Vengeance
Hybrook Belisia tosses the pistol aside and draws the rapier from his hip. He’s light on his feet, one polished toe pointed, his fingers loose around the hilt. “After all this,” he says with a sneer, “you still don’t have the good sense to lie down and die.”
In contrast, Berend grips his saber like he’s hanging from a cliff. It was a glancing blow, the pistol shot, otherwise his guts would be several feet behind him, but he’s still losing blood at an alarming rate. His shirt is already soaked through, and a thick, red stain spreads down one leg and into the heavy fabric of his borrowed coat. He presses his free hand onto the wound, hoping the pressure will keep him upright a little longer. He’ll worry about infection later, if he lives that long.
He straightens his back and puts his right foot forward, turning his injured side away from Hybrook. Berend has never set foot in the sort of expensive fencing schools in which the Belisias would enroll their sons, but he knows the style when he sees it. That rapier is no less deadly for how pretty it is.
Hybrook advances, his feet following an invisible line. The rapier darts out like a striking snake, probing Berend’s defenses, and the ring of metal on metal echoes down the empty street. Another strike makes for Berend’s face, and a third comes in from the left. He bats them aside. On a different day, his saber could snap Hybrook’s thin, pointed blade in half. Today, he’s using one hand to try to keep some of his blood inside his body. Even these easy parries make his arm feel heavier.
More pale shapes materialize from the shuttered houses and gather around Berend and Hybrook. Their hollow eyes stare, unblinking, distant from what they’ve already seen and alert with the eagerness to see more. They’re hoping for blood—or at least, Berend thinks so. He’s never been any good at reading ghosts. They press in, their shoulders overlapping, and a damp, heavy chill settles into the air.
Berend does his best to ignore them. Sure, they can hurt him, he knows that better than most, but they’re not out for his blood at the moment.
Hybrook strikes again, the tip of his sword aiming for Berend’s injured side. Berend takes a step back and moves to knock it away, but it’s already gone, looping around his own blade and biting into his shoulder. The thick wool of his coat absorbs most of the blow, but the point breaks through, drawing a spot of blood that Berend can’t afford to lose. He won’t take his eyes away from Hybrook to check, but he can feel wet heat slowly spreading.
If he’s going to die here, which looks more likely with each passing second, he might as well do it. With his luck, he’ll become one of these hungry ghosts. He looks forward to making the rest of Hybrook’s life, however long that might be, as miserable as possible. He’ll take a moment to check in on Isabel, too, in between throwing any available objects at Hybrook’s smug face.
He swings his saber in a quick arc, aiming for Hybrook’s midsection. The rapier meets his blade halfway through with a screeching clash. It doesn’t break the rapier, but Hybrook stumbles one step to his right. His eyes go wide as he collides with a ghost. He gasps, and his exhale comes out in a cloud of condensation. He shuffles his feet with an easy, practiced motion, regaining his footing and stepping out of the body of the ghost.
Berend mirrors him, keeping his saber between himself and that sharp-toothed rapier. He plants his feet and hits it again with an overhead blow like a hammer. Hybrook keeps his grip, but the weight of the saber bears down, crushing through his textbook-perfect guard.
Berend twists his wrist and frees his sword from Hybrook’s. With a quick motion that spreads the bloodstain on his side, he strikes Hybrook across the jaw with his crossguard.
Hybrook staggers back. An angry red mark blooms on his clean-shaven cheek. His slight aristocratic sneer drops, and he snarls, the red sky turning his teeth bright pink. He adjusts his stance, brings his sword parallel to the ground, and presses forward.
The first strike meets Berend’s saber and pushes through, filling the street with an echoing, metallic shriek. Berend steps back, and the rapier’s point nips at the fabric of his coat. A second blow scratches at his forearm. He retreats another step and plunges into the wintry cold of the gathered ghosts.
The sudden chill stops up his throat and crushes his chest. He loses focus for barely a second, but it’s enough. Hybrook steps in and stabs his rapier into Berend’s shoulder.
Berend retreats again, but his foot finds a gap between the cobbles and twists under his weight. He falls.
This is it, then. Ghostly faces loom over him, the black holes of their eyes searching for something, their lips moving in silence. Berend wants to say something to them before he joins their number, but he can’t think of anything. After death, he supposes, he’ll have plenty of time to come up with something profound.
Hybrook’s shadow falls over him. If he doesn’t look, he can almost believe it’s a normal night, without the eerie red glow in the sky. The ghosts mostly ruin the effect. Berend thinks he recognizes one—a young woman with hair spilling from her cap in trails of mist. She has only half a face, and her image fragments and swirls like the reflection of the moon on a rushing river.
Bessa Kyne turns to Hybrook and screams.
Hybrook waves her off with his free hand and stalks toward Berend. She flickers, and then she’s in front of him again, her distorted voice emanating from all directions.
Hybrook frowns and presses forward, his rapier poised to pierce Berend through the chest. If he recognizes her, he makes no outward indication of it. He doesn’t even look her in the eye.
She falls silent. Berend’s ears ring.
Then, she reaches out and puts her shaking, translucent hand around Hybrook’s throat before stepping through his body.
