‘He’s mine!’ Rhulad said in a snarl, lifting his sword and stalking towards the lone Letherii swordsman at this end of the bridge.
Hannan Mosag called, ‘Emperor! Leave these to my K’risnan-’
Rhulad spun round. ‘
Beside Trull, Fear muttered, ‘He wants to be killed by him. I recognize that Letherii. He was with the delegation.’
Trull nodded. The Finadd, a Letherii captain and bodyguard to Prince Quillas – he could not recall the man’s name.
It was clear that Rhulad had not recognized him.
Mottled sword held at the ready, the emperor approached.
Moroch Nevath smiled. Rhulad Sengar, who had died, only to return. If the rumours were true, he had died again in Trate.
Favouring the right side, the right foot edging ahead of the other, a detail telling Moroch that Rhulad had been trained to use a single-handed sword, rather than this two-handed monstrosity now wavering about before him like an oversized club.
The sudden charge was not unexpected, only the speed of that weapon as the blade whirled towards Moroch’s head. He barely managed to avoid getting his skull sliced in half, ducking and pitching to his right. A deafening clang, the shock ripping through him as the sword bit into his helmet, caught, then tore it from his head.
Moroch sprang back, staying as low as possible, then straightened once more. The top third of his own sword was slick with blood. He had met the charge with a stop-hit.
Opposite him, Rhulad staggered back, blood pulsing from his right thigh.
The lead leg was always vulnerable.
Moroch shook off the numbing effects of the blow to his head. Muscles and tendons in his neck and back were screaming silent pain, and he knew that he had taken damage. For the moment, however, neither arm had seized in answer to the trauma.
A shriek, as Rhulad attacked once more.
Two-handed thrust, broken timing – a moment’s hesitation, sufficient to avoid Moroch’s all-too-quick parry – then finishing in a full lunge.
The Finadd twisted his body in an effort to avoid the sword-point. Searing fire above his right hip as the mottled blade’s edge sawed deep. A wet, red rush, spraying out to the side. Now inside the weapon’s reach, Moroch drove his own sword in from a sharp angle, stabbing the tip into the emperor’s left armpit. The bite of gold coin, the grating resistance of ribs, then inward, gouging along the inside of Rhulad’s shoulder blade, striving for the spine.
The mottled sword seemed to leap with a will of its own, reversing grip, hands lifting high, point down. A diagonal thrust, entering above Moroch’s right hip bone, down through his groin.
Rhulad pushed down from the grip end, the point chewing through the Finadd’s lower intestines, until the pommel clunked on the paving stones beneath them, then the emperor straightened, pushing the weapon back up, through Moroch’s torso, alongside his heart, through his left lung, the point bursting free just behind his clavicle on that side.
Dying, Moroch threw the last of his strength against his own weapon, seeing Rhulad bow around its embedded point. Then a snap, as the emperor’s spine broke.
Crimson smile broadening, Moroch Nevath sagged to the slick stones, even as Rhulad pitched down.
Another figure loomed over him, then. One of Rhulad’s brothers.
Who spoke as if from a long distance away. ‘Tell me your name, Finadd.’
Moroch sought to answer, but he was drowning in blood.
‘Are you the King’s Champion in truth? Your soldiers on the bridge seem to be yelling that – King’s Champion… is that who you are, Finadd?’
With that pleasing thought, Moroch Nevath died.
So swift the healing, so terribly swift the return of life. Surrounded by the wolf howls reverberating through Letheras in a chorus of the damned, the emperor voiced a scream that tore the air.
The company of soldiers on the bridge were silenced, staring as Rhulad, sheathed in blood, staggered upright, tugging the sword from the Finadd’s body, then skidding with a lurch as he stepped to one side. Righting himself, his eyes filled with madness and terror.
‘Udinaas!’
Desperately alone. A soul writhing in agony.
‘
Two hundred paces away on the main avenue, Uruth Sengar heard her son’s frantic cry. She spun, seeking the slave among those walking in her wake. At that moment, Mayen shrieked, pushed her way clear of the other women, and was suddenly running – into an alley. And gone.
Frozen, Uruth hesitated, then with a hiss returned her attention to the slaves cowering in front of her.
‘Udinaas! Where are you?’
Blank, terrified looks met her. Familiar faces one and all. But among them, nowhere could she find Udinaas. The slave was gone.
Uruth plunged among them, fists flailing. ‘Find him!
She could hear sounds of fighting now throughout the city, as the invaders poured into the streets and were met by desperate soldiers. Frightened, moving about from one place of cover to the next in the overgrown yard, the child Kettle began to cry. She was alone.
The five killers were almost free. Their barrow was breaking apart, thick fissures welling in the dark, wet earth, submerged rocks grinding and snapping together. The muted sounds of five voices joined in a chant as heavy as drums… rising, coming ever closer to the surface.
‘Oh,’ she moaned, ‘where is everybody? Where are my friends?’
Kettle staggered over to the barrow containing her only ally. He was there, so very close. She reached down-
– and was dragged in, a heaving passage of hot soil, then through, stumbling, slipping on a muddy bank. Before her sprawled a fetid swamp beneath a grey sky.
And, almost within arm’s reach, a figure was climbing from the dark water. White-skinned, long hair smeared with mud. ‘Kettle!’ The voice a strained grasp. ‘Behind you – reach-’
She turned round.
Two swords, points thrust into the mud.
‘Kettle – take them – give them-’
A wet gasp, and she spun back, to see the bared arms of another figure, clawing up to wrap about her friend – a woman’s arms, lean, ribboned in muscle. He was dragged back – she saw him drive an elbow into the fiercely twisting, black-streaked face that rose suddenly from the slime. Connecting hard in a splatter of blood. But the clutching hands would not let go.
And they both sank back into the swirling foam.
Whimpering, Kettle crawled over to the swords. She tugged them from the mud, then clambered back to the water’s edge.
Limbs appeared amidst the thrashing waves.
Shivering, Kettle waited.
