B008P7JX7Q EBOK

by Ijaz, Usman

  Connor glared at Adrian so fiercely that Alexis thought he might attack his cousin right there. “How so?” he asked Connor.

  Connor remained quiet for several moments, scowling at the ground before him. When he answered his voice was low and harsh. “If not for him she would never have gone away ... and my sisters and I might actually have known her.”

  Alexis suspected it had cost the boy much to say that out aloud. “Do you wish that he were dead instead?”

  “No!” Connor said immediately. “But ....”

  Alexis nodded. The two were so young, yet they already had their share of problems to face, and larger still if they ever made it out of these infernal woods. He regretted having caused this to them, having revealed so much to them and breaking their worlds, but the regret was small compared to his sense of duty. Sometimes what we have to do is not always what we want to do, he reflected bleakly. Someone had told him those words long ago; his father, he suddenly realized.

  “Tell him,” Adrian said quietly, “that if I could change it I would. My mother died as well, and until recently I saw her die every time I closed my eyes.”

  Connor looked abashed, but he also wore resolve like a mask. “Tell him ... that I wish I had never met him.”

  Alexis stopped, and so did the two boys once they realized he wasn’t moving. “This is just plain stupid! You two act so hateful towards one another, when it’s clear to me that your accusations have no ground. Why can’t you stop this and become the levelheaded boys I met in Port Hope?”

  The two looked at one another, Connor hard-faced and Adrian openly hurt at his cousin’s words, but neither one spoke to the other, or to him. Alexis thought of grabbing them both by their necks and making them speak to one another, but at last he left it to them. “Some people are born stupid,” he told them as he commenced walking, “others just act it.”

  From then they walked in disquiet silence.

  By mid-afternoon, when there were still a few hours before dusk, Connor walked away to urinate behind a large tree. Alexis and Adrian waited for him silently. The Legionnaire didn’t much like the uncomfortable tension that seemed to hang between the boy and him. “How are you feeling?”

  “Hungry, but aside from that all right,” Adrian replied.

  “It won’t be too long till we are out of these woods now,” he told the boy, and realized he was trying to assure them both. He sighed. “Listen to me, Adrian. I know you may not agree with how we seemingly abandoned Hamar and Owain, but you have to understand that our main priority was always you. Getting you away was what they wanted, and it had to happen. We don’t know what happened to Hamar or Owain; for all we know we might meet them in the next town. I hope you understand that.”

  “I do,” Adrian said quietly. Connor’s earlier comment still pricked at him, Alexis suspected.

  “You spoke of dreams of your mother. What kind of dreams?”

  “I ... don’t feel like talking about them just now, Alexis,” the boy said. “Perhaps--” He was cut off by Connor’s frightened screams.

  Alexis had his twin guns drawn and was running towards the tree before Connor’s first scream could die. He imagined seeing Connor slumped against the tree, his throat slit and the assassins standing over him, but as he came around the tree, what he saw was nothing as he had expected.

  Chapter 10

  Assassin’s Road

  1

  “I want to see the bodies.”

  Lord Kenneth Fenar reigned his anger in check. It’s not the captain’s fault, he told himself. But God knew he wanted to blame someone for what had happened. He handed the reigns of his horse to a guard and turned to face the captain.

  “This way, my lord,” Captain Koran said and led the way.

  Kenneth followed the man inside. It was too hot out and he had ridden long to be here. A feeling of dread pooled inside him as he entered the building. That feeling had been growing since he had first received word, and it had only worsened on the ride here. He hoped against hope that the note he had received was wrong, and that these were nothing but ordinary bodies of ordinary men.

  He noticed how empty the building was, and then surmised that most of the guards were likely out on duty. The captain led the way down into the cellar, and Kenneth followed quietly. It became cooler as they descended the stone steps. Eventually they came to a small corridor with cells to either side. These were the cells used for long detainment, Kenneth knew; at the moment they were all empty. The captain led him to a cell at the end of the corridor. Kenneth felt like turning away and marching back up the steps, anything but to face what lay in that bare room. Instead he steeled himself and followed the captain in.

  On the cold ground lay three bodies. Kenneth studied them calmly: two men who looked to be in their prime and an older man, all now submersed in the eternal chill of death. The light from the lamps hanging on the walls reflected brightly off something on a table to one side. Any last vestige of Kenneth’s hopes that the note had been wrong disappeared as he stared at the dull-silver revolvers lying on the table. But he had given up hope as soon as he had seen the bodies; the old man he dismissed immediately, but even in death the other two looked as though they belonged to the Legion.

  “How did they die?” His voice sounded choked.

  “Knife wounds, my lord, all three,” said the captain. He watched Kenneth in sidelong glances. “I suspect it was an ambush. Shots were fired, we know that as a fact, but we recovered no other bodies, wounded or otherwise.”

  “You have checked their hands?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Kenneth bent near the body of one man with flame-orange hair and a bright scar on one cheek. He leaned over and lifted the man’s left hand, turning it to look for himself. The mark was there, plain in crimson. Kenneth shook his head and rose to his feet.

  “Have you made any progress in finding out who was behind this?”

