by A Van Wyck
And then he was soaring. He’d timed it just right. His hand stretched upward as the shadow passed overhead. Time slowed.
Helia…
His one worded prayer sounded small and desperate in his own mind.
He watched his hand sink toward the cloud, his splayed fingers passing ineffectually through its ephemeral mass. The graveyard stench clogged up his senses.
The momentum of his jump petered out, angling him back toward the ground.
And that was it.
When he touched the carpet the guards would have him and the princess would die.
The buzzing of a million carrion flies sleeted past his ears like laughter.
Dailill, I’m so sor–
Something brushed his inert fingers and they spasmed shut around it.
Whatever he held resisted him for a heartbeat longer before surrendering to gravity. Holding tight, he plummeted back to earth.
And landed badly. The ground knocked the breath out of him, springing his clenched hand open. Half an instant later, something heavy landed on top of him and rolled off. The wiry figure, wrapped head to toe in ragged strips of dark cloth, sprung to its feet and shot away up a side corridor.
He stared.
“What in blazes was that?” someone shouted.
“After it!”
Fighting to draw air back into his lungs, he pushed unsteadily to his feet. Footfalls rushed, not far behind him. His kick had caught the edge of the guard’s helm and he hobbled painfully after the dark figure. An assassin, he realized. His mind hared off along that line of thought. If an assassin could get this far into the palace, into the very royal apartments, evading goddess-knew how many guards and wards… what was there to stop a second attempt?
Gritting his teeth, he broke into a run.
His engorged stomach chose then to cramp. He powered through the pain, sprinting down the side corridor.
The assassin was fast.
He rounded the corner just in time to see the black clad figure flit away down the next intersection. Guards appeared at the far end, racing towards him. With the cramp’s teeth locked on his right side, a stitch gnawing on his left, he ran to reach the intersection before they cut him off. Forcing air down his throat, he ignored his burning legs and shot around the corner just a step ahead of them.
The assassin was gone.
Shock threatened to ground him but faint movement caught his eye. Halfway down the passage, a door that had stood ajar was swinging slowly shut. He grabbed at the doorjamb as he passed, shouldering the heavy wood aside as he slingshotted into the darkened room. Frustrated curses sounded from outside as the guards, who’d been short on his heels, failed to match his nimble maneuver. At least one of them fell, taking a companion down too by the sound of it.
The apartments seemed empty, disused. A belated thought about assassins lying in wait behind halfway closed doors flashed through his mind. He shrugged it off. He’d welcome an attack on himself. Then maybe he could delay the assassin long enough for the guards to nab them both.
A desk or table, hidden beneath white cloth, stood beneath the only window. A dusty footprint stained its center, next to an upset flower pot. He rushed over to the windowsill to stick his head out. The sun had long since set. The city lights winked from beyond the distant palace walls. His eyes skimmed down the length of the tower’s sheer stone wall, down the dizzying drop all the way to the dark ground, eight stories below. Patches of yellow lamplight marked lower windows. No sign of the assassin. No rope. No balconies. As far as he could make out, no dead body on the cobbles below.
Could the assassin have re-entered the tower through one of the lower windows? Expecting the guards to burst in at any moment, he leaned farther out, trying to get a better look at those lighter haloes. Something – flakes of stone so fine they were little more than dust – swirled past his ear.
Gasping, he turned, craning his neck to glance upward. There, impossibly scaling the vertical expanse, was the assassin.
What in Helia’s name…?
Those were the king’s apartments up there. The assassin was already well into the climb, no more than a man’s height from the crenellated roof. Within moments, the dark clad figure was going to slip over the battlements and disappear into the night.
No!
He had no idea how to get to the roof from here. Even if he had, he’d doubtless have to fight his way past a score guardsmen and, even in the unlikely event that he managed that, the preternaturally fast assassin would doubtless be gone by the time he got there. He slapped at the grey stone above his head in frustration. And bruised his palm.
