Saint's Blood: The Greatcoats Book 3 (36 page)

Quentis lifted his pistol in the air, then said, ‘I can’t get a clean shot.’

I glanced at the weapon. ‘Can that thing go through chainmail?’

‘On a good day, up close. Not from this distance.’

More screams. More blood. And still we couldn’t get through.

‘Then shoot him in the head, damn it!’

‘I can’t – the weapon’s not accurate at this distance, and especially not in this fog. I’ll just end up hitting one of the pilgrims.’

‘Come one, come all!’ shouted the madman in the centre of the courtyard. ‘Don’t be shy, little piggies!’ He swung his sword in a blistering horizontal arc, taking a man’s head clean off. ‘You’ve so little blood amongst you, and I am a thirsty man!’

Everything he did was helping to worsen the panic in the crowd. They were out of their minds with fear now, running wildly, getting in each other’s way and, worse, ours. I kept having to drop the points of my rapiers just to avoid skewering people running into me.

‘Here,’ Quentis said, ‘let’s try this.’ He raised his pistol in the air and squeezed the trigger, and the air shattered around us as the mist turned the crack of the weapon into something closer to the explosion from a cannon.

Men and women scattered and the path before us finally cleared enough to force a way through.

‘Not bad,’ I conceded.

‘That gives me one shot for our friend.’

‘Can’t you reload?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I just need two minutes or so uninterrupted with no one jostling me. How likely do you think I am to get that?’

Brasti will be pleased to hear pistols have a weakness.
I glanced ahead and could now see the God’s Needle more clearly. He was, I reminded myself, just a normal man.
Just very,
very
big, and wearing the thickest chainmail I’ve ever seen, and in all likelihood he’s much stronger than me and completely unable to feel pain or exhaustion.

‘Don’t miss,’ I said, and started off at a run for our enemy.

The Needle kicked the body of a dying woman off the end of his blade and I could see he was slowing now – but not from any tiredness, just because there were now so many corpses in his way. How many had he killed already, fifteen? Twenty? His grin widened when he saw us. ‘Trattari and Cogneri,’ he said. ‘What an odd pair of birds have fluttered inside my little cage.’ He took a step towards us.

‘Now would be an excellent time to shoot,’ I said.

Quentis moved in front of me, raised his pistol and tried to fire the second barrel, but nothing happened. He quickly twisted a cog on the side of the weapon and squeezed the trigger again. Silence. ‘It won’t spark,’ he said.

‘Nightmist,’ the God’s Needle explained pleasantly, standing there as if he were politely giving us our chance. ‘Makes things rather wet.’

I found myself suddenly acutely aware of the dampness glistening all around us, of the strands of hair sticking to my forehead. ‘Any chance you can dry that thing out?’ I asked Quentis.

The Inquisitor holstered the weapon. ‘You really don’t know anything about firearms, do you?’ He hefted his mace and began walking in a slow, careful arc as he attempted to flank our enemy. His mace wouldn’t have the reach of our opponent’s two-handed sword, which meant I was going to have to provide a distraction if Quentis were to make good use of it.

‘Have you tasted fear, little bird?’ the God’s Needle asked, swinging his warsword over his head with incredible speed before bringing it crashing down against the back of a disoriented man trying to flee, just like a forester felling a tree. ‘Do you taste it now?’

‘You know, I would,’ I said casually as I raised my blades into a forward guard to give me the greatest reach, ‘but there are so many of you God’s . . . is it “God’s Pins”? I forget. Anyway, I’m actually having trouble keeping track of the ones I’ve killed, so I thought perhaps I should name you after flowers. How would you like to be called “Dandelion”?’

The man’s grin was intact, but his eyes narrowed. He reached down to the ground and lifted a dying man up by his throat. ‘I have drunk the blood of Saint Ebron-who-steals-breath,’ he said, and squeezed, almost effortlessly snapping the man’s neck. ‘Three nights ago I drank the blood of Saint Forza-who-strikes-a-blow,’ he went on, flipping his sword in his hands to hold it by the end of the blade and swinging it like a hammer behind him where the crossbar crushed the skull of another pilgrim. ‘And last night’ – he kissed the fingertips of his left hand like a patron praising his meal – ‘I tasted the blood of Saint Marta-who-shakes-the-lion.’

