Weapon of Flesh

by Chris A. Jackson

  Perhaps I shall venture across Narrow Bridge and into that quarter tonight, he thought, starting across the courtyard toward the barn. Perhaps my destiny lies among the royalty that rule this wonderful place. For Lad had truly grown to believe that he was made to live in such a place, to use his skills among the variety of humanity that now surrounded him.

  Yes, he thought, lengthening his strides in eagerness. Today had been a full and interesting day, though Wiggen had not, as he had hoped, accompanied him to the barn for another kiss. That was another thing that brought a smile to his lips, though he knew not why. There was a danger and a yearning to that simple pressing of lips, something that challenged the magic that infused him, something that caused his blood to race and the heat to rise in him. He pushed the memory aside, refocusing his thoughts. Tonight will be the night I venture into the quarter of the royals. But when he stepped foot into the barn, his plans for the evening suddenly changed.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Had this been the first time Lad had entered the barn, he might not have noticed, but he was familiar with the place now. He knew its sounds and scents. He knew the patter of the mice that nested in the hayloft as they scampered across the rafters. He knew the odors of dung and horse sweat, cloying but not unpleasant. He knew the cooing of the mourning doves at daybreak and the chirping of the crickets in the evening.

  But now those familiar sounds and scents had changed: the mice were not moving, hunkered in their den of rotting hay and leaves, the crickets were silent, unheard of for this time of night, and the scents of horse and hay were mingled with those of men.

  Not just men, he thought, letting his eyes scan the darkness as he breathed in the air of the barn. Many men, and at least one woman, he decided, taking a cautious step toward the first stall.

  All of the horses were in their stalls, fed, watered and reasonably complacent, though one of the mares stomped a foot at him, startled that he appeared without her hearing his approach. He soothed her with a pat and a few soft words, then stepped back into the wide isle that ran the length of the barn. He stood and listened, closed his eyes and strained to hear that which makes no sound, to sense the darkness, to feel the air.

  A near-silent creak of leather. A hint of a breath being taken in too quickly. A heartbeat too loud to be muffled by the sinew, bone and flesh surrounding it. The scuff of a finger on wood. The click of metal against bone. At least five people were hidden in the dark, out of sight, waiting.

  The memory of a thousand ambushes flashed through his mind, all orchestrated by his maker to prepare him for this moment. He stood in the darkness, ready, his senses taut, his muscles relaxing into the state of preparedness that had been drilled into him by masters of flesh and mind.

  Lad smiled, and spoke.

  “I am ready for you.” He heard two quickly indrawn breaths that told him his taunt had scored. The tactic was simple and time tested: when an ambush is discovered, impart that knowledge to the ambushers and reap the benefit of their shattered morale. “To those who seek me harm, I tell you this: If you leave this place now, I will let you go unharmed. If you stay, you will die by my hand.” And he meant it, for he had learned from Wiggen that killing was wrong. He did not want to kill if he didn’t have to.

  His answer came as he expected it would, with an attack.

  The sound of air being puffed out of a long tube reached his ears a bare instant before the dart would have struck home, but Lad had not lied when he said that he was ready.

  He moved.

  The technique was called displacement, taught to him by one of his trainers as a defensive measure against an attack from concealment. It involved moving every portion of one’s body from its previous position in the assumption that whoever is shooting at you is aiming for where you are, not where you will be. The twisting leap took him ten feet to his left, and the dart that would have pierced his flesh stood quivering in one of the stall doors. The mare in the stall huffed and stomped her foot.

  Lad took a half second to analyze the weapon, a slim feathered dart from a blowgun, and calculate the angle from which it had come. His next move took him in a bounding leap to the man’s perch above the tack room. The utter surprise on the assassin’s features lasted only a second. His hand was reaching for another dart, but shifted to the dagger at his belt. His fingers never touched the hilt. The heel of Lad’s hand impacted upon the bridge of the man’s nose, sending shards of shattered bone into his brain. He fell dead to the floor of the barn, surprise and shock still etched upon his face.

  Lad did not pause to gloat, but moved again. Three more shots, one dart and two tiny arrows followed his tumbling progress across the barn. Two missed, and one he caught and flung back at his attacker. He heard the arrow strike flesh, even as he vanished into the shadows. It surprised him when he heard another body strike the floor of the barn. He had surmised that the missiles were envenomed, but few poisons acted so quickly that a man struck would drop senseless in the span of a few heartbeats. He would have to take care, lest he fall prey to that venom.

  “Two of you lie dead,” he said, taking care to cast his voice to one side. The jittery mare reared in her stall, neighing loudly at the scent of blood. “How many more must die? Leave now, and live.” He was answered only with silence.

  He moved through the shadows like blackened quicksilver flowing among the cracks and crevices of darkness, silent and deadly. The other horses were nervous now, the scent of blood and strange sounds arousing their instincts, but he heard the scuff of a boot through their shuffling hooves. His quarry was moving.

