Night of Knives (33 page)

‘Do you not see them?’

‘No. Who? Where?’ Kiska asked
who
, but from the venom in Oleg’s voice she could guess.

‘Look between the farthest two mounds. See the vines move?’

Kiska watched and after a moment saw the matting of foliage shake slightly, shift and stretch as if twisting after something. Then they blackened, smoked, and fell away to ash.

Oleg, fists at his chin, moaned. ‘Nooo! He’s getting away!’ He turned to her. ‘You were in Shadow. You met the Elder One?’

‘Elder?’

Oleg hissed exasperation: ‘The one who watches its borders.’

‘Oh, yes. I met him.’

‘And? What did he say? Where is he? Will he act?’

Kiska groaned inwardly. ‘He can’t, that is, he won’t. I’m sorry.’

Oleg’s spirit hands lunged for Kiska’s throat but whipped
away at the last instant. She flinched from him. Glaring wildly, he muttered to himself, then rubbed his hands over the wall with quick tentative strokes as if it were hot and burning his fingers.

‘Nothing for it,’ she heard him whimper. ‘I’ll see him enslaved for an eternity! It must be mine!’ Warren energies crackled and flashed, blinding her. When she looked back Oleg was inside the wall, scrambling across the ground on all fours. Vines snatched at him but also blackened and crumbled to ash.

Soon he neared where the vines shuddered and jerked. Kiska heard a shout – a challenge or warning. Close to Oleg crawled another man, but she had barely seen him when power burst, gold and violet between them, shattering nearby trees and blowing clouds of earth from a mound. The force of the impact shook the wall and hurled Kiska sprawling onto her back, stones and sand pattering down around her. Pushing to her knees, Kiska squinted over the wall, shading her eyes against the glare of power. Oleg knelt, pouring a mauve snake-like flow of energy from his hands onto the back of a man. Despite this punishment, the man crawled onwards towards the House.

Then, so quick and startling did it move, another figure-this one in rags, scarecrow thin with elongated, oddly proportioned limbs – sprang like a striking snake from the ravaged mound and wrapped its arms around Oleg’s quarry.

Oleg shouted in triumph and broke off the energies he’d been summoning. In the resulting silence Kiska’s ears thrummed. The captured man clawed and flailed at the loose earth as he was dragged toward the mound. Now Kiska could see him more clearly: a short Dal Honese, grey haired, his clothing torn and dirt-smeared. Kellanved – or what was left of him – snatched just shy of his goal. He let out a shattering howl as he clutched uselessly at the soil. Kneeling in the broken steaming earth, Oleg cackled victory.

A third figure appeared, causing Kiska to catch her breath.
Dancer! He tottered, cloak gone, a dark shirt hanging in ribbons about him. Blood streaked his torso and arms, dripped to the torn earth. Before Kiska could shout a warning, he snatched Oleg up as if he were a bundle of rags and tossed him onto the writhing figures. Immediately the pale skeletal form released Kellanved and grasped Oleg. They wrestled, Oleg shrieking, the other silent . . . disturbingly so. Dancer stepped in and dragged Kellanved free. Together they staggered the last few steps to the House and fell against its rear wall as Oleg flailed and screamed, tossing up dirt while the creature drew him slowly into its mound.

Oleg disappeared a bit at a time. But he’s dead – a spirit-Kiska thought. How could this be? Unless here, on the grounds, no distinction remained between flesh and spirit-here, the House captured any and all that entered.

Presently, Oleg’s hoarse pleading ceased. She glanced back to the mound. Now all that moved was the bare settling of earth, slumping a bit to one side. At the back of the House Kellanved and Dancer struggled with a narrow warped door. Dancer pulled it open and lunged through so quickly it was as if he’d been grabbed. Kellanved waited. As if sensing her gaze, he turned towards her. She meant to duck behind the wall, but something drew her, enticed her, to stand. A weary smile passed Kellanved’s lips, as if he’d be amused if he yet retained the energy. Kiska felt a summons to step over the wall. He merely lifted his chin and she was compelled to enter. Her foot in its soft leather sandal settled on top of the wall. A jolt from the rock, like a spark of static, jarred her, and she yelped as she tumbled back.

