berzel had long ago given up knocking when it came to Goddlesby, and the little creep knew better than to ever lock his door to the Union.

‘Back so soon?’ asked Goddlesby in a rare act of courage. It faded quickly enough as the pair strode across the room, and Goddlesby quickly shrank into the corner behind his desk.

‘We missed you,’ said Berzel.

‘Didn’t you miss us?’ Lirbus chipped in.

‘No company today, Goddlesby?’ said Berzel.

Lirbus hadn’t the faintest idea what he was on about. Lirbus was no fan of Berzel’s irreverent style of menace, but it seemed to do the trick with Goddlesby and he decided to go with it.

‘Not to worry, little man, we’ve got a new friend for you,’ said Lirbus, snapping his fingers and beckoning to Berzel with his upturned palm. Berzel passed him the folded-up poster and Lirbus clumsily opened it, tearing it a little along the creases before flinging it down onto Goddlesby’s desk. Goddlesby took one look at it and gulped in terror.

‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘not Bok.’

The pair stepped out into the open air.

‘That little runt hasn’t got the balls to shake down Bok,’ said Lirbus.

‘Hmm, I don’t know. Who’s he more scared of?’ asked Berzel. ‘Him or us?’

That gave Lirbus cause to think. True, Goddlesby was in the Union’s pocket out of fear and nothing else, but Bok himself was a fearsome proposition. He was the one trader in town who didn’t fear the Union, and he had never paid them a cred in taxes. He sold what were without doubt the finest weapons in this part of the hive, and even the Union had to pay good money to get them. His shack was a virtual fortress and the man himself stood as tall as a scaly, and almost as wide. The Union could have disappeared him long ago, like they did with other troublesome individuals, but Bok wasn’t without friends, and it had never seemed worth the bother of crossing him. Now that he was a dirty man, clearly that had changed. A wanted sign made any man an easier target, even Bok.

‘What did he do? To make himself wanted, I mean,’ asked Lirbus. Passing the poster to Goddlesby had given him time to take another look, but his benighted mind didn’t allow him to understand it any better. Berzel just laughed.

‘What did he do? He crossed us, that’s what,’ said Berzel.

‘What?’ said Lirbus, his temper flaring as he started to suspect that Berzel was playing games with him.

‘That’s all that got his face on the wanted poster, nothing else,’ said Berzel, ‘and that means we can protect him just like we said. He pays up, nobody will ever catch up with him, no matter how “wanted” he is.’ Berzel broke into another deep, cacophonous laugh.

‘He must have done something,’ said Lirbus, ‘for the guilders to want him.’

‘You see, Lirbus,’ said Berzel, ‘I don’t think it’s the guilders that want him at all.’

‘What?’

‘I saw Jurgen earlier – before he left town with Deveres – handing something over to Lakatos. I’m pretty sure it was that wanted poster,’ said Berzel.

‘Then where the hell did Jurgen find it?’ asked Lirbus, not yet able to shake the feeling that he was being toyed with.

‘Oh, I don’t think Jurgen found it all,’ said Berzel. ‘I think he made it. All that stuff about him being a forger – the wanted poster they found on that bounty hunter’s body – it’s all true, I’m sure of it.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Lirbus. ‘He had those guilder codes and the hidden messages. He had them and he knows how to make them. He’s not a forger.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t at first,’ said Berzel, ‘but even if what he says is true, he hasn’t worked for the guilders for a long time. Perhaps he’s turned his hand to forgery since then. I think that’s the skill he’s been using to get by on the run, and it’s a skill he’s using for us now, though I guess Lakatos doesn’t want us to know.’

‘No, I guess he doesn’t,’ said Lirbus, still uncertain. ‘Let’s not make him think we do.’

Berzel just nodded.

‘No problem,’ said Berzel, dropping his heavy sack on the table. Durn was perched at the far end of the table, a clutch of shivs in his hand. He looked up and nodded a brief greeting to Lirbus but seemed uninterested and quickly returned to his work.

‘I told Goddlesby, just like you said, next week’s money better include Bok’s share, or the pair of them are gonna pay for it,’ said Berzel.

‘Good,’ said Lakatos, reclining on his stone chair, ‘and what did the little rat have to say to that?’

‘Well, he kicked up a hell of a stink,’ said Lirbus, with an honesty he knew would irritate the showy Berzel. ‘Said Bok will never pay, says he can’t make him, says it’s not his fault, all of that.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ said Berzel. ‘Goddlesby has never dared once step out of line.’

‘Not quite true, Berzel,’ said Lakatos. ‘He’s managed a good few mistakes in his time, and I’m sure more than a few of them have been wilful.’

Lirbus and Berzel remained silent. It was a silence that, after a thoughtful pause, Lakatos broke.

‘Perhaps we can help poor little Goddlesby out,’ he said, ‘just this once.’

‘What?’ asked Berzel.

‘Well, we ought to explain to Bok how all of this works. Besides, way I see it, he owes us plenty enough in back-taxes to justify a visit,’ said Lakatos. ‘See to it.’ His stern tone and terse conclusion left Lirbus and Berzel little room for retort. Both thought better of it and left the room.

Bok’s shack was indeed a fortress. Lirbus had never paid it such close attention before, but then again he’d never really had to. He’d always been content to leave well enough alone, and now that he was here on a mission guaranteed to raise Bok’s ire, he suddenly noticed what an imposing fixture the place was.

Bok’s shack was, in fact, the fortified entrance to the dome above Fall Sands: Pilgrim’s Spire. The story went that, in an age long gone, the dome had in fact constituted the highest pinnacle of the hive (just as, Lirbus reasoned, many domes must have done over time). Legend told that at that time Necromunda had been ruled over by a rather more devout ruling House, and the highest dome had also been the most revered place of worship in the hive, earning it the nickname of Pilgrim’s Spire.

The story was often told within House Cawdor, and the vision of a hive topped by an unshakeable bastion of faith was a vision they struggled daily to recreate. To House Cawdor, the Spire should be the greatest and most worthy symbol of man’s devotion to the Emperor, not merely a high loft of decadence from which decrepit, dilettante rulers looked down uncaring upon unbelieving subjects.

Still, that dream was not yet real, and the Pilgrim’s Spire was little proof it had ever really existed. It was impressively well built, however. The wall of the dome, which must have once divided ancient Spire from ancient city, was still imposing and bore only a single entrance: a broad, armoured gate twenty metres high. Centuries of ash storms had long ago barred it shut, piling such a weight of detritus against it that it could never again open, but its imposing figure still marked the edge of Fall Sands.

Bok’s shack was, in fact, one of the gatehouses that adjoined this ancient entrance. Other similar buildings provided the only routes through to Pilgrim’s Spire now that the main gates were forever closed. The gatehouses were abandoned and, with the exception of Bok’s own shack, the wall provided no real barrier for all its solidity. The gatehouses allowed a man on foot to pass through easily enough, but there was certainly no way through for the colossal transports that once made use of the gate proper. It was because of this that places like Fall Sands had slowly become isolated and fallen into dereliction.

Bok’s shack was a gleaming reminder of another time. The adamantium surface of the building was kept as polished as possible, where it wasn’t already irredeemably scarred by rust, and the pistons that raised and lowered the blast shutters that covered door and windows alike were all in full working order – the only such working pistons in this part of the hive, as the mechanically minded Lirbus well knew.

The blast shutters they mounted were all but impenetrable, but today they were raised, revealing a heavy, metal door in the centre of the shack’s front wall, with two slim, tall windows to either side. Lascannons protruded from the windows, turning them more into murder holes than viewing portals. Lirbus had never seen the lascannons fire, though he was certain they would be in full working order. This, after all, was Bok’s shack.

Lirbus himself was nervous, and Berzel seemed all the more so as they approached the sturdy door. Berzel gave a glance to Lirbus, but then seemed to decide it was better not to waste any time and pushed the door wide open. For all its sturdiness, the door was not kept locked. This was, after all, a trading post, at least by Underhive standards.

Bok was nowhere to be seen. This was instantly worrying. Racks of rifles, autopistols, lasguns and bolters lined the walls. Trunks of ammunition covered the floor. Most ominously of all, bullet holes peppered the floor and ceiling.

The pair strode through the claustrophobic room, suddenly aware of just how little light penetrated the windows, and just how much space was lost to the metre-thick adamantium walls. The ‘counter’ was in fact a broken down old console from which the gatehouse’s former occupants would have received sensory information on everything going on outside their little bastion. Two screens were cracked and three remained in tact, though all, of course, were lifeless. Lirbus stopped to look over the console for a moment before silently and cautiously following Berzel into the anteroom beyond.

Nothing. This room was much more lavish. Indeed, it looked like it once must have been positively comfortable. It was rather more humble now, however, but still infinitely more welcoming than the dark little hole they had just left. Well, it would have seemed more welcoming, thought Lirbus, if it wasn’t for Bok’s eerie absence. Something was wrong, very wrong.

Lirbus only advanced three or four steps into the room. Stopping so soon might well have saved his life. Berzel up ahead of him already stood motionless in the middle of the room, and as Lirbus came to a halt a hush fell over them, which allowed him to hear just the faintest tick-tock, tick-tock from a stack of boxes in the corner.

Lirbus didn’t wait for a second. He dived back through the door by which he had just entered, stumbling and falling as he did so. Berzel charged through behind him, almost landing on Lirbus. Berzel was first back on his feet, leaping onto the counter in a headlong dash for the door. The tick-tock, tick-tock went on and Lirbus wasn’t sure they had time to make it out. Desperation made his mind quick, and in an instant he was gazing up at the doorway through which he had just come.

Sure enough, the frame still housed a heavy, adamantium blast door. Like everything else in the shack, Bok had kept it in perfect working order and for all its weight, Lirbus had no difficulty in slamming the door shut. He grabbed a fly handle on the wheel in the centre of the door and sent it spinning with all his might. The door rattled as Lirbus’s spin sent the locking mechanism racing and barred the door tight just as a dull, crumpling oomph emanated from the room beyond.

Lirbus fell to the floor in shock as the door buckled outwards, but breathed a sigh of relief as nothing more than a hissing gout of smoke streamed out from its edges. The door had held and the blast had been contained. He’d dodged the bullet, or more precisely, the bomb. Berzel, shaking in fear, nervously inched back away from the door, reaching out his gloved hand to help Lirbus up from the floor.

Their relief was premature. A grinding noise above them alerted Lirbus to a circular hatch in the ceiling. Damn it, he thought. It had never occurred to him this might be a two-storey building. He flung himself to his feet, grabbing at Berzel’s arm as he did so, before barging past and sprinting for the door.

The hatch dropped open and Bok appeared. He stood over the opening with a heavy stubber pointed down through it, bandoliers of ammunition thrown over each of his hulking shoulders. He opened fire, sending a line of bullets chasing after Berzel and Lirbus that snapped at their heels as they fled. Mercifully, Bok’s height, coupled with the narrow angle of fire through the hatch, saved them, and the volley fell away as they got within a couple of metres of the door. Not for a second did they stop running, though.

They charged on so hard that Lirbus almost lost his footing as he leapt from the door back out onto the ashy ground. Berzel burst through behind him, barging past and skidding quickly down the ashy slope that led down from the shack. Lirbus regained his footing and followed suit.

He made it only another metre before he stopped dead and recoiled back against the shack’s wall. Up ahead of him, Berzel dissolved into a mass of smoke and flame. The lascannons mounted in the windows had grumbled into life, swung about, and cut Berzel down at the junction of their scything beams. Lirbus squirmed up against the wall, too close to the cannon to be found by their ranging arcs.

He scurried to the left, ducking and scrabbling right under one of the throbbing barrels. He stayed close to the wall, sprinting as fast as he could for fear old Bok would abandon the lascannon and cut him down with that heavy stubber. If Bok came out of the shack now, Lirbus would be a sitting duck. Lirbus had to get to cover, and quickly.

He hardly dared pause to look around, but careering headfirst away from the shack was just as likely to get him into trouble, and so he found the resolve to drop to the ground and allow himself a second to look for cover.

He spotted it instantly – another gatehouse. It was the best Lirbus could hope for.

He clung close to the wall and dashed with all his speed towards it. Clanking to his rear alerted him to Bok leaving his shack and a raft of ammunition flew over his head as he reached the gatehouse. He dived inside, slamming the door shut just in time for a volley of shots to clatter into it, leaving a circle of indentations in the metal like the probing fingers of some angry giant.

Lirbus was pretty sure the door would hold against a heavy stubber but he had no idea what else the maniac Bok might bring to bear. He looked around. The room was identical to Bok’s shack, though lacking in weapons and ammunition. He really could do with some right now, thought Lirbus to himself.

He made straight for the anteroom, hoping it would afford him a route out into Pilgrim’s Spire. He reached the rear chamber just as a second volley of shots raked the door. They hit with a furious noise far above that of the first salvo, and Lirbus was sure that Bok was closing in.

Lirbus dashed to the door at the back of the room. Its rusted handle tore off in his hand as he grabbed it, and as his shoulder slammed into the equally rusted surface, the door showed little sign of giving way. He flung the handle to the floor and pulled his pistol out from its holster, ducking back behind the doorway joining the two rooms. He was trapped and his only hope lay in a lucky ambush.

A thud rang out in the gatehouse, followed by a dull metallic clang and a bright phosphor glow streaming in through the doorway. Bok had melta-bombed the door off its hinges and sure enough, a raking volley of shots screamed in just a moment later. Lirbus crouched beside the doorway in the anteroom.

Two, three, four more metallic clangs rang out as Bok plodded over the collapsed door and into the first room. Lirbus heard a dissatisfied grunt come from the wily old trader, followed by a rather ominous plinkle-plinkle-plop.

A grenade. Shit, thought Lirbus. A flat metal disc rolled out into the middle of the anteroom floor and Lirbus scrambled to his feet in panic. Even in this state of blind terror he knew that heading back through the door would be instant death. He somehow kept his wits about him enough to wriggle behind the anteroom door, where it lay open against the wall behind him. He pushed the door forwards just a fraction, wriggling himself into an impossibly small gap between it and the wall.

Somehow it worked. The grenade unleashed its fury, and Lirbus was nearly crushed as the force of the blast pressed him flat against the wall. It felt like an eternity before he could breath again, every ounce of oxygen wrung from his lungs by the heavy, metal door pinning him to the wall, but at least he was alive. At last the door released its bear hug on him and he slumped to the floor. His ribs ached, every one of them broken no doubt, but he had no time to waste.

He wriggled out from behind the door and crouched, pistol held out towards the open doorway. He would only get one shot, so he’d better make it count, he thought to himself.

Another grunt, this time a pleased-sounding one, was uttered. Bok must think I’m already dead, Lirbus thought. He even dared to hope Bok might leave without looking for his body.

It was a vain hope as a second later the tip of the heavy stubber barrel snaked through the door, tracking left and right. It took all of Lirbus’s nerve not to fire instantly, but he had to wait until he could get one good clean shot at Bok. Inch by rusty inch, the barrel came forwards, and then Bok’s hand came into view, his front leg, and his other hand. It was an agonising wait.

Suddenly a shot rang out. It wasn’t the stubber – it remained motionless in the doorway in front of Lirbus – and Lirbus gasped, terrified that his frightened hands had fired without his nervous mind commanding it. He tipped his pistol up a little to look at the barrel, but no smoke meant no fire.

He turned his gaze back to the door in time to see the heavy stubber fall to the floor. Another moment passed before Bok keeled over behind it, dead. His huge frame slammed into the floor and on reflex Lirbus leapt up, planting one foot on his back and aiming his pistol at Bok’s head. He was definitely dead, though, and as much as Lirbus wanted to shoot, it would be nothing more than a waste of a bullet.

‘What the…?’ he mumbled nervously to himself before realising a third man stood behind him. He turned, terrified… only to see Jurgen’s grinning face with a toxstick wedged firmly between his teeth.

‘You gonna tell me what happened or just stand there pretending you shot him?’ asked Jurgen, winking as he returned his pistol to its hiding place in the small of his back.

‘That’s the most damned luck I’ve had in days,’ said Jurgen. Lirbus jogged along beside him, still shaking with fear.

‘It was a lot luckier for me,’ Lirbus said.

