Assassin's Quest tft-3

by Robin Hobb

  Circumstances put all such hope to ruin, however. The Six Duchies were threatened from without by the Raiders, and torn within by the bickering of princes. King Shrewd was murdered, King-in-Waiting Verity disappeared while on a quest, and when Prince Regal claimed the throne for his own, his hatred for Kettricken was such that she felt obliged to flee to her native Mountains for the sake of her unborn child. Self-proclaimed "King" Regal saw this somehow as a reneging on a promised surrender of territory. His initial endeavors to move troops into the Mountain Kingdom, ostensibly as "guards" for trading caravans, were repulsed by the Mountain folk. His protestations and threats prompted the closing of the Mountain borders to Six Duchies trade. Thwarted, he embarked on a vigorous campaign of discrediting Queen Kettricken and building patriotic hostility toward the Mountain Kingdom. His eventual goal seemed obvious: to take, by force if necessary, the lands of the Mountain Kingdom as a Six Duchies province. It seemed a poor time for such a war and such a strategy. The lands he justly possessed were already under siege by an outside enemy, one he seemed unable or disinclined to defeat. No military force had ever conquered the Mountain Kingdom, and yet this was what he seemed intent upon doing. Why he so desperately desired to possess this territory was a question that initially baffled everyone.

  The night was clear and cold. The bright moonlight was enough to show us where the road ran, but not more than that. For a time I simply sat in the wagon, listening to the crunching of the horses' hooves on the road and trying to absorb all that had happened. Starling took the blankets we had brought from my cell and shook them out. She gave me one and draped one across her own shoulders. She sat huddled and apart from me, looking out the back of the wagon. I sensed she wanted to be left alone. I watched the orange glow that had been Moonseye dwindle in the distance. After a time, my mind started working again.

  "Kettle?" I called over my shoulder. "Where are we going?"

  "Away from Moonseye," she said. I could hear the weariness in her voice.

  Starling stirred and glanced at me. "We thought you would know."

  "Where did the smugglers go?" I asked.

  I felt more than saw Starling shrug. "They wouldn't tell us. They said if we went after you, we had to part company with them. They seemed to believe Burl would send soldiers after you, no matter how badly Moonseye had been hit."

  I nodded, more to myself than to her. "He will. He's going to blame the whole raid on me. And it will be said that the raiders were actually from the Mountain Kingdom, soldiers sent to free me." I sat up, easing away from Starling. "And when they catch us, they'll kill you both."

  "We didn't intend that they should catch us," Kettle observed.

  "And they won't," I promised. "Not if we act sensibly. Pull up the horses."

  Kettle scarcely needed to stop them. They had slowed to a weary walk long ago. I tossed my blanket at Starling and went around the team. Nighteyes launched himself from the wagon and followed me curiously. "What are you doing?" Kettle demanded as I unbuckled harness and let it fall to the snowy ground.

  "Changing this over so they can be ridden. Can you ride bareback?" I was using the guard's knife to hack through the reins as I spoke. She'd have to ride bareback, whether she could or not. We had no saddles.

  "I suppose I'll have to," she observed grumpily as she clambered down from the wagon. "But we aren't going to get very far very fast, doubled on these horses."

  "You and Starling will do fine," I promised her. "Just keep going."

  Starling was standing in the bed of the wagon looking down on me. I didn't need the moonlight to know there was disbelief on her face. "You're leaving us here? After we came back for you?"

  That wasn't how I'd seen it. "You are leaving me here," I told her firmly. "Jhaampe is the only large settlement, once you've turned your back on Moonseye and headed toward the Mountain Kingdom. Ride steadily. Don't go directly to Jhaampe. That's what they'll expect us to do. Find one of the smaller villages and hide there for a time. Most of the Mountain folk are hospitable. If you hear no rumors of pursuit, go on to Jhaampe. But get as far as you can as fast as you can before you stop to ask for shelter or food."

  "What are you going to do?" Starling asked in a low voice.

  "Nighteyes and I are going our own way. As we should have a long time ago. We travel fastest alone."

