The Perilous City

Edinburgh, the Perilous City. Stalked by fear, tainted by plague. A City where beggars and whores are branded. A City where bodies are dumped on the streets, murdered and mutilated. The Perilous City. Into this City come Jack and Rennie, two old-salts tied together by the cart that Rennie hauls his crippled companion around in; and by the guilt that sits on his back, biting harder than his harness. Hoping to winter in Edinburgh and earn a living with their shows, Jack and Rennie soon find that the City doesn’t have a kind heart, and that coin is hard to come by, unless you’re prepared to fight for it. And that’s the one thing Rennie doesn’t want to have to do, ever again. Use his fists to earn a living. Two washed-up sailors, cast adrift in the City. And a girl, and a boy. The girl is Jinty, hard and light, free and flavoursome. And beautiful, so beautiful that she has become twisted round Rennie’s heart. If he is to keep her he is going to have to go back to his bloody trade – bare-knuckle fighting in the City’s notorious Pit. The boy is Sparrow. A beggar, their self-appointed guide. Sparrow knows the City like the back of his hand, and knows how to hide in it. He needs to, for he is being hunted by the Beggar Lord and his mad dog enforcer - Cu Cuthaich, the Hound. On the run from the Beggar Lord Sparrow becomes possessed, by a power too great for his fragile body to contain, which will burst him apart before long. And so in turn he becomes hunted by someone far more dangerous than the Beggar Lord. The Magister. Sparrow is the Vessel he seeks. Through his blood the Magister can bring the evil of the Dragon into this world. But only if he first finds the boy. Jack and Rennie have Sparrow hidden. Perhaps they can keep him safe. And if they do there is the possibility, just the possibility, that Jack may get the one thing he would give everything for. His life back. Jack and Rennie must fight to save Sparrow. But how can they, when they can barely save themselves? Two men, caught in the shipwreck of their lives, drawn to a doom, high above the Perilous City, where their past catches up with them, and where one of them may die, for a second and final time. The Perilous City is part 3 of the Great Project, but it is set four years before part 2, City of Fire and Ice. There will be two more parts to come before the Great Project series is complete.