The Assassin's Tale (Isle of Dreams)

by Kirsten Jones

  The Assassin’s Tale

  K L Jones

  Copyright ©2012 K L Jones

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Rob Francis of http://www.ink-corporated.co.uk

  http://www.facebook.com/isleofdreams

  Other titles in this series:

  The Assassin’s Destiny

  The Seer

  Eternal Winter

  Tribe

  Fallen

  Sit iter incipiam.

  An Assassin Is Born

  The tiny village of Nevelte lay close to the sprawling Velvet Forests that had long been rumoured to be inhabited by spirits; as such the villagers never dared venture anywhere near after darkness. On a wild and stormy November evening an old woodsman from the village was battling to drive his cartload of wood back towards the village. The heavy downpour of rain had turned the rough track to thick mire, riddled with deep potholes full of muddy water. Spooked by the noise of the wind amongst the branches of the trees the carthorse was stubbornly refusing to move and no amount of encouragement with the whip would persuade her to continue. She trembled with fear, motionless in the traces, while the storm-laden sky blackened as night began to fall in earnest. The woodsman felt an involuntary sliver of fear crawl up his back as the snapping sound of the wind-lashed trees seemed to grow even louder in the fading light.

  ‘Get on, damn it!’ he bellowed futilely at his immovable horse, now rolling its eyes in fear at the dark thrashing branches of the nearby treeline.

  With more than one sideways glance at the deep woods on his left, the woodsman reluctantly began to climb from the cart. Stepping stiffly down on the rain soaked ground and keeping one hand on the cart’s side, he walked up to take hold of his horse’s bridle. Speaking soothing words, he began to gently lead her forward. The terrified mare took two tentative paces forward before halting suddenly and jerking backwards. Snorting hard she tossed her head, ripping the bridle from the old man’s grasp.

  Cursing with the sudden throbbing pain in his arthritic hand, the old man squinted through the rain down at the ground in front of his horse’s nervously stamping hooves. He bent closer, not sure of what he could see. A bundle of leaves and moss lay on the ground. The old man’s eyes suddenly widened in disbelief; he could swear it was moving. Shuffling a step closer, he knelt painfully on the wet ground and began to unwrap the bundle, his hands trembling with more than the cold as he stripped away the tangle of tightly wrapped leaves. He hoped it would be a catch a trapper had dropped … a wolf cub maybe … he would kill it, take it home, and skin it. Even a small wolf cub pelt would make good money at market. As the tightly bound package began to submit to his efforts, a plaintive cry rose from the centre.

  ‘Wolf cubs make no noise like that!’ the old man muttered and redoubled his efforts to unravel the mossy wrappings.

  Hurrying now, as the storm was steadily worsening; he tore at the thick, soft layer of moss until the bundle suddenly dropped open in his hands. A flash of lightning illuminated a tiny pale face, screwed up eyes and a mouth opened in a heartfelt bawl.

  ‘Well I’ll be … it’s a child!’

  Sitting back on his skinny haunches, the old man threw back his head and laughed joyously, letting the rain wash unnoticed over his face. Scooping up the mewling bundle of life, he grasped hold of his horse’s bridle and began to drag her along the track towards the village.

  Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

  It was late November in Nevelte and already the morning frosts had begun to linger until noon. In the small stone cottage that Mistral had called home for the last sixteen years her adoptive parents were preparing their evening meal.

  ‘Brothertoft sit down, we need to talk.’

  Elnora spoke to her husband in a voice that brooked no argument. Noting the use of his full name, Brothertoft finished scraping the scales from the trout he had caught for their supper and wiped his hands on a clean cloth. As he turned to look at his wife, expecting to be in trouble for some domestic misdemeanour or other, he caught the serious expression on her lined face and immediately did as he was instructed, sitting obediently on one of their rickety kitchen chairs.

  Elnora’s eyes were sad as she began to speak.

