4 City of Strife

  “That’s right, Sergeant,” said Jan. “That’s exactly right. I do owe him.”

  “And you just happened to be walking by when this happened?”

  “I heard a scream. I came to investigate.”

  “Most men would simply walk on by. Or run in the opposite direction.”

  “I am not most men.”

  “Why do I feel you are not telling me the whole truth?”

  Kormak considered things for the moment. “Sergeant, this man was killed by a monster, a demon of Shadow, and you seem more concerned with niggling at me.”

  “Maybe it was him,” said one of the watchmen. “Maybe he is a night-ganger.”

  Altman’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Does he have blood on him? Is he naked? If he was a monster would he be standing here chatting with us?”

  The watchman fell silent. Altman gave his attention back to Kormak. He did not look any less disgusted. “Why did you come looking here, in the Maze, in the darkness?”

  “I thought I could help.” Judging from Altman’s expression the honesty of the answer surprised them both.

  “What are we going to do with this body?” One of the watchmen asked.

  “Get a cart. Take it to the morgue. Poor bastard will be burned in the public oven.” Kormak looked at him.

  “It’s winter,” said Altman. “Nobody but the very rich do funeral burnings outside. The crematorium has been properly blessed by priests. The ashes will be scattered with all the rights.”

  “What about the purse?” asked another watchman.

  Altman picked it up and poured the coins out. “We split it,” he said. He looked at Kormak apologetically for the first time. “A man’s got to live.”

  “You going back to the Gilded Lion?” Altman asked.

  “I was going to walk young Jan to the wall, but I would be happier if he came with me.” He looked around and noticed that Jan was gone. He had scuttled off while they were talking.

  “Doesn’t like the Watch,” said Altman.

  “I don’t think you can blame him,” said Kormak.

  “We have a job to do, same as you,” Altman said. “Walk with me.”

  He left the other watchmen with the body and strolled of down the alley. Kormak took a last look around for Jan, did not see him and fell into step beside the Sergeant.

  “You know more about this than you are letting on,” said the Sergeant.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Who runs towards a scream and than hangs around a mutilated body when there’s a monster loose?”

  Kormak looked at him. Altman kept talking. “Who casually inspects a corpse whose heart has been ripped out and has the presence of mind to preserve the tracks? Who carries a sword sharp enough to take a man’s hand off and has enough control over it to put it at Bors throat without drawing blood?”

  Kormak still kept silent.

  “The answer, in case you are struggling with it, is you,” said Altman. “Which I suppose makes the question what are you?”

  “When you find out the answer I am sure you will tell me.”

  “If we had not come along you would have gone looking for the monster, wouldn’t you?”

  “I would not have found it,” said Kormak. “It went off over the roofs and there’d be no following it in conditions like this.”

  “And you know that as well,” said Altman. “Like you’ve done this sort of thing before.”

  “I have,” said Kormak. The Sergeant was clearly not going to stop niggling at this until he had worked things out for himself. “I am a Guardian of the Order of the Dawn.”

  Altman laughed. “And next you’ll be telling me that’s a dwarf-forged blade you are carrying.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” Altman stopped, turned and looked directly at him.

  “What brings a member of the legendary order of monster hunters to Vermstadt?”

  “Apparently there are monsters here,” Kormak said. “Apparently they are killing people.”

  “And you intend to put a stop to that.”

  “If I can.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “It would be best if you didn’t mention it to anyone,” said Kormak. “Sometimes these creatures have friends in high places, sometimes they hide in plain sight.”

  “And you think I am the sort of man who might keep that a secret even when there is money to be made by whispering it in the right ear.”

  “Yes.”

  “You might be right.”

  “I had better be.”

  “How so?”

  “Because if anything happens to me, my order will send two more just like me to investigate. They won’t be very friendly towards anyone they think might have betrayed me.”

  “Now you are just being hostile,” said Altman. “I’d have kept your secret without any threats. Something needs to be done about what’s wrong in this city. If you should happen to pull down some high muckety-mucks, it’s no skin off my nose. Don’t worry—your secret is safe with me.”

  After he left Altman and the watch, Kormak made his way back through the narrow alleys. He was aware that there were people keeping pace with him through the alleys. He could hear booted feet crunching through the snow. Whenever he stopped, they stopped as well. He considered taking up position in an alley mouth and seeing what happened. He remembered the cowled figures he had seen earlier.

  Even as he did so, a small figure emerged from an alley mouth.

  “You’ve been followed,” Jan said. “You were followed with the watchman and somebody was watching it the whole time you were in there.”

  “You, apparently,” Kormak said. He was relieved to see that the boy was still in one piece.

  “Not just me, sir.”

  “What did they look like, these men who are following me?” Kormak asked.

  “They looked like ordinary citizens, sir. But they would, wouldn’t they? Wherever you went, they went. Not always together. Sometimes one of them would pass another in the street and hand over the task of watching you to their friends. That’s the way it’s done when folks wants to spy in this city. Less chance of them being noticed that way.”

