Masque of Death (Kormak Book Nine) (The Kormak Saga 9) (14 page)

* * *

T
hrough the slit
in the shutters of the upstairs sitting room, the changeling watched the soldiers gather. The Guardian had not wasted any time moving against them. It was to be expected. The servants of the Holy Sun were ruthless and driven to the hunt. He could afford to be no less.

He counted the number of troops. There were at least twice as many as Orson employed and those were just the visible ones. The changeling doubted that was an accident.

Still, they were in a strong position. Providing the Guardian did not decide to burn them out. He would not have put it past the man. The Order of the Dawn had a great belief in the purifying powers of fire.

He pulled out the stiletto and began to apply poison from his selection. “We may have to fight,” he said.

“Yes,” said Orson, studying him closely for a moment before turning to look out the window again.

The changeling felt the power of the geas settle on him. He needed to get out of here, and he needed to complete his mission. At all costs, he must avoid dying now. He turned to Orson. “Is everything ready?”

The fat man nodded. “As it will ever be. My household troops have got their instructions. They are to hold the mansion for as long as possible.”

“Their loyalty is commendable.”

Orson nodded. “They have been with me since the beginning. They would die for me.”

“They are going to.”

“I would not say that too loudly. Some of them might hear you.”

It was time to begin to clean out this nest of vipers. He had got all the aid from Orson he was going to. This was probably the last time they would be alone for a while. “Then there’s only one thing left to do,” the changeling said.

“What’s that?”

He struck at Orson with the stiletto. The fat man was much quicker than he looked. He snatched his arm away so fast that the weapon only scratched his arm. The changeling smiled. It would be enough for his purposes.

* * *

N
umbness spread
from the cut in Orson’s forearm. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He lashed out with one ham-sized fist, but the changeling eluded his blow easily. He let himself fall forward with all his weight, forcing the shapeshifter against the wall. His bulk pressed against the changeling and he brought his hands up around its throat. His right arm refused to respond, but his left one worked well enough. He got the changeling by the throat.

“Treacherous bastard,” he slurred. “I’ll break your neck.”

The changeling lashed out a blow at his stomach, but Orson turned and it glanced off his ribs. His opponent jabbed at his leg with the stiletto, numbing it. Orson lifted him one-armed, using all his bear-like strength.

The changeling tried to tear his hand away from its throat.

Poison, Orson thought. He was going to die. Well, he would take the changeling with him. He closed his hand and began to crush his opponent’s windpipe.

His foe braced his feet against Orson’s chest and kicked. The strength of his legs broke Orson’s grip. It propelled Orson backwards, tumbling him to the ground. The changeling hit the wall and slumped to the floor. Orson hoped he had broken his foe’s neck but no such luck. The false Kormak began to rise, a murderous glitter in his eyes.

Orson forced himself upright. The numbness was spreading along his arm, and he felt himself growing weaker. His breathing was heavy. His heart pounded against his ribs.

The changeling closed the gap between them. Orson reeled towards him, one arm outstretched, the other hanging numbly by his side. He tried to sweep his enemy into his grasp, but it ducked.

Orson felt another pinprick of pain in his left arm. It too began to go numb although not at the rate his right arm had. It seemed like there was less of the drug left on the needle, possibly only a residual dosage.

The changeling had recovered from his earlier surprise at being attacked. It unleashed a rain of blows at Orson, all aimed at his stomach and chest. They hit with the force of a battering ram, bruising him.

Orson leapt at his foe, trying to body check him. The changeling eluded him. Orson thrust sideways with his left leg. His kick caught his opponent on the leg. It was a solid blow, and he hoped it would slow the shapeshifter but no such luck. It merely sent him crashing into the table.

The changeling recovered almost immediately and lashed out with his foot to trip Orson and send him sprawling. Another blow smashed into Orson’s back. He tried to rise but this time, he could not. The effect of the poison was too great. The changeling hoisted his limp body aloft.

“What are you doing?” Orson mumbled. The words came out faintly, but the changeling heard him.

Orson felt something loop around his neck. It was a heavy leather belt. He felt himself being hoisted up and saw the belt being looped over the chandelier. Drawing on it from behind the changeling lifted him. It was a lot stronger than it looked.

Orson stood on tiptoes even as he was hoisted ever higher. He felt the belt draw tight around his neck and felt the air rasp into his lungs.

His feet left the ground. He wondered if the chandelier would hold his weight. He kicked and tried to swing backwards and forwards. The changeling struck him again, and his legs stopped responding. He was choking now, and strength leeched from him. He looked down and saw the changeling was moving a chair into position beneath the chandelier. It was turned over as if he jumped from it and then kicked it away. The changeling stood beneath him as the room grew blacker.

