Master Assassins

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Balanjé. A village shrunken into itself, an ancient spot that never flourishes or dies. They hear the dogs first, then the wavering call of a milk-seller urging mothers to rise and unbolt their doors. Pegri na clannet! White and fresh! In the Sataapre Valley, the same cry announces daybreak. Once more, hapless fool, Kandri breaks into a grin.

  The town rises before them, a congregation of humble rectangles and domes, mud-brick walls, goat pens, hayricks waiting for spring. And there are the dozens of low, squat towers that are Balanjé’s only fame: prayer platforms, their flat roofs blazing in the first light of the sun. But Kandri sees no one atop the platforms, no sign of the morning prayer at all.

  “Pegri na—”

  Strange: the milk-seller has fallen silent in mid-cry.

  They leap over a brush fence, and are at once in the heart of the settlement. Nothing moves. They turn in a circle, gasping. Not a soul to be seen. A door booms shut. A child cries out and is quickly silenced. Mektu looks at Kandri in distress.

  “We startled them,” says Kandri.

  Mektu nods uncertainly. They walk along the main row of houses. Their footfalls ring loud in the empty air. A white cat flees before them. Windows go dark as they approach.

  Kandri has been here before. All told, there might be two hundred homes, but some stand empty, for life is hard in Balanjé. The well is meager, the water tastes of mud. A twisted bonewood tree marks the village center. Standing near it, you can throw a rock beyond the last house in any direction.

  “Where are the stables?” asks Mektu.

  “I don’t recall,” Kandri admits.

  Mektu steps up to a rude wooden door, smacks it with the flat of his hand. “Daro, daro! Come out, brothers. Don’t you want to earn some gold?”

  Silence; then a soft thump from within.

  “I heard that,” cries Mektu.

  When Kandri tugs his arm, Mektu launches himself across the street to an adjacent house. This time he beats harder.

  “Wake up, wake up! We’re Chilotos, Chilotos like you. Help your brothers, for Ang’s sake! I don’t care who you’re sleeping with.”

  The light is growing. Kandri glances over his shoulder, and sees a face draw swiftly back from a window. Why are they so terrified? They can’t possibly know.

  His brother, too, has begun to look frightened. Kandri points down the rutted lane: the old bonewood tree stands fifty feet ahead. They hurry toward it, and to Kandri’s immense relief, he spots a figure seated beneath the twisted canopy.

  It is a frail old man, bald and brown. His face is mushroom-shaped, cheekbones so much wider than chin. Shirtless, he sits on a rock beneath the tree, both hands gripping the knob of a battered cane. As they approach, he does not move so much as a finger. He is gazing up into the last of the dark.

  “Hello, grandfather,” says Kandri. “Please, can you tell us—”

  “Stables!” blurts Mektu. “Are there any stables in this town? Any horses at all?”

  The man sucks his dark lips into his mouth. His bony hands writhe on the knob of the cane.

  Mektu bends over him and shouts: “Horses! Can’t you hear me? Horses, or even a camel. We can pay, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Kandri crouches down. The man could well be four times his age. “Please, grandfather,” he repeats.

  The dry lips part. The old man speaks for half a minute, then taps the earth with his cane. The brothers look at each other. Kandri has not caught a word.

  “He doesn’t speak Chilot,” says Mektu. “Son of a junkyard bitch!”

  Kandri repeats their question in Kasraji. The old man responds in the same language.

  “No horse can help you,” he says. “It is Darsunuk, the Time of Madness. When the wise fall silent, and armies march against phantoms, and the Gods weep tears of fire.” He lifts the cane and points at the sky. “I watch them, boys: the stars that wander, the stars that spin on heaven’s wheel.”

  “Horses,” says Mektu.

  “Some call it the Everlasting Wheel,” the old man continues. “They are ignorant. Nothing lasts. The spokes rot, the axel breaks, the cart is overturned, heaven’s bounty spills by the roadside. And you”—he lowers the cane, pokes Kandri in the chest—“know this better than anyone. You can sense the fall of night.”

  Kandri stares at him, chilled. “The night’s almost over, Uncle,” he says, gently removing the cane.

  “No,” says the old man. “The night is just beginning. Save yourselves.”

