An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy

by Justin DePaoli

  Voices chased us, but forests are labyrinths if you know how to use them properly.

  We hurried about at an angle, keeping toward where I hoped Tylik and the phoenix remained.

  “Wait,” I said, gasping. I bent over, which worsened the stabbing in my stomach. “I need to wrap this.”

  “Astul, that’s bleeding really badly.”

  “You’re vigilant, I’ll give you that.” I took off my jerkin and then my undershirt. “Help me tie this around the wound. Tight, now.” Through gnashed teeth, I grunted and said, “Tighter. Tighter. There — that’s good. Let’s go.”

  The forest lay silent in our wake. The voices had quieted. Despite the attempts of creepers and vines to tangle our feet and hinder our progress, a swath of orange bled through the brood of naked trees. We’d made it. Well, almost. Just another few steps and…

  Oh, fuck.

  As if Tylik had happened upon an ancient tribe, a tight contingent of Glannondil soldiers encircled him. The phoenix pruned its fiery feathers nervously, tilting its head sideways when a guardsman pushed closer.

  “As if I didn’t hear about a fucking bird over my war camp.” Braddock, now clothed in a tunic and proper breeches, emerged as the centerpiece of this little family gathering.

  “Listen, Braddock,” I said, offering him a pair of placating hands. “We have a problem.”

  “We certainly do, Shepherd.”

  “Have you maybe noticed there are hundreds of reports of grave robbers across Mizridahl?”

  He shrugged. “Likely conjurer outliers attempting something beyond their reach. They’re desperate, and they are being hunted as we speak.”

  Lysa stepped up beside me. Her dress had been torn at the seams, her feet bloodied. “It’s worse than that.”

  My eye caught Tylik’s. He licked his lips as his hands fidgeted with the reins.

  “A Rabthorn keeping secrets,” Braddock said, shaking his head. “I thought I would have beaten them all out of you by now.”

  Tylik’s eyes swiveled from the phoenix to me and back.

  “Let me go,” she said. “This is something an army won’t stop.”

  Tylik glanced at me again. No, wait. He was looking past me, beyond, into the dark of the forest where we’d come. He subtly lifted his chin. It was a signal. Back up, he was saying. Back up.

  I grasped Lysa’s hand. She resisted at first, but then retreated with me.

  “Go ahead,” Braddock said. “Run. If you do, I will kill your friend here. And your bir—”

  Lysa and I hit the ground. A distributing whoosh inhaled the air, the ghastly noise spewing forth in an eruption of blistering fire. A cyclone of flames as tall as where the branches of the trees first sprouted whirled like an unconstrained geyser.

  Terror shrieked across the calm reaches of the forest. Soldiers ran. They fell. Some crawled, fingers stretching for something that wasn’t charred. But the swirling hell boiled the nerves right from their bodies, and they turned to lumps of tinder.

  A few managed to wriggle free, including Braddock. He was leapt upon by at least five of his men, punched and socked until the flames went out.

  Lysa tugged at my shoulder. “Get up!”

  The phoenix charged us, head down.

  “Tylik!” I screamed. “Make it stop. Stop the fucking—”

  The bird cawed, reared back and cocked its head.

  Lysa and I scrambled onto its back.

  “Where to?” Tylik asked.

  “Somewhere other than here. Oh, fuck me. Fuck me! We’ve possibly murdered the most powerful king on Mizridahl, and certainly burnt the shit out of him if not. Fuck me!”

  “It’s okay,” Lysa said. She was strangely calm. “We’re leaving Mizridahl.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Tylik, take us to Lith.”

  Chapter 5

  The night, it seemed, had treated me well. I awoke in a cottage, transparent sheets dangling from the windows. Slivers of sunlight pierced the veil, warming the wooden floor in a lovely golden glow. I couldn’t seem to speak, but that was fine by me, because I’d soon be using my mouth for other purposes.

  A woman with pale skin and bright pink nipples approached the bed. She put a hand on my thigh and said, “Astul.”

  That voice. It didn’t… it didn’t match the face at all.

  Again. “Astul.”

  She winked in and out of focus.

  “Astul.”

