A Cruel Wind

by Glen Cook

  “Time for tales,” he announced. There were just seven people at the table, including himself. Two of the others were his wife and Alowa. “A rule of the house. Not required. But he who tells the best pays no keep.” His eyes lingered on the one they called the Watcher, a small, nervous, one-eyed rogue. He had arrived nearly a year ago, in company with a gentleman of means, who had behaved like a fugitive. The gentleman had left the Watcher and had hurried northward as if his doom pursued him. Yet nothing had ever come of it.

  Frita didn’t like the Watcher. He was a sour, evil, small-minded little man. His only redeeming feature was a fat purse. Alowa made him pay for what she gave everyone else freely, and hinted that his tastes were cruel.

  One guest said, “I’m from Itaskia, where I was once a merchant sailor.” And he told of grim sea battles with corsairs out of the Isles, with no quarter given nor taken. Frita listened with half an ear. The feud of Itaskia’s shipping magnates with the Red Brotherhood was a fixture of modern history.

  The second visitor began his tale, “I once joined an expedition to the Black Forest, and there I heard this tale.” And he spun an amusing yarn about a toothless dragon who had terrible problems finding sufficiently delicate meals. The smaller children loved it.

  Frita had heard it before. He hated to declare an old story the winner.

  But, to his surprise, the Watcher volunteered a tale. He hadn’t bothered for months.

  He stood, the better to fix his audience’s attention, and used his hands freely while speaking. He had trouble moving his left arm. Frita had seen it bare. He had taken a deep wound in the past.

  “Long ago and far away,” the Watcher began, in the storyteller’s fashion, “in a time when elves still walked the earth, there was a great elf-king. Mical-gilad was his name, and his passion, conquest. He was a mighty warrior, undefeated in battle or joust. He and his twelve paladins were champions of the world till the events whereof I speak.”

  Frita frowned, leaned back. A story new to him. A pity its teller had little feel for the art.

  “One day a knight appeared at the gates of the elf-king’s castle. His shield bore an unknown coat of arms. His horse was twice as big as life and black as coal. The gate guards refused him passage. He laughed at them. The gates collapsed.”

  Yes, Frita thought, it would make a tale in the mouth of a competent teller. The Watcher described the elf-king’s encounter with He Who Laughs, after the stranger had slain his twelve champions. He then fought the king himself, who overcame him by trickery, but couldn’t kill him because of the unbreachable spells on his armor.

  Frita thought he saw where it was going. He had heard so many tales that even the best had become predictable. It was a moral tale about the futility of trying to evade the inevitable.

  The elf-king had his opponent thrown on a dung heap outside his castle, whereupon He Who Laughs promised another, more terrible meeting. And, sure enough, the next time the elf-king went a-conquering, he found the knight in black and gold riding with his enemies.

  As he talked, the Watcher nervously played with a small gold coin. It was a tic Frita no longer noticed. But the newcomer seemed mesmerized by the constant tumble of the gold piece.

  In the end, He Who Laughs ran the elf-king down and slew him.

  The ex-sailor from Itaskia said, “I don’t understand. Why was the king afraid of him if he wasn’t afraid of anybody else?”

  For the first time the newcomer uttered more than a monosyllable. “The knight is a metaphor, my friend. He Who Laughs is one of the names of the male avatar, the hunter aspect, of Death. She sets that part of herself to stalk those who would evade her. The elves were supposed to have been immortal. The point of the story was that the king had grown so arrogant in his immortality that he dared challenge the Dark Lady, the Inevitable. Which is the grossest form of stupidity. Yet even today men persist in the folly of believing they can escape the inevitable.”

  “Oh.”

  All eyes were on the newcomer now. Especially that of the Watcher. The remark about the inevitable seemed to have touched his secret fears.

  “Well then,” said the innkeeper. “Which wins? The pirate? The dragon? Or the lesson of the elf-king?”

  Half a dozen little ones clamored for the dragon.

  “Wait,” said the newcomer. His tone enforced instant silence. “I would like a turn.”

