ARC: The Corpse-Rat King (38 page)

“That’s a genuine Bentel III,” he sighed, mentally calculating the selling price he could have commanded if he’d rescued it. “You could have bought your entire village a hundred times over if you’d caught that brick.”

Gerd shook slivers out of his hair. “Because escaping would be so much easier if I was carrying a big pot around.”

“Big pot? You bloody ingrate, do you have any idea…”

“Gentleman,” Scorbus stood above them both and helped them to their feet. “We have more important considerations.”

“Yes, but… it was a Bentel III.”

“Never heard of the man.” Scorbus matched Marius’ stare for several seconds, before the smaller man turned away.

“Yes, well, no. I don’t suppose you have.”

A door stood opposite. Marius crossed to it, and laid an ear against the wood panelling.

“I can’t hear anything,” he said eventually. “You’d have thought that ruckus would have bought people running if there was anyone here, wouldn’t you?”

The others didn’t answer. He shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

He grasped the handle, and swung the door open. An empty corridor stretched fifteen feet away to a blank wall. A single oil painting stared back at them from the far end.

“Processional corridor,” Marius guessed. “Changing rooms on either side, probably, opening out onto a cross corridor, one for men and one for women.”

“How do you know?”

Marius thought back to the sight of Nandus upon the balcony, commanding his assembled armies to go forth and conquer the invading crab armies of the Sea Kings. His adult logic filled in the gaps his childhood images presented. “The balcony is only used by the Royal family, for official occasions, when they’re all kitted up in their regalia. That stuff is heavy. You don’t think they wear it around the house, do you?” He snickered. “Last time I saw a princess up close, she wasn’t wearing thirty pounds of ermine cape, I can tell you that.” The last time he’d seen a princess she’d been wearing nothing more than a velvet mask and a pair of thigh-high sealskin boots, but that was a memory he’d dwell on when he had time to savour the image. He inhaled, then nodded down the corridor.

“Let’s get a wriggle on, eh?”

As one they scurried down the hallway. At the junction, Marius stopped against the wall and ducked his head around the corner.

“Nothing either way,” he announced. “I say we move towards the front of the building, see if we can find a side entrance or something we can get out of without attracting attention.”

“Sounds good to me,” Gerd replied.

“Right.” They moved left down the cross hall. They’d gone a dozen steps before they realised they were missing something. Marius turned around. Scorbus stood in front of the portrait, staring up at it.

“Your Majesty?” Marius and Gerd exchanged glances. “Scorbus?”

The King made no move to acknowledge him. Marius edged back towards him and coughed gently.

“Your Majesty? We really do need to…” He glanced up at the portrait, then stopped, and looked at it properly.

“You?”

“That is me,” Scorbus replied, his voice low and heavy. Black eyes stared fiercely down at them from beneath heavy brows. Marius swallowed, taking in the long mane of grey hair, the heavy jaw half-hidden underneath a beard of truly impressive dimensions. Robes of bear fur sat heavy upon wide shoulder and the matching hat looked as if it had been completed from an entire cub. The picture was dark, completed in heavy swipes of black and russet: threatening, imposing; an image of a thunderous old monster. Scorbus reached one hand slowly up and laid his bones open upon the face.

“Scorbus,” Marius’ voice was gentle, awed.

“This is how they saw me,” Scorbus said to nobody in particular. “This is how you remember me?”

“I…” Marius thought back to his tutor’s lessons, to the bloodthirsty stories his parents didn’t know he was being told. Scorbus and the conquest of the coastal lands, the establishment of Scorby: a creation myth baked in blood and mayhem. He glanced at the portrait, and the empty skeleton reaching mournfully towards it.

“Look where they hung it,” he said, placing a hand upon the King’s shoulder and turning him so that they gazed back down the way they had came. “The last image any King sees before going out to greet his people. A reminder of what a King represents.” He looked up at the massive skull and realised, with a sudden burst of clarity, that what he was saying was the truth. “You are the mark they all have to aim for. The first and greatest King. That is not a product of fear, Majesty. It’s worship.”

“Do you…” Scorbus stared down the corridor at the broken doors. “Do you suppose…”

“Marius!” Gerd had wandered down to the far corner as the two talked. Now he ran towards them.

