Wilt’s fears fell away when he saw the scene before him. The Herald waited alone, kneeling before Cyleste’s lifeless form, weeping with her face buried in her mother’s chest. The Grand was motionless, a pale sheen to her ochre skin. Her hands had been folded over her stomach, over a wound in her gut. Though bloody, she looked peaceful, but little good that did Wilt. He was too late.
Still, he had to confirm what he already knew.
“She is dead?” he asked.
Marl raised her head, her bloodshot eyes glaring into him. “Yes, a few minutes now.”
Shit. Wilt nodded and turned to the fireplace. The candle was right where Just had said it would be.
“I went looking for you,” Marl said. “You weren’t there.”
Wilt glanced at her as he walked to the table near the fire. “No,” he agreed. “I was not.”
She said nothing more, simply watched him, so he turned away. Seeing her like this had affected him more than it should have. He didn’t know this woman, nor had he really known her mother. It made little sense that he would relate to this Trellish woman – to this legionnaire, even – but not to the husband of the Vandu woman who had taken Wilt’s arrow… and yet he did. As he had entered, and seen Marl prostrate over her mother’s form, he had seen himself as a little boy, bent over his dead grandfather on the eve of the poisoning. If Wilt’s own life was any indication, Marl’s was about to go to shit.
Wilt examined the candle before extinguishing it. Other than the tallow having been dyed to black, it seemed a normal candle. But somehow it had kept Just – and his magic – from entering this room, else he would not have needed Wilt’s help to extinguish it. The god had said to put it out, but he had not mentioned what to do with it afterward. If it had the power to stop the god, then the candle might be his key to combating the god, but how long could it last? As difficult as it was, he needed to learn how the thing worked before he took any drastic action. A few hours of relief while the candle burned would not help him, at least not yet.
Wilt extinguished and pocketed the candle. The god’s presence returned almost immediately, but unlike before, for now, his body was left to him.
Did she make it? Just asked.
With his hand hovering over the candle in his pocket, Wilt eyed the fire before turning to Marl and the Grand. It was easier to let Just see Cyleste for himself than try and explain.
As he turned, the god made an odd sound, a sound like the curt inrush of air after a hard punch in the gut. Normally the god’s presence was an overbearing force, tinged with anger and righteous arrogance. Now it was calm, the same sort of calm that often claimed the bereaved at a funeral. It was not acceptance, but dreamlike disbelief. If Wilt hadn’t been terrified of the god’s response, he might have enjoyed this moment, might have relished the god’s pain. As it was, Wilt felt nothing.
I need to speak with her. The god’s voice was solemn.
Wilt blinked. Was the god… asking permission?
With the Herald? Wilt asked.
Yes.
Of course, Wilt said. He didn’t have the courage to say no.
The loss of control was gentle, as if the god were slowly easing Wilt’s spirit out of the way and nestling it gently into a corner. The god took him to the Herald’s side and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Marl? It is me now.”
The Herald glanced up from her mother. “Just?” she asked.
The god nodded Wilt’s head. “I need your help now, Marl. With your mother’s passing, you are the commanding officer here. The Guard has taken the docks, and I assume the fighting continues outside the palace. Through Wilt, I can tell you what must be done, but I require your authority over the Legion to see it happen. Do you understand?”
Marl wiped her eyes and stood. “Of course.” She glanced at her mother on the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not be sorry,” Just said. “It was not you who did this.”
“No,” Marl objected. “I mean, I should not have forgotten my duty to the Legion.”
With an arm around her, Just guided Marl to the exit. “We all forget our duty at times. Do not punish yourself.”
Locked inside his own head, Wilt’s spirit squirmed. The encounter was just so… strange. The god seemed so compassionate, so loving; it wasn’t like him. These were not the characteristics of the god he knew, of the manipulator who had ruined his life.
An unexpected voice answered him; unexpected because he had forgotten the creature’s presence. Not all loyalty is earned with fear and lies, the shadow told him.
