Assassin's Apprentice

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

  Aron went still with surprise. “Alone, Master Stormbreaker?”

  Very few apprentices, even in later years, were allowed to ride talons unsupervised.

  Stormbreaker favored him with a smile. “I believe you have earned that privilege, yes.”

  The awarding of this freedom drew a frown from Windblown, a grin from Zed, and brought an abrupt halt to Galvin Herder’s casual observation. The tall boy pivoted back toward his targets and drove his daggers home with swift, sure throws.

  Aron couldn’t quite believe his good fortune, but he motioned to Zed, picked up the two buckets of rocks he carried with him everywhere to build his arm strength, and the two of them headed off toward the talon barn with Iko following close behind.

  Aron and Zed barely spoke as they moved, but Aron could feel Zed’s pride and excitement, as well as his nervousness at approaching the big, scaled lizards that had caused him trouble in the past.

  When they crossed through the barrier separating horses and talons and neared the barn, they could hear Tek whistling the moment she scented Aron’s approach.

  The sound of the little talon’s greeting gave Aron a pang in his chest; then his heart seemed to open wide. As if chasing after the bits of sun showing through the gray, wintery clouds, Aron pushed past Zed, left Iko behind as well, and ran down the last bit of the path between the stable barrier wall and the talon barn. He put down his rock buckets, shoved his way through one of the ten entrances, ran the considerable length of the straw-covered dirt floor, carefully opened the thick, large doors separating the male and female sections, and slipped into the secondary hall. Familiar odors of grain and manure and rank goat meat met his nose, and dust swirled around him with each step he took. The talon barn was warmer than outdoors, because the Stone Guild kept their talons like noble families did, with fires burning in hearths spaced along the barn wall. He found Tek where he knew she would be, in front of one of those heated grates, in the last stall in the female section. She was squeaking and whistling and stamping around, even waving her withered foreclaws to express her absolute joy at his presence.

  “Sweet girl,” he muttered as she butted against the reinforced wooden stall door. For a few beautiful moments, Aron imagined he was back home in his father’s barn, outside the stone stall they constructed just for Tek after she was rescued. If he closed his eyes, he might see the gardens, the crops, the house—might even hear the music of his sisters laughing, or his mother calling out to Seth and his brothers to gather the little ones for dinner. He pulled open the stall door to hug her, but she butted him right in the gut. Aron grunted from the blow and stumbled backward, and Tek shrilled all over again, excited, but also tense at Zed and Iko’s approach.

  Aron gathered her lead halter from a peg beside the stall, slipped it over her head, and whispered comforts to her as Zed edged up beside him. Iko seemed to fade into the woodwork, as if aware that the addition of his unfamiliar—and perhaps predatory—scent might make Tek too nervous to accept Zed’s presence.

  Tek stared at Zed, her round eyes wide and her hinged jaws open just enough to show rows of jagged white teeth stained with blood from her afternoon meal. She smelled of gore and scale oil, but Aron didn’t care. He pressed his face and arms against her broad side and tried not to cough at the stench.

  “She’s still smaller than the rest, but I think she’s growing.” Zed leaned away from Tek as she went to sniff him, and Aron realized Zed was skittish around her. Maybe around all talons.

  “If you relax with them, they’ll relax with you.” Aron straightened himself enough to rub his fingers across Tek’s slick, glassy head scales. When he pushed against the tips of her relaxed neck ring, the sharpness made him catch his breath. “You can’t be afraid of talons. They’ll bite and kick—throw you off and stomp you into the dirt, just like horses, only it’s farther to the ground.”

  “Yeah.” Zed put his hand on his left side and rubbed, as if remembering fierce pain. “Regular apprentices don’t train much with talons, but we had to learn the basics of care, tending, and riding. Will I be safe to take out a bull if you’re on Tek?”

  Aron tugged Tek toward the barn wall so he could tie her and saddle her. “She’s still cycles from her first mating season. See her neck ring, here?”

