Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

And there in the light of a single lantern, a third ghoul and three dead men, their stained flesh marked with the scale tattoos of Brettan sailors, all of them watching the fifth of their party, a pale man, black-cloaked, black-cowled, kneeling by the smaller of the two sarcophagi, chipping with hammer and chisel at the runes set around its lid.

To his credit Hool made no challenge or battle-cry. He moved in behind them without hesitation, lined up his swing, and carved halfway through the ghoul’s head. Even as Hool attacked I wondered at the dead men watching. The minds of such things are filled with the worst of what once lived there, and idle curiosity is not a sin, at least not one dark enough to return to a corpse. And yet they watched the tomb, avid, careless. Hool wrenched his blade free and hacked the head from the first of the dead men before the other two turned. Not a perfect swing, but he had some skill, did Master Hool and while his sword kept its fine-honed edge it would forgive him his minor errors.

The dead men came at him, faster than I had hoped. Released from their fascination with my brother’s tomb they proved a different proposition from the shambling dead more often encountered. Hool chopped the arm from one, taking it at the elbow. The dead man caught Hool’s sword arm in its remaining hand, and the second threw itself at his legs.

As Hool went down, the necromancer rose.

I may not have counted Robart Hool high in my esteem, but he died well. He took the sword from his trapped arm and rammed it left-handed through the neck of the corpse man falling to cover him.

Pinned by the one-armed corpse, grappled at the legs with the other dead man biting flesh from his thigh, Robart roared and fought to rise. The necromancer came in fast and touched cold fingers to the wrist of the hand straining to free the sword. All the fight left Robart. Not the pain, not the horror of the dead man’s teeth chewing at the tendon high on his thigh, but the fight. I knew what a necromancer’s touch could do.

The dead sailor kneeled then stood, its grin crimson, blood dripping from its chin. The eyes that watched us weren’t the eyes it first saw us with. Something looked through them. The necromancer kneeled, paler now, more pale than I thought a man could be.

‘My lord,’ he said, not lifting his gaze from the flagstones. ‘My king.’

‘My lord!’ Gomst’s shrill voice.

‘My king!’ Osser Gant.

‘Wake up you fool boy!’ A sharp slap and I found myself looking into Katherine’s eyes.

‘Damn you all!’ Miana said, and the baby started howling.





32


‘Hold the baby, Jorg.’

Miana thrust our son at me, red-faced in his swaddling cloths, drawing breath for a howl. She clambered onto the carriage bench and knelt up at the window to peer out. The walls of Honth made a dark line to the west.

Little William reached capacity and made the slight shudder that presaged a yell. He couldn’t manage much volume yet but the mewl of babies has been designed with great cunning to tear at an adult’s peace of mind, parents especially. I shoved the knuckle of my little finger into his mouth and let him forget the scream while he gave it a vicious gumming.

Katherine sat beside me watching my son with unreadable eyes. I hugged him close, my breastplate now strapped to Brath’s saddlebags in its wraps of lambskin and oilcloth. I’d found babies don’t appreciate armour. William spat my knuckle out and drew breath for another attempt at yelling. He’d come into the world red-faced, bald but for black straggles, skinny in the limbs, fat in the body, more of a little pink frog than a person, drooling, malodorous, demanding. Even so I wanted to hold him. That weakness that infects all men, that is part of how we are made, had found a way into me. And yet my own father had set it aside, if it ever once found purchase on him. Perhaps it became easier to set me aside as I grew.

The howl burst out of William’s little mouth, a sound too big for such small frame. I jiggled him quiet and wondered just how large a stick I’d given the world to beat me with.

I watched Katherine for a moment. We hadn’t spoken of the night’s dreaming. I had questions and more questions, but I would ask them without an audience and at a time when I could take a moment to settle around whatever answers she might have. She didn’t meet my gaze but studied my son instead. I had worried once that she might mean him harm but it seemed hard to imagine now, with him in my arms.

‘There’s someone close by who would kill that child given the slightest chance.’ Katherine looked away as she spoke, her voice low as if it were a small matter, almost lost in the rattle of the carriage.

‘What?’ Miana turned from the window grille, fast, eyes bright. I didn’t think she had been listening, but it seemed she paid close attention to whatever passed between my aunt and me.

‘If I explain, I want your word that this person will be safe from you and your men, Jorg,’ Katherine said.

‘Well that doesn’t sound like me, now does it?’ I made an effort not to let the tension in my arms crush William. Miana reached for her baby, but I held him closer. ‘Suppose you tell anyhow.’