7
Fume
The Night Train
hulked its way sluggishly out of Morvane’s station, puffing heavily
through the snow and grunting along a wide curve that took it
through a gated arch in the town’s eastern wall and out into the
open country. Wandering animals fled before it as the great train
gathered speed, dragging itself south with a fresh load of human
cargo, slicing its way towards the distant city of
Fume.
Kate was the only
prisoner in her section of the train, but she was not on her own.
Silas spent the entire journey watching her, his grey eyes gleaming
almost white in the half-light. Just having him near her made Kate
feel colder, and even when she shuffled around so she could not see
him, she could still feel him looking at her. Snow blew in through
the open roof and she buried herself deeper in the blanket, trying
to concentrate on keeping warm.
The train rumbled for
hours through the overgrown fields and hills of the wild counties,
where wolves howled through black forests and stalked the
riverbanks out on their nightly hunt. Towns held their breath as
the train smoked through them, and the glow of distant fires
flickered around the base of the eastern hills, where the residents
of smaller villages kept watch, making sure the train passed them
by.
The people of Albion
had not always lived this way. The seas dividing the island country
from its cousins had once been filled with huge-sailed trading
ships carrying goods like wool, fruit and wood to the Continent and
bringing fine cheeses, oils, horses and lotions back in return.
Trade flourished. Towns grew. The wild counties were veined with
roads and walking trails, and journeys between towns were
commonplace. Wardens had not worn robes back then and they had not
been feared. They had been trusted men - the towns’ defenders -
tasked with keeping wolves from the town gates and guarding the
people who travelled across the wild counties in
between.
The country had been
great once. Its vast towns and grand architecture were the envy of
every other country on the Continent, but while the fighting of a
war had not made life any easier, the rot had begun to sink in long
before war had been declared.
For more than a
thousand years, Albion had been ruled by the governing High
Council. Thirteen members - usually men - who had all shown
distinction in many different areas of public service. Being chosen
to wear one of the High Council’s robes of office was the ultimate
honour, giving them a coveted place of responsibility at the very
head of Albion society as lawmakers and defenders of the country’s
history and its people. The system ensured that only people who had
proved their commitment to bettering Albion were put in charge of
the decisions that would shape its history and, at first, it
worked, but it took time for ordinary people to recognise its one
fatal flaw.
The power attached to
being a member of the High Council lasted until death. Only then
could a new councilman take an old one’s place - and some people
did not like to wait. Those who had learned they were next in line
soon began to take chances, often going so far as employing
assassins to speed up their ascension to the council’s chambers,
and those who were ruthless in their acquisition of power proved no
less ruthless in their wielding of it. Under their influence the
focus of the High Council gradually began to shift and corruption
spread like poison through the halls of the old ruling
city.
Council members who
resisted the greed of the others had a tendency to disappear,
leaving their seat open for new blood more willing to accept
changes in how things were done. Soon personal wealth meant more
than anything else in the selection of new council members. The
welfare of Albion fell secondary to the greed and personal gain of
those in charge of its laws and council seats began to be handed
down through bloodlines, offered to people who could pay their way
into power, or presented only to those whom the existing councilmen
knew they could trust. Shaped by such grasping and devious hands,
Albion soon began to suffer.
No one really knew
when the first change came. There was no single moment, no sudden
day when everything was different. Darkness crept slowly over
Albion. The High Council became more secretive, the wardens
gradually drew back from the wild counties and, without their
protection to rely upon, travel between the towns became dangerous.
People began to go missing on the roads and many chose to stay
within their own walls, letting nature creep in around them rather
than setting out to brave the world alone.
Within fifty years of
the wardens’ retreat the councilmen had become suspicious of their
neighbours and wary of their own people. They were rarely seen
outside their chambers. They recruited the wardens as their
protectors and enforcers, called back the trading ships and put
them to work patrolling Albion’s borders instead. Within a hundred
years, the towns had become completely isolated, their people
linked by only two things: the High Council’s laws and the night
train’s tracks.