  “I didn’t notice you either,” Kormak said.

  “I kept my distance, sir, and I’m good at not being noticed when I don’t want to be. I’ve had a lot of practise.”

  “You any idea who these people might be?”

  “Could be anybody, sir. Both the Oldbergs and the Krugmans have reason for taking an interest in you. And there’s other folks too with money. Damn! Duck, sir!”

  Kormak caught the glitter of something in the cold moonlight. He pushed Jan in one direction and threw himself back in the other. Something blurred through the night and thunked into the wall.

  A crossbow bolt stood out of the plasterwork, quivering. Kormak reached over and grabbed it. He could see no tell-tale marking but you never knew. There seemed to be something smudged on the metal tip. He sniffed it and caught the acrid tang of poison.

  Jan looked at it eyes wide and then scuttled into cover in a doorway. Kormak looked up at where the shot had come from and could see nothing. Maybe the crossbowman had ducked into cover and was even now reloading his weapon. Kormak knew that gave them some time.

  “Get up, boy and move, before he reloads.”

  “If you don’t mind, sir. I think I’ll stay in this doorway where it’s snug. I don’t think it’s me he’s aiming for, if you catch my meaning.”

  Kormak did. He raced along the alley, feet crunching in the snow, hoping he did not skid on the icy cobbles beneath. The flesh between his shoulders crawled and he felt like at any moment, he might feel a heavy crossbow bolt bite into his flesh.

  He kept as close to the walls on the side he thought the shot had come from as he could. He doubted that anyone could hit him from an angle directly above in this light. Of course, he was assuming there was only one of them.
He thought he heard something moving fast on the snowy rooftops overhead. It must be running like a madman to keep up with him, if it was racing across the icy sloped tiles.

  He turned another corner and glanced up. He could see nothing and he could hear nothing. His own swift movement might only be giving away his position to his would-be assassin. The man had doubtless had enough time to reload his crossbow.

  Kormak hated this sense of being a helpless target. He hated not being able to strike at his foe, but he had learned cunning and patience in a hard school and he waited, quietly, to see what would happen. He heard footsteps coming along the alley, saw a shadowy figure, heard voices muttering to each other. Whoever it was, there was more than one of them. Shadows moved down the alley. Big men cloaked against the cold. One of them held a crossbow in his hand. The other held a blade.

  “We missed him,” said one of the men. “He is long gone.”

  “After I almost broke my neck getting on that bloody roof as well.”

  He looked around with his crossbow. Obviously in the darkness he had no sense that Kormak was there. It was all too easy to imagine another poison-tipped bolt being pointed in his direction.

  “How could he have known we were there?”

  “I don’t know. He’s cursed lucky.”

  Kormak sprang. His blade swept clear of the sheath, stabbed forward and took the man through the heart. Even as Kormak closed, he tried to swing the crossbow to bear. As the blade pierced his body, his finger squeezed the trigger and the bolt blurred away into the darkness. Kormak heard a scream. He let the body drop and moved to meet the second man. He met no resistance and then he understood why. The man stood there, an appalled look on his face, clutching at the wooden shaft that protruded from his chest.

  “Who sent you?” Kormak said.

  The man looked at him and opened his mouth as if to speak but only bloody foam emerged. Perhaps the bolt had pierced a lung. Perhaps it was the poison. It made no difference. The man was as good as dead and he knew it. His face was white. His mouth was open in a ghastly rictus. Kormak lashed out with his sword and put the would-be assassin out of his misery. Kormak searched their bodies but, as he had expected, found no clue as to who they were or who their employer was.

  Icy snow fell on him from above. He looked up and he saw red eyes and a bestial white-furred head glaring at him over the roof. It seemed it was not only the assassins who had followed him but the Beast too. He wondered if there was some connection. He bent down and lifted the crossbow, pulling the poisoned bolt free from the corpse and slotting it into firing position. When he looked up the monster was gone. There was no way for him to get up onto the icy roof from here.

  He stalked back down the alleyway to look for Jan, but once again the boy was gone, and once again Kormak could not blame him under the circumstances. He made his way back to the Gilded Lion. He had found out more than he expected to anyway.

  The Moon’s fury filled the Beast, urging it to kill. Part of its mind, the cunning part which enabled it to survive despite the ravenous appetite for man-flesh the queen of the night sky always brought, resisted the rage. It would not do to simply assault such a one as this. He was formidable and he had eluded the trap set for him. The answer was not a simple frontal assault but a better trap.

  The Beast was too close to his goal now to risk everything. Before another moon waxed, he would be in control of this city as had always been his destiny. The humans were too small and frail and stupid to oppose him. He would use their greed and their desires against them. This city would cower beneath his paw even though it would not be able to name him. When Shadowfall came he would have a power base to build a new empire. The Age of Men was coming to a close. The Age of the Rat was just dawning.