An angry curse sounded from inside the grounds, then something like a giant fist smashed against the wall. Stones stung her back and flames licked over her. She leapt up, slapped at her hair and clothing as a mocking laugh rang out. It finished abruptly as a door slammed shut.

Kiska ran. She wanted to run on forever through the mist, away from such horrors, but her way was blocked by a grey figure. She shrieked, thinking it was Dancer come for her. But the figure flashed past like a wounded animal and collapsed against the wall with a gasp. It lay there, shuddering, weeping. Kiska reached out, feeling a strange compassion but a deep bellow and clash of steel snapped her attention forwards. There, an armoured giant duelled a man armed with a pike-axe who was backed up by a frail-looking elder. The Warren energies that crackled between them had left the earth scorched and smoking.

Laughter, and Kiska looked down to the cultist. He was a young man with pale eyes filled with hopelessness, despite his soft chuckle. He wiped his mouth, leaving a smear of blood across his face.

‘It’s over,’ he said, and winced. ‘Won or lost – it’s finished.’ He let a dagger slip from his blood-slick hand, let his head fall.

Kiska stared. ‘Finished?’ she echoed.

He nodded, exhausted beyond care. Kiska meant to ask just what exactly was finished, but backed away instead as a dirt-smeared armoured hand appeared from behind the stones. It encircled the youth’s neck and dragged him in over the wall. He didn’t seem startled at all. Without struggle, he simply disappeared.

The gauntlet appeared again, scrabbling at the wall. Head and shoulders followed, the head hidden within a war helm with faceguards and an articulating neck guard. The creature gasped, its breath ragged and wet, and it babbled to itself. Wild eyes, all whites, blazed from within the darkness of its helm. Kiska stepped back. She’d seen this – or another just like it-at Mock’s Hold. Perhaps it had escaped from here in the first place. It rolled over the wall and crashed to the ground with a clatter of armour. Soil fell from it in clumps. So, she thought, it had dragged itself from the grave. But bizarrely, in its other hand, it gripped a shattered tree branch.

As it lay there, chest heaving – heaving? Was it alive?—Kiska tried to decide whether to stab the thing now while it seemed helpless, or to run. While she hesitated it fumbled at the ground, its breath rasping as it dragged itself along. That, she now realized, was the only sound. Silence reigned. Her hearing rang in the absence of conflict and the explosion of Warren magics. She circled around to the front of the House. The pike-man simply faced his giant opponent, and suddenly Kiska recognized him – the drunkard from Coop’s inn! But how could that possibly be? Was
everything
insane tonight? The armoured giant’s arms hung at its sides. It didn’t appear defeated or wounded, just watchful, patient. The old man called, addressing it in a language of fluting musical vowels. After a moment, it responded in kind.

Was that the end of the hostilities for the night? Kiska looked around. The grounds resembled a battlefield of ploughed up corpses – but then it had always had something of that atmosphere. No one else seemed to be about. Clouds of fog still obscured the distance, anonymous as ever. She wondered if it were dawn yet over the town. She felt chill, as if the fog and dark beyond belonged to a typical Malaz Island mid-winter morning, when the fishing boats snapped and moaned with sea-rime.

Down the slope from the gate, shadowy figures flickered in and out of sight. More fighting? The final savage exchanges? But she heard not a sound. Maybe it was just another of the mist’s shifting tricks. Nevertheless, she felt exposed just standing there. From out of the fog forms were coming towards her. They looked familiar, and once Kiska was sure who they were, she crossed her arms and grinned, waiting.

Tayschrenn and Hattar climbed the shallow slope out of the fogbank, the bodyguard supporting the mage, who sagged at his side. Was he injured? She saw no wound upon him. He merely appeared pale and haggard and exhausted. He gave a
slow shake of his head as he recognized her. Hattar scowled as if a cat he’d tossed into a river had just reappeared.

Kiska tried to hide the immense relief the High Mage’s presence instilled in her. She remembered her earlier cockiness – the girl who had followed him to Mock’s Hold – what seemed so long ago. She shouted, ‘Are you all right? What are you doing here?’

Tayschrenn called out in a weak voice, ‘And how did you get here?’

‘A friend brought me.’

