Assassin's Apprentice

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

  From the firm set of the boy’s face, Aron could tell Iko wasn’t planning to reveal any more information.

  He’s a lot like Seth, Aron thought, and the realization finally brought forth some emotion from the numbness inside him.

  The emotion was sadness.

  Aron launched himself away from his door and into the hallway, walking quickly away from the bedchamber, this time in the opposite direction from Dari’s quarters. He had abandoned the idea of trying to get a view of the Shrine of the Mother the moment he discovered Iko still outside his door, so he had no real idea where he was going, only that he needed to move, to walk off the misery battering at his insides.

  Perhaps he should leave the High Masters’ Den and try to find the talon barn. Some time with Tek might ease his mind. Yet even behind the walls of such a fortress, it was nighttime in Eyrie, and his instincts shied away from venturing outside without benefit of a tallow circle, or at least a torch.

  With every step, tears gathered in Aron’s eyes and spilled down his face. He didn’t look back to see if Iko was following him, but his better sense told Aron that this was the case. He wove out of the tower and into the Den’s wider section, then into another tower, around and around until he lapped past his room twice, then started using the staircases he found. His mind registered a few details—a rug here, a table there. A library on the top level. A kitchen on the lower level. Weapons on the walls, decorations mostly, as they seemed very old. Here and there, he turned a corner to find moonslight spilling through grates or small arched windows.

  When he once more reached the level of the Den where his own room was located, though in the tower opposite his own, he was moving so quickly he almost didn’t see the tall boy with the reddish brown hair step from his bedchamber.

  Aron pulled his stride before he smacked into Galvin Herder.

  Galvin, who was dressed in tunic and breeches and boots, as if he might be planning to head out into the darkness, paused to stare down at Aron just as he had done earlier, outside Dari’s bedchamber. “Little children should be in bed.”

  That brought the heat to Aron’s face quickly. “I’m not a child. I’m fourteen years, and I’ll be fifteen in a few cycles.”

  Galvin regarded him with absolutely no emotion at all, and Aron fought a sense of being a rabbit in the eyes of a fox. “I would have thought Master Stormbreaker would pick a strong apprentice, or at least one of normal size for his age.”

  Aron bit back a rush of angry responses and made to move past Galvin, but the taller boy blocked his path. Galvin’s flat, unreadable face unnerved him and though he hated himself for doing it, Aron glanced back to see if Iko really was behind him.

  The Sabor was there, a few paces back, standing with his arms folded. He was watching. Just watching, with no apparent intent to intervene.

  Galvin seemed to notice the direction of Aron’s glance. He smiled, but the expression seemed twice as cold—even frightening. “You can’t count on savages like the Sabor. They have their own purposes, and you’ll receive their kindness only until they’re finished with you.”

  Aron managed to swallow, though his throat was so tight the movement caused him pain. His heart was starting to beat too fast, and his breathing turned jerky. He wasn’t afraid of taking a beating. His own brothers had given him plenty of those. No, it was something else, a rank meanness ingesting this boy like a plague on the spirit, or the heart. It set Aron’s instincts buzzing, as if he were standing right next to a prowling beast, or a mocker about to make its deadly shift.

  Aron wanted to get far away.

  Now.

  Before something happened that caused Lord Baldric to send him straight to judgment.

  “I’ll go,” Aron said, trying again to skirt Galvin and continue down the hallway.

  Galvin moved so quickly Aron didn’t see his arm or hand before he felt the boy’s fingers clamp on his shoulder. Galvin gripped him so hard Aron feared his bones might come through his flesh. His face and chest burned as he struggled, but he couldn’t extract himself. White-hot bolts of pain traveled down his right arm, making his fingers tingle.

  “If I want you to stay, you’ll stay.” Galvin sounded matter-of-fact. Almost … happy. As if he could sense Aron’s hurting, and enjoyed it.

  Aron pushed his shoulder upward into the bigger boy’s grip to ease the pressure, a trick he had learned from fighting with his brothers so many times. “I don’t have any quarrel with you, Galvin Herder.”

