The King's Assassin (Thief Takers Apprentice 3)

by Stephen Deas

  Gelisya didn’t say anything. She twirled in circles on the spot behind him as Berren sat Tarn up and gave him a shake and slapped him on the back. ‘He’d take you with us,’ she said. ‘I know he would if I asked him.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Saffran.’ She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. ‘I know you’re going to keep the teaching stone, aren’t you? I suppose I don’t mind. But you have to keep it safe. You have to promise. He’s my friend in there.’

  Berren clenched his fists, Maybe if he wished hard enough, she’d read his mind and go away.

  ‘It fills the hole, you see. Like the Black Moon and the Dead Goddess fill the hole in the world. He showed it to me. You have to keep it closed otherwise something will come through. Not yet, but one day. Before you both come back for the very last time. You have to keep it closed.’ Even with her lips almost touching his ear, her whisper was so quiet that he could barely hear her. ‘He’s making us ready. To let it in when the Ice Witch brings the Black Moon down.’

  Enough! Berren spun around, but before he could throw Gelisya out of the shed Tarn’s eyes flew open. He sat bolt upright, was violently sick, then started thrashing about and screaming. Berren tried to hold him still but Tarn was a big man and strong with it, and Berren was neither. He swatted at Berren, trying to push him aside, eyes staring away into the distance.

  ‘Petarl? Petarl!’ Whatever he was seeing it wasn’t Berren.

  ‘I’ll get some of father’s soldiers,’ said Gelisya in a sing-song voice. She danced out. Tarn finally cuffed Berren aside and staggered to his feet.

  ‘Tarn! It’s me! It’s Berren!’

  Tarn stared at him. ‘Petarl? Have the Swords of the Sun struck camp yet? And where’s the bear? I haven’t seen him!’

  Berren tried to sit him down but Tarn was having none of it. He scrabbled around for his sword, was sick for a second time and then went back to shouting and screaming. Other Hawks ran into the shed, eyes wide with surprise. It took three of them to wrestle Tarn down, but when he finally grew calm and the first glimmers of recognition flickered in his eyes, it was Berren he clung to. The others slowly backed away, drawing signs of protection in the air around them. The looks they gave Berren were a strange mix – fear and admiration, loathing and respect – but Berren ignored them all, holding’s Tarn’s face in his hands, talking about their days together under Sword-Master Silvestre; and as he did, Tarn seemed to come back, piece by piece from wherever he’d been. It was slow: one moment he was lucid, the next he had no idea who Berren was or where they were or why. He kept asking about Petarl and the bear and the Swords of the Sun, whoever they were.

  By the time Talon came back, an hour later, Tarn was almost himself. He greeted Talon as though nothing had happened, and Talon told him about the slaving camp and everything that had followed. Somehow, from Talon’s mouth, the words seemed to strike home.

  ‘And what did a death-mage want with slavers?’ asked Tarn when Talon was done.

  ‘Nothing good, you can be sure of that. Berren here put a crossbow bolt into him, but we all know it takes a lot more to bring a warlock down. Old friends, those two.’

  Old friends? Berren had been about to say something about Gelisya but now his tongue was numb.

  ‘I was trapped,’ said Tarn. ‘In another place from a long time ago.’ He shook his head and shivered. ‘Horrible. All I remember is chasing the man in grey into a dark room, and then I was lying helpless and powerless and waiting to die, back among the worst days I ever had.’ And he told them how years ago he’d been caught up in a vicious tale that wound around a sacked monastery, murderous monks, poisoned wells, starvation and desperation and desertion, and finally ended with Tarn, too weak from hunger to move and paralysed with fear, watching while the rest of his ruined company had had their throats slit in their sleep by zealot boys half his age.

  ‘That was before the Hawks,’ he said. ‘I was young then. Very young.’ His face was pale. ‘I’d almost forgotten.’

