The nodding this time was more vigorous, their assurances clear and precise.
“May I ask a question…Master?”
Lad’s eyes snapped to Mya’s, and he cocked his head at her, a gesture she hadn’t seen in days. She missed the old Lad. “Ask.”
She chose her words carefully, wary of offending him in front of the new masters. “The changes you plan to implement are unprecedented. There may be repercussions. What news do you wish to send to the Grandmaster?”
“Send a message that the Twailin guild has a new guildmaster. That’s all he needs to know. If he gets his cut, there won’t be any repercussions.”
“Very good, Master,” she said aloud, though she thought, You’re not thinking like an assassin, Lad. There will most certainly be repercussions. Despite her foreboding, she couldn’t help but be thankful that it wouldn’t be her facing the Grandmaster.
Lad raked them all with his gaze. “I’ll conduct business out of the Golden Cockerel until I find a place of my own to work from. As our first order of business, we’re going to find out who murdered my wife.”
The new masters stared at Lad in shock, their discomfort plain to see. Knowing Lad, Mya had suspected that this order was coming, and had already started her own investigation, but she understood the consternation of the others. As a rule, guild resources were not used to conduct personal business, and this was very personal business.
This won’t go over well with the rank and file either, she thought, watching shock evolve into resentment on the four masters’ faces.
Though new to their jobs, they had been guild members for many more years than Lad. In their eyes, he was a tool—wielded first by the Grandfather, then by Mya—not a peer who had progressed up through the ranks of the guild by means of skill and effort. Lad was lethal, of that there was no doubt, but he was not a proper guild assassin. And now he presumed to be their master.
Lad seemed not to notice anything amiss with his subordinates, and continued with his directives. “I’ll pass on information and orders as needed. Otherwise, you know your jobs. Do them. Cooperate with each other, and execute my commands. If I find that any of you are plotting behind my back, skimming funds, or flouting my orders, you’ll never see the blade that ends your life. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” they said.
“Good. Now go to work. Mya, stay here. I need to talk to you.”
“Yes, Master.” She stood quietly while the others filed out.
After the door closed, Lad sat and poured himself a cup of blackbrew. Someone else might not have noticed, but Mya saw the faint tremor in the hand that held the pot, and wondered if he’d slept since Wiggen’s death. She longed to say something, a comforting word, but knew it would only earn her grief.
The Lad she knew—the man who had walked beside her for five years, who talked and argued with her, who risked his life every day for her—didn’t live behind those hard eyes. This stone-cold guildmaster she didn’t know at all…and she was his slave. Mya suppressed a shiver of the kind of fear she hadn’t experienced since she last stood before the Grandfather.
Lad took his time, sipping blackbrew and perusing the documents laid out in front of him, before addressing her. “What do you think of the new masters?”
Mya remembered asking him similar questions after innumerable meetings, but dared not remind him. “Sereth is the best of them, though he’ll work in his own best interest. Jingles will do his job. Enola fears you enough to never cross you. Bemrin might be a problem; he’s too full of himself.”
“That’s just about what I thought.” Lad fell silent, staring down at the papers on the table.
Mya tried not to fidget. Finally he spoke.
“I need to ask you a question, Mya, and I want you to answer truthfully.”
“Of course. You can ask me anything.”
He looked at her, locking her with his gaze as he rose and walked around the table, stopping only when their faces were barely a hand’s-breadth apart, so close she could feel the heat of his body, smell his scent. Mya struggled to control her breathing and still her nerves.
“Did you have anything to do with Wiggen’s death?”
Terror ripped through her.
Never could she let him know that she had, indeed, wondered over the years whether, if Wiggen died, he might turn to Mya for comfort. This was not the Lad she loved. This Lad would kill her in an instant if he suspected her of having anything to do with Wiggen’s death. And with the guildmaster’s ring on his finger, even her magic wouldn’t save her. His pitiless eyes studied her like a bug under a magnifying glass, and the death lurking within them would be hers if she answered wrong.
Mya swallowed her fear and met his gaze unwaveringly. “I did not. Why would I do that?”
“I remembered your offer to help me with my…marital problems, and it occurred to me that you might think that if Wiggen was dead, you could get what you wanted.”
