by Glen Cook
Devedian soldiers continued to snipe at the wounded god. Every hit weakened him, slowed him, left him less certain of his form. He did not appear human, now. But he was a god. He would be a long time going. Most likely, he would not go at all. He might even recover if enough live mortals were slain around him.
Else's pain faded as the wounded god stumbled away.
Ghort heaved the contents of his stomach. "Ah, Eis's fucking Holy Piles, Pipe! If there's any way to kill that freak, let's get on with it. Or just stay out of its fucking way. I can't take much of this."
Still recovering from his own pain, Else considered his place in events, both as others intended and as chance had conspired. This morning would not set well with Grade Drocker. Nor with er-Rashal el-Dhulquarnen, who had to be stunned.
Only now did Else grasp the implication of those few minutes in Esther's Wood. That which would slay a bogon could dispatch far more powerful entities.
Else said, "I'm not sure what to do, Pinkus. It's only starting to sink in. But I think we're in the middle of history happening."
A shriek of despair came from the wall. They watched as the dead heroes threw someone down.
Ghort cursed. "Them damned things won't quit." A dead hero with one arm, one leg, and no eyes had hold of his ankle.
"Don't cut yourself. That looked like Starkden that just fell."
Ghort severed the wrist of his assailant, then levered the hand off his ankle. "We need us a big-ass bonfire to roast us some dead men."
"Good idea." Else's pain grew. The blind Instrumentality was headed their way. "A pit might be better."
"So they can't run from the fire. Yeah. Shit. Now what?"
Deves were walking the killing ground, finishing the dead heroes with swords and spearheads of blackened iron with silver-plated tips. They gave the blind god a wide berth. At random moments he sparked off lightning.
"They've figured out a way to battle the Night. From a distance," Else said. "The Brotherhood will be thrilled."
Ghort skipped away from a grabbing hand, frowning. "Something like this happened before, Pipe. On a smaller scale. You mentioning the Brotherhood made me remember. This was in Sonsa, a couple years ago, before we hooked up. That's how Drocker got messed up. By Deves. They said it was some new kind of sorcery but I'm thinking it was maybe the same thing we just saw here."
"Could be. They're devious people. Well, this is Starkden."
"She dead?"
"Looks like."
"Be careful."
Else collected an antique spear that had lost its operator. He poked the fallen sorceress. "Let's get her bound and bagged and headed up to Drocker. He'll love us even if she isn't breathing."
"He'll have him a shitload of mixed feelings. Should we do something to help them Imperials?" Things were no longer going well for Lothar's would-be rescuers, though the Braunsknechts from me drain had joined them.
"They're holding their own. We need to get busy here."
"The guys look like they're hot to go, Pipe. They've figured out what these dead guys are. Which tells them there might be valuable antique weapons and grave goods to be had. But I'm on the job."
Ghort strode off to draft work parties. Else considered proceedings atop the wall. He saw Bone and Az observing from relative safety. So Az had found his way back to the company. They saw him but gave no sign. Until Az made a quick, small Sha-lug warning gesture.
Else turned as a body lying deep in mud and dirty snow and parts hacked off dead heroes surged to its feet, the soultaken that had speared the crippled god. He felt the fury, fear, and insanity of the thing. And the power. Here raged a new monster of the Night, pulling itself together by culling fragments from dying Instrumentalities.
The thing recognized Else.
Else decided on a swift tactical relocation. A fresh surge of pain hit. He lost focus on his footing. He slipped on an icy stone, fell, slid twenty feet downhill.
Deves maneuvering against the blinded god fired on the new threat.
The soultaken roared, producing an amazing noise from a human throat. Then it shook like a dog suffering a seizure. It swelled up, changed shape, and began to get the hell out of there.
It turned into something like a mantis of twice human size, with twice too many legs for a bug. Mahogany chitin with scarlet scars and highlights ripped through its fur and rag clothing. It headed north at a high rate of speed, undaunted by the terrain.
Else sat in cold mud and gaped till his wrist told him the blind god was coming.
