Spinning to her right, she slammed two pistol shots straight into the stomach of another skinhead just as his weighted throwing knife whirred past her face. A sear of pain told her that she might suddenly have one less ear than before, but what did that matter when she was fighting for her life? Rani was dimly aware that other figures were struggling elsewhere in the fog, and then she heard some rapid cracks of gunshot, but not many. She was looking for the next skinhead to attack when she heard the footfalls in the distance, heading up from Whitechapel Road. She also heard the marching cry, “Light-ning! Light-ning!”

Sod it all. Reinforcements.

"This way. NOW!” Standing before her was an ork, a grim-faced brute in filthy leathers and with blood on his knife and hands. She stood shocked for a moment, unable to move. lie slapped her hard across the face and screamed, “NOW, you acing git!” He grabbed her arm and began to drag her out of the Street and into the shadows.

Rani no longer had any clear idea of what was happening, but she dimly registered that this was no cretinous While Lightning attacker. He was an ork like her, so she let herself be carried along in the group that coalesced out of the fog. Shadows and forms seemed to flow along the back streets as they hurried along, the chanting behind them become screams of fury. They’ve found the bodies, she thought.

Then she was being pushed roughly into an abandoned, tumble-down building. All around came the monotonous sound of water dripping steadily from an unseen ceiling. As she looked up, one heavy drop hit her square in the face, and she blinked to regain her vision. Hands pushed her behind a mass of what looked like collapsed brickwork, a wooden door appearing out of nowhere as though by a conjurer’s sleight of hand. A flight of stone steps opened up below it.

“Down.” It was an order.

“What the f-"

“Down. Or d’ya want anovver fifteen rounds wiv White Lightning?" A dwarf with a broken nose and a face not even his mother could love gave Rani a push. She stumbled through ork and dwarf bodies, half-falling down the first few steps until the broad back of another ork female stopped her.

Well, she thought, I may not know where I’m going, but it’s better than being dead. She drew in her breath and hurried down into the gloom and stench. I hope.

14

The group was assembling into a marching order as the last ork down pulled the trapdoor shut behind him and fastened the array of huge bolts. Looking around her, Rani saw that they were in an old, low-ceilinged brick tunnel with a pair of parallel rails running down the middle. It was too dark here for low-light eyes of any use, and so some of the group were lighting up simple flash-tubes and pointing them down the curving tunnel. It was a tight squeeze for the orks in the group, who ducked their heads low under the brickwork ceiling. As the last dwarfs scuttled down the steps, an ork male at the front of the group yelled them to attention. Aside from his flash tube the ork carried a pistol that made a Ceska look sophisticated.

“We got an hour to get the stuff back to the Ratskinks. Let’s move it."

No one said anything to Rani, seemingly unconcerned by her presence. Ducking her head, she followed the single-file column up the tunnel.

Bang it, she thought, I’m in the Undercity! That realization shouldn’t have been so startling, but perhaps her amazement spilled over from the fact she’d just shot two attackers. The adrenaline still pumping through her blood fueled a string of fantastic thoughts. She’d always dreamed about this city under the streets of London, fantasizing about adventures down here. Tough men and strong women, living wild. No shuttered windows and barred doors. No street Nazis. No Lord Protector, Templars, baggies, no one telling her she was only a girl and had to stay at home. No White Lightning telling her she was a piece of worthless ace that had no right to live.

Rani was elated, not even registering the throb of pain from her left ear.

"Where are we?” she said to the figure in front of her. It was the same female ork Rani had plowed into on the stairwell.

“Shut the rakk up and just keep moving,” was all she got. Her head bowed even further and her spirits sank. Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she trudged silently along.

Just before they reached the old Tube station, Rani realized she was in the company of the birthday group from the Toadsiab. That meant they must also know the surface world, and must sometimes walk the streets of Spitalfields and the rest of the East End. Maybe she could talk with them after all, given half a chance.

As she took her turn stepping through a hole in the wall, Rani joined the others on the platform of a long-abandoned underground station. The rails beyond the crumbling edge of the platform were awash with stinking water, and any identifying station signs had long ago flaked off the walls. Random heaps of bricks and rubble littered the ground. A pair of ragged brown rats dived into the water as the first ork in the group swung a lazy boot at them. It looked like one of those ancient trid scenes of London during the Blitz, whatever that was.

She joined the group splashing along the new tunnel, relieved to find the water only a few inches deep and her boots high enough to keep her feet just about dry. The line of orks and dwarfs were silent, marching along in silent determination. At one point the bodies ahead obscured the light from the flashtubes, causing Rani to slip and turn an ankle on the hidden metal rail. All that kept her from falling were a pair of great arms grabbing the back of her jacket and hauling her back to a standing position.

“Move it, girl. We’re already late." For a group that had saved her life, these people didn’t seem to have much sympathy for her now. But she held her tongue, which seemed the best policy at the moment.

When they reached the next access point, the front marchers were lined up beside another gaping hole in the brickwork and they ushered the middle of the group to the front to lead on. Rani was now near the front, able to see what was ahead of her before she stumbled over it. She began to smell the entrance to the ancient Victorian sewer long before they reached it, her nose crinkling with disgust. Mercifully, the flow didn’t seem very deep. As the group fanned out to double file, the dwarf marching next to her began to speak.

“Watch Smeng," he growled, pointing to the new leader. “There're some deeper pools at the junctions. He knows where to put his feet. Follow him exactly or you’ll get a faceful of upper-class drek." He grimaced and held his nose. She looked down at him with a sudden thought: I’ve got a real advantage being an ork here. If I were a dwarf, I’d be two feet closer to kissing the turds. Perversely pleased with possessing that advantage, she followed close behind the hulking ork at the front.

A dwarf behind her had just muttered the words “Nearly there” to no one in particular when a creature looking like it had dragged itself straight from the depths of hell reared up out of the filth in front of them. As it leaped forward, a slow wave of stinking sewage broke over the leading ork, who reeled to one side as he took a full faceful of muck. As the flashtubes behind her illuminated the monster in garish, underlit neon, as Rani grabbed frantically for her gun.

The beast looked vaguely like a troll. It was about the same size and shape, and had arms, head and a torso in roughly the right proportions. Its skin was as thick as a troll’s, too. But around its neck suppurating gill fronds heaved and disgorged a foul, reeking acid, and its clawed hands showed fused, knotted fingers tipped with keratinous claws longer than steak knives. A great tooth-ringed sucker slobbered where its mouth should have been, and its eyes were red-raw and pupil-less, pulsing wildly below a forehead whose bony nodules were encrusted with ordure and mucus. Huge muscles stretched across the thing’s body, veins as big as telecom cables bulging out as the creature flung aside the retching ork and extruded a serrated, cartilaginous tongue from its sucker-mouth.