  “By all means,” Frita nodded, eager to please. This man had begun to frighten him. Yet he was surprised. He hadn’t expected this dour, spooky stranger to contribute.

  “This is a true story. The most interesting usually are. It began just a year ago, and hasn’t yet ended.

  “There was a man, of no great stature or means, completely unimportant in the usual ways, who had the misfortune to be a friend of several powerful men. Now, it seems the enemies of those men thought they could attack them through him.

  “They waylaid him one day as he was riding through the countryside…”

  From beneath his hood the newcomer peered at the Watcher steadily. The one-eyed man tumbled his coin in a virtual blur.

  “Just south of Vorgreberg…” the stranger said, almost too softly for any but the one-eyed man’s ears.

  The Watcher surged up, a whimper in his throat as he dragged out a dagger. He hurled himself at the stranger.

  One finger protruded from the newcomer’s sleeve. He said one word.

  Smoke exploded from the Watcher’s chest. He flew backward, slammed against a wall. Women and children screamed. Men ducked under the table.

  The stranger rose calmly, bundled himself tightly, and vanished into the frigid night.

  Frita peeked from beneath the table. “He’s gone now.” He joined his surviving guests beside the body.

  “He was a sorcerer,” the sailor muttered.

  “Was that the man he was watching for?” Alowa asked. Her excitement was pure thrill.

  “I think so. Yes. I think so.” Frita opened the Watcher’s shirt.

  “Who was he?” the sailor asked.

  “This here fellow’s version of He Who Laughs, I reckon, the way he went on.”

  “Look at this,” said the other man. He had recovered the coin the dead man had dropped when going for his knife. “You don’t see many of these. From Hammad al Nakir.”

  “Uhm,” Frita grunted. The silver coin the stranger had given him had been of the same source, but of an earlier mintage.

  Bared, the dead man’s chest appeared virtually uninjured. The only mark was a small crown branded over his heart.

  “Hey,” said the ex-sailor. “I’ve seen that mark before. It’s got something to do with the refugees from Hammad al Nakir, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Frita replied. “We shared our meal with a celebrity. With a king.”

  “Really?” Alowa’s eyes were large. “I touched him…”

  The sailor shuddered. “I hope I never see him again. Not that one. If he’s who I think you mean. He’s accursed. Death and war follow him wherever he goes…”

  “Yes,” Frita agreed. “I wonder what evil brought him to Trolledyngja?”

  S

  IX:

  S

  PRING, 1011 AFE

  T

  HE

  A

  TTACK

  Three men lurked in the shadows of the park. They appeared to be devotees of the Harish Cult of Hammad al Nakir. Dusky, hawk-nosed men, they watched with merciless eyes. They had been there for hours, studying the mansion across the lane. Occasionally, one had gone to make a careful circuit of the house. They were old hunters. They had patience.

  “It’s time,” the leader finally murmured. He tapped a man’s shoulder, stabbed a finger at the house. The man crossed the lane with no more noise than the approach of midnight. A dog woofed questioningly behind the hedges.

  The man returned five minutes later. He nodded.

  All three crossed the lane.

  They had been studying and rehearsing for days. No on
e was out this time of night. There was little chance anyone would interfere.

  Four mastiffs lay rigid on the mansion’s lawn. The three dragged them out of sight. Poisoned darts had silenced them.

  The leader spent several minutes examining the door for protective spells. Then he tried the latch.

  The door opened.

  It was too easy. They feared a trap. A Marshall should have guards, enchantments, locks and bolts protecting him.

  These men didn’t know Kavelin. They couldn’t have comprehended the little kingdom’s politics had they been interested. Here political difficulties were no longer settled with blades in darkness.

  They searched the first floor carefully, smothering a maid, butler, and their child. They had orders to leave no one alive.

  The first bedroom on the second floor belonged to Inger, Ragnarson’s four-year-old daughter. They paused there, again using a pillow.

  The leader considered the still little form without remorse. His fingers caressed a dagger within his blouse, itching to strike with it. But that blade dared be wielded against but one man.