  "I came back for you," Starling said. Her voice was close to breaking at my betrayal. "Despite all that had happened to me. Despite… my hand… and everything else…"

  "He's drawing them off our trail," Kettle suddenly said.

  "Do you need help to mount?" I asked Kettle quietly.

  "We don't need any help from you!" Starling declared angrily. She shook her head. "When I think of all I've been through, following you. And all we did to free you… You'd have burned alive in that cell back there but for me!"

  "I know." There was no time to explain all of it to her. "Goodbye," I said quietly. And I left them there, walking away from them into the forest. Nighteyes walked at my side. The trees closed in around us and they were soon lost to sight.

  Kettle had seen quickly to the heart of my plan. As soon as Burl had the fires under control, or perhaps before, he would think of me. They'd find the old man killed by a wolf, and never believe I had perished in my cell. There would be pursuit. They'd send out riders on all the roads into the mountains, and they'd soon catch up with Kettle and Starling. Unless the hunters had another, more difficult trail to follow. One that cut cross-country, headed directly to Jhaampe. Due west.

  It would not be easy. I had no specific knowledge of what lay between me and the capital city of the Mountain Kingdom. No towns, most likely, for the Mountain Kingdom was sparsely populated. The folk were mostly trappers, hunters, and nomadic herders of sheep and goats who tended to live in isolated cabins or tiny villages surrounded by ample hunting and trapping range. There would be little chance for me to beg or steal food or supplies. What worried me more was that I might find myself on the edge of an unscalable ridge or having to ford one of the many swift cold rivers that swept fiercely down the ravines and narrow valleys.

  Useless to worry until we find ourselves blocked, Nighteyes pointed out. If it happens, then we must simply find a way around it. It may slow us down. But we will never get there at all if we stand still and worry.

  So we hiked the night away, Nighteyes and I. When we came to clearings, I studied the stars, and tried to travel as close to due west as I could. The terrain proved every bit as challenging as I had expected it to be. Deliberately I chose routes kinder to a man and wolf afoot than to men on horseback. We left our trail up brushy hillsides and through tangled thickets in narrow gorges. I comforted myself as I forged through such places by imagining Starling and Kettle making good time on the roads. I tried not to think that Burl would send out enough trackers to follow more than one trail. No. I had to get a good lead on them and then lure Burl to send them after me in full force.

  The only way I could think of to do that was to represent myself as a threat to Regal. One that must be dealt with immediately.

  I lifted my eyes to the top of a ridge. Three immense cedars stood together in a clump. I would stop there, build a tiny fire, and try to Skill. I had no elfbark, I reminded myself, so I would have to make provisions to rest well afterward.

  I will watch over you, Nighteyes assured me.

  The cedars were huge, their reaching branches interweaving overhead so thickly that the ground beneath was bare of snow. The soil was thickly carpeted with fragrant bits of cedar frond that had fallen over time. I scraped myself up a couch of them to keep my body off the cold earth and then gathered a good supply of firewood. For the first time, I looked inside the pouch I had stolen. There was a fire flint. Also five or six coins, some dice, a broken bracelet, and folded up in a scrap of fabric, a lock of fine hair. It summarized too neatly a soldier's life. I scraped away a bit of earth and buried the hair, the dice, and the bracelet together. I tried not to wonder if it was a ch
ild or a lover that she had left behind. Her death was none of my doing, I reminded myself. Still, a chill voice whispered the word "catalyst" in the back of my mind. But for me, she would be alive still. For a moment, I felt old and weary and sick. Then I forced myself to set both the soldier and my own life aside. I kindled the fire and fed it up well. I stacked the rest of my firewood close to hand. I wrapped myself in my cloak and lay back on my cedar-frond bed. I took a breath, closed my eyes and Skilled.

  It was as if I had tumbled into a swift river. I had not been prepared to succeed so easily, and was nearly swept away. Somehow the Skill river seemed deeper and wilder and stronger here. I did not know if it was a waxing of my own abilities or something else. I found and centered myself and resolutely firmed my will against the temptations of the Skill. I refused to consider that from here I might fling my thoughts to Molly and our child, might see as with my own eyes how she was growing and how they both fared. Nor would I reach for Verity, much as I longed to. The strength of this Skilling was such I had no doubt I could find him. But that was not what I was here for. I was here to taunt an enemy and must be on my guard. I set every ward I could that would not seal me off from the Skill, and turned my will toward Burl.

