For a long time neither man spoke. Lythian was happy for it. To be away from the city and all its ghosts. He could breathe out here, and think a little more clearly. He felt less angry, more focused, and perhaps it was the presence of the gruloks that did it. He didn’t know for sure. “Have any more of them come?” he asked eventually.
Vilmar crunched a bone between his jaws. “Not since the last time. Still twenty-two in total.”
When Amron left there had only been sixteen. Can I take that as a small success when he returns? Lythian wondered. Will that balance out my other failures? He scoffed in self derision. “Are there any more out there?”
“What? Twenty-two not enough for you?”
“I’m only wondering.”
The huntsman could turn truculent just like that. “Aye. Well don’t worry about all that wondering. If more come, they come. Same as the dragon. Nothing you can do about it. Now are we talking or eating?”
“Some men can do both at once.”
That only won him a scowl, and if he said anything more, he’d likely lose a share of his dinner, so he kept his mouth shut from there on out. Only once the rabbit was picked clean of its bones - the ones Vilmar didn’t eat, anyway - did Lythian say, “I want you to ask them to clear the clog at the bridge. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s lots of debris there, and…”
“And the bridge might break if it keeps accumulating. Well, we can’t be having that, can we? How would you come and pay us your little visits?” The huntsman picked out a splinter of bone from his teeth and tossed it into the trees. “I’ll ask them when the time is right.”
“And when is that?”
“When it’s right. I got a sense of these things.”
Lythian had a sense too. He sensed it was time to leave him. He stood from his stump. “A pleasure as always.” The man only growled an unintelligible response and the First Blade started back for the city.
He felt heavier every step of the way, knowing what awaited him. By now the dark had turned so thick he could scarcely see more than a dozen paces ahead. The river ran wilder than ever when he reached it, roaring and rushing past and over the bridge. Lythian stomped across in his heavy plate armour, labouring through the mud on the other side. He wondered if what Vilmar said was true, about the Dread. Was he about to come again? Could they beat him back a second time if he did? He did not know how. He’ll destroy us all, he thought. We’re broken and divided and weaker than we were the last time. We’ve had no time to prepare. He’ll lay waste to every one of us.
He plodded along, his mood sinking the same as his boots as they pressed down into the mud. Ahead, the faint light of the city could be seen, blurred by the rain and fog. He pushed on through a quagmire, the filth rising up past his knees. Gradually the walls took shape before him, smashed and broken, and the River Gate, still standing strong. He saw the shadows of men on the ramparts, walking on patrol or leaning at the crenels. The guards above the gate saw him coming and the call was raised for the doors to open. Lythian stepped through, trailing mud. Sir Adam was there to greet him. “My lord. You were gone a long time.”
Lythian had no response.
“Will you retire to your tent, my lord?”
He nodded. It was late and he was bone-weary.
“I shall have two of my best sent to stand guard,” Sir Adam told him. He looked around. “It’s a dark night, my lord. I’m told a storm is coming.”
Another storm. They came often now, booming and bellowing. Lythian had already heard the crackle of thunder approaching from the east, and it was coming nearer with each rumbling peal.
“There are concerns of a large breakout tonight, my lord,” the young Watch Commander went on. “Lord Barrow came to me while you were gone. Whispers from some of the Rosetree men, I understand. He has set more bowmen in place on the northern walls to deter an escape, and Sir Storos and Sir Oswin are with him, and Oloran as well. I fear Storos is eager for a fight. He will raise his blade to any deserter. There may be blood tonight.”
Lythian had no complaint with that. “These deserters know the risks. Have some more of your own men deployed to patrol the streets, Sir Adam.”
“As you say, my lord. Ought I wake you if there’s trouble?”
“Only if it’s serious.” He did not need to explain what that meant. Lythian trusted Sir Adam Thorley to come to his own judgment on that.
He continued through the yard, boots splashing in the puddles. The pavilions were scattered around him, dark and ghostly in the rain and mist, occupied by this lesser lord and that unheralded knight, their roofs and walls sagging and drooping. The tent of Lord Kindrick had collapsed from the weight of the rain with no one to tend and restore it, and Sir Fitz’s abode would likely do the same now. Some others had suffered similarly; Fitz Colloway was not the first knight to have abandoned him and nor would he be the last. As he crossed the yard, a loud rumble of thunder bellowed across the skies, closer than ever. Even the lightning that preceded it struggled to pierce the gloom.