I suppose it’s doubtful that my last prayer was heard, then.

Without warning, the God’s Needle flipped his weapon in the air again, grabbing it by the hilt and then swinging the blade out behind him. Quentis Maren’s head would have come separated from his shoulders had he not ducked down low. Dandelion had apparently expected that, though, and he kicked the Inquisitor in the chest, knocking him flat on his back. The nightmist made echoes of Quentis’ hoarse gasps for breath as he scrambled backwards, trying desperately to stay out of range. Dandelion, looking only mildly interested, stamped towards him and raised his heel, preparing to crush Quentis underneath.

A thought came to me unbidden.
Two seconds
:
just hesitate for one moment longer and the leader of the Inquisitors will die, leaving us one less problem to deal with. One less person who could threaten the people I care about.

I took two steps into a run and jumped as high as I could.
I’m absolutely going to regret this later
, I thought as I kicked out with both feet against Dandelion’s ribs and he went toppling sideways. He fell onto one of the dead bodies on the ground – a softer landing than the one I got, for my shoulders hit the courtyard stones, sending a shockwave lancing down my arm.

Quentis managed to get his feet under him and swung his mace at the madman’s head, but Dandelion got his arm up in time and blocked the blow. The thick chainmail of his sleeve denied us even a broken bone that might have slowed him down.

If Sedge and Beltran had been wearing mail like that
, I realised, more than a little horrified,
I’d be dead right now.

Dandelion reached out a hand and grabbed Quentis by the ankle, yanking him off-balance and sending him crashing to the ground again.

This isn’t working. He’s going to outlast us.

I got myself off the ground and thrust my right rapier as hard as I could into what looked like a weaker point in Dandelion’s chainmail, and by some miracle I managed to break through one of the links and the blade went into his side. He turned and looked down as if he’d just been bitten by an insect. Without even a trace of fear, he raised his hand in the air and closed it into a fist.
Hells
, I realised,
he’s going to smash my blade with his bare hand.

I withdrew the blade and immediately thrust for his eye – a tricky target on the best of days – and I was right; the Needle was too quick, weaving to the side and sweeping his heavy sword up diagonally. I lunged off my right leg, dropping my arm to my side and felt the gust of wind as Dandelion’s sword passed by. I used the opening to stab him in the thigh, but once again, it made not the slightest difference.

Quentis swung his mace with both hands and smashed it into Dandelion’s back. The chain links clattered under the blow, several tiny pieces of twisted metal falling to the ground – but Dandelion paid it no heed, instead just backhanding Quentis across the face with stunning force. The Inquisitor’s mace fell to the ground as he struggled to stay standing.

We can’t keep fighting this lunatic as if he were a normal man. He doesn’t care about being hurt.

I brought my left rapier down in a diagonal slash and drew a line of blood across Dandelion’s face, and the distraction was enough to make him focus his attention on me. ‘Quentis,’ I said, ‘we can’t win like this. Give me the bastard’s neck.’

Without waiting for a reply, I stepped in close enough for the Needle to reach me with his warsword, and exactly as I’d anticipated, he raised the weapon high in the air.
If that blade comes down, there are going to be two Falcios for the Gods to curse.
Quentis, bless his black Inquisitor’s heart, leapt up behind the big man and reached around his chest, grabbing the collar of the chainmail shirt and yanking it down. It moved just enough to reveal an inch of our enemy’s throat, and even though Dandelion drove an elbow back into Quentis’ ribs, the Inquisitor hung on for dear life. In that gap of time and space he gave me, I lunged and drove both my rapiers into the centre of our enemy’s throat. The tips pierced flesh and then ground past bone to come out the other side.

The Needle looked confused for a moment, and then he opened his mouth, as if he had something funny to say, although nothing but blood came out. Even then, even with all the damage done to him, the madman strengthened his grip on his sword still held aloft and prepared to bring it down on me. I stepped in and using all my remaining strength, I pried my rapiers open like a pair of scissors, and tore Dandelion’s throat apart.

