I started throwing thrusts and cuts with all the quick I could muster. Precision was beyond me, for the most part. Some he deflected, the rest he dodged. I got him sweating a little, but his friendly, amused smile never faltered. And when I made a thrust that was a little too forceful and brought my weight onto my injured thigh, he was ready for the opening and brought his fist down on my jaw with force. It put me on my back on the table. I blacked out for a moment, and he was on top of me. He stripped the knives from my slackened grip before I got my head back together and put them in his belt.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said, taking a step back. “If you weren’t beat to shit, it would have been a proper fucking contest, poppet. You have my respect.”
“Shove your respect up your ass.” I just lay in the table, hurting and bleeding.
“Get up, Amra,” said Mar. “Time to go.”
I closed my eyes. Well, eye. Blood had put paid to seeing out of the right one. “Go fuck yourself with a harpoon, Mar. I’m tired.”
“Boys, be so kind as to drag that gobshite off the table. We have places to be.”
Balthaz and Eyebrow got me by the upper arms and pulled me to an upright position, then dragged me out of the wine garden and into the street. Mar followed. People gawped form safe distances, but there wasn’t any traffic. Lucernans aren’t stupid, by and large.
We didn’t make it ten feet down the street before the watch finally arrived, in force. Had to be a dozen of them that rounded the corner if not more, all with their bully sticks out and their hobnail boots on. And at their head was Kluge.
“Hey, Kluge,” I said with a nod. “I was wondering when you were going to show up.”
“Amra Thetys. You are a fugitive from the King’s justice.”
“Hey, that’s in the nature of a misunderstanding. I’d’ve been happy to stay in my cell. These shitheads had other ideas.” I nodded to Balthaz and Eyebrow.
“Then you’ll have no qualms turning yourself over to me.”
“Slap the manacles on,” I replied, raising my hands as best I could. “Sooner is better.”
Mar stepped out in front. “Amra Thetys is coming with us, inspector.”
“Watch commander. And who are you, exactly?”
“My pardon, watch commander. We are the gentlemen from Coroune. Some of them, at any rate.”
Kluge cocked his head. “You must be Emara. I’d wager that’s Balthaz and Vincel behind you.” Kluge took a couple of steps forward. “You three are also under arrest, by order of the lord governor.”
Mar laughed. “Then there’s been a mistake, commander. We answer only to the king.”
“You can mention your concerns to lord Morno when you see him. You needn’t wait long; he’s on his way. But at this moment you need to let go of the thief, get on your knees, and put your hands on your head. All of you. Now.”
“We both know that’s not going to happen, commander.”
“It is,” Kluge replied, tapping his well and unfurling a whip of blue-white light that writhed on the cobbles at his feet. “The only question is how much trouble you’ll give beforehand.” He gestured with is free hand and the watch quick-timed it and surrounded us, truncheons at the ready.
I smiled, though it hurt. “Go the watch!” I paused, thinking about the words that had just come out of my mouth. “Now there’s something I never thought I’d say.”
“You are making a grave mistake,” Mar practically hissed at Kluge.
“I’ll give you a three count.” Kluge replied. “One.”
“You’ll be hanged,” Mar told him.
“Two.”
Kluge never got to three.
Swear to gods, I heard someone giggle. It came from everywhere and nowhere, and was accompanied by a chill that made me shudder. And I wasn’t the only one that heard it.
“What the hells was that?” Eyebrow asked, and Balthaz shook his head and tightened his grip on my arm.
I heard a ruckus behind us and twisted around to see what was what.
“Oh, fuck me,” I breathed.
All the dead fuckers inside Tambor’s started pouring out into the street, moving sharper than the dead had any right to. And they were all pounding towards our little standoff.
“On your guard!” Kluge screamed, but too late. The dead hit the thin, unready rank of watchmen behind us. They went down. Screaming commenced.
Chaos blossomed; ugly, harsh and desperate.
But when everything goes to shit, opportunities arise. You just have to be quick enough to capitalize on them. Balthaz let go of my arm to fend off one of the belligerent corpses, and Eyebrow was more than a little distracted. I raked my boot down his shin, not gently, and he swore. I was able to break his grip on my arm and take my knife from his belt before he punched me in the side of the head. I went down hard and ended on my back, but I kept hold of the knife.
“Not the fucking time, poppet,” he said. And then a dead man jumped on his back. And bit his ear off.
“I beg to differ, jackass,” I muttered as I crawled off.
I’d like to say I crawled towards Kluge intentionally, but the truth is, I wasn’t moving towards anything – just away from, well, everything.
“Get behind me, Amra.” I looked up, and there he was, swinging his whip. I crawled behind him. Because I felt like it, dammit, not because he said so. I glanced back and saw he was taking chunks out of the dead with it. It wasn’t stopping them, though. They were chewing through the watch. Often literally. The gentlemen were all still standing though, the fuckers. They guarded each other’s backs in a way that spoke of long practice, and unlike some of the watch, they didn’t seem inclined to run away.
I watched one of Kluge’s men get his throat bitten out and fall to the street. And then he got back up and switched sides. Just like that.
