One Man

by Harry Connolly

  Screaming, the heavies surged again, hatchets high and knives low. When they withdrew, three more lay on the deck, one moaning in pain.

  Tiny flames ran the length of the Childfall Staff. The heavies glanced down at it, clearly terrified, but they did not break and run. They were still more afraid of their boss than of him.

  Kyrioc tried to rush them, but they fell back while others went for his flank. He pivoted, then pivoted again, reaching out with the Childfall Staff. The heavies only gave him more space.

  And they didn’t know it, but they were killing him with every pause. The Childfall Staff drew its magic from his life force, and he could already feel himself becoming vague and unfocused.

  The Staff was powerful. His cloaks were powerful. Together, they were a fire that would consume his entire soul.

  With his cloak failing and his ultimate target safe behind her mob of thugs, Kyrioc’s sole hope lay in breaking the heavies’ morale. Which should have happened already. He couldn’t imagine what she’d done to inspire and terrify them this way.

  Maybe if Riliska were alive—and he were fighting for her—he’d get the surge of vitality he needed to survive this.

  But she wasn’t, and there was no need for him to survive. He just needed to waste as many lives as he could before darkness claimed him.

  * * *

  The ironshirts had blocked the horses’ flight and were now frantically cutting them free of the burning carriage.

  The captain stormed up to Fay, his face red. Before he could speak, Fay said, “Have them push the carriage away from the buildings. The skywood deck won’t burn, but—”

  “I don’t need advice on fighting a fucking fire from the likes of you.” The captain bared his teeth like an angry dog. “We’re constables. We fight fires twice a week. But you do need to… I just lost three good people and I don’t mean to lose more. Why didn’t you tell me these assholes would threaten another Downscale War?”

  They didn’t have time for this. “Threaten? Captain, a new Downscale War just started. You have to decide what you’re going to do about it. You can withdraw to your tower, staying safe for the rest of the night—until one of your superiors explains that it’s time to retire your commission—or you can take out your anger on the person responsible.” The captain looked surprised at this. “Now, are you going to retreat, or are you going to hit back so hard, no one ever dares test you again?”

  The captain looked guilty, as though just realizing that he’d been shouting at the wrong person. He glanced around, suddenly aware of how many eyes were on him. “We’re certainly not going to retreat.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Fay said, surprised at how mild he sounded. “Now we have to find a way across this gap, and quickly.”

  “Quickly? Why don’t we turn this into a siege and wait them out? They’re trapped.”

  Fay didn’t believe that. This Tin Pail wasn’t stupid. “Captain, I want to be inside that building within the hour. But first, send me six of your fastest people.”

  * * *

  When Killer of Devils reached his employer, she had arranged a half-dozen of her heavies into a wedge, with the man at the point holding a table like a battering ram and the heavies behind holding a pair of benches. Tin stood in the center, hammer in hand.

  Killer pushed through the side of the wedge and pulled his employer out of it. “You are not doing this.”

  “Fuck that,” she spat. “I’m not afraid of this asshole.”

  “You are the boss.”

  She bared her teeth. “If it’s gotta happen, this asshole might as well be the one.”

  Suddenly it made sense. “Is that why? You want a glorious death? I thought you planned to sit on the throne of the underworld, not throw your life away.”

  Tin blinked as though she was surprised to hear it stated so baldly. “I’m not afraid.”

  Killer knew she would keep repeating that. It was the most important thing she knew about herself. “This is what it means to sit upon a throne. You have people to deal with these problems. Glory is for underlings. What you have is power. Act like it.”

  “Even if we kill this asshole,” she said, sounding strained and unhappy, “the cosh are coming. We can’t—”

  “You should slip away with everything of value before they seize it. Leave the asshole to me.”

  Gritting her teeth, Tin looked away. Then she nodded. She grabbed the nearest heavy and led him into the spa.

  “You.”

