Assassin's Edge

by Juliet E. McKenna

  “This must be Rettasekke.” Shiv tucked his folded map away and we looked down on a fertile stretch of land dotted with a few houses, divided with neat stone walls and, in the distance, boasting a more substantial settlement.

  “This is a clan leader’s holding, is it?” ’Gren looked distinctly unimpressed. “What do they reckon their wealth in? Rocks?”

  If they did, this Olret had a plentiful supply. Beyond the narrow band of scrupulously tended land, jagged grey soon ripped through the thin coverlet of grass. Crags and outcrops ran away inland, ever taller and bolder, joining in daunting ramparts, massing to join the abrupt upthrust of the mountains at the core of this island. Some slopes were freckled black and grey like a rabbit pelt, others striped grey on black like a mousing cat, the patches of coarse scrub here and there doing little to soften the harshness of the landscape.

  “There’s your goats,” Sorgrad pointed out as our path across the hill showed us more of the grassland below.

  It was a scene of considerable activity. A massive wheellike structure had been built from the ubiquitous grey stones, one gap in the rim admitting a protesting herd of what looked like every goat on the island. Men drove the beasts between walls too high for leaping into the hollow centre, where the axle for this supposed wheel would have fitted. Other islanders were somehow identifying goats and shoving them into wedge-shaped pens formed by the walls that made the spokes.

  “What are they doing?” I wondered. Ryshad handed me the spyglass he’d been using and I saw men wrestling the unruly beasts to a standstill for women deftly threading orange, black and green threads through holes clipped in their floppy ears

  “Suckling kid for dinner?” ’Gren suggested hopefully.

  “Let’s get past without anyone asking us our business,” said Ryshad.

  I don’t think anyone would have asked, had we walked along the shelving shoreline accompanied by a travelling masquerade complete with flutes and drums. For one thing, I doubt they’d have heard us over the ear-splitting din of outraged bleating and curses provoked by a billy goat’s horns or some nanny’s razor-sharp hooves. It was a relief to leave the commotion behind as we approached the settlement at the far end of the stretch of tillable land.

  “That’ll be the grave circle, I take it.” Shiv nodded at an enclosure considerably larger than the one we’d seen ravaged. Hereabouts the rock evidently split into handy slabs because this was made from a double ring of rectangular stones fitted precisely edge to edge, a barrier needing no ditch beyond the merest scrape. Two reddish-yellow monoliths framed the single entry to the solid circle and inside more stood in pairs and singletons with no readily apparent pattern.

  “I’ve not seen stone of that colour before,” Ryshad frowned.

  “Where are you three going to hide up?” Sorgrad shaded his eyes with a hand.

  “You’re going in, just the pair of you?” Shiv looked to Ryshad for confirmation.

  He nodded. “That was the plan before. No need to change it as far as I can see.”

  That satisfied Sorgrad and we all studied the prospect before us. Long, low houses were dotted between the grave circle and a formidable keep rising four square and four storeys high within a solid wall. Beyond, a long range of buildings boasted upper floors and chimneys as well as stone slates to their roofs rather than the bundles of coarse vegetation thatching the smaller houses. More of those were scattered on the far side of the keep and its storehouses, the settlement ending in a line of open-sided goat shelters. Beyond, a surprisingly substantial causeway dammed a paltry stream to create a wide pond.

  “Barely big enough to spit across.” That was ’Gren’s usual Ensaimin idiom for the more wretched villages we’d visited over the years.

  “Only if you caught the wind right.” But I had to admit it wasn’t very impressive.

  “Catching the wind wouldn’t be a problem.” The notion prompted a shiver from ’Gren and he was right. The whole settlement was exposed to whatever weather came sweeping up the channel, which was doubtless why nets fringed with substantial stone weights weighed down the thatch of the lesser houses.

  Ryshad on the other hand approved of the place. “Even if this isn’t the only landing on this stretch of shore, that pond blocks anyone coming over that headland.”

  “No one’s going to sneak up on Olret,” Sorgrad agreed. “Not with such a reach of open land between the houses and any ground that offers cover.”

  “If we hang around here, we’ll be spotted,” warned Shiv.

