Assassin's Apprentice

by S. R. Vaught; J. B. Redmond

  Aron and Stormbreaker remained silent and still.

  Dari took a slow breath and waited, growing more tense with each fraction of a moment. The words had come easily enough, but now her destiny and Kate’s rested on the honor of an assassin she scarcely knew and a boy so damaged she had wondered just hours ago if he would ever speak again. Dantha leaves rustled gently above them, making the shadows dance, occasionally allowing flashes of sunlight to touch Stormbreaker and Aron in equal measure.

  To Dari’s surprise, Aron acted first.

  He extended the arm with its fresh, angry dav’ha tattoo, kissed the fingers of his other hand, and pressed them against the raw burn mark even though the pain of the action brought immediate tears to his sapphire eyes.

  “I will raise my blade to protect you and help you find your sister,” he said in perfect, formal Sidhe.

  Now it was Dari’s turn to feel a deep sense of shock. Aron had the dynast name of Brailing, but she knew how he was raised and that he had been taken from a farming family. So where had a common boy reared by goodfolk learned to offer a pledge of fealty in the Language of Kings?

  “Wolf Brailing,” Stormbreaker said in answer to her quizzical expression, “was a man of much depth and wisdom.” As he finished, he reflexively touched a tattoo farther down toward his wrist.

  At the mention of Aron’s father, the boy’s shoulders slumped as he lowered his arms. His expression remained hard and determined. Almost too much so, by Dari’s reckoning. It would not serve Aron well to cleave to her and Stormbreaker only to close out the rest of the world—but she feared that might be happening.

  Stormbreaker repeated Aron’s gesture of loyalty and fealty, and it eased the last of Dari’s worries about being revealed as a Stregan, and about compromising her twin more than was already in fate’s hands. Elfael, she thought, only the word once more came to her in her grandfather’s voice. Fate was in the air. It meant that fate watched, that fate was always watching.

  Dari answered Stormbreaker and Aron by paying homage to her own tattoo, and their first loyalty-based bargain was sealed. No one would be telling the others’ secrets.

  At least these two take dav’ha as seriously as they should, she thought. Already, they stand out amongst their more treacherous Fae fellows.

  “When we reach Triune, we’ll use maps to set up searching grids, and I’ll assist you in locating your twin.” Stormbreaker bowed to Dari again, then turned his attention to Aron. “We may meet many travelers on the road. More than would be normal, given the tragedies that have come to pass.” His expression grew even more solemn, and the marks on his face more lively in the light filtering through the dantha leaves overhead. “It would not do for any to realize that you once bore the Brailing name, or to notice the color of your eyes. Do I make my meaning clear?”

  Aron nodded, and more of that cool anger Dari sensed at the fringes of his essence enveloped him and seemed to turn his nerve to ice as she watched.

  He can keep himself concealed. After our session this morning. I’m sure. Dari paused a moment to wonder how much more the boy knew, and how fast he might learn. After all, before she had even begun to assist him, he had survived an unusually long stay on the other side of the Veil.

  What did his father teach him?

  She found herself wishing she could have met the man, as Stormbreaker apparently had, at some point back in time.

  “There, now, Cha,” Stormbreaker said, once more studying Dari with his grass-colored eyes. “We should all be safe for the time at hand.”

  She laughed. “Not if you call me Cha or Lady in front of your friends.”

  At this, Stormbreaker frowned, and Dari could tell he would be profoundly uncomfortable treating her as an equal, or as a woman of less status than he possessed. Nevertheless, he seemed to resign himself to the fact that such treatment was necessary for her safety. When the three of them left the forest in a straight line, Dari walked in last position, placing herself in the lowest order against her two companions.

  They covered the open ground between forest and shelter in just a few minutes. Outside the barn, talon-side, Zed sat atop his seat in the front wagon, seeming full and pleased, and Dari sensed the young man might be one of the rare folk who possessed a generally cheerful disposition, irrespective of circumstance or challenge.

  Not so his master.

  Windblown’s disapproval began almost the moment they re-formed as a traveling party. He was already readying the three talons for departure, but he paused to frown first at her braided hair, as if the upswept style did not befit a female who was little more than ground-hatched in his eyes.

