by Tanya Huff
Smoke and fire and strange faces. Women he didn’t know writhing under him. Blood lust. Hunger. Rage. Too many images to make sense of. Gyhard pushed at them, shoved them away. When something called Hinrich pushed back, Gyhard clawed his way toward the center of the maelstrom.
Then he swayed, dropped to his knees, and stared in horror at the body impaled beside him. A body that quite unmistakably had not moved since it had been spiked to the ground. A bloody froth stained the golden mustache crimson as the dying man tried to speak. Failed. Died.
He was looking out of Hinrich’s eyes.
But was still Gyhard.
Still alive.
* * * *
Vree wet her lips and swallowed hard. Death happened. To friends, to foes, to everyone in time. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t known she would die and she clearly remembered a day in her early teens, a dagger in her hand and a crumpled body spilling blood onto the ground at her feet, when she’d accepted it as inevitable.
But to suddenly be in another body, staring down at the lifeless shell she’d worn since birth…
“What did you do?”
Gyhard rubbed his cheek, wondering why the telling of something that had occurred so very long ago affected him as it had. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “I ran. The other bandits didn’t even bother trying to catch me. Why should they? As far as they were concerned, they now had one less partner to share the spoils.” His laugh held no humor. “I doubt they could have caught me anyway.”
“Where did you run to?”
She could barely hear his answer. “Home.”
* * * *
The palisade around the steading had originally been built to keep out the bears and wolves and mountain cats that hunted in the forests of Sibu. Recently, it had served as a barrier against the approach of human predators.
Ice crystals forming in Hinrich’s coarse red beard, Gyhard stumbled to the gate, fighting to breathe through the stitch in his side.
“Open,” he gasped. “Let me in.”
Ten feet and he’d be safe. Ten feet more and the nightmare would be over.
The crossbow bolt caught him in the left shoulder, flung him back, spun him around, and saved his life. The second shot whistled through the air a hand’s span from his nose.
“No!” But pain and terror had hold of his throat and the best voice he could manage was a hoarse croak. “No, please. It’s me. It’s me, Gyhard.”
He could hear them gathering behind the wall, could hear shouts of Bandit! and Murderer! and his sister demanding to know why the first two shots had missed.
“No. It’s me.” He staggered back a step, then another. “It’s Gyhard.”
A quarrel smashed into the frozen earth at his feet. Another hissed his name as it drew a line of pain just above his ear.
He didn’t want to die.
He turned and ran back into the shelter of the night.
Three days later, carefully hidden in a childhood sanctuary high in an evergreen, he watched his own funeral. Amidst the grieving were many howled vows of revenge and every adult member of the family carried a weapon close at hand. They knew the face he wore and would never allow it close enough for explanations.
Hinrich had killed him twice.
* * * *
“I was in Hinrich’s body seven years until I found the courage to … move on. Tomas was a distinct improvement. Young, dark, handsome; he had the most beautiful eyes …”
“Was he trying to kill you?” Vree interrupted.
“No.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and almost wished she hadn’t asked.
“Don’t try to make me a tragic victim, Vree.” His voice had picked up an edge. “I’ve turned the life I lost into an eternal life. Not a bad trade, in my mind.”
*Your mind, my body,* Bannon muttered.
From the corner of her eye, Vree could see his hand—all right, Bannon’s hand—holding the reins. The white-knuckled grip seemed at odds with the tone of his voice. “Have you told this story before?”
This wasn’t what he’d expected her to ask. The edge disappeared and he shrugged, the graceful motion seemingly dictated as much by the body he wore as his mood. “Once.”
* * * *
His face pleated into a thousand wrinkles as he smiled across his small camp at the young woman who sat crooning to her stillborn baby. As was common in the Capital when mother and child died in a birthing, Wheyra’s body had been laid to rest with the infant cradled in her arms. Although no kigh lingered to be Sung back into the tiny body, the distraught mother had refused to leave the tomb without the baby. He had finally given in. He was fond of children.