His head hung there for a brief instant, suspended only by bits of bone and strands of flesh, while blood pumped out of the severed veins and dyed his chainmail scarlet, then it dipped low, as if he were bowing to me, conceding a match well fought amongst friends. I stepped back just as the God’s Needle toppled to the ground and lay there amongst the remains of his victims.

*

There was silence for a little while. The remaining mist swirled around us as Quentis and I stared at each other, our dead enemy’s body laying like a bridge between us. ‘So that’s what they’re like,’ Quentis said, his words punctuated by coughs, his otherwise refined features marred by blackening bruises. His own blood streaked his short blond hair.

The world felt strange to me, quiet and still in a way it hadn’t been in a long time. The things I usually do without thinking at the end of a fight became conscious steps to follow: I took in a slow, deep breath, waiting for any signs of internal injuries to make themselves known to me – pain in the ribs or wetness in the back of the throat. When none came, I placed both my rapiers in my right hand and reached into my coat for a small cleaning cloth. There was no pain in my shoulders or arms. I carefully wiped the blades as Quentis watched, a little stupefied himself, I think. The rest of the pilgrims approached us, slowly, tentatively. I think they too were wondering what in hells I was doing.

I turned my head as I worked, surveying the scene, but also testing to see if my vision was blurry – that would have been a sure sign of either head trauma or loss of blood. My eyes caught sight of a bag, perhaps a foot wide, sitting not far from where the God’s Needle had stood.
The nightmist
, I thought idly.

I replaced the rapiers in their scabbards. A lot of people were staring at me now, waiting for me to speak or fall down or do something useful. Maybe they just thought I was crazy.

‘Falcio?’ Quentis asked. ‘Are you all right?’

I wasn’t crazy, though. My head was clear for a change. I wasn’t hallucinating or injured; the surge that came from life-or-death combat had begun to fade, but not so much that exhaustion was overtaking me yet. I was perfectly balanced in that moment, and I wanted to take advantage of it.

A man shows up in the middle of a closed courtyard full of pilgrims. He’s wearing chainmail and carrying a huge two-handed sword, but he isn’t noticed.
He might have come in with one of the carts that stood a little way along the road in front of the entrance to the courtyard, but that would have been too long a walk to hide a weapon that size.

I looked around a little more, not quite sure what I was searching for until the very moment I found it. There, a few yards away, was a heavy brown cloak sitting on a pile of wooden boards.
So, a labourer then, walking in with his materials.
He’d covered up his armour under the cloak and brought the sword hidden under the armload of planks.

Once inside the courtyard, he would have dropped the boards, then removed his pack containing the nightmist and set it off. Then he’d dropped the cloak and drawn his sword from where it lay hidden among the wooden planks and begun his work.

‘It was perfect,’ I said aloud.

The plan had factored in the closed gates of the courtyard, the mental and physical state of the pilgrims, the way the guards would react – protecting the palace and their Lord rather than acting to defend those outside.
Pure chaos
, I thought, manufactured,
measured and doled out precisely as someone had intended.
I could see all of it now, all except that one piece that kept eluding me:
who had planned it
.

‘Falcio,’ Quentis said. He was pulling gently on my arm. ‘We should go inside now.’

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘I’m waiting.’

‘Waiting for what?’

The thing about chaos and terror is, you don’t create them just for the fun of it – not when you’ve got the kind of intellect capable of devising and executing a plan like this so well, so seamlessly. You do it for a reason. You do it to send a message.

‘You can come out now,’ I called out into the courtyard. The pilgrims looked up at me, a sea of confused and frightened faces.

I kept waiting for one of them to break – to suddenly crack a lunatic’s grin and tell me what all this had been about. They didn’t, but instead, I heard the sound of a horse-cart creaking its way up the road towards the courtyard gates.

The mist was still thick in places, but I followed the sound until I stood at the outer gate and saw a young boy of perhaps eight years hauling on the reins, bringing the pony that pulled his cart to a stop. It was a simple, open-backed wooden box with wheels. Inside was a thin black length of fabric shrouding what I could already see was a body. The boy hopped down from the seat and walked to the back of the cart.

‘Step away from there, son,’ I said.

He looked over at me through the iron gates, not a trace of fear on his face, innocent as the morning dew.

Please don’t tell me the world’s been set afire by an eight-year-old.