by J. P. Ashman
She hesitated before filling him in. She’d been thrown free of the blast in the alley, along with a couple of others, one of whom died immediately afterwards to another barrage of magic from the rooftops. She’d moved to another position where she knew street-assassins of Poi Son’s to be mustering. Once there, she’d discovered the position was a mass of crossbow bolts and fire – of all colours. Bodies and… bits of bodies. Several fought on, taking down Bronwen’s agents with numbers before moving away. She’d followed at a distance. Her voice shook as she recounted some of it, positively broke at others. Poi Son listened to it all. Carefully. Patiently. The girl was good. She told him there were few left and those were being hunted down and executed by the green and white soldiers and their mage. A demon of a woman, the girl said; which was something, considering she’d witnessed Bronwen’s inner cabal fighting.
‘And that’s who they’re finishing off now, Master Son. I heard ’em say so.’
‘Bronwen’s cabal?’
‘Aye.’
There was a loud thud followed by a staccato burst of hollow pops as if to accentuate the girl’s point.
‘She must be good, this battle mage.’
‘Oh aye, Master Son. Like I says, a demon of a woman.’
Nodding, Poi Son squeezed the girl’s shoulders. ‘And our masked friends?’
A pause, filled with not too distant screams and another burst of thuds and pops, shouts and horns, even barks and howls from neighbourhood dogs, or soldiers’ hounds, Poi Son couldn’t know.
He felt her shake her head to his question of Terrina and Rapeel.
‘Never mind, dear. We’re safe. And how shall we retreat from this defeat?’ he asked.
She told him the best route away from the danger.
Poi Son choked the life from her before taking her excellent advice.
***
‘Flay me to my bones, look at her neck,’ Rough Paul said, lowering the lamp to illuminate and accentuate the girl’s bloody wound. Two of his five companions grunted whilst the others kept their eyes on the shadows of the alleyway and the rooftops above. Rough Paul took a step back and watched as Sean crouched by the body, his heavy crossbow cradled across his lap. He scratched around in the dirt about the girl as if tracking an animal’s kill. Rough Paul laughed silently at that; bitterly. It was an animal to have killed one so young, he mused. A man, aye… or woman, knowing the Black Guild and the assassins they’d been tracking down, but an animal all the same. Rough Paul had seen the survivors of the tavern onto carts before heading out with Sean and the others to finish the night’s work.
A flash and bang caused every man, bar Sean – old timer that he was – to duck, curse or whisper a prayer. The likes of which were happening in other streets and alleys and buildings where their fellows mopped up the last of the Black Guild bastards.
‘Anything, Sean?’
Sean nodded. He scratched at his grey stubble and pointed up the alley. ‘That way, lad.’
‘Tracks?’ Rough Paul asked, squinting at the filthy ground.
‘Nope.’ Sean stood with a groan before heading up the alley, two younger crossbowman flanking him, their smaller bows spanned and loaded whilst Sean’s remained un-spanned, his bolts secure in the leather bag at his waist.
Rough Paul followed the three crossbowmen, two men-at-arms at his back. ‘How’d you know?’ he asked, frowning.
‘This alley is long and thin, lad. We came one way in, didn’t we?’
‘Aye.’
‘Did we pass any fuckers with blood on their hands? Did we pass anyone?’
The bloody string used to garrotte the girl had remained about her neck, so it made sense that her murderer would be travelling with bloody hands, but no weapon.
Receiving no answer, Sean continued on his way, back-lit by Rough Paul’s lamp. Another flash lit the sky like lightning and Rough Paul was amazed there were such fights remaining. He knew there were more battle mages about the area than the woman who’d been seconded to Sir Merrel’s company, but the fact they faced continued resistance from a dying guild struck him as to how powerful the Black Guild had been.
Sean lifted a clenched fist. The men stopped as one, even those behind who had eyes back as much as front. The old hand stooped, wound and spanned his windlass crossbow, the lads either side of him covering him with their own crossbows. Slotting a thick bolt into the arming groove, Sean hoisted the weapon and paused.
