Best Served Cold

She couldn’t think of much in the way of sharp last words, so she just tipped her head back and spat at him. It spattered against his neck, his collar, the pristine front of his uniform. Not much vengeance, maybe, but something. Ganmark peered down at it. “A perfect lady to the end.”

His eyes flickered sideways and he jerked away as something flashed past him, twittered into a flower bed behind. A thrown knife. There was a snarl and Cosca was on him, barking like a mad dog as he harried the general back across the cobbles.

“Cosca!” Fumbling her sword up. “Late, as ever.”

“I was somewhat occupied next door,” growled the old mercenary, pausing to catch his breath.

“Nicomo Cosca?” Ganmark frowned at him. “I thought you were dead.”

“There have always been false reports of my death. Wishful thinking-”

“On the part of his many enemies.” Monza stood, shaking the weakness out of her limbs. “You’ve got a mind to kill me, you should get it done instead of talking about it.”

Ganmark backed slowly away, sliding his short steel from its sheath with his left hand, pointing it towards her, the long towards Cosca, his eyes flitting back and forth between them. “Oh, there’s still time.”

– 

S hivers weren’t himself. Or maybe he finally was. The pain had turned him mad. Or the eye they’d left him wasn’t working right. Or he was still all broken up from the husk he’d been sucking at the past few days. Whatever the reasons, he was in hell.

And he liked it.

The long hall pulsed, glowed, swam like a rippling pool. Sunlight burned through the windows, stabbing and flashing at him through a hundred hundred glittering squares of glass. The statues shone, smiled, sweated, cheered him on. He might’ve had one eye less than before, but he saw things clearer. The pain had swept away all his doubts, his fears, his questions, his choices. All that shit had been dead weight on him. All that shit was weakness, and lies, and a waste of effort. He’d made himself think things were complicated when they were beautifully, awfully simple. His axe had all the answers he needed.

Its blade caught the sunlight and left a great white, fizzing smear, hacked into a man’s arm sending black streaks flying. Cloth flapping. Flesh torn. Bone splintered. Metal bent and twisted. A spear squealed across Shivers’ shield and he could taste the roar in his mouth, sweet as he swung the axe again. It crashed into a breastplate and left a huge dent, sent a body flailing into a pitted urn, burst it apart, writhing on the floor in a mass of shattered pottery.

The world was turned inside out, like the glistening innards of the officer he’d gutted a few moments before. He used to get tired when he fought. Now he got stronger. The rage boiled up in him, leaked out of him, set his skin on fire. With every blow he struck it got worse, better, muscles burning until he had to scream it out, laugh it out, weep, sing, thrash, dance, shriek.

He smashed a sword away with his shield, tore it from a hand, was on the soldier behind it, arms around him, kissing his face, licking at him. He roared as he ran, ran, legs pounding, rammed him into one of the statues, sent it over, crashing into another, and another beyond that, tipping, smashing on the floor, breaking apart into chunks in a cloud of dust.

The guard groaned, sprawling in the ruins, tried to roll over. Shivers’ axe stoved the top of his helmet in deep with a hollow clonk, drove the metal rim right down over his eyes and squashed his nose flat, blood running out from underneath.

“Fucking die!” Shivers bashed in the side of the helmet and sent his head one way. “Die!” Swung back and crumpled the other side, neck crunching like a sock full of gravel. “Die! Die!” Bonk, bonk, like pots and pans clattering in the river after mealtime. A statue looked on, disapproving.

“Look at me?” Shivers smashed its head off with his axe. Then he was on top of someone, not knowing how he got there, ramming the edge of his shield into a face until it was nothing but a shapeless mess of red. He could hear someone whispering, whispering in his ear. Mad, hissing, croaking voice.

“I am made of death. I am the Great Leveller. I am the storm in the High Places.” The Bloody-Nine’s voice, but it came from his own throat. The hall was strewn with fallen men and fallen statues, scattered with bits of both. “You.” Shivers pointed his bloody axe at the last of them, cringing at the far end of the dusty hallway. “I see you there, fucker. No one gets away.” He realised he was talking in Northern. The man couldn’t understand a word he said. Hardly mattered, though.

He reckoned he got the gist.

–