The last thing that Orson noticed was that his features were becoming more bloated and starting to bear an uncanny resemblance to his own.

T
he changeling watched
the fat merchant’s corpse swing. He tugged down on the man’s legs to make sure he was properly strangulated. Orson’s tongue lolled, and his face was black. When the changeling put his hand on his chest, there was no heartbeat.

He glanced around the room. It was a pity about the signs of a struggle. He would have preferred for the thing to have gone much more cleanly. Hopefully, no one would notice the scratches he had made with the stiletto point.

He wanted the Guardian to find the corpse of the guilty merchant. He wanted it to seem as if Orson had hanged himself to avoid capture while his men made their desperate last stand. Hopefully, they might still interpret it that way, but even if they did not, it would still cause them some confusion, and it tidied up some loose ends. At very least it would buy him some time to get away. Once he achieved that, he would deal with Balthazar and then seek Vorkhul’s coffin.

He headed up to Orson’s chamber and donned some of the fat man’s clothes. They smelled of camphor and mothballs. He had expanded his form to take on Orson’s shape, but he did not have the merchant’s weight. Not that it mattered. The clothes were now a good fit.

He donned them. He stopped and applied nightbane paste to his dagger. He smeared on enough to kill anyone he stabbed in moments, then carefully returned the blade to its sheath. He strode downstairs to where the men that were now his followers waited at the entrance to the escape tunnel.

* * *

A
nders looked
up when the door opened. The fat priest entered. He was not dressed as a clergyman anymore. Instead, he wore the fur-trimmed tunic and pronounced cod-piece of a wealthy merchant.

“Not a holy man this morning?” Gregor asked. “Travelling incognito are we?”

“Something like that.” The mockery in the fat man’s voice matched that in Gregor’s. His thick lips twisted as if at some personal joke. The voice was right. The body language was right, but there was something different about the fat man that Anders could not quite put his finger on. Maybe it was just the change of dress that made him behave differently. It happened with some people.

“I recognise you,” said Gregor. “I’ve seen you down the harbour sometimes. You’re a big shot merchant, not a priest.”

“If you say so,” the former priest said.

“Orson Waters. That’s your name. So why are you going around disguised as a priest, Orson? You got something to hide?”

“Everyone has something to hide,” said the merchant.

“What’s your connection with the Guardian?”

“We are old acquaintances, and I think it’s fair to say we are on the same side.”

“I always heard you were on the side of money.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“I don’t.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Anyway, I don’t have all night to stand here chatting. We need to be away.”

“Away where?”

“Do you never stop asking questions?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“I’ll take that as a particularly feeble-minded joke. Now it’s time for you to get on your feet. We need to get out of here and on our way to Xanadar.”

“It’s about time,” said Gregor.

“I’m glad my plans meet with your approval. Now on your feet or my men will drag you.”

“What about the bindings?” Anders asked.

“The ones on your hands will stay just in case you get any notions of escape. The ones on your legs will be removed.”

“Good,” said Gregor. “That will certainly make walking easier.”

The fat merchant cuffed Gregor in the same off-hand way the Guardian had jabbed him with a stiletto earlier. There was a casual cruelty to it that felt similar. Maybe the Guardian’s ways were rubbing off on his companions. Anders had seen it happen before.

Smiling the merchant reached down and hoisted Gregor back onto his feet. He brushed Gregor’s lapels with his hands as if wiping away imaginary dust specks. Gregor did his best to hide it, but he flinched when the merchant’s hand came close to his face.

Orson turned on his heel and made his way down the stairs.

“I always thought the way out would be up,” said Gregor. His whisper was as loud as another man’s normal speech.

“So did I,” said Anders. “But I’m starting to think nothing about this will prove to be normal.”

* * *

K
ormak raced
across the sculpted gardens towards the merchant’s house. Shouts came from inside.

“Open up in the name of the King-Emperor,” Zamara shouted. Something flickered from an open window and thudded into the ground near his feet. A crossbow bolt, Kormak guessed.

“Have it your way then,” Zamara responded. “Break that door down, lads. We’ll winkle these rebels out in a jiffy.”

The men smashed into the heavy wooden door with the battering ram. This was a merchant’s mansion, and the portal was reinforced and thick. The lower windows were barred. Men emerged onto the balconies above and began firing down with crossbows. The marines responded in kind. In the moonlight the shots were difficult, but now and then a scream sounded from the garden or the house telling that one of the bolts had found a resting place in human meat.

Kormak added his strength to that of the rammers. Together they swung the log back and forth. The door splintered and jumped from its hinges, falling backwards into the lobby.

A group of armed men waited. They levelled their crossbows. Silhouetted against the open door, Kormak was an easy target. He threw himself flat and a bolt whizzed above his head and buried itself in the man behind. Other men screamed and went down. The crossbowmen frantically reloaded.

