The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  It was… nice. He was sleepy, but no longer exhausted. The din around him would have been grating to his nerves another time, but now it had a strange sort of comfort to it, and he sank into the cushions of the chair, absently marveling at its depth and softness. Come dawn, there was more hard travel ahead of him, more than he wanted to think about, and perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if he knew where he was going; right now, he was warm, he was comfortable, and his belly was full. He hadn’t felt this good since his third night in Putnam. Nothing else seemed terribly important.

  He dozed, though he tried very hard not to, jerking himself awake several times when the sounds of the crowd would briefly swell, or when his own inner-alerts would tiredly sputter to momentary life. The breeze from the open doors curled in, tendriling the night’s chill about his feet to stir him, and he blinked and snuffled and tried to sit a little straighter.

  Miri came in, flirting and joking her way through the small crowd between the door and the bar. Her bright eyes gave the room an assessing glance, paused on Wil briefly, squinted, but then passed on; she hadn’t seen him in his dim-lit little nook. That’s all right, he thought with a drowsy smile as he sank deeper into the cushions, being invisible isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe a short kip wouldn’t be such a bad thing, either.

  “Lovely girl, her.”

  It was the accent that made him freeze, made his heart lurch and his dinner turn rancid in his stomach. The thudding of his heart in his ears drowned out the merry sounds of the crowd: laughter, music, the clink of stoneware and glass—all of it faded into thudding silence as Wil slowly turned his head, gaze slamming headlong into eyes cold and blue and hard as tempered steel.

  “You.”

  He nearly choked on it. If it made a sound, Wil didn’t hear it, but the man gave him a sloe-eyed smile, shrugged.

  “Me,” was all he said.

  Wil had never seen the man before, but recognition was immediate—the series of small, round tattoos on the upper-right cheekbone told Wil all he needed to know. Blue-eyed and dark-haired, easy smile flashing teeth shone white against clear, fair skin—another time Wil might have thought him handsome; now he was nothing short of an evil imp sprung cackling from nightmare.

  “You had to know we’d catch up to you one day, Aisling.”

  Slowly, Wil slid his hand under the table, reached down to his boot. The man sighed, shook his head then, quick as a snake, snatched Wil’s wrist in strong fingers, twisted.

  Wil kept himself from crying out, gritted his teeth. “That isn’t my name,” he snarled, tried to jerk his arm out of the man’s grip—couldn’t.

  “It is the only one I need,” the man replied calmly.

  Too late, Wil darted his glance about the room, looking for help or escape. Another man he didn’t recognize stared at him from the doorway, the hard set of his face almost comical beneath the huge, black bushy brows. Wil wasn’t laughing. The man’s arms were folded across his chest and his coat was pulled back far enough from his hip to let Wil see the butt of his gun angling from its holster.

  He almost wept. Fear and frustration lumped in his throat, and his heart slammed about behind his breastbone. He would almost have rathered Siofra; at least Siofra only wanted him dead.

  Stall, play for time, keep him talking, find a way to get him off his guard… He’d worry about the man at the door when or if he got there. If he could just get this one to loosen his grip, let him get his hand on the knife in his boot or give him an opening for escape…

  Wil swallowed, licked lips gone abruptly dry. “How did you find me?”

  A low snort, and the crushing grip on his wrist tightened. “You left a bit of a mess behind you in Putnam,” the man told him. “Palmer managed a message before you saw to him.”

  “I didn’t ‘see to him,’ he was—”

  “He was Brethren, which makes him better than blood to me, you filthy little puke, and you saw to it he met his end at the hands of Guild scum—after everything they did to you.”

  Wil’s lip curled on a sneer and his breath puffed out in a contemptuous snort—he couldn’t help it. “And what you and your ‘Brothers’ wanted to do was so much better?” he said through his teeth.

  The man’s eyes went dark, glittered, and his grip on Wil’s wrist tightened, twisted down so hard Wil thought it might snap. “Never make that comparison again,” the man seethed.

  Rage colored his words, turned his false accent thick and slurred. True Believers, Wil thought with mounting panic, were always the scariest. His heart sank down to the floor. He wasn’t going to get out of this with fast-talk or wheedling, and certainly nothing as practical as reason.