  ‘It’ll be sixteen years ago this month since you brought Mistral to live in our cottage,’ she sighed and gazed out of the window, smiling wistfully. ‘I couldn’t believe it – a child! I’d accepted that we were a barren couple years ago, and then –’she paused and took a deep breath, blinking back sudden tears. ‘These last few years have been the happiest of my life. I never thought I would have the chance to be a mother. I had thought myself blessed to have spent my life with you, Brothertoft.’ Elnora gave her husband a fond smile as he reached across the table and patted her thin hand comfortingly.

  ‘I know,’ he agreed smiling indulgently, ‘we’ve been lucky. She’s something else. Special I call it,’ he added in a voice full of pride.

  Elnora looked quickly out of the window to make sure nobody was near before leaning across the table, her face contorting suddenly into a fierce expression.

  ‘That’s just it!’ she whispered urgently. ‘She is … and she isn’t!’

  Brothertoft frowned at her, his already wrinkled brow creasing into deeper furrows, ‘Just what are you getting at woman?’ he demanded sharply.

  ‘You know what full well I mean,’ his wife snapped, casting another anxious glance out of the window.

  The tiny kitchen grew suddenly dark as heavy grey clouds rolled across the sky. Brothertoft didn’t respond, instead he stood up abruptly and walked across to the window. Placing his hands against the sink he looked broodingly out at the fat drops of rain falling from the lead-coloured sky. After a few minutes he turned his back to the window and leaned against the stone sink, a stubborn look on his face.

  ‘There's time yet,’ he said defensively, but he wouldn’t meet his wife’s piercing look.

  ‘If we don’t act soon, there will be no time at all! Only last week Beattie Cooper was asking me whether Mistral would be starting her training in the Craft this winter.’

  The hint of barely restrained panic in his wife’s voice made him look up sharply, his expression obstinate ‘So, she hasn’t got the Craft strong in her, so what? Plenty haven’t!’

  Elnora sighed, her shoulders sagging; she didn’t feel as though she had the energy to argue with him anymore. Children of sorcering families were initiated into the Craft on the winter solstice of their sixteenth year, an age when the Mage Council decreed that they were mature enough to learn the intricate and dangerous arts involved in becoming a sorcerer. Mistral, however, had shown no sign of having any sorcery in her at all and Elnora knew they had hidden her lack of Craft for as long as they could. It was time to face the truth.

  ‘Do you remember when Mistral was a little girl she would tell us that she could see colours around our heads?’ she asked softly.

  Brothertoft pulled a face, ‘Children tell stories,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘You know it’s more than that,’ his wife persisted. ‘She’s knows things without being told.’

  ‘So, she’s perceptive, it’s not a crime is it?’ Brothertoft thrust his chin out in a mulish expression.

  Elnora sighed again and stood up slowly, just recently everything had begun to hurt. She moved over to the wooden dresser and began to collect plates and cutlery to set the table. Walking back with her hands full of plates, Elnora set them down and fixed her husband with a hard look.

  ‘When was the last time Mistral was here?’

  Brothertoft pursed his lips and looked speculatively up at the saucepans hanging from the low beamed ceiling.


  ‘Oh, I don’t know. A couple of nights ago maybe? Does it matter? It’s not like she’s a prisoner!’

  ‘Brothertoft,’ Elnora's voice was dangerously soft. ‘It was three weeks ago.’

  Brothertoft’s eyes snapped to hers, surprised and then immediately defiant, ‘No it wasn’t,’ he argued.

  ‘Yes, it was.’ Elnora’s voice was firm. She began to move briskly around the tiny kitchen preparing the supper with undisguised irritation at her husband’s stubbornness.

  Brothertoft’s face was creased in thought, he was trying to remember the last time Mistral had been home and found that he couldn’t. His memory was becoming more and more selective these days. He could recall clearly events that had happened years ago whilst yesterday was often a puzzling blur. He sighed wearily and ran a mottled hand across his face.

  Elnora banged a saucepan onto the stove with more force than was strictly necessary, dragging his attention back to the problem in hand.

  ‘She’ll be in the forests,’ his wife’s voice had taken on a sharp tone and Brothertoft eyed her savage soup stirring with trepidation. ‘Where she always is! It’s not safe I tell you!’ Elnora cried, whipping round to wag a wooden spoon at him angrily.

