01 - Honour of the Grave (35 page)

Angelika and Franziskus tried to get Lukas to his feet.

“Please!” Weiss pleaded.

Gelfrat dropped to one knee. He lowered Weiss onto it, pressing him down. He
broke Weiss’ back; vertebrae crunched and popped. Gelfrat lifted Weiss once
more over his head. He threw the gunman off the parapet. He stepped up to watch
him fall, waited for the thud of impact, and watched appreciatively as a red
pool spread around Weiss’ shattered body.

Lukas was upright, tottering at first, and then leaning on both Angelika and
Franziskus.

Gelfrat wheeled.

They tried to turn Lukas around, but he tangled his legs in theirs. They
grabbed him before he could pitch face-first onto the floor, but then Gelfrat
was upon them. He tore Angelika off the boy, pulling her off her feet with one
powerful arm. She landed on her side and rolled, ending up about ten feet from
the fray.

Gelfrat punched at Franziskus’ face. Franziskus ducked the blow, but caught
the next, a jab to his kidneys, delivered by Gelfrat’s free hand. He felt
himself doubling over but exercised all the control he could muster to stay
upright. He saw Arzt’s prone form behind Gelfrat and pushed on him, hoping to
trip him. Franziskus slid down the big man’s gore-slicked breastplate.

Gelfrat smacked him in the ear, punched him in the stomach, kicked him in the
head, and stomped on his back.

Lukas turned to run. He got halfway to the stairs. Gelfrat slung a choking
arm under his chin, dragging him backwards.

“Lukas, I want you to think about something as I murder you,” he said.

Angelika crept to Arzt’s body. She pulled the blade from his thigh. He was
breathing, shallowly.

“You aren’t a hundredth of the man Benno was,” wheezed Gelfrat, “yet he gave
his life for you.”

Angelika jumped on Gelfrat’s back. She jammed the dagger between his shoulder
blades. He swatted her off before she could drive it the rest of the way in. She
landed on her tail-bone. The blade waggled back and forth; it was stuck in about
an inch. If it had gone in any less, it would have fallen out of its own accord;
any more, and it might have done the kind of harm needed to bring him down.

Angelika rose. Her legs refused to cooperate. She sat.

“You, who aren’t even good enough for the maggots you’re about to feed,”
Gelfrat continued. He reached around to his back, located the dagger in it,
plucked it out, and tossed it down the stairs. He leaned down, heaved Lukas over
his shoulder, and strolled over to the edge of the parapet’s southward edge. It
faced out onto the city and south, toward the Blackfire Pass. He’d thrown Weiss
into the town, but had evidently decided that Lukas did not deserve even the
shelter of Grenzstadt’s walls. “Can you speak, boy?” he asked, standing at the
edge.

Lukas made a vaguely affirmative noise.

“So tell me what you think of all this.”

“I don’t want to die.”

Gelfrat dropped him on his head. “Is that your problem, you knock-kneed fop?
That you think you’re somehow
alone
in that?” He seized Lukas by the heels and lifted him up. “Eh? Or do you
think you’re too high-born to answer questions from the lowly likes of me?” He
dangled Lukas, upside down, over the battlement, at least a hundred feet between
him and the ground.

“I’m sorry!” Lukas cried.

“I won’t disagree with you there. Sorry you are, for certain.” He let go of
one leg, then grabbed it again.

“Just get it over with,” Lukas said.

“Oh, that must be that blue blood of yours, making you think you can still
command me.” With Lukas’ ankles caught securely in his fists, he snapped the
boy’s body as he would a crab leg. Lukas’ face hit the side of the tower.
Gelfrat dangled him up and down. Lukas sobbed.

Angelika got up, reminding herself that what she felt now was nothing
compared to the pain she’d suffered back in the pit. Franziskus saw her, and
struggled up, too. They advanced slowly on Gelfrat. Angelika went to pick up an
abandoned long sword.

Gelfrat saw them from the corner of his eye. “You’re not stupid. You know he
dies if you jump me now. It’s too late for him already. I suggest you run, like
the curs you are.”

“Lukas had no part in this rescue attempt,” Angelika said, hands up, slowly
advancing on him. “He didn’t ask us to come. He’s done nothing to warrant this.”

“He violated the oath of our company,” said Gelfrat, banging him once again
into the tower wall. “While he breathes, my honour is stained with filth. As is
my father’s honour, and that of all my comrades.” He shook his captive like he
was a sifter full of floor. “Isn’t that right, Lukas?”