  They went outside and Talon got straight into an argument with the castle steward, something about about horses and wagons, the steward politely insisting that Talon take some of the castle horses and Talon politely declining. Berren and Tarn watched. It seemed a strange argument, since the steward clearly wanted Talon not to take up his offer, while Talon was clearly eyeing the horses with envy. Berren could hardly blame him for that, for the two beasts that had been brought out of the stables looked like fine Deephaven cavalry mounts, not draught horses for pulling wagons. Even the saddles that the steward had had put on their backs were exactly like those the Emperor’s lancers used, right down to the flash of silver thread embroidered into the stirrup straps.

  Berren frowned at that. They were a long way from Aria. What were Deephaven lancers doing out here? There had been men from Aria in Kalda too and they’d tried to kill Prince Talon. Were they the same? They had to be, didn’t they?

  Eventually a pair of horses and a hired wagon drove up from the town. Talon and the steward were still arguing even as the mercenaries loaded up what little they’d carried with them from the ship. For a minute Berren began to hope that he might not have to whip Gelisya’s bondswoman after all, but then, even as Talon was walking back to the wagon, three of the castle soldiers came towards them, pushing a figure in white ahead.

  Talon was right about one thing – Berren had been flogged more than once while he’d been a skag. It was a common enough punishment but always done with a certain ritual. The victim would be called out by name. The two sailors who tied him to the mast wore special hats. Sentence would be read aloud and most of the ship’s crew were called on deck to witness the punishment. None of that happened here. The soldiers tied the woman to a whipping post, tore the clothes from her back, gave Berren a lash and then lounged, obviously bored. Talon’s Hawks waited impatiently to leave. Everyone else around the palace, bondsmen and soldiers alike, went about their business as though nothing was happening.

  Without thinking, Berren looked for scars, for any signs that she’d been through this before, but there were none. He took a pace closer and touched her skin, feeling how soft it was. Again a sailor’s ritual, judging how hard the stroke would need to be to draw blood. Anyone who’d been to sea would know from that touch that Berren meant to stay his hand as much as he could.

  But those hands were shaking. He didn’t want this. It was unfair, unjust. He leaned forward. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, hoping no one else would hear. There was no reply. He stared at the back of her head looking for any kind of acknowledgement, any indication that she understood. ‘I have to do this,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to.’ Out of the corner of his eye he could see Talon’s foot beginning to twitch. Get on with it!

  But no, he couldn’t. He lifted the whip to strike and his arm was quivering so much that he couldn’t keep it straight. He dropped the whip. ‘No. I’m not doing this,’ he said and stamped towards the wagon. Talon jumped down to block his path and Berren met his eyes. ‘No,’ he said again. ‘I’m not doing it. Let her go.’

  Talon hissed. ‘Fool.’ He strode past, pushing Berren hard, almost knocking him down, and picked up the whip himself.

  The first three strokes were vicious. Berren heard the woman gasp as the first one struck and her skin split. After the third, she was hanging from the whipping post by her wrists, whimpering uncontrollably. Talon turned to Berren. He held out the bloody whip. ‘Ten strokes,’ he said. ‘Seven left. You or me. If it’s me then I will make every one as hard as the first. Now do your duty, soldier.’

  Berren stared, hating Talon at that moment because he knew the prince meant it. Savage. He shook his head. Talon clenched his teeth and lashed the woman again. Hard. She spasmed and screamed. Then he turned back to Berren and snarled and held out the whip again. ‘Do you want me to kill her? You are not a boy now, Berren of Deephaven. You are a man and a soldier of the Fighting Hawks. Like it or not. Now do what must be done!’

  Ber
ren had tears in his eyes now. His feet felt like lead, the earth like quicksand sucking him down and holding him fast, but he forced himself to move. He walked to Talon and took the whip. His face was numb and his voice shook when he spoke. ‘I’ll remember that you made me do this.’

  Talon pointed to the woman’s back. ‘And I will remember that you made me do that. Now finish!’ He stalked back to the waiting wagon.

  Berren closed his eyes. He tried to think what Tasahre would do, what she would say. She wouldn’t do this, that was for sure. She would refuse and find a way to stop Talon too. She would stand up for what was right, no matter what. And he couldn’t. Couldn’t find that strength she had.

