One Man

by Harry Connolly

  As he rocked the arrowhead back and forth, working it out of his wooden breastplate, he watched a child approach with a lantern. It was thoroughly shrouded and heavy enough that she had to carry it with both hands.

  Was this the child that Kyrioc, child of No One, had gone to such trouble for? She looked quite ordinary—half-starved and undergrown, with a yellow tinge to her complexion that suggested she wasn’t eating well. Fay saw dozens like her running the alleys of Koh-Salash. It had never occurred to him that he should take up arms for them.

  A tiny prick of shame made his heart skip. Why was he chasing Harl when he could have been doing something for this child and the others like her?

  The girl stopped some feet away from him, as though she did not expect to be taken to safety.

  “You’re not Riliska, child of Rulenya, are you?”

  The little girl shook her head solemnly, then lifted the lantern.

  Fay realized the heavy shroud that blocked most of the light was some kind of wet leather. Inside the wick chamber, two small, slightly scorched spheres dangled a few inches from the flame.

  Goosebumps ran down the back of Fay’s neck.

  “Where is Riliska, child of Rulenya?”

  The child looked down at the deck.

  “Hey, asshole!”

  The woman who had been shouting at him had moved to the edge of the crowd. Everyone else positioned themselves as though she were a fire keeping them warm. Constables and bureaucrats, including Fay, stood around Onderishta the same way. That had to be Tin Pail.

  She was dressed in the sober green of a magistrate, which had been the uniform for ambitious gangsters for a generation, but she held a hammer in her hand. Not a knife or hatchet. A hammer.

  Tin pointed at the little girl with her weapon. “She’s right there. Do you see her? Right. There. See, you can’t collect little kids, not for most things. Their hearts and livers and shit are too small. But their eyes are good and so is their skin. Oh, man, a child’s skin is like a sheet of solid gold, even for kids living rough. Upcity assholes pay big for unblemished skin or a scalp full of hair.

  “And yet, I’m wasting her skin and eyes on you. And you know why? Because fuck you. You take my brother? You fuck with my family? Well, that is what’s going to happen to you and everyone you love if you don’t return my brother unharmed RIGHT N—”

  There was a commotion in the crowd beside her. One of the heavies snatched an arrow from a little table, then lit it on a torch. The archer—the man who’d just tried to kill Fay, he guessed—moved to challenge him, but in a sudden movement that Fay couldn’t quite follow, the heavy took the bow into his own hands and sent the archer rolling toward the edge of the deck.

  There was a cry of outrage from the other thugs as they rushed to save him.

  In one swift, effortless motion, the heavy nocked the burning arrow, drew it all the way back, and released it.

  Right at Fay.

  He could hear it coming, and because of the flame, he could see its path, too. Fay dove out of the cart.

  The arrow struck one of the bodies in the back of the carriage. Fay realized it would have missed him by several feet. And maybe they weren’t aiming at him this time.

  A terrible moan of pain came from beneath that blanket, and the cloth began to burn brightly, as though it had been soaked in oil. In moments, the entire carriage was ablaze. The horses bolted.

  Panicked horses pulling a blazing carriage through the wooden streets of Koh-Salash could do no one any good.

  He took the whistle from his pocket and blew three short blasts. The constables would be swarming in once they saw that fire, but he gave the order anyway, if only to preserve the illusion that he was still in charge.

  Fay turned to the little girl, still standing nervously at the edge of the plankway, ghastly lantern in her trembling hand.

  “Set that down,” he said. “Come here. You don’t have to do this anymore.”

  * * *

  Before his arrow struck, Kyrioc plucked four more off the table. The archer lay half on the edge of the deck, clinging with one leg and one arm. His eyes were as big as apricots. A woman bent low to pull him back, and Kyrioc jabbed her below the ear with an arrow. She flinched away, so the strike wasn’t deep, but her reaction made her fall against the archer, and they plunged into the darkness together.

