Nimander stop-thrust another charging priest, the point pushing hard between ribs and piercing the man’s heart. As he fell he sought to trap the sword but Nimander twisted round and with a savage tug tore his weapon free.’
A knife scraped the links of his chain hauberk beneath his left arm and he pulled away and down, cross-stabbing and feeling the sword punch into soft flesh. Stomach acids spurted up the blade and stung his knuckles. The priest folded round the wound. Nimander kicked hard into his leg, shin-high, breaking bones. As the man sagged away, he pushed forward to close against yet another one.
Sword against dagger was no contest. As the poor creature toppled, sobbing from a mortal wound, Nimander whipped his sword free and spun to meet the next attacker.
There were none left standing.
Skintick stood nearby, slamming his still bloodied sword back into the scabbard at his belt, then crouching to retrieve Clip. Desra, weapon dripping, hovered close to Aranatha who, unscathed, walked past, gaze fixed on the set of ornate doors marking some grand inner entranceway. After a moment Desra followed.
From the outer doors the frenzied sounds of fighting continued, human shrieks echoing, bouncing in crazed cacophony. Nimander looked back to see that Kedeviss and Nenanda still held the portal, blood and bile spreading beneath their boots to trace along the indents and impressions of the tiles. Nimander stared at that detail, transfixed, until a nudge from Skintick shook him free.
‘Come on,’ Nimander said in a rasp, setting out into Aranatha’s wake.
Desra felt her entire body surging with life. Not even sex could match this feeling. A score of insane priests rushing upon them, and the three of them simply cut them all down. With barely a catch of breath — she had seen Nimander slaughter the last few, with such casual grace that she could only look on in wonder. Oh, he believed himself a poor swordsman, and perhaps when compared to Nenanda, or Kedeviss, he was indeed not their equal. Even so —
She hurried after her brainless sister.
Skintick wanted to weep, but he knew enough to save that for later, for that final stumble through, into some future place when all this was over and done with, when they could each return to a normal life, an almost peaceful life.
He had never been one for prayers, especially not to Mother Dark, whose heart was cruel, whose denial was an ever-bleeding wound in the Tiste Andii. Yet he prayed none the less. Not to a god or goddess, not to some unknown force at ease with the gift of mercy. No, Skintick prayed for
A world of calm.
He did not know if such a world existed, anywhere. He did not know if one such as he deserved that world. Paradise belonged to the innocent.
Which was why it was and would ever remain. . empty.
At the outer doors, the slaughter continued. Kedeviss saw Nenanda smiling, and had she the time, she would have slapped him. Hard. Hard enough to shake the glee from his eyes. There was nothing glorious in this. The fools came on and on, crushing each other in their need, and she and Nenanda killed them one by one by one.
Oh, fighting against absurd odds was something they were used to; something they did damnably well. That was no source of pride. Desperate defence demanded expedience and little else. And the Tiste Andii were, above all else, an expedient people.
And so blood spilled down, bodies crumpled at their feet, only to be dragged clear by the next ones to die.
She killed her twentieth worshipper, and he was no different from the nineteenth, no different from the very first one, back there on the steps.
Blood like rain. Blood like tears. It was all so pointless.
Nenanda began laughing.
Moments later, the worshippers changed their tactics. With frenzied screams they pushed forward en masse, and those Nenanda and Kedeviss mortally wounded were simply heaved ahead, dying, flailing shields of flesh and bone. As the mob drove onward, the two Tiste Andii were forced from the threshold-
And the attackers poured in with triumphant shrieks.
Nenanda stopped laughing.
Nimander was at the inner doorway when he heard the savage cries behind him. Spinning round, he saw Nenanda and Kedeviss retreating under an onslaught of maddened figures.
‘Skintick!’
His cousin shifted Clip’s body on to Nimander’s shoulders, then turned and, drawing his sword once more, plunged into the melee. Nimander staggered into the passageway.
