Masque of Death (Kormak Book Nine) (The Kormak Saga 9)

  Orson stood on tiptoes even as he was hoisted ever higher. He felt the belt draw tight around his neck and felt the air rasp into his lungs.

  His feet left the ground. He wondered if the chandelier would hold his weight. He kicked and tried to swing backwards and forwards. The changeling struck him again, and his legs stopped responding. He was choking now, and strength leeched from him. He looked down and saw the changeling was moving a chair into position beneath the chandelier. It was turned over as if he jumped from it and then kicked it away. The changeling stood beneath him as the room grew blacker.

  The last thing that Orson noticed was that his features were becoming more bloated and starting to bear an uncanny resemblance to his own.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The changeling watched the fat merchant’s corpse swing. He tugged down on the man’s legs to make sure he was properly strangulated. Orson’s tongue lolled, and his face was black. When the changeling put his hand on his chest, there was no heartbeat.

  He glanced around the room. It was a pity about the signs of a struggle. He would have preferred for the thing to have gone much more cleanly. Hopefully, no one would notice the scratches he had made with the stiletto point.

  He wanted the Guardian to find the corpse of the guilty merchant. He wanted it to seem as if Orson had hanged himself to avoid capture while his men made their desperate last stand. Hopefully, they might still interpret it that way, but even if they did not, it would still cause them some confusion, and it tidied up some loose ends. At very least it would buy him some time to get away. Once he achieved that, he would deal with Balthazar and then seek Vorkhul’s coffin.

  He headed up to Orson’s chamber and donned some of the fat man’s clothes. They smelled of camphor and mothballs. He had expanded his form to take on Orson’s shape, but he did not have the merchant’s weight. Not that it mattered. The clothes were now a good fit.

  He donned them. He stopped and applied nightbane paste to his dagger. He smeared on enough to kill anyone he stabbed in moments, then carefully returned the blade to its sheath. He strode downstairs to where the men that were now his followers waited at the entrance to the escape tunnel.

  Anders looked up when the door opened. The fat priest entered. He was not dressed as a clergyman anymore. Instead, he wore the fur-trimmed tunic and pronounced cod-piece of a wealthy merchant.

  “Not a holy man this morning?” Gregor asked. “Travelling incognito are we?”

  “Something like that.” The mockery in the fat man’s voice matched that in Gregor’s. His thick lips twisted as if at some personal joke. The voice was right. The body language was right, but there was something different about the fat man that Anders could not quite put his finger on. Maybe it was just the change of dress that made him behave differently. It happened with some people.

  “I recognise you,” said Gregor. “I’ve seen you down the harbour sometimes. You’re a big shot merchant, not a priest.”

  “If you say so,” the former priest said.

  “Orson Waters. That’s your name. So why are you going around disguised as a priest, Orson? You got something to hide?”

  “Everyone has something to hide,” said the merchant.

  “What’s your connection with the Guardian?”

  “We are old acquaintances, and I think it’s fair to say we are on the same side.”

  “I always heard you were on the side of money.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Anyway, I don’t have all night to stand here chatting. We need to be away.”

  “Away where?”

  “Do you never stop asking questions?”

  “I don’t know. Do I?”

  “I’ll take that as a particularly feeble-minded joke. Now it’s time for you to get on your feet. We need to get out of here and on our way to Xanadar.”

  “It’s about time,” said Gregor.

  “I’m glad my plans meet with your approval. Now on your feet or my men will drag you.”

  “What about the bindings?” Anders asked.

  “The ones on your hands will stay just in case you get any notions of escape. The ones on your legs will be removed.”

  “Good,” said Gregor. “That will certainly make walking easier.”

  The fat merchant cuffed Gregor in the same off-hand way the Guardian had jabbed him with a stiletto earlier. There was a casual cruelty to it that felt similar. Maybe the Guardian’s ways were rubbing off on his companions. Anders had seen it happen before.

  Smiling the merchant reached down and hoisted Gregor back onto his feet. He brushed Gregor’s lapels with his hands as if wiping away imaginary dust specks. Gregor did his best to hide it, but he flinched when the merchant’s hand came close to his face.

  Orson turned on his heel and made his way down the stairs.

  “I always thought the way out would be up,” said Gregor. His whisper was as loud as another man’s normal speech.

  “So did I,” said Anders. “But I’m starting to think nothing about this will prove to be normal.”

  Kormak raced across the sculpted gardens towards the merchant’s house. Shouts came from inside.

  “Open up in the name of the King-Emperor,” Zamara shouted. Something flickered from an open window and thudded into the ground near his feet. A crossbow bolt, Kormak guessed.

  “Have it your way then,” Zamara responded. “Break that door down, lads. We’ll winkle these rebels out in a jiffy.”

  The men smashed into the heavy wooden door with the battering ram. This was a merchant’s mansion, and the portal was reinforced and thick. The lower windows were barred. Men emerged onto the balconies above and began firing down with crossbows. The marines responded in kind. In the moonlight the shots were difficult, but now and then a scream sounded from the garden or the house telling that one of the bolts had found a resting place in human meat.