  “And let me give you a small word of advice, now that it doesn’t matter anymore,” the man went on, teeth clenched tight on a snarl. “When you stop to ask directions, don’t then go exactly where you’ve said you would be.” Another derisive snort and a shake of the head. “You make a piss-poor fugitive, you know. And you only leave those who’ve been kind to you behind to pay for your stupidity.”

  Wil’s stomach dropped and he closed his eyes, sagged. “What did you do?”

  A smile this time, the counterfeit sadness in it nothing more than a mockery. “Only what you forced me to.” The man shook his head, tsked when Wil blanched. “That’s two villages burnt behind you now, Aisling, and how many dead on your conscience? How many more innocents will it take?”

  “The men in Old Bridge were not innocent,” Wil croaked, throat gone dry and mind reeling. “And it wasn’t me who—”

  “The men in Old Bridge were my Deartháireacha, as was Palmer,” the man spat, grip tightening yet more cruelly. “I ought to kill you right here for what you did.”

  Wil gasped a little as fresh pain shot through his hand and up his arm. His fingers were going numb and a burning ache was turning his muscles useless. It didn’t matter to this man that Wil hadn’t been the one to set the blaze, it didn’t matter that what happened in Old Bridge happened because those men hadn’t had a clue what they were playing with and they’d made their own end. The only thing that mattered to this man was his purpose and to such a degree that he’d been insane with it long before Old Bridge had even happened, Wil could see it in the wild blue of his deranged eyes.

  He tried to think past the fiery agony splintering up his arm, dug down and looked for courage in the frozen hollow of his gut. He sucked in a shaky breath and gritted his teeth.

  “You might as well,” he wheezed. “It doesn’t matter, I can’t give it to you.”

  “You mean, you won’t.”

  Wil only glared, mouth twitching with a suppressed grimace of pain.

  The man’s smile curled, cruel and alarmingly smug. “You’re right, it doesn’t matter—we know how to take it now.”

  Wil’s stomach dropped, desperate panic welling in his throat, gagging him. The man wasn’t lying.

  Dread beyond words, but no real surprise—there were just as many spies within the Guild as there were without. It had only been a matter of time before the Brethren acquired the piece of the puzzle they’d been missing three years ago. And unlike the Guild, they didn’t have the luxury of simply replacing him; they needed him alive, and they were willing to destroy entire villages to keep their purpose—their very existence—an enigma. He managed to keep the shocked tears at bay, focused on the one tool he had left—a small-tool, perhaps, comparatively speaking, but it was the only one he had.

  He sucked in a harsh breath so his voice wouldn’t shake, grated, “You won’t kill me—you can’t—and I won’t go quietly. If you try to drag me out of here, I’ll kick and scream and shout to the rafters that I’m being kidnapped.”

  The man shrugged again. “Then my man at the door will shoot your little ginger friend, and whoever else gets in the way. How many more dead will you leave behind you like a grisly scattering of breadcrumbs for me to follow?”

  It struck Wil like a blow. His gaze darted to Miri, washing mugs and dishes behind the b
ar now, still flirting and laughing good-naturedly with the patrons.

  What do you care, you don’t even know her, and her death will be a lot kinder than your life if you let this happen. They can’t kill you, they can’t, there is no threat to you but what you let them make.

  His eyes watered and his throat locked up.

  But the threat wasn’t to me.

  Well then. All the better.

  Wil closed his eyes, willing away the burning behind them. The faces of the three men at the grange drifted into eerie focus, kind beneath their confusion, guileless beneath the suspicion. Miri’s smiling face came next, dropping him a smirking wink, then those bright, laughing eyes flying open in betrayal and stupid surprise as a smoking hole opened in the middle of her forehead.

  Another in a regrettable string of necessary sacrifices. That’s all.

  I can’t. She was so kind, and for no reason except that she wanted to help a bedraggled stranger to whom she owed nothing. I can’t.

  The air stirred about him, hot and cloying, and he clamped his free hand to the arm of the chair.

  Then the choice is easy, if you’ll let yourself see it.

