Blades? She has her daggers, sharp enough to be lethal with one stab and small enough to be hidden in the folds of the absurd fashions worn in Sandori. The problem is the blood. Mercy will have to do it somewhere private, somewhere without his guards, and she will have to bring a change of clothes in case any blood splatters on her. It’s not the most convenient option, considering she won’t know when to strike until the rare opportunity presents itself. It could be weeks after her arrival.
Her hands? They are the most reliable of her weapons—narrow fingers, surprisingly strong grip, callused from years of training—and they do not require any additional equipment. There’s little chance of blood, unless it ends in an all-out fist fight, but again, the difficulty would be in getting the prince alone.
Mercy doesn’t notice they’ve stopped until Blackfoot rears back, nearly colliding with Nerran’s horse.
“Mercy,” Calum says, and she realizes everyone is staring at her. His smile crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Look.”
She glances over his shoulder and—
“Oh.”
The edge of the forest. It’s straight ahead, maybe ten feet away. The trees are farther apart here than by the Keep, the leaves a pale yellow-green and the underbrush long and sparse. Green grass and a blue sky are visible beyond the red trunks.
“Go ahead,” Hewlin says, his eyes sparkling.
Mercy slides off Blackfoot’s saddle and takes his reins in her hand, unable to hide her look of wonder. Her horse’s hooves clomp softly on the moist ground as he trails behind her, his warm breath tickling her arm. Aelis and the Strykers part as she passes.
Ten feet, then eight, then six.
Calum beams.
Three, two, one.
And she’s out.
13
There’s so much space.
Wide-open prairies sway with long grass and clumps of yellow wildflowers. The path they follow widens, then shifts into a dirt road, marred with imprints of horseshoes and wagon wheels. They ride side-by-side here, Hewlin in the lead. Calum has returned to his place at Mercy’s side. She tries to hide the awe on her face, but when Calum dips his head forward and smiles to himself, she knows she has failed.
Another half-hour passes, and the scraggly flatlands change. The grass is short here, the fields bare, with sprouts of plants in even rows peeking out a few inches over the dirt.
Mercy catches Calum’s sleeve and points. “Farms?”
“Yes. The Forest of Flames makes up the southern border of the agricultural sector of Beltharos. There are also the mining and fishing sectors, and Sandori is the center of it all—the trade center and capital city. The city is backed by Lake Myrella, which connects all the major rivers in the country; anything bought in Sandori can be shipped anywhere in the country.”
“Colm Myrellis settled there with his wife and two sons four hundred years ago and created a shipping company on the bank of the lake, which is why they later named it after him,” Nerran adds. “He built a dam on the junction of Lake Myrella and the Alynthi River, charging a levy on the competitors’ boats and allowing his ships to transport goods tax-free. Because the dam prevented the city’s streets from flooding after the spring showers, the townspeople did nothing to stop his monopoly over western trade, and his family grew rich from the profits, eventually becoming the ruling family we know and love today,” he adds sarcastically.
“Smart-ass,” Oren calls. “You trying to impress someone?”
“Not you,” Nerran retorts, eyeing Aelis.
“Lay a hand on me and that’ll be the last time you have hands.”
“Promises, promises. Don’t worry, my charm simply needs time to take its full effect.”
“Please. You’d have better luck getting ass from that ass over there.” Amir points to a field on their right, where a fat donkey stares at them, blinking its large, dumb brown eyes slowly.
Mercy snorts. “Even that would be a feat.”
“Well I’ll be damned—”
“She speaks!”
“Silence wasn’t one of your vows, huh? We thought they’d added something new.” Amir elbows her jovially.
“We had a bet going to see how long it would take for you to say more than two words to someone other than Puppy-Dog-Eyes here. Oren, you owe me six aurums, and don’t try to weasel your way out of paying like you did in that tavern back in Xilor. I’ve got my eye on you.”
Around and around their banter goes, so quickly Mercy can’t keep track of who says what. Even Hewlin joins in, spinning tales of his early days in the Strykers. Calum, being new, seems to be the butt of most of the jokes, but he accepts the teasing with a grin and several clever wisecracks of his own.