  “Where is Master Stormbreaker?” Galvin’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried threat and force. “Did he leave you all alone on this, your first night at Triune?”

  Aron ground his teeth against the pain and tried once more to get himself free. There was no way he would tell this boy where Stormbreaker had gone, or why.

  Galvin tightened his grip until Aron yelped and habit took over. With all the force he could muster, Aron launched a kick. His toes crumpled as his bare foot slammed into Galvin’s knee. More pain blossomed like hot coals pressed against Aron’s skin, but he barely felt it as the older boy swore and turned loose his shoulder. Aron started to hobble past Galvin, but Galvin grabbed his good ankle.

  From the corner of his eye, Aron saw Iko start to move, but somebody in a gray tunic stepped gracefully in front of the Sabor.

  “This will cease,” said a woman’s voice, and Aron felt himself freed once more.

  He toppled forward and barely managed to catch himself on both hands. As fast as he could, he righted himself and turned to see who had spoken.

  It was one of the girls he had seen in the hallway outside Dari’s door. One of the girls who had seen him naked and making a fool of himself. She was tall, willowy, and she seemed older, more a grown woman than a child. Aron noted the yellow-blond hair and bright blue eyes usually found in the Mab dynast, but her gray robes and cheville marked her as a Stone Sister.

  Aron bit at his lip at the throb in his shoulder and foot as Galvin managed to stand and lean against the wall, massaging his knee. “Stormbreaker has abandoned his prize, Marilia,” he told the Stone Sister. “He might escape.”

  Marilia’s lips curved into a frown, but Aron could see from her narrowed eyes that she didn’t trust the boy, or like him much at all. “Stormbreaker knows his own business, Galvin Herder. I suggest you leave it—and this boy—to him.”

  Galvin stopped nursing his swelling knee and managed to stand up straight. His height allowed him to stare down at Marilia much as he had done with Aron, but Aron saw that Marilia wasn’t intimidated.

  Galvin seemed to notice this, too, and that coldness Aron felt from the boy increased like a building winter storm. “May Stormbreaker’s judgment prove better than Snakekiller’s. When your mistress doesn’t return, we’ll learn what Lord Baldric truly thinks of your abilities.”

  Marilia’s features hardened, making her look older and more regal as she stepped closer to Galvin, moving her face very near to his. “Snakekiller will come back to Triune in her own time, and I’ll thank you to remember I’m no longer an apprentice needing a mistress. If I had wanted to, I could have claimed you when you were orphaned, and put you to work scrubbing latrines in the Sisters’ Tower.”

  Galvin stood his ground, but his answering smile was more frigid poison. Aron realized the boy really wanted to throw himself at Marilia, but didn’t want to risk outright defeat at her hands. No. This boy would wait. He would choose his moment and strike, perhaps even from behind, like a brazen coward.

  Aron swallowed as he flexed his shoulders and toes, trying to make certain they would move at his bidding.

  Cowards were always the most dangerous, weren’t they?

  From behind Marilia, Iko fixed his dark eyes on Galvin. Aron wasn’t certain, but he thought he saw something like anger or dislike in the Sabor’s stare.

  “Your charge is to find peace and learn to respect each other, for the good of the guild,” Marilia said, addressing herself to Aron and Galvin. “If
you cannot do so, you’ll be spending long—and unpleasant—hours at Endurance House. Were I you, I’d find better uses for your time, before I see fit to send you both there now.”

  With that, she wheeled away from them, made her way past Iko, and continued down the hallway toward the staircase.

  Aron remained motionless, hammered by Marilia’s threat.

  Endurance House…

  And then Lord Baldric would be informed, and then—

  The thought of it made him want to collapse where he stood, even if Galvin Herder laughed at him or beat him for his weakness.

  Galvin seemed in no further mood for trouble himself, however. He gave Aron a final glance, neither smiling nor frowning, then walked away, heading in the direction of the other staircase, the one that led down toward the kitchen on the lower level.

  Aron turned to go back to his own room and found himself looking directly at Lord Baldric.

