King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three

by Jenna Rhodes

  Nahaal’s nose ran. He wiped it on the back of his wrist and made a scoffing sound. “We enjoy toying with our prey.” He centered himself with bravado.

  Tranta opened his mouth to reply, “I am Shielded,” but Nahaal threw from his left hand and the dagger sank deeply into his right flank with a vicious smack, knocking him back a step. His breath left him in a surprised whoosh. He crossed his chest with his long sword as Nahaal closed and he sank his own left-handed sword deep into the other’s boot, nailing him in place momentarily as he staggered back another step.

  He pushed his hand into his pocket flap. Tomarq’s splintered and shattered bits filled his hand, beyond warm to the touch as the last of the clear, lancing sunrays came over the cliff.

  He threw his handful of rare gems into Nahaal’s face as the swordsman closed for the kill. They burst into flame at sunlight’s touch, driving Nahaal onto his heels with a sharp cry of both fear and pain as he pushed his arms up in defense. The hair fringing his face burst into flame that sputtered out.

  Tranta’s hands twitched to take the blade from his side, but he knew better. He closed on the other, injured flank turned away so that Nahaal could not twist or turn the dagger deeper. He brought his long sword up, but Nahaal, face blistered and eyes streaming in agony, parried him. The swords sang as they ran off each other.

  Nahaal pulled Tranta’s weapon from his foot, and came at him again, both hands full, his face contorted, his vest smoking in fits and spurts where molten glass still rested in its folds.

  Tranta ducked from the inevitable sword blow, but Nahaal did not swing. He slid to one knee, hooking his free foot out and catching Tranta behind the ankle, sending him backward.

  And nothing lay behind him.

  Tranta felt himself pitch off the cliff’s edge, and Nahaal’s eyes narrowed in triumph.

  He fell but not before he reached for and grabbed the ild Fallyn’s ankle and took Nahaal down with him, the edge of the cliff crumbling about them. The sea wind whistled up as he tried to twist in the air so that he could see the ocean looming underneath. A gull sounded a forlorn cry as they tumbled past. He wondered if the levitator could regain his senses well enough to protect them from the harsh landing awaiting them.

  BREGAN CLEANED OUT the wooden bowl with two fingers and sucked the last of the gravy off them, smacking his lips when he finally dropped the bowl. The broken canyon walls cast long, warped shadows across the two of them. The Kobrir had pulled back, so far back Sevryn could not see a one of them, although he sensed them. Bregan examined his nail as if he might gnaw on that before licking his finger off one last time. He looked up at Sevryn hopefully, and Sevryn shook his head. “Tight rations around here. That’s the last of it.”

  The Kernan trader wiped his hands on already filthy pants. “Better than nothing.”

  “You look like you’ve eaten a lot of nothing.”

  Bregan rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. “When did we part?”

  “It’s been a few weeks. Not that I would call it a parting. That’s twice now you’ve left me to Kobrir hands.”

  “It’s been forever to me.” Bregan got to his feet, shakily. He reeked of body sweat and fear and stale, greasy food. Deep lines creased his Kernan face, eyes nearly hidden in their folds, a man who had once been young and who now looked aged. He patted down his leg brace, which spiraled brightly about his limb, untouched by age or dirt.

  “They’ve held you that long? Here?”

  “Held me? No, they came and got me a night or so ago.” Bregan’s hair stood straight up as he combed two fingers through it. “I think I lost my mind. I don’t know why they brought me to you. I don’t know what day it is. I hardly know when my feet are on the ground and my head in the air. Not anymore. Not anymore.” He shook his head slowly.

  Sevryn studied him, not a clue rising in his thoughts as to why the Kobrir had brought the trader as a guide. He would not waste more time. “Did they tell you why they brought you?”

