25

  Rufi was back in black and armed to the teeth. He had a mouthful of Madra and his red rimmed eyes trained on the docks below him. He had found a low rise building to camp out on and was carefully surveying the docks below him. One thing he knew as soon as he arrived: these docks should not have been this busy. Most of the smaller wharves and docks had died off once the Valderia Docks had been built on the southern mouth of the river. Nowadays, they were mainly used to quickly transport small shipments from the main docks up the river and into the city proper. Right now, they were teeming with frantic activity. A small barge had pulled up under the cover of night and was hastily being unloaded by half a dozen small, heavily cloaked figures. From their build, Rufi guessed they were either Human children or Gnomes. He rolled the Madra parcel around his mouth and guessed it was unlikely that prepubescent Humans had masterminded the distribution of the Bad Batch. That meant it was Gnomes, and that opened up a whole new line of nasty possibilities in Rufi’s drug spiked and sleep deprived mind.

  Was Tiko secretly in on all this? Was Yano? Was this some sort of power play by the Gnomes? Was it a faction within the Triad trying to take power by discrediting Yano? The Triad were the most secretive of all the gangs, but Rufi knew they played intensely powerful political games. Since all of their ranks were centrally assigned, the only way for one to move up was to get rid of someone else. It was a good system. It ensured only the powerful survived. But it also meant the further up the ladder of power you went, the more of a treacherous snake pit it became. There was no doubt Yano had become the Yano by being the most cunning and cutthroat of all of them.

  As Rufi watched, he noticed more crates being loaded back onto the barge. He saw lights going out in Warehouse 8. Were the Gnomes packing up? It made sense. They had killed the Dwarvish middlemen and now they were disbanding their operations. Rufi seethed silently to himself. His crew had hardly been subtle in getting the Bad Batch off the street. Word must have got back to these Gnomes, and now they were breaking down their operation and moving on. It could have been the fatigued part of Rufi’s mind, but he considered whether he should just ride in there and try to kill them all before they disappeared. After a few minutes of considering a plan, he shook the thought from his mind. Gnomes might be tiny compared to him, but they were viscous and cunning warriors. Plus, you never knew with Gnomes, they could have all manner of poisoned darts and venom tipped weapons. Just a scratch could render even a creature of Rufi’s considerable strength immobile in minutes. He also had no idea how many of them were in there. He could call for backup. But by the time the cavalry arrived, they would be long gone. Anyway, he’d made enough noise with that last job on Cameron, a second pitched battle would draw too much heat.

  Rufi spat a mouthful of green spit and settled down to watch. The Gnomes scurried back and forth frantically. More crates were loaded onto the barge and then they began to board. He counted at least thirteen of them. Good thing he decided against confronting them. The lights were all extinguished now and Rufi could barely see anything. He let his eyes acclimate to the darkness. He could just pick out the ripples of moonlight on the barge. They were going upriver? They weren’t leaving the city? So they were packing up but not disbanding their operation. Rufi thought about all the crates being loaded onto the barge. Could it have been another shipment? He had no way of knowing. He watched until the ripples disappeared, and then he waited another half an hour. They didn’t return. There was no more movement in Warehouse 8. Rufi ran his tongue around his mouth and then flicked the spent parcel out. He needed a closer look to figure out what they were up to. He pulled his scarf up over his mouth and pulled up his hood.

  Rufi slinked from the rooftop. Down the rusted ladder fire escape, a single homeless man digging around in the garbage in the alleyway looked up for a moment. He saw the hulking, all black figure, with weapons strapped to his back and hip, and then slowly turned away and practiced the most important survival skill in Valderia: minding your own business. Rufi watched him for a moment before stealing across the street, moving in and out of the shadows. For such a bulky creature, Rufi moved on silent feet. He flitted across the wharf and then paused behind the carcass of a broken barge. He listened carefully. When he was satisfied, he moved out of cover and scaled the chain link fence with a single hop. He landed and crept up the warehouse’s exterior. Hugging the shadows of the warehouse, he willed his breathing to slow down and began listening again. He couldn’t hear anything, but the nape of his neck prickled. Some sense was warning caution. He climbed a small tower of pallets and tried to look through the window of the warehouse. It was no good, the Gnomes had blacked out all the windows. He crouched down and weighed his options. They could have left a guard. They could also be returning. Knowing Gnomes, there could also be booby traps. They knew someone was looking for them so extra precautions wouldn’t be unlikely.

