by K. Eason
Snowdenaelikk skinned a smile. “This is the Laughing God, yeah? And he’s here to help.”
It took four of them to drag Veiko out of the little stone room, the godsworn and Muddy Boots on the wrong end of his chain and two strangers for escort, who pointed crossbows at him and smiled like they wished he would try something.
He didn’t. He’d seen what bolts could do to meat and muscle. Reckoned that even if they weren’t professionals, well, even a child might hit him in here, a big pale shape who took up most of the corridor’s narrowness.
Tal’Shik wouldn’t want him dead too soon, but crippled wouldn’t bother her.
And so he gave them no excuses for violence. He went along with Muddy Boots and the godsworn, chin tucked, as much to spare the top of his head a scraping as any attempt to play docile Dvergir man. He counted his strides. Five to the end of the corridor, then left. Another seven and a half until the stairs, which were wooden and creaked and moaned under his weight. Four of those to a narrow doorway, through which more than one body was not meant to pass at a time. Through which the godsworn and Muddy Boots squeezed together, so that neither would be alone with her back to him.
Gratifying, that they counted him so formidable.
And then they climbed into a much larger space, with a ceiling half again his height overhead, lost in the shadow and dust. Plain oil lamps hung from the walls, above and among columns of crates and mounds of greasy nets. A warehouse, which was a word Snow had taught him: a place for storing goods that came off the barges. From the smell in here, much of that cargo was fish. There was another narrow doorway on the left adjoining wall, open, and on the right: a big pair of double-wide doors, swung half-open. He could hear the Tano on the other side, slap-slosh against the wooden docks.
There was a pole standing tall in the room’s center, metal shafted, with a jagged head that did not gleam like steel. It looked like Briel’s tail-spike. Like his recollection of Tal’Shik’s own tail in the otherworld, when she’d taken her wurm-shape. And it looked exactly like the tip of Kari’s spear, which he had said was the tail-spike from the wurm he had killed. Everyone in the village knew that story, because Kari told it a hundred times a winter. Everyone in the village had reckoned that spear-tip for fancy forging, something Kari had got from the Dvergir trader that came up the mountain twice a year.
Veiko promised himself that, should he ever go home again, he would find Kari and apologize for doubting him.
A man should not show fear, especially not in front of his enemies. But when he considered what that barbed head would do going into a body, oh ancestors, all he could do not to balk and thrash on the end of his chain like a yearling takin. All he could do not to stumble as his knees melted and refroze and tried to buckle. Ehkla had cut him with a wurm’s tooth, and he had cried out. That pain would be nothing at all against what this thing would do to him.
A man should not show fear, a man should not show pain, a man should not die like a rabbit on a spit, and he would do all of those things. Bitter surged and burned in his throat. He gulped it back. Filled his mouth with words to keep the fear in his belly.
Too loudly, too obviously a sneer: “It must be difficult to clean the pole between uses.”
The godsworn looked back at him. Knew his fear for what it was and smiled. “We dip it in the Tano. The fish clean it for us. But don’t worry, yeah? The pole’s for highborn Dvergiri men.”
He would not ask her what will you do to me, then? Pressed lips and teeth together and stared down at her.
She laughed and pointed, past the pole and across the room, where the shadows gathered like ghosts. There were rings bolted into the floor, sunk into the cracks between tiles. Four of them, in a rough square. The lanterns did not reach very well this far from the walls, but Veiko did not need to see to know that was blood staining the tiles. He could smell it. Blood, and death, and fear.
“We’ll chain you down,” the godsworn said softly. “Wrists and ankles. Then we’ll crack your ribs and cut them away from your spine and pull them open. Lay your lungs on your shoulders. We do it right, you’ll take a long time to die. You know what sacrifice means? The longer it takes, the more it pleases her.”
Sweat prickled cold on his skin. The old scar on his thigh throbbed. He looked down at her, thankful that the Dvergiri were a small people. Thankful that his voice did not shake. Thankful that Snowdenaelikk had described that particular ritual to him with a chirurgeon’s cool detail, telling him how Ehkla had died.
