A Painted Goddess

by Victor Gischler

  She turned and saw Alem escorting a prisoner toward her, an emaciated man in gray rags, filthy and barefoot, hair greasy and matted, skin fish-belly white. How long had he been in the duke’s dungeon? Months? Years?

  “Come here,” Rina told him.

  The prisoner took a look at her, one hand held high in command of the storm, black armor, a fierce expression on her face. He took a half step back.

  “It’s okay,” Rina said. “No harm will come to you.”

  The songbird tattoo flared at her throat.

  The prisoner shuffled to her, chains hampering his movement. He knelt, looking up at her, eyes wide and trusting.

  She told herself the man was a criminal. He’d probably raped some young girl or murdered a child. She told herself what she needed to believe, tried to summon anger or disgust at this man, whatever made her next actions okay. Any excuse to justify it.

  Rina tugged off her other glove with her teeth. Seeing the skeletal tattoo on her palm was still a shock. She would never get used to it.

  “I’m sorry,” Rina said to the prisoner.

  She reached out to take him.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  General Thorn clung to the gunwale to keep from being thrown to the deck.

  The waters churned. One of the escort ships was thrown into them, rattling both vessels. This time Thorn was thrown to the deck. He picked himself up again with as much dignity as he could muster. The sky had darkened suddenly, the storm catching them all completely by surprise, but Thorn had ordered the attack on Sherrik to continue. He’d vowed to take the city, and he’d be damned if he’d stop for anything. Not even a hurricane. Then he heard it.

  Or rather didn’t hear it.

  The slow, pounding thud of the battering ram had stopped.

  “Lieutenant!” he shouted over the howl of the wind.

  The junior officer ran across the tilting deck as quickly as he could while still keeping his footing. A sloppy salute. “General.”

  “Has the battering-ram squad broken through the gate?”

  “No, General.”

  “Then why have they stopped?”

  “The enemy has abandoned the harbor wall. A company has been sent to secure the gate from the inside.”

  Something is very wrong, Thorn thought. It shouldn’t be this easy.

  The harbor wall was a much better defense than the inner wall. Yes, it would have been taken eventually, but to abandon it so soon?

  “Tell the flagmen to signal they should not advance beyond the inner wall until the scouts have assessed the situation.”

  The lieutenant saluted and sped away to give the order.

  Thorn cast a glance upward. The sky roiled with black clouds. The storm was getting worse.

  Still, calling off the attack wasn’t an option. His men would press on and take the city.

  Let the bloody winds howl.

  Smoke filled the hall, and they could feel the heat of the fire coming around the corner.

  A mob of Perranese charged around the other corner.

  The duke lunged in weakly. The enemy batted his blade aside and came en masse, a press of bodies that pinned the duke against the wall. He struggled to free himself. A Perranese warrior lifted his blade to hack at him.

  And was immediately smashed in the face by the bishop’s mace, the crunch and splat of bone and blood, shattered teeth flying.

  “I’m here, your grace!”

  Bishop Hark grabbed the duke by the collar and yanked him back, practically throwing the man behind him. A backhand with the mace snapped another man’s collarbone, and he went down, bleating like an animal.

  There’s too many, Hark thought. Only the narrowness of the hallway keeps them from overwhelming us, but they’ll still wear us down in time.

  Time. That’s all they were doing really, buying time so Duchess Veraiin could do whatever it was she thought would help. The bishop simply had to trust her. And she’d said she needed time. They’d followed the duke down the stairs to the level below and had met a dozen of the duke’s men retreating back toward them. They hadn’t looked happy when the duke ordered them to turn and stand their ground, but they obeyed.

  Fighting had been fierce and desperate. Half the duke’s men fell as they gave ground a foot at a time.

  We won’t last long like this.

  “Pick him up!” Hark shouted. “Retreat to the landing at the foot of the stairs.”

  Kalli and Tosh pulled the duke to his feet, but he struggled out of their grasp.

  “No, stand—” Coughs wracked his body. He spit blood. “Stand your ground.” Pain shot through him, and he went down on one knee.

