Over the next ten seconds, I dodged, parried, and took two healthy cuts on my left arm. At last, I slashed one across the face and disengaged when the other two hesitated. A man tripped right in front of me, so I kicked him in the head. Then I blocked a thrust from a fellow who immediately turned and ran away.
No more soldiers stood near me. I saw Halla fighting a man with her spear one-handed. Her right arm appeared broken or dislocated. She thrust the spear into the man’s chest so hard he flew backward, trailing blood. On the other side of me, Pil knocked a man to the ground and knelt to stab him in the chest. Whistler stood over Bea, his sword dangling in his hand. None of the soldiers on our side of the ditch was standing, although a number were wounded and moaning. I killed a man writhing on the ground with a fatal belly wound, and then I went from one wounded man to the next, killing them as I went.
Pil panted, “I hope everybody thought that was fun because we get to do it all over again.” She pointed at Leddie’s force where twenty more soldiers had lined up.
Leddie shouted, and her soldiers ran toward us. They didn’t charge with as much vigor as their fallen comrades, most of whom had died. That fact might have blunted the second wave’s zeal, but that didn’t matter. We were so torn up that twenty fighters could destroy us even if they were morose and weeping.
I hadn’t prayed since I was a boy, or even recently sworn by Krak and all his sparkly whores. Just then, I was witless enough to wonder whether prayer or swearing might help us, but of course they wouldn’t. I had only one stratagem left, and I dreaded it. But now that I was forced to use it, I admitted I’d been hoping to be forced.
I reached for the pouch under my shirt and pulled out a small book, bound in black leather, cool to the touch and too heavy for its size. The mark of Harik, God of Death, was set in white on the cover. I held the book in both hands as I opened it to page three. The page showed only a black rectangle, and no ink could possibly be that black.
As I stared at the page, I turned toward the oncoming soldiers. I held my sword high, slid down to run across the ditch, and ran out the other side using the ramp Pil’s arrow had created.
Leddie’s twenty soldiers stopped and stared, some banging into others. I charged them, limping a little but howling like the damned. After another few seconds, the soldiers bolted away from me, throwing curses and shouts behind them. One of them tripped, and I stabbed him as I ran past. A few dropped their weapons. Those who looked back screamed and ran faster.
When all of them, including Leddie, were fleeing, I stopped and turned around.
Almost five hundred men, women, and children stood facing me, slightly transparent and glowing bright enough to show at midday. Most were armed, and they stood fanned out in front of me. They made no sound, and most stood motionless. Then they began shifting places to form up in a huge wedge behind me. They were all the people I had killed in my life. In death, they were harmless, but they would scare the hell out of somebody who didn’t know that.
A small, skinny girl with long red hair stood closest to me. She was Manon, my daughter who I had murdered this past winter, and she was not motionless. She gestured at me like her hands were clubs. She mouthed a lot of bad words, and she glared at me with hatred.
TWENTY
I ached when I saw the loathing in Manon’s eyes, but it didn’t surprise me. I forced myself to nod at her and turn away, but not because of her anger. She wouldn’t get any more dead, but other people might soon. I limped away from her like she was a horse I’d once owned and sold for something better.
I needed power to treat people, unless I wanted to spit, make mud, and pack that into the wounds. I breathed deep, looked around, and kicked Halla’s earthen wall hard to distract myself into thinking about survival.
Before I could lift myself to call for Harik, he yanked me out of my body with a surge of nausea.
“Murderer!” Harik shouted like thunder inside my head. “I did not give you leave to read my book again! I should refuse to trade with you for a month. For a year! I should manifest there before you and extract your bones one by one through the closest convenient orifice!”
I called up my most businesslike voice. “May I point out, Mighty Harik, that you never said I couldn’t take a peek at the book again.”
Harik’s voice dropped and sounded like he was dragging it across a wasteland of petrified trees. “Do not attempt to engage in sophistry with me. You are nothing to me—no more than a bad smell that will blow away in a moment.”
I put on a huge smile. “Ouch. That hurts like holy hell, Your Magnificence. I thought you liked me at least a little.”
“I care no more for you than I would a fruit tree growing in a convenient spot. You are filth in my sight.”
I drew my sword, revealing the place of trading in the Gods’ Realm. Harik stood on the bottom level of the marble gazebo, the sinews bulging on his crossed arms and his teeth gritted. Wind appeared to swirl his black robe, even though the air lay still and damp.
Harik’s crashing tirade had come close to unnerving me, but I pushed ahead. “I have come to trade with you, oh