“What?”

“Time to go,” he said, racing past them towards the rear of the building. Behind him, a soldier ran out into the corridor, saw Marius and Scorbus staring at him, and flung himself back around the corner. The dead men shared a look, then took off after Gerd.

“How many?” Marius asked as they reached the far corner and checked to see if the approach was empty.

“Lots.”

The corridor was empty. They raced towards a door at the far end. “Lots and lots.” They reached the door. It was locked. “What do we do?”

“What else?” Marius kicked at the handle. It smashed under his assault. The door swung open and the three fugitives piled into the room beyond.

It was obviously an office of some sort, Marius decided as he looked around. Bookcases dominated, lining each wall from floor to ceiling, leather spines standing erect along every shelf. Two small writing desks sat in alcoves, their backs to drape-less windows that stared out over the city a hundred metres or so below. From his vantage point, Marius could only see the docks, small and blue in the distance, betraying nothing of the squalor and violence visible at ground level. From this height, it looked like a painter’s impression, or a king’s ideal. A massive wood desk squatted in front of the window. Three maids sat around it, a deck of cards spread out before them. They stared at the little group, their expressions a mixture of fear, resignation, and sullen insolence.

“It’s our break,” one of them uttered, before the manner of the group’s entrance sank in. Scorbus completed the tableau by standing up and revealing himself to the women. One fainted immediately. The other two abandoned their chairs and threw themselves behind the desk, where they took up wailing and asking a multitude of Gods for salvation. Gerd ran to a door on the opposite wall and pulled it open.

“Nope,” he said, and quickly shut it again. ‘Lots more, coming this way.” He returned to the door through which they had come. “And here come the first lot.” He turned to Marius. “Trapped.”

“Right.” Marius thought for a moment. “Help me with that writing desk.” He indicated the one nearest the door. Together they pulled it over and blocked up the broken door with its bulk. “Now the other one.” They moved that against the other entrance. “That should hold them for a minute or two, at least.”

“So now we’re trapped, and we’re even more trapped.”

“Ah, yes.” Marius scanned the room. “Nothing. Nothing we can use.” His gaze fell upon the window. “Oh,” he said slowly. “Oh, no.”

Gerd saw his gaze. “You must be kidding.”

“Oh, I wish I was. I really wish I was.”

“I told you I was afraid–”

“Yep. Remember that.”

“And this is your–”

“Yep.”

Marius looked out. Below the window a thin ledge, perhaps six inches wide, ran the length of the wall to a corner a dozen feet away. Below that, a sheer drop of a hundred feet led to broken alleyways and a line of rooftops. He undid the latch and swung the window open. A breeze grabbed it from him and slammed it back against the wall.

“See,” he said, turning to his companions. “Our escape route. Easy.”

Scorbus and Gerd joined him.

“Yes,” Scorbus said, in a voice so polite it promised painful torture before death, “this should round off the rescue nicely.”

“I’m open to ideas.”

“I imagine you are.” The King levered himself up and edged out of the window.

“Go that way,” Marius pointed back the way they had come, towards the square and the far edge of the cathedral, just visible around the corner of the palace. “The crowd should have moved further down the hill by now. They’ll be expecting us to go that way.”

Scorbus glanced down at him, then very deliberately and with great purpose, began to move in the opposite direction.

“What is he… all right, out you go.” He pointed Gerd out the window.

“Like hell.”

“What? Look, we don’t have time…”

A crash behind them caught their attention. One of the writing desks had shifted several inches away from its door. As they watched, another impact knocked it further away.

“I’m not going,” Gerd said as a third impact shook the door.

“But…”

“Nope.” He stepped away from the window. Another collision struck the door. This time it opened far enough that a leather-clad arm was able to slip through the gap and scrabble around for purchase. Marius stared at Gerd.

“Scorbus is just about gone by now,” Gerd said. “It’s not me that has to be sure he gets down.”

“Oh, you bastard.” Marius turned towards the window. From the corner of his eye, he spied the two conscious maids curled up in the corner. They were staring up at him with eyes full of terror. He winked.

