"Miss Hooper," Munch said. "You have been really quite difficult to track down."
"I like it that way. How's tricks, Stan?"
"They will be better when I have recovered what belongs to me. The key, Miss Hooper? Please?"
"The key? Oh, that key. Little difficult — I don't have it any more."
"You… don't… have it." Munch repeated, slowly.
"That's right. I threw it away."
Munch laughed out loud, spun to face the watching locals in the tavern. "Did you hear that?" he shouted. "She doesn't have it! She threw it away! Oh, well that's all right, then — we'll all just leave and go home to — "
Go on, Kali thought. Say it. Say Scholten and give yourself away. Let all these people know who you thugs really represent. But instead of continuing Munch slammed his fist down on the bar and with a roar swept away the drinks standing there. "Hey, watch out there," Red said, and made to move on him, but in under a second Munch had whipped a shiny new gutting knife from under his cloak and held it to the big man's throat. He pressed the point into Red's flesh until he was forced to sit back down.
Munch turned back to Kali. "Go home?" he said again, as if pondering. "No, I don't think so."
"I already told you, I don't have the key," Kali said. "Now, why don't you just leave before I tell everyone here who you are?"
"That would not be wise," Munch said. "Because then we would have to kill them all." As one, his cronies took crossbows from beneath their cloaks and trained them on the regulars.
"Miss Hooper, if you really do not have the key then I fear I have no choice but to change my plans again. This involves causing you great pain. Do you understand? Oh, and if you are thinking of fleeing from us as you did from the Sardenne Forest, I'm afraid that without the means that might prove a little problematic." Munch smiled coldly. "But if you doubt me, why don't you take a look outside?"
What the hells is he talking about? Kali wondered. Automatically her mind flicked back to her flight from the Spiral, the escape from its conflagration, the gallop away on Horse. No, she thought suddenly. No!
Surely even this bastard…
Kali pushed past Munch and his cronies and burst out of the door of the tavern into the stable-lined courtyard beyond. There she stopped dead. Horse was being led towards her by another of Munch's men. But something was wrong. Very wrong. Horse stumbled as he came, sweating, whinnying sadly, his eyes rolling as they always did, but this time in pain. As Kali fought to take in what it was that was wrong with him her eyes were drawn to the reason for Horse's weak and unsteady gait. The fetlocks on both of his hind legs had been cut almost through. Sinew and cartilage dangled from raw and sliced wounds that bled freely and left a trail behind them, like red ribbons on the ground. The trails, Kali saw, led back to his stable, where this vicious deed had obviously been done, for there a puddle of blood the size of a small pond had already begun to soak into the straw. With that much blood gone and the wounds that he had, it was a wonder that Horse could walk at all. Kali already felt sick enough but then the true cruelty of what had been done to him — and to her — became clear. Horse's fetlocks had been sliced with an almost surgical precision, to the degree where they were held together only by the finest threads of gristle and tissue, and the fact that he was being forced to walk towards her now was providing the strain that would finish them off. As Kali watched in horror, the remaining threads of the fetlocks snapped away and, with a loud whinny of pain, Horse collapsed, dropping onto his rear, the blood beginning to run from him more freely than ever.
Kali roared and attempted to run to him, but Munch had stationed two more of his men on either side of the tavern door and they each grabbed one of her arms, holding her back. At the same time, more of Munch's men appeared on the roofs of the stables, aiming crossbows down. Munch stepped casually through the door behind her and said, "The nag was old. If the strain of fleeing once again hadn't killed it, the knacker's yard would have finished it soon enough." He stepped around to Kali's front, and smiled. "Trust me, Miss Hooper, I was doing you a favour."
Kali spat in his face, and struggled anew in the hands of her captors. Over Munch's shoulder she saw Horse fold down onto his front legs and then, with a winded and tremulous expulsion of breath, collapse heavily onto his side, his legs kicking spasmodically. Blood began to pool there, too, and he began to shake, soaked in his cold sweat. His dazed large eyes — as innocent as a child's eyes — rolled in confusion, for there was no way he could understand what was happening to him.
But Kali knew what was happening, and she couldn't believe it.
Horse was dying right in front of her.
"Let me go to him," Kali said. "Please."
Munch laughed. "The interfering adventurer shows her softer side. A compassion for all living things, all… creatures great and small. What a wonderfully pious attitude." He chuckled and, leaning in, whispered, "Perhaps you should consider joining our church?"
"Damn you!"
"The Lord of All knows my cause is righteous."
Behind her, the others were bundled out of the Flagons. Munch signalled his men on the rooftops to train their weapons on them.
Red and Aldrededor and Dolorosa stared grimly out at the scene before them, the woman raising her hand to her mouth. "Oh, no, no, no… oh, all the gods," Dolorosa said.
"'Ere, wosh goin' on out here?" another voice enquired, and the Sarge, his head looking as though it had been dunked in a bucket of water, strode from a stable, his men following behind. Munch scowled, and with a flick of his head ordered his men to lower their weapons. Idiots these men might be, but they still represented what passed for officialdom in these parts and, obviously, it was Munch's intention — perhaps his orders — to keep the situation as unofficial as he possibly could.
Unfortunately for him, it seemed to have already gone too far. The sergeant squinted at the dying Horse, then the restrained Kali, his brow furrowing. "'Ere…" he said again.
"There is nothing here to concern you," Munch said. "A tragic accident, that's all."
The sergeant pulled down his tunic, hiccupped and stared at him. "Looksh a bit more than that to me," he said. He gestured to his own men, who laid their hands on their weapons. "I'm afraid, sir, I'm going to have to ashk you for your provincial papers."
Munch scowled, considering the situation, and then actually smiled. But he made no move for papers of any kind. The poor fool confronting him had no idea how far he had just stepped out of his depth.
"Sarge, don't," Kali called to him. "Stay away."
But it was too late. Munch signalled his men and a rain of bolts took the sergeant's men down. Only the sergeant himself was left unscathed. For him, Munch had reserved something special.
It was over in seconds. Munch grunted as he forcefully levered his gutting knife from the chest of the sergeant fallen before him, and Kali could see him fighting the dull tugs on his bones as the roughened edge of his vicious blade grated and snagged between the dead man's ribs. Pulling it free of the corpse, he took a breath — a very satisfied breath — and then slowly turned and plunged the still-dripping blade into one of the gasping, weeping men who had survived his men's bolts. He did not go for a quick kill, instead impaling the man's guts and then twisting the hilt with both hands so that the end of the wide blade began to gouge a hole the size of an infant's head in the stomach of his screaming and helpless victim. The bucking man tried to grab the blade with his own hands, as if this would somehow ease his agony, but Munch pressed the sole of his boot onto them, slicing the grasping palms down the blade and, fingerless stumps now, into the gaping wound itself. As the man spasmed and uttered a final, guttural sob, Munch swiftly withdrew the blade, spewing a rain of intestinal matter onto his face and ending him.