Assassin's Apprentice

by S. R. Vaught; J. B. Redmond

  They were both sitting on Stormbreaker’s blanket inside his large gray tent, legs folded, hands resting against their knees. Outside, all across the massive travelers’ encampment, afternoon cook fires crackled. The scent of stews and roasting meats and vegetables gave him a gnawing sensation in his belly, though so far, the Stone Brothers had made sure that he never went hungry.

  “Few Fae work with their mind-talents on this side of the Veil.” Dari gave a little shrug. “In fact, few can. Only those with very strong legacies like yours. Rest a moment and we’ll try again. Stormbreaker wants you to learn this skill by day’s end.”

  The skill of seeing a legacy, or the colors that show a person has a legacy.

  I’m never going to do it.

  Aron wanted to groan, but held back so he wouldn’t embarrass himself in front of Dari. It was hard for him not to study the small space between them and wonder what it might be like to brush his knee against hers, or maybe his wrist. The muted sunlight washing through the tent fabric made Dari look so soft, even though he thought of her as strong and tough and brilliant.

  “My father told me that in the old days, each Fae bloodline had its legacy,” he murmured, doing his best to keep his attention on a spot in the tent wall just over Dari’s shoulder. “And that most were telepaths. He said some could move small objects without touching them, adjust wind currents to facilitate flying—that there were hundreds of small talents.”

  “There was a basic skill set that everyone with legacies trained to use—nothing spectacular.” Dari lifted her long arms above her head and stretched, dragging Aron’s focus back to her face, then her arms and fingers. “Just practical, useful things like basic healing, basic mind-speaking across short distances, and sometimes, yes, moving small objects. Those with more powerful mind-talents received more extensive training on how to use their graal to its fullest.”

  The idea of what Eyrie might have been like when the Fae could fly, when the Furies still lived, and when Fae families had strong mind-talents intrigued Aron. “What could the Furies do? What kind of legacies—”

  “We don’t have legacies,” Dari said before he could finish. She lowered her arms too quickly, and Aron heard the tension in her voice. “Not in that simplistic sense.”

  Aron wished he could kick himself for his stupidity. “I—I’m sorry. It’s just, you look like us, and I forget that we’re as different as you say.”

  Dari sighed. “No, I’m sorry. We are more the same than anything, but my skills are broader. I have bits and pieces of all the legacies—you’ve heard me call it graal.”

  “Gray-al,” Aron repeated, knowing the word was Sidhe even though it was new to him.

  “Yes. Good. Fury graal is stronger than Fae—but we’re all different from one another, too, just like all Fae are unique to themselves.” Dari settled back into her meditative sitting pose. “I might be good at this or that skill, while the next Stregan may have a completely different set interests, and different strengths and weaknesses.”

  “But you’re all telepaths,” Aron asked quickly, before she redirected them to their lessons.

  “Yes,” Dari said, but Aron could tell from her tone that she didn’t intend to discuss it further. Dari didn’t seem to want to reveal too much to him, which he supposed he could understand. Still, Aron wondered if there were libraries at Triune. His father had taught him to read Ogham, the common spoken language of all the dynasts, first used by traders and couriers. He could even read a little in Sidhe, so maybe there were records of the Furies. Maybe he could—

  “We’ve got only a few moments before dinner.” Dari closed her eyes, and Aron felt the cool sensation of her protections descending upon them again. “Now try again to see my essence. Think of it like—like studying a pond while you’ve got a baited string waiting for a tug. Look past the string in the water. Gaze at the ripples, then the trees beyond, but all the while, keep some awareness of that string, in case it should move.”

  That was an example Aron could better understand.

  He closed his own eyes and fixed an image of fishing firmly in his mind. Fishing in the pond near his family’s farm, on the Brother’s Day, when his mother allowed no work in the fields or barns. He slowed his breathing and gazed at the glittering image of the water, at the imaginary string with its bit of wood tied at the top for a bob. He could almost feel the bite of the old twine wrapped around his fingers, almost smell the fresh water and the life of the trees beyond.

