The lad had the grace to lower his gaze. Again a great breath raised his chest behind his crossed arms. ‘It is most … frustrating,’ he admitted.
Yusek gave a satisfied: ‘It most certainly is.’
The lad returned to watching the monks go through their regimen of exercise and training. Yusek sat on the stone kerb surrounding the practice field. Need five days’ rations for a start. I wonder if there’s any dried meat in the larder here. Probably not. This lot do not look like the hunter type.
And she’d be on her own again. Target of any arsehole who thought he could twist her arm …
It occurred to her that perhaps she shouldn’t be in such an all-fire hurry to get away.
Sall straightened then and Yusek peered up. Sticks were being brought out: wooden swords. Oh-ho. Things are getting interesting now.
The monks paired off, one practice sword per pair, attacker and defender. While Yusek watched, the swordsmen cut and thrust and the defenders threw them like dolls, or bent them to their knees, sword-arm twisted.
Ridiculous! Any real swordsman would cut an unarmed man or woman to pieces. Sall must be laughing inside – or groaning.
She gave a glance and saw him turn his masked face to Lo. Something imperceptible to her passed between them, and the lad unclasped his cloak. He laid it on the stone flags then placed his sheathed swords on top of the cloth and walked out on to the sands. Yusek shifted to look at Lo and jumped to find him next to her. It gave her the creeps how he did that.
The monks all stopped their exercises to watch while Sall approached the nearest pair. Bowing, he held out a hand for the wooden sword. The acolyte turned a glance to the monk leading the practice, a wiry petite woman. She nodded and the acolyte handed over the sword.
Sall faced his partner. He bowed then struck a ready stance, left foot shifting back behind him. Yusek rose to her feet. The acolyte, even younger than Sall, brought his empty hands up between them, one above the other, elbows bent.
Sall struck then, but not as Yusek had seen before. Slowly, gently, he brought the wooden blade down in an exaggerated overhead drop cut. The youth shifted inwards underneath the cut, somehow hooked Sall’s arms, and bent, pulling the swordsman over his shoulder and throwing him to the ground. But Sall rolled easily and came to his feet once more.
The two faced off once again. This time Sall swung a horizontal slash. The youth side-stepped, took the Seguleh’s arm, and somehow led him in a spinning dance then let go and sent him flying out over the sands. The performance would have appeared laughably false had not Yusek known that Sall was in no way cooperating. Next, Sall mimed a slow two-handed thrust. The youth stepped aside of the move, somehow pushing Sall to send him tumbling aside.
Lo stood silent at Yusek’s side.
Sall rose to brush the dust from his shoulders. He bowed again and the two paired off once more. This time he raised his sword high above his head, the blade vertical. He held it there for a time, motionless, then brought it down in a slow angled strike. The youth again stepped in close, but Sall now side-stepped himself, bringing the sword around for another sweep. The youth pursued and now the two circled faster and faster, swords arcing and the youth’s arms twisting as if attempting to ensnare his opponent’s. The nearest monks scrambled backwards out of the way of the match as it spun seemingly out of control.
The silence of it was the most eerie thing to Yusek. All she could hear was the snap and flutter of the monk’s sleeves and the hiss of the wooden sword. Neither man gasped or yelled or snarled. Even their feet shifted noiselessly over the sands. At first she’d thought this some sort of a duel, but she saw now that it was more of a sparring match – the exchange of known moves and countermoves, each now faster than the last, each testing the other.
Finally, at some signal or agreement between the two, they spun apart to face one another.
Amazingly, neither betrayed the least hint of exertion. Neither’s chest rose more than before; neither breathed loudly at all.
Both bowed. Sall now stepped up, his blade held low at his side, his right leg back. The monk matched his step. Swiftly, Sall thrust the wooden sword through his belt and faced the youth with his hands at his sides.
The youth’s large brown eyes shifted to the woman leading the practice; she gave another small nod. The youth raised his hands again, ready.
This time when Sall moved Yusek missed it. So too did his partner. One moment Sall stood with his hands at his sides, empty. The next he held the blade one-handed against the youth’s neck.