The brazier was still lit inside his tent, though the flames had burned down low. Lythian removed his sodden cloak and hung it on a hook, then unfastened his swordbelt and placed the Sword of Varinar back in its chest. He went to the brazier, picked up the iron poker and stirred the coals. Sir Ralf was the one to keep the fire lit, but the old knight would have taken to his bed by now, retiring to his own small tent a little way through the ward. He knows I want to be alone, Lythian thought. And no doubt he’s grown tired of my dour company. He could hardly blame him if that were true.
He removed his armour and poured himself a cup of wine from the sideboard to help him sleep. He sat and drank it down, brooding, listening to the falling rain, the raucous thunder. Faintly, he heard voices and movement outside and knew that Sir Adam’s men had taken their posts. That gave him some comfort. He finished his cup and poured another, drinking until he tasted the dregs. It was bitter stuff, the last of the wine they’d scoured from the city cellars, the sort of cheap swill that sailors and dockworkers drank down with great enthusiasm, never knowing any better.
But it helped him sleep, so he drank a third cup, and a fourth after that, sitting at his desk all the while. Idly, he fingered through some old maps and letters, but for what? He wasn’t here to devise strategy. He had no battle plans to make. His task was just to sit and wait. And rot, he thought. He pushed the papers aside and poured himself a fifth cup.
Eventually, the pull of sleep took hold of him. He stood, heavy-headed and heavy-legged and moved wearily to his bed, easing down onto the hard mattress and pulling the covers over. The brazier was burning softly, and outside more thunder rumbled through the skies, rolling from the east. Maybe it’s not thunder, Lythian thought drowsily. Maybe it’s the roar of the Dread, coming to finish the job. A part of him would relish it. Come, he thought. Just come and get it done. He turned onto his side, staring at the trunk across the room, cloaked in darkness, listening to the whispers hissing from inside. If the dragon should stir, at least I’ll get to use you, he thought. Just the once. I deserve that, don’t I? To go to battle with you just the once?
Sleep took him slowly. He dreamed of a spectre, stalking the lands, the harbinger of justice, slaying deserters. He moved from town to town in a heavy wool cloak, unsmiling, unblinking, killing as he went. I am death, he thought, as he took one life and then another. I am justice. He bore the Sword of Varinar, blood swishing from the edge of the blade, red on gold, gouts and godly mist mingling as he swung and cut and swished and hacked.
He knew some of the faces of the men he slew. Kindrick. Colloway. Sir Ramsey Stone. The big blacksmith he’d hanged and the merchant’s son too. But most others were nameless, faceless, shapes and shadows cut through by his blade and with every kill the Sword of Varinar called for more. More! it shouted. More! it screamed. More! More! More! More! More!
“Shhh, quiet,” whispered a voice.
Lythian stirred from his sleep.
His eyes cracked open into darkness.
He was facing away from the chest now, facing the canvas wall of the tent; he must have rolled over in his sleep. The echo of his dreams moved lazily through his mind. The spectre of death, the harbinger of doom. The demands of the blade and the…
That voice again, behind him. “Shhh, be quiet. Lift it quietly. Quietly, Symon.”
Lythian’s pulse began to rise. There were men behind him, inside his tent. Symon, he thought. Steelheart? He could hear the low grunts of exertion, the scrape of metal on wood. “It’s so heavy,” a man hissed.
“We just need to get it outside,” said another. “To the others.”
“On me. Heave,” commanded the first.
They’re at the chest, Lythian realised. The sword…
He drew a deep and steady breath, trying to remain calm. He was unarmored, defenceless. How had these men gotten in? He had guards outside, two guards. Slowly, he turned over, praying no one was looking. The wood beneath him gave the lightest creak and he froze, but the intruders were busy and didn’t hear. He completed his turn. The brazier was almost entirely burned out, but it emitted enough light to show shadows. There were four of them, hunched over the trunk across the room, struggling to lift the Sword of Varinar from its chest. Inside the flaps, two bodies lay inert. The guards. They killed the guards.
