And Night Descends (The Third Book of the Small Gods Series) (26 page)

Dansil licked his lips. “I’d take us back to the Horseshoe and get a troop of soldiers. Thirty swinging dicks’d have a better chance of finding the whelps than the two of us.”

“Osis will return with men. Erral won’t let the search for his children fade.”

“The king will more likely send them after you. It’s your task to babysit his brats, and you failed.”

Heat rose in Trenan’s cheeks. He took a breath rather than say what first came to mind.

“I wouldn’t feel so safe, were I you, queen’s guard. You were the one holding onto our only lead in finding the king’s children when he escaped your grasp.”

“The idiot knew nothing,” Dansil growled.

“So he led us to believe.”

“His dead mother was the brains of that operation. Ain’t sayin’ much.” His eyes narrowed and the start of a grin tilted one end of his lips. “Kind of similar to our situation.”

Trenan took one more step toward Dansil and the queen’s guard tensed, the faint smirk disappearing.

“I remind you who you are talking to.”

Dansil snorted. “I know who I’m talking to: a one-armed has-been who’d be nothing if he hadn’t sacrificed himself for the king. If you hadn’t lost that arm for him, you’d be lucky to be a foot soldier with nothing to say but thank you if I pissed on your boots.”

“Why don’t you come over here and try it.” Trenan’s hand edged toward his sword’s hilt.

Dansil moved like he wanted to reach for the haft of his axe, but he stopped. He let his arm go slack again and plastered a smile across his face.

“Wouldn’t do me no good to kill you, so stop trying to make me. If you’re dead, no one will care so much about you fucking the queen. It’s better to let the king figure out what to do with you rather’n me.”

“Brave words, Dansil.” Trenan took his gaze away from the queen’s guard, surveyed their surroundings: trees, brush, and not much else. “Brave words from a man alone in the woods with someone with reason to wish him ill.”

Trenan turned back to his companion as Dansil’s eyes flickered away. In that brief instant, the swordmaster glimpsed a sliver of fear flashing across the queen’s guard’s face, but a defiant sneer quickly replaced it.

“You wouldn’t dare. You better hope I don’t get thrown off my horse and bust my neck. Your secret’d come out whether it’s your sword doing me in or anything else. Big man shouldn’t be threatening me.” Dansil approached Trenan until two paces separated them. He leaned toward him and spoke the last words in a whisper: “You should be protecting me.”

The queen’s guard pushed past, bumping his shoulder against Trenan’s as he did. He growled in the back of his throat and watched his companion stride off into the woods, leaving the master swordsman to set up camp alone. The prospect didn’t disappoint him.

With Dansil gone from sight, he retrieved the other man’s horse, picketing it under the same ash tree as his own steed, then set to lighting a fire. His ire dissipated with the queen’s guard’s absence.

***

Anger roiled in Dansil’s belly as he strode through the woods, stepping over fallen branches and pushing through tangles of brush. He’d hoped getting away from Trenan might calm him, but it had the opposite effect. Each step increased his indignation. He’d worked hard his entire life to become a queen’s guard, only to be outranked by a second-rate soldier who attained his position through losing an arm and fucking a woman who didn’t belong to him.

How was that fair?

“It ain’t fair,” Dansil said aloud as he kicked at a clutch of toadstools that had found their way up out of the dirt and through a patch of moss. Their dun heads exploded upon contact with the toe of his boot, spraying chunks through the ferns growing around them. For an instant, he imagined it to be Trenan’s head he’d kicked, his pathetic brains pattering against the ferns’ leaves. He smiled and laughed, kicked the remaining toadstools he’d missed the first time. The noise he created masked the sound of a footstep behind him and he didn’t realize he wasn’t alone until the sharp edge of a knife pressed against his throat.

“Don’t move or say nothin’ or your blood’ll paint the ground red.”

The words were hoarse and choked, foul breath touched his cheek. Dansil froze, eyes wide. At first, he thought Trenan had followed him, but he soon understood the voice didn’t belong to the master swordsman. A brigand, then, lying in wait to rob whoever passed by.

A thief would lurk at the side of the road, not in the middle of the forest.

“What do you want? I have nothing of value.”

“You have something I covet: your life.”

