He left the livestock area at a full sprint.
55
NOLA
City of Deepdale, the Swine Pens
“Silas Bershad is fucking crazy,” said Dervis.
“And his dick isn’t nearly a foot long,” Suko added.
“What’s he gonna do with that fork?” Pern asked.
“No idea,” said Nola. “I just hope he does it fast.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, nothing had happened.
No sounds from inside the city. Nobody coming back their way. And no sign of Lord Bershad.
When someone did finally return to the pens, it was the familiar and large outline of Grungar, ambling back to the cages. The short man was still with him, but there was no sign of the blond man with the key to their cage.
“Frundy’s an idiot to keep looking for him,” the short man said. “The Flawless Bershad’s not here. Trent and Wump play dice in that tower all night, and one of them is always bitching about the other one cheating. Wump probably threw the poor bastard off the platform his own fucking self, and now he’s trying to cover it up with a big story.”
Grungar didn’t respond. He was standing over the plate of venison he’d left behind, frowning. “Where’s fork?”
“What?” asked the short man.
“Fork gone.”
The short man blinked. “Grungar. We’ve looted this shithole city down to the bone. Who cares about one missing fork?”
“Was Grungar’s favorite. Had plans for girl’s mouth.” He turned. Glared at the prisoners. “Who took?”
“You see any of us hiding ten-foot arms beneath our clothes?” Pern asked.
Grungar squinted at him, as if he was considering the possibility that someone was indeed hiding massive arms from him. Eventually, his gaze landed on Nola.
“You. Where fork?”
“Dunno.”
“Fork did not disappear.” Grungar drew his sword. “Give back, or Grungar starts cutting throats.”
“You know how possessive Vergun gets about his chattel,” the short man warned. “We can’t get in there until Frundy comes back with the key anyway. Now how about we head back to the fancy side of town and find you a new f—”
Silas Bershad darted out of the shadows, jumped on Grungar’s back, and stabbed him in the eye.
“Here’s your fork back, asshole.”
Grungar howled in pain. Bershad dropped to the ground and punched Grungar in the spine so hard the massive Wormwrot crumpled down in the mud and started twitching like a spider who’d been stepped on.
Somewhere during Grungar’s journey to the ground, Bershad had taken his sword, which he flashed across the short man’s throat. He collapsed, holding his bleeding throat and trying to scream out an alarm but only managing to spray blood all over his chest.
Grungar was still twitching on the ground. Bershad stalked over to him. Bent down.
He pulled the fork out of Grungar’s eye, then rammed it into his neck—tearing his vocal cords apart with a series of rough stabs and rips.
When it was done, Grungar’s throat was a complete mess. Nola couldn’t make herself look away. She felt a strange mixture of joy and horror at the sight of his corpse.
When she finally did manage to pull her eyes away, Bershad was inserting the gray disc into the lock. The black ropes around the cages sagged. Bershad jerked the cage open.
Dervis shoved his way out of the pen first and grabbed the remnants of Grungar’s venison. Tore into it with ravenous hunger. He only managed a few bites before someone else snatched it away. The feral process continued for a minute before the meat was gone.
Dervis looked at the crowd with a guilty eye. Then he threw up.
“Gods,” he muttered. “I’ve been dreaming about doing that for three hours. Didn’t pan out like I’d hoped.”
“Everyone stay calm and quiet,” Bershad whispered. “You make a ruckus, you’ll be back in those pens in an hour.”
“Ruckus or not, that seems like the most likely outcome,” said Pern. “You might be able to strip naked and sneak through the city, but we can’t and there are Wormwrot everywhere.”
“I’m aware. But I’m gonna get a strong fix on their attention,” said Bershad, taking his blood-soaked pants from where he’d left them and pulling them back on. “Once I have it, escape through the western gate. They might leave a few sentries there, but you’ll have the numbers. Run them down and get into the Gloom.”
“How will we know when you have their attention?” Dervis asked.
“It’s not going to be ambiguous,” Bershad said, already heading back out of the yard.
Nola had no idea what he meant until she saw the Gray-Winged Nomad swoop down from the clouds and follow him into the city.
Alarm bells started ringing.
All of them.
56
CASTOR
Deepdale Castle, Inner Walls
When Wump raised the alarm, Castor had led the search for Silas Bershad. When their patrols near the castle didn’t turn anything up, he went to meet Vergun on the castle walls.
“Anything?” Vergun asked.
“Nothing.” Castor paused. “Starting to think that Wump threw Trent off the tower himself, and is trying to cover it up with a story about Bershad.”
Then the dragon showed up.
It careened over the rooftops—swooping so low that shingles sprayed across the streets from the power of its wingbeats.
“What the fuck kind of lizard is that?” asked Sergeant Rummy, commander of the ballista defense teams, who was also on the walls.
“Gray-Winged Nomad,” muttered Castor.
“Never seen a dragon that big.”
“Me neither,” said Castor.
The dragon snatched a big wagon in her claws and dropped it through the roof of a manse. Released a high-pitched scream.
“It’s wrecking the city just for the fun of it,” Rummy said.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Vergun. “As soon as she stops, she’s dead.”
