“This insult,” the armsman said in a voice thin with fury, gaze fixed on the flagstones a span from his nose, “will be requited in blood.”
“You sure? Nobody’s really hurt. That can change.”
“By the righteous Law of Khryl Battlegod—” He sounded like he was chewing bricks. “I require that you arm yourself, and meet me upon a field of—”
“Maybe after your wrist heals.” He pivoted, twisting until that squishy popping sound became a wet squelch. A low grunt forced itself through the armsman’s grimace.
“You! Stop!” Armsmen swarmed toward him from around the plaza. A few yards away, he saw the Champion glance over her shoulder. The nearest armsman whipped out his riot gun and leveled it. “Unhand that Khryllian!”
“You want him any more unhanded, you’ll have to lend me a knife.”
“Release him and step away.” The Khryllian’s finger slipped through the trigger guard. “Do it. I will shoot you.”
“We’re having a discussion. That’s all.” He shifted his grip on the armsman’s hand so that he could put one palm against the man’s extended elbow joint, and held it there about five foot-pounds short of breaking the arm. “He thought it was okay for him to put his hands on me. I’m in the process of explaining that it’s not.”
Pain-sweat dripped from the end of the armsman’s nose. He spoke through a locked jaw. “The goodman assaulted me without warning or Challenge. He has broken my wrist.”
“It’s just a sprain. Whiner.”
The riot gun’s muzzle came into sharp focus: steadied at the bridge of his nose. “To assault a servant of Khryl without warning is a serious offense.”
He shrugged. “This is the warning.”
The Champion slid among them, and laid one slim hand along the Khryllian’s weapon to gently turn it aside. “Release him, goodman.”
“Ask me nicely.”
“Goodman, I am the—”
“I know who you are. It’s not goodman. It’s freeman.”
“You are Ankhanan. Dominic Shade, isn’t it?” She lifted her head and her expression cleared, as though this explained much. Maybe it did. He had to give her points for style. “Please, then, freeman. Release this man.”
“Sure.” He gave the armsman’s shoulder a fatherly pat as he let him go. “Don’t do anything stupid, huh?”
The armsman straightened, cradling his wrist. His face could have been carved from ice. “I will take my satisfaction on the field of honor.”
“Honor. Yeah, okay. Sure.”
Tiny crow’s-feet etched themselves in the smooth skin above the Champion’s cheekbones. “What is your business here, freeman?”
“A word with you, Lady Khlaylock. That’s all.”
She tilted her head toward the cold fury of the armsman. “You did this … to get my attention?”
He shrugged.
The Khryllian at her shoulder twitched his weapon. “Take a knee.”
“Hm?”
“Take a knee when addressed by the Champion.” His tone said: Or I’ll pound you.
He looked into faces of the armsmen around him and found there a growing anticipation. Growing to eagerness. The Khryllian said, “Take a knee.”
… black knives don’t kneel …
He closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them again. “I am a freeman of the Ankhanan Empire. Maybe you don’t understand what that means.”
“You are not in the Empire now.”
“Doesn’t matter. Want me off my feet? You’ll have to knock me down.”
The Khryllian shifted his weight forward and poised his firearm like a short bo. Others did the same. “Do you think I can’t?”
“I’m sure you can. The point is, you’ll have to.” He offered the Champion half an apologetic smile. “Don’t we have something more important to do right now?”
Her indigo eyes went distant. She turned to the armsman with the sprained wrist. “You should withdraw your Challenge.”
The armsman dropped to one knee as though his shin had been shot off. “With all respect, my lady: you may not lawfully order this.”
“It is no order, armsman. It is advice. He is Armed as he stands. Do you wish to fight him here and now?”
The armsman palpated his sprained wrist and winced. “If I must.”
Angvasse Khlaylock sighed. “I will Witness, should you so demand.”
“Hey. Don’t I get a say in this?”
“You do not. As an Armed Combatant, you are obliged to answer a Challenge from any Combatant of equal or lesser grade upon demand.”
