A Conversation in Blood

  Not far from him Egil’s remaining hammer rose and fell in a destructive two-handed rhythm that crushed chests and heads and put a shattered automaton on the ground with each blow. The priest roared or grunted with each strike, ignoring the blows of the creatures that struck him while his hammer reaped them one after another.

  Nix’s shout from behind them brought Egil up short. He kicked an automaton away from him—his kick actually moved the thing backward—and looked over at Jyme. A vicious bruise had already risen above Egil’s left eye.

  “Finish them,” the priest said, then turned and ran back toward Nix and Kerfallen.

  Jyme stabbed another automaton through the chest and twisted the blade to scramble whatever composed the thing’s innards. A hand closed on his free shoulder, squeezed and pulled him toward it. A fist struck him above the right ear and sparks exploded behind his eyes. He managed to keep a grip on his blade as he staggered. He pulled the weapon free of the construct he’d stabbed and as he did he lashed out blindly with a hilt. The pommel struck the face of the automaton that had punched him. It seemed to stall for a moment, and Jyme took the opportunity to run his sword through its chest.

  He backed off, gasping, trying to reorient himself, as the remaining few continued their relentless advance, arms outstretched.

  —

  Nix, still struggling to hold on to his satchel, heard Egil’s heavy strides and slid to the side when he deemed the priest within striking range, clearing the way to Kerfallen. Egil swung his hammer and it rang off the wizard’s head so hard it sounded like Ool’s clock striking the first hour. Egil’s arm vibrated under the impact and the blow knocked the wizard head over heels, but did not seem to otherwise harm him. Down on all fours, Kerfallen scrabbled in the dirt for the wand he’d lost.

  “He’s warded against weapons, Egil,” Nix said, hugging the satchel to his chest and trying to twist and turn away from the buzzing constructs. “Don’t let him get his wand back!”

  Egil dropped his hammer, grabbed Kerfallen by the shoulders, and heaved him up. The wizard started to say something in the Language of Creation but Egil hurled him against the side of the building. Bricks cracked and the wizard’s warded frame bounced off the wall to land again at Egil’s feet.

  “Kill them, my creatures!” Kerfallen said.

  The constructs left off pulling at Nix’s satchel and attacked him outright, biting his hands, and trying to sting his eyes. He careened backward, waving his falchion and free hand before his face. Egil bellowed, no doubt similarly afflicted.

  “I’ll have the plates one way or another!” Kerfallen shouted, then began to intone in the Language of Creation.

  “Weapons can’t hurt him but he has to breathe!” Nix shouted. He knocked one of the constructs to the ground, screamed as one tore a finger out of joint and opened a gash to the bone. But Egil heard and understood. The priest ignored the tiny creatures attacking him, enduring their bites and stings, and charged Kerfallen. The wizard’s incantation died on his lips as Egil drove him to the ground, forced him over, and shoved his face into the soil. The wizard scrambled, temporarily slipped his head free of Egil’s grip, turned his dirt-caked face sideways, and screamed, “Kill this one!”

  Every flying construct still remaining buzzed toward Egil. The priest ignored them and forced Kerfallen’s face back into the dirt. The little wizard kicked and squirmed in Egil’s grasp. In moments half a dozen or more of the creatures were latched on to Egil’s arms and hands, with another dozen or so seeking purchase.

  The priest had the wizard down, straddling him from the back, driving his face into the earth with both hands, trying to suffocate him in the dirt. Kerfallen’s small body spasmed, the hands forming fists, pounding the earth, the legs kicking.

  Nix slashed at the creatures attacking Egil, slapped one off the priest’s back, stomped it with his boot. “Jyme! Over here!”

  Jyme had gutted the last automaton and ran to help. Fatigue caused him to stumble but he kept his feet and slashed as soon as he was within reach, though he hit none of the creatures.

  “Help me keep them at bay, Jyme!” Nix said, knocking another off Egil’s shoulder with the hilt of his sword and stomping it.

  “Easy to fakkin’ say!” Jyme said, cursing. He swung his sword left, right, crosscut, finally struck one of the creatures, and sent it spinning to the ground, fluttering.

