Sigrud stands over the body on the table.
She is dirty and mussed, her collar askew in a manner she never would have tolerated in waking life. Bits of ferns and bracken cling to her clothing, and her glasses are missing and strands of hair fall around her face. Yet despite all this she is as beautiful as he remembers her, cool and calm and utterly collected, a creature blessed or perhaps cursed with unimpeachable confidence. Even in death she appears sure of herself.
“Signe,” he whispers.
Her left breast is dark with blood. An exit wound—they shot her in the back.
His hands are shaking.
To fight so long to have a thing, and to grasp it so briefly before it is yet again ripped away…
The door of the hospital ward bursts open. Three soldiers move in, riflings ready. “Hands up!” shouts one. “Hands up! Now!”
Sigrud stares down at the face of his daughter.
“We found your damned rope ladder,” says another soldier. “We figured this would be the first place you’d be.”
He strokes her cheek with one big, raw knuckle.
The soldiers draw closer. “Hands up, or are you deaf?”
Something falls with a pat pat onto the table beside his daughter. Sigrud looks at it and realizes it’s blood.
His nose is bleeding. He holds his left hand out and catches three drops in his palm, the white glove turning dark, the scar below throbbing with pain.
He whispers, “I used to chase her through the forest.”
“What?” says one of the soldiers. “What the hells did you say?”
More blood falls into his open palm. Sigrud makes a fist and begins to move.
***
Mulaghesh is still stewing in her jail cell when she hears the gunshot. It’s muffled by the thick walls of the fortress, but she knows what it is immediately.
“What in hells?” She walks to the bars of her door and looks to the guard. “Hey—what the hells is going on?”
The guard, disconcerted, draws her sidearm. Mulaghesh sees she has lousy trigger discipline, because she puts her finger on the damn thing immediately. The guard takes a step back, looking through the glass window in the door to the prison hallway.
“What the fuck is going on?” says Mulaghesh again.
“Quiet!” says the guard.
There’s silence. Then from somewhere nearby comes a bloodcurdling scream, long and loud.
The scream stops short—too short. Then more silence.
“Shit,” says Mulaghesh.
“Quiet!” shouts the guard.
An enormous crash from outside the hallway door. Someone is screaming, not in threat or assault, but in sheer terror.
Then there’s a face at the door—a young Saypuri soldier, his eyes wide in fright. He pounds on the glass, crying, “Open the door! Open the door, you’ve got to let me in! Let me in, let me in!”
“What?” says the guard. “Pishal, what in hells is happening out there?”
The soldier outside the glass looks over his shoulder at something. “By all the fucking seas, Ananth, let me in!”
The guard glances at Mulaghesh. “This is probably your doing, isn’t it? Some damn shtanis sent here to rescue you…”
“Do I look like I know what’s going on?” says Mulaghesh.
The guard hesitates, then raises her pistol and cautiously opens the door. The Saypuri soldier bursts in, terrified. “Thank the seas!” he cries. “Thank all the seas! Now shut it and—”
The soldier never finishes his sentence, as something bright red—a hand, perhaps?—reaches through the gap and rips him back through the door with terrifying speed, as if there were a rope tied to his waist with an auto at the other end. The soldier screams in terror, flailing uselessly at the door and the frame, but within a fraction of a second he’s gone, the door slamming shut behind him.
“Son of a bitch!” shouts the guard. She pulls the door back open, pistol raised, and leaps through. Once again the door slams shut, its bang echoing down the hallway.
Silence.
Mulaghesh waits. And waits.
There’s a scream from the other side of the door. A fine spray of blood mists over the glass window, and there is a great banging as someone fumbles with the handle. The door flies open, and the guard comes stumbling back through.
Her left arm is bloody and awkwardly twisted, as if it’s been caught in some kind of monstrous machinery. She’s obviously in shock, but she still has wits enough to slam the door shut with her good shoulder and lock it. She doesn’t quite succeed in this last task, leaving the old iron latch just half closed, but she turns and limps down the hall to Mulaghesh.
“What the hells is happening out there, Private?” says Mulaghesh, horrified.
“Help me,” whimpers the guard. “You’ve…You’ve got to help me.”
“What is going on?”
“He’s an animal!” she says, her mouth working to make the words. “He’s a monster! Please, you’ve got to help me!”
“Open the jail cell and I will!”
The guard tries to unclip the ring of keys from her belt, but she’s in too much shock to manage it.
“Hurry, damn you!” says Mulaghesh.
There’s a terrific crash from the door as something on the other side slams into it. The guard stops and stares at it in horror. The door shudders again as another enormous blow strikes it. Then another, and another.
The glass window quivers. There’s a tiny creak as the latch she only half closed slowly begins to give way.
“Oh, no,” whispers the guard.
With one final crash the door flies open. Mulaghesh can hardly see what’s on the other side before there’s a soft thump and the guard begins screaming, not in terror but in agony. She looks at the guard and realizes that a knife has somehow sprouted from the guard’s left side, up under her arm. The knife is huge and thick and black, and is quite familiar to Mulaghesh.
Sigrud je Harkvaldsson walks through the door, his chest heaving with either exertion or wrath. He’s covered from head to toe in blood, his face and chest spattered with fans of gore. His face is bruised and there’s a slash on his left arm, but besides these tokens it is quite clear that he was the decisive victor of whatever fights he’s been in.
“Sigrud, what are you doing?” shouts Mulaghesh. Her fury rises as she realizes who Sigrud must have been fighting—and likely killing. “What have you done, you motherfucker, what have you done!”
Sigrud ignores her and walks to the guard, who is feebly attempting to crawl away. He grasps her by the head and waist and lifts her into the air, and as he does Mulaghesh sees the steady flow of blood pouring from his nose….
He’s in a berserk rage, she realizes. He’s gone mad.
Though she has no idea what would put him in such a state, she rapidly begins to realize that Sigrud is now likely the most dangerous thing in Fort Thinadeshi.
She watches in horror as Sigrud slams the guard’s head into the bars of the jail cell with so much force that the skin on the young girl’s forehead pops open like a bag packed too tight. The guard goes silent and her eyes blank, unconscious or worse.