“Ow!”
He snatched his arm back in surprise.
There, somehow fused to the stone, was a nub of what looked like clay, matching the coloring of the wall. Hesitantly, he felt at it with his bruised hand. It was small. Not completely three fingers across and protruding less than two. He could barely wedge more than his fingertips into the swaybacked grip it offered. He scanned the surface of the wall. There was another, identical to the first, and there! Another one! They spotted the wall in a staggered pattern, leading to the roof. This must be how the assassin had scaled it. But how could any sane person…
In the rooms behind him, the door rebounded from the wall as one of the guardsmen kicked it open.
And then he was swinging himself out onto the window ledge, dangling above the deadly drop. His questing fingers found another handhold. He drew himself up. His feet left the ledge. He didn’t dare think about what he was doing. If he lingered even for a moment on the impossibility of what he was attempting, it would be a short race to see whether his grip or his nerve gave out first. Shouts from inside the apartments chased him up the wall.
He’d gone only a few arm lengths when he became convinced he was going to die. His legs were shaking. His hands were agony. He clutched desperately at the miniscule handholds as a gust of wind cut between him and the stone, prying him away by a finger’s worth. He hesitated, chest heaving.
This is crazy.
He looked down. The distant ground beckoned, physically pulling at him. The impossibility of climbing back down asserted itself right about then. He jerked his head back up. Terrified breath whistling through gritted teeth, he reached for the next handhold. Before he’d gone another arm’s length, his fingers felt disconnected from his body, like pieces of wood. Feeling fled as the tremendous pressure he was exerting forced the blood from his fingertips. His calves bucked and trembled with the intensity of the effort. He crawled up the wall, no longer following the assassin so much as trying to reach the top before his strength gave out. Caution warred with urgency. He felt his limbs weakening.
His legs were cramping wildly by the time he hooked an arm over the edge of the roof. His hands were reduced to a vague burning at the ends of his wrists, the tendons stretched and unresponsive. With a cry, half pain and half relief, he pulled himself onto the blessedly flat battlement. He lay, gasping at the sky, as the terror slowly drained. Surprising himself, he pushed to his feet.
The walkway navigated the full circumference of the royal tower, curving away and out of sight in both directions. There was no sign of the assassin. But there was only one way down from here. He stumbled along the curve of the narrow walkway, circling toward the north-west wall. The royal tower shared its foundations and supports with the palace proper. Only the topmost stories were a free standing structure.
As he rounded the back of the spire, he caught sight of the swiftly shrinking figure of the assassin, sprinting along the spine of the steeply peaked roof below. Pushing between two thick merlons he glanced down at the rooftop. Cold air tossed his hair about his head. It was a long way down. He’d not yet decided to jump when the roof came rushing up at him. He hit awkwardly on the sloped tiles, his feet going out from under him. His shoulder struck with a splintering crack. Bits of broken tile bounced down the sharp incline and over the edge. He skidded after them, clawing desperately at the slic
k plates. He groaned as he came to a stop. On raw hands and skinned knees, he scrambled back up. The assassin was a dark smudge, fading towards the far end of the roof. He cradled his bruised arm as he followed, running as fast as he could on the narrow ridge.
He caught his breath as the assassin disappeared, stepping off the roof’s spine and into a controlled slide toward its edge. He could just make out the arched back of a walkway, connecting this building to the next, like a roofed bridge. The assassin vanished over the edge. He tried to keep his eyes on the spot. If he misjudged and missed the arch, he’d go over and fall to his death. He stepped off, trying to copy the assassin’s slide. He picked up speed incredibly fast. Before he’d gotten midway, the wind was whipping past his ears, the roof’s edge speeding up to meet him. His nerve gave out and he threw out his arms, slapping at the tiles. His heels drummed the roof. He couldn’t help the panicked yell that escaped him as he slipped sideways. And then the roof dropped away beneath him. His trailing hand snagged at the guttering as he went over. The painful jerk as the half-pipe took his weight cut off his yell. Dangling, feet kicking, he swung from the roof’s edge. He looked down. The arch was beneath him. A metallic squeal brought his head whipping back up just as the guttering gave way. The impact shocked the feeling from his feet. The lead gutter clunked hollowly off the stone, tumbling away into the dark maw that loomed on both sides of the walkway.
