08 A Little Hatred: Book One (The Age of Madness)

Leo saw his mother, tears in her eyes and a hand over her mouth. He saw the Dogman, caught halfway between sitting and standing with a disbelieving grin. He saw Rikke, stood up from the bench between them, her hands over her face, one eye gleaming between her fingers.

‘Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!’

Leo took a long, cold breath, lifted Barniva’s sword and Stour’s, the growl in his raw throat growing to a throbbing roar as he brought them both stabbing down with a single thud.

Right into the turf on either side of the Great Wolf’s cringing face.

‘Stour Nightfall,’ he mumbled. Even speaking was a mighty effort then, each word a great stone to lift. ‘I spare … your life.’

Dizzy as hell, and he dropped on one knee. Down in the Circle of turf damp with dew, damp with his own blood.

‘Bit dizzy,’ he said, and flopped over sideways.

Best lie down.

The Poor Pay the Price

‘Amnesty,’ said Malmer. ‘We give up our arms. We give up our hostages. We all go free.’

Silence, while everyone thought over what that meant. It was a lot more than they’d expected that morning, maybe. But so much less than they’d dreamed of a few weeks before.

It was a sorry little meeting, in a looted warehouse with a chill breeze blowing through the broken doors. Fifteen Breakers, each in charge of a different district of Valbeck. As far as anyone was in charge of the chaotic warren of garbage the city had been reduced to. The gaunt and grim who’d stayed to the bitter end. They would’ve liked to call themselves the most loyal, but maybe they were just the ones with most to lose.

Broad took a breath. He should never have got involved. He’d known it then and he knew it now. But he’d told himself things might change. Smashed his face against the wall again, sure that this time it wouldn’t hurt. For all his promises to be a new man, somehow he always made the same wrong choices.

‘Full pardons?’ asked a woman with a pinched-in grey face.

Heron nodded, though he didn’t look all that convinced. ‘So His Highness tells us.’

‘What did that bastard Pike have to say?’ asked Sarlby.

‘He didn’t like it,’ said Vick. ‘But he didn’t disagree.’

‘You trust Orso?’ asked Broad.

‘Best never to make a decision based on trust,’ said Vick, like trust was some fantastic beast only children believed in. ‘Just on what’s best for most.’

Malmer gave a sigh that sounded like it rose from the very dregs of a well of weariness. ‘Coming to something, when revolutionaries pin their hopes on the crown prince. He seems decent enough, though, considering. Far better than expected.’

‘Expectations could hardly have been lower,’ said Vick, frowning, as always. She’d some frown on her, that woman.

Malmer gave a helpless shrug. ‘Guess I trust him more than most of the royal family. But then, I trusted Risinau. Look where that got us.’

‘Truth is, we’ve no choice,’ said Heron. ‘We’re out of food. We didn’t do this to starve our own people.’

‘Sometimes I wonder why we did do it.’

Couple of months ago at those big meetings, folk would’ve fallen over themselves to list all the wrongs they’d die to put right. Now no one offered Malmer a reason. The causes had turned hazy, lately. Like far-off chimneys through the vapours, you could hardly tell if they were there or just a trick of your mind.

‘Then that’s it, I reckon,’ said Malmer. ‘Send word to everyone who’s still listening. We pull down the barricades. We open the city. We surrender.’

One by one, the others nodded their agreement. Mournful, like that nod cost a little piece of themselves. But no one could see another way. The uprising was done.

‘Sticks in my gullet,’ said Sarlby, ‘giving up.’

Broad clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Be thankful you’ve got something in your gullet.’

There was still a tang of old burning on the air outside. Of old burning and new rot. Ashes blew down the street, settling on the rubbish like little drifts of black snow. Not far off stood the shell of a gutted mill, blackened rafters sticking naked into the pale sky, blackened windows gaping empty.

‘And this was supposed to be our Great Change.’ Malmer slowly shook his white head. Broad could’ve sworn he’d turned whiter the last few days. ‘What a fucking disaster.’

‘I’m not crying for those owners lost their mills,’ snapped Sarlby. ‘I can tell you that.’

‘What about the jobs in those mills?’ asked Vick. ‘Daresay the rich folk whose investments went up in smoke will muddle through. What about the poor folk lost their livings?’

‘Thought we were doing good,’ said Malmer, worn face crunched up with wrinkled disbelief. ‘Sure we were doing good.’

‘Good and bad aren’t as easy to tell apart as you’d think,’ said Vick. ‘Mostly it’s a matter of where you look at ’em from.’

‘That’s the sorry truth,’ grunted Broad.

Malmer frowned towards that burned-out shell. ‘It’s the poor pay the price, again.’