  There is no choice!

  A small, brooding laugh scattered through him, something pale and putrid that lived its life in the perpetual twilight of the shadowed corners of his mind he didn’t allow himself to see.

  Isn’t there? Do you really think they’ll leave anyone here alive anyway? Haven’t they proven already how talented they are at covering their tracks? You’ve only the one choice and they’ve already made it for you.

  Dark light in his heart, throbbing a sickening rhythm through his veins and tendriling out to pulse in every nerve-ending. Like an obscene benediction.

  So obvious. So simple. So… perfect.

  I’ve never done it on purpose. I don’t know how.

  So, then. Let them take you to another Old Bridge.

  Wil snarled a little, frantic and desperate. He didn’t allow himself to think or pause, just peered up, locked his gaze on Eyebrows at the door. Let the terror take him.

  Nothing more than a white buzz at first, as the man stared back. Alien thoughts and emotions pattered inside Wil’s head, rippled out like the first drops of rain on the unbroken surface of a sleeping lake. Instinct told him to turn away, pull himself back, when the first familiar wave of craving broke over him, but he kept his gaze steady, heart pounding with a bizarre, almost-thrilling anguish.

  It’s working. Save me, it’s working. I think I’m going to be sick.

  Threads of blinding light and color slid through his senses, eldritch and transient as fireflies in a lazy summer breeze. He snatched for them, grasped them with his mind’s eye, stretched them from one edge of consciousness and toward another. Found the thread of another and reached.

  Then pushed.

  Wil turned his mind from the unpleasant nausea that engulfed him, turned his mind from everything but the eyes staring back at him, an abstract, near-sensual queasiness moving through him when the man’s gaze took on the familiar confusion, eyes going wider, dimming.

  Come to me, help me now, and I’ll hand you what you think you want to keep you from taking what I can’t give you.

  Some part of him vaguely heard a curse in the North Tongue and then, “There’ll be none of that,” right next to his ear, then he was jerked back to himself with a soul-tearing abruptness that rocked his mind, threw it back at him with a jarring thump.

  It took a moment for him to register the fact that his face hurt, the pain in his mouth so exquisite it was like a red throb, swathing his entire head. His nose was dripping, and he reached a hand up to swipe at it, stared, stupidly amazed, as his fingers came back red with blood.

  Bastard slammed my head into the table.

  Dazed, he tried again for the knife, tried to stand; a hand wound through his hair—Knew I should’ve cut it—and his head was driving into the table again.

  “Try it again and I will kill you.” Growled into his ear, but Wil barely heard it. His blood was too loud and his head was all-over knives.

  Someone was hauling him to his feet, dragging him toward the door. He dug in his heels, twisted, tried to yell, but a fist slammed into his belly then his back and kidneys, they just kept coming, and the intended shout emerged as nothing more than a thin wheeze. Everything was far away and spinning.

  Eyebrows was suddenly there, and hard fingers dug into his arms, holding him upright and pulling him through the crowd; he couldn’t keep his head from lolling like a ragdoll’s. Yanked to the side, out of one grip and into another, low snarls vibrating through his head, but he couldn’t make out what anyone was saying; yanked again and he was caught between them. Strong hands gripped each arm, pulling him like a wishbone. And all the while, the door kept getting closer.

  No one’s going to stop them, he thought numbly, they think I’m drunk and my friends are carrying me home. I guess I’m going quietly after all.

  He tried to laugh at the irony; it came out as a whimpering sob. He could hear the toes of his boots scraping across the rough wood floor, loud in his ears, and his own panting breaths, but nothing else. His knees were water and his head was a pulsing soap-bubble.

  “Help,” he whispered, choked as blood from his nose dripped down the back of his throat. “Someone…”

  Some mutinous part of him noted they almost had him to the door, knew that once he crossed that threshold it was over—over for good this time, because they wouldn’t make the same mistakes they did last time.

  His arms weren’t free, but his hands were. He made a clumsy lunge to the side, twisted, scrabbled at the gun hanging from the holster of Eyebrows’ hip, amazed when his fingers closed over the smooth butt—even more amazed when he yanked and it came free in his hand. Too bad he had no idea what to do with it, except perhaps point it in the right direction and hope. Although, it was heavier than he’d expected; it would at least make a handy blunt instrument if he could get himself loose.

