The Return of Daud Read online

  “Catastrophic damage to head. Increasing power to audio detection.”

  Now the Sixways Gang saw their chance. Daud counted only two men and one woman left standing, but they charged in, blackjacks swinging, easily dodging the now slow, uncoordinated movements of the blade-arms. With several well-placed blows, the machine buckled and the gangsters jumped back as the twitching creature finally folded onto the road with a crash. One of the bulbs on the front of the torso caught a cobble on the edge and shattered, and a moment later the other bulbs dimmed. The clockwork soldier twitched for a few seconds before the machine stopped moving altogether. Thick, bluish fluid—processed whale oil—began to pool out from underneath the machine, mixing with the blood of the fallen gangsters.

  The three survivors stood panting and wiped the sweat and blood from their faces. The silence on the Sixways intersection was almost palpable.

  Then came the sound once more.

  Metal on stone, rhythmic, heavy.

  Getting louder. Getting closer.

  Jack ran down the steps of the Suicide Hall and pointed. “Look!”

  Two more mechanical nightmares clattered into view, striding out of Wyrmwood Way, marching toward them with disconcerting slowness, their legs rising and falling in stiff unison, each machine lifting and re-folding their four arms in sequence, the blades snapping together, like they were marking time and drumming out a beat of death and slaughter.

  And behind the machines, Daud could see the Grand Serkonan Guard, their white helmets pulled low, each armed with a heavy pistol. It was only a small squad, eight advancing at a crouch, using the pair of clockwork soldiers in front of them as the perfect cover.

  Daud grabbed the shoulder of the nearest gangster.

  “Get out of here! Run! Now, while you can. What are you waiting for?” He turned to Jack. “Tell your men to leave. The Sixways are finished. In a few hours, the whole of the Wyrmwood district will be in flames. You can’t fight this. Look at them!”

  He gestured to the oncoming enemy. One hundred yards and closing.

  Then the gangster Daud had spoken to turned around. She jerked her head to one side.

  “Get her away from here.”

  Jack shook her head. “I stay with my family. They die, I die.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Daud, “but I can’t let that happen. You have information I need. And I’m not going to let you die before I get it.”

  The gangster waved at them. “Go! We’ll buy you time.”

  Then she made a fist and raised it. Her companions joined him, the three beginning their chant as they walked toward the approaching machines.

  “Better off dead! Better off dead!”

  Daud reached for Jack. She jerked away. “Don’t touch me.”

  “We can debate this later,” he said. He grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him. Then he reached up and pulled at the world, the Mark of the Outsider alive and electric on his hand.

  The pair rematerialized in one of the gaping empty windows of the burned-out building next to the Suicide Hall. Behind, Daud heard the last survivors of the Sixways Gang shout their chant and heard the nightmare machines chatter their emotionless assessment of the threat.

  Then Daud shifted higher, taking Jack with him, from window to window, then to the edge of the roof. The weak structure began to crumble under their combined weight. Daud felt the tiredness, his mind beginning to blur after all the exertion, but he kept going, transversing them across the street to another roof, then farther out, across the buildings, away from the Sixways and the horror of the clockwork soldiers. He didn’t know where he was going, he only knew he had to get away, somewhere safe, where he could question Eat ’Em Up Jack, perhaps finally convincing her to give up her secret. To tell him where the Twin-bladed Knife had gone.

  And as they traveled, the Mark of the Outsider glowed under his glove, the pain white hot, sapping his concentration and willpower the more he used it.

  Instead, Daud focused on the pain. He wanted to remember it like a song—every note, every nuance, so he could return it in full to the one who deserved it the most.

  The black-eyed bastard who had given him the Mark in the first place.

  9

  THE SUICIDE HALL, WYRMWOOD DISTRICT, DUNWALL

  18th Day, Month of Earth, 1852

  “Our investigations have proved conclusively that there is indeed operating within the boundaries of Gristol, a covert organization, apparently independent of any foreign political control, but possibly funded by a rogue branch of one of the governments of the Isles. The makeup of this organization is as yet unclear, although we know its agents are numerous and widespread; in Dunwall, we believe they have infiltrated all levels of society, from the aristocratic classes of the Estate District down to the street gangs which still plague certain quarters of the city.

