Scar Night Read Free Page A

an eyebrow. “My name?” He snorted, rubbed a sooty hand on his nightshirt. “That doesn’t matter. I’m an archon of the Church of Ulcis, Warden to the Hoarder of Souls.” He hesitated, thinking. “And mortal blood of his Herald, Callis.”
    That sounded right.
    In his mind’s eye, an army of heathens advanced, sword hilts drumming on their shields. They cried out in voices edged with fear:
    One archon against a hundred warriors.
    “A hundred?” Dill laughed. “No wonder you tremble.” With a twist of his wrist, he spun the sword end over end like a propeller—
    —and caught it by the wrong side of the guard, on the sharp side.
    “Balls on a skillet!”
    The weapon clattered to the floor. A chip flew from the tile where the hilt struck, but the mark was tiny, barely noticeable among all the others.
    Dill sucked his finger, then examined it. The scratch, like all the previous ones, wasn’t serious. For the priests had neglected to sharpen the blade in his lifetime—and Dill knew why. He picked up the sword, slammed it back into its wall mount, and dropped to his haunches before the hearth.
    Mortal blood of his Herald, Callis.
    This time he resolved not to look up at the sword, not as much as a glance. He wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked backwards and forwards, gazing into the warm currents between the coals, brooding.
    Darkness gathered outside his cell. The wind picked up, whispered behind the windows, and teased the flames in the hearth. Only once did Dill’s eyes flick back to the sword. He grimaced, hugged his knees tighter.
    Tomorrow he would wear it….
    Dill cursed, then rose and yanked the sword free again. He’d owned the weapon for six years now, almost half his life. He ought to be able to use it by now. The priests had said he’d grow into it. It was a good sword, they’d said. He wheeled about, snapped his wings out, and addressed the wall once more. “Are you afraid?”
    This time there was no army of heathens: nothing but the cold temple stones between Dill and the night sky. He swung the sword backwards and forwards in fierce arcs. “Are you afraid?” Slash. “Are you afraid?” Cut. “Are you afraid?”
    He leapt, stabbed the sword into the wall. The tip of the blade sank an inch deep between the stones. Mortar crumbled. The hand guard jarred against his fist. Wincing, he dropped the weapon again.
    Dill squeezed his stinging hand under his armpit, and folded to his knees beside the fallen sword. “Why are you afraid?” he asked himself.
    Why
was
he afraid? Temple service was a privilege, an honour, Soul Warden a position of respect. Hadn’t his ancestors performed this duty? His father, Gaine? But they’d been Battle-archons, they’d trained with the Spine, flown far across the surrounding Deadsands on behalf of the temple. They’d warred against the Heshette and carved the will of Ulcis into heathen strongholds. While Dill himself…
    Dill lifted the sword in both grubby hands.
    Who am I? An angel who reads about the exploits of his ancestors in books, who stands on his balcony day after day watching the airships return from the river towns, the Coyle delta, the bandit settlements where Battle-archons once fought and died.
    Places he would never see. Now churchships and warships ploughed the skies, and an angel’s place was here in Deepgate among the chains. While his father’s armour rusted in a locked storeroom deep in the heart of the temple, ivy had grown unchecked around Dill’s spire. Dust had thickened the old stained-glass windows. Now spiders lived among the jumble of rafters high above his cell, softened the wood with their cobwebs. Now damp crept up the stairwell and saturated the rooms below, all of them empty but for mould and snails.
    Dill had been born
too late
.
    But they’d still given him a sword. That meant something. Didn’t it?
    A hammering at the door startled him. Dill scrambled to his feet, replaced the sword in its mount, then brushed