At that time, the
High Council’s ruling city was a small town that lived within
tempting sight of Fume’s impressive towered skyline. The councilmen
could no longer stand to see the greatest buildings of past ages
being wasted on the dead, so with the help of their wardens, they
took Fume for themselves, driving out the bonemen and killing any
who dared to challenge the council’s claim. The night train was
left to rust in its station. Towns were forced to bury their dead
in open spaces that had once been parks or greens or gardens. Life
gave way to death all across Albion and nothing was ever the same
again.
Within the protective
walls of Fume, the councilmen led privileged lives, demanding more
obedience from their people whilst offering them less and less in
return, and when war came, the people accepted it without question,
knowing they could do nothing else. No official reason for the
conflict was given. Many speculated that Albion’s broken trade
agreements were to blame, but no one really knew for sure and the
High Council saw no reason to tell them. People were simply
expected to do their duty: to live quiet lives and to fight when
they were ordered.
Albion had become a
place of suspicion, doubt and lies. The war dragged on, communities
were torn apart by the wardens’ harvests, and living beneath the
shadow of an unknown war eventually became an accepted way of life.
Years passed and soon there was no one left alive to remember that
life had been any different.
The people of Albion
did not often like to talk about the way things had once been and
Kate was just the same. Artemis had raised her to concentrate only
upon what was there, right in front of her eyes. There was nothing
to be gained from looking back, he always said; nothing except
regret. But sitting in that train, listening to the creaking of her
cage chains, Kate could not prevent her thoughts from turning to
her own past and her memories of the place she was leaving
behind.
She remembered the
smell of her mother’s oil paints and her father’s laugh as he
worked alongside Artemis in the bookshop and she knew that, despite
everything that was going on around them, her family had been happy
once. Now they were gone, Artemis was missing and their precious
bookshop was nothing but a burning shell. Kate hugged her knees up
to her chest. There was no doubt that Albion was dying, but it
seemed that her little part of it was dying more quickly than the
rest.
The clouds slowly
changed from night-time grey to patchy indigo, then pale violet and
pink as the sun began to rise over the eastern hills. Kate’s body
ached with cold and her eyelids were starting to become heavy when
she eventually heard the swooshing sound of stone arches passing
overhead. The Night Train’s brakes engaged, sending a loud squeal
screeching up from the hot wheels, and Kate sat up, knowing that
the sound could only mean one thing.
They had
arrived.
Fume was Albion’s
most fortified city, separated from the rest of the world by high
outer walls and a wide river that had been diverted to circle it
like a moat. Rows of empty stables stood along those walls, where
travellers’ horses had been kept before war with the Continent had
been declared, and dozens of wardens stood guard along the city’s
perimeter and at the great black gates, ready to question anyone
who wanted to pass through. But Kate could not see any of that
herself. All she saw were more arches passing above her as the
train slowed down, sweeping around a wide curve of
track.
‘Hold on to
something,’ said Silas, still standing beside her.
‘Now.’
Kate grabbed hold of
the bars just before the cage swung hard and the entire carriage
tilted forward, descending into a sloping tunnel that carried the
train underground. They were gaining speed, darkness swamped the
carriage and the horn sounded again, echoing deafeningly from the
walls as they swallowed the train down. After that there was only
the smell of smoke and choking heat as the lanterns flickered
out.
The walls hugged
dangerously close to the carriages and the ceiling was just high
enough to allow the engine’s chimney to pass through. Kate’s eyes
stung in the hot smoke as the train rolled deeper underground,
beneath the river, beneath the city walls and down towards the
oldest foundations of the city. The screams of the prisoners
sounded distant and unearthly. The train shivered so violently it
felt like it could fall apart at any moment and still the tunnel
continued curling down. Metal ground against metal, the brakes
squealed and the train slowed. Then the tunnel widened, soft
firelight spread from a red-bricked ceiling hung with lanterns and
the mighty engine rumbled along the last few feet before coming to
a final bone-juddering stop.
The wardens wasted no
time. The sound of sliding doors shook through the train and raised
voices carried through the air. But they were not prisoners’ voices
Kate could hear. They were loud, confident, and they were all
shouting at once. Silas threw open the carriage door and what Kate
saw beyond it was as unexpected as it was terrifying.