Rough Paul held his breath and tilted his head. He listened as best he could through his padded arming cap and the maille coif that it cushioned. All he could hear was the thump of his own heartbeat rushing through his ears. He let his breath out slowly, heartbeat quickening as he saw the narrowed eyes of the old veteran crossbowman, who turned to look back past Rough Paul and the others. Rough Paul made to move, to turn, but a shake of Sean’s head stayed him.
Vivid green strobes on the next street startled the group as the staccato popping that followed resonated through them. As Rough Paul winced, Sean moved. He took one large, quick step towards Rough Paul, planted his crossbow onto Rough Paul’s padded shoulder, leaned into his weapon and squeezed the trigger with his thumb.
The thud and twang was second only to the snapping jerk that rocked Rough Paul as the heavy draw-weight bow propelled its missile back between the other two soldiers and off into the darkness; darkness lit but a moment ago, several times in quick succession, by the green strobes of arcane energy.
A muffled cry of surprise and pain reached every man. The other two crossbowmen turned and loosed their own bolts, despite their quarrels’ trajectories passing dangerously close to their own men. Loud cracks off stone marked both impacts and as all three crossbowmen moved to re-load, Rough Paul and his counterparts chased the bolts, lamp held high.
They heard a scuffling of boots on stone. They heard grunts and curses from shadows Rough Paul’s lamp or the moon above struggled to penetrate, but on they charged.
The image of the garrotted girl flashed before Rough Paul’s eyes. He was thankful of his maille coif, and thankful the two with him wore the same.
If only the crossbowmen did.
Rough Paul turned at the sound of a strangled cry. He skidded to a stop and fell as he changed direction. He didn’t need to see what was happening in the shadows he’d left behind to know they’d been ambushed. Dropping the lamp and pulling a dagger to accompany his arming sword, he accelerated back towards Sean and the others, barking an order for his two to follow.
Grunts, scuffles and the snapped launch of a crossbow followed by the familiar crack of an iron tipped bolt striking stone. Rough Paul slowed as he neared where the crossbowmen should have been. He cast about in the dim light of the forgotten lamp, for them, for anyone.
‘Gods take us, where are they?’
‘I don’t know, Ten,’ Rough Paul said, soft voice shaking.
‘Shit, Paul… look.’ Ten pointed to the floor with his falchion. The third man, Graehm, swore.
Rough Paul’s blood ran cold as he looked at the two bloody strings littering the ground.
‘Back to the lamp.’ Ten shifted his bulk so his back was to the backs of his two friends and not the darkness. ‘Paul, Graehm, on me. Now.’
Nodding and swallowing hard, Rough Paul did as Ten said, as did Graehm. The three of them moved slowly, surely, back towards the lamp, straining their eyes to see into the shadows. All had gone quiet now, in the streets surrounding them. No magical pops or shouted orders. No horns or… horns!
‘Sound the fucking horn, Graehm!’ Rough Paul said, palms slick on his weapons. They were nearly at the lamp when a crossbow snapped and glass shattered, taking the light with it.
Darkness took them and from that darkness came the sweetest sound of three horn blasts. Then came the curse, scuffle and choking of a dying man. No, men.
Before any aid reached him, Rough Paul stood alone, chest heaving, heartbeat filling his ears once more. He pissed himself then, whilst lunging at nothing with his b
lades. Slashing and stabbing, the ambient light enough to know he was attacking nought but air. Over the rasping of his breath and the thudding in his ears he swore he heard boots on stone. He strained to listen, swinging and blindly stabbing as he was.
‘Paul?’
Rough Paul left the ground. He instinctively swung on the speaker of his name, but a strong hand caught his wrist. A strong, slick hand, sticky with what could only be – in Rough Paul’s imagination if nothing else – blood.
‘Paul, stop swinging, lad.’
‘Sean?’
‘Aye, it’s me, and I think I stuck the bastard, though I can’t see for shit to be sure.’
Rough Paul sagged. Sean took his weight. ‘I thought you dead,’ he whispered, eyes filling with tears despite his previous combat experience.
‘I thought me dead too, lad. The others?’