  Inside Kyrioc, the dragon was wide awake.

  He spun, nocked an arrow, and loosed it on a half-draw. It slid between the ribs of a man just a few feet away. Kyrioc loosed again, puncturing the kidney of another heavy between himself and Tin Pail. The gangsters fell back in a blind panic—the wrong thing to do when facing an archer, especially one close enough to spit on, but these were just street thugs. They had no real training or discipline, just dull sadism.

  His third shot passed through the throat of a slender woman holding a curved knife, then lodged in the right lung of the man behind her. Both toppled to the deck.

  Revealing Tin Pail. The one who’d ordered Riliska’s death. The one who’d ruined everything.

  He nocked his last arrow and shot it on the half-draw, a quick sharp shot aimed directly at her eye.

  Without flinching, she swung her hammer, deflecting the splintered shaft over her head.

  Kyrioc couldn’t tell if she was lucky or good, but it didn’t matter. He reached for more arrows, but one of the heavies had enough initiative to kick the table. The arrows scattered across the deck. He drew the bowstring, and even though he clearly had no arrow nocked, she ducked low and fell back into the crowd.

  All their attention was on him now. It was like a gale-force wind against his magic. He was going to lose his cloak of mirrors, so he released it, revealing himself for the first time.

  The heavies fell back again, this time in awe. He heard someone mutter, “Shitfire.” It didn’t matter who.

  Nothing mattered. Riliska was dead.

  Riliska was dead.

  If Kyrioc had spoken up for her when she needed him—during a petty dispute over a fucking wax tablet—she would be safe right now. If he were a better person, he would be spending this very moment with her in his little room, helping her plan her mother’s funeral and promising to look after her.

  He was not that person. He was this one. The past could never be changed. No one knew that better than him. The best Kyrioc could hope for was that this time, no more innocents would have to pay for his sins.

  The heavies stared at him with open terror, but Tin Pail did not look impressed. She glanced at the far plaza as the bureaucrat blew a whistle, then turned her attention back to him.

  “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you? I’m flattered. Whoever hired you must have really laid out some gold. Tell me who you’re working for.”

  Kyrioc didn’t answer.

  “Never mind. I already know you’re working for the Amber Throne. Not at first, though, right? But when I sent you to Harl, you warned him. Helped him get away. So, our foreign friends reached out to you. How much are they paying you?”

  Kyrioc didn’t answer.

  “Look where you are. Do you think you can survive this fight? Against all of us? Tell me what they’re paying you. I’ll pay a quarter of that, and you’ll actually live to spend it. All you have to do is tell me where to find your contact. Well?”

  Kyrioc didn’t answer.

  “I don’t get you. You haven’t made a stupid move before this, so what the fuck? I’m offering to pay you and let you live.”

  “You have nothing I want,” Kyrioc said. “Not anymore.”

  “Because of the girl? Bullshit. You’re not doing all of this because of some worthless orphaned kid. That’s bullshit. Why her? Why this one little girl?”

  The death of a single child is like the end of the world.

  Kyrioc said, “She was my neighbor.”

  Tin’s lip curled in anger. She thought he was taunting her.

  None of that mattered. He threw the bow over his shoulder. It misse
d the deck behind him and fell silently through the darkness, without even the click of wood impacting wood to mark its passing.

  Into nothingness. That was how Kyrioc felt. He had not been able to imagine what the world would be like when he rescued Riliska, but the thought of failure had been unbearable.

  Now that moment had come, and it was more than he could stand. He wanted to tear off all his skin. He wanted to set fire to himself with his self-hatred. He wanted to be someone, anyone, else.

  One kind act at the right moment would have saved Riliska’s life, but he had been incapable of it. She’d been doomed from the moment they met.

  He should have wept in shame, but it was too late for that.

  He had nothing left but the urge to die.

  But first, he was going to kill every last one of these motherfuckers.