  Zed nodded as Aron stroked the deadly pointed scales again.

  “These scales flush like Mab’s rubies when females near their breeding time,” Aron said. “It’s only once a year in spring—but you won’t be able to miss how the scales look, or how the females behave. Like deranged rock cats with the scent of blood.”

  Zed pointed to the neck ring. “I hate it when the scales come up. That never means anything good. I—I guess High Masters usually choose bulls for riding because they don’t want to be down for the cycles of breeding and laying and sitting?”

  Aron shrugged as he left the tied talon and headed into the tack room. “It takes only about two cycles, three at the most, and hatchlings do well without their mothers for hours at a time. Bulls have more even temperament, and they take to training better.” He located Tek’s saddle on its wall peg and pulled it down. When he emerged, Zed was still standing quietly, as if eager to learn everything Aron knew about talons. “Females tend to bond with one rider and one rider only, and they can be vicious with anyone else who tries to handle them.”

  “Trainers told us that last year.” Zed moved away from Tek as Aron approached her with blanket and saddle, but not before she splattered him with a big, snotty sniff. “Just not in such simple words. The way you say it, it’s easier to remember. I’ll go back to the front of the barn and saddle one of the bulls.”

  As Zed shied away from Tek, then hurried away to get his own mount, Aron felt a passing pleasure that he could help Zed with his talon riding. Zed had been very helpful to him since he was taken, after all.

  Or am I just glad to finally be better than Zed at something? Anything? The questions made him frown, especially when he couldn’t give himself honest answers. His mother would have told him to pray to the Brother and ask forgiveness for such jealous and unkind intentions, but Aron couldn’t imagine doing that.

  “If the gods even bother with the likes of us.” Heat burned in his cheeks all during the time it took to finish saddling Tek and swap her halter for a riding bridle. Then he used a bench to climb into Tek’s saddle. It felt good to be with her, yet even the freedom of riding unsupervised or the opportunity to help Zed improve at his talon skills didn’t ease the anger that seemed to stalk Aron and come back to him with the smallest of thoughts. After all these days, it was beginning to make him weary inside.

  He rode through the opening separating male from female sections too quickly, then had to rein Tek hard to lean back and push the doors closed behind him. To his credit, Zed had already managed to pick out a talon, and he had done a fair job of rigging the saddle and bridle. Aron pointed at the center cinch, to the loose buckle at the middle. “Tighten it there or you’ll slip off, saddle and all, if he leaps.”

  Zed complied without comment, then wrestled the bull to a bench and mounted.

  Aron led the way outside, barely looking back at his companion, even though he knew Zed was nervous. When the talon barn door thumped into place behind them, the riding field seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions, beckoning with frosty brown grass. Newly emerged sunlight touched Aron’s face, warm in the otherwise cold breeze, and the air smelled so much fresher, like chilled mud and winter forests. Like the Watchline. Like home.

  Aron urged Tek forward, giving the talon her head and letting her find her own speed. The chilly breeze became a steady stream of cold wind, and Aron found the rhythm of the talon’s loping gait easily. It was like home, like running down the byway near their farm, dodging toward the trees that separated the Watchline from the Scry.

  For a moment, Aron did let himself close his eyes and pretend. He could see every detail of the place that had been his home, his heart, right down to the worn woo
d of their barn and the pegs he and his father had hammered the day before Harvest.

  The day before everything had changed.

  “Aron?” Zed called from behind them, but his voice seemed small and distant, and for the moment, unimportant. He would catch up soon enough on a bull. The bigger talon could double Tek’s stride, or better.

  “Aron!” Zed yelled again, and this time Aron wanted to wheel Tek around, fly back to the other boy, and punch him like he might have punched Seth for interrupting such a good ride. Instead, he let Tek romp down the barrier wall separating horse pastures from talon grounds. The frigid fall air braced him, soothed him, seemed to drive back the uncomfortable fire of the rage he couldn’t seem to release.

