It depicted a pretty young woman standing between two men, one of an age with her and the other old enough to be her father. Both men wore robes. Cole concluded they must be wizards.
He squinted at the tapestry. The mage on the left looked very much like a somewhat younger Salazar. The girl gazed at him with undisguised adoration while she held the hand of the other man, who regarded her with worshipful blue eyes. Behind the three figures, woven in exquisite detail, was a forest of the most vibrant greens and golds.
A slight noise ahead of him snapped his attention away from the tapestry. Cole’s heart lurched in his chest. Staring across at him from the other side of the gallery was a burly warrior.
‘The fuck you doing here?’ the man growled. He wore grey chainmail, and, like Cole, his matching hair was cut short.
The warrior’s hand hovered over the hilt of the weapon at his belt. Cole suddenly remembered he had a loaded crossbow in his hand. ‘I’m here for Salazar,’ he replied. ‘Don’t make me kill you.’
The drab fellow smiled, his eyes never leaving Cole’s crossbow. ‘If you’re gonna shoot me, you’d best pray you don’t miss.’
Cole’s gloved fingers twitched. There was maybe forty feet between them. ‘I want you to place your sword down on the bench to your left. Slowly. Then sit down on the floor over there.’
The man appeared to consider this. ‘You got me,’ he said, with a nod. With delicate care, he placed his fingers around the hilt of his weapon and carefully drew it. Cole relaxed an inch.
Another mistake.
The grey warrior dropped to the ground suddenly, rolling behind a bench. Cole pressed the trigger almost instantly, but it was a fraction too late. The bolt missed by a hair’s breadth and struck the far wall of the gallery.
Shit. The man was back on his feet and pounding towards him before he even had time to reach for another quarrel. He hurled the useless crossbow at his attacker, who drew his scimitar and cleaved the makeshift projectile in half in a single motion. Cole saw the glow around the edge of the blade and his heart sunk further. Augmentor.
‘Come here, you little prick,’ snarled his pursuer as Cole turned and ducked behind a statue, fumbling at his belt for Magebane. There was a whistling sound just above his head and the top half of the statue simply fell away, a foot of solid stone cut through like butter.
He reeled away from the ruined sculpture and turned to face the Augmentor, who saw Magebane’s glow and slowed his advance. ‘How the fuck did you get your hands on that?’ he snarled.
Cole didn’t respond. He was weighing the odds. They didn’t look good. The Augmentor was clearly a veteran warrior — and the man carried a scimitar capable of cleaving stone. There was only one thing for it. He would have to fight dirty.
With his free hand, he reached inside a pocket on his cloak and withdrew a handful of the powder the Darkson had given him. It was mildly corrosive, capable of causing a great deal of irritation to uncovered skin. He took a few steps forwards and then tossed the powder at the Augmentor’s exposed face.
‘You sneaky little cocksucker,’ the warrior screamed as he desperately tried to wipe away the burning substance with the back of one hairy hand. Cole was on him in an instant, Magebane plunging downwards. The Augmentor shifted at the last moment and it caught him in the shoulder rather than the chest. Cole tugged Magebane free, preparing to finish the job, but at that moment the Augmentor’s knee shot out and caught him square in the fruits.
He reeled away in agony, turning back just in time to catch a headbutt to the mouth. He fell back against a bench and spat out a tooth, bloody drool spraying everywhere. The world spun.
The Augmentor’s face leered into view above him. It was covered in red spots, pus-filled cysts already beginning to form. ‘Like to fight dirty? You’re not the only one. I’m gonna enjoy this; take my time.’
The scimitar inched down towards his face. Cole watched it descend with growing horror. As it got closer he could see that the blade was vibrating, the motion so fast it was almost imperceptible. He tried to kick out, but the Augmentor had his legs pinned. All he could do was bring Magebane across to try and cover his body — a futile gesture.
His tormentor laughed. ‘Think that will protect you? This scimitar can cut through anything, boy. Even your enchanted pigsticker.’ With a grin, the Augmentor brought his weapon down, lowered the edge against Magebane.
There was an explosion of white light and a noise like a horse screaming its death cry. Redness filled Cole’s vision. Clashing kaleidoscopes of colour danced across his eyes, but he could just make out his opponent’s scimitar spinning wildly away across the marble floor. He shook his head desperately. It seemed to take an eternity to clear.
He heard a wet gasping noise from just ahead of him. The Augmentor was lying face down. His right arm and leg rested six feet away on the floor like a couple of tasty morsels thrown to a dog. The sinewy stumps just below the man’s shoulder and above his knee squirted fresh blood with every beat of his heart, turning the marble wet and slippery.
The Augmentor’s ruined scimitar lay nearby. The weapon’s glow was gone and the curved blade was bent out of shape. In sudden panic Cole glanced at Magebane. It appeared to be unharmed, the magical radiance that surrounded it stronger than ever.
There was something else, another sound besides the dying man’s gasps. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
Tick tock tick tock.
With a growing sense of dread, Cole reached down over the maimed Augmentor and untied the pouch hanging from his belt. He reached in and pulled out Garrett’s pocket watch.
Time seemed to stand still.
‘Where did you get this?’ He grabbed the Augmentor’s face and turned it towards him. ‘Where? Tell me!’
‘Why?’ the maimed man breathed.
‘It belongs to someone very dear to me.’
There was no reply except for an ugly chuckle. Cole turned the fallen Augmentor onto his back, heedless of the blood spurting up his trousers. ‘Tell me where you got this!’ he demanded again.
The Augmentor’s sightless eyes stared at the ceiling, his mouth frozen in a permanent death grin. His chest had stopped moving.
Panic seized Cole. He had tried to leave a message several times while at the militia camp but had not received any response. He wanted to flee the Obelisk, to run through the city to Garrett’s estate and the temple at the Hook and anywhere else his foster father might be found.
Instead he gripped the pocket watch tightly, trying to calm himself as he watched the hand tick slowly around the face. Whatever had happened to his mentor, Garrett would want him to see this through.
With a deep breath, he climbed the stairs to Salazar’s personal chambers.
As it turned out, the top two levels of the tower had been forcibly merged into one. The ceiling above the sixth floor had caved in during the magical assault on the tower, leaving a sloping pile of rubble to form a makeshift staircase. Cole found no sign of Salazar or anyone else on the wasted remnants of the sixth floor, so he sheathed Magebane and began climbing towards the guest quarters above him. Rock and debris shifted beneath his feet. The air was cooler now, and he could feel a light breeze brushing against his cheek.
Grunting, Cole hauled himself up over the edge of the shattered ceiling and onto the seventh floor. Just ahead of him the Obelisk’s roof had been split open, revealing a blue sky overhead. Smoke and dust still drifted through the air, obscuring his view. It seemed to be blowing from the east, so he plunged into it, pulling up his hood to shield his face and mouth. Either side of him collapsed rooms poured their destroyed contents across his path. He was forced to climb over the wreckage of four-poster beds, ornate dressers, grandiose armoires that had spilled their contents everywhere. His boots trampled silk gowns and gold-trimmed jackets into the filthy debris as he clambered across them. The wind grew stronger and the dust began to clear…