Mya gaped. She remembered her offer all too well, and now realized that Lad thought all she ever wanted was casual sex. He has no idea how I feel about him. For an instant, she considered telling him, but knew the admission could end her life. Instead, she adopted the cynical air that substituted for emotion and said, “And run the risk of you finding out what I’d done? I’m not stupid, Lad.”
“No, you’re not.”
Mya thought she saw a flicker of relief in his eyes before he turned away and began to pace, limping ever-so-slightly. She knew his wounds must be killing him; she’d been there when they cut out the crossbow bolts. She’d suggested that a healing potion would ease his pain, and he’d told her to shut up.
“If I ever find out that you were involved, I’ll personally remove every single one of your tattoos, and we’ll see how well their magic protects you. Do you understand?”
She’d never heard a threat like that from him, but one look at his face told her that he was serious. Deadly serious. “I understand, but…”
“But what?” He pinned her with his eyes. Though still hard, Mya saw a hint of something more there. Pain. Guilt. Loss. Need?
“But…if you need someone, I’m here for you.” She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left her lips.
Lad’s reaction struck like a bolt of lightning.
“The only person I need, Mya, is the person who killed my wife! There will never be anything between us but business, so get used to it. You work for me. You do as I say. Your life is mine to spend! Do you get that?”
“Yes.” Mya dropped her gaze, kicking herself for her own stupid sentimentality. She was a slave and an assassin. Slaves couldn’t afford sentiment. Assassins didn’t love. “My life is yours to spend…Master.”
Epilogue
Crimson robes swirled in the morning sunlight streaming through the high, gilded windows. The two bodyguards standing beside the breakfast table tensed, but their charge waved a hand in a casual dismissal. Hoseph approached, bowed low, and waited.
The Grandmaster took a bite of kippered herring and washed it down with steaming blackbrew. “You bring news?”
“I do, Master.” Trepidation shadowed Hoseph’s eyes. “The Twailin guild has been reorganized. They have a new guildmaster and four new masters.”
“Four new masters?” The Grandmaster raised an eyebrow and put down his cup. “What in the Nine Hells happened, Hoseph?”
“Grandmaster, it seems that the original guildmaster’s ring was never destroyed after Saliez’s death. The other masters discovered this, accused Mya of deception, and went to war. They lost.”
“And Master Hunter Mya won?” In a flash, he understood. “She wore the ring all along? Ha! No wonder she beat them.”
“Not exactly, Grandmaster. Master Hunter Mya did not wear the guildmaster’s ring. Her bodyguard wears it.”
“The weapon wears the ring? How can that be? Did Mya order him to put it on? Is she running the guild by proxy?”
“It’s possible, but that doe
sn’t seem to be the case. All our sources tell us that the weapon is not constrained by his original enchantments as everyone surmised.” Hoseph shrugged. “In fact, he seems to be much more human that we’d been led to believe. He evidently has free will, emotions, and even a family.”
“A family?”
Hoseph nodded. “It’s rather complicated, Grandmaster. The masters kidnapped the weapon’s daughter in an attempt to persuade him to betray Mya. The plan backfired. By all accounts, Master Hunter Mya and the weapon slaughtered the four masters and a number of their underlings to rescue the child. Our Thieves Guild operative was watching, and discovered that the weapon’s wife wore the guildmaster’s ring. She made a judgment call and killed the woman, knowing your desire to have Mya as Twailin guildmaster.”
“But Mya didn’t put it on.”
“No,” Hoseph conceded. “Apparently the weapon claimed it for himself.”
“Well!” The Grandmaster picked up his blackbrew and sipped. “At least that eliminates the threat of him not being bound by a blood contract. He can’t touch me now.”
“Yes, Master, but he’s acting…strangely.”
The Grandmaster frowned. “Strangely how?”
“He’s eliminated the guild’s protection racketeering entirely, and is hiring out his Enforcers as security to whoever desires it. It’s difficult to see what these changes may bring in the future, but our revenue collectors will be making their rounds in a few weeks, and we’ll be able to make a preliminary assessment then.”
“Hmph.” He picked up his cup and downed the contents. “Well, if revenues are up, we’ll allow him to continue his experiment. Send him a letter requesting that he attend to me at his earliest convenience, my standard meeting with a new guildmaster.”