  The woman Killer addressed was barely over five feet tall, and her arms were as slender as broom handles. She had lingered in the back of the pack because she was not made for fighting.

  Killer had better uses for her.

  * * *

  Kyrioc cried out when he saw Tin run inside. He had crippled and killed her thugs, but just as he was getting close, he was losing her.

  “You can’t escape!” he shouted, his voice hoarse. “Not from me!”

  Anger surged through him, and the Childfall Staff burned brighter. He extended his weapon to the length of a long sword, then charged at the heavies blocking the door.

  They gave ground but not much. One parried with a wooden bench, but it burst into a spray of splinters and the man fell back.

  Then someone struck him hard on the side with something large and blunt. Kyrioc hit the deck and rolled. A heavy rushed him. A smash on the ankle drove him and his companions back.

  Bracing the staff against the wooden deck, Kyrioc pushed himself to his feet.

  The heavies gasped and drew back, their eyes wide. They stared at the deck where he had fallen.

  “That’s skywood,” one muttered.

  Glancing down, Kyrioc saw that a tiny tongue of flame on the spot where he’d braced his staff. Skywood was supposed to be proof against fire, but the unnatural flame of his staff was spreading slowly along the grain.

  Kyrioc touched the little flames with the Childfall Staff. The fire let itself be gathered up like cobwebs on a broomstick.

  The heavies fled into the building.

  All that remained between him and the front door were the Katr barbarian and his ghostkind weapon.

  * * *

  Killer of Devils surveyed his opponent. The pawnbroker was bleeding from more than a half-dozen shallow cuts on his face, arms, and back. Whatever godkind gift he possessed, it had not made him invulnerable.

  It was disappointing. Still, he would test himself against this man. If he won, his renown would increase. If he failed, he would be free of this oath. Either would mean victory.

  “Have you truly done all this for the life of one orphaned girl?”

  Killer received no answer. He nodded toward the dead and injured lying on the platform. More than two dozen bodies lay there, either writhing in pain or unable to feel it. “You have godkind magic,” Killer said.

  The man hesitated before answering. “I do.”

  “You are an avatar. Like me.”

  “I am.”

  “You must tell me which god has given you this magic. It is no secret that I bear the gift of Asca, goddess of the home and hearth. My magic is rare but not unknown. You, however, bear gifts that I have never heard of before, even in rumor. Tell me of them.”

  The man stared without answering.

  “There are more children inside, my friend. They need rescuing as well.” Killer expected some response, but his words vanished like lantern light shining at the night sky. “Tell me your name. Tell me the name of your weapon.”

  He was asking too many questions. It did not feel right. It felt like weakness. But he got the response he wanted.

  “This is the Childfall Staff,” the stranger said. The weapon was now as long as a quarterstaff, but the flames had died. “My name is Kyrioc, child of No One.”

  That did not feel right, either. “That is not your real name.”

  “The Broken Man.”

  Killer nodded. “Yes. That is the name that suits you.” He almost said, That is the name
of the one who could kill me, but he did not think the broker would understand. “I am called Killer of Devils. This”—he hefted his polearm—“well, the warrior I took it from tried to teach me its name. It sounded like ‘Wish Emdue Lock’.”

  “Wi’shem Dulahc,” the Broken Man said.

  “Yes!” Killer exclaimed. “Those were his words!”

  “It means Cleaver of Bonds.”

  Killer glanced at his weapon. “I wish it could live up to that name, but no matter. My friend, if circumstances were otherwise, I would take you out and get you roaring drunk to repay you for that information.”

  There was no change in the man’s expression. “You work for a woman who enslaves and murders children.”

  Yes, he did.

  “As I said, if circumstances were otherwise. I think you can release me from this oath, but I must make you earn it. And, if you manage to kill me and set me free, I will bestow upon you a great gift.”

  “I don’t want anything from you.”