  I extended myself, feeling for him cautiously. I was ready to fling up my walls in an instant if attacked. I found him easily and was almost startled at how unaware of my touch he was.

  Then his pain jolted through me.

  I drew back, faster than a startled sea anemone in a tide pool. I shocked myself by opening my eyes and staring up into cedar boughs burdened with snow. Sweat slicked my face and back.

  What was that? Nighteyes demanded.

  You know as much as I do, I told him.

  It had been purest pain. Pain independent of an injury to the body, pain that was not sorrow or fear. Total pain, as if every part of the body, inside and out, were immersed in fire.

  Regal and Will were causing it.

  I lay shaking in the aftermath, not of the Skilling, but Burl's pain. It was a monstrosity larger than my mind could grasp. I tried to sort out all I had sensed in that brief moment. Will, and perhaps some shadow of Carrod's Skill, immobilizing Burl for this punishment. From Carrod there had been poorly masked horror and distaste for this task. Perhaps he feared it would someday be turned upon him again. Will's strongest emotion had been wrath that Burl had had me in his power and somehow let me slip away. But beneath the wrath was a sort of fascination with what Regal was doing to Burl. Will did not take any pleasure in it. Not yet.

  But Regal did.

  There had been a time when I had known Regal. Never well, it was true. Once he had been simply the younger of my uncles, the one who did not like me at all. He had vented it boyishly, in shoves and clandestine pinches, in teasing and tattling. I had not liked it, I had not liked him, but it had been almost understandable. It had been a boy's jealousy that the favored eldest son had created yet another rival for King Shrewd's time and attention. At one time he had been simply a pampered young prince, envious that his elder brothers were in line for the throne ahead of him. He had been spoiled and rude and selfish.

  But he had been human.

  What I had felt from him just now was so far beyond what I could understand in terms of cruelty that it was almost incomprehensible. Forged ones had lost their humanity, but in their emptiness was the shadow of what they had been. Had Regal opened his breast and showed me a nest of vipers, I could not have been more shocked. Regal had thrown humanity aside, to embrace something darker. And this was the man the Six Duchies now called King.

  This was the man who would send troops after Starling and Kettle.

  "I'm going back," I warned Nighteyes, and did not give him time to object. I closed my eyes and flung myself into the Skill river. I opened myself wide to it, drawing its cold strength into me without thought that too much of it would devour me. At the instant Will became aware of me, I spoke to them. "You will die at my hand, Regal. As certainly as Verity will reign again as King." Then I smashed that gathered power against them.

  It was almost as instinctive as a clenched fist. I did not plan it, but suddenly I understood this was what Verity had done to them back in Tradeford. There was no message, nothing but a furious unleashing of strength upon them. I opened wide to them and showed myself, then when they turned to me, I willed myself to blast them with every bit of Skill I had gathered. Like Verity, I held back nothing of my strength. I believe if there had been only one, I would have succeeded in burning the Skill right out of him. Instead, they shared the jolt. I will never know what effect it had on Burl. Perhaps he was grateful for my savagery, for it shattered Will's concentration and released him from Regal's sophisticated torture. I felt Carrod's shriek of terror as he broke off his Skilling. I think Will might have stood and challenged me, had not Regal feebly commanded him Break it off, you fool, do not risk me for your vengeance! In the blinking of an eye; they were gone.

  The day was strong when I was next aware. Nighteyes was lying almost on top of me and there was blood on his coat. I pushed feebly at him and he moved immediately. He stood up and sniffed my face. I smelled my own blood with him; it was revolting. I sat up suddenly and the world spun around me. I became slowly aware of the clamor of his thoughts.

  Are you all right? You were trembling and then you began to bleed from your nose. You have not been here, I have not been able to hear you at all!

  "I'm all right," I soothed him hoarsely. "Thanks for keeping me warm."