  Mektu stamps his foot in frustration.

  “He has to urinate,” says the old man, “or perhaps he knows the truth. Run fast and run far, children. Darsunuk has come.”

  A thought flashes in Kandri’s mind: the old priest the villagers brought to Eternity Camp, the one who frightened them half to death with his doomsday talk? Could this be the man?

  What does it matter, though? “Let’s get out of here,” he says, and the brothers start away from the tree. But suddenly, Mektu turns on his heel and lunges at the old man. Seizing his arms, he shakes the old man like a gourd.

  “Where are the stables, you daft, dried up, gibbering—”

  “Pitfire, Mek, leave him alone!”

  The old man, squirming, lifts his cane and points. The brothers whirl: thirty yards away by the settlement’s edge is a mud-brick structure behind a listing fence. Mektu is off and running in a heartbeat. Kandri helps the old man sit up, mutters words of apology. Then he sprints after his brother.

  The ground within the fence is hoof-churned mud. There is a sharp, comforting smell of dung. Mektu kicks open the gate, flies to the door of the building and wrenches. Then he curses as a rusty padlock rattles on its hasp.

  Seething, he hurls himself against the door. It appears flimsier than the lock, mere scrapwood nailed to a frame. Inside, an animal snorts and stamps.

  “Help me,” growls Mektu.

  Kandri steps up beside him, and together they throw themselves at the door. The wood cracks audibly; mud bricks shudder around the frame. They try again. And again. Kandri is painfully aware that dawn has come.

  On the sixth attempt, the door bursts to pieces. Mektu falls into the building; Kandri tumbles to his knees, and rises just in time to see Mektu borne out again into the yard, his body folded over the head of an enormous bull. The creature bolts with him through the open gate, blind and bellowing, a long horn to either side of Mektu’s ribs. When it throws him at last, he strikes the road with a doughy thump.

  The bull careens off into the village, and Kandri rushes to brother’s side. Already Mektu is struggling to stand. Kandri grips his arm, but his brother shakes him off. His mouth forms frantic, soundless words.

  Kandri shakes his head. “Lie still, fool. The wind’s knocked out of you.”

  He runs back to the barn. Piss of the Gods! Four goats and a rabbit hutch. He steps outside, retrieves his brother’s pack. Mektu is on his feet now but remains doubled over, wheezing.

  Kandri curses: the bottom of Mektu’s pack is wet. “Broken faska,” he says. “Well done.”

  Mektu is stamping his foot with the effort to speak.

  “That bull could have killed you, brother. All right, what’s so important? Just whisper.”

  Mektu stands straight.

  “YOU MOTHERFUCKING SHIT-EATING PIG-ASS-FACED FUCK DOGS! GIVE US SOME HORSES! WE’RE YOUR FUCKING FRIENDS!”

  He bends over and heaves. “That should work,” says Kandri.

  “Fuckers.”

  “We have to move,” says Kandri. “We need more water, sealed faska or—”

  He breaks off. Mektu straightens again, following his gaze. A figure is running toward them from beyond the northernmost houses. A woman. Mektu leaps and waves, but there is no need. She stumbles to a halt before them, gasping.

  “You,” says Kandri, not believing his eyes.

  It is Eshett, the woman who helped him carry Ojulan’s corpse. She has changed into a white kanut tattered and caked with dirt. In her hand is a
rusty machete. Her eyes are wild with accusation.

  “You hog,” she says. “You followed me.”

  “Like hell I did,” says Kandri. “What in Ang’s name are you doing here? Are your people here?”

  She is staring at his brother, her face appalled. Mektu, speechless, looks from one to the other.

  “Why did you come?” Eshett demands.

  “That’s what I asked you,” says Kandri.

  “I have a friend here, a widow who needs help. I have a reason, something I can explain.” She wrings her hands and shouts: “Echim baruk! You’re dead men. They’ll skin you alive.”

  “Kan,” says Mektu, “what’s going on here?”

  “I can’t hide you,” cries Eshett. “This isn’t my town. My friend’s house is the size of a crate.”

  Kandri feels an explosion building in his chest. He holds out his hands, one palm facing each of them, begging for silence. “All we want,” he says quietly, “is a horse. Just a horse, Eshett. There must be one. We’ll pay for it, generously.”