  Suddenly, the stink of fish assaulted my nose and a bright orange flare seared my eyes. I blinked, picked my head up and saw the foam of an angry ocean resting atop jutting rocks. A burbling wave crested and slammed into the rocks, and the water was yanked back out into the endless sea.

  “You were sleeping,” Lysa pointed out.

  “Thanks. That little fact was lost upon me. Where are we?”

  “Crooked Crags. Um, I think. I’m not very familiar with the coast, but this seems right.”

  Crooked Crags was a fisherman’s land. More importantly, a fisherman’s land on Mizridahl. “We’re supposed to be in Lith,” I said, stretching my arms and climbing down from the phoenix.

  “Let me see,” Lysa said, inspecting my arm. She loosened the undershirt and clicked her tongue. “You’re still bleeding too much. And this is deeper than I thought. I hope Tylik can get some wolf’s leaf.”

  I shrugged my arm away. “What are you, a savant?”

  She leaned against the phoenix, its flames receding. “I’ve always enjoyed reading, and medicine interests me. You should be thankful.”

  “I haven’t persevered as an assassin for fifteen years because I know nothing of medicine.”

  “Mm. What’s wolf’s leaf do, then?”

  I blinked. “Shut up. Where’s Tylik?”

  “I told you. He’s trying to barter for supplies. We lost everything in Tronen.”

  “Why is the crippled bartering instead of you? He can barely walk.”

  She played with the ends of her hair, holding them up for close inspection. “He says he’s good at having people take pity on him. I think he’s right.”

  “If you’re insinuating…”

  “I’m not insinuating anything. You take things very personally.”

  A couple roughers stomped down to the docks, buckets clasped within their burly arms. They doused the wooden planks, stripping them of fish guts, scales and blood.

  “You know,” I said, “I’m starting not to like you, Lysa.”

  She shrugged and rocked forward. “You freed me, so you’re stuck with me now.”

  I mimed a pair of scissors. “Can cut you loose at any time.”

  She stuck her pointy nose in close to my face and pursed her lips. “Know what I think, Mr. Assassin?”

  “That you’re annoying?”

  “That you need me. After all, you don’t know who he is. Or why he’s out of hiding.”

  Nineteen years spent kicking around on this world and the girl had herself a disposition that could be mistaken for that of a wrinkly old queen who’d spent a lifetime on the throne. Forging alliances. Closing deals. Making proud kings tuck their cocks between their legs and waddle off as she coerced them into accepting her terms.

  “You owe me a name, at the very least,” I said. “That we agreed on.”

  “Mm. The conditions have changed.” Her face softened and she elbowed me playfully. “Oh, come on! Stop with that grouchy frown of yours. I’m not lying to you, I swear it. I don’t know the whole story, okay? It’s, um… been given to me in bits and pieces, and like I said, I didn’t even think it was true. I promise you there will be more information in Lith. So let’s get there and uncover the whole story, huh?”

  I gazed out into the low boil of an ocean that lay beneath a blistering sun. Tiny fishing boats wobbled against the gurgling current, their nets riding up and over the crests of waves. Nice place to think, here at the water’s edge. Sure, you’ve got the smell of fish carcasses, empty, shattered shells of crabs and lobsters, and the boo
m of roughers who cursed and spat as often as a heart beats. But you also had a nice breeze in your face and the imperceptible vastness of the ocean before you. My thoughts, for once, lay still in my mind. Usually they scattered like baby spiders bursting from their egg sac.

  And what did my thoughts tell me? That Braddock Glannondil was possibly burnt to a crisp. That I’d be branded a king slayer — and this time, not a just one. That I’d have a price on my head probably higher than that placed on Enton Daniser’s when the Taths of old intended on sacking Watchmen’s Bay. That my days of freedom on Mizridahl had ended.

  Perhaps the most horrifying thought of all, though, involved Lysa Rabthorn. She was keeping secrets from me. Had she pulled this shit in Braddock’s war camp — threading me along, promising me more information — I’d have marked her an immature little girl wishing to instill fear into my heart. But Lysa had revealed herself to be smart. Calculating. Not some twerp who gets off on telling stories of big baddies just to evoke a response.

  So why, then, wouldn’t she spill what she knew about this enigma in hiding? Why did she want to wait until she had the whole story at her fingertips? The obvious answer was the Tale of Took.

