City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(41)

“This is not war. This is a time of peace.”

“Your peace. Peace for things like him,” he says with disgust, gesturing to Vohannes.

“Hey … ,” says Vohannes.

“You embrace sinners, cowards, blasphemers,” says the leader. “People who have turned their backs on their history, on everything that we are. This is how you wage your war on us.”

“We,” says Shara forcefully. “Are not. At war.”

The leader leans in and whispers, “The minute a shally steps within the Divine City, I am at war with them.”

Shara is silent. The leader stands up, listens. There is nothing to hear.

“Your friend is dead,” says Shara.

“Shut up,” says the leader. He reaches over his shoulder and pulls out a short, thin sword. “Stand up. I’ll get you out of here myself.”

Shara, supporting Vohannes’s limping weight, walks out of the guest room and down the hall while the leader stalks behind them.

After a few seconds, she stops.

“Keep going,” barks the leader.

“Can you not see ahead of you?” asks Shara.

He steps around them and sees there is something lying in the hallway.

“No,” he whispers, and walks to it.

It is a crumpled, masked body lying in a copious pool of blood. Though it is hard to see through the soaking gray cloth, his neck appears to be slashed wide open. The leader kneels and gently reaches up behind the mask to touch the man’s brow. He whispers something. After a moment, he stands back up, and the hand holding the sword is trembling.

“Keep moving,” he says hoarsely, and Shara can tell he is weeping.

They walk on. At first, the house seems terribly silent. But before they reach the stairs they hear the sounds of a struggle—wood snapping, the tinkle of breaking china, and a rough shout—before seeing an open door to a large room on their left, with many shadows dancing on the threshold.

“The ballroom,” mutters Vohannes.

The leader walks forward quickly, sword held out front; then he braces himself and wheels into the room.

Shara, dragging Vohannes, follows and looks in, though she already knows what she will see.

The ballroom is quite spacious and ornate, or at least it was. One masked attacker is kneeling on the floor, clutching his wrist and shrieking: his hand has been completely amputated, and blood spurts out to fan across the wooden floor. Another masked attacker sits in the corner, quite dead, with the handle of a short, black-bladed knife buried in his neck. In the center of the room the dining table has been kicked over, and behind this barricade stands Sigrud, covered in sweat and blood, with one frantic and miserable masked attacker in a headlock under his left arm. With his right hand Sigrud holds the remains of the ballroom chandelier—which has apparently been ripped out of the ceiling—and he is using it to fend off another attacker, who attempts to engage him with a sword. But though it is hard to tell through all the glimmering crystals flying through the air, the attacker appears to be steadily losing, stumbling back with every blow, in between which Sigrud, using the fist holding the chandelier, manages to pummel the face of the unhappy man in his headlock.

The leader of the attackers stands agog at this sight for a moment, before holding his sword high, screaming at the top of his lungs, and rushing in, bounding over the table.

Sigrud gives him an irritated glance—What now?—and lifts up the headlocked man just in time for the man’s back to receive the point of the leader’s sword.

Both masked men gag in shock. Sigrud swings the chandelier around so that it hooks the blade of the free attacker, shoves the man to the floor, and releases the chandelier.

The leader lets go of the hilt of his sword, pulls out a short knife, and with an anguished scream, dives at Sigrud.

Sigrud releases the headlock on the dead (or dying) man, grabs the leader’s wrist before the knife can strike home, head-butts the leader soundly, and then—to the vocal horror of Vohannes—opens his mouth wide, lunges forward, and tears out most of the man’s throat with his teeth.

The gush of blood is positively tidal. Shara feels a little disgusted at herself for thinking only, This will definitely make the papers.

Sigrud, now totally anointed with crimson, drops the leader, grabs the sword sticking out of the dead man’s back, and seemingly without a thought hurls it like a javelin at the shrieking attacker with the severed wrist. The point of the blade catches the man just under the joint of his jawbone. He collapses immediately. The sword wobbles, and though it is buried deep enough in the man’s skull that it does not fall out, the wobbling is accompanied by an unpleasant cracking noise.

Sigrud turns to the groaning man trapped under the remains of the chandelier.

“No,” says Shara.

He turns to look at her. His one eye is alight with a cold rage.

“We need one alive.”

“They shot me,” he says, and holds up a bleeding palm. “With an arrow.”

“We need one alive, Sigrud.”

“They shot me,” he says again, incensed, “with an arrow.”

“There must be more downstairs,” says Shara. “The hostages, Sigrud. Think. Take care of them—carefully.”

Sigrud makes a face like a child who has just been given onerous chores. He walks to the man with the knife in his neck, pulls it out, and stalks out of the room.