Road to Redemption, page 20
‘Shut up,’ Zeke said, anger boiling up inside him. He slammed his mug back down onto the table, the drink in it untouched as yet, and turned to face the Delaque. ‘Shut up. That Orlock cocked his gun. He was either going to shoot you, or he didn’t care if he nudged the trigger by mistake and took your face off. You’ve had my back since the start of this. You knifed that slaver who was coming for me. You could’ve left me to bleed out after you’d rescued Ash, but you made sure Stonefist patched me up. You made me a path through the dregs to get to Reibus. You stayed by my side even when you worked out who it is we’re hunting – even when you worked out that I already knew, and I hadn’t told you.’
He knocked back his drink and set the mug down again, less angrily, but slightly more clumsily. ‘You’ll tell me when I have my head up my own arse when most of this lot are more interested in kissing it, and that’s not nothing either. I’ve seen what happens to men like that, Alin. I know I’m a miserable, sinning wretch, and I need not to forget it. These people we have with us now… they scare me, and that’s good. I’ll use them, because I believe in what I’m doing, but I need to remember that their belief in me is not mine by right – it’s not mine to do with as I please. I had my purpose before I found their might. I mustn’t let their might give me new purpose that I would never have assumed if I was alone and weak, because that way lies arrogance and sin.’ He realised he was ranting at the table, and turned back to Alin, a desperate hunger to be understood clawing at his side just as ferociously as the desire for more alcohol. ‘Does that make sense?’
Alin Choll nodded. ‘It does. And it’s one of the reasons why I’ve stayed by your side and had your back, Zeke. You’re a good man, yes?’ They raised one hand to cut off the protest that rose in Zeke’s throat. ‘I’m not saying that you’re perfect, but you’re good. And I’m not saying that you always have been, but I’m saying that you are now.’ They took a sip of their own drink, then placed two fingers on Zeke’s wrist when he went to throw his own back again.
‘I want to talk to you about what happens next.’
‘How you do mean?’ Zeke asked, confused.
‘As you say, you have your new, somewhat scary followers,’ Alin pointed out. ‘What previously looked like a doomed endeavour now might succeed, yes? We may find this Father Infernus, we may be able to rescue your children. So what happens after that?’
Zeke stared at them stupidly. ‘I… hadn’t thought about it.’ And it was true. He’d been clinging to this as a way of dying with purpose, more than anything else, but it had gone from a futile hunt for an unknown quarry, to the pursuit of a known adversary who might easily overwhelm him and his ragtag band of followers, to being in nominal command of a large group of well-armed fighters who might conceivably outnumber their enemies. He’d understood that, he’d allowed himself the faintest flickerings of hope, but he hadn’t got further than that.
He’d have to tell Essy and Donnel what had happened to their parents, for one thing.
‘I thought you hadn’t,’ Alin said. ‘Perhaps it’s something to which we should give some consideration.’
Zeke blinked at them. ‘“We”?’
Alin coughed, very slightly. ‘I consider myself to have no family now except Ash, and while I love them dearly, I would likely end up strangling them myself should I have to live with them and only them for a prolonged period of time, yes? I have no wish to return to… the things I did before.’ They pursed their lips. ‘Perhaps if there was a chance of keeping back a small amount of the funds of which Kat is currently in charge, a couple of like-minded individuals could begin to make a quiet life for themselves and their kin somewhere, away from death and killing, unless the rats or the ripperjacks needed driving away.’
Zeke snorted a laugh despite himself. ‘You have much experience in slime farming?’
‘I’m a fast learner,’ Alin replied levelly.
‘Are you scared of getting your hands dirty?’ Zeke asked. The mental image of Alin’s tall, slender, greatcoated shape bending over slime crops was a bizarre one, but he supposed that at least some Delaques had to do menial tasks. They surely couldn’t all just sit in the shadows, nourished by rumours and data, could they?
Alin laughed. They actually laughed, a hearty guffaw quite at odds with their appearance or, to be fair, Zeke’s experience of Delaques so far in his life.
‘Oh, Zeke,’ they chuckled, getting their mirth under control. ‘My hands are filthy with things I can never wash away. Slime is nothing by comparison.’
