The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War 2)

“Tuttugu remembered your children,” I told him. “Perhaps you should too.”

His hand seized my throat, so fast I didn’t see it coming. All I knew was that somehow I’d been pinned to the wall and breathing had stopped being an option.

“Never”—the point of his sword stood just inches from my face, aimed between my eyes—“speak of them.” I thought he might kill me then, and in the surprise of it I hadn’t time to be scared. But my words seemed to reach him—perhaps because I couldn’t add any more—and a moment later he let go, his shoulders sagging. I found that my feet had left the ground, and dropped down, jolting my spine.

“Enough now?” Kara glanced between us, frowned and led on out of the cell. Hennan followed, then Snorri, with me to bring up the rear.

We got as far as Tuttugu’s cell. Edris’s long sword still lay on the floor close to the entrance. I picked it up, tentative, half expecting it to bite me. The thing had bitten me before.

“A pyre.” Snorri pointed in at Tuttugu’s corpse. “We build a pyre. Big enough so his smoke reaches Asgard.”

“Where in the hell—”

“Doors.” Snorri cut me off. “Open the cells. Use the key to undo the hinges. Bring them in here.”

And so we did. Door after door opened and taken down. A tap of the key had the hinge pins flying out. Kara enjoined each occupant to find keys on any dead jailer and to release the prisoners on the upper floors. They all agreed, but then again they were all in for fraud so whether any of them did put their own escape second and fellow prisoners first I’ve no idea.

Within ten minutes Tuttugu lay on his table surrounded by a sea of doors. Snorri took rags and straw, doused them with lamp oil, and set the flame. Snorri said the words as the fire took hold and smoke began to coil thick above us, louring beneath the ceiling in a dark blanket.

“Undoreth, we. Battle-born. Raise hammer, raise axe, at our war-shout gods tremble.” He drew breath and carried on in the old tongue of the north, Kara joining him on the litany’s refrain. The light of the fire flickered across them both. Snorri touched his fingers to the tattooed runes picked out across the thick muscles of his arm, set there in black and blue, still visible beneath the dirt. It seemed as if he were spelling out his farewell to Tuttugu, and perhaps to the Undoreth too, now that he stood the last of their clan.

Eventually with the smoke thick across the ceiling, low enough to touch Snorri’s head, and with the flame blistering our cheeks, he finished.

“Good-bye, Tuttugu.” And Snorri turned away.

I stood a moment longer and watched Tuttugu through the wavering haze of the flame, his clothes starting to burn now, skin withering before the heat. “Good-bye, Tuttugu.” The smoke choked me so I couldn’t speak the words unbroken, and got into my eyes making them water. I turned away and hurried after the others.

We found Guardian waiting, victorious but too damaged to accompany us into the city without drawing undue attention. But I decided to keep him close until we were ready to leave.

•   •   •

On the ground floor the inmates had done a thorough job of looting, but one heavy door resisted them. I hurried across to unlock it. We needed whatever assets we could gather.

“Come on!” Snorri heading for the main exit.

Kara grabbed my shoulder then stopped to stare. “What in—”

The room beyond held shelves floor to ceiling, deep and partitioned, each laden with all manner of goods from paperwork to vases, silver plates to odd shoes. “Praise the Lord for Umbertide’s bookkeepers!” I reached out for a gilt urn gleaming close by. Even as they tortured the fraudsters in the cells above, all their possessions lay ordered, catalogued, and untouched down below, waiting for the full process of the law to be completed.

Snorri strode past me, knocking my greedy hand aside. Kara behind him. The place, although cluttered, held very few weapons, both Norse made straight for them. Kara snatched a spear from its place on the far wall, Gungnir, her own work.

“You don’t still think that will scare Kelem, do you? It didn’t even keep the city guard from taking you!”

Kara cocked her head at me then looked over to Guardian in the doorway. She pushed by Snorri and slowly moved the spear until its point engaged with the solitary hole in the clockwork soldier’s armour. A perfect fit. “They had two soldiers with them. The one that took Snorri came from behind us, through the wall, and wrapped its arms around him.”

Snorri continued his inspection of Hel’s blade. His father’s axe had been hung among the other weapons. Satisfied he looked up with a grim smile, the first since I found him. “Now we’re ready.”