The Broken God by Gareth Hanrahan (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📕

orders Baston. He digs in his pocket, finds a key. “There’s a lockup down on Crane Street, in the Wash. Send some lads down there, tell them to bring the contents back up to Lanthorn, all right? Every bit of it.”

The thief nods.

“And give me your rifle.”

Baston lifts the weapon, tests its weight, its balance as the other thieves flee. They’ll need a distraction to get back to the New City safely, but more, there are rules to be observed. Those who take the ash must be loyal to the Ghierdana. To take the ash and then break the oath is unforgivable. A man’s oath has to mean something. Baston’s own refusal to take the ash is testament to that – if he can’t swear allegiance to the Ghierdana and mean it, then he cannot swear, no matter how useful it might be. There’s a special hell for oathbreakers.

He cracks open the breech, checks the phlogiston cartridge, slots it back into the receiver.

It’s not the first time Baston’s killed, far from it. His first kill came when he was fourteen, a thieves’ war against the Five Knives gang. They went after Heinreil and his lieutenants, went after Hedan. Went after the families, too. A gullhead broke into Karla’s room, he can still see its little black eyes, still hear it screeching. There were Brotherhood men there, guards sent by his father, and they’d wounded the thing, given their lives to save Hedan’s kids, but it was Baston who killed it. Hacked its seagull head from its human shoulders. He remembers the tangle of viscera in the neck bursting, high-pressure sprays of blood and gore, staining the world red.

Heinreil apprenticed him to the Fever Knight after that. “The boy’s got a talent for it, Hedan.” The Fever Knight was Heinreil’s enforcer, his leg-breaker. More than legs. Name the limb, name the bone. Name the pain, and the Fever Knight knew how to cause it. In the Knight’s service, Baston killed several times, and hurt many, many more, some so badly they’d wished they’d died. Gods below, one boy they broke so badly he sold his body to the alchemists while still alive, volunteered to be sent to the vats to end the pain. It was Heinreil who made him do it, Heinreil who ordered the beating.

Every time he’d killed, it’s been on the orders of someone else. At Heinreil’s command. At the Knight’s. Every kill had soiled him, until he was armoured in filth. He wants to wash it all away, but instead he’s wading deeper into the muck. His faith in the tenets of the old Brotherhood a thin cord that he hopes leads to a better place.

Barrow’s still talking. Still spilling his guts to the watch. It doesn’t matter what he’s telling them. It matters that Barrow took the ash once.

He aims the rifle, adjusts the sights. Barrow’s face in the crosshairs.

Another step through the muck. A squeeze, and the window turns red.

Baston drops the rifle, turns and runs even as the city strobes with fierce candlelight around him. This part of Guerdon is new, and he doesn’t know it well, so he has to guess which alleyways lead uphill over the headland and which come to dead ends. The pursuing Tallowmen are strong and light enough to spring from rooftop to rooftop, their heads flaring searchlights as they hunt for him. Shrieking, one to the other, in high-pitched squeals, like he’s being stalked by a pack of boiling tea kettles.

Which way now? If he turns right, he might make it to an outcrop of the New City, a curious little cove on Shriveport Bay. Ghierdana ships dock there now. There’s a mess of buildings between him and the cove, though, a warren of sheds and lean-tos, built by rough folk out of Mattaur. If he gets lost, or if anyone slows him down, the jacks will have him.

The other option’s a ghoul tunnel, straight ahead. It runs through the headland like a worm through an apple. Once, he wouldn’t have hesitated at taking the tunnel – this close to the surface, there’s little chance of running into feral ghouls. But now, the ghouls are working with the watch—

—A flicker of light on the rooftop to his right, and the decision’s made for him. Baston lowers his head and sprints towards the tunnel, legs pounding, huffing like a freight train. Behind him, the Tallowmen closing, wax limbs tireless, the fires of hell behind their faces.

He’s swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel, but that darkness is all too brief. It’s driven away by leaping light as one of the Tallowmen follows him in. Candle flickers on carved green walls, damp, beaded with water that shines like jewels, but the floor’s slick with slime.

He’s not going to make it. The border’s at the end of the tunnel. Hell, for all he knows the Lyrixians have barricaded the far end anyway; it’d be just his luck. He runs ahead blindly, slipping on the wet rocks, splashing in the slime, picking himself up again. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of water gushing through some pipe. Maybe they’ll flood the tunnel, wash him and the Tallowman back down into Shriveport Bay. He’ll drown like Fae did: wouldn’t be a bad end.

The Tallowman catches him, trips him up and he’s down in the mud again. A fist slams into his stomach, winding him. It catches him by the hair and slams his face into the wall, then throws him to the ground again. Giggling to itself, knife in hand, candlelight turning the bright blade to fire.

“THIS ONE IS NOT FOR YOU.”

The words come out of Baston’s mouth, but they’re not his words, not his voice. They taste of earth and rot and meat.

The Tallowman freezes for a long moment, its flicking flame the only movement. The creature contemplates the voice without fear. Wax fingers probe Baston’s throat with surprising gentleness, as if amazed he could produce such a noise.

“LEAVE.”

The Tallowman flips its knife