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

slams his hand into a shard of jagged metal. Blood sprays across the white marble of the wall as the breach suddenly seals, leaving Rat trapped on the other side.

They lie there for an instant, amid the rubble, in the brief silence.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Baston opens his mouth, finds the words are his own. “What the fuck have you done?”

“What’s necessary.” Rasce hauls himself upright, leaving bloody handprints on the wall. “Reload.” Dozens of ghouls lope and skulk across the cavern towards them. Feral ghouls, savage and unthinking. This little handgun is useless against such a horde. Fuck, even if he’d brought that lovely repeater, Baston wouldn’t have a hope in hell against so many.

“I WILL EAT YOU.” Rat’s voice comes from a chorus of ghouls as the circle closes.

“The gun,” says Rasce, holding out his hand. Baston passes the loaded weapon to him, and Rasce aims it at his own temple. “Listen! Carillon Thay’s gone. I’m the only connection left to Spar Idgeson. If I die, so does he! So, O Rat of Guerdon, what is it to be? Your friend’s life – or shall you be a thief again, instead of Duttin’s bootlick?”

“YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ASK,” say the ghouls in unison.

Rasce grins, showing bloodied teeth. “The dragon does not ask. The dragon takes.”

Baston feels Rat’s mind settle on him again, feels the ghoul’s thoughts worming their way into his jaws. He tastes Rat’s mordant humour, tastes some cynical joy. Despite being imprisoned, Rat still somehow thinks he has the upper hand.

The ghoul pack snarls, but they do not advance. “Threaten us!” shouts Rasce, “and I shall bring the ceiling down upon your Lord!”

The assembled ghouls howl and gibber. Shit, most of them are ferals, middle-ghouls. Baston prays there are a few young surface ghouls in the mix, ghouls like Rat used to be, ones who understand human speech and can relay the threat to their feral kin. Rat is now the only Elder left – without him, the ghouls are kingless.

“Behold,” shouts Rasce. “I lay a curse upon this place. Should anyone, ghoul or human, living or dead, touch yonder prison wall, then the chamber beyond shall collapse, and all within shall perish. The power is in me to do this.”

Baston’s got no idea if Rasce’s bluffing, but it’s clear that the ghouls buy it. The ferals closest to the wall shuffle away. Rasce advances, and the pack parts to let him through. The gun still pressing on his forehead. “Come on, Baston,” he says.

“WAIT. SPAR. SPAR, ARE YOU THERE?”

Rasce’s face contorts. He takes on the same expression Baston had, as words try to fight their way out of his mouth. He breaks stride, the hand holding the gun shaking for a moment. Then, he regains control. Swallows hard, spits.

“He’s here. But you shall not speak to him. Not until I have done what my Great-Uncle commands.”

Rat does not respond, but the thought of his unspoken words flickers through Baston’s mind.

THEY KNOW ALL YOUR PLANS. YOU WILL FAIL.

“My lord, I never fail.”

The words come out of Baston’s mouth reluctantly. DO AS HE COMMANDS.

They leave the vault, and behind them the only sound is Rat’s claws scraping on the stone.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

The sound, the sensation of Rat’s claws on the stone.

Like a beacon. A point of reference. The claws scrape on the stone. The stone of the New City was born from stone that was once flesh. That flesh was the flesh of a man, and the man was Spar Idgeson.

Spar hangs in the abyss, the sound a thin cord drawing him back from oblivion.

Scratch.

A memory.

Spar’s standing guard outside a house off Sumpwater. Baston’s there, too, staring nervously at passers-by on the street. Keeping the width of the door between the two, not looking at Spar. Saying nothing, because what is there to say to a terminal diagnosis? The notion that he is unclean settles around Spar like a heavy mantle, a wall coming down between him and the rest of humanity. Never again shall he know touch. Never again shall he know hope.

Inside the house, a muffled scream. A thump. A moment’s silence.

Heinreil emerges, jingling a bag of coin. “Well, that was unnecessarily messy. Spar, boy, you wait here. There’ll be a cleaner along presently, for… for…”

The Fever Knight follows his master out, bending and twisting to get his massive armoured form through the narrow door. “Varot, wasn’t it?” He adds, “cloth”, as he passes, and Baston fishes out a scrap of fabric so the Fever Knight can wipe the blood from his gauntlets.

“We’ve more work to do,” says the Fever Knight. “Bloody work, up in Five Knives district. Come along, Baston.”

The armoured knight beckons Baston to follow. Baston glances back, but doesn’t speak; he follows doggedly along behind his tutor, leaving Spar alone on the street with Heinreil.

“We’ll take care of you, boy,” says Heinreil. “The Brotherhood way. Make sure you have enough alkahest. Keep you useful. There’ll always be a place for Idge’s son in the Wash, aye? But not up in Hog Close – somewhere more, ah, private.”

“More isolated.”

“A bit of peace and quiet, aye – gods below, I’d give anything for time to just sit and think!” says Heinreil. “I’ll take care of you, and you’ll stay true to the Brotherhood.”

Spar nods. The movement hurts his neck. He swallows, nervously, imagining his throat seizing up. The terror of the Stone Plague grabs him and freezes his bones, giving him a momentary presentiment of what the future holds.

Scratch.

Staring into the glimmering lens of Vorz’s loupe. The sharp pain of a syringe piercing skin, and Vorz has to try three spots before he finds soft tissue.

“I’m still too weak!” says Rasce. “That brute nearly got me.”

Vorz frowns. “Residuum is being absorbed much more slowly than I would have expected,” he admits. “I did not expect this resistance.”

“My uncle will be displeased if you fail.”

“There are other options.” He turns to examine one of the dead thieves in the mortuary at Lanthorn Street.