Blood Royal Read online

  ‘Helmawr’s rump,’ said Yolanda. ‘They were alive yesterday.’

  Scabbs nodded. ‘It fed on them after Beddy. And if Beddy didn’t fill it up, these rats sure didn’t do the job.’

  ‘It’s out hunting right now,’ she said.

  Scabbs nodded again. ‘Well, it should be easy to track. All we have to do is follow the trail of dead bodies.’

  Yolanda realised something else as well. ‘Come on,’ she said as she put out the torches and holstered her pistols. ‘It’s time to leave Glory Hole.’ She headed back to the hole and motioned for Scabbs to give her a boost.

  ‘Why?’ Scabbs asked as he waddled over to Yolanda. He interlocked his hands and looked up at her. She scowled at him in the dim light streaming through the hole and pointed at the floor. A moment later she climbed onto his back, as he crouched on the floor and jumped up to reach the edge of the roof.

  When they were both back on the roof, Yolanda observed. ‘It drained the rats instead of finding another victim. Why?’

  Scabbs shrugged.

  ‘Rats won’t be missed like people,’ she said. ‘It could have been days before anyone found these drained rats. She was pacing back and forth across the roof now, barely even noticing that her loin cloth and leather jacket were flapping in the breeze she created with her long strides. ‘But another person? With all these bounty hunters in town?’

  She stopped in front of Scabbs, who still wore his normal stupid expression. ‘Don’t you get it?’ she asked, thumping him on the top of his head with her fist. Nothing. She wanted to scream.

  ‘Why did it eat again so soon after Beddy?’ Another shrug.

  ‘It was gorging itself to prepare for a trip, but didn’t want to leave any more dead bodies behind for us to follow. The vampire left town last night.’

  Scabbs raised his hands in submission. ‘Fine. Let’s say you’re right,’ he said. ‘How do we find it now? There’s no trail of bodies. We’re at a dead end.’

  ‘Are we?’ asked Yolanda. ‘We have you, the greatest half-breed ratskin tracker in all Glory Hole.’ Scabbs smiled at the back-handed compliment and a few flakes of skin fell off his cheeks.

  ‘It ate its last meal here,’ she said. ‘It can’t have left through the settlement gates. So, where did it go? What secret exit do you know about that it could have used from this rooftop?’

  A light bulb finally flared into life in the dark recesses of Scabbs’s brain. He scanned the settlement, apparently getting his bearings. He looked up and down each street, did a few high-level calculations on his fingertips and then smiled. He pointed almost straight up without even looking.

  Yolanda followed the finger up to the top of the dome, where a wide shaft extended at a forty-five degree angle out of the settlement into the vast wilderness spaces between domes. Yolanda clapped Scabbs on the shoulder, raising a dust cloud that coated her fingers. ‘Fantastic,’ she said. ‘Now, how do we get up there?’

  Scabbs produced Beddy’s grapnel, which he had obviously purloined, and handed it to Yolanda.

  Kal sauntered up the docks, breathing in the stale air, heavy with a multitude of odours. To the right was the sharp stench of spoiled meat coming from the Cawdor warehouse. To the left he got a thick, oily whiff of petrol from the fuel station and straight ahead was Hive City itself, with all those odours plus the bitter smell of Wildsnake and the pungent musk emanating from Madam Noritake’s.

  He was nearly home. So Hive City was quite the tumultuous life-in-your-own-hands place that the Underhive was, but he found it a damn sight more palatable than the Spire, all the same. The only thing ruining Kal’s day now – other than being forced to work for his father and the fact that Nemo seemed to be after him again – was that he had that stupid spear strapped across his back.

  ‘Welcome to Hive City,’ he said to Valtin.

  ‘It’s not clean,’ admitted the Helmawr guard, ‘but it’s not nearly as bad as I imagined.’

  The two left the dock area and walked down a short street between squat, square buildings made of grey stone and metal. Variety, colour, and ornamentation were nowhere to be seen down here. Down in the real Hive, practicality and functionality were all that mattered.

