Samar Dev saw Finadd Varat Taun standing near Triban Gnol. Their gazes locked-and she understood. Icarium.
Oh, Taxilian, did you guess aright? Did you see what you longed to see? ‘What is happening?’
The roar brought her round, to where stood the Emperor. Rhulad Sengar was staring up at the Chancellor. ‘Tell me! What has happened?’
Triban Gnol shook his head, then raised his hands. ‘An earthquake, Emperor. Pray to the Errant that it has passed.’
‘Have we driven the invaders from our streets?’
‘We do so even now,’ the Chancellor replied.
‘I will kill their commander. With my own hands I will kill their commander.’..
Karsa Orlong drew his flint sword.
The act captured the Emperor’s attention, and Samar Dev saw Rhulad Sengar bare his teeth in an ugly smile. ‘Another giant,’ he said. ‘How many times shall you kill me? You, with the blood of my kin already on your hands. Twice? Three times? It will not matter. It will not matter!’
Karsa Orlong, bold with his claims, brazen in his arrogance, uttered but five words in reply: ‘I will kill you… once.’ And then he turned to look at Samar Dev-a moment’s glance, and it was all that Rhulad Sengar gave him.
With a shriek, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths rushed forward, his sword a whirling blur over his head.
Ten strides between them.
Five.
Three.
The gleaming arc of that cursed weapon slashed out, a decapitating swing-that rang deafeningly from Karsa’s stone sword. Sprang back, chopped down, was blocked yet again.
Rhulad Sengar staggered back, still smiling his terrible smile. ‘Kill me, then,’ he said in a ragged rasp.
Karsa Orlong made no move.
With a scream the Emperor attacked again, seeking to drive the Toblakai back.
The ringing concussions seemed to leap from those weapons, as each savage attack was blocked, shunted aside. Rhulad pivoted, angled to one side, slashed down at Karsa’s right thigh. Parried. A back-bladed swing up towards the Toblakai’s shoulder. Batted away. Stumbling off balance from that block, the Emperor was suddenly vulnerable. A hack downward would take him, a thrust would pierce him-a damned fool could have cut Rhulad down at that moment.
Yet Karsa did nothing. Nor had he moved, beyond turning in place to keep the Emperor in front of him.
Rhulad stumbled clear, then spun round, righting his sword. Chest heaving beneath the patchwork of embedded coins, eyes wild as a boar’s. ‘Kill me then!’
Karsa remained where he was. Not taunting, not even smiling.
Samar Dev stared down on the scene, transfixed. I do not know him. I have never known him.
Gods, we should have had sex-then I’d know!
Another whirling attack, again the shrieking reverberation of iron and flint, a flurry of sparks cascading down. And Rhulad staggered back once more.
The Emperor was now streaming with sweat.
Karsa Orlong did not even seem out of breath.
Inviting a fatal response, Rhulad Sengar dropped down onto one knee to regain his wind.
Invitation not accepted.
After a time, in which the score or fewer onlookers stared on, silent and confused; in which Chancellor Triban Gnol stood, hands clasped, like a crow nailed to a branch; the Emperor straightened, lifted his sword once more, and resumed his fruitless flailing-oh, there was skill, yes, extraordinary skill, yet Karsa Orlong stood his ground, and not once did that blade touch him.
Overhead, the sun climbed higher.
Karos Invictad, his shimmering red silks stained and smudged with grit and dust, dragged Tehol Beddict’s body across the threshold. Back into his office. From down the corridor, someone was screaming about an army in the city, ships crowding the harbour, but none of that mattered now.
Nothing mattered but this unconscious man at his feet. Beaten until he barely clung to life. By the Invigilator’s sceptre, his symbol of power, and was that not right? Oh, but it was.
Was the mob still there? Were they coming in now? An entire wall of the compound had collapsed, after all, nothing and no-one left to stop them. Motion caught his eye and his head snapped round-just another rat in the corridor, slithering past. The Guild. What kind of game were those fools playing? He’d killed dozens of the damned things, so easily crushed under heel or with a savage downward swing of his sceptre.
Rats. They were nothing. No different from the mob outside, all those precious citizens who understood nothing about anything, who needed leaders like Karos Invictad to guide them through the world. He adjusted his grip on the sceptre, flakes of blood falling away, his palm seemingly glued to the ornate shaft, but that glue had not set and wouldn’t for a while, would it? Not until he was truly done.
Where was that damned mob? He wanted them to see-this final skull-shattering blow-their great hero, their revolutionary.
Martyrs could be dealt with. A campaign of misinformation, rumours of vulgarity, corruption, oh, all that was simple enough.
I stood alone, yes, did I not? Against the madness of this day. They will remember that. More than anything else. They will remember that, and everything else I choose to give them.
Slaying the Empire’s greatest traitor-with my own hand, yes.
He stared down at Tehol Beddict. The battered, split-open face, the shallow breaths that trembled from beneath snapped ribs. He could put a foot down on the man’s chest, settle some weight, until those broken ribs punctured the lungs, left them lacerated, and the red foam would spill out from Tehol’s mashed nose, his torn lips. And, surprise. He would drown after all.
Another rat in the corridor? He turned.
The sword-point slashed across his stomach. Fluids gushed, organs following. Squealing, Karos Invictad fell to his knees, stared up at the man standing before him, stared up at the crimson-bladed sword in the man’s hand.
‘No,’ he said in a mumble, ‘but you are dead.’
Brys Beddict’s calm brown eyes shifted from the Invigilator’s face, noted the sceptre still held in Karos’s right hand. His sword seemed to writhe.
Burning pain in the Invigilator’s wrist and he looked down. Sceptre was gone. Hand was gone. Blood streamed from the stump.
A kick to the chest sent Karos Invictad toppling, trailing entrails that flopped down like an obscene, malformed penis between his legs.
He reached down with his one hand to pull it all back in, but there was no strength left.
Did I kill Tehol? Yes, I must have. The Invigilator is a true servant of the empire, and always will be, and there will be statues in courtyards and city squares. Karos Invictad, the hero who destroyed the rebellion.
Karos Invictad died then, with a smile on his face.
Brys Beddict sheathed his sword, knelt beside his brother, lifted his head into his lap.
Behind him, Ormly said, ‘A healer’s on the way.’
‘No need,’ Brys said. And looked up. ‘An Elder God comes.’
Ormly licked his lips. ‘Saviour-’
A cough from Tehol.
Brys looked down to see his brother’s eyes flick open. One brown, one blue. Those odd eyes stared up at him for a long moment, then Tehol whispered something.
Brys bent lower. ‘What?’
‘I said, does this mean I’m dead?’
‘No, Tehol. Nor am I, not any longer, it seems.’
‘Ah. Then…’
‘Then what?’
‘Death-what’s it like, Brys?’
And Brys Beddict smiled. ‘Wet.’
‘I always said cities were dangerous places,’ Quick Ben said, brushing plaster dust from his clothes. The collapsing building had nearly flattened them both, and the wizard was still trembling-not from the close call, but from the horrendous sorcery that had lit the morning sky-a devour-ing, profoundly hungry sorcery. Had that energy reached for him, he was not sure he could have withstood it.
‘What in Hood’s name was that?’ Hedge demanded.
All I know, it was old. And vicious.’
‘We gonna get any more, you think?’
Quick Ben shrugged, ‘I hope not.’