  The barrier gate swung open, but Aron didn’t worry about the breach, because he was still many lengths away. Whoever had come through would fasten the gate back long before he drew close enough for Tek to make a bolt toward the horses. He let her run another few paces—then sucked back an icy breath and blinked in the blaze of afternoon sunlight.

  The gate—

  It was still open.

  “Close the gate!” he shouted, but the tall figure in the gray tunic who had come through walked slowly down the wall in the other direction, leaving the barrier wide-open. “Hey! Secure the barrier!”

  Tek yanked against him, turning her formidable strength straight toward the scent of fresh meat.

  “Hold!” Aron jerked back on the rein and threw his body weight as far back in the saddle as he dared. “Tek, hold!”

  From behind him came Zed’s frantic, incoherent shouts and the doom thunder of charging bull talon clawfeet on the frozen ground.

  Blood surged through Aron’s chest and his throat pinched until he couldn’t speak another word to control Tek. All he could do was saw the bit back and forth in her mouth and pray to the heavens he got her attention. Not likely, with fresh horse meat only a few dozen loping strides through the open barrier gate.

  The bull talon stormed past them a few paces from the breach in the barrier, and Aron saw Zed clinging to the bull’s neck with one arm, fighting the reins with the other.

  From the other side of the barrier, horses began to squeal in terror.

  Aron prayed the horses would stampede back to their own stables, attracting as much attention and aid as possible. He saw the tall figure in the gray tunic standing some distance away. Galvin Herder was watching with eerie calmness as Tek blasted through the open gate. Her battle ring flipped up at the sight of horses, blocking Aron’s view as Zed’s bull talon threw Zed aside like a straw dummy. The big bull leaped into the air and aimed his clawfeet at a running, bleating mare.

  The awful crunch of bone and the final screech of the mare filled the afternoon. The bull talon let out a spine-rattling battle screech, and Tek answered with one of her own.

  Aron let out his own cry of frustration. Dread and terror hammered through his veins. Tek would try to challenge the bull for his kill, and the riderless bull would slay the little female just as fast as he killed the horse.

  “No!” Aron bunched the reins in his fist and leaned so far back in the saddle he felt himself slipping toward the talon’s rough, scaly rump. The thrust of her stride threw her hips against the back of his head so hard that his vision swam.

  No, no, no! Panic burned him like wildfire. Stop. Stop! He was thinking it, screaming it as he fell and slammed into the grassy pasture.

  Pain fractured his thoughts, crushed away his breath, and left him wordless and gasping on the icy dirt, staring into blue-white sunlight and shifting gray clouds. His ears roared as he wheezed, and he couldn’t hear anything but his own struggling breath. He dug at the hard ground with his fingers, trying to get up, trying to get himself to Tek before she died, but he knew he was failing. She would be gone in seconds. He was losing her, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ARON

  Tek.

  Tek!

  Aron got enough breath to yell, but still no words came. Just a wail like a wounded rock cat daring some predator to approach it.

  Something streaked past him, shoving him sideways; then voices seemed to come from everywhere at once.

  Still fighting for every taste of air, Aron managed to push himself upright. He saw Zed first, up but coughing and staggering in a circle. Zed was holding his ribs and his mouth was bleeding. From the horse stables, six Stone Brothers were coming on the run. Between Zed and the onrushing guildsmen, the bull feasted on its kill, slowing only to let out sharp bleats of satisfaction.

  Aron gripped his own ribs and sucked down breath after breath despite the pain in his head and sides. Where was Tek? Why wasn’t she at the meat, or dead at the bull’s feet?

  He turned to search the field—and he saw Tek standing to his left, head down against tight reins.

  Iko had her.

  The Sabor was standing completely still, facing Aron, steadying Tek’s reins in one big blue fist.

  The aches in Aron’s body seemed to fade into so much nothing as he stared at the little talon. She wasn’t bleeding anywhere, and no part of her seemed crooked, not a scale ruffled or out of place. She blew a film of snot across Iko’s shoulder and head, then snorted again and pulled her head back toward the bull and the meat.

