The Wolf's Call

by Anthony Ryan

  Vaelin turned away, spinning aside as the assassin’s comrade, having divested himself of the encumbering blanket, leapt forward, the faint edge of a black-bladed knife glittering as he brought it up and down. Vaelin’s sword flicked out, the edge catching the knife blade before sliding along the metal to meet the guard. Twisting his wrist, Vaelin sent the knife spinning into the dark. Its owner hissed in mingled fear and rage. The latter evidently outweighing the former for instead of taking the wiser course and attempting to flee, he drew a second knife from the small of his back before promptly stiffening in death as Vaelin’s sword point slipped between his ribs, piercing lung and heart with expert precision.

  “No, you pig-fucker!”

  Chien had released her hold on the first assassin and torn away his mask, one hand fisted in his sparse hair, the other on his chin as she shook him. His slack, bleached features showed no response, and Vaelin quickly divined that his body possessed no more life than a doll.

  “Poison?” he asked, crouching at Chien’s side.

  She prised the man’s jaw apart, revealing intact teeth and none of the bloody froth that would usually accompany a self-administered toxin. “No sign,” Chien said, leaning closer for a sniff and shaking her head. “It was strange. He struggled, then I felt the beat of his heart stop. It didn’t slow first, it just stopped.”

  “Let’s see if he brought any more-talkative friends,” Vaelin told her, rising and stepping out in the courtyard. He found Nortah and Alum flanking the fountain with weapons in hand. Ellese crouched in the doorway to the room where they had secluded Ahm Lin and Erlin, an arrow nocked to her bow and features tensed by the effects of being rudely woken from a drink-induced sleep. She bore it without complaint, however, and the grip on her weapons was firm.

  “No other guests tonight, brother,” Nortah mused, scanning the rooftops edging the courtyard. “They don’t know you very well, only sending two.”

  “No . . .” Ahm Lin said, appearing at Ellese’s shoulder. The mason’s eyes were half-closed and his head tilted at an angle, as if straining to hear a distant call. “No that’s not it. This”—he gestured at the body visible through Vaelin’s doorway—“was just mischief, a distraction.”

  “From what?” Nortah asked.

  Ahm Lin’s forehead creased in concentration. “The Red Scouts,” he said, eyes snapping open. “They’re the true target . . . or, one of them is. The song is loud tonight, but imprecise.”

  “Sehmon,” Ellese said with a poorly concealed note of alarm. Vaelin had ordered the outlaw to scale the courtyard wall and make his way across the mansion rooftop to the barracks in order to warn Sho Tsai of the possibility of an impending attack. That had been more than an hour ago and neither the captain nor any of the Red Scouts had yet appeared.

  “Stay here,” Vaelin told Ellese, pointing to Ahm Lin and Erlin and adding, “guard them,” as she began to voice a protest. Gesturing for the others to follow he moved to the door, tearing it open to step over the bodies of the two guards lying outside, then sprinting along the corridor.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Vaelin counted another dozen slain guards littering the tiled courtyard that separated the governor’s mansion from the squat, two-storey structure that comprised the barracks. Each soldier had been pierced through the neck by a crossbow bolt or slashed across the throat from ear to ear. The tumult of combat grew loud as they drew nearer, finding the corpses of more black-clad assassins amongst the pile of dead soldiers crowding the entrance. Vaelin picked out two red-armoured bodies amongst the pile and drew some comfort from the fact that they had at least had time to arm themselves before the attack. It appeared young Sehmon may have arrived in time.

  Leaping over the bodies, he found the interior mostly in darkness apart from the glow of a few fallen lanterns, the meagre light illuminating yet more corpses and the streaks of blood on the walls. Vaelin charged along the broad hallway, drawn by the familiar sound of battle, screams and shouts mingling with the ring of steel.

  As he approached a set of wrecked doors a black-clad body abruptly sprang to its feet, whirling towards Vaelin with a curve-bladed sword. He ducked under the stroke and slashed his sword into the assassin’s leg. The man responded with impressive swiftness, apparently immune to the pain of his wound as he whirled again, bringing his sword up in a swift stroke aimed at Vaelin’s groin. He stepped clear of the blade’s sweep, his own already drawn back for a countering thrust at the man’s face, which proved unnecessary as Nortah’s gore-covered sword point appeared under the assassin’s chin.