Long after the sun sinks below the horizon and stars freckle the sky, Hewlin stops the group to make camp for the night. Amir unstraps his horse from the cart and tosses each of the Strykers a bedroll; neither Mercy nor Aelis had thought to bring one.
“You can sleep here, my darling,” Nerran calls to Aelis, patting the ground beside him.
She sneers. “I’d rather my ass be covered in Fieldings’ Blisters than spend one night next to you.”
“Just as well, then,” Oren says cheerfully. “Lie with him for a night, and you’ll find something equally nasty growing down there soon enough.”
Nerran throws his shoe at Oren, who catches it and makes a rude gesture with his free hand. “I’ll show you nasty,” Nerran says, and feigns a lunge toward Oren.
Hewlin frowns and steps between them. “Are you five? Because the last time I checked, you’re not, so you’d better start acting your age.” Without waiting for a response, Hewlin sits down on his bedroll, facing outward. “You get some sleep now, we’ve another day’s ride to Ellesmere. Amir, you’re next watch. I’ll wake you in two hours.”
Nerran makes a face at Oren, who throws Nerran’s shoe back.
“I said sleep,” Hewlin says without looking back.
As they all settle into their places, Mercy lies down on the cold, hard dirt. They’ve camped a short distance from the road, and although summer is fast approaching, the nights are still cool, especially without any trees blocking the wind. Hewlin had insisted on not building a fire in case passing bandits or highwaymen were to see it, despite Nerran’s arguments that thieves would never venture so far past the most southern of the agricultural towns. But even if they didn’t know about the Guild, Hewlin had replied, there were always people interested in exploiting the Forest of Flames’s natural resources.
So they remain cold and fireless.
Mercy rests her head on her bundle of clothes, staring at Calum’s empty bedroll enviously. He had gone to find a stream for the horses, and she knows he would have offered her his blanket if he were here. She’s too proud to accept, even as she shivers on the ground as a springtime wind slices through her tunic. She closes her eyes, clutching her sheathed daggers to her chest. Despite trusting these men with her life, she will never let anyone lay a hand on her blades.
The numbness of her fingers wakes her late in the night. She lifts her head and glances at Hewlin’s sleeping form from where she lies, but the muscles in her neck are too stiff from her awkward position to move much more. Her fingers, still wrapped around her daggers, are freezing, and she pries them off and slips her hands into her sleeves, tucking her arms close to her body. She draws her knees in with a shuddering breath, clinging to the quickly-fading heat from her mostly-asleep body.
Something crunches the dirt a few feet away, and although it is probably one of the others shifting in his sleep, Mercy stiffens, her heart instantly pounding. It’s unsettling sleeping without anything over her head. A moment later, silence.
Something heavy drapes across her body. A blanket. Scratchy wool, but warm. She blinks up at the silhouette standing over her, stars gleaming in his hair.
“Sleep now, love,” Calum whispers, and walks away.
Mercy closes her eyes and tugs the blanket closer, falling asleep instant
ly in the residual heat from Calum’s body.
A foot crunching down on her fingers wakes Mercy next.
She spits an oath and scrambles for her daggers, her eyes not completely adjusted to the light of the sunrise.
They’re not there.
A man’s face, rough with stubble, appears before her. He grasps Mercy’s wrist and pulls her to her feet. She realizes belatedly that all the Strykers are awake, standing on the wrong end of Calum’s monstrous crossbow beside the dirt road. Another man, stocky and equally ragged-looking, has the butt of the crossbow pressed to his shoulder, his finger wrapped around the trigger. The horses are nowhere to be found.
“Find anything good?” he calls, aiming at each of the Strykers in turn. Aelis is among them, her face purple with rage.
Two more thieves are busy digging through the Strykers’ cart. “Plenty,” one says.
“Enough to feed us for months,” the other adds, flashing a gap-toothed grin.
“And how about your gold?” the man with the crossbow asks Hewlin. “Traveling with as many weapons as you’ve got, you’ve all gotta be a rich lot.”