“Answer as in fight?”
“Or yield and confess your crime. Which carries a penalty of one year’s labor upon the Estates.”
“Shitty options.”
“Which you should have considered before undertaking to put your hands on a sworn Soldier of Khryl. Did you not read your Laws of Engagement?”
“I’ve been busy.”
She turned back to the armsman. “Before you begin, you might be interested to know that this man is here in Purthin’s Ford under the name of Dominic Shade. Freeman Shade’s customs examiner rated him grade six. As he stands.”
The armsman’s mouth twitched, and a muscle jumped at the corner of his eye.
“Freeman Shade is a Monastic Esoteric.” Her indigo eyes darkened. “An assassin.”
“I’m retired.”
“You may be aware of the incident yesternoon in the Riverdock customs lucannhixeril. Where an unarmed inmate overpowered three armsmen and a Knight Householder, killing one armsman and severely injuring both others, as well as wounding the Knight so severely that only Khryl’s Love sustained his life.”
More muscles jumped, now along the armsman’s jaw, and blood was draining from his cheeks. “Questions of combat are in the righteous hand of the Lord of Battles,” he intoned grimly. “I have no fear.”
“The Householder in question was Tyrkilld, Knight Aeddhar.”
The armsman went pale. Really pale. Like only shame kept him from fainting on the spot. “Yet truth is truth, and justice is justice. My life is Khryl’s.”
“And it is for Khryl’s sake I ask that you withdraw.” She put a hand on his head as though calming an angry dog. “Please, armsman. Command this I cannot, but I do implore. Withdraw. Has this morning not seen bloodshed enough?”
“The crime—”
“Armsman. Please.”
The armsman reluctantly ducked his head. “As my lady requests.”
“See Lord Storyxe about your wrist.”
“My lady.” Slowly he found his feet. After a last lingering stare full of dangerous promise, the armsman rejoined his fellows. They slowly spread out, returning to the task of clearing the plaza, and he made his way toward one of the Knights in the triage area.
A surreptitious hand verified the Automag was still where it belonged. “Got some prickly bastards working for you.”
“Speaking as an authority on prickly bastards?” For a moment the harsh planes of her face softened as though she might be about to smile. But only for a moment. “They do not work for me. They serve Khryl, as do I.”
She lowered her voice, and barely moved her lips. “As do you, until the Smoke Hunt is quelled forever.”
“Yeah, um, about that …”
“There is a problem? Since you have so cleverly engineered this pretext to speak with me.”
“I thought Khryllians don’t do sarcasm.”
“And thus it is a day already for unexpected discovery. Tell me what is required, and I shall endeavor to provide.” The arch of her eyebrows turned her lifted shoulder into a faintly apologetic shrug. “Anything that might prevent another morning such as this.”
“It’s not quite that simple.”
“I have given up hoping anything will be simple. Just tell me.” A fractional incline of her head managed to indicate not only the charnel in the plaza but the whole of Purthin’s Ford below and Hell above and all the lands around. “I am … busy.�
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“Yeah, no kidding.” Past her shoulder, he watched another Knight carry another dead ogrillo from the ruined building. “Look, the problem isn’t the Smoke Hunt. Not directly.”
He took a deep breath. “It’s you.”
“Your pardon?”
“Look, the cold-post board—the one that used to be over there. Somebody knocked it down last night, but a lot of the notes are still there. One of them reads Rod, here’s your box number. And there are some numbers.”
“And?”
“And I’m Rod. And there’s no box. And that number is a date I asked a friend to look up for me. It’s the date you became Champion of Khryl.”
“You could have simply asked me.”
“I didn’t know I needed to know. Funny how you didn’t mention it anyway. Last night on the Purificapex. Because it’s kind of a huge fucking coincidence.”
“And only that.”
“See? You really aren’t good at sarcasm.”
