And Night Descends (The Third Book of the Small Gods Series) (3 page)

What must be, must be.

He raised the crownsword, his face pulled into a frown, and the rabble gathered in front of the platform fell into relative silence. Stirk shifted, staring at the wooden boards, and Dansil tightened his grip on the man.

“Trenan! No!”

The words reached him clear and loud, spoken in the princess’ voice as though she stood beside him. Trenan jerked his head away from the task at hand, blade still held aloft, and for an instant the crowd parted. He glimpsed two figures—one clad in the drab green smock and wooden mask of the Goddess, the other in red—then they disappeared. The mob’s noise rose in angry tones calling for blood, but the master swordsman ignored their pleas.

Trenan leaped from the platform and waded into the sea of onlookers, its members doing their best to move aside and avoid Godsbane’s sharp edge, but their mass impeded him. He shouldered his way through, growling in his throat, and finally burst out the far side into the open.

The lanes beyond lay empty.

Three of them opened into the square. In his haste to pursue the voice that sounded like the princess, he hadn’t seen which one they’d followed. He stared first down one, then the next and the next, hoping to spy a green smock, a flash of red, but saw nothing. With no other reason than a feeling in his gut, he took a step toward the lane to his right, halting at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Trenan wheeled, sword poised ready to defend himself, but held up when he found Osis standing behind him, arms raised defensively. The sword master lowered his weapon and spun on his heel to continue his survey of the lanes.

“It was Danya who called out. I’m sure of it,” Trenan growled.

“Then we must inform the king,” Osis said.

Trenan clenched his teeth and breathed heavily through his nostrils. His friend was right. Any news of the princess or prince should be relayed back to the king and queen as expediently as possible, but the master swordsman couldn’t bear the thought of returning to Ishla with news and nothing more. The next time he saw her, he intended to have both her children with him.

Finally, Trenan nodded and faced Osis.

“You return to the king. I’ll keep after the princess while the trail is warm.”

The clatter of armor caused both of the men to spin around and stare back toward the square where the execution took place. They found Dansil and Strylor heading toward them at double time. The sight of them tightened Trenan’s chest with anger.

“What are you doing? Where is the prisoner?”

A vision of Dansil’s axe falling across the big man’s neck, completing the job they’d intended, came to Trenan. His grip tightened on Godsbane’s hilt; it wasn’t the soldier’s place to execute a man without a direct order. Doing so was murder, not justice.

Maybe this is how I’ll be rid of him.

“Bastard escaped,” Dansil said as the two of them pulled up short of where Trenan and Osis stood.

“Escaped? How could you let—”

“We ain’t to blame. He slipped away in the ruckus you caused jumping off the platform instead of finishing the job you was supposed to do.”

“A kneeling man escaped,” Trenan grated between clenched teeth. “All you had to do was keep him there.”

Dansil shrugged. “He was quicker than we thought and Strylor’s feet got caught up in the woman’s body when he went to go after him, didn’t they, Stry?”

The other man glanced sideways at the big soldier but said nothing. He replied with a quick, curt nod.

“He headed toward Waterside, though, makin’ for the docks. He can’t have gotten too far.”

“Forget him,” Trenan said.

“Forget him? Has it left your mind what the bastard and his mother did to the prince?”

“No, it hasn’t,” he snapped. “But that was the princess who called out my name. If there’s a chance we can recover her and return her to the queen, that takes priority.”

Dansil raised an eyebrow. “You mean return her to the queen and king, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course.” Trenan glanced at Osis; he remained beside him but stayed out of the conversation. The man was a good soldier, willing to do anything to support his friend; anything except turn against his king.

The master swordsman drew a long breath, hating the stink of the city streets that found its way into his lungs. He looked from Osis to Strylor, who wore a derisive grin Trenan wanted to knock from his face with the butt of his sword, and then to Dansil. Every fiber of his being wanted to return the two of them to the castle with the latest news, allowing him to be free of them, but he didn’t trust Dansil and, by association, Strylor.

“We’ll find the man, Stirk, another time to administer the king’s justice. Now we must do everything we can to locate the princess while she is so close.”

