The Hollow King, page 10
He nodded. ‘Alone.’
‘You are not an emissary from some higher power? A legion of the dead does not follow in your wake?’
‘No,’ he said. Then added, ‘I followed my quarry here, and when I have them, I will go.’
Leragrais snorted. ‘Will you now?’
‘I have no interest in you or your city.’
‘And we are supposed to believe that?’
‘You are supposed to believe whatever you please,’ said Cado. Leragrais’ lips peeled back from his teeth. His eyes were glittering dangerously. Damascene spoke before the magister could reply.
‘This quarry,’ she asked. ‘What is it?’
Again, a piece of the truth would have to suffice here. They had yet to reach the heart of what this pair wanted, and though his patience was wearing thin, that would be the key.
‘I am hunting servants of the Dark Gods. I overtook one of them in the forests to the south. They were coming here.’
‘There are no servants of the Dark Gods here,’ snapped Leragrais. ‘This is a free city, its people devout.’
‘More of a free town than a city,’ said Valentin. Everyone looked at him. He shrank back, raising his hands apologetically. ‘At least by how many of us there are.’
‘Be quiet,’ said Leragrais.
‘Of course, your worthiness,’ said Valentin.
Leragrais frowned as he looked back to Cado. ‘You are either a liar or a fool,’ he said.
‘I am no liar,’ said Cado flatly. ‘And I am looking at the only fool here.’
Leragrais began to rise. Green and purple sparks gathered in his eyes. The pressure in the room grew. Motes of dust rose from the floor.
‘Calm, sir,’ said Damascene. ‘We must remember corruption uses our faith in ourselves to hide. We should never think that the followers of the Dark Gods are not closer than we think.’
‘True…’ muttered Leragrais, lowering himself. ‘True.’
‘I have proof,’ said Cado. ‘In my possessions.’
Leragrais nodded at Vaux. ‘Bring his things here.’
They waited in silence while Vaux sent two guards to fetch his possessions from wherever they had stored them. They came back and dumped them on the floor. He moved towards them, but Leragrais held up a finger.
‘Oh no,’ he said, and looked at Vaux. The seneschal began to go through the pile, gloved hands moving with care. After a moment she held up the crystal vials. Two were still full. Brown dregs clung to the bottoms of the rest. Damascene hissed. ‘Trophies from your victims or food for the road?’ asked Leragrais with a sneer that said he did not need an answer. Cado waited. Vaux reached the travelling sack at last and pulled out the bundle wrapped in leather. She unfolded it, looked down, dropped it, and took a quick step backwards. The dagger clattered as it hit the stone and rocked gently in place. The steel of its blade reflected the light in oily colours: cyan, pink, orange.
‘Unclean,’ hissed Leragrais. Valentin let out a small yelp.
None of them moved to pick up the dagger, which continued to rock slowly.
‘This is certainly a thing of the Dark Gods,’ said Leragrais.
‘But it proves nothing,’ said Damascene, ‘besides the fact that you have taken it from one of your victims. The Soulblighted do not discriminate when they feed, after all. No, this proves nothing.’ She looked at Cado and he saw the hard gaze of her eyes under her hood. ‘I think you came here to turn and slaughter us from within when we refuse the offer of the Bonereapers.’
Cado gave a single dry breath of laughter.
‘Something amuses you?’ asked Leragrais.
‘The idea that I or any of my kind would come into a city at the behest of the Ossiarch Empire. That is a jest that reveals your foolishness, more than anything else.’
Leragrais’ eyes glittered. ‘The same foolishness that kept us from ordering you burned as soon as you were found. It is a foolish man who saws away the plank that is holding him above the abyss. You appear within a day of a herald coming and demanding our capitulation… There are few coincidences that could strain credulity more.’
