Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (36 page)

Since the Whitecloaks had rescued him from the pit, terrible headaches and strange nightmares had tormented Cole. Surreal visions of skull-faced deities plagued his dreams night after night, leaving him drenched in sweat, his heart hammering wildly. He thought back to the talking crow and the shamblers that had somehow obeyed his commands. They too must have been part of his fevered hallucinations. How could they possibly be real?

He glanced down at his hands. They were paler than ever, the flesh as maggoty white as the handmaidens’. Whatever the true nature of the poison coursing through his veins, it was close to killing him.

‘Derkin…’ Cole whispered. It was time.

The corpse-carver moved an awkward step closer. Perhaps it was his imagination, but even with the drumming of the downpour outside Cole could hear the hunchback’s heart beating in his chest. The relentless pulse reminded him of Garrett’s timepiece. That seemed like a lifetime ago now.

‘Yes?’ Derkin asked.

Cole closed his eyes. ‘I want to end this.’

Derkin didn’t reply straight away. In the sudden silence Cole thought he could make out his friend’s mother’s heart beating from the other room.
More hallucinations
, he thought bitterly. Whilst he’d always possessed a keen ear, there was no way any man could make out a heart beating through a wall, even one near as thin as parchment.

‘Derkin?’ Cole said again, still with his eyes tightly closed. ‘Did you hear me? I said I want to die. I don’t want to suffer any more.’

The slap rattled his jaw and left his face stinging. Cole’s eyes shot open and he stared at Derkin in shocked outrage. ‘Ow! What was that for?’

‘You listen here,’ Derkin demanded angrily, rubbing his deformed fingers. By the looks of it the slap had hurt him as much as it had Cole. ‘I know you’ve suffered some terrible things recently. I heard what Corvac did to you.’

Cole stared up at the ceiling and didn’t reply, blinking desperately, hoping Derkin would think the sudden tears in his eyes were down to the slap he’d just given him.

A misshapen hand settled on his arm and gave it a comforting squeeze. ‘Don’t let them break you,’ his friend whispered. ‘You’re stronger than they are.’

‘I’m not strong,’ Cole replied hoarsely. ‘I’m a nobody. A common bastard.’

Derkin shook his head. ‘That doesn’t matter now. It’s not what you’re born as that’s important. It’s what you become.’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Don’t I?’ Derkin said quietly. ‘Look at me. I was born a freak. My ma and I were sent to live with all the other undesirables. There’s a whole city beneath Thelassa, a city no one ever sees except criminals and the deformed. The Mistress doesn’t want people like me ruining her perfect paradise.’

Cole thought back to his lessons with the Darkson in the ruins beneath Thelassa. ‘Sanctuary?’ he whispered. ‘You mean there are people living in those ruins?’

Derkin nodded gravely. ‘People and other things. The Abandoned. They’re like men, but… they’re not all there.’

‘That’s why you came to Newharvest, isn’t it?’ Cole said slowly. ‘To escape the ruins. Even this place is better than where you came from.’

‘Yes. At least here I’m worth something. I have a livelihood, a home of my own. I can look after my ma.’

Cole stared at the hunchback and was overcome with sympathy. How hard must Derkin’s life be with his curved spine and twisted fingers and eyes that seemed to stare off in opposite directions? He himself had enjoyed an easy time of it growing up in Dorminia, he realized. If he’d ever wanted for anything, he’d merely had to ask. The Grey City was a hard place for most, but the truth was that he had been privileged. Maybe he ought to have been more grateful for the blessings he’d enjoyed. Looking back, he had at times been selfish and self-centred. Most of the time, if he was honest.

His rare moment of introspection was interrupted by the sudden and strange sensation something was amiss. It took him a moment to realize what it was. He could hear a second heartbeat coming from the next room: a second heartbeat besides that of Derkin’s mother.

‘Derkin,’ Cole whispered urgently, dread rising in him. ‘You’d better check on your ma.’

The hunchback’s brow creased in confusion, but he nonetheless hobbled over to the door and poked his head into the other room.

‘Hello, runt. Corvac sends his regards.’

Cole’s blood froze. It was Shank, the Condemned who’d stabbed Ed and left him fighting for his life.

Derkin’s outraged cry cut through the sound of the storm raging outside. There was the crash of furniture breaking, and then silence.