  ‘Remember,’ said Kal. ‘This isn’t the Underhive.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Spoken like a true Spire brat,’ Kal laughed. ‘For one thing, most of the buildings are still standing and occupied. For another thing, the air gets recycled once in a while and you can find your way around without a flashlight, assuming we knew where we were going. Plus you can walk for blocks without a gang war erupting around you. There are laws here against that sort of thing.’

  ‘Not so in the Underhive?’

  ‘The only law in the Underhive is the kind you carry strapped to your waist.’

  They came to an intersection and Kal looked to the left and right. The connecting streets didn’t run straight. They both curved away from the dome walls. Kal remembered that one direction had a bunch of cut-backs and dead ends; relics of generations of rebuilding due to hivequakes. Unfortunately, he could never remember which way had the more direct route into the main part of the city.

  ‘Which way is it to that shop?’ he wondered out loud.

  While Kal tried to remember if he should turn left or right, Valtin asked, ‘But I thought we were supposed to head down into the Underhive. Isn’t that where nobles go to hide from the family?’

  ‘Technically true, dear nephew,’ said Kal. ‘But there are one or two tasks we must accomplish here first.’

  ‘What? Get drunk and find some women?’

  Kal laughed again. ‘You forgot gambling,’ he said. ‘That comes between the drinking and the wenching. No, we need to fix your clothes and get my dog.’ With that, Kal made a decision and turned left.

  An hour later, hopelessly lost in Hive City, he decided that left was probably the wrong decision. ‘Damn Scabbs,’ he muttered. ‘Where are you when I need you? Probably still sitting in Hagen’s Hole drinking on my tab.’

  ‘Kill me if you want,’ said Hagen. ‘I can’t tell you where they went because I don’t know where they went.’

  Themis tossed the big, hairy bartender into the corner as if he was nothing more than a sack of laundry. He lay there, his beard matted with blood and his left eye swollen shut. He was pretty sure that at least three ribs were broken. He landed in a puddle of Wildsnake, but it really didn’t matter, since his clothes were already drenched with blood, sweat and spit. Only the spit didn’t belong to him.

  The Wildcats had taken Hagen by surprise while he was napping on the gaming table. It was the only table in the place sturdy enough to hold his huge frame. The bar had been packed with mercenaries for two full days and nights and Hagen had been beat. Everyone had finally left to hunt the vampire, so he decided to take a rest.

  Then the Wildcats stormed in. The door was gone, lost to a frag grenade. The explosion woke Hagen and he had immediately rolled off the table into a corner. The lousy Escher women then shot up the front room and most of his stock behind the bar. They didn’t seem to care that no one was in the bar. In fact, it seemed to make them even madder.

  Hagen had tried to crawl to the storeroom door. If he could make it down the stairs, he might have a chance of getting to the escape hatch, but the one they called Themis saw him and shot another frag grenade over his head toward the door. Hagen dived back over the gaming table just as the door exploded. The fragments ripped through the table and cut the bartender in the head and shoulders.

  They were on him before he could crawl out from under the remains of the table. The next hour had been a blur of kicking, beating, spitting, and screaming. They didn’t even bother to ask questions until after he’d regained consciousness the second time. Hagen didn’t hold back any information. He told them about the vampire, the dead mercenaries, Yolanda, Scabbs, and Kal: everything. But it didn’t seem to matter. The torture and the spitting continued. He’d heard that Escher
women hated men. Now, he knew it for certain.

  The black cloud of unconsciousness threatened to take him again as the gang members moved into the front room. Hagen feared he wouldn’t wake up this time so fought to keep his head clear. He heard Themis speak. She was a tall, powerfully-built blonde who Hagen could have gone for in any other circumstance (he loved a strong woman who could toss him around a little).

  ‘He doesn’t know where she went,’ said Themis. ‘Or if he does, he’ll take it to his grave.’

  ‘Kill him,’ said another voice Hagen knew to be Vicksen Colteen, perhaps the scariest Escher woman in the Underhive, which was really saying something. ‘Send a message to the shopkeepers that we are the Wildcats no matter who leads us.’

  A dozen weapons cocked in a rapid staccato of clicks.

  ‘We don’t want to step over that line,’ said Themis. ‘A physical interview is one thing, but murdering Hagen? That puts a bounty on our heads and ticks off every mercenary from here to Dust Falls. Leave him alive and everyone knows that the Wildcats took on Hagen’s Hole and won!’