A soft grunt escaped Lo.
The young acolyte’s eyes grew huge and after taking a moment to digest what had just happened he bowed to Sall.
So ends the lesson.
But apparently not. For the woman who had been leading the practice now approached Sall. She bowed and waved in an unmistakable try that with me gesture.
The woman, Yusek noted with interest, was no taller or heavier than herself. Her hair was cut short and her bare arms were extraordinarily lean and muscled. Sall’s mask turned towards Lo, who, his arms across his chest, gave a small flick of one hand. Sall bowed to the woman, accepting.
The two faced off. Sall pushed the wooden sword through his belt once more. The woman struck a ready pose exactly like that of her student. The acolytes stood frozen, silent, and their watchful intensity reminded Yusek of the Seguleh themselves.
Sall shifted his sandalled feet in the sand a few times, as if unhappy with his stance, then stilled. This time Yusek almost caught it. One moment Sall was motionless. Then, in the next, he was off his feet describing an arc through the air over the back of the spinning woman, who had thrown him flying high to land in a great swath of bursting sand.
Sall sprang to his feet, sword still in hand, and to Yusek every line of his body shouted of his utter astonishment.
A clenched hiss sounded from Lo and the man walked away.
Yusek looked to Sall; the youth’s masked face followed Lo’s retreat, then fell. Yusek did not need to see his expression to recognize the crushing shame that hunched his form. Bowing, he handed over the sword, then walked off in the opposite direction. Yusek followed.
She found him sitting on a ledge on the very lip of the cliff the monastery occupied. Before his feet the mountain swept down thousands of feet into misted emptiness. Yusek sat next to him. The frigid cutting wind buffeted both of them. Yusek’s cloak snapped.
She was not used to such dizzying heights and a sickening vertigo gripped her as she clutched the stone she sat upon. ‘Not that bad, is it?’ she offered, trying to make light of things.
After a time the Seguleh youth let out a long, pained breath. ‘You do not understand, Yusek.’
‘Try me.’
‘I lost. I have shamed Lo. I can no longer be considered among the Agatii.’
‘The Agatii?’
‘The Honoured Thousand. The select warriors of the Seguleh.’
‘So? Have to turn in your mask or some such thing?’
At least he snorted a weak laugh at that. ‘No. But … I will have to repaint it.’
‘Well, so what? I mean, it’s not like it was deliberate, or some kind of crime, or something.’
The lad sighed, his breath almost cracking in its suppressed emotion. ‘You don’t understand, Yusek. Lo is Eighth! He sits with Jan among the ruling Ten, the Eldrii.’ He clenched his hands, held them where the mask curved to expose the mouth. ‘But one other thing … he is my father.’
Yusek stared, speechless. Ye Gods … the poor kid. What a burden! That’s just fucking cruel, that’s what that is.
She selected a small stone, tossed it over the edge. She watched its stomach-turning descent for an instant then glanced away, her throat burning. She swallowed sour bile. ‘Listen, Sall – so what if some woman beat you in some match. Who the fuck cares? C’mon, she wasn’t even armed!’
The lad turned to study her directly through his mask. His brown eyes appeared even more pained. ‘Exact
ly, Yusek. She wasn’t even armed.’
‘Well … so what? Big deal. It wasn’t for real. You weren’t prepared for it, were you?’ She nudged his shoulder. ‘It’s a valuable lesson, right? Listen. I was thinking. When I head out I want to be able to handle myself better … won’t you teach me a few moves?’ She nudged him again. ‘Hey? What do you say?’
If anything his masked head hung even lower. ‘I’m not worthy of teaching anyone anything, Yusek. Ask that woman.’
‘Well, I’m asking you. C’mon. You know more than I do about it all, right?’
‘It would be improper …’
‘Never mind that. Just the basics, hey?’
‘Not right now.’
‘Naw … tomorrow, hey?’
He let out another long-suffering breath. ‘Tomorrow, then.’