  She shakes her head. “No horses. No camels either. One man had a mare but it was stolen. Tomorrow, merchants will be here for market day. Nothing sooner.”

  “We’ll settle for a plough horse.”

  “No!” cries Mektu. “We can’t outrun a Wolfpack on some lame old nag! What’s wrong with you, Kan?”

  “No plough horses either,” says Eshett. “There’s a salt wind from the Yskralem; they don’t grow crops here anymore. You can’t outrun a Wolfpack. You are going to die.”

  “Kandri, who the fuck is this bitch?”

  Kandri thumps his brother in the chest. Eshett gives an exasperated hiss.

  “There’s a dust cloud on the western plain,” she says, “It’s not you the villagers are afraid of, it’s that cloud. Death comes from that way, from Eternity Camp.”

  The brothers swear and start to run. But they do not know where to run. The woman stands watching their futile lurching. Mektu draws his knife. “How far, how far?” he screams.

  The woman shakes her head: not far at all. Kandri’s heart sinks into his boots. Then, wordlessly, Eshett takes his hand and tugs. Stunned, Kandri goes with her, and Mektu follows. What else is there to do?

  They rush north out of the town. Mektu prances beside Eshett, spouting questions. Did you think of a hiding place? Who are you really? Are you sleeping with my brother? Are you pregnant, did you marry him, is that why you’re here?

  Eshett does not respond or even look at him. But when Mektu furrows his brow and cries, “I know you—don’t I know you?” Kandri feels the convulsive tightening of her hand.

  Half a mile north of Balanjé is a plain of round stones, massive things six feet or more in diameter, all raised on earthen mounds and tilted to face east, like dead flowers still yearning for the dawn. Many are broken; some lie half-buried in the soil. Kandri sees a few dozen at a glance.

  A chill travels his body. He is looking at a graveyard.

  “Why are you slowing?” snaps Eshett, pulling him on.

  “I don’t see a hiding place. We can’t lift those stones.”

  “Lift them?” says Mektu. “Why would we bother? That’s a Tohru graveyard. No tombs under those things.”

  Kandri knows he is right: the Tohru people drain the blood from their dead and mix it with meal for their animals. They remove the organs and crush the bones inside the emptied flesh. Then they tie the corpses into small packages and bury them deep.

  “The Tohru built this village,” says Eshett, “but they’ve been gone for forty years. The Važeks took them north, starved them to death in the Theater of Bones. A few survived and tried to return, but by then, the Prophet had given their houses to you Chiloto. Hurry, come.”

  “Eshett,” says Kandri, “let’s talk about this.”

  “Talk?” She jabs a finger at the western horizon. There it is: the dust cloud. The Wolfpack on its way.

  “But—it’s huge,” stammers Mektu. “There must be fifty riders.” He looks hard at Kandri. “Tell me the truth, brother: does the Prophet know we’re running east?”

  “Of course not.”

  Mektu screws up his face in confusion. “When Terek ran, they only sent three riders to check the east road. Nobody runs this way. There’s no water, nothing to eat. If she’s sending fifty riders to check the crazy way, how many has she sent out overall?”

  “I don’t know,” says Kandri, pleading. “How could I know, Mek? Who do you think I am?”

  “You know something,” Mektu insisted. “Just confess. Why is she trying so hard?”

  “Keep standing there,” says Eshett, “and you’ll be able to ask them yourself.”

  She stalks away; they trail behind her like kittens. When they enter the graveyard, she moves from stone to stone, row to row, cursing and clearly more frightened with every step. At last her eyes find what they seek, and she runs to a large, crooked stone.

  “In there, one of you. The other will hide with me.”

  She points: there is a hollow at the base of the stone. Little more than an animal’s burrow. At the sight of it, a whole new fear blossoms in Kandri’s chest. “What the hell is this?” he says.

  “Graverobber’s tunnel,” says Mektu.

  “Of course,” says Eshett. “What did you think?”

  “Never you mind what he thought,” says Mektu. He is almost as afraid as Kandri, though for different reasons. It is shameful: on the battlefield, they have faced cutlass-wielding Važeks with blood to their armpits. And yet they stand shivering before a little hole under a grave.

