Demon Cycle 04 - The Skull Throne

by Peter V. Brett

  As if there were a chance of that. The party shifted to drawing rooms as the ball ended, and still the young couple were inseparable.

  Amanvah shook her head at them. “Don’t approve him marrying a heasah?” Rojer asked.

  “Given the unworthy selection of potential brides, he had little choice,” Amanvah said.

  “That almost sounds like approval,” Rojer said.

  “Better if my father had given him a proper bride,” Amanvah said.

  Rojer smiled. “I certainly can’t complain at his choices in that regard.”

  He was a little drunk as they excused themselves from the party and made their way back to Rojer’s chambers. The main hall was filled with partygoers heading off to warded carriages, so Rojer led them to a back staircase where they could cross under to the guest wing and then up to their rooms on the fourth floor.

  Rojer felt hopeful for once. The wedding would come as soon as Gared could arrange it, and they would soon be back in the Hollow where they belonged. Kendall had a skip to her step, never having performed at such a fancy event. She twirled in her silken ball gown, slashed in bright colors, laughing.

  Coliv led the way down the stairs, as alert for trouble as he was in the night, even nestled in the duke’s stronghold.

  But as he reached the landing there was a Tung! and he took a crank bow bolt in the shoulder.

  Everything seemed to happen at once. Two men in the green and gold tabards of palace guards charged down the stairs above them, shoving hard and knocking Kendall and Sikvah into Rojer and Amanvah. They tumbled forward and Rojer cracked his chin against the last step just before having his breath knocked out as the others landed atop him.

  Coliv threw his spear in the direction the shot had come from. There was a grunt of pain in the darkness, followed by another Tung! Coliv had his shield up in time, but the thin warded metal was designed to stop corelings, not crank bows. The bolt punched clear through, sprouting from the back of the Watcher’s neck.

  Coliv turned to the guard closest to Amanvah, reaching into his robes and producing one of his sharp throwing triangles. He raised an arm as if he might ignore even this grievous wound to protect his mistress, but then he sank to his knees, choking on his own blood.

  They scrambled to rise, but palace guards were coming from all sides now, carrying short, lacquered batons. As one came for him, Rojer flipped out the knives hidden in his sleeves. He threw one, but he was still drunk, and the blade went wide. He clutched the other tightly, unwilling to risk losing his only remaining weapon.

  He dodged the first swing of the baton. And the second. Before the guard could recover enough for a third, Rojer was in close, burying his knife into the man’s side.

  For all the good it did. The blade was small for ease of throwing and concealment. The guard seemed more angered than hurt when he backhanded Rojer across the face with the baton, sending him sprawling. Kendall ran to put herself between them, but the guard kicked her hard in the stomach and she fell back, stepping on Rojer’s face in the process.

  Rojer tried to raise his knife, but the guard stomped hard on his wrist, and the blade fell from his fingers in a blast of pain. The baton was thrust into his stomach, and when he curled reflexively, the next blow took him in the balls. He screamed, but it was shattered as a third blow put out two of his teeth.

  Rojer fell back stunned, seeing Amanvah and Sikvah choked from behind with batons. Whenever they struggled, the guards tightened their grips, choking them into submission. The men had the advantage in muscle and weight, either of them heavier than the women combined.

  One of the crank bowmen lay farther down the hall, Coliv’s spear in his chest. Kendall was pinned by the other. His spent weapon was slung over his shoulder, and he held her wrists to the floor, kneeling on her thighs so she could not kick at him.

  There was a clapping, and Jasin Goldentone came out of the shadows, followed by Abrum and Sali.

  “Goldentone?” Rojer croaked.

  “Oh, not Nosong now?” Jasin asked. “You remember respect late, Halfgrip.”

  “Golden toad, I said.” Rojer tried to spit at him, but his lips were swelling fast. The slimy mix of blood and spit dribbled down his chin. Still, the move earned him another blow across the face.

  “You piece of hamlet shit, you think you can just come to my city and humiliate me?” Jasin asked. “That you can spread lies and threaten my very commission, and not expect retaliation? You should know better than that.