Hewlin sets his jaw, and, despite the bolt about five feet from his heart, his expression is completely calm. “Are you sure you want to do this, friend?” He speaks as if the bandits are nothing more than mere nuisances to him—which, after decades of traveling with the Strykers, they probably are.
“Quite sure. Hand it over.” Crossbow Man grins, revealing two broken front teeth. If it weren’t for the sun’s aging of his skin and the yellow of his teeth, he could be in his late twenties.
“I think I’ll keep this one for myself,” the man holding Mercy says. He lifts the double-sided dagger in his other hand, admiring the way the orange and red gemstones of the handguard sparkle in the sunlight.
“Don’t you dare,” Mercy growls as he slips the strap of the sheath over his shoulder.
He jerks his chin to the Strykers, surveying the men’s faces. “And who does this belong to?” he asks, nodding to Mercy. “She a slave, or just an elven whore you picked up on the road?”
Calum’s expression is murderous.
The man laughs, catching Calum’s glare. “Oh-ho! We have a winner. And you know what? Because you were so honest, I won’t kill her. Yet. Not before I take her myself.” He pauses, cocking his head. “Would you like to watch?”
Calum and Hewlin step forward, and the man with the crossbow tightens his finger on the trigger. “Watch it,” he warns.
“You had better leave now,” Hewlin says in a cool voice, “before things get ugly.”
Crossbow Man merely grins.
Oren faints.
Crossbow Man jumps back as Oren begins convulsing in the dirt, saliva foaming at the corner of his mouth. Even the guys pawing through the cart stop to watch, their eyes wide.
While they’re distracted, Mercy elbows the man holding her in the stomach. He grunts, his grip on her wrist slackening enough for her to slip free. Although he’s taller than she, he’s scrawny, and it’s not difficult at all for Mercy to snatch her dagger back as he doubles over. She unsheathes it, and when the man lunges for her again, she plunges it deep into his stomach. Hot, sticky blood gushes over her hand, flowing even faster when she yanks out the blade.
“Pointy-eared bitch,” he groans as he staggers, then falls to his knees, his hands shaking in front of the hole in his abdomen.
“Exactly,” Mercy hisses as he crumples to the ground. She spins, her bloody dagger raised, to find the Strykers and Aelis making quick work of the bandits. Oren is still convulsing on the ground, caught in the seizure, and—knowing she can do nothing to help him—she runs past him to slash across the throat of another one of the men, freeing Amir from the scuffle. She jerks her head to Oren. “Go—help him!”
Hewlin, Nerran, and Aelis dispatch another one of the men, leaving Calum alone with Crossbow Man—although the crossbow is back in its owner’s hands once again.
Crossbow Man holds his hands up in surrender, scrambling backward as Calum advances. “Whoa, there, friend. How about we call it a draw, hm? We didn’t mean nothing personal by it, we just—”
A bolt cracking through his skull cuts off his words.
Calum lowers the crossbow and places the toe of his boot on the man’s forehead. With a sickening sucking noise, he pulls the bolt from the man’s head, the shaft coated in blood and gore. He looks down his nose at the corpse. “Don’t take it personally,” he sneers.
They gather around Oren, whose convulsions have slowed, but not stopped completely.
“He hasn’t been taking his medication?” Hewlin says sharply, less like a question and more as an accusation.
“Where are the blossoms?” Amir asks, tearing through Oren’s pack. “I don’t think they’re in here. Find them now—one of you!”
Mercy lets out a choked noise.
“What, Mercy?” Hewlin asks.
“The blossoms. They’re in the infirmary—at the Keep.”
Calum swears. “He must have forgotten them.” He and Mercy exchange a guilty glance before turning their attention back to Oren. They had used up the last of the Lusus blossoms for the Trial and, since they don’t grow in the south, hadn’t been able to replace them.
“He’ll just have to ride this one through,” Amir says. “It’ll be rough, but it’s nothing he hasn’t done before.”
“Mercy, Aelis,” Nerran says, “why don’t you go get the blood washed off?”