‘You think?’ said Jurgen, his meaning not at all clear to Lirbus.

‘What do you mean? What bad luck?’ asked Lirbus, deciding to return to the earlier point.

‘It’s not good, Lirbus, it’s not good,’ he said. ‘I lost Deveres on the way. Damned fool just wandered off. I only hope he made it back here by himself. As for the others, well, they didn’t make it anywhere.’

‘What?’ said Lirbus, biting his lip. He’d been gone most of the day, but Deveres certainly wasn’t back in Fall Sands by the time he’d left, and if he wasn’t back by then, well, Lirbus was smart enough to know he probably wasn’t coming back at all. ‘What about the others?’ he asked.

‘Handomel’s gang, Scarlet Skulls or whatever they called themselves,’ said Jurgen. ‘They’re dead. All dead.’

Lirbus gulped in disbelief. ‘How?’ he asked.

‘One big bloody mess, that’s how,’ said Jurgen.

‘Emperor judge us all,’ squealed Lirbus. ‘Do you think Lago is back? Do you think he’s still after them?’

‘Well if he is, he got them,’ said Jurgen.

‘Then do you think he’s after us?’ asked Lirbus. Jurgen said nothing at first. He just seemed to be thinking it over in his head.

‘Thing is,’ he said a moment later, ‘half of Handomel’s men were dead in their hideout – I found the gang badge graffed on the wall – and a bunch more were dead all over the place.’

‘So?’

‘So, if Lago did this – and I’m not saying he didn’t – I’m not sure he did all of it.’

‘What?’ said Lirbus. This was all too much: Deveres, Berzel, Handomel’s men.

‘I wonder if some of those Scarlet Skulls weren’t a little too eager to replace Handomel, putting themselves before the cause, if you know what I mean, brother,’ said Jurgen. ‘Can’t be sure they didn’t go and shoot themselves up. Maybe Lago was there, who knows, but maybe they made themselves easy pickings for him.’

Lirbus frowned. He was confused and frightened and had little stomach left for the fight. He remained silent the rest of the way as he and Jurgen headed back to the hideout.

‘All of them?’ asked Lakatos, clearly disbelieving.

‘All of them,’ said Jurgen, sternly. ‘You’re lucky I heard the ruckus, or you could add Lirbus here to that tally, too.’

‘Damn it, damn it, damn it,’ said Lakatos, his voice rising as his anger grew. He slammed his fist into the wall next to him and paced back and forth.

Lirbus was right; Deveres wasn’t back yet. No one was saying it, but he hadn’t made it. There was no point looking for him, either.

Lirbus had listened to the whole sorry tale again as Jurgen told it to Lakatos: how Deveres got lost in the storms, and how Jurgen found the Scarlet Skulls dead to a man and fled as fast as he could, only to run right into the gunfight at Bok’s. Lirbus was glad of that last part, at least. He hadn’t instantly taken to the outlander, but he owed him his life now, and what’s more, he trusted him implicitly.

Lirbus was sure Lakatos was going to explode when Jurgen suggested some of the Scarlet Skulls might have killed each other in a leadership challenge, and it certainly angered him, but he seemed to find the suggestion sadly predictable. Deveres, too, and Berzel. Lirbus was sure their deaths would send Lakatos into a fit of rage, with him and Jurgen to take the blame, but Lakatos seemed more ready to criticise the dead men for their idiocy. Now he just paced back and forth. No one dared speak, not even the outlander, while their leader racked his brains for what to do next.

‘Addec needs to know,’ he said. ‘If the Skulls are gone, he needs to take their territory and quickly, else he’s unprotected. Someone has to tell Addec,’ said Lakatos. ‘Durn, go to Addec. Tell him what happened. Tell him he has to capture Handomel’s territory, now.’

Lakatos paced to the edge of the room as Durn wasted no time in following his leader’s orders, ducking out of the door and making good his departure.

‘Goddlesby,’ said Lakatos, his voice barely more than a whisper, muffled by the gloved fist he held over his mouth.

‘What?’ asked Morden from his spot in the centre of the room.

‘Goddlesby, the little runt, he must have done this.’

‘What?’

‘The little bastard said he wouldn’t collect Bok’s taxes, didn’t he?’ asked Lakatos. Lirbus just nodded in reply. ‘I bet he decided to tip him off about it.’

It made sense. Goddlesby was a worthless little coward.

‘Well then,’ said Lakatos, ‘let’s give our town’s fine mayor one last chance to make his proper contribution.’ Lakatos’s anger turned to a cruel laugh.

‘What do you want us to do?’ asked Lirbus, realising that the uncollected taxes were probably still his problem.

‘Go and get Bok’s body,’ said Lakatos. ‘Remember, he’s a wanted man.’

Jurgen looked up, offering a single nod to Lirbus.

Lirbus nodded three times in reply. It made perfect sense.

‘I won’t do it. I can’t do it,’ Goddlesby said. His already filthy skin was washed clean in places by the endless streams of sweat working their way down his bald head and onto his wrinkled face. He was the very picture of terror, and yet he was resolute nonetheless.

‘That man is not wanted for anything, dead or alive, and I will not pay a single credit of bounty on him,’ he said.

‘I’ve got his wanted poster right here,’ said Lirbus, taking the parchment from his pocket and thrusting it into Goddlesby’s face. ‘Or don’t you remember?’

Jurgen stood silent in the corner with Bok’s body at his feet. Lirbus followed Goddlesby’s gaze as the little man stared at the corpse, frightened out of his wits.

‘I don’t know what’s going on, but if Bok was wanted I would know about it. I’m not paying up. I can’t pay up.’

‘It’s not even your money, Goddlesby,’ said Lirbus. ‘I know you’ve got that special stash the guilders leave with you, for paying out on their behalf. Now you be a good boy and pay out.’

‘I won’t do it,’ said Goddlesby. ‘You want the money, you take him to the guilders yourself.’

Lirbus turned to Jurgen and frowned. It seemed Goddlesby had left them with no alternative. He’d blown his last chance, and now he had to disappear.

‘I’ll take him with me,’ said Lirbus, turning to Jurgen.

‘No,’ said Jurgen, ‘I’ll go. Seems I’m having more luck out there than most.’

Lirbus plodded back to the hideout. He was dreading being there. They had lost two men in a day, after a year without so much as seeing a man go out of action, and all that on top of the news that some of their most important allies were dead, apparently having torn themselves to pieces.

Sure enough, the atmosphere was so tense as to be painful as Lirbus returned to the hideout, every pair of eyes rising up to see if he was the bearer of more bad news. He walked to the rising steps at the back of the room in silence and slumped in a corner. He wouldn’t sleep a wink and he didn’t dare say a word to any of the others. As exhausted as he was, Lirbus almost wished it was him and not Durn going out into the storms.

CHAPTER: ELEVEN

Mayor Erb Goddlesby gulped a gulp of deep and unshakeable nervousness.

‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘not Bok.’ This was bad news, very bad news, indeed. He took another look at the wanted poster lying face up on his desk. It was Bok sure enough. Erb couldn’t believe it. Bok was a tough, ragged brute of a man, but one who had never so much as wriggled one little toe over onto the wrong side of the law.

Wanted, it read, for the theft of armaments sanctioned only for use by enforcers, watch and Hive City patrol agents. Surely this couldn’t be true, could it? Erb gulped again.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked. The two Cawdor took their time answering him. They loved making him squirm, and he’d never really been able to avoid doing so. The one on the right was Berzel. He knew him. He wasn’t so sure of the other one’s name. He wasn’t sure he had seen him before, or rather wasn’t so sure he could tell him apart from any of the other vicious thugs that plagued the town.

‘Nothing,’ said Berzel, ‘nothing at all. You’re going to do it for us.’

‘What?’ said Erb. ‘What do you mean? I can’t bring him in! Not Bok!’ He still wasn’t sure that the wanted poster was genuine, or that Bok had really done the things it said. Even if it the poster was genuine, and Bok had done the things it accused him of, Erb certainly wasn’t going to be the one to bring Bok in. He wouldn’t stand a chance against a man like that. Civic duty could go to hell when it came to colossal arms dealers with bad tempers. Civic duty wasn’t for dealing with people like that, Erb told himself meekly.

‘Don’t worry little man,’ said Berzel. ‘We don’t want you to bring him in. We’re going to look after Bok. Protect him. Same as we protect all of you in this town. We’ve always looked after you, haven’t we, Goddlesby?’

Goddlesby certainly didn’t consider himself looked after, but he wasn’t going to risk a beating by telling them so.

‘Wh-what are you going to do?’ he stuttered, his already short supply of nerve dwindling fast.

‘Well, here’s the deal,’ said the other Cawdor, the one whose name Erb didn’t know. ‘We’re going to protect Bok, and make sure nobody makes good on the “Wanted: Dead or Alive” part, but it’s going to cost him.’

Erb gulped that familiar gulp. He could feel it coming every time he got nervous. He was nervous a lot of the time. He gulped a lot, especially when the Union was around. They weren’t going to ask him to bring Bok in, but they were going to ask something just as perilous. They wanted him to tax Bok. Of all the townsfolk, Bok was the only one who had refused to bow down to the Union’s extortion and gotten away with it. Others had tried and paid the price for it, or caved quickly when they saw others pay the price for it, but Bok had persevered and, as far as Erb knew, the Union hadn’t troubled him for months. As far as he could tell, they had given up on squeezing so much as a single credit out of Bok. Until now, that was.

‘I… I…’ Goddlesby stuttered again, lacking the nerve to get straight to the point. ‘Bok won’t pay,’ it came at last.

‘Bok’s going to have to pay,’ said Berzel. ‘He pays, or his hide pays for it. No other choice for him. It’s us or the guilders, Goddlesby. You can tell him that when you go collect his taxes.’

‘I… I… just can’t. I can’t get money from Bok. He’ll laugh in my face, or punch me in it. I won’t do this, I can’t do this!’ Erb’s protest was passionate, but clearly making little headway with the hooded bullies in front of him. They were ignoring every word and already heading for the door.

‘Same time next week, Goddlesby,’ said Berzel as the pair departed. He had no choice. He would have to pay a visit to Bok.

Bok’s shack was an imposing fortress on the edge of town. It was a place Erb hated. He hated everything about it, how far it was from his own little hole, how big and nasty it looked. He hated the things inside it, all the guns, the bullets, the big vicious arms dealer himself. Erb hated guns, he always had. He used to own a little six-shooter as a token gesture, but got rid of it after he accidentally blew two of his own fingers off when his braces snapped.

Erb stopped about ten metres short of the shack’s entrance. He didn’t want to knock on the door, let alone walk in unannounced, and instead stopped in clear view of the windows, took his hat off and waved it in the air as he shouted out.

‘Bok! Bok!’ he said. ‘Bok, I have to speak to you.’

A single shot rang out and Erb’s hat flew out of his hand and landed right at his feet with a smoking hole clean through the middle. He stooped down to pick it up. From the shack up ahead of him, he heard a heavy thud as the door swung open. Looking up, Erb saw Bok appear in the doorway, a lasgun wedged under his arm.

‘Then what are you doing standing there and waving like a target?’ asked Bok. Erb wasn’t exactly sure what mood Bok was in, and why he had just shot at him, but he decided to take the man’s advice and scurried quickly up the slope to the shack.

By the time he reached the door, Bok had retreated within. Erb pushed on the heavy door. It was an effort just to open it and, as he squeezed in through the tiny gap he had made between the door and jamb, the thing threatened to shut on him and crush him against the frame. It was hardly a dignified entrance. Then again, he was hardly in a dignified position.

‘Bok,’ he said, ‘I’ve been getting trouble again. It’s the Union, you see, they’ve been, erm… They’re…’ his speech trailed off into another haze of nervy doubt.

‘Those sons of bitches, what’s it got to do with me? They leave me well enough alone, and I don’t give a damn what they get up to,’ said Bok.

‘You see,’ said Erb, ‘they showed me something today, um, they showed me, kind of, like a poster… A wanted poster.’

‘What are they doing? Showing off? Somebody finally put their ugly mugs up where they belong?’

‘No, Bok. I mean, they showed me a wanted poster… for you,’ said Erb. He fumbled with the brim of his hat as he fell silent and in those few brief moments he realised he had absolutely no idea how Bok was going to react. He could have guessed, though.

‘What the frag?’ Bok roared as his fist smashed clean through a mercifully empty gun rack beside him, reducing it to splinters with a single blow. Erb gulped. It was time for a gulp. He’d felt it coming on for a while.

‘They say you’ve been, um… The poster, it said…’

‘Spit it out, Goddlesby!’ Bok’s temper didn’t appear to be soothed any by the long time it was taking Erb to find his words.

‘The poster says some of these guns are official weapons, weapons from the watch, the enforcers,’ said Erb. ‘The poster says you stole them, Bok.’

One of the broken pieces of the gun rack was further reduced to splinters as Bok picked it up and bashed it repeatedly into the floor, though this did little to dissipate his rage. He rose to his feet, roaring in anger, an animal cry from which Erb could make out no words. He half expected Bok to start beating his chest.

‘This is a stitch-up,’ he roared. ‘I’m not standing for this.’

‘Bok, Bok,’ said Erb. ‘It’s okay. I don’t think you did it. I’m not here to take you in.’ Erb stopped, realising the stupidity of what he had just said, but Bok seemed to have found an ounce of calm inside his hulking frame and Erb continued quickly in an attempt to gloss over the faux pas.

‘I don’t think anything is going to come of this, Bok, but they say they want payment to keep quiet.’

‘Uh-uh,’ said Bok. ‘I’ve never paid those crooks a cred, and I’m never going to.’

‘Bok, it’s only the same as everyone else has been paying all these years. It’s not that much really, and if it keeps them off your back, then–’

‘Keeps them off my back?’ said Bok, butting in before Erb could finish. ‘I’ll keep them off my back my way, don’t you worry, and it won’t cost me a damned cred. You go tell them that. Tell them they’re getting nothing,’ said Bok.

‘I can’t tell them that, Bok, please,’ said Erb. ‘You’re making this hard for me. Just think, it’s not much for a quiet life,’ Erb pleaded but Bok was unmoved. He was already behind his counter, hauling out some truly monstrous metal boxes. Erb didn’t dare ask what was inside.

‘Bok, listen, if you don’t pay up, I don’t know what they’re going to do. You remember what happened to the others?’

Undoubtedly Bok did. He’d been around long enough to remember the sorry ends of all those who had tried to resist the Union’s demands when they first arrived in town, but Bok had escaped all that and had done okay ever since. It didn’t seem as if reminding him of it was going to sway him any.

‘Bok, please.’ Erb tried one last time, but Bok was ignoring him completely, lost in his frantic assembly of a terrifying-looking weapon that he was putting together from pieces pulled from the metal boxes that now covered the counter. Erb sighed in resignation and turned to leave.

He walked lightly down the ashy slope outside. A moment or two later he was startled by the most terrible grinding noise coming from behind him, and he turned back to see the shack’s armoured frontage rising up in two spots on either side of the door. As Erb watched with amazement – not least because such ancient machinery still worked – the blast shield revealed two tall windows. Erb stared in awe that quickly turned to horror as that same monstrous barrel he had seen on the counter slid into place in the left hand window. The sight of that thing was enough, and Erb turned tail, scurrying away from the place as quickly as he could. He had no idea what the Union was going to do if Bok didn’t pay up, but he realised that what Bok was planning to do to avoid paying up might be much worse.

This meant trouble for everyone, Erb thought to himself as he scurried back to the rotten little dump he called home.

‘Oh no,’ said Erb as he gazed down into the dead man’s lifeless, yet still wide-open eyes. ‘What have you done?’

Bok’s huge frame lay on the floor of Erb’s ‘mayoral chambers’ as he liked to refer to his little shack. A third eye – a blackened, bloody, brain-spattered mess of one – joined the mortified white ones to either side, erupting from the centre of his head like a sump-orchid in bloom.

It was a stupid question, really. What they had clearly done was kill Bok. Pretty swiftly by the looks of it: one shot clean through the back of his head.

‘I won’t do it. I can’t do it,’ Goddlesby said. His already filthy skin was washed clean in places by the endless streams of sweat working their way down his bald head and onto his wrinkled face. He was terrified, yet he was resolute.

