“Morgen,” he said. It must have been Morgen. The godling must have finally stepped in and saved him.
Wichtig examined Schnitter. No, Morgen would never do this, it was too messy. The boy might kill the woman, but not like this. Someone wanted Schnitter to suffer. Someone punished the woman. Was it because of what the K?rperidentit?t did to Wichtig?
Could it have been Bedeckt? No. Bedeckt would have hacked the bitch into pieces and left her for dead. What Wichtig saw here bordered on art.
“Morgen,” Wichtig whispered, afraid someone beyond the door might hear. “If you did save me, you took your sweet time. You should have come sooner while I still had all my gods-damned fingers. Arsehole!”
Suddenly cold, his skin puckering with goosebumps, Wichtig turned a complete circle. He saw no sign of his clothes.
“Shite.”
Even Schnitter’s gauzy wrappings were gone. Cursing, Wichtig selected one of the longer knives from the table of surgical instruments. Clutching it in his whole hand, he limped to the door. He pressed his ear to the wood, holding his breath as he listened.
Nothing.
Wichtig pulled the door open, ready to explode into a frenzy of violent action and praying he wouldn’t have to. The hall was empty but for the corpse of a large hound. Wichtig wanted to kick the beast for eating his toe and fingers but to do so would mean either standing on the foot missing a toe or using that foot to do the kicking. Both sounded painful. He settled for spitting on the beast and again thought of Stehlen. Gods he was grateful she hadn’t seen this. She’d never let him live it down.
Limping and shuffling and whimpering, Wichtig made it to the stairs. He stopped to lean against the wall and catch his breath.
Gone was his grace and poise and perfect balance. Get in a Sword fight now and you’re a corpse.
“Sword fight? I don’t even have a sword.”
Wichtig limped up the stone stairs, throbbing agony pulsing the length of his leg. At the top, he stopped to stare at the gore spattered corpses of half a dozen naked guards. Not one bore a single weapon better than the knife he already held. Weren’t they been armed with swords last time he saw them?
For a moment he wondered if the Gottlos garrison had something about fighting naked. Then he remembered the guards wearing worn and threadbare liveries of Gottlos.
An hour later, Wichtig was sure every single person in the garrison with the exception of Schnitter and himself, was dead. The old tower stunk like an abattoir, the floor slippery with blood and spilled organs. A tornado of violence cut through this sleepy outpost.
Everyone dead. It reminded him of Stehlen.
Could she have followed him from the Afterdeath? Had she saved him?
That made no sense. She’d have gloated.
And you did leave her behind in the Afterdeath. She’d kill you for that for sure.
The psychotic Kleptic was incapable of such subtlety.
This isn’t subtlety, this is mayhem. This is Stehlen’s style of— Where the hells are my swords?
Wichtig limped through the tower in search of clothing and weapons. What was he thinking about before going in search of his swords? Why the hells were all these corpses naked? Had whoever killed them stolen their clothes? Who would do that? And where were their weapons? He stepped over the corpse of a naked serving girl, her throat opened.
Stehlen.
Had she escaped the Afterdeath to protect Bedeckt? He couldn’t imagine Stehlen protecting anyone.
No, if she was here, alive, she was no longer bound by the Warrior’s Credo and forced to serve the old goat. Just as likely she’d kill the old man for killing her.
Why, then, didn’t she kill me?
She wanted to rub it in his face. She found him and saved his life, punished the woman who did this to him, and left him naked and unarmed except for a silly little knife.
She stripped the corpses and hid their weapons to keep me naked. The Kleptic bitch was gloating.
“I’ll kill her.”
But if she left Wichtig alive, it was because she wasn’t finished yet. She’d always been jealous of his talents, of his relationship with Bedeckt. If she wasn’t going to protect Bedeckt from Wichtig, the only reasonable answer was that she was here to kill the old man first.
Nothing else made sense.
“She has no idea who she is up against.” She should have killed Wichtig when she had the chance.
Wichtig stopped again, leaning against a wall to rest and catch his breath. All this whimpering was exhausting. I have to think this through. Intelligence and cunning were his advantages. Stehlen was mayhem personified, but her unwillingness to plan was her weakness. She was predictably unpredictable.
He thought about how unreasonably angry Stehlen got every time someone killed someone she wanted to kill. She must want to kill Bedeckt before I kill him. That left two clear choices: either Wichtig killed Bedeckt first, or saved the old goat from the Kleptic. A surprisingly difficult choice. Beating Stehlen at her own game was worth an awful lot, but then Morgen promised fame and fortune.