Curse: The Dark God Book 2 (31 page)

“You haven’t seen them move, Love.”

The stories of the fierce dogmen of Toth were bad enough, but they did not run alone. Like humans, they bred their hounds for different purposes. Some were sentries, others trackers. Some carried messages or pulled carts to fetch the wounded or carry loads. Maulers were what they brought to war. And that’s what the dozen or so huge dogs on the street were. They were the size of bears. And they were wearing body armor with spiked collars.

“Those dogs aren’t leashed,” she said.

“Why would you leash your comrade?” Soddam asked. “Some say the bonds between the dogmen and their beasts are slethwork; others say its long years of training and the fact that the man and dog are raised together.”

She didn’t care what method they used—they were horrible. Standing on all four, these dogs could look a shorter man in the face. Their heads were huge. Their great mouths hung open, pink tongues lolling. Mouths that could easily accommodate a man’s head.

“Gah,” Soddam said.

The crowds shrank back up against the fronts of the houses. Somewhere along the street a small girl began to cry.

“Can you smell ‘em?” Soddam asked.

She sniffed. “No,” she said, and wondered if Soddam’s eyes weren’t the only thing that was different about him.

“When a pack is given by the lords of Toth to other Glories or Divines, they are required to wash themselves daily. These brutes obviously didn’t get the message.”

She looked at the chain armor over the dog’s bodies, the plates covering the tops of their muzzles and heads. She tried to imagine how you’d battle such a creature. You’d have to strike its belly, but how could you get close enough?

“Seafire will stop them,” she said, trying to reassure herself.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Soddam said. “There’s the first carriage.”

It came into view down the street, followed by the other two. They were closed carriages, each painted white with gold trim and drawn by four horses. On the doors were the blue and orange standards of the Fir-Noy. Two lines of Mokaddian dreadmen walked on both sides.

Unlike the armsmen whose armor was a bit of a mix, the armor of the Mokaddian dreadmen was all of a piece. They had the same helms, same boots, same shields. The brass outer parts of their armor shone brightly in the sun. Their garments were red. Except for their greaves, their forearms were bare, showing their honors. They were, all of them, massive men. And unlike the Fir-Noy armsmen, not one of them smiled. Their standard bearer held a pole with three cross pieces to which skulls had been affixed.

The prickle of fear rose in her. These men were death itself.

As the carriages approached, Urban’s and Ke’s men readied themselves below. At the signal, those stationed in the two alleys would each push a wagon out into the road, blocking the carriages from going forward or back. Then the pyrotechnics would begin. She and Soddam had the fireshot, as did Argoth down at the docks. But it was the three men below who would immolate the Kains.

“Are we clear?” he asked.

Sugar scanned the skies about her. She looked over the rooftops and down the alleys. One of the massive blue urgom was flying slowly toward the docks, but it was still a ways out. There was nothing in the vicinity of the carriages. “We’re clear,” she said.

“Then get yourself back. You and I have got a job to do. It’s time to rid ourselves of some excrement.”

She hurried back over the shingles, past the crates of fireshot, to the little attic window and slipped back inside. A number of small pale creatures that looked like tiny beetles marched along the crack of the attic wall to her body. A handful milled about her neck. Horrified, she shooed them away, then took off her skenning. She stowed it and the blackspine and entered her body.

A great relief washed through her upon entering her flesh, and she opened her eyes. It wasn’t right splitting her soul, and her body knew it. Soddam was lighting a firebrand with the candle. When it was burning, he handed it to her.

She took it.

“Remember what we practiced,” he said. “And keep yourself low. Are you multiplied?”

“Not yet.”

“Get it going. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Sugar nodded, took off her governor, and began to nudge her Fire. Then she crawled out the window again, this time in the flesh. Below her the first carriage was approaching the spot on the street in front of the window. As soon as the other two were in front of the window below, they’d spring their trap. But as she was moving out of the way to allow Soddam through, she heard the sound of galloping hooves on the cobbles up the street. A rider pulled up to the captain of the Fir-Noy armsmen, shouting and gesticulating wildly. He pointed at the cobbler’s house. The captain turned, looked up the front of the house and then saw her there holding the firebrand on the roof. His face filled with thunder, and he shouted at his men to turn.

