‘Clear,’ he shouted.
Commodus turned as the Warmaster called his name.
Slaydo lay where he’d fallen, his uniform dyed with blood, most of which was his own.
‘It’s done,’ he said. The smile curving his lips was sincere, and his voice remained strong.
‘It’s done, my Warmaster,’ said Commodus. He could still hear gunfire across the palace, some of it drawing closer, and he looked away long enough to wipe his eyes. ‘We have to get you out of here.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he huffed. ‘Come on, then. Stop standing there crying like schoolchildren, and help an old man to his feet.’
‘Make a stretcher,’ the sergeant ordered Yael. ‘Out of whatever you can.’
‘Don’t you dare obey that order, Yael.’ The Warmaster rose on shaking legs, aided by those nearest to him. ‘I may be dying, but I’m not lazy. I’ll march out of here on two feet, like the Saint herself intended for me.’
Yael and Tiri supported the old man, keeping him between them as they walked. True enough, he walked with them, rather than letting them carry him.
‘Carry my sword, Commodus. There’s a useful fellow.’
‘Yes, my Warmaster.’
The building trembled in sympathy with the distant artillery.
The masked woman was unashamed of her tears – or at least felt no shame in silently crying before one such as him. She remained before him for the entire retelling, never interrupting; not to offer him water when his voiced cracked, nor to ask for any clarification. She stood above him the whole time with the knife in her hand.
‘That’s what happened,’ said Commodus. ‘That’s how your king died.’
The hook-nosed carnival mask leered in exaggerated mirth. ‘He was not my king. I am Blood Pact. I serve Gaur. But Nadzybar was the finest of us all, and I will mourn him for the rest of my nights.’
‘He looked far from fine when I saw him last.’
She didn’t seem insulted. ‘It grieves me that anyone witnessed him at his panicked, hopeless end. But the Powers willed it, else it would never have come to pass.’
Commodus swallowed, trying to moisten his sore throat. ‘You know the rest. The battles in the palace. The Argentum rearguard. The Warmaster escaping.’
‘Yes.’ She came lower now, back to the half-crouching position when, last time, she’d cut into him with the dagger. ‘I expect you believed yourself valiant, didn’t you? To delay us, so a decrepit and dying man could escape with your brothers and sisters.’
Commodus was not a vain man, but if that wasn’t something he could be proud of, he didn’t know what else could be.
‘I have one question,’ she asked, and he knew she was smiling behind the mask. ‘What happened to your friend? Yael?’
‘He was in the rearguard, next to me. I know he was hit, but I don’t know how badly. All I know is that he killed four of you.’
She leaned closer, pressing the knife blade to his throat. Here it is, he thought. Here we go.
But she didn’t kill him. She blinked, her eyes flicking to the dagger in her own hand. ‘Wait,’ the masked woman whispered. ‘You carried the Warmaster’s sword. You mean... your sword...’
Commodus grinned into her face. ‘Throne, you are one slow bitch.’
She turned to glance at the ornate sword she’d cast aside before. The sword she’d believed was his.
It was all the distraction he needed.
His boots thudded up between her legs, striking with the strength he’d been saving for half an hour, then powered into her lower stomach, sending her sprawling backwards into the table. He rose to his feet, still tied to the wooden chair, and launched after her in the most frantic hop – surely ludicrous to see, if anyone had been looking.
He drop-kicked her as she was picking herself up, both boots smacking into her face, breaking her cheek, her nose, and her freak-show witch-face mask. The chair crumbled beneath him as he crashed down, various jagged wooden limbs wrenching into his spine and shoulders. His wrists were still leashed behind his back, but that didn’t matter. He was free enough now.
Commodus was on her as she moaned on the floor, his knee slamming down into her throat, crushing any hope of breath. The woman’s slitted eyes were wide in her purpling face as she clawed at his thighs and chest, raking at the exposed wounds. Commodus breathed in agonised hisses, not letting up the pressure for a moment.
‘Should’ve called for help when you had the chance,’ he said.
She kicked ineffectually at his back, and hammered increasingly weak punches at his front. Her face was blue now. Commodus grunted and pushed harder. Vertebrae in her neck gave muted, snapping clicks as the pressure increased.
At last, she fell limp.
The sergeant stayed where he was for another thirty heartbeats, making certain she was never getting up again.
Several minutes later, after an ungainly performance of freeing himself from the tank cable bindings, Commodus picked up Liberatus from the floor and pulled the exquisite sabre from its plain leather sheath.
Lightning ran the length of the curved blade as he thumbed the activation rune.
‘Pleasure talking to you,’ he said to the woman’s corpse, and took one look at the chamber’s only door, before promptly leaving through the broken window.
As escapes went, it was hardly graceful. She’d cut him up good, and his injuries put paid to any attempt to bolt with decent speed.
Commodus leaned into a staggering run, spit running from his clenched teeth, swallowing the pain with each breath. Below the chest, his uniform was dyed red in the places it wasn’t completely shredded. Dozens of cuts ran down his legs. The insides of his boots were hot and squelching, and it wasn’t with sweat.
Blood loss would take him down soon; so the witch would kill him with her knife, after all.
More than once, Commodus went down on all fours, scrambling over rubble in a bid to keep moving no matter how often he lost his balance. The city around him was in absolute ruin – a levelled wreckage of shattered buildings and broken roadways. The palace, ostensibly retaken by the Imperials hours before, loomed to the south. Half of it still burned behind fallen walls. The witch and her friends really hadn’t dragged him far.
He’d made it almost five minutes away before las-rounds started dogging at his heels and slashing past his shoulders.
The sergeant hurled himself behind the closest rise of rubble, the Warmaster’s sword gripped in the hand without half its fingers broken, and stole a look to see who his pursuers were.
Two of them, running over the wasteland, firing from the hip. They wore the same grotesques as the witch had worn – those hook-nosed carnival face masks leered in metallic delight – and came clad in the same scarlet uniforms.
Blood Pact.
He hoped there weren’t many more of these malicious bastards out there. Were they some newly founded cult? An enemy regiment they’d not crossed paths with before?
Whatever they were, he certainly couldn’t survive another one of their knifey-knifey interrogation sessions.
Commodus sank down into the dusty rocks and started crawling. If he couldn’t run, it was time to hide.
The first red-clad soldier passed through the ruins of what had been a museum only three days before. He entered with his rifle up to his cheek, aiming into corners and at chunks of rubble each time he heard a noise. Perfect movement, keen senses. Head high, ready to fire.