“Rags first,” she said.
Zukunft helped peel the blood-soaked remains of his shirt away and dropped it on the bar with a wet plop. Next she helped him shuck the tattered remnants of his chain shirt and Bedeckt did his best to ignore the gaping hole torn in its side and the flaking rust of the many bent rings.
His torso naked, Zukunft pressed the booze-soaked bar rags over top her crude stitches. “Hold these in place.”
Once Bedeckt had them held where she wanted, she wrapped his gut in strap after strap. He groaned in pain as she cinched each one tight. Once finished, she stepped back to examine her handiwork. Overlapping bands of leather bound his belly tight. She touched a hand to the wounded side.
“Feel that?” she asked.
“No.”
She pressed a little harder. “That?”
“A little.”
Zukunft pressed harder and he grunted in pain.
“It’ll do,” she said. “Let’s see if you can stand.”
“I’ve been standing the entire damned time.”
“Without leaning on the bar.”
After downing the last of his pint, Bedeckt pushed himself from the bar and stood, weaving only slightly. “Good as new,” he said, grinding his teeth to stop from whimpering.
“Your new is shite.”
“I think you’re going to have to help me to the door,” he said. “And I’m not sure if I can mount a horse.”
“Anything else you’d like to mount?”
“Woman, this isn’t—”
“Oh ho! So I’m a woman now?”
“Girl,” he said. “I’ll tell you what’s shite: Your timing.” You’re off by several decades.
She offered a sad smile and he realized she was on the verge of tears.
“Sorry,” she said, voice quiet. “Lean against me. I’ll help you.”
Bedeckt staggered to the tavern door, Zukunft supporting much of his considerable weight. Glancing over his shoulder he saw the stain of his blood. It was too large. Far too large. He couldn’t believe he ever had that much blood inside him.
It isn’t in there any more.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Give me one hundred Verschlinger Wendigast who will obey orders and I will conquer the world.
—General Misserfolg, Selbsthass
The cold tinkle of metal on metal woke Wichtig. He groaned, his throat dry. Sinuses choked with blood, he’d fallen asleep with his mouth open. He felt like he’d gargled dust.
Everything will be fine. I’m the Greatest Swordsman in the World. Morgen will watch over me. The damned god-brat needs me.
“Calm,” he whispered, “Be calm like the—”
“Shut up.”
“Huh?”
The voice was feminine. If there was a woman in the room, he was as good as free. Wichtig rolled his eyes, trying to see who spoke. The previously empty wood table was now littered with bright and shiny implements of horror. Knives and hooks and surgical instruments for spreading flesh and bone were laid out in loving care, aligned perfectly.
A slim figure stood at the edge of his peripheral vision, face and body shrouded in whispers of spidery gauze.
“You sleep heavily,” she said, voice nasally and hollow.
“Tired,” he said. “Small run-in with an albtraum pretending to be my son.” He wasn’t sure why he told her that, but manipulation often depended on laying a groundwork of subtle facts and watching to find which was the emotional trigger.
The woman didn’t seem to care. “I am Schnitter,” she said.
“Wichtig Lügner,” he answered. “The Greatest—”
“Yes, yes.” She shuffled closer, moving with a lilting limp, and smiled down at him. The gauze offered hints of the twisted nightmare face within.
“You are pretty,” she said. “Shame about the teeth.”
“I did look better with them,” he said, enunciating carefully so as to avoid the embarrassing lisp.
“I meant that it was a shame I didn’t get to take them,” she said, reaching a hand up to caress Wichtig’s cheek. “But the rest will be mine.”
He couldn’t drag his gaze from that hand. The smallest and middle fingers were gone, severed at the first knuckle. Noting his attention, she lifted the other hand. The first and ring fingers were missing, surgically removed. None of the remaining fingers had nails; red and raw, they looked to have been recently yanked free.
She smiled at whatever she saw in his face.
Wichtig eyed the stumps of her missing fingers with distaste. “They fell off?”
“Of course not, my pretty.” She leaned close. “I removed them.” She shrugged again, the slightest lift of shoulders. “I am optimizing myself, cutting away the unneeded.”
He blinked up at her, struggling to understand. “Optimizing?”
“And I will do the same for you. I shall pare you down to the barest of essentials, nothing superfluous.”
Feigning calm, Wichtig offered a world weary sigh. “So you’re going to torture me.” He was impressed with how bored he managed to sound.
“No, my pretty. Of course not.” She seemed genuinely upset by the suggestion. “What a terrible thing to say. I’m going to improve you. I’m going to—”
“Optimize me.”
“It’s rude to interrupt,” she admonished.