4 City of Strife (13 page)

Kormak rose from his seat. The bell tolled the tenth hour. If he hurried he might have time to see Lucian and learn whatever the monk had to tell him before it was time to assemble at the Golden Bear.

He stepped out into the night air. The full moon glared down mockingly from the chilly sky.

Kormak’s footsteps echoed deep below the Council Chambers. He could feel the weight of the massive old building pressing down on him. At least it was dry and warm. Someone had taken the trouble to preserve the city’s records.

Even before he opened the door, Kormak knew there was something wrong. A foul smell wafted through the air. Frater Lucian lay on the floor, sprawled in a pool of blood. His chest cavity was open in a way Kormak had seen before. He knew without having to examine the body that the heart would have been removed and most likely eaten. It seemed the Beast had arrived before him.

There were no signs of any books on the table though there were volumes missing from the shelves. There was only a pen, ink, a blotter, a candle and wax. Kormak did not wonder that the body had not been found yet. The reading room was deep below the Council Hall, at the end of a long corridor. It looked rarely used. It might be days before anyone noticed the corpse.

He continued to search but he was certain now that he would find nothing. The Beast had taken whatever it was that Lucian had found. Looking down at the dead body Kormak felt a very great anger. Another innocent had fallen victim to the skin-turner and he had been a servant of his own order, the last of many, apparently. He thought of Frater Ambrose and his agents. He thought about Lucian, who had wanted only to stay in his cell but who had risked his life coming here.

He heard a skittering sound atop the pile of books. Looking up he saw a large rat glaring down at him with mocking eyes. Before he could do anything, it scampered away into the shadows. Kormak became aware of footsteps racing down the corridor. The door slammed open behind him.

Sergeant Altman glared at him. He held his blade in his hand. Behind him were a squad of watchmen. Two of them held crossbows. “Hold it right there,” said Altman.

One of the men standing behind him said, “Looks like we caught him red-handed this time.”

“Don’t move,” said the Sergeant. He levelled his crossbow so that it pointed directly at Kormak.

“I didn’t kill him, you know that,” said Kormak.

“Do I? I only have your word for that.”

“What are we waiting for, Sergeant. Let’s take him to the cells and beat a confession out of him. He won’t get away with it this time.”

Altman looked grim. The rest of the watchmen looked scared and trigger-happy. It was not a good combination. All it would take is one false move and violence would erupt.

“The monk said he saw it, Sergeant,” the watchman said. “We have a witness.”

“Did I tear his chest open? Did I pull out his heart?” Kormak asked. “Don’t you think I would have blood on me if I did?”

“The monk said he changed into a gigantic rat-faced beast.”

“And yet I am standing here with no blood on me,” Kormak said.

“He’s a skin-turner, Sergeant. Who knows what he’s capable of?”

“Let’s hear your side of it,” Altman said. His voice was flat and calm. His hands were steady. Kormak doubted he would miss at this range.

“I got a message from Frater Lucian telling me to meet him here.”

“You’ve got this message with you, of course?”

Kormak nodded.

“Pull it out very slowly, put it on the table and then walk over to the wall.”

Kormak did as he was told. Altman walked into the room, flanked by the two crossbowmen. He put his own weapon on the table, picked up the paper and looked at it. “He’s telling the truth about this at least.”

“Are you going to let him stand there with that sword on his belt, Sergeant?” The watchman asked. “We’d better take it off him.”

“Only if you want to die,” said Kormak.

Altman looked at him. “It’s the first time the Beast has struck outside the Maze,” he said.

“I know what it is,” Kormak said. He indicated Lucian’s corpse. “So did he. That’s why he is dead.”

Altman’s eyes widened. “What is it?”

“A ratkin, a skin-turner, a child of Murnath.”

Some of the watchmen went white. Some of them gasped. One of them dropped his sword. Altman did not look too surprised.

“Why him, not you?”

Kormak tapped the hilt of his blade with his finger. “Easier target or . . .”

A thought struck him. “You said a monk told you I had killed Lucian. What did he look like?”

