Outlander by Matt Keefe

Author:Matt Keefe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2015-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER: NINE

‘What the…?’ Scoosme pushed at the door but it didn’t budge. She stepped back and gazed up the wall above, though she couldn’t make out anything untoward. One more push and, with no further luck, she banged her palm hard against the door several times, yelling out in between thuds.

‘Lenka! Lenka!’ No reply came. ‘Banya! Gully… Morla?’ Scoosme’s voice faded from a powerful yell to a confused, hopeless mutter as she called out the names of the other girls. No reply.

She looked around for some clue as to what had happened to them, but there was nothing. She followed the wall to the corner and turned down the narrow alley that ran alongside the building, though she knew full well that the door on that side had been locked for years.

‘Step away,’ came a voice from behind her. She turned to see two cloaked and hooded figures standing at the street’s edge: Cawdor.

‘Step away,’ the taller of the two repeated. ‘This is our territory now,’ he said.

‘What?’ asked Scoosme. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We already turfed your friends out and we made quite a mess of them, too,’ said the shorter one, walking slowly towards her as he spoke. He was far smaller than the other Cawdor – shorter than Scoosme herself in fact – but he had a vicious, sinister sneer that suggested a soulless, hateful wickedness deep inside him. Scoosme was afraid of him in a way she wasn’t normally afraid of any man.

‘Don’t make us do the same to you,’ said the wicked little man.

Scoosme gave a moment’s thought to making a dash for the door and seeing if she could get inside. The second Cawdor, further back on the street, drew his pistol and gave her good reason to drop the idea. Still far from sure what had happened in the days she had been absent, Scoosme shuffled back towards the street, feeling a hint of revulsion as she wriggled past the sinister little man who sneered and leched at her all the way. She stepped out into the street and slowly ambled off, turning and looking back every few steps, uncertain and desperately scared for her friends.

For the life of her, Scoosme couldn’t fathom why the Cawdor had ordered her and the girls out of their modest little place. As she knocked back her fourth Wildsnake in quick succession, she wasn’t getting any closer to working it out, either. It had been like this all day, since dragging herself into the Pipe Under Mile after those two robed thugs had turned her away from her former home-cum-workplace.

Sure, the Cawdor despised fornication in all its forms, but they were smarter than to openly attack its purveyors. Half the dens in the Underhive were operated by guilders anyway, and those that weren’t were obliged to provide the guilders with any hospitality they desired free of charge, just like everything else in the Underhive. With the guilders involved, everyone just turned a blind eye to such things. Sin was, after all, simply too profitable to be prevented.

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