“That’s the feeling of your testicles dropping. Congratulations, you’re almost a man.”
“Almost? What else do I have to do?”
Garran winked. “We’ll see what the night holds. Wait here; I’ll go get us another.”
“No, I’ve had more than enough,” Adam said to Garran’s back to no avail.
Garran approached the bar and nodded to his conspirator. The man stood and made his way to where Adam was sitting. Adam sat with his palms pressed against the table, fighting the heat spreading through his body instead of ebbing, as it should have been doing. He was beginning to sweat profusely, and his heart rate was accelerating. He felt a presence nearby and looked up.
“Can I help you?” Adam asked the man looming over him.
“My mistake. From the bar, you looked like a woman, but if your sister ain’t around, maybe you’ll do in a pinch.”
Adam fought back the unexpected rage building like a volcano ready to explode. “If you knew who my sister was, you would hold your tongue unless you are as stupid as you look.”
“If I knew who your sister was, I’d perch her on that bar and let my tongue fly while your mother knelt beside me making good use of hers.”
Garran watched Adam leap to his feet and strike the barfly with a surprisingly powerful right cross. The man stumbled several steps back before falling onto his backside. He shook his head and rolled to his feet. Adam stood a few paces before him, his hands held up in a fighter’s stance.
The man ducked his head and charged like a bull. He barreled into Adam with his shoulder, wrapped his arms around him, and drove him back until they collided with a support beam. Adam brought his fists down onto the man’s back and shoulders, but the collision with the beam knocked the air from his lungs and stunned him.
The man brought his head back and snapped it forward, further dazing Adam with a headbutt. He reeled back farther and whipped his head forward for a second, more powerful blow. Adam dipped down and slipped beneath the arms pinning him in place. The man’s forehead collided with the post with a thud that made the onlookers gasp and wince in sympathy.
Adam spun around the man, who was now holding himself up with the timber’s support, and delivered a series of punches to his kidneys. When the man’s knees began to buckle, Adam grabbed a fistful of greasy hair and drove his head into the post until he collapsed and stopped moving. He felt a hand land on his shoulder and spun, unbridled fury raging in his eyes.
“Whoa, easy there, killer,” Garran said. “How are you feeling?”
Adam took several deep breaths and glared around the tavern, daring anyone to challenge him with his eyes. “I feel good! I feel powerful! I feel…like a man!”
Garran handed him a glass. “Good! Now drink this.”
Adam snatched the glass and downed the drink. He roared like a beast as the alcohol burned its way down his throat and into his stomach and hurled the glass against the wall behind the bar.
Garran clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re doing great, kid, but you still have a little ways to go yet before you call yourself a man.”
Adam staggered, his vision wavering. “What’s next?”
Garran gave him a gentle push. “This way, I’ll show you.”
***
Reto Langley, the Minster of highways and tolls, selected a nightshirt from his enormous wardrobe and draped it over his body. He looked down and grimaced, noting that the middle did not hang freely, and he could no longer see his toes without leaning forward. It was but another problem he would have to deal with, but certainly not tonight.
It was late, and he was exhausted. Ever since Remiel completed his damned road, his workload had compounded far beyond what he had endured when he was but a lowly commissioner trying to climb his way through the ranks in order to reach what was supposed to be a period of schmoozing for kickbacks and bribes. If he had known betraying Remiel to The Guild meant he would have to start doing real work again, he might well have reconsidered his treasonous actions. At least The Guild rewarded him far better for his labors.
Reto turned, eagerly anticipating the soft bed and layers of warm blankets awaiting him. That empty bed warmed only by the hot coals smoldering inside the long-handled, metal contraption placed between the sheets by one of his servants. Perhaps it was time to put his philandering ways behind him and get a proper wife. He was reaching the end of his forties after all, and people were beginning to laugh at him behind his back.
