Free The Vagrant by Peter Newman Page A

Unlike the rest of Verdigris, it is forever loyal.
    They push through unguarded doors, pass dozing half-breeds, moving deeper. They enter a hall, filled with living matter and walls that pulse, skin-cushioned, veined. A figure nestles within. It jerks up to meet them, features hidden within its robes. The commander remembers it was larger once.
    It flinches from contact but the commander gives no choice, drawing out its fragmented essence.
    ‘Why … you … here?’
    ‘The master’s will.’
    ‘… Why?’
    ‘Where are the others?’
    ‘I …’
    ‘Where are our allies?’
    ‘They …’
    ‘What have they done to you?’
    The memories are scattered, muddled, enough. The commander’s fists clench, powdering the empty shell beneath its fingers. This is the secret Patchwork hides. The Usurper’s agency in Verdigris is broken. It has been for some time, allowing the Uncivil’s hold on the city to grow strong. Her cults are swelling with new recruits, her Necrotech fills the markets. She already rules Wonderland and Slake, and Veridgris is hers in all but name. If the coup is successful, word will reach the other infernals and they will doubt the Usurper’s majesty, flocking instead to the Uncivil’s banner or contest the master themselves. The commander’s thoughts fill with concern, with questions. How has the Uncivil become so powerful? How was this not seen? How did the master not know?
    The group shuffles along Verdigris’ main street. It is clearing, people instinctively seeking shelter before the Darktime ends. A desperate few conclude business, snatching bargains.
    As the group passes, people take notice. They see a slave master and his three wretches, heavy with death’s stench. First, they see the boy drool and moan, one eye open, the other pus-sealed. Second, they see the tainted man, his tentacle seeping, dead. They know he will soon follow. The third is a pitiful creature twisted by mutation, horns and tails sprouting from all available spaces, a second form grows from its back, mercifully covered from view. It moves slowly, every step a labour.
    Hurriedly, the onlookers turn away.
    Machines power down, their lights no longer needed. Verdigris stills. It is not the Uncivil’s domain, not yet, but change can be felt, the air pregnant with Starktime.
    The group moves on, now alone. None speaks save the boy, who wails as if under torture.
    Old buildings lean together, making tired arches. In places they collapse, closing streets, forcing new ways to be forged. Homes become throughways, windows become doors. In turn the piles of rubble accommodate life. Handlings scuttle between the cracks, competing for space with rats, ubiquitous, tainted.
    Here, the group stops. The boy shrieks again, a fat blob of mucus splatters on the ground.
    ‘What is with all the noise, boy?’
    The pus-lined eye opens, winks. ‘You told me I am dying, father, so I make dying noises.’
    ‘Ey! Ezze say look sick, and why did Ezze say this?’
    ‘To trick everyone?’ The father’s hand clips his ear. ‘Ow!’
    ‘Yes! To make them not look. Noise makes them interested, makes them remember us. If they look hard they see you are not sick boy, not diseased, just thick in head!’ Ezze clips the boy’s ear a second time.
    ‘Ow! Why you hit me again? You always hit me. It’s not fair!’
    ‘Be grateful you have ears left to hit. Your aunt was stupid, yes?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And Ezze is wondering, where is aunt of little Ez now?’
    ‘She’s been taken away.’
    ‘Exactly! She is taken to breeding pits of Slake, and will not be seen again.’ Ezze turns to the Vagrant. ‘Actually this is something of a mercy, but,’ Ezze continues, attention back on the pouting boy, ‘she is stupid, she is worse than dead. So Ezze hit all the stupid out of you and you thank Ezze for it, yes?’
    ‘Yes. Thank you, father.’
    ‘Is better, now go wipe off your pus and make sure to get it back in the jar for next time.’
    ‘Yes,