“We need to go, Kluge. You are not fucking winning.”
“I’m not leaving my men,” he grated out while snapping his light whip at one of the belligerent corpses. It wrapped around the dead man’s neck, and popped it off clean, with a slight sizzle. That seemed to work; the two discrete pieces of person fell to the cobbled and moved no more. But the numbers were still not moving in Kluge’s favour.
“Nobody said to leave ‘em. Just call a retreat!”
“You don’t really understand the function of the city watch, do you? It’s our duty to deal with thins such as this.”
“I understand that you’re getting your ass kicked, and I fucking doubt you’ve ever had to deal with ‘things such as this’, Kluge.”
I don’t know if he caught that last part. One of his own men died and then rose up while I was talking and tried to strangle him. Kluge staggered back, and sheared the dead man’s arms off at the elbows with his whip. There was enough blood in the corpse to give Kluge a face-full, beating heart or no.
And then Gammond stepped out into the street, dead-eyed and bloody and not at all breathing, and things got much, much worse.
TWENTY-SIX
BEING DEAD HADN’T ADVERSELY affected Gammond’s ability to work magic. She raised her hand, the one with the pinkie dangling by a thin ribbon of flesh, and did her glowing needles trick again. She raked all the combatants, indiscriminately. The dead didn’t even flinch at being pierced. The living sure as hells did. After her first volley, maybe half a dozen watchmen were still upright and breathing.
One of her darts pierced my ear. An inch to one side and it would have taken my eye. And kept going.
I heard Kluge grunt. I guess he got hit, too, but if so, he didn’t let it slow him. He kept up the beheadings.
“Get Gammond!” I told him.
“She’s too far away.”
“You either get her or get away from her, Kluge. Or we’re all going to die.” Actually, there weren’t any watch left standing. Well, not standing and breathing. Running away, yes.
He did something magely and invisible to my eye, and Gammond started clawing at her face.
“That w
on’t last,” he muttered, and went back to cracking his whip.
“Then let us fucking depart.”
“I can’t let these things run loose.”
“Pretty sure they’ll follow me wherever I go.”
He took a moment to glare at me. “Dead gods, Amra. What have you done?”
“Do you want to extract confessions or do you want to live?”
He swore. Then he used his free but injured arm to get me on my feet, still removing the heads of any dead man that got too close while he did it. Then he started dragging me to the closest doorway, which happened to be a private house. I tried to help, but I was doing good to not fall down.
“Is Morno really coming, or were you bluffing?”
“He’s on his way, with a company of arquebusiers. He does not take the gentlemen lightly.”
I could see why. All three of them were still standing, still fighting. Scattered around them was a messy ring of twice-dead men. Most of the corpses had their skulls crushed or their necks askew, from what I could see.
Kluge got to the door, tried the knob. It was locked. He swore, then barked out a short phrase in what sounded like Kantic. The door swung open, but the lock’s mechanism was now slag. He dropped me into the entryway, which I couldn’t help but notice was decorated with the ugliest hand-painted wallpaper imaginable, and then he spun around to deal with the crowd of corpses that were almost on us.
I lay on a faded brown rug that smelled of dog piss, and I panted. And bled.
I am bored now, little thief.
My heart skipped a beat.
All that was left was to see who would take you, and what they would do to you. Now, nearly all the moves have been made.
“Visini.” It had to be. Who else would’ve brought the dead to fuck with me? “Where are you?” I sat up, painfully.
Close.
“Show yourself, then.”
It has been an enjoyable time. One of the better hunts. Would it be the mad mage? I thought she might break your mind. The criminals, I was certain, would slit your throat if they managed to corner you. The king’s minions would have kept you alive in some oubliette to lure out your lover, but I am certain you would have been disposed of, when your usefulness was at an end. You ran well, and fought well when cornered. I have been amused.
“All you Blades talk too fucking much. Just reveal yourself already, you tedious twat.”
The mageling who now defends you should have imprisoned you on his master’s order, and because all your many crimes have been revealed – the stolen wine was only the start, after all. Only the first letter you wrote. That would have meant a hanging. I like hangings. They are festive affairs.
“What fucking letters? Never mind, I don’t give a shit. Just show yourself.” Painfully, I got to my feet. I wasn’t going out on my ass if I could help it.
It looks like you’ve managed to squirm out of every end I created for you. That has never happened before. Not quite. Perhaps I should just let you go.
“Kerf’s rancid piles. Just reveal yourself so I can end you.”
Or... or I could kill them all, the ones that are left, with your hand on my hilt. Should I do that?
“You should go fuck yourself is what you should do.”
Kill them all and serve me, she continued, as if I had not spoken. It bears thinking on.
“You should acknowledge me as your goddess,” came a different voice. Chuckles’ voice. She appeared before me, between me and Kluge’s back, looking solemn as a judge.
Begone, sister. You have had your chance. She is mine to play with, now.
“You will not survive her attentions, Amra,” said Chuckles. “She will use you to slaughter everyone in view, and then she will force you to kill yourself last. It is her way.”
Begone, shadow. Disembodied fetch. Your time is finished.
