Honor among thieves

Chapter Eighty-Five

Malden hurried through the streets, headed for the bridge to Castle Hill. He doubted anyone was inside the Ladychapel when it fell-the place abandoned since the priest and his followers left-but there might have been plenty of townsfolk in Market Square, setting up what few market stalls still had anything to sell.

He hadn’t covered three blocks when the barbarians struck again.

He saw it coming-saw the impossibly big stone hurtling through the air. Its shadow fell across his path and he danced backward as if it was going to fall right on him. Then it was gone, past the rooftops on the far side of the street.

Malden grabbed a timber on the front of a house and pulled himself upward, reached and grabbed for the edge of a balcony, hauled himself up to the shingled roof. He ran to its ridgeline and looked out over the city, trying to see where the stone had gone. Then it struck home with a rumbling boom and he nearly fell from his perch as the whole city shook underneath him. He struggled to get upright again, to get his feet underneath him so he could see what had happened.

As he watched, a house in the Stink collapsed in on itself. Timbers and plaster shredded with a series of horrible shrieks, stones rattled and bounced. A plume of dust swirled up into the air. And then he heard a woman screaming, and knew that this time there had definitely been casualties.

He was trying to determine where he should go first-Market Square or the Stink, both about equal distance away-when he heard someone calling him.

“Lord Mayor! Get down from there! It’s not safe!”

He ran back to the edge of the roof and looked down. A one-armed beggar was in the street, waving at him. The man ducked his head as a third stone came flying over the city.

Maybe the beggar had a point. Malden hurried down the side of the house and grabbed the man’s shoulders. “Go home,” he said. “Get to a cellar-anywhere but out in the open.” The beggar hurried away, moments before Malden realized that the last place anyone wanted to be when a flying rock hit their house was underground.

There was nothing for it. He couldn’t chase after an unhurt man while citizens might lie dying in the rubble. He hurried toward Market Square, thinking he might be able to help there. Do something. Anything.

When he arrived he found he wasn’t the only one who’d had the same idea. Say what you wanted about the people of Ness-that they were corrupt, lazy, and mostly stupid. True enough. But they did come together in a crisis.

The falling spire had deposited itself as a line of rubble and debris all the way to the gate of Castle Hill, cutting the square in half. Teams of citizens were hauling away rocks and broken wood, piling it on the cobbles as if they wanted to sort through it later.

“There’s a girl in there!” someone shouted at him.

Malden rushed up and grabbed half of a broken gargoyle. He passed it to a man who appeared behind him. He thought of nothing else as he worked, his back aching and his arms weak with fatigue. It didn’t matter. Little by little he cleared the rubble. He only stopped when he heard joyous shouting and looked over to see a group of women digging furiously at one spot in the mess.

Hurrying over, he used his status to make a way through the crowd of onlookers. The women had already unearthed the girl by the time he arrived. Her face was white with dust except where saliva had etched a clean track down one side of her mouth. Her eyes saw nothing. When the women picked her up, her head and limbs hung as limply as a doll’s.

“Is she breathing?” Malden asked. One of the women shrugged, but another thought to check.

The girl was breathing. She was alive. It looked like half the bones in her body were shattered. Malden didn’t know if she would live long enough for them to set, but he didn’t care. The girl was alive.

“Take her to the Isle of Horses-Coruth the witch will help her, if anyone can,” he commanded. A cart was brought up. There were no horses to pull it, but a band of old men offered to stand in the traces. They were turning the cart around, making ready to go, when a fourth stone flashed across the sky.

It came down inside the defensive wall of Castle Hill and bounced around the ruins there for a while. At least no one was in there to be hurt, Malden thought-and then he remembered his prisoners inside the gaol were inside that wall. He called for help and rushed to the gate to help them, if he could.

The stone had stopped bouncing when he got inside. It had settled in the great courtyard before the palace, where the Burgrave’s personal guard once marched in parade order. The stone was four feet across, and some effort had been made to carve it in a regular shape. It didn’t look nearly as big or as dangerous as when it had been flying through the air.

Malden ignored it and ran down the steps to the gaol. The men inside were screaming to be let out, or to be put to death instead of suffering so, or just to learn what was going on. Dust filled the air and a wide crack ran across one wall. The gaoler was nowhere in sight-most likely he’d gone to help the people in the square. Malden found the keys to the three occupied cells and opened them one by one. He had no idea what he was going to do with the men inside. One was a rapist, one a bravo who had killed for money. The third was Malden’s first charge, the madman who’d killed his own daughter for the Bloodgod’s favor. The lunatic was raving as Malden hauled him out of the cell and dragged him toward the stairs. “You two,” he said to the rapist and the bravo, “go up top and help the people there. There could be more people in that mess.”

“What’s going on?” the bravo demanded.

“The barbarians are attacking with some kind of catapult,” Malden told him. “They knocked down the spire of the Ladychapel. Now go help!”

The madman couldn’t find his own way out of the gaol. Malden had to lead him every step of the way. When they reached sunlight, a crowd was waiting for him.

“There! There, do you see!” the madman shrieked. He pointed at the ruined stump that was all that remained of the Lady’s church in Ness. “Sadu has spoken! He made it fall. He made it fall!”

Malden tried to push his way through the crowd but the madman kept grabbing at onlookers, snagging his fingers in their tunics or their hair.

“He must have His blood. He must have His blood. He must have His blood,” the madman blathered. Malden wondered if he could find a safe place to put the man in the Ashes, where his raving wouldn’t bother anyone. Then he considered the folly of that. A safe place? What place could possibly be safe when stones fell from the sky?

“He must have His blood, or we are all doomed. Give Him His blood!”

“Be quiet! I’m trying to think,” Malden demanded, but the madman shouted over him.

“His blood! Give Him His blood! His blood!”

There was something wrong with the sound of the madman’s voice. Had he been deafened by the noise of the falling stones? Malden wondered. It was like a strange echo accompanied the madman’s chanting.

“His blood! His blood His blood His blood His blood!”

Then he understood.

“His blood!”

“His blood!”

“Give Him His blood!”

“He must have His blood!”

It wasn’t just the madman. Half the crowd was chanting for blood as well. They’d taken up the raving cry.

Did they think Sadu could make the barbarians stop? Did they think the Bloodgod could grab the stones out of midair and save them?”

“His blood! His blood! His blood! His blood! His blood! His blood!”