The question is, what?
After a moment, the Hunter entered the lane. Stinking muck splashed on his boots, and the stench rising from the piles of refuse heaped against the walls set his stomach churning. Twenty paces from the main street, the alley branched out to the right and left. The Hunter glanced both ways, uncertain where to go. The settling gloom of night obscured any sign of the mercenaries' passage.
He drew in a deep breath, grimacing at the foul odors assaulting him. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on filtering out the layers of urine, vomit, rotting meat, and hundreds more nameless smells that came from the detritus around him. He focused on the scents that stood out of place: tabacc leaf, aniseed, and metal. Rosewood, oak, and olive oil. They didn't belong in the Beggar's Quarter, but marked the presence of Sergeant Rakhan and Captain Dradel.
They came, faint and barely discernable, but there. His eyes snapped open, and he turned down the right-hand alley. His ears strained to detect any sound, and he focused on the myriad scents filling his nostrils.
Rounding a corner, he nearly stumbled upon his targets. They stood just five paces away, tapping on a faded wooden door set into a crumbling building. He flattened himself against the wall, heart pounding, and listened as the door creaked open. Words were exchanged in a voice too low for him to hear. A moment later, the door creaked shut, a latch clicked, and there was the thunk of a deadbolt sliding home.
Deadbolt? The Hunter peered around the corner. It made no sense. A stiff breeze could knock over the building the men had entered. Three of the second-floor walls had crumbled inward, with only a single roof beam surviving the collapse. Only the most desperate sort would live in that derelict structure.
So why in the fiery hell would it have that level of security? Another question followed. What brings our Steel Company captain and his sergeant?
He had only one way to find out.
Retreating a few steps down the alley, he raced toward a nearby wall and leapt high into the air. Planting one foot on the solid brick, he pushed off toward the opposite wall, twisting his body upward and reaching out to seize the exposed end of an overhang. With a heave, he pulled himself up onto the thatched roof and jumped the narrow gap to land lightly on the second floor of the building into which the Steel Company mercenaries had disappeared.
The sound of voices drew him toward the heart of the building. A section of floor had collapsed inward, and the light of torches shone through the gaping hole. The Hunter slithered closer and peered down.
Six figures stood in a circle in the center of the room below. All wore heavy cloaks, thick boots, and elbow-length leather gloves. From beneath their raised hoods protruded elongated, curved beaks and round eyes as dark and empty as the Midden--or the Hunter's own eyes.
The scent of blood—fresh, stale, dried, and dripping—reached the Hunter's nostrils. Dark stains covered the floor beneath the figures' boots. Soulhunger began to pound in the back of his mind, aching to feed. The Hunter wrestled back its demands with effort.
A quiet chanting echoed in the small space. It took the Hunter a moment to understand the words.
"Death will bring life," they intoned. "Death will bring life."
The chanting continued for a full minute. The sound and smell grated against the Hunter's bones, sending an instinctive shiver down his spine. He recognized the ensemble: the curved mask and heavy clothing was that worn by the Trouveres, priests of the Bloody Minstrel, god of sickness, plague, and horrible music.
What are they doing here? The Trouveres only were allowed to roam the city in time of plague. Their counterparts, the Malady Singers, were permitted to leave the temple to deliver the red bloodstone amulets said to ward off the worst of the Bloody Minstrel's pestilence. To see not one Trouvere, but six, here set the alarm bells ringing in the Hunter's mind.
"Brothers." The hoarse, rasping voice came from beneath one of the masks, the Hunter couldn't tell which. "We do the gods' work today."
One of the figures stepped forward, crossing his arms over his chest, resting his hands on his shoulders. "Our fair city is ill, but it is an illness that is unknown to all but those who serve the Minstrel."
"Praise his holy name," intoned the other five figures in unison.
"Praise be his name," the first figure repeated. "For five decades, we have held plague and sickness at bay through our devotion, prayers, and vigilance." From within his cloak, he drew out a red amulet and held it high. "And, thanks to his gift of the bloodstone, the city has escaped epidemics."
