Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (43 page)

Rage flared inside Cole, a rage so intense he could barely stop himself from charging at the woman and cutting her to pieces. A memory stopped him. A memory of a kitchen knife plunging into Dull Ed again and again while Cole lay there helpless, the glow-globes above shining a sinister light in Shank’s crazed eyes. He stared at the artificial light on the ceiling above.

It’s the glow-globes
, he reminded himself, forcing himself to be calm and remembering what Thanates hold told him.
They’re created from magic mined from the Blight. They don’t just radiate light. They intensify negative emotions.

‘Nice work, babe,’ Corvac hissed. The Mad Dog leader had climbed back to his feet and was brandishing his sword at Cole, but before he could do anything more than squeal in surprise Floater grabbed him around the neck with a meaty fist.

‘Does Ghost speak the truth?’ Floater demanded. ‘You planning to poison us? I’m supposed to go home next month. Home to my family.’

Corvac’s answer was to twist around and plunge his sword into Floater’s chest. The big miner gasped softly, and then bloody froth spilled down his chin and he collapsed to his knees.

That was the cue for all hell to break loose.

Cole scampered out of the way as Floater’s friends charged at Corvac. Though they were unarmed, thick muscles bulged beneath their dirty vests, and, as they stormed in, other miners began searching around for weapons. One man picked up a chair and broke it over the head of the Mad Dog opposite him.

Corvac’s lieutenants responded by drawing their swords. Within seconds the tavern had become a seething cauldron of hatred, furious men bludgeoning, stabbing and choking each other to death while shouted obscenities and screams of visceral rage turned the air blue. The Condemned, Smokes, had lit a flame from somewhere and was now skulking around the edge of the melee, trying to set fire to the tavern.

Shit
, Cole thought. This wasn’t quite how he and Thanates had wanted things to play out, but it was done now. It was time for the next part of the plan. He made a break for the door and ducked outside. The evening chill caused his breath to mist as he hurried east across town. A few seconds later he ran smack into a patrol of Whitecloaks stumbling in the opposite direction, back towards the tavern.

Do they know about the Trinity’s plans?
Cole wondered.

Looking at Captain Priam’s face, at his vacant stare, Cole doubted the man was even fully cognizant. He and the other guards could hardly stand, like Cole when he’d downed a dozen ales in the Gorgon back in his old drinking days.

‘What’s going on in there?’ Priam slurred. The captain raised a shaking hand and pointed at the Re-Spite.

‘The Mad Dogs are attacking the miners,’ Cole replied uncertainly. He didn’t want to believe Priam’s men were in on the plot to murder the workers, but he couldn’t be sure which way they would side.

Captain Priam hesitated for a moment. His eyes were glassy and there was something wet dribbling from his ear. ‘Come on, men,’ he said sluggishly. ‘We need to keep the peace...’ He staggered off towards the tavern, the rest of the Whitecloaks stumbling after him. Cole watched them go, wondering what the hell was wrong with them.

He continued east towards the outskirts of town where the huge metal silos that stored the magical ore loomed like silent sentinels in the night. Once he reached them, he hid behind their dark bulk and waited. He heard the flutter of wings a moment before he saw the tall figure emerge from the night.

Thanates adjusted his tattered black coat and nodded in greeting, then placed his hands on the silo nearest him. ‘We don’t have much time,’ he said sharply. ‘The Trinity will soon arrive. I must siphon as much as I can if I am to defeat them. The Unborn have fed well this night.’

‘Fed?’ Cole echoed, but Thanates ignored him and raised his cloth-bound face towards the night sky.

‘Stand back,’ the wizard ordered. His hands began to glow. Black fire pulsed down his arms, filling him with a baleful radiance. The silo began to shake.

Cole backed away and cast a glance back at town. Thick black smoke was beginning to rise from the Re-Spite. Miners and Mad Dogs alike were pouring out, both sides sporting bloody wounds, a few barely able to stand. Corvac was remonstrating with Priam and his Whitecloaks, clearly demanding they help subdue the miners. As Cole watched, more Mad Dogs arrived and began setting about the prisoners. Even more ominously, the fire devouring the tavern had begun to spread to the building next door.

Cole was about to turn to Thanates, to tell him he was going back to help the miners, when he noticed three white flickers racing across the Blight towards them. He felt a shiver of dread at the sight. ‘The Trinity!’ he said urgently. ‘The Trinity are coming!’