‘Your friend shows poor judgement.’

She ached to tell him all that she’d seen, but if tonight had taught her anything, it was a caginess with information. Coming closer, she noticed an uncomfortable chill emanating from him like an aura of winter. Vapour coiled from his shoulders.

‘What’s going on back there?’

Tayschrenn hesitated. Then with a sigh he told her, ‘Surly had long suspected that renegades from her order had joined the Shadow cult. They’re just cleaning up now.’

Kiska snorted.
’Cleaning up?
Why so delicate? They’re wiping out the cult. They’re rivals, aren’t they?’

‘Something like that. Old rivals.’

‘Well, it’s too late now for that anyway.’

It seemed to Kiska that his drained expression became brittle. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that while the cultists sacrifice themselves to lead the Claws on a useless chase, I saw two men reach the House at the rear. The two Surly claimed dead.’

Tayschrenn winced as if physically pained by her words. He shook his head. ‘No. You’re mistaken.’

‘Mistaken? I saw them!’

The magus swallowed an angry retort, took a slow breath to calm himself. ‘Kiska,’ he said carefully, emphatically, ‘you
must
be mistaken, because both Surly and I have agreed that those two are dead and gone. Do you understand?’

For the third time that night Kiska wanted to object, to say
but
, and for the third time she suspected that remaining silent, resisting the urge, might save her life. She simply nodded at Tayschrenn’s assertion, her jaw clamped shut. Hattar echoed the nod, underscoring it as a standing warning.

Tayschrenn waved a hand as if to say that was all behind them now. ‘I’m going to see if the Guardian will speak to me, then we’ll return to Mock’s Hold. You should accompany us.’

Kiska looked about. There was still no sign of Corinn or Lubben. She agreed. She had no idea how else to get out of wherever, or whatever, this was.

Tayschrenn straightened from Hattar’s grip and, leaving him behind, continued unsteadily on to the gate. He stopped a respectful distance from the old man and addressed him. Kiska was too far away to hear much. The old man replied curtly. His gaze didn’t waver from the armoured giant who stood like a statue of solid bronze just inside the open gate. It no longer attacked, but nor did it give any impression of defeat. Rather, Kiska sensed, it was waiting for something, gathering strength for a new onslaught. A few steps away the guard remained at ready, pike-axe held high. While tall, he barely reached the giant’s shoulders. He was almost as broad though, shaped like a blunt spur of stone. A match for the giant so far.

The two men spoke, unlike in appearance yet somehow brethren to Kiska’s eye. Was this the end of the encounter then? A civilized exchange over a carpet of bodies, then a warm fire and off to another errand tomorrow? And what of her? Could she return to the usual rounds of spying and petty theft, knowing what she did? Having tasted what could be? As if the island had seemed small and provincial before!

Hattar suddenly stiffened, loosing a galvanizing shout. Kiska caught an instant’s glimpse of a tall Shadow cultist behind the
guard, who spasmed and toppled to his side without a sound. Killed instantly, it seemed.

The giant launched himself at the gate’s threshold. Warren energies erupted in a curtain of carmine and silver flames, shaking the ground and knocking Kiska flat. The giant bellowed, thrust at the barrier while the old man raised his arms, bending all his strength.

Kiska crawled away, one arm raised over her face against the glare of the inferno. As the giant pushed an arm through the warding, Tayschrenn joined the battle. Raw coursing power arced about the hillside in random blasts of lightning. Again Kiska tumbled, straining to raise herself against the hammering pressure. She heard a snarl of desperate rage from Hattar as he ran towards the gate. He disappeared into pure incandescent energy.

Moments later, out of the blinding furnace, came Hattar, dragging Tayschrenn with him. He dumped the mage beside Kiska. One side of the bodyguard’s hair was gone, and smoke curled from his cheek and ear. His right arm swung limply, blackened, a livid gash welling blood.

No wound that Kiska saw affected the High Mage. His body and limbs appeared whole, though blood ran from his nose and ears, and pink clouds discoloured his eyes.

‘We must take him to be healed,’ Hattar shouted at Kiska. He glared like a madman and Kiska was shocked to see despair filling his eyes. ‘Help me!’

‘But the demon – will it escape?’