Deadhouse Gates

They rode amidst scorched furniture, shattered pottery and ceramics, and bodies twisted in postures of violent death. The children's dying screams, off to their right, had mercifully stopped, but other, more distant screams rose eerily from G'danisban's heart.

They were startled by a figure darting across their paths, a young girl, naked and bruised. She ran as if oblivious to them, and clambered under a broken-wheeled cart not fifteen paces from Fiddler and his party. They watched her scramble under cover.

Six armed men approached from a side street. Their weapons were haphazard, and none wore armour. Blackened blood stained their ragged telaban. One spoke. 'Gral! You see a girl? We're not done with her.'

Even as he asked his question, another of them grinned and gestured to the cart. The girl's knees and feet were clearly visible.

'A Mezla?' Fiddler asked.

The group's leader shrugged. 'Well enough. Fear not, Gral, we'll share.'

The sapper heard Apsalar draw a long, slow breath. He eased back in his saddle.

The group split in passing around Fiddler, Crokus and Apsalar. The sapper casually leaned after the nearest man and thrust the point of his long-knife into the base of his skull. The Gral gelding pivoted beneath Fiddler and kicked out with both rear hooves, shattering another man's chest and propelling him backward, sprawling on the cobbles.

Regaining control of the gelding, Fiddler drove his heels into its flanks. They bolted forward, savagely riding down the group's generous leader. From under the horse's stamping hooves came the sound of snapping bones and the sickening crushing of his skull. Fiddler twisted in the saddle to find the remaining three men.

Two of them writhed in keening pain near Apsalar, who sat calm in the saddle, a thick-bladed kethra knife in each gloved hand.

Crokus had dismounted and was now crouching over the last body, removing a throwing knife from a blood-drenched throat.

They all turned at a grinding of potsherds to see the girl claw her way clear of the cart, scramble to her feet, then race into the shadows of an alley, disappearing from view.

The sound of horsemen coming from the north gate reached them.

'Ride on!' Fiddler snapped.

Crokus leapt onto his mount's back. Apsalar sheathed her blades and gave the sapper a nod as she gathered up the reins.

'Ride through – to the south gate!'

Fiddler watched the two of them gallop on, then he slipped from the gelding's back and approached the two men Apsalar had wounded. 'Ah,' he breathed when he came close and saw their slashed-open crotches, 'that's the lass I know.'

The troop of horsemen arrived. They all wore ochre sashes diagonally across their chain-covered chests. Their commander opened his mouth to speak but Fiddler was first.

'Is no man's daughter safe in this seven-cursed city? She was no Mezla, by my ancestors! Is this your Apocalypse? Then I pray the pit of snakes awaits you in the Seven Hells!'

The commander was frowning. 'Gral, you say these men were rapists?'

'A Mezla slut gets what she deserves, but the girl was no Mezla.'

'So you killed these men. All six of them.'

'Aye.'

'Who were the other two riders with you?'

'The pilgrims I am sworn to protect.'

'And yet they ride into the city's heart... without you at their side.'

Fiddler scowled.

The commander scanned the victims. 'Two yet live.'

'May they be cursed with a hundred thousand more breaths before Hood takes them.'

The commander leaned on his saddlehorn and was silent a moment. 'Rejoin your pilgrims, Gral. They have need of your services.'

Growling, Fiddler remounted. 'Who rules G'danisban now?'

'None. The army of the Apocalypse holds but two districts. We shall have the others by the morrow.'

Fiddler pulled the horse around and kicked it into a canter. The troop did not follow. The sapper swore under his breath – the commander was right, he should not have sent Crokus and Apsalar on. He knew himself lucky in that his remaining with the rapists could so easily be construed as typically Gral – the opportunity to brag to the red-swathed riders, the chance to voice curses and display a tribesman's unassailable arrogance – but it risked offering up to contempt his vow to protect his charges. He'd seen the mild disgust in the commander's eyes. In all, he'd been too much of a Gral horsewarrior. If not for Apsalar's frightening talents, those two would now be in serious trouble.

He rode hard in pursuit, noting belatedly that the gelding was responding to his every touch. The horse knew he was no Gral, but it'd evidently decided he was behaving in an approved manner, well enough to accord him some respect. It was, he reflected, this day's lone victory.