  As to this organization’s purpose, we have yet to fully understand. But that their prime focus of attention is on the Imperial throne is a certainty, although for what purpose, we do not know.

  Investigations continue; full report to follow.”

  —ANALYSIS OF REPORTS OF COVERT FOREIGN ACTIVITIES

  Excerpt from a report commissioned by the Royal Spymaster

  “Exquisite.”

  “Absolutely exquisite.”

  A curl of blue smoke headed toward the nicotine-stained ceiling, adding to the thick fog that already filled the room.

  “Such lines, such movement.”

  “Such movement. Such exquisite movement.”

  The woman took another draw on her long, black cigarillo and held the smoke in her lungs. She savored the rich aniseed flavor, the tight buzz in her head. She kept her elbow crooked and the cigarette well away from her scarlet velvet trouser suit, and as she enjoyed the rush from the medicinal herbs wrapped in with the tobacco, she absently ran a hand over her coiffured blonde hair, held high in place by a long gold hairpin.

  And then she exhaled, long and slow. She unbuttoned the top of her black shirt. They’d been in the room for an eternity, and with the windows closed and the door shut it was getting hot, and perspiration was most certainly not good for one’s complexion.

  The man next to her was clad in opposite colors: a jet-black velvet suit, the jacket double-breasted and cinched tight, his shirt scarlet and high-collared, a black silk cravat tied in a knot so elaborate it had taken him a good half hour to get just so, as had his slicked black hair and neatly waxed moustache. He didn’t move from his position, half-sitting, half-leaning on the windowsill, arms folded tightly, his neck craned awkwardly to look down into the street below. He didn’t look comfortable, but comfort, the woman knew, was far from the point. The man was posing, for her, for the invisible audience he liked to imagine was watching their every move. Nothing he did was by chance, and his position by the window was carefully arranged to be a work of art in itself, a worthy subject for a portrait.

  The woman lifted her chin. Ah, if only there were someone here to capture this moment in oils. What would the painting be called? The Masters at Work, perhaps? She liked the simplicity of it. Of course, he would think differently. He liked the elaborate, and the ostentatious. He would suggest something like The Mistress, Her Lover, and the Blood of the Others. Garish and a little awkward, but certainly memorable.

  The woman frowned and took another long suck on her cigarillo. The Blood of Others was good. It seemed to sum up their job rather well. And it was certainly apt today, because there was a very great deal of the blood of others being spilled as the two clockwork soldiers dismantled the bodies of the last members of the Sixways Gang in the middle of the intersection far below the window.

  “Did you see the light, Mrs. Devlin?” asked the man. He ran a finger down the bridge of his nose, but didn’t turn away from the window. When he refolded his arms he pulled them even tighter than before, if that were possible.

  Mrs. Devlin wrinkled her own nose. “The light, Mr. Devlin?” Of course she hadn’t seen any light. Her hu
sband was making things up, as usual. Transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.

  Although there was no need for such exaggeration today. Because she’d seen it. They both had. Not light, as Mr. Devlin said, but something else.

  A glimpse of the numinous.

  “Such lines,” said Mr. Devlin. “He didn’t just move, he danced. Danced in the blue light, every muscle in perfect harmony, every element a beat in the music of the Void.”

  Mrs. Devlin lifted an eyebrow. “A sonnet, written in fracturing bone, my dear,” she said, but she said it cautiously. She thought back to the scene they had just witnessed. The clockwork soldiers and the demise of the Sixways Gang, although somewhat spectacular in its visceral nature, was not of the least interest to her.

  No, it was the bearded man with the hooded green jerkin that had had their attention. They had listened to the conversation between him and Jack down in the bar via the speaking tubes that were secreted throughout the Suicide Hall, but while they had gained little intelligence they didn’t already possess, the overheard discussion had at least confirmed their own suppositions.