Dansil swallowed hard and the edge of the knife bit into his flesh. Real or imagined, he felt a drop of blood roll along his neck.

“I don’t know you,” the queen’s guard whispered, taking care not to move lest the blade further open his flesh.

“Yes, you do.”

The unseen attacker took the knife from Dansil’s throat and pushed his shoulder, forcing him to spin around. Before he could reach for the axe at his back, the point of the blade found the spot under his chin. This time he had no doubt it broke the skin.

The man holding the knife seemed familiar, but he wore a disguise of dirt and old sweat smeared across his face that kept Dansil from recognizing him. With a scowl, he noticed his attacker was missing an ear, an eye, and one arm within a handspan of his shoulder. He tensed, muscles coiled and ready to grab for his axe at the first opportunity.

“Don’t be makin’ no moves,” the disfigured man said. “You won’t breathe so well with a hole under your chin.”

Dansil raised his hands, showing his palms. “I don’t know what I’ve done to wrong you, but if you tell me, let’s see how I can make it right. I have no money here, but at my home—”

“I don’t want your fucking money.”

“Then what?”

“You killed my mother.”

It was as if his words cleared the dirt and snot off his face, revealing him to Dansil for the first time.

“Stirk?”

A grimace that may have been the man’s version of a smile crept across his lips. “Now you know. And you knows what you did. I’m here to kill the man responsible for lopping off my ma’s head.”

“Bieta,” Dansil whispered, his mind working hard to figure a way out of the situation with his life still his own.

“Bieta,” Stirk agreed. “You took her life, and now I’m gonna take yours.”

“Whoa, hold on. You said you wanted the man responsible for killing her, didn’t you? Sorry, Stirk, but that ain’t me.”

A scowl creased Stirk’s brow and the muscles in his arm tightened as though he might lunge forward with the knife. Dansil held his breath.

“I was standing right beside you,” the disfigured man seethed. “I watched the axe on your back take her head from her shoulders.”

A barely contained sob choked the last few of the man’s words, giving Dansil hope he might take advantage of his emotion.

“You’re right, Stirk. I’m the one who swung the axe, but I didn’t want to.” Dansil dabbed his own words with a touch of remorse—enough for him to notice, but not too much to be disbelieved. “I am but a soldier obeying my superior.”

“You lie.”

“No. You saw him, too. Did you not see him nod, giving me the signal to take your mother’s life? If I’d disobeyed, my blood would have spilled, too.”

“Why would I care if you lost your life? That’s why I’m here.”

“Because if I had, you’d be dead, too.”

Stirk raised an eyebrow and Dansil saw he was getting close to saving himself, or buying himself time, at least.

“I let you go.”

The expression on Stirk’s dirty face shifted to disbelief. For a moment, Dansil expected the disfigured man might burst out laughing.

“The one-armed fella got distracted and I ran away. How is that you letting me go?”

“You think I couldn’t have caught you? Thrown a dagger into your back? Killing a man in battle is one thing, but I have no desire to kill unarmed, innocent citizens.”

“Innocent?”

Dansil nodded. “We had no proof you brought harm to the prince.”

“We didn’t.” Stirk shook his head hard enough the knife at Dansil’s throat moved, too, the tip grating against his flesh. The queen’s guard winced and his attacker realized why and edged the dagger away. Dansil breathed a relieved sigh and finally swallowed.

“I know you didn’t. That’s why I didn’t want to kill your ma. Trenan made me.”

“The one-armed man.”

“Yes. He’s the king’s confidant and of high rank in the king’s army. I have no choice but to obey his commands, and he commanded me to take Bieta’s head.”

Stirk’s eyes flickered side to side in his dirt-masked face and Dansil saw the thought process they expressed. He concentrated on keeping a satisfied grin from his lips.

“You swung the axe, but he ordered you to do it.”

Dansil was unsure if it was a question or a statement, but he nodded anyway.

“Then the one-armed man is who I should kill.” Stirk glanced over his shoulder, then back at Dansil. He took a step backward. “He’s over there? Where you came from?”

“He is.”

“Then I’ll kill him now.” Another step away gave Dansil enough distance between them for him to pluck the axe from his back and cut the man in two before he could react. He didn’t.

“Now is not the time.”

“Now is the best time.”