  In his mind, Aron moved his eyes to the ripples, to the trees, then opened his eyes to the hazy image of Dari before him.

  She was ringed with a soft greenish hue, a faint flicker of color, touching her everywhere, yet not touching her at all. It was … muted, somehow. Pretty like she was and yet … and yet…

  It’s not true.

  I’m seeing what she wants me to see, not what’s truly there.

  He glanced down at his own hands to ponder this.

  The brilliant sapphire rising from his own skin startled him so badly he clambered to his feet, holding his wrists and hands away from him like they might be diseased.

  Seconds later, the colors vanished, and Aron became aware of Dari’s soft laughter.

  His cheeks immediately started to burn and he looked away from her, fumbling with a stray thread in the tent wall.

  “Ah, now. Don’t be like that. It scares everyone the first time.” Dari got to her feet. “You did very well, Aron.” She turned loose the protections shielding them once more, and Aron forced himself to look at her despite his flaming face. He also managed to lower his arms, which to his relief looked like normal arms again.

  Dari came closer to him.

  Aron wanted to step away from her, but didn’t.

  She smelled like flowers in springtime, just touched with fresh rain. The scent of her fixed him where he stood.

  “Perhaps you have some idea now why you must learn this skill,” she said.

  “So … so I can change my color.” His voice broke again. “Tone it down and hide it.”

  Dari nodded.

  “Like you’re doing,” he added, watching her face. “Like you’ve been doing since I met you.”

  Dari’s eyebrows arched. Then she offered him a quick bow, which only made his face burn hotter. “Soon, seeing graal will be as easy to you as noticing the size of a nose, the shape of an ear, or how many teeth a man has when he smiles. Then we can begin working on the other skills—such as changing your own color all the time. Yes, like I’ve been doing.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ARON

  On the sixteenth day of their traveling, Aron found himself limping as he helped to ready their new encampment for nightfall. He had been assigned with Dari to help traveling parents get their smaller children into the raised shelter, while the Stone Brothers helped to build tallow circles and secure pack animals.

  The insides of Aron’s legs had been rubbed as raw as his mind, and his skin was no longer responding to quick efforts to heal it or the use of a salve Zed had given him. His talon saddle did some to shield him from Tek’s scales, but she seemed to be growing a thicker set with each passing day.

  She was also growing more rambunctious. Aron could hear her squeals over the noise of the shelter encampment, even though she was in the farthest stall of the barn’s talon-side. He had to work to ignore her and to force his legs to cooperate as he carried a little girl toward the ladder into the travelers’ shelter. He focused on the pain, welcomed the burn, because anything was better than looking at the child in his arms. She had dark curls like his dead sisters. No doubt her eyes were brown, too, but her sobs had no effect on him. He paid no heed to her when she reached back for her mother, who would be taking her chances in the tallow circles this night.

  Some part of Aron’s mind scolded him, insisted he should offer the crying child some comfort, but no words came to his lips. Better that he make certain she didn’t snatch at the daggers belted to his waist until he could
hand her off to Dari, find Stormbreaker, and get his next set of instructions. There was still much to be done before sunset, with the shelter too crowded for all who had come seeking its safety.

  Aron elbowed past dozens of cook fires and tents, and dozens more milling travelers and refugees. Some were merchants on the move, while others seemed to be farmers displaced by battles, or village goodfolk fleeing ahead—or behind—the fighting. Most of them looked away when he passed. Aron knew they thought it might be ill fortune to deal directly with a Stone Brother, even a boy like him, who was just in training.

  A small bunch of travelers near the shelter’s base actually turned away from him as he approached with the girl, and he realized they wore the black robes and chevilles of rectors. Rectors were sworn to the service of the Brother of Many Faces—but all rectors were trained by the Thorn Guild before they went into service with elders at a Temple of the Brother.

  Nearby, Aron noticed Stormbreaker standing and staring at the Thorn-allied group, his hand on the hilt of his sword. From his position, he might have been keeping watch, as if Aron and the other children needed protecting from the rectors.