The train had stopped
at a station built into a cavern of earth that looked like it was
being held up by buildings from the past. The damp walls were a
mass of stone pillars, half ruined walls, statues, doorways and
arches positioned in places no one would ever be able to use them.
Some jutted out at odd angles halfway up the sides of the cavern,
half buried in the mud, and others were squashed on top of each
other like layers in a cake. It looked like someone had taken
chunks of broken buildings and pushed them into the cavern walls,
letting them sink in before the earth had hardened permanently
around them.
Outside the train was
a wide stone platform divided in two by a high wooden fence. The
right-hand side was for the wardens and prisoners being taken off
the train and the left side was filled with people shouting at
them, waving pouches of coins and craning their necks to get a good
look inside the carriages before anyone was brought
out.
‘Tailors!’ shouted a
woman, her shrill voice carrying above the rest. ‘I’ll pay five
gold for a seasoned stitcher, two for an apprentice.’
‘Housekeepers!’
barked a man beside her. ‘Four gold apiece for a strong woman and
boy!’
‘Dancers!’
‘Builders!’
‘Bakers!’
‘Servants!’
And so it went on. A
rage of voices, all desperate to buy the prisoners like they would
buy animals at a market. Offers were made, bids were argued and
increased, and all the while cages were wheeled out of the
carriages and the people of Morvane were fed into the belly of Fume
one by one.
No daylight poured in
to brighten the station. More braziers spat and hissed along the
ceiling, arranged in line like a fiery spine, and there were two
torch-lit exits to the left of the platform: one for the crowd and
one with a fenced path leading to it from the prisoners’
side.
Kate pressed her back
against her bars, trying to stay out of the crowd’s sight, but not
before she had spotted something else waiting on the opposite side
of the platform. A second train, sitting on a parallel track. Kate
had never heard of a second train existing in Albion. Its engine
was barely half the size of the Night Train. It looked newer and
more carefully pieced together, with carriages built like huge
metal crates, its doors barred and its livery shining a deep dark
red.
Most of the male
prisoners were not for sale, and they were pulled straight on to
the red train to the groans and disappointed shouts of the
onlooking crowd. Kate watched as a small group of pickpockets were
allowed to squeeze in through a gate and snatch whatever they
wanted from the prisoners being taken on board. Cloaks, shoes,
coins, anything that could be grabbed through the cage bars was
taken, but the thieves paid a price for what they took. Not one of
them skulked back into the crowd without a bruise, a broken finger
or at least a dazed look in their eyes once Morvane’s men were
through with them.
Kate looked for
Artemis among the steady stream of people being wheeled across the
platform, but there was no sign of him.
‘Wait here,’ said
Silas, walking to the doorway and kicking the three steps down on
to the platform. ‘I will come back for you.’
Silas stepped off the
train into full view of the crowd, and the effect his presence had
upon the people was incredible. All shouting stopped at once. The
station fell silent as he swept his eyes around it, scrutinising
every face, every movement and every breath taken around
him.
Kate could almost
feel his concentration. She could sense dominance emanating from
him without him even saying a word. He was completely in control of
every person in that station. Not one of them would dare to defy
him. Fume was his city. His territory. In that place he was not
just another face among many enemies. He was known and feared for
reasons far beyond the reach of any ordinary warden. No one looked
at him directly, careful not to attract his attention, and the air
hung with the anticipation of his words. When at last he did speak,
it was to give one simple instruction. ‘Carry on.’
With Silas’s
blessing, the crowd burst into life again. The frenzied bidding
continued, the station was a mass of ordered chaos and then one
bidder’s shout stood out above the rest.
‘Scholars.
Historians. Booksellers! Paying a high price!’
‘If you’re not
interested in this batch then keep your mouth shut,’ growled a
warden, glaring at a small man who was waving a hat in the middle
of the crowd. ‘Wait your turn.’
Three more cages
rolled by before the man called out again. ‘I represent a member of
the High Council! I must be heard. Scholars! Historians!
Booksellers! Name your price.’
