Page 85 of A Trade of Blood

I raised my blade, waited for my moment, and brought it down, cutting through whatever was left of his neck underneath the blue Iudex fabric.

He froze. His body twitched twice more. Then he went still.

Ippeas was screaming behind me, crying out, “What was that? What was that?” I did not answer. I swallowed, wiped my face, sheathed my sword, and dashed outside.

—

I emerged tofind that a crowd had gathered about the cell, drawn by the screams—and, I saw, by the bright, flickering flares arcing through the skies. The source of these proved to be Commander Tauri, who was already dashing up to me with Fotia at his elbow.

“I have sent the signal,” he said tersely. “The Apoths and Orbiis shall be here shortly. What is the situation?”

“Castus fruited, sir,” I gasped. “Sprouted. A medikker attendant is badly injured. He needs care.”

Tauri took a step, then froze. “Castus’s infection fruited?Despiteour treatments?”

“So it seems.”

He paused a second longer, then dashed inside.

Fotia stared at me. “Din. Are…are you…”

It took me a moment to realize why she was so alarmed: thoughCastus had moved relentlessly, indifferent to the wounds I’d given him, he’d still bled like a mortal man, and I was coated in his gore.

“It is not…I’m fine,” I said. “Did you see anyone about, Fo? Anyone with a pipe?”

“No,” she said. “There was no one! I checked every alley, every lane, but we were alone here!”

I wavered slightly where I stood. That could not be so: someone, I knew, had played those notes I’d seen in the booklet, the tune titledLYSIS.It had begun something in Castus, catalyzed the fungus’s growth, perhaps, until it had overtaken him.

I staggered away from the jail, my breath hot in my lungs. Fotia called to me, but I could not hear her. I whirled about, staring and peering into the shadows, but it was as she said. We were alone.

Chapter 22

The entryway of the Lacanthimjail cell was a terrible place to do a debriefing, not least of all because I had recently changed out of my bloodied uniform and into a standard prisoner’s uniform—though I had taken the measure of pinning my Iudex heralds to my chest. Tauri and his team were laboring in the jail’s passageways, removing Castus’s remains and administering reagents to sterilize whatever spores the fungal stalks had spread about. To my right, Trikao Armenta, Ippeas Armenta, and Fotia sat trembling, their faces as pale as candle wax in the dull light of the mai-lamp. I took care to ensure that my report didn’t needlessly upset them.

“So,” said Ana softly at the end of it. “Our killer has a tune that can cause any infected skull to…erupt.”

“That is my assessment, ma’am,” I said, exhausted.

“How intriguing!” she said.

Trikao flinched. He no doubt had a word for this development, and it was notintriguing.

“I presume this feature of the fungus is not found in the domesticated web,” said Ana. “And I note that it didn’t seem to care one fucking fig about the restraining treatments we’d given the boy! I suppose that the medication, which does wonders for keeping the fungus curtailed in the cats, does nothing against this third breed. Yet there is a stranger detail about it—for despite the catastrophic trauma to Castus’s skull, his body was forced tostill act outthe behavior he’d been conditioned for! He continued to be its servant evenafter death! You saw it yourself, Din, as he kept trying to gut you as he did countless cows, not to mention Zansay Burav.”

“I did, yes,” I sighed. “He was compelled to keep slashing at me, no matter how I harmed him.”

“An astonishing thing,” said Ana. “The killer not only brought about the boy’s end, but they also made him a soldier in living death! Imagine how useful such an abomination might be—servants and warriors who shamble on, forever obeying the last command ringing in their ears…”

Trikao made a soft moan.

“Please,” said Ippeas. “Can we please discuss something else?”

“Certainly!” said Ana. “We should move on from how this unprecedented, dangerous breed of the guiding web engineered the deaths of Zansay Burav and young Castus—and instead discuss how it likely killed your three cousins! Your son knows this, Master Armenta, but I believe this shall come as something of a shock for you…”

Ana then launched into a very brief—yet quite tactless—summary of our discovery of the guiding web: how it infected, conditioned, and controlled people.

“You thinkthisis what was done to my niece and nephews?” whispered Trikao, trembling.