‘Alright then,’ Zeke said, a small flower of… perhaps not hope as such, but possibility beginning to bloom inside him. ‘Alright. When this is done, one way or the other, we’ll see about finding somewhere. No more “Father Zeke”. You and me, Essy and Donnel…’ He suppressed a grimace. ‘Ash…’
‘They don’t have to be that close,’ Alin said. They tapped their lips thoughtfully with one long forefinger. ‘Perhaps one or two of the others might be useful in such a venture, yes?’
‘Not Yuriah,’ Zeke said immediately.
‘Agreed.’ Someone had finally won the current round of armwrestling, and a few drinks flew into the air in celebration. Alin ducked to one side as a mug flew past their head. ‘This is becoming quite hazardous. I believe the proprietor has a room he will rent out to travellers, if any should appear with coin. We will move on at the next day-cycle, and who knows when we may encounter this Father Infernus. Perhaps you and I should retire to this room, to be well-rested for when we move on tomorrow.’
‘Well-rested,’ Zeke said, looking at them.
‘Indeed.’
‘And,’ Zeke said, trying out the feel of the words in his mouth, ‘we could further discuss the… practicalities of our plans for the future.’
Alin nodded. ‘My thinking exactly, no?’
Zeke got to his feet. He felt ever so slightly light-headed. ‘Shall I bring the bottle?’
Alin shrugged. ‘I see no benefit to leaving it here.’
‘That,’ Zeke said, picking it up, ‘is the sort of sensible thinking that’s one of the reasons I like you.’
Alin flashed him a grin, as swift and fleeting as electricity arcing between two power coils, then turned to attract the attention of the barkeep.
DARK HOURS, DARK DEEDS
‘Father Zeke! Father Zeke!’
Zeke jolted awake to a hammering on the door, and his name being shouted repeatedly. He groaned and rolled off the pallet, fumbling for his clothes. There was the beginnings of a headache behind his eyes, the sort he’d had many a time in the mornings over the years he’d lived with Vorn and Ava.
‘What is it?’ he shouted back. Behind him, he heard a rustle of fabric as Alin Choll rolled over beneath the blanket. So much for being well-rested.
‘We’ve caught one of Father Infernus’ men!’
Zeke gaped stupidly at the floor for a moment in sheer shock, then threw his tunic on over his head and crossed the floor to the door. He reached out, drew back the sturdy bolt that held it shut, and hauled it open with his heart already hammering.
‘How do you kn–’
The knife came at him at eye height.
It was a stupid, amateurish move, really. Had the attacker aimed for his centre mass, for stomach or chest, there was no way Zeke would have been alert enough to twist his body to avoid it. However, even in the half-daze of the newly woken, even when a bit hungover, Zeke’s reflexes kicked in the moment something flashed towards his face. He swayed backwards and sideways with a curse, and the blade did nothing more than score a line down his cheek, but his fingers slipped off the door and he fell backwards to the floor.
The attackers piled in.
Three of them, each with a knife in their hand, in a messy, disorganised rush that saw them getting in each other’s way as they attempted to converge on him. Zeke cried out wordlessly in panic and his flailing right hand caught the leg of a stool, which he threw at them. It caught the one nearest the door in the knees and he collapsed with a curse as his legs were knocked out from under him. The one next to him stumbled as his companion fell. The third stepped forward, raising the blade that was clutched point-downwards in his fist, ready to launch himself on top of Zeke and plunge the knife into his chest.
The shot of a silenced stub gun rang out. It was almost painfully loud, despite the muffling effect of the gunshroud, in the close confines between the bedroom’s walls. The man with the raised blade collapsed as part of his skull was blown away. The man next to him reacted not with shock, but with instant aggression and fury; he turned and lunged for the bed, where Alin Choll’s pale, long-limbed form was aiming their weapon at the attackers. The next shot went upwards into the ceiling as the intruder collided with Alin a split-second before they could pull the trigger again.
The remaining intruder freed himself from the stool that had entangled his legs and launched himself at Zeke, just as Zeke was starting to get up again.
