A trim, middle-aged man in plain, well-made clothes stood at one end of the room with a soldier off to each side of him. I assumed he was Lord Babardi. I marked two other doors in the two corners behind him. Eight more soldiers lined the walls.
“Who is the one who leads you?” Babardi said, hardly loud enough to hear.
I smiled. “We fight about that every day, my lord. Sometimes both before and after breakfast.”
Babardi stared at the ceiling. “Crap. Great crap, monkey crap, Cassarak’s flying crap. He’s not just a hero.” The lord raised his voice. “He’s got to be a jovial goddamn hero who thinks he’s witty. Krak, destroy me now!”
Krak did not destroy him at that time. However, Tapp spoke up and dipped his head to Babardi. “My lord, these people, being such fierce and devastating fighters, don’t have just one leader. They retrieved the ring for us and had a mighty perilous time doing it, I think.”
I cleared my throat. “I do apologize, my lord. I don’t mean to poke fun or anything. I sure don’t mean to interfere with us offering our respects or receiving any thanks Your Lordship feels fitting, as long as they don’t require much of your valuable time.”
“Oh, your reward. I thought hard about it, I did. I considered gold, or maybe titles. Would you like to be Door Guardian of the Third Ward? No? Provisions for your journey, then?” Babardi raised his left hand and showed the ring. “I count on this to set everything right in our city. It should. I read about it. Since you retrieved it for me, I shall honor you by allowing you to ride away from this city alive.”
“What does that mean?” Whistler said.
“So, you’re in charge now?” Babardi asked Whistler. “Did I miss breakfast? No? Shut up then.” He glared at me and then at Halla. “You must have had some sort of good intentions in all this, but you screwed everything up to the Void! And to the Void’s dark woman-parts! You killed a few of Memweck’s men and freed a few children. Great bouncing bull balls for you—congratulations!”
Tapp and three of the soldiers fidgeted when the lord mentioned children. Tapp said, “My lord—”
Babardi cut him off. “What happens when Memweck’s thugs don’t come home to him? Does he send fifty men next week? Or a thousand? Those men won’t care that some fools full of heroism and tight sphincters galloped in here, killed everybody left and right, and then disappeared like farts in a storm. Will they?” The man glared at me, his chin raised and a violent frown just about bouncing off his face. “Will they?”
“I guarantee they won’t,” I said. “We apologize for freeing your city and saving a bunch of children. I see now it was the worst turn we could have done you. A right kick in the nuts. We’re sorry. We’ll take this reward, which we don’t deserve, and go.”
Everybody in the room relaxed just a breath.
Babardi stamped the floor with his shiny boot and then nodded past me at a soldier waiting beside the door. The man pulled the door open wide. Babardi said, “Leave. May you have a pox on your assholes so that they swell like melons.”
I almost couldn’t make myself raise my hand, but I managed it. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but I have something for you. Something the God of Death commanded me to give you.”
Babardi frowned. “Well, that cannot be good in any way.”
I reached with glacial care into my shirt and pulled out the pouch. I held up Harik’s hand-size black leather book.
Babardi’s eyes brightened. “A book! I love books. It’s from Harik? Maybe he’s sending us some sort of assistance. Does it call monsters, or turn men into bushes?”
“I’ve never seen it do that, my lord.” I stopped. Maybe I didn’t need the book to bring back Manon. Hell, I didn’t even know if I dared to bring her back. I didn’t know anything except that when I gave the book over, it would belong to this man.
I struggled to step toward Babardi like I was walking across the bottom of a lake. I shifted the book to my numb hand and held it out.
Babardi grasped the book, but I didn’t let it go. He flinched, as if the thing had given him a shock. “Let me,” he said, pulling against me.
I let him take it out of my hand.
Babardi held the book up, examining Harik’s mark on the front. “Oh, it’s heavy. Have you read it?” The lord smiled at me.
“Just a little.” So, I had delivered the book. It was over.
I whipped out my knife and plunged it into Babardi’s heart. His eyes and mouth all popped open in perfect circles. I stabbed him again in the chest. As he wobbled, I snatched the book with my left hand and almost dropped it, but I held on.
Everybody behind me in the audience chamber was shouting. I felt sure that not a single one of them was cheering me on.
THIRTY-ONE
Babardi flopped down dying, and the soldier to his left gawked as if I should have asked permission before I murdered the man. I stabbed him in the chest too, then spun toward the soldier on Babardi’s other side. I kicked that man’s knee so hard he called his mother a whore, and then I shoved him toward the real craziness in the middle of the room.
I stuffed the book into my shirt and scanned the fight. Halla, Whistler, and the others who used to be my friends were cursing me with rank gusto as they defended themselves from the eight soldiers surrounding them and two more that charged in from the hallway. Those soldiers didn’t concern me overmuch. I worried about the dozens or hundreds of their allies waiting for us out in the city.
I backed away from the fight as I sheathed my knife and