Else started to get up. His hand brushed something his eyes did not see. When he grasped it with his amulet hand it became visible as the bronze sword of power formerly carried by the soultaken now infested by his supreme deity.
The blind god shifted course, toward his nearest tormentors.
Could that hideous head be far from the sword?
Ah. There.
Else's bowels turned to ice. They came near voiding.
The thing's eyes were open. It lay on its left side, in muddy, trampled grass, eyes alive. Eyes aware. And as mad as could be imagined. What was it? It had no hands, no voice, no means to impose its will. Save the mesmerizing power of those eyes.
Else's wrist blazed with pain. The amulet shielded him again. For that er-Rashal el-Dhulquarnen deserved gratitude.
Else clambered to his feet. He stripped a ragged cloak off an unmoving dead hero and used it to bundle the head.
The pain faded immediately.
Troops from the Patriarchal camp began to arrive. Grade Drocker sensed an opportunity to strike a hammer blow on the cheap. Else sent a party in through the storm drain and another to climb his still-dangling escape rope. Whoever got the chance should open a postern or gate. He directed others to help the Deves finish and collect the dead heroes. Ghort he finally did send to help the Imperials. The men from the Grail Empire faced a deteriorating situation.
Exhausted, Else eventually settled down in the bottom of a brushy gully with Uncle Divino. It looked like it had snowed antique weapons. There were scores scattered in me mud or hanging in the bushes.
"Good place to hide, eh?" The bronze sword had drained him. He set blade and wrapped head aside. "I'm ready for a nap."
Bruglioni grunted. "Best I could do. How's it going up there?”
"I think we're all right. You all alone? Where are your guys?”
"Those assholes ran off as soon as it got exciting. Then I managed to get crippled without doing anything but lay here."
Else grunted.
"All that hardware came raining down. This damned dagger got me through the knee. There's a killing spell on it but it wasn't meant for me. It was intended to kill somebody named Erief Erealsson. Presumably one of our undead visitors."
"I don't know the name. Probably somebody who was important once upon a time. History is fickle."
"Do you have any idea what's happening here, Hecht?"
"I think so. This might be the beginning of the end of the Tyranny of the Night. The weapons the Deves used could make it possible to punish the gods themselves."
Uncle Divino scowled. "You're a doctrinal mess, Hecht. But that's near the mark. The Brotherhood of War and the Special Office will be excited. They'll want to get those weapons into the service of God as soon as they understand them."
"Even if the weapons are tools of the Adversary?"
"What?" The Principatй's eyes widened. Had recent events been orchestrated? Was he a witness to the first bell of the Carillon of Doom? "Damn! You might be right. This needs the attention of a quorum in the whole of the Collegium. Damn again! I can't get up. I can't move my leg."
A deep sense of sorrow overcame Else. But he had to honor his promises. He sighed. They were alone in the gully, overlooked. This opportunity would not come again. "Principatй, years ago Freido Bruglioni and his brother did something blackhearted to Draco Arniena. Don Draco found them out. Don Draco told Don Inigo before he died. He made Don Inigo promise to extract a suitable re
venge."
Principate' Bruglioni was confused. "That… That… I'd nearly forgotten … Draco knew?"
"Always."
"Then Inigo sent you?"
"He did, Principatй. I'm sorry. You've lived an exemplary life since."
"Hecht! No!"
"A man is only as good as his word." Else folded Bruglioni's own cloak and forced it down onto the old man's face.
Bruglioni struggled. Else's amulet tortured his left wrist yet again.
God was generous. No witness stumbled onto the crime. Else completed his task, then returned the antique dagger to the wound in Bruglioni's knee. He eliminated signs of his visit. Still unnoticed by men whose attention was focused elsewhere, he moved down the gully, away from Principatй Bruglioni.
He had debated breaking his word. He had grown fond of Divino Bruglioni. But there was little doubt that the loss of the Principatй would create huge problems for Sublime and the Collegium.