‘Yeah. All right. Tomorrow.’ She stood, brushed the dust off her bottom, and left him to sit alone for a time. Poor bastard. Obviously thinks the world of his father. And to think she’d travelled with them all these days and hadn’t even the first suspicion they were father and son! What an odd people.
Personally, Krute of Talient did not want to honour yet another request from this particular client, but the communication had percolated up through standard channels thereby ensuring that enough of the guild knew of it to make it impossible for him to simply ignore it. Of course as Parish Master of the Gadrobi district he had a measure of influence on which contracts to pursue – but it was a short-lived master who neglected the fundamental truth that, in the end, everyone was only in it for the treasure.
And so come the mid-night he found himself stepping carefully through the empty and eerily quiet yards of the Eldra Iron Mongers. It was an unnatural sensation; to his memory the works had never been still. The Legate, however, had commandeered all labour for his city works projects, leaving Humble Measure with no one to run his forges, furnaces and mine.
All very deliberate and calculated, of course, as a sort of unannounced war had broken out between the two: the successful political protégé and his former patron and sponsor. And this kind of falling-out always generated the most vicious and wilful vendettas. His boots loud on the scattered gravel as he peered around at the dark sheds and silent furnaces, it occurred to Krute that his reservations might all be for naught; surely even this man’s legendary wealth must be exhausted by now. There could be no way the man could offer enough to tempt the guild anew. In point of fact, he wouldn’t be all that surprised to turn a corner in one of these cavernous warehouses and find the man hanging from a rafter.
No such easy resolution confronted him, however, when he pushed aside a great slab-like door to enter a silent smelting shed. The tang of smoke still clung to everything and he fancied he could still feel a residual heat leaking out of the great furnaces.
Undisguised steps sounded from the front of the shed and Krute turned to see the proprietor, Humble Measure himself, at the door. The closing of his works had obviously not been kind to him. His hair was unkempt and soot marred his face. The black of the soot cast the whites of his eyes into a bright, almost fevered, glow. His clothes were likewise askew, torn and soot-blackened. It appeared as if the man was attempting the impossible, and frankly insane, task of single-handedly keeping the works going.
Krute inclined his head in greeting. ‘Humble Measure.’
‘Parish Master. I was beginning to suspect that the guild had lost its edge.’
‘Whosoever has the coin gets our blades,’ Krute observed, congratulating himself on that pointed reminder.
‘Of course. That is as it should be.’ The man drew a cloth from a shirt pocket and wiped his hands. Krute noted with growing unease that the cloth was just as blackened as the man’s hands. Humble waved him forward. ‘This way, Master.’ As they walked, the ironmonger talked. ‘It strikes me that you assassins represent the exchange of business reduced to its purest form. What say you, Master?’
Krute shrugged. ‘Hadn’t really given it much thought.’ Gabble on, man. I’m really not interested in what crazy things you have to say.
‘You do not care who you kill, or for what hidden purpose, or to what consequences. You are merely paid money to do something, and so you do it. Rather like a prostitute, yes?’
Krute frowned, eyeing the man sidelong. ‘What’re you gettin’ at?’
‘I mean that questions of morality or ethics, honour or principles – all are irrelevant, yes?’
Krute hunched his shoulders. ‘Not all principles …’
The man flashed him a smile bright against his grimed face. ‘Of course. The principle of greed and profit remains paramount. Utterly uninhibited, in fact.’
He led Krute to a dilapidated manor house, pushed open the front door. ‘Let me provide an example, if I may.’ At the back of the house the ironmonger unlocked a trap door, revealing stone steps leading down. ‘Let us say there exists a city occupying a marshy lowland. The inhabitants of this urban centre are cursed by a wasting disease carried by flies that multiply like … well, like flies, within the swamps. Then, let us suppose that a learned man studies the situation and proposes a solution to said curse: move the city to the hills nearby where the scouring winds will keep the flies at bay.’
They reached a stone-walled cellar. Here Humble lit a lantern and led the way to an arched portal sealed by an iron-barred gate, which he unlocked. ‘An excavation for a wine cellar here revealed much more,’ he explained, pointing to a hole in the floor where a ladder led on down. ‘Now, the leaders of this fair – but cursed – city, landowners all, were naturally horrified by the idea of all their property becoming worthless and so they hired local assassins to put an end to such unwelcome talk.’