  The sight of the man’s bald head and narrow glare startled him so badly that he jumped, then flushed from embarrassment at the fright. Lord Baldric was standing only a body’s length from him, and the Lord Provost’s arms were folded, his hands concealed in the sleeves of his gray robes.

  Was he holding daggers in both fists?

  Aron’s legs wobbled, but he kept himself upright.

  “It’s late,” Lord Baldric said without moving the hands in his sleeves. His tone was firm, and he overpronounced both words.

  Aron had to will his lips to form words. “Yes, sir.”

  Lord Baldric waited for a few seconds, then sighed. “When it’s late, people sleep.”

  “Yes, sir,” Aron said, then took the man’s meaning and started toward his own bedroom.

  Lord Baldric relaxed his arms as Aron drew near. His finger slid from his sleeves, and Aron saw no weapons. He almost fainted from relief when the Lord Provost swept past him and headed off in the direction Galvin Herder had taken.

  As soon as Lord Baldric was out of sight, Aron gathered his wits enough to limp straight to Iko and stop in front of the Sabor. “I thought you were here to protect me.”

  Iko shrugged one shoulder. “You were in no real danger.”

  Aron’s mouth came open. He wanted to kick Iko’s knee next, and might have, if his foot wasn’t already hurting so badly. “So it won’t trouble you if some older, bigger boy breaks my shoulder and toes—or if the Lord Provost executes me if he thinks I’m dangerous and breaking the rules he set?”

  Iko gazed at him steadily, then said with that irritatingly calm voice, “It is not for me or anyone else to fight your battles. I will not interfere with your training or your life, but if I believe you need protection, I will offer it.”

  Aron pushed past Iko and limped back to his room without looking back at the Sabor, even when Iko added, “And you injured your own toes.”

  The door to Aron’s bedchamber opened easily, and he managed to close it quietly instead of slamming it as hard as he wished and waking Zed along with everyone in the Den. The fire was burning lower, so Aron found the bucket of tender beside it and added some small branches before stripping off his tunic and breeches and returning to his own bed. The entire time he was moving, his aches and pains refused to ease.

  After the fire grew to his satisfaction, Aron took off his clothes and sat on the edge of his bed and examined himself. A bruise was forming on his shoulder, and his foot was an unpleasant shade of purple just below his second toe.

  He closed his eyes and let a few new tears spill down his cheeks before catching himself and speaking to himself in his own mind.

  I’m too old to sob like a little boy.

  The words came out in his father’s voice, or maybe Seth’s, and that only made the tears flow more freely.

  I wish…

  I wish my mother were here.

  That desire made Aron flush with shame, then anger, and he could hear Stormbreaker now, speaking to him after he woke following the Shrine incident.

  We’re a guild, not a stable of wet nurses with infants to be tended.

  Aron turned and slammed his fist into his feather-stuffed pillow.

  Down belched from the cloth covering and floated past him, small gray shadows in the low light of the moons and fire.

  He needed to sleep. Some part of him knew that, but how would he ever manage to close his eyes?

  Aron punched the pillow again, and again. Then again.

  He’d probably fail at whatever tasks Stormbreaker set for him on the morning. And Galvin Herder and the rest of the apprentices would be right there to see him, to see the runt make a fool of himself yet again. Perhaps Lord Baldric would decide he wasn’t worth the trouble, and send him on for judgment after all.

  Grinding his teeth to hold back a shout, Aron drove his knuckles into the ripping, tearing pillow so many times that goose down filled the air around his bed like a small, dark cloud.

  Zed turned away from the noise and groaned. Then he pulled his blanket over his head and left Aron to throw himself on his own bed and lie awake, refusing to risk the closing of his eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ARON

  Aron clawed his way out of bloody nightmares about killing the Brailing Guard to find Zed already dressed and shaking him by the foot. The room smelled of dampness and the smoke of a dying fire. Faint gray light slanted in through the bedchamber’s arched windows. Not enough light, by Aron’s dim reckoning. Either it was too early, or raining, or both. Either way, Aron wanted nothing more than to sink back to his pillow and sleep again, this time without his violent dreams.