  Nix did similarly, swinging his falchion in one hand, drawing his dagger in the other, and spinning, slashing, trying to keep the creatures off Egil. The creatures were all around him, their wings a metallic buzz, a swarm of biting iron insects.

  Another one of the creatures latched on to Egil, bit through his shirt, and tore into his flesh. The priest cursed but did not try to shake it off, enduring the pain to keep the wizard down. Nix slammed the hilt of his dagger into the buzzing construct, knocking it loose, revealing a bloody gash in Egil’s skin. Another latched on to Egil’s calf, his shoulder, his back. He was bleeding from multiple wounds, his clothing getting soaked with it, but still he held on to Kerfallen. Somehow the wizard was still alive.

  Cursing, Nix dropped to the ground and covered Egil’s hands with his own, lending his strength to drive Kerfallen’s face into the earth.

  “Keep them off, Jyme!” Nix said.

  Egil grunted, leaning all his weight onto the wizard, pressing his face several fingers’ width deep into the ground. Nix did the same, teeth gritted. Had the wizard not had wards to protect him from physical harm, Nix had no doubt his neck would already have snapped from the force they were applying.

  “Will. You. Just. Fakking. Die,” Nix said.

  Jyme, slashing and cursing, gasping with fatigue, stood over them, swinging and chopping and kicking and cursing, downing several of the creatures. He knocked one off Egil’s back but before he could stomp it, it fluttered its wings, took back to the air, and slammed itself into Egil’s temple. The priest’s grip did not lessen. He shook the bucket of his skull and did not relent.

  Kerfallen’s legs kicked and his entire body spasmed.

  “Die, damn it!” Nix said.

  And then, finally, Kerfallen went still. The moment he did all of the automatons went inert and fell to the earth like leaves from a tree, those falling off Egil leaving bloody gouges and gashes in their wake. Jyme stomped them as fast as he could, bending or snapping wings and bodies.

  Egil did not let up his grip, but drove Kerfallen’s face into the ground awhile longer, just to make sure.

  “He’s done,” Nix said. He released the wizard and stood on weak legs.

  “Aye,” Egil said, breathing hard. He let the wizard’s head go and started to stand, but fell to his knees, bloody and gashed. Jyme sagged to the ground beside him, his face blotchy, out of breath.

  Nix knew they had little time to recover. He quickly rummaged in his satchel, his gaze lingering for a moment on the plates, before he grabbed the only three healing elixirs he still had, each contained in a stoppered metal vial, and tossed one each to Egil and Jyme.

  “Put it straight on the wounds. A little goes a long way, so don’t bathe in it.” He nodded at Kerfallen’s corpse. “And seeing that Kerfallen was my source for these, these last three may be it for a while.”

  “Obliged, wizard,” Jyme said, nodding at Kerfallen’s corpse. He bit the stopper off the top of the vial.

  Egil and Nix did the same and the three of them carefully poured drops of the oily red liquid onto their wounds. Nix winced; Jyme gasped. The elixir burned like a brand where it touched blood and bruised flesh and cracked or displaced bones, but the magic accelerated healing and the holes and slashes and bruises knit closed and healed, even Nix’s displaced finger.

  “Around your eye, too,” he said to Egil, and the priest smeared some onto his face.

  When the elixir was gone and they seemed as well as they were going to get, Nix said, “Two wizards in one night. That’s a first.”

  “Gonna get a reputation,” Egil said. He stood and t
ilted his head from side to side to crack his neck. He removed his blood-soaked shirt, revealing the scarred, hairy, muscular terrain of his torso. “Thieves’ Guild now, I suppose.”

  “Aye,” Nix said, thinking about the creature that was still on their trail. “And quick, I’d say.”

  Jyme looked around the alley at the pile of tall humanoid automatons, the flying insectoid constructs, the wizard’s corpse. “Watch’ll have a time figuring this.”

  “Not the first time we’ve left them a mess to clean,” Egil said. He gathered his hammers, placed them in the loops at his belt. “Let’s go.”

  They hurried out of the alley, scanned the street to either side, saw nothing, and hurried on.