“The night we were born, she forced our husband to slaughter all of his servitors. She bound him while the rest of us had our revenge. And then, as he lay broken and... disassembled on the chamber floor, she forced him to end his own life. He reached into his own chest with taloned fingers, and crushed his own heart.”
Do not think to mollify me with charming memories, sister. This one is mine, and I will have her.
“You know what?” I said, looking out past Kluge at the melee below, and the bright light that had appeared in the midst of it. “Both of you can eat shit.”
The brightness winked out, and in its place stood Holgren. And he was wearing his ass-kicking boots.
Ah. At last! I was almost convinced the lover would not make an appearance.
“Yeah, well, he’s been waiting for you to do it first.”
Visini giggled.
Holgren raised his hands, and storm winds issued from them. All the belligerent dead, including Gammond, started tumbling down the street. The gentlemen, further bloodied but still not broken, went with them. I hobbled to the doorway, using the walls to keep me upright until I was standing beside Kluge.
When Holgren had cleared the street for about fifteen feet in both directions, he let the winds die. And then he started making a pink mist of the corpses as they got to their feet, one by one. I wanted to say hello, but didn’t want to distract him.
Even dead, Gammond was good with the illusion magic. And even dead, it seemed she held on to her grudges. Holgren didn’t see her coming. I didn’t either. She just suddenly appeared behind him, and then she threw herself on his back and started biting and tearing.
Visini laughed out loud.
Holgren barked out a curse, managed to get hold of one of her arms, and flung her away from him. She landed hard, but was already raising her hand to give him something of the art that he wouldn’t like.
He was quicker. With a snarl and a flick of his long fingers, he turned her into a red smear on the cobbles.
Gammond was finally finished, unless puddles could put up a fight. But the remaining dead hadn’t spent the time being idle. Holgren got maybe one shuddering breath in before he was beset.
He brought up the punishing wind again, and this time he added fire. They burned as they rolled and tumbled down the street.
This one is a killer, Visini said. I will need more fodder to bring him down, I think.
If Holgren was here, that meant he knew where Visini was, even if I didn’t exactly. Which meant it was time to end her.
“Do it!” I screamed at Holgren.
“Do what?” he shouted back. A shopkeeper from across the street ran out of his shop, his face blank and slack, and threw himself at Holgren. He was followed by a woman who might have been his wife, or a patron, and a girl who couldn’t have been more than four years old. Holgren pushed them off, but they weren’t interested in desisting.
“Use your secret weapon!”
“What secret weapon? My amiable personality?” Up and down the street, more people were coming out of their houses and shops. Young and old, they all looked like lackwits, and they were all running straight at Holgren.
There is no secret weapon, Visini informed me. I made that up, and put it in your head.
An icy wind blew through my soul. If she wasn’t lying, then all I’d gone through to get to this point had been for nothing. If she was telling the truth, then we were going to die unless we got away.
I didn’t see how we were going to get away. It looked like the entire population of the Foreigner’s Quarter was intent on climbing on top of Holgren.
“You absolute cunt!” I screamed.
“Well that’s uncalled for,” said Holgren, fending off Mar and Balthaz, who were just as blank-faced as everyone else, and then some fellow with one leg, dressed in a baker’s apron.
“Not you, lover!” I tried to think. Everything had gone bad. Holgren wouldn’t kill women and children just to save himself, that much I was sure of. But he could get away, by using Lagna’s eye. I opened my mouth to tell him to do it.
And then Visini took over.
I couldn�
�t speak. I couldn’t move. I watched a horde of humanity climb onto and bury Holgren, even as he blew dozens of people away from him with his magic. And at last, I knew exactly where the Blade that Binds and Blinds was. Where she had been the whole time, from the moment I’d stood in front of the ruins of my house. From before that.
In my fucking hand.
It was a pleasant affair. The best in a century or more. Your struggles bordered on magnificent. But it is over now.
She let me have my memories back. My true memories. Starting with the slack-jawed man who had walked up to me as soon as I’d set foot on the dock and pressed the Blade into my unwilling hand, and then silently thrown himself into the bay.
I took three hours from you, more or less. I altered a few memories, and suppressed a few more. The less I have to meddle, the more satisfying it is. The more... artful.
I’d abandoned my trunk. Walked to the nearest inn, rented a room, called for paper and ink. Wrote out confessions of all my past crimes, and paid a succession of message boys, handsomely, to deliver them to the governor. Then I’d taken a hack to the Promenade.
Your mageling has not been able to find you since the moment you stepped ashore, of course. Not even with Lagna’s eye. Not until I allowed him to.
“Damn it,” said Kluge beside me. “I have to help him.” He strode out into the street, and used that voice I’d heard him use once before, in the Spindles. The one suffused with magic. The one people had no choice but to listen to, and obey.
“Stop,” he said. “Go home.”
Nobody stopped, and nobody went home. He tried again. And then he just started dragging people off the dogpile. It was pointless.
You will kill this one. Then the others in the street. And, finally, the mage you love so dearly.
“No, I fucking will not.” I tried to say it. But no words came out.
The Thief Who Went to War Page 17