  “Forgive me, your grace, but there’s a heavy wooden door at the landing, banded with iron,” Hark said. “We can hold there longer.”

  The duke didn’t agree, but neither did he object when Tosh and Kalli each grabbed him under an arm and dragged him back toward the landing. Two more of the duke’s men died covering their withdrawal.

  Maurizan rushed forward, a dagger flashing in each hand. Her graceful movements, so quick and fluid, made everyone else look slow and clumsy. She slashed and stabbed and dodged, cutting the back of a knee, stabbing the armpit through a gap in the armor, then stepping aside as enemy blades tried to find her.

  The enemy fell back momentarily, stunned by the little red-haired girl dealing death among them.

  Hark and the rest had retreated to the other side of the door. “Come on, girl! We’re closing it! Hurry!”

  Hark watched her in awe.

  She spun, slashing a dagger across an enemy throat as she turned to run back down the hall. She seemed to have eyes in the back of her head, knew exactly when to zig or zag as arrows flew past her. She dove through the doorway a split second before Hark slammed it shut.

  “Quickly,” she said. “Bar it.”

  Hark put his shoulder against the door, as did three more of the duke’s men. “Would love to, young lady. Alas, it bars on the other side.”

  The enemy slammed the door, jarring Hark and the others holding it.

  “Push, lads!” Hark shouted. “I think we’d all prefer they stay on the other side, eh?”

  Tosh rushed forward to put his shoulder against the door with the others.

  “A dagger,” Sherrik croaked. The duke sat against a wall a few feet away, sword held limply across his lap. The burn and the other wounds had taken their toll. His complexion on the unburned half of his face had gone a clammy gray. “Wedge it.”

  Maurizan went to her hands and knees, reaching in between the legs of the men holding the door, and jammed the dagger into the crack below.

  “Bishop, your mace.”

  He handed it down to her.

  She used it like a mallet, hitting the hilt of her dagger once, twice, wedging it in tight.

  “That’s got it.”

  The Perranese kept hammering from the other side.

  “Better keep your shoulders to it, gentlemen,” Hark said. “We’ve wedged it shut, but they’ll knock it loose if they can. Still, we can hold here a good long time.”

  The dull thuds against the door stopped, replaced a few moments later by the sharp hacking sound of axes.

  Hark cleared his throat. “Well, then. Maybe not quite as long as we’d hoped.”

  The prisoners huddled along the wall of the platform, the wind lashing them. Their wide eyes watched the sky growing darker and darker.

  Sarkham almost pitied them. Then he remembered that the denizens of the ducal dungeons were made up almost exclusively of murderers and rapists and the worst dregs of the city.

  Still, the duchess wanted them. For what, he couldn’t imagine. In fact, why had he obeyed her when she’d asked they be brought to the top of the palace? Somehow Sarkham had gotten the idea that it was in accordance with the duke’s wishes. This notion had gradually seemed less likely, but the duke had been here, talked to Duchess Veraiin, had told her he’d hold off the Perranese while she . . .

&
nbsp; Did what?

  Looking again at the line of prisoners, Sarkham couldn’t begin to guess why he’d been sent for them, why they were here, what use they could possibly be. The Perranese were attacking the city, and he was playing jailer. This didn’t make sense. There were more important things that should have been occupying the captain’s attention.

  And yet the duke had given his orders.

  Still . . .

  Sarkham gingerly touched the side of his head, wincing at the contact where his ear had been. He dreaded what his wife would say. She’d always thought him so handsome. She’d be horrified at his mutilation. In the heat of battle, it had been a quick, sharp sting. Now it was an excruciating throb.

  He didn’t think the sky could grow any darker in the middle of the day, but it did.

  And then the horn sounded. Sarkham didn’t think it possible any sound could drown out the howling wind, but the unmistakable signal for retreat did just that. This couldn’t be right.

  “Stay here,” Sarkham said to the first prisoner in line.