  “Isn’t there someplace else?” Kandri asks.

  “No, no!” cries Eshett. “Gods of death, can’t one of you move?”

  “What about—”

  “Oh, shit.” Mektu drops his pack and begins to wriggle, feet-first, into the hole. “Don’t say that word, brother. Just don’t say it. Go hide.”

  They crouch down, and Eshett smooths the earth behind him, hiding the struggle. “Keep going,” she says. “At the very back they won’t be able to see you at all.”

  “Unless they climb inside,” says Kandri.

  “Nice thought.” Mektu’s voice from the hole is strange and small. “Fifty riders. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  He gives Kandri a last, puzzled look, then slides deeper and is gone.

  The mouth of the second burrow is several inches wider. Eshett enters first, holding her kanut tight against her body as she squirms. Kandri backs in behind her, dragging the backpacks in by their straps.

  Do not panic. Do not scream.

  The earth is cool and slick and much too close. It is too dry for worms, but there are spiders, beetles, whip scorpions, the rasp of an old hornets’ nest. He kicks her, apologizes. She guides him deeper, until the tunnel mouth disappears. With each least movement, a rain of dirt. It fills his clothes, his hair, finds its way into his mouth and eyes.

  “Hush,” she says, “You’re breathing too hard.”

  And that is true: his own gasping will give them away. With a supreme effort, he slows his breath. They are at the back of the tunnel, as deep as they can go. Eshett pulls him tight against her, shameless. He can feel the whole shape of her body, and the cruel thought comes: After all, she is a whore.

  In a whisper, she asks, “Is he really your brother, that shit?”

  “He’s my brother,” says Kandri, “but he’s not always so terrible. He has a good heart, when he shows it.”

  “He belongs in a cage.”

  “He carried me,” says Kandri. “Off the battlefield, I mean. The others had left me for dead. But he falls to pieces when he’s scared, and right now, he’s scared out of his mind. It’s not just the Wolfpack. He’s afraid of flesh eaters, ghouls. And evil spirits—those above all. This yatra business at the camp—”

  “You’re afraid too.”

  “Not of yatras,” he says. “Tight spaces, traps.”

  “Choking, drowning.”

  “That sort of
thing.”

  “Something bad must have happened to you.”

  “Maybe we should talk all about it,” says Kandri.

  If she hears the reprimand, she gives no sign. “I am afraid of ghouls,” she says. “Everyone fears them, even the Rasanga, even the Children of Death. And some ghouls do dig tunnels like these. But not here. The Tohru people do something to their corpses, once they’ve been drained and bound. Something ghouls hate. They’re wise, the Tohru; they learned some tricks from the desert clans. Kandri, why didn’t you tell Mektu about Ojulan?”

  He jumps, and fresh dirt rains down on them. “That’s my business,” he says.

  “All right.”

  “I couldn’t tell him. You don’t know him. We had minutes to get out.”

  “And maybe he would not have come with you?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “All right. Be quiet now.”

  They lie there, two dusty spoons, her arms about him still. “Eshett,” he whispers, “has my brother seen you before?”

  Her body abruptly stiffens. “He fucked me,” she says.

  A long silence. He feels a sharp, unreasonable guilt, as if it were he, Kandri, who had gone to the whorehouse and bought this woman’s flesh. And then forgotten.

  “Sometimes,” he whispers, “I could just about kill him.”

  Behind him, Eshett shrugs.

  “It’s true, what the madam tells us. Some men never look at your face.”

  One day they drew straws for the right to love Ariqina. Needless to say, it was Mektu’s idea.

  He asked the gravedigger’s hulking son to hold the straws. The older youth had one white eyebrow and a goiter like a potato on the back of his neck. He was considered slow but trustworthy; he had once found a gold coin in the shoe of a dead man and returned it to the widow.

  They met behind the gravedigger’s shack. The son warned them: “No good will come of this.” But Mektu insisted, and even Kandri urged him on, hoping that the contest would deliver him from agony, either by granting him exclusive (albeit entirely hypothetical) license to kiss, copulate, marry, and grow old with Ariqina, or by killing him outright with the shorter straw.