  Kormak added his strength to that of the rammers. Together they swung the log back and forth. The door splintered and jumped from its hinges, falling backwards into the lobby.

  A group of armed men waited. They levelled their crossbows. Silhouetted against the open door, Kormak was an easy target. He threw himself flat and a bolt whizzed above his head and buried itself in the man behind. Other men screamed and went down. The crossbowmen frantically reloaded.

  One man’s fumbling fingers his bolt slip the ground. Kormak pushed himself to his feet, drew his blade and raced forward, one man against ten. Two of the mercenaries had blades ready and stepped forward to protect their companions. He cut them down then beheaded a kneeling crossbowman.

  “Surrender or die!” he bellowed.

  One of the men tried to raise his weapon, swinging it to point towards the Guardian’s chest. Kormak stabbed him through the throat and to make his point clear, opened the jugular of another crossbowman. The rest of them dropped their weapons.

  The marines flooded into the house. Count Shahad glared at the surrendered men as if they had personally murdered his wife.

  “Where is he? Where is that bastard Orson?” His voice was thick with guttural rage.

  A terrified mercenary, suddenly vulnerable without his weapon, nodded at the stairs. Kormak took them three steps at a time with Shahad and Rhiana hard at his heels. Behind them, Zamara directed the mopping up operation. Frater Ramon sat down on a stool as if even the act of walking across the garden had winded him.

  Kormak kicked open the doors of the upstairs rooms one by one. The men inside had realised they were beaten and dropped their weapons. Kormak finally came to what must have been the master bedroom. Orson swung from a chandelier, hanging from his thick leather belt. A stool had been tipped over nearby. His face was an awful shade of purple. The stink of voided bowels filled the air.

  “Bastard killed himself rather than face justice!” Shahad was outraged. He glared around seeking a target for his frustrated anger.

  ?
??There’s something not right here. Take a look around.” Kormak looked at the room. There were the signs of a struggle. Furniture was upset or broken. Precious items lay strewn near at hand.

  Rhiana saw it first. “It looks like there was a fight.”

  Kormak nodded.

  Shahad said, “Maybe he broke the place up in rage when he heard we were coming.”

  “I can think of more sensible things to do.”

  “You can never tell how a man will behave when he thinks the end is near,” Shahad said. “I’ve seen some odd behaviour when I have fought duels.”

  “Look at his clothes—they are ripped.” Kormak opened his shirt and with his dagger widened a rip in the merchant’s trouser leg. “His body has been bruised. Look at his knuckles. They are grazed. He’s been in a fight for his life.”

  “So?”

  “A man does not get into such fights and then kill himself immediately after that, in my experience. He wants to go on living.”

  “You can only speak from your own experience. Maybe Orson was different.”

  “He did not strike me as a man to commit suicide.”

  “You could be wrong.” A slow frown of revelation sculpted Shahad’s brow. “The merchant is dead. The shapeshifter is still on the loose.”

  “He might now be wearing the merchant’s form, and commanding his men, assuming there is some link between the two of them. Appearing as Orson would give him access to all the merchant’s wealth too.”

  “So where is he? In the house? I like this not. We are dealing with a faceless skulker who could take anyone’s place at any time. He could be among us even now.” Shahad was not a man of great imagination, Kormak thought, but when he let his loose it made up for lost time.

  “He could be, but I think it more likely he is trying to escape us. Or use Orson’s wealth and connections for his own purpose.”

  “What would those be?” Rhiana asked.

  “Nothing good,” Kormak said.

  Zamara stomped into the room looking pleased with himself. “The house is secured. The enemy’s men are in custody, and it looks like the malefactor has met a well-deserved fate at his own hand. Everything’s neatly tied up, I would say.”

  He noticed the looks on his companions’ faces and added, “Although something tells me I could be mistaken.”

  More men-at-arms waited outside the cell. The place was chilly, and Anders realised that the building extended as far beneath the earth as many buildings rose above it. There must be several stories buried beneath the ground.

  The merchant reached a corner of the cellar and touched a stone, pushing it back into the wall. It slid easily as if part of a mechanism and a whole section of wall rotated open. A long corridor ran down into darkness. The soldiers raised lanterns and moved through the passage. Orson gestured to a servant. “Lead on, Lorenzo,” he said. “Show the troops to the closest exit to the Temple quarter.”

  Lorenzo gave his master a strange look but set off down the passageway.

  Anders saw the stone was wet and slick beneath his feet. There was moss here and dirt that became mud. Condensation ran down the walls, and mould blotched the floor.

  “Could use a little clean up,” said Gregor.

  The mould held footprints. It sucked at his feet as he walked and felt sticky beneath his toes. He wished he had his boots on. He doubted that Orson would listen to any of his complaints now, and he did not fancy taking a beating like Gregor. He preferred to keep his brains unscrambled.

  Strange runes etched the walls. Carvings of skulls and leering demon faces leered down. Anders did not feel reassured. He had often heard the rumours of a labyrinth of ancient corridors running beneath the city, but this was the first time he had seen any evidence of them.

  The mercenaries moved as if untroubled by their surroundings. Perhaps they had been here before. Perhaps they simply lacked Anders’ imagination.

