Chase the Morning

None of them saw me at first; the victim slipped and fell, and they were on him. I meant to shout, but at first only a ridiculous strangulated hey! came out; in the middle it cracked and became a banshee howl. Then they noticed me, all right. And to my horror they didn’t run, but rounded on me all three. I was past turning back now; I swung the tube at the first one, and missed by a mile. He leapt at me, and in a fit of panic I just clipped his outstretched arm on the backswing. He fell with a howl, and I saw a knife fly up glittering into the air. Another feinted at me, jumped back as I swung the tube, then flung himself forward as it passed. But it was slippery enough to slide through my hands; the end poked him in the belly and stretched him on his back on the cobbles. Hardly believing what I was doing, I swung on the third – and my feet skidded from under me on the wet smooth stones, and I sat down with an agonizing jar. He loomed up, a hulking shadow against the halo of light; I glimpsed white teeth in a contorted snarl, the knife lifting and slashing down.

Then something flashed over me, feet crashed on the cobbles, and the shadow drew back. It was the man they’d been attacking, a hunched, taut figure with a shock of red-brown hair, bounding and bouncing forward, dodging the clumsy slashes the bigger man aimed at him with an ease that looked effortless. Suddenly his own arms lashed out; there was a gleam of metal and a terrible tearing sound. They whirled into the light for a moment, and I saw long slashes in the tall man’s rough coat, and blood spurting from them. I struggled up, then flinched back in fright as the darkness seemed to burst out at me; I flung out a punch, and felt a stab of agony in my upper arm. I yelled with the sudden pain, and louder with the anger that hissed up like a rocket in my head. A leering, slobbering face, greyish and sickly in the dim light, shone out suddenly in front of me, capped by a cockatoo crest of green, a mass of gold ear-rings jangling. I smashed at it with my good arm, felt the blow connect and exulted – till the rocket burst, or so it felt, and my teeth slammed together with the force of the impact. I doubled over, clutching my head, unable to see or even think straight, my mind crazed across like a mirror by the blow. I heard a yell beside me, a burst of noise and expected the worst, the sharp agony of the knife or the blunt bite of boots. But my back bumped against a wall and I straightened up, grateful for its support, and forced my eyes open in time to see the three shadows go clattering away for their lives down the street towards the sea, one limping badly, another clutching his chest; the third they were dragging between them, his feet scrabbling helplessly at the rounded stones. A black trail like a snail’s glistened where he had passed.

The man they’d been after was crouched down against the wall to my right, by the doorpost, clutching his ribs and breathing heavily. I thought at first he was injured, but he looked up and grinned. An ordinary enough grin, on a lean, mobile face. ‘Now that’s what I call timing!’ he said, and chuckled.

‘Who were they?’ I managed to croak out.

‘Them? Just Wolves, as usual. Out for anything that’s not nailed down, and a good few things that are – you know!’ He looked up suddenly. ‘Hey – you don’t know, do you? You’re not from this side of town, are you?’

I shook my head, forgetting, and dissolved the world into needles of blinding pain. I swayed, stunned and sick, and he sprang up and caught me. ‘What’s the matter? Didn’t stop one, did you? Ach … not from this side.’ The questioning in his voice had turned to certainty without any answer from me. ‘Not a local. Might’ve known, the way you came barreling in like that.’ He propped me against the doorpost and searched my scalp with blunt fingers, causing me more bouts of agony. ‘Well, that’s nothing!’ he concluded, with infuriating briskness.

‘You try it awhile and say that!’ I croaked at him, and he grinned again.

‘No offense, friend. Just relieved your dome’s not cracked, that’s all. A bump and a little blood, no sweat. But that arm of yours, that’s different.’

‘Doesn’t hurt as much –’

‘Aye, maybe; but it’s a blade in the muscle. Could be dirty, if no worse. Hold on a moment …’ The blade he himself had used to such effect flashed in his hand, and I was astonished to see it was no knife, but a fully-fledged sword, a sabre of some kind; he twitched it adroitly into a scabbard on his belt, unhooked from beside it a ring of huge old-fashioned keys and locked the warehouse door behind him with one of them, muttering to himself the while. ‘C’mon now, nothing to worry about; I’ll see you right. Just lean on your old mate Jyp – that’s it! Just round the corner a few steps – lean on me if you like!’