Ario stayed there, eyes bulging, one hand plucking weakly at her bare shoulder. The other crept trembling up and fumbled at the handle of the blade. Blood leaked out of him thick and black, oozing between his fingers, bubbling down his legs, running down his chest in dark, treacly streaks, leaving his pale skin all smeared and speckled with red. His mouth yawned, but his scream was nothing but a soft farting sound, breath squelching around the wet steel in his throat. He tottered back, his other arm fishing at the air, and Monza watched him, fascinated, his white face leaving a bright trace across her vision.
"Three dead," she whispered. "Four left."
His bloody thighs slapped against the windowsill and he fell, head smashing against the stained glass and knocking the window wide. He tumbled through and out into the night.
The club came over, a blow that could've smashed in Shivers' skull like an egg. But it was tired, sloppy, left Greylock's side open. Shivers ducked it, already spinning, snarling as he whipped the heavy sword round. It cut into the big man's blue-painted forearm with a meaty thump, hacked it off clean, carried on through and chopped deep into the side of his stomach. Blood showered from the stump and into the faces of the onlookers. The club clattered to the cobbles, hand and wrist along with it. Someone gave a thin shriek. Someone else laughed.
"How'd they do that?"
Then Greylock started squealing like he'd caught his foot in a door. "Fuck! It hurts! Ah! Ah! What's my… by the—"
He reached around with the one hand he had left, fumbling at the gash in his side, dark mush bulging out. He lurched forwards onto one knee, head tipping back, and started to scream. Until Shivers' sword hit his mask right in the forehead and made a clang that cut his roar off dead, left a huge dent between the eyeholes. The big man crashed over on his back, his boots flew up in the air, then thumped down.
And that was the end of the evening's entertainment.
The band spluttered out a last few wobbly notes, then the music died. Apart from some vague yelling leaking from the gaming hall, the yard was silent. Shivers stared down at Greylock's corpse, blood bubbling out from beneath the stoved-in mask. His fury had suddenly melted, leaving him only with a painful arm, a scalp prickling with cold sweat and a healthy sense of creeping horror.
"Why do things like this always happen to me?"
"Because you're a bad, bad man," said Cosca, peering over his shoulder.
Shivers felt a shadow fall across his face. He was just looking up when a naked body crashed down headfirst into the circle from above, showering the already gaping crowd with blood.
That's Entertainment
All at once, things got confused.
"The king!" someone squealed, for no reason that made any sense. The blood-spattered space that had been the circle was suddenly full of stumbling bodies, running to nowhere. Everyone was bawling, wailing, shouting. Men's voices and women's, a noise fit to deafen the dead. Someone shoved at Shivers' shield and he shoved back on an instinct, sent them sprawling over Greylock's corpse.
"It's Ario!"
"Murder!" A guest started to draw his sword, and one of the band stepped calmly forwards and smashed his skull apart with a sharp blow of a mace.
More screams. Steel rang and grated. Shivers saw one of the Gurkish dancers slit a man's belly open with a curved knife, saw him fumble his sword as he vomited blood, stab the man behind him in the leg. There was a crash of tinkling glass and a flailing body came flying through one of the windows of the gambling hall. Panic and madness spread like fire in a dry field.
One of the jugglers was flinging knives, flying metal clattering about the yard, thudding into flesh and wood, just as deadly to friends as enemies. Someone grabbed hold of Shivers' sword arm and he elbowed them in the face, lifted his sword to hack at them and realised it was Morc, the pipe player, blood running from his nose. There was a loud whomp and a glare of orange through the heaving bodies. The screaming went up a notch, a mindless chorus.
"Fire!"
"Water!"
"Out of my way!"
"The juggler! Get the—"
"Help! Help!"
"Knights of the Body, to me! To me!"
"Where's the prince? Where's Ario?"
"Somebody help!"
"Back!" shouted Cosca.
"Eh?" Shivers called at him, not sure who was howling at who. A knife flickered past in the darkness, rattled away between the thrashing bodies.
"Back!" Cosca sidestepped a sword-thrust, whipped his cane around, a long, thin blade sliding free of it, ran a man through the neck with a swift jab. He slashed at someone else, missed and almost stabbed Shivers as he lurched past. One of Ario's gentlemen, mask like a squares board, nearly caught Cosca with a sword. Gurpi loomed up behind and smashed his lute over the man's head. The wooden body shattered, the axe blade inside split his shoulder right down to his chest and crushed his butchered wreckage into the cobbles.
Another surge of flame went up, people stumbled away, shoving madly, a ripple through the straining crowd. They suddenly parted and the Incredible Ronco came thrashing straight at Shivers, white fire wreathing him like some devil burst out of hell. Shivers tottered back, smashed him away with his shield. Ronco reeled into the wall, bounced off it and into another, showering globs of liquid fire, folk scrambling away, steel stabbing about at random. The flames spread up the dry ivy, first a crackle, then a roar, leaped to the wooden wall, bathing the heaving courtyard in wild, flickering light. A window shattered. The locked gates clattered as men clutched at 'em, screaming to be let out. Shivers beat the flames on his shield against the wall. Ronco was rolling on the ground, still burning, making a thin screech like a boiling kettle, the flames casting a crazy glare across the bobbing masks of guests and entertainers—twisted monsters' faces, everywhere Shivers looked.
There was no time to make sense of any of it. All that mattered was who lived and who died, and he'd no mind to join the second lot. He backed off, keeping close to the wall, shoving men away with his scorched shield as they grabbed at him.
A couple of the guards in breastplates were forcing their way through the press. One of 'em chopped Barti or Kummel down with his sword, hard to say which, caught one of Ario's gentlemen on the backswing and took part of his skull off. He staggered round, squealing, one hand clapped to his head, blood running out between his fingers, over his golden mask and down his face in black streaks. Barti or Kummel, whichever was left, stabbed a knife into the top of the swordsman's head, right up to the hilt, then hooted as the point of a blade slid out of the front of his chest.
Another armoured guard shouldered his way towards Shivers, sword held high, shouting something, sounded like the Union tongue. Didn't much matter where he was from, he had a mind for killing, that was clear, and Shivers didn't plan on giving him the first blow. He snarled as he swung, full-blooded, but the guard lurched back out of the way and Shivers' sword chopped into something else with a meaty thwack. A woman's chest, just happened to be stumbling past. She fell against the wall, scream turning to a gurgle as she slid down through the ivy, mask half-torn off, one eye staring at him, blood bubbling from her nose, from her mouth, pouring down her white neck.
The courtyard was a place of madness, lit by spreading flames. A fragment of a night-time battlefield, but a battle with no sides, no purpose, no winners. Bodies were kicked around under the panicking crowd—living, dead, split and bloodied. Gurpi was flailing, all tangled up with the wreckage of his lute, not even able to swing his axe for the broken strings and bits of wood. While Shivers watched, one of the guards hacked him down, sent blood showering black in the firelight.