It was too dark to know. Rough Paul said nothing. Nor did Sean. Before their imaginations could do anymore harm, before anything else could take them or scare them at the very least, a light appeared down the alley, towards the tavern. Loud voices accompanied that light: orders being given, names being called.
‘Down here!’ Sean shouted. ‘We’re down here!’
Rough Paul sobbed into Sean’s arms as men from their company approached, lamps leading the way. Their curses and shouts of anger soon followed as the lamps revealed their dead. Two crossbowmen further up the alley, slumped against a wall, next to one another. And the two men-at-arms, Ten and Graehm, their own previously belted daggers jutting from an eye a piece. And two friends, one young, one much older, crouched and huddled between the two deathly scenes.
‘I think I got him,’ Sean kept saying, as their own men helped them to their feet and walked them away. ‘I think I got the bastard assassin…’
Rough Paul noticed the bloody rondel dagger in Sean’s white-knuckled hand and hoped his friend was right.
Chapter 44 – Ride for the hills
Pleasant pastures flanked the road Cheung travelled. He had ridden through hamlets and skirted a couple of villages, past farms and took a wide birth around a dull, squat keep. Often the palomino walked him off the road to avoid patrolling soldiers, their colourful liveries different every time. He knew various houses of Altoln had men on the hunt, few wanting an assassin to succeed in taking a king from them that, by all accounts, was loved and valued by an astonishing majority of the kingdom. Few rulers held the respect King Barrison did. Cheung smiled to himself, the moving of his lips, cheeks and eyes a bitter thing; he knew his countrymen held little regard for the ruling council of Eatri.
I know what I have to do. I do not question what I have to do. That has ever been the way of it. That is all I had ever known, until the caravan. An uncharacteristic snarl pulled at Cheung’s top lip. I lost myself there. But this solitude, on the road… it was well needed. ‘I will not fail you, masters.’
Before rider and mount crested the hill, a gull filled, smoke-stained sky gave Wesson away. Reaching the crest, the palomino stopped and pawed at the ground, Cheung taking in a city falling away to the sea, behind tall walls that looked akin to the squat keep he’d avoided, in colour if not in size.
‘It rolls down the hill to waters as dirty as the sky, they say,’ Cheung said to the horse. The animal threw its head back once, twice, receiving a pat on the neck for its efforts. Tipping forward, the animal knelt with its forelegs, making its intentions clear.
‘We must part ways, yes.’ Cheung climbed from the saddle, his understanding clear as he rubbed behind a golden ear. ‘You’re the most conspicuous horse I and anyone else around here have ever seen. You do right by me to insist we part company before Wesson’s gates.’
The horse stood and Cheung moved about it, unbuckling harness and saddle, removing its burdens. How much he had learnt.
‘You have freedom now, my friend. You have the run of this luscious land.’ He hid the riding gear away from the road and came back to stand in front of the horse, his satchel slung over one shoulder and the flea-ridden cloak about his shoulders. Noses touched.
‘If you are here should I return, I would thank you, but I do not expect or request it. You have shown me great loyalty and you have seen me to my destination. You have my eternal gratitude for those things. But more than that, you have allowed me to regain my focus. I am the weapon I once was, the tool to my masters’ desires, and I shall succeed because of you.’ The palomino released a soft whinny and stepped back, turning to look down the hill and arduous road they had travelled together.
‘Go now. Run free, but run clear of these lands, as lovely as they seem. A prize like you will not run free for long. I wish you not to be captured by some greedy knight or lord, by some horse breeder intent on making his fortune off of your heritage.’
The palomino turned and looked to Cheung one last time.
‘Ride for the Moot Hills and the Eastern Planes beyond. You have earned it!’ Cheung shouted the last as white tail flicked and golden legs propelled the animal down and into the vale they’d come from.
Lips tight, Cheung turned away from the magnificent creature. He cast his gaze across ridge and furrowed fields and back over the city of Wesson. Scanning from right to left, he found the palace he needed to infiltrate. The towers were a lighter stone than the rest of the city, and taller than most; all but one, which he assumed was the renowned Tyndurris. He felt as if eyes were watching him from that tower, but shook it away whilst setting off down the hill.