He had been terrified of the Union since the day they walked into town. He had been terrified of Bok, too: terrified of going to his place, terrified of telling him he was wanted, terrified of telling him he had to pay up. But when it came down to it, he was just that little bit more terrified of the Union. So, he had gone along with it and, for all his fear of Bok, he had done what they had asked.

If there was one thing that terrified Erb more than the Union – and there was one thing – it was the guilders. No matter what the Union could do to him if he didn’t pay the bounty, the guilders would do worse if he did. It had come to a point where Erb was damned either way and that gave him no reason to cower any longer. He was done for, and all he could do was go with a little pride by standing up for himself just once before the end.

‘That man is not wanted for anything, dead or alive, and I will not pay a single credit of bounty on him,’ he said.

‘I’ve got his wanted poster right here,’ said the Cawdor they apparently called Lirbus. He took the parchment from his pocket and thrust it into Goddlesby’s face. ‘Or don’t you remember?’

He remembered it all, of course, but he didn’t trust it at all. Erb wasn’t exactly the most powerful man in town, but he was its mayor. As much as he might be a puppet of the Union, his position did hold certain responsibilities, and paying bounties in the absence of a guilder was one of them. The little stash left with him by the guilders for just such an occasion was the one and only thing over which Erb truly had control. Even the Union feared the guilders, or at least didn’t see the point in crossing them, and for all the credits that stash contained, they had always left well alone.

They could have demanded that Erb hand it over at any time. He wouldn’t have, but they could have killed him and taken it all the same. Now they seemed to have found a way around the problem – by demanding that he pay them bounties from it – and they weren’t about to give up now that the stash was at last in their sights. Erb couldn’t stop them from getting it, but he sure as anything wasn’t going to be the one to give it to them.

‘I don’t know what’s going on, but if Bok was wanted I would know about it. I’m not paying up. I can’t pay up.’

The outlander stood silent in the corner with Bok’s body at his feet. Erb had heard nothing but talk of this outlander since he arrived in town, but this was the first time he had ever laid eyes on him. Erb couldn’t resist stealing quick glances, trying to get a good look at him, but always fearing to be caught in his steely gaze. He wondered if it was the outlander who had killed Bok – he was sure it must have been – and that made him all the more frightening to Erb’s poor, terrified mind.

‘It’s not even your money, Goddlesby,’ said Lirbus. ‘I know you’ve got that special stash the guilders leave with you, for paying out on their behalf. Now you be a good boy and pay out.’

‘I won’t do it,’ said Goddlesby. ‘You want the money, you take him to the guilders yourself.’

Lirbus turned to the outlander and frowned. They were clearly unhappy but Erb wasn’t going to budge, and they knew it. That was as much as he hoped to achieve: to be strong, confident, resolute, just this once. It was done, and he knew what was going to happen next. They were going to make him disappear.

‘I’ll take him with me,’ said Lirbus, turning to the outlander.

‘No,’ said Jurgen, ‘I’ll go. Seems I’m having more luck out there than most.’

The outlander stepped over the fallen Bok and grabbed Erb by the collar, dragging him out of the room. Erb just gulped.

‘What’s your name, mister?’ asked Erb. For some reason he felt compelled to talk to the strange outlander as he marched him out over the dunes.

‘You don’t need to know my name,’ said the outlander.

‘I want to,’ said Erb.

‘Then my name is “mister”, you guessed right,’ came the reply.

Erb sighed. It was a shame the outlander was so uncommunicative. Erb had the distinct feeling that a little conversation might make the time between now and the end a little easier, though he was pleasantly surprised at how he was holding out. It was a wonder what standing up for yourself could do, thought Erb. Ironic, really.

He’d known this day was coming. He’d always known this was how it would end. He’d known ever since they made him mayor.

They had only picked him for being so cowardly. He still remembered that day long ago, scrabbling at the ash, and digging handfuls of the stuff out from under that huge stone slab in the middle of town. He’d panicked, dived to the floor and scrabbled desperately at the ash. Somehow, he had dug enough of it out of the way to dig a hole big enough to fit in. A hole he had hidden in as it all went down in the square in front of him.

He’d been no more than a passer-by, but one with bad timing. He was crossing the square, right outside Mayor Hawk’s, just as the Union closed in on the place. Hawk had been a good man: strong, wise and brave. He had put up with nothing when the Union arrived in town. Half of them had done time in his cells when their violence first spilled over into the settlement and Hawk had never backed down, fighting against every one of their wicked little schemes.

He’d got away with it until Ash Season. That was when they came for him. No word could get out and it was old Mayor Hawk all alone against them.

And here we are now, thought Erb, another Ash Season, another dead mayor. Why did things like this always happen in Ash Season? He hated Ash Season. It didn’t matter. This was surely his last.

The outlander stopped, reaching out and tugging the back of Erb’s coat to bring him to a stop too. Erb was vaguely relieved that this would be the end at last. He was sick of walking and wondering what it would be like. Best it just happened.

The stranger snapped open a box of toxsticks. With a deft flick of the tin’s metal lid, the outlander flung one of the toxsticks up, catching it effortlessly between his lips. He held out the open box, offering its contents to Erb.

‘No, no thank you,’ said Erb. ‘No point in starting now.’

‘No harm in trying,’ replied the outlander.

‘No, perhaps not,’ said Erb, reaching out to take the offered stick. He spun it round in his fingers, not really sure which end to put in his mouth. Not like it really mattered, he thought, and stuffed the thing between his lips. The stranger held out a sparkslate and the end of the stick flared into life in front of Erb’s nose.

Erb sighed as he drew his first breath on the thing. No harm in trying, he thought.

CHAPTER: TWELVE

‘Antal,’ said Lakatos. ‘Mero, Rubik, Todor, Galamb: come to me.’

It came across as nothing more than a grainy crackle to Antal, perceiving everything, as he did these days, through the bionic implant in his ear. Nonetheless, Antal was slowly learning to interpret those grainy clicks, crackles and whines for their own sake, and followed his leader’s order easily enough.

The five of them wandered over to where Lakatos stood in the doorway of the gang’s hideout, some getting there more quickly than others. Rubik and Galamb seemed particularly reluctant to put down their tools and do as they were told.

The outlander, Jurgen, was behind Lakatos in the doorway. Antal had barely said a word to the man since he arrived and he hadn’t seen him since he and Lirbus had been sent off to deal with Goddlesby. That sounded like it had turned into a nasty business indeed and Antal had little wish to be a part of anything involving the outlander. He shuddered a little to see him standing so prominently by their leader’s side.

‘I can’t have you just working territories anymore,’ said Lakatos, in reference to the duties that the lowly likes of Antal and the lame like Todor normally undertook. While the most thuggish acts of extortion, intimidation and outright violence were left to hardened veterans like Morden, Berzel or Lirbus (and now the outlander), gangers like Antal and Todor worked the gang’s territories by scouting for scrap, harvesting valuable weeds, slimes and goos, or salvaging what working equipment they could find from the dome’s derelict areas.

Rubik, on the other hand, was a man who largely avoided any form of turfwork at all and was pretty much excused from everything bar fighting, on account of his esteemed position of heavy, and his inescapable habit for turning all situations into a fight. That he was being called upon was a surprise to Antal.

‘Goddlesby is gone, and we’re going to be collecting our own taxes from now on,’ said Lakatos. ‘We do it once a week, starting from today. Todor, you go with Rubik; Antal with Mero, and Galamb you’ll go with Jurgen. Jurgen has lists of who pays and how much.’

At this, Jurgen stepped past Lakatos and handed out two, long thin parchments, one to Todor and the other to Mero.

‘I can’t read this,’ said Mero. There was a pause before the last word, as though he added it afterwards, suddenly reluctant to admit he just couldn’t read at all. It was hardly uncommon. He thrust the list into Antal’s hand, for all the good that would do.

‘I can’t read either,’ said Antal. Lakatos scowled.

‘You?’ he asked, pointing at Galamb. Galamb nodded eagerly.

‘Okay,’ said Lakatos, ‘Galamb, you go with Mero, and Antal you can go with Jurgen.’

Antal cursed under his breath. He was hardly relishing the job of shaking down the townsfolk, and now he was stuck with the outlander. Emperor only knows what the outlander is going to do, thought Antal to himself. He was quite sure Jurgen’s powers of persuasion would be more unpleasant than they were subtle.

‘Go on,’ said Lakatos, ‘go.’

Antal kept himself just behind the outlander as they marched down the street. He decided walking alongside him would only make it more obvious that he wasn’t really talking to him, and that he had nothing to say. Jurgen stopped abruptly outside one shack in particular.

‘Lorgan Dreg,’ he said. ‘Three credits. You do it.’ The outlander was abrupt to say the least.

‘Me?’ asked Antal.

‘Go on,’ Jurgen said. ‘I’ll wait here. This doesn’t need both of us.’

Antal approached the door, raising a fist to knock. He wasn’t really sure he should be knocking, but then again, he wasn’t sure that he shouldn’t be. He faltered for a second, couching his balled fist in the glove of his other hand before finally making his mind up and rapping sharply on the door three times.

The door was a rickety old corrugated thing, and the sharp rapping of the knock disintegrated into nothing more than a rumbling clang as the door shook loosely in its frame. It had none of the staccato interruption of a good, sharp knock and Antal was actually a little disappointed. It did the job nonetheless.

A rather stringy looking man emerged from the doorway, dressed in rags. They were oily rags, though, and that meant he had at least some kind of trade, perhaps even a skilled one. He squealed at the sight of Antal and Jurgen and tried to slam the door shut immediately upon opening it.

That gave Antal confidence and he acted on instinct, jamming his foot in the door and forcing it open with his shoulder. He stepped inside as the terrified little man recoiled from the door.

‘What’s wrong, Dreg?’ said Antal. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see us?’

The man gasped and scurried back across the room, halting with his back pressed up against some gigantic contraption of blackened metal that occupied most of the far wall. Antal was secretly keen to get this over and done with, but thought stretching the experience out a little might make future visits easier. He strolled over to the contraption.

‘What, in the name of Helmawr’s daughter, is this?’

Dreg said nothing, but scurried away from it as Antal approached. Now Antal could see that it was something built inside the shack, and actually a part of it. Only two of the walls of Dreg’s humble abode were solid – the back wall and the one to the right of it – and the contraption was mounted in the corner between them. It was a mass of pipes, pistons, cogs and gears. It was blackened, though moist with oil in that way all working machines were. It appeared to be just the foremost tip of a much larger machine embedded deep in the wall.

Here and there, panels of shabby grey, once white. Plasteel covered it, with arcane markings and numerals in turn covering its surface. Antal couldn’t read them, but he was fairly sure that they were just part of a much larger covering that Dreg had stripped away to get at the machine.

It was a generator. Dreg had built his whole damned shack right over an old generator, hiding it behind walls so that no one would see him stripping away at its protective panels to get at the workings within.

There was no way Dreg could get at the bulk of the machine that lay deep within the wall and anterior structures as it was, but the exposed portion seemed pretty crucial to its operation and was probably enough for Dreg to keep it in some kind of working order. It looked in pretty fine working condition to Antal, and the dull hum coming from it suggested the same. Dreg was probably pumping power out of this thing to all those parts of the settlement fortunate enough to still have a physical connection, and no doubt charging for the privilege. A nice little earner that would be.

‘That’ll be four credits, then,’ said Antal.

‘What?’ asked Dreg. It was funny how even the most fearful silence could be overcome when someone mentioned money.

‘Four credits. Taxes. Now pay up.’ Perhaps the outlander was wise in his abruptness, thought Antal as he tried to mimic it.

‘Three,’ said Dreg timidly, ‘and I paid Goddlesby.’

‘That was last week,’ said Antal, though in truth he wasn’t exactly certain that an entire week had passed. ‘Goddlesby won’t be collecting taxes anymore, we will. I will,’ said Antal, hastily correcting himself for the sake of face. ‘So you pay up like a good boy and I’ll help you out.’

‘Help me out?’ asked Dreg. ‘How?’

‘Pay up on time, and you won’t be having any problems,’ said Antal, ‘like a generator with a grenade in it. Now four credits, Dreg, and make them shiny ones.’

‘Three?’ said Dreg again, in one pathetic last attempt to avoid the increase.

Antal just scowled and folded his arms. Dreg slipped his hand into the leather apron tied around his waist and pulled out a couple of credits. Antal was sure there were plenty of credits stashed in there, but Dreg was careful not reveal too much of his wealth, and pulled out the remaining two credits one at a time before dropping all four into Antal’s open palm.

‘A pleasure, Dreg,’ said Antal. ‘Same time next week.’ Antal smirked and walked out of the little shack.

‘Got it?’ asked Jurgen.

‘Got it,’ said Antal. That was the fifth straight take in a row with no problems at all, and the third to have actually footed a rise in taxes. It seemed Goddlesby hadn’t really tried to wring as much as he should have out of most of these wretches and now that Antal was there to see them in person, there were plenty, like Dreg, who clearly had more to spare. Antal toyed with the idea of letting some of the really poor ones off, but thought better of it. He didn’t really see the point.

They marched down the street. They were getting much further out of town, and where the first takes had all been from the densely packed shacks and habs that lined the broad main street of Fall Sands, their targets now were the isolated holesteaders that littered the edges of the settlement. Nirin Hobb was next on the list.

Nirin Hobb’s hole was a truly rank place. The only way out to it was across a bridge leading over a sewage pit. The pit was still used, but Hobb had divided it up into dozens of pens, each no more than a metre across. Within these pens festered – for that was the only word for it – the most unpleasant of the Underhive’s denizens. Gigantic worms, bred large, grown bloated feasting on the sewage, writhed in pens barely big enough to contain them.

Their fanged mouths rose to the surface as Antal and Jurgen passed, clearly not averse to something more substantial than the repeatedly digested filth in which they languished. The odd boot to be seen floating here and there in the pit suggested that the worms were not entirely disappointed in that regard.

About halfway out, Antal noticed one of the worms writhing more strenuously than the others, and hardly dipping out of sight at all. As he drew nearer he saw it was engaged in some rather curious behaviour. It smashed itself into the wire of its pen, over and over, crumpling the fence little by little. It had clearly made advances and the edge of its pen extended well over halfway into its neighbour’s.

Antal watched as a few more determined charges collapsed a small section of fence and the worm launched itself over the crumpled barrier and into the pen beyond. It disappeared beneath the brown filth for a second before rising again, another worm grasped between its teeth. It shook the worm violently and bashed its head against the fence. The struggle lasted for a few seconds before the aggressive invader – much larger than its unfortunate neighbour – disappeared beneath the now tranquil surface to digest its catch in peace.

Jurgen hadn’t been nearly so fascinated, or distracted, by the spectacle and Antal suddenly noticed him with his arms crossed, waiting for him at the end of the bridge where Hobb’s own hole nestled above the sewage inlet pipes.

Antal hurried across the bridge to catch up with Jurgen. Jurgen nodded up towards Hobb’s place and Antal wasted no time in scampering up to the entrance, which was an upturned, badly rusted pipe.

Lowering himself through the pipe, Antal descended onto the mesh floor of a corridor above the maze of pipes that presumably regulated the pit’s contents. Whatever they did, they didn’t do it very well, and the only thing more revolting than the endless belching noise that the backfiring pipes unleashed was the rank stench that followed every such eruption.

Antal crossed the meshed walkway and entered the collection of dimly lit rooms beyond. Each was identical, nothing more than a tiny dorm for the workers that once must have been required to operate the pit. A walkthrough corridor connected all these rooms and Antal passed through them, one by one, in search of Hobb.

The rooms were either empty or filled with all manner of junk. He passed five or six of them before finding one that looked even remotely lived in. A brightly glowing lantern perched on a stone bench in the corner, and a cot that wasn’t so completely covered in filth as to be unusable were the only signs of life, but they were signs enough.

There was, however, no sign of Nirin Hobb.

Antal moved closer to the bench, close enough to see that it was in fact being used as a makeshift desk. A scattered set of ledgers lay in the dim circle of light cast by the lantern. Antal turned one of them over and cast its cover open. He couldn’t read a thing, of course, but he thought meddling was pretty much part of the job and began to flick uninterestedly through its pages.