Ten minutes passed before Else spoke to anyone. He wandered the battlefield with the monster head under one arm and the bronze sword in the other, wondering what Divino and Freido had done to earn the abiding hatred of the Arniena.
He noted one of Ghort's men edging nearer. "Quintille? What is it?"
"Message from Captain Ghort, sir. Your ears only."
The man was shaking in his boots. Why? "Go ahead."
"The Emperor is dead. Slain in the fighting in the city. Lothar is emperor, now. Johannes's daughters have taken charge. Captain Ghort says we should expect confusion in the Imperial camp."
"No doubt. How's he doing?"
"That's the other message. He needs help. Some thunder-casters if you can send them. These things don't get tired and they don't give up until you cut them into pieces."
"They're on the way, soon as I round some up."
Quintille fled, obviously relieved to get away.
Else went looking for Gledius Stewpo. The dwarf was elusive. Nevertheless, Else dug him out.
"I don't recollect putting you in charge, dwarf. Nor anything in Captain Ghort's plan including what happened this morning. But it worked out. So far. Do you have firepowder and shot left? Ghort has a problem over yonder."
Stewpo and his henchmen did not protest though it was plain they wanted to. A couple of firepowder tubes swung Else's way.
"That wouldn't be smart. I'm the best friend you've got on this side of the Mother Sea."
"It's that sword, Colonel. You need to get rid of it. It's already begun to dress you in the same aura as the last man who carried it."
Else glanced at the running blind god, now smaller than he had been, said, "I see." He suspected the head more than the blade, though. "You have anybody trustworthy enough, and strong enough, to watch over the sword without trying to use it?"
"Is there one of us righteous enough to reject the tools of alien gods?" Stewpo asked. "I think so."
"Good. Find this paragon. We'll destroy the sword in the same fire as the undead. It's bronze. It should melt. So. If you'll round me up a relief force, I'll go extricate my overly optimistic number two."
As Else, the dwarf, and twenty deves headed for the brawl between Imperials and undead, Else asked, "How could you afford that much ammunition? They say you people have hoards to beggar a dragon, but you just shot off more silver than I can imagine."
"You're imagining wrong." Stewpo handed him a rough metal pellet the size of the end joint of his thumb.
"Iron."
"Yes. With a few thin patches of silver laid on."
"Uhm?"
"It doesn't have to be solid silver. The silver at the surface is all that's needed. And iron gives most creatures of the night terrible indigestion. The silver in one small coin is enough for a hundred of these shot."
Amazing. "How can we just be learning this? Why are firepowder weapons effective when traditional weapons aren't?"
"But they are. You saw us finishing the undead with silver-tipped swords. A healthy entity can dodge traditional weapons and missiles. They're too slow. The shot from a firepowder tube, though, moves too fast to see. We're almost there. You might want to hang back a few steps."
"One thing before you go get mauled by the undead. Just my personal curiosity. Why are you out here, openly directing Devedian forces? Grade Drocker knows your name. Why show your hand here, now? How did you know there'd be an outbreak from the Realm of Night?"
"That's several things, Colonel." Stewpo gestured at his men to deploy. "But it's all gone so well, I feel like crowing. My God is the True God."
"Excuse me?"
"An Angel of the Lord came to me at night many times, to tell me that Hell would open its mouth here. I choose to be seen exactly because the sorcerer will remember my name from Sonsa. If he presses my people, they can honestly blame everything on me. And I've told them that the original information about firepowder weapons came from the Dreangerean provocateur who died during me uprising in Sonsa."
Did a deeply veiled threat lie behind Stewpo's words?
"I don't expect Drocker to last much longer. He doesn't have the strength to give you much trouble. And no one else cares."
"You aren't Devedian, Colonel. You don't see things as all being part of the river of time. You barely see beyond yesterday, today, and tomorrow."
Else disagreed but kept his opinion to himself. Though the dwarf might honestly believe that he had been visited by an angel, not a rogue Chooser of the Slain arranging a cruel ambush for a father who had ripped out her heart.