  “Not that it was hard to enlist allies.” Jasin nodded at Amanvah and Sikvah. “Tonight will make me a very rich man. You’d be surprised how many lords will pay good coin for a pair of Krasian princesses to hostage. More when I add proof that the Baron’s Ball Queen is a nothing but a royal whore.”

  Sikvah pulled at the spear, but her captor tightened it further. “Best quit your squirming before you give me ideas, girl.”

  “No ideas,” Jasin said. “Not here. We need to finish our business and be gone.”

  “They killed Anders,” the guard pinning Kendall said. “Can’t let that go without blood in return.”

  “He knew the risks,” Jasin said, “but you can beat Rojer and the girl to death in recompense.”

  “Ay, all right.” The guard grinned, reaching for the baton on his belt.

  “No!” Rojer tried to roll away, but the guard standing over him ground his boot heel into Rojer’s wrist, keeping it pinned as his baton repeated its pattern of stomach, balls, and head. Lights spun like drunken dancers before his eyes.

  When his vision cleared, he looked at Amanvah. “I’m so sorry.” His words were a slur.

  Amanvah met his eyes with a hard look. “Enough of this. Sikvah.”

  Sikvah kicked straight up, connecting solidly over her shoulder with her captor’s face. She grabbed his wrists crosswise and ducked forward, twisting into a throw that sent him tumbling into the far wall and left the baton in her hands. She did not hesitate to throw, striking the man standing over Rojer in the head and knocking him back.

  Amanvah struck a precise blow of her stiffened fingers into her own captor’s shoulder. The arm fell away limp, and she grasped the other, locking it straight and twisting to bring the man down onto the steps, her foot in his throat.

  Sikvah was already moving, springing for the man pinning Kendall. He rose to meet her, but she wove around his attempt to grapple, leaping to hook her leg around his neck. She twisted in midair, using her own falling weight to break his neck.

  Jasin did not hesitate, pulling a knife and lunging at Rojer. The man Sikvah had knocked away was recovering, and Abrum and Sali produced clubs of their own as they charged in.

  A flick of her fingers, and one of the sharpened triangles Coliv favored buried itself in Jasin’s knife hand. He dropped the weapon and screamed as Sikvah came in.

  Rojer supposed what followed was a fight, but it seemed an unfair term for a conflict so one-sided. Sikvah did not fight. She simply killed.

  Sali swung her baton, but Sikvah grabbed her wrist and rolled in close, redirecting the momentum into an elbow strike that crushed Sali’s throat. She threw the big woman’s body into Jasin, stepping like a dancer to meet the masked guard. The guard swung and she spun out of the blow’s path, completing the circuit to drive an elbow into the man’s spine with an audible crack. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  Abrum decided to live, turning to flee the scene, but Sikvah threw a baton, catching him on the thigh. It seemed only a glancing blow, but the leg collapsed and he fell to one knee. She grabbed at his head as she sprang over him, turning a somersault and breaking his neck.

  And as quickly as that, it was done.

  Jasin was struggling to get out from under Sali’s bulk. She’d always had a face like a wood demon, but now it was a blackening horror.

  Rojer picked up the knife Jasin had dropped, stumbling to his feet. Amanvah was kneeling over Coliv, staring into unseeing eyes. “Take the lonely path with honor, Sharum. Everam
awaits you with rewards in Heaven.”

  Rojer felt his throat tighten. He and Coliv had stood alone together in the night. He didn’t have the same romantic notions about such things as the Krasians, but there was no denying it was something to bond men.

  And now he was dead because Rojer had been too afraid to kill Jasin. Another name to add to his medallion. How many could it hold?

  “No more,” Rojer said. He had never killed anything other than a demon, and always wondered if he had it in him. But there was no hesitation now, no desire for a final word. The blade slid into Jasin’s eye like a boiled egg, and Goldentone’s body gave a last violent jolt as he twisted it.

  And that was how the real palace guards found them.

  CHAPTER 23

  INQUISITION

  333 AR WINTER

  Rojer tensed at the click of the lock. The door was thick goldwood, banded with steel. There was no window or peephole, only a trap at the bottom just large enough to slide a tray. No way to tell who was on the other side.

