Daughter of Cloak and Mask: Book 1 by Lauren M.D

Author:Lauren M.D. [M.D., Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Trice followed the oozing stream of effluence that ran slowly down the middle of the street to the canals. Where it slid over the side into the fetid green and brown water, she took another bridge, this one of rickety wood, poorly patched and capable of supporting little more than a dozen people, into the part of town they called ‘Pescadora’.

Formerly the home of fishermen and their businesses, Pescadora was as rotten as the pervading fish smell that haunted the area. Once, when the canals were clear, fishermen from here would head out into the bay to catch mackerel, herring, sardines, and even tuna or salmon. Sellers would call their wares in the early morning; households would dine on fresh catch and the Pescadora would be whitewashed and gaily painted.

Now, the buildings were little more than decaying tenements, housing multiple families in abject squalor. The outside of the buildings was a faded yellow-grey with chipped plaster. Refuse sat openly in the streets and filthy children with distended bellies and haunted eyes roamed the streets or grubbed for crabs and molluscs in the marshy flats surrounding the bay. The fish were long gone and with them, the prosperity of the area.

Of course, when people have nothing to steal, thieves have little interest in them. The gang didn’t care about the Pescadora because there was no money to be made there. Instead, two other gangs made their homes here, a group of smugglers, well equipped and well-armed protected themselves and their industry against the roving, anarchic street gang called ‘the Crabs’ who operated a low-budget, brutal trade in extortion, violence, and other, less-savoury, activities.

At this time of day, Trice knew she should be safe from both groups, as long as she was quick. The Old Docks were her destination and she hopped and skipped past heaps of waste and refuse, some of which swiped an arm at her as she went past. A frothing coil of maggots writhed in the corpse of a rat in the shadow of a creaking lean-to, until it was snatched up by one of the hollow-eyed children of Pescadora, who ran from his companions, cradling the dead best to his breast and dripping maggots as he ran.

Trice arrived at the dock near on the tolling of the noon bell. Above her the sky had begun to cloud over, thick, dark clouds that promised rain. Between the grey of the sky and the grey-brown of the estuary, all colour seemed to leach out of the world. A light drizzle began to fall, soundlessly.

On the pier ahead of her stood one of the Bills. He had shed his mail coat and wore just his arming jacket under the tabard of the city guard, still bloody from her encounter with him two days before. Her blood. Without even knowing his name, she knew she would never forget this man. She remembered his hand holding her wrist to the block, the shock that jolted up her arm as he swung the blow.

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