  Zed gave Aron’s foot another shake. “Hurry. We’ll be late, and you never, ever want to be late for training days.”

  Aron ignored him.

  “Have it your way.” Zed seized both of Aron’s ankles.

  Before Aron could even get off a kick to defend himself, Zed flipped him to his side and turned him loose. Aron tumbled sideways out of the bed, blankets and all, and struck the stone floor hard with both elbows and his hip.

  The crack-shock of the pain made his eyes fly open.

  His vision cleared along with his mind. He rolled to his feet, intending to ignore the throb in his arms and leg and pound Zed for pitching him out of bed, but a knock at the bedchamber door brought him up short. Instead of swinging at the ready, waiting Zed, Aron dove for his trunk to get out a clean tunic and some breeches, just in case it was Dari who had come calling.

  Moments later, Stormbreaker swept into the room. Aron’s heart lurched at the sight of his guild master, and he wondered what he should feel—relief at his return? Happiness? Fear? As it was, fatigue from poor sleep edged out all other possibilities, but Aron did experience a stab of curiosity about how Stormbreaker and Dari had fared in their search for Kate.

  Stormbreaker bypassed Zed with only a cursory nod, and Zed immediately busied himself with cleaning out the fire grate. Stormbreaker came straight to Aron, who was tying the laces of his leather boots, and knelt beside him.

  “I was concerned about you,” Stormbreaker said when Aron finished with the laces. “I did not like leaving you alone on your first night at Triune.”

  “I’m no risk for running away.” Irritation chased a bit of Aron’s tiredness away. He frowned as he straightened himself and looked Stormbreaker in the eye. “I had Zed and Iko, too. This is a guild, not a stable of wet nurses, correct?”

  Stormbreaker offered him what might have been a smile, were it not for the obvious exhaustion weighting his features. Aron noticed the traces of dirt about the man’s face and the dust still clinging to his gray robes. “It was my responsibility to see to your needs, to make the transition to your new life easier, but I couldn’t honor both that duty and our promise to Dari. I hope you understand.”

  “I do understand,” Aron said, surprised to realize he meant it with the same force he spoke it. “I would have gone last night, if you had allowed it.”

  Stormbreaker rose, but kept his gaze firmly locked on Aron’s face
. “I have no doubt you would have done well, but guild training is dangerous enough with a full night’s rest and no other concerns. I won’t put your life at needless risk by taxing you with night hunts that may or may not ever bear fruit. Last night certainly did not.”

  An odd sort of sadness rattled Aron because he knew Dari must be so disappointed over the failure, and his gut clenched along with his fists. A second later, he had an absurd urge to belt Stormbreaker in the nose, for leaving him behind and for not finding Kate to make Dari happy. He might have done it, too, if his better sense hadn’t informed him that he’d have to climb on his bed to reach that high.

  “It’s that important to you to help Dari,” Stormbreaker murmured, as if realizing this for the first time. He placed a hand on Aron’s shoulder. “A matter of honor? Of love?”

  Aron said nothing, but he knew his face must be turning very, very red.

  “Very well. This evening, you’ll assist us with the maps and plans. If we receive solid information about Kate’s location, if a raiding party is required, you have my word that you won’t be left behind.”

  The tension inside Aron eased enough that he managed to look at Stormbreaker again without hitting him. He would at least have a chance to give Dari what her heart most desired, to see Kate delivered into her waiting arms. For now, that chance was enough, and he would take it.

  “Remember your lessons from yesterday, Aron,” Stormbreaker was saying. “You’ll begin learning from others today in the same fashion I taught you. Your teachers will repeat nothing without penalty, and few concessions will be made for your lack of experience. It’s important that you stay alert, that you listen, watch, smell, taste, and touch, that you gain every piece of information you can possibly gain, in every situation.” He took his hand from Aron’s shoulder, but not before giving it a gentle squeeze. “A Stone Brother’s mind is his most formidable weapon. By the end of each day, you’ll know your own thoughts better, and you’ll be that much closer to being useful to the guild.”