  She ignored him and did her best to watch Stormbreaker and Aron as they took over readying the saddles and bridles of their mounts.

  When Dari next looked at Windblown, he was focused on the somewhat butchered robes she wore.

  “Damnation, Dun,” the man said to Stormbreaker. “That’s expensive cloth you’ve given her.”

  Stormbreaker gave Windblown a smile, though the expression seemed forced. “You would prefer she bare her flesh to the world in that torn rag she was wearing when we found her?”

  “Zed has extra tunics,” Windblown grumbled as he cinched his talon’s saddle.

  “They would be indecent on one as slight as she,” Stormbreaker argued back as he cinched his own saddle.

  Windblown gave a sniff, then switched tactics. “With the state of things, who knows what dangers we’ll encounter on the road. We should stop in the next village and fashion her a cheville, in case—”

  Dari bared her teeth at the man and snarled, “I will not be banded.”

  Windblown’s scowl pinched his round face until it looked like a dried red grape. “At Triune, our stoneworker will see to you as quickly as all the rest. You’d do well not to forget you’re no better than the rest of us.”

  “You are not the only one who can deal in death, Stone Brother,” Dari said before she could contain herself. “You’d do well not to forget how quickly breath can cease.”

  Windblown’s face turned an ugly purple, but Stormbreaker cleared his throat and brought all eyes to his own face.

  “She is not returning with us as a Harvest prize,” Stormbreaker said in a flat tone that brooked no argument. He looped his reins over his bull’s head. “She will be sheltered. And we will not waste time in debating that point. We should be on the road, and quickly, if we’re to survive this journey.”

  Windblown’s purplish color deepened and his mouth came open. He gripped the reins of his talon and pulled down so hard that Dari feared he might tear the bridle straight off the animal’s large head. “She has no status to ask asylum with the Stone Guild, Dun. Even you must clear such decisions with the Lord Provost.”

  “Lord Provost Baldric will grant her shelter, I have no doubt.” Stormbreaker never looked at Windblown as he swung himself into the talon’s saddle. The big bull playfully butted at Dari, ignoring his rider, and she had to give the beast a quick mental command to attend to its business.

  To Dari, Stormbreaker said, “You may ride with me if you wish, or there is plenty of room in the wagons.”

  Again, Windblown nearly barked with frustration. If his color progressed to deeper hues, it was possible his heart might explode on the spot.

  Aron frowned at Stormbreaker’s offer, and so did Dari.

  He was doing it again. Giving her too much deference. It would be a great mark of respect for Stormbreaker to allow Dari to share seat on his talon, but she thought it best not to invite too much scrutiny. So she thanked him and politely refused, gave Windblown her frostiest smile, then climbed into the front buckboard beside Zed.

  Zed grinned and scooted over to welcome her. Oblivious to Windblown’s mutterings, Stormbreaker’s low-level agitation, and Dari’s worry, the young man started to hum to himself. He looked eager to get on the road, as if he didn’t realize they might find any number of disastrous situations awaiting them.

  Another
chill breeze eased across Dari’s skin, putting her mind on fall, then winter in a climate much colder than she usually endured.

  Stormbreaker waited for Windblown and Aron to mount their talons, then said, “Henceforth, Aron will be known as Aron Weylyn, with no further mention of his previous name.”

  Dari glared at Windblown and his sour expression, but at least against that command, he made no argument. So far as she knew, that was well within Stone customs anyway, and it didn’t seem to bother Zed.

  Stormbreaker gazed at the byway, turning his head in both directions, then looking slightly disturbed at their isolation. “We’ll make for the Brailing Road, as quickly as we can reach it.”

  Windblown adjusted his bulk in his saddle. “There… will be soldiers on a great road.”

  Dari could tell he wasn’t challenging Stormbreaker, but rather thinking aloud.

  “Yes,” Stormbreaker agreed. “And refugees, travelers, rectors recalled to their monasteries, and tradesmen on the move, hoping to offer wares to the amassing armies.”