He made fists of both hands. They would have to unchain his hands and rebind him. The shackles he had now joined the wrists together. Both feet were still free. They would have to bind those, too, and stretch him out on the stones.
He thought about the crossbows pointed at him. Licked his lips. “You will try. That does not mean you will succeed.”
The godsworn raised her eyebrows. “Listen. You fight, you won’t gain anything. She’ll still take you. But if you yield—ask her for mercy, yeah? She might take you quickly. Or.” The godsworn leaned closer. She smelled sour, a woman who spent her days in slaughter. Old blood, old death. A joy in both. “She might let you live. Let you serve her. She’s taken men as godsworn before.”
Veiko let his silence answer, and his scowl. And stopped, so that the two behind him almost ran up his heels. Very close range now. The bolts would go through him completely. A faster death than sacrifice.
“Move,” said the godsworn. “You want to get shot?”
He shrugged. Listened for the bootscrape and the mutter of cloth while his skin pebbled and twitched and waited for violence.
“Not stupid, are you?” Her mouth pulled sideways. Her gaze did, just past his left shoulder.
So he knew where the strike was coming from, had time to twist so that fist took him in the ribs, not the kidneys. He let the impact push him forward, mock stagger that turned real when the godsworn stabbed a savage kick at him. She’d meant to hit his knee. Drove her heel into his thigh instead, the one Ehkla had cut, the one that already hurt like fire. This time his fall was real, uncontrolled, graceless.
He landed hard on his hip. Bounced and got his knees under him. The landing had carried him closer to Muddy Boots, so that there was a little slack in the chain. He wrapped a fistful of it, pulled her savagely off balance. And then, as the other three came at him, he lunged to his feet. Oh ancestors, let him stay upright just long enough.
He got both shackled hands up, swung them like a club. Locked stares with Muddy Boots, saw her eyes round as eggs. Then his fists came between them. Something crunched against his knuckles. Sudden wet.
Momentum carried them both over. Another soggy crunch as she landed under him. A crossbow bolt clattered off the tiles. The second burned across his ribs and buried itself in the woman beneath him.
And then they were on him.
Keeping Veiko down here—in this warehouse, conspicuous only because of its empty pier among neighbors whose docks bristled with barges and skiffs—was purest proof Snow could ask that Rata was an idiot. This had been Stig’s warehouse, and Tsabrak’s before that. Their headquarters, when they’d brought the rasi in from Siljaan, hidden among crates of salted silverlight. It had been an open secret that everyone on the dock pretended not to know about. Tsabrak hadn’t been kind to people who got in his business.
But he hadn’t gone round vivisecting people, either. Quick knife in the ribs, yeah, that was Tsabrak’s style. Direct, simple. He’d left the fancier killing to Snow—death that looked like bad fish or a weak heart. Death that didn’t come back looking for vengeance.
Tsabrak would not, in any imagining, have taken his dead enemy’s headquarters as his own. He’d have razed the building if he’d been in the mood to send a message; but he would’ve traded it away, more likely, for less than it was worth to someone who needed it, who’d later owe him a favor. He’d acquired most of the dock district’s loyalty that way. Then when it had come time to move against rivals, well, Tsabr
ak had his allies bought and paid for.
Tsabrak had loved his intrigues. His elaborate plots and plans. Strategy, he’d called it, thinking long. And he’d thought himself too long, hadn’t he, thought himself into a fatal knot. And still he’d come out all right; that was Tsabrak’s other gift. He was lucky. From indentured to godsworn, from ghost to Laughing God, yeah, not bad.
There was another thing about Tsabrak, a quality she understood, a quality he and she shared. Never forget an insult or an offense, never miss a chance to pay it back.
Rata had offended him mightily. But then, so had she.
“Sst.” Snow thrust a hand across Soren’s path and stopped him. “Wait.”
“Snowdenaelikk?” Soren whispered.
Logi whined.
She ignored both of them. Said to empty air, “I have a question.”
