Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (5 page)

Silence greeted his pronouncement. He had expected laughter or at least a snigger or two. Timerus shook his head. ‘I do not believe you a stupid man,’ he said slowly.

That took Eremul by surprise. ‘I appreciate your generous assessment of my intellect.’

‘No… you are not stupid. You are broken. Delusional.’

‘Hang on a gods-damned minute—’

‘It all makes sense,’ Timerus cut in smoothly. ‘You have lived in fear for so long that you are simply unable to accept your sudden change in fortunes. You cling to your paranoia like a babe to its mother’s teats.’

Timerus’s words poked something raw inside him. Something raw and ugly. ‘Don’t you patronize me, you son of a bitch.’

The White Lady’s handmaiden twitched. ‘Watch your tongue,’ she said in a voice as passionless as stone. ‘Or be forever silenced.’

He knew discretion was the better part of valour, but at that moment he couldn’t help himself. ‘I’ve heard similar before,’ he sneered. ‘You should take care when threatening a wizard. Even a mad fuck like me.’

‘Enough,’ ordered Timerus. The hint of concern in that arrogant voice was strangely satisfying.

So he fears I am not bluffing. If I take nothing else from this disaster of an evening, I shall forever treasure that at least.

‘You are hereby stripped of your position on the Council,’ the Grand Regent proclaimed. He pointed one slender finger towards the double doors. ‘Get out.’

Eremul looked around. The assembled magistrates refused to meet his gaze, save for Lorganna who gave him a tiny nod.

‘Good evening, my lady,’ he said. Then he wheeled himself from the chamber.

Her hands shook. She stared at the man strapped to the chair in the middle of the room. He slumped there, head covered by an old sack pulled tight around his neck. The blood crusting the top of the sack was a dark stain against the filthy canvas. The man’s breathing was slow and laboured, every inhalation a painful struggle for air. She glanced at the knife in her hand and swallowed hard. Ambryl would be back soon. She was running out of time.

She walked over to the prisoner. The sheer stench of the man almost stopped her in her tracks. He had been here for over a month and had soiled his breeches countless times. The whole building stank, a foul odour of piss, shit and death.

The room seemed to rock around her, the early evening bustle from outside growing louder. A woman’s laugh mocked her. A beggar’s cry carried an edge of concealed menace. A dog barked, once, twice, and then a third time, wilder every yowl, and suddenly her heart was beating fast and the knife felt slippery in her sweating palms.

She squeezed her eyes shut and blocked out the sounds, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself. She gripped the sack that covered the man’s head and dragged it upwards. The dried blood and filth caused it to stick against the side of his face. She pulled harder, feeling the coarse material scrape his cheek raw. Ignoring his grunts of pain, she yanked the sack free and tossed it aside in disgust.

‘You’re an ugly bastard,’ Sasha said after a moment. Three-Finger’s head wound had healed to form a scabby mess. Beneath a brutish brow, piggish eyes blinked away crust accumulated over days spent in perpetual darkness. He had a month’s worth of beard on his face, but it was erratic, growing only in the spots where the disease that ravaged his skin failed to reach. Tufts of coarse, greying hair sprouted out between patches of purple flesh layered in dirt.

Three-Finger tried to utter something but succeeded only in spraying saliva over his chin. She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘What did you say?’

This time he managed to spit the words out. ‘Go fuck yourself, whore.’ The look he gave her set her heart to hammering again.

Sasha raised the knife and held it in front of his face. ‘Remember when you told me I had a dirty mouth? You won’t hurt anyone ever again.’

‘Untie my wrists and we’ll see about that.’ He strained against the rope that secured his hands to the back of the chair and unleashed a torrent of curses. She watched him, waiting calmly until he ceased struggling. Eventually he went limp and sagged forward until his head rested on his chest. The wound Ambryl had given him had almost split his skull in half. It was a miracle he was still alive.

‘We made it through the chaos at the gates,’ she said softly. ‘We were the lucky ones. Creator knows you didn’t deserve it, but you had the opportunity to make something of your life. Better men than you died that day. Better women too.’ She remembered the wizard Brianna, torn apart by Salazar’s magic. ‘You deserve this,’ she said.
He does deserve it
, she told herself.
He does.

‘Do it then. Get it over with and run back to that preening cock you’re so hot for. Does the kid even know I’m here?’