  “No, my lord. Our attempts at questioning those present during the attack have yielded little. When the gunshots rang out it seems that they all ran, heedless of what was happening. I’ve offered a reward of ten sesterces for any information that leads to a capture.”

  “Make it ten silver sesterces,” Kenneth told him quietly, his mind wandering all ready. “Have the bodies cleaned. I want the two Legionnaires shipped back to Grandal, along with their possessions. Return the old man to his family ... and assist them with his burial.” He was walking away even as the captain began speaking.

  “As you say, my lord.”

  Kenneth reemerged under the hot sun dreading the letter he must write to the king. He didn’t want to be the bearer of such terrible news. God knew when men of the Legion started dying something was amiss, either that or some fools had made a very grand mistake murdering two Legionnaires.

  These were the king’s own men, he thought as he rode out of the courtyard. Men like them don’t die every day.

  2

  As far back as she could remember, her life had been filled with one test after another.

  When she had been no more than a child Amon had taken her outside the city and to a farm. There he had taught her the reality of death; had made certain to instill it in her mind. The memory was still vivid in Iris’s mind as it came to her; she didn’t push it away or reject it. Amon had made some sort of arrangement with the farmer. She recalled playing with the rabbits there, hugging them close to her and running her fingers through their gray fur and nuzzling her face into their softness. Then Amon had walked over to her and tossed her a knife. He ordered her to kill every rabbit within the pen.

  She remembered the warm tears that had coursed down her cheeks as his words sunk in, and her whimpering refusal. Amon only stood looking down on her, black eyes hard as stone. “Amon, please ... do not make me do this.” Tears choked her voice and left warm trails down her face.

  “You have to learn,” Amon told her. “You have to learn that death comes for us all. You can await it with a knife in hand,
or surrender to it, but it comes for us all. You can either be the hand that deals it, or be the recipient of it. Now choose!”

  “I ... I cannot ... Amon ... please!”

  “If you refuse to kill then what good are you to me?” Amon demanded, cold as stone. He turned his back on her and strode away.

  “Amon! Do not leave me! Please! Do not leave me!” She ran after him, catching up to him at the gate to the pen. She clung to his leg, begging him not to leave her. He pried her off and fixed her with his hard gaze.

  “You know what you have to do. I have no time to watch over you. If you wish to travel with me, you need to learn to live as I do. You need to become a harbinger of death, to kill without hesitance.”

  He led her back to the rabbits and pushed her forward. Iris knelt on the grass and watched as one of the creatures hopped towards her. She understood that the creatures were used to human contact, but she doubted they understood the danger Amon and she represented to them. She held the rabbit before her, looking into its eyes, seeing her own image reflected in those twin drops of black.

  “DO IT!” Amon roared at her, startling her.

  He stepped forth suddenly and grabbed the rabbit from her arms. He held it before him by its drooping ears in one hand. His other hand darted out lightening quick. Iris watched in horror as the decapitated rabbit’s body fell to the ground, spilling blood onto the green grass. She was aware of warm spots covering her face, and felt certain they were no longer just tears.

  Her eyes lifted to Amon again and the severed head he still gripped in one hand. He looked from the head, leaking blood onto the ground, to her face. “You see?” he asked. “That was not so hard.” He tossed the rabbit’s head over his shoulder. “I am going to leave soon, girl. If you want to come with me, finish your job.”

  Iris could still recall the numbness that had overtaken her then. It was while gripped in that numbness that she had slaughtered every rabbit within the pen, while Amon gently encouraged her. At the end she had sat amidst a scarlet field of carcasses and guts, sobbing helplessly. Amon had come to kneel beside her and told her that he was proud of her. She had felt comforted by his words and his presence.

  Looking at him now as they traveled on the road heading east she could not be sure she still knew all of him, even despite all the years since she had met him. He could be a cruel man, usually was, sometimes even to her, but she knew there resided a good heart deep within him. He rarely showed that part, and looking at him now, she was not sure which mood of his would greet her question.

  “Amon, what will we do when we find the Ascillian boy?”

  Amon turned in his saddle, pulled from whatever thoughts roamed his mind, to give her a sour look. “Capture him, of course. Kill those with him.”

  Iris sighed. She had known that, but had asked in hope of conversation. There wasn’t any to be had, it seemed. Her eyes scanned the farms and plowed fields to either side of them, and the folk that worked the fields. For some minutes she was content to simply watch them, wondering what it must be like to live such simple lives. The wind kicked up the dust of the road and Iris pulled up her kurfa to cover her face. She felt hot beneath the black robe she wore, but knew better than to complain. After all, Amon was dressed the same, and he suffered it stoically.

  “Why is capturing the child so important?” She knew better than to ask such questions, especially when he was in a foul mood, but she couldn’t help but settle her curiosity.

  “Because we accepted the mission,” Amon growled at her from behind his kurfa. In the next breath he seemed calmer. “Perhaps our employer wants to hold him for ransom, or just kill him. It matters not to us. We have a contract, and we must fulfill it. Not to mention, it is the biggest bloody payoff we have had so far.”

  “Enough to go home?” Iris asked hopefully.