Excess adrenaline threatening to rip his heart apart, he ran unsteadily for the opposite building. The assassin was already nearing the peak of the far roof, impossibly running upright against the steep slope. Following, he scrambled up the incline in a crouch, using his hands to propel him haphazardly upward. The roof ridge was a walkway, less than a pace across and bordered in useless, hand high trellis. But it ran straight as an arrow. No windows, no drops and no arches. Growling, he pushed his pain aside and ran. He was spent but the assassin must be tiring also because the distance between them was slowly dwindling. Whatever meager reserves he had left, he channeled into increasing his speed, drawing nearer the fleeing figure’s back. Up ahead, he saw the roof end, the walkway terminating in a little circular space no more than five or six paces across. The assassin was trapped! He slowed as the assassin reached it. The black clad figure turned at bay, facing him at last.
Got you!
His optimism abruptly evaporated as he got a good look at the assassin. The figure stood upright, wiry frame relaxed, slight shoulders rising and falling in time with easy breathing. Between mask and cowl, only the eyes were visible, glittering darkly at him.
He was suddenly very aware of his numb shoulder, his lame leg and his trembling limbs. He was in no shape to fight. Over the sound of his own panting, he could hear distant alarms going up. Beneath his feet, the roof tiles shook to the pounding of heavy boots. Too far away to be of any help to him. He’d outdistanced the guards, drawn on thoughtlessly by the compulsion of the chase. The assassin was trapped? He’d been so stupid. The assassin had trapped him. Here, injured, unarmed, far from help and mere moments from an exhausted collapse, he was easy prey.
Well, he wasn’t about to give up without a fight. Not after everything he’d been through. Cringing at the pain of his bruised ankle, he shifted into a fighting crouch, raising open hands as he’d been taught, his every scrape and scratch on fire.
The hooded head cocked to the side, regarding him quizzically as he fought to restore some semblance of control to his breathing. He readied himself for the assassin’s charge.
Tense moments passed as the assassin stood unmoving. He felt his lead leg begin to tremble beneath him, threatening to dump him on his nose and still the assassin merely stood, studying him. Finally, the black clad figure took a deliberate step back, then another, dangling heels over the lip of the roof. One of the darkly glittering eyes winked at him. He gasped in realization. With a soft kick, the assassin pushed off, dropping away into the darkness beyond the roof.
In the sudden silence, a chill breeze ruffled his hair.
Stunned, he stumbled toward the edge, peering down to see that the building itself stood on a cliff edge. Far below, the tops of huge conifers waved at him. He stood, staring in disbelief at the distant trees. The intense relief hit him in mid-breath and his legs folded beneath him. He sat down heavily, collapsing onto his back. The cold of the roof seeped slowly through his sweat soaked robes. Bright stars swam blearily above him.
He felt the approach of the guards through the reverberating roof long before they found him.
* * *
“Secure that sail, Master Noname!”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
He rushed to obey. He’d learned the hard way that when the first mate said to do something, he meant NOW. And if he thought you weren’t fast enough… He cringed at the thought. He wasn’t sure how old he was. Being an orphan in Oaragh, you learned stealing before you learned numbers and you were considered a man once you’d spilled blood.
Things were reckoned differently aboard the Isus Spear. He didn’t qualify as a man in the eyes of the captain and crew. That meant he didn’t get the lash if he disobeyed, like the other men. No, he was lumped with the stupid cabin boy. A tall, gangly youth called Ilor who was frequently in trouble. How the cabin boy had survived the pirate attack when seven better men hadn’t, he couldn’t fathom. He secretly suspected the boy was simple. On his second day as Master Noname, he’d been treated to the sight of Ilor being bent over a barrel to receive the strop. He was determined not to share the idiot’s fate. He had little time for the spotty moron anyway.
