He reflected that it was not the Bloodgod who’d brought things to this pass. One of the old names of the Lady was Fama. It was she who raised men from one station to another, whether they wanted to rise or not. She who, in her other role, as Fortuna, brought them crashing back down to earth again.
Sadu didn’t bother with such cruel games. He only brought justice-more often than not, the utterly equal justice of death.
The wagon bounced on over the cobbles, Malden rocking back and forth with its motion, unable to brace himself. He barely felt the jars and bumps, and was only peripherally aware that at some point the wagon stopped. This was it, then. They must have arrived at the Godstone.
Yet he couldn’t hear the roaring of the crowd or the chants for blood that he’d expected. He glanced from side to side with sluggish eyes and saw the wrong buildings. The wagon had stopped somewhere in the Smoke, well short of its destination.
“You,” the driver of the wagon called. “Old man. Please clear the way. We are on sacred business and can’t be delayed.”
One of the priests holding Malden let go of him and stood up in the bed of the wagon. “What is this botheration?” he asked.
A crossbow bolt suddenly appeared, sticking out of his left eye. The wickedly barbed point protruded from the back of the priest’s head, along with a thin spurt of blood.
Malden watched the man fall. It seemed to take a very, very long time.
He heard a groan of pain and looked forward, as best he could, to see the driver of the wagon tumble toward the street. The third priest, the one wearing Acidtongue, grabbed for the side of the wagon in panic. The wagon rocked as someone else jumped into the bed. The last of the priests drew Acidtongue clumsily from its sheath and held it out, point forward. Malden could see the point trembling as the priest’s hand shook.
A drop of acid spilled from the blade and fell to the bed of the wagon, mere inches from Malden’s face. He tried desperately to turn his head away, to avoid the next drip, but he could barely twitch to the side.
His head rolled-and he saw who it was who’d killed the other two priests. Who now stood in the wagon, facing down Acidtongue.
It was Cutbill. The old guildmaster of thieves, dressed like a peasant in a shapeless russet tunic.
Cutbill grabbed the priest by his baldric. The priest tried to bring Acidtongue up to defend himself but he was too slow. Cutbill launched his head forward, connecting his forehead viciously with the priest’s nose. Cartilage snapped with a sickening crunch and blood splattered down the front of the priest’s tunic, turning its red fabric black in the moonlight. The sword fell uselessly to the bed of the wagon in a pool of its own acid.
Cutbill had a knife in his hand, no bigger than the belt knife he might use to cut and eat his food. He struck with it three times, perforating the priest’s neck in three precise, almost surgical cuts. The priest fell backward, out of the wagon, without a sound. Malden had no doubt the man was dead before he hit the cobbles.
Then Cutbill grabbed Malden and hauled him out of the wagon. He pushed him toward a disused horse trough that had frozen over in the night. With his bloody knife, Cutbill smashed up the ice and shoved Malden’s face into the bitterly cold water.
The effect was immediate. The cold shocked his system-left him feeling still weak as an infant but at least able to gasp for breath and look around him. He saw the wagon standing exactly where it had stopped, the starveling horse waiting patiently for a command that would never come. He saw the deserted streets, saw the three bodies lying on the cobbles.
“How… did,” he said, but lacked the strength to finish his thought. How did you know they would do this? How did you know where to find me? Those were only his most pressing questions.
Cutbill, though, never gave away his secrets. Rather than answering, he grabbed Malden’s face and slapped him mercilessly. “Fight it, son,” the guildmaster told him. “You’re going to need to walk in a moment. After that, you’ll need to run.”
Malden forced his left hand to clench into a fist. It didn’t quite make it, but he felt the blood surging through his fingers. He tried again. Cutbill nodded and went back to the wagon. When he returned, he had Acidtongue, its scabbard, and Malden’s sword belt. He helped Malden strap it back on.
“Not… your usual… style,” Malden forced himself to say. He’d never actually imagined Cutbill capable of leaving his various lairs and bolt-holes. Certainly never thought the guildmaster of thieves capable of such a daring-and savage-rescue.
“In fact this was exactly my style, once upon a time,” Cutbill assured him. “In a less decorous era. These days I find it more to my advantage to plot and scheme from the shadows, yes. But I’ve done my share of desperate things in the past, when plans fell apart. I need you still, Malden. I’m not done with you, not quite yet. I still need a hero to save my city tomorrow.”
“Too bad you only… have me,” Malden joked.
“You know I hate false modesty. You’re exactly the man for the job. If only because no one else is here to do it. Bend this knee,” Cutbill said. “Farther. Does it pain you to bend like that?”
Malden shook his head. “Nothing hurts.”
“It will. When the drug wears off it’s going to hurt a lot. Now. Bend the other knee. Good. Again.”
Chapter One Hundred Eleven
An hour before dawn the snow burned a deep blue. Fires burned low in the barbarian camp, untended now by men who expected to be inside walls and warm in a little space of time. Morget dropped to his knees before the wall of Ness and spread his hands wide, for that was how the men of the East prayed.
O mother, O Death, come today for my enemies, he beseeched silently, for no man of the East prayed aloud when another could hear. O my mother, come for my men, too, my warriors, who I would slay myself to please you, until their blood painted this world. Come for the little people of the West, and conquer their little gods. Come for the innocent. Come for the women. Come for the children, and even the little babes.
Slake this thirst inside me with hot blood.
Or come for me, if that is my doom.
But come, and reap, and take many souls into your arms.
No one was there to ask him what he begged for. Hurlind the scold was passed out drunk in his tent. Balint the dwarf was gone, spirited away in her own tunnels by hands unseen. Morgain was riding for Helstrow, well beyond Morget’s reach. Morg the Wise, Morg the Merciful, Morg the Great Chieftain was dead by his son’s red hand. The chieftains who remained, their reavers and their warriors, their thralls and their berserkers, did not dare approach a man communing with his wyrd.
Morget was alone. No one remained to share in his glory.
Which meant it would all be his.
Everything was in readiness, and everything was planned for. The berserkers would be first and already they danced before the wall of the city, danced wildly, working their blood up, danced and sang with great ululating shrieks and shouts, with atonal, wordless chants to drive themselves mad. When the wall came down they would rush inside and slaughter indiscriminately anyone they found. After them the clans would pour through, a river of iron to wash away any defenders that remained. He would be in among them, with axe and Dawnbringer, and he would reap a great harvest.
Or so it had been planned. Yet destiny, or doom, whichever it might be, was known to laugh at men who schemed, and so it was to be that day.
The sign, the portent of what was truly to come, was a ring of steel against iron, and it was repeated not once but a hundred times even before Morget looked up from his prayer. Behind him at the edge of the camp horses screamed and men cried out in pain. Morget jumped to his feet and grabbed his weapons.