The Archon's Assassin (26 page)

He rolled to his front and pumped out some press-ups, hoping Ludo would take the hint and leave him alone.

He didn’t.

“Used to be athletic myself, you know,” Ludo said. “Trained with the troops when I could. Don’t have the energy these days.”

Galen handed Ludo a hunk of bread, chewing noisily on a piece himself.

Ludo took it between his thumb and forefinger, as if holding a soiled rag.

Nameless began to launch out of each press-up, clapping in between.

Ludo shifted onto his side, resting on his elbow. He discreetly dropped the bread to the floor.

“Good days.” Ludo sighed. “Not entirely happy, but good. Full of purpose.”

Ekyls fell away from the wall. His forehead was a pulpy mess. Bloody tracks ran down his face and were starting to ooze onto his chest. He looked better for it, though, and something like a malicious leer carved a gouge across his face. It froze in place as his legs turned to jelly, and he collapsed in a heap.

Nameless put one arm behind his back and continued to press out reps, muscles straining, sweat pouring off him. The effort was the next best thing to pain. If such a thing existed, it was healthy pain, the sort that drove his inner darkness back into the corners. He even felt compelled to throw out a few words to Ludo.

“No point dwelling on what’s past, as my brother Lucius would say. Now’s the only thing that’s real.”

“Your brother was quite right,” Ludo said. “Although I wonder what the present would be, had one acted differently in the past.”

“Regrets?” Nameless grunted as he shifted hands, the repetitions growing slow and hard. Ekyls was breathing, wasn’t he? It was hard to tell in the dim light.

“Oh no, not really.” Ludo was whimsical. “But it would be dishonest to say I didn’t miss the old days. It all gets so much duller with each promotion. The life of an adeptus is a far cry from that of a simple priest.”

Nameless paused. “It was that way with me. With the power—” The words dissolved into nothingness before he could finish what he was going to say. Something about how the black axe had made him feel: indomitable, but afraid. Afraid of the merest threat, the oldest of friends. Not only had it been terrifying, to the point that he’d doused it with rage, but it had also been… dull. Dull and so, so lonely.

“Promotion, power,” Ludo said. “It’s all the same, if you want it. Not saying that I did. These things just come to you in the Templum. You put your head down and get on with it. Always felt a bit of a fraud as an adeptus, like I should know things I didn’t, feel more, be bolder.”

Nameless stood and dropped into a squat, pushing through his heels until he came upright again.

Galen picked up Ludo’s discarded bread, dusted it off, and bit into it. He spoke as he chewed.

“Pretty bold thing you did that got us exiled. Bold but ruddy scandalous, and wasted effort, if you ask me.”

Ludo tutted and sighed, as if he’d answered the accusation a thousand times. “We are evangelists, Galen, not exiles.”

“Sent from Earth to proselytize?” Nameless asked. He doubted they’d have much success. Aethir was a hard world and a cruel one. Galen might adapt, but Ludo… He’d quickly end up the corpse he already looked. Nameless pulled on the gambeson and hefted the hauberk. Shogging thing felt like it weighed a ton after all those press-ups.

Ludo stood to help him. “Yes and no,” he said. “A bit of both, really. Galen is perhaps a bit negative in his assessment, but he’s also mostly right.”

“So, laddie, your mission here is a punishment?”

Ludo coughed into his hand. “Well, in a manner of speaking. But there are always two sides—”

“His Eminence thought he’d carry sway with the Judiciary; get one of the old boys released.”

“Which, indeed, I did. I only wish there was more I could have done, but it’s a fine line between obedience and conscience.”

Galen threw his weapon aside in disgust. “Useless piece of rubbish. Blunderbuss, they call it. Reckon they should have stopped at blunder.” He turned his bullish head toward Nameless. “Too much free-will in the Templum, I say. Has been since Ipsissimus Theodore. But it won’t last long. Silvanus is reeling them in, ruddy liberals.”

“Shader is certainly no liberal.” Ludo glanced at Nameless, looking for support, or perhaps gauging his reaction.

“Craven, then.” Galen said.

It took a moment for the name to register, and when it did, Nameless felt the loss of that brief friendship like a chasm opening up within him.

