lurched past. One of Ario’s gentlemen, mask like a squares board, nearly caught Cosca with a sword. Gurpi loomed up behind and smashed his lute over the man’s head. The wooden body shattered, the axe blade inside split his shoulder right down to his chest and crushed his butchered wreckage into the cobbles.
Another surge of flame went up, people stumbled away, shoving madly, a ripple through the straining crowd. They suddenly parted and the Incredible Ronco came thrashing straight at Shivers, white fire wreathing him like some devil burst out of hell. Shivers tottered back, smashed him away with his shield. Ronco reeled into the wall, bounced off it and into another, showering globs of liquid fire, folk scrambling away, steel stabbing about at random. The flames spread up the dry ivy, first a crackle, then a roar, leaped to the wooden wall, bathing the heaving courtyard in wild, flickering light. A window shattered. The locked gates clattered as men clutched at ’em, screaming to be let out. Shivers beat the flames on his shield against the wall. Ronco was rolling on the ground, still burning, making a thin screech like a boiling kettle, the flames casting a crazy glare across the bobbing masks of guests and entertainers-twisted monsters’ faces, everywhere Shivers looked.
There was no time to make sense of any of it. All that mattered was who lived and who died, and he’d no mind to join the second lot. He backed off, keeping close to the wall, shoving men away with his scorched shield as they grabbed at him.
A couple of the guards in breastplates were forcing their way through the press. One of ’em chopped Barti or Kummel down with his sword, hard to say which, caught one of Ario’s gentlemen on the backswing and took part of his skull off. He staggered round, squealing, one hand clapped to his head, blood running out between his fingers, over his golden mask and down his face in black streaks. Barti or Kummel, whichever was left, stabbed a knife into the top of the swordsman’s head, right up to the hilt, then hooted as the point of a blade slid out of the front of his chest.
Another armoured guard shouldered his way towards Shivers, sword held high, shouting something, sounded like the Union tongue. Didn’t much matter where he was from, he had a mind for killing, that was clear, and Shivers didn’t plan on giving him the first blow. He snarled as he swung, full-blooded, but the guard lurched back out of the way and Shivers’ sword chopped into something else with a meaty thwack. A woman’s chest, just happened to be stumbling past. She fell against the wall, scream turning to a gurgle as she slid down through the ivy, mask half- torn off, one eye staring at him, blood bubbling from her nose, from her mouth, pouring down her white neck.
The courtyard was a place of madness, lit by spreading flames. A fragment of a night-time battlefield, but a battle with no sides, no purpose, no winners. Bodies were kicked around under the panicking crowd-living, dead, split and bloodied. Gurpi was flailing, all tangled up with the wreckage of his lute, not even able to swing his axe for the broken strings and bits of wood. While Shivers watched, one of the guards hacked him down, sent blood showering black in the firelight.
“The smoking hall!” hissed Cosca, chopping someone out of their way with his sword. Shivers thought it might’ve been one of the jugglers, there was no way of telling. He dived through the open doorway after the old mercenary, together they started to heave the door shut. A hand came through and got caught against the frame, clutching wildly. Shivers bashed at it with the pommel of his sword until it slithered back trembling through the gap. Cosca wrestled the door closed and the latch dropped, then he tore the key around and flung it jingling away across the boards.
“What now?”
The old mercenary stared at him, eyes wild. “What makes you think I’ve got the fucking answers?”
The hall was long and low, scattered with cushions, split up by billowing curtains, lit by guttering lamps, smelling of sweet husk-smoke. The sounds of violence out in the yard were muffled. Someone snored. Someone else giggled. A man sat against the wall opposite, a beaked mask and a broad smile on his face, pipe dangling from his hand.
“What about the others?” hissed Shivers, squinting into the half-light.
“I think we’ve reached the point of every man for himself, don’t you?” Cosca was busy trying to drag an old chest in front of the door, already shuddering from blows outside. “Where’s Monza?”
“They’ll get in by the gaming hall, no? Won’t they-” Something crashed against a window and it burst inwards, spraying twinkling glass into the room. Shivers shuffled further into the murk, heart thumping hard as a hammer at the inside of his skull. “Cosca?” Nought but smoke and darkness, flickering light through the windows, flickering lamps on tables. He got tangled with a curtain, tore it down, fabric ripping from the rail above. Smoke was scratching at his throat. Smoke from the husk in here, smoke from the fire out there, more and more. The air was hazy with it.
He could hear voices. Crashing and screaming on his left like a bull going mad in the burning building. “My dice! My dice! Bastards!”
“Help!”
“Somebody send for… somebody!”
“Upstairs! The king! Upstairs!”
Someone was beating at a door with something heavy, he could hear the wood shuddering under the blows. A figure loomed at him. “Excuse me, could you-” Shivers smashed him in the face with his shield and knocked him flying, stumbled past, a vague idea he was after the stairs. Monza was upstairs. Top floor. He heard the door burst open behind him, shifting light, brown smoke, writhing figures began to pour through into the smoking hall, blades shining in the gloom. One of ’em pointed at him. “There! There he is!”
Shivers snatched a lamp up in his shield hand and flung it, missed the man at the front and hit the wall. It burst apart, showering burning oil across a curtain. People scattered, one of them screaming, arm on fire. Shivers ran the other way, deeper into the building, half-falling as cushions and tables tripped him in the darkness. He felt a hand grab his ankle and hacked at it with his sword. He staggered through the choking shadows to a doorway, a faint chink of light down the edge, shouldered it open, sure he’d get stabbed between the shoulder blades any moment.
He started up a set of spiral steps two at a time, panting with effort, legs burning as he climbed up towards the rooms where guests were entertained. Or fucked, depending how you looked at it. A panelled corridor met the stairway and a man came barrelling out of it just as Shivers got there, almost ran straight into him. They ended up staring into each other’s masks. One of the bastards with the polished breastplates. He clutched at Shivers’ shoulder with his free hand, showing his teeth, tried to pull his sword back for a thrust but got his elbow caught on the wall behind.
Shivers butted him in the face on an instinct, felt the man’s nose crunch under his forehead. No room for the sword. Shivers chopped him in the hip with the edge of his shield, gave him a knee in the fruits that made him whoop, then swung him round and bundled him down the stairs, watched him flop over and over around the corner, sword clattering away. He kept going, upwards, not stopping for breath, starting to cough.
He could hear more shouting behind him, crashing, screaming. “The king! Protect the king!” He staggered on, one step at a time now, sword aching heavy in his hand, shield dangling from his limp arm. He wondered who was still alive. He wondered about the woman he’d killed in the courtyard, the hand he’d smashed in the doorway. He tottered into the hallway at the top of the stairs, wafting his shield in front of his face to try and clear the haze.
There were bodies here, black shapes sprawled under the wide windows. Maybe she was dead. Anyone could’ve been dead. Everyone. He heard coughing. Smoke rolled around near the ceiling, pouring into the corridor over the tops of the doors. He squinted into it. A woman, bent over, bare arms stretched out in front of her, black hair hanging.
Monza.
He ran towards her, trying to hold his breath, keep down low under the smoke. He caught her round the waist, she grabbed his neck, snarling. She had blood spotted across her face, soot around her nose and her mouth.
“Fire,” she croaked at him.
“Over here.” He turned back the way he came, and stopped still.
Down at the end of the corridor, two men with breastplates were getting to the top of the steps. One of them pointed at him.
“Shit.” He remembered the model. Cardotti’s backed onto the Eighth Canal. He lifted one boot and kicked the window wide. A long way down below, beyond the blowing smoke, water shifted, busy with the reflections of fire.