He raised his foot, but it failed to carry him forward toward his bed. Unable to draw breath, his first thought was that he was having a heart attack. It took him a full second to realize that the constricture was not in his chest but around his throat, and in that moment, he understood the full magnitude of what was happening.
The rumors that had been floating around about the deaths and disappearance of several members of parliament and notable city officials were true, and the assassin had chosen him this night for his latest victim. His bedroom vanished as his sight fled, replaced by a field of red receding into blackness. In the moments before his death, he mourned the fact that he would never get to enjoy the fruits of his betrayal. His last thought was for the dead and the souls that were surely waiting to torment him in hell. It had all been such a waste.
Aniston held the bulk of Lord Langley’s weight against his bent leg as he guided him to the floor. He dragged the man’s corpse into the shadowy recesses of the wardrobe from which he had lain in wait. The longer it took someone to find him the better. With the information he had recovered from Reto’s office and study, his complicity was beyond question. It also pointed him toward another traitor.
With stacks of incriminating evidence, Aniston had given in to the Queen’s desires and returned to carrying out the executions. He did so with reluctance, but if the god-touched crone was telling the truth, he did not have a great deal of time left. He had to do what he could while he was still able. In a few months, he would have to flee, assuming Gregor did not catch on to his dealings and kill him before then.
He rubbed his hands against his trouser legs in a futile attempt to wipe away the blood his eyes could not see. He had begun doing that a lot over the weeks. He knew in those moments that he was not cut out to be a field agent. He should have set his sights on being an analyst. Perhaps Garran had known that which he was only just now realizing, and that his betrayal had been an act of mercy to save him from what he was now experiencing. He shook the thought away. No, Garran’s motives were always selfish and only intended to help further his goals. Garran needed him to get kicked out of school and work for The Guild so he would have an inside man.
Aniston climbed out of the window and clambered onto the roof. A flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye. He ducked low and twisted toward the motion, his hand on his sword, his feet ready to hurl him off the roof. It was a chimney, and the movement had been a plume of grey smoke against the black sky.
He padded across the roof and dropped to the first floor porch at the rear of the manor before leaping to the ground. Aniston hunkered down inside the concealing darkness of the porch before striding briskly into the street. Most influential people who resided within the city lived in this district, so he did not have far to go. The night was still relatively young, and he wanted to get this over with. He would tell Evelyn that this was the last night for the executions. It was getting far too dangerous, and after he delivered her justice this night, others would surely be on heightened alert. She could deal with them herself when she reclaimed the throne for her son.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up once again. An untrained person would stop and spin around out of fear in hopes of validating their anxiety, but he was a professional and kept walking without breaking stride or looking back. He turned down an alley and quickened his steps for moment before slowing. If someone were following, they would not see his haste and might sacrifice their stealth to catch back up when they saw he had gotten farther ahead.
> Aniston did this twice more, breaking into a jog after rounding a corner and ducked into a shadowy alcove. He waited, breathing through a folded kerchief to prevent the cool night air from turning his breath into billowing, white, puffy clouds of fog.
After ten minutes of standing in the cold, Aniston decided that his paranoia was getting the best of him. He emerged from his shadowy cocoon and made for the home of his next target. His nagging suspicions failed to abate, but he could not find a hint of their validation. He chalked it up to nerves.
Lord Monte Torin resided in a home similar to that of Lord Langley but with a small lawn and garden surrounding it instead of butting directly against sidewalks and cobblestone streets. Aniston had of course studied the exterior of the manor for days, and as he had noted during his previous surveillance, there were surprisingly few guards given Lord Torin’s status and wealth. Lord Langley had nearly tripled his armed staff in recent weeks, but he had put none of them inside his bedroom as a properly fearful man might. That modesty and deep-rooted sense of propriety had cost him his life.
It could be that he had them all stationed inside and were waiting to spring a trap for the assassin. His fear spiked at a sound rapidly approaching, but it was just a light shower striking the cobblestones as the wind pushed the clouds and the rain they carried his direction.
