The Assassin's Blade

by H J Peterson

  He looked over at her. What was she talking about?

  She didn’t give him the chance to respond, though. Instead, she went back to bed, turning her back to him and pulling the blanket tighter around herself. It looked like their time for talking was done.

  “We should get to sleep,” she said as she curled up into the blanket. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us, and I’d rather not be half asleep for it.”

  Adelric rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “R-right. We should definitely sleep.”

  He went back to bed and closed his eyes, hoping that he wasn’t about to march willingly to his death.

  ***

  The next morning, he found himself standing in front of the cracked mirror, adjusting his collar with shaky hands. He was wearing a simple, ratty suit, one that was a little too big. His now coppery hair was combed neatly, with a deep part to one side. He looked like one of those guys that he saw rushing around, desperately looking for work. He’d never liked those people: they were always too busy to drop a mark or two while he played on the street.

  He turned to look at Hiro. She was standing in the bathroom, using that mirror to adjust her clothes and her hair. She was looking quite lovely, if he did say so, himself. Her hair fell down in light curls, she was wearing red lipstick; sure, she was dressed rather conservatively, with just a blue skirt that went down to her ankles, a white blouse, and a black, knee-length coat, and black shoes with a slight heel, but she still looked a little… scandalous. Fresh off the boat from Magyar, but still a little scandalous. Bator would latch onto her pretty damned fast.

  He probably should’ve been concerned about her, but he also had a feeling that that would be just fine: Hiro struck him as the type of woman that could take care of herself.

  “Are you ready in there?” Adelric asked. “I never realized how long it took for girls to get ready.”

  “Well, apparently, I have to make myself look nice and presentable for that mob boss friend of yours,” Hiro said as she finished putting makeup on her face. Was that… a pencil in her hand? What the hell was that supposed to do? “Our friends told me that he’s a bit of a lady’s man. I guess they just want me to fit in with his other ladies.”

  Adelric thought about the Valtruscan twins. What ever happened to the two of them? He’d heard that they got out of the police station after they tried to kill him, but he hadn’t heard anything beyond that.

  “R-right,” he said, thinking back to some of the… less modest things he’d seen the two of them wearing. “You’ll fit in just fine.”

  He adjusted his collar one more time as Hiro came out of the bathroom. Still, it wasn’t quite right. He didn’t want to be adjusting his collar constantly while he was being confronted with Bator, Klara, and, more importantly, the Archangel, but he couldn’t seem to get it the way he wanted. He’d kind of forgotten how much he hated these stupid things. Maybe he’d just have to pretend like he was a permanently nervous person, or that he was a little afraid of the Archangel; that might explain it.

  “Having trouble, there?” Hiro asked as she walked out of the bathroom, fully made up and ready for whatever would come that day. Yep: Adelric was almost certain that Bator would come after her; all he could really do was hope that he would take the hint and leave her the hell alone the first time she slapped him.

  Adelric could feel his cheeks beginning to burn. “A-a little, yeah.”

  To his surprised, Hiro began to adjust the collar, herself. “My last… relation used to have trouble with these, too. There’s a trick to these; apparently, you haven’t learned it, either.”

  “What’s the trick?”

  Hiro flicked the collar up, and suddenly, it was better. It didn’t bother him at all, at that point.

  “You either have to ignore it or stop wearing them,” Hiro said. “And since you can’t go two seconds without yanking at that damned thing, I suggest the second option.

  Once she was done adjusting his collar, he couldn’t help but notice that it actually felt… fine. Yes, it was still a little stiff, but he didn’t desperately want to tear it off, anymore.

  “I take it that you had to fix your last boyfriend’s collars a lot?” Adelric said as he put on his suit coat. Like everything else, it was a little ill fitting, erring on the side of being too big for him. He still didn’t get why he had to be the slob in this whole deal, but he guessed that he didn’t have a choice, at that point. Besides: considering the fact that he would probably end up making himself look like a bumbling fool when they ran into the Archangel and everybody else, it was probably a good thing.