  He looked up at the captain, eyes vacant, the possibility he might go anywhere else utterly ridiculous.

  “Captain Sarkham!”

  Sarkham looked up the stairs. It was the boy in the black doublet with the glowing sword. “Milord?”

  “Duchess Veraiin says to send up the first prisoner.”

  Sarkham pulled the prisoner to his feet, pointed up the steps. The prisoner went with the boy.

  Sarkham thought about it. No, this couldn’t be right. He needed to check on this, to see for himself.

  He climbed the stairs.

  The prisoner knelt next to the duchess. She pulled off a glove with her teeth.

  And reached for the prisoner.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “I’m sorry,” Rina said again.

  She didn’t even know whether the prisoner heard her above the wind.

  Rina grabbed him, the skeletal tattoo on her palm flat against his forehead. Immediately she began drawing the man’s spirit. His eyes went wide. His mouth fell open to scream, but he was frozen, a strangled croak trying to escape the depths of his throat. Her grip didn’t waver as he trembled, his face going waxen and pale.

  The man’s spirit flowed into her, refilling the well she’d drained creating the storm. Rina felt the power surge through her, but there was an unwholesome feel to it, like a slick oily layer on the surface of an otherwise pure pool of water. She drained the prisoner and he slumped over, eyes rolled back. He looked shriveled. Lessened.

  Dead. Whatever he was, good or bad, is finished now. I did that. Maybe he deserved it, but how do I know? Who am I to make these decisions?

  She’d never wanted power. Never wanted to decide between life and death. Her father had told her many times that such decisions were the burden of leadership. As duke he might have to order men into a situation that meant their deaths. He couldn’t hesitate when the greater good was at stake.

  Rina looked at the dead man at her feet. But this . . . this can’t be the same. It feels wrong.

  She turned back to Alem. The appalled look on his face would have broken her heart if she hadn’t been tapped into the spirit. This was no time for emotion. No time to second-guess. Resolve steeled her.

  She saw Sarkham watching from the top of the stairs. He also seemed disturbed by what he saw. It didn’t matter.

  “Bring me another one,” Rina said.

  Sarkham looked at Alem, but Alem turned away.

  “Bring me another one,” she repeated more firmly.

  A hesitation, then Sarkham nodded and went back down the stairs, came back a moment later with another prisoner, a man with coarse black hair and a deep scar down his face. He’d been a man of muscles before wasting away in the dungeon. Like the previous prisoner, he balked when he saw the woman in black armor, one hand held aloft, commanding the storm.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You’ll be all right.” Again the songbird flared at her throat.

  He nodded and went forward. Rina signaled him to kneel.

  Her palm against his forehead. She drained him.

  Like before, the oily feeling repulsed her. But now there was the other feeling too. She’d been expecting and dreading it. The sweet thrill of the power. It lurked there under the oily corruption. A part of her loved it. Another part of her despised the part that loved it. Weylan’s words came to her yet again. He’d warned her when he’d inked the Prime down her spine. The power was seductive. She could get drunk on the spirit. Use too much, and she’d burn herself out.

  In a way, the fear of burning out was the only thing keeping an ink mage in check. The only thing reminding her to pull back was the idea she could kill herself draining her own spirit.

  The Hand of Death changed that, the tattoo of the skeletal hand.

  She could take as much spirit as she needed—wanted—as long as there were live bodies to take it from.

  And what could stop an ink mage then?

  She looked down at the ships tossing in the harbor, knocking into one another. She looked at the dead prisoners at her feet, one fallen across the other.

  Rina commanded the winds to blow stronger. Already she was draining herself again.

  She looked back at Alem. “Tell Sarkham to bring me another one.”

  Alem stared back at her, not moving. He looked lost.

  “Alem.”

  He snapped out of his daze, went to tell Sarkham.

  Alem belonged to the gypsy girl irrevocably now, she realized. If there’d ever been a chance to change things, it was gone.

  He’ll never look at me the same way again.

  There was no going back.