“Yes,” Lukas said.

“Gelfrat,” said Angelika. “You may have hated your brother, but he was right
in one thing: it will cost Jurgen more than he knows if Lukas is killed, either
by his own hand, or by any who serve him. The entire bloodline will pay the
price, if you don’t pull him up and leave him be. Or do you want to inherit
nothing?”

“You talk of politics,” Gelfrat said. He blew droplets of blood from his lip.
“My father and I, we speak the language of honour.”

“Honour is for some other world, my brother. Not this one.” Benno stood at
the top of the steps. He trudged up onto the tower deck. He glistened with
blood. It coated his face and matted his hair. He dragged his sabre in his hand;
it made a rhythmic bumping noise as it moved from one stone tile to the next.
The fingers of Benno’s right hand had all been broken, and jutted out at various
wrong angles. He limped. His left eye was swollen shut; his right was a mere
slit. Blood dripped from both of his arms, and flowed down the length of his
blade. He left a trail of it as he stumbled forwards. Angelika could not tell
where the blood was coming from. It would have to be from several places.

Gelfrat tightened his grip on Lukas’ left ankle, then his right. He turned
his head sideways, to see Benno. “I killed you already,” he said, annoyed.
“You’ve Chaos blood in you, haven’t you?”

Benno smiled; a mixture of blood and saliva beaded on the yellow enamel of
his teeth. “Idiot.” A laugh, or maybe just a cough, escaped his lips. “Those
callused hands of yours never could find a pulse, Gelfrat.”

“I’ll drop him over and then complete my task with you,” Gelfrat threatened.

Angelika signalled to Franziskus. While Gelfrat concerned himself with Benno,
she stole along the battlement, to the big man’s right. Franziskus, scratching
idly at his cheekbone, edged over on its other side, to the left of him.

“You keep saying you’ll drop him, yet you haven’t. You know what that says to
me, half-brother?”

“What?”

“That a part of even your dim brain knows not to do this. Is it pride that
prevents you from backing down?”

Angelika tried to catch Benno’s eye, to shake her head in warning. He was
taking the wrong tack by antagonising the big man. Yet he’d captured Gelfrat’s
attention, in a way she had not. She decided to keep her mind on a single
objective: getting closer to Gelfrat, before he noticed her.

“I’ll let you explain that remark,” Gelfrat said, “because your arrogance
always gives me a right fat laugh.”

“It took me some time to get up those stairs,” Benno said. He’d dragged
himself within fifteen feet of his brother. He halted. “I’ve had time to hear you talk. A moment ago, you were happily
killing me. Now you’re blaming this poor thing for forcing you into it. Care to
reflect on the contradiction?”

Gelfrat gave Lukas another smack into the wall. Lukas cried out—something
about taking mercy on him.

“Could it be that you hate and envy whoever you happen to be looking at, at
any given moment?”

“Go choke yourself.”

“How much time have you devoted to wondering which of us is the better man?
Always justifying yourself. Never being satisfied with the answers you dream up.
You despise me, Gelfrat, but I feel pity for you.”

Gelfrat opened his left hand. But with his right, he drew scrawny Lukas
higher, so that his face, upside-down, made ruddy by blood rushing to his head,
could be seen between two merlons. “I’ll drop him. You know I’ll drop him.”

Benno raised his sabre, his head lolling to one side. “Yes, you’re right; you
must.”

Gelfrat saw how close Angelika and Franziskus were to him. He whipped his
head from side to side, showing them he knew. They edged back. “This is trickery.
I’ll drop him, and then where will your beloved politics be?”

“Here’s a new story. Tell me if you like it,” Benno said. Now that he was
nearer, Angelika could see at least one source of blood: a wide fold of exposed
muscle below his neck, from which red fluid slowly pulsed. He continued,
heedless of the life leaking out of him: “Tonight, sadly, the lost son who was so
recently reunited with his illustrious father was cruelly slain. Thrown off a
tower, by his jealous half-brother, Gelfrat. Gelfrat was then himself slain by
another of the Kopf sons, Benno, who suffered grievously in the battle. But
survived. When he recovers from his wounds, brave Benno will surely be
legitimised. Elevated to the place of True Son, to take Claus’ position as
field commander. So throw the boy off, you fat, swaggering chunk of gutter spew,
and let’s have at it.”