  “Every day,” Hiro confirmed. “His mother was always able to get it right, and then he always had it wrecked by the time he got to wherever we were having dinner.”

  “He lived with his mother, still?” Adelric couldn’t help but laugh at that, a little. “Is that why the two of you broke it off?”

  That was still a sore spot: Adelric could tell by the way she flinched when he said that. He immediately regretted saying it. What was with him and saying the worst things at the worst times?

  “No: his father made us break it off.” She put on a slouched beret, adjusting it in the mirror, then she looked back over at them. “Are you ready?”

  Adelric gave a hesitant nod. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  With that, the two of them grabbed their respective bags (filled with their identification papers and other every-day items) and headed out of their apartment, heading for Medvye’s.

  The day was pretty chilly and a little cloudy, to the point where Adelric almost wished that he had another coat or something. Luckily for them, though, it didn’t take that long to get to Medvye’s from that apartment. They were in some apartments on the same side of the river as Factory Row, meaning that the two of them found themselves lost among a crowd of hunched over workers on their way to their various jobs in the mills that lined the Trübe. Luckily for both of them, though, he’d been along this route hundreds of thousands of times: he was able to steer them through the workers and pick-pockets, right to Medvye’s.

  He froze when they reached the bridge that separated this part of town from the factories. He could see Medvye’s from there, and even from his spot, he could see the drape that covered the window he’d broken during his escape. It looked like they still hadn’t coughed up the money to pay to replace it: either they really didn’t have the funds, or they were pooling it all towards the Archangel and what he was doing.

  It took all of Adelric’s mental fortitude to not turn around, run to the nearest train station, and go… somewhere. Anywhere but Königstadt.

  Of course, the fact that Hiro was standing right there also helped.

  She took his hand and got close to him, like a girl cozying up to her man. Of course, what she hissed in his ear didn’t exactly go along with that: “If you run from this, I swear on everything in heaven, I’ll skin you alive before all your old friends and the Archangel have the chance!”

  Yep; he wasn’t going anywhere, that was for sure.

  With that, they walked into Medvye’s.

  I’m going to die, he kept thinking as he walked over the threshold of a place he’d sworn he’d never go, again. I’m going to die, and they’re never going to find the damned body.

  Medvye’s as it turned out, was exactly how he left it. Francesca and Luciana, the Cabrenzo twins, were serving at the bar, trying to weasel more money out of their customers, and Luca was at the bar, sanitizing some medical instruments. Thank heaven, Klara and Bator weren’t there; otherwise, Adelric was pretty sure he would’ve made a mess in his pants.

  Adelric and Hiro sat down at the bar. It wasn’t two seconds later that Francesca walked up to him and leaned forward, allowing her… assets to kind of… well, they were kind of in his face, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to keep himself from turning redder than a cherry.

  You tried to kill me, he kept thinking as he did his best to keep his eyes up. You tried t
o kill me two weeks ago, and now you’re hitting on me for a few extra marks?

  “What do you need, honey?” Francesca cooed. “You look like a man that could use a beer to me.”

  “Do you serve ginger beer, here?” Adelric managed to get out as he wrapped an arm around Hiro. Much to her credit, she leaned into him, as if they were an actual couple. “Yumi and I aren’t looking to get drunk, today.”

  Thank goodness, Francesca stood straight up, getting out of his face, and gave the two of them a look. “You come to a bar, then order ginger beer? You have business or something?

  “You could say that,” Adelric said. He leaned in a little closer, so nobody else would hear what he had to say. Not that it mattered; everyone in that pub was probably involved with the Archangel in one way or another, anyway. “My friend and I would like to… get involved with the New Dawn.”

  Hiro nodded. “A little birdie told us that this was a good place to check out to get a connection to that whole thing. Is that true?”