  “Tricky buggers, aren’t they?” he said, drawing the blade clear and letting the corpse fall.

  Vaelin kicked his way through the remnants of the doors, emerging into a huge meal hall where a battle raged amidst a chaos of overturned tables and dead or dying men. The Red Scouts were clustered into a ragged but solid line alongside a much less orderly group of soldiers from the garrison. They numbered perhaps fifty men in all but were battling a force almost twice their strength. Vaelin could see Sho Tsai in the centre of the Red Scouts’ line, barking orders with a bloodied sword in hand that blurred with precise and deadly regularity as he fended off repeated attacks. Sehmon stood at his side, jabbing frantically with one of the six-foot-long spears favoured by Far Western soldiery. Tsai Lin was closer, positioned at the end of the Scouts’ formation where the enemy seemed to have clustered. The Dai Lo battled two assassins at once, his armour spattered with a copious amount of blood, although from the skill and swiftness with which he moved, Vaelin doubted he was wounded.

  By the time Vaelin had closed the distance between them, the Dai Lo had despatched one assassin and maimed another, the man kneeling in silent shock as he regarded the blood pumping from the stump of his wrist. He recovered with what seemed an unnatural rapidity, regaining his feet and drawing a knife that he prepared to throw at Tsai Lin, who had turned to face a trio of fresh enemies.

  Vaelin hacked down the one-handed man before he could throw his knife, kicking the corpse aside and moving to stand at Tsai Lin’s left. The three men before them paused for a brief second, Vaelin sensing a mutual unspoken decision before they surged forward in unison. He dodged a thrust, flicked his sword at the assassin’s eyes, then followed up with a punch to his chest as the man raised his arm to block Vaelin’s blade. It was a precisely aimed blow to the sternum, capable of leaving a man senseless if delivered with sufficient force. This man, however, was stunned for only an instant, letting out a hard grunt before lowering himself into a crouch and charging forward, sword held in a two-handed grip and aimed at Vaelin’s belly. He sidestepped the charge and spun to one knee, ready to lash at the assassin’s legs, but before he could do so Alum’s spear jabbed into his guts. The man staggered as the hunter withdrew the spear, adjusted his grip and delivered a fatal thrust to the neck with enough force to split his enemy from larynx to spine.

  The Moreska shouldered the collapsing corpse aside, spear jabbing once again, this time into the thigh of one of the men facing Tsai Lin. The Dai Lo took full advantage of the distraction, stepping forward to bring his sword around in a single fluid arc that slashed open the throats of both attackers.

  “Form line!” Tsai Lin called out to a nearby group of garrison soldiers who were busy hacking at a partially dismembered corpse. “If you would care to cover my left, Honoured Sir . . .” the Dai Lo said to Alum, who apparently failed to notice, charging straight into the midst of the assassins, spear whirling left and right.

  “I don’t think he’s much for tactics,” Nortah observed. He hefted his sword, nodding at the now-frenzied melee with a raised eyebrow. “Shall we?”

  Vaelin nodded and they launched themselves in Alum’s wake. As Vaelin had noted before in moments like this, the more heated the combat became, the more time seemed to slow. Sound and sensation slipped away as mind and body became fixated on the need to kill and s
urvive. He and Nortah moved together as they had learned to do all those years ago, back-to-back, swords cutting through flesh and bone in repeated blurring strokes as they described a lethal dance through the disordered ranks of the assassins.

  Despite the chaos caused by their attack and Alum’s ferocity, Vaelin saw no sign of panic amongst their enemies, responding to this new threat with a uniformity that put him in mind of Volarian slave soldiers. They drew back from the Red Scouts to form a tight defensive knot in the centre of the meal hall. A series of barked orders from Sho Tsai soon had the Scouts and surviving soldiers marshalled into a circle, spears and swords levelled as they closed in for the kill.