  ‘Elnora, that girl can handle herself just fine,’ he scoffed, wiping flecks of soup from his face.

  ‘Exactly!’ Elnora shrieked with another accusing stab of the spoon. ‘How many sixteen year old girls do you know like her? She fights with boys twice her size for fun and rides any horse she pleases as though it were a toy! Never mind the fact that she’s happy to spend weeks alone in a haunted forest!’ Elnora spun around and began beating the soup again, breathing heavily.

  Brothertoft made a show of examining his hands for any remaining traces of soup spray. The rain was falling in earnest now, drumming loudly against the small lead-paned windows.

  ‘She’s just a girl,’ he said quietly, turning away to watch the rain sliding down the glass.

  Elnora shook her head in exasperation, ‘Just how deluded are you?’ she asked scathingly, keeping up her furious soup-beating.

  Brothertoft glared angrily at her back and was about to make a sharp retort when his wife turned around with tears glistening in her eyes.

  ‘Oh Elnora I’m sorry,’ his lined face sagged in dismay at her obvious sadness. ‘I’m just a stubborn old fool.’ Brothertoft let out a long sigh and slowly walked over to take his seat at the kitchen table again.

  There was a long silence broken only by the sound of the rain slowing and Elnora’s quieter stirrings of the soup. Brothertoft watched her for a while then turned to look out of the window. The rain had nearly stopped and the dark sky was streaked with lighter shades of grey.

  ‘What can we do?’ he asked in a bleak voice.

  Elnora kept her back to him and moved the soup off the heat. When she spoke her voice had an odd strained quality, as though she was trying to control a suppressed emotion.

  ‘She needs to go and train in the Valley of the Ri.’

  ‘No!’ Brothertoft banged his hand down onto the table. ‘How could you condemn our child to live the life of an assassin?’ he demanded in a shocked voice.

  Elnora laid the wooden spoon over the top of the saucepan and turned to face him, tears pouring down her withered cheeks. She wiped at them angrily with her apron.

  ‘Condemn?’ she sobbed. ‘More like liberate! That girl is a wolf in sheep’s clothing! She was born to hunt and she’s not really our child is she? We don’t know who she is – or what,’ she added more quietly.

  ‘She’s no child of mixed blood, I’m sure of it,’ said Brothertoft firmly. ‘I’ve met elves from the tribes in The Velvet Forests and Mistral doesn’t look a bit like them!’

  ‘Brothertoft, you know the Isle is a haven for more than just sorcerers and a couple of elven tribes! There are creatures living here that I’m sure Mage Grapple himself isn’t even aware of! Mistral’s not a sorcerer’s child; there’s no Craft in her. The truth is we don’t know what blood she has.’

  Brothertoft looked obstinate again, ‘Well, maybe she is a child of mixed race then. Sorcerers are always having affairs with elves and fairies; they can’t seem to help themselves! So what if Mistral is a half-breed? It doesn’t make her a monster!’

  Elnora nodded sadly, ‘A half-breed, yes, that’s exactly what I think she is. One of those unfortunate children who are not accepted by their sorcerer parent as they never have the Craft, and usually end up being shunned by their Arcane tribe as well for being too different. I think that’s why she was abandoned; they often are.’

  Brothertoft frowned and shook his head in denial, ‘No, I don’t believe she’s a half-breed. I’ve met a couple and they always have a strange look about them.’

  ‘And just how normal does Mistral look?’ Elnora asked quietly.

  ‘She’s beautiful!’ Brothertoft retorted angrily. ‘A little wild, maybe,’ he amended after a moment’s pause.

  ‘Uncontrollable, I think you mean. And yes, she has a certain quality about her, but it’s not exactly the pleasing and demure nature that would ever attract a husband!’ Elnora exclaimed then heaved a sigh and walked slowly to the kitchen table. She sat down opposite her husband and reached across the table to gently take his hands in hers, ‘Brothertoft. Please be reasonable about this.’

  He stared at her obstinately for a second then his face softened. His wife looked more careworn than he remembered. He felt a sudden stab of anxiety for her health. Winter was approaching and talk was that it would be a hard one this year.