‘Only to the ignorant,’ said Cado. He was increasingly certain that he would not survive this encounter if he wished to hold to the tenets of his code. Even restrained, he could get free of the shackles, make for the edge of the platform and dive from the spire top before Vaux stabbed him. He had survived worse, but then there were his rings and the souls that they held. He had sworn to carry and protect them in death where he had failed to protect them in life. He could perhaps take them back, if they were close, but he would have to kill more than a few of the mortals on the tower top. And that would break his vow. They were fools, and ignorant, and might be his undoing, but they were innocent. He could not judge them otherwise. That was the path he had chosen and would not put aside. ‘The Soulblight bloodlines and the Ossiarchs do not work together unless in extremity. The Bonereapers are separate, driven by their own needs and jealous of their conquests and domains. There are many reasons why they are here now, but only one reason for me to be, and that is to find the enemy I seek. I am not an agent of anyone or anything except myself.’
‘A hunter of the lost and the damned…’ said Damascene softly.
Leragrais snorted, but Cado could sense calculation behind the old man’s eyes.
‘Why? Why does a creature like you hunt such quarry alone?’ the magister said.
‘My reasons are my own,’ said Cado.
‘Indeed?’ said Leragrais, raising his eyebrows. Cado did not respond. ‘Every second of existence you now have is ours, you understand? You persist because we will it, and one of the reasons we do so is so that you might sate our curiosity.’
‘Then you will have to consider it sated,’ Cado said. ‘Because you will get nothing more.’
After a second the magister pushed himself to his feet. He moved remarkably smoothly, Cado noted, as though his withered frame were more cloak than truth. He came close, and Cado could taste a static edge to the air around the old man as he approached. Power rattled in his eyes.
‘I will not say that I am not tempted to just watch you burn,’ he said softly. ‘But my own pleasures must come second to the needs of the many.’ He put a hand on the stone of the table as though it were the bedrock of what he was about to say. ‘This city persists because of my… because of our will. And it persists because we will not allow the likes of you to destroy it. I know death, my wandering friend – I know its taste, its bliss and agonies. I know that there are worse fates than the torments of life for the dead in a land that submits to the tyranny of the undying. I… we will not let this city’s living and dead fall to that fate. You understand? I will not let it happen.’
Cado waited. They had reached it at last – what these people wanted.
Leragrais had turned his back on the table and was looking out at the clouds and mist. In the distance a blink of amethyst light washed the murk.
Damascene leaned forwards, her interlaced hands resting on the table. ‘We believe that the Ossiarchs have taken one of our outpost settlements. You shall go there and free it, or failing that, destroy their presence.’
Cado looked at Damascene. The Sigmarite missionary had said little compared to Leragrais, but he could feel her directness in the demand, the same force of will that had ordered the Ossiarchs’ messenger shot.
‘This land is filled with things that could destroy an outpost,’ said Cado. He looked around at the shadows of the other rock stacks in the mist. Broken and remade towers rose like the roots of snapped teeth from their tops.
‘We are aware of that,’ said Damascene. ‘But given that the Bonereapers have come to our walls, it is the most likely explanation. They have been attacked before but always they sent word. The birds carry messages, you see. There have been none. And there have been occurrences – lights, mirages, things that are not of the pattern of threats we have seen.’
Cado believed what she was saying. It was just that what she was not saying was larger by many times.
‘They have been occurring more often in the last few days,’ said Leragrais. ‘People have been retreating to the city and leaving the outposts deserted.’
‘Like a rat taken down a mine, aren’t they?’ asked Cado. ‘The spirits take the rat’s life first so that the miners can try to flee. Lesser lives sacrificed to warn others.’
‘The outposts are part of the future – in time they will be stronger,’ replied Leragrais. ‘Fortress towns that pin the darkness back. For now, they serve our survival and the survival of all those this city protects.’
Cado gave the man a long look.
‘You do not think that I can do anything to help this outpost any more than I do,’ he said. ‘You are just hoping that it will cause a distraction, perhaps draw off some of the Ossiarchs’ strength or delay their attack.’ Leragrais and Damascene looked at him but did not answer. ‘It will not work,’ said Cado. ‘Everything falls. Here, the great cities of far realms. All of this is just a final gasp from a forgotten dream. Mortality lost.’
