lush. He tore his gaze away and looked to where the guards were bringing Van Gast.
They came through the temple, Van Gast bare-chested, his arm black to the shoulder with twisting, deadly lines of poison. His bells rattled dolefully in the vast echoing space of the temple. A priest tried to bless him, held up hands to ward off injustice, but Van Gast snarled at him and the priest tried no further. The guards pushed him out into the harsh light of a new dawn.
He squinted into the glare and a grin flashed across his face when he saw Rillen. “Nice day for it.”
Rillen held himself in. He’ll hurt soon enough. Besides, he’s sweating already, and that grin is twisted with pain. “Give him to me.”
The guards let go of Van Gast and he staggered but managed to stay upright. Rillen took hold of the arm that was still brown and whole and steered Van Gast toward the archway that led to the Godsquare. “Look how many people have come to make sure you’re really dead.”
Van Gast raised his head and looked out over the square. Crammed to bursting with every type of person imaginable. The three Remorian mages sat in shining splendor on the steps. Traders and merchanters come to make sure Van Gast was really dead, was no more threat to their cargos. Behind them, separated by a line of Yelen guards, stood the rest—racks jeering the guards, merchanter crews jostling and countering the noise with their own cheers. Barkeeps, priests of every god and goddess, tavern girls, painted whores, chandlers, seamstresses, fishermen, mothers with their children held on shoulders—everyone in the city, it seemed.
When Van Gast stepped out of the temple, as straight as he could manage and with a superior lift of his lip, the noise grew, echoed around the square in a cacophony that whirled Rillen’s head.
The effect on Van Gast was instant. His shoulders went back, his head came up, eyes bright and fierce. His insufferable grin was back, despite all Rillen’s efforts to have the guards whip it from him.
He turned his gaze on Rillen. “They’ve come to see just how I’ll die. With style, that’s the way. Van Gast always does everything with style. I got what I wanted, and that’s enough for me, except this. Not the best way to go—I can think of better ways—but it’ll be one to remember. Besides, you didn’t catch her, did you? Didn’t get the other scapegoats. She’s out there, and you know all the while she is you’re a man with a target painted on your forehead. As unforgiving as the sea, my Josie, and you’ll know it soon enough. You and Ilsa and your mages. A knife in the dark one night, a bullet in the face, her laugh the last thing you’ll hear. And all the time between, just wondering when it will be. You’re as dead as I am, you just don’t know it yet.”
The grin stretched, laughing at him even now. Think you’ve got it all worked out, eh? Try this.
“No, not got her. Yet. What do you think all this is for? Where’s the one place Josie will be today?” Rillen flicked a glance at the mages and back to Van Gast’s face, grinning himself now. “Right here. I don’t need anyone to tell me that. I saw, in the strong room, in the dungeons. She’ll come for you. Unforgiving as the sea, you say. Here for a little light robbery—and revenge. I know where she’ll be, and I’m waiting for her. Then she can hang on the wall beside you and you can die as a pair. The two worst racks, pinned to Oku’s wall. How much trouble will I have with your lot then? How will the merchanters look at me? I am the Yelen now. Estovan is mine, thanks to you. You’ve given me everything I could have wanted.”
There, that rubbed the grin off your face, didn’t it? Rillen shoved Van Gast along the ledge that framed the temple, toward other bodies hanging from their wrists. Rillen flicked away a fly that buzzed around his face and got Van Gast up against the wall. A hooded man held out the nail and stood ready with the great hammer that would knock it home. For this man, this death, Rillen would be the one to take the first hit.
He checked the gunmen on the roofs and in the crowds, ranged along temple steps. All in place. Taking