Hoseph hesitated, and the Grandmaster snapped, “What’s wrong?”
“There may be a problem.”
“With what?”
“With the new guildmaster. He seeks to discover who murdered his wife.”
As the Grandmaster’s grasped Hoseph’s implication, the blackbrew suddenly felt like acid in his stomach. “And if he discovers who did it, the trail could lead back to us…to me.”
“Yes, Grandmaster.”
This did not bode well.
“We must strive to make sure that doesn’t happen. Even though he wears a guildmaster’s ring, there are other ways he might be dangerous.”
“My thoughts exactly, Grandmaster.”
“In fact, make that your highest priority. Use whatever resources you deem necessary, but keep him from tracing anything back to me, even if it means eliminating our operatives in Tsing. And delay our meeting until we have more information about him and can assess the threat he might pose. Two months, say."
Hoseph nodded his assent. “Yes, Grandmaster.”
“Good. Now let me finish my breakfast in peace."
“Your servant, Grandmaster.” Hoseph bowed low and turned to leave.
A thought occurred to the Grandmaster, and he raised a forestalling finger. “One question.”
Hoseph turned back and bowed again. “Yes, Grandmaster?”
“Does this new guildmaster have a name?”
“Of a sort. He calls himself Lad.”
“Lad?” Curious, he thought, wondering how that came about. It didn’t really matter. “How difficult would it be to eliminate him?”
“Many have tried, and all have failed.”
“Well, see if any of his newly appointed masters might be susceptible to corruption. We need eyes in that camp. They can’t harm him, but they might be able to provide the opportunity for another.”
“Yes, Grandmaster.”
Crimson robes swirled again as Hoseph bowed and took his leave. The Grandmaster turned back to his breakfast, but found his appetite gone. Instead, a rank taste fouled his mouth. Impatiently, he plucked the crystal goblet from the table and swallowed the last of the tangy juice. Absently snapping to his servants for a refill, Tynean Tsing II, Emperor of Tsing, leaned back and gazed at the ring of obsidian and gold on his finger, murder, as always, foremost on his mind.
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed Weapon of Blood, please consider posting a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, or your review site of choice.
Don’t miss Weapon of Vengence, the conclusion of Lad’s story, due out Summer 2014.
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About the Author
From the sea to the stars, Chris A. Jackson’s stories take you to the far reaches of the imagination. Trained as a marine biologist, he became sidetracked by a career in biomedical research, but regained his heart and soul in 2009 when he and his wife Anne left the dock aboard the 45-foot sailboat Mr Mac to cruise the Caribbean and write fulltime.
His acclaimed Scimitar Seas nautical fantasies won three consecutive Gold Medals in the ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Awards. His repertoire also includes the award-winning Weapon of Flesh (USA Booknews Bestbooks 2005 Gold Medal for Best Fantasy/Science Fiction novel) and Deathmask, as well as four additional fantasy novels, the humorous sci fi Cheese Runners trilogy of novellas, and short stories. His recent release from Paizo Publishing, the Pathfinders Tales novel Pirate’s Honor, combines high-seas combat and romance set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
Learn more about Chris A. Jackson and his books, download free chapters and audiobooks, read Chris’ blog, and sign up to receive updates at jaxbooks.com.
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Novels by Chris A. Jackson
From Jaxbooks
A Soul for Tsing
Deathmask
The Weapon of Flesh Trilogy
Weapon of Flesh
Weapon of Blood
Weapon of Vengeance (Summer 2014)
The Cornerstones Trilogy
(with Anne L. McMillen-Jackson)
Zellohar
Nekdukarr
Jundag
The Cheese Runners Trilogy (novellas)
Cheese Runners
Cheese Rustlers
Cheese Lords
From Dragon Moon Press
Scimitar Seas Novels
Scimitar Moon
Scimitar Sun
Scimitar’s Heir
Scimitar War
From Paizo Publishing
Pirate’s Honor
Download free chapters and select audiobooks at jaxbooks.com.
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Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/xnrUL
Table of Contents
Dedication
Copyright Notice
Prelude
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Epilogue
Thanks for reading!
About the Author
Novels by Chris A. Jackson
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