  The edge of the loft was above him now, and he knew that at least two of them hid among the bales and sacks stacked there. There was one sure way to draw them out, but there was risk in it. There was no fear in him, but there was concern, for if he fell he would see his new friends no longer, and they would be in danger with these assassins about. Weighing the risks carefully, he made a decision.

  Lad leapt from the darkness like a cat, the ledge of the loft caught in a grip like iron as he flung his legs up and thrust himself into a whirling, somersaulting loop. The danger was that once he was airborne, his trajectory was predictable. He had little doubt that his stalkers would send more envenomed darts his way, but he was ready for them.

  Two missed by wide margins.

  Two did not.

  He landed in a crouch, holding a dart by its fletching and a short arrow between the toes of his right foot. The latter he cast aside, for it interfered with his movement, the former he kept.

  He heard the two in the loft fumbling to reload their weapons, and moved. The first crouched behind a hay bale which, when Lad kicked it, sent him sprawling. The dart in Lad’s hand found a sheath in the assassin’s neck before he was forced to move again by more flying missiles. A woman moved from hiding amid several sacks, her blowgun cast aside in favor of two long fighting daggers.

  Lad deflected another missile from an assassin hidden in the rafters as the woman lunged to the attack. One blade he evaded easily, the other was immobilized by his grip on her wrist which he twisted as his foot lashed out at her midriff. The woman actually surprised him when she flipped with the twisting arm, neatly evaded the kick, and aimed the other dagger at his wrist. He released his grip, snatched the other wrist as it passed and planted a firm kick into her armpit. Ribs splintered under his foot, and the shoulder popped out of joint. He evaded another tiny arrow as she fell gasping to the floor.

  He vanished into the shadows, pausing to reacquire his targets.

  The one he’d pierced with the dart lay still, barely breathing. The woman was curled in a protective ball gasping for breath, her consciousness waning. From the sounds of scuffing leather and the number of attacks he’d evaded, there were still two assassins out there, though they remained hidden, even to his senses. He gauged their positions by sound, and moved through the shadows, calculating the best angle of attack.

  “Two of you remain,” he said, cast
ing his voice afar. “I offer you another chance to save yourselves. Leave now, and you will remain alive.”

  He really didn’t expect an answer, let alone one of assent.

  “I yield!” a woman said from the darkness. She was among the rafters and well hidden. “I’ll have your word that no harm will come to me if I move into the open.”

  “You have it,” he answered immediately.

  He heard her move, careful steps of soft leather on wood. She dropped down from the rafters to the top of the tack room, then to the floor of the barn. He risked a glance, and saw that she stood in the open, her hands away from her sides. She still bore weapons, but he hadn’t asked her to disarm.

  “Jingles! Come out.” Her voice was flat and hard, that of one in command.

  “I will not betray my guildmaster!” a male voice said from the darkness of the tack room.

  “Then you’ll die here!” she spat, taking another step away from the door where her reluctant accomplice hid. “He’s more than we bargained for, and that’s what I’ll tell the Grandfather. He will not kill us for failing to acquire his weapon.”

  His weapon? Lad thought, his mind snapping to the allusion to his destiny. Perhaps this was a hint to the reason for it all, the foundation for his creation.

  “On your word, Mya,” the male voice said amid the scuffing of his boots. The revelation of the woman’s name caught him off guard as Lad watched the man move into the open. This was the woman he’d met on the road! She’d been searching for him!

  “Mya!” he called, moving into the open. “Before you leave, I wish to speak with you.” He wasn’t much concerned with the two; he could vanish into the shadows long before either could bring a weapon to bear.

  “Why?” She sounded suspicious and a little scared. That was good.

  “I wish to know more of your master. You said you were here to acquire his weapon.” He took another step and stood at the edge of the loft. “I am his weapon?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I am not.” Lad stepped off the platform and dropped easily to the floor of the barn. The two stood ten paces in front of him, obviously uncomfortable with his approach. This suited Lad fine, for their fear was his ally. He took three careful steps, moving into the diffuse moonlight. “I will not serve the man that sent you here, if his tactics include attacking innocent people from hiding. Go to him and tell him that I refuse to be his weapon. If more are sent to take me, they will meet the same greeting as you have.”

  “You have learned much since our meeting on the road, Lad.”

  He blinked in surprise at her use of his name, then took the time to recognize the man who stood next to her. It was the man who had visited the inn yesterday, the one with the jingling bracelet and the hidden weapons.

  “I have learned much, Mya.” He took another three steps, stopping barely within striking distance. He could kill them both in an instant if he had to. “I have learned that I do not want to be a slave made only to kill. I have learned what friends are, and I have learned that I can say no.”

  “My master will not be happy with that.”

  “Then your master will not be happy. Tell him this: if he does not let me go, I will kill him.”

  “I will tell him.” She took a cautious step forward. “You are a worthy adversary, Lad, and I would have your hand on this agreement: I will not seek to harm you from this day on, even if my master tells me to do so.” She held out her hand for him to take.

  He stared at her for a moment, suspicious, but her hands were in the open and empty, and she knew he could kill her in the blink of an eye if she tried something foolish.

  “Very well.”

