She then heard a thud behind her and spun on the slick mud of the bank, the two swords still in her hands-
– to see a badly torn body, a man, lying face down. The shattered ends of long bones jutting from his arms and legs, blood pulsing slowly from ruptured veins. And, settling atop him, a wraith, descending like a shadow to match the contorted body beneath it. A shadowy face looking up at Kettle, the rasp of words-
‘Child, we need your help.’
She looked back over her shoulder – the surface of the pool was growing calm once more. ‘Oh, what do you want me to do? It’s all going wrong-’
‘Not as wrong as you think. This man, this Letherii. Help him, he’s dying. I cannot hold him together much longer. He is dying, and he does not deserve to die.’
She crawled closer. ‘What can I do?’
‘The blood within you, child. A drop or two, no more than that. The blood, child, that has returned you to life. Please…’
‘You are a ghost. Why would you have me do this for him – and not for you?’
The wraith’s red eyes thinned as it studied her. ‘Do not tempt me.’
Kettle looked down at the swords in her hands. Then she set one down and brought the freed hand to the gleaming blue edge of the one she still held. Slid her palm a bit along the edge, then lifted her hand to study the result. A long line of blood, a deep, perfect cut. ‘Oh, it’s sharp.’
‘Here, push him onto his back. Lay your wounded palm on his chest.’
Kettle moved forward.
A blow had broken his left arm, and the agony as Iron Bars dodged around and between the bellowing Seregahl sent white flashes through his brain. Half blinded, he wielded his battered, blunted sword on instinct alone, meeting blow after blow – he needed a moment free, a few heartbeats in which to recover, to clamp down on the pain-
But he’d run out of that time. Another blow got through, the strange wooden sword slicing as if glass-edged into his left hip. The leg on that side gave out beneath the biting wound. He looked up through sweat-stinging eyes, and saw the one-eyed Seregahl towering directly over him, teeth bared in triumph.
Then a tree branch struck the god in the head. Against its left temple, hard enough to snap the head right over to bounce from the opposite shoulder. The grin froze, and the Toblakai staggered. A second impact caught it, this time coming from behind, up into the back of the skull, the branch exploding into splinters. The god bent forward-
– as a knee drove up into its crotch – and forearms hammered its back, pushing it further down, the knee rising again, this time to crunch against the god’s face.
The grin, Iron Bars saw from where he crouched, was entirely gone now.
The Avowed rolled to one side a moment before the Toblakai landed atop him. Rolled, and rolled, stumbling to his feet finally to pivot round. And, rising to his name above the agony in his hip, straightening. Once more facing the Seregahl.
Where, it seemed, one of their own kind was now fighting them – a mortal Tarthenal, who had wrapped his huge arms around one of the gods from behind, trapping its arms to its sides as he squeezed. The remaining three gods had staggered back, as if in shock, and the moment was, to the Avowed’s eyes, suddenly frozen.
Two, then three heartbeats.
The cloudiness cleared from the Avowed’s eyes. A flicker of energy returned to his exhausted limbs. The pain faded away.
That mortal Tarthenal was moments from dying, as the other three stirred awake and moved forward.
Iron Bars raced to intercept them.
The odds were getting better.
Two huddled shapes on the street. Tiste Edur standing around, still kicking, still breaking bones. One stamped down, and brains sprayed out onto the cobbles.
Bugg slowed to a stagger, his face twisting with grief, then rage.
He roared.
Heads turned.
And the manservant unleashed what had remained hidden and quiescent within him for so long.
Fourteen Tiste Edur, standing, all reached up to clamp their ears – but the gesture was never completed, as thirteen of them imploded, as if beneath vast pressure, in horrible contractions of flesh, the wild spurt of blood and fluids, skulls collapsing inward.
Imploded, only to explode outward a moment later. In bloody pieces, spattering the warehouse wall and out across the street.
The fourteenth Tiste Edur, the one who had just crushed a head beneath his heel, was lifted into the air. Writhing, his eyes bulging horribly, wastes streaming down his legs.
As Bugg stalked forward.
Until he was standing before Theradas Buhn of the Hiroth. He stared up at the warrior, at his bloated face, at the agony in his eyes.