Chapter 77
Well, Tristan mused as he stood by the balcony’s edge and watched the colossal corpse-god climb up the side of the Collegium, his day had already been shot anyway.
At some point ‘worse’ became a relative term. Mind you, that monstrosity down there wasn’t the only god he’d have to look out for. Oduromai King had come back after the Hated One made his entrance, inevitable as flies on shit, and promptly soaked up the worship from the locals. Majordomo Timon had been moved to kneel and beg a blessing, even, which was disturbing coming from such a severe man.
Tristan knew he shouldn’t complain too much, since Oduromai popping up was the better part of why the loyalists had not immediately run when the dead god rose, but that god irked him. While he was quite fond of sailors since they drank too much and that made them easy to rob, he was rather less than taken with heroes – which mostly meant someone going around doing a popular form of violence – and as a rule even less an admirer of kings.
That made one strike in Oduromai’s favor and two against, suiting his natural instinct not to believe anything coming out of a god’s mouth. And he did not trust that thing even a fucking little bit.
“Now is the time,” Oduromai King announced. “You must reach Cleon Eirenos.”
Another cannonball hit the barricade, shattering an expensive writing desk, but Tristan had grown used enough to the bombardment not to flinch.
Asphodel’s patron was addressing a war council on the ragged end of things, having turned to the blackcloaks after stiffening the morale of his pawns with a few words. They made for a motley bunch: Song belonged there, standing pristinely uniformed despite her rising body count, and Angharad in her blood-spattered dress made some sense as well. The noblewoman was the one who knew Lord Cleon. Even Maryam, tottering on her feet as she was, could be justified as the only signifier at hand.
But that someone had seen it fit to bring him in was a sign of desperate times indeed.
Tupoc should have been in his place, but the Izcalli was instead currently… bolstering the ranks. He’d kicked and harangued the lictors and nobles who gave in to despair despite Oduromai’s words, mustering them to prepare a defense of the barricades defending either side of the stairs heading down to the once-garden. To his honor, the heavy-handed method did seem to be working more than not. He’d only had to execute one noble shouting about surrender.