One by one, he checked on the rest of his new family as they waited out the hottest part of the day in the shady hollow. The dry summer heat acted to preserve their tissues but direct sunlight did them no good at all. As the shadows moved and lengthened, he had to remain constantly vigilant lest one of them blacken and burn.
He called them by the names they’d answered to in life; names learned, for the most part, by clinging to the fringes of funeral processions.
Wheyra, Kait, and the cousins Aver and Otanon.
Once, he’d thought the dead would never leave him.
He knew better now.
Tenderly, he reached out and lifted Kait’s clutching hand off the heavy brace of scavenged leather she wore around her neck.
“I know you don’t like it,” he told her, “but your head flops so without support.”
Kait’s brows drew slowly in above eyes narrowed with revulsion. “Noooo,” she said.
He patted her hand. “Yes.” The teenager had only joined the family the night before when the distance between two of the flat-topped tenements had proved to be just a little farther than she could jump. Her wealthy parents had spent most of the funeral procession loudly complaining about the type of friends she’d been hanging around with.
“Noooo,” Kait repeated, and she would have gone on had he not quickly hushed her.
Something was happening over by the tombs.
“Don’t move. Any of you.” Leaning heavily on his staff, he started toward the road. He had no fear of leaving his family alone. They’d do what he said, they had no choice, and not moving was something the dead did very well. Nor did he fear that they’d be discovered by accident for living kigh would not come near. Three times guards had nearly stumbled on his camp. Each time they’d veered off without realizing they had.
It wasn’t another funeral, he saw with disappointment as he shuffled into place behind a pair of merchants—who were not at all pleased at having their journey to the Capital interrupted by an advance wedge of guard wearing the Imperial sunburst.
“Yeah, hide behind that helmet,” muttered the first. “If I knew who you were, I’d take your spear and stuff it where the sunburst don’t shine.”
“The roads are for the citizens,” snarled the second. “Not some polished flunky in a …”
“The Emperor!” came the call from the crowd closer to the city. “It’s the Emperor!”
Instantly, the irritation disappeared, and both merchants cheered as loudly as everyone else who’d been pushed to the side of the road.
Sunburst pennants snapped in the wind over the heads of those members of the First Army riding escort. Richly dressed in the muted colors thought appropriate for the hunt, a group of nobles preened under the attention. The Emperor, a huge hawk balanced hooded and jessed on his left fist, acknowledged the crowds, and managed to make everyone feel that they, personally, had been noticed.
As the pair of merchants yelled themselves hoarse, he turned to go. He had no interest in a living Emperor, who would, after all, end up as dead and wormeaten as any of his subjects. Then one of the riders directly behind his Imperial Majesty caught his eye.
Laughing, the young man pushed shoulder-length black curls back from his face with a slender hand. His mouth was wide; his teeth very white.
Broad shoulders filled out a cream silk shirt and burgundy vest over a narrow-hipped, long-legged body. But his eyes—dark and thickly lashed and almost too large for his face. Intense eyes. Beautiful eyes.
He remembered what it was he’d been looking for. Years ago, he’d lost his heart.
Jabbing the knob of bone on the head of his staff at the closest merchant, he pointed a trembling finger at the young man and whispered, “Who?”
“Prince Otavas,” the merchant snapped, rubbing her side. “And watch where you’re poking that thing, old man.”
He ignored her and stood staring in the direction the prince had gone long after traffic on the road returned to normal. Memories fought their way through the confusion the years had wrapped around his mind. He remembered a dark-eyed young man. He remembered joy. He remembered pain.
“I know you,” he murmured at last, tears streaming down withered cheeks. “I know you.”
* * * *
“It’s in the Capital, whatever it is.” Karlene tossed her pack to the floor, then gently lowered her instrument case down beside it. “A day’s walk out in any direction and the kigh are fine—but none of them would carry a message into the city.”