  Bregan rubbed his chin, his fingers making rasping noises on the long stubble that was fighting to become a beard, his eyes going unfocused as he thought of something in the far past . . . if he thought at all. His head jerked to one side. “They put a bag over my head. I couldn’t see shit. Everywhere is dark. Everywhere.” He jerked again, and turned to stare into the shadows. The cave’s mouth yawned to one side of them. Sevryn thought it to be the entrance to the caverns he’d first awakened in, but could not be certain of that. This region appeared riddled with caves that buckled out of the hard earth, their roofs and sides broken, cracked out like an egg, with other, deeper caverns still in the stone behind them.

  “I hate the dark.” Bregan quivered. His jaw dropped. A bit of drool started to string out of the corner of his mouth.

  Sevryn slapped his shoulder, hard, worried the Kernan trader would fall back into the near mindless babbling he’d first been greeted with. “Focus!” he snapped.

  “On the dark?” Bregan’s face twisted. “Imbris!” he shouted, his voice breaking in the middle of the word like that of a youth aching for manhood. “Imbris!”

  And the cave mouth lit up.

  “There. There,” mumbled Bregan brokenly. “You can’t see that. No one else can. But I do. N’kessak!”

  And the cave went ebony again.

  Bregan groaned and sank back to the ground, his braced leg sticking out awkwardly in front of him. He covered his face with his hands. A sob escaped his begrimed fingers.

  “Do it again.”

  Bregan rocked back and forth. Sevryn leaned over and snatched his hands from his face. “Do it again. Say imbris.”

  Bregan’s mouth moved impotently three or four times before he got the word out. Quavering, barely audible, wretchedly spoken.

  The cavern bloomed with illumination.

  Sevryn turned around to eye it better. Not torchlight, not wavering, either on—or off. He’d seen this before with the touch plates on the tunnels of the Mageborn, but no one had known the language to speak. Now Bregan had . . . what had Bregan done? Guessed it? Learned it? Read it from the touch plates? Figured out how to manipulate relics of the old sorcerers?

  He reached back down and turned Bregan’s face forcibly to the cave’s brightly lit maw. “Look at it. Look.”

  “I—I—” Bregan leaned over and retched, loudly, but nothing spilled from his mouth. He swallowed, hard. “Light.”

  “Yes. It’s lighted. You did that.”

  “You . . . see it?”

  “Yes.” He jerked Bregan to his feet and walked him to the cavern. Six strides, no more, and each one as difficult as if pulling a house behind him. “Make it go dark.”

  Bregan licked his lips. “N . . . n’kessak.”

  The light went dark. It didn’t fade away, like dawn giving up to dusk, or a candle guttering out. It was all or nothing. A brilliant match struck and then put out.

  Sevryn put his hand on Bregan’s shoulder and squeezed roughly. “You’re not crazy, man. You’ve got a bit of magic in you.” What kind of magic, he hesitated to guess, although one thought pushed itself stubbornly forward in his mind. He did not utter it, thinking that Bregan tottered on the brink as it was. He stared at the inky pool. “Imbris,” he said quietly and firmly, but the cavern did not answer him. Magic, indeed, but not one that would answer his Vaelinar blood.

  “Imbris,” echoed Bregan and the pool blazed up, its white light so bright that they both turned their gaze away momentarily.

  Sevryn returned to pick up the meager pack that constituted Bregan’s belongings, and his own much larger and heavier pack. Waterskins were lashed onto it tightly, and deep inside the interior pocket, a velvet pouch held two vials, as promised. He shouldered the pack.

  Steering Bregan inside the cavern, he heard a voice call out behind them. He turned as a hand fell on his arm, a hand he knew well, browned and s
potted from the sun, with dirt from the herb gardens ground into the cuticles and under the nails.

  “Find the king of assassins.”

  “I have been charged,” he answered. “And accept my duty.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  He studied the Kobrir face, hidden by veil, familiar hard expression glinting in the dark brown eyes. “I’m certain of knowing my word. The rest of the quest is beyond me until I know who the king is.”

  The herbalist shook his head slowly. “This man only shows you the way. You should, by now, know whom it is you are seeking. That difficulty may break you.”

