The Complete Twilight Reign Ebook Collection (385 page)

The cold blue of his eye seemed to glitter in the light. It reminded me of when he had mimicked my voice and manner for the benefit of my men, but now bereft of humour. Another wave of nausea gripped me, but I was too far gone to stop now and forced myself to look him straight in the eye.

‘Well, let me see,’ he said, peering past me through the increasing gloom of dusk. ‘Ah yes, the tavern on the far side of the Queen’s Square. If I could choose I’d soon find myself there with a jug of wine and a girl. Unfortunately, my working day appears to only be beginning. We’re due for another unfortunate occurrence, likely you’ll be sending for me later unless some humble watchman gets lucky.’

I took one further look at the city and affected a weary nod to the prospect before turning back to face the King’s Man. That drink sounded decidedly less attractive in his company, no matter that I could almost taste the brandy he usually carried in a hip flask. I muttered some excuse about waiting outside for the Commander of the Watch and he made no question of it, also eager to be elsewhere.

My legs carried me back to the guardhouse in a dazed meandering, the horse I had ridden there walking patiently by my side. A sickening whirl of emotion and confusion filled my head, with one image burned into my memory for ever.

Five locations, all sitting on a golden line that this admirable and terrifying man passed each and every day. Four places of horror, and one tavern as yet unscarred by events.

The evening passed slowly for my impatient spirit. The only man I confided my thoughts to was my trusted sergeant. He agreed that Nimer seemed to have been laying down a challenge – to pit me against his aristocratic talents. An array of faces he’d come to know these past few weeks would merely drive him away. I was also unwilling to risk my men by setting them against a killer of such breeding.

My sergeant was an old soldier who knew how to stay alive, while the rest were good watchmen who had never dealt with sober, trained swordsmen. Their job was to pacify and arrest rather than kill, and Nimer would give no second chances. As for myself I confess I failed to think; through arrogance or rage I cannot say but as many would have called it idiocy as gallantry.

We made our way to a private house overlooking the square, the only reputable corner of my district. We arrived well into the ghost hour when the lamplighters had already passed. Three of the four crimes had taken place deep in the night and it was unlikely he would have rushed now. I felt certain such a man would spring surprises only once his game had started.

As we waited I found plenty of time to think about these killings and the motives behind them – trying to piece together the meagre scraps Nimer had teased me with as he supposedly reported the conclusions of others. My head was pounding by the time our generous host – a man whose friendship I had earned two years previously by bringing a nobleman to justice – arrived with a cupped candle and his cook bearing sustenance.

His anxious face, tight with anger, reminded me of my purpose and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand rather than vague questions. The house afforded us an excellent view of proceedings and we spent a long while scrutinising faces, clothes and gaits for any sign of our foe. There were none for several hours, but the Queen’s Square was well lit and the choices relatively few given the recent events.

As the tavern was emptying of all but a few regular drinkers and my eyes were wilting, a furtive figure in a long hooded cloak crossed the cobbled square. His path took him past the tavern and to the adjoining building – my instincts blazed at the very sight of him. The figure bore little resemblance to Nimer at this distance, but I knew to expect a disguise and had already assumed the tavern would only have been a starting clue. Clutching at my comrade’s arm in wordless excitement I indicated the doorway and rose to leave. We both carried short-swords suitable for fighting in corridors or the cramped, overhung alleys of this city, while I hoped pistol-bows would even the balance between us. Though neither of us were strangers to weapons, I feared meeting any King’s Man in a fair fight.

I was a man of the Watch, trained to make my eyes my greatest tools so it had not gone unnoticed that for all his silks and velvet gloves, Nimer wore a proper soldier’s blade at his hip rather than some duelling accessory. Though obviously a beautiful weapon and finished with all finery, it was no fop’s toy but a heavy length of steel as cold as his stare. I was resolved to use my small crossbow to wound or arrest him. Once he was winged I might have time to think about what came next, or it might give me a fighting chance at least.