  But in truth, it did not matter. Rojer had little fight left in him. The palace guards, enraged at the deaths of their comrades, had shown little restraint as they tried to beat a confession out of him. They took their cues from Janson, after all, and the first minister was livid at the death of his nephew.

  He was barely conscious when they finally relented, passing out gratefully, only to awaken here.

  A single glance from the tiny window told him where he was. The South Tower.

  The great Cathedral of Angiers had been built before the Return, with four stone towers, one at each point of the compass. The northernmost held the great bell, which could be heard for miles. The others towers were cells that had held heretics and political prisoners for centuries. Men and women too powerful—or royal—to be executed; too dangerous—or endangered—to be kept in the common gaol.

  Rojer knew the famous tales of the towers, had spun quite a few himself, but never imagined he’d one day be part of them.

  Rojer sat up as the door swung open. Through the puffy slits of his eyes he saw Leesha and sighed with relief, collapsing back on the simple bed.

  “Rojer!” Leesha cried, rushing over to him as the door slammed behind her. She took his face in her hands, but it was all business as she examined his bruises. Rojer yelped as she stripped the covers back, probing for broken bones and bleeding.

  “Ripping savages,” Leesha muttered, getting to her feet. She went to the window, pulling the heavy curtain shut and returning to his side.

  “Wha’roo doing?” Rojer asked through swollen lips as she ignored the herbs in her apron pockets, reaching instead for her warding kit.

  “Hold still,” Leesha said, taking a thin brush and a jar of ink. “We don’t have a lot of time, and I promised Amanvah to restore you before we talk.”

  “Restore?” Rojer asked. Or tried to. His face was refusing to play its proper part in forming words.

  Leesha didn’t answer, stripping his clothes away with no allowance for modesty and painting wards on his skin. Rojer shuddered when she reached into her hora pouch and produced the demon bone, but the pain was too great for him to argue.

  The wards warmed as Leesha passed the bone over them, glowing softly and sending a tingle through his skin that penetrated deep into muscle and bone, numbing the pain and reducing the swelling. His vision cleared, lips shrinking back to something of their old agility. There was room in his mouth once more, his tongue slipping instinctively into the gap where the baton had knocked out his teeth. Weariness washed from him, and he felt strong, alert.

  He clenched a fist, power surging through him. The door that had seemed to impenetrable before did not appear so formidable now. He could smash right through and fight his way from the cathedral. Lose himself in the streets. Find a way out of the city …

  But then the bone crumbled in Leesha’s hand, and the mad feeling of power left him.

  “Night,” he said as he pulled his clothes back on. “Easy to see how folk might get addicted to that.”

  “Not much I can do for your missing teeth,” Leesha said. “We can have new ones made of porcelain. They can be tinted to match your remaining teeth, or something more colorful, if you prefer.”

  Rojer shook his head. “The thing I love best about motley is that it comes off.”

  Leesha nodded, reaching into her bag and producing a most welcome sight. His fiddle case. “Amanvah wanted you to have this … to pass the hours.”

  Rojer quickly opened the case, relief flooding him as he saw the warded chinrest sitting in its velvet compartment. Pointedly, he set it on the bed between them. Amanvah would be able to hear everything, even if she could not respond.

  “Rojer, what happened?” Leesha asked.

  “I was a fool,” Rojer said. “Thought we were safe in the palace. Thought I could tweak Jasin’s nose and poison his reputation without playing the price.” He hung his head. “This is all my fault.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Leesha snapped. “You didn’t start this.”

  “I did,” Rojer said. “I started it when I punched Jasin in the nose.”

  “My mum punched me in the nose once,” Leesha said. “I didn’t feel the need to murder her and anyone standing between.”

  “Not excusing Jasin,” Rojer said. “That son of the Core got what was coming to him. But I knew what he was, and woke the demon anyway. Now Jaycob and Coliv are dead.”

  Leesha took a pocket watch from her apron, looking at the time. “They only allowed me an hour, Rojer, and we’ve but a few minutes left. You’ll have plenty of time alone to philosophize, but for now I need to know everything you can remember about last night.”