“There’s a stream about a half-mile away,” Calum adds. “You’ll have to walk, though. I let the horses loose when the bandits’ attention was diverted, before you woke up. They’ll be back soon—they’re trained well.”
Mercy and Aelis nod. They each grab a change of clothes from their packs and leave the Strykers behind.
When they return half an hour later, Oren is awake, leaning against the cart and drinking water from a canteen. He gulps it, not noticing as a thin stream spills out of the corner of his mouth and wets the front of his shirt. Amir sits beside him, talking in a low voice to his friend, and Nerran pulls Aelis away as soon as she nears. Calum and Hewlin are saddling the horses, but Calum murmurs something to Hewlin and walks over to Mercy when she approaches.
“It’s our fault,” Calum says.
“No. Well, yes, but— It’s his fault for not checking his bag before we left.” Mercy crosses her arms over her chest. “He’s okay now, isn’t he?”
“I . . . suppose.” Calum doesn’t look convinced.
Mercy stares down at the corpses around them. Dark stains color their pants and a foul odor stings her nose. “Is that—”
“One of the less glamorous aspects of death—loss of bowel control.”
Mercy wrinkles her nose. “I don’t suppose they could have taught us that at the Guild.”
“Where’s the fun in that? It’s all about the element of surprise.” Calum shrugs, then turns to her. “So, your first kill. How’d it feel?”
She hesitates. Wonderful, she wants to say, but she knows how psychotic that sounds. Murder isn’t something to be taken lightly, nor enjoyed . . . but she had enjoyed it, in a strange, perverted way. Feeling her victim’s warm blood coating her hands, making her grip on the dagger wet and slippery, watching the light go out of his eyes as he had crumpled before her . . . This is what she was meant to do. She could practice all she wanted, but nothing would amount to the real thing, the comfort in knowing she is good at what she was raised to do. Adrenaline had coursed through her veins then, and she felt like she had before the Trial—invincible.
She opens her mouth, searching for words not quite so ghoulish, when Hewlin waves them all over.
“Pack your bags,” he orders. “We’re leaving now.”
“Now?” Amir cries. “Oren just woke up. He needs time to recover.”
“Can you sit upright? Can you hold onto the reins?” Hewlin calls to Oren, who blinks slowly, then nods. “Then he can ride a horse,” Hewlin says, turning back to
the group.
Amir crosses his arms. “He needs rest.”
Hewlin’s face turns gentle. “You know I would give him an entire week to rest if not for them.” He nods to the four bodies littering the ground. “Workers will be arriving to the farms shortly, and there’s no place to hide the bodies around here.” To emphasize his point, he sweeps a hand to the rolling plains around them. “It’s fields and grass. Let those who find them think the truth—that they were killed trying to rob someone—but there’s no need to attach the Stryker name to this incident.”
Mercy wonders briefly how many ‘incidents’ Hewlin has been a part of to know the procedure so well.
Amir sets his jaw, but thaws when Nerran places a hand on his shoulder. “Fine,” he spits. “I’ll get him ready to ride.”
“Good man,” Hewlin nods.
Ten minutes later, they’re on the road again, Amir and Nerran riding on either side of Oren, watching him closely. Hewlin leads, Aelis beside him. Mercy and Calum take up the rear.
After the bodies fade into the distance behind them, Calum says, “So . . . we should talk.”
“About?”
He fidgets with his horse’s reins, letting out a long breath. “Sending you to the capital is a death sentence.”
“It’s dangerous for an elf, I know, but I won the Trial. I think I can handle a human city.”
“No, you don’t understand what has happened these past two decades. I grew up in it, I saw firsthand what they do to innocent elves, and you’re far from innocent.” He shakes his head. “Tensions between humans and elves have never been higher—not since Liselle’s death. If they catch you . . .”
“You saw what happened at the Guild. I’m a better fighter than any of them.”
“Lylia nearly had you in a puddle in the yard. What if the elves rebel again? You couldn’t fight off one girl—how well would you fare against a mob?”
Mercy sighs. “Fine. Tell me about Liselle.”
Born Assassin Saga Box Set Page 15
