Reaper

Chapter 7: Trappers' Lane

The lower streets of the Gank had well and truly succumbed to the night's tide and rain. Ramshackle buildings perched like half-drowned crows on piles and stone foundations.

Sinking deeper into murky flooding, shin to knee, Ava held back an oath. Trappers' Lane, a squalid stretch of mouldering wood and cobblestone, appeared determined to return to the swamp. Streetlamps lay dark, victims of the rain or apathy. The only illumination came from ill-fitted shutters and 'swamp lanterns': jars of fire bugs. As she and Tythorn waded past, sour faces formed and faded: locals lounging against porch railings, drinking from tin cups, and chewing pepper grass. Sheathed blades glinted. Masticated grass got spat.

Discomfort unrelated to the wet night trickled down Ava's back. Music rode the breeze, the taverns on the lane's upper slope not short of customers as people sought higher ground. But ahead, deeper in the flooding, the street lay quiet. Punts bobbed and listed at their makeshift moorings unattended. Windows and doorways lay dark. The only bodies populating porches were those of rats and frogs. As the edge of the city loomed and the black web of the woodland rose high in the sky beyond the rain, the buildings around her surrendered more ground to the wilds. Foundations sat drowned. Walls appeared held together with vines, not pegs and nails.

"Submerged stump to the left." A few steps ahead, Tythorn dragged his sodden cloak around his shoulders to avoid it snagging. "Watch your step, and the slipper viper swimming to our right."

Ava felt her way around the first hazard, kept her eyes on the second. Weed and things she did not want to identify looped and tangled about her legs as the flooding deepened to mid thigh. The water's vague pull and the vegetation gathering on stairs and around lampposts told her the tide was on the turn, but it would be hours before foot traffic could safely reclaim the lane. If 'safe' meant only facing street thugs and feral local hunters.

A wet sign glinted in the dark, the image of a wolf with a bird in its mouth carved into its surface.

Ava felt her pulse kick up. The Wolf and Sparrow Inn. The weatherboard two-story slumped in the darkness, not all of it still upright. Entangled with vines and its roof smothered in feather moss and grass, the building looked defeated.

And deserted.

Its silence hummed: no laughter, no arguments.

A voiceless quiet that extended to the nearby homes and shops.

Another trickle of unease slid down Ava's spine. There should've been family bickering, dinner pots clinking, and—

A dull clatter sounded overhead, followed by a splash.

Ava turned—found small ripples expanding in her wake. Looking up, she spotted their apparent source: a covered balcony next to her, strangled with vines and missing a corner of its roof. The building, an old apothecary hung with bottles and bones, had likely lost another shingle. Whatever had tumbled off the ruin had been weighty enough to sink out of sight.

Another clack.

Ava swivelled to see a second piece of slate tumble from the building on the other side of her.

Her heart jolted as she spotted a silhouette against the black, rain-streaked sky.

"Longbane..."

She didn't need Tythorn's low warning. Death's earthy taste spread across her tongue, accompanied by a crawling awareness of eyes on her. Feral eyes. Hungry eyes.

She jerked a wooden stake from the top of one boot. "How many?"

"More than there should be in one street at one time." Tythorn turned in a circle, setting water swirling. "Three on the roofs to our left. Two to the right. More at ground level nearby. I sense a lot of bloodlust."