Authors: Scott Lynch
Locke flicked his gaze down to the Gray King’s feet for a fraction of a second, realizing
almost too late that he was
intended
to do just that. He whipped himself to his right and barely managed a parry with
his dagger; the Gray King’s thrust slid off and cut the air just an inch from his
left shoulder. His own riposte met the Gray King’s dagger as though intended for it.
Again, Anatolius was too fast by half.
For a few desperate seconds, the two men were fully engaged. Their blades wove silver
ghosts in the air—crossing and uncrossing, feint and false feint, thrust and parry.
Locke remained just out of reach of the Gray King’s longer, more muscular cuts while
the Gray King caught and turned Locke’s every lunge with easy precision. At last they
flew apart and stood panting, staring at one another with the resigned, implacable
hatred of fighting dogs.
“Hmmm,” said the Gray King, “an illuminating passage.”
He flicked out almost casually with his rapier; Locke darted back once again and parried
feebly, tip to tip, like a boy in his first week of training. The Gray King’s eyes
glittered.
“
Most
illuminating.” Again, a casual flick; again, Locke jumped back. “You’re not actually
very
good
at this, are you?”
“It would be to my advantage if you thought so, wouldn’t it?”
At this the Gray King actually laughed. “Oh, no. No, no,
no
.” With one decisive gesture, he flung his cloak and mantle to the ground. A wild
grin
had etched deep furrows of anticipation into his lean face. “No more
bluffs
. No more
games
.”
And then he fell on Locke, his footwork a blur, his brutality unmatched by anything
in Locke’s memory. Behind his blade, there were twenty years of experience and twenty
years of blackest hatred. Some tiny, detached part of Locke’s mind cooly registered
his own inadequacy as he desperately flailed parry after parry, chasing phantom thrusts
with his eyes and hands even while the Gray King’s steel was punching through cloth
and flesh.
Once, twice, three times—in between breaths, the Gray King’s blade sang out and bit
Locke’s left wrist, forearm, and biceps.
Cold surprise hit Locke harder than the pain of the thrusts; then the warm blood began
to flow across his sweat-slick skin, tickling devilishly, and a wave of nausea rose
up from the pit of his stomach. The dagger dropped from his left hand, red with the
wrong man’s blood.
“At last we come to something you cannot
pretend
your way out of, Master Lamora.” The Gray King flicked Locke’s blood from the tip
of his rapier and watched it splash against the wooden deck in an arc. “Good-bye.”
Then he was moving again, and in the wine-colored light of the alchemical globes the
full length of his blade was bright scarlet.
“Aza Guilla,” Locke whispered, “give me justice for the death of my friends. Give
me blood for the death of my brothers!”
His voice rising to a shout, he thrust, missed, and thrust again, willing all of his
desperate hatred and fear into each cut, driving the blade faster than he ever had
in his life, and still the Gray King caught and turned his every thrust; still the
Gray King displaced himself from the path of Locke’s cuts as though fighting a child.
“It seems that the final difference between us, Master Lamora,” said the Gray King
between passages, “is that I
knew
what I was doing when I stayed here to meet you one last time.”
“No,” gasped Locke, “the difference between us is that
I
am going to
have
my revenge.”
Cold pain exploded in Locke’s left shoulder, and he stared down in horror at the Gray
King’s blade, sunk three inches into his flesh just above his heart. The Gray King
twisted savagely, scraping bone as he withdrew his rapier, and the sensation sent
Locke tumbling to his knees, his useless left arm thrown out instinctively to break
his fall.
But instinct, too, betrayed him here; his hand struck the hard deck palm-up, folded
awkwardly under the full weight of his arm, and with a terrible sharp snap his left
wrist broke. He was too shocked to scream. A split second later the Gray King slammed
a vicious kick into the side of Locke’s head, and Locke’s world became a kaleidoscope
of agony, tumbling end over end as stinging tears filled his eyes. Reynart’s rapier
clattered across the deck.
Locke was conscious of the wood pressing up against his back. He was conscious of
the blood that misted his vision. He was conscious of the bright, hot rings of pain
that radiated from his shattered wrist, and of the slick wet agony of the hole in
his shoulder joint. But most of all he was conscious of his own shame, his own terror
of failure, and the great weight of three dead friends, lying unavenged, lying unquiet
because Locke Lamora had
lost
.