  He watched the arrogant human depart. Soon enough scores would be settled with him. For now it would be best to put him in a position where he could not interfere with the unfolding of the great plan. In the meantime, he e had best return to his business.

  Chapter Eleven

  “SO SOMEONE WANTS you dead,” Lila said. She got up off the bed and paced to the window, checked the shutters were locked and then returned to stand over him, watching as he warily examined the crossbow bolt. There was a black paste on the end of it which he guessed had been the cause of the second assassin’s death. He sniffed it. It had an acrid alchemical tang. He did not care for poison or the people who used it.

  “It won’t be the first time,” Kormak said.

  “That I can believe. Who do you think it is?”

  “My first guess would be the Krugman family,” said Kormak. “If they have been working dark sorcery, they have the most reason to. And I know Jurgen likes to employ men who use crossbows.”

  “The Oldbergs have no reason at all, as long as you’re going for their enemies,” said Lila.

  “What troubles me is that the monster was watching from the roof.”

  Lila shuddered at the reminder of the Beast. “You think it was stalking you?”

  “Maybe. It might have stuck around after its kill.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “It could be any one of a number of things—an Old One who has bypassed the City Wards, a were-beast, an Underman.”

  “Underman?”

  “The Old Ones used magic to change humans—and other living things—into their servants. Some of them are very powerful. Some of them are immortal. Some of them breed.”

  “I would not want to carry around the things you know in my head,” she said.

  “They keep me alive.”

  “This evening it sounds like it was the boy Jan who did that.”

  Kormak nodded. “I owe him for that.”

  “So there really are monsters loose in the city.”

  “At least two,” said Kormak. “The Silent Man and the Beast.”

  “You think you can kill them both,” Lila asked. “Before they kill you.”

  “Somebody is going to have to.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because I am best qualified for the job.”

  “I mean why do you do it.” Kormak thought about that for a moment. He thought about his father, slaughtered trying to protect him from the Old One. He thought of Master Malan and what the order had given him. He thought about the immortal demon who had sworn to kill him when he was still just a child. He looked up and met Lila’s gaze.

  “Because I swore an oath when I took up this sword. To protect the innocent. To uphold the Law. To oppose the Shadow.”

  “Do people really keep such oaths?”

  “I have done all my adult life.”

  She sat down beside him and laid her head on his shoulder. When she spoke her voice was low. “Why do you really do it?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

  He got up and walked over to the sideboard, poured himself a goblet of water. Without the proximity of her body, without the bed clothes, it was cold. The chill made it easier to remember.

  “When I was eight years old an Old One came to my village. His name was Prince of Dragons. He killed everyone except me. Every man, woman and child, every baby, every dog. He killed my father. My mother. My brothers. He came into the loft where my father had thrown me in an attempt to save my life. He was carrying my father’s head in his left hand. I attacked him with one my father’s old hammers. He let me hit him just to show it would have no effect. I expected to die then but he let me live.”

  “Why?” It sounded like she had to force the words out.

  “He told me that he would come back for me some day and on that day he would kill me. I could count on that.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “This Old One has done it many times through history. Wiped out entire communities, and left one child alive to tell the tale. Often he has come back when the child was older. Sometimes not. It’s a game he liked to play, he likes to torment humans.”

  ?
??You think he will come for you?”

  “I hope he comes for me,” said Kormak. He reached out for the hilt of his blade. “There is a blood-debt to repay, for my kin.”

  “How did you survive, a little boy on your own in the Aquilean mountains?”

  “A man was pursuing the Old One, a man who was not afraid of a monster that could wipe out an entire village of warriors.”

  “A Guardian of the Order of the Dawn,” she said, guessing before he could say it.

  Kormak nodded. “His name was Malan. He asked me what had happened. I could not even speak. When he left, he took me with him. We could not find the Old One’s trail so he took me back to Mount Aethelas.”

  He put the sword down, returned to the bed, reached out and stroked her hair. He tilted his head to one side, smiled. “The Order took me in, trained me, sent me out into the world to do its business. It suited me and I was good at it.”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Poor man,” she said.

  She looked away, unable to meet his gaze. He touched her shoulder. “It does not matter,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

  He shrugged of her grip and stood up, glanced around the chamber. “The Beast and the Silent Man, which did you hear of first?”

  “Why?” She seemed taken aback by his abrupt change of tone.

  “I want to know if there is some connection. It seems an unlikely coincidence that two such beings should appear in the city at the same time.”

  “The Silent Man was first. At the start of the summer. It looked like the Oldbergs would win their war with the Krugmans until he showed up. They had more money and more men. He turned things around. For a time it looked like all the other merchant houses were going to side with the Oldbergs. They always like to be with the winner. After the Silent Man came they went neutral again.”

  “When did you hear about the Beast?”

  “In the late summer, maybe early autumn, that’s when the rumours started. Or at least they reached me.”

  “That would be about the same time as the cats started disappearing and the rats multiplied.”