  To suppose that Stone Brothers returning from Harvest would need to worry about ambush or outright attack, especially from dynast forces—it was nearly unthinkable. If nothing else, Fae usually clung to traditions with a blind fervor that often annoyed her when she encountered it. In war, though, especially a conflict started with such wicked betrayal, she supposed anything could come to pass.

  Stormbreaker moved them out along the overgrown byway at a trot, due west this time. Dust boiled up from the talons’ clawfeet and the rattling wagon wheels, and Zed’s affable expression turned to an intense stare of concentration as he struggled to guide the mules in a straight line behind the Stone Brothers and Aron.

  Dari cursed the slowness of landbound travel. Even if they kept at this unsustainable pace, riding from daybreak until as near to sunset as they dared, it would be more than three weeks before they reached the safety of Triune. Three weeks before her own safety and Aron’s was assured. Three weeks until she could plan, determine methods, and make a more organized search for her lost twin.

  Forever.

  Too long.

  Yet there was no point shouting about problems. Problems had no ears to hear, no minds to change. Instead, Dari let her palms slide to the hilts of her daggers and decided to watch the edges of the woods, because her eyes were sharper than any Fae’s.

  Perhaps she would see trouble before trouble saw them.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ARON

  “Get up, boy.” Stormbreaker rattled Aron by the shoulder the next morning, and when Aron pried his eyes open, he saw that his guild master was already dressed. “We have an hour for breakfast and weapons practice; then we ride, as hard today as we did yesterday.”

  Weapons practice?

  Stormbreaker left the tent in a fluid rush, leaving Aron to blink as the ashy scent of doused tallow reached his nose.

  Aron turned his head toward where the other boy had slept in the tent beside him, but Zed’s bedroll was already bound into a tight bundle, and Zed himself was already out of the tent.

  Aron yawned, then grimaced. His entire body hurt from riding yesterday, and the insides of his legs were chafed. His mind felt chafed, too. After a few seconds, he remembered that they were camped with a few other parties below a small travelers’ shelter that had been too full to accommodate them. He managed to pry himself from his bedroll, sit up, and scoot from the tent he had shared with Zed. Near their small camp circle, several lines of tallow still burned near tents that remained tied tight against the night, though the flames were low now.

  In the Stone camp, no tents still stood, save for Aron and Zed’s.

  A few yards away, Stormbreaker, Windblown, Dari, and Zed were already eating. Between Stormbreaker and Dari, a plate of bread, honey, bits of cheese, some nuts, and dried fruit awaited Aron.

  He allowed himself one stretch to soothe his pains. Then he reminded himself of his new purpose, the one he had settled on in the clearing yesterday.

  I’ll train with Stone. I’ll do whatever I’m asked, learn whatever I can. Then one day, when I’m ready and able, I’ll avenge my family.

  Those thoughts were enough to fuel him, and he hurried to pull on his new gray tunic and breeches, lace his leather boots, and belt on the silver daggers Stormbreaker told him to carry during their journey. Almost as fast, he rolled up his bedroll, set it out with Zed’s, then took down the tent as his father and brothers had taught him to do on their hunting trips to the Scry.

  No one spoke when Aron joined the group, but the silence was friendly enough. He ate with some haste, cleaned his dish when the others did so, then followed Stormbreaker’s lead into the tree line, and to an unfamiliar clearing.

  To Windblown, Zed, and Dari, Stormbreaker said, “Give us a safe berth.”

  To Aron, he said, “Wait here,” and strode toward the nearest tree.

  Aron watched the others move away without comment.

  Windblown and Zed had swords today, though Zed’s blade was considerably smaller than the older man’s blade. Several yards away, Windblown and Zed stopped, and Windblown pointed out some trees and rocks that Aron assumed would form the boundary of their fighting area. Dari went farther, off to herself, and began what looked like a dance, stretching her long body this way and that, as graceful as any bird on the wind.

  Her movements did something strange to Aron’s chest. He felt his ribs tighten and his heart beat faster, as if she were somehow pulling the air from the clearing with each sweep of her hands and legs.