His voice rose to a frenzied shout. "But try as we might, we cannot keep up with the ever-increasing number of men, women, and children filling our walls. They come all over Einan, bringing new pestilence. Worse, they occupy every corner of the city until the streets overflow with their refuse and filth. The more that come, the greater the threat of disease.
"But we cannot stop them from arriving. We cannot stem the flood of humanity that throngs to our walls. The prosperity of our city will be its undoing. But the Minstrel—"
"Praise his name," the voices chanted.
"—has entrusted to us the holy mission of fighting pestilence. We fight not a war of attrition, but one of prevention."
He turned and strode away, disappearing from the Hunter's view. The Hunter tensed at the sounds of rattling chains, accompanied by a soft, weak moan. A moment later, the man returned. The chain gripped in his hand was attached to something set in the roof.
The Hunter craned his neck to get a better look. The lantern light shone on something solid, dark red interspersed with bits of brown and white. For a heartbeat, he thought it could be a slab of beef.
Then the thing shifted and gave a quiet cough.
Horror surged within the Hunter. It's a person!
The man—he could tell by the thick hair covering its chest—hung by his feet, his arms dangling over his head. The dark stains on his body were blood, his own. It seeped from a wound in his abdomen, another in his chest, two in his thighs, and another on each of his wrists. A gruesome drip, drip echoed in the chamber.
"From the clay the Master created us," the hooded figure said in his rasping voice.
"And to clay we will return," the others answered.
"While our souls are taken into the Long Keeper's arms, the bodies left behind turn to rotting flesh, releasing foul miasmas that bring illness and death in their wake. Thus it was with the Spotted Flux that ravaged our city fifty years ago, and with the Bleeding Fever of a hundred years prior. Yet, it is not the flesh that produces these miasmas, but the blood."
He ran a hand along the man's chest, eliciting a weak cry from the victim, and held up a bloodstained glove.
"It is the blood that spreads death. It is the blood that putrefies and attracts the swarms that carry pestilence on their wings. Thus, we must cleanse the city of the blood of the ill and push back the threat of disease."
"The city must be cleansed," the five figures chanted.
"We operate in the shadows, as the Brotherhood of Pestilence has for so many centuries. We are the unseen hand that guides the city away from the Bloody Minstrel's touch, which keeps outbreaks at bay."
He drew a dagger—an ornate, curved blade with a skull etched into the hilt—and held it aloft. "Some must die—men, women, even children—but only so that others may live. With every life taken, the odds of disease diminish, and the Bloody Minstrel's wrath is averted. With every death, contagion is held at bay, and the city is safeguarded."
At his nod, another figure stepped back, returning a moment later with a metal bucket, which he placed beneath the hanging man.
"Death will bring life," he said.
"Death will bring life," the others responded.
With a quick slash, he drew the blade across the man's throat. The man gasped, and crimson pumped from the tear in his neck. After a few seconds of pathetic struggle, movement ceased, and his body swayed slowly back and forth. Silence hung thick in the room, broken only by the drip, drip
of the blood filling the bucket.
The rasping voice echoed after a long moment. "With the flow of blood, the city is cleansed. A few deaths will safeguard the many. So it has been in the past, and so it will be."
"So it will be," the five men chanted.
Acid rose in the Hunter's throat. This went beyond simple murder—and too many of those occurred in Voramis each day to be of real concern. No, this was some sort of foul ritual, one conducted in the name of the Bloody Minstrel.
He had heard the discussion before: the recent growth of Voramis' population had many concerned at over-crowding and the higher prevalence of disease. The Malady Singers distributed the pestilence-fighting amulets until their stores were empty, and only one-third of the population of Lower Voramis had received the bloodstones. Thrice in the last year alone, the city had held its breath for fear of epidemics.
Yet this, surely this couldn't be sanctioned by the Hall of the Cruori. Any official rituals would take place in the Bloody Minstrel's temple, not some derelict building in the Beggar's Quarter. Everything about this seemed…wrong.