Altman’s description fitted the messenger who had brought Kormak the letter perfectly. “It wanted me here,” he said. “It wanted you here as well.”

“So we could arrest you?” Altman asked.

Kormak shook his head. “It does not care. It just needs you to keep me here for a while.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s going to the Golden Bear,” Kormak said.

“You’re about to tell me the reason, aren’t you?” Altman said.

“Karsten Oldberg is giving a feast there,” Kormak said. “I should be there too.”

“What does the Beast want with Oldberg?”

“I suspect it is going to kill him,” Kormak said.

“Then we’d better go warn him.”

“If we still have time.”

The snow crunched under Kormak’s boots as he raced through the street. His breath came out in cold clouds. He could hear the watchmen straggling out behind him.

It was late and most people were already abed. The Council Hall was mostly dark behind them and the Cathedral was only a gloomy mountain looming out of the snow. Kormak’s mind raced faster than his body.

He prayed he was wrong. It was just possible that the ratkin had killed Lucian because he was onto something, but the timing of killing and the messenger bringing the watch pointed to something else entirely. Karsten’s preparations for a grand attack were the only thing he could think of that would justify that.

The Beast must be confident indeed to attack a tavern full of armed men, but it would have advantages. Skin-turners were all but immune to normal weapons, only silver and fire or his dwarf-forged blade would hurt them. He imagined the were-beast unleashed in a tightly packed mass of panicking men. It could easily fight its way through to Karsten and kill him, and escape afterwards. It seemed like Karsten’s plan to land a killing blow against the Krugmans was about to be turned against him. What he thought was a surprise attack on them was going to be one on him instead.

It certainly looked as if the Beast favoured the Krugman’s although why that should be, he could not guess. He knew that if Karsten Oldberg was killed they would be the most powerful clan in the city. Kormak raced on, hoping that would be in time to stop the slaying.

In the Golden Bear torches flared and hot fires blazed. Men in the tabards of the House of Oldberg drank and toasted their leader. Men who carried swords and looked like they knew how to use them swore oaths about what they were going to do to the lackeys of the House of Krugman when the order came. All of them knew they had been summoned for something big, that Karsten Oldberg would speak soon and they would wipe those filthy Krugman bastards from the face of the earth.

Captain Rene staggered outside to the jakes, and pissed against the wall, watching the hot urine melt the snow, before stepping back in.

On the wooden walls of the stall a huge rat perched. It watched him with wicked eyes then chittered mockingly. An answering cry came from the roof of the jakes and he thought he heard soft scuttling movements. He aimed a blow at the beast but it sprang to one side and then bit his hand. Cursing, he rubbed the wound, looking around he saw more and more rats looking at him from the darkness. He walked forward and aimed a kick at the tightly packed mass. They scurried away into the shadows, cold eyes glittering.

On his way back he paused on the steps of the tavern and looked out across the inn’s open courtyard and into the street. The snow was falling heavily. Visibility was very low. He belched and rubbed his eyes.

Where was that bastard Kormak anyway? He was supposed to be here. Could he be giving a warning to the Krugmans about the attack? Lord Karsten seemed to think that threatening the boy Jan would keep him in line. Rene wasn’t sure about that. The duellist was a cold man, a professional killer if ever he had seen one. He would do what he chose no matter who was threatened.

He looked again and saw that over the door, and on the window sill hundreds of rats were clustered, all of them watched him, with an odd hunger in their eyes. It looked as if there were thousands of tiny pin-points of light in the snow. The rodents made low growls and squeaks and it sounded, for all the world, as if they were talking with each other. Coming from the gateway he heard another noise. It sounded like squeaking. Or maybe like a huge serpent gathering its coils. No, that wasn’t right. Maybe it was the noise of thousands and thousands of tiny feet crunching through the snow.

He turned and saw a brown tide rolling down the street and into the courtyard. It was as if the river had overflowed its banks and was flooding the courtyard. There was something wrong with that though—it did not look like water. It had eyes and fur and long pink tails. It came to him that he was looking at thousands and thousands of rats. Every rat in the city had gathered into an army to assault the inn.