Wilt knew the comment for himself, but Just seemed to have had heard it also. His solemnity burgeoned into a seed of cold anger. This is not a matter of manipulation, demon, the god said. I do this because it is right. I do this to save the lives of those Cyleste loved.
The shadow didn’t respond. Strangely, Wilt believed both the shadow’s explanation and the god’s rebuke. There was a kind of reserve in Marl, and in her mother, that Wilt had not seen in his own followers. It was a confidence, an intimacy they shared with their ruler. Wilt didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand what could create such trust.
And what of me? Wilt wondered.
Just snarled. It would be best for you if I forget your presence, the god warned.
They entered onto the palace’s main hall. In only a few minutes, it had become crowded with the wounded and dying. Several whores tended to the wounded, scrambling from place to place, carrying bandages, answering cries of pain and need. And there were many, soldiers of every rank and skill set. Too many. The ambush he’d seen had only been the start; the Legion was losing.
Dellings stood just inside the main entrance, leaning close to the hornsman and yelling something into his ear. The sound of fighting and dying made it impossible to hear Dellings’ words, but as the courtesan’s lips halted, the hornsman nodded, lifted his trumpet to his lips, and sounded three long notes; the order to fall back.
An earthly vibration followed, one accompanied by a sound that outstripped the horn’s pealing. Like a bell in an earthquake, the entire palace rang; a low rumbling moan as the bricks of the palace shook and resettled.
“What is causing those tremors?” Just asked. “Do they have siege equipment?”
Marl shrugged as another tremor shook the palace, sending many of the courtesans toppling onto the floor. Dust fell from the ceiling, raining tiny specks onto the chaos below.
Wilt’s legs – or rather the god’s will – took him to the main doors. Legion soldiers crowded the doorway and beyond, packed tight in an attempt to hold the Guard back. The courtyard had been lost, leaving Legion soldiers in a ring around the palace front, their ranks pocketed at windows and side entrances. A few poor fellows held their ground in the courtyard’s other buildings. A few even, holed up at the front of the stable, looking to be fighting a two-front battle from the courtyard and the tunnel within. Still others fought in the courtyard’s center, with no walls to guard their flanks, just their fellows at their sides and no way to reach a place of safe retreat. In the distance, Legion horns answered the hornsman’s trumpet, each sounding their reply from outside the courtyard: ‘Too many. Can’t regroup.’
The Lockish palace was a building designed for comfort, not defense, and with the enemy already inside the courtyard, and the Legion split, it would only be a matter of time before they fell.
Without warning, Wilt’s body lurched, diving to the floor as a massive boulder whirred above their heads, crashing into the palace’s second floor directly above the entrance. The stone rebounded, cracking into pieces as it fell, threatening to crush the men and women below, but the soldiers were quick. As the stones rained down, the center raised their shields high, protecting themselves and their fellows holding their flanks from the stones above. It was so fluid, Wilt guessed that it was not the first stone they’d had to contend with.
Just directed Wilt’s gaze to the library tower. Three figures stood at its top, atop the rou
nded nub which made it look like a grain silo. “Mages,” Just sighed. “Would that this body had the nodes so I could strike them down now. Instead, I must wait.”
As Wilt watched, another stone rose from behind the three mages, a large piece of rubble it seemed, likely one taken from the trash heaps upon which the work crews had been piling the cleared refuse. With a force unseen, the mages lifted the rubble high into the air until it hovered above their heads, and then it began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
For a mercy, Just returned inside before the mages threw their projectile. Still, Wilt knew when the thing struck. This time, the palace itself did not shake, but the floor did. The mages had not aimed for the palace, but for the soldiers themselves. He heard the screams, the groans, the crunching sounds of stones, bones, and setts. Wilt praised the god’s foresight; if he hadn’t taken them inside, Wilt might have been among them, or worse, had to see it as well as hear it.
Just sprinted back to Marl, crouching low so that she could hear his shouts. Dellings had joined her, and as the god approached, the courtesan eyed Wilt’s form with a disgusted sneer.