  * * *

  Killer of Devils sat alone in the spa, thinking about the rolling green fields of his homeland. The Katr were famously generous with invited guests, and infamously harsh on unwelcome invaders. As a boy, Killer had met many foreigners and had liked most of them.

  Still, when the Ionelto raiders had paddled into the river mouth beside his village, he had taken up his grandfather’s spear and helped to drive them away. Young he may have been, but he fought with distinction.

  That was the day he had earned his name. It had opened doors for him, first for his studies in the priesthood, then the halls of the clan chiefs. Everything he had done since had been won through hard work and iron will, but the opportunities would never have come without that day and that name. Killer of Devils.

  But what was it worth now?

  He thought again of that little girl, so desperate to be reunited with her mother. He thought again of the way she had trusted him when he led her into the doctor’s basement of horrors…

  It was too much. He was trapped in this city, serving these masters.

  For centuries, his people had believed it was blasphemy to live among the corpses of the gods. But when other nations had joined forces to drive the Salashi out, his refused. The Katr believed the gods themselves would make their displeasure known.

  Well, they had waited more than four hundred years for the gods’ vengeance, and Killer suspected they were waiting for the wrong thing. The gods did not have to rain fire and pestilence among the Salashi. They only needed to let them live inside this hell, while they slowly strangled whatever decency and vitality fled Selsarim all those years before. If the people here were doomed, they were doomed to become uncaring monsters who skinned children alive for spite.

  Killer could not simply walk away from the oaths that bound him to the Pails, but he could be freed of them. Death would do it, and for the first time in his life, he was ready—no, eager—for death to claim him.

  But it could not be at his own hand, or with his assistance. He needed to find a fight he could not win, and he needed to find that fight as soon as possible, because his time was over.

  He heard three faint whistle blasts. The cosh were coming. Killer of Devils took up his ghostkind blade and headed for the exit, wondering how many of them he would have to kill before they finally brought him down.

  * * *

  Tin just stood there, watching this fucking guy with the scar on his face, as he stared at her like she was a broken bottle of brandy. Like she was a mess that needed to be wiped up.

  Wooden was dead. She hadn’t really believed the broker would bring him. She’d been sure that was fake. But with that agonizing cry from the burning carriage—a voice she recognized instantly—she realized she’d played this all wrong. She had tried to be smart, but she’d overthought it.

  Her brother was dead.

  And it was this asshole’s fault.

  She’d offered him money and his life—neither of which she would have actually given him—for the name of the person running him, but he’d just stared. He was still acting like the orphan girl was his sole reason for being there.

  Which was bullshit.

  The broker drew a slender iron rod from his left sleeve. It was no longer than his forearm—not even as long as a truncheon—and covered with little oblong ridges. She’d never seen a weapon like it.

  Idiot. She wasn’t afraid of him. If she was going to die fighting, best to lose to an asshole with magic behind him. But she was the boss now, and she didn’t have to be in the front. First, she was going to let her people take a few pieces of him.

  But they were just standing around like shitwits.

  “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”

  The heavies surged forward.

  Wool Cap caught her elbow. “Boss!”

  He didn’t have to point. She turned toward the plaza, where constables had begun to gather in ranks. The asshole who’d pretended to be the broker was watching her. He was definitely another Carrig invader, come to undermine her city from within the bureaucracy. She wondered how much the Amber Throne was paying him and how many more there were like him. And he was giving orders to the fucking cosh.

  “Spring the plank,” she said, as the first constables stepped onto the plankway.

  Wool went pale. “Boss, the cosh are already…”

  “Fuck this,” she said. She knelt at the edge of the spot where the plankway met the spa deck. The handle beneath wouldn’t budge.

  The hinge was made of wood, like every fucking thing in this city. Tin raised her hammer and struck it once, twice, three times.