They’d placed fifteen ballista teams throughout the city to protect against the Blackjack hordes surrounding the city. That was more than enough to deal with a single dragon. Didn’t matter how big it was.
The Nomad swooped through the city and perched atop a big manse.
“There,” said Vergun. “That’s it.”
The three of them waited for the sound of ballista bolts firing. But they didn’t arrive.
“She’s right in the middle of team four’s zone,” Rummy said. “Why haven’t they released?”
Castor glassed the ballista position with his lens. It didn’t take long to identify the problem.
“Team four is dead.”
“What?” Rummy asked. “How?”
Vergun snatched the lens and surveyed the team himself. Saw the same thing that Castor had—five men with their throats cut. All of them looked like they’d died surprised.
“Silas,” he growled.
The other ballista teams took shots at the Nomad, despite only two being remotely close to the proper range. The bolts that didn’t fall short missed. The Nomad darted into the sky, disappearing into the low-hanging clouds.
Castor could hear the grunts and shouts of men, followed by the mechanical cranks of the teams reloading.
Before any of them could finish, the Nomad came down on one of the teams from directly above—tore the ballista apart with her jaws, then swiped a claw across the armaments, destroying the machinery and killing ten men as easily as a kid smearing ants to paste with a finger.
The Nomad was up in the clouds again before any other teams had a chance to shoot.
“Look, there.” Rummy pointed below them. Another ballista team had been killed.
“He’s close,” Vergun said, then drew his falchion. “Castor, on me.”
57
NOLA
City of Deepdale
With all the chaos from Bershad and the dragon, the few Wormwr
ot they saw didn’t appear to have an interest in stopping the people of Deepdale from fleeing the city, so that’s what most people did.
But Nola went in the opposite direction.
“Nola?” Suko asked, stopping her. “Where are you going?”
“Jakell’s shop. For Grittle.”
“But there are soldiers everywhere!”
“I don’t care. She’s my sister.”
“But—”
“Would you leave Kiko?” Nola asked.
Suko shook her head.
“Then you understand. Now get out of here.”
Suko gave her one more sad look, then she headed toward the western gate with the others.
But Pern stayed. Put a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “I need to find Trotsky, too.”
Nola nodded. “Thank you, Pern.”
They moved through the city as quickly as they could. The only Wormwrot they encountered were dead.
“Did Lord Silas do all of this?” Nola asked as they passed two men, one with his throat torn out, the other with his head wrenched into a violent, broken position.
“I don’t think it could have been anyone else,” said Pern.
The front door to Jakell’s shop had been torn off the hinges. It was a mess inside—scraps of leather and tools and tanning supplies were strewn everywhere. There was a fallen shelf blocking the trapdoor.
“Help me!” Nola said, moving to one end of the shelf. She was already pushing as hard as she could when Pern reached the other side and shoved. They moved the shelf up in a series of grunts and fits and starts. After so long without food, the effort made Nola feel like she was going to pass out. Gods, she was weak.
“Grittle?” she asked when they got the shelf moved. “Grittle, it’s me! It’s Nola!”
Something broke underneath the floor. A jar, maybe.
“Grittle! Just hold on!”
Nola grabbed the latch of the trapdoor. Felt a splinter sink deep into her hand. Didn’t care. Just hauled it open.
There was nobody inside. Just a rat that scurried away, knocking more jars off the little shelf.
“No,” she whispered. “I thought … with the shelf over top…”
“They must have found them at some point,” said Pern. “Thrown the shelf on after.”
He jumped down into the little room. Looked around. He picked up a few of the jars.
“Most of these are eaten,” he said.
“I don’t care about getting food,” said Nola. “I care about getting Grittle.”
“I mean that if they had time to eat these, they weren’t taken right away,” said Pern. “They might still be alive somewhere.”
That sparked a flicker of hope in Nola. “But where would they have gone? I never saw her in the pens.”
Pern shrugged.
Nola went back outside. Looked around. Everything was chaos and destruction. Soldiers were yelling in the distance. The dragon swooping down from the sky in irregular intervals, screaming wild and mean as it tore Wormwrot apart.
Pern came out behind her, moving slow and wheezing hard from getting the shelf open.
“I need to get higher,” Nola said. “Get to where I can see.”
Pern didn’t say anything, just kept on with the ragged wheezes.
Nola squinted. There was a lot of movement farther up in the city, but all of it was too vague to make out. Then she remembered something. That last trade that she’d made with Kellar for the rice wine. That stupid trade.
“C’mon, Pern. We need to get back to the Cat’s Eye.”
She headed farther up the street. Behind her, Pern collapsed.
When she turned around, he was clutching the wall of the shop, trying to get himself back on his feet and failing. She went back to him. Slipped an arm underneath his armpit and tried to get him up. But she just wound up toppling over with him.
“Forget it,” he said. “I’m no good to you like this. No good to anyone…”
Nola didn’t say anything, but that was obviously true.
“Rest here,” she said. “Get some food from that cellar. I’ll find Grittle and the others, and then we’ll come back for you and leave the city together.”
Pern wiped some sweat off his brow. “Yeah. All right, Nola.”