Creeping ivy climbed up the latticework to the second floor window along the walls to each side of the columned porch. Aniston considered the absurdity of the design from a tactical standpoint as it all but posted a sign giving directions to any would-be thief.
Aniston squatted next to the ivy and listened for a full minute before grabbing onto the foliage and climbing up the side. He dropped lightly over the rail to the second floor balcony spanning the entire front of the home and hunched next to the shuttered window. He slipped a small mirror attached to a metal rod between the shutters and peered inside.
A lamp turned down until it was little more than a glowing ember cast just enough light in the room for him to make out the lump of a sleeping form. It was the master bedroom, and Lord Torin’s wife had died two years ago, so Aniston thought it safe to assume that it was his target occupying the bed.
He slowly opened the shutters, tripped the latch securing the windows, and waited for a lull in the breeze before opening them. He used the bulk of his body to block the opening as best he could to prevent an errant gust from rousing the sleeping man and stepped lightly to the floor. Closing the window behind him, Aniston drew his sword and crept toward the bed.
“I wondered when you would come to kill me,” a voice spoke from the dark corner of the large chamber.
Aniston spun toward the voice, his sword held defensively out before him.
“Be a good lad and turn up the lamp on my nightstand. I would like to see the face of my executioner.”
Given that Aniston could not see the speaker but was obviously visible to him, he sidestepped to the nightstand and turned up the wick, never once taking his eyes off the shadows. Light flooded into the room and revealed an older man sitting in a chair pushed deep into the corner of the room. He held no weapon that Aniston could see and sat calmly with a sort of resigned smile on his face.
“You knew I was coming?” Aniston asked.
“I started expecting you when some of my compatriots began dying, some in not so mysterious ways,” Lord Torin replied.
“Why stay here then? Where are your guards?”
“As to the latter, I gave most of them the evenings off. I did not want one of them to cross your path accidentally while in the course of your duty. Most have families, and they should not suffer for my misdeeds. As to the former question, I suppose some part of me thinks to atone for those aforementioned sins.” He studied Aniston for a moment. “You have the look of an agent, albeit a rather young one. Am I right?”
Aniston shook his head. “Not exactly. I washed out just before graduating.”
“Something tells me there is a deeper story there, but we are not here to share stories, are we? I assume Evelyn sent you.”
Aniston did not reply.
Lord Torin brushed the air with his hand. “It doesn’t matter. Whether you she sent you or not, you are obviously working on her behalf. Poor child.”
The older man stood and walked to the four-poster bed. Aniston shuffled to the side, maintaining his distance and keeping his sword leveled. Lord Torin gripped one of the bedposts, twisted off the upper half, and laid it onto the bed. From inside the hollow cavity, he retrieved a tightly rolled bundle of papers.
“I was an agent before getting into politics. I was just an analyst, not the field agent you are, or obviously would have been, but I was good at my job. I think even The Guild forgot about that.” He set the bundle of papers on the nightstand.
Aniston glanced at documents. “What are those?”
“Those are the meticulous records I have kept over the years. They detail every bribe, request, and proposition anyone ever made to me or those I personally witnessed.”
“Why are you giving them to me?”
“As I said, I wish to make some small atonement for my crimes.”
“That’s it? You expect Evelyn to grant you clemency if she ever becomes the power on the throne?”
The old man smiled. “No, I expect nor desire any such thing, but I would ask a boon of you.”
“What is it?”
“Kill me cleanly and with dignity. Grant me that small measure of courtesy for my years of loyal service before I became what I am today.”
Aniston let the tip of his sword dip. “If you condemn your actions enough that you are willing to die for it, why support The Guild in the first place?”
He sat on the edge of the bed with a rueful smile. “They are a clever bunch. It starts out small, usually a few favors that grow so gradually you don’t even notice until they are wrapped around your heart like a tumor. You aren’t even sure when you committed your first act of treason, but they do, and they use it against you to commit more until you are one day helping depose and assassinate the King. It’s like boiling a frog. If you increase the heat slowly enough, the dumb bugger doesn’t even know it’s dying until it’s too late.”