  Does he think I still dream of running away with weak fools like that? Aron shifted the girl in his arms and frowned as he reached the ladder.

  The very air around those rectors radiated disapproval.

  Well, fine.

  Aron disapproved of them, too.

  His mother had been deeply devoted to the Brother, but where was he, that great god of love and protection, when Lord Brailing sent his guardsmen against the Watchline?

  “Aron,” Dari called. “All your scowling frightens the little ones.”

  When Aron looked up at her as she reached for the girl, he felt the slightest lifting of the ever-present anger that bubbled in his blood like some dread poison or infection. Low blue hues from the late-afternoon sun highlighted Dari’s beauty, which reminded Aron of how she looked on the other side of the Veil. In her human form, anyway.

  Dari took the girl from him and climbed with the child as if the little girl weighed nothing at all. For all Dari’s fighting skill and sharpness of wit and tongue, her tall body was so graceful each movement seemed to flow, and her features remained delicate. Aron thought her wide black eyes were close to perfect, and he liked the dusky red color of her lips, outlined by the dark, glistening skin of her face. For a moment he stood like a ground-hatched fledgling, staring after her, wishing she would turn back to him and give him one of her gentle smiles.

  But of course, she didn’t.

  Dari was never lazy from the day’s business.

  Aron shook himself out of his glazed staring and made his way back through the crowd, searching for Stormbreaker. As he walked, he caught snatches of conversation.

  “I heard Lord Altar’s on his way down from Can Olaf, bringin’ most of his warbirds to meet Lord Brailing’s guardsmen….”

  “Warbirds ain’t like normal soldiers. They can live off sand and rocks….”

  “They’ll threaten Lord Cobb until he joins them against Lady Mab….”

  “They’ll be at the north borders by winter, and they’ll fight until we all die or starve. What do nobles with strong Fae blood care for goodfolk? We’re worth nothing to them….”

  Aron cataloged each detail, weighed it, and tried to use his legacy to sift out what was accurate and what was only rumor. His graal told him that the warbirds really were marching down from the northwest to join with Lord Brailing’s forces. That was bad, in his estimation. The combined armies of Altar and Brailing could exert considerable pressure on Lord Cobb to the east, and maybe force one of the greater dynasts to join their campaign against Lady Mab. The wings of the great bird that was Eyrie might be smaller than the body, but wings could guide the bird if they moved together.

  When Aron reached the spot farthest from the travelers’ shelter, he saw that Stormbreaker, Windblown, Zed, and six other Stone Brothers who had joined them on the road were digging another trench for the tallow circle. Hopefully, the flames from the lit tallow would keep them safe this night. Though none but Aron and Stormbreaker knew it, Dari’s presence in the shelter would assure that the children and infirm would be unharmed, for that’s all who would fit in the shelter. The rest would have to risk sleeping on the ground with fire, weapons, and hourly watches to keep them safe.

  Inside the circle Stone was digging, there were four tents, each large enough to sleep four men. Three boys, Harvest prizes who had yet to accept their destiny, were shackled to one another beside the center tent and under guard from two Stone Brothers. The Brothers spoke kindly to their charges, and gave them water and food. They even took them for brief walks one at a time, without their restraints, to make certain no harm came to them.

  Aron climbed over the dirt trench and headed for Stormbreaker even as the boys glared after him like he was some sort of traitor.

  Hadn’t their fathers taught them that anger without power was folly?

  Didn’t they see?

  In the end, Stone’s training would give them power to right whatever wrongs had been done to them.

  “High Master Stormbreaker,” Aron said as he approached Stormbreaker, feeling the tap of the sheathed silver daggers Stormbreaker had given him on the outside of both thighs. “What would you have me do now?”

  Stormbreaker, who was still hunkered over his shovel, grunted, then stopped digging and wiped his face. Windblown, Zed, and the four other Stone Brothers continued their work without so much as a glance toward Aron.