“Marius Helles, ladies. If I had more time…” He blew them a quick kiss, closed his eyes, and thrust himself out of the window.

The wind clawed at him as he straightened and shuffled gingerly a few steps along the wall. A moment later, Gerd clambered out, swaying as he clumsily gathered his legs beneath him and stood. Marius reached out a hand and helped to steady his young companion.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

“Changed my mind.” As Gerd spoke, something whizzed past his shoulder. The two companions watched it fall towards the distant street.

“See?” Marius said to nobody in particular. You don’t get workmanship like that if you work for just any old King, you know. That is a perfectly balanced knife, that is–”

“Get moving!” Gerd risked his balance to give him a shove. Behind them, several people could be heard clambering over their barricade into the room. Within seconds a second crash announced the entry of the remaining pursuers. Marius began to shuffle along the tiny ledge, scouring his fingers across whatever miniscule purchase the worn stones accorded him.

“Son of a bitch!” Marius looked back at Gerd. Beyond the young man, a head had emerged from the window, and the arm it guided was swinging a sword towards him. As Marius watched it struck the wall an inch or so from Gerd’s hip. Marius scuttled a few steps further, dragging Gerd with him.

‘Keep moving!”

“They won’t follow us,” Marius replied. “They’d have to be insane!”

As he spoke, a soldier levered himself out on to the ledge.

“Wait a second!” Gerd turned towards the soldier and whistled. The young man looked up. Gerd backhanded him across the jaw. He slumped, and Gerd continued his swing, pushing him back into the arms of his colleagues. As they staggered under the unconscious soldier’s weight he leaned down and stared at them through the window.

“Don’t be insane,” he shouted, then scooted back to Marius.

“I just want you to know,” he yelled, enunciating carefully above the wind so that Marius caught every syllable, “in case this all goes wrong…”

“Yes?”

“Fuck you.”

“Right.” Marius nodded. “Thanks.”

They shuffled on. Within a minute they turned the corner of the building. Three feet ahead of them, the ledge terminated against an abutment. It stuck far enough out that none of the three could have grasped its corner with outstretched arms. Scorbus leaned against it, arms folded, and regarded them as they approached.

“Oh, hell,” Marius said

“Oh, hell indeed.”

“What do we do now?” Gerd turned his face to the wall, and closed his eyes. Marius could see his fingers digging into the stone walls. Specks of dust coloured his fingertips. “There’s not even any way to get back in.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Scorbus replied. “You see, I’ve been thinking while I waited.”

“Yes?” Marius braced his rear foot, ready to make whatever run, or shuffle, for it he could.

“See down there?” Scorbus pointed past the edge of the abutment. A dozen feet away, and as many down, a rampart ran along the tops of the adjoining palace buildings, overlooking the cliff face. A clear line of sight ran from their current vantage point to the far edge of the palace building, a hundred yards distant, broken only by four doors built into the inner surface. Marius and Gerd stared at it.

“No,” Marius said.

“I don’t think we have much choice.”

“We’ll never make it.”

“We certainly shall.”

Marius stared at the gap between the two spots. Only the city floor was visible. Nothing would break his fall.

“We’ll be smooshed.”

“Bend your legs.” Scorbus grabbed Marius’ wrist, and before he had time to protest, braced his back against the abutment wall and heaved. Marius was launched, flailing and screaming, into thin air. “Roll when you land!”

Marius didn’t so much roll as
flollop
. The ground slapped him like an angry parent, smashing the air from his chest and delivering a dizzying blow to the back of his head as the inner wall of the battlement refused to get out of the way of his loose-limbed, clattering approach. He lay face up, scrunched against the base of the wall. Gerd landed a foot away, bent-legged, rolling forward and springing to his feet like he’d been practising. As Marius attempted to remember which limbs belongs at the top of his body and which at the bottom, Scorbus hunkered down against the wall, bounced experimentally, and launched himself across the gap. He landed perfectly, rolled next to Marius, and finished on one knee, hand held out to help Marius to his feet.

“Nobody likes perfect people,’ Marius muttered. He creaked upwards and swayed as the dizziness hit him again. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Let’s hurry,” Scorbus led them down the rampart, towards the far end of the palace. “Logic dictates that the troops will come this way.”