Instinct told him to turn and go, to run as fast as he could away from the onrushing horde. Even as his fuddled mind reacted, the tide reached him and he heard close-up the sound of thousands and thousands of large and vicious rats squeaking.

There was an odd intelligence to the sound, as if all of those thin voices shared one common mind and were vocalising all of its hatred and malice. He felt a small, sharp stab of pain in his leg and when he looked down he saw a shadowy shape clinging to his thigh.

When he went to brush it away he felt a writhing, furry body. It twisted in his grip and teeth pierced the flesh of his hand. He let out a shriek and he felt hundreds and hundreds of legs swarming over his body and scores of jaws closing. Warm wetness flowed over his limbs and he realised it was blood, his own blood. Even as that thought occurred to him the tidal wave of moving flesh reached his throat. He felt another sting of pain as something sharp dug into his jugular vein.

He threw himself on the ground, rolling around, crushing the hordes and hordes of creatures that snapped at him. For a moment, the strangeness of it struck him. Rats did not attack men like this. This could not be happening. Even as that thought occurred to him he realised that it was wrong. More rats than he had ever seen, possibly all of the rats in the city, a population that must have outnumbered the humans a hundredfold, swarmed around him.

He felt them being crushed under his weight, their spines snapping, their limbs breaking. More of them though sprang free and turned to bite at him again. A huge crowd of vermin pushed through the doors of the inn and clambered in through the windows. More and more of them were on the roof. Hundreds of tiny red eyes staring down at him. It had all happened so fast that he had not really had time to react but now he felt a surge of pain from all of the hundreds of wounds he had taken.

Shouts of horror came from inside the tavern and he realised that the army of rats were within attacking his comrades.

Something else came towards him, moving across the courtyards, something that reminded him of a rat and also of a man. It was the size of a human being, a very large one, and it walked, crouching, but upright. Mangy brown fur covered its body. Its face resembled that of a rat and a long, hairless tail lashed the air. He opened his mouth to scream but the monster reached down and slashed his throat with the claws of its near human right hand.

Blood streamed forth and he tried to gurgle a prayer to the Holy Sun begging for forgiveness and salvation. Darkness took him.

FALLING SNOW ALL but obscured the full moon. From inside the Golden Bear, Kormak heard the sounds of screaming, as if a battle was going on in there. A very one-sided battle.

He raced through the courtyard towards the tavern entrance. He could smell smoke and fur and a strange animal smell. The corpses of dead rats crunched beneath his feet. A body lay near the door, flesh gnawed away to the bone, eyeballs missing, a rat crawling out of the cavity through which Kormak did not doubt its heart had been removed. It was just barely recognisable as belonging to Rene. He had not even drawn his weapon.

Kormak bounded up the tavern steps. Inside all was chaos. Lanterns had been turned over and the curtains were already starting to blaze. Men screamed as a tide of vermin swarmed over them, biting at them, getting into the clothes, running over their heads and into their hair. That was not the cause of the screaming though or all the dead bodies lying on the ground.

A huge slouching monster, an unholy hybrid of man and rat had left a trail of destruction behind it, leading all the way to Karsten Oldberg. The merchant price was cornered, holding the ratkin at bay with a burning torch. He waved it frantically but it was obvious to Kormak that the skin-turner was just toying with him. It slashed with its bloody claws and forced Karsten back.

Kormak charged, blade at the ready, crunching the living carpet of rats under his feet with every stride. The chittering of the rats warned their inhuman leader. It turned its head to look at him and as it did so Karsten lashed out with the torch, burning it. It let out a long, pain-filled hiss and swiped at him, claws tearing flesh, drawing blood and revealing bone. It bounded forward into the burning building, up the staircase. Kormak helped the wounded Karsten to his feet.

“Are you all right?”

“It fled.” He said, obviously unable to believe his eyes. He sounded like he was in shock. “It looked at you and it fled.” He noticed that the runes on Kormak’s blade were glowing and his eyes widened. Kormak inspected the wound, it was deep and it was clean.

“Get out!” Kormak told him. “Get out and bind your arm. I’m going after it.” Karsten did not need to be told twice.