A full minute passed in silence, then the men below lifted their eerie masks. The speaker was a tall, imposing fellow with a grizzled face and a scar that ran the length of his neck. The faces of Captain Dradel and Sergeant Rakhan appeared from beneath the coverings. The other three men had the rough features common among Lower Voramians. The Hunter couldn't pick up their scents; the metallic tang of fresh blood filled his nostrils.
"You know what to do with him," the grizzled man said. Two of the men nodded and strode toward the corpse. One slid his arms around the hanging man's waist while the other produced a heavy key and fumbled at whatever bonds held him suspended. Something clicked, and the first man grunted with the weight of the body. He lowered it onto a nearby tarpaulin, face up, and crossed the man's bloodied wrists over his chest.
A jolt of shock coursed through the Hunter. It can't be! He leaned closer, staring down at the corpse with horror. Sure enough, there was the sword-shaped scar. He'd seen it often enough, flushed red as the man reeled drunkenly between Twelve-Finger Karrl and Jak the Thumb. There was no mistake: It's Thrifty Pete.
Jak had said Pete was missing for a few weeks, along with a few of the other outcasts that squatted in the abandoned building he called home. Disgust writhed like a worm in the Hunter's gut. The man had been hung by his ankles, his blood drained—just as Graeme said happened to the other bodies.
So this Brotherhood of Pestilence is responsible for all the deaths. It was the only explanation that made sense. If they were trying to prevent disease, of course they would start with the lame, the ill, those considered the "dregs of humanity"—the ones most likely to carry disease and plague.
The grizzled man's voice snapped the Hunter's attention back to the remaining men.
"We must work faster," he was saying. "Even at our current rate, we cannot hope to keep up with the overwhelming numbers flocking to our city. If we are to stem the tide of plague that even now approaches Voramis, we have to do more than just cleanse one or two at a time."
"You want us to kill even more?" asked one of the men, a fellow with a nose as square as his jaw, and a thick forehead. "Already, our actions have begun to draw attention from the Heresiarchs." He finished emptying the bucket's grisly contents into a glass bottle and handed it to the grizzled man, who accepted it with a nod and stoppered it.
"Aye, he speaks truth," replied another, a thin fellow with gaunt cheeks and a complexion somehow even more yellow in the lamplight. "Last week, when Dunn and I was disposin' of that old lady, we nearly got caught. Took some quick thinkin' to stash the body 'neath a pile of rubbish and claim we was lookin' for a ring Dunn dropped."
The third man, no doubt Dunn, grunted. "Last thing we need's the Heresiarchs casting their eye on us."
"So be smarter," Captain Dradel snapped. "See this man?" He pointed to the body lying on the tarpaulin. "He was too drunk to stand, tucked into some filthy alley a few hundred yards from this building. Think like a beast of prey, and pick the weak ones, the isolated ones, from the herd."
"Easy f'r you to say," the rail-thin man retorted. "You're fightin' men, but I'm a bleedin' candlemaker, for the Keeper's sake."
Sergeant Rakhan thrust a finger toward Dunn, a tall, broad-shouldered man with hands large even for his thick forearms. "So team up. Dunn here'll have no problems finding dreck hanging around the Port. Two or three of them at a time, even." He produced a purse. "Use this to get yourself a handcart or barrow or something."
"Your generosity will be rewarded, Brother Rakhan," the grizzled man intoned. "If not in this life, then in the next."
"No more than our duty, Trouvere Silech." The sergeant bowed. "I've seen what plague can do to a city; as long as I'm in Voramis, I'm proud to serve this branch of the Brotherhood any way I can."
"We both are." Captain Dradel's voice had a petty ring to it. "When we return tomorrow night, we will have more souls to offer to the Bloody Minstrel. Death will bring life."
"Death will bring life," Silech echoed, bowing. "See that you pass the message on to the others, those unable to join us tonight. They, too, must increase their efforts to cleanse the city. Until tomorrow, my brothers." He clasped the hands of each of the other five in turn, then strode out of the Hunter's view. Captain Dradel and Sergeant Rakhan followed a moment later.
