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1
Lying alone in the musty gap between two shacks, Scab rubbed at his bread-filled stomach. It felt like it might pop. He’d heard people say the last day of harvest was coming up, which meant it was a year since his cousin Peter died and about eight years since the death of his mother.
As he scratched the dirt from his shirt, he wondered whether they’d still be alive if they hadn’t been whores. Then they might not have got the disease.
All he remembered about Peter was his bloody death. Not any of the fun stuff or the times Peter taught him things. Just blood. But at least he remembered Peter’s face. He knew nothing about his mother.
He heard a faint crunch in the dry dirt.
“Little boy,” a man whispered from the dark alleyway.
Scab tried to shuffle further into the gap, but the man grabbed him by the hair. “What you got for me?” The smell of his rotten breath filled the air.
“Nuffin,” Scab said. “I got nuffin.”
Scab wriggled hard as the man dragged him into the alleyway.
“You’ve got summink,” the man said. “Now give it me.”
Spittle hit Scab’s face. His chest tightened as he realised a Wretch had him. One of the boy-lovers that stalked the Spring. “Please, sir.”
“Haha! I ain’t no sir.” The Wretch patted Scab’s pockets and waist. “You’re a skinny one, ain’t ya?”
As the Wretch squinted at the gap he’d dragged him from, Scab made a fist as tight as he could, then punched him in the throat. Just as Peter had taught him.
The Wretch staggered back and coughed hard.
Scab scrambled in the dirt, but a hard kick to the stomach collapsed him. He heaved once, then puked up warm, white bread sludge.
The Wretch let out a disgusted cry. “You’ve got that fucking disease, you little fucker.” Then he kicked Scab again and ran into the darkness.
Scab moaned and spat out soggy lumps. Great. The first thing he’d eaten for two days, now a steaming puddle in the dirt.
“You can’t stay ’round ’ere if you’re gonna be causing all this trouble,” a woman called through a shack wall. Just great.
Scab rose to a hunch, an arm across his belly, and looked into the gap he’d called home. Nuffin good ever happened here anyway. I ain’t even got no bed. I’ll find a place with a bed, and I won’t have to hear this cow shouting at her kids every night neither.
“You go on ’fore I wake my ’usband,” the woman said.
“I’m goin’,” he shouted, then walked into the night.
The stolen rags Silas wore as a disguise smelled of piss and sweat, a common trait among the population of Talon’s shanty district, North Spring, known locally as Sinners’ Spring. The spring itself was possibly the last place in the country you’d ever want to drink from, maybe even the world.
Silas shivered. Bastard weather. Talon, the Grey City – nicknamed so due to every wall and building being rendered uniform – was usually swelteringly hot year-round, but not tonight.
Silas waited for his target outside an illegal drink house in the vendor district. Errol Tibbit, rapist and paedophile, was taking far longer than expected to emerge.
Night had become day to illuminate Talon’s rough exterior. Cracks ran across most buildings and several sported ghastly scars of brownish brickwork where slabs of render had fallen away. Repaired sections, more black than grey, didn’t give off the vibe that Winharm’s capital city was striving for.
Talon was amidst a power struggle: coastal cities with superior access to trade were growing fast, while life in the central Yelden Valley became increasingly bleak.
In an attempt to gain favour from his subjects, King Rupert had ordered the construction of the huge wooden compound adjacent to North Spring for the housing and segregation of Wenches Wane victims. While the idea was admirable, combined with a struggling economy, the influx of Wane sufferers from far and wide had the Talon citizens on the cusp of upheaval.
According to the Shadows, whom Silas served, the assignment would be a quick in and out. Nothing was ever as simple as they suggested. Tibbit had arrived much later than expected, then stayed inside for hours. For all Silas knew, the bastard could be fast asleep.
The morning streets steadily filled with market traders setting up their stalls, and it wouldn’t be long before the shoppers arrived. Just as Silas settled on the decision to return tomorrow, Tibbit stumbled from the doorway. Drunk as a monk, or whatever the saying is.
