Page 13 of The Malevolent Eight
Your country is suffering too many bad harvests? Hmm. . . didn’t someone from that neighbouring nation once insult the long-dead ancestor of your monarch? About time we avenged that unforgivable slight, don’t you think?
Your nobility’s overloaded with too many daughters and second sons, all remarkably well-armed and likely to turn to violent thuggery once they figure out there aren’t enough estates for them to inherit? No problem: there’s a rich land far to the south filled with lush territory and currently occupied by infidels badly in need of a jolly good smiting.
Of course, war isn’t guaranteed good for business; it’s always a gamble. But watch any addict at the card tables and you’ll quickly observe that they’re prone to inflating their odds of winning the next hand. So our job, as dutiful crusaders of peace, was to make war an unprofitable business by convincing the gamblers onbothsides that the next hand would be a loser– foreveryone.
However, murdering ordinary human beings for the crime of being gullible and getting swept up in the propaganda of a holy war where unknowable beings were promising to transform mere Mortals into legendary heroes was too cold-hearted, even for me.
The Auroral recruits had fought their way through the dust clouds and were forming their shield wall. The whole ensemble was beginning to look like a rather ugly metal hedgehog.
‘Corrigan. . .’ I began tentatively.
‘You know something, Cade? I liked you better when I hated you.’
Loudly, to ensure I’d be heard by the soldiers crouched behind their shaking shields, I declared, ‘On my mark, destroy every man, woman and– well, I would hope there wouldn’t be children among them, but if so, kill them, too. Leave nothing but corpses for the vultures and blood for the soil.’
To Corrigan, Alice, Shame and Temper particularly, I quietly clarified my statement. ‘And by killeveryone, I mean,don’tfucking killanybody, understand?’
They all replied:
‘Typical weak-kneed indecision, Fallen One.’
‘Huzzah, my captain! Let our blades be merciful and our hearts rejoice!’
‘Death delayed is no less inevitable, child.’
‘Thank you, Cade.’
‘You pussy.’
‘Grrrr—’ followed by a burp which ended with somebody’s severed finger being coughed up.
Buoyed by my comrades’ enthusiastic endorsements, I gave the order to attack the defenders, whereupon we proceeded to– very gently and not at all fatally– kick their arses.
It’s hard to imagine why there aren’t more heroes clamouring for the chance to save the world.
Chapter 8
The Break-Out
There’s something tiring aboutnotkilling people. I mean, I’ve never been particularly inclined to massacre my fellow human beings– or puppy dogs, kittens or even otherworldly vampiric kangaroos, come to think of it– but having specifically tonotkill your foes? It’s completely exhausting.
I’m not saying it’s not worth the effort; it’s just that having to take out an entire troop with none of them suffering anything worse than concussion? You try it some day.
Oh, and don’t forget: soldiers rarely thank you for knocking them unconscious when you could’ve just killed them. In fact, they’re just more likely to attack you again on the way out.
‘Still think we should’ve incinerated those bastards,’ Corrigan fumed, wrapping a strip of cloth torn from the leg of his much-prized purple-striped pantaloons around the wound on his arm where a pike had managed to nick him before Shame had clubbed the fellow on the back of his head with her bare fist. Her bare fist at the time was unnaturally large and covered in alligator-green scales, which is why he went down like a lead balloon.
Ignoring Corrigan’s complaints– which can be an even more dangerous approach to life than not killing your enemies– I stopped in a narrow passage inside the small fortress. The others piled into my back with what I thought was unnecessary force.
‘Aradeus, what are the rats telling you?’
Aradeus held up his gauntleted hand so we could all see the lines tracing themselves along his palm, mapping out the entire building, thanks to a dozen or so of his rat scouts. There are usually a lot more for him to summon, but Aurorals tend to be fastidious about their fortresses, and this one was new into the bargain. ‘There,’ he said, pointing to a trio of pulsing points behind a dotted line I presumed was a set of iron bars. ‘Those will be the captured Infernal spies.’ He peered closer at his palm, seeing something in the subtle shifting of the three individual dots that escaped me. ‘I believe they’ve been badly tortured.’
Galass asked again why I thought I would get anything out of three Infernals. Since Aurorals consider confession a prelude to a merciful death rather than an extended sentence, the interrogators had almost certainly failed to break the prisoners– in any case, torture’s an ineffective means of eliciting useful information.
‘The thing about the Lords Celestine,’ I told her, gesturing for Aradeus to take the lead, ‘is that they’re far more rigid in their theology than the clerics who trained you as a Sublime would ever realise. The Celestines are all stick and no carrot.’
This sparked Shame’s interest for once. ‘Whereas Infernals are more amenable to reasoned compromise?’