  “I’m not sure,” Francesca said as she pulled two bottles of ginger beer out from behind the bar. “What business do you have with the New Dawn?”

  “The two of us have some skills that the leader would find very useful,” Adelric said, putting his hand on the bottle. He let the bottle get freezing cold, to the point where it started to get white with condensation. It caught Francesca’s attention: she stared at it, her eyebrow raised, as he chilled the bottle so it would be at the perfect drinking temperature. Even Hiro stared. “And we’d like to offer them up to him.”

  Francesca looked over at Hiro. “And what can you do? You an Alchemist, too?”

  Hiro shook her head. “Nothing like that; I’m just here for the ride, is all.”

  “She’s one hell of a shot,” Adelric said. “Trust me: you don’t want to be on her bad side, especially when she has a gun in her hands.”

  Francesca looked between the two of them, giving them one last apparent inspection.

  “You want to meet the Archangel, do you?” she asked as Hiro took a sip from her ginger beer. “Stick around for a little bit; I’ll send you off with Bator, when he decides to show up.”

  Adelric nodded. “Thanks.”

  Francesca nodded, then began to walk off to serve one of the other customers that was sitting at the bar, twirling a coin around between his fingers.

  Adelric sighed and took a swig of his ginger beer. He was starting to regret not getting real alcohol: he had a feeling that he was going to need it.

  XL. FRIEDRICH

  “Your family wants to meet me?”

  Friedrich and Katalin were sitting in a small, Rocheran café in Weinberg, half-eaten meals of onion soup and duck in front of them. They had a little less than a week until the wedding, and thus far, it seemed like they had everything taken care of except for one of the most important details: how they would balance Vorbereicher and Magyaran traditions. Obviously, Friedrich’s father wasn’t exactly budging on the wedding being as Vorbereicher as possible, while Lord von Thurzó was very insistent on at least having the wedding in St. Janika’s chapel, Königstadt’s oldest Magyaran Gerechtist church. With every day that passed, eloping sounded more and more appealing.

  Hence, why this meeting was happening: the two of them had decided that they were going to decide what would be Vorbereicher and what would be Magyaran, and they were going to stick to it, not matter what their parents said. And that was how Katalin’s family, who were all in town for the wedding, came up.

  “Of course, they want to meet you,” Katalin said. “You’re about to become a member of the family, Friedrich, and they only know you through your father’s reputation. They’re worried that you’re… too much like your father.”

  Friedrich sighed. “Your family’s going to be sorely disappointed, then.”

  “Oh, don’t say that,” Katalin said, slugging him gently in the shoulder. “They’re going to love you, really: you should’ve heard them all when they heard I was marrying an Eltz. They’re all convinced that you’re going to cheat on me or something, and that I should’ve married a good Magyaran boy.”

  Friedrich began to rub the back of his neck. “I guess I can’t blame them; my father is kind of a… well, kind of a jerk.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s an understatement,” Katalin said. “Which is why you need to come to dinner and meet with my family.” She took a sip of tea. “I don’t know about you, but I’d really like to settle some of my family’s fears about marrying somebody from your family.”

  Of course, Katalin was right about that. Her family had every right to be worried about how well he was going to treat her: the men of his family didn’t have a great track record with that.

  And that was how he found himself heading over to the von Thurzó estates that night, wondering if he was about to get killed by his fiancée’s family.

  He was coming with his father, who would be discussing the plan Friedrich and Katalin had come up with that afternoon with Lord von Thurzó. Lord Eltz, as usual, seemed more annoyed with this whole adventure than anything else: he’d been planning on playing cards with some of his allies from other houses before Friedrich told him about that evening with the von Thurzós. It took a lot of convincing from Friedrich before he finally agreed to go: the only reason he even considered it was because he might be able to get some new business contacts among the von Thurzós still living in Magyar. And his father was not one to refuse business contacts.