It took Sasha a moment to understand what Three-Finger meant. Then the blackness surged up, threatening to overwhelm her. ‘Cole hasn’t been seen since the night the city was taken,’ she said numbly.

The prisoner gave an ugly little chuckle. ‘So he’s dead, that it? Kid wanted to be famous and instead he’s lying in an unmarked grave somewhere. Life rewards the good guys, don’t it just.’

‘He was a better man than you’ll ever be, Three-Finger.’ She placed the edge of the knife against his scabrous neck.

‘Moryk,’ the prisoner replied. ‘My name’s Moryk. If you’re gonna slit me open like a hog at least call me by the name my ma gave me.’

Sasha stared down into the man’s beady little eyes. He didn’t look dangerous or predatory or even particularly sinister. He just looked pathetic. Her hand wavered, anger replaced by sudden despair.

‘To hell with you,’ she spat. She jerked the knife away from Three-Finger’s throat and stumbled over to the desk in the corner of the room. She fumbled around for the drawer pull, struggling to see through eyes blurring with tears. She found the handle, pulled open the drawer and removed the tiny pouch within, then slammed it down on the desk. Ignoring the cord, she jabbed the end of the knife into the pouch and slit it wide open, watching anxiously as the contents spilled out.

Sasha bent over the desk and let the silvery powder carry her away to sweet oblivion.

She couldn’t say what the hour was when Ambryl returned. She thought she heard the door open, but it hardly seemed important enough to demand her attention. Not until she was dragged up from the floor by her hair and slammed back against the side of the warehouse.

Her older sister stared at her, hazel eyes betraying nothing. Sasha grinned stupidly in response.

Ambryl slapped her across the face.

‘... That hurt...’ she mumbled, raising a hand to rub at her stinging mouth. She stared at her palm in confusion. It looked whiter than she remembered. ‘Am I a ghost?’ she wondered aloud. The absurdity of the question made her giggle.

Her sister slapped her again, harder. ‘You are a fool. Gather your senses.’

It dawned on Sasha that her hand was covered in
hashka.
So was her face. She could taste it in her mouth, along with the bitter metallic tang of blood. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She didn’t know why she was sorry. Only that it seemed the right thing to say.

‘The rapist is still alive.’ Her sister gestured at the figure slouched on the chair. ‘You promised me you would kill him.’

Sasha rubbed her nose. It was beginning to burn. Ambryl had lit candles near the door, but the illumination failed to reach Three-Finger, who was a dark silhouette in the middle of the room. Sasha was glad she couldn’t see his face. ‘Murdering him won’t change anything,’ she said slowly. ‘It won’t bring back Cole. Or Garrett. Or the rest of my family.’

She had discovered the remains of her foster father inside the temple of the Mother. She had fallen to her knees and sobbed until her eyes were a red ruin. Then she had hurried to Cole’s apartment, and from there to Garrett’s home, and then to the address of anyone connected with her old rebel group whose name she still recalled. Most wanted nothing to do with her. None knew what had become of Cole.

‘I’m your family now,’ said Ambryl. Her older sister took her chin gently in one hand. ‘Your true family.’

Tears dampened Sasha’s eyes. ‘How could I not know you were alive all these years?’

‘Forget that now. It is in the past.’

Sasha sniffed and wiped at her tingling nose. ‘Ambryl—’

‘Hush.’ Her sister’s grip tightened slightly. ‘I asked you not to call me that. Ambryl was a different woman.’

‘It’s who you are. My sister. Not… not Cyreena, or whatever you call yourself now.’

‘That which is weak must be purged! Purged so that men like this one cannot hurt us as they did all those years ago.’ Her hand closed around the knife resting on the desk. ‘Ambryl was weak. Cyreena is not.’

Sasha stared numbly at her sister. ‘What are you doing?’

Ambryl walked across to their prisoner. ‘Fixing what is broken,’ she said.

Three-Finger must have seen the look in her eyes, as he renewed his struggles with greater effort than before. There was real fear in his voice now. ‘Get away from me, you crazy—’

His words became an agonized scream as Ambryl thrust the knife into his thigh, right up to the hilt. She pulled it free and stabbed him again in the shoulder. This time she gave the blade a cruel twist.

Sasha winced. The
hashka
’s effects were wearing off. She watched with dull horror as her sister slowly butchered their captive, one thrust at a time.