“I think we’ve just been found out,” Sugar said.

“Go!” Soddam said.

The first carriage below stopped, preventing the other two from moving into place. Up the road, the Fir-Noy captain shouted at his bowmen. The dreadmen below looked about, not knowing where the threat was coming from. The last driver, seeing the commotion ahead, began to back his carriage up.

She and the others needed to act now or this chance would slip away. Soddam must have realized this as well. Having the best vantage point and being the one to receive Sugar’s report on skir, he was the one assigned to give the signal. He whistled three times loudly.

A clamor arose in the alley a few yards up the street, smoke rose, then Urban and three other men pushed a burning wagon doused in seafire out in to the street into the gap between the dogmen and the first carriage. The fire leapt a dozen feet in the air. The horses of the first carriage pulled back in fright. Down behind the last carriage, Ke’s group pushed their burning wagon out. Then the men in the cobbler’s second story room below lit the firelance.

There was a great whoosh, and then a gout of liquid fire shot out of the window. Dark brown smoke billowed up from the arc of flame. The seafire splashed onto the Mokaddian dreadmen below and the first coach. Then the man working the lance turned the arc of fire on the second coach, dousing it and the horses.

The horses screamed in terror and bolted forward, knocking a few dreadmen down, but the first carriage was in the way. The men with the firelance tracked the carriage with their arc of flame, splashing dreadmen and throwing fire over the street.

A Kain inside the carriage kicked the door open, his arm on fire. There was a thwunk, and the crossbow bolt of one of Urban’s men down on the street took him in the chest. Three men tried to bail out of the other carriage door, but the lancers hit them with the fire. They burned like wood, screaming, and stumbling to the ground.

The lancers turned the seafire toward the last carriage. The stream of fire shot out about fifty feet, but it wasn’t far enough to reach. The man working the lance shouted to the two other men to pump harder. The spray surged a dozen feet more and splashed up the exposed side of the carriage onto the roof, but it wasn’t going to be enough. A number of the dreadmen guarding that carriage raised their shields around the door on the far side, making a protective wall and roof. The Kains in that carriage were going to exit on the other side. They were going to get away.

“Sugar!” Soddam yelled.

She realized she’d been frozen with the spectacle. She turned and scampered up the roof to where he stood next to the three crates they’d positioned up there earlier. The tops of the crates were off, and Soddam stood with the staff sling loaded with one six-pound cabbage-sized ball of fireshot.

The clay balls had a small hole through which they’d been filled with seafire. A cord soaked in a sulfur mixture had been slipped into the hole and fixed into position with wax. She put the flaming end of her brand to one cord. Immediately, the cord flamed and spat.

“Get another one ready,” he said and stepped out into position.

Sugar grabbed another ball.

Below them the panicked horses of the first carriage charged through a gap between the burning wagon blocking the road and the buildings on the far side. The flaming carriage rammed into the wagon, then careened past, through the pack of dogmen and maulers. At the other end, the Kains of the last carriage exited onto the street.

Soddam adjusted his grip on the staff sling, waited the last second for the fire to burn down the cord and into the ball. As the ball began to spew smoke out its hole, he took aim at the knot of dreadmen protecting the Kains, and hurled the ball with a deep grunt. The sling moaned as it whipped up and over his head. The ball flew with a whir, smoke pouring out its hole. It sailed twenty feet over the heads of the dreadmen and crashed into the front of a building down the street. The ball shattered, splashing the wall with flame.

“Load!” Soddam said. He reattached the free end of the sling to the staff’s horn and held it out to her. Sugar placed the ball into the sling and put the firebrand to its fuse. Except this time she lit it at the base, not the end of the cord.

Smoke began to spew out of the ball almost immediately. Soddam took aim and, with a mighty heave, whipped the staff forward and pointed the end low. The ball flew with a flatter trajectory this time. It sped down from the roof and slammed into the shield of one of the dreadmen, knocking the shield aside and splattering liquid fire on a number of men. That part of the circle around the Kains collapsed with men batting at the fire on their arms and faces.