  Iko held the reins with no difficulty.

  Aron had an urge to run to Iko and throw his arms around the Sabor’s neck, but a movement to his right caught his attention.

  Galvin Herder had come through the breach, closed the gate behind him, and reached Zed. The older boy was mopping blood from Zed’s mouth with the sleeve of his tunic.

  Fresh, hot fury bubbled through Aron, and he was walking, then running toward Galvin before he even formed another thought.

  Galvin didn’t see his approach. All the better.

  People were shouting at Aron, calling his name, but Aron ignored them all. He was only a few feet from Galvin now, fist doubled, feet churning through the brittle grass. His breath whistled through his clenched teeth as he threw himself at the older boy.

  Galvin shifted sideways, and it was Zed who caught Aron in mid-flight, tumbling to the ground with him. Zed rolled with him twice, then three times, refusing to let go of Aron’s tunic even when Aron started hitting him to get loose.

  “You know what he did!” Aron’s mind buzzed with the force of his rage, and he shouted so loudly the words seemed to tear his throat. “Why are you helping him?”

  “Let him go,” Galvin called to Zed, his tone even and calm.

  From his vantage point flat on his back, pinned beneath Zed’s chin, Aron could see the older boy’s long legs striding toward them.

  Zed slammed Aron’s shoulder hard into the wet ground to get his attention. “We’re all Stone, Aron. No matter what Galvin does, it doesn’t give us an excuse to act the same way.”

  Aron glared into Zed’s brown eyes and blood-streaked face. He stopped beating his fists against the other boy’s back, but only because he was wearing himself out and accomplishing nothing. “That stream of mocker piss got that mare killed. He almost got you and Tek killed, too.”

  Zed kept his grip firm and used his bodyweight to control Aron completely. “And how will hurting him change any of that? That’s what Stormbreaker’ll ask you.”

  “It would—it would—” Aron fished for something apart from, It would make me feel better. He came up with, “It would teach him a lesson.”

  “Only if he wants to learn.” Zed shifted his weight enough to let Aron breathe. “I’ve been at Stone long enough to learn that bad eggs rot without any help from me.” He pushed himself up on both hands, giving Aron enough room to wiggle. “You don’t want to end up at Endurance House, do you?”

  A frigid rush of reality chilled Aron into stillness just as Galvin reached them. “Let Aron go, Zed.”

  The command was definite. Calm. And to Aron, the words sounded deadly. Blood pulsed steadily in his temples and he made himself lie still, i
ncreasingly horrified by what had happened—and what he had almost done in response. Lord Baldric wouldn’t tolerate assault with fists and feet any more than he would tolerate attacking someone with graal, no matter what the provocation.

  “Let him face me,” Galvin said to Zed, matter-of-fact, like a teacher might instruct a student.

  “There’ll be no facing anyone here today,” said a man’s stern voice, and Aron recognized Windblown’s tone and cadence immediately. Other Stone Brothers joined him, tips of their gray robes dusting the brown grass Aron could see from where he lay.

  Seconds later, he and Zed were on their feet before the men. Wind-blown’s face was red, as it always seemed to be when he was angry. He was breathing hard, and his thinning brown hair looked slick and limp against his rounded face. The silver medallion on his chest with its braided silver chain and the single spiral carved into the metal gleamed as sun broke through clouds once more. Beside Windblown, the Stone Brothers unfamiliar to Aron, all with Quiet eyes and hair, alternated between studying Aron and gazing over at Iko and Tek. Their expressions reflected mild curiosity.

  “Explanations,” Windblown demanded, directing his gaze to Galvin.

  The older boy’s expression remained flat, but his voice took on a ring of importance as he responded, “Aron and Zed were careless with the talons.”

  His words made Aron’s jaw clench, but Zed grabbed his wrist and squeezed. The shock of the discomfort captured Aron’s awareness before he spoke out against the lie.