‘You
bit
me, you little swine!’ came Shank’s voice, shrill with disgust. ‘What kind of man bites another? You might’ve given me some sort of disease! Well, you can just lie there and watch while I skin your ma alive. After that I’ll deal with your friend in the room over there.’

Cole searched around frantically, desperate for a way to escape. There was a shutter on the wall above his head, which Derkin and his mother occasionally opened to let in fresh air. It was closed due to the awful weather battering Newharvest, but if he could just struggle to his feet…

The world swam as he tried to rise. He staggered, knocked over the piss bucket next to the bed and felt warm liquid soaking his trousers. He didn’t care about that, he was too terrified the clatter would alert Shank.

He released the latch on the shutters and flung them wide open. Windswept rain immediately gusted in to sprinkle his face. The window was just wide enough to crawl through. He took a shuddering breath and prepared to climb out.

Derkin’s sobs tore his attention away from the opening. He looked from the doorway to the window and back. The old Cole wouldn’t have hesitated; he’d have stormed into the room and confronted the deranged knife-wielding maniac without a second’s thought.

He wasn’t that man any more and besides, he didn’t have a weapon. There was nothing he could use against Shank. Not unless he fancied wielding a piss-stained bucket. Full of self-loathing, he readied himself to climb out of the window.

There was a sudden flapping sound from outside, and a dark shadow fell across the room. Cole jumped back in shock. Beady eyes stared at him from the window, black feathers dripping wet from the storm.

‘
You
,’ Cole whispered.

The crow had landed on the window ledge. It was clutching something in its claws, something bright and sharp and with a large ruby in the hilt—

‘Magebane,’ Cole gasped.

The crow released the dagger and the weapon clattered to the floor. ‘Caw,’ the crow said. Not cried, but
said
.

Cole reached down with shaking hands. The last time he’d seen his magical dagger was the night he had slid its cold length inside Salazar’s withered old body. As his hand closed around the jewelled hilt, a soft blue glow sprang up around the blade.

‘Please,’ begged Derkin from the other room. ‘Don’t hurt her. That’s my ma.’

The crow leaped down to the floor and regarded Cole with a frighteningly intelligent gaze. Cole looked at the bird and then out of the window. He could seek refuge with the Whitecloaks. Shank would be arrested, Corvac too if Cole could prove the Mad Dog leader had freed the knifeman. He hesitated again.

Davarus Cole was no hero. But neither was he a coward. He wouldn’t abandon his friends.

Gritting his teeth, he turned and stumbled towards the doorway.

Derkin was curled up on the floor, a big gash on his head. A broken chair lay nearby. Shank was leaning over Derkin’s mother, a fistful of her hair in one hand. A trickle of blood ran down the side of her face where the knifeman had made a small cut in her scalp.

‘Ghost,’ the maniac drawled when he saw Cole standing in the doorway. ‘I was planning to save you for last. Corvac promised to pardon me for stabbing that big retard if I brought your head back to him.’

‘Let her go,’ Cole said, trying not to let his weakness show. His hands were trembling and his heart was racing and he felt as though he might collapse at any moment. He raised the glowing dagger in his shaking palm.

Shank whirled Derkin’s mother around, positioning himself behind her. He placed the edge of his own knife against her neck. ‘You come any closer and I’ll slit her throat. Is that… magic? The Trinity will tear you apart when they learn you’ve stolen it from them!’ The knifeman shook his head in self-righteous indignation. ‘I might have butchered men and women like hogs but I’ve never
stolen
from anyone. You’re nothing but a dirty thief. You know something? People like you make me physically sick.’

Cole stared at Shank. At the bastard who’d threatened to cut off his balls, who’d made a ruin of poor Ed’s chest. Who was even now threatening to slit the throat of a helpless old woman.

Something snapped.

‘Shank,’ he said flatly, all his fear forgotten.

‘What?’

‘Fuck off.’

He had only a few inches to aim for, the top of Shank’s forehead poking out just above his hostage’s bun of white hair. It was a tiny target, a difficult ask even back in his glory days, but a cold certainty seemed to guide his hand as he flicked Magebane around and launched it at the deranged knifeman.

The spinning blade nicked the old woman’s hair on its way to burying itself in Shank’s skull. He stood there dumbly for a moment, the ruby hilt sticking out of his head and quivering almost comically. Then he collapsed stone dead.