A cold wind picked up, bringing with it fine rain.
The sort that soaks you through before you know you’re wet, he thought, forging on towards his goal. Towards Wesson’s Palace and the King within.
The gate was busy, and muddy from the rain that continued to fall. Water streamed from gargoyles and murder holes far above the passers-by. Carts crawled through the double gates, their contents being checked vigorously by sodden cloaked, grumpy men-at-arms of the wall and the City Guard alike, their mixed liveries indicating to Cheung how heavy Wesson’s security had become. Because of him. The information he’d received from his masters about Wesson had been in depth and accurate, as only a direct insertion to the mind can be. The colours of surcoats, tabards and gambesons were as if a memory to Cheung, unlike many of those he’d seen and avoided on the roads.
Cheung walked amongst a group of Sirretan jongleurs, their garishly decorated eight-wheeled vardo following behind. He’d joined the group not far from the gatehouse itself, paying the performers all he had to swap clothes and act as if he were one of them. He strummed languidly at a lute, the musicians about him wincing at every drag of his pale, wet fingers.
‘A song for you, a song for me,’ the lead jongleur called to an approaching sergeant-at-arms in the colours of the City Guard. ‘A song for day, a song for—’
‘Night,’ the sergeant finished, unimpressed. ‘Yes yes, how lovely, now state your business… specifically. And make it quick.’
Cheung did his best to blend in with the others, their gaudy attire a confusion of colour and frills, of rain-darkened wool and linen and felt.
The lead jongleur bowed low, glistening flute out wide. ‘We come to entertain. We come to sing and make merry. We come to feed our minds, our lungs with song… our bellies.’
‘Your Altolnan is good,’ the sergeant said, rubbing the back of his head. ‘So, I’m sure you understood the word ‘specifically’.’
A cart passed through the dry tunnel of the gatehouse, leaving three guardsmen free to flank their sergeant. He turned to them and ordered the searching of the jongleurs’ tall vardo.
The performers stopped their music and some of them moved back to their mobile home, affixing worried eyes on the hands of the men rooting through their belongings. Cheung acted as they did, but kept his distance all the same.
‘Why do you do this, friend?’ the lead jongleur asked the sergeant, his Altolnan may have been good, but his Sirretan accent was heavy. ‘Have we offended?’
A de
ep breath accompanied a shake of the head. ‘No.’ The sergeant looked past the man with the flute. ‘Everyone is to be checked, and the sooner you answer my question and your wagon is searched, the sooner you can move on and find a dry tavern to ply your trade.’
Another over eager bow. ‘Of course, Sergeant, of course. We have travelled far to attempt an audience with your most magnificent King. His court is renowned and we wish to impress with acrobats, fire walkers and more. We must play and prance and… paw.’ The man winked as a group of women were ushered through the gatehouse, the sergeant and lead jongleur’s eyes upon them and their cloying kirtles and skirts.
‘Thank the rains!’
The sergeant nodded, seemingly satisfied, especially when his men claimed all was well.
‘Fine, fine. On you go.’
‘A gentleman this sergeant truly is, letting us pass through the gate, which is his!’ The lead jongleur sang for all to hear and pointed his flute to the gates. ‘He talks like a king and fights like a bear, oh what honours he must wear!’
The troupe took up the song as one, instruments coming to life in their hands as they continued the song.
The sergeant shook his head and moved on, men in tow, towards a group of riders coming down the road. He stopped as the tall vardo rolled through the mud. ‘Jongleur!’ he shouted, jogging to and turning the man now playing his flute. ‘Have any joined your group recently?’ he said as an afterthought. ‘Any new faces? There’d be a reward for the truth of it.’
Cheung clenched teeth but continued to strum terribly. His eyes met the flute player’s, which blinked repeatedly in the rain.
As the sergeant’s eyes narrowed at the hesitation, the lead jongleur shook his head and offered another one of his bows.
‘We have been together an age, Sergeant. No one joins us afresh. We all of us remain together and yet keep it fresh. We walk and we—’