The God Tattoo: Untold Tales from the Twilight Reign Read Online Free PDF

the floor, crawling weakly towards the back of the cellar in a pathetic effort to escape. I didn’t follow him yet, the cellar was a small one and contained no hiding places so I
was happy to let the sick bastard fear the worst. My fury turned cold and quiet as I sat on the steps, reloading my bow before fetching a lamp from the storeroom. He squirmed face-down on the
cellar floor, sobbing and howling in a puddle of what wasn’t just blood. The more he wept the greater my contempt became – he was nothing but a coward who couldn’t stand a tiny
measure of the brutality he’d meted out.
    Anticipating this moment all evening, I’d expected better. The measure of a man is how he acts when he’s down and beaten, but this wretch was worse than a cowardly child. As I
watched him wriggle through the dirt the disgust welled up inside me so powerfully I raised the bow again; bending to temptation before oaths I had sworn years before returned to haunt me. The lamp
illuminated the cellar with a fair glow and my eye was inexorably drawn to the wooden pillars that supported the low roof. In the lamplight, the pillars with their diagonal supports and my black
mood, I was reminded of a gallows and that was enough to stay my hand.
    ‘Now hear me you piece of shit,’ I struggled to say, my throat thick with rage until I took a few more breaths. ‘I got eight more bolts here. If you don’t explain a few
things right now I’ll get some more practice in – then maybe go fetch one o’ your knives till you start talking.’
    My hand trembled at the horrors the man had inflicted, as well as the cruel disdain of his affected concern. The bile rose in my throat and I tasted blood on my lips as I bit down in an effort
to stop myself pulling the trigger. Evil was the only word I could muster and nothing in my years of these streets could compete with the scenes this man had left in his wake. I needed a reason,
sane or not, for the indiscriminate violence he had inflicted. My hatred demanded that, demanded I know the full pathetic and contemptible reasons that had led him to do what he’d done. After
years of seeing the worst of what folk could do to each other, I still wanted to believe there might be a reason behind all this madness. The alternative frightened me, it still does.
    He said nothing and simply lay in a broken, wretched heap as I moved closer. I felt the revulsion tighten my finger as it did my throat. My vision darkened, my rage becoming a fierce pain behind
my eyes and when the moment cleared I saw his body jerk in mortal agony.
    For an instant I was sure I had fired. Then my senses returned and I spun around. The bow was smashed from my hand, bolt unspent but now forgotten. I didn’t even attempt to raise my stick
as a gleam appeared at my throat.
    ‘Dear fellow, that expression is most unbecoming.’
    ‘But you— I . . .’ I stammered, unable to connect my thoughts to words of any form.
    ‘But you thought that was me?’ Nimer cocked his head, sword never leaving my throat. ‘I’m hurt; depravity is not among my “special talents” and if it were,
you would have not caught me so easily. That man is a clerk to the City Council, just one of many and unremarkable in almost every way. Oh my friend, hundreds pass that window each day, but you
only had a mind for me. Perhaps I should be touched you keep me so close to your thoughts.’
    He wore a wide-brimmed hat that gave his face a sinister shade, but it was nothing compared to the sudden, unnerving smile he gave me. His cold, executioner’s expression blossomed into
some mad, cruel humour and my skin chilled at the sight.
    ‘You killed him,’ I managed to gasp. ‘Why? You killed my damned prisoner! Why?’ My anger returned and at last I found some strength again. ‘You executed him before
he even stood trial! For all that horror he gets a quick, clean death? He deserved to hear the whole city curse his name before he went to the headsman, the