That got the wardens’
attention.
Orders were passed
along the platform. There was a burst of activity further down the
train, and a cage was lifted out before its turn.
‘All right then. One
bookseller. The only one we have. He’ll do.’
Kate moved around her
cage, trying to get a better look. There was only one bookshop in
Morvane and, as far as she knew, Edgar had not been captured by the
wardens. The only bookseller on that train had to be
Artemis.
‘Does he know his
trade?’ asked the buyer. ‘My mistress demands someone skilled in
history and literature. Nothing less.’
‘He’s all we’ve got.
Either take him, or clear off.’
The buyer pushed his
way to the front of the crowd, money changed hands and the warden
gave another signal to his men. A cage was pulled forward by two
brown horses and there, sitting inside it on his own, was Artemis,
looking pale and sickly in the firelight. The man inspected him
briefly - ‘He’ll do’ - then Artemis was rolled off towards the
prisoners’ exit tunnel and Kate could only watch helplessly as he
was taken out of sight.
‘Next!’ bellowed the
warden, pocketing the fat coin pouch.
She had to do
something. She had to get out!
Kate was struggling
to break her lock when a shout carried along the platform, a sound
like a screaming cat ripped through the air and green fire streaked
past the train before exploding not far away. Silas turned, his
face veiled in anger as a second streak chased the first - red this
time - with a silver sparkle right on its tail. The crowd ducked as
one and a blaze of white sparks blossomed above their heads,
accompanied by an ear-splitting bang.
Someone was setting
off fireworks in the station.
Wardens converged on
the source of the commotion and their frightened dogs struggled
against their leads as they barked and clawed the ground. Kate was
too far back to see anything clearly. More explosions burst above
the platform, a green flash erupted right above her carriage and
when she looked up she saw someone slither down through the roof,
grab on to one of the cages and drop into the dark. The hot smell
of hay and horse manure wafted Kate’s way and a very
dishevelled-looking Edgar crept over to her with hay sticking out
of his wild hair and soot from the cellar fire still clinging to
his clothes.
‘That should keep
them busy,’ he said, grinning as another rocket whizzed
overhead.
‘Edgar! What are you
doing here?’
‘Helping you. What
does it look like?’
‘How did
you—?’
‘We don’t have long.
Silas’ll find the fuses in a minute. They’ve got crates full of
those things out there.’ Edgar pulled a long black key out of his
boot and unlocked Kate’s cage. ‘I got this off a wall hook three
carriages back. I was starting to think you weren’t on board. Most
of the other prisoners are off now.’ The door swung open and he
held out his hand. ‘Let’s go then.’
‘Artemis is here,’
said Kate, as soon as she was free. ‘I saw him.’
‘I know. I saw him
too, but there isn’t time to … Hang on. Trouble.’
Kate followed Edgar’s
eyes. Silas was crossing the platform, heading right for their
carriage.
‘Quick! Climb up!’
said Edgar, holding her cage as still as he could.
Kate jumped on to the
bars and climbed them right up to the roof beams. She looked down
once she reached the top, but Edgar was gone.
‘Edgar?’
Silas’s shadow spread
across the carriage and Kate leaned back, trying to stay quiet. It
took only a moment for Silas to realise she was gone and the cages
crashed together as he began searching for her.
She had to move. She
had to get away from him.
The place Kate was
sitting was only two carriages away from the Night Train’s engine.
She skirted the roof quickly and found the top rung of a ladder
taking her right down on to the tracks.
‘You!’ Kate heard Silas’s shout in between two more
screeching bangs.
He had found
Edgar.
There was nothing she
could do. If she went back, she would be caught - and what good
would she be to anyone then? She forced herself to walk away from
the shout, down a narrow worker’s path squashed between the train
and the station wall. Soon she was right beside the hot black
engine and there were only two choices from there: down into the
tunnel, or back out on to the platform. There was no way to know
where that tunnel came out. Edgar was in trouble, and every second
she wasted carried Artemis further away. She had to risk the
platform.
With fireworks still
lighting up the air, no one noticed Kate climb up off the tracks
and squeeze through a broken panel in the side of the wooden fence.