  “You will want this.” There was a great deal of commotion on the plaza across the gap. The constables were busy, and the last thing Killer wanted was interference from the local authorities. “Follow me.”

  He went into the building, leaving the doors standing open.

  * * *

  The northerner’s words meant nothing. He was just another liar in a city full of them.

  The building was dark. Kyrioc called up his cloak of shadows to see the outlines of the interior. There was no one in sight, not even the Katr he was supposed to be following.

  Glancing back, he saw constables bustling in the plaza across the gap. He’d brought them to distract Tin and her heavies, but it had been for nothing. Riliska was already dead.

  Riliska.

  She was in there, somewhere. Her skinned, eyeless corpse was lying in a room in that building, and for a moment, Kyrioc thought the northerner might be leading him to her. Cruelty was its own purpose for these assholes. It delighted them.

  The northerner knew Riliska had been murdered, but he still talked as though he and Kyrioc were comrades. After Kyrioc killed him, he’d kill Tin Pail. After that, nothing would matter.

  He entered the building.

  The entry hall was decorated with panels carved with symbols of nobility: the flower of ice, vigilant stag, sleeping crane, unfinished tower…

  And the Safroy bull. He stopped looking after that.

  There were no people, only a faint glimmer from a door that stood ajar and a sound of heavy sliding. He approached it, stalking down a long, dark hallway. Narrow doors stood on either side. He opened the nearest, revealing spacious sleeping quarters. It was empty. He opened the next and the next, progressing down the hall.

  As Kyrioc checked the final room, a flash of movement made him raise his staff in a quick parry. He batted the northerner’s thrusting ghostkind blade upward and over his shoulder. Kyrioc fell back, swinging for the man’s ankle, but the Katr leaped lightly forward and body-checked him.

  Kyrioc fell through the door into the lighted room. He hit hard and rolled to his feet. The floor was stone—just like home, he thought. The light was so bright, it dazzled him and burned away his cloak of shadows.

  The room had once been a bath. The floors were mortared stone, with a broad, shallow tub in the center and two fountains shaped like sailing ships. Except everything was bone-dry, the mortar was cracked, and the tub filled with trash. The drain stank of urine.

  Around the rim of the tub stood another dozen heavies, knives bared. Beside each was either a lantern with the hood flung open or a lit torch. The room blazed with firelight. Kyrioc tried to call up his cloak of iron, but it was too bright.

  He had no protective magic here.

  “Good!” Killer of Devils followed him into the room. One of the heavies slammed the door behind him. “Where is your cloud of shadow now, Broken Man? Where is the secret armor that blunts edges? Where is your false face?”

  Kyrioc had been deprived of his cloaks and was surrounded by enemies. He should have been afraid, but he’d honestly expected to die outside. Living a few extra moments to die here felt like a gift.

  “You see?” the northerner said. “The godkind blessings that made him so formidable in the shadows have deserted him in the light.”

  The heavies circled, squeezed the handles of their knives, and twirled their clubs. They were finding their courage again.

  The northerner bowed very slightly. “I know you want to kill me, my friend. But as I said, you have to earn it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  While Killer spoke, he saw the stranger’s weapon slowly growing beyond the length of a quarterstaff, and when the first heavy screamed out a battle cry to nerve himself up to attack, the Broken Man made a backhanded swing at the nearest lantern.

  Killer lunged to intercept, deflecting the staff with the back of his ghostkind blade. The heavies would do the fighting for now, while he protected the lights that protected them.

  The broker was already moving to the side as the screaming heavy rushed forward, his confederates close behind. Holding the iron staff in the same grip that Killer himself used, he slammed the screaming man on the side of the head. The heavy collapsed, tripping one of his friends and making the other hop awkwardly over his pulped skull.

  The next strike hit the leaping thug on the ankle and dropped him, howling, in front of the others.

  Then they surged toward him. Flashing knives caught his shoulder and forearm, scoring small wounds that would not amount to much on their own, but the Broken Man kept circling, attacking furiously and knocking heavies into each other.