  Something broke off and fell into the darkness. The whole plankway shuddered. The skywood hinge made a sound like a lonely ghost. Wool Cap stood at the edge of the deck, waving for the cosh to go back. Then the plankway groaned and dropped a few inches. One of the ironshirts lost her balance and fell off the edge. The rest scrambled back to the safety of the plaza.

  Some didn’t make it. When the plankway finally dropped from beneath them with the sound of a dying whale, two reached for safety, caught nothing, and fell out of sight.

  “Three constables,” Wool said. “Three. You’re going to start a new Downscale War.”

  The truce that had followed the last Downscale War was nothing but appeasement to foreign invaders. The days when Salashi heavies appeased invaders and collaborators was over. She turned Wool toward the broker and shoved him forward. “Get in there and fight!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The Childfall Staff felt cold in Kyrioc’s hands.

  The first of the heavies shouted a battle cry and lunged with a knife. Kyrioc met her with a blow to the forehead. She crumpled backward into the path of the thugs behind her.

  He called up his cloak of iron, then stepped forward, lashing out with his staff. He kept his weapon short for close quarters and struck swiftly against skulls, collarbones, and wrists. His weapon felt as light as a reed, but it struck with the force of a sledgehammer.

  And it was growing warmer.

  * * *

  Killer of Devils stepped outside. The walkway that connected to the rest of the city was gone, and the constables were stuck on the far side.

  He suddenly felt very tired.

  Someone nearby was fighting. Killer hopped onto a bench by the wall and peered over the heavies.

  At the edge of the platform, the pawnshop broker was facing down three dozen thugs. Some were the useless street-corner blunderers Tin had brought from Wild Dismal. Some were the slightly less useless bullies she had skimmed from Harl. None seemed eager to engage the scarred man in his tattered funeral clothes.

  Killer was about to take over when three heavies charged together. The broker lashed out so quickly, Killer could barely see the motion. Eight hells, Killer had fought the man and knew he was quick, but not that quick.

  The broker stepped forward, clearing space with his length of iron. It seemed an odd choice of weapons until Killer realized that it was growing longer with each strike. Then, when another heavy lunged, it shortened again to deliver a close knock to the skull.

  Magic. The broker had a magic
weapon.

  What fool would sell an enchanted weapon in a Woodgarden pawnshop? It did not matter. The broker was tearing through the heavies, blocking knife strikes with his left arm—strikes that should have drawn blood but did not—kicking at knees and ankles when the thug looked unbalanced, and breaking bones with that changeable iron truncheon.

  His movements were fluid, quick, and unpredictable. He pivoted first in one direction, then another, one moment turning his back on an enemy, then spinning around to bash anyone who dared come close.

  The iron staff burst into flames.

  The heavies fell back, amazed. The broker—Killer needed to learn that man’s name—stood still, breathing heavily, the flames washing over his hand without any seeming effect.

  The man summoned that shadow cloud again. It was smaller and more diffuse than before, but it had the desired effect. The heavies gasped and fell back farther. Then the shadow was gone, and the scarred man seemed to transform before their eyes. For a moment, he looked like Tin Pail, but only for a moment.

  Then Killer noticed the expression on the broker’s face. This scarred man was also seeking death, and like Killer, he was going to kill as many as he could before it came to him.

  They were practically brothers.

  There was another flurry of attacks, and this time, one of the heavies slashed high with his knife, above the stranger’s arm. The blade struck the scarred part of the broker’s face, but it did not glance off completely. A thin red line appeared on the man’s jawline, and a tiny seep of blood appeared.

  Whatever magic protected him, it was wearing down.

  Then Tin Pail shoved a heavy toward the broker, shouting that she was going to have to do their jobs for them. That Killer could not allow.

  * * *

  There were too many of them, and this was taking too long.

  Kyrioc’s cloak of iron had already deflected three killing strokes, but every blow weakened it, and the heavies’ edges had begun to draw blood. No matter how hard Kyrioc concentrated, his cloak was becoming thin.