‘What do you want?’ asked a voice from behind him. Turning, Antal saw it was Hobb.

‘Taxes, Hobb, time to pay up,’ he said, closing the ledger. ‘It looks to me like you can afford plenty,’ bluffed Antal. True, the holesteader’s chambers weren’t exactly salubrious, but his business seemed to be booming in its own filthy way. ‘We’ll call it twelve credits,’ Antal said.

‘Get out,’ said Hobb, raising a shotgun that Antal hadn’t noticed before. Antal’s early successes had made him confident. He hadn’t realised that those were just the easy jobs and he hadn’t given a moment’s thought to what he would do if anyone objected.

‘You’ve gotta pay up,’ said Antal unconvincingly, in one last attempt at genuine extortion. It clearly didn’t work, as was indicated by the shotgun’s barrels jabbing ever closer to his face.

‘Whoa,’ said Antal. ‘Wait. Ten credits. Ten credits same as before, that will do.’ Antal instantly regretted the move. In his panic, going back to what Hobb had been paying Goddlesby seemed like a good move, but now he realised the folly. He had shown weakness, shown that he could be budged on his demands, and now the resolute Hobb had the upper hand. He grabbed the back of Antal’s robes with one hand and frogmarched him back out of the room, across the mesh walkway and back to the base of the pipe by which he had entered.

‘Now get out,’ said Hobb.

Antal decided to cut his losses and did as he was told, scrambling back up the pipe and out onto the deck above where Jurgen waited.

‘Got it?’ asked Jurgen.

‘Erm, no,’ said Antal.

‘What?’ said Jurgen.

‘He won’t pay. He’s got a damned shotgun and says he won’t pay.’

Jurgen just sighed and, without saying another word, kicked his coat tails up behind him as he leapt, feet first, into the pipe. Antal heard the clanging of his heavy boots landing on the mesh below and then the startled ‘What the–?’ from Hobb before a scuffling noise and the voices passed out of earshot.

It was only a momentary lapse, though, as Antal swiftly pulled a metal pick from the top of his boot and pushed it into his ear. He jacked the implant right up and focused on the noise coming from the pipe, homing in on every sound. That outlander was a nasty piece of work, Antal was sure of that, and he was certain Hobb was in big trouble, heading for nothing more than a brutal death at Jurgen’s hands.

‘Listen here,’ came Jurgen’s voice – or rather, came the clicks and crackles which Antal translated into Jurgen’s voice – ‘I don’t want to have to bend you in half like I did that damned shotgun, so why don’t you just pay up and be done with it.’

Antal wasn’t sure the outlander even knew about his implants. He couldn’t have guessed that Antal was listening in but Antal was surprised nonetheless at his reasoned course of action. There was a depth of thinking to this Jurgen that he hadn’t imagined so far. He listened harder, curious to find out what Jurgen’s next move would be.

He didn’t hear another word, not so much as a crackle, or a click, or a ping. He recoiled in agony as a metallic clang rang out from the pipe. Somebody had smashed something, or dropped something very heavy, and the noise was agony to Antal’s augmented, and currently overcharged, hearing. He dropped to his knees, covering his ears instinctively, but that only made it worse.

In his shock, Antal had dropped the metal pick and he had no way of turning down the implant or adjusting the frequency. His loss of concentration meant every sound from hundreds of metres around now flooded his ears and he wailed in agony. He scrabbled on the floor desperately looking for the pick.

He found it, encrusted with muck, beside his boot and wasted no time in jabbing the filthy thing into his ear and cranking the implant’s volume and sensitivity down, all the way down. He breathed a sigh of relief and fell on to his backside, sitting panting on the deck.

That was how Jurgen found him, sitting and panting. Antal hadn’t even heard him coming and the outlander emerged from the pipe as silently as ash falling on ash. Even his boots made no noise as he paced across the deck towards Antal, a look of utter bemusement on his face, his pistol drawn.

Jurgen’s lips moved, but nothing came out. It was at that point that Antal realised he had turned the implant’s settings to zero and was temporarily profoundly deaf. He pushed the pick back into his ear and jostled with it for just a second, hardly daring to raise the volume one iota. Jurgen’s voice gradually drifted into audibility and Antal left it at that.

‘Come on,’ said Jurgen. ‘We’re going.’ Antal was glad not to be quizzed more rigorously on his unusual behaviour, or why he was jabbing himself in the ear, though he couldn’t be sure that Jurgen hadn’t already asked him for an explanation. He’d wait to be asked again, he decided.

‘Got it?’ asked Antal.

‘No,’ said the outlander. Antal was stunned. That the outlander had failed was astonishing, especially after he had apparently disarmed the man, and if he hadn’t beaten his taxes out of him, what was the clanging noise?

‘What happened?’ asked Antal.

‘He said he ain’t paying,’ said Jurgen, ‘so I pushed a little harder.’

Ah, thought Antal, so he had killed him for not paying.

‘Ah,’ said Antal, unintentionally thinking out loud. Jurgen ignored him and continued.

‘So I pushed a little harder, and it seems he won’t pay, because he has already paid.’

‘Yeah, but that was last week,’ said Antal. That was the same stupid excuse he had heard from every single one of the day’s takes.

‘Oh no,’ said Jurgen, ‘it was yesterday. He says he paid Erket.’

‘What?’ said Antal.

‘Exactly,’ said Jurgen.

‘What?’ said Lakatos. ‘What do you mean, you pathetic little wretch?’ Lakatos sneered in Erket’s face. The juve tried to shy away but all he could do was turn his head. The heavy chains that bound his hands to the ceiling and his ankles to the floor allowed him little space for movement.

‘I was taking taxes. Someone had to since you got rid of Goddlesby,’ he whined.

‘Yes,’ said Lakatos, ‘but you were taking them for yourself!’ Lakatos turned and nodded to Morden.

Morden reached out and dragged the tongs from where they lay in the fire. He jabbed them into Erket’s side, pinching at his flesh. The juve howled in agony. Antal shied away from watching the spectacle and took a step back. Even at this distance, Antal’s eyes were dry and painful from the heat of the flames. Erket, suspended just metres in front of the fire, must have been in agony. Idiot, thought Antal.

‘Don’t make it too quick,’ said Lakatos to Morden, before turning and leaving, bustling his way past the assembled spectators.

‘Come,’ he said, as he passed Antal and Jurgen where they stood at the back of the crowd of gangers.

‘You got the others?’ asked Lakatos, taking his seat in the rather less crowded and rather cooler main room of the hideout.

‘Yes,’ said Antal, ‘all of them.’ He pulled a pouch from his pocket and hurled it to his leader.

Lakatos caught the pouch in one hand and shook the contents out onto his lap. He scooped the credits up a handful at a time and counted them back into the pouch. He paused once he had counted the last credit.

‘Give me that list,’ he said to Jurgen who immediately proffered the rather tatty strip of parchment. Lakatos’s gloved forefinger skimmed down the edge of the sheet. He mumbled to himself as he went, an almost silent tally.

‘I thought Hobb didn’t pay?’ said Lakatos.

‘No,’ said Jurgen. ‘Not a credit. That’s how we found out about Erket’s siphoning.’

‘But it’s all here,’ said Lakatos.

‘Oh, some of them paid a little extra,’ said Antal.

‘There is enough here to have covered Hobb’s share, you know that? You could have covered for Erket with this.’ Lakatos raised his gaze to Antal.

‘Hobb didn’t pay,’ was Antal’s only answer. It was greeted with a raucous, booming laugh from his leader who leapt from his seat and strode across the room, slapping Antal firmly on the shoulders in congratulation.

‘Very good, Antal, very good indeed,’ he said. ‘Taxes will be solely your preserve from now on. I am most impressed. I am afraid, though,’ he went on, ‘before that there is some rather more urgent business to deal with. Durn hasn’t come back yet.’

‘You want us to go to Fulcrum Spike and look for him?’ asked Antal.

‘I don’t think there’s much point in looking for him,’ said Lakatos, his voice tinged with bitterness. ‘But you must go to Fulcrum Spike and be sure the message got through.’

‘We will go at once,’ said Antal, buoyed by the reception his tax raising efforts had received, and keen to show his loyalty to his leader. It was a chance he was to be denied, however.

‘No,’ said Jurgen, ‘I’ll go alone. There’s work to be done here still, and it seems I’m having more luck out there than most.’

‘Very well,’ said Lakatos. ‘Go it alone, Jurgen. Emperor fare you well.’

Jurgen nodded and left the room, leaving a mildly disappointed Antal to nonetheless bask in the glory of his leader’s admiration.

CHAPTER: THIRTEEN

‘Come,’ said Addec, beckoning to the stranger. He had heard of the outlander, but he had yet to lay eyes on him. He was greatly startled when he did.

‘I am Jurgen, your leadership. It is an honour,’ he said.

The stranger was tall and lean looking, his skin ruddy, almost red, though Addec thought it nothing more than the dyeing effect of the ash carried in the storm winds. He bore none of the garb of the Cawdor and was clearly a convert. He was also clearly a particularly hardy individual, having ventured here alone from Fall Sands at the height of Ash Season. These traits combined told Addec that this Jurgen might be rather more than a simple ganger, and perhaps a chosen convert working directly for Catafengi himself. Because of this, Addec was both openly welcoming and privately wary.

‘Very well, Jurgen,’ said Addec. ‘You are welcome, but what brings you here in a season such as this?’

‘Hmm,’ said Jurgen, frowning. ‘Then I take it you haven’t seen Durn?’

‘Durn?’ asked Addec. ‘I have not laid eyes on him for perhaps a year. What do you mean?’ Jurgen seemed troubled by Addec’s reply.

‘Durn was sent here some days ago,’ said Jurgen, ‘bearing urgent news, Brother Addec. Urgent news.’

‘Hmm,’ said Addec, rising from his seat. ‘Best you come with me, Jurgen.’

Addec held out his arm and gestured for the outlander to follow him. Jurgen skipped the short distance across the floor in two purposeful strides and followed Addec off to the corridor at the right. As they passed the crowd of Cawdor at the edge of the room, Addec called out.

‘Deeran. Deer–’ but he was cut short as he noticed the figure perched behind his shoulder. His son was already at his side, following instinctively. The three of them hurried down the corridor and into a much smaller and rather sparsely furnished room at its end.

‘I am guessing,’ said Addec, ‘that this is not the kind of urgent news to be discussing in a crowded room.’

‘Perhaps not, Brother Addec, perhaps not,’ said Jurgen. He placed his hand in the breast of his jacket and rifled through his pockets. He drew out a parchment and passed it to Addec.

Addec unfolded it. All well, it read. Addec just frowned. Such a simple message was clearly no more than a foil. Addec gazed around, but he could see no canteen or trough. The best he could find was a puddle of murky, milky water in the corner, pooling on the stone where a steady trickle ran down from the pipes mounted on the ceiling above.

Addec stepped over to the puddle. With his old bones creaking he knelt and dragged the parchment over the water’s surface. Instantly he was interrupted by a determined and quite unnatural-sounding cough from the outlander. Addec turned and looked back over his shoulder.

‘Brother Jurgen,’ said Addec, nodding in the direction of Deeran, ‘I give you Brother Deeran,’ he went on. ‘My son.’

Jurgen nodded, clearly satisfied at the explanation and the indication of trust. Besides, thought Addec, he had no particular reason for thinking that even this Jurgen was privy to the secret of the parchments, though his reaction had clearly shown that he was. For Lakatos to have sent him when Durn was already feared lost, clearly marked Jurgen out as a man more capable than most. He knew of the parchments and of their hidden messages and so was not some mere hapless messenger. Addec’s suspicion that Jurgen served a higher authority was growing rapidly.

He hoisted the damp sheet up out of the puddle and held it aloft.

The Scarlet Skulls are no moor. Lago is out for us. Be reddy.

So it read. Lakatos’s dialect was crude, his hand cruder. Not like Addec’s own, cultured language, learned in the higher chambers of House Cawdor’s Hive City monasteries, but the message was clear enough.

‘You have read this,’ said Addec to Jurgen, more of a statement than a question.

‘No, though I know its meaning,’ he said.

‘Very well, then tell me what you know.’

Addec listened as Jurgen recounted his nigh unbelievable tale. How he had found Handomel’s gang slaughtered to a man, perhaps by their own hand, perhaps by another when distracted by some internal strife. Addec was shocked, but far from surprised. Handomel had been less than wise in Addec’s view, and the discipline he bred in his gang was an insubstantial thing, a careful balancing act for which he relied only upon his own finely tuned guile. He had always been confident of it in his own arrogant fashion, and convincing for it, but to Addec – a man three decades his senior – this fragile discipline had always seemed to be a thing destined to break down just as soon as Handomel’s tongue was silenced.

That it had turned out this way was no surprise, and Addec felt precious little sympathy for any of them. He’d seen a hundred ambitious fools come and go in such a manner. He’d saved a hundred, too, but only those who listened, and Handomel had certainly never listened. He sighed as Jurgen concluded his tale, but offered no more a sign of his feelings than that.

‘And this Lago,’ said Addec, ‘tell me what you know of him.’

So began yet another nigh unbelievable tale, that Jurgen was the author of the secret messages, and the architect of their very fabric. That he had once served the guilders with this expertise and that he had, by the same means, fallen foul of their jealous secrecy. That they had tried to kill him, that they had failed, and so entrusted the task to a man named Lago.

‘I do not think, Brother Jurgen, that if I were Lago, I should be so keen to wipe out an entire gang that has never so much as met the man I sought,’ said Addec, unsure of the relevance.

‘Very wise, brother,’ said Jurgen. ‘I don’t think that’s what happened. I don’t even think Lago knows I’m here. If he finds me, it’ll just be blind luck on his part. He’s here for somebody or something else, and that’s about it.’

‘Handomel?’ asked Addec.

‘He was after Handomel, yeah,’ said Jurgen, ‘but he got him. Then he came back. He’s after all of us, as far as I can tell.’ With that Jurgen pitched into yet another chapter of the tale: of the body found out in the abandoned domes between here and Fall Sands bearing Jurgen’s wanted poster, of Deveres’s disappearance and now Durn’s. It all added up to a tale with much drama yet to come.

‘Then Handomel’s men are done away with, and we are his next targets, is that what you are saying, Brother Jurgen?’ asked Addec, though he was already sure of the answer.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and we’ve already wasted too much damn time working it out.’

‘There is still no reason for it,’ said Addec.

‘Maybe there isn’t,’ said Jurgen, ‘but at this rate we’ll be dead before we fathom the reason. Seems plain enough to me he’s out for us, and we should deal with it now or this whole damned scheme comes tumbling down.’

Ah yes, thought Addec. This, perhaps, was the real reason behind Jurgen’s urgency in the matter, and the reason why Lago seemed to be engaged in such a systematic extermination of the Scarlet Skulls, and now the others.

Addec knew of many ways to spread the Emperor’s word, to bring redemption to his struggling children, but Catafengi, and those that served him, were engaged in a particularly blatant mission to do so. Addec had never been entirely sure this was the best way.

His House, his own family, laboured as hard as any to do the Emperor’s work, but always unseen, never drawing unwanted attention to themselves. House Cawdor was committed in its entirety to doing just this, and they were well advanced in those aims. They were populous, perhaps second only to the promiscuous litters of Orlocks in number. Certainly the Escher and Goliath couldn’t match them in size, their numbers cut short by brutality and male infirmity respectively. The mysterious Delaque were impossible to pinpoint in all things, though they certainly never appeared especially numerous, nor did the Van Saar, whose great minds seemed little given to the matter of dynasty and dominion. Cawdor were numerous, strong and prosperous, and because of this it had long spread the word of the Emperor.

Every Cawdor acquisition, new trade agreement, or contract fulfilled was tribute to the steps taken one at a time towards achieving the Emperor’s will. Was such slow, steady progress a bad thing? As a young man, Addec had been sure it was and wholeheartedly committed himself to the fiery revolution offered by men like Catafengi.

Now, as an old man, Addec was increasingly sure that his life would have achieved much more had he remained up there, working away unseen and unthreatened. House Cawdor had enemies, true enough, but there was certainly no Lago up there, threatening to upend the entire venture, root and branch.