  Sevryn could only stare for a long moment, as certain thoughts began to fall into place in his mind. A being who could enchant metal that would enslave Vaelinar. A being who had warped the essence of the Kobrir before bringing them to Kerith and using them as he willed even as he ruled them. A being who had been twisting threads and weaving them to his favor for centuries. A being of subtlety who might as well be made of the shadows. A cold chill went through him. He had to have seen it before, and looked away, denying the truth. Now he knew why Gilgarran had picked him up out of the mud and trained him the way he had so many decades ago. Now he knew why the Kobrir had been so intent on honing his edges. And why he must kill. None of them would have a destiny if he did not.

  Daravan. A man few would deign to face, and the Kobrir had known that, as well. The man Sevryn had found to be his father, although he did not seem to have a single paternal instinct within him. Not even for the race he had created/corrupted. He knew his primary target and then beyond him, would be the person who had created him and sent him. He had wanted to kill the ild Fallyn and Quendius, but he knew now that they would have to wait. Not long, but wait they must.

  His mouth had dried, but he managed to say, “I know,” to the herbalist as he pulled his wrist from his hold. The other stared into his eyes a long moment before nodding his head and stepping back. Sevryn felt as if he were an arrow, loosed into the air, soaring inevitably toward its destination. His thoughts dizzied for a second, weightless.

  Bregan stumbled over a rock and Sevryn grabbed to keep the trader on his feet, and the cave went dead silent around them as if they, and only they, existed. Into that noiseless realm, Sevryn said, “Take me to Daravan.”

  “How, by all the Gods, do you expect me to do that?” Bregan shook under his hold.

  “Because the Kobrir told me you would. Tell those voices of yours to guide you.”

  “Do you think I don’t plead with them? Every moment I breathe? To go and leave me be?”

  “And now you are asking them directions. If you’re of no use to me, tell me why I shouldn’t just leave you here for the Gods to play with as they will?”

  Bregan flung a hand up. “You can’t leave me!”

  “As you’ve left me to die twice? What makes you think I won’t? That I shouldn’t?” He shook Bregan by the collar. “Or that I won’t leave you to the assassins and let them persuade you however they will?” He knotted his fingers ever more tightly in the stinking shirt.

  Bregan shut his eyes tightly. “Mercy,” he mumbled. “Not that you show it within you, but your lady Rivergrace sees it, she must. Mercy.”

  Sevryn gave him a final, violent shake, spinning Bregan away from him. The trader threw his arms about his head and curled down to his knees. His mouth closed on a sob, muffling the noise into mewling.

  Sevryn watched for a moment as he decided whether to leave him or push him forward, jolted a bit by Bregan’s reference to Rivergrace, and knowing that the other was right. She was indeed his soul, if he still had one. He put his head back, looking at the rugged stone roof above him. A thought struck him, and he stuck a hand inside his garment and drew forth the pouch given to him, working its drawstring until it opened. He took out the dagger he felt almost certainly belonged to Daravan. He took the trader’s slack left hand in his and wrapped his fingers about the object. “Bregan, I need you to take me through these tunnels. For her sake, not mine. For the people behind us, the Kobrir. For the armies waiting for the return of the Raymy. I was made to strike, but you have to find me the target, the man who bore this weapon.”

  The mewling faded. When Bregan looked up, his face was streaked where tears had cleansed him. He scrubbed his hands over his head, ruffling his scalp. He took a deep breath and nearly choked on it. Laboriously, straightening his brace out and then under him, he got to his feet. He looked to Sevryn and said hoarsely, “This way.” He shoved his hand forward, dagger slicing the air, and followed after it.

  They traveled, Bregan alternating like the madman on the brink that he was, from sane to babbling to weeping to sullenly silent. He fought with Sevryn for water, like a small child pawing at him, and Sevryn finally gave him one of the water containers when they’d drunk it nearly dry. Bregan rationed himself then, touching it on his belt frequently and telling himself that he must have patience, that he must not squander the water.

