"Kill her!"
There was a crunch and her head was full of light. The floor cracked against her skull, slapped her in the back. She spat blood, mad screams guttering to a long drawn croak, clawing at the smooth floor with her nails.
"Fucking bitch!" The heel of Gobba's big boot cracked down on her right hand and sent pain lancing up her forearm, tore a sick gasp from her. His boot thudded down again across her knuckles, then her fingers, then her wrist. At the same time Faithful's foot was thudding into her ribs, over and over, making her cough and shudder. Her shattered hand twisted, turned sideways on. Gobba's heel crashed down and crushed it flat into the cold marble with a splintering of bone. She flopped back, hardly able to breathe, the room turning over, paintings of history's winners grinning down.
"You stabbed me, you dumb old bastard! You stabbed me!"
"You're hardly even cut, fathead! You should've kept a hold on her!"
"I should stab the useless pair of you!" hissed Orso's voice. "Just get it done!"
Gobba's great fist came down, dragged Monza up by her throat. She tried to grab at him with her left hand but all her strength had leaked out through the hole in her side, the cuts in her neck. Her clumsy fingertips only smeared red traces across the side of his stubbly face. Her arm was dragged away, twisted sharply behind her back.
"Where's Hermon's gold?" came Gobba's rough voice. "Eh, Murcatto? What did you do with the gold?"
Monza forced her head up. "Lick my arse, cocksucker." Not clever, perhaps, but from the heart.
"There never was any gold!" snapped Faithful. "I told you that, pig!"
"There's this much." One by one, Gobba twisted the battered rings from her dangling fingers, already bloating, turning angry purple, bent and shapeless as rotten sausages. "Good stone, that," he said, peering at the ruby. "Seems a waste of decent flesh, though. Why not give me a moment with her? A moment's all it would take."
Prince Ario tittered. "Speed isn't always something to be proud of."
"For pity's sake!" Orso's voice. "We're not animals. Over the balcony and let us be done. I am late for breakfast."
She felt herself dragged, head lolling. Sunlight stabbed at her. She was lifted, limp boots hissed against stone. Blue sky turning. Up onto the balcony. The breath scraped at her nose, shuddered in her chest. She twisted, kicked. Her body, struggling vainly to stay alive.
"Let me make sure of her." Ganmark's voice.
"How sure do we need to be?" Blurry through the bloody hair across her eyes she saw Orso's lined face. "I hope you understand. My great-grandfather was a mercenary. A low-born fighting man, who seized power by the sharpness of his mind and sword together. I cannot allow another mercenary to seize power in Talins."
She meant to spit in his face, but all she did was blow bloody drool down her own chin. "Fuck yourse --"
Then she was flying.
Her torn shirt billowed and flapped against her tingling skin. She turned over, and over, and the world tumbled around her. Blue sky with shreds of cloud, black towers at the mountain top, grey rock face rushing past, yellow-green trees and sparkling river, blue sky with shreds of cloud, and again, and again, faster, and faster.
Cold wind ripped at her hair, roared in her ears, hissed between her teeth along with her terrified breath. She could see each tree, now, see each branch, each leaf. They surged up towards her. She opened her mouth to scream --
Twigs snatched, grabbed, lashed at her. A broken branch knocked her spinning. Wood cracked and tore around her as she plunged down, down, and crashed into the mountainside. Her legs splintered under her plummeting weight, her shoulder broke apart against firm earth. But rather than dashing her brains out on the rocks, she only shattered her jaw against her brother's bloody chest, his mangled corpse wedged against the base of a tree.
Which was how Benna Murcatto saved his sister's life.
She bounced from the corpse, three-quarters senseless, and down the steep mountainside, over and over, flailing like a broken doll. Rocks, and roots, and hard earth clubbed and battered, punched and crushed her, as if she was broken apart with a hundred hammers.
She tore through a patch of bushes, thorns whipping and clutching. She rolled, and rolled, down the sloping earth in a cloud of dirt and leaves. She tumbled over a tree root, crumpled on a mossy rock. She slid slowly to a stop, on her back, and was still.
"Huuuurrrrhhh..."
Stones clattered down around her, sticks and gravel. Dust slowly settled. She heard wind, creaking in the branches of the trees, crackling in the leaves. Or her own breath, creaking and crackling in her broken throat. The sun flickered through black branches, jabbing at one eye. The other was dark. Flies buzzed, zipping and swimming in the warm morning air. She was down with the rubbish from Orso's kitchens. Sprawled out helpless in the midst of the rotten leaves, and the cooking slime, and the stinking offal left over from the last month's magnificent meals. Tossed out with the waste.
"Huuurrhhh..."
A jagged, mindless sound. She was embarrassed by it, almost, but couldn't stop making it. Animal horror. Mad despair. The groan of the dead, in hell. Her eye darted desperately around. She saw the wreck of her right hand, a shapeless, purple glove with a bloody gash in the side. One finger trembled slightly. Its tip brushed against torn skin on her elbow. The forearm was folded in half, a broken-off twig of grey bone sticking through bloody silk. It didn't look real. Like a cheap theatre prop.
"Huurrhhh..."
The fear had hold of her now, swelling with every breath. She couldn't move her head. She couldn't move her tongue in her mouth. She could feel the pain, gnawing at the edge of her mind. A terrible mass, pressing up against her, crushing every part of her, worse, and worse, and worse.
"Huurhh... uurh..."
Benna was dead. A streak of wet ran from her flickering eye and she felt it trickle slowly down her cheek. Why was she not dead? How could she not be dead?
Soon, please. Before the pain got any worse. Please, let it be soon.
"Uurh... uh... uh."
Please, death.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Copyright Page
Cast of Characters
What Has Gone Before
CHAPTER 1: Ruins
CHAPTER 2: The City
CHAPTER 3: The Broken Man
CHAPTER 4: He Who Waits
CHAPTER 5: Kan Avor
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Extras
Meet the Author
The Passage of Time
A Preview of Best Served Cold
C
Chapter
2
3
4
5
Meet the Author
the passage of time
introducing
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Copyright Page
Cast of Characters
What Has Gone Before
CHAPTER 1: Ruins
CHAPTER 2: The City
CHAPTER 3: The Broken Man
CHAPTER 4: He Who Waits
CHAPTER 5: Kan Avor
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Extras
Meet the Author
The Passage of Time
A Preview of Best Served Cold
C
Chapter
2
3
4
5
Meet the Author
the passage of time
introducing
Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes Page 50