Catafengi and his cult were secretive in their actions, but their existence was certainly no secret. Had their plot been uncovered, and their agents, too, then it was no surprise that men like Lago were after them. There would be no reward too great for bringing down a Redemptionist cult such as theirs, feared and loathed, as they were, by the hive’s most powerful. Addec had long thought such a day might come, but he had long ago made his bed and now he had to lie in it. He breathed a sigh of regret as he pondered how to proceed.

‘Tell me, Jurgen,’ he said at length, ‘what does Lakatos plan now that Lago is upon us?’

‘If Durn is dead, then it’s Lago who got to him. I’d bet a fistful of credits it was Lago,’ said Jurgen. ‘I lost Deveres out there, too, but that was further out, away towards Handomel’s territory. If he got Durn this past week, then he’s out there someplace between here and Fall Sands. That’s where we can get them.’

‘Them?’ asked Addec.

‘I don’t think Lago is alone,’ said Jurgen. ‘We already found one dead bounty hunter out there, and if it was him who killed the Skulls, I don’t think he did it alone.’

‘How many?’ asked Deeran, suddenly interested.

‘Impossible to say, but we’ll outnumber them. That’s how we get them,’ said Jurgen.

‘How?’ asked Addec.

‘Lago’s smart,’ said Jurgen. ‘He won’t just go charging into town. He picked off Handomel and let his gang tear themselves apart before finishing them off – if he even had to – and he’s been picking us off one by one just the same. He’s taken Durn and Deveres out there. It won’t harm him any to take his time. We’ve got to force his hand, flush him out,’ said Jurgen.

‘What are you suggesting?’ asked Addec.

‘Well, he’s past here, well beyond Fulcrum Spike, I’m sure of it, and probably holed up out on the edge of Fall Sands,’ Jurgen said. ‘If you and your men can run a sweep towards Fall Sands, and drive him towards the town, we’ll pick him off from there. Give me a day’s head start and we’ll be ready.

‘The edge of town is full of good spots, and its almost clear of the ash. We’ll be holed up there, and can pick Lago’s men off once you’ve driven them onto us. They’ll be trapped, they’ll be surrounded, and they’ll be sitting ducks.’

‘I’m not sure it will be so easy,’ said Deeran.

‘We’ve got to be precise about it and plan carefully, it’s true,’ said Jurgen, ‘but we can do it.’

‘Go on,’ said Addec, ‘tell me every detail of your plan.’

Addec had listened to every word, hung on them even. He had repeated almost every word of it, too, saying it back to Jurgen for fear of leaving any single detail unaddressed. Even so, it had not been an easy decision to come to. Jurgen had been gone for a day, with Addec’s promise that he would do as was asked, but even then Addec had fretted and could not be sure wisdom was on the side of this particular plan.

In the end, he had settled on it as the only plan. It was a necessary course of action, whether it was prudent or not. Addec worried that it was simply the lethargy of age that disinclined him to the plan, and since Deeran seemed keener on it, Addec had at last resolved that it truly was a vital action they would be undertaking. Vital enough, Addec had decided at length, that he would lead his men in person, for the first time in many years, and perhaps for the last.

He strolled at a gentle pace from his private chambers, striding through the heart of his domain on his way back to the rundown old ganghouse where he would impart his orders, and his blessings, upon his men. Deeran had gone ahead to the hideout, so at least some of the plan would be known to them, and practical preparations would already be well underway.

At length, Addec reached the ganghouse. He entered the building with a reluctant sigh and a heavy heart, but a firm resolve.

‘Brothers,’ he said as he stepped inside, ‘we have a fight, and this is how it will be.’ Deeran nodded from across the room and stepped forwards into the centre of the crowd.

‘We’re going to fight out in the old dome around Fall Sands,’ said Deeran. ‘There is a man out there who is a threat to us all. His name is Lago.’

A gasp emerged formlessly from the crowd. The name had been whispered, rumoured for weeks, and now they heard it from their leaders. Their shock was of little surprise to Addec.

‘He’s not alone, but we will outnumber them, and we will be triumphant,’ said Deeran. ‘This is the plan.

‘Every one of us will wear one of these, plus whatever other dark robes you can find.’ Deeran flung a pile of black cloaks onto the table. Two more similar piles stood in the corner behind him. The robes looked exactly like Jurgen had said they must.

‘The Union will be wearing black cloaks just the same. Do not fire on anybody with a black cloak. Anyone else, don’t waste a second in bringing them down.’

A boisterous cheer greeted the mention of violence.

‘We’ll head towards Fall Sands,’ said Deeran. ‘Lago and his men are out there. We’ll find them and take as many out as we can. The most important thing, though, is that none of them get past us and that we drive them towards Fall Sands. We’ll have them trapped there and the Union can pick them off from the edge of town.

‘The Union won’t be leaving Fall Sands. Lakatos will keep his men behind a line on the edge of town, so you won’t meet them out in the wastes, but remember the black cloaks, just in case.

‘Stick together,’ Deeran continued. ‘We’ll be fine as long as we don’t get separated out in the wastes.’

Addec led his men in the long march out of town. It seemed like an eternity since he and Deeran had finally gathered the men, but in truth it had been no more than two hours. It had taken two hours to ready the weapons and to have everyone dress in black robes. Each and every one of the gang that marched out into the wastes was dressed alike in plain black robes, just like Jurgen had told them.

In truth, quite aside from the ease with which the garb would allow them to tell friend from foe, these heavier cloth cloaks would serve them well out in the storms.

They were not underequipped by any means. Fulcrum Spike and the vast vents lying derelict at its edge had once been the lungs of the whole hive. In a lost age of industry, the dome’s population had been engaged in maintaining the well-being of this intricate ventilation system. For a few, this had required venturing out onto the exterior of the vents, out into the ash wastes themselves, and the equipment required for such perilous work could still be found in Fulcrum Spike by a determined searcher.

It wasn’t exactly archaeotech, but as well as the grapnels used to ascend the high vents, Deeran had salvaged half a dozen respirator masks of the sort used by hive engineers. They were manufactured to the highest possible standard, far better than the unreliable, chemical filter rubbish you could buy in the Underhive, but they were aged and only three of them could be made to work. Addec himself had declined the offer of a mask, but beside him Deeran and his two heavies now wore the devices. They would be an unbelievable boon out amidst the raging storms.

For all this, Addec was still deeply wary. In his darker moments he contemplated leaving Lakatos and the others to their fate. He considered arriving – quite by accident of course – just a little too late. Addec would shed few tears for the end of Lakatos, and fewer still if Catafengi were to meet his doom. He was quite sure that he could go on spreading the Emperor’s word without that damned cult drawing attention to them and bringing trouble to all of them. But, as he knew all too well, there was simply no way he could be sure it was Lakatos that Lago would come for first. He had no way of knowing if he or his men might be Lago’s first target, and for that reason alone he was certain that he must do exactly what had been asked of him.

With that curious resolve foremost in his mind, Addec led his men once more into the raging storms.

CHAPTER: FOURTEEN

Jurgen crossed a shallow bluff. Its shape had changed since last he saw it, but its location remained familiar. Reaching its crest, he could see down the shallow incline to Fall Sands, its silhouette dimly visible through the ash storms that raged around him. It was a long journey, but a familiar one, and it troubled Jurgen little. Truth be told, he enjoyed it. The solitude, being alone in the wilderness. He had always been a loner, an outlander.

He would be alone again soon enough, he thought to himself as he descended the far side of the bluff and made his way once more to the less than welcoming lights of Fall Sands.

‘Addec saw him,’ said Jurgen, his tone hushed and his face pressed close to Lakatos’s ear as the pair huddled in the tiny alcove. This was news that Jurgen certainly didn’t want to break to the others. ‘Three days ago, so he made good time.’

‘Then why the hell didn’t he make it back?’ asked Lakatos.

Jurgen frowned but gave no other answer. There was no need since it was written on Lakatos’s face. Durn had died out in the storms, just like Deveres. Lakatos had sent them both on their way, sent them both to their deaths, that was true.Lakatos had indeed sent them to their deaths, no matter the manner in which they found it.

‘This is the message Addec gave him to bring back,’ said Jurgen, handing Lakatos a sheet of parchment folded into quarters.

‘Have you read it?’ asked Lakatos.

‘Addec read it to me himself,’ Jurgen replied. ‘It isn’t good.’

‘If Durn left Fulcrum Spike but didn’t make it back here, then Lago is close,’ said Lakatos. Jurgen just nodded in grim agreement. Lakatos folded the parchment and passed it back to Jurgen, who returned it to a pocket inside the breast of his coat. Its contents had come as no surprise to Jurgen: that Lago was still at large, that he had killed Handomel and later wiped out his gang, and that he was intent on doing the same to the Union.

Lakatos didn’t seem to care exactly how Addec had come to know this and without being asked Jurgen had little inclination to explain. Clearly Lakatos’s mind was elsewhere, troubled more by the news than the method by which it had been uncovered.

‘Damn it,’ said Lakatos. ‘What do we do now?’ Lakatos seemed genuinely scared by this latest turn of events, as if suddenly realising that this Lago presented a rather greater threat than he had so far imagined. Jurgen, of course, had not for a minute underestimated the danger.

‘You know this Lago. What do we do now, Jurgen?’ Lakatos asked.

‘Way I see it, we’ve got two advantages,’ said Jurgen, placing a toxstick to his lips and sparking it. ‘One… the ash storms. We’re at home in them, or near as a man can be, and we know the lay of the land, which Lago doesn’t.’ He paused.

‘And two… Lago is a fool. He’s got no subtlety, no guile. He just can’t resist a showdown. Chances are him and his goons are gonna stroll straight into Fall Sands, expecting us to meet them right out on the street. That would be a very foolish thing to do. We wouldn’t stand a chance in a shootout with Lago, but we do have a chance if we ambush him. I bet he just won’t be able to resist making the big entrance. We’ve got to ambush him out amidst the storms before he reaches town.’

Lakatos turned, taking a step away from Jurgen, his back to him. In the shadowy alcove, even this tiny distance was almost enough for Lakatos to vanish completely into darkness. Even then, it was clear to Jurgen that Lakatos’s mind was racing, and that he was wracked with uncertainty. The noise of his hobnailed boots beat out a fast rhythm from the shadows as he paced frantically. At length, his mind was made up.

‘Okay, Jurgen. I don’t see any other way. Let’s do it. Let’s go and get the others,’ said Lakatos.

They all clustered round him. Even Lakatos was no more than a spectator, another face in the crowd, thronging round the table across which Jurgen held court. All of them were there. At least, all those that remained. Morden, Lirbus, Hargitay, Antal, Galamb, Karman, Todor, Rubik and Mero. Ten with Lakatos, plus Jurgen himself. Todor was all but lame, and Mero was all but blind. The pair would be useless out there, but the plan would not be well served by leaving them behind. They stood and listened the same as everyone else. They were Union, and now was the time for them to show it.

Even Erket was within earshot, though he was clapped in chains, and had no part to play in what was to come. He was there, however, and he could hear what was being said.

‘You’ve heard by now,’ said Jurgen, his voice booming across the room, its timbre carrying every ounce of his stern resolve, ‘that Lago is coming.’ Each and every member of the assembled crowd exhaled and turned to look at his neighbour or hung his head to stare at the floor. They had known it was coming, but it was no easier to hear it said.

‘Here’s what we are going to do,’ said Jurgen, unfazed. ‘Lago is a stranger in these parts. The lay of the land, and the storms, are our greatest allies. We’ll use them against him and we’re all going to be fine.

‘We’re going to ambush him – as best we can in these storms, anyway – outside the settlement, out in the wasted part of the dome. If we let him get to Fall Sands, we’re in trouble.

‘We’re not going to make ourselves obvious, either,’ said Jurgen. ‘We’re not going out there like this just to paint targets on our backs. I want all of you changed, out of robes and into something he won’t recognise us in. Nothing too Cawdor, nothing too Redemptionist, you get me? In fact, let’s make sure it’s something dull. The more we can hide ourselves in the ash the more chance we’ve got, okay?’ A few scattered nods answered him.

‘Lago is out there, somewhere between here and Fulcrum Spike. Durn never made it back, but I did, so Lago can’t be that close, or he could have cut me off on the way back into Fall Sands.

‘There’s only one way into Fall Sands from that direction, so we’ll ambush him there. We’ll get far enough from the settlement to get under the cover of the storms, and to get out amongst the dunes, but not so far as to make it possible for him to get past us, you understand?’

Half a dozen nods, a couple of swift hand gestures and yet more grim silence answered him. That was enough and Jurgen continued with his plan.

‘If there’s no sign of Lago, we can wait it out, we’ve got time. We’ll take up high positions on the dunes, and wait till Lago passes into one of the furrows where we can catch him in crossfire. He won’t stand a chance.

‘He got Deveres and Durn, and Emperor only knows what happened to Handomel and the Skulls, but this will all be over soon. There is no problem here, you all get me?’

Silence again filled the void left by Jurgen’s commanding oratory. Still, it would do. They had all absorbed every detail, out of fear if nothing else. They were ready to begin, if ‘begin’ was the right term for an endgame such as this. No, thought Jurgen, they were ready to finish this, and he was more ready than any of them.

Jurgen had left nothing to chance. He had moved the gang from their regular hideout to a crumbling shack some two hundred metres from the pipe, just in case their enemies should approach while they prepared. Thus, it was here that the Union gathered in silent contemplation, here where magazines were filled, spares pocketed, weapons checked, bandoliers slung and minds readied.

‘Galamb, Karman, you ready?’ asked Jurgen.

‘Yes. I am,’ said Galamb, while the younger juve at his shoulder simply nodded. Their arms were meagre – an autopistol for Galamb, a laspistol and knife for Karman – and they had needed little time to ready themselves. He presumed Galamb also had at least one blade, though he had so far chosen not to draw it. The pair of them wore nothing more than rags, but dull, khaki rags, which would do a good job of hiding them out there in the storms. Lacking enough rags for a new hood, neither Galamb nor Karman were masked at all and looked quite unlike their usual Cawdor selves. There were, of course, no black cloaks to be seen anywhere amongst the gang’s new panoply. Jurgen was quite clear about this point.

‘Go to the edge of town, no further than the first dune, and hide yourselves on opposite sides of the approach. If anyone comes, get right back here. Otherwise, do nothing until we get there, you understand me?’ asked Jurgen. The pair nodded vigorously, at which Jurgen raised his hands and ushered them out of the door.

Rubik was some way from ready yet. His immense autocannon lay in pieces on the table in front of him, and as fast as he worked, it would be the best part of an hour before he was ready. Earlier, he had seemed ready to rush, to abandon some of his familiar routines, but Jurgen had demanded that he calm himself and take every care that he would at any other time. He had to be prepared as best he could, and if that took time, so be it. Even some of the others weren’t yet done.

Ammunition wasn’t in short supply, but it wasn’t exactly plentiful either, and Morden and Todor crouched in the corner, their hands hovering between a makeshift melting pot and the stone crucible from which they were churning out bullets. Another hour of that wouldn’t exactly hurt them, and besides, Jurgen still had another matter to take care of first.

He crossed the room, those he passed hardly looking up they were so engrossed, and drew close to Lakatos.

‘I have to go and see Catafengi before we do this,’ said Jurgen. Lakatos looked up, surprised.

‘You want to tell him about this?’ asked Lakatos, clearly doubtful.

‘No, but I must pass on a message,’ said Jurgen.

‘Send one of the others. Can’t it wait?’

‘No,’ said Jurgen, firmly.

‘Then I’ll go with you if it demands such urgency,’ said Lakatos. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a message from Addec. He wanted to speak to Catafengi himself, face to face, but until all this is over, I didn’t see how he could. He gave me a message and made me swear to pass it on to Catafengi,’ Jurgen said.

‘What does it say?’ asked Lakatos.

‘It is a message for Catafengi himself, and for Catafengi alone,’ said Jurgen. ‘Please, I’m only doing as Addec asked, and I serve Catafengi, too, Lakatos. I mean you no disrespect.’

Lakatos nodded. Jurgen was gone.

