Shagot was in a state of communion with his gods. Svavar felt it. He sensed their attention, too. The Gray One himself was close. There had been blood and slaughter sufficient to span the occult abyss. A little more blood and the Old Ones would be able to enter this alien world and time.

Shagot was possessed. "I feel him, now. Come, brother. This way."

Grim headed north, toward the river. Toward the pirates. He used the latter to provide blood sacrifices in quantity, more than sufficient to assure the continued attention and assistance of the Old Ones.

THEY REACHED THE TERAGI. THEY MUST HAVE SLAIN A HUNdred Calzirans. Svavar was having trouble keeping up. Grim had been cut several times, too, but was not showing the effects. They were going to need another long convalescence. Unless their luck turned better than he expected and they brought their man down.

Svavar remained alert for the presence of someone – anyone – from the Great Sky Fortress. He was convinced that the slaughter had made it possible for those Instrumentalities of the Night to begin stalking Brothen streets.

However, if one of the Old Ones did slip through, he was not making his presence obvious.

"The Godslayer is on the other side," Shagot said. "There." He pointed vaguely in the direction of some burning ships.

Svavar said, "There's a bridge up there. Half a mile, or so."

Shagot did not care about bridges. A hundred yards directly ahead a dozen pirates were piling plunder aboard a captured rowboat. Shagot killed them and took the boat. Then their heads. Then sat down at the oars.

He pulled like a thing not human. Svavar did not volunteer to take a turn. His wounds bothered him too much. And he did not want to disturb his brother's connection with the gods.

Svavar feared that Grim was so far gone he could turn on anyone. He had become a berserker of the oldest form.

A few Calzirans attacked them when they reached the north bank. And so added their blood to the sacrificial pool. Shagot did not take heads this time. In fact, he abandoned his collection with the boat, retaining only the head of the demon. His wounds had begun to slow and weaken him at last. But that lasted for only a short while.

Shagot healed almost visibly fast. Calzirans overcome, he turned his nose north of northwest and started limping. Svavar had trouble keeping up.

Svavar felt his own wounds healing, though not at the ridiculous rate Grim enjoyed.

In minutes they reached a neighborhood untouched by current events. It was a poor area but not a slum. It was not crowded, horizontally or vertically. Svavar thought he remembered a wall not much farther on. Beyond that the city faded into a typical Firaldian countryside of olive groves, vineyards, truck farms and, farmer out, wheat fields. All the ground that could be tamed had been – two thousand years ago.

Shagot began to show an uncharacteristic uncertainty. "We're real close," he said. "Right on top. I can almost smell him. But I can't pinpoint him. Something is getting in the way."

"Any idea how close?" Svavar asked. If he had a distance to work with he could attack the problem intellectually. Which was a concept almost alien to his brother.

He felt something disorienting, too. Like a mild buzz inside his brain that kept his thoughts mushy at their center. His vision seemed a little wobbly.

"Thirty yards at least. Not more than fifty."

Svavar reasoned the possibilities down to four houses and their outbuildings. He explained, then asked, "Why don't we start with the closest?"

"Let's do it." Shagot hefted his battered blade and hoisted the demon's head.

And Svavar realized that this was not going to go well. Because Shagot was going about it all wrong. And there was something else…. Something more … A Presence that should not be present…

24. Brothe, Besieged

Else dragged his weird burden farther and farther from the river, always with an eye toward a place to go to ground.

Northern Brothe lay silent and empty. A goat cart crossed the street a hundred yards ahead, unaccompanied by any master. He saw several feral dogs. They slunk away. Even the swarms of pigeons seemed subdued and disinclined to pursue normal pigeon business. Remarkable. Nothing kept pigeons down. The woman did not fight. She stumbled along beside Else, dazed, incompletely aware of her situation. Though she did become more alert and engaged with time. And strove to keep her recovery concealed.

Else's back trail was noisy for a while. The pirates wanted their witch back. Else zigged and zagged, leaving them confused and worried about ambushes as the expanding search forced them to break up into smaller and smaller bands. Now he needed a place where he could hole up and spend some time chatting with Starkden.

He moved more and more slowly. Something was wrong. This silence was not normal. Not in a city being raped. He began to feel that something dark and dreadful was closing in. He hit the woman, hard. That changed little but the fact that he had to carry her again.

That crisp feel that air knows when lightning will soon strike began to build.

Else kicked in a door. His assault caused vibrant excitement in a distant part of the house. That faded as terrified residents fled through a remote exit.

Maybe that was the root of the wrongness. The fear. The fog of terror that overlay the whole quarter.

His wrist itched. Again. This itch had nothing to do with Starkden.

Trouble was coming.

He got his prisoner fixed in a chair in a room with multiple doors. Then he awaited her wakening.

She would try to fool him, of course. So he listened closely and studied the movements of her eyeballs behind her eyelids. When the moment arrived he cut her arm lightly. She jumped.

"We need to talk, woman. And, because you're stubborn and think you're tough and I don't have time to be subtle, I won't ask anything till I'm sure you're ready to cooperate."

This was his first woman. True torturers surely had gender-specific trade secrets. He was unfamiliar with those. Nor did he have the specialized utensils a serious interrogator needed.

He improvised. He used the tool at hand, a knife. He started where she could watch it happen. She would think about the scars left once he flayed her in a checkerboard pattern.

His work gave him no pleasure. He lacked zeal. Professionals often communicated their pleasure to their subjects. A bond developed in time. Torturer and tortured entered into a conspiracy, a marriage of pain, wherein each played his role with passion.

But to Else, for whom torture was distasteful manual labor and only the information mattered, no relationship was possible. He worked. And waited to hear from Starkden.

She was stubborn. Being flayed did not crack her, despite the pain.

He needed to cut closer to the essential Starkden.

Who was she? He would not know unless she showed him.

What was she? He knew that one. He thought she was a sorceress. And a pirate.

The witch part would be tied up intimately with who she was.

Sorcerers and sorceresses depended heavily on their hands while manipulating elements of the night Wizards in training spent as much time schooling their fingers as young Sha-lug spent schooling the muscles they would use to wield their weapons.

Else sharpened his knife, then seized the little finger of Starkden's right hand.

Good guess. She grunted. She strained. She indicated that she was ready to cooperate. In some capacity.

"I'll take your tongue, too, if you try anything cute.” Generally, people preferred loss of a few fingers to loss of the tongue.

Half from memory, half from impulse, Else brought out every silver coin he possessed. He applied them to the witch wherever magical inhibition might be useful. The woman sagged.