  Took haunts the dreams of little boys and girls across Mizridahl. Parents often forbid their children from hearing the tale, but it inevitably passes from child to child, or down from mischievous grans.

  As it goes, Took was cast down from the heavens for eating children, big and small alike. His punishment was to be cast into the deep bowels of Hell, but some say he never made it. And now he stalks the plains and the mountains and the rivers and the oceans of Mizridahl. He is a great shadow who sometimes takes the form of a fearsome cougar. Sometimes an enormous hawk. Sometimes even a ghoul. He waits in silence each night, until a child closes his or her eyes. Then he sneaks into their homes. He starts at the eyes, so they can’t see him. Then the throat, so they can’t scream. The more blood he drinks, the more ferocious he becomes.

  At this point, the young’uns are usually on the verge of pissing themselves. So the story concludes with this: if you’re scared Took lurks about, open your eyes and look for him. He will scream in great pain as your gaze burns him and destroys his evil heart.

  The lesson here is that the sum is so often less terrifying than each individual part. A malevolent being that not even the gods could cast away? Scary stuff there. And he eats children? Heart-stopping for a young’un. But, oh, we learn the seemingly invincible monster is defeated in such a simple fashion.

  That, I worried, was what Lysa was looking for: a Took ending. An ending that would bring relief to the indescribable and unimaginable terror we faced.

  Problem is, of course, Took is made up. He’s make-believe. The mind can end whatever it creates, and in such a satisfying manner.

  This mystery suddenly out of hiding was obviously quite real. My brother could probably attest to that. Rivon Eyrie certainly could. And sometimes reality doesn’t end quite as nicely as it does in fairy tales.

  Like a wistful old sailor yearning for a boat to take him away again, I walked the slimy docks, fresh with the smell of death. A rougher groaned as he knelt on the planks and scooped a bucket through the water.

  “I swear it’s dropped another inch today,” he said. He pulled the bucket up, water sloshing against the rim. He gave a shake of his head. “Soon all’s be left to clean the docks is them taller bastards, huh?”

  Oh. He was apparently talking to me, given the others were on shore now, taking to a bundle of nets. “Water shrinking on you?” I asked.

  He spat. “Won’t stop. Past month, maybe even more, just keeps goin’ down. Now I’ve got to reach as far as I can, and that still’s only good enough for a half load. Shit, I’ve lost three buckets this week. Waves ripped ’em right out of my fingertips. Luckily they can float, for a while.”

  I stood at the edge of the dock and looked over. Deep stains streaked the thick pilings from where the water used to meet the wood. The sea had sunk a good three inches since then.

  “No storms as of late?” I asked.

  The rougher dumped his half-full bucket of water on the dock, washing off some slime, and shook his head. “Not a drop of rain for… well, since this all started.” He kicked the toe of his boot into a chunk of glazed-on fish flesh, dislodging it from the plank and sending a free meal to some opportunistic crabs.

  “Better buckle down,” I said. “Sounds to me like a drought’s coming through.”

  “You’re not worried?”

  I shrugged, which caused a searing pang in my arm. “Got other things to worry about. How long have you been cleaning up fish piss down here?”

  He held up a few fingers. “Three months. Hopin’ to get on a boat soon. Local fishermen’s guild says they’re settin’ up to deploy three more, but that fudge-packin’ lord of Crooked Crags says he don’t want any more boats out there. Says somethin’ about overfishin’.”

  I went over to the man and gripped his shoulder. “You want on a boat real bad, do you?”

  “Yes, sir. Pays better, get to eat one fish a day right from the nets. Hear the comrod… er, the — the friendship is a nice perk too.”

  “There’s a lot of salt scum on those pilings. A shovel will clear it right off. Make sure the boys out there are looking this way when you do it, so they see you.”

  The rougher combed a hand through his unkempt beard. “Think that’ll do it? Get me on a boat?”

  “Anyone can wash blood off some planks,” I said. “Fisherman’s got to have an eye for detail. Otherwise a net gets tangled under some chap’s foot, and you’ve got a man overboard. Or a pod of porpoise go unnoticed and you’ve possibly cheated yourself out of an extra few thousand gold. Make yourself worthy, and they’ll take you on.”