Perhaps this was going to be easier than Jurgen had thought. Preparations were not yet quite complete, but they were going smoothly and nothing had happened to make Jurgen think his plan might fail, or that he might be forced by necessity to change it. No, things were progressing very well, and once he had seen Catafengi, he would be ready to begin in earnest.

He had no time to waste with the goons on the door and shimmied off the ladder a metre or so short of its peak. He caught a hold of the underside of one of the adjoining walkways and, finding it suitably loaded with pipes and metal ribbing, swung himself along underneath it by his arms alone. At the end he squirmed through a tiny ventilation shaft that was barely wide enough to accommodate his shoulders. He needed to squeeze through for the metre it took him to get behind the deacons on the door. Emerging behind them, he was clear of the shaft and stepped out into the dome proper.

It had changed considerably since Lakatos first introduced him to the place. It had a sense of permanence that hadn’t been there before. The Redemption seemed almost settled here, as monolithic as the stone walls that surrounded them. Perhaps Catafengi’s plans for his fiery domain of the righteous were better advanced than Jurgen knew. Perhaps not.

Jurgen strode up the steps, flanked on either side by metal spikes bearing skulls: many, many more skulls, in fact, since Jurgen had first come here just two weeks earlier. Perhaps that was a good sign. Perhaps not.

Jurgen slid past the innermost of the two overlapping metal sheets, which served as an entrance to Catafengi’s chambers. The room was busier than Jurgen had seen it before. Four robed and hooded acolytes knelt at the grand master’s feet, his ministry to receive. Their devotion was plain, but it certainly wasn’t a match for Jurgen’s urgency, and his purposeful stride was unbroken as he crossed the floor towards Catafengi’s throne.

‘I must speak, grand master,’ he said. His voice must have sounded urgent, for Catafengi at once raised a bony finger and bade the acolytes leave him. They did so and Jurgen offered only the swiftest genuflection before coming to the matter at hand.

‘What is it, Jurgen?’ asked Catafengi.

‘It’s urgent,’ said Jurgen. ‘I’ve seen Addec, and he says Lago is coming.’

Catafengi gave the verbal equivalent of a frown, his actual expression hidden by his flame-red hood.

‘Lago?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Jurgen. ‘Addec wanted to be sure the message reached you straight away… and he also sent this.’ Jurgen reached into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled parchment, its imprecise folding apparently indicative of its urgency.

Catafengi took it and peeled its edges apart. It was plain enough and he beckoned with his hand. Jurgen pulled his canteen from under his coat and passed it to the grand master. Catafengi pulled at its stopper, but it wouldn’t give.

His patience didn’t last long and, forced to drop the parchment on his lap, he wrapped both hands round the stopper, pulled it clear and flung it away moodily. He spilled the flask’s contents onto the parchment and ran his hand over it to spread the pooling moisture.

Catafengi held the parchment aloft. He had wet it from the reverse side and the writing was a little dim. He raised the sheet above his head where a stronger ray of light piercing the shack’s ragged roof shone through the paper and made the writing a little clearer.

Catafengi, you are a dead man it read. He raised his glare to Jurgen.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ he asked.

The bullet through his head answered him instantly.

Jurgen descended the steps as purposefully as he had gone up them. He strode across the dome’s floor, passing out onto the walkway between the two deacons he had gone to such lengths to avoid minutes before. He didn’t care now, they never stopped anyone on the way out, no matter how much his sudden emergence from the inside might startle them. He pushed them aside with his bustling pace and disappeared over the walkway, quickly vanishing into the Underhive’s murky shadows.

It might be hours before they found Catafengi’s body and realised they were leaderless, and what would they be then? Nothing better than a frenzied mob: nothing more than a collection of the same bitter, hateful, worthless individuals they have always been, leaderless, discontent and of little accord.

They might possess the same zeal and lust for violence, and they might still retain their senseless vitriol and fiery tempers. They might still have their weapons and their cruel implements of torture, but they had none of the direction that Catafengi’s demagoguery brought to them, and without that they presented no more threat than the raving madmen that hollered and yowled at passers-by in settlements across the Underhive.

They would be nothing more than disgruntled, petulant radicals, hating the world all the more for the realisation of their own inability to change it. They were nothing at all now. This was how it had to be.

Jurgen was pleased with his work now that it neared its end. He passed the gang’s old hideout, where Erket still lay clapped in chains.

Erket was a loathsome, snivelling wretch. A wicked, bitter little snake whom Jurgen had despised since first laying eyes on him, but he was ignorant and he was harmless. He was privy to nothing of consequence and responsible for nothing of note. He was a worthless creature, but he was no more deserving of death than he was of salvation, and he would find neither at Jurgen’s hand. Were it not for his utterly detestable character, Erket might have been more a target for Jurgen’s pity than his retribution.

Could Erket have imagined that the ferocious beating Morden had dealt him, the humiliation, and the hours spent clapped in chains had saved his life? Probably not. It didn’t matter. He’d survived nonetheless. He had to.

Somebody would have to remain. Somebody had to tell the tale, to pass on the legend, to speak of the crippling fear that cowards like Erket deserved to carry in their hearts wherever they went. They were many across the Underhive: those who spoke the name and voiced the legend. Erket would be one more, and he would serve well in that regard.

Jurgen walked on.

He passed the building he had called home on and off for three weeks, that dirty little place where his tricks had been worked and his pieces forged. That was the place where the poor, desperate girl had come to find him, to take whatever revenge her addled mind thought he deserved. That was the place where Durn had followed her, and where Jurgen had killed him.

He’d met a fate kinder than dying out in the wastes. Jurgen’s lone bullet didn’t make Durn wait for the end whilst choking, dehydrating or wasting away out in the storms. He hadn’t let Deveres suffer, either. He’d come back to finish him off just as soon as he’d given him long enough to get himself disoriented. There was no need to make them suffer, not the ones who were going to die, anyway.

The girl had chosen a wise place to confront him, though she would never have known it. As he walked past the building, he thought of the maze of lost corridors running deep beneath its few remaining floors. They were the reason he had chosen it, and they were the means by which he had smuggled that poor girl to safety in some distant dome where she would never be known. A handful of his best forgeries had given her everything she needed to buy passage all the way to the Spire, if she wanted it.

Jurgen walked on.

He passed the Pipe Under Mile, where it had first begun. Where the holy had first given themselves away as the loathsome hypocrites they truly were, crowded round their liquor as if it was the salvation they claimed to be searching for, though every single one of them knew better. Still, it had started there and it had been as good a place as any. He strode on, towards where it would finish.

‘Ready?’ asked Jurgen. He had been back in the room barely ten seconds, and had done nothing more than throw the most cursory of glances around the place, but he could tell that they were all waiting for him. Every one of them was a completely changed figure. Their faces were still covered, as ever, but no longer by the heavy hoods and thick leather masks. Now they were swathed in rolls of dull cloth, wrapped so tightly that their features could be made out by the contours.

Their bodies were clothed likewise. Heavy brown, yellow or dull green material had been hastily slashed into tunics, strips had been wrapped round and round their arms and legs forming layers six or seven sheets thick. They would serve them well out in the storms, both as protection and as disguise.

Even Rubik stood ready, his knuckles white where his big hands braced the autocannon’s staggering bulk.

There was no reply to his question, but Jurgen knew they were ready to a man, and he was too.

The gang paced out onto the street, an ominous feeling hanging over them. Jurgen marched at the head of the pack, leading them the short distance down the dusty track to the very edge of town.

As the swirling storms enveloped them, Jurgen stopped. He cast his gaze out to either side, where the shifting dunes rose like shadows around them. Away to his left, a single figure skidded down the flank of a distant dune, coming into view again as he crested a nearer peak and scampered towards the gang. It was Galamb.

‘Anything?’ asked Jurgen.

‘Nothing,’ said Galamb.

‘Good,’ said Jurgen.

The gang continued its advance, striding forwards line abreast. Galamb ran a short distance ahead, leading them out as far as he had dared go. Reaching this high bluff, the line halted, and a second figure appeared on the dunes away to the right: Karman.

‘Nobody has passed this point?’ asked Jurgen as the second juve rejoined the group.

‘Nobody,’ said Karman. ‘Nobody got past me at all.’

‘Nor me,’ said Galamb.

‘Okay,’ said Jurgen, turning and raising his voice to address not only the juves, but the entire gang. ‘Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’ll hold a line here. Morden, Lirbus, Hargitay and Antal here with me; Todor, Rubik and Mero across the gully with Lakatos. Karman, Galamb, you push on and scout out the land ahead and as soon as you see anything, get right back here and tell us, y’hear me?’

Both juves nodded before dashing off into the storms as the line of gangers gradually parted, Lakatos’s group making its way across the gully and up the ashy slope to occupy the dune on the other side. They were invisible amidst the storm before they had even crossed the gully, let alone by the time they had reached their hiding place on the crest above.

Jurgen lay back on the dune beneath him. To his left was Morden, who lay flat on his belly, his gun aimed out into the gully. To his right was Hargitay, doing likewise, and beyond him, Antal stood scanning the horizon, or at least scanned as far as he could see in the ferocious storms. Lirbus crouched just beyond him.

Jurgen was in no rush and tossed a toxstick to his lips, sparking it with the small slate palmed out of his sleeve, almost imperceptibly. It brought to mind Goddlesby, and the events of a few days ago. Jurgen had led the little man to this very spot before dealing with him as his actions deserved.

Jurgen ran his fingers over the scraggly flame motif crudely embossed in the lid of his toxstick tin. It was the same tin from which he had offered Goddlesby that small mercy, though the contents at that time hadn’t been quite the same.

Goddlesby was a good man, weak, but well-intentioned, and he deserved no ill-treatment at Jurgen’s hand. The toxstick had been a true mercy: a dummy, laced with sedative. That first puff had sent Goddlesby into a deep sleep. He would be disoriented when he woke up, but he would at least be far from here, down in the domes beyond the Falls where Jurgen had taken him to a safehouse. He didn’t want to trick the little man like that, but he just couldn’t have him asking too many questions, and he certainly couldn’t have him finding his way back. Doping him and smuggling him out was the best he could do. Goddlesby had disappeared sure enough, that was all that was asked of Jurgen. He had just made Goddlesby disappear in a rather less gruesome fashion than the rest of the Union would have imagined.

Jurgen inhaled deeply on his toxstick. He exhaled, but it was imperceptible, the trail of vapours merging instantly with the equally toxic ash carried in the howling winds of these seasonal storms. The toxstick was nothing more than an affectation, anyway. The implants in his neck filtered out its toxins just the same as they did any other, and by the time the inhalant reached Jurgen’s lungs it was nothing more than fresh air. It was an old habit, though, and one that died hard, no matter its ineffectiveness.

He finished the toxstick and readied himself. It was about time.

Galamb advanced cautiously, stopping and looking around almost every second step. Even then, he couldn’t escape the feeling that he had gone too far, that he had lost his bearings and that his enemy could well have got past him.

He moved on again, his visibility improving unexpectedly as the wind took another of its restless turns and drove the thickest of the ash cloud away from him.

That was when he saw them: perhaps a dozen cloaked figures, crossing the dunes towards them. Lago and his men, it had to be. He turned, ready to race back to the others, but he had barely gone a step before he caught sight of another figure, way off in the distance. It was Karman.

Damn him, thought Galamb. It was hard to gauge relative distance out here, but he could tell instantly that Karman had advanced perhaps a hundred metres further ahead and was already far too close to the approaching bounty hunters. Worse still, it looked like Karman still hadn’t seen them.

Galamb watched in horror as a flash of light pulsed out from the cloaked figures, tearing through the ash-laden air and dropping Karman’s silhouetted figure to the ground without a sound. Shit, thought Galamb, too late.

On instinct he opened fire with his own pistol, unleashing two, three, four autogun rounds at the bounty hunters, though at this range, and in this visibility, he didn’t stand a chance of hitting them. He should have run. He knew he should have run, but he had just seen Karman being gunned down and he was firing on impulse.

The ordered line of the bounty hunters broke apart and four or five of the figures faded from sight, presumably skidding down off the dunes and into one of the deep furrows that delineated them. The others turned straight towards him and a hail of fire rushed past his head. Galamb dropped onto his stomach and lowered his head to the ground as all hell broke loose around him.

Antal raised his head at the first sound of it.

‘Gunfire!’ he said, hollering across the line to the men crouched beside him. Hargitay and Lirbus dithered, their heads turning from Antal, to Jurgen, and back to Antal again, unsure of what to do. Jurgen and Morden showed no such indecision and the pair rose at once to their feet. A moment later, all five were dashing along the crest of the dune, advancing out into the storms but never once losing their precious elevation.

Luckily for them, the dune formed a great U-shaped ridge, and as they closed in on the sound of the gunfire, they found themselves on its highest spur, overlooking a rapidly erupting battle.

Two groups of cloaked figures could be seen below. In the distance, one was already engaged in a firefight, though Antal couldn’t be sure who with. Below them, a second group rushed across a broad furrow, heading right for the base of the dune on which Antal and the others stood.

Antal raised his hand and without a sound pointed down at the men below. Jurgen and Morden nodded, Hargitay and Lirbus following suit a second later. All five lowered their weapons and unleashed a withering volley of fire on the cloaked figures below.

Two fell instantly. One rose again a moment later, hauling himself to his feet, before another cacophony of gunfire sounded and he was again felled, this time lying utterly motionless beside his equally dead comrade.

The other three scattered but they couldn’t escape the open ground. Antal raised his sights, tracking one figure that raced away back down the furrow. His heart raced and adrenaline coursed through his body, but he kept his nerve and didn’t fire until he had matched the man’s speed with the slow movement of his own aim. At last he fired, a scorching las-bolt shooting out and striking the target square between the shoulder blades. He fell to the ground, kicking up a cloud of ash around him. Before he had a chance to see whether the man was dead or not, Antal unleashed two more shots towards his prone form just to be sure.

The smoke began to clear and Antal realised his mistake. The follow-up shots had missed their target amidst the swirling ash kicked up by the man’s fall, and the target had got back to his feet and continued his frantic dash away. Antal fired off another blast as soon as he saw him, but it was a snap shot and it flew well wide, and now his lasgun’s power cell was overheating. He rushed on across the crest of the dune, trying to keep the man in his sights, but it was a fool’s move.

Antal had strayed past the dune’s highest point and suddenly found himself skidding down its steep-sloped side. He reached out an arm to steady himself but lost his balance and tumbled awkwardly down the dune. He came to a halt a few metres further down as the soft ash broke his fall and then slowly pulled himself back to his feet. He looked up, straight into the face of one of the cloaked bounty hunters, just in time to see the autogun pointed at his face. The last thing Antal ever heard – in terrible, stark clarity above the normal loud hiss of his bionic implant – was the crack of the shot.

Todor rose at the sound of gunfire. He looked around but couldn’t pinpoint its source. It flared up again, and then another volley could be heard from another direction. Someone was returning fire.

Todor’s gaze crossed the gully where five silhouettes dashed away into the distance. It was Jurgen and the others.

Todor called out. ‘Lakatos! Lakatos!’

His leader turned to face him at once, already aware of the sound of gunfire.

‘Over there,’ said Todor. ‘Jurgen and the others have moved up ahead. They must have found Lago.’

‘Good,’ said Lakatos. ‘Let’s go.’

Todor trailed a little behind his leader as they crossed the gully. Todor was deeply uncomfortable out in the open and kept his wits about him. Lakatos didn’t seem anywhere near as bothered and strode ahead, straight towards the sound of gunfire.

Todor stopped and turned, taking a good look behind him, fearful of ambush. It was then that he caught sight of a figure away to his right, crawling through the ash. He raised his autogun, ready to snap off a shot before the figure raised its head and revealed a bare face. It was Galamb.

Todor raced towards him but pulled up short ten metres from the juve as he realised that he was under fire. Todor quickly dropped to his belly and scrabbled across to Galamb, bullets racing over their heads all the while.

‘What’s going on?’ yelled Todor over the noise.

‘Lago… He’s here.’

‘I know,’ said Todor, though in truth he hadn’t been completely sure until that moment, ‘but I saw Jurgen’s men over there,’ he said, pointing off into the distance. ‘There was gunfire from over there. What the frag is this?’

‘They shot down Karman,’ said Galamb. ‘I saw them, so I fired back. There was a lot of them, ten, maybe a dozen, and they split up when I fired.’