Gelfrat gave Lukas one dangle, brushing him against the parapet, then opened
his hands. Angelika leapt for the falling boy as Gelfrat turned to draw his
weapon. She grabbed Lukas by the belt, her left hand finding purchase mere
moments after the right. The force of the sudden weight drove her into the battlement, the edge caught her in the stomach, and knocked the air from
her lungs. Her legs flew up. Before she could flip over the battlement to fall
alongside Lukas, Franziskus seized her belt. His feet were braced against the
battlement. In concert, Angelika and Franziskus groaned. Lukas dangled down into
empty air. His dead bulk tore at Angelika’s fingers. She gritted her teeth and
shifted. She felt Franziskus tighten his hold on her, hugging her, pulling
downwards, lending her the solidity of his weight. The strain moved from her
hands to her shoulders. The bones of her arms fought to remain in their sockets.

Thick red tears squeezed themselves from Benno’s damaged eye.

Gelfrat rumbled out a laugh. “You’re not exactly fit to take me on,” he said.

“Fit enough,” Benno choked. “You’re poisoned.”

“What?”

“The blades I gave them.” He meant Angelika and Franziskus. “Poisoned, all.
And I saw both of them hit you.”

“No!”

Angelika willed strength into her arms. Her bones were made of iron, she told
herself. She pulled. She got Lukas pulled up a foot. Her muscles juddered with
the effort. She couldn’t maintain it. She let him lower slightly, so she
wouldn’t entirely lose her grip on him. She asked herself if it was possible to
switch positions with Franziskus, letting him do the lifting. But no, a switch
could never work. She had no choice but to keep on, and succeed.

“Yes,” Benno said to Gelfrat. “Even now, black bile consumes your blood.”

Angelika called softly down to Lukas, instructing him to place his hands on
the tower wall. Push against them. Do anything he could to support his own
weight.

“The poison courses through your veins and arteries. It burns like acid. It’s
hot like fire.”

She tried again to pull Lukas up; this time, she had his assistance. He
walked his hands up the wall. She got him up a decent foot.

“Already it slows your reflexes, distorts your vision. Soon it will travel to
your heart, pool there, and cook it like a steak. Until then, all I need do is
avoid your weakened, ill-aimed blows.”

Gelfrat wailed and dived at Benno with a swinging sword.

Benno easily sidestepped the reckless charge, bringing his sabre down on
Gelfrat’s neck as he surged his way by. An artery opened. Blood spouted out,
pulsing, jetting. Gelfrat pivoted back to face Benno. He clapped his left hand
to his neck. The hand diverted the flow into three tighter streams of shooting
gore.

“You bastard,” he said.

“The same, and proud,” said Benno, both eyes closed, a leg giving way beneath
him. On bended knee, he looked like a supplicant. “And you?”

Angelika got Lukas far enough up, and well enough braced, so that it was safe
for Franziskus to let go of her. He stood up and grabbed onto the boy. They both
pulled him up and over the battlements. He landed on top of them; they crawled
out, disentangling themselves. He sank into a sitting position, panting.

Gelfrat wobbled over to a lantern pole and steadied himself against it. Benno
fell over.

“You poisoned me, you two!” Gelfrat shouted, at Angelika and Franziskus.

“He lied. There was no poison,” Angelika told him.

“No?” He slid down the pole.

“No.” She could say it with authority. If you wanted to go sorting through
piles of dead soldiers, you had to be able to sniff out the various types of
blade venom. If the blades had really been coated in poison, she would have
known the instant he handed them over. In truth, no poison that did any good on
a blade was half as swift or lethal as Benno had said. He’d given a good speech,
though. She’d have believed it, if she hadn’t known better.

“He tricked me,” Gelfrat said. “Into…” He convulsed and went slack.

Benno wasn’t moving, either. When she’d recovered her strength sufficiently,
Angelika got up and examined him. He was gone, too.

Bells rang. Angelika looked to the opposite tower. There were men stationed
there, too. They were the ones sounding the alarm.

“How long have they been ringing?” Angelika asked, referring to the alarm
bells.

“I don’t know,” Franziskus said.

“A long time,” Lukas said.

Angelika muttered a choice epithet. “Then get up and run, curse your hide!”

Lukas placed his palms on the floor and tried to push himself up. He
collapsed, sobbing, dryly. Franziskus put an arm on his elbow and pulled him.
Angelika wanted to kick the pathetic creature, but knew that wouldn’t accomplish
the desired end. Her desire to help the boy was always stronger when she did not
have to suffer his direct presence.