Stehlen’s heart shivered apart, splintered like a diamond struck with a smith’s hammer. She felt gutted, empty. Wichtig might as well have slashed Stehlen’s belly open and dumped everything she was on the floor.
She killed the girl, put her knife through an eye and into the bitch’s brain. Then she gutted her for good measure. The girl toppled, torn by agony, writhing in her own viscera. Dead and not yet knowing it. Stehlen’s knife went with the girl, wedged in bone.
“Stehlen,” said Wichtig and she was on him, sword hissing as it parted air.
The Swordsman danced away, knocking aside her attacks like they were nothing. For the first time Stehlen understood what it was to face the Greatest Swordsman in the World.
She was death.
She killed with no thought but death.
She couldn’t touch him.
Wichtig was a god.
She didn’t care.
Throwing herself at him with mad abandon, she suffered wound after wound as he defended her every attack and repaid her with more damage.
He’s playing with you as he played with Lebendig.
She snarled fury and hacked and slashed and he batted her attacks away like she was a child and not the single most skilled killer in all the world.
“Kill me,” she screamed at him.
“I can’t,” he said, slashing a deep gash in her side. “Stop—”
She pressed the attack, forcing him to retreat. Still he carved her, mocking her inability to touch him.
Kill me. I’ve earned it. I have nothing left.
“Kill me!”
“I can’t!”
Stehlen drew another knife, keeping it from Wichtig’s sight.
Kill me or I’ll kill you.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Only fools worship gods.
There is nothing out there that man did not make.
—Anonymous
Bedeckt lost the world to madness. Sundered reality plagued his every breath, left him reeling and adrift. Lying near the door, Zukunft pressed against him cooing soothing sounds and sobbing into his chest, he heard the sounds of battle outside. Did his dead fight to protect him? Were they battling whatever remained of the Geborene Geisteskranken’s delusions? Why? Why would they do that?
Zukunft dripped blood on Bedeckt and he saw a tear in her scalp, parting that beautiful hair and staining it red. He didn’t know how or when she was hurt, didn’t even know how he got inside this run-down house. His memory was tattered gaps where he lost himself to the killing rage.
That rage was gone, dead and cold. Replaced with terror. He was dying.
Outside the world came apart, shattered by dementia. He heard the tornado roar of the dragon’s wings as it swept low to breathe chaos on his dead, warping them and leaving them twisted with the taint of its delusions. The beast flayed reality, peeled back the skin to expose the worm-ridden madness beneath.
Nothing survived its breath. No soul escaped this battle to return to the Afterdeath.
The dragon was killing Bedeckt’s dead, stealing any chance they might have of redemption.
He laughed, coughing blood. Redemption? He’d gone mad.
“No, I’m sane.”
Zukunft looked up at his words, her eyes pleading. “You’re not dead,” she said. “You haven’t left me.”
“No.” Not yet.
Again the dragon passed by outside, splashing Bedeckt’s dead with its breath.
Why do you care?
He killed them. All of them. Why did he care?
Ringing steel drew Bedeckt’s attention and over Zukunft’s back he saw Wichtig—covered head to toe in blood and limping—and Stehlen. They fought, desperately trying to kill each other. They were a blur of steel.
As he watched, he realized that while Stehlen fought to kill Wichtig, the Swordsman held back. He cut her, hurt her continually, but refused to land a killing blow.
Wichtig can kill Stehlen any time he wants.
The Swordsman had always been good, but now he was untouchable. He fought like each second made him better. Stehlen couldn’t so much as scratch him. Was he toying with her?
Bedeckt saw the answer in Wichtig’s face, the haunted look of a man riven of choices.
No. Wichtig won’t kill her. Eventually, Stehlen would kill him. He’d hesitate, and she was a thousand times too dangerous not to take advantage.
When she’s done, she’ll kill Zukunft. She’d see the girl hunched over Bedeckt, crying, and think this was something it wasn’t. Jealously would guide her hand.
“This isn’t real,” said Bedeckt. I’m lying on that tavern floor.
The end was near. He felt it, lurking like a shadow.
Even if Zukunft somehow survived Stehlen, whatever was outside would kill her. The dragon. Those wraiths tearing people’s souls apart.
“Not real.”
Zukunft would die and her Reflection, Vergangene, would rise up to take her place.
“No, this is madness.”