  To the Harish Cult the assassin’s dagger was sacred. It was consecrated to the soul of the man chosen to die. To pollute the weapon with another’s blood was abomination. Deaths incidental to a consecrated assassination had to be managed by other means. Preferably bloodless, by smothering, drowning, garroting, poisoning, or defenestration.

  The three slew a boy child, then came to a door with light showing beneath it. A murmur came through. Adult voices. This should be the master bedroom. The three decided to save that room for last. They would make sure of the sleeper on the third floor, Ragnarson’s brother, before taking the Marshall himself, three to one.

  The plans of mice and men generally are laid without considering the foibles of fourteen-year-old boys who have been feuding with their brothers.

  Every night Ragnar booby-trapped his door certain that some morning Gundar would again sneak in to steal his magic kit…

  Water fell. A bucket crashed and rattled over an oaken floor. From the master bedroom a woman’s frightened voice called, “Ragnar, what the hell are you up to?” Low, urgent discussion accompanied the rustle of hasty movement.

  A sleepy, “What?” came from behind the booby-trapped door, then a frightened, “Ma!”

  Ragnar didn’t recognize the man in his doorway.

  The intruder pawed the water from his eyes. His followers threw themselves toward the master bedroom. The door was locked, but flimsy. They broke through.

  Inside, a man desperately tried to get into his pants. A woman clutched furs to her nakedness.

  “Who the hell…?” the man demanded.

  An assassin flicked a bit of silken handkerchief. It wrapped the man’s throat. A second later his neck broke. The other intruder rushed the woman.

  They were skilled, these men. Professionals. Murder, swift and silent, was their art.

  Their teachers had for years tried to school them to react to the unexpected. But some things were beyond their teachers.

  Like a woman fighting back.

  Elana hurled herself toward the bodkin laying on a nearby wardrobe, swung it as the assassin rounded the bed.

  He stopped, taken aback.

  She moved deftly, distracting with her nakedness. Seeing him armed with nothing more dangerous than a scarf, she attacked.

  He flicked that scarf. It encircled her throat. She drove the dagger in an upward thrust. He took it along his ribs.

  Gagging, Elana stabbed again, opened his bowels.

  Ragnar suddenly realized that death was upon him. He scrambled to the shadowed corner where he had hidden the weapons Haaken had been training him to use. They were there by sheer chance. He had been too lazy to return them to the family armory after practice, and Haaken had forgotten to check on him.

  He went after the assassin in the wild-swinging northman fashion before the man recovered from the drenching. His blows were fierce but poorly struck. He was too frightened to fight with forethought or calculation.

  The assassin wasn’t armed for this. He retreated, skipping and weaving and picking up slash wounds. He watched the boy’s mad eyes, called for help. But there would be none. Through the door of the master bedroom he saw one of his comrades down.

  The other wrestled with a woman… And someone was stirring upstairs.

  The man, though, was dead. He lay halfway between bed and door, silk knotted round his throat.

  The night was almost a success. The primary mission had been accomplished.

  The leader fled.

  Ragnar chased him to the front door before he realized that his mother was fighting for her life. He charged back upstairs. “Ma! Ma!”

  The house was all a-scream now. The little ones wailed in the hall. Haaken thundered from the third floor, “What’s going on down there?”

  Ragnar met the last assassin coming from the bedroom. His mouth and eyes were agape in incredulity.

  Ragnar cut him down. For an instant he stared at the bodkin in the man’s back. Then he whipped into his parents’ bedroom. “Ma! Papa! Are you all right?”

  No.

  He saw the dead man first, his pants still around his knees.

  It wasn’t his father.

  Then he saw his mother and the disemboweled assassin.

  “Ma!”

  It was the howl of a maddened wolf, all pain and rage…

  Haaken found the boy hacking at the assassin Elana had gutted. The corpse was chopped meat. He took in the scene, understood, despite his own anger and agony did what he had to do.

  First he closed the door to shield the other children from their mother’s shame. Then he disarmed Ragnar.