  Stormbreaker came back to Aron’s side, and for a moment, he, too, watched Dari as she swayed and bent, stepped and spun. Aron glanced up at his guild master and he saw that Stormbreaker’s green eyes had a distant cast, as if he might be remembering something, or maybe someone.

  Seeming to sense Aron’s gaze, Stormbreaker came back to himself and looked down. “Normally, Stone begins its day with fael’feis—the celebration of the air—but you’ll learn those movements better in a group. So it’s weapons training that begins today for you. I’ve carved a target on the nearest dantha. Draw your daggers and show me your throwing stance.”

  If Aron thought riding on talon-back all day was difficult and tiring, it was nothing to what he went through in that first long set of minutes. Stormbreaker corrected his grip time and again and had him throw the knives over and over and over, even though Aron missed the target each time.

  Most throws, he even missed the tree.

  “At Triune, the weapons master will show you no mercy,” Stormbreaker warned, picking up the daggers. “You’ll be hauling buckets of water to the forge, adding trips for each miss. Again.”

  “Again.”

  “Again.”

  Aron’s aches from yesterday’s ride began to deepen, first in his shoulders, then his upper arms, and finally across his ribs, robbing him of deep breathing.

  “Watch the target.” Stormbreaker’s voice remained calm as he demonstrated once more, hurling a dagger directly into the soft wood of the dantha. “See my marks in the bark and nothing else.”

  Aron narrowed his gaze and tried to shut out everything but that target, though he remained too aware of the blur that was Dari occasionally flicking past the corner of his eye.

  Why had he never used daggers on hunting trips? He was fair with bow and arrow, good with his shovel in the hog pens—but this?

  “Again, Aron.”

  “Again.”

  But the dantha tree remained safe from Aron that morning.

  By the time Aron got to the barn to clean and saddle Tek, every part of him was throbbing. The little talon whistled and butted at him as he pulled on her harness and bridle, and he kissed her rough scales.

  “We can do this,” he assured her, just in case her legs were as sore as his. “We’ll get used to it.”

  She butted her nose against him and snorted until he had to wipe the fluids off his chin. Her whistles were light and loud, but Aron could have swor
n he saw doubt in the beast’s orange-red eyes.

  • • •

  Over the next two weeks, Aron’s new life took on a predictable rhythm. They rose with the first light, and each morning, Aron practiced with Stormbreaker on daggers, then short swords, then bow and arrow—which was the only skill Aron could demonstrate with some precision, especially with his muscles so taxed they ached at the slightest movement. Meanwhile, Zed and Windblown worked with their own weapons and Dari performed what Aron now understood to be a ritual, part for exercise and part for spiritual soothing.

  Then they rode, as hard and fast as they could push the animals and wagons, with only two breaks for meals and personal respite. Most of the time they rode in silence, but Stormbreaker and Windblown occasionally required recitations from Aron or Zed—the Code of Eyrie, the Dynasts and their lords and ladies, the dynast capitals and other great cities, the Canon of Stone, or some other set of facts they were expected to know as well as their own fingers and toes.

  In the late afternoon, they found a travelers’ shelter and, more often than not, made camp because the shelter was full.

  As soon as the tents were pitched, Dari and Aron retired to Stormbreaker’s larger gray shelter for Aron’s graal training.

  Which, unfortunately, was no easier or more natural than his acquisition of skills with weapons—as he was once more demonstrating on the fifteenth evening of their ride toward Triune.

  “No, Aron. Don’t go through the Veil. Stay on this side.” Dari shifted until her left elbow bumped the tent wall. “I think you’re trying too hard.”

  Aron snorted with frustration and opened his eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered as he shook his wrists and arms, which were now numb on top of sore, from sitting so still. “I never tried to see … you know, extra stuff on this side of the Veil before.”

  Dari opened her eyes as well, and Aron felt the release of the privacy she was able to give them for their training sessions, almost like a real cloak lifting from the top of his head. He didn’t know how she could do such a thing, pull what felt like actual cloth around them so no one could hear their thoughts or see what they were doing, even on the other side of the Veil, but Aron figured he might learn that one day, too, if he could.