‘We don’t need your permission, traitor!’ yelled the Arbiter. The crowd began to move forward. Cethelin raised his thin arms. ‘My brothers, why do you wish us harm? Not one of my brethren has ever caused you ill. We live to serve…’
‘This is for traitors!’ shouted Antol, suddenly running forward. Sunlight glinted from the long knife in his hand. Cethelin turned towards him.
Brother Lantern leapt across Braygan’s line of sight. Cethelin staggered and Braygan saw blood on the knife blade. A woman shouted from the crowd. ‘Spill his guts to the ground!’ Braygan recognized the voice of Marja, Antol’s wife.
Braygan caught Cethelin as he fell. The abbot had been stabbed just above his left hip, and blood was soaking through his blue robes. Antol tried to reach him for a second thrust, but Lantern caught his arm and twisted it savagely. Antol screamed and dropped the knife. Lantern caught it with his right hand, then twisted Antol round to face the crowd.
Then Lantern spoke, his voice harsh and powerful. ‘Death is what you came here for, you maggot-ridden scum, and death is what you will have.’
He looked towards Marja, a round-faced, plump woman with short-cropped greying hair. ‘You called for guts to be spilled, you hag.
Then here they are!’
Antol’s back was towards him and Braygan did not see the terrible strike with the knife. But he heard Antol scream, and he saw something gush from his belly and flop to the ground. The sound that screeched from the disembowelled man was barely human, and chilled Braygan to the depths of his soul. Then Brother Lantern dragged the man’s head back and slashed the knife across his throat. Blood spurted over the blade.
‘No!’ screamed Marja, stumbling to where her husband’s body lay.
Brother Lantern ignored her and strode towards the crowd. ‘Is that enough pleasure for you, or do you desire more? Come, you gutless worms.
More can die.’
They backed away from him — all save two black-garbed officers of the Watch who ran forward, sabres in their hands. Lantern moved to meet them. He swayed as the first blade lanced for his heart. The soldier stumbled back. Braygan saw that Antol’s knife was now embedded in the man’s throat. And somehow Lantern had the dying officer’s sabre in his hand. He parried a thrust from the second soldier, rolled his blade, then plunged it through the man’s chest. The soldier cried out and staggered back. The sabre blade slid clear.
Lantern stepped back from the man and swung away. Braygan thought he was about to return to where Cethelin lay, but he suddenly spun on his heel, the sabre flashing through the air. It took the officer in the side of the neck, cleaving through skin, tendon and bone. The young soldier’s head struck the ground while his body stood for several seconds. Braygan saw the right leg twitch and the headless corpse crumple to the earth.
There was not a sound now from the crowd. Lantern had both sabres in his hands and he walked along the line of waiting men and women. ‘Well?’
he called out. ‘Are there no more fighting men among you? What about you, Arbiter? Are you ready to die? I have stitched your wounds — now let me give you another. Come to me. Here, I shall make it easy for you.’ So saying he plunged both sabres into the ground.
‘You cannot kill all of us!’ shouted the Arbiter. ‘Come on, men, let’s take him!’
He rushed forward with a great shout. Lantern stepped in to meet him.
His left hand caught the Arbiter’s knife wrist and twisted it. The Arbiter grunted in pain and dropped the weapon. Lantern moved his foot beneath the falling weapon, flicking it back into the air. He caught it with his left hand, then rammed it through the Arbiter’s right eye socket.
As the body fell he stepped back and swept up the sabres. ‘The man was an idiot,’ he said. ‘But he was quite right. I cannot possibly kill you all.
Probably no more than ten or twelve of you. Do you wish to draw lots, peasants? Or will you rush me all at once and check the bodies later?’
No-one moved. ‘What about you?’ asked Lantern, pointing the sabre at a broad-shouldered young man standing close by. ‘Shall I spill your guts to the ground next? Well, speak up, worm!’ He suddenly moved towards the man. The townsman cried out in fear and forced himself further back into the crowd. ‘What about you, councillor?’ Lantern raged, making towards Raseev Kalikan. ‘Are you ready to die for your beloved townsfolk? Or do you think there has been enough entertainment for today?’
He advanced on the hapless Raseev, who stood blinking in the sunlight.
The crowd moved back from the terrified politician.
‘There has been enough… bloodshed,’ whispered Raseev, as the blood-covered sabre touched his chest.
‘Louder! Your miserable flock cannot hear you.’
‘Don’t kill me, Skilgannon!’ he pleaded.
‘Ah, so you know me then. No matter. Talk to your flock, Raseev Kalikan, while you still have a tongue to use. You know what to say.’
‘There has been enough bloodshed!’ shouted Raseev. ‘Return to your homes now. Please, my friends. Let us go home. I did not want anyone hurt today. Antol should not have attacked the abbot. He has paid for it with his life. Now let us be civilized and pull back from the brink.’
‘Wise words,’ said Skilgannon.
For a moment the crowd did not move. Skilgannon turned his ice-blue gaze upon the nearest man, and he backed away. Others followed his lead, and soon the mob was dispersing. Raseev made to follow them.
‘Not yet, councillor,’ said Skilgannon, the sabre blade tapping at Raseev’s shoulder. ‘Nor you, captain,’ he added, as Seregas backed away.
‘How long have you known?’
‘Only a few days, general,’ said Seregas smoothly. ‘I spotted the tattoo when you thrashed the Arbiter.’
‘And you sent word to the east.’
‘Of course. There is three thousand raq on your head.’
‘Understandable,’ said Skilgannon. Then he returned his attention to Raseev. ‘I will not be here after today,’ he told the councillor. ‘But I will hear of all that happens after I am gone. Should any harm befall my brothers I shall come back. I will kill you in the old way — the Naashanite way. One piece of you will die at a time.’
Skilgannon turned his back on the two men and moved towards where Braygan knelt, cradling Abbot Cethelin. As he approached them Marja reared up from alongside the body of her husband. ‘You bastard!’ she screamed and ran at Skilgannon. Spinning on his heel he swayed aside.
Marja stumbled and fell face first to the earth.
‘By Heaven, I never did like that woman,’ said Skilgannon.
Dropping to one knee he examined the wound in Cethelin’s side. Antol’s knife had slashed the skin above the hip, but had not penetrated deeply. ‘I will stitch that wound for you,’ he said.
‘No, my son. You will not touch me. I feel the hatred and the anger radiating from you. It burns my soul. Braygan and Naslyn will take me to my chambers and attend me. You will join me there in a while. I have something for you.’ Braygan and Naslyn lifted him to his feet. The old priest looked at the bodies and shook his head.
Skilgannon saw tears in his eyes.
Skilgannon stood silently as the two priests helped Cethelin across the open courtyard and into the buildings opposite. His hands were sticky with blood. Wiping them on his robes, he moved to a stone seat in the gateway arch and sat down. The woman, Marja, stirred and struggled to her knees. Skilgannon ignored her. She looked around, saw her dead husband and began to sob. The sound was pitiful. She stumbled over to the corpse and knelt beside it. Her grief was real, but it did not touch Skilgannon. She was one of those people who never gave thought to consequences. Marja had screamed for guts to be spilled. And they were.