  Rufi tiptoed around the perimeter of the warehouse. The main loading doors to the wharf were chained shut. He went back the other way and the front door also had a heavy padlock on it. Rufi could probably pick the lock but how long would that take? And how much noise would he make doing it? If anyone were inside, he would alert them instantly to his presence. Rufi muttered a curse, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. He didn’t like this. He should just back off and call the boys. As he weighed up his options again, he looked up and noticed a ventilation duct that led to a chimney. It looked just big enough for him to fit through.

  “Fuck it,” Rufi growled.

  He climbed the tower of palettes again and reached up, jiggling the vent’s covering. The rusted grating came off in his hands. Rufi hadn’t expected it to detach so easily and almost dropped it, catching it at the last second as it plummeted past him. Rufi froze. When he heard no movement, he carefully lowered the grate and then felt for the rim of the duct. Securing a firm grip, he pulled his near three hundred pound frame up. The metal squealed as it accepted his bulk. He slid his feet in and then waited, breathing heavily through his nose. With a final muttered oath, he slid himself down the chimney. It was narrow enough that he could prop his feet and hands against the sides and slowly lower himself. It was filthy and dusty, but the ascent was easy enough thanks to the cracked brickwork within the chimney. His feet alighted gently inside the pitch black warehouse. He crouched and shuffled out of the fireplace, pivoting behind a stack of boxes and waited. It was completely dark in the warehouse. Thanks to the blacked out windows, the moonlight couldn’t even shine through. One of the Goblin’s natural adaptations that made them such fearsome warriors was fantastic night vision, but even this couldn’t help Rufi now. It was too dark. He sat on his haunches and waited for his breathing to return to normal and allow his eyes to adjust to any light there was. The warehouse was still silent, yet it didn’t feel empty. That tension itched at Rufi’s neck again.

  Slowly, he stood up, feet splayed, ready to dive for cover. The warehouse was still. He peered into the darkness, his eyes adjusting enough to make out shapes. This was no good. He needed to look around. Reaching into one of the many pockets of his black combat suit, he pulled out a small stone. He lowered his mask and blew gently on it. Within a few seconds, it began to glow, weakly at first and then bright enough to make Rufi squint. He held the stone aloft and got his bearings. The warehouse was almost completely empty, stretching too far for the stone's small light to reach the far wall. He walked out of his shelter behind the boxes and looked around, his hand resting on the hilt of his steel tomahawk. He pulled the weapon when he heard scuttling to his left. He was already facing the source of the noise before his mind could catch up, his body acting on instinct. He heard the sound again, followed by the muffled squeak of a rat.

  “Shit,” Rufi muttered to himself, but he didn’t sheath the tomahawk straight away.

  He continued to work his way around the warehouse, searching for signs of danger. Once he was satisfied that nothing was going to leap out at him and that there were no traps set, he finally took stock of the place. It had been thoroughly emptied. There were tiers of pallets stacked carelessly in corners, empty food wrappers, and discarded bottles. Rufi poked around in one corner of the warehouse, where it looked like beds had been laid out on the floor. Had they been sleeping here? Or was it for the guards? There were enough discarded food containers to suggest they had been here for a few weeks. Rufi bent down and picked up one of the containers, giving it a surreptitious sniff. Black bean rice and stir fried vegetables. Rufi would recognise the pungent, spicy odour of Gnommish food anywhere. He threw the container on the floor and kicked the beds to one side. In another pile of trash he found some printed writing. He didn’t know what it said, but he recognised the Gnommish language, although it didn’t look like the Gnommish he saw in Little Kang.

  Rufi continued towards the other end of the warehouse. He stopped and knelt down by several pallets covered in tarpaulin. He saw thick empty wraps of some sort of parchment with loose bits of red string. He recognised that wrapping. It was the same as the Bad Batch. And that red string that had been used to tie up the tortured Dwarf.

  “Well, I’m definitely in the right place,” Rufi muttered.

  But there wasn’t even a scrap of Burn left. They had cleaned the place out thoroughly. They had killed their only contacts in the city and now they’d disappeared up the river. They were doing an excellent job at covering their tracks. Rufi looked at the stack covered in the tarpaulin. He put the Glowstone between his teeth and pulled the tarpaulin off slowly. Under it was a large wooden crate. It looked like it hadn’t been open. There was more of the strange Gnommish scrawl on it. Rufi wiped sweat from his brow and looked around. The rain was just starting up again; he could hear it tinkling on the corrugated metal roof. There was a crowbar set beside the box. He grabbed the crowbar, hesitating for only a second. He eyed the box with suspicion. It could be a trap. Why else would they have left it here?

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  “Only one way to find out.” Rufi jammed the crowbar under the lid of the box and began jimmying it open.

