City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [108]
So simple, so quick.
It gathered up the first victim, then lined them all up, and for a moment it did nothing but simply watch them, and sense for any reactions.
There were none.
As it was seeing to their transportation, by hauling the bodies around the corner, another figure in similar uniform came by. Savagely it lashed out at the newcomer with its jaws, ripping his torso down the middle. Blood surged across the cobbles as it nudged the corpse behind some piles of waste food.
The spider lugged the bodies one by one up to the roof, then considered the problem of carrying this extra weight. It spent a while spinning more balloons, then bound them together, like giant frogspawn.
Deep night drew across Villiren. Clouds gathered momentum, overpowering starlight. The sound of the tide lapping the harbour walls and up against Port Nostalgia. Gentle sparks of snow drifted down, bringing with them a strange sense of calm.
And as the spider ascended, it sensed that in one of the side streets below, some hybrid human wrapped in black was coughing and retching into a gutter, a silent scream on his lips. But it did not have the time to ascertain what it might be.
*
Brynd kicked the sword away and sent it skittering across the cobbles past Nelum’s feet. His lieutenant looked up startled, but at the moment Brynd didn’t care. A distance had grown between them anyway, a barrier caused by red-hot secrets and speculations.
Right now, Brynd’s concern was for what was happening out on the streets of Villiren. Already his day was ruined. Dawn was some minutes away, the horizon barely any lighter than the cityscape, and here he was, witnessing a scene where yet more soldiers had vanished. Those swords lying on the ground were imperial blades all right, the runework was there for all to see.
The man who had summoned them was a rubicund, elderly type, clothed in thick layers of ragged cloth, with a manic look in his eyes as if he was possessed.
‘Just here, right here, yes,’ the man muttered, rubbing his hands over and over again. ‘I’s asleep at first, in the refuse – nice and warm it is there – and then when I hear screams and such, and afterwards I get up and . . . like I said, at the end I wanted to be getting away from that one over there.’ His outstretched hand was directed towards a slender man standing hunched against the wall, his collar turned up, emitting tendrils of smoke from a roll-up, and there was something distinctly civilized about his appearance.
‘He responsible?’ Brynd asked.
‘Ha! Not him, like, but he can vouch for me.’
Brynd glanced at Nelum and they both stepped over to the stranger.
‘You have a name?’ Brynd demanded.
Dressed entirely in black and with traces of musk about him, the man regarded Brynd with an almost alien detachment. Although vaguely familiar, his pale face looked distinctly unhealthy, and there was something febrile about his mannerisms.
‘Dannan,’ he replied.
Suddenly the name rang a bell, and Brynd relaxed. ‘You’re the leader of a gang, aren’t you? I didn’t recognize you out here, my apologies. Could you tell me what the hell happened here?’
‘Spider,’ Dannan announced, then went on to describe the creature in terse whispers. This was a different man from the coxcomb gang leader he had seen across a table. Illness seemed to plague him now. ‘Twice as tall as a man at least.’
Brynd could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘Why were you here – some gang business?’
‘I was merely enjoying the night. Felt that something was going to happen, is all. Happens to