  It wasn’t easy. The boy was ready to attack anything moving. But Haaken was Ragnar’s swordmaster. He knew the boy’s weaknesses. He struck Ragnar’s blade aside, planted a fist.

  The blow didn’t faze Ragnar. “Like your grandfather, eh, Red?” He threw another punch. Then another and another. The boy finally collapsed. Ragnar’s grandfather had, at will, been capable of killing rages. Berserk, he had been invincible.

  Shaking his head dolefully, Haaken covered Elana. “Poor Bragi,” he muttered. “He don’t need this on top of everything else.”

  He poked his head into the hall. The surviving children and servants were in a panic. “Gundar!” he roared. “Come here. Pay attention.” The ten-year-old couldn’t stop staring at the assassin lying in the hall.

  “Run

  to the Queen’s barracks. Tell Colonel Ahring to get your father. Right now.”

  Haaken closed the door, stalked round the bedroom. “How will I tell him?” he mumbled. He toyed with disposing of the dead man. “No. Have to do it in one dose. He’ll need all the evidence.

  “Somebody’s gonna pay for this.” He inspected the chopped corpse carefully. “El Murid has got himself one big debt.”

  The hand of the Harish had reached into Vorgreberg before.

  There was nothing he could do there. He slipped out, sat down with his back against the door. He laid his sword across his lap and waited for his brother.

  One oil lamp flickered on Ragnarson’s desk. He bent close to read the latest protest from El Murid’s embassy. They sure could bitch about petty shit.

  What the hell was Haroun up to?

  Haroun was what he was, doing what he thought necessary. Even when he made life difficult, Bragi bore him no ill will. But when bin Yousif stopped conforming to his own nature…

  There hadn’t been a serious protest in a year. And Valther said there had been no terrorist incursions for several. Nor had many bands of Royalist partisans passed through Kavelin bound for the camps. Nor had Customs reported the capture of any guerrilla contraband.

  It was spooky.

  Ragnarson wasn’t pleased when people changed character inexplicably.

  “Derel. Any word from Karak Strabger?”

  “None, sir.”

  “Something’s w
rong up there. I’d better…”

  “Gjerdrum can handle it, sir.”

  Ragnarson’s right hand fluttered about nervously. “I suppose. I wish he’d write more often.”

  “I used to hear the same from his mother when he was at the university.”

  “It’d risk letters falling into unfriendly hands anyway.” The Queen’s condition had to remain secret. For the good of the state, for his own good—if he didn’t want his wife planning to cut his throat.

  Bragi didn’t know how to manage it, but the news absolutely had to be kept from Elana.

  Rumors striking alarmingly near the truth ran the streets already.

  He massaged his forehead, crushed his eyelids with the heels of his hands. “This last contribution from Breidenbach. You done the figures yet?”

  “It looks good. There’s enough, but it’ll be risky.”

  “Damned. There’s got to be an honest, legal way to increase revenues.”

  In the past, when he had been on the other end, Bragi’s favorite gripes had been government and taxes. Taxes especially. He had seen them as a gigantic protection racket. Pay off or have soldiers on your front porch. “By increasing the flow of trade.”

  Economics weren’t his forte, but Ragnarson asked anyway. “How do we manage that?”

  “Lower the transit tax.” Prataxis grinned.

  “Oh, go to hell. The more you talk, the more I get confused. If I had the men I’d do it the Trolledyngjan way. Go steal it from the nearest foreigner who couldn’t defend himself.”

  Prataxis’s reply was forestalled by a knock.

  “Enter,” Ragnarson growled.

  Jarl Ahring stepped in. His face was drawn.

  Premonition gripped Ragnarson. “What is it? What’s happened, Jarl?”

  Ahring gulped several false starts before babbling, “At your house. Somebody… Assassins.”

  “But… What…?” He didn’t understand. Assassins? Why would…? Maybe robbers? There was no reason for anyone to attack his home.

  “Your son… Gundar… He came to the barracks. He was hysterical. He said everybody was dead. Then he said Haaken told him to have me find you. I sent twenty men over, then came here.”