  ‘Fine,’ said Vicksen. ‘He lives. But we’re no closer to Yolanda than we were a day ago.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to interview a few of the fine folk in Glory Hole. Someone must have seen where she and the little scab-faced half-breed went.’

  The next sound Hagen heard was the scuffling of feet on the metal grate floor and then silence. Minutes passed and they didn’t return. Each breath sent an explosion of pain through his chest, and he wasn’t sure if he could even move. He had to find help before the darkness took him again. He didn’t want to let Themis down and end up dead anyway.

  Hagen began to pull himself across the grate toward the shattered front door.

  Several hours after leaving the docks, Kal finally found a familiar landmark. They were only a few streets away from Fewell’s armoury now. Valtin had been quiet most of the way, but as Kal picked up the pace, he asked, ‘Do you know where you are now, or are we still lost?’

  ‘Lost?’ said Kal, putting on his best innocent bystander face. ‘We weren’t lost. I was just trying to confuse those trying to follow us.’

  ‘Were we being followed?’

  ‘Stands to reason,’ said Kal. ‘Seems like somebody’s always watching me and somehow getting to where I’m going ten steps ahead of me.’ In a way, Jerico was glad they had taken such a circuitous route. If anyone had been following them, he’d certainly made them work for it. And, it had given him time to notice something odd about Hive City.

  ‘Did you notice anything strange while we walked the streets?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Valtin looked a little disgusted. ‘Just that there seemed to be an awful lot of them that ended in brick walls.’

  ‘Have you heard any screams in the last few hours?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any lasblasts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sirens? Claxons? Explosions?’

  ‘No,’ said Valtin. He grabbed Kal by the shoulder to stop him. ‘Why? I’ve gone days without hearing any one of those things.’

  ‘But as you said, this is not the Spire,’ replied Kal. ‘Sure, it’s peaceful here in Hive City compared to the Underhive, but in three hours time we should have at least witnessed a mugging or seen an enforcer rousting a burglar. It’s scavving quiet around here, and that ain’t normal.’

  They had arrived at Fewell’s armoury. The sign by the door showed a suit of body armour with two crossed swords that appeared to be piercing the armour. Kal had never gotten up the nerve to ask Fewell if that had been intentional or if some disgruntled client had altered the image.

  ‘This is the place,’ said Kal.

  ‘I have body armour,’ replied Valtin. He looked closely at the sign. ‘And mine doesn’t have any holes in it.’

  ‘The owner’s been watching my dog,’ said Kal, ‘and fixing a few busted plates on his back.’

  ‘Fixing a few whats on his where?’

  ‘Just come on.’

  They walked into Fewells. It was almost a home away from home for Kal, which was quite a trick since he had no home. Racks of body armour in various stages of creation or repair littered the cramped shop, making it tough to walk through to the counter. Hung on the walls in a haphazard fashion were metal weapons of all shapes and sizes from little rib stickers for the up-and-coming midget assassin to massive, crush-your-head-with-one-blow axes sized for a Goliath.

  ‘Fewell,’ called out Kal. ‘Is Wotan ready to g–’

  He never got a chance to finish the sentence. A huge creature flashed over the counter and bounded through the shop. Rack after rack fell to the floor, creating a cacophony of clattering metal. Valtin yelled an exclamation as the beast burst through the last of the racks and leapt into the air toward them.

  ‘Wotan!’ cried Kal as the metallic hound drove him over backwards and landed astride his chest. Wotan was easily a metre tall at the shoulders and almost two metres long from the point of his metal teeth to the tip of his tail. His head had been moulded to resemble a real dog with ears that stood up and a little bulb of a nose on the end of his snout. But he was all metal, with extra plating at the shoulders and joints, and long metal spikes for claws.

  He barked, which sounded a lot like bones breaking. ‘This is your dog?’ asked Valtin.

  ‘Yep.’ Kal pushed Wotan’s nose aside to make the dog move off his chest and then stood up. He patted Wotan on the head.

  ‘I don’t want to know where you got him, do I?’ continued Valtin.

  ‘And I don’t want to tell you,’ Kal replied.