  “Perhaps,” Amon replied in a low growl.

  Iris couldn’t help but smile. The simple thought of going back to Xian Anoura lifted her spirits. It wasn’t that they had a home there, never staying in one place long enough for it to be so, but at least there they were among their own kind. Out here, crossing borders from one strange country into another, she felt strangely exposed. It was not uncommon to see people of one country traveling through another, but she marked every face that noticed their tilted eyes and dark hair, wondering if that would lead to their capture. Would anyone draw connection between their land of origin and what and who they were? Not if we are careful, she thought. Usually priests of any order could travel through any land without being harassed.

  “Do you know what I was just thinking of?” she asked Amon suddenly.

  “Am I to guess?”

  “I was thinking of that day you took me to the farm with the rabbits.”

  There was a brief silence, and then Amon asked in a low tone, “And what of it?”

  “You taught me a lesson then, Amon. One I have not forgotten.”

  “Good,” Amon muttered, low and guarded.

  “You helped me to understand that we are different from those around us. That we are something more. Harbinger’s of death, I remember you saying. Since that day, I have always envisioned us as the tools of the death god. In a manner, what we do is to fulfill the will of Anshan. His angels of death. I never thanked you for that lesson, and I want you to know that I appreciate what you taught me. Thank you, Amon.”

  She watched his back for any response, but her only answer was silence. She heeled her horse up beside Amon, sharing the road that stretched before them.

  2

  That night the two assassins found themselves in the common room of a tiny inn in a small town. The sound in the common room of The Dancing Lady was of men away from their duties and simply enjoying themselves. The room was small, and at the moment it was teeming. Men crowded at the few tables, and more stood watching the games of Seven Hand at the rear tables -- they jeered loudly in a drunken ensemble whenever someone’s hand proved to be too poor. Smoke and spicy aromas from the meat on the open spits filled the room. Of the dancing lady there was no sign.

  Amon and Iris sat at a table, devoid of their priest garb, seemingly no more than a tall man with a young, straight-haired youth beside him. Around them the seats were empty; anyone who chose to sit too closely took one look at the man’s severe face and moved themselves. Amon wore a tunic that bared his arms to his shoulders and carried two small knives at his waist. These he let people see, the others, the ones hidden beneath the tunic, were always a surprise. The girl was garbed in a similar black tunic with large sleeves that swallowed her arms whole. The two seemed encased in an atmosphere all of themselves, one that differed from the rest of the common room.

  “Amon, can we go and join their game?” Iris asked. Her green eyes turned to watch the men gathered near the back curiously.

  “What for?” Amon asked as he plowed morsels of fish into his mouth. “We do not need to be seen with the likes of them.”

  The girl sighed. “It seems as though they are having fun.”

  “They are fools,” Amon said absently as he washed the fish down with ale. “They will take merriment wherever they can find it. Blind fools, at that.”

  Iris looked at him. “Why do you call them blind?”

  Amon spared her a glance. “They do not see the world around them. They are content to ignore their own doom and divulge in their pitiful games.”

  Iris forgot about the games and turned back to the table“We’ve traveled from town to town since Haven, Amon, and still there is no sign of the remaining Legionnaire and the Ascillian boy. What if they escaped somehow?”

  “They have not,” Amon said, low and harsh. “If they have turned back and are heading towards Grandal, it will not do them any good. Jonas has his spies in the king’s court, and we will find out if they headed there. For now we can only move further up the road, and make certain we stop them when next we meet.”

  Iris nodded slowly and stared at her empty plate, her face a picture of silen
t dissension. Amon watched her closely, then asked, “Do you fear this Ascillian child?”

  “No” Iris said calmly. “It is simply that ... it is hard to believe a mere boy could endanger so much.”

  “The Ascillians were always bastards, that is why the lot of them are dead today,” Amon told her. “If you want to go and watch the fools play at cards, then go. I will be waiting here.”

  Iris grinned, hopped off her stool and went to the back of the room to join the crowd of men watching. Amon watched her go with pensive black eyes. He wondered if she still sometimes thought of finding her mother and father one day. He knew she had once, but he had ruthlessly driven those thoughts from her head, distracting her with the present. It was no good for her to be mired in a past that she knew nothing about, and it was no good for him. He could have told her all she needed to know about her mother ... and her father. Then again, to what end? It would simply make her ask more of her tedious questions. Her seeming doubt towards their current mission should not prove too dangerous, but he treaded carefully. ‘

  Together they were among the finest killers in all the west. The mere name of the Blood Assassins was enough to drive fear into any man’s heart there. They had built their name in blood across their native Xian Anoura, until even those in other countries had become aware of them. But alone they were nothing, just one step above common murderers. He knew this, and hated it. He was growing wary of the nimble state of the girl’s mind. In a few more years, when he had hardened her some more, made her more like himself, he would not have to worry about it, but for the moment he thought much on it. At times the girl broke out into gleeful laughter at the sight of something utterly stupid, and at times she wanted to engage with other children. She was not like the other children, and for this reason he always forbid her to play with them. He did not need anybody ruining his fine young pupil.