He sucked in a great gasping breath, kindling new flickers of pain all across his
chest and back, but now it was all one pain, all one red sensation that drove him
up from the ground. Bellowing without an ounce of reason in his voice, he pulled his
legs in and whipped himself up, attempting to tackle the Gray King around the stomach.
The killing thrust that had been falling toward Locke’s heart struck his left arm
instead; impelled with every ounce of the Gray King’s ferocity, it punched fully through
the meat of Locke’s slender forearm and out the other side. Wild with pain, Locke
threw this arm forward and up as the Gray King struggled to withdraw; the edges of
his rapier worked a terrible business on Locke’s flesh, but stayed caught, sawing
back and forth at the muscle as the two men struggled.
The Gray King’s dagger loomed before Locke’s eyes; some animal instinct drove Locke
to lash out with the only weapon available. His teeth sank into the first three fingers
of the Gray King’s hand where they wrapped around the hilt; he tasted blood and felt
bone beneath the tips of his teeth. The Gray King cried out and the dagger fell sideways,
rebounding off Locke’s left shoulder before clattering to the deck. The Gray King
jerked his hand free, and Locke spat the man’s skin and blood back at him.
“Give it up!” the Gray King screamed, punching Locke atop his skull, then across his
nose. With his good right arm, Locke clutched for the Gray King’s sheathed dagger.
The Gray King slapped his hand away, laughing.
“You can’t win. You can’t win, Lamora!” With every exhortation, the Gray King rained
blows on Locke, who clutched at him desperately, as a drowning man might hug a floating
timber. The Gray King laughed savagely
as he pummeled Lamora’s skull, his ears, his forehead, and his shoulders, deliberately
driving his fist down into the seeping wound. “You … cannot … beat me!”
“I don’t have to beat you,” Locke whispered, grinning madly up at the Gray King, his
face streaked with blood and tears, his nose broken and his lips cracked, his vision
swimming and edged with blackness. “I don’t have to beat you, motherfucker. I just
have to keep you here … until Jean shows up.”
At that, the Gray King became truly desperate, and his blows fell like rain, but Locke
was heedless of them, laughing the wet braying laugh of utter madness. “I just have
to keep you here … until Jean … shows up!”
Hissing fury, the Gray King shook Locke’s grip off enough to make a grab for his sheathed
dagger. As he tore his left hand from Locke’s right, Lamora let a gold tyrin coin
fall from his sleeve into his palm; a desperate flick of his wrist sent the coin caroming
off the wall behind the Gray King, echoing loudly.
“There he is, motherfucker!” Locke yelled, spraying blood across the front of the
Gray King’s shirt. “Jean! Help me!”
And the Gray King whirled, dragging Locke halfway around with him; whirled in fear
of Jean Tannen before he realized that Locke must be lying; whirled for just the half
second that Locke would have begged from any god that would hear his prayer. Whirled
for the half second that was worth Locke’s entire life.
He whirled just long enough for Locke Lamora to snake his right arm around the Gray
King’s waist, and slide out the dagger sheathed there, and bury it with a final scream
of pain and triumph in the Gray King’s back, just to the right of his spine.
The Gray King’s back arched, and his mouth hung open, gasping in the icy thrall of
shock; with both of his arms he pushed at Locke’s head, as though by prying the smaller
man off him he could undo his wound, but Locke held fast, and in an impossibly calm
voice he whispered, “Calo Sanza. My brother and my friend.”
Backward, the Gray King toppled, and Locke slid the knife out of his back just before
he struck the deck. Locke fell on top of him. He raised the dagger once again and
brought it down in the middle of the Gray King’s chest, just beneath his rib cage.
Blood spurted and the Gray King flailed, moaning. Locke’s voice rose as he worked
the knife farther in: “Galdo Sanza, my brother and my friend!”
With one last convulsive effort, the Gray King spat warm coppery
blood into Locke’s face and grabbed at the dagger that transfixed his chest; Locke
countered by bearing down with his useless left side, batting the Gray King’s hands
away. Sobbing, Locke wrenched the dagger out of the Gray King’s chest, raised it with
a wildly shaking right arm, and brought it down in the middle of the Gray King’s neck.
He sawed at the windpipe until the neck was half-severed and great rivers of blood
were flowing on the deck. The Gray King shuddered one last time and died, his wide
white eyes still fixed on Locke’s.