‘Shit,’ yelled Todor, suddenly realising that they may very well be surrounded. ‘Let’s get back to higher ground,’ he said.

Galamb just nodded.

Todor raised his arms above his head and loosed a couple of rounds. The shots were woefully inaccurate but silenced their enemies for at least a moment. With that Galamb pushed up off his hands, leapt to his feet and dashed back, away from the gunfire. Todor fired another couple of shots and began to crawl backwards on his knees.

He stopped a moment later and glanced over his shoulder. Galamb had taken up a new position about twenty metres back. He raised his hand as a signal and Todor nodded in reply. Galamb opened up with his pistol and Todor got to his feet, taking the chance to dash back to the slight ridge that Galamb now occupied.

‘This isn’t high enough,’ said Todor, frustrated to find their view no better than it had been before. ‘We’ve got to get right back or we’ll never see them coming.’ Galamb nodded again and rose to his feet, dashing up the steep dune to their rear as Todor laid down some covering fire.

It wasn’t enough. Todor stopped and turned as he heard a scream and then a dull thud from behind him. Galamb had barely made it ten metres before being shot down. Todor thought at first that he was dead but as the little juve rolled over onto his back, Todor could see that his face was twisted in agony.

Todor had no choice. He scrambled on all fours to where Galamb lay and thrust his arm under his neck to prop his head up.

‘Can you walk?’ asked Todor. As Galamb opened his mouth to speak, a rush of blood gushed out and his head rocked back. ‘Shit,’ roared Todor, but Galamb was dead.

Todor searched the terrain all around, desperately looking for a route he might take without exposing himself to fire. The noise of gunfire still rang out ahead of him, and from his right where he was sure Jurgen was engaged with the second group. He looked back towards Fall Sands and his jaw dropped in horror. A tall, cloaked figure approached. How the hell had they got behind him, Todor thought to himself as the final, fatal shot rang out and silenced his thoughts forever.

The men down in the gully below were sitting ducks. From his high perch, Lirbus had time to take careful aim and fire without leaving cover for a moment. When at last he did pull the trigger, it rang out good and true, passing straight through the neck of one of the cloaked figures, dropping him to the ground instantly.

To his left, Morden opened fire from his position a few metres away. He had moved round, following the curve of the dune and Lirbus watched as his position lit up with a blaze of fire, catching the hapless bounty hunters below in a withering crossfire.

Lirbus forsook his precise aim. The bounty hunters were in disarray, fleeing out across the dunes, and a blanket of fire would be as effective as any aimed shot. He rose up, standing at the dune’s edge, and sprayed his autogun fire indiscriminately over the chaotic scene below. Morden’s shots spiralled in from his angled position and a second figure fell, his body riddled with bullets. Two remained.

One seemed to realise that flight was pointless and stopped dead, turning and aiming his weapon straight up at Morden. He cracked off a couple of rounds and Morden’s position fell silent. Lirbus was sure he couldn’t have hit him, but he had at least driven Morden back behind the crest of the dune.

Lirbus took aim on the plucky bounty hunter and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The bounty hunter below caught sight of him, turned, and unleashed a few wild shots towards Lirbus.

‘Damn it,’ he muttered, as he dropped to his knees and pulled frantically at the clip in an effort to clear the jam. ‘Cover me while I reload,’ he said to Hargitay, who was still crouching next to him. Nothing happened.

‘Didn’t you hear me? I said cover…’ Lirbus’s words trailed off as he turned to look at the crouching figure beside him. Hargitay was dead, a single bullet wound piercing his skull. The bounty hunter’s wild shooting couldn’t have hit him like that, could it?

‘Jurgen!’ said Lirbus, calling out louder than before. ‘Jurgen, cover me!’

Again there came no reply. Lirbus had become too caught up in his own wild firing spree. The last time he had looked, Hargitay had been beside him, and Jurgen a short distance further along the ridge. Now Hargitay was dead and he couldn’t see any trace of Jurgen. Lirbus was alone and in big trouble.

He flung his jammed autogun to the dirt and wrestled the lasgun from Hargitay’s warm but rapidly stiffening grip. He rattled off a couple of shots towards the two remaining bounty hunters below, before rising and sprinting along the dune to where he had last seen Morden.

The sound of gunfire rang out behind him and he leapt and slid across the dune, relieved to find himself crashing into Morden. Morden was fine, keeping his head down, and seemed just as relieved as Lirbus to find he wasn’t totally alone.

Morden raised his hand, three gloved fingers extended in a familiar gesture. Lirbus nodded and Morden rolled onto this stomach, stretching over the top of the dune to fire down onto the two men below. Morden’s shots silenced the barrage from below and Lirbus, too, poked his head above the crest of the dune.

One of the bounty hunters was limping slowly away while the other positively sprinted. Lirbus took careful aim and picked off the limping figure, knocking him dead with a blast right through the middle of his back.

‘Come on,’ said Lirbus. ‘Let’s get him.’

‘Do it,’ said Morden, and the pair rose, dashing down the dune in pursuit of the lone survivor. Their target would quickly disappear from view in the cloudy air of the storms and Morden clearly had no intention of letting him out of his sight. He holstered his pistol and sprinted hard in pursuit of the fleeing bounty hunter. Lirbus did likewise without another thought.

They chased the man across the gully, towards the opposite ridge. Lakatos and the others should be up there, thought Lirbus. Why weren’t they firing?

Morden outstripped Lirbus for pace and was quickly ahead of him. Lirbus was still lagging fifteen metres behind as he saw Morden crash into the back of the fleeing man, sending the pair of them tumbling to the ground amidst a flurry of ash.

Lirbus carried on his own sprint, leaping straight at the scrapping figures on the ground in front of him. As he leapt, he saw a boot rise up from the scuffle beneath him and Morden was flung clear, wincing as he took a sturdy kick to the chest. Lirbus came crashing down straight onto the cloaked figure and in an instant he was in agony. He rolled off him instinctively and reached down to the source of his pain: a dagger buried deep in his guts. He groaned, coughed and closed his eyes, falling onto his back and into deep darkness.

Morden rose to his feet. The bounty hunter scrambled towards Lirbus’s prone form, struggling desperately to pull his knife from the corpse. Morden wasted no time and leapt onto the man’s back, wrapping his arms round his shoulders and drawing his own blade across his enemy’s neck. The man struggled on for a few seconds, desperately trying to fling Morden off, but Morden held his grip tight until the man at last collapsed face forwards, blood streaming from his neck and forming a deep red stain in the filthy ash beneath him.

Morden sank to his knees, breathless and panting.

He barely had time to draw breath before a crackle of gunfire forced him instinctively to the ground. Mercifully, it wasn’t aimed at him, and the reports peeled off into the distance, sounding very much like shots passing to his side. Morden raised his head but couldn’t see the source of the gunfire and suddenly felt very alone and stranded out in the open.

He gazed around, but he’d already seen plenty of men – friend and foe alike – caught out in a desperate dash for cover and decided it was better to keep himself low to the ground.

This was insane, thought Morden. If this was meant to be an ambush, then clearly they had already sprung it, but the battle still wasn’t over and Morden felt the whole adventure was slipping into chaos. Jurgen’s plan had seemed like a good one, but now he wasn’t quite sure what it was meant to achieve, or that it would really achieve anything at all.

Morden lay vigilant for a minute or two longer before a number of figures – three as far as he could make out – appeared ahead of him. They couldn’t have been the source of the gunfire since they were approaching from the wrong direction entirely. It was only at that point that Morden realised that the gunfire had died away to nothing, and the mystery deepened.

Morden raised his lasgun’s sight to his left eye and peered down it, readying himself for a shot just as soon as the dark silhouettes up ahead came into range. The sight offered no magnification as such, but squinting and concentrating on them as intently as he was, Morden gave pause and drew his finger back from the trigger.

He allowed them to approach a little closer. He was sure they wouldn’t see him anyway, not with him lying flat on the ground like that, but he couldn’t wait for ever. They covered perhaps another ten metres before he was sure. It was Lakatos and the others.

Morden raised his lasgun and loosed three shots, clear and evenly spaced. Three shots, straight up in the air, just like Jurgen had told them: it was the only way to identify one another out in the storms. Sight was useless. Sound was everything.

A moment later and three shots rang out from the group ahead. Morden could just make out a single raised arm, firing what sounded like a bolt pistol directly up into the air.

Morden was reluctant to show himself, but if he didn’t they’d never find him. He leapt to his feet and quickly fired off another three shots in noisy reply. He had no way of knowing if they had seen him, or if they could tell that it was him who had fired the shots, and that he was a friend, but he just couldn’t waste any more time. He set off at a sprint towards the distant silhouettes.

‘Just to be sure,’ said Lakatos.

Rubik nodded and trained his autocannon on the figure approaching through the dismal murk of the storms. Just to be sure, thought Rubik, just to be sure. He’d heard the three shots the same as everyone, but things were not going well and, truth be told, if it hadn’t been for Lakatos alongside him, Rubik would probably have just gunned down the approaching figure anyway, just to be sure.

The figure continued to approach at speed. Oddly, it seemed to drift to the right as Rubik followed its progress with his readied autocannon. Perhaps it was an optical illusion caused by the rolling storms, or perhaps it was just impossible for anybody to run straight in such winds.

Rubik didn’t so much as blink as he followed the figure’s approach. He could feel his fist tightening around the hefty trigger grip of his autocannon as the figure at last came in to some kind of clarity.

It was Morden. Thank the Emperor it was Morden. Rubik released the grip on his trigger and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was a premature relief, to say the least, as a bullet ploughed suddenly into his shoulder, a second grazing him just above the elbow and a third whistling past, wide of its mark. He fell to one knee with shock and pain, barely managing to steady his colossal bulk, even with his equally substantial strength. He roared in pain and the approaching Morden dived to the ground, obviously having heard the bullets that whistled past him.

Rubik grabbed at the trigger of his cannon but a searing pain in his arm stopped him before he could unleash so much as a single shot. Howling in furious agony, he used what little strength he had in his wounded arm to heave the auto-cannon across his body and into his uninjured left hand. His wounded right arm possessed too little strength to steady the great weapon, and Rubik was forced to kneel and rest the bulk of the thing across his thigh before unleashing a spitting, ripping volley of bullets in the direction of the unseen shooter.

At his feet, Morden crawled past him. Lakatos and Mero knelt alongside him, loosing shots in the moments when Rubik’s great weapon fell silent. Between them, they provided sufficient weight of fire for their enemy to seem unable to respond, even with the Cawdor stranded out in the open.

Morden rose up from the ground behind Rubik. Rubik felt the searing heat of a las-blast pass by his shoulder as Morden took up covering duties, taking over from Lakatos who fumbled on the ground, desperately trying to reload the empty magazine of one of his bolt pistols.

Rubik unleashed burst after burst of fire, each one just a few seconds apart, but he couldn’t go on like that forever. Even if he didn’t feel the pain in his arm growing in intensity with every second, even if he didn’t feel the drowsiness of blood loss descending on him like night, he would eventually run out of ammo, and he needed to make his shots count before that happened.

‘They must have followed my shots,’ yelled Morden from beside him.

‘How many are there?’ asked Lakatos from the opposite side.

‘I’m not sure. We ambushed five, I think, from up on the ridge, but they’re all dead.’

‘There’s more. I saw Galamb shooting at another group. They must’ve split up,’ said Lakatos.

‘Galamb? Where is he now?’ asked Morden. Rubik shook his head before Lakatos had time to answer and Morden fell silent.

‘Where’s Jurgen and the others?’ asked Lakatos, as Rubik unleashed another staccato burst. ‘Where is Jurgen and the others?’ he asked again, repeating himself now that the sound of gunfire had died down a little.

‘Lirbus and I chased the stragglers down from the ridge. That’s how I ended up out in the open,’ said Morden. ‘I didn’t see Jurgen. He must still be up on the ridge.’

‘Two more!’ yelled Rubik, cutting in.

‘What?’ asked Lakatos.

‘I’ve got bullets for two more bursts. Get moving.’

‘Shit,’ spat Lakatos before moving backwards behind the wall of fire. Mero knelt beside Rubik, stripping the bandolier from across his chest. Rubik winced in pain as Mero dropped the heavy belt down over his wounded shoulder.

‘Move!’ yelled Lakatos, loosing a couple of shots from his new position fifteen metres or so behind the others. They did as ordered and scampered back towards their leader, though Lakatos’s meagre bolts offered scant covering fire, and a hail of bullets raced past them from their still unseen enemy.

Rubik crouched behind Lakatos, letting his cannon rest on the ground and taking the opportunity for a desperately needed breather as, beside him, Mero threaded another band of ammo through the weapon’s hopper. It was the last one, and the way things were going, it wouldn’t last long.

Morden rose in front of Rubik and fired off a handful of las-blasts, his gun held lazily at his hip. With his non-firing hand free, Morden waved the others backwards, an invitation they wasted no time in taking. Rubik hoisted the autocannon back up off the ground, feeling the weight more than ever. He rested it against the wrist of his damaged arm that was numb with pain, and he could feel the exertion even more. He could barely keep up with Lakatos and Mero as they scampered backwards, heading for the safety of the ridge.

Lakatos fired off two rounds as Rubik reached them, Mero loosing two more as he set himself down between them. Morden turned, waiting for the signal to retreat and Rubik wasted no time in giving it. He hefted the autocannon up onto his bent knee to give Morden some covering fire, and clamped down on the trigger grip with his good hand.

Nothing.

Rubik looked up in horror but Morden was already up and running. In desperation he squeezed again but there was no sound. The trigger was firmly stuck down, depressed against the weapon and utterly useless until he could reset the jam.

He looked up again. Morden had covered maybe a quarter of the distance between him and the others, but even at that range Rubik could see the look of terror in his eyes as he realised what was happening. Rubik raised his hand, waving his palm in a frantic downward motion. Morden didn’t need to be told twice and dived forwards, hurling himself to the ground as quickly as he could, but it was too late.

Las-blasts arced past him and the air filled with bullets. Morden’s dive brought him crashing down to the ground in front of Rubik, but it was no controlled landing. His body slammed into the ash, singed with laser burns, riddled with holes and utterly lifeless. As the puff of ash thrown up by his falling body cleared, Rubik could see the deathly grimace on Morden’s face and swallowed hard in a mixture of anger and fear.

Rubik looked across to see Mero gripped by that very same fear, yet Mero’s own terror was not tempered by anger and Rubik saw him rise to his feet, instinctively sprinting away. It was a miracle he got away at all as bullets raced past the three surviving Cawdor, and Rubik quickly lost sight of the fleeing Mero as he was forced to consider his own safety and turned his gaze back in the direction of the approaching gunfire.

At last he could see them: five, no, six cloaked figures emerging from the storms. Lakatos dived across Rubik, pushing him to the ground as he fired off two more shots from his bolt pistol. Lying on his side, Rubik was at least free of the weight of his autocannon and wriggled his good arm free of the harness to get his fingers at the jammed barrel. Damn Mero, he thought. Damn him for fleeing, and damn him for stuffing up the reloading. Rubik wrenched a tangled mess of ammo from the barrel to clear the jam.

He braced the weapon against the ground and used his elbow to bring his weight down against the back end, tilting the barrel upwards just enough to aim it at the approaching group. He unleashed a rash of fire and the six became five. Another burst and five became four. At this rate, they weren’t going to get any closer, thought Rubik.

At this rate, he thought again, as he felt the dull click of his weapon’s trigger. At this rate… He suddenly realised he was out of ammo.

‘Damn it, damn it, damn it,’ he yelled, rolling onto his back in a bid to draw his laspistol from the holster around his waist, but it lay on the same side as his bad arm and he couldn’t prop himself up sufficiently to get at the thing.

Lakatos drew close to him, stooping over and pressing his face close to Rubik’s.

‘What the hell?’ he said.

‘Out of ammo,’ said Rubik. Lakatos spat a curse in reply and slung his arms under the bulky man, half lifting and half dragging him backwards. With Lakatos supporting him, Rubik at last pulled his laspistol free of its holster and raised his gaze back towards the approaching figures.