‘Thankfully, we don’t need your credence, Soulblight,’ said the man. ‘Only your compliance.’ He beckoned to Vaux. She stepped forwards and handed Leragrais a small loop of cord. Three of Cado’s rings hung on the loop. Leragrais looked at them, then flicked them with a finger. They clinked against each other. Cado’s teeth clamped shut. Leragrais snorted and tossed the three rings onto the table. Cado’s hand twitched. The magister’s eyes caught the movement. He smiled more widely.
‘We all have things we care about, even a thing like you. For my part I have one reason to keep my soul in this shell of flesh. This city. Our city. My city. I will not see it fall. Not to your kind, or to foolishness, or to all the forces that want to break, eat or enslave us. Aventhis has stood and endured in a land that hates it. And you are going to help us keep it that way. Go out and discover what has happened and you get back these soul-cages that you are so attached to.’ He picked up the cord of rings. ‘Fail to come back from this task, and I can assure you that we will bend all of our skill to destroy those that remain. Refuse and we will not only destroy them, we will lock you in a cell that we will fill with fire. Then we will take your ashes and sink them in a nullstone jar to the bottom of a lightless lake.’
Cado felt the black abyss scream inside his thoughts. A single leap and the magister would be red meat on the floor. He could take the rings from the table. Could kill the others and find the rest of the rings. Except they would not be there.
Vaux had handed Leragrais three. That meant they had deliberately brought only a few of them here to goad him. The rest could be anywhere.
‘Here,’ said Leragrais, untying the cord and tossing one of the rings onto the floor at Cado’s feet. ‘A token of good faith.’ The ring spun in place and then fell flat. Cado looked at it. It was the ring that held Solia. ‘It seemed the one most worn by touch, and so likely to hold a high value to you.’
‘Do you accept?’ asked Damascene. Cado did not answer but looked at the ring. His fingers twitched, but he did not move. The circle of iron felt heavier than the shackles on his wrists. There had to be another way out without agreeing to this bargain.
‘Well?’ asked Leragrais, and Cado could sense an edge of desperation buried in the words. He looked up but did not answer. Leragrais’ eyes hardened. ‘Take them back to the cells,’ he said, nodding at Vaux, then looking back to Cado. ‘You may have till night-bell to consider our offer.’
‘My worthies,’ said Valentin. ‘May I go now? These things are nothing to do with me. I have my family and forge, and…’
Vaux moved to Cado. Other soldiers appeared; one took hold of Valentin’s chains.
‘Wait!’ called the smith, as the soldiers began to lead them away. ‘I am nothing to do with this! You can’t lock me up with him!’
CHAPTER TEN
Guards took them down to the cells. Heavyset, and heavily armoured. He could smell fear on most of them, fear and caution. That was what a word like Soulblight could do: conjure fear out of ignorance. They watched him all the way back to his cell. Valentin protested the whole time. When they reached the cells with their stone doors, the man was shaking his head, looking around at the guards to either side of them.
‘This cannot be happening. It just can’t.’
‘Be quiet,’ growled the biggest guard. This one wasn’t afraid, Cado realised. He had something else you sometimes got in mortals – a low-level cruelty combined with petty power that overrode instinct and good sense. The stone door of a cell swung wide.
‘The forge is still lit. I must get back. I have children and the forge…’
The big guard slammed a palm into Valentin’s back. The smith was big, but his hands were bound, and the guard knew how to throw his weight. Valentin’s protests ended, as he stumbled, and half fell.
‘I said be quiet,’ growled the guard.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Cado, softly.
‘What was that?’ said the guard, straightening. The man had stubble over a layer of reddish skin. ‘Did you say something?’ Cado was still. His own manacles weighed his hands. The guard came forwards, close enough that Cado could taste the blight growing in the man’s lungs, and the liquor pickling his guts. There was a cloudy film on his eyes as he looked up at Cado. One winter and the man would be blind, thought Cado. Another and he would be rot in the ground.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Cado, nodding at where one of the other guards was hauling Valentin up.