  There certainly were plenty of people about but, fortunately, most looked too busy to be glancing our way. Between the keep and the sea was a broad open area where men walked barrels to and from large troughs surrounded by women. Lads carried bushel baskets brimming with the unmistakable silver of fish from long sheds on stone jetties that reached out into the water, tethered boats bobbing at their far ends. The sun was back, striking sparkles from the water, and turning greedy seabirds wheeling overhead a brilliant white.

  The birds squawked and jinked to dodge small children throwing stones to keep them off racks of drying stockfish. Earlier catches were stacked like cordwood and weighted with the handily flat rocks.

  Ryshad was making a stealthy survey. “Ask to be taken to whoever’s in charge,” he told Sorgrad as he snapped his spyglass closed. “We’ll wait over there.” He indicated a spread of dark green patches of some crop being raised between the closest house and the grave circle. The plants looked sparse and thirsty but offered more cover than anything else we could see.

  Sorgrad nodded and the pair of them trotted off straight for the keep. The three of us skirted the grave circle, using its solid walls to shield us from view as best we could.

  “Will they be all right?” Shiv wondered as we lost sight of the brothers.

  Ryshad didn’t answer so it was left to me to reassure him. “Sorgrad’s gone into enemy camps before now. Halice often trusts him to negotiate safe conducts or exchanges of wounded, ransom prisoners for food. Believe me, when he sets his mind to it, he can convince anyone of anything.”

  “It’s not Sorgrad I’m worried about.” Ryshad’s tone was concerned rather than caustic. “What if these people use Artifice to check he’s telling the truth?”

  “We’ve come to look for an ally against Ilkehan,” Shiv pointed out. “That’s the truth.”

  “What about ’Gren?” persisted Ryshad.

  “Whatever Sorgrad tells him is what he’ll choose to believe.” I tucked myself behind a clump of unappetising-looking plants which proved to be growing within yet another stone wall, barely knee high this time and filled with something truly foul smelling.

  “Dast’s teeth, what is that stink?” Ryshad and Shiv joined me, crouching more awkwardly with their greater height.

  “Seaweed.” Shiv stifled a cough and peered over the little wall. “And gravel, half a year’s table scraps and what looks like a dead goat.”

  I shuffled round until I could lie on my belly and get a decent view of the keep past the plants. Roughly clad Elietimm in dun and brown milled around the buildings, more gold heads together than I’d seen anywhere but in the most distant mountains. ’Gren and Sorgrad were nowhere to be seen.

  I was about to heave a sigh before the stench on the other side of the meagre wall stopped me and I settled for sucking at my sore lip. Ryshad sat with his back to the reeking plants, keeping a watch inland and Shiv crouched beyond him to watch the way we’d come.

  I made a silent wager with myself and won it when the lanky mage finally complained. “I’m getting cursed cramped.”

  “Stand up!”

  But it wasn’t Ryshad speaking. Whatever else charms culled from that ancient songbook might offer, Forest myth and Mountain saga remained stubbornly silent on whatever gave the Elietimm their disconcerting ability to step out of thin air. Down on the ground, we were in no position to defy the elderly Ice Islander who glowered at us, not when he had a handful of younger men behind him, arm
ed with vicious maces of wood and iron. All were dressed in a steely grey livery of leather decorated with copper studs. We got to our feet with as much dignity as we could muster.

  “We await our friends,” I said in careful Mountain speech.

  A thin smile cracked the older man’s weathered face. “You are to join them.”

  I translated and Ryshad swept a polite hand to indicate that our new acquaintance should precede us. He did so and his henchmen followed us, maces sloped casually over their shoulders but faces stern.

  “What now?” Shiv asked beneath his breath.

  “See how it plays out.” I couldn’t see what else to do.

  “They’re not taking our weapons,” Ryshad pointed out, “nor tying us up.” He was walking on the balls of his feet, hands ready, alert to every man’s pace and position.

  We were led past people still working in an overpowering stench of fish guts and through the main gate of the keep’s outer wall. Guards in the same leather armour ducked respectful heads to our guide. Elietimm battles must be remarkably simple affairs, I mused, given every enemy was handily identified by his garb. In the chaotic civil wars of Lescar you’d be lucky if all your side carried the same battlefield token or half of them remembered the recognition word. More than one battle had petered out in confusion when both contingents had plucked the same handy flower for their field sign and claimed Saedrin’s grace as their battle cry.

