Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 9, Part 3: Adrian

They didn't manage to waive their remedial drill. Nearly a third of the group, including Farah, only managed thirty-eight hits as the sun set on their second day of Salamander training.

Sergeant Varnell didn't seem displeased, as she dismissed them for dinner, earlier in the evening. "Colonel Tammerlane isn't willing to spare us more ammunition. So we'll be going back to conditioning training anyway. Running the walls isn't any different from what I was going to put you through tomorrow. Go get some sleep."

They had taken her instructions to heart; no one was up long past sunset. Except for Gerald, who was still awake with a small lamp and a quill, writing something. Adrian was somewhat curious about, but not enough to stay awake.

The last thing Adrian had been expecting, when he shut his eyes, was opening them in the dead of night.

His quiet, dreamless sleep was interrupted by a sharp rap on the side of his head, and a gentle hand was resting over his mouth. He stifled his panic when he saw Sergeant Varnell standing beside his cot, holding up her other hand.

"Eyes up, soldier. Say nothing, move quietly. Get dressed." Sergeant Varnell whispered.

Her presence and the urgency of her tone, was shock enough to make him sit up out of reflex. A dozen questions swept through his thoughts, but he didn't voice them. "Aye, ma'am," was all he said as he slid out of bed, and pulled out his clothes.

Sergeant Varnell was waiting for him at the door. She had a dark, angry scowl on her face, and her sword was in her hand. "With me."

She lead him out into the fields, walking silently for nearly half a mile before stopping in sight of a small equipment shed near the tram line.

"Everyone who takes the tram lines is noticed, this far from the districts," Varnell began to explain. "The couple we captured had been monitored for nearly four hours. Colonel Tammerlane's people took them without incident. I'm bringing you to see them on a hunch, but I am rarely wrong about these sorts of things."

She opened the door and led them inside, and despite being bound and gagged, Adrian instantly recognised the two.

Carver and Tiffany Mormew. Enforcers, for Stenman Xavier.

"I brought you because they both have Undercity accents, and were carrying poorly maintained short swords."

Even for a gang like the Porters, professionally made weapons were difficult to acquire. Xavier, to the best of his knowledge, had only one person armed with well-forged knives; a shadow who had come underground with the reject she was sleeping with at the time.

Even the Mormews, respected enforcers, used old army swords stolen from a metal recycling warehouse. The antiquated weapons lay on the table beside them.

It was strange, seeing them like this. Adrian used to fear them, respect them. Now, looking at the pair, he knew that if he had met them both in the open field, he could have handled them both.

"Their names are Tiffany and Carver Mormew. They work for my former gang boss, Stenman Xavier," Adrian said. "Enforcers, and 'problem solvers'."

"Problem solvers?"

"People entrusted to make field decisions on behalf of Xavier. He didn't let just anyone decide how a situation needs to be handled," Adrian said.

"So they make problems go away?" Varnell asked, the disapproving note in her voice so pronounced that even Tiffany and Carver flinched.

"Not necessarily," Adrian explained. "Xavier's first instruction is to avoid attracting attention. If the smart move is to hit someone over the head and push them into an incinerator, then they would do it. If the smart move is a bribe, threat, or employment, they do it."