  The bearded man—their quarry—was indeed looking for the artifact, following the rumors across the Isles, the stories that had led him to Dunwall. Stories that the Devlins had themselves heard as they had tracked their prey, keeping their distance, patiently gathering intelligence, trying not just to discover what he was doing, but to predict his next moves. That, perhaps, was the secret to their success as the greatest manhunters the Empire had ever known—their ability not just to track their quarry, but to analyze them, understand them, and to use their observations and data to make calculated predictions on decisions that had yet to be made, paths that had yet to be taken.

  Because if you got there first, the quarry would come to you.

  They had lost him after the factory, but that was but a minor inconvenience. They knew he was looking for the artifact, and they knew he knew Dunwall. Which meant his next port of call was always going to be Wyrmwood Way—the Sixways Gang. So they got here first and installed themselves in the Suicide Hall, Eat ’Em Up Jack’s cooperation ensured by some long-held but very convenient debt to their leader back in Morley.

  “Interesting, wasn’t it?” asked Mr. Devlin. He glanced at his wife, the back of one finger tapping the end of his nose. “Those abilities he possessed. The way he could disappear and reappear like that. A fascinating power.”

  Mrs. Devlin nodded. “Quite fascinating, my dear Mr. Devlin. It seems the legends were rather more factual than I supposed.”

  Mr. Devlin frowned in quiet appreciation. “Indeed, my dear Mrs. Devlin. There is nobody in all the fair Empire of the Isles that has powers like that. No bonecharm, no artifact could confer such power.”

  Mrs. Devlin smiled and drew in a mouthful of smoke. “He was remarkable, wasn’t he?”

  “Remarkable. Exquisite.”

  “Absolutely exquisite.”

  “Such skill. Such talent.”

  “Never a truer word has passed your lips, my dear Mrs. Devlin,” said Mr. Devlin as he unfolded himself from the window and brushed down his thick velvet jacket and straightened his cravat in what little reflection there was in the glass in front of him. Apparently satisfied, he turned and gave a short bow to his wife, his heels clicking together, the sound echoing off the wood-paneled walls.

  Mrs. Devlin lifted an arm, checking the red velvet of her trouser suit for ash and brushing the sleeve even though it was entirely spotless. Then she moved to her husband and laid her hand on his shoulder. Mr. Devlin sighed.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t smoke that stuff, my dearest. The smoke is so difficult to get out of one’s clothes.”

  Mrs. Devlin laughed and replaced her hand on his shoulder with her chin. “You know Wyrmwood Way is quite simply the best place to obtain this particular herb, my dearest.”

  Mr. Devlin frowned. “The delights of Dunwall know no bounds,” he said. Then he moved over to his wife, and grinning, gripped her by the waist. Mrs. Devlin rested both hands on her husband’s shoulders and hummed as they swayed their hips and danced in a slow, gentle circle in the center of the room.

  “This coup, though,” said Mrs. Devlin, stopping her humming only for her husband to take up the tune himself without missing a beat. “Dreadfully inconvenient, it must be said.”

  Mr. Devlin pursed his lips. “Perhaps, but an inconvenience that is none of our concern and most certainly not part of our assignment.”

  “Don’t you find it odd that the League had no forewarning of such an event? The organization exists to protect the imperial throne, and yet the very thing it was created to prevent manages to occur without any apparent hindrance.”

  “As I said, my dear, this is not our concern. Our services are offered to the highest bidder. Whether the League is capable or not—or whether they decide to share any intelligence they may have that lies outside the purview of our assignment—is not our problem. All that matters is that they pay us for a very particular job and that we fulfill the terms of that contract.”

  “You are, as always,” Mrs. Devlin said, “a font of wisdom and insight, my dear Mr. Devlin.”

  “Think nothing of it, my dear Mrs. Devlin.” Mr. Devlin led the dance back to the window. Down in the Sixways intersection, the clockwork soldiers now stood as still as they were able, their frames vibrating slightly, their bladed arms twitching in unison as the squad of Grand Serkonan Guards searched through the piles of dead bodies scattered across the street, overseen by a red-jacketed officer at the rear.

  Mrs. Devlin broke away from her husband and studied the scene.