  Fewell was coming through the racks, picking each one up as he made his way through the store. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Kal,’ he said. ‘I’m getting tired of picking up these scavving racks.’

  Fewell was a mountain of a man. He stood well over two metres tall and had a broad chest to match, but his comically oversized head seemed all the bigger thanks to his short-cropped, sandy hair and smooth chin. Kal had never seen so much as a whisker on Fewell’s face, let alone the stubble most men sported at this time of day, which gave him the look of an overgrown adolescent.

  ‘I’ll take him off your hands,’ said Kal, ‘But…’

  ‘I know, you’ll have to pay me later,’ finished Fewell. He rarely smiled, and he spoke in a constant monotone, which made it almost impossible to tell when he was joking and when he was really mad.

  ‘Um, not only that,’ continued Kal, but could I bother you for a sharp knife, some heavy pliers, and a little information?’

  ‘What’s mine is yours,’ replied Fewell. ‘You’ll take it anyway.’ He went back to the counter to retrieve the items.

  ‘What do you need those for?’ asked Valtin. He shied away from Wotan, who was busy sniffing the guard’s boots.

  ‘They’re for you,’ said Kal. ‘We need to make some changes to your outfit.’

  ‘Who’s your pretty boyfriend, Kal?’ asked Fewell when he returned with the tools.

  ‘See what I mean?’ said Kal. He took the pliers from Fewell, and said, ‘He’s my nephew. I’m teaching him how to fit in down in the Underhive.’ Kal reached out with the pliers, grabbed hold of one of the silver buckles on Valtin’s coat, and pulled. The leather ripped away, leaving a gash where the buckle used to be.

  ‘You’ll take these in trade, won’t you Fewell’ asked Kal as he grabbed the next buckle in line.

  Scabbs looked at the drained bodies of the two Goliaths. ‘I knew these two,’ he said. ‘That’s Thag, or at least it was. He was one of the strongest pit fighters I’d ever seen. Cost me a hundred credits the first and only time I ever bet against him.’

  ‘And the female?’ asked Yolanda with a sigh. She was tired. Tired from trekking across the dust and tired of finding dead bodies. The two Goliaths upped the body count in the Wastes alone to twelve. A bloody dozen, she thought. No. A bloodless dozen.

  ‘Grunn,’ replied Scabbs. ‘She’s who I bet on with those hundred cr
edits. It was their first match. Thag got her down in a chokehold and the crowd was calling for her death, but Thag wouldn’t do it. He refused to kill her and forfeited all of his earnings to that point. Took him another two years to get out of the pits, but he took Grunn with him and they’ve lived in the Wastes ever since.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful story, really,’ said Yolanda. ‘But is there a point?’

  ‘Nothing could beat Thag,’ he said. ‘Nothing! Not if he knew it was coming. And, look! His axe is still in his hands, and he was skewered through the chest. Thag was facing the vampire, weapon in hand, when it killed him.’

  ‘So?’ asked Yolanda. ‘It’s just like Beddy. Just like those Scavvy warbands we found out here earlier. It kills, it eats, and it moves on. Why is this one any different?’

  ‘Thag was a powerful fighter,’ insisted Scabbs. He was getting pretty agitated. The scabby skin on his face flaked off as he shook with emotion. ‘I doubt you and Jerico could have taken him together on a good day. But Thag doesn’t have a mark on him except the death blow. The vampire killed him with one hit! One hit! How in the Hive are we supposed to kill it if Thag and Grunn together couldn’t beat it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Yolanda. ‘Maybe we can starve it to death. Maybe Thud and Grunzilla here wounded it and we’ll find its corpse over the next rise. I don’t care. We’re bounty hunters. We track killers and bring them in, dead or alive. It’s what we do.’

  When she was done talking, Yolanda noticed Scabbs staring at her. She glanced down at her clothes to make sure nothing was showing that shouldn’t be showing. ‘What?’ she asked, finally. ‘Do I have dust in my hair?’

  ‘Starve it to death,’ muttered Scabbs.

  ‘Huh?’ asked Yolanda. She began to worry that her scabby partner had succumbed to waste fever. Too much time under the phosphorescent light, breathing in the hive dust made people go a little off. She figured people who lived in the Wastes were probably a little off to begin with.