The young man nodded, flat grey eyes pinning Wichtig. “Five years I have hunted you.”
Hunted? That sounded bad. Wichtig tried to shrug apologetically but the horse blanket allowed him little freedom of movement. “Sorry. I’ve been dead.”
The lad wasn’t impressed. “Soon you’ll be dead again.”
“I don’t seem to have much luck with children,” said Wichtig, stalling and trying to figure out why the youth looked so damned familiar.
“Maybe you should stop abandoning them.”
Abandoning? “What are you talking about?”
The boy leaned close. His breath stunk like death. “You left us. Coward.”
“Left you? Look, boy, if I bedded your mother in some alley and you’re my get, fine. I didn’t know you existed. I didn’t abandon you. Whatever you think, whatever your whore mother—”
The boy stabbed him Not deep, but deep enough to cut his words off in a sob of pain. Nostrils flared, the young man leaned in as if to inhale his torment. He twisted the knife, drawing a ragged gasp from Wichtig.
“You know who I am,” said the boy.
The tip of the knife still embedded in his flesh, Wichtig ground his teeth against the agony. He stared up at the handsome face above him. Perfect hair. Straight teeth. Broad shoulders. The youth looked like—
Wichtig remembered Morgen saying time was different in the Afterdeath. He remembered the barmaid in the Leichtes Haus saying she heard he died a decade ago.
“Fluch?” Wichtig asked. “I was on my way to you. I’m coming home.”
“Traurig is east of here, not south,” said Fluch twisting the knife and easing it deeper.
Wichtig, trapped and wrapped tight, unable to escape the agony, moaned. “There are things I have to do first,” he said. “Unfinished business. And then I’m coming straight home. Your mother—”
“She’s dead. Died two years ago.” Again the knife twisted, probing deeper.
Wichtig craned his neck, seeing ?rgerlich and wondering if he could get the horse to do something to distract the boy. ?rgerlich didn’t even seem to notice Wichtig was being stabbed. Sticking horse. “I couldn’t return a pauper. I needed money to support—” Had Fluch said she was dead? Wichtig’s mind whirled, struggling to fit this into his world. She couldn’t be dead, she was an unstoppable force of angry sarcasm and degrading barbs. She cut up everything he tried to do, no matter that his intentions were pure, that he was only trying to be successful so she could live in a nice house. “I wanted you to be proud of me when I returned,” said Wichtig, hating the whine in his voice.
“Proud?” demanded Fluch, eyes wide with disbelief. “You abandoned us. Slunk off like a drunken gutless shite.”
Drunken? Fluch was too young to have been aware of that. His mother must have filled his head with lies. “You wouldn’t understand,” grated Wichtig. “I love—loved your mother. But we…but we…” But what? How to explain to this boy his mother was a harpy, that she never believed in Wichtig, never believed he’d be great at anything. He remembered how she told him to pick something—anything—and then stick to it. She didn’t understand. How was he to know his destiny? It wasn’t until years later, after he met Bedeckt, he came to understand he was to be the World’s Greatest Swordsman.
“But what?” Fluch demanded.
“You were a kid, you wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not a kid any more,” Fluch screamed into Wichtig’s face, spraying him with spittle and the damp stench of rot.
Gods this kid has awful breath. Had no one taught him the basics of hygiene? Wichtig remembered how his wife continually picked at his wardrobe, muttering her embarrassment at its sad state. It wasn’t until years later he discovered the effectiveness of fine clothing. Could she have changed that much? He couldn’t imagine it.
“As soon as I’m finished with Bedeckt—”
“You’ve never finished anything in your life.”
Now that did sound like his wife. Wichtig opened his mouth to speak but the boy yelled overtop of him.
“Useless cunt! And now you’re hunting your only friend, planning to kill him. And for what? A pretty title and some gold? You never learn. You’re a selfish coward!”
“He’s not my friend, he abandoned me!”
“Being the Greatest Moron in the World means more to you than all your friends and family combined!”
Greatest Moron? That sounded more like Stehlen. Wichtig blinked, stuttering in confusion. Had the Kleptic found the boy, somehow sent him after Wichtig? No, she was dead. And thank the gods for that!
“Once Bedeckt is dead,” swore Wichtig, “I was going to come for you. I promise. We’ll be together—” The knife twisted in his belly, writhing in his flesh like something alive.
“Your promises are shite.”
“I swear,” said Wichtig, not sure if he was lying. That had been his intent, had always been his intent, but circumstances always arose that stood in the way of his return.