The Hunter found himself torn by indecision. He had been paid to kill Lord Damuria, and that should be his primary focus. He had never deviated from a job. He was the Hunter, and death was inevitable once coin changed hands.
At the same time, these men had killed Thrifty Pete, perhaps even some of the other beggars that had gone missing. Worse, the deaths were being laid at his feet. Even if they believed they were working for the good of the city, could he let that go unanswered?
He was no Heresiarch or Justiciar, not bound by honor or duty to protect the people of Voramis from harm. Hundreds of men and women had died by his hands, killed to slake Soulhunger's endless thirst, for the sake of his sanity.
But something about this was…different. With his twisted arm and palsied leg, Thrifty Pete had no chance to defend himself. Life had treated him poorly, given him nothing but the scum on the bottom of the barrel. Deformed at birth, he'd had no choice but to steal—Karrl had given him the name "Thrifty" in jest, as he'd never spent an honest coin in his life—or beg to survive. The Brotherhood of Pestilence saw that as weakness, something to be eradicated so that others could live.
So who would be exempt from their predations? Disease spread through every corner of Voramis, from the palace of King Gavian to the lowest slum in the Beggar's Quarter. The King had established laws to prevent overcrowding in Voramis for this very purpose.
A part of the Hunter recognized the rationality behind the Brotherhood's actions. Reducing the population of Voramis could very well prevent or reduce disease. But another part of him recoiled from the wanton brutality, the ritualistic nature of the murders.
Worse, the Heresiarchs hadn't a clue as to who was behind the murders. If the Brotherhood of Pestilence was allowed to continue unchecked, how many more would die? Eventually, when the bodies piled up, the King would have to give orders for his arrest. To avoid it, he had only to kill the ones responsible for the murders. In his mind, the immediate peril of a war with the Crown trumped any potential threat of disease.
The pale face of Thrifty Pete stared up at him, features twisted in his final moments of horror, unseeing eyes filled with a plea for vengeance.
So be it. He had the time. Graeme's stink balls wouldn't work until tomorrow at the earliest, perhaps not even then. He could afford a small distraction from Lord Damuria's assassination. He knew where to find Sergeant Rakhan and Captain Dradel. That just left four for him to track down.
He spider-crawled on his hands and feet away from the hole in the floor, retreating toward the crumbled wall. Climbing onto the stone, he leapt the gap to the house beyond and cr
ouched, waiting for the figures within to emerge.
The first one to appear had to be the grizzled man. He had removed the thick robe, gloves, and boots, and wore only rust-colored robes, with a smaller version of the beaked mask covering his features. Moonlight sparkled off the bloodstone amulet hanging on the golden chain around his neck. In his hands, he carried a pair of smoking censers.
The Hunter frowned. So he really is a priest of the Bloody Minstrel, then. He had no fear of the gods or divine retribution, but the fact that this man was a Trouvere meant he would be harder to reach, locked within the Hall of the Cruori. It would be a simple matter for the Hunter to cut him down there and then. However, the priest had mentioned "others".
How many more of this Brotherhood of Pestilence are there?
If he wanted to put an end to this problem once and for all, he'd have to convince at least one of them to talk.
Captain Dradel and Sergeant Rakhan appeared a moment later, clad in their nondescript clothing. The Hunter's eyes followed them through the alley. He wouldn't take a risk on them, not yet. Some of the other Steel Company mercenaries could also belong to the Brotherhood. He needed to get as many in the same place at the same time as possible. That meant leaving these two alive long enough to find out.
When the first of the three remaining figures exited alone, the Hunter considered following him. He drew in a deep breath through his nostrils, catching the scent of pottery clay, ceramic glaze, and wheel grease. Though he cast wary glances around, he would be an easy one to pick off all alone.
But the pair struggling to maneuver the lumpy, tarpaulin-wrapped object through the door made the decision clear. They would be so focused on disposing of Pete's body that they would never notice him following along on the rooftops.
Easy pickings, that's for certain.
With a grim smile, he leapt across the alley to the roof of an adjoining building to stalk his prey.
Chapter Fifteen
Traitors' Fate Page 20