Suddenly there was an almighty roar from outside. The warehouse shook, raining down dust. ‘What was that?’ Ambryl demanded, blinking grit from her eyes. A woman screamed somewhere out in the night. The smell of sulphur was heavy in the air.

Sasha felt as if she were going to faint. She knew that evil stench. Dark memories of the massacre at the Wailing Rift wormed their way into her mind. ‘Someone’s using alchemy,’ she whispered. ‘Explosive powder. We should go.’

Ambryl stared down at the wretched figure of Three-Finger. Spreading pools of blood glittered in the lurid glow of the flames from outside. ‘First I will dispose of this animal,’ she said coldly. She raised the knife.

Something small and round smashed through the window. Sasha watched with growing dread as it rolled a few times before coming to a halt near the door. ‘Get down!’ she screamed. Ambryl only gave her a puzzled look, so Sasha charged across the room and shouldered her to the floor.

An instant later the firebomb shattered.

The heat was extreme, enough to singe the hair on Sasha’s head. She struggled to her knees, dragging her dazed sister up beside her. Half the room had become a raging inferno. Flames licked at the rafters high above, threatening to bring the whole building crashing down on them.

‘Come on,’ Sasha gasped, pulling Ambryl towards the door. They staggered out of the warehouse and into the night. Sasha coughed wildly, gagging so hard she puked up her lunch.

‘Are you hurt, sister?’ Ambryl still clutched the bloody knife in her hand. Sasha wiped her mouth and shook her head.

‘What about me?’ rasped Three-Finger’s despairing voice. Sasha squinted through the haze of grey smoke now billowing from the doorway and spat the last of the bile from her mouth. ‘To hell with you,’ she whispered.

They hurried away from the burning building. The storehouse opposite was ablaze – fire was spreading down the entire row of warehouses east of the Hook. The world seemed to spin around Sasha as they ran, the glow of hungry flames blurring with the random flares of imaginary light that still sizzled through her drug-addled brain.

The sisters lurched into the plaza, almost barging into an elderly man who had his hands pressed over his face. Blood dribbled between his fingers. Other city folk gathered nearby, some terribly burned, a few sobbing or wailing uncontrollably. A woman cradled a small body in her arms. Sasha saw the blackened thing that was all that remained of the woman's son or daughter – it was hard to say which – and almost vomited again.

Ambryl grabbed one man by the shoulder and spun him around. He noted the knife she held and flinched back. ‘What’s going on?’ Ambryl demanded.

‘Rebels,’ he spluttered. ‘Melissan’s fanatics.’

Sasha was about to ask how the fanatics had got hold of alchemical powder when a commotion broke out. Two men and a woman sprinted into the plaza. The nearest man hurled something at the Watchmen chasing them. There was a flash, and then one of the guards was rolling over and over on the ground, smoke rising from his smouldering tabard. The remaining Watchmen quickly backed away.

‘Tell your Magelord this,’ shouted the female rebel. ‘The sons and daughters of Melissan will not rest until the White Lady withdraws her claim to the city!’ She reached under her cloak, grasping for something—

And then suddenly froze, eyes wide in confusion. Her comrades were similarly paralysed, bodies held in contorted postures.

Sasha recognized the heavy tingle of magic in the air. Her eyes swept the plaza. There he was – the Halfmage. He was focused on the rebels, his thin lips working silently. Without thinking she turned to Ambryl. ‘Give me that knife.’

He didn’t notice her until she was right beside him. Sweat beaded on his olive skin to run down a surprisingly youthful face. He was barely into his thirties and yet the wizard’s green eyes held more cynicism than the death gaze of the bitterest spinster.

‘I want answers,’ she said, looming over him, the point of the knife angled threateningly towards his head.

‘Not now,’ he hissed. His eyes flickered to her, widened when they saw Ambryl beside her. ‘You!’ he exclaimed.

Whatever spell he was working faltered in his surprise, and the female rebel lurched back into motion. Before she could toss her firebomb, one of the White Lady’s handmaidens crossed the plaza in a blur and casually snapped her neck.

Suddenly free of the magic that held them in place, the two men made a break for it. There was another streak of movement and then one was flying backwards through the air, his killer clutching his beating heart in one porcelain hand. The lone survivor stared around wildly and changed direction, heading straight towards Sasha.