‘That’s twice you’ve opened your mouth. Down here that’s not for you to do without us saying. Understand?’ The guard reached out a hand, fingers thick in a boiled-leather gauntlet. He rested his forefinger on Cado’s lips. Brave… No, not brave: too bitter to be brave, too stupid to be wise. ‘They say that you’re a thing from the dead, but that doesn’t scare me, and if down here you want to squeak, you ask. ’Cause I tell you – we’ve faced it all and are still standing, and the worthies won’t care if you or this pile of dung come back to them with less teeth.’
He took the finger from Cado’s lips, turned slowly, and as though to make his words real, swung his fist at Valentin’s face. It was a hard and fast blow, one that the guard had thrown many times, drunk and sober. Valentin, still blinking and coughing, did not see it coming.
Bones cracked. A scream split the air.
The guard slammed into the wall, as Cado released the man’s arm. It flopped like a length of rope. The guard screamed and was still screaming as Cado’s hands closed around his neck and jaw. He heard the shouts gather breath in the throats of the other guards. Swords began to pull free of scabbards. The chain of his manacles was up under the guard’s jaw. The man’s face was turning purple under the stubble. Cado looked into his eyes, smelled terror and the reek as the man’s bowels emptied.
‘Quiet now,’ said Cado.
A burning point touched the back of his neck.
‘Let him go,’ said Vaux’s voice just behind him. She was good, he thought. Good enough to get that close. He looked at the guard’s eyes, wide in purpling skin. He let him go. The man fell to the ground, screaming again as he landed on top of his shattered arm. Vaux held her dagger point on his neck.
‘Get him out of here,’ she snapped at the other guards. ‘In,’ she said, jerking her head at the open cell door. ‘You too,’ she said to Valentin. The smith was wide-eyed, staring at Cado. He began to shake his head. ‘In!’ snarled Vaux, and something in her expression must have cut through whatever the smith was thinking, because he scrambled through the door. Cado followed. Vaux took the dagger from his neck as she swung the door closed. The locks clattered behind the stone.
Valentin became quiet as soon as the door closed and the key turned. Cado moved back to the far wall, as far from the smith as he could, and sat. He closed his eyes. Every now and then he heard bits of words come from the man’s mouth: ‘It’s not real… This is not…’ After a while the words ran out, and then there was just the sound of Valentin sucking breaths. That quieted, too.
Cado considered his options. He did not have many choices, not real ones anyway. They had his rings and with them the souls bound inside them. They thought that they were valuable to him, but they had no idea how much they meant. Nine souls taken from fire, saved from the pyre of his lost kingdom. Nine out of tens of thousands swallowed by the daemons as they danced, and the flames of betrayal leapt higher. Nothing, a few tears held back from a river of suffering. Nothing. And yet everything. He had to have them back. He had promised all that time ago that he would keep them safe and give them vengeance. He had lived many mortal lifetimes for the first promise and had never failed in the second. He would have to agree to what these mortals asked, for now at least, until he could find a way to get the rings back.
Slaughter them, whispered a voice at the back of his thoughts. When they open the door – that will be your chance. Kill the one with the knife first. She is deadly but not deadly enough. Then the guards. Call to their flesh and bones as their blood cools. Then the rest. All the rest in the tower. You will have a horde at your back before they know what is happening. The voice was a shout in his skull. Kill! Let the blood flow and the skies boil! Slaughter until they are kneeling in the gore of those they love, pleading for you to have what they have taken. Like you once would… Like you should again…
He could see it. Charred black and bone white and red running on stones. The cries were a song to echo the roar of the storm as he stood atop the city spire, and around him the risen dead raised their blades.
‘Why did you do that?’ Cado opened his eyes. Valentin was looking at him. The man’s eyes were wide in the thin light coming from the holes in the outer wall. ‘To the guard, I mean. Why did you do that?’