Zeke threw up his left arm to block the knife, and his forearm collided with the man’s wrist as the man’s weight landed on him. The knife tumbled from the attacker’s fingers and nicked Zeke’s forehead as it fell, but Zeke’s injured bicep screamed out in protest at the impact, and his arm collapsed a moment later. The man slumped down but reached out to grab the knife he’d dropped, now lying on the floor by Zeke’s head. Zeke reached up towards his own head with his left hand to grip his enemy’s wrist, trying at the very least to prevent the man from being able to wield the knife, even if he got hold of it.
The man posted on his right hand, his fingers still trying to wrap around the knife handle, and threw a punch at Zeke’s head with his left. Zeke managed to jerk his head sideways, but still suffered a glancing blow. He felt his ear tear, immediately followed by the dull crack of the man’s unprotected knuckles striking the floor. The man yelped in pain, and Zeke drove his knee up between his attacker’s legs. He was rewarded with a gut-deep groan of agony, and a sudden shaking in the man’s limbs.
Zeke threw his weight to his right, and rolled. His enemy, still partially paralysed by Zeke’s last blow, was unable to resist, and Zeke ended up on top of him. The man had hold of the knife, but now his wrist was pinned down by Zeke’s left hand. Zeke grabbed the man’s left hand with his right and managed to pull it down towards the attacker’s hip, then brought his right knee forwards to kneel on it. The man clumsily tried to turn the knife in his hand in an attempt to cut at Zeke’s wrist, but Zeke began hammering at his face, sweeping downward strikes that hit with the heel of his hand. After half a dozen of those, he reached out and plucked the knife from the man’s now largely-unresisting hand. Blood from his torn ear dripped down and fell onto his attacker’s face, mingling with the red fluid now leaking from the man’s broken nose.
‘Hell awaits you, sinner!’ the man spat up at him.
‘I’ll see you there,’ Zeke snarled back, ‘and you tell them who sent you!’
He plunged the knife into the right side of the man’s neck, then wrenched it out again to loose a torrent of blood that pumped out and soaked his left hand, which still pinned the man’s right wrist to the floor. He withdrew his hand and shook the worst of the blood off, then, as anger caught up with and overtook the survival instinct on which he’d been fighting so far, he buried the knife in the other side of the man’s neck for good measure. His attacker, who’d clamped his right hand to the side of his neck in a desperate and futile attempt to stem the flow of blood, shuddered and went still. Zeke spat on him.
‘Zeke?’
The voice was strained but familiar, and Zeke’s tunnel vision faded enough for him to look up. When he did so, he saw Alin Choll clinging to the back of the third man, their long limbs wrapped around him and one arm underneath his jaw in an attempted choke. Both of the man’s hands were digging into Alin’s forearm, trying to lever it down enough to allow the flow of blood to their brain to continue, and Alin’s teeth were bared in effort as they tried to clamp the choke hold tight.
Zeke lunged for Alin’s stub gun, which lay on the floor where it must have been dropped during their struggle, gripped it by the long barrel, and swung it at the last attacker’s head like a bludgeon. The force of the impact might not have knocked him out, but it loosened his grip enough for Alin to finally get their arm locked in. Zeke grabbed the attacker’s hands and held onto them as Alin squeezed tighter, and within a few seconds the man’s eyes rolled back into his head and he went limp. Alin held on for a few seconds more, then shoved the unconscious body away from them onto the floor, and collapsed backwards onto the bed with a gasp, their ribs heaving with the aftermath of strenuous exertion. Now they weren’t pressed up against their attacker’s back, Zeke could see smears of red blood on their pale skin, oozing from a slash wound across their chest, and guilt gripped him at how he’d got so caught up with his own attacker that he’d forgotten his friend was fighting their own battle. ‘You’re hurt!’
‘It’s not deep,’ Alin replied, touching the edge of their wound with a finger and wincing. ‘Merely sore. He didn’t know knives.’ They rolled over to look down at the man they’d just choked. ‘We should secure him. He’ll come round at any moment.’
Zeke looked around, then picked up his cloth mask and grabbed it in both hands, ready to tear it into strips.
‘Wait.’