  Egil, Nix, and Jyme stayed at street level, dodging the dungsweepers, drunks, and fishermen as best they could as they traversed the final stretch toward Mandin’s Way. Nix felt something building in him as they moved, a dread that put a hole in his stomach. He almost hoped Rusk refused them. He feared opening the book again. He had to learn more, but what he’d learned already was almost too much to carry. While they’d been fleeing across the city and fighting Kerfallen and his creatures, he hadn’t had time to think much about what awaited him. Now nearing Mandin’s Way, he found himself reluctant to face it. Kazmarek’s words rose to the front of his mind.

  The weight, once placed, is never lifted.

  And that’s what Nix felt—heavy, weighted down.

  How could anyone know what he knew and not surrender to despair, or nihilism, or hedonism, or some kind of excess to give existence meaning? It seemed…pointless.

  “You’re too quiet,” Egil said. “Tell me when you’re ready. You need to. I can see that.”

  Nix looked at his friend, the friend with whom he’d shared and endured so much. He started to shake his head but it came out a nod. He did need to share it, to have someone help him bear the weight. “When we reach the Vault.”

  “Aye,” Egil said.

  Jyme looked at them, bemused. “You going to tell me, too? Because I have no idea what the two of you are talking about.”

  “Sure, Jyme,” Nix said. “I’ll tell you, too. I’ll tell you both. It doesn’t matter. But once you know, you’re fakked.”

  Egil grunted.

  Jyme shook his head. “The two of you jest while we fight wizards but get grim when we walk the street. You make no damned sense.”

  Nix grinned at that, a genuine grin. Egil, too.

  Nix clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re with us, Jyme. I just hope you’re glad of it when all’s said and done.”

  Soon they reached their destination and Mandin’s Way stretched to their right and left, the streetlights long since burned out, the wide, twisting avenue dark and quiet in the predawn gray. Voices carried from the docks, sailors and teamsters loading or unloading ships ahead of a dawn launch, the fish market gearing up for the day. A few fishmongers’ wagons already rolled down the street, making their way to the fish market, a tent and stall city at the terminus of the road near the Archbridge. The moment the sun lit the sky, street vendors would pop up on Mandin’s Way like watered flowers, hawking smoked fish and river eel. But for the moment, for the next hour perhaps, the street appeared deserted. Nix knew better, of course. Rusk’s guild men would be stationed along the road, on roofs and in shadowed doorways, their numbers getting thicker nearer the Squid.

  “We go,” Nix said, and led them out of the alley on Mandin’s.

  They walked down the center of the street to make themselves obvious. After a couple of blocks, the rooftop spotters saw them coming. Nix didn’t bother with signs or any other damned thing. The guild men would recognize him and Egil.

  Nix suddenly picked up his pace and their accelerated approach caused a scramble: signs from the rooftops, cocked crossbows. Nix wanted someone to alert Rusk.

  “Probably have ten bolts ready to fire,” Jyme said. “Can we not be rash possibly? Hate to end the night shot in the street after everything else we’ve survived tonight.”

  “I guess we’ll see,” Egil rumbled.

  The guild men manning the door of the Squid stepped hurriedly off the porch and onto the street, hands on their blades. Others fell in behind the trio, but at a distance.

  “Don’t you dare shoot, you bunghole slubbers!” Nix shouted up at the rooftop snipers. “We’re on Rusk’s business!”

  “No you ain’t,” said one of the men from the door. He raised a hand to stop them. “Hold right there.”

  Nix did nothing of the kind, didn’t even slow.

  “Rusk’s business,” he bluffed, and he, Egil, and Jyme plowed through the men.

  To Nix’s surprise, he didn’t hear the twang of loosed bolts or the sound of drawn blades, but another four guild men rushed out of darkened doorways on either side of the street to intercept them. That put five around them, four before, and not less than four behind, with half a dozen snipers on roofs.

  One of the men who’d stepped down from the porch had a thick mustache and sideburns and he put himself in front of the three and held his ground. A man stood to either side of him. The rest fell in around.

  “You’ll be stopping there.”

  “I don’t have time for explanations to anyone but Rusk,” Nix said, but he did stop. “Get him.”

  “Please,” Jyme said.