  A shout in the North Tongue rang his eardrums, but he could neither tell who said it, nor what it was, heard only thunder in his head and his own breathless scream in his ears as his hand was crushed around the butt of the gun then his fingers were wrenched back. He tried to scream again as pain shot up his wrist and he felt the sickening crunch of breaking bone, but someone’s arm locked around his throat, squeezed.

  His ruined hand was still trying to clutch at the gun, frantic and scratching, but at least one finger was broken and the others had gone numb and clumsy. The wholeness of his wrist was now in serious question. His lungs seized up as he tried to claw air in through the searing blockage in his throat. He abandoned his weak grasp on the gun, reached instead to scrabble at the arm about his neck. It was like iron, curled about and cutting off air and thought. Steadily, like a slow-sliding avalanche, reason and sense began to slip away from him and darkness crowded in, spangled at the edge of his vision.

  This is it, it’s over, and I’m finally done for. He tried to tell himself it was a relief, but that rebellious part of him snapped and snarled at the injustice. It isn’t fair, damn it, it isn’t fair! I never wanted any of this…

  Fading, he cast a last glance about, found Miri. She stared back at him from across the room, eyes wide and dismayed. He tried to smile a goodbye, thought maybe he managed it, because he saw her recoil then shout something, but he didn’t hear it.

  Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean any of this…

  His feet were off the floor, kicking weakly, helpless spasms shuddering through his whole body, and everything was dimming, losing substance. A weighted lethargy took him, turned his limbs heavy, everything around him dulling into vague blurs of lifeless color and sluggish movement.

  Not a bad way to go, I suppose, he thought dully. Sort of peaceful, really, once you get used to it.

  It was through a muffled haze that he heard a scream and the thunderous boom of a gunshot, then another, and he was being propelled face-first into the
doorjamb. He hit with a breathless grunt, forehead and cheekbone slamming into unyielding wood, reawakening the blinding pain that was still thudding in his head from its forced meeting with the table. Air burned into his chest in a searing rush, tangy with the acrid taste of gunpowder, aching torture, as his lungs mindlessly wrenched breath into themselves then forced it back out in wheezes and harsh, barking coughs.

  With a crazed, choked little giggle, he focused on a great, jagged splinter of wood jutting from the doorframe that had just missed skewering his left eye. Some still coherent part of his mind registered the newness of it, the greenish-blond of the wood beneath the stain and lacquer, and knew the small explosion of timber and paint had come from a bullet tearing through it; the less than coherent part thought it all vaguely hilarious.

  “Lucky me,” he snickered, garbled through bleeding lips, drunk on pain and murky shock. His eyes fell shut as his whole body turned to a loose assembly of jittering nerves, strung together by agony.

  Still cackling quietly, Wil slid down the wall and into darkness.

  Chapter Three

  Three… no, four of them. Damn it. Propping themselves in the shadows of trees or ducking behind the tables strewn beneath the faltering gutter of the lanterns. One of them was even flattened to the ground, nothing but a smear of slightly more substantial gloom beneath the shadow thrown by the stable and into the paddock. Idiot. You couldn’t get a good firing-stance like that.

  He supposed it could have been worse—there could have been forty. And they could have been competent. All of them had taken point, their eyes and ears trained on the door of the inn, and not one of them had bothered to give even a cursory glance behind them in the time he’d been watching.

  Dallin’s mouth curled into a dark little smirk.

  Seriously. Idiots.

  It was a good thing he’d twigged days ago and started following the tracks of these men, rather than Calder’s, which were actually one and the same, so to speak. Calder wasn’t exactly skilled in avoiding detection, but he wasn’t bad either. Dallin was confident he would have caught him up soon enough, but these men were almost laughable in their stupidity and made his job much easier. The most amusing thing about it—well, irritating, really, but Dallin was easily irritated these days—was that they so obviously thought they were covering their trail, while in truth they might as well have been marking Calder’s in fiery arrows for Dallin to follow more easily.