“Do you need help getting back inside?”
“I’ll be fine. Go.” He took a breath. “And Nola?”
“Yeah.”
“If you find Trotsky and he’s…” His voice quivered. He pulled something from his pocket and gave it to her. “Give him my seashell. He never carried his own around … stubborn bastard.”
Nola took it. “I will.”
* * *
Nola made her way to the tavern as quickly as she could, following the line of corpses that Bershad had cut down the middle of the city. She burst through the front door, ignoring the destruction, and dug up Kellar’s Papyrian lens from a chest in the basement. Then she headed to her attic and opened the window. She wiped the stingy sweat out of her eyes. Raised the lens and looked out over the city.
She started with the castle, where she could make out men running along the ramparts. None of them had weapons in their hands. They were running away from something.
A moment later, the shirtless and blood-covered Bershad came into view. He was carrying a spear in one hand and the fork in the other. One of the fleeing Wormwrot stumbled. Fell. Bershad put a hole through his skull without breaking stride.
Nola continued glassing the manses around the castle.
Her lens stopped on Lord Cuspar’s compound. The once pristine yard had been replaced with a gruesome scene. Armless men were impaled on long spears. Intestines were strewn across the shrubs and flowers.
The door to the kitchen was ajar. Nola looked inside and saw something that made her heart stop.
Vindy was chained to the floor. Alive. Her face was streaked with soot and tears.
If she was there, Grittle might be with her.
58
CASTOR
Deepdale Castle, Outer Walls
By the time Vergun and Castor reached the outer wall of Deepdale’s castle, the Wormwrot who hadn’t been killed by Bershad had begun to run away from him.
“He’s a demon!” one of them huffed as he shoved past Castor. “Run away! Get to the skyship so we can—”
Vergun thumped his blade into the back of the man’s skull as he passed.
“Coward,” he muttered.
Castor wasn’t sure if killing their own men added much value at this juncture. But there certainly wasn’t any harm in murdering a deserter, either.
Soon, there were too many fleeing Wormwrot for Vergun to bother killing them. Castor noticed that while some of them had clean blades—or had dropped their weapons entirely—others had wet steel and blood-splashed faces.
“If Bershad came alone, how is it they haven’t killed him yet?”
“Just be ready,” said Vergun. “He’s close.”
They reached a muddy yard with a bunch of old, unused surgery beds on one side and a well on the other.
In the distance, the Nomad wrecked the last of the ballista nests. Then she made a long loop over the city, wings lilted at an angle. She came to roost on top of an old tower that overlooked the main castle gate. Vergun and Castor both stopped short. Waited under the cover of an archway to see what the beast would do. For the moment, she seemed content to simply look out and survey the destruction she’d caused.
The castle gate had been closed and barred in a hurry, but with nobody left to defend it, there was also nobody to do anything when a shadowy figure climbed over the crenellation. Jumped off the rampart and landed in the muddy yard.
Silas Bershad.
He strode across the yard with confidence, carrying a spear in one hand and what looked very much like a fork in the other. He was covered in blood, but there were no wounds that Castor could see.
“Welcome home, Silas,” said Vergun, who’d s
omehow managed to keep the confidence in his voice.
“Afraid to fight me alone?” Bershad asked, glancing at Castor.
Vergun motioned to the Nomad. “Seeing as you’ve brought a friend with you to help, I thought it was only fair.”
Bershad shrugged. “I needed her help to get the people of Deepdale out of the city. But I’m gonna kill you myself.”
The dragon spread her wings and careened into the sky, disappearing into the clouds.
Castor couldn’t believe it. The bastard really could command dragons.
“On me,” Vergun whispered, stepping out from beneath the arch, moving left. Castor went right.
Bershad turned to Castor. “Got no fight with you. Leave now, and you’ll keep your hide. Stay, and I’ll skin you along with your commander.”
“I’ll stick,” Castor said, drawing his sword and angling up.
Castor was a lot of things, but a coward wasn’t one of them.
“Your choice.”
Bershad darted toward Vergun with a speed that seemed inhuman. He was halfway across the yard before Vergun had managed to plant his back foot and get into a defensive posture. Bershad snapped a spear thrust at Vergun’s thigh, snatched it back when Vergun moved to parry, then thrust again at his face, which forced Vergun off balance when he dodged.
That might have been it. Two lightning fast strikes and one dead cannibal. But Castor had caught up by then. He ran his sword through Bershad’s back at heart-level.
Generally speaking, when you stab a man in the back, it creates a jerk followed by a sag. The man doesn’t know he’s been skewered yet, but this muscles and nerves do, so they give out.
Bershad jerked. But he did not sag.
Instead, he rammed the butt of his spear into Castor’s jaw. Sent him stumbling backward. Castor took his sword with him, which was a good thing seeing as Bershad came after him with the spear next, jabbing and thrusting with far more strength than a man with a hole through his heart should have.
Castor kept pace with the vicious blows as best he could, but it was a losing game. Bastard was too quick. Castor missed a parry and got the spearpoint slashed over his sword-hand for the trouble. Dropped the weapon into the mud.
Fury of a Demon Page 33