  ‘Are you ill Elnora?’ he asked hesitantly.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, reading the concern in his face. ‘I think this may be my last winter.’

  Brothertoft opened his mouth to protest but she held up a hand to stop him, ‘No, don’t, please. There’s been enough lies already. It’s time to face the truth.

  ‘When we’re no longer here to shield Mistral, you know that the village will shun her. She doesn’t have the Craft and she’s too different for them to want her living here. What do you think will happen to her then?’

  Brothertoft was silent for a few moments, gazing sadly at his wife of nearly a lifetime, ‘She’ll become an outcast and live wild in the forests,’ he finally admitted in defeat.

  The old couple looked at each other for a long moment. The rain had stopped completely now and a shaft of late afternoon sun pierced the gloom of the kitchen, throwing into sharp relief the ridges and contours of their aged faces.

  ‘The Ri will give her a home. She won’t be out of place there and when she’s trained she can make a living being a hunter or a tracker.’ Elnora’s voice was firm.

  ‘An assassin’s life is a short one,’ said Brothertoft looking argumentative again.

  ‘She won’t have a very long one living wild in The Velvet Forests either,’ retorted Elnora sharply.

  ‘What about money?’ Brothertoft demanded with the air of someone clutching at straws. ‘We can’t send her without any money, she’ll need to buy – weapons and things,’ he guessed wildly.

  ‘Brothertoft, what is in the cupboard under the stairs?’ Elnora asked with a tired sigh.

  Brothertoft looked blank, ‘Only the fur pelts from the animals Mistral has brought home over the years, I don’t see how – oh!’

  ‘Exactly, you can take them all to market tomorrow and sell them. That bear pelt is worth a few coins on its own. I shall be sorry to see the wolf skin go though, it was nice and warm in the winter.’

  Brothertoft’s face worked silently while he tried to see a hole in Elnora’s reasoning. After a few moments he sighed.

  ‘If you think it’s for the best,’ he finally muttered in a defeated voice.

  ‘I’ll go pack her things, we’ll talk to her when she comes home,’ Elnora stood up, suddenly business-like and bustled from the room.

  Brothertoft stayed sitting at the kitchen table, staring unseeingly out of the kitchen window, his old face sad. Yesterday he had
a family; today he had a dying wife and a daughter that he was sending to become an assassin.

  Mistral finally returned to Elnora and Brothertoft’s cottage at sunset two days later. Walking slowly up the dirt track that was Nevelte’s only street she paused outside the small stone cottage that had been her home for so many years. Dropping her full saddlebag onto the floor at her feet Mistral gazed dispassionately up at the smoke spiralling from the tiny chimney. Elnora and Brothertoft were obviously at home – but, weren’t they always? As her eyes slid over the tiny shuttered windows she reflected darkly that they might as well have been barred with iron grills; the cottage had always been more of a prison than a home to her. Mistral sighed; shifting her bag onto her shoulder again she lifted the latch on the small garden gate and decided to make it a short visit. She had only really been forced to come back to pick up her wolf pelt. It was starting to get cold at night in the forests.

  Stepping quietly through the front door Mistral found Brothertoft sat alone at the kitchen table drinking a tankard of the strong sweet cider he brewed. Mistral nodded to him and dropped her saddlebag full of rabbits wordlessly on the table before turning to fetch a sharp knife from the dresser.

  ‘Good trip?’ Brothertoft asked, taking a drink of cider.

  ‘Not bad,’ replied Mistral returning to the table with a knife in her hand.

  ‘Hunt anything interesting?’ the old man persisted, watching as Mistral reached into the bag and pulled out a rabbit.

  Mistral shrugged and began to skin the rabbit with deft strokes, neatly slicing the hide away from the carcass, ‘Got a sabre-toothed boar, but I ate that – brought you back some rabbits though,’ she said, indicating towards the bulging bag with her knife.

  ‘Elnora could do with a good stew, she’s a bit under the weather at the moment,’ said Brothertoft quietly, placing his half-empty tankard back onto the table.

  Mistral looked up briefly, ‘Where is she?’