“Marl,” the god shouted. “Do what you can to hold the palace, I will return soon.”
What? Wilt panicked. Where are you taking us, rotter?
To your death, if I must.
“I will,” Marl answered.
“You should not have long to wait. I will be here soon.”
As Just turned them back to the main doors, Wilt saw the horror he’d expected. The crowd was gone, both guardsmen and Legion soldiers knocked onto the paving stones by the massive shockwave. Weighed down by the combined weight of the rubble, their own equipment, and the mass confusion, many struggled to regain their feet.
“Atep Rin!” the god shouted. He screamed it louder than Wilt had ever heard his own voice. Perhaps it was magic – though the god had already deemed that impossible – or perhaps it was just the relative silence enforced by the stone’s concussive blow, but there was a strange kind of power to his shout. A power which chilled Wilt’s soul, a power that attracted the eye of every nearby observer, that made a crowd of seasoned yet befuddled soldiers pause, and watch, and wait.
“Queen Tepa!” Again, the shout was piercing. It echoed through the courtyard, slowing the sound of metal striking chain vests and iron caps. Those still on their feet, those still fighting, paused and stared. “You know who I am, Planner. Show yourself!”
The pause didn’t last. Maybe if Just had made such declarations with his own body, with the authority of his name, title, face, and magic, the fools around them would have lain down their arms and waited until the god was satisfied. Instead, his actions led to the expected result of undue attention on a battlefield: an arrow in the throat.
Wilt saw it coming, just a blur of movement followed by a feathered shaft sprouting beneath his chin, but he didn’t feel it. Still, he panicked.
What did you do? Wilt demanded. You’ve killed me you rotter, you’ve killed me!
But the demand was a reflex – an instinctive need to condemn the god for everything wrong that had ever happened to him – but as he thought the words, Wilt came to a slow realization. As he looked upon the arrow in his throat, as he looked upon what should have been a bloody and gasping death, he had a strange thought. Was he even alive?
The god chuckled aloud. Consider this your punishment.
Wilt was cautious. For a moment, he spoke as if autonomous. For… for what? Wilt asked. You know that I could not have saved the Grand… You’ve killed me.
The god’s laughter grew louder. Oh, do not be dramatic. If I were going to let you die, you would have dropped the second the arrow struck. The god took a step forward, his laughter building to a crescendo. If every eye had not been on Wilt before, they certainly were now.
But… how? Wilt asked. He was still thinking of the arrow. These last months… the bleakness of the world… his heightened stamina and enduring strength. What if Wilt had died beneath the tree? There was an arrow in his throat, an arrow that should have stopped his body and his thoughts moments after it struck. Yet, he was still alive.
How did I keep you alive beneath the tree? the god asked rhetorically.
And yet the answer did not satisfy him. No, No, this is not you, Wilt thought, with sudden revelation. This… this is me. It has finally happened. This is what the Mother promised me! I’m already a god!
Oh, you sad, delusional fool… Have I broken your mind, Wilt? If you are a god, then tell me, why do I control you?
Wilt held back his thoughts. The god controlled him because Wilt allowed it. Because Wilt was not yet ready to fight. But soon he would be. Once he had a plan, he would be ready.
Those around him gaped. They stared at him with dumbfounded expressions, their eyes focused on the arrow bobbing with the god’s cackling. Wilt’s body paced farther into the courtyard. The closest man, a guardsman with a robust chain tunic and carrying a spiked maul the size of Wilt’s fist, took a step back as Wilt approached him. Just met the Lockishman’s gaze, and his laughter stopped. Wilt could hear the sound of continued fighting in the distance, but here in the courtyard, there was dead silence.
“Rin Tepa,” the god demanded.
The Lockishman fumbled for words. “She’s… she’s…”
The man was spared as another arrow flew from somewhere on Wilt’s right. Whichever fool had loosed it was a good shot. The arrow went straight into Wilt’s heart. Instinctively, Wilt nearly panicked again, but when the arrow lodged and nothing happened, his anxiety faded to indifference; for of course it wouldn’t harm him, his heart no longer beat.