Thanates turned just as the trio of handmaidens arrived. For a moment the Trinity faced the two men, as calm as a still lake, no sign of exertion visible on their porcelain faces. They hardly even seemed to breathe.

‘You dare steal from the Mistress?’ said one of the pale women tonelessly. There was something dark streaking her chin and flecking the top of her robes, as if she’d recently been feeding on something, or someone. ‘This land and all the magic within are the property of the White Lady. The punishment for theft is death.’

Thanates’ jaw clenched. ‘I have cheated death for five hundred years. You won’t stop me now, creature. Not when I am so close to discovering the truth.’

‘The only truth you will discover is the cold certainty of the grave.’

Cole heard the wizard’s heartbeat quicken, but from the three handmaidens he could hear nothing. Almost as if they were dead, like the shamblers back at the pit.

An idea occurred to him.

He stepped away from the cover of the silo and raised his arms in the air. ‘I command you,’ he intoned loudly, ‘leave this place!’ He waited expectantly as three pairs of colourless orbs turned from Thanates to regard him. Seconds passed and nothing happened. He began to feel a little foolish, so he decided to try again. ‘I said turn back, dead things!’

The Trinity looked at each other. Cole frowned and slowly lowered his arms. This wasn’t going according to plan. He was about to turn to Thanates and ask the wizard why his powers had stopped working when the nearest of the handmaidens suddenly leaped straight for him. Cole was fast but she was much faster, and as he fumbled with Magebane he knew he was a dead man.

But then there came a flash followed by the sickening stench of rotten meat burning, and the pale woman was on the ground, her perfect alabaster flesh blackened and charred. Despite her terrible wounds, somehow she climbed back to her feet in a strange, jerking motion. Thanates sent another blast of magical energy roaring towards her sisters, but they twirled out of the way with incredible agility and the bolt of energy dissipated harmlessly into the night.

‘Go!’ the wizard snarled at Cole. ‘Help dispose of the Mad Dogs. The Whitecloaks too, if you must – they are thralls to these creatures and death would be a release for them. If I do not return by morning, look for me at the Horn.’ The air seemed to shimmer and there was the sound of something tearing, and then Thanates disappeared… only to reappear a hundred yards away. He disappeared and then reappeared again and again, blinking across the land as the Trinity began to give chase, until both hunters and hunted were swallowed by the Blight.

Cole stared down at his shaking hands. He might be god-touched, but without the wizard’s intervention just then he would be dead. He couldn’t allow himself to grow overconfident in his own abilities. He’d made that mistake before and it had always come back to bite him in the arse.

He hastened back to Newharvest. The miners and the Mad Dogs were involved in a pitched battle on the streets while around them the town burned. The prisoners were hurling debris at their attackers while Freefolk were running to and fro in the chaos, cowering in fear or trying in vain to put out the flames. Cole glimpsed Derkin and started towards him, but a Mad Dog suddenly leaped into Cole’s path and took a swing at him with a bloody sword. Cole ducked under the blade and drove Magebane into the man’s sternum. He
felt
the Mad Dog’s life force sucked into the dagger as the man died, and a moment later a surge of energy flooded his own body. It was exhilarating. Exhilarating and terrifying and very wrong. He tugged Magebane free and let the corpse fall to the ground in disgust.

‘Derkin!’ he called. ‘Derkin, I’m over here!’ The corpse-carver looked up and Cole saw bright tears in his eyes.

‘They stabbed my ma,’ the little man said. ‘The Mad Dogs came and she opened the door to them and they stabbed her.’

Cole felt a hollow sensation in his chest. Derkin didn’t deserve this. He was perhaps the kindest and most selfless person Cole had ever met. It didn’t matter that he was disfigured and cut up bodies for a living. Derkin was his
friend
.

‘Is she still alive?’ Cole asked desperately.

‘She’s hardly breathing. I don’t… I don’t know how to make the bleeding stop…’

‘Come on,’ Cole barked. He dashed off in the direction of Derkin’s hut, dodging around groups of screaming men and piles of burning rubbish. He found his friend’s mother lying in a pool of blood inside the kitchen. She smiled up at him through red teeth as he knelt down and examined the hole in her side. It was deep; the Mad Dog had stabbed her right through the liver.