Dansil nodded but refused to speak his agreement. The grin on Strylor’s visage continued unhindered. Each passing moment as they remained there doing nothing tugged at the back of Trenan’s mind as he pictured Danya’s footsteps carrying her away from being found.

What is she doing? Where does she think she’s going?

“Osis will return to Draekfarren and pass news of the princess on to the king and queen,” Trenan said.

“And Strylor will go along with him so I know nothing ain’t amiss.”

Trenan bit back a curt response. Another time, he’d have called out the soldier for his insubordinate words and tone, but the press of time kept him from doing so. In addition, he’d have less to worry about with Dansil’s compatriot safely out of the way with Osis, whom he knew as trustworthy. Still, the thought of being alone with Dansil brought a curl to his upper lip.

“Fine,” Trenan agreed at last. He turned his attention to Osis. “Take Strylor with you, sergeant. The king will decide whether you two should return to us on your own or with reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements?” Dansil scoffed. “Against one novice of the Goddess cult?” He devolved into laughter.

Once again, Trenan bit back his response. He held his gaze on Osis, knowing the sergeant could see the flame of dislike burning in his eyes. The opportunity would come for Dansil to answer for his ways but, for now, he had to concentrate on the princess. If they found Danya, perhaps she could lead them to the prince, though he had no love for spending his time alone with Dansil.

“Be off,” he said to Osis, returning Godsbane to its sheath. “And take Strylor with you.”

Osis nodded, glanced sideways at Dansil then back at Trenan, as if to ask if the two would survive each other. He then turned his attention to Strylor who, in the master swordsman’s estimation, resembled a grinning fool.

“Come,” Osis gestured for Strylor to follow and started along the lane that led most quickly back to the walls around Draekfarren.

Dansil slapped his companion on the shoulder with the thump of leather gauntlet against armor. “Keep an eye on that one,” he said. “And I’ll keep mine on this one.”

He nodded toward Trenan, ensuring he caught the master swordsman’s eye. Strylor continued grinning and took off after Osis, armor rattling.

For a moment after the two of them left, Trenan and Dansil remained facing each other in the middle of the lane, gazes locked. In that time, Trenan realized that, if he still held the crownsword in his hand, he’d have struggled to keep from wetting it with Dansil’s blood.

Perhaps Osis is right to wonder if both of us will survive.

The lopsided smile on Dansil’s face suggested the same thought had occurred to him.

III Stirk—Escape

The big soldier who’d lopped off Elishbieta’s head clapped one hand on Stirk’s shoulder while the other gripped the axe tinted with his mother’s blood. Stirk considered glaring at him, fighting back against his fate, but the sight of his mother’s lifeless body lying near his feet drained fight and defiance from him.

The soldier—he’d heard the one-armed man call him Dansil—exerted downward pressure, directing Stirk to his knees in front of the block of wood stained with Bieta’s lifeblood. He did his best to make it difficult, but his legs didn’t have the energy to resist. Fresh blood on the boards of the platform soaked the knees of his breeches, its wetness bringing tears to his eyes, blurring the faces in the crowd barely more than an arm’s length away.

With his face near the stump, the odor of cedar and the coppery stink of his mother’s death penetrated his nostrils, clogging his already constricted throat with the threat of nausea. He swallowed hard and Dansil pushed him forward. Stirk turned his head, his cheek pressing against the blood-dampened wood, eyes finding his mother’s slack, dead face; he immediately wished he’d chosen to face the other direction.

Trenan, the one-armed sword master, stood to the right, the tip of the crown blade destined to end Stirk’s life dangling above the platform’s floorboards. His tears transformed the sunlight shining on the blade into shimmering stars, dazzling him. The sword tip disappeared from his view, raised above his line of sight. He chose not to follow its path, knowing what it meant.

Dansil pressed hard against his back, holding him in place so Trenan could end his life with one killing blow. The buzz of the crowd diminished and Stirk closed his eyes. Never had he wondered what became of a man at the end of his days. People sometimes talked of new lives, or a different world; with the stench of blood in his nose and the sweat of fear on his brow, he was less convinced than ever such might be the case.

But if it’s true, will I see mother again?

The thought didn’t ease his tension.