Stepping down off the ladder Krute was astonished to find himself in a corridor of brick lined by niches. ‘Burial catacombs,’ Humble told him, leaning close. ‘They date back thousands of years.’ He motioned onward. ‘This way, if you please. These killers, now, all local, were themselves victims of this wasting disease, with milky eyes and withered limbs. And all had lost sisters, brothers and parents to the fevers. But – and here is where the tale demonstrates the perversity of humanity – they accepted the contract to kill this scholar.’ The ironmonger turned to Krute. ‘Is that not, well, so sadly predictable?’
The assassin rubbed the back of a hand against his jaw. Won’t this man ever shut up? ‘Sounds like waters too deep for me, sir.’
‘Are they?’ the man asked, his eyes bright in the gloom. Then he shrugged. ‘Perhaps so.’ He waved a hand. ‘Well, just ten years later the city was an abandoned fever-infested field of ruins in any case.’
‘Your point being?’
‘Ah!’ Humble got to his knees and began pulling bricks from the wall. Slowly, brick by brick, a small opening was revealed. He invited Krute to slither in. For a moment Krute wondered whether the man intended to kill him, or bury him alive, or some such thing. But he knew the guild would avenge his death and he also knew that Humble was aware of this. Nevertheless, he decided some measure of caution was called for and so he motioned Humble ahead.
‘After you.’
A shrug. ‘If you wish.’
Within, the darkness hinted at a larger room, perhaps a burial chamber. Humble edged inwards, lantern pushed along ahead. Krute followed. What he saw took his breath away. A sea of gold reflected the already golden flame. Stacks of bars set out in rows crammed the tomb. A fortune countless leaps beyond any of Krute’s imaginings.
‘Poured by myself and a few trusted aides in the very works above our heads,’ Humble murmured with a touch of pride. ‘All of this is yours should you succeed in the contract.’
‘And that contract?’ Krute asked, distracted. He didn’t move his gaze from the neatly heaped bars. Take twenty men all day to move this mountain …
‘The contract, and my point, is that I still want the Legate’s head. Even if his improvements or plans for the city are somehow in alignment with my own, they are not what I plan
ned and so I want his head.’
Krute’s nod was one of slow deliberate agreement. Vindictiveness. You can always count on that. The guild practically survives on it. He thought of Vorcan now standing behind the Legate. No doubt she means to retake the guild – then there will be a harrowing! ‘The man has powerful allies …’
‘Thus this astonishing price.’
Krute rubbed his stubbled cheek once more, swallowed hard. ‘Speaking for the guild, ironmonger, we agree to try again. But it will take some time to prepare.’
‘I understand. Time you have. This chamber will remain sealed until you succeed. And should we both die in what comes – it will remain sealed for ever.’
‘We have an agreement then, Humble Measure.’
On a rooftop across the broad avenue facing the main doors of the Eldra Iron Mongers, Rallick Nom lay prone, chin resting on a fist, crossbow cradled in an elbow. He’d watched while Krute entered the closed and now quiet works, and he kept watch until, many hours later, the man exited as well.
So, Humble Measure wasn’t a man to abandon a task half finished. Rallick could tell from the character of his old friend’s thoughtful and distracted walk that he was already planning ahead, considering the coming job.
What to do? Too late to kill the client now. An agreement’s already been struck. The guild will follow through regardless. A matter of reputation. And I’m in the crosshairs. Have to find a place to lie low; somewhere no one’s going to come hunting. And there’s only one place comes to mind … Hope he won’t object to house guests.
Rallick pushed himself backwards along the slate-shake roof.
A knock at the door to his offices drew Ambassador Aragan out of his thoughts as he stood at the window overlooking the city. He’d been thinking of the troubling lack of word from the north – it wasn’t like K’ess to be out of touch for this long. Nor had word come from the south, either, for that matter. It was oddly as if events outside the city were somehow unreal, or suspended in time. A bizarre sensation.
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