We slipped out through the servant’s entrance of our hide and made our way through the shadows until we had reached the adjoining building. Despite this being my district I knew almost nothing of the place and had never seen the door even open. Some said it was a gentleman’s club but even the best of those tended to witness duels and other foolishness that attracted the Watch’s attention, this one had seen nothing of the sort and even its name was a mystery to me. It was a large building of three storeys that extended a long way back with a recessed and reinforced front door. Whatever breed of gentlemen constituted the members, they didn’t encourage visitors.

The door was ajar when I reached it. I entered cautiously, one hand on the iron-ring knocker to keep it silent, and found myself in some sort of reception area. A desk faced the doorway, unmanned, while a luxurious scarlet sofa stood up against the right-hand wall and a wide staircase led up to the first floor. There a single painting on the wall, a romanticised scene of a coastal village, but no mirrors or other adornments; just expensive oak panelling and a polished parquet floor. It did indeed seem to be some sort of private club, but a wealthier one than to be expected in my district. I knew for certain it was not one for any of the district’s main trades, no dock guild or anything of the sort, but far from the richer parts of the city where the elite passed their days.

Feeling a pang of concern for whoever normally manned the desk, I wasted no time in heading for a pair of oak doors at the foot of the staircase, recessed slightly so as to be concealed from the entrance. With my bow at the ready I crept inside, easing the door open with my sword-tip and one boot advanced to catch it being slammed back. Inside, the impression of luxury was continued; a large welcoming fire and lamps illuminating an orderly reading room, but deserted.

With no signs of disorder or violence there, I abandoned the room and headed past the staircase to the more unassuming passageway at the end of the hall, one that looked like a servants’ entrance to me. It was dark, but faint light flickered from around the corner at the far end. It outlined three doorways down the right-hand wall, most likely storerooms and all latched. I crept down the passage, keeping clear of each doorway and walking as silently as I could. At the corner I eased around it, pistol-bow first, to see a half-closed doorway four yards off.

Through the gap I saw my quarry, or rather a long cloak that looked like the one I was after. As I reached the door I realised it was a kitchen as the smell of fried onions and garlic wafted out, but there was also a scuffling sound like boots brushing a stone floor. With his back to me his long cloak obscured whatever he was doing, but just as I pushed the door open he put his arm out to shake it free of the cloak. In his hand was a blood-stained dagger.

I shouted for him to stop, but no sooner than the sound had left my throat he bolted – not even pausing to look around as someone taken unawares might but darting away with sudden, surprising speed. I fired as he disappeared through a doorway on the far wall, out of surprise as much as anything, but in my haste I missed. He vanished around the corner in the next heartbeat, leaving a twitching man splayed over a long table, his exposed chest pin-cushioned with half-a-dozen ornate daggers. I felt a red mist descend over my eyes and raced to pursue the monster, charging after him into a corridor lit only by the moon shining through a far window.

Catching my shin on a low table that stood just around the corner, it was fury rather than athleticism that saw me upright to the other end – a mad violent scrabble where I careened from one wall to the other before reaching the window. My foe was already halfway out by then so I leaped blindly, grabbing at anything I could.

Fingers closing around the hem of his trailing cloak, I crashed in a heap below the window. I hauled back as best I could, body braced against the wall, and felt a great lurch as the man was wrenched back against the wall. My fingers sang with pain as I took his full weight, but a moment later the clasp popped open. The cloak billowed up in the moonlight like a vengeful ghost while a crash and clatter came from the alley below. A few moments later my sergeant pounded up the corridor behind, hauling me up but I hardly noticed. In my eyes the cloak hung on the air by a taunting breeze as I dragged it towards me to grip the top end – the silvery moonlight shining down onto one the broken clasp there. The broken clasp in the shape of a bee with wings outstretched. The king’s bee device; worn by all in his employ.

With a roar of anger I threw myself through the window without a thought to safety. I fell heavily, a six-foot drop on the other side, but rage eclipsed the pain in my knees as I saw a door bang shut across a small courtyard. A woman shrieked from within the room and when I staggered to the doorway she pointed with mute terror to the right-hand choice on the far side of her kitchen. This brought me to a storeroom and a brief glimpse of my prey as he half-emerged – turning as I entered and dragging the door shut after him.