  The plates set into the tunnels they followed did not respond to Bregan until he slapped his palm on them and either read or intuited the symbols embedded there. Once or twice, peevish at Sevryn’s presence, he snapped out n’kessak, plunging the tunnel into impenetrable darkness. It did not last long as Sevryn hauled him onward, heedless of rock outcroppings to slam an elbow into, unsteady footing to stumble over, or the occasional overhang to bang a head upon. Then he slapped the walls and begged for light until they illumined. They rested only when Sevryn felt as if he must, letting Bregan slide down into a heap and muttering the word for darkness until it was answered, and his hoarse voice lost in the echoing blackness.

  Time swallowed itself. Sevryn felt fairly certain they’d been in the tunnels four days because the water hides had been drunk dry and his lips gone cracked when a grayish light filtered down in front of them, a natural light, an opening to the tunnel’s end. The Mageborn tunnels swallowed time and distance, making navigation difficult, but he’d traveled them before and had some inkling.

  Sevryn moved his hands over his Kobrir garb, checking his weapons, checking how accessible they were and how easily his hands could flex to pull them, feeling stiff and unyielding at first, as though his body had begun to turn to stone like the path they traveled. Bregan leaned against the cave wall, gulping down air as though it were water and could save him.

  He did not, could not, quiet when Sevryn motioned to him. Sevryn moved in beside him and slipped his hand over the trader’s mouth and nose, silencing him as he would a bellows. Bregan squirmed and clawed at his hands, but Sevryn said in his ear, “Water. I can almost hear it, but you must be quiet.” The other stilled.

  Sevryn listened another moment before nodding. “Down here.” He stepped into shadows leading away from the graying dawn of an exit, and the sound of lapping water gained strength. It did not smell, at least not to their nostrils, which gave some hope it would be drinkable, sweet water. The gray dawning of a promised exit faded until, like a slip of the moon in the night sky, all they could see was its edge as he knelt down by the water.

  Bregan watched him. “Is it good?”

  Sevryn examined the edge of the small pool. There were animal tracks, most of them small and secretive, leading in and away. He saw no skeletons nearby. “I think so.” He dipped a hand in and tasted it. “A bit odd, but drinkable.”

  Bregan fell to his knees and then his stomach.

  “Wait.” Sevryn put his arm out. He fished in his backpack for a packet he hoped he had stored deeply inside. “Yes.” He found what he needed, pinched a bit between his thumb and index finger, and dipped it in the water.

  The gray-green plant stayed the same color, darkened by the moisture.

  “All right.” He released Bregan who ducked his head into the water with a sobbing sound.

  While the trader drank and drank until Sevryn feared he might founder himself, he got his skins ou
t and set to filling them, and tugged the third one free from the other’s belt and filled that one. He thought they were at journey’s end, and both the Ashenbrook and the Ravela would have clean water, but he was never one to assume that he could reach it safely. Where Daravan appeared, there would almost certainly be Raymy, and possibly Raymy with plague. That could affect the rivers if a battle were being waged on their shores. Bodies fell into water. Water would be poisoned with their gore and blood and decay . . . and quite likely, disease.

  Bregan got to his feet, stomach bloating, and let out a belch that actually brought sand dribbling down the nearest wall. He scrubbed at his face. “Did I get you there?”

  “Don’t know yet. Will you be all right if I leave you here?”

  In the twilight of the cave, Bregan’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure what I’ll meet out there. You’re relatively safe in here.”

  The trader’s mouth worked, and then he shrugged. “Any jerky left?”

  Sevryn unhooked a pouch from his belt and tossed it over. “Little enough.”

  “Anything. That water is rattling around my insides like a drunk trying to get attention with a tin cup in an iron cell.” Fumbling a bit, he set to opening the pouch.

  Sevryn went in search of the dawning light.

  He stood in the tunnel opening for a moment, letting his eyes take in the natural light. Morning, he thought, and stepped toward the outside.

  He did not stand in the valley where the Ashenbrook and Ravela Rivers bounded a past battleground. He watched as Lariel and Jeredon rode in quietly; she seemed to notice him but said nothing.

  It took another moment for him to recognize where, a barren circle spread before him, and a pallet with a febrile king being set down at the far end, and combatants gathering. Spring, when the grass grew a sweet yellow-green and flowers bloomed abundantly except here.