“What bearing can it have on our current situation?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Let’s see, maybe we can parse this. So here on the Sacred Motherfucking Battleground, we find the Living Fist of Khryl up on the Hand of Peace, investing Ma’elKoth’s One True Hand with the Authority of her God, and you don’t think it’s relevant that you won the title of Champion on the same fucking day as Ma’elKoth’s True Fucking Assumption?”
She didn’t even blink. “Perhaps you can explain to me the connection.”
Explain? Shit. “It’s, uh—it’s kind of complicated.”
“It seems everything is.”
He chewed the inside of his lip. “Listen, have you eaten?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’ve been up all night—” He gave half a wave toward the pile of dead ogrilloi. “—uh, working, and I haven’t had anything to eat except half a hunk of blood sausage, and I was thinking maybe I could, y’know, maybe buy us breakfast somewhere. And I could try to explain some of the facts of life these days. Because they’re not exactly what you think they are.”
She looked vaguely astonished. “You wish to buy breakfast—? For me?”
“Well …” He spread his hands, feeling as astonished as she looked, but the more he thought about it, the better it sounded. “Yeah. Let’s get some breakfast. Unless you just want to share my sausage.”
“Share your sausage? Freeman Shade—” She inclined her head toward him, and that cool speculative appraisal flickered back into her eyes. “—are you flirting with me?”
“Am I—?”
Holy crap, he thought. Am I?
A hint of a mildly wicked smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and the longer it took him to answer the wider her smile became, and before he could decide what the answer might actually be, let alone summon the faintest ghost of a clue what he should say to this insanely dangerous superhuman killer who was acting like she might be open to the idea of getting into him just a little bit, the Knight behind her threw the last ogrillo onto the pile of the grey leather dead.
And the world blew up in his face.
blank white discontinuity
permanently instantaneous
Eventually he opened his eyes.
Brown and grey and black swirled and billowed around him. Mist-blurred shapes loomed and receded, moving, shifting, doubling and tripling and shimmering back together in absolute silence.
This was not the morning he’d had in mind.
He should just go back to sleep. He couldn’t think of anything else worth doing, and he couldn’t remember ever having been so tired. This bed, though, must rank on some Top Ten Least Comfortable in Recorded Goddamn History: like lying on a pile of broken crates. He tried to shift toward a facsimile of comfort among the corners and edges, but his legs didn’t seem to work. He couldn’t feel them at all.
Now his day was fucking complete.
How many goddamn times had he woke like this? Had he crapped himself, as usual? Did he even want to know?
He felt a shiver under his back as though the jagged bed vibrated to some thump he should have heard; half a second later, hot rain splattered across his mouth and his tongue flicked out by instinct and the hot rain tasted a lot like blood.
He started to understand that what felt like a shit-rotten morning was actually a whole lot worse.
Where the hell was he, anyway? Why was it raining blood? The brown and grey and black swirl might have been some kind of smoke, but he still couldn’t make his vision focus enough to be sure, and what the fuck was that smell, anyway? Was the kitchen on fire?
Smelled like duck.
He tried to sit up but something large and soft and maybe wet lay on his chest pinning him down, and his arms weren’t working all that well either, but he managed to dig his elbows into the jagged pile of—boxes? rocks? bricks?—and lever himself up to where he could look—
There was a dead girl draped facedown across his lap.
What the fuck?
Shan—? Shanna? His numbly uncooperative mouth refused to form intelligible words. Was he actually talking? This was some kind of dream. Had to be: he spoke, but there was no voice.
Shanna—what did they—why are you—?
No—no, wait …
He remembered. His wife was dead. Sort of. A long time ago. Almost as dead as this girl.
Then who the hell was she?
His eyes still wouldn’t focus, but he could squint the blurred haze of her into some kind of sense, and Jesus, she was a mess. The back of her skull was a swamp of bloody pulp, and her head flopped at a hanged man’s angle. Her clothes were shredded.
So was her back.