“Bug,” Locke whispered. “His real name was Bertilion Gadek. My apprentice. My brother.
And my friend.”
His strength failed, and he slid down atop the Gray King’s corpse.
“My friend.”
But the man beneath him said nothing, and Locke was acutely aware of the stillness
of the chest beneath his ears; of the heart that should have been beating against
his cheek, and he began to cry—long wild sobs that racked his entire body, drawing
new threads of agony from his tortured nerves and muscles. Mad with grief and triumph
and the red haze of pain and a hundred other feelings he couldn’t name, he lay atop
the corpse of his greatest enemy and bawled like a baby, adding saltwater to the warm
blood that covered the body of the Gray King.
He lay there shaking in the light of the red lamps, in a silent hall, alone with his
triumph, unable to move and bleeding to death.
JEAN FOUND him there just a minute or two later; the big man turned Locke over and
slid him off the Gray King’s corpse, eliciting a sincere howl of pain from his half-conscious
friend.
“Oh, gods,” Jean cried. “Oh, gods, you fucking idiot, you miserable fucking
bastard
.” He pressed his hands against Locke’s chest and neck as though he could simply will
the blood back into his body. “Why couldn’t you wait? Why couldn’t you wait for me?”
Locke stared drunkenly up at Jean, his mouth a little O of concern.
“Jean,” Locke whispered gravely, “you have … been running. You were in … no condition
to fight. Gray King … so accommodating. Could not refuse.”
Jean snorted despite himself. “Gods damn you, Locke Lamora. I sent him a message.
I thought it might keep him around a while.”
“Bless your heart. I did … get him, though. I got him and I burnt his ship.”
“So that’s what happened,” Jean said, very gently. “I saw. I was watching the fire
from the other side of the Wooden Waste; I saw you walk into the Floating Grave like
you owned the place, and I came running as fast as I could. But you didn’t even need
me.”
“Oh no.” Locke swallowed, grimacing at the taste of his own blood. “I made excellent
use … of your reputation.”
At this Jean said nothing, and the forlorn light of his eyes chilled Locke more than
anything yet.
“So this is revenge,” Locke mumbled.
“It is,” whispered Jean.
After a few seconds, new tears welled up in Locke’s eyes and he closed them, shaking
his head. “It’s a shit business.”
“It is.”
“You have to leave me here.”
At this, Jean rocked back on his knees as though he’d been slapped. “What?”
“Leave me, Jean. I’ll be dead … just a few minutes. They won’t get anything from me.
You can still get away. Please … leave me.”
Jean’s face turned bright red—a red that showed even by the light of the alchemical
globes—and his eyebrows arched, and every line in his face drew so taut that Locke
found the energy to be alarmed. Jean’s jaw clenched; his teeth ground together, and
the planes of his cheeks stood out like mountain ridges under his gilding of fat.
“That is a
hell
of a thing for you to say to me,” he finally hissed in the flattest, deadliest voice
Locke had ever heard.
“I made a mistake, Jean!” Locke croaked in desperation. “I couldn’t really fight him.
He did for me before I could cheat my way out of it. Just promise … promise me that
if you ever find Sabetha, you’ll—”
“You can find her yourself, half-wit, after we both get the hell out of here!”
“Jean!” Locke clutched weakly at the lapels of Jean’s coat with his good hand. “I’m
sorry, I fucked up. Please don’t stay here and get caught; the blackjackets will be
coming, soon. I couldn’t bear to have you taken. Please just leave me. I can’t walk.”
“Idiot,” Jean whispered, brushing away hot tears with his good hand. “You won’t have
to.”
Working awkwardly but rapidly, Jean took up the Gray King’s cloak and tied it around
his own neck, creating a makeshift sling for his right arm. This he slid beneath Locke’s
knees, and straining mightily, he was able to pick the smaller man up and cradle him
in front of his chest. Locke moaned.
“Quit sobbing, you damn baby,” Jean hissed as he began to lope back along the dock.
“You must have at least a half beer glass of blood left somewhere in there.” But Locke
was now well and truly unconscious, whether from pain or blood loss Jean couldn’t
tell, and his skin was so pale that it almost looked like glass. His eyes were open
but unseeing, and his mouth hung open, trailing blood and spittle.