  It only took him a few seconds to wrench the lid free. Instinctively, he took a step back and waited. He then leaned forward and peeked over the rim of the box.

  “What the f…”

  Rufi threw himself backwards as something black and chitinous struck at his face. He hit the floor hard, the Glowstone skittering from his grasp. He heard the thing scrabbling against the wood as it climbed out of the box. Rufi scrambled to his feet, his tomahawk in his hand. He spun and saw the thing dropping to the floor. It was massive and looked something like a pony sized scorpion. It had a scarab-like carapace, but instead of pincers, it had two hooked claws that dripped a viscous substance. Its face was a series of bulging eyes with little searching pincers where the mouth was. It was long with a thick, scaly tail, that had a head sized knot of rugged scales like a club. Its six legs tapped and scratched the concrete floor as it menaced Rufi. It didn’t move quickly but it did move suddenly. It lashed out first with its venomous hook, trying to slash at Rufi’s legs, then brought its clubtail whipping around. Rufi dodged the hooks but couldn't move in time to avoid the tail. He threw his arms up and took a sledgehammer blow to the chest, his armour only protecting him enough to stop his ribs from shattering. He flew across the warehouse, smashing through a stack of empty crates. The crates collapsed on top of him, trapping him. Rufi wheezed as he tried to breathe, his lungs shocked into spasm by the force of the blow.

  He heard the thing scuttling towards him. With power found in desperation, Rufi kicked the boxes off of himself and rolled just in time to avoid another crushing blow from the clubbed tail. Crates exploded around him. He looked at his small tomahawk and realised he didn’t want to get close enough to that thing to use it. He sheathed it and drew the curved scimitar slung across his back. He stumbled backwards, still struggling to regain his breath as the creature pursued him, lashing out with its cruel hooks and devastating tail. Rufi fended it off with his sword, realising as he backpedalled that he had no escape. All the doors were still locked, and there was no way he would be able to climb back up the chimney with this thing chasing him.

  Panic flashed across his mind. But only for an instant. Rufi’s training and his instincts took over before fear could overwhelm him. He would have to kill this thing, or at least trap it, as escape wasn’t an option. He lashed out with the scimitar, catching the creature with a glancing blow on its armoured head. It flinched but shrugged the blow off. Its tail whipped around again, and Rufi ducked, slashing at the tail as it whipped by, but again, his blade simply bounced off of it. The damn thing was practically armour plated. They had danced and fought their way to the edge of the Glowstone’s weak light, and Rufi had a sneaking suspicion this thing could see in the dark. In fact, it was growing more confident the further they got from the light source. Its strikes were coming faster and from different angles as it sought to trap him or smash his head in.

  Rufi pulled out his tomahawk and threw it at the creature’s face. One of its hooks shot out and batted the axe away, but that gave Rufi enough time to dive to his right, avoid the crushing tail, and bring the fight back into the light of the Glowstone. He ran to where he had dropped the stone and then stood behind it, his sword ready. The creature didn’t immediately pursue. It clicked and chittered at the edge of the light, its tail whipping backward and forward.

  “Ahh, so you don’t like the light,” Rufi said, grinning. “If I was as ugly as you, I wouldn’t either.”

  The creature hissed and darted forward, slamming its tail down at him, but the strike was slow and inaccurate.

  Rufi dodged with ease, grabbed the Glowstone, and thrust it forward. The creature hissed and retreated a step, lashing out with its hooks at the light and missing. Rufi sheathed his sword and then began patting down his pockets. He withdrew two more Glowstones and breathed them to life, holding them in one hand like a shield of light. The creature hissed and snapped its mandibles, backing further away from the light. That bought him some time, but Rufi doubted he could blind the thing to death. He had to think quickly. The monster kept circling around him, trying to get behind the stones so it could strike at him. Rufi circled with it, his mind racing, as the creature backed him up. Too late he realised it was backing him into a corner. He thrust the stones at it, forcing it back a step when his foot clinked against something. He looked down for a second and saw the discarded spirit bottles. He had knocked over one of the bottles, and the strong smel of alcohol filled the warehouse.

  “Okay,” Rufi muttered as an idea formed in his mind.

  He took a few deep breaths and then rolled the three Glowstones across the floor at the monster. It hissed and leapt back away from the light. Rufi tore a strip from his shirt and grabbed three of the bottles. One was nearly empty, one was a third full, and the last had a little bit more than that. It would have to do. He heard the thing hissing and scratching at the floor. Fortunately, backing Rufi into a corner meant it only had one angle to attack him from, and the three Glowstones were blocking its path.

