Damned noisy in the city tonight-ah, yes, the last night of Gedderone Fete. Of course it was noisy, and dammit, he wanted to be out there himself, partying, dancing, squeezing soft flesh, maybe picking a fight or two-but ones he could win, of course. Nothing like this crap-
All at once Coll and the fat man were back, both looking confused.
‘Sulty dear,’ sang out the fat man, and one of the serving wenches looked over-they all had themselves a quiet, nervous audience among the half-dozen others in the tavern, and so numerous sets of eyes watched as she headed over. She was just rounding the nearest table when the fat man said, ‘It would appear that Hanut Orr has met an untimely end-before we even arrived, alas for Coll’s sake. Best summon a guard-’
She made a face. ‘What? Out there? In the damned streets? Sounds like ten thousand wolves have been let loose out there, Kruppe!’
‘Sweet Sulty, Kruppe assures you no harm will come to you! Kruppe assures, yes, and will warmly comfort too upon your triumphant return!’
‘Oh now that’s incentive,’ and she turned round and headed for the front door. And the man was close enough to hear her add under her breath, ‘Incentive to throw myself into the jaws of the first wolf I see…’
But out she went.
The guard with the loving family and the aching chest was at the intersection just on this side of the wall one street away from the Phoenix Inn-and hurrying with genuine alarm towards the sounds of destruction to the south (the other raging fire in the Estate District was not his jurisdiction)-when he heard someone shouting at him and so turned, lifting high his lantern.
A young woman was waving frantically.
He hesitated, and then flinched at a howl so loud and so close he expected to see a demon standing at his shoulder. He jogged towards the woman.
‘For Hood’s sake!’ he shouted. ‘Get yourself inside!’
He saw her spin round and scamper for the entrance to the Phoenix Inn. As he drew closer a flash of motion from a facing alley mouth almost drew him round, but when he shot the bull’s eye in that direction, he saw no one. He hurried on, breathing hard as he climbed the steps and went inside.
A short time and a tumble of words later, he followed Councillor Coll and Kruppe into the alley, where they gathered round the corpse of yet another coun-cillor. Hanut Orr, apparently.
Wincing at the tightness that was closing like a vice round his ribcage, the guard slowly squatted to examine the wounds. Only two blows-which didn’t sound like his man-but then, the look of those wounds ‘I think he’s killed another one,’ he muttered. ‘Not long ago either.’ He looked up. ‘And you two saw nothing?’
Coll shook his head.
Kruppe-a man the guard had always regarded askance, with considerable sus-picion, in fact-hesitated.
‘What? Speak, you damned thief.’
‘Thief? Aaii, such an insult! Kruppe was but observing with most sharp eye the nature of said wounds upon forehead and back of neck.’
‘That’s how I know it’s the same man as has been killing dozens over the last few months. Some kind of foreign weapon-’
‘Foreign? Not at all, Kruppe suggests. Not at all.’
‘Really? Do go on.’
‘Kruppe suggests, most vigilant and honourable guard, that ’twas hands alone did this damage. Knuckles and no more, no less.’
‘No, that’s wrong. I’ve seen the marks a fist makes-’
‘But Kruppe did not say “fist”. Kruppe was being more precise. Knuckles, yes? As in knuckles unencumbered by fingers…’
The guard frowned, and then looked once more at that bizarre elongated dent in Hanut Orr’s forehead. He suddenly straightened. ‘Knuckles… but no fingers. But… I know that man!’
‘Indeed?’ Kruppe beamed. ‘Best make haste then, friend, and beware on this night of all nights, do beware.’
‘What? Beware what-what are you talking about?’
‘Why, the Toll, friend. Beware the Toll. Now go quickly-we shall take this poor body inside, until the morning when proper arrangements are, er, arranged. Such a multitude of sorrows this night! Go, friend, hunt down your nemesis! This is the very night for such a thing!’
Everything was pulsing in front of the guard’s eyes, and the pain had surged from his chest into his skull. He was finding it hard to even so much as think. But… yes, he knew that man. Gods, what was his name?
It would come to him, but for now he hurried down the alley, and out into yet another bizarrely empty street. The name would come to him, but he knew where the bastard lived, he knew that much and wasn’t that enough for now? It was.
Throbbing, pounding pulses rocked the brain in his skull. Flashes of orange light, flushes of dry heat against his face-gods, he wasn’t feeling right, not right at all. There was an old cutter down the street from where he lived- after tonight, he should pay her a visit. Lances of agony along his limbs, but he wasn’t going to stop, not even for a rest.
He had the killer. Finally. Nothing was going to get in his way.
And so onward he stumbled, lantern swinging wildly.
Gaz marched up to the door, pushed it open and halted, looking round. The stupid woman hadn’t even lit the hearth-where the fuck was she? He made his way across the single room, three strides in all, to the back door, which he kicked open.
Sure enough, there she was, standing with her back to him, right there in front of that circle of flat stones she’d spent days and nights arranging and rearranging. As if she’d lost her mind, and the look in her eyes of late-well, they were in so much trouble now.
‘Thordy!’
She didn’t even turn round, simply said, ‘Come over here, husband.’
‘Thordy, there’s trouble. I messed up. We messed up-we got to think-we got to get out of here, out of the city-we got to run-’
‘We’re not running,’ she said.
He came up beside her. ‘Listen, you stupid woman-’
She casually raised an arm and slid something cold and biting across his throat. Gaz stared, reached up his battered, maimed hands, and felt hot blood streaming down from his neck. ‘Thordy?’ The word bubbled as it came out.
Gaz fell to his knees, and she stepped up behind him and with a gentle push sent him sprawling face down on to the circle of flat stones.
‘You were a good soldier,’ she said. ‘Collecting up so many lives.’
He was getting cold, icy cold. He tried to work his way back up, but there was no strength left in him, none at all.
‘And me,’ she went on, ‘I’ve been good too. The dreams-he made it all so sim-ple, so obvious. I’ve been a good mason, husband, getting it all ready… for you. For him.’
The ice filling Gaz seemed to suddenly reach in, as deep inside him as it was possible to go, and he felt something-something that was his, and his alone, something that called itself
Thordy dropped the knife and stepped back as Hood, the Lord of Death, High King of the House of the Slain, Embracer of the Fallen, began to physically manifest on the stone dais before her. Tall, swathed in rotting robes of muted green, brown, and black. The face was hidden but the eyes were dull slits faintly lit in the midst of blackness, as was the smeared gleam of yellow tusks.
Hood now stood on the blood-splashed stones, in a decrepit garden in the district of Gadrobi, in the city of Darujhistan. Not a ghostly projection, not hidden behind veils of shielding powers, not even a spiritual visitation.
No, this was
Here, now.
