Night of Knives (34 page)

‘Only he can stop it if it does! Carry him!’

‘But—’

‘Raise him up!’ A sob escaped from Hattar as he fumbled at one of the knives sheathed at his waist.

Kiska swallowed any further objections. She yanked the mage to his feet, his arms to either side of her neck and his weight on her back. With Hattar’s help, she clasped his arms
and staggered forward, the magus’s legs dragging behind them. Hattar pushed her down the slope. She half-stumbled, each step jarring her knees. She fully expected to run headlong into something in the mist. Catching up, Hattar used his one good arm to steady Tayschrenn against her back. They jogged like that for a time, side by side, then Hattar moved up.

‘Follow my lead,’ he mumbled as he limped forward. Blood dripped like spilt water from his torn arm. Though the weight on her back threatened to topple her, she followed as quickly as possible, drawing strength from Hattar’s example.

She almost fell as she stepped onto wet cobbles. Hattar stood to one side, leaning against a dark form in the mist: a brick wall. He pressed his head against it, his eyes shut. In the distance, the fog thinned, shredding into wisps. Kiska recognized where they were now.

‘You know the town,’ challenged Hattar.

‘Yes.’

‘The nearest medicer or healer?’ He licked his lips, forced his eyes open. He’d had the colour of cured leather earlier this evening, but now his face was as pale as the fog. ‘Where?’

Kiska glared about, thinking. They were in the old town, not too distant from the Deadhouse in fact. She thought for a moment longer, then gestured to the left with her chin. ‘This way.’

Temper took grim pleasure from the fact that not once did he lose consciousness – not even when the tree whispered to him.

And not many would have blamed him then if he had either, what with the tree promising in its creaking voice how it would send shoots down his throat to feed on his heart blood, or tear at his soul for eternity, growing stronger and taller feeding upon him.

But he’d bested it! He wrenched and broke it asunder! He didn’t break. He’d never broken. He was annealed in the fury
of the last Talian, Falar, and Seven City campaigns. Dassem himself had picked him from the ranks: for conspicuous pig-headedness, the champion had joked. For more than a decade he’d served in the Sword. But now all were dead and he the last. Ferrule and Dassem were gone. Was this Hood’s welcome?

Hands grasped at him, turned him over. A face stared down. A woman, tattooed – Corinn. Her gaze searched his face; he didn’t like the way she bit her lip at what she saw.

‘How do I look?’ he croaked.

She gasped, amazed he was able to speak.

‘That bad, huh?’

‘Hood himself. Can you stand?’

‘Don’t know. Haven’t recently,’ and he tried to laugh but only spat up grit and blood.

Another face appeared: side-long, anxious. Lubben. ‘You look like an Imass reject.’

‘Help me stand and I’ll whip you for that.’

They took his arms, hauled him upright. ‘Later,’ Lubben rumbled. ‘Right now we’re on our way out. The Claws and grey-boys are busy chasing each others’ asses. We’ll just slip out the back, eh?’

Temper saw that the hunchback had retrieved his swords. He didn’t answer. He held his jaws tight against the agony of life returning to his legs. Corinn watched as if he were made of glass and might burst into pieces at any moment.

From the gate a shout sounded. Lubben turned, grunted his surprise. A sudden detonation kicked Temper’s numb legs out from under him and he fell again. The blast reminded him of Moranth alchemical explosions he’d endured. The ground buckled and heaved and a gust of heated air seared his lungs. He rolled over, righting his helm. Crimson and silver energies thundered and coursed at the gate like an enormous waterfall. Within, the shadowy figure of the Jaghut battled.

Temper turned to Lubben, shouted through the detonations, ‘Bad as I think?’

Lubben nodded, grimaced his disgust. ‘A grey took down the axe-man. I think the old guy and another fellow bought it too!’ He crawled to Temper, took his arm. ‘Hood himself is about to arrive. Let’s get going!’

Temper took his swords from Lubben, shook him off. ‘No. Those two held the gate for a reason. That thing can’t be allowed out.’

‘Dammit Temper! It’s not your fight! Leave it to the Claws.’