‘She’s going to die,’ Derkin sobbed.

Cole placed a hand over the wound and closed his eyes. He had no idea what he was doing, but he knew he had to try
something
. Thanates had told him that part of the Reaver’s essence lived within him, that it fed on death. If he could take a person’s lifeforce into his body then perhaps he might also be able to give it back. He concentrated, willing the vitality of the man he had just killed into the body of Derkin’s mother. At first nothing happened and he was afraid he was going to end up looking foolish again, but then he gasped as he felt himself growing suddenly weaker. He glanced at his hands and watched the colour seep from his skin. He became frailer, his body sagging as his breathing became more laboured. It seemed that giving life was harder than taking it. He was feeling faint and close to collapsing when, behind him, Derkin placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘You did it,’ he said, his voice a wet rasp. ‘You saved her.’

‘Babykins?’ said Derkin’s ma, her voice sounding much stronger. She stirred beneath Cole’s hand and, as he finally opened his eyes, he saw that her wound had closed.

‘Ma!’ Derkin cried. He scrambled to her side and threw his arms around his mother, tears rolling down his cheeks.

Cole tried to rise, but almost toppled as the room swayed. ‘I need some air,’ he gasped. He stumbled out of the house and sank to his knees, listening to the sounds of screams echoing around him, feeling the heat washing off a nearby building wreathed in orange fire. He felt weak; so very weak.

Someone pulled him up, and then Derkin was hugging him tightly. ‘You saved her,’ he said again. ‘I don’t know what you did or who you really are, but thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Cole said. Though he felt a vague sense of embarrassment he returned the embrace, not least because he needed his friend’s support to stop himself from keeling over.

A familiar voice shattered the moment. ‘You two done hugging it out like a couple of bitches? You and me got some unfinished business, Ghost.’

Cole gently disentangled himself from Derkin and turned. Corvac was watching them from across the street, his eyes full of burning hatred. The Mad Dog leader whistled and three of his men abandoned the miner they were busy kicking to death to sidle over and join him. Goldie lurked just behind her man. ‘Kill him!’ she screeched. ‘Kill that tiny dick!’

‘It’s not tiny!’ Cole shouted back, though he immediately regretted wasting his breath as the Mad Dogs fanned out to surround them. Two made a move at the same time, one on either side. Despite his exhaustion, Cole pushed Derkin behind him and somehow managed to dodge a sword thrust. With his riposte he jammed Magebane into the stomach of his attacker – but the effort took most of his remaining strength and while he was recovering the other man’s blade scored a nasty cut down his back, causing him to reel away.

‘Got you!’ the Mad Dog cried. ‘Hey, boss, I got him—’ His words were cut off in a gurgle as Magebane twisted through the air and found his throat, dropping him like a stone. Cole didn’t have time to admire his throw. Corvac and the other Mad Dog were closing on him fast. He could feel the wetness already soaking his clothes from the wound he’d just taken, a deep one that would likely cause him to bleed out in minutes if he wasn’t hacked down first.

‘You call yourself Ghost?’ Corvac sneered. ‘Well, guess what. I ain’t afraid of no ghost.’

‘You tell him, baby! Slice him up good!’ Goldie taunted. Cole stumbled back, almost fell. His dagger was a dozen feet away. He would never get to it in time.

Suddenly, Derkin cried out. With a mighty effort, the little man leaped at the Mad Dog to Cole’s left and brought Bessie flashing down. It cleaved the man’s skull apart in a splatter of brain and bone, cranial fluid spraying all over Goldie, whose taunts turned to shrieks.

Cole seized the moment. With every ounce of strength he had left, he dived towards the body of the last Mad Dog he’d killed and wrenched Magebane free of the man’s throat. As his hands closed around the hilt, warmth seemed to envelop him and his vitality surged back. He felt a brief burning sensation in his back, and then somehow it no longer hurt.

Corvac reached him then. Cole blocked the Mad Dog leader’s downward swing, and with a sudden surge of energy he pushed back, forcing himself to his feet. The two men moved at the same time, short sword and dagger coming together in a brief but deadly dance. They parted, and there was a moment of utter calm before Corvac stared down at the jewelled hilt quivering in his chest in disbelief. ‘How?’ he asked, his words bubbling from his mouth. ‘I broke you… I made you my bitch…’