Dansil shook his head. “Trenan is the most dangerous swordsman in the kingdom. If he has any inkling his life is threatened, you will lose yours.”

Stirk stared hard at Dansil. “Why would he think he’s in danger?”

“He’s camped by the side of a road. Any good soldier treats that like a dangerous situation.”

“Then I will wait until morning.”

Dansil stepped toward Stirk, aware doing so put himself back in harm’s way. The disfigured man tensed.

“Let me help you.”

“Why do you want to help me?”

“I have my reasons.” He took another step, putting his throat a flick of the wrist away from the tip of the knife. “I’ve wanted to see Trenan dead for a long time, but there has been naught I could do. You can, with my help.”

Stirk’s gaze bore into Dansil. His brow twitched, his lips pressed together until the color drained from them. In that instant, the queen’s guard saw what his mother had meant to him: she’d led him, made the decisions. All he needed was someone to fill that space.

“You can trust me,” Dansil said, inching forward until the knife touched his throat. “I let you live and I want him dead.”

A tense moment passed, the near-silent forest pressing in around them like a crowd awaiting the disfigured man’s reply. When it stretched on too long, Dansil worried he might have played his hand wrong, but then Stirk lowered the knife.

“All right. I’ll use your help, but if you want to live once the one-armed man is dead, you still need to convince me you’re his puppet.”

Dansil bit down on his back teeth and swallowed hard at Stirk’s choice of words, but he kept himself from reacting. Instead, he nodded his agreement.

Stirk spun around and stalked toward where Dansil had left Trenan, making too much noise as he did.

How did he ever sneak up on me?

The queen’s guard hurried after him, grabbing his shoulder to stop him. Stirk whirled, dagger raised, and Dansil faltered back a step.

“Now is not the time,” he said. “If you want to kill the kingdom’s best swordsman, it will have to be when he least expects it.”

“When?”

“When we reach a town. A night at an inn will relax his defenses.”

Stirk nodded. “So be it. We’ll meet each night at this time. Make sure you’re away from him so we can find each other.”

“But how—?”

The second half of the question remained in Dansil’s mouth, unspoken when the disfigured man disappeared into thin air.

XXVI Kuneprius—Decision

Twenty seven. Twenty eight. Twenty nine…twenty nine…twenty nine.

Kuneprius cursed under his breath; this had never happened to him. Since the night he rescued Vesisdenperos from the women of the Goddess, he’d counted—the time he held air captive in his lungs, his steps, his heartbeats, and anything else he could think to count. He did it to calm himself, keep himself grounded, and he suspected he’d reached numbers far higher than most folk imagined existed. He’d never missed one, so why couldn’t he remember what came after twenty nine?

He shook his head, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, removed them quickly. Touching his face reminded him how sins had piled up and piled up, dirtying his cheeks for more days than his foggy mind remembered. How long since he’d tried to wash them away?

Not since the inn. And I didn’t wash then, only got wet.

He shuddered at the thought and his step faltered as dead faces sprang to mind. The slaughter at the inn had negated any benefit he received from the water in the bowl and instilled the need to scrub more. A shiver ran up his back; he’d seen enough blood spilled because of him.

Kuneprius drew his tongue across his dry lips and immediately regretted having done so. To him, the coppery flavor of blood resided on his face. The blood of the girl, of the first barkeep, of the two children, and of those who lost their lives because of his carelessness at the inn.

And soon they will taste of the blood of a Small God.

His stomach tied itself in a knot and he thought that, if it had contained food, he’d likely have retched. But too much time had passed since the meal at the inn to worry about such things.

He raised his eyes and stared at the back of the golem walking ahead of him, Thorn thrown over his shoulder like a sack of vegetables being hauled off to market. In the days since the slaughter, he’d often wished his glare was daggers to rid the world of the abomination his friend helped create.

He was merely the sculptor, taken advantage of for his talent with clay. He formed this thing but did nothing to make it a monster.

No doubt remained in Kuneprius’ mind that the boy he’d raised to a man was gone, his life sacrificed in the name of an ancient prophecy intended to bring an end to everything. One more death to wash from his flesh, for it was he who brought Vesisdenperos to Kristeus. Had he not, the golem wouldn’t exist, all those people would yet live, and the world wouldn’t hang on the precipice with the life of an innocent creature from the Green.