Temper laughed. ‘They’re too clever. They’ve run off.’

Corinn threw herself down next to them. ‘What’re you two waiting for? Let’s get out of here!’

Temper pointed: ‘Look.’ A figure, blackened and smoking, crawled from the wash of blinding energies. Temper stood, staggered towards it. After a few steps Lubben came to his side, steadied him. As they closed, the hunchback let out a whistle at the ravaged corpse before them. The raw energies had scoured it. Burnt beyond recognition, its hands were missing, the forearms reduced to white cracked bone.

Temper turned his face away from the smoke and stink of scorched flesh. ‘Faro,’ he whispered.

Thunder erupted anew from the gate. The curtain of power wavered, rippled like a pool struck by a stone, reformed itself.

‘Soldier . . .’ hissed a voice from the fleshless jaws.

‘Soliel’s Mercy!’ Lubben choked and staggered away, dry heaving.

‘Soldier—’

Temper kneeled at the seared corpse. ‘Faro?’

‘Step into the gap, soldier,’ came a breathless call, as if the ground itself spoke. ‘Accept the burden.’

‘What of the fires?’

Horribly, the figure raised a blackened and charred forearm, entreating. ‘Receive the Guardianship!’

Temper felt wrenched and utterly spent. He rested his hands on his knees. Why did it always fall to him? Hadn’t he done enough? ‘I accept,’ he answered, as if that were the only response he was capable of, as if this alone was what had drawn him to the island in the first place.

He eyed the coursing energies, scratched his chin with the back of one gauntlet. ‘What of those flames?’ No answer came. He looked down. The corpse lay motionless. Temper sensed that whatever had held Faro together had fled. He felt dread dry his throat. Just what
had
he promised?

Corinn arrived, crouched. ‘The old man?’ Temper nodded, eyeing the pulsing firestorm; past it, he thought he saw figures retreating into the fog.

‘Doesn’t matter anymore.’

He felt her hand at his shoulder. ‘We have to go. Now.’

‘Corinn – could you shield me from those energies?’

‘What?’

‘Could you cover me?’

Corinn stared, appalled. ‘You’re mad!’

‘Could you!’

Her gaze snapped from him towards the gate, then back again. Temper caught something in her eyes – a glimmer of fight, of spirit – until dread smothered it. She shook her head. ‘Forget it.’

He looked to her vest, to where the bridge and flame sigil would have been pinned.

Corinn caught his gaze and flushed instantly. ‘Damn you! How dare you!’ He watched her, waiting. She sighed, eyed the barrier once more. ‘Maybe – for a moment.’ He nodded, took a long breath, started for the gate. ‘Just one heart-beat!’

Temper continued on. ‘Good enough,’ he muttered, ‘that’s probably all I’ll have.’

He stopped just outside the wash of energies, shielded his eyes. The indistinct shape of the Jaghut flickered just beyond.
The barrier appeared thinner, less opaque than before. Temper wished he knew how close it was to collapse, but he’d been asked to step into the gap once more, just as he had for Dassem, and couldn’t refuse.

Lubben came up alongside. He didn’t even turn his head to see what Temper thought of that – his blind side anyway. Temper glanced to Corinn who lifted her arms. She mouthed:
a short time.

Temper nodded, adjusted his gauntlets, and eased his shoulders. He slowed his breathing and the pounding of his heart. He shouted to Lubben, ‘In quick. You low, I’ll go high.’

Lubben gave a curt jerk of his head, hefted his axe. Temper straightened his helm.

‘Now!’ Corinn shouted.

Leaping into the curtain of energies, Temper felt his hair singe and his armour heat as if tossed into a furnace. But he remained unscorched, though the barrier’s energy shrilled and churned all around him. The scoured path he walked smoked and hissed beneath his feet. He sensed Lubben by his side.

A bare three steps and he reached the Jaghut. The creature’s struggle to escape the House grounds appeared to have been almost as punishing for it as for Faro. The bronze armour smoked at its shoulders and chest. The fine gilding had run, blackening. But the swords shone even more brightly than before, glowing as if immersed in the fiercest fires.