Shader had chosen to return to Earth after stopping the Unweaving. He’d made choices no man should have to make, taken the hard path when Nameless had pushed for the only one he knew: the way of violence, and if that failed, heap on a whole load more. But Shader had been right: it was his surrender, his refusal to keep answering power with power that had broken the deadlock with Sektis Gandaw, and freed the Archon’s sword to do what came naturally to it.

“Because a man refuses to fight, it does not follow that he is a coward,” Ludo said. “Galen here is still smarting from Shader beating him at the tournament for the Archon’s sword. Forgive and forget, eh, Galen?”

“Of all the infernal impudence!” Galen fumed, muscles bunching up around his ears. “He is a cheat and a cad, and you, sir, are a ruddy schismatic!”

“Be mindful of who you are talking to,” Ludo snapped. He took a single step toward Galen. His bearing changed in that instant: back straight, shoulders squared, and there was a tilt to his chin. It was the poise of a man born to authority, like those on the Council of Twelve who claimed descent from the founding fathers of Arx Gravis. “Always carping on about obedience. How about showing some, and a modicum of respect to boot?”

Galen dipped his head and spun on his heel. After a tense moment, his shoulders slumped, and he nodded to himself a few times.

“I’m sorry,” Ludo said to no one in particular. “Difficult times. We’re all under a lot of strain. Galen, do be a good chap and see to Ekyls, would you? I think he may have done himself an injury.”

Ekyls twitched, and a ragged snore ripped from his throat.

Nameless shifted inside the hauberk until the links stopped pinching the chest hair poking above the gambeson.

“This Shader of yours. He was once on Aethir?” He already knew the answer; knew it was the same man he’d fought with, come to respect.

“Yes,” Ludo said. “He mentioned you.”

Nameless almost asked what Shader had said about him, but he didn’t want to put Ludo in that position. He wasn’t proud of how he’d acted in those last moments of the struggle with Gandaw. If he’d had his way, it would have all been lost. Shader had praised his efforts, but Nameless knew when someone was just being kind. He knew what he was, what he’d done, and what he’d failed to do.

Instead, he asked, “He is well?”

“Very much changed from the man you would have known,” Ludo said. “Not everyone approves, least of all the Ipsissimus. The Templum Judiciary had him tortured, and would have continued until he broke or died, I imagine. I intervened. Our hierarchy doesn’t exactly encourage leapfrogging one’s superiors, so I was unopposed at the time. But, as is the way of things, word reached the Ipsissimus eventually.”

“And this exile is the price of your intervention?”

Ludo chuckled. “Galen likes to think so. Maybe he’s right, but it doesn’t help to dwell on it. I go where I am told, and he has orders to protect me. Of course, he gets above himself from time to time and seems to think his duties extend to mothering me.”

Galen drew back from tentatively tapping Ekyls on the shoulder. To his credit, he’d obeyed his superior and gone to check the savage out, but he wasn’t exactly committed to the task.

Nameless’s stomach knotted and grumbled, as if it had overruled the spark of interest Shader’s name had drawn from the ashes of his inner being. He wished, not for the first time, he had something solid to eat. It wasn’t so much a necessity—Aristodeus’s infusion would fuel him for weeks yet; it was more a need for fullness, for satiety, for the comfort of good food and strong beer; good company, too. These dullards weren’t much for singing. Galen was so puffed up with self-importance, he probably couldn’t even whistle in tune. And as for a farting contest, he was the sort who’d rather keep it in with a plug up his arse than let rip and reveal his base normality. Thing was, the buffoon always seemed to be eating, when he wasn’t fiddling with that ridiculous mustache. In one end, clogged at the other. Maybe that’s why his gut was so big. Just the thought of it made Nameless check his own through his hauberk. Part of him complained he had a bit of extra these days, but a quick tense of the abs convinced him it was all muscle. At least he had that to be thankful for. Even in his beer-drinking days with Thumil, his mid-section had retained the ridged definition of an iron breastplate. Carved from granite, he used to boast, but right now it felt like
all
his muscles were made from stone: heavy, and about as pliant.

If Galen had an opposite, it was Ludo. Nameless hadn’t seen the adeptus touch a morsel. He was always wrapped up in that silly black book, looking for inane passages of scripture and twisting their meaning until they seemed to illustrate whatever point he was trying to make. At least when Thumil had done it, he’d stuck to some sort of literal meaning and used it as a point of departure for a critique of the Council of Twelve’s endless procrastination. But Ludo seemed determined to make his holy balderdash the be-all and end-all of every subject under the suns. Not much of a farter, either, judging from his demeanor; and if he attempted to whistle, chances were his teeth would all fall out. Nice enough fellow, to be sure, but not fitted to the hardships of a quest like theirs. He’d likely last as long as a keg of ale at a baresarks’ piss-up.