  But they were getting wise to the tactic. The next heavy to go down found himself dragged away by his friends while others tried to flank.

  The broker circled back, his staff much shorter now, almost back to the length of a baton. A man with an axe handle charged in, screaming. The Broken Man quickly deflected the attack, then laid a stroke against the back of the man’s skull as he passed. Two women rushed in with knives, and he struck one on the wrist as though swatting a fly, then—

  Killer of Devils came out of his trance and leaped forward. As he did, the stranger landed a straight thrusting kick into the stomach of the second woman, sending her flying backward. Killer barely arrived in time to catch her before she toppled a standing lantern.

  She fell to her knees and retched into the trash-clogged drain. Killer ignored her, interested only in the broker. The man struck quickly—wrist, ankle, skull—moving from target to target, evading many of their attacks with nothing but reflex and training.

  It was the most beautiful thing Killer had ever seen.

  Could Killer himself, deprived of his godkind blessing, have lasted so long against so many? He wasn’t sure.

  One of the injured heavies lunged with a knife. Killer would have thought it a near miss, except the Broken Man stumbled slightly as he moved away.

  Enough. Killer stepped forward, raising his weapon.

  The heavies saw him and backed away, which was all the warning the stranger needed. He pivoted.

  Killer’s gift told him the Broken Man would parry his stroke, but the dirt was full of warriors who tried to block ghostkind steel. Cleaver of Bonds had cut through them all.

  He had a wide grip and shifted his weight to add power to his downward stroke. The Broken Man raised the Childfall Staff over his head with both hands.

  It seemed a shame to destroy it.

  The ghostkind blade struck.

  Then rebounded back.

  The reverberations of the clash echoed in the stone room, but everything else was still. Killer was so astonished, he almost laughed. Had he finally found a weapon—and a wielder—to match him?

  The stranger inclined his head in the direction of the Killer’s blade.

  The ghostkind blade was notched.

  Until that moment, Killer thought that was impossible.

  “All of you,” Killer shouted, “get th
e fuck out!”

  * * *

  Kyrioc welcomed the looks the injured heavies gave him as they limped away. He wanted their hatred. He was starving for it.

  The first thing the northerner did was tip a water barrel into the stone pool. It burst open. Then he toppled the lit torches into it. They were quickly extinguished in the wet trash. As he circled the room, he turned the lantern flames low.

  “All of them,” the northerner said, and the heavies began to take away their dead, too.

  Of the enemies Kyrioc had dropped, only four lives had been wasted. He wished he’d gotten more, but without his cloaks…

  Riliska was dead and Tin Pail had escaped.

  His hands shook with fury. At himself. At Tin Pail. At the constables and bureaucrats that allowed people like Tin Pail to exist. At everyone who had ever played a part in the Pail’s crew, like this Killer of Devils.

  He couldn’t waste all their lives—he was exhausted and had lost too much blood—but maybe he could manage one more.

  Riliska was dead.

  He’d be with her soon.

  Kyrioc sighed. He’d fulfilled his promise to Aratill. He’d mourned those lost on Vu-Dolmont. And he’d failed the one person he should never have failed.

  He was ready.

  But this northerner had set Tin Pail free. Kyrioc forced himself to stand up straight. One more. Just one more life to throw away.

  After dropping a hood over the last lantern, Killer of Devils shrugged out of his long coat. He moved to the center of the room, tiny chimes ringing. The sound was lovely and delicate in this terrible place.

  His expression was strange. For a moment, Kyrioc thought it echoed what he was feeling himself—a desperate, aching emptiness that yearned to make death, and to have death made upon it.

  In the dim, Kyrioc called up his cloak of iron one last time.

  * * *

  Killer of Devils stared at the Broken Man, and he stared back. The light was dim enough for the stranger to summon his magic but not so dim that Killer was blinded.