  And heaven, was Friedrich glad that his father was there, for once. Some back-up in case things went wrong would definitely be appreciated. On the off chance that his father wasn’t the one to start any problems.

  “You’re nervous about this, aren’t you?” Lord Eltz asked as they began to rumble down the von Thurzó’s drive. They only had a few minutes before they arrived at the manor, now.

  Friedrich sighed, slouching against the seat. For once, his father didn’t try to correct him. “Of course, I’m nervous. I’ve never met any of my future in-laws, before. They aren’t exactly impressed, according to Katalin.”

  “That’s the nature of in-laws, Friedrich,” Eltz said. “No matter what you do, a few of them will always think that your wife could’ve done better.” He looked out of the window of his carriage. “Though, considering the family you’re marrying into, I certainly don’t think that’s true, at all.”

  Friedrich wasn’t entirely sure how to react to that: sure, that was one of the nicer things his father had ever said to him, but heaven knew that he didn’t exactly enjoy hearing his father insult his future wife’s family. Again. “Is that how Grandpa Totefels was when you married mom?”

  Eltz nodded. “I wasn’t the one he wanted to marry Viktoria to: he wanted her to marry Gunter. Obviously, that wasn’t possible.”

  Of course, Friedrich already knew the story of Uncle Gunter: it was, in a way, one of the prouder moments of House Eltz. Patriotic as ever, the man decided to join the army before Friedrich was born, around the time when diplomatic relations with Dirkham and her allies took a turn for the worst. According to family legend, he decided that he would dedicate his life to the army until the problems were resolved. Friedrich didn’t really remember him all that much; he was only three, four years old when Uncle Gunter left for the front and never came back. He remembered how sad his mother had seemed when he and his father left for the front, and the way she would stare out the window to the front of the house, waiting for somebody. Of course, she was the first person to see the young man in a military uniform coming up to the house to tell her that Gunter Eltz had been killed in the trenches by a mortar hitting that portion of the trench, and that her husband had lost his arm, thanks to that same mortar.

  Of course, though, Friedrich thought that his situation with Katalin’s family was a little different. Her father had been more than happy when Friedrich asked for Katalin’s hand in marriage: it was the family members that Friedrich hadn’t met as of then that was making him so nervo
us. It was one of the many times that the reputation House Eltz had certainly wasn’t helping him.

  It wasn’t long after that that the von Thurzó house came into view. The place was, obviously, in a festive mood that night: all the lights in the mansion were still turned on. Friedrich hadn’t known that they could afford that: House Eltz was one of the richest houses in all of Vorbereich, and even his father, who never spared an expense on anything in his life, religiously turned all the lights off in Eltz Manor every night at nine o’clock, with the only exception to that rule being when they were having some sort of party. And he always got a little mad at Friedrich whenever he left his lamp on so he could read late into the night.

  It just served to make Friedrich more nervous. He’d hoped that Katalin had been exaggerating when she said that the whole family was there, that night.

  “How many people are here, tonight?” Eltz asked. It seemed that they were thinking along the same lines. That was happening more and more often; he prayed that it wasn’t a sign that he was turning into his father, as his mother feared.

  “Katalin said that their whole extended family is here for the wedding,” Friedrich said. “I was kind of hoping that she was exaggerating.”

  Eltz sighed, cursing under his breath. “I’ll be praying for you, Friedrich; it’ll take a miracle for you to get through this night alive.”

  The carriage pulled up to the front of the house. Friedrich couldn’t help but think that his father was right, for once.

  The carriage rolled to a stop, and Chayim hopped off from his spot on top of the carriage and opened the door for the two of them. “When do you want me to come back to the manor, sirs?”

  “Honestly, Chayim? I’m not sure,” Eltz said as he stepped out of the carriage. “This could go all night. Just go back to the house, and we’ll call when we’re ready.”

  Friedrich got out of the carriage as Eltz walked up the stairs and adjusted the front of his suit. Here he went; he was actually going to do this.