The crowd fell silent and Stirk imagined how Trenan must look with Godsbane raised skyward, pausing before administering Stirk’s punishment for imprisoning the prince and planning to ransom him. A smile would curl the sword master’s lips, the way one had tilted Dansil’s when his axe separated Bieta’s head from her neck. Stirk parted his lips to explain he hadn’t realized who the boy was, to blame his mother for the idea, but the time for pleading and excuses had passed. If they didn’t work before, they’d do him no good now.

Sweat rolled along Stirk’s temple and down his nose. In the breath-held silence, he imagined he heard the droplet trace its path along his flesh and his mother’s blood drying in the sun. He thought—

“Trenan! No!”

The words broke the hush like the blast of a trumpet and Stirk’s lids snapped open.

I’m still alive.

He saw the one-armed swordsman’s feet shift as he faced the crowd, searching for the owner of the voice who’d called out, and Stirk knew he’d continue living at least a moment longer. He blinked to clear the grief and fear from his eyes.

Godsbane’s tip returned to his view and Stirk’s heart thumped in his chest. The blade dangled for a second, catching the sunlight, nearly blinding him, then Trenan’s feet shuffled and he jumped from the platform. The crowd came back to life with a mixture of worried murmurs and shocked gasps that combined and grew to a dull roar. Someone shouted for blood, others took up the chorus.

“Trenan,” Dansil called after the sword master. He must have straightened to get a look where his companion went, for the pressure on Stirk’s back eased. Air came easier to his lungs. “Trenan!”

The weight on him lessened again and Stirk gulped a coppery breath. This would be his one chance for life to continue.

He jerked back, using his size and weight and surprise to catch Dansil off guard. It worked and the man stumbled away a step, releasing his hold. Stirk leaped to his feet and bounded over his mother’s corpse then dove into the crowd. People parted before him, scared of getting in his way.

“Hey!” Dansil roared.

The clomp of a boot on the wooden platform reached his ears, followed by a louder thump. He glanced back over his shoulder to see the king’s soldier had slipped in a puddle of Bieta’s blood, his feet going out from under him and throwing him to his ass. Stirk longed to stop and laugh at the man’s misfortune, enjoy the elation of escape, but he caught sight of his mother’s head lying on the boards. Her wide eye stared at him, her mouth frozen open as though it might yell at him to stop gawking and run.

Stirk turned, lowered his face, and did just that.

***

The stitch in Stirk’s side from running felt how he imagined it must be if someone inserted the tip of a pike between his ribs.

He stopped and bent at the waist, one hand and one stump planted on his knees as he gasped whooping breaths into his chest to satisfy his aching lungs. The first few didn’t make it in, the pain in his side squelching them, but after a struggle, some air made it through.

It tasted of salt and creosote, of bird shit baking in the sun. He fought to keep it from bringing nausea to his throat and making it more difficult to breathe.

I’m near the docks.

He raised his head, sweat and tears streaming down his cheeks. He wiped an arm across his stinging eyes, shaded them from the blinding sunlight with a hand at his brow.

I dropped the whelp off somewhere close to here.

Thinking of the prince made him grind his back teeth. He lowered his gaze to the stump at the end of his left arm, created in payment to save the fucker so he and Bieta might ransom him, profit from his misfortune. It hadn’t turned out well—he’d ended up short the prince to be ransomed, one hand, and a mother, too.

“Mother.”

He straightened and strode forward three paces, ignoring the now-bearable pain in his side. Gripping the edges of crates to steady himself, he continued on to where he’d left their captive, to where he’d brought Trenan and the others to find the young man gone.

If he’d been there, would my mother be dead? If they’d seen we made sure he stayed alive, what might have happened?

His teeth pressed together tighter, biting hard enough his jaw ached. His belly clenched along with it, his sweat-beaded brow creased.

“If you weren’t gone, mother’d be alive.”

He kicked a crate hard enough to splinter the wood and make himself wince at the pain it caused his toe, then booted it again anyway. A gull crawked at him from its perch atop a nearby building, tilted its head like it didn’t know why he’d do such a thing. Stirk picked up a piece of wood broken from the crate and heaved it at the shithawk, missing by a wide margin but sending the bird squawking into the sky.