A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,88

my hands. Of how it will feel to break it.

Foot by agonizing foot, I climb. By the time I approach the top, I am covered in sweat and panting, every muscle screaming. I drag myself the final few inches, taking in deep draughts of air as I peer over the edge.

Cardium Rock is shaped like a wedge with a flat tip. The narrowest point, where I am, is thirty feet wide, and the broadest is a hundred. At its far edge are three terraced levels for viewers to watch the executions that usually take place here.

Right now, the terraces are filled with Karkauns. Grímarr, meanwhile, is just steps away.

He is naked but for a loincloth, his pale body drenched in blood. He gibbers maniacally—Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi!—as the air around him quivers. The skin where I severed his left arm is pink and scarred, as if he’s had months to heal instead of a fortnight.

Which means that even if he hasn’t been able to raise ghosts, he has other magic at his disposal.

A bonfire burns behind him, ringed with guards. As I calculate whether there are enough to be a real threat, the drums thunder out with such force that I nearly lose my grip on the knives holding me in place.

North tower for the rightful emperor. Attack.

East tower for the rightful emperor. Attack.

West tower for the rightful emperor. Attack.

A cry rises up, one voice joined by a dozen, then a hundred, then thousands. It is not a cry of sadness or defeat, but of fury and vengeance. Across Antium, the women and children and wounded and elderly who have been at the mercy of the Karkauns take up arms. It is a blood-stirring sound. The sound of impending victory.

I close my eyes and remember Antium falling. Remember my men, possessed by ghosts, killing their own people. I think of Madam Heera, and the weeping from the brothels.

Loyal to the end.

I vault upward and tear off my hood.

“Grímarr!” I bellow his name, flinging three throwing knives at him. But he moves with unnatural swiftness to evade them. Without turning to face me, he laughs, an uncanny cackle.

“Blood Shrike,” he says. “At last.”

His men approach, but I spit at his feet, cut my hand, and let the blood drip to the stones of Cardium Rock.

“I challenge thee, Grímarr.” My voice carries over the bonfires and up the terraces. “To battle with no steel and no stone, no blades and no bows. Until one of us lies dead.”

I cast my scim to the ground, along with the knife belt at my waist.

“To the death.” Grímarr turns, grinning, his eyes the pure white of a man possessed. Ten hells. Somehow, the Karkaun warlock has managed to harness a ghost.

“Come then, girl.” His voice sounds like one overlaid against another, an eerie echo. “Come to your doom, for with your soul I shall open a door into the hells.”

The Karkauns holler in excitement. Grímarr’s guards keep their hands on their weapons but step back. The challenge has been accepted.

I ignore the warlock’s blathering and focus on how I’m going to beat him. Ghosts lend humans impossible strength. If Grímarr gets his hands on me, I’m dead.

He drops into a sort of half crouch, preparing to leap. He is taller than me—wider and heavier too. But the ghost possessing him makes him preternaturally quick. I dart forward, landing two hard jabs on his chest and a kick to his windpipe.

A normal man would stagger. He shrugs off the blows and snatches at my leg when it’s still flying through the air. I whip it out of the way with only inches to spare.

I dart around the bonfire, and he dives for me, hitting me in the stomach so hard that I nearly retch. I elbow him in the eyeball, grimacing as it squelches. When he howls in pain, I escape his grasp yet again. This time, I edge toward the cliff, watching it carefully, allowing myself to get closer to it. Grímarr narrows his eyes and backs away, understanding my intent.

It appears as if he is retreating from me. Beyond the bonfire, his men jeer at him. An angry snarl forms on his milk-white face. He speeds forward, impossibly fast. I have only a moment to crouch and barrel into his legs as fast as I can in the hopes that he’ll roll over me and into the pit.

He simply leaps over me. In seconds, he will tackle me and break my neck