  Aron stood still as Stormbreaker appraised him, then nodded. “You have worked hard and well.” He gestured to Aron’s breeches. “But your legs are bleeding from your riding sores again. Go and take yourself through the Veil for some concentrated healing.”

  “Yes, High Master.” Aron tried not to look too eager.

  “There’s a pond just inside the tree line.” Stormbreaker pointed to the eastern edge of the shelter encampments. “Take no more than half an hour, or sunset may catch you unaware.”

  “Yes, High Master Stormbreaker.” Aron gave a quick bow of respect, turned to do as he was bade, made it about four steps—and came up short as shouting broke out in the camp circle adjoining their own. About ten yards from Aron, a big man, long-haired with a red, bushy beard, bellowed at a scrawny ginger-haired boy who stood next to a spilled bowl of porridge. Several other men moved away from the chaos. They looked much like the yelling man, perhaps older sons, or maybe relatives, six or seven in all. Aron noted the heavy, muscled arms, and that several held mallets or hammers, and he realized they were blacksmiths plying their trade on the road.

  The yelling man had no hammer, which Aron thought fortunate for the child, who seemed no more than eight years, maybe nine, and not well fed. The little boy cowered away from the force of the man’s rage, lifting his hands like he feared the man would strike him.

  “Clumsy, dirt-eating cull,” the man shouted, his words slurred from too much drink. “You killed your mother in the birthing, and you’ll be my death, too!” He pointed to the spilled porridge, which to Aron stank of aged cabbage even at a distance. “Don’t think you’ll get another bowl this night.”

  Then, before Aron could cry out to stop it, the man swung his massive fist and caught the little boy in the side of his face.

  The ginger-haired child crumpled like a doll thrown to the ground.

  Aron barked his surprise and grabbed his own face, almost feeling the blow crushing his own bones.

  Breezes blew by him, one, then two, then more, so fast he wasn’t certain what was happening. Not until Stormbreaker seemed to materialize in front of the angry man, both of his gleaming saw-toothed swords drawn and ready. Windblown stood immediately behind Stormbreaker, his broadswords drawn, too. Five of the other six Stone Brothers quickly formed a ring around Stormbreaker, Windblown, the man, and the downed child, facing outward, toward the others in the man’s traveling party. The blacksmiths had raised their hammers and
mallets to come in defense of their own, but Aron saw awareness dawn as they studied the gray-robed men and their fearsome swords, never mind their blank, battle-ready expressions.

  One at a time, the blacksmiths lowered their weapons.

  Somebody nudged Aron, and he jumped.

  It was Zed, only not the typical jolly, smiling Zed Aron was coming to know from their hours on the road. This was the reckless, mad Zed who had tackled a rock cat the first night Aron knew him—and Zed had his own daggers drawn.

  “We fight with our Brothers,” Zed whispered, not as chastisement. More teaching. Encouraging.

  Aron’s pulse quickened, and he cursed his own slow mind. As fast as he could, he drew his own blades.

  Zed gave him a solemn nod, and they walked forward until they were in striking range of the blacksmiths, should Stormbreaker and Windblown require assistance. From the insane blaze of anger on Stormbreaker’s normally calm face, Aron thought it unlikely he would need any help at all, but kept himself ready nonetheless.

  Seemingly everyone within earshot had gone totally quiet. Most people were moving away, even if it meant abandoning their camp circles.

  See, their frightened faces seemed to announce. We know this is Stone business.

  Aron didn’t know if law-abiding respect drove their decisions, or fear of the drawn swords, but he didn’t care. Blood pounded in his ears now, and his breath came short as he gripped his daggers.

  Would the drunken animal of a man be foolish enough to fight?

  Aron glanced at the other men. Would they interfere?

  There were strong customs about avoiding conflict in or around travelers’ shelters, not to mention the Code of Eyrie, which forbade disrespecting Stone or Thorn.

  Overhead, thunder rumbled in a completely clear late-afternoon sky, and Aron knew the sound rose from Stormbreaker’s agitation.