  He howled as he cracked the whip. The stroke made the woman cry out and he felt her agony as deeply as his own. He was killing a part of himself by doing this. Stepping away from the man Tasahre had seen in him and towards Saffran Kuy. The last five strokes were weak, as light as he dared, but he made them, and each one left a bloody mark on her back. When he was done, he was sobbing. He moved closer and whispered in the woman’s ear.

  ‘I will kill any warlock I see. Always. I will do everything I can to stop them.’ He didn’t know if the woman was even conscious any more.

  ‘Come on!’ That was Talon rushing him back to the wagon. As he left, Berren couldn’t take his eyes off the body, slumped and bloody against the whipping post. For all he knew she might even be dead. And when he closed his eyes, he kept seeing Tasahre with sadness on her face.

  ‘And we’re gone!’ said Talon loudly as they sat down. ‘Fighting Hawks on the march.’ The wagon began to move. No one seemed to be in any hurry to cut the woman down. Berren stared transfixed until they rounded a corner and the whipping post passed out of sight.

  15

  THE BLOODY JUDGE

  ‘We could have gone by sea,’ Talon said. ‘It would have been quicker, but I thought it might be useful to see the lie of the land.’

  He said it on the second day out of Tethis, in a joking idle sort of way. Berren thought nothing of it at first, but as the days passed the words rattled around in his mind. Whether he’d meant it or not, Talon was thinking of coming back one day with the Fighting Hawks. All of them.

  Forgenver lay one kingdom, one duchy, seven rivers and nine days away from Tethis. They arrived to find the rest of the Hawks already settled and barracked outside the city and in high spirits from a first skirmish with the enemy. By chance, a half-cohort sent to scout the coastal villages near the town had arrived as a raid was coming in. The raiders were caught in their longboats in choppy seas. The Hawks had rallied the villagers and together they’d repelled the boats with a mixture of stones and crossbow fire and a great deal of shouting from the beach. It hadn’t amounted to much and from the sound of things no one on either side had even been seriously hurt, but the boats had been turned away and it had pleased the duke.

  Word of Tarn’s recovery spread too. No one said anything to Berren’s face, but a rumour spread like wildfire that Tarn had been dead and that Berren had brought him back to life again. No matter how much Tarn told them that was all rubbish, when Berren came by, conversations ended. Soldiers who were supposed to be his comrades made a sign against evil and slipped away. When he carried the stone that Princess Gelisya had given him, the skill to make potions was lodged in his head, there whenever he sought it. If he put it aside then the memories went away, but a part of him went with them. He felt that much more now. He’d carried a numbness with him ever since Deephaven, a dull lack of feeling that came back to him now whenever he didn’t carry the stone. As a ship’s skag, he hadn’t known any better – wasn’t this how all skags felt? But now . . . But he couldn’t explain it, couldn’t even begin to describe what Saffran Kuy had done to him, so all anyone saw was that he carried it with him wherever he went, whatever it was.

  ‘They’re afraid of you,’ Tarn told him one day.

  Berren shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re right.’ The two of them drew their practice swords and for half an hour they fought, Berren losing himself in the pattern of the blades and the interplay between them. This, this was when he felt at peace, with a sword singing in his hand. Block and riposte, parry and strike, one motion to the next, and all with the calm stillness in his head that Tasahre had taught him. Action without thought. This, and never anything else.

  While Talon’s spies worked their way closer to where the raiders were coming from, the cohorts of the Hawks spread themselves in pairs along the coast and waited. In the mornings Berren and Tarn walked together sometimes, exploring the lands nearby and the village they were watching. In the afternoons Tarn stayed in the camp, talking and joking with the other men. At first Berren joined them, hoping for their acceptance, but it never came, and so as the weeks passed he drew apart. He spent more time than the rest standing watch, staring out at the sea, and when he wasn’t watching he practised alone. He taught himself to shoot a crossbow, quietly trying to forget the ten minutes he’d spent learning with Master Sy. He practised and practised until he was as good as any of them. He tried other weapons, learning their weight and their balance and how they felt in his hands, although the short stabbing sword that the thief-taker had taught him and the slightly longer cut-and-thrust blades of the sword-monks remained his first loves. Sometimes, when he was lucky, Tarn or one of the other soldiers would spar with him, but mostly he trained alone in the way of the monks of Deephaven. It took him a week or two to be sure, but one on one he could outfight every single one of them. Tasahre had given him that. A gift or a curse? He wasn’t sure.