  Hearing a guttural shout at his back, Vaelin whirled in time to see Chien withdrawing her staff-sword from the guts of an assassin who, having feigned death, had reared up and attempted to drive a dagger into Tsai Lin’s back. The Dai Lo gave her a stiff and very brief bow of gratitude before moving to stand alongside his father.

  “Crossbows, Dai Shin?” he asked, nodding at the increasingly tight knot of assassins.

  “Dead men don’t talk,” the captain replied. “And I’ve a yen to meet whoever organised this reception.”

  As if in response the clustered assassins became instantly still, all movement vanishing and not a breath uttered. Then, as one, they collapsed, weapons clattering to the floor from lifeless hands. Sho Tsai quickly moved to the nearest body, checking for a pulse or movement to his chest, then cursing when he found nothing. A quick examination of several more bodies revealed the same result.

  “Check the wounded!” the captain ordered, but a thorough examination of every assassin in the hall confirmed that none remained alive.

  “Gone to their ancestors and taken their secrets with them,” Chien observed, using her sword to lever away the mask of one assassin. “Same as the other one,” she told Vaelin. “His heart wasn’t stopped by poison.”

  “Other one?” Sho Tsai demanded of Vaelin.

  “There were two, actually,” he said. “And as for who organised this, the stonemason has a very clear notion.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  They found Governor Hushan in his rooms, weeping beside a pool in a bathing chamber, the deep red of the water a stark contrast to the finely illustrated porcelain tiles covering the walls. He whispered barely audible entreaties as he wept, fingers playing in the red-stained water, eyes fixed on the body of his third wife.

  No poison for this one either, Vaelin thought, seeing the deep gashes the woman had slashed into her arms, single cuts reaching from wrist to elbow. Her blood would have drained in seconds. In death she appeared more human now, the doll-like visage rendered empty and ugly. Just a dead woman floating in a cloud of her own blood. Vaelin doubted she could be more than twenty years old.

  “No shame . . .” the governor sobbed in a thin voice, crimson water rippling as he reached deeper into the pool. “He teaches there is no shame in failure . . . He would still have welcomed you home . . . welcomed us . . .”

  “Who?” Vaelin asked, tone deliberately soft, solicitous. The discordant shrillness of the governor’s voice, and the wild cast in his eyes as they snapped to Vaelin, told of a man with a greatly weakened grip on reason. “Who would have welcomed you?”

  Hushan stared at him in blank silence for a time, tears streaming from unblinking eyes to his beard. Then he laughed, a thin, grating giggle that soon built into a hearty bellow of genuine mirth.

  “Traitorous cur!” Sho Tsai spat. Hushan barely seemed to notice, his unabated laughter causing the captain to step forward, sword raised for a killing blow.

  “Wait,” Vaelin said, moving between them. “Dead men don’t talk, remember?”

  He crouched at Hushan’s side, offering a good-natured smile to the governor’s continuing mirth before pointedly shifting his gaze to the dead woman in the pool. “She wasn’t really your wife, was she?” he asked.

  Hushan’s laughter stopped at that, expression abruptly shifting into a mask of grief. “She was bound to me,” he murmured. “And I to her . . . in His sight. Our bond went beyond the mere formalities of marriage. Through her, I heard His voice from across the Steppe . . . Such clarity she brought, such wisdom . . . What am I now?” His gaze swung back to Vaelin, beseeching, earnest in its desperation. “Without her, what am I?”

  Mad, to be sure, Vaelin concluded, looking deep into the void behind the governor’s eyes. But there must still be knowledge in there somewhere. “She heard his voice,” he said. “The Darkblade. Through her, he spoke to you.”

  “More than mere words . . .” Hushan got unsteadily to his feet, Vaelin gesturing for Sho Tsai to stay put when the captain once again readied his blade. “Through her I saw so many things.”

  The governor slipped into the bloody pool, the white and silver pelt of his cloak staining red as it trailed in the water. Fresh tears fell as he enfolded the dead woman in his arms. “She showed me what will be. The fire and fury of it all. The destruction of the southerners who made us their whores.”