  Rufi poured two of the bottles into the fullest one, his hands steady despite his racing heart. The creature charged at the light and then backed off a step. It hissed and skittered around and around, trying to find somewhere the blinding light wasn’t. Rufi finally managed to empty both bottles and tossed them to one side. He twisted up the cloth, soaked it in the spirit, and then dipped it into the bottle, leaving enough exposed to act as a wick. He fumbled for his lighter, sparked it, and turned to face the creature. It was gone. Rufi stood, bottle in hand, lighter poised to spark it. His eyes flicked around the darkness searching for the monster. Now his own Glowstones were working against him, blinding him. He could hear it still. In the darkness, he heard the creature’s legs scuttling and scraping.

  “C’mon you fuck!” Ridley growled through clenched teeth. “Come on!”

  Then he heard the stack of pallets on his left shift.

  “Shit.”

  The creature had scaled the pallets! It paused as the pallets shifted underneath it, its legs bunched, ready to pounce. Ridley touched the flame to the spirit soaked rag and it went up immediately, the ignition of the new light source made the monster flinch, and then it leapt. Rufi hurled the incendiary. It hit the creature full in the face as it jumped. The bottle smashed and sent a shower of flames spitting across the back of the creature and the warehouse. Then it landed on Rufi. Its weight bore the big Goblin down onto his back. The fire had blinded it. It scrabbled madly, its chitinous legs clawing and scratching at Rufi. He grabbed its hooked claws and held them away from his face as it tried to stab at him. The creature hissed and squealed as the flames ate at it. Rufi roared and bucked as he tried to throw the thing off of him. Their mad struggle sent fire spitting around the warehouse. Rufi wrestled with the hooks, bridged at his hips, and created enough space to get his knees under the monster. Its mandible snapped at Rufi’s face, its many eyes bulging and swivelling in pain and hunger. Rufi let out a bloodcurdling roar in the creature’s face and kicked upwards at the same time it lashed its tail down. The tail smashed into the concrete no more than a few inches from where Rufi’s head had been. The monster was sent cartwheeling into a stack of pallets, crashing through them like kindling. Rufi leapt to his feet and looked around. The flames had spread. The dry pallets and boxes provided the perfect fuel for the hungry flames. Where the creature had landed was quickly turned into a bonfire by its widely thrashing body. The flames licked at the monster. It squealed and hissed, unable to extricate itself as the flames cooked it alive. Rufi watched as the massive body curled in on itself and one last gasp of air escaped the monster before it fell still, the flames swallowing it.

  Rufi turned and ran towards the door. He threw his bulk at it, and it barely budged.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Rufi snarled as he kicked at the door.

  It rattled under his blows, but the padlock held fast on the other sign. The fire was quickly turning into a roaring inferno. The heat pulsated in waves and licked at Rufi’s back. He turned around and saw the flames spreading across the warehouse, smoke quickly filling the place. The chimney! The flames hadn’t reached it yet! He ran across the warehouse, shielding his face from the intense heat. He kicked some burning boxes out of his way and scrambled into the fireplace. He dug fingers into the crumbling brickwork, braced his back against the wall of the chimney, and began to frantically claw his way up. Smoke was filling the chimney. He fought to breathe. Great hacking coughs burnt his throat and chest. Blindly, he kept going up. He could feel the heat singing his back as the fire licked against the chimney stack. There was no more air, only smoke. Rufi held his breath and closed his eyes as the smoke stabbed daggers in them. His lungs burned and his muscles ached. He had to breathe. He had to… Rufi felt his fingers close around the rim of the duct. With one last desperate push, he pulled his screaming body out of the smoking chimney.

  Rufi opened his eyes and gasped. He sucked great lungfuls of air. He kicked his feet and pushed himself out of the duct. His head spun. He didn’t even notice he was falling until he crashed through the tower of pallets. Rufi lay on the ground, rain pounding down on him as he took sweet lungfuls of air. Then the coughing started. He hacked and wheezed, curling up on the soaking wet ground and half spitting and half vomiting. His whole body was shivering and shuddering. He felt sharp, stinging pain on his back and in his sides. His bruised ribs ached dully. He heard the building cracking and groaning behind him, then there was a tremendous crash. Rufi didn’t even roll over. He knew the roof had caved in. He had to move. He had to get away. Slowly, he dragged himself away from the fire, still coughing and spluttering, his head spinning. He clawed at his mask and hood. Pulling them away and letting the cold rain wash over his head and face. That revitalised him enough to stagger to his feet.

  Clutching his ribs, he limped away from the burning warehouse.