“I’ve got you now,” Soddam said, “you stinking excremencies. Load!”

Sugar went to load, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a dreadman down on the street with a bow pointed up at them. “Dive!” she shouted and shoved Soddam aside. They landed heavily on the shingles. The arrow whistled past, a foot away, exactly where Soddam had been standing.

“Lamborn!” Soddam thundered at the man holding the firelance below. “Mind the street in front of your rotted eyes!”

Below them the spray of seafire swept back across the road at the dreadman with the bow. He and two others scattered. The whole scene down on the street was chaos and smoke. Men scorched and writhing, the second carriage on its side aflame, two of its horses dead, the others trying to escape their harness. And everywhere the flames—burning on the cobbles and men and in great lines on the houses on the other side.

Down the street the dreadmen were forming up around the Kains again.

“Quickly,” Soddam said.

She scrambled up and retrieved another fireshot. By that time Soddam was in position. She loaded the ball, lit it.

Soddam hurled it at the Kains. It sped down, trailing dark brown smoke, and broke in front of the dreadmen clustered about them, splashing their legs.

Soddam reattached the free end of the sling and held it out to her. She loaded, but Soddam cursed. “The other way, Lass!”

Down the street, two of the giant dogmen climbed the face of a house. There were only a handful of rooftops between those houses and Sugar’s current position.

“Quickly,” he said.

She lit the ball. Soddam moved higher to get a better angle. Smoke began shooting out of the ball’s hole, making a whistling sound. He waited a moment, then two. Then the dogman’s arm appeared over the edge of the roof followed by his head.

Soddam hurled the ball. The dogman turned to look just as the ball struck the shingles in front of him. The seafire splashed onto his face and torso. He roared in pain and fell back.

At the other end of the street, the dreadmen had formed back up around the Kains and were moving them quickly toward an alley. Below her, something crashed. The next moment a small group of dreadmen rushed into the house.

“We’ve got company!” Lamborn yelled up to them from the window below.

“Load,” Soddam said.

Up the street, the second dogman reached the roofs.

Sugar placed the ball in his sling and lit it. She nudged her Fire further. Then she heard the continuous sound of a thousand doors slamming and banging. The sound grew as it approached from the docks. She and Soddam looked up.

A great churning wall of sea water and dust engulfed the houses down the street. It stretched out a hundred yards on either side. The squall was moving toward them at great speed, its winds whipping up debris, knocking people to their knees, ripping shingles from the roofs.

“Sweet Creators,” Soddam said in awe. He tore his gaze from the squall and turned to hurl the fireshot, but the Kains were already disappearing down an alley. The violent squall raced up the road. It was clear the winds would carry away anyone foolish enough to be standing on a roof.

“To the attic!” Soddam cried.

They scrambled down the roof back to the window. Sugar dove through the window first, Soddam coming in after her. The sound of men in battle rose from below. Outside the banging grew louder. The whine of the wind grew to a fever pitch. The shutters against the side of the house slammed, then tore away completely. Shingles above their heads ripped loose.

“Down,” Soddam roared over the wind, “and out the back!”

She and Soddam raced to the hole and ladder to the floor below, but the ladder had been knocked aside. Below them men grunted, weapons clashed. The wind doubled in force. It screamed across the window and through the holes in the roof. Then the water hit, pounding the house like a cataract.

Soddam drew his axe, dropped through the hole, and landed on his feet. He charged forward out of sight. Sugar was multiplied. She nudged her Fire further, decided the long knife her father made her would be better in these close quarters and drew it instead of her axe. She dropped through the hole down to the hallway below.

The stairway from the workshop was next to her, running up to the landing at the end of the hall that led directly to the room where the firelancers had stationed themselves. On the landing, one of Urban’s men lay on his back with javelin sticking out his chest. Another, a younger man named Vance, swung a crossbow, fighting off a dreadman coming up the stairs and losing ground. Behind them in the room, Lamborn was still in his leather mask and apron, picking himself up off of the flooded floor. Outside the window, the squall raged, sending in sheets of rain. Inside, spills of seafire guttered on the wet floor and walls. One spot burned on Lamborn’s leather mask.