Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

‘Thank you – I think. Is it straight?’ She mopped up the fresh blood and squinted with her one good eye, but she couldn’t see a thing.

‘Nearly perfect.’ Brexan said as she considered her handiwork. ‘It looks a good deal better than mine, even all swollen and bloody. Imagine that.’

Rishta giggled, wiped away tears and blood, and rested her head back against the cushions while Brexan turned to Sallax.

‘Is he dead?’ she asked quietly.

‘No.’ Sallax grimaced.

‘Good. Let’s wake him up.’ She picked up a jug of water standing on a sideboard and walked back to Carpello. ‘I’m surprised that didn’t kill him, Sallax,’ she said, looking down at the swollen, bloody lump bulging from the back of his head, then poured the water over him and stepped back.

He groaned, and tried to roll over, then caught sight of Brexan and Sallax. He began to sob. ‘What are you doing here?’ he whimpered.

‘We’ve come to kill you,’ Brexan answered matter-of-factly

‘But I posted guards!’ Carpello whined. ‘I’ve had an escort ever since you escaped.’

‘Guards?’ Brexan was amused. ‘My sister could have run them through with a knitting needle. Sallax eats guards like that to stay in shape.’

‘I like them with red wine,’ Sallax interjected.

Brexan grinned; Sallax’s first real joke.

‘You can’t just come in here and kill me,’ Carpello moaned, ‘I did nothing to you, it was all Jacrys, he killed Gilmour, not me. Why would you come here?’ He turned to Brexan. ‘And who are-?’ He froze, a dawning recognition in his face. ‘You? But you can’t-That swim; it was too-’ His voice tailed off and he went even whiter. ‘You can’t have lived,’ he whispered.

‘Oh, but I did,’ Brexan said. ‘We both did.’

‘Versen.’

Brexan flushed with anger and kicked Carpello hard. ‘Don’t you ever say his name again, you-! Don’t you ever say it! Do you understand?’

Carpello wailed, ‘It wasn’t me, I didn’t want anything to happen to you, I would have brought you back to Orindale, but you had to-’

‘Shut up, just shut up!’ She kicked him again.

Behind her, Rishta slipped out of the blanket and began hurriedly pulling on her clothes.

Brexan shouted, ‘You tied him up, you dragged him behind your ship: you don’t tell me what you would have done because you didn’t. I was there!’

Rishta looked around for her shoes.

‘Your Seron?’ Brexan lowered her voice a little, but to Rishta she sounded even scarier. ‘Old scar-face? It took almost all day for him to die. I watched him. With you it will take longer.’

Carpello lifted his face to Sallax and cried, ‘Please, don’t let her do this to me! Please don’t.’ He was as reprehensible a human being as Sallax had ever seen, his whole fat, filthy, sweat-soaked, blood-streaked body quivering. It made Sallax feel sick just to look at him.

He kneeled beside Carpello and leaned in close. ‘Ren,’ he whispered, ‘do you remember Ren?’

Versen’s voice reverberated in the merchant’s head. You’ll be dead, and she will make it last for Twinmoons… He wiped his arm across his face. ‘What was she to you, Sallax? That was a long time ago.’

‘You cut off your mole,’ Sallax said.

‘He did,’ Brexan said, ‘and I wanted to do that myself, to put it on a string for Brynne to wear on holidays.’

‘Brynne? That was her name?’

‘Brynne was – is – my sister, and you should thank the gods of the Northern Forest she’s not here with us today.’ Sallax lashed out with his knife, so fast it was almost blurred, and sliced the end off Carpello’s nose.

Not realising what had happened, he reached up, feeling for his face like a blind man. His fingers came away soaked in blood, and Carpello began to scream.

Rishta screamed along with him and ran for the chamber door. Before Brexan and Sallax could stop her, she was out of Carpello’s apartments and into the hallway.

‘Rutters,’ Brexan cursed. ‘That’ll bring the neighbours. We have to get him out of here.’

‘Right,’ Sallax said, and clubbed Carpello with the hilt of his knife. ‘How are we going to carry him?’

‘I don’t know.’ Brexan looked nervous. ‘We’ve got to take him to find out what he’s shipping to Pellia. Garec and the others need to know and this bloated piece of rancid meat is the only one who can tell us.’

‘Not the only one.’

‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘We’re not talking with him.’

‘What do we do?’

‘Bind him. Bandage his nose – wrap his whole rutting head if you want. Wait a quarter-aven, then haul him down the stairs. I’ll find a cart or a wagon and we’ll wheel him up to the Topgallant. We can interrogate him there.’

Sallax nodded agreement.

‘Oh, and take whatever silver you can find – when the investigators come, I want them to think it was a robbery. Plus, we owe Nedra.’ She pulled up her hood, slipped into the hallway and ran swiftly down the wooden stairs to the street.

The almor screamed from somewhere inside the palace. The shrill echo ran into every corner, violating every space and silence, the terrible cry of a soul sentenced to an eternity in Hell. Mark imagined the flames in the cavernous Larion fireplace cowering, shrinking back from the sound.

Garec jumped at the demon’s shriek. ‘Demonpiss, but I will never get used to that thing,’ he growled.

Mark nodded. ‘Maybe it thinks if we can’t get any sleep, we might make a mistake and drink from a fountain or something.’ He shuddered; he’d seen some hideous things since his arrival in Rona, but Rodler’s death would haunt him for ever.

‘It may not have to wait for us to misstep,’ Garec said. ‘It might just starve us out.’

‘Or keep us here while the army surrounds the palace. That’d be a fun day, huh? Weak from lack of food, we burst through the main gate to deal with a tireless demon-hunter and the legions of soldiers Nerak has sent to make certain we all die.’ Mark slid closer to the fire.

Winter had arrived, imprisoning them at Sandcliff, for the regular snowfall meant the almor could reach them anywhere outside the palace. It was too dangerous to leave the dry stone of the upper levels. Gilmour had shut down the waterwheel feeding the shattered pipes in the north wing, but the halls and chambers had frozen over and the almor was probably lurking up there, waiting for them to make the fatal mistake of trying to pass through.

No one blamed Steven; he had saved them all when he neutralised the acid clouds, and he had beaten the almor, singeing it with acid and leaving it crippled and furious in the damp soil outside – but he hadn’t killed the demon. All he had done was annoy it, and now it reared up periodically to scream a reminder that it was there, waiting, and it would remain until it had sucked each of their emaciated frames to a husk.

Now Garec and Mark sat together in the great hall, feeding what wood they had left into one of the huge fireplaces. They had burned the long-untouched stores of firewood, the empty wine casks Mark discovered in the cellar, and much of the furniture in the hall itself. Soon they would be forced to go foraging for more tables and chairs – there were plenty scattered throughout the old keep, but no one relished the idea of wandering around; it would be too easy to step into a room that had developed a leak and become the almor’s next victim.

‘I wonder why he hasn’t come himself?’ Garec mused.

‘Who, Nerak?’

‘Why haven’t we seen him again?’

‘Maybe because he knows we’re trapped and running out of food. The wine is wonderful, but one cannot live on wine alone. And we can only refill our water when we hear the bastard almor screaming outside. So maybe Nerak hasn’t shown up because he knows this situation is handled.’