Wilt’s head turned to a second-floor window of the courtyard barracks. The god’s glare found the archer, a woman with both arms on the bow – one on the string, one on the frame – watching with a blank, stunned look.
“Yes,” the god shouted to her, pointing at the shaft in Wilt’s chest. “It’s in there.”
The god panned Wilt’s gaze, his stare seeking anyone else that might be foolish enough to challenge him. No one did.
He turned back to the Lockishman with the spiked maul. “You were saying?”
“She is… with the Hegemon,” the guardsman stammered.
“Bring her to me.”
He didn’t have to. A large man with gaunt features – hollow cheeks and an upturned nose – pushed through the guardsmen holding the doors to the library. Wearing a breastplate inlaid with Dekahn’s tree in some kind of black metal, the man approached confident yet cautious.
“We are here, mage,” the man shouted. At his side, a smaller woman followed, old with her hair in a bun and large spectacles.
Wilt’s head cocked to one side. “Mage?” the god asked. “I take it you are Winter Blake? The Hegemon?” His gaze took in the man’s features then drifted to the woman with a slight bow of his head. “Atep,” he said. “Good of you to come.”
The woman frowned at him. “Just,” she said. At the mention of the god’s name, an excited murmur rippled through the Trellish ranks. Like the god, she made the name a greeting. “You are putting on quite the show, I see.”
The god further exaggerated his bow. “I had to get your attention somehow,” he said. His amusement vanished, his head snapping up to stare into her eyes. “You lied to me, Atep.” Though brimming with disappointment, the accusation sounded calm. It was, however, an act. Beneath the surface, Wilt could feel the god’s simmering wrath. “I thought we had an agreement?”
The woman shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, we still do.” She nodded to the Hegemon. “This was his doing. I only left the palace in an effort to stop this.” She took a step away from Winter Blake as if to emphasize her point.
Just’s gaze narrowed on her face. “I am like to kill whoever did this,” he warned.
The queen gestured to the Hegemon. “Go ahead. With the words he and I have just shared, I’m almost inclined to help you. However, I must warn you; the Old Guard is very loyal to h
im. If you kill him, you will likely have to kill them all.”
Just shrugged. “If necessary.” He flashed a predatory smile to Blake. “But that is up to him.”
The threat did not sit well with the guardsmen at the Hegemon’s flanks. A quiet murmuring stirred among Blake’s soldiers, a few men even daring to whisper the word ‘butcherspawn’ in the god’s presence.
Clearly, they did not understand who they faced. This was not one of the deranged mages they took for the Butcher’s own children, Just was whorespawn, one of the Whore’s own children. Had these Lockishmen been Vandu, perhaps they would have recognized the difference and known how close they were to death.
The Hegemon lifted a hand to settle his troops. “What is it you want, mage?” he asked. “Do you think I’ve not seen this trick before?” He waved to the arrow in Wilt’s throat. “The Butcher’s Cult are masters of puppetry. All it will take is an arrow in this man’s brain, and his poor soul will finally be free. I admit that it makes for an amusing show, but my men and I are more than accustomed to such things.”
It was an obvious lie, obviously his troops weren’t accustomed to such magic, else they would not have paused in their killing. But the Hegemon’s confidence seemed to inspire in his soldiers a kind of courage. Many nodded, several at the front taking steps forward to stand in line with their leader.
“You might be,” the god agreed. “But I am not interested in exchanging bravado like a pair of cats hissing in the night. Instead, I will cut to the point. I want you to pull back your troops. Now.”
The Hegemon raised an eyebrow. “And why would I do that? The queen has already told me of your peace deal, and Lock wants nothing to do with your annexation. We are a free nation, and we always shall be.” Several of his soldiers nodded emphatically. “You offer peace, meanwhile, your fellows have laid waste to our capital, destroyed our homes, and killed our loved ones. What gives you the right to ask us for mercy? You are invaders, while we are simply defending our land.”
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 105