  “Whether the coup is our problem or not,” she said, “I suggest, Mr. Devlin, that we return to the League at our earliest convenience and make our report.” She leaned on the windowsill and cocked her head. Down below, one of the guards was talking to the officer, and both men were now looking up at the Suicide Hall. Mrs. Devlin shrank back from the glass, in case she had been spotted. “And I suggest that moment is now,” she continued. “The soldiers appear ready to search this building.”

  Mr. Devlin joined her. “Then I do believe I agree with you, my dear.”

  “How confident are we in our projection?”

  “He will extract the information he wants. Daud is both ruthless and efficient. Jack is tough, but young. She will yield eventually, and he will be on the trail of the artifact once more.”

  “Which means he’ll go after the Collector.”

  “He most certainly will.”

  “Which means he will have to head north,” Mrs. Devlin said. “How very thoughtful of him.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Delightfully convenient.”

  Mr. Devlin clicked his heels again and held out his arm. “Shall we?”

  Mrs. Devlin took her husband’s arm and gave him a little bow. “We can go out through the cellar. Use the sewer tunnel. If we assume Dunwall is now blockaded, we should be able to get to Ranfurly before they close that dockyard.”

  Her husband crinkled his nose. “The sewer, my dear?”

  Mrs. Devlin shrugged. “Needs must, my darling heart. Needs must.”

  “In which case,” said Mr. Devlin, reaching for the cigarillo still burning in his wife’s hand, “I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

  She let him take it, and he inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs for as long as possible before exhaling. He shrugged. “I suspect we are going to smell much worse in the very near future.”

  Mrs. Devlin laughed. “Come now. We have our report to make to the League.” She turned and headed for the door.

  “They will be pleased, won’t they, Mrs. Devlin?”

  His wife looked over her shoulder. “The League?”

  “No, Wyman.”

  Mrs. Devlin smiled again. “Oh yes. Wyman will be very pleased indeed. And even more so once we present them with Daud’s head on a pike.”

  10

  YOUNG LUCY’S GRAV
E, GRISTOL

  18th to 20th Day, Month of Earth, 1852

  “Spirit of the Deep, Siren of the Dreams.

  I walked for hours along the coast, leaving Dunwall behind me until the lament of the waves drowned all other feeling. I wept, knowing you would not come to me, my love.

  You rule my dreams, where I behold with senses I do not possess in waking life the dark splendor of your home in the deep. There the ocean rests on your back like a sleeping child on his father’s shoulders.

  In these sleepless nights of despair, you appear to me not as the mighty leviathan, but as a young man, with eyes as black as the Void.”

  —SPIRIT OF THE DEEP

  Excerpt from a longer work of fiction

  Eat ’Em Up Jack led Daud silently through the night, slipping out of the barricades around Dunwall and heading into the dark countryside. They traveled swiftly and in silence, Jack not speaking until they reached the first of what Daud deduced was the Sixways’ series of safe houses and waypoints, part of their infamous smuggling route that allowed illicit treasures to vanish. Daud let Jack work as she spoke to the landlord of a forlorn, empty inn balanced on a hillside in the middle of nowhere miles to the southwest of Dunwall, keeping to the shadows while Jack and the bewhiskered landlord spoke in low voices, the landlord sometimes glancing in his direction, sometimes nodding at Jack, all the while with a stern expression on his face.

  They rested at the inn for several hours. Jack retired for some much-needed sleep just as dawn began to break. Daud stayed awake, as did the landlord, who sat in front of the door of the backroom, guarding his boss and watching Daud in silence.

  At dusk, Jack emerged. The landlord gave her provisions—enough for two, although he never spoke a word to Daud—and they left as soon as it was dark enough. The country was rough, and the sky was heavy with clouds, obscuring the moon. But it was safer than traveling during the day.

  Jack led and Daud followed. They walked through woods, across fields, through villages shut up for the night. Eventually, Jack stopped at a house and vanished inside, leaving Daud out in the deserted street. She came out a short while later and they moved on, coming to another small farming town—Fallibroome, perhaps?—where Jack spoke to a militiaman on the gates, who led the pair up onto the wall, skirting the market square before dropping down onto rocky hillside on the other side of the settlement.