He shimmied along the cross spar, bundling the escaped canvas back under its holds and retying them. If you knew tight-roping, masts and spars were easy – once you got used to the swaying of the ship. Ropes and knots were a new one to him. At least, as something to tie instead of to wriggle out of. He smiled wryly. He’d be able to go into the hostage taking business when this was all over, he reflected, deftly working the thick ropes. It was much easier now that his hands were mostly healed. The coarse fibers had chafed his scabs horribly. With any luck, he’d eventually grow a new nail on his middle finger. He finished the last tie, satisfied with his work.
He’d learned much in his short time aboard the Spear.
Master Lenk hadn’t bothered to show him around the ship on that first day, all those weeks ago now, but had simply dumped him in the galley. And the ship had been thick with the hostility he’d sensed on his walk from the brig. It was like being caught on a rival gang’s turf and he’d handled it the same way – chin up and not quite swaggering. It had met with mixed success. There had been no formal introductions and he was content to pick out the names of the crew through eavesdropping and from the first mate’s bellowed orders. But there were a lot of crewmen. Too many to fit them all in the galley at meal times, so whoever was assigned as cook’s helper also brought food up and half the crew ate on deck. That first day, the person helping the cook had been him. He’d been surprised when he’d recognized the cook as the shambling figure who’d tried to torch the pirate ship. Up close, the man didn’t look as old as his stooped posture seemed to suggest, despite the salted grey hair escaping the faded bandana. He’d put it down to years working below decks where the ceilings were low. Clear eyes sat in pockets of deep wrinkles, underslung with a jutting jaw and framed by enormous ears. Wiping saucepan sized hands on a grimy apron, the man had introduced himself as Squint.
“Ev’ryone calls me Cooky, though, so I ‘spect ye will as well,” the gravelly voice had sounded resigned.
He had immediately resolved to call the man by nothing but his chosen name. He knew what it was to labor under an unwanted nickname.
That first day, he’d come amazingly close to finding out about the strop and barrel first hand. He’d been ladling the speckled porridge Squint made out of the big, blackened tureen and into the tin plates the crew held out to him. It wasn’t very exciting work. Not until a crewman lightly flipped a laden plate at him. It’d stuck to his st
omach briefly before the porridge surrendered its stubborn grip. Hot gruel had clung to him.
“Hey!” he’d shouted angrily, back stepping as the plate clattered to the deck. He’d looked up and then further up into the face of the crewman. He’d seen the malice there. He’d understood immediately. He’d spent enough time in a gaol or two to know how this game was played. It was one he played reluctantly but played well.
The crewman had been tall, standing head and shoulders above him, which immediately put the man in his bad books. And a beefy, fat stomach peeking from beneath a stained vest.
“Watch what yer doin’, cabin boy!” the man had spat, flabby upper arms jiggling as a finger was shaken beneath his nose. “Did ye see tha’,” the man had blustered, turning in a circle to take in their instant audience, fat palms upraised in innocence, “knocked it righ’ out’o me hand, he did. Doesn’t like us much, methinks,” the crewman glower at him. “Ye may hav’ t’cap’n fooled with all tha’ stowaway codswallop, me lad,” black eyes, alive with vindictiveness, had narrowed on him, “but ‘ole Meris sees through you, he does.”
The agitator had smacked a meaty palm to a flabby chest, identifying himself and setting outlying parts of the grotesque body wobbling. Leaning close, Meris had brought a face ruddy with sun close to whisper loudly.
“I stills says ye smell like a pirate.”
Smiling thinly, he’d adopted an arrogant air. Waving a hand lazily under his nose, he’d spoken in a strained tone, adding a little cough.