  He raked his grimy hands across his cheek. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Yeah, makes sense. Say, you’re not one of the big boys from the fishermen’s guild, are you? I hear they come down here sometimes, help us roughers out. Like takin’ pity or somethin’.”

  “Only a man trying out a new life,” I said. I smiled and gave the rougher a goodbye pat on his back, then walked toward the shore.

  I could get used to this feeling, I thought, whatever it was. It diffused through my chest like the air after a hot summer rain. Pimpled the back of my neck. Put a big, goofy smile on my face.

  And then everything rather washed away as a short figure waddled toward me, arms full of… stuff. Back to the real world now.

  “Did you get wolf’s leaf?” Lysa asked.

  Tylik punched his chin into a pouch resting atop an assortment of supplies. “Got her right here. Or him. Think it’s a he flower or a she?”

  “A she,” Lysa answered, helping free Tylik of his burden.

  “And why is that?” I asked.

  She put the pouch on the spine of the phoenix and riffled through it. “’Cause, it saves lives.”

  She spun around, wielding a triangular-shaped leaf that narrowed to a point, then split off into two threadlike spindles that curved backward.

  “Got the other stuff too?” Lysa asked.

  “Let’s see,” Tylik said, pouring into my hand all knickknacks he’d procured. “Gots ourselves some string, needles — just two, but better than one I’d say — shears that look nice and sharp, linen bandages, rook’s leaf, honey flowers, peppermint leaves, a good bushel of costmary, rosemary, erud roots, some bread wrapped in cloth, and three skins of wine. All I could carry.”

  Lysa slapped my arm impatiently. “Come on, turn it over. Faster we pack this in, the faster you’ll recover.”

  “I feel fine,” I said.

  “You won’t after it festers.”

  I slipped a finger beneath the bandage and ripped it in two. Lysa stood there and shook her head, like I was some barbarian.

  “Woof,” Tylik said, turning his head. “Not pleasant smellin’ there.”

  Not a very pleasant sight either. It looked like bits of corn had been mashed up and slathere
d inside, mottled with a viscous cream. The edges of my skin that’d peeled away were crusty and blackened, probably with blood.

  Lysa held my wrist firmly. She bit her lip as she inspected the injury. “Worse than I’d hoped.” She flattened the back of her hand against my forehead. “You’re warm, but not hot. That’s good.”

  Lysa tore the wolf’s leaf in half. She stuffed one half in her pocket and tossed the other into her mouth. Then she chewed and spat out the mush into her hand.

  “This might hurt,” she said, wiping her finger into the green pulp.

  I backed away in protest, but she kept a strong hold on my wrist. “That just came from your mouth.”

  “It’s fine,” she assured me. “Wolf’s leaf works best when you chew it up, break it into tiny pieces. Helps kill off the bugs inside you better that way.”

  “Er. Bugs?”

  With a small dab of chewed-up wolf’s leaf on her forefinger, she probed my laceration. Any and all curiosity I had at that point washed right the fuck out. There are few things more disturbing than watching someone finger your grotesque wound, mixing yellow and white festering batter with a green, chewed-up paste. Also, it bloody hurt.

  I sunk my teeth into my knuckle as she dabbed another bit of wolf’s leaf into the gaping hole, her appendage sloshing around in there.

  “That’s finished,” Lysa said, proudly leaning back and observing her work. “And yes, bugs, so the theory goes. Savant Leron Evelton describes it in lots of detail in his writings. They’re, um… like maggots. Tiny, infinitesimally small maggots that you can’t see. They get inside your wounds, and that’s what makes them fester. Woolf’s leaf kills the tiny maggots.”

  That seemed absurd. But so too did flaming birds at one time.

  “Now to suture it up,” Lysa said.

  She puffed her hair out of her eyes and grabbed one of the needles. She threaded some string through the eye of the needle, told me to relax my arm and warned me this would sting.

  Sting: a word that means a slight twinge. An uncomfortable prick that makes your skin crawl, and at worst elicits a small groan, mostly out of surprise. It was very apparent that Lysa didn’t know what that bloody word meant. She stuck me deep with the serrated tip of the needle, piercing through layers of skin. It felt like a tendril of barbed wire chewing through my flesh.