What, now? Felt like a man’s lips, warm and soft, against her ear. Your partner doesn’t have that much time, yeah? I told you, Snow. They’ll kill him whether or not you’re there. She wants him that badly.
“Briel says he’s got time.” Briel had indicated no such thing, but Briel wasn’t panicking, either. Snow wiped her hands on her thighs. Couldn’t hold a blade, with them sweating like that. And it would come to bladework in there. If her conjuring held—if Tsabrak could handle the godsworn, if Tal’Shik didn’t take a personal interest and eat the new Laughing God whole and entire—she might get all the way to Veiko before she had to use it. Then she could fight her way out with what promised to be a wounded partner. Fuck and damn.
“Can you stop Tal’Shik? Really?”
I don’t know. Best we get there before they draw blood, yeah? Before they have her full attention.
“But if we’re not. What then? You stay and fight with us? Or do you run? Because you say you don’t want her to have Veiko, but way I reckon it, he dies before she kills him, you get your way.”
Ah. The air trembled, as if there were an invisible fire burning behind it. She saw Tsabrak’s face in that shimmer. Saw his knowing smile. You think I want him dead, then? And you, too? Even though I’ve said otherwise?
“I do. Question is, when’s best for you? Now or later?”
Once upon a time, Tsabrak would’ve protested. Would’ve said no, not me, and how dare you even think it? Maybe godhood had made him more honest, then, because he said nothing at all for long enough Snow thought her ears might burst with the silence. Then, breath of deep winter on her skin: I could ask you the same thing, yeah? How long before you turn on me, the way you turned on the old God?
“You know why I did that.”
I do. She felt that stare, invisible and heavy as chains. Say I owe Veiko Nyrikki a favor, just now. I mean to pay it back while he’s still living. Believe that, or don’t. As for you. You are my right hand, Snow. I won’t betray you.
She squatted in the shadows and listened to the water slap against the pier. To the voices bouncing off water and walls and stone—conversations, arguments, echoes from up and down the wharf. But not from the warehouse. Nothing at all from in there.
Briel.
Whisper in the dark, wings scything through air. A tip-tilted pass over streets and alleys. The dock was empty, unguarded. There were sentries on the main street, leaning against the walls. Watching for her, yeah. Waiting. Trusting their godmagic, when Tal’Shik had never been anything but treacherous.
And what was the God, then? What was Tsabrak? She had scars from that betrayal.
Oh yeah, Dekklis would laugh at her. Dekklis would dip her chin and draw her sword and get in there—because in Dek’s world, there was honor and then there was everything else. You died for honor’s sake.
Damn stupid. You didn’t plan to die, not ever. You didn’t go into a place where dying was likely, not on purpose, not with uncertain allies and bad odds. Revenge was a better idea. Smarter. She’d done it often enough, yeah? Damn skilled at it. She had a small stack of highborn bodies to her count, and she was still breathing. She didn’t want fucking Rata to be the one who got her because she’d turned stupid.
Snow closed her eyes. She could burn the place from here. Lots of torches around. Real fire. She could conjure a firestorm and send it roaring through the warehouse. That would spare Veiko the worst of the dying.
As if burning was better.
Dekklis could lecture about honor, but Dekklis hadn’t choked on the black river. Dekklis hadn’t felt the weight of that silence, or a cold so deep it went past pain. Dekklis didn’t understand what a gift it was to wear a sleeve of skin and muscle. To be warm. To breathe.
But Veiko did. And Veiko—knowing all of that—would come after her whatever the odds, having his own attitudes about what and who mattered more than his own life.
“You,” she said to Soren. “Stay here. I mean it this time. Watch my back.”
She walked away before Soren could argue—assuming he knew how, being highborn and new to defiance. Fuck and damn. If she died in here, she bet Tsabrak would teach him all about it.
She drew the shadows around her, spilled them ahead of her like ink. Watched them fill in the cracks between walls and pavement. She was a competent conjuror, never gifted. Not like Belaery, who could’ve conjured a hole in the wall and walked through. But she had some things Belaery didn’t.