  They stepped away from the door, weapons up and ready. The Perranese were coming through, axes hacking through the door, rattling the hinges. Woodchips flew. It didn’t matter that they’d wedged the door shut with a dagger, because in another minute the door wouldn’t exist.

  I wish I’d used somebody else’s dagger, Maurizan thought. Only having one blade feels strange.

  The gypsy fighting style was two-handed. She pulled a skinning knife from her boot to fill the empty hand. It wasn’t as good as the long fighting daggers, but the blade was sharp and it was better than nothing.

  They stood in the small landing at the foot of the stairs leading up to the top of the palace behind them. In addition to Maurizan, Tosh, Kalli, and the bishop, four of the duke’s men had survived. They had tight grips on their sword hilts and looked scared. The duke himself still clung to life but was in no shape to fight. His armor was stained with the blood of his enemies as well as his own.

  The axes hacked away from the other side. Through the cracks, they could see the Perranese bunching on the other side preparing to storm through. One of the hinges popped off and clanged on the stone floor. It would be a matter of seconds now.

  “This was a mistake,” Maurizan said suddenly. “There’s no room to fight here. We should go up top.”

  “Rina told us to hold them off as long as possible,” Hark said.

  “I can fight better with room,” Maurizan said. “You and the others can fall back to guard the platform. You have to trust me.”

  “She’s right,” Kalli said. “We start swinging swords in this tight space, we’re as likely to hit each other as we are them.”

  Hark looked at the duke for guidance, but the man’s head lolled in a daze.

  “Okay,” Hark said. “Everyone topside!”

  Two of the soldiers grabbed the duke under the arms and dragged him up the stairs, the others following close. They heard the racket of the door smashing in behind them just as they emerged onto the roof.

  They were all nearly knocked over by the hurricane-force winds.

  Maurizan had tapped into the spirit, so she could take in the situation in an instant. She was still getting used to how everything seemed to slow, as if the world were giving her a chance to scrutinize every detail. Captain Sarkham marched a prisoner in cha
ins up the stairs to the platform. There’d been a score of prisoners earlier. Now there were only three. From this angle, she couldn’t see what was happening up on the platform, but considering the angry black clouds and the way the wind tore through the sky, Rina must have gotten the hang of her new tattoos.

  She glanced back at the harbor. A number of the ships were half-submerged, swamped by enormous waves. She felt a pang of awe. Rina must be using an incredible amount of spirit.

  But there was no time to be impressed. The Perranese were already spilling up the staircase and spreading toward them.

  “All of you get up to the platform!” Maurizan shouted at the others. “Hold there if they get past me.”

  “Alone?” Hark said.

  “You’ll just be in my way,” she said. “Now go!”

  Hark and the others rushed up the stairs, dragging the unconscious duke with them.

  Maurizan turned back to the charging Perranese, dagger in one hand, knife in her off hand. Okay, Rina’s putting her new tattoo through the paces. Now it’s my turn.

  She sprinted toward the Perranese warrior in the lead, and when she got within three feet, the man swung the sword two-handed, the blade slicing straight down the middle of her skull.

  Instead of a fantastic splatter of brains and blood, the image of Maurizan swirled away like smoke. Maurizan appeared ten feet away, knife slipping into the throat of a completely different warrior, blade entering flesh just above the collar of his armor. Blood sprayed, and the man lurched back a step before dropping. Another warrior stabbed Maurizan through the back.

  Again, Maurizan’s image dissolved into smoke, flying away on the wind. She reappeared a dozen feet away, stabbing up and under the rim of a helmet into the base of a warrior’s skull. Others slashed at her to no avail, the blades passing through her as if she were a ghost.

  The tattoos on her feet were called the Phantom Walker, and now she fully understood why. She spun and danced among the enemy, slashing and stabbing, and by the time they saw her, she was already gone, leaving just a ghostly image like a memory.

  Enemies dropped by the second. The illusion they were fighting a ghost sowed fear among them. Many of them backed toward the stairs, considering escape. Maurizan showed no mercy or pity. Her hands dripped red with the blood of the enemy.