He stops, his eyes wide and his face almost as pale as a ghost’s. His sword falls from his hand, hitting the pavement with a sound like a bell. He opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a quiet gurgle. Blood leaks from his eyes and nose and the corners of his mouth, running in thick rivulets down his neck and into his collar.
Hybrook Belisia drops like a stone.
Berend takes a breath. He’d been certain he’d taken his last, but here he is, still breathing and still bleeding under the red sky. He draws his legs underneath him and rolls his aching body up to his knees.
Bessa’s ghost stands over Hybrook’s corpse. She’s half a face, a singular arm below the elbow, a pair of shoulders, and a tattered skirt that ends in empty air a foot above the ground. She shudders and flickers, fog wafting from her like the sea in the early morning.
“You got him,” Berend says. “Well done.”
She doesn’t answer. The other ghosts press in closer, and she fades into the mass, with only a slight scintillation in the crowd to indicate where she went.
Berend gets to his feet. He’s not as lightheaded as he expected, so he might well live a little longer. His coat is sticky with half-dried blood. He shucks it off, shivering in the cold, and tears a strip from his tattered shirt to tie around the wound in his side. He needs proper medical treatment, or at least some whiskey to wash out the wound and more to go in his belly, but there’s little chance of him receiving either.
“The Temple District, then?” he says aloud to no one in particular. Maybe Isra’s nuns will have an extra bandage for him.
He puts the coat back on and drags himself to Lady Breckenridge’s door, just so he can let Essie know he’s alive. One of the shutters opens a crack and closes again before she comes to the door.
“You’re bleeding,” she says, helpfully.
Berend tries to smile, but he can feel it’s more of a grimace. “I’m going to the Temple District,” he says. “I think it might be safer than here. You can come with me, if you want.”
She looks at the bloody mess on his coat. “Maybe I should. I don’t think you’re getting there on your own.”
As if in response, another volley of gunfire sounds from the square. A woman’s scream cuts through the night.
Berend takes Essie, Caddis the portly doorman, and perhaps a hundred ghosts in a wide circle, avoiding the council chambers. Two men fleeing the square cross the street ahead of them, take one look at the undulating mass of ghosts, and run in the opposite direction. Another crack of gunfire echoes through the city center.
They’re firing into the crowd, Berend realizes in horror, or that thing has broken into the square, and they’re about to notice that musket balls are useless. He can’t decide which is worse.
The crowd comes after, and they’re braver than their vanguards, forcing their way through the ghosts. A woman in a gray dress, her cap clinging to her head by one pin, jostles Berend as she passes, sending pain from his shoulder into his chest and down through his stomach. He puts a hand to his side and finds his coat still wet.
Just let me get to the Temple District, he prays to no one. I’ll lie down and die after that.
If there are guards at the edge of the city center, Berend can’t see them. The barricades have been tossed aside and broken, and pieces of wood clog the gutters. The crowd leaving the square has met the crowd trying to force their way into the city center, and they’ve dissolved into a confusing mass, unable to move in either direction. The dome of Isra’s temple looms over them, white marble shining a sinister red.
“What now?” asks Essie.
Berend risks a look toward the square. He can’t see it from here, but there’s a strange, shadowy quality to the northern sky. The gunfire has diminished to a single shot in more than a minute—the watch’s firing line has fallen apart. He lets himself hope that it’s because the citizens they were corralling are beating them about the head with sticks, rather than the alternative, which is that half their number has been disintegrated by a touch from a quivering tendril or many-jointed finger.
His hands and feet are getting cold. If he stands still too long, he’ll pass out, and then he’s no good to anyone. He starts pushing through the crowd.
He’s afraid they’ll crush him, once he gets past the first ring of people, but they take one look at him covered in blood and his entourage of ghosts and give him room. Essie grabs his sleeve and drags Caddis along behind her.
An eternity later, he’s standing in front of the Temple of Isra. The doors are shut, and there are half a dozen people lying on the steps before them, their haggard faces staring at nothing.
I guess I’m not getting a bandage. He considers joining the people on the steps, but if he sits down, he’s not getting back up again. If only he could look inside, just for a second, just to check if Isabel’s in there.
He starts to go around the temple, but Essie still has the sleeve of his coat clenched in one small fist. “We’ll try the kitchen,” he says, which makes perfect sense to him, but Essie raises her eyebrows.
There is exactly one nun in green at the temple’s back door, and she’s carrying a stack of books and hurrying toward the street, her skirts rustling behind her.
Berend puts himself in her path. It’s the best he can do right now. “Don’t suppose you have a bandage,” he says. “Or some whiskey.”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. We ran out hours ago.” She doesn’t specify whether she means bandages or whiskey, but Berend assumes it’s the former.
“Where are you going?” asks Essie.
The nun holds up her stack of books. Two are medical texts, another is a book of Isran hymns, and the rest don’t have titles on their spines—records, probably. “The Temple of Ondir. They’re building a fortress of books. People say it’s the only thing that can save us. I figured I’d try it, right?”It sounds like something Isabel might do, but even if it’s not, what other choice does Berend have? Might as well try it. It’s not like it’ll make his life any shorter at this point.
We are hurtling toward (this version of) the conclusion! Thanks for reading.
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