Temper lunged and swung high. One blade caught a shoulder plate, twisted up and rebounded from the helm. Lubben feinted a low swipe then thrust with the killing-spike on the axe-head.

The Jaghut turned, slipped the thrust, cut Lubben down his shoulder and spine. Lubben jerked down and away from Temper’s side.

They’d failed their first and best chance. In the following fraction of a heartbeat Temper decided on new tactics. He
screamed and lunged in what he hoped appeared to be outright berserk fury. After two exchanges the Jaghut believed it – it yielded ground, waiting for Temper’s blind rage to provide an opening. Temper now held the gate’s threshold. The barrier of channelled power snapped away like a door slammed shut.

Temper stopped attacking. He was rewarded by a fraction’s hesitation from his opponent that betrayed a stumble of rhythm. At that instant Temper felt the glow of a gambit’s success along with something more: renewed strength coursing up from the ground through his legs. The leaden weight of exhaustion and pain sloughed from him like a layer of dirt in a cold reviving stream. His fighting calm, the inner peace that had carried him through all the chaos of past battles, settled upon him like an affirmation. He allowed himself a fierce, taut grin.

The Jaghut clashed its blades together, advanced once more. Temper could not see its face, but he imagined its re-evaluation of the duel, and its determination to hack him to pieces for daring to oppose him. The attack rolled against Temper like the slamming waves of a storm. He held the gate, crouching low under the blows like a rock that could not be cracked as the swords rang out. He parried as carefully as he could to spare his own, much lighter, blades. The Jaghut gave him openings but he ignored them, refusing to yield his stance.

Soon Temper realized that here he faced no lethal artistry such as that offered by Surgen or Dassem, swordsmen you could never anticipate because you never lasted long enough to grasp their style. Instead, this was raw power incarnate, like the direct irresistible onslaught of a tidal wave. The Jaghut’s blades smashed the stones to either side, ploughed through the earth.

Temper thought it impossible that he could turn such blows. But something gave him the strength, pouring up from the earth to empower him, and he wondered – was this true
Patronage? If so, with whom or what had he entered into service?

The style of the attack changed then, bearing on steadily; the creature had abandoned the quick decisive blow and would grind him down instead. That would take longer, it likely judged, but was more certain. And Temper had to agree with the estimate. He’d already used up the fresh reserve that had come to him like a blessing at the slamming of the gate. He was down to pure blind cussedness and was slowing, tiring. The blades hissed closer and closer. Then stopped.

Temper straightened, startled.

The Jaghut had withdrawn a step. Temper risked a glimpse away. He was alone. Everyone and everything had vanished. Bare, time-rounded hills stretched all around. And the House was no longer a house. A pile of megalithic blocks stood in its place, looking like a tumbled-down cairn. Even the trees and mounds in the yard were gone. The Jaghut stood to one side, helm raised as it gazed to the south-west.

Rainbow lights weaved and shimmered in a clear night sky. A darkened vault of constellations strangely distorted. At the horizon stretched a blue-green glow such as he had once seen at sea, when his ship passed close to the shores of the icebound Fenn Mountains. His breath, he noticed, steamed from his helm like smoke and a dire cold bit at his limbs.
Where in Burn’s Wisdom was he?

The Jaghut turned its helm to him and pointed one sword south. ‘They’ve failed,’ it said in perfect Talian.

‘Who failed?’ Temper said, startled to find himself addressed.

The Jaghut spoke as if Temper hadn’t responded. ‘Never rely upon uncertain allies, human. They will always disappoint you.’

Temper reminded himself not to lower his guard. The game had changed to one perhaps even more perilous; he’d heard
enough legends and tales of Jaghuts plying subtle arguments and poisoned gifts. Physically, he felt strong. Whatever power’s service he had entered into had found him a vessel sufficient to the task of standing before this being’s onslaught. Perhaps the Jaghut knew it too, and that was why he now found himself here.
A change in strategy.
He felt the power of its regard like a giant’s hand pushing him back. ‘Do you know who I am, human?’

Temper struggled to find his voice: ‘No.’