I gave a wordless bellow of triumph. He had to have run himself into a corner, most likely down in a wine cellar. There’d be no exit there and he’d retraced his steps too slowly. I stopped a moment to catch my breath and cock the pistol-bow I somehow had managed to retain. My short-sword I had dropped somewhere so I drew my nightstick instead. It was a poor alternative, but better than a dagger and capable of cracking the thickest of skulls.

Forgetting to wait for my sergeant I wrenched the door open. No sooner had light crept through the breach than a curved blade lashed out, but I was ready for it and deflected it into the doorframe. With the knife trapped I launched myself forward and put the boot in, in the finest traditions of the Narkang Watch.

With a strangled squawk the man crumpled over my steel-capped toe and clattered backwards. For good measure I punched him in the side of the head and smashed him back down the short flight of steps again. He hit the dusty floor hard and collapsed in a heap.

Taking no chances I fired the fresh bolt into his thigh – just in case he thought me stupid enough to have never seen a man play dead before. I was rewarded by a scream of pain and the man scrabbled at the floor, crawling weakly towards the back of the cellar in a pathetic effort to escape. I didn’t follow him yet, the cellar was a small one and contained no hiding places so I was happy to let the sick bastard fear the worst. My fury turned cold and quiet as I sat on the steps, reloading my bow before fetching a lamp from the storeroom. He squirmed face-down on the cellar floor, sobbing and howling in a puddle of what wasn’t just blood. The more he wept the greater my contempt became – he was nothing but a coward who couldn’t stand a tiny measure of the brutality he’d meted out.

Anticipating this moment all evening, I’d expected better. The measure of a man is how he acts when he’s down and beaten, but this wretch was worse than a cowardly child. As I watched him wriggle through the dirt the disgust welled up inside me so powerfully I raised the bow again; bending to temptation before oaths I had sworn years before returned to haunt me. The lamp illuminated the cellar with a fair glow and my eye was inexorably drawn to the wooden pillars that supported the low roof. In the lamplight, the pillars with their diagonal supports and my black mood, I was reminded of a gallows and that was enough to stay my hand.

‘Now hear me you piece of shit,’ I struggled to say, my throat thick with rage until I took a few more breaths. ‘I got eight more bolts here. If you don’t explain a few things right now I’ll get some more practice in – then maybe go fetch one o’ your knives till you start talking.’

My hand trembled at the horrors the man had inflicted, as well as the cruel disdain of his affected concern. The bile rose in my throat and I tasted blood on my lips as I bit down in an effort to stop myself pulling the trigger. Evil was the only word I could muster and nothing in my years of these streets could compete with the scenes this man had left in his wake. I needed a reason, sane or not, for the indiscriminate violence he had inflicted. My hatred demanded that, demanded I know the full pathetic and contemptible reasons that had led him to do what he’d done. After years of seeing the worst of what folk could do to each other, I still wanted to believe there might be a reason behind all this madness. The alternative frightened me, it still does.

He said nothing and simply lay in a broken, wretched heap as I moved closer. I felt the revulsion tighten my finger as it did my throat. My vision darkened, my rage becoming a fierce pain behind my eyes and when the moment cleared I saw his body jerk in mortal agony.

For an instant I was sure I had fired. Then my senses returned and I spun around. The bow was smashed from my hand, bolt unspent but now forgotten. I didn’t even attempt to raise my stick as a gleam appeared at my throat.

‘Dear fellow, that expression is most unbecoming.’

‘But you— I …’ I stammered, unable to connect my thoughts to words of any form.

‘But you thought that was me?’ Nimer cocked his head, sword never leaving my throat. ‘I’m hurt; depravity is not among my “special talents” and if it were, you would have not caught me so easily. That man is a clerk to the City Council, just one of many and unremarkable in almost every way. Oh my friend, hundreds pass that window each day, but you only had a mind for me. Perhaps I should be touched you keep me so close to your thoughts.’