  A defiant glint crept into Hushan’s eye as he cast a glance at Sho Tsai. “For which my family have beseeched Heaven for so long. And finally they answered us, with Him.” The expression drained from his face once again as he looked at the woman in his arms. “With her. Your whoremaster king can send all the armies in the world, it won’t matter, for I have seen what will come. This”—he pulled the woman closer still, crushing her limp form to his chest—“was but the first taste.”

  “He told you to kill us, didn’t he?” Vaelin asked, careful not to employ too demanding a tone. “Our arrival here was unexpected.”

  “You?” The governor’s voice regained a measure of mirth as his eyes flicked from Vaelin to Sho Tsai. “Him? The Thief of Names and the Merchant King’s errand boy.” He began to weep once more as he cradled the woman’s head against his shoulder. “You are not worth a single drop of this precious blood. He will deal with you in time, for his minor amusement.”

  “Then why?” Vaelin pressed. “Gathering so many assassins here must have taken weeks. Preparing this place to ensure its fall when the Stahlhast come without arousing suspicion couldn’t have been easy. Why gamble it all now?”

  “Ask the errand boy.” A disgusted, almost pitying grin played over Hushan’s features as he jerked his head at Sho Tsai. “Does the Temple of Spears really think it can remake the past . . . ?”

  The captain moved too fast for Vaelin to have any chance of stopping him, leaping high with his sword raised, bringing it round in a swift arc as he landed in the pool. Vaelin saw Hushan’s eyes give a final curious blink as his head tumbled from his shoulders. Blood painted the tiles as both bodies collapsed into the water, entangled in death.

  “He still had more to tell us!” Vaelin grated at Sho Tsai as the captain hauled himself from the pool, crimson water dripping from his armour. He gave no answer and started toward the door.

  “What did he mean?” Vaelin demanded, stepping into his path. “About remaking the past.”

  “I have no idea,” Sho Tsai replied. “Just the babble of a corrupted mind. Whatever that witch did to him evidently overthrew his reason.”

  “He spoke of the Temple of Spears,” Vaelin said. “Where you once studied. I think it’s time I learned more about it.”

  Sho Tsai’s features, liberally decorated with the governor’s blood, twitched as he matched Vaelin’s stare, before his anger abruptly leeched away. “My thanks for your assistance this night,” he said, wiping clean his sword before sliding it into the scabbard. “But there is nothing more to discuss. And, with the governor’s demise, I find myself with a great deal to do.”

  He moved his head in the briefest of bows and stepped around Vaelin before making his exit.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It took only a few moments in the company of Governor Hushan’s deputy to understand
why, unlike the city’s garrison commander and several other well-regarded officials, he hadn’t attracted an assassin’s blade the night before.

  “The governor . . . a traitor?” Deputy Governor Neshim mopped his brow with a silken handkerchief. Like Hushan he was of northern stock with a similarly broad-shouldered build that somewhat belied a less than resolute character. “His third wife a witch. It’s impossible, surely.”

  “No, Honoured Sir, it is not,” Sho Tsai told him, his patience clearly starting to wear thin. “Governor Hushan conspired with an agent of the Stahlhast against the Venerable Kingdom.”

  “But she was always so . . . nice. Three years since he brought her back from a northern patrol, a slave rescued from the savages’ clutches, he said.”

  “Three years,” Vaelin said. “A good stretch of time to lay the ground for their attack. Gather intelligence on the strength of the defences, seed the city with assassins under her thrall. The Darkblade is careful, it seems, and patient.”

  “The Darkblade,” Deputy Governor Neshim repeated, silk swatting at his brow with renewed energy. “So he’s coming? The war is actually upon us?”

  “As I explained,” Sho Tsai said. “I also explained that the title of governor, and its responsibilities, now falls to you.”

  “To me?” Neshim began to chew on the corner of his handkerchief, which had somehow found its way into his mouth. “Really?”

  “Yes, Governor.” The captain gritted his teeth and forced a smile. He fell to an expectant silence, one Neshim seemed to harbour no desire to fill, continuing to chew on his handkerchief in consternation.