She had Briel. She had Logi. She had the contents of her pouches, and her wits.
And the Laughing God’s successor at her back. Fuck and damn.
The fight did not last as long as Veiko intended. Part of the reason was that four became five became too many to count, all hard feet and hard fists and an uncanny knack for finding a man’s softest parts. The crunch and battery against ribs and back, yes, that was unpleasant, but he could ignore it. He could not ignore a toe driving up under his ribs, pushing the air aside, flipping him over like a flatcake. Could not ignore a second foot, stomping down on his exposed belly. But he could catch that second foot. Grip and twist until a woman howled and the foot flopped limp.
And then he rolled away, writhing, trying to suck air back into his lungs and avoid a new assault. Caught the next wave of violence on his shoulders, forearms, the backs of his thighs. He lurched onto his elbows, on his knees after that. If he moved fast, he might make it upright—
He didn’t see who kicked him. Whose boot it was, suddenly large and coming at his face. He shied sideways, caught the kick just above his left eye. His vision spangled, then turned to red twilight as blood rivered into his eyes. A second splash of stars as his elbows wilted and his face slammed into the ground.
And then they were on him. Hands biting his arms, his ankles, fingers curved under ribs and hips. He bent his body like a bow, flexed and twisted—instinct now, pure desperation—because he did not need to see to know what came next. If they chained him to that place on the floor, he would not get up again. Let them kill him. Whatever they did to him now, any beating, was better than that.
A fist slammed into the side of his face, in the place the boot had landed. Veiko forgot about fighting and tried instead to stay conscious. Could not argue as they dragged him, not at all gently, and cast him down on the floor.
He had a dim awareness of the shackles coming off. A faint awareness of legs and arms stretched, of his body arranged on the stone. He blinked his eyes clear of blood and stars. There was etching on the tile, gouged glyphs whose purpose he knew, even if he could not read them. He couldn’t see anyone, no, but he could feel their weight grinding down on him. Heard murmuring, swearing, the words smeared and indistinct. He blamed the bloodrush in his own ears for his deafness. Please, ancestors, his heart burst itself in his chest.
The torches flickered. Cool air kissed his cheek, stung where it touched the wound on his head.
And then the shadows spilled off the walls. A winter wind tore the flames from their torches and crushed them. And then stillness, silence, thick and rough and wet.
Conjuring, he had time to think, and Snowdenaelikk, and then the screaming began.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sending the darkness ahead, that was easy. Snow gathered the shadows, wove them solid. Close your eyes, yeah, reach into stone and air and push. The shadows were cold, thick, and slow, but they moved. Slipped between the cracks, under the door, poured over the torches and the candles.
The guards on the door had no defense against shadows that coiled around legs and arms, against shadows that forced themselves into open eyes and mouths. Against the woman who sent those shadows against them, wrapped in the same. They never even saw her.
But they died quietly, which was all Snow had wanted. She stepped over their leaking corpses. The door was locked, but that was no obstacle. A moment’s delay, that was all. The wards took a moment’s further effort. There were two sets, on the frame. Snow’s were the older ones, traced and cut when Tsabrak had been a man, not a god. The newer ones were godmagic, hazy purple when she looked with conjuror’s eyes. They tingled when she passed her hand across them. So did her own godmark, and when she glanced at it, surprised, she saw a faint orange glow on her skin.
My right hand.
The doors opened without argument.
Snow reckoned a corridor of potential death when she stepped inside. Reckoned steel and crossbows, maybe godmagic. Found chaos instead, with women who must be Rata’s cartel jogging down the corridor—away from the front door, and toward a bundle of shouts and yelling in the main body of the warehouse.
That sounded like a fight. Snow guessed Veiko was the cause of it. So he wasn’t past fighting yet. That was good. She sent the darkness rolling ahead, running like water along the cracks in the floor and the walls.
Briel swam in that darkness like a fish. The svartjagr’s sendings came in raw and violent bursts, like they hadn’t since her adolescence, when she and Snow were new to each other.