  “Get him,” Egil said. The priest slid two steps away from Nix and Jyme, presumably so he’d have room to work the hammers should the need arise.

  “We can’t kill our way through everyone,” Jyme said to them.

  “I think maybe we could,” Egil said, eyeing the guild men.

  The guild men tightened up around them, more than a dozen in all.

  Nix controlled his frustration and tried to speak calmly, even as he mentally started picking the places he would stab first. “You tell Rusk we need inside right now.”

  “I thought you said you were on his business,” said the mustache. “That don’t sound like you are.”

  Nix went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “You tell him we need the same shelter as before. He’ll know what we mean.”

  Mustache made no move to obey, and the sneer was answer enough.

  “Gentlemen,” Nix said, “and I use that appellation in full knowledge that it has applicability to none of you.”

  “Appellation,” Egil said softly. “Nice.”

  “It’s been a very long night and we’re a bit too tired for another fight, but not so tired we wouldn’t gut each of you, if it came to it. So unless you enjoy bleeding, you go tell Rusk the Hells are on our heels and it’ll come to the Squid and all of you if we don’t get the same consideration we got earlier. You tell him it’ll take down the guild house. All of it. There’s no doubt, and you’re hearing that from the two of us who marched through it and all of you not a year ago. You’ll tell him we’ll pay, whatever he asks. Yeah?”

  Mustache crossed his arms over his chest, his expression defiant.

  Nix’s impatience got the better of him so he took the man by the arm. “We’ll walk with you so you can tell him. Let’s go.”

  “Let go of my fakkin’ arm,” the man said. “Or we’ll see who ends up bleeding.”

  The other men grumbled, moved in, and Nix thought he might have to stab a few to make clear his sense of urgency. Egil tensed, too, violence promised in his coiled limbs. Jyme whispered a curse under his breath.

  Nix leaned in toward the mustache. “I’m asking one more time: Can we walk? Otherwise…”

  The man shook himself free of Nix and stared into his face. “Otherwise what?”

  “That’ll do,” said a voice from within the darkness of the Squid’s entryway. Rusk’s voice. Nix relaxed.

  Mustache called back over his shoulder. “Eighth Blade, this little pissdrip is—”

  “I heard it all, Ullger,” said Rusk, and stepped out onto the street. He was dressed exactly as he had been when they’d seen him earlier in the day.

  The guild men around th
em eased off half a step.

  “You keeping long hours now, I see,” Nix called to Rusk.

  Rusk chuckled. “Eighth Blade, Nix Fall. Comes with the office. Who’s that other slubber with you two?”

  “This is Jyme,” Egil said. “He’s in the shite with us now.”

  “Still deep and dark, I’m guessing,” Rusk said.

  “You have no idea,” Nix said. “Listen, we need to move, Rusk. Everything I said is true.”

  “Best hurry in, then,” Rusk said, then a bit louder, “Payment will be steep, gentlemen, and I use that appellation as loosely as you did. Very steep indeed.”

  The guild men around them smiled and chuckled. Rusk had made his point. Nix let it stand.

  “Fair enough, Eighth Blade,” Nix said.

  He, Egil, and Jyme moved past the men toward Rusk.

  “Extra sharp, men,” Rusk said to his guild men. “And that’s well done, Ullger.” To Egil and Nix he said, “What do they need to watch for?”

  “You get us to the Vault quickly and they won’t have to watch for anything,” Nix said, then, for the benefit of the guild men in the street, “Won’t be any missing it. It’s big. Listen…”

  He considered whether to tell them that weapons couldn’t hurt it. They probably wouldn’t believe him. But if they did, if Rusk did, he might not take them to the Vault.

  “It’s hard to hurt,” Nix said.

  “We’ll see,” said Ullger, and the other men muttered agreement.

  With that, Rusk led them into the guild house. He moved quickly, evidently taking Nix’s words to heart.

  “You bring something down on the house and the cost goes up,” he said, as they half-ran through the halls.

  “Of course,” Nix said. “Sorry for this. But we’ve nowhere else to go. This thing can track us and I need some time to figure things out. Vault’s the only option. Once we’re in, it’ll lose us and you and yours won’t be bothered.”