“Did they give you any more information?” Gabris asked without much hope.
“No. Give me a chance to clean up and I’ll do a full recall. Not,” she added, moving through their workroom toward her own chambers, “that there’s much more than what I just told you.”
“Karlene …”
She froze, took a moment to wonder what had taken him so long, and turned to face the door. “Highness.”
Still dressed in his hunting clothes, Prince Otavas bounded into the room. “I came up as soon as I heard you were back. How was your trip? Is there any news? News that I should pass on to His Majesty, my father, that is. You know how he hates to wait for official reports.”
Karlene glanced at the senior bard—who nodded—before answering. “Whatever it is that’s frightening the kigh, Highness, it’s centered in the Capital.”
Dark brows sketched a frown. “That’s not good.” A pause while he looked from one bard to the other. “Is it? I mean, nothing’s happened. Perhaps whatever it is only affects the spirit world?”
“Perhaps.” The bards had discussed the possibility, but neither believed it. Anything that so affected three of the four kigh—and quite probably the fourth as well—had to involve something at least potentially disastrous. But there was no point, Karlene decided, in mentioning that to the prince. She gestured at his clothing. “I see you’ve been out hawking.”
“An afternoon’s amusement.” He smiled wistfully at her. “My heart was elsewhere.”
“And now it’s back,” Gabris murmured.
The prince’s smile broadened; Karlene pretended she hadn’t heard. “You’ll want to clean up, Highness. I know I do.”
Otavas sighed dramatically. “Such a pity that the palace cisterns are full and we’ve no need to conserve water.”
Karlene, who’d been expecting a less oblique suggestion, burst out laughing. “Yes, Highness,” she agreed, “a pity.”
* * * *
Ghoti secured, a temporary tribunal in place until the Emperor could appoint a new governor, the Sixth Army began the march back to their garrison. Marshal Chela, riding up front out of the dust with her commanders—in spite of the roads there was always dust—glanced over at the officer riding to her right and shook her head.
“Slaughter it, Neegan. Are you still brooding?”
Commander Neegan turned a dark gaze on his superior. “They shouldn’t have died. They were too good.”
Wishing she had a crescent for every time she’d heard that over the last ten days, the marshal sighed. “Then their luck ran out. It happens.”
“Then why,” Neegan continued, “did the Ghotians deny it happened?”
“For fear of reprisals,” the marshal answered as she’d answered a hundred times before.
“And what happened to the bodies?”
“The bodies could’ve been anywhere, Neegan.”
“Maybe they chopped them up and fed them to the pigs,” suggested Commander Leesh archly, from her place on the marshal’s left.
Marshal Chela frowned. Her youngest commander hadn’t yet learned to tread warily around the assassin—Chela couldn’t decide whether that kind of bravado came out of ego or stupidity. As Neegan would endure either for only a limited time, sooner or later there’d be an accident.
“You’re only put out,” Leesh went on, clearly relishing the opportunity, “because the governor poisoned himself before your precious assassins could get to him. They died for nothing.”
“They shouldn’t have died at all.” Neegan’s hoarse whisper had an uncanny way of covering the distance when he wanted it to.
The marshal hid a shiver as it passed her and noted with approval that it had wiped the smile off Leesh’s face. “I think,” she said, her tone turning the thought to an order, “that we’ve heard quite enough …” A slight, black-clad figure following a small herd of goats down a scrub-covered hill to the east of the North Road caught her eye, and the thought she’d been about to voice marched on without her. “Neegan. Your eyes are younger than mine; what is that child wearing?”
Neegan rose in his stirrups, shading his eyes with a palm. A moment later, he spurred his horse off the road. The goats scattered. The goatherd screamed and tried to run.
“What’s going on?” Leesh demanded.
“A very good question.” The marshal raised her hand; behind her, officers shouted the orders that would stop the column. “And one Commander Neegan is attempting to find an answer to. Unless I’m very much mistaken, which I am not, that child is wearing the remains of an assassin’s uniform.”