Water dripped from the muddy ceiling like indoor rain and tickled
her head as she slipped unnoticed into the crowd, most of whom had
their arms over their heads for protection, pushing their way
towards the arched exit behind them. She was just about to follow
them, hoping to find Artemis somewhere on the other side, when
Silas dragged one final prisoner on to the platform.
Edgar limped
awkwardly into the light, squinting through a bruised eye. As soon
as some of the braver bidders saw him they started counting what
was left in their coin pouches, weighing up Edgar’s value with
eager eyes, but one look at Silas’s face showed that he was not for
sale. His eyes scoured the crowd. Kate ducked behind a tall woman
beside her and when she looked out again Silas was marching Edgar
off to the prisoners’ exit on foot. That must have meant something
serious, because the crowd suddenly became angry, squeezing forward
to glare and shout.
‘Traitor!’ spat the
woman closest to Kate. ‘You’ve earned what you’ll get,
boy.’
‘Traitor.’
‘Traitor!’
Edgar turned to look
at the heckling crowd. He was trying to put on a brave face, but
Kate could see right through it. She knew he was scared and she
pushed her way forward, determined to do something, anything to let him know she was still there and
that he was not alone. She dodged around the heaving bodies and
found herself squashed against the wooden fence as Edgar walked by.
There was only one safe way to get his attention, so she shouted
out loud with everyone else.
‘Traitor!’
Edgar looked up,
recognising her voice, and she waved to him in a small way that no
one else could see, trying to send everything she wanted to say to
him in one desperate smile. His face brightened a little when he
spotted her and sank again as Silas grabbed the back of his neck,
forcing him away.
Kate pushed back
through the people and forced her way through to the exit leading
to the city above. She climbed up a long twist of spiral steps,
hoping that the two tunnels came out at the same place, but the
narrow staircase was full of people. She tried to run, but the
steep steps and heaving bodies made it difficult to move
fast.
A burst of sunlight
met her at the very top and she found herself standing in the
middle of a busy path framed by high stone walls. There was no sign
of Edgar or Silas anywhere, so she followed a handful of people in
front of her and tried to look like she knew where she was
going.
The thin path turned
and split like a maze with rusted hand-painted signs directing
people to places like Narrow Way North, Traitor’s Gate and Sunken
Lake. Kate lost sight of her guides whilst reading one of those
signs and decided to take a chance and follow the path marked
Traitor’s Gate, hoping it would lead her to Edgar.
The way became
dirtier and quieter the further she went, until she had the feeling
that the only people who took that particular path were those who
were forced to. Then the path turned sharply and Kate froze, face
to face with a pair of wardens. They were just guards, standing
either side of a small door. There was no way they could have known
of her escape, but her terrified face must have betrayed her guilt,
because both of them drew their daggers as one. Fear overrode
everything else, and Kate ran.
The wardens gave
chase, their bootsteps closing in upon her as she raced off down
the pathway. She ran as fast as she could go, rejoining the main
flow of people and pushing her way through them, and when the path
turned sharply, she collided solidly with a small man in a tall
hat.
‘You there!’ the man
said, grabbing hold of her wrist. ‘What is your business
here?’
‘Let me go!’ Kate
struggled to free herself but the man held her tight, taking every
kick and tug as he tried to get a good look at her face. Finally
their eyes met and his face fell with shock.
‘You!’ he said.
‘You’re one of them.’
Two wardens ran up
the pathway in answer to the man‘s call, their bootsteps closing in
on Kate, gaining every moment.
‘Let me go!’
Kate tore her hands
from the man’s grip and raced off down the pathway with the wardens
close behind. She ignored the signs, knowing they couldn’t help
her, and chose turnings at random, leading her right up to a dead
end where a wooden door was sunk into the wall, bolted tight
shut.
There was nowhere
else to go. The wardens were almost upon her. She slammed the lock
to one side, heaved it open and ran through, not caring where it
was taking her. And there, topped by a wide patch of perfect blue
sky, Kate got her first true look at the grand graveyard city of
Fume.