Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [90]
But then he thought about Swan and Tummel and Banks, their dead eyes staring lifelessly at the ground, the blood leaking from the holes in their skull as the emperor applauded. He imagined Creedy’s brute face looking on as the Hookmen threw Hana into the brine, and he let the sound of her screams fill his heart. He pictured Ianthe in the hands of that bastard Maskelyne, using the girl to enrich his wretched little empire. Hu, Creedy, Maskelyne – Granger saw each of their faces behind that shining wolf’s mask before him now. And it filled him with rage.
He seized the brim of the warrior’s helmet and wrenched it backwards with all of his strength. He felt the chinstrap stretch and then suddenly snap as the helmet came away and flew across the arena.
The Samarol cried out. He released his hold of the knife and clamped his hands across his face. That face had only been exposed to the light for a heartbeat, but that was long enough for the horror of it to be burned in Granger’s mind.
No flesh clung to the man’s skull. It was as if the Unmer sorcery had consumed his living tissues, leaving nothing behind but raw bone. The eye sockets and nasal opening were covered by a smooth brass plate, utterly featureless and without ornamentation, and yet the bodyguard groped at it as if the light was searing his very nerves. He scrambled away from Granger on his hands and knees, howling like a child as he sought to reclaim his helmet. But without the knife in his hand and the helmet to cover his metal visage he could not find it.
Granger plucked the seeing knife from his shoulder and tucked it into the band of his breeches. He was weak and giddy and struggling to breathe against the pressure mounting in his chest. His hands and torso streamed with blood. But he thought he might now survive today after all. He stared at the corpses of his friends, Swan, Tummel and Banks, and a terrible grief came over him. That he should survive this trial at their expense. He could not forgive Hu for this.
All the crowd were silent as he turned to face the emperor. ‘I survived your trials,’ he said. ‘Will you honour the law and release me?’
Briana Marks’s face looked ashen, but the emperor’s own was red with rage. ‘How dare you speak to me?’ he cried. ‘Look at what you’ve done here! Do you have any idea how much Samarol cost? How many years it takes for the absorption to hold?’ His thin chest rose and fell rapidly beneath his golden mail. He turned to the crowd. ‘This man has shown himself to be a cheat. This is a mockery of justice!’
The crowd remained silent.
Administrator Grech came alongside the emperor and tried to speak, but Hu just slapped the old man across the face. He raised his Imperial hand again and pointed at Granger. ‘Shoot him,’ he said. ‘Shoot him now.’
Outside the corral, the remaining Samarol reached for their carbine rifles. Nineteen knives slotted into nineteen barrels.
Granger looked to the Haurstaf witch for help, but she simply buried her head in her hands.
‘Kill him!’ the emperor roared.
There was nowhere for Granger to go, and nowhere to hide. Walls of dragon-bone caged him on three sides. The gate remained sealed.
The Samarol lifted their weapons.
Granger glanced at his fallen comrades one last time. And then he ran, away from the emperor and his Samarol. And as the bodyguards’ fingers closed on the triggers of their rifles, Granger reached the harbour’s edge and dived headlong into the brine.
CHAPTER 11
THE DEADSHIP
16th Hu-Rain, 1457
25 degrees 17 minutes north
5 degrees 37 minutes west
Scythe Island is forty leagues SSW of our current position, but feels more distant yet. Have made good progress across the Candlelight Straits. Expect to reach the fringes of the Mare Regis by noon tomorrow. No dragon sightings. Chronograph stopped three times by dead airs.