One man’s fumbling fingers his bolt slip the ground. Kormak pushed himself to his feet, drew his blade and raced forward, one man against ten. Two of the mercenaries had blades ready and stepped forward to protect their companions. He cut them down then beheaded a kneeling crossbowman.

“Surrender or die!” he bellowed.

One of the men tried to raise his weapon, swinging it to point towards the Guardian’s chest. Kormak stabbed him through the throat and to make his point clear, opened the jugular of another crossbowman. The rest of them dropped their weapons.

The marines flooded into the house. Count Shahad glared at the surrendered men as if they had personally murdered his wife.

“Where is he? Where is that bastard Orson?” His voice was thick with guttural rage.

A terrified mercenary, suddenly vulnerable without his weapon, nodded at the stairs. Kormak took them three steps at a time with Shahad and Rhiana hard at his heels. Behind them, Zamara directed the mopping up operation. Frater Ramon sat down on a stool as if even the act of walking across the garden had winded him.

Kormak kicked open the doors of the upstairs rooms one by one. The men inside had realised they were beaten and dropped their weapons. Kormak finally came to what must have been the master bedroom. Orson swung from a chandelier, hanging from his thick leather belt. A stool had been tipped over nearby. His face was an awful shade of purple. The stink of voided bowels filled the air.

“Bastard killed himself rather than face justice!” Shahad was outraged. He glared around seeking a target for his frustrated anger.

“There’s something not right here. Take a look around.” Kormak looked at the room. There were the signs of a struggle. Furniture was upset or broken. Precious items lay strewn near at hand.

Rhiana saw it first. “It looks like there was a fight.”

Kormak nodded.

Shahad said, “Maybe he broke the place up in rage when he heard we were coming.”

“I can think of more sensible things to do.”

“You can never tell how a man will behave when he thinks the end is near,” Shahad said. “I’ve seen some odd behaviour when I have fought duels.”

“Look at his clothes—they are ripped.” Kormak opened his shirt and with his dagger widened a rip in the merchant’s trouser leg. “His body has been bruised. Look at his knuckles. They are grazed. He’s been in a fight for his life.”

“So?”

“A man does not get into such fights and then kill himself immediately after that, in my experience. He wants to go on living.”

“You can only speak from your own experience. Maybe Orson was different.”

“He did not strike me as a man to commit suicide.”

“You could be wrong.” A slow frown of revelation sculpted Shahad’s brow. “The merchant is dead. The shapeshifter is still on the loose.”

“He might now be wearing the merchant’s form, and commanding his men, assuming there is some link between the two of them. Appearing as Orson would give him access to all the merchant’s wealth too.”

“So where is he? In the house? I like this not. We are dealing with a faceless skulker who could take anyone’s place at any time. He could be among us even now.” Shahad was not a man of great imagination, Kormak thought, but when he let his loose it made up for lost time.

“He could be, but I think it more likely he is trying to escape us. Or use Orson’s wealth and connections for his own purpose.”

“What would those be?” Rhiana asked.

“Nothing good,” Kormak said.

Zamara stomped into the room looking pleased with himself. “The house is secured. The enemy’s men are in custody, and it looks like the malefactor has met a well-deserved fate at his own hand. Everything’s neatly tied up, I would say.”

He noticed the looks on his companions’ faces and added, “Although something tells me I could be mistaken.”

* * *

M
ore men
-at-arms waited outside the cell. The place was chilly, and Anders realised that the building extended as far beneath the earth as many buildings rose above it. There must be several stories buried beneath the ground.

The merchant reached a corner of the cellar and touched a stone, pushing it back into the wall. It slid easily as if part of a mechanism and a whole section of wall rotated open. A long corridor ran down into darkness. The soldiers raised lanterns and moved through the passage. Orson gestured to a servant. “Lead on, Lorenzo,” he said. “Show the troops to the closest exit to the Temple quarter.”

Lorenzo gave his master a strange look but set off down the passageway.

Anders saw the stone was wet and slick beneath his feet. There was moss here and dirt that became mud. Condensation ran down the walls, and mould blotched the floor.

“Could use a little clean up,” said Gregor.

The mould held footprints. It sucked at his feet as he walked and felt sticky beneath his toes. He wished he had his boots on. He doubted that Orson would listen to any of his complaints now, and he did not fancy taking a beating like Gregor. He preferred to keep his brains unscrambled.

Strange runes etched the walls. Carvings of skulls and leering demon faces leered down. Anders did not feel reassured. He had often heard the rumours of a labyrinth of ancient corridors running beneath the city, but this was the first time he had seen any evidence of them.

The mercenaries moved as if untroubled by their surroundings. Perhaps they had been here before. Perhaps they simply lacked Anders’ imagination.