  Sometimes, late at night when it was dark, he would slip away into the village alone and quietly drink himself into a stupor. More and more his night-time dreams filled with the bondswoman from Tethis and the bloody weals he’d given her. Except her face wasn’t veiled and when he turned her towards him she was a stranger.

  Talon came by twice, moving constantly up and down the coast to watch over his company. The second time he came, he sparred with Berren himself. By the end neither of them was quite sure who had won.

  ‘Deephaven soon,’ Talon said afterwards. ‘I’ll find you a ship just as quickly as I can, but it looks like you’ll be fighting with us again first.’ He bared his teeth. ‘I’ve tracked the enemy down at last. Again. This time they’ll not get away.’

  ‘Where’s Syannis?’ asked Berren, but Talon only wagged a finger and shook his head.

  They struck camp and set off back to Forgenver the next morning. Berren watched the first wave of excitement sweep through the soldiers as they packed their tents and loaded their mules. He looked at them, milling and laughing and drinking around him, strangers nearly all, and wondered why they were here. What brought a man to a foreign land, far away from the place of his birth? What made them want to pick up a sword or an axe or a spear? They had their reasons, each of them. For their last night together in Forgenver and the two days at sea that followed, he could only watch them and wonder: How could they sing and laugh and cheer and joke when some of them must soon die? Or was that exactly why they did it? Was it the thought of death that made them so full of life? A lot of him wanted to join them, raucous and crude and merry, but he couldn’t. Wherever he looked, he felt the shadow of Saffran Kuy, standing at his shoulder, laughing at him.

  They reached wherever it was they were going – the middle of nowhere by Berren’s reckoning. The sails were furled and the ship eased as close to the shore as it could. Two, maybe three, hundred yards away a wide sandy beach rose gently into a thick green forest. It was a warm day, sunny and dry with a light breeze that kept Berren cool under his padded leather jerkin. The beach was empty but Talon still had a dozen of his best crossbows standing watch, bolts at the ready as the first boats were lowered over the side.

  The Hawks went ashore two cohorts at a time. The first ones to land scattered quickly into the fringes of the woods while the boats struggled back through the surf to the ship. Then it was Berren’s turn. He jumped in withou
t hesitation, seized an oar and they all pulled hard together, conscious of how vulnerable they were, and Berren remembered another boat, crossing the river from Deephaven to Siltside, and the whistle of arrows and the shouts of soldiers. The longboat bucked and heaved in the breaking waves as they reached the shore as if trying to toss them into the sea. When they jumped out, the water was still up to Berren’s waist.

  Tarn yelled at them to move out of the surf and up onto the beach while he and the tallest of the soldiers helped to turn the boats around and back out again. The waves knocked Berren forward, almost made him fall, and he was still wading out of the water, dripping and soaked, when the fighting started. Maybe the first shouts from the scouts had come as they were climbing out of the boats, but if so no one had heard over the breaking surf. Now the skirmishers were running back out onto the beach, waving their arms. Tarn roared at them, and then there were other men coming from the trees, dozens of them in a ragged horde, yelling and waving swords and axes and spears and clubs. The skirmishers ran as far as Tarn and his cohort and then turned. There was nowhere else for them to go.

  ‘Stand!’ bellowed Tarn. ‘Stand together! Hold firm!’

  Berren could see the eyes of the first man charging at him now, wide and wild, full of fear and thoughtless rage. Those eyes terrified him. This wasn’t fighting in Tasahre’s circle or Silvestre’s square; this was death coming at him, over in a flash, one swing, one stab and then one of them would be dead. The urge to run was almost overwhelming.