* * * *
“Aye, two of them. First a young man and then a young woman.” The goatherd’s mother stared at Neegan suspiciously. She didn’t like soldiers and she didn’t like this husky-voiced soldier in particular. “Governor Aralt told us the young man’d be coming and he had the signet like he was s’posed to. Didn’t mention the woman, though.”
“They came alone?”
“Just said that. First him. Then her. Left together.”
“Were they injured in any way?”
She shrugged. “Can’t say. Didn’t look it the way they rode out.”
“Rode?”
“Aye. On horses. Not the best in the stable, mind, but good ones.” Her eyes narrowed. “You gonna want them uniforms back? ’Cause I didn’t take ’em. Those two left ’em behind. Got all new stuff out of the governor’s stores. Hers was ripped up, that’s why Ilse is wearing it with the goats, but his is still in good shape. Person could get a lot of wear out of it.”
“Who else spoke to them?”
“Can’t say. Steward probably.”
Hands clenching and unclenching, a muscle jumping in his jaw, Neegan strode toward the villa.
“Hey, Captain! What about them uniforms? You want them back?”
Neegan half turned, somehow managing to keep a fingernail grip on his temper. “Keep them,” he growled.
Well, sod you, too, she thought and went back to mucking out the stables.
* * * *
“I want to go after them myself.”
Marshal Chela watched tension twist the muscles under the surface of Commander Neegan’s face and kept her own carefully expressionless. “I need you with me.”
“No.” He shook his head. “With Ghoti settled, the whole sector is quiet. You don’t need me.”
The marshal ignored the direct contradiction. She allowed Neegan much more leeway than she allowed the rest of her staff. “And what if there’s an uprising while you’re gone? The sixth Army will be a commander short.”
“Then promote Captain Lyhit. She’s ready.”
“You’d resign your commission?” Chela frowned slightly and locked her gaze on the commander’s eyes. “These two mean so much to you?”
&nbs
p; “They were mine.” Neegan’s voice had picked up the sound of a wire brush rasping against flesh. “Mine. When they deserted, they betrayed me.”
“They betrayed the army.”
For a moment he looked as though he’d argue the correction, then he nodded once, very slightly. “They have to be hunted down. You know the law.”
“There are other assassins, less essential to the smooth running of the Sixth Army, that I could send,” the marshal pointed out.
Neegan dismissed them with a barely controlled wave of his hand. “No. Vree and Bannon are too good. I have the best chance. Perhaps the only chance.”
Chela remembered the cold touch of a blade against her throat and granted Neegan the point. “Very well,” she said after a moment, her tone indicating this was the final word on the matter. “Go. Your commission stands unless we go back into the field. At such time, I’ll promote Captain Lyhit to a temporary position and we’ll discuss your reinstatement when you return. I want frequent dispatches. Do you know where to start?”
“Aralt’s steward said they were traveling to the Capital.”
“The Capital,” Chela repeated musingly. “I wonder when they learned to ride.”
“Does it matter?”
“It may.” She waved his dismissal at him, then stopped him with his name as he reached the tent flap. “Out of the thousands under my command, those two should have been low on the list of possible deserters. Before you kill them …” She stared down into the smooth cut ruby set in the ring that marked her as a priestess of Jiir. No answers rose out of the bloody depths. “… ask them why.”
* * * *
“Three days …”
“Three days for what?” Gyhard asked as the inn’s servants carried away the remains of their meal. He wondered how blunt she’d be in front of witnesses. Three days to kill you. Three days to get my brother’s body back.
Vree leaned uncomfortably back in her chair—they were now too far north to request southern furnishings—and stared at him as if he were an idiot. “Three days to the Capital.”
They sat in silence until they were alone again; Gyhard twisting the metal stem of an embossed goblet between thumb and forefinger, but Vree merely sitting, predator patient. Waiting.