Stewpo asked, "Is that it? I do have your clumsy associate to salvage."
"Go. Save." Else clambered up a rock outcrop. The hillside fell away from the wall steeply. The slope below was littered with dead and wounded men, along with bits and pieces of northern heroes. Seventy yards away a dozen Braunsknechts swayed in a clump around Elspeth Ege. Else felt that same thrill he had experienced in Plemenza. The girl seemed angry and fearless.
Ghort and his crew had failed to break through. They were surrounded themselves. Neither party had much resistance left to offer.
"Do your stuff, dwarf," Else muttered.
There was no thinking going on amongst the heroes. The Devedian fire teams fired their first volley from ten feet away. There were no misses. By the time the heroes realized that there was a threat the Deves had fired again. Heroes hit went down. And stayed down. It took only minutes to exterminate them.
"You took your sweet time," Ghort gasped. He was pale, his expression strained. “Ten more minutes and there wouldn't have had been nobody to rescue." "You're bitching so I'm guessing I got here soon enough."
"Oh, yes. I'm going to make your life miserable for a long time to come. Ow! Easy there, hairboy." A Dainshau physician had begun to examine Ghort.
Else told the Dainshau, "Those others need you more than this one. Let the vitriol leak out before you patch him up."
Chuckling, Else headed for the Imperial survivors. Most had collapsed once the need to defend themselves ceased. Only the Emperor's daughter remained upright, beside her fallen mount, with a light sword in one hand and her father's standard in the other, taken over from her fallen standard-bearer. She wore some sort of toy mail, a light breastplate, and no helmet. Her dark hair streamed in the wind.
Else inclined his head. "Princess."
"I remember you. But not your name."
"Piper Hecht, Princess. Of the Brothen city regiment"
"Your circumstances have improved." She flashed a melting smile.
"Indeed. While yours appear to have deteriorated somewhat."
"We had them right where we wanted them."
Else could not help grinning. "What can I do to help?"
"You could give me my brother back."
"I'd love to. But I'm in no position to do that I'm a soldier. He's already in the hands of men more interested in politics."
"Members of the Collegium."
"Yes."
"Is he all right?"
"I don't know. I haven
't seen him. But I think so." Else's gaze remained locked with that of the young woman. Clearly, she felt the electricity, too. "What will you do?"
"We are the children of Hansel Blackboots."
"I wish you luck, Princess. The best possible. I wouldn't want to face what you do, now."
She flashed another melting smile. "I told you. We’re the children of Ferocious Hans." Her gaze shifted to something behind him. She gasped, astonished.
Else turned as a gout of darkness stabbed up at the belly of the sky.
The sound arrived. It was the roar of a dozen thunderstorms compressed into one minute of fury.
That could be one thing, only.
"I have to go," Else said.
"I'll see you again," Elspeth mouthed, having read his lips.
Ears ringing, Else had trouble discerning nuance. But that seemed to be a promise.
"Stewpo!" he shouted in the dwarf's ear. "Was that what I think?"
"That was the death of a false god."
Else watched patriarchal troops enter Al-khazen through a newly opened postern. Bitter fighting lay ahead. Masant al-Seyhan would not go quietly. Er-Rashal would not go at all. He would vanish and reappear in Dreanger, blaming all the disasters on others, getting up to some new sort of mischief.
Else said, "You'd better go underground, little friend. Drocker is deeper than you think."
"He can be as deep as he wants. The firepowder knowledge is loose. He can't make it go away. Not even your great Dreangerean sorcerer can manage that. He is much less clever as a puppet-master than he thinks."
"Life will go harshly for the Deves of al-Qarn, now."
"Life always goes harshly for the Deves of al-Qarn."
"Do you know what er-Rashal was up to? Why he indulged in schemes that hurt his own side more than Dreanger's enemies?"
"I have a notion. It's most likely wrong. I'll tell you what an old man once told me. In politics and war you don't need to waste time looking for treachery or conspiracy if stupidity or incompetence will explain a disaster."