Cole stared at Shank’s corpse. ‘I killed him,’ he said incredulously.

Derkin’s ma seemed more confused than afraid. ‘I thought it mighty strange, him being outside in this weather. That’ll teach me to open the door to strangers.’

Cole shook himself from his stupor. He rushed over to the old woman and examined her cut. ‘You’re bleeding.’

She waved a wrinkled hand at him. ‘Oh, it’s nothing, dearie. I’ll be fine. Babykins!’ she cried suddenly. ‘You’re hurt! My baby’s hurt!’

‘Ma, don’t call me that in front of my friend,’ Derkin said desperately, rising panic in his voice as he tried to climb back to his feet. His mother bustled over to help him up, fussing over him, heedless of her own wound.

Cole bent down to retrieve Magebane. Shank’s expression was accusatory, his eyes wide with shock in the moment of his death. Cole gripped the dagger’s handle, preparing to wrench the blade free. As his fingers closed around the hilt a sudden surge of strength washed through him and he gasped. He felt
alive
– more vital than he had for many weeks.

He stared down at his hands. Even as he watched, the colour began to return to his skin, ghostly pale flesh slowly turning a healthy pink. He felt a pulling sensation and looked down. His stomach wound was somehow knitting back together.

‘Ghost!’ Derkin exclaimed, having finally regained his feet and assured his ma he wasn’t in any immediate danger of keeling over dead. ‘You look ten years younger.’

Cole reached up and touched his head. His hair felt thicker and less brittle. The deep exhaustion that had settled into his bones had all but disappeared. ‘What’s happening to me?’ he said, bewildered.

‘You just fed upon that man’s soul,’ said a measured voice, as hard as iron. Standing in the doorway was a tall man wearing a tattered black overcoat. He had a red cloth tied around his eyes.

‘Now then, how did you get in here?’ Derkin’s ma exclaimed. Staring at the man, though, Cole knew the answer immediately.

‘You’re the crow,’ he whispered. ‘You saved my life in the shambler pit. You spoke to me. In my head. Are you… are you some kind of wizard?’

The stranger cocked his head, a movement that struck Cole as distinctly birdlike. ‘I’ve been watching over you since Dorminia, Davarus Cole. Since I found you propped against a building, your life bleeding out. I was on the ship that brought you to this place. I saved you from the men who were trying to rob you.’

‘It was you that killed them,’ Cole said, putting the pieces together in his head. ‘You killed them and took Magebane.’

‘Yes.
To keep it safe.
The weapon you hold is an anomaly. Forged of an alloy of abyssium, the demonsteel that drinks magic, and yet somehow is itself enchanted with great power. A most potent tool.’

‘Salazar made it for my father, who passed it down to me. I don’t want it. It’s an evil weapon.’

‘There are no evil weapons,’ the wizard replied. ‘Only evil men who wield them. I knew Salazar, many centuries ago. He was one of the few I considered my equal in the age before the fall of the gods. My memories are grains of sand scattered by the winds, but this I remember.’

‘You’re a Magelord?’ Cole exclaimed, shocked.

‘A Magelord?’ The man laughed, a harsh sound absent of humour. ‘I played no part in the Godswar. Immortality is a burden I need not suffer.’

‘The gods perished centuries ago! If you’re not a Magelord… how are you still alive?’

‘For five hundred years my soul survived housed in the undying body of my familiar,’ the wizard explained. ‘Every minute I walk the earth in my true form brings me closer to death. I am not immortal. I merely choose
when
to spend the time remaining to me.’

‘What are you doing here? What… what do you want?’

The wizard in the tattered coat shrugged. ‘What every man wants. The truth. I want to know who I am.’

‘You mean you don’t know?’

‘If I did I would not require your help! Long ago, the White Lady stole my memories. Stripped my mind bare of everything except my name:
Thanates
. I remember little, but this I know.’

‘Why would she do that to you?’

‘I do not recall. But I intend to find out.’

Cole glanced at Derkin and his mother, aware that neither had spoken in a while. There was something odd about them; their eyes were fixed in place, locked on the tall figure with the cloth around his eyes.

‘You put a spell on them,’ Cole said accusingly.

‘Yes,’ agreed the wizard who called himself Thanates. ‘They will not remember I was here. Now, listen to me. There is no time for questions. Retrieve your dagger.’