  Such idly inconsequential thoughts kept my apprehension at bay as we were taken through a busy courtyard where a waiting throng eyed us with curiosity and suspicion. Our guide ignored them all and led us up a flight of forbidding stairs to double doors of weathered and iron-studded oak. At his nod, another grey-leathered warrior opened one to admit us.

  The great hall’s echoing emptiness took up most of the ground floor by my quick estimation. Pale flagstones were swept bare beneath a skilfully vaulted ceiling rising from thick pillars of polished reddish stone sunk into the grey walls. Clouded glass in tall, thin windows muffled the bright sunlight but we all knew panes an Ensaimin peasant would sneer at betokened wealth and status in these indigent islands. Heavy curtains of soft beige wool, bright with geometric patterns in muted green and soft orange, hung around the far end where a shallow wooden floor offered a suggestion of a dais.

  “Drink?” ’Gren proffered his goblet with a broad grin. He and Sorgrad sat on backless cross-framed stools at one end of a long table so aged and polished it was all but black. An Elietimm man wearing a well-cut grey mantle over tunic and breeches of fine quality stood beside them, amusement creasing his plump face. He was as blond as Sorgrad, with a wiry curl to his receding hair but his eyes were dark, something I’d noticed more than once among these islanders.

  “Those who hid,” barked the old man who’d brought us in, gesturing at the same time as bowing deeply to his overlord.

  Sorgrad set his own cup carefully by an array of small platters on the table. “I have explained that we did not wish to trespass on anyone’s hospitality until we had made ourselves known,” he said smoothly. “Master of Rettasekke, I vouch for Ryshad, sworn to one of those mainland lords whom Ilkehan has raided.” He indicated me next with a courteous hand. “Livak will speak for the Forest Folk who suffered at the hands of Eresken last summer while our friend Shivvalan comes from Caladhria. The lowland peoples were very nearly brought to war with the uplands by Eresken’s treachery and that is his concern.”

  All of which had the virtue of being true, if not the whole truth, if someone somewhere was murmuring a charm to test Sorgrad’s veracity. He turned to our host.

  “This is Olret, who graciously offers us the shelter of his house for the duration of the ancient travel truce.” Sorgrad smiled with a nice balance between humility and self-assertion. “So we see that our two races are not so sundered, despite the generations between us.”

  The Mountain travel truce lasted three days and three nights and I wondered if that meant we’d be spared aetheric curiosity for that period. As I was trying to find a way of hinting as much to Sorgrad, a booming blow on the double doors made me jump. I wasn’t the only one and I saw Olret stifle a smile behind a polite hand as this peremptory demand was repeated. He said something to Sorgrad that I didn’t catch.

  “Olret has business to attend to,” Sorgrad told us. “He wishes us to stay and observe as his guests.”

  Someone somewhere was watching, perhaps behind one of the floor-sweeping curtains, because lackeys instantly appeared from a side door with stools for us all. Maidservants hurried after with more plates of titbits and pottery flasks of pale liquor as well as goblets various goats had sacrificed horns for. One corn-haired lass poured me a generous measure, which I sipped cautiously. The stuff was smooth, light on the back of the throat and innocuously flavoured with caraway. It drawled long, slow lines as I rolled the small goblet casually around in my hand. Too much of this and our host wouldn’t need Artifice; we’d all be confiding our innermost thoughts to our new best friend.

  On the other hand, refusing to drink would probably be an insult. I took an anonymous finger-length of meat from a plate. It wasn’t unpleasant with a rich gamey taste beneath the subtle smoke but I couldn’t have said if it were fish, fowl or beast. What it was, it was salty, excellent for provoking thirst.