  He stepped forward and took her hand into his.

  This was the only time that the magic that protected Lad from pain and injury betrayed him, for he did not feel the tiny prick of the needle that was hidden inside the ring Mya wore. He only felt the invisible grip of the narcotic as it enveloped his mind and sent him sagging to the ground.

  Exhaustion gnawed at the muscles of Mya’s back and shoulders; it had been a long night, and it was only going to get longer.

  “Careful with that, damn you!” she snapped at the two ham-handed guards who were unloading the boy’s bound form from the carriage. If they split his skull on a flagstone, all of this would be for nothing.

  It had taken her and Jingles an hour to remove the two dead and two unconscious members of the team from the barn and scour the place clean of any trace of their presence. The hardest part had been finding all of the spent arrows and darts that had missed their mark, but she felt sure that all had been accounted for. The two wounded members of the team would recover, one by morning, since the wound was a simple prick and the drug would wear off in about six hours. The other, Keewa, the woman with three broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, would take longer to mend. Once everything was cleaned up, and the boy bound and hoisted into the guild’s carriage like a sack of grain, they had gotten some help from Jingles’ people and acquired an escort to ensure that nothing happened to their precious cargo before it was delivered to the Grandfather.

  That task, at least, was done, and it was no small glow of satisfaction that warmed her as she stepped out of the saddle and handed her reins to one of the grooms. But she knew that there would be questions to be answered and accounts to be given of the incident. All she really wanted was to go to bed.

  “Grandfather!”

  She turned and bowed at the guard’s exclamation, knowing what was to come, and dreading it more than a beating.

  “Excellent! Excellent! Hold there a moment while I have a look.” The Grandfather of Assassins strode down the steps of his estate, drawn to the bound form of the boy like a great black moth to a flame. “Most excellent indeed!” His wrinkled old hands caressed the boy’s unconscious features like a blind man memorizing a face by touch. He pinched the flesh, tested the eyes and felt for pulse at neck and wrist, all in the span of a few breaths. “Yes, this will do nicely. Take him to the interrogation room and place him in the restraints I have prepared. He should remain senseless for several more hours.”

  The guards, led by the Grandfather’s valet, carried the wisp of bound flesh up the steps and into the manor house. Swallowed like a dragon gobbling down a choice morsel, Mya thought.

  “Mya!” The Grandfather’s voice was like the crack of a whip, wrenching her from her exhausted musings and snapping her shoulders out of their slump.

  “Yes, Grandfather,” she said, bowing shortly and meeting his gaze evenly. His wizened features were stretched into a mask of glee, and from the lines and wrinkles that were being crisscrossed by those of mirth, she could tell that this was not his usual mien.

  “You have performed beyond all my expectations.” He laughed a short bark of amusement that set the hairs at the nape of her neck on end. “Truth be told, I expected the weapon to slaughter you all like lambs in a pen!”

  “Then I am happy that, in that expectation only, I have disappointed you, Grandfather.” Though she chose her words carefully, she saw that the affront had not gone unnoticed. Mya was far too tired to let such a comment go unchallenged, be it from the Grandfather of Assassins, or Duke Mir himself! She smiled and bowed again, wondering if he would kill her on the spot for her insolence.

  She did not hear him move, but she had not expected to. She managed not to jump as his cold fingers settled upon the nape of her neck, chilling her like the touch of a ghoul. Well, it could have been a dagger, she thought, willing herself not to shiver.

  “You do know that I have killed for less, Mya.” There was no mirth in his voice now, but nor was there malice, only warning. The pressure of his fingertips intensified for a moment and her head swam with dizziness.

  “Yes, Grandfather,” she managed, as the pressure abated.

  “See that you remember it.

  “And you, Jarred.” He turned from her and shook Jingles’ hand. “Well done! You will be compensated for the people y
ou lost this night, of course, and for the healing of the one that was wounded.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather,” he said, with a bow. “But it was Mya who took the prize this night, Sir. We would all be dead if not for her, and your weapon would be that much the warier.”

  “Oh?” The old man’s gaze slid sideways to Mya once again, his eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly, either in scrutiny or warning, she could not tell. “How so?”

  “He knew we were there the moment he walked into the barn, Sir.” Jingles bit his lower lip but continued with his account, ignorant of Mya’s glare. “We lost two blades before we got as many decent shots off, one of which the boy plucked out of the air like a bat pickin’ off a juicy moth. He would’a cleaned us up slicker than spilt grease if Mya hadn’t tricked him.”

  “Tricked him?” His eyes snapped to focus again on Jingles and the man shrunk under the scrutiny. “Tricked him how?”

  “Well, when two more of our people were down, and the boy said that we’d be safe and let go free if we just gave up, she made like she would take him up on it.” His eyes flickered back and forth from Mya to the Grandfather, but there was no contest as to where the greater threat lay. “She even had me fooled with the way she played right into his offer. Stood right out in the open and ordered me to come out. Well, I refused flat out, but she said you wouldn’t kill us for lettin’ the boy go since we were so much overmatched, so I came out.”