Doing so gave him just enough time to see the las-blasts screeching towards him: the las-blasts that smashed instantly into his chest and made Rubik suddenly forget the pain in his arm and the bleary-eyed, drowsiness of his blood loss.

Mero held his lasgun to his shoulder, cradling the barrel with his left hand and staring straight down the crude sight on its top. In truth, he could hardly see a thing through the murk, but using the sight gave him confidence, and the Emperor knew he needed it now.

He cracked off one shot, and then another, before falling to the ground in a desperate attempt to hide himself from any shots that might come his way in reply.

Beside him, the hulking Rubik raised his hand and signalled for the waiting Morden to retreat – a signal Morden wasted no time in following. Mero watched Morden dash frantically towards him, just as Rubik raised his autocannon to provide covering fire.

It seemed like an eternity for Mero, waiting for the familiar chugga-chugga-chugga of the autocannon. He waited, but it never came. Mystified, he turned to Rubik, only to see the big man’s face freeze in terror as he fumbled ineffectively at the trigger of his jammed weapon.

Mero turned from Rubik’s horrified visage and looked straight into the eyes of another. Morden made a frantic dive to the ground as he realised that the covering fire he so badly needed was well and truly stuck halfway down the autocannon’s barrel. Morden’s terrified grimace turned into a deathly one as blasts and bullets cut through his diving form and sent his body plunging lifelessly to the ground.

That was enough for Mero. If he was thinking about anything at all, he was thinking that running was better than staying where he was, and that a desperate, every man for himself dash, offered more chance of survival than this supposedly ordered retreat, which was falling to pieces as he watched.

He took to his heels, turning in an instant and dashed away from the approaching enemy, away from Lakatos and Rubik, and the body of poor Morden.

The bounty hunters must not have seen him at first, and Mero found himself ten, fifteen, twenty metres away before the hail of gunfire swung predictably towards him. He dropped to all fours as bullets whistled around him and continued his desperate flight by scrabbling along on his hands and knees.

Behind him, he heard more shots ring out, but much closer by Lakatos and Rubik returning fire, he thought, though it didn’t sound like the autocannon was doing the firing. Either way, it seemed to draw attention away from him, and Mero hauled himself back to his feet and continued his frantic dash as the hail of bullets passed him, their owners concentrating on another target altogether.

Mero dashed on. He thought of Rubik as he fled, and was touched by a moment of guilt for leaving him behind, but then he thought of Lakatos and it turned to fear. Lakatos would never forgive Mero for fleeing. He’d kill him. The thought of it made Mero run on all the faster, and he wished that Lakatos would die, Emperor damn him for thinking such things.

Mero reached the foot of the high dune that led up to the ridge from which their ambush had begun. The ridge on which, Mero thought, they should have stayed all along. More importantly, the ridge that would offer him precious cover.

Mero began to scramble up the steep dune as quickly as he possibly could, scaling its face. A spattering of bullets just above his head told him that it was a bad idea. Climbing up the exposed side of the dune would make him an easier target. He shrunk down to the ground, skulking through the ruts of ash that peppered the dune’s base. Bullets still streaked past his head but at least he was afforded some cover.

Mero skulked on in this manner until he reached the edge of the dune. He thought he could dip behind it and ascend from the other side, keeping out of sight of the enemy as he did so.

He waited a moment, carefully picking his time, and then made one sudden dash, exposing himself for just a second before turning sharply and racing to safety behind the dune’s imposing bulk. He fell to the ground as he reached the rear of the dune, hurling his back against the steep pile of ash. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was out of sight. He was safe.

Mero took a moment to catch his breath before getting to his feet and beginning the long trudge up the side of the dune. From there, he could work out exactly what he was going to do. He would be safe up there at least and could better ponder his next move.

He could still hear the sounds of gunfire below. Perhaps he could redeem himself by picking off the bounty hunters from up on the ridge and save Lakatos that way. Perhaps.

Or perhaps he could just lie low, watch the bounty hunters until they moved off, and then make good his escape and get out of Fall Sands forever. He could flee to Fulcrum Spike, to Addec’s place. If Lakatos were dead, there would be no one to say that he had fled, and he could go to Addec with his head held high. He’d be a hero, a lone survivor.

Mero’s chain of thought cut off suddenly as he caught sight of a figure up ahead of him, crouching down on the ridge. Who the hell could be up on the ridge? Then he remembered the bounty hunters had split up into two groups. Lakatos had seemed sure they were pursuing the nearer group, and Morden said they’d encountered another group over at the far ridge. How the hell could they have gotten up on the ridge?

Mero realised he had become hopelessly disoriented in the chaos. It was only a fluke that they had found Morden out in the open and it was conceivable that the bounty hunters had surrounded them, doubled back on them or just plain got past them. He cursed his luck, but knew there was no going back.

Mero was sure the figure hadn’t yet seen him, but for his part, Mero couldn’t see past the figure on the ridge and had no idea if there might be more beyond him. He didn’t dare use his lasgun for fear of alerting others nearby, and instead drew his knife and began a slow, sneaking approach towards the crouching figure.

He crossed the dune against the slope, bringing himself around behind the figure. From here he could see that, mercifully, the figure was alone. Summoning what courage he had, Mero rose from his stoop and dashed at the figure, leaping on its back, his knife outstretched.

He landed hard on the crouching man’s back, but instantly recoiled. One touch of that stiff, hard body told him something wasn’t right. He grabbed at the figure and rolled it over.

It was Todor, stone dead, his eyes glazed over, forever emblazoned with a last moment of fear.

‘What the–?’ said Mero to himself, but they would be his last words.

Mero’s body slumped forwards onto Todor’s. A single bullet was shot through his heart from a gun he never even saw, pressed to his back by a shadowy figure behind him.

Lakatos thrust his arms under the big man’s shoulders, dragging him backwards, but it was useless. Rubik was already dead. The first shot had killed him, and the ones that followed would have done the same to Lakatos had they not slammed into Rubik’s all too solid body. It was far from dignified, but Lakatos crouched behind the dead man’s body. It was the only cover on offer now that Mero had fled, damn his eyes.

‘Shit,’ said Lakatos, though there was clearly no one to hear him. He was in deep trouble. He unclipped the magazine of one bolt pistol, and then the other, checking both were full. They weren’t but it was a situation he quickly remedied as he sheltered beneath Rubik’s gargantuan frame. He would have precious little time to reload later.

He stashed the fully loaded pistols back in the holsters at his hips and pulled a grenade from his belt. He pulled the pin and hurled it as far as he could, not towards the approaching enemy, but laterally away from himself, creating a huge explosion away to his right. It was a diversion and nothing more.

The explosion had barely sounded before Lakatos was on his feet and running, drawing both pistols as he went. The grenade bought him a few seconds and he heard several shots peel off harmlessly towards the site of the explosion before the approaching bounty hunters noticed his own sprinting form. He loosed several rounds from his pistols and carried on running, covering himself as best he could.

As bullets whistled past him, Lakatos saw a shallow dip in the ashy ground and took his chance. He leapt and skidded down its side, landing on his back. Pressed flat to the ground, even such a meagre trench as this offered him some cover.

Lakatos lay for a second, drawing his breath, but he knew he had no time to waste. He rolled onto his front and rose slowly, just enough to take a peek out over the furrow’s edge. Four figures were approaching, and quickly. Somehow, they’d lost sight of him.

He drew his pistols up, arms resting on the ground, and waited. He wouldn’t get many shots. It was near impossible to gauge range in this weather, but Lakatos was a master. The figures continued their approach, close enough for Lakatos to make out the heavy cloaks they were wearing, which billowed out in the wind where they hung loose at the back of their legs. They were well-prepared for the storm. They were professionals.

Lakatos followed their approach for a few more seconds. They weren’t coming directly for him. Rubik’s body was still sitting upright fifty metres away and the bounty hunters were closing in on it, perhaps unaware that it was nothing more than a corpse. It would take an age for them to come into range, drifting across in front of Lakatos’s view rather than coming closer. At last, just as the bounty hunters closed in on Rubik, Lakatos reckoned he had a mark and opened fire.

He aimed his fire at a low trajectory, pistols pressed both together and spraying from right to left. It worked, and the bolts scythed through the line of four figures. Two fell to the ground, one remaining there lifeless. The second dragged himself gingerly back to his feet as the other two fled and rolled to the ground. It was just as Lakatos had intended. He couldn’t guarantee fatal shots from that range, but at least cutting across their legs would hamper their advance. The wounded figure limped forwards and Lakatos took his time in lining him up, picking him off with another spray of bullets and sending him tumbling lifeless, head over feet, into the dirt.

A shot skimmed the top of the dip in which Lakatos hid and he instinctively ducked his head down. The two remaining bounty hunters were advancing on him, and they were clever. They had split up, standing perhaps ten metres apart, and advanced in unison so that Lakatos couldn’t possibly cover both of them. They had clearly worked out that he was alone. He would have to persuade them otherwise.

He unclipped another grenade, fumbling with the pin in his gloved hands and dropping it to the ground just in front of him. Frik it, he thought, and he leapt to his feet, setting off at a sprint away from the hollow.

Bullets trailed behind him, but he replied in kind and bought himself a few metres before the sound of the exploding frag grenade rang out behind him. It seemed to work, and he heard the bounty hunters’ fire close in on his former position. Perhaps they had mistaken it for muzzle flash.

Lakatos raced away across the dunes, but he was too eager in his flight. He stumbled and fell. One of the bolt pistols fell from his grip, tumbling from his right hand as he collapsed. Feeling no pain, he presumed he had merely tripped and rose to his feet. Then his leg gave way and, looking down, he realised he had been hit square in the knee by a las-bolt. He couldn’t stand on it at all.

He dropped onto his good knee and thundered off three more shots from his remaining bolt pistol. The two figures seemed unperturbed and were sprinting towards him. Their fire forced him to the ground and Lakatos began to think he was doomed. This had seemed like such a good plan. What the hell had happened? Even if he survived, his gang was in tatters and Catafengi would not reward him for this debacle. He cursed as he cautiously raised his head once more, extending his arm to loose two more shots with his bolt pistol. Two more, and then he tried a third.

Nothing.

‘Damn it,’ said Lakatos. He slunk as far down into the ash as he could, desperate for cover as he tried to reload the pistol’s spent magazine as quickly as possible. The bolts fell from his nervous, twitchy grasp and he scrabbled frantically in the ash, making terrible labour of a routine task.

A dark shadow, perceptible even in the dim light of Ash Season, fell across Lakatos and he looked up.

‘Oh shit,’ he said as he gazed straight into the eyes of the two cloaked figures. They stood over him with their lasguns aimed squarely at his head. Lakatos flinched and shut his eyes as he heard a bang ring out above him. He gasped, and then opened his eyes as he realised the impossibility of a lasgun going bang. He looked up just in time to see one of the two figures fall backwards, a spray of blood jetting up from his head.

The second figure looked up from Lakatos, suddenly concerned more with his own survival than Lakatos’s death. He started to raise his lasgun, but a second bang rang out all too quickly for it to be of any use. Another shot, clean through the front of the skull, another spray of blood, and another cloaked bounty hunter tumbled backwards. Lakatos was stunned and breathless.

He looked up and turned his head slowly, half expecting a third bang to ring out and silence him too.

Jurgen. Dear Emperor, thought Lakatos, it was Jurgen.

Sure enough, the outlander stood no more than ten metres away, arm outstretched, stub gun still smoking.

‘Jurgen,’ he said aloud. Jurgen said nothing.

Lakatos hauled himself to his feet, injured as he was, and stood up on his one good leg. He hobbled over to where the two cloaked bodies lay in the ash.

Lakatos dropped to his knees and smashed his fist into the body lying on the ground beneath him, pummelling the body’s ribs with punch after punch.

‘Lago, you bastard!’ he yelled, pulling the tightly wrapped cloth away from his mouth and spitting on the prone figure as he raised his boot and unleashed a crushing stamp on its motionless head.

‘You fragging bastard, Lago. Pah!’ He seethed with rage at the terrible, bloody mess this infidel Lago had made of his plans, but railed victorious that he had won, that it was over.

Lakatos wrenched the ventilator mask from Lago’s face, desperate to look into the eyes of his slain enemy. He recoiled in horror as the mask came away.

It wasn’t Lago at all. It was Deeran. He had hardly ever seen the man’s face, but the gang tattoo on his left cheek made him quite sure that it was Deeran. He scrabbled over the body, to the second corpse lying behind it. This one bore no mask, and a square sheet of cloth merely hung across its nose and mouth, tied behind the head, with infrared goggles to cover its eyes. Lakatos dragged the cloth down with one hand, pulling the goggles away with the other. He ran his fingers gently over the face and was almost reduced to tears.

It was Addec.

Jurgen walked slowly towards Lakatos where he kneeled over the bodies. He stopped just short of him and stooped to the ground. Lakatos’s pistol lay where it had fallen when that first shot caught its bearer in the leg. He scooped up the pistol and examined the magazine. Three bullets remained.

Jurgen pressed his thumb into the tightly sprung magazine and pushed out the top bullet. He spun it round in his hand and reinserted it into the magazine, its tip facing the wrong direction. He clicked the magazine back into place and walked on towards the crouching Lakatos – he wasn’t going to give Lakatos anything like the mercy of a swift end, or the satisfaction of having anyone to blame but himself.

‘You dropped your gun,’ he said as he approached within earshot.

Lakatos rose slowly in front of him, taking the pistol from Jurgen’s outstretched hand. Lakatos didn’t say a word. He merely turned his back and took a pace or two away from Jurgen, who remained motionless, standing next to the bodies of his two most recent kills.

‘I thought they had you there,’ said Jurgen.

‘Me too,’ said Lakatos. ‘Jurgen, I don’t know what in the name of the Emperor has happened here, but whatever it is, it’s your doing.’ Lakatos raised his pistol, aiming it straight at Jurgen’s head.

‘You’re trouble, Jurgen,’ he said. ‘Whatever you’ve done, you’re trouble, and trouble follows you. Maybe this isn’t of your making, but trouble followed you here. This whole damn mess followed you here and it has got too many people killed.

‘You’re just too much trouble, Jurgen,’ said Lakatos, squeezing the trigger.

The pistol backfired spectacularly. The explosive bolts it fired each contained its own propellant and its own charge and, as Lakatos squeezed the trigger, the top round propelled itself backwards into the rear of the magazine, detonating as it struck the rear of the barrel and sparking off an explosion that covered Lakatos’s right hand side in a gout of flame. He fell to his knees, roaring in pain.

Jurgen stepped forward, leaning over the howling Lakatos. His right arm was in pieces. Gristle and bone were visible down its length, and it was horribly twisted and merged with the burned skin and singed cloth of his clothing. The whole limb hung lifeless by his side, and shrapnel lay embedded in dozens of bloody welts across Lakatos’s chest, neck and face. He screamed in pain, his agonised howls turning into a single, breathless word.

‘Jurgen!’ he screamed as the outlander drew nearer still, holding his face just inches from Lakatos’s pained visage.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m Lago.’

Lago placed a toxstick to his lips. He lit it and within a moment vanished into the swirling storms of Ash Season. He was gone, just like the Union, just like the Scarlet Skulls, just like Addec and his men, and Catafengi and the whole damned lot of them. They were all gone, just as Lago had always intended, and with that, he was gone too.

Behind him, Lakatos crawled along the ground, a short trail of his blood sorry evidence of the pitiful distance he had covered, though it had sapped all his strength. He hadn’t the strength to stand, or to cry out, or even to grip his ruined arm and staunch the bleeding. Above him, moving like dark shadows through the haze of ash, carrion eaters whirled and danced, their mournful cries sure signs of a coming feast. They would not have to wait long, if they waited at all.

About the Author

Matt Keefe’s Black Library credits include the novel Outlander, set in the dark underhives of Necromunda, and the Warhammer 40,000 short story ‘Fate’s Masters, Destiny’s Servants’, which features the Ultramarines and first appeared in the anthology Tales from the Dark Millennium. He lives in Sheffield, England.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2006.
This edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham NG7 2WS UK

Cover illustration by Clint Langley.

© Games Workshop Limited 2006, 2015. All rights reserved.

Outlander © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Outlander, Necromunda, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world. All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78251-940-9

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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