Knobs of vertebrae gleamed red-streaked, old ivory lumped with yellow fat, dark red muscle peeled over ribs, a couple of bones sticking out of her back and he couldn’t figure out what bones they could have been, because they were all at the wrong angles and anyway they were way too big to be human bones at all and before he could make any fucking sense of that a motion caught his eye and he looked up and his hard squint resolved a looming smear of shadow—
Into a mountain of ogrillo.
It came out of the smoke, wreathed in flame, head swinging, eyes down, searching the ground, and in its hand was an ogrillo-size version of the Khryllian morningstar and the morningstar came down and he felt again that shiver under his back, stronger now, still silent, and what the morningstar had come down upon was the steel-helmed skull of a man prostrate upon a litter of rubble and when the morningstar came up again blood and brains sprayed in fresh hot rain and the ogrillo’s head swung—
And its eyes found his.
He got the feeling, somehow, that it knew him.
Trifurcate lips curled back from red-smeared tusks and its mouth worked as though it spoke though he heard no voice. It stepped toward him and the vast weapon came up in front of the scarlet pulsing wound of the smoke-veiled sun and he could only lie on the ground with the dead girl on his lap, gape up in blank uncomprehending stupor and wait to die.
He closed his eyes.
But instead of dying, he felt the dead come to life. The girl on his lap …
Moved.
When he opened his eyes again she had somehow come to her knees and even though her head rolled, dead limp and broken, one small fist punched up into the burning ogrillo’s swollen burlap-clothed crotch faster than his eye could follow and the ogrillo’s huge clawed feet lifted from the ground and he tilted over the fulcrum of her fist and toppled, face-first and writhing, into the jumble of broken bricks.
Oh. She was only mostly dead.
More like Shanna than he’d thought.
The dead girl reached over her own shoulder as though to give herself a pat on the back. Her hand closed around the joint-knob of one of those inexplicably huge bones that stuck out of her dorsal ribs and she yanked it bloody from her flesh. Its other end was a jagged break, splintered, serrated, and she pulled herself up the writhing body of the ogrillo and jammed that sharp splintered serr
ated end through the side of his neck. She used the bone like a handle to yank the ogrillo’s head within reach, then ripped his head entirely off and cast it aside. Then she went on to rip away both his arms as well.
Fierce, he thought fuzzily. Sincerely fucking fierce.
He admired that in a woman.
Now her form and face limned themselves in the smoke with fire of their own: blue-shimmering fire that he could half-see and the other half sort of imagine—or hallucinate or dream or something—and the imagined hallucinated dreamed half of the fire snapped and snarled and grew into a searing arc-welder flame until the inside of his head went blind electric white.
But he could still see with his physical eyes, and what they showed his sizzling brain must have been some kind of imagination or hallucination or dream too, because what they showed was her broken neck straighten and the dent in her skull uncrumple.
She shook herself from head to hind like a wet dog.
Propped hands-and-knees on the dying ogrillo’s torso, she looked at him with vivid indigo eyes and her bloody char-smeared mouth moved but only eerie silence rang in his ears. She looked at him, looked through him, and that imaginary blue fire sparked in her eyes and somehow he knew that for her he wasn’t even there. Then she pushed herself brokenly to her feet and shambled off into the smoke.
He decided she was someone he’d like to know.
Nice ass too.
The sun brightened from crimson to scarlet, heading for orange as the duck-scented smoke swirled and thinned in some silent breeze. Empty eyes of shattered windows stared from blackened buildings into the haze. Clearing, it revealed a broad stone-flagged plaza, littered with human bodies. Most of them wore armor. A blast-crater big enough to swallow a couple cart-and-fours steamed: clear water drained into it through a jumbled gap in a broken fountain wall.
The words Smoke Hunt surfaced from muddy depths inside his head. He couldn’t remember what they meant. All he had was silence and smoke and the taste of blood.
And the smoke was full of ogrilloi.
Six or seven at least, red-flaming specters pacing among the armored bodies with careful, methodical, deliberate intent, stopping here and there to smash a skull with huge mockeries of the Khryllian weapon.
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