“You didn’t know they were going to kill Remiel and his family?”
“I knew. I even helped in some small ways. I knew Remiel had to die. There just wasn’t any other way to get what they wanted. Their brutality toward the Queen and little Marcus was something of a shock. I expected that they would become prisoners in the castle, much as I suspect Evelyn is now. There was no need to kill them, especially in such a ghastly manner. I think that is what broke me out of the spell their money and support put me under.”
Aniston sheathed his sword, strode over to the nightstand, and tucked the rolled sheaf of papers inside his coat. “I won’t kill you, Lord Torin. I have lost too much of my appetite to kill a contrite man, but I cannot guarantee that Evelyn will be nearly as forgiving.”
Monte lowered his head and nodded at the floor. “Of course not. I await her judgment, although I suspect she will have to act swiftly lest someone else beat her to it. I ensured my death the moment I chose to break from The Guild. It is the fate awaiting all traitors, and I have managed to twice damn myself.”
As Aniston climbed back out of the window and down the trellis, he wondered if any of the other men he had killed over the last few weeks were equally remorseful. Would they too have tried to redeem themselves in some way had he given them the chance?
The answer was most assuredly no, but their attempts at doing so would have been as pointless as his guilt-laden ponderings. Neither he nor they could change what they had done. They could only pray that they found some sort of absolution in the eyes of God when their day of judgment came.
The drizzle built into a steady downpour. It was going to be a miserable walk back to the palace. Lightning arced somewhere above, causing the shadows to come to life. With each brilliant flash, the shadows danced across
the ground, along the walls, and stabbed out at him like vengeful denizens of the dark. Another bolt streaked across the sky, and shadows leapt from every lamppost, sign, and building.
It took a fraction of a second for his brain to register that one shadow still moved after the lightning winked out of existence. Fire erupted down his leg when the knife plunged into his thigh. The limb collapsed, spilling him onto the glistening street. He did not try to arrest his fall, instead turning it into a roll to put some distance between him and his attacker.
Aniston used his uninjured leg to force himself to stand and drew his sword. Lightning flashed and revealed the face of his attacker. He was a burly man of perhaps sixty years. A thick, salt and pepper beard covered a broad, almost wild-looking face. He held a heavy hunting knife in one hand and drew a quillon dagger with the other.
“What did old Lord Torin tell you, boy?”
Aniston looked for a way to escape, but with his leg barely able to bear weight, his prospects of outrunning the man were nonexistent.
“Not gonna tell me, are you?” Dragoslav said. “Don’t matter. He’ll tell me everything. They always tell me everything.”
“You’re Zeegers.”
“I am. Who are you working for? Is it the Free Traders? The loyalists? Maybe it’s the Queen herself?” He cocked his head and grinned. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He laughed. “I bet you’re the one who cuckoled that idiot Gordon! Well, at least you got one hell of a legacy before you died.”
Aniston twitched his sword. “It is a long way from threats to death, Zeegers.”
“It ain’t so far. Not with me. You got maybe two minutes before you bleed out, but then I’ve never been the patient sort.”
Dragoslav approached almost casually, his blades held in a light grip. Aniston stepped back, dragging his injured leg and slashing with his sword. Dragoslav easily deflected the stroke with his quillon dagger, not bothering to attempt to strike back with the hunting knife.
Aniston’s only advantage was the greater reach of his sword, but that would not keep him alive for long. He continued to hobble backward and felt the ground sloping upward beneath his feet. He was backing up the enormous Crown Bridge as it arced over the Tenant River. It was not an actual river but a canal created long ago by digging an expansive channel through the heart of the city, lining it with massive slabs of quarried stone, and diverting some of the water from the Tenant River proper that wound its way around the outer border of the capital.
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