City of Lies - Lian Tanner [52]
It was a ridiculously feeble weapon for the circumstances, he knew that. Without Broo, he would have been dead within seconds. The brizzlehound threw himself into the path of the charging slommerkin, and the two of them disappeared in a whirl of teeth and tusks.
The sound of their battle was appalling, and it was almost impossible to see what was happening. At first Sinew thought Broo had the upper hand. He saw the brizzlehound fasten his great teeth into the slommerkin’s neck and heard a squeal of pain. But Forgotten Dreams was a room where things slipped away before you could grasp them, and the next thing he saw was the slommerkin gripping Broo’s neck, as if it had been that way all along. Then that too was gone.
He closed his eyes, knowing he could not trust them, and bent his head to his harp. His fingers ripped at the strings, trying to slide the notes of the First Song in between those awful tusks to wherever the slommerkin kept its brain.
He did not know how long he played. Once he opened his eyes and noticed, with surprise, that his fingers were bleeding. He caught a glimpse of the slommerkin and Broo, tearing at each other’s blood-soaked bodies. He thought of Goldie and Toadspit and Bonnie, and knew that, wherever they were, they too must be fighting for their lives.
He closed his eyes again and played more furiously than ever.
Goldie’s feet were numb with cold and she was shivering uncontrollably. The water, pouring into the tunnel from a dozen small pipes, had already reached her knees. She thought that sunrise must be very close.
Her fault. It was all her fault.…
Toadspit was alive but unconscious. In the confusion after the shooting, the other children had managed to drag him back up the tunnel to the corner. Goldie had pressed a clump of spiderwebs against the side of his head until the bullet wound stopped bleeding, then made a bandage from the sleeve of Bonnie’s blouse.
Now she held him more or less upright, propped against the wall, with Mouse and Bonnie clinging to the bricks beside him. The cat crouched on the ledge, its eyes huge and dark, its tattered ears flat against its skull. Goldie wondered if it could swim. Maybe it would be able to save itself, once she and her friends were dead.
Perhaps the mice would swim away too, when they could no longer help their boy. But for now they fussed quietly over him, like a dozen tiny mothers, rubbing their whiskers against his face and cleaning whichever parts of him they could reach.
Goldie had never in her life felt so heartsick. If it weren’t for her, Toadspit and Bonnie would be on their way home, and Mouse would still be telling fortunes in the Spice Market. But now …
Bonnie was trying hard not to cry. Goldie put her arm around the younger girl. “I’m s-sorry,” she said. The shivering made her voice waver. She felt terribly tired. Perhaps in a little while she would lie down and go to sleep.
“Wh-what for?” said Bonnie.
“If I’d l-left you there, none of this would’ve h-happened. It’s m-my fault.”
Mouse tapped her on the arm, and pointed miserably at his own small chest, then at the rock pile. My fault, he seemed to say.
Bonnie screwed up her nose. “Don’t be s-stupid,” she said through chattering teeth. “You’re both s-stupid.”
“But it is my f-fault—” began Goldie.
“In that c-case,” said Bonnie, “it’s m-m-my fault too. I’m the one who made too much noise outside the s-s-stables. If I hadn’t d-done that we probably would have g-got away.”
Her voice rose. “But I’m n-not the one who shot my b-b-brother. I’m n-not the one who’s trying to d-drown us. And neither are you.” She was shouting now, her high voice bouncing off the tunnel walls. “It’s their fault.” She pointed furiously toward the gate. “I h-h-hate them! And when we g-get out of here I’m going to t-teach them a lesson!”
There was a laugh from the stairs outside. The water crept upward, as cold and remorseless as their captors’ hearts. Goldie whispered, “Bonnie, I—I don’t think we w-will get out of—”
“Don’t say that. We w-will.