Alin leaned, and withdrew something from one of the myriad pockets within their greatcoat. They threw it to Zeke, with a metallic clink: magnacles, narrow but strong, such as might be carried by the Palatine Enforcers.
Zeke turned them over in his hand. ‘Do I want to know?’
‘I have led an interesting and varied life,’ Alin told him. ‘One which has encouraged me to be prepared for many eventualities, yes?’
‘Fair enough.’ Zeke knelt down, hauled the attacker’s hands up behind his back and began to cuff him. He was a large man, fleshy but with what felt like muscle beneath it, and it must have been touch and go for Alin to get the better of him. ‘Do you recognise any of these men?’
Alin pushed themselves back up into a sitting position with a hiss of pain. ‘I do not. Locals?’
‘Most likely,’ Zeke nodded. ‘And probably followers of Father Infernus. I don’t know of anyone else who’d be shouting about hell while trying to kill me.’
‘You believe he knows of our pursuit?’ Alin asked, sounding slightly uneasy. Zeke shook his head.
‘I doubt it. But I can’t see all of our lot keeping their mouths shut about who we are and what we’re doing, especially not with the amount everyone was drinking last night. If Infernus had any followers or sympathisers in this town, they won’t have had to work hard to hear the news. Trust me – I know how likely that sort are to take things into their own hands.’
There was the sound of running feet on the stairs. Zeke snatched up Alin’s stub gun from where he’d set it down to cuff the attacker, and took aim at the door. The rustle of fabric and the click of a safety from behind him told him that Alin had grabbed Zeke’s gunbelt and drawn one of his autopistols.
‘Father Zeke?’
Zeke recognised Annie Three-Teeth’s voice a moment before she stumbled into view, and lowered his gun. She stopped in the doorway and stared in alarm, although he wasn’t immediately sure whether it was the guns or the bodies that had startled her more.
‘I heard gunshots…’ she managed weakly, her eyes flicking from the corpses, to Zeke, to the blood, to the captive, to Alin Choll, and then back again.
‘It seems not everyone in this town approves of our presence,’ Zeke told her, standing up and nudging the bound man with his foot. The man chose that moment to come around with a gasp and a truncated thrash, and Annie’s expression hardened back into something more familiar.
‘Right then,’ she said, apparently getting a grip on herself. ‘We’d best take this one away, and find out if these three have any friends, hadn’t we?’
PRESSURE, CORRECTLY APPLIED
‘This is not ideal,’ Alin said, pulling on their dark, shimmering vest of mesh armour. Two of Korvra’s Goliaths had come to haul the struggling, bellowing, would-be assassin away, while two of Markur’s had disposed of the bodies. Zeke had shut the room’s door again to give Alin and him a few moments of peace while they got dressed properly.
‘You’re telling me,’ Zeke grunted, settling his ridiculous cloth mask into place. His heart was still pounding, and his hands were shaking. ‘If they had any sense, they wouldn’t have all come after me. Someone would have gone to alert this fake Infernus, and the last thing we need is for that bastard to realise we’re chasing him.’
‘I meant, being woken up. I was having a very pleasant dream, no?’
Zeke paused and looked sideways at them.
‘And also the prospect of Infernus being alerted to our pursuit,’ Alin acknowledged a moment later. ‘Still, perhaps this captive may provide useful information, yes?’
‘Perhaps,’ Zeke grunted, finally getting his other boot on. ‘But don’t forget, I know these people. I know how they think. We used to say that our faith was our shield, and it was. There’s a… an adamantium certainty that can see you through the greatest trials, the greatest hardships. If he’s truly one of Infernus’ believers, he won’t break easily.’
‘We shall see,’ Alin said. They picked up their greatcoat and swirled it into place about them, then set to buckling and fastening it. ‘We shall see. Even the strongest will can buckle to the right pressure, when correctly applied.’
A small group was waiting in the bar: two of the Soot Devils, Annie Three-Teeth, and Varan Duskett. Zeke blinked in surprise; he’d forgotten the lad from Deadwired was still with them, and in fact was quite surprised that he hadn’t slunk off to stay in Sternhold. That’s what Zeke would have done, in his place.