  My fire was down to a few embers. I reached carefully for my wood and added a few sticks to the fire. It seemed as if my hands were a long way away from me. When I had the fire burning, I sat and warmed myself. Then I stood and staggered a few steps to where the snow began. I rubbed a handful across my face to cleanse it of the taste and smell of blood. I put a bit of clean snow in my mouth for my tongue felt thick and clotted.

  Do you need to rest? Do you need food? Nighteyes asked me anxiously.

  Yes and yes. But most of all, we needed to flee. I had no doubt that what I had done would bring them after me. I had done what I had wanted, and beyond all my expectations, it had been real. I had given them a reason to fear me. Now they would never rest until they'd destroyed me. I had also shown them plainly where I was; they'd have a feel for where to send their men. I must not be here when they arrived. I went back to my fire and kicked earth onto it. I stamped it to be sure it was out. Then we fled.

  We traveled as swiftly as I could manage. There was no question that I held Nighteyes back. He would look at me pityingly as I toiled up a hill, hip-deep in snow that he but spread toes and ran lightly over. It was not unusual that when I begged for a rest and stopped to lean against a tree, he would range ahead, searching out the best trail. When both light and my strength were near exhausted and I would stop to build a fire for the night, he would disappear to return with meat for both of us. Most often it was white snow hares, but once it was a fat beaver that had ventured too far from its iced-over pond. I made pretense to myself that I cooked my meat, but it was a very brief searing over a fire. I was too tired and too hungry to do more. The meat diet put no fat on my flesh, but it did keep me alive and moving. I had little of true sleep, for I had to constantly replenish my fire to keep from freezing and rise several times a night to stamp feeling back into my feet. Endurance. That was what it was all about. Not swiftness or great strength, but a miserly eking out of my ability to force myself to keep moving every day.

  I kept my Skill walls up tight, but even so I was aware of Will's battling against them. I did not think he could track me as long as I guarded myself, but I was not certain of that. The constant mental wariness was yet another draw on my strength. Some nights I longed simply to drop all my guards and let him in, to finish me off once and for all. But at such times, all I had to do was recall what Regal was now capable of doing. Without fail it put a bolt of terror through me and inspired me to push myself all the harder to increase the distance between
us.

  When I arose on the fourth dawn of our traveling, I knew we were deep within the Mountain Kingdom. I had seen no sign of pursuit since we had left Moonseye. Surely this deep within Kettricken's own land, we were safe.

  How much farther is this Jhaampe, and what shall we do when we get there?

  I don't know how much farther. And I don't know what we shall do.

  For the first time, I considered it. I forced myself to think of all that I had not permitted myself to consider before. I knew nothing truly of what had become of Kettricken since the time I had sent her from the King's side to flee into the night. She had had no word from me or about me. Kettricken would have borne the child by now. By my reckoning, her babe would be close in age to my own daughter. I suddenly found myself very curious. I could hold that babe and say to myself, "This must be how it feels to hold my daughter."

  Except that Kettricken believed me dead. Executed by Regal and long buried would be what she had heard. She was my queen and Verity's wife. Surely I could reveal to her how I had survived. But to tell the truth to her would be like dropping a pebble in a pond. Unlike Starling or Kettle or anyone else who had deduced who I was, Kettricken had known me before. It would not be rumor or legend, not a wild tale of someone who had glimpsed me for a moment, but a fact. She could say to others who had known me, "Yes, I saw him, and he truly lives. How? Why, by his Wit, of course."

  I trudged along behind Nighteyes through the snow and cold and thought what that would mean to Patience when word reached her. Shame, or joy? Hurt that I had not revealed myself to her? Through Kettricken, word could be sent, to spread to those I had known. Eventually, it would reach Molly and Burrich. What would it do to Molly, to hear it from afar like that, not only that I was alive and had not returned to her, but that I was tainted with the Wit? It had cut me to the heart to know she had kept from me the knowledge that she carried our child. That had been my first true glimpse of how betrayed and hurt she must have felt by all the secrets I had kept from her over the years. To have one more and one of such magnitude pushed in her face might end whatever feelings she might still have for me. My chances of rebuilding a life with her were small enough; I could not bear for them to dwindle further.