After several thudding blows, the coffin lid finally lifted a corner.A ribbon of light slipped in.
By the weak fireglow, he stared at his arm, flayed and slick with blood. His eyes widened.
"What… happened to me?"
He glanced down and saw the strange black mark over his heart.
A flat voice sounded not far beyond the lid, dragging his attention outward."Night Watch, spread out! Bag any living dead with a black mark—three coppers a head!"
The voice carried, striking sparks in the graveyard's silence.Heat pricked at the mark on his chest.
"That mark… have I become one of the living dead?"
He clamped both hands over his mouth. In the scraps of memory he still owned, the living dead were taboo.
He stopped thinking about who he was, held his breath, and pressed his ear to the seam of the lid.Metal rang. Screams stretched thin. Footsteps drummed the gravel like hard rain.
He had wanted to climb out at first—until he realized there wasn't a single decent grave good in the box.
Only a broken iron sword, a forearm long.
Time crawled. The glow thinning through the seam grew faint.The quick steps receded, leaving only the wind, too loud for a night like this.
He tried again to peer out.
Creak.
As his eyes met the crack, another coffin not far away scraped open from within. The sound split the quiet he was hiding in.
"Do I go too?"
He hesitated, though his fingers had already hooked the seam.
Just as he heaved, a thin, sharp scream burst against his ear.Even the wind felt torn open.
So they hadn't left. The watch was lying in wait.
He yanked his fingers back and went still, grateful he hadn't sprung out.
Then the lid above him boomed.
Bang.
A fist-sized hole burst through the coffin lid from outside, no more than an arm from his chest. A rotting body slid through and slammed into his ribs.
Stench flooded his throat. His chest compressed. Breath wouldn't come.
Harsh firelight came nearer, but pain didn't blunt his head. He set his jaw and focused on the world beyond the wood.
The owner of that voice approached with a torch."Twenty-seven coppers tonight. Three more and I'm on the rolls!"
A huge hand plunged in and hauled the corpse off him."Hss. Another body. Pad the count?"
By the torchlight, the man in the coffin glanced at the rusty broken sword. No more hiding. He gripped it in his right hand and leveled it at the hole.
When the huge hand came groping back in, he lifted the blade and drove the jagged break straight into the palm.
"Damn it!"
The serrated break was sharp as glass. It punched through. Blood sprayed his face.
Outside, the watchman whipped his arm to fling the blade free.Tendons stood under the skin as he locked both hands over the hilt.
This was the only iron he had.
The next instant his mouth twitched. The watchman was that strong; he and the sword were hurled out of the coffin together.
A wave of rot rolled through him. He hit a heap of corpses and, by that soft mercy, wasn't broken anew.
The mark burned. Heat bled from the bodies under him as if drawn away, a chill rushing in behind it, but he didn't linger on it.
Right hand still clenched on the broken blade, left palm braced on a slack shoulder, he pushed himself up. Staring at the heaps stamped with black marks, his throat knotted.
"I won't be one of you. I won't."
He spun, face hardening.
Not far off, a big watchman held a sword in his left hand, the right—slick with blood—forced to cradle the torch.
"Filthy living dead!" the man roared. "I'll kill you once, then again!"
"Come on."
He spat iron and raised the blade.Leaning forward, he slid down from the pile and hit the ground ten paces from the watchman. The broken edge went with him.
The watchman didn't flinch. He waited. When the jagged blade came within two arm lengths, he slung the torch at the attacker's face.
The torch came on with pitch and heat.His vision tightened; he threw up his left hand to shield his eyes.
"Too bright."
At the same time a cold edge cut the air.
Clack.
Metal on metal broke the night.
He didn't blink. He caught the stroke. The butt of the torch sat in his left palm.
The watchman staggered back. A long, ugly crack opened along his sword's edge.
Chips rang on stone. Before the sound died, the man had already slid a half step in and drove the broken sword to the hilt between the watchman's ribs.
"Impossible—"
The word drowned as red spread across the man's chest.
"Who… are you…"
Blood climbed over the watchman's lip. He scrabbled at the air, groping for the hilt buried in him.
"Nameless."
The syllables came clean and quick.
He ripped the blade free. Blood pattered into the dark.
When the watchman stopped breathing, Nameless finally spared a thought for flight.
Run? There wasn't only one watchman here.
As he hesitated, the black mark over his heart burned again. A pale thread rose from the corpse, kissed his chest, and slid into the mark. A knife of cold slipped through his skull.
"The watchmen's positions?"
His eyes sharpened.
"A patrol map… and—forget it. Move first."
Guided by the map now lodged behind his eyes, Nameless ghosted among the stones. No one saw him.
After an age he reached the gate from the memory. It lay tucked into the dark, hard to notice.
"This is it."
He straightened and ran for it.
"Low-born living dead. Die."
The voice hammered his ears. He reached to cover them, but before his hand rose a long spear punched through his chest and nailed him to the ground.
"Ah—"
He tried to scream. Only a ragged wheeze came out.
"The living dead do nothing but siphon souls. Send him to the West."
Darkness took him.