The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,124

He got the blade caught on the back of his chair. Realised there was a piece of metal lodged in the split wood. Must’ve missed his head by no more than a hand’s width.

“Get behind me, Mother,” he said, pawing at her shoulder, but his voice was an echoing burble. Like water sloshing at the bottom of a very deep drain. His head hurt. His jacket felt all sticky inside. Bloody hell, was he wounded? Or was it someone else’s blood? That’s the thing about blood. King’s or commoner’s, everyone’s looks much the same.

Where were the Knights of the Body? Weren’t they supposed to handle this type of thing? The absolute point of the bastards, wasn’t it? He saw one dead with a piece of metal through his breastplate. So he could hardly be blamed. Where was Bremer dan Gorst? Had given him the day off. Insisted on it. Terrible decision. Did Orso make any good ones? Couldn’t think of any. Probably the blame was his. It usually was. A king was just a kind of bin for all the blame to go in.

No one up here would be much use in a fight. Curnsbick had his hands pressed to his horrified face. Kort had scrambled for the rear. Funny, when death’s on the table, how vitally important it seems that one be killed last.

He felt very tired. As if he’d run a mile. Papers were fluttering down. Scorched pamphlets. Whole thing was like a nightmare. One was still burning as it fell beside him. He scrubbed it out under his boot. Could’ve been dangerous. Almost wanted to laugh at that. But not for long.

Someone was coming up the steps to the royal box. A big man wearing a dark coat. Thin yellow hair stirred by the smoky wind. A cloth wrapped around his face so Orso could only see his eyes. Hard eyes. Furious about something. There was a sword in his hand. An old, cheap sword, but cheap swords can still kill you.

All seemed so unlikely. Orso was a pleasant fellow, wasn’t he? Always tried to see other people’s points of view. To be polite. He could hardly believe this man had come here to murder him. There might have been a dozen killers crowding towards the steps, and none looked likely to be moved by politeness.

“Oh dear,” said Orso again. Probably the best chance was if he met them at the top of the stair. But he was worried if he took a step he might fall over. Then a hand caught his shoulder.

“If I may, Your Majesty?” It was Sulfur, brushing past and carefully, almost daintily, stepping over High Justice Bruckel’s corpse. Orso had forgotten the magus was even there.

The big Burner raised his sword, the cloth over his mouth fluttering faintly as he shouted something. “A great shame!” Orso thought it might have been, a sentiment with which he could readily agree. He narrowed his eyes, expecting that blade to swing down and split the humble representative of the Order of Magi in half.

But Sulfur had already moved. With breathtaking, impossible speed. Orso’s eyes could barely follow him. His fist sank into the Burner’s gut with a wet-sounding thud, so hard it folded him in half, lifted him right off his feet then dropped him on the floor of the royal box like a heap of rags, his cheap sword clattering from his hand and bouncing harmlessly from Curnsbick’s leg.

The next Burner raised his shield. Sulfur’s fist was a blur that turned it into flying splinters, folded the man’s arm back on itself, ripped his head half-off in a spray of blood and sent him flopping like a rag doll among the benches below. Sulfur had already caught a woman by her hair, ripped her head down and smashed his knee into her face with a bang so loud it set Orso’s ears ringing again.

He flinched as blood spotted the royal box, stared in horror as a man was smashed into a shape no man should ever be with one chop of an open hand. Sulfur caught another under the jaw, a board cracking beneath his heel as he flung the man high into the sky, his echoing shriek fading as if he had been shot from a cannon. Sulfur backhanded a third man and sent him tumbling bonelessly end-over-end, tangled up with fluttering festoons of the bunting that had decorated the royal box.

Orso was not sure whether he was trying to shield his mother