  Rojer nodded. “Jasin came to kill me. He must have bribed some of the palace guards to help. He said there was a lord who would pay for Amanvah and Sikvah.”

  “Did he say who?” Leesha asked.

  Rojer shook his head. “I wasn’t in a position to ask details.”

  “Go on,” Leesha said.

  “They must have known we’d avoid the great hall on the way back to our chambers,” Rojer said. “They were waiting in the lower hall. They shot Coliv, but he fought to the last, killing almost all of them. He left Jasin to me.”

  He deliberately kept things vague, leaving out Sikvah’s involvement entirely. He still did not know what to think of that. His sweet, submissive Sikvah had become something terrifying right before his eyes. But whatever she was, she was his wife, and he would not betray her.

  “So it was self-defense,” Leesha said.

  “Of course it was ripping self-defense,” Rojer snapped.

  “That’s not what Minister Janson is saying,” Leesha said. “He says he saw you pull a knife on Jasin a few days ago.”

  Rojer looked down. “Well, ay … but only after he attacked me.”

  “He attacked you and you didn’t say anything?” Leesha demanded.

  “Do you go running for help every time someone shoves you?” Rojer asked. “Or do you just shove back harder?”

  “I try not to shove anyone at all,” Leesha said.

  “Tell that to Inevera,” Rojer said, and watched in satisfaction as Leesha choked on her next words.

  “Well it doesn’t matter now,” Leesha said when she recovered herself. “Janson is claiming it was you that went after Jasin.”

  “With my wives and Kendall in tow?” Rojer asked incredulously.

  Leesha shrugged. “It could have simply been an argument that went too far. And when the guards tried to stop it …”

  “We murdered them all?” Rojer asked. “Does that sound even remotely plausible?”

  “Plausible or no, Jasin and is dead and you were found over him with a bloody knife,” Leesha said.

  “Find Cholls,” Rojer said. “Master of the Jongleurs’ Guild. I told him months ago that Jasin killed Jaycob and put me in the hospit.”

  Leesha nodded. “I will, but can he be trusted? The first minister seems to had everyon
e cowed.”

  “Put Gared in the room when he’s questioned,” Rojer said. “He was there when it happened.”

  “Gared knew?!” Leesha blurted. “Months before you said anything to me?”

  Rojer gave her a level look. “Gared happened to be in the room when the guildmaster questioned me on my disappearance last year. He didn’t know what he was hearing at the time, but it’s a safe bet Cholls doesn’t know that. My guess is that if he knows Gared’s there to contradict him, he won’t have the stones to lie.”

  “Even if he tells all, it will only strengthen your motive,” Leesha said.

  “I already have motive,” Rojer said. “This will give Jasin one as well.” He put his arms around his knees, pulling them up to the chest. “How are the women?”

  “Amanvah and Kendall are under house arrest until the trial,” Leesha said. “I’ve assigned Cutters to stand with the palace guards. They’re not happy, but they’re safe.”

  Rojer swallowed, noting the omission. “And Sikvah?”

  “Sikvah,” Leesha said quietly, “is missing.”

  Leesha’s legs ached by the time she reached the bottom of the seemingly endless stairwell. Her sleep was growing increasingly restless as the pregnancy progressed, leg cramps in the night leaving her with lingering pain.

  But she was no stranger to the cathedral towers, and as she left the South Tower, she circled the halls until she reached the East, where she began to climb once more.

  Rojer was in greater trouble than he realized. Araine herself had been forced to intervene with Shepherd Pether before the furious Janson relented and let the Tenders carry the unconscious Rojer to the protection of the cathedral.

  But while he was safe until his trial, there were too many dead for him to walk away from this. And Sikvah? Where was Sikvah? The guards claimed never to have found her after the attack. Had she been spirited away by whatever lord Jasin had been working with? Even the Deliverer’s niece was hostage enough to start a war they weren’t ready to fight.

  The thoughts took her mind from the endless climb to the top of the tower, where she found a cell similar to Rojer’s. The guard nodded to her and moved to open the door. They were used to her by now.