  The corridor went down a long way before it started to go up again. Anders counted his paces, wishing he had thought to start doing so before they entered the tunnel. He still managed five hundred strides before the tunnel came to an end. For the last three hundred, they had been rising again as if the tunnel had tired of digging downwards and wanted to see the sunlight again.

  A massive cube of stone, inscribed with a skull face, blocked their way. Lorenzo reached out and touched the eye-sockets of a skull, and it split and slid smoothly into the walls. They emerged into the warm night air beneath. Beneath them, in the moonlight, Anders could see the ancient ruins of the Temple Quarter. He shivered despite the warmth and fought down the urge to cry. After being imprisoned deep beneath the earth, he rejoiced in the feel of the night air on his skin. Even the buzzing of mosquitoes was welcome. He looked at Gregor and saw the little man felt the same way. His eyes were wide and moist, and his breathing was fast.

  A burly mercenary poked him, and he slipped and fell in the mud. That drew brutal laughter from their captors.

  Orson lumbered up and said, “Have your sport but I want these men unharmed. They are worth their weight in gold to me. And to you, if you are sensible.”

  The mercenary who had prodded Gregor reached down and extended his hand. Gregor bit it. The mercenary howled and kicked him in the face.

  Gregor sprawled in the dirt once more. “I’ll remember you did that,” he said through mashed lips.

  He would too, and if the chance arose he would take vengeance for it. Gregor had a mean streak that Anders knew all too well.

  Orson looked at him and said, “You brought that on yourself.”

  The mercenary waved his sore hand in the air and gave Gregor another boot in the ribs. Orson made a tsk-tsking sound but no move to intervene. He studied the sky.

  “Enough fun and games. The night is almost over, and we have a long way to go.”

  He led the way down into the ancient city. Anders wondered what he was going to do down there. He had heard far too many stories of human sacrifice in the Temple of Xothak to be entirely easy in his mind about their destination.

  They moved off down the hill, following ancient stone paving slabs still set in the hillside. Each had a skull face inscribed on it and each was set about a stride apart.

  The bodyguards moved cautiously through the night, and Anders wondered what they were afraid of and why they were going this way. He glanced around looking for an escape route. There were hollows in the earth and tumbled bits of stone all around. Most were cubes of rock that had been carved and eroded. It was as if a giant had kicked over the walls of a great city and left its component parts scattered across the hillside. Perhaps that is what had happened here.

  He glanced at the guards. They were paying more attention to Gregor. He might be able to make a break for it, dive for cover and escape amid the rubble. The men had crossbows though, and all it would take would be one lucky shot.

  It would mean leaving Gregor behind as well. The little man had been so badly beaten he would not be able to keep pace.

  He considered the possibilities. He did not like abandoning a companion, but at least one of them would be free. And then what? He could hardly notify the authorities. These men were the authorities. He had lost whatever gold he had been carrying. Unless Orson was carrying it with them now. That seemed a distinct possibility. What merchant would leave so much money behind? Unless he had left it in his vaults for when he returned.

  What was going on here? Why were they in such a hurry? There was an urgency in the air that had not been there before, as if these men expected pursuit. The mercenaries moved as if they thought enemies could come upon them at any time. They looked wary and ready to fight and that discouraged Anders from the idea of making a run for it. They were likely to be with the fingers on their crossbows. Only the fat merchant did not look jumpy. He had a relaxed ease about him that was just as intimidating.

  “Decided not to make a run for it, eh?” Orson said when he noticed Anders staring at him.

  A look of dismay fl
ickered across Anders’ face. His shoulders slumped.

  “Don’t be too surprised,” said Orson. “It was entirely predictable that you would be thinking that. First chance to escape and all. I had already given the men instructions to watch carefully for it. You would have got a crossbow bolt in the leg and a taste of my venoms if you had made the attempt. I need you alive, but I don’t need you all that mobile.”

  Anders nodded. He wondered about that my venoms. It had been the Guardian who had used poison on Gregor, not the merchant. Maybe he was just letting Anders know that he too had a collection of poisons.

  The merchant grinned at him, and Anders knew then that he was involved in a high stakes game of bluff and counter-bluff. The merchant was trying to intimidate him, to make him think that any plan to escape had already been thought of, that there was no chance of him getting away. Anders looked down at his feet. He let his lips turn down at the corner, and he frowned. He let his shoulders slump. Let the merchant think he was winning. In a situation such as this Anders needed all the advantages he could get.

  Orson smirked as if he knew exactly what Anders was thinking. Anders told himself that was impossible, but he was not so certain.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I want this house sealed off, Admiral,” Kormak said.

  “It’s already been done, my friend,” Zamara replied. “No one could have got in or out since we surrounded the place. Not without us noticing.”

  “Not even one of our own men?”

  “They’ve all been too busy fighting. I’ll stake my life on it.”

  “You might be doing just that.”

  “How so?”

  Kormak explained to him about the shapeshifter and the murder of Orson.

  Zamara looked at the fat merchant prince. “It’s a pity. I rather liked him. He seemed a decent enough sort for a commoner.”