Galen shook Ekyls a bit more vigorously now. It struck Nameless as a bad idea.

“Come on, wakey wakey. Wha—”

Ekyls’ hands caught Galen round the throat. Blue veins popped out along his forearms, and his mouth curled into a yellow, snarling slit.

Galen thrashed about, but Ekyls leaned in, as if he intended to bite his face off.

“Bloody heathen!” Galen growled. His fist crashed into Ekyls’ face, but the savage just squeezed harder. Galen caught him again, a solid blow in the mouth.

Ekyls spat blood, and a tooth clattered to the floor. With a surge of effort, Galen rolled him over and started to pound his already swollen face. Ekyls went limp, and Galen stood, tugging his uniform straight. He coughed up phlegm and rubbed his raw throat.

Ekyls struck like a serpent, biting into Galen’s ankle and pulling the legs out from under him. Galen grunted as his tailbone hit the floor hard. Ekyls leapt astride him, teeth straining for the jugular.

It was getting out of hand. The coccyx bruising was enough to bring tears to a dwarf’s eyes, but ripping a man’s throat out was against the rules, as far as Nameless was concerned.

He grabbed Ekyls by the hair and flung him against the wall. Ekyls sprang off of it with astonishing agility, and he twisted in midair, coming at Nameless with outstretched fingers. Dirty nails raked across chain links, seeking an opening. Nameless got one hand on Ekyls’ neck, the other on his groin, then he dipped and hoisted the savage kicking and screaming above his head.

“Have to warn you, laddie,” he said, trying to keep the effort from his voice, “I’m starting to get a wee bit irritable.”

Ekyls only struggled harder, and he spat a torrent of gobbledygook that had the flavor of abuse to it.

Nameless slammed him into the floor. Ekyls’ head hit hard, and he lay still.

“Did you see that?” Galen said to Ludo. “Damned barbarian tried to throttle me.”

“Well, you did startle him,” Ludo said.

Galen glared at Ekyls, raised a boot to kick him, thought better of it and lowered it. “Bloody savage!” He spun on his heel and thumped the wall instead. It answered with a resounding clang.

“Must I remind you, Galen, about your language?” Ludo said.

Galen growled something, caught himself, and snapped to attention. “Forgive me, Eminence. Always had a ruddy temper. Won’t happen again.”

The clanging from Galen’s blow continued longer than Nameless would have expected. He was halfway to giving a grudging nod of respect for such a display of force, when he realized it wasn’t just the one clang: it was a succession of them—from outside.

Something rattled; something scraped, and then there was the telltale screeching and grinding of a bolt being drawn back.

Nameless hefted his axe to his shoulder. He did his best to still the pounding of his heart by whistling a ditty he’d once heard in a tavern and never managed to get out of his head. He’d be shogged if he could remember what it was called.

Galen’s hand went to his saber, partially drawing it. He cast a look at Nameless; nodded that he was ready. “Give him ruddy murder, eh? Or go down fighting.”

Ludo shuffled to the rear, head bowed, lips moving silently. He hurriedly touched his forehead, the same way Shader used to. In his black cassock, he could have been mistaken for a necromancer preparing invocations for battle.

The door rattled and shook, but didn’t open.

Galen took a step forward, and his saber rasped as it came all the way out of the scabbard.

A fizzing noise sounded from outside. Greenish gas started to spill through the hairline gap surrounding the door.

Instinctively, Nameless held his breath and took up a position to one side. If he gripped his axe any tighter, he’d have snapped it in two. With a roll of the great helm and a sigh, he slackened off a little and chastised himself for acting like a new recruit. Maybe it was the long confinement at Arx Gravis, or the burden of guilt that sat like a mountain on his shoulders. Or maybe it was just the thought of being locked in a fire giant’s oven waiting to be cooked.

The fizzing petered out, and the gas dispersed.

Galen took another step—

There was a flash and a bang and the stench of sulfur.

A hole the size of a fist smoldered midway up the door. Nameless glimpsed movement through it, and a pink eye pressed up close.