Caplo felt its sudden death in a wave of agony.
Flinging the carcass away, Draconus reached round to tear loose the animal clinging to his back and neck, and the Azathanai’s strength was appalling. Unmindful of his own torn flesh, he pulled the writhing breast around, and then broke its spine with a savage twist of his wrists.
Caplo howled.
Fangs and claws tore flesh to shreds, ripped through muscles, yet still Draconus remained upright, his wide-legged stance unyielding.
A third panther – the one with its foreclaws sunk deep into the Azathanai’s gut – died beneath the skull-shattering blow of a single fist.
Caplo released his sense of all but one cat – leaving them to fight on by instinct – and flung his strength into that single creature, which had locked its jaws about the man’s left thigh, and now, writhing and spinning round with a surge of unnatural strength, he toppled Draconus. The remaining panthers closed in to finish him.
Another died, neck broken, its head suddenly loose in the grip of the man’s hands.
But the panthers savaged the writhing, kicking, blood-soaked figure.
Caplo shrieked when a lone hand stabbed into the gut of the beast he rode, and in a welter of blood and fluids his guts were pulled out from their cavity. The assassin fled the dying cat, found another.
But Draconus found that one immediately, rolling to pin it beneath him, even as he began punching, each blow of his fist shattering ribs, flensing the lungs beneath them.
The death of so many beasts broke something in Caplo. Howling, he tore himself free of the Azathanai. The six surviving panthers reeled in retreat, flanks heaving, ears flat, fangs bared. They halted a half-dozen paces from the prone man.
Who then laughed from where he lay on his back. ‘Come, let us finish it.’
‘Why won’t you die!’
‘I should have,’ Draconus replied, shifting on to his side to spit out a gout of blood. ‘Or you would have, since I summoned my Finnest.’ He coughed, spat again. ‘But it seems to have gone astray …’ He groaned and pushed himself to his hands and knees. Blood poured from his wounds, making thick puddles beneath him. ‘And that’s not good.’ He glanced over with dull red eyes. ‘Still, I’ll leave one of you. For the chains. Though I doubt you’d deem them a mercy.’
Hissing, Caplo backed away.
‘You all thought me unmindful,’ Draconus said. ‘An impediment to your newfound powers. You, Syntara, Raal, even my beloved. But things have been unleashed. Indeed,’ he paused to cough again, ‘it’s all becoming something of a mess.’ He waved one hand back towards the massive wagon. ‘But I’m working on it. Take some faith in that. Tell your Higher Graces this: I will see it all through, and by that alone, you will one day find a throne awaiting you.’
‘We have no need of a throne! We have no realm to rule!’
Draconus showed red-stained teeth in a cruel grin. ‘Heed your fucking leopard instincts, Caplo, and find some patience. Restraint, even. I’m working as fast as I can.’
Caplo crouched his forms low, studied the ravaged Azathanai. ‘You promise us a realm?’
‘And a throne. Do they seem gifts? Remind yourself of that the day you need to defend them both.’
‘Where will we find these … gifts?’
Draconus grunted a bitter laugh. ‘Not in your precious monasteries.’ He pushed himself to his feet, stood tottering, his dripping hands held out slightly for balance. ‘You have a choice here. Leave, and seek those already upon the shore. Or try me again. But should you prevail against me, ruin will haunt you all – with my blessing.’ And he offered Caplo another crimson smile, this one faintly sad.
The six panthers turned to depart.
Behind them, Draconus raised his voice. ‘That way, Caplo? Are you sure?’
Snarling, the assassin padded to the gate. Moments before passing through the shattered doorway, he sembled into his Tiste form, and then staggered to the massive wounds upon his naked body.
I should have thought of that.
Gasping, blinded by pain, he stumbled through the portal.
* * *
Since seeing High Priestess Emral Lanear, Orfantal had struggled with an overwhelming desire to curl into her lap. She seemed a mother of bad habits, and this intrigued him. He was not interested in making sense of it – thinking too much about things hadn’t done him much good, thus far. There was something clean and pure in his sense of the guardian wolves he had on occasion conjured into being, and what he could feel of their minds told him that there were creatures in the world – in all the worlds – that lived simpler lives. He wanted to emulate such ways of living.
And so he haunted her, keeping his eyes hidden within the wreaths of smoke drifting around her as she sat, unmoving apart from the steady rise and fall of the water-pipe’s mouthpiece in one hand and the swell and ebb of her chest. So many things were possible now. He could drift unseen through the Citadel, wandering its corridors, sliding beneath doors and into chambers that had once been forbidden him. His body, small as it was, could of course achieve none of this. So he had left it behind, in the cell where he slept, with Ribs lying against the door.