  The great doors were opened and the throng from the courtyard filed in, heads dutifully bowed. Our host moved to a high seat skilfully wrought from dark wood and yellow bone carved with blunt and ancient symbols. Shiv cleared his throat and I looked at him, curious as to whether he might recognise any of these symbols. The mage glanced meaningfully at my goblet as he passed his hand casually over his own. I held my own drink absently to one side as I reached for what I fervently hoped was a morsel of cheese. Shiv’s hand brushed my own as he moved to offer Ryshad a dish of small crimson berries. When I took a sip from my goblet to try and quell the unexpectedly acrid taste of the cheese, I found the intense liquor had been diluted to a more manageable potency.

  The man who’d led us into this well-baited pen was back again. He stood at the edge of the wooden floor, carrying a long staff carved from one single, mighty length of bone, some tantalising gems set around the ornately carved head. He struck the wooden planks and the crowd shuffled obediently about until a line of men pushed to the front, each carrying a leather bag.

  “Proceed.” Olret looked on impassively as each man stepped up to empty his offering on to the long table.

  The haul proved to be birds’ beaks. The nearest tally proved the death of a goodly number of hooded crows along with several ravens. That chilled my Forest blood; my father had always told me killing a raven prompted dreadful luck. I saw the predatory yellow curve of an eagle’s beak as well. Plainly no one worshipped Drianon hereabouts.

  The men who’d come forward surveyed the competing piles and those who’d been less assiduous backed away. That left about half looking smug and expectant as the man with the bone staff walked the line and offered a tooled leather pouch to each one. Faces intent, every man pulled out a slip of horn that he held up for the man with the staff to see. He turned to the gathering and I picked enough words out of his declarations to learn three different sorts of rights were being granted.

  “Driftwood without tool marks on the Fessands.”

  “Worked wood brought ashore on the Arnamlee.”

  “Stranded seabeasts from Blackarm to the Mauya Head.”

  Olret looked expectantly at Sorgrad as the ritual was concluded.

  The Mountain Man bowed politely. “Those that work to defend your territory from predators share in the chance-brought wealth of the seas.”

  Olret smiled with satisfaction. “Ilkehan keeps all such bounty for himself.” His words carried and a shudder of fear and disapproval rippled through the gathering.

  The bone staff thudded on the floor again and the crowd parted like a flock of goats as Olret’s grey-liveried hounds brought a handful of men before him. Each one wore only a filt
hy shirt, wrists securely bound in front. However enlightened this Olret might think himself compared to Ilkehan, his prisoners suffered the usual brutalities. One man’s eyes were all but closed with bruises while another’s hair was clotted dirty brown with old blood.

  Each prisoner was hauled forward in turn and Olret pronounced sentence, expression unchanging. If there was such a thing as arguing a case at trial hereabouts, it must have happened earlier.

  “White.” The man’s face turned hopeless.

  “Green.” Someone unseen at the back hastily stifled a sob of relief.

  “White.” For some reason, that came as a relief to that man.

  “Red.” That provoked some disturbance on the far side of the hall that had the guards wading in to haul a struggling youth outside so fast his feet barely touched the floor.

  “White.” The final judgement disappointed someone but they had the sense to shut their mouth after an involuntary exclamation.

  The man with the bone staff waved it in unmistakable dismissal and the crowd melted away as fast as it had gathered.

  “He works a deal faster than Temar,” I quipped to Ryshad.

  The great doors closed to leave us alone in the vast hall with our host. Alone, apart from whoever was keeping watch behind the curtains. Of course, we were all still carrying our weapons and I reminded myself not to condemn the man out of hand for simple prudence. He left his impressive chair and pulled up a stool, helping himself from the spread of food.

  “What had those men done?” My command of the Mountain tongue was sufficient for that but Olret ignored me, addressing himself to Sorgrad.

  “Do you still administer the three exiles in the lands of the Anyatimm?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that.” Sorgrad looked genuinely puzzled.

  Olret seemed faintly disappointed. “The red exile is from life itself. That man will be flung from the cliffs. The green exile is from hearth and home but that man may find himself some shelter within the sekke and his friends may save him from death with food and water. The white exile is from the sekke and its people. Those men must leave our land before nightfall and none may offer them the least help.” Olret’s polite smile turned a little forced. “That was the exile the Anyatimm of old imposed on our forefathers. We fled north and east over the ice, little thinking that we would find these lands held fast in the cold seas. Then Misaen melted the path and, as many would have it, left us here for some purpose.”