Cassia merely shakes her head and accepts the cup Mercy hands her. She lifts it up in a toast and murmurs, “To Liselle.”
“To our sister,” Mercy echoes with a wistful smile. They clink glasses and drink in silence, the only sound the gentle pattering of rain against the broken shards of the window across the room.
After a few minutes, Cassia reaches into her pocket and tosses Mercy’s coin purse onto her lap. “Since we’re not leaving, we won’t be needing this.”
She pushes it back. “Keep it. I’m willing to bet it’s more than the three of you have combined.” Mercy hides her grin at Cassia’s affronted expression behind the lip of her cup. “Besides, I’ve seen the inside of your apartment. You need it more than I do.”
27
Calum
With Drake’s help, Firesse and her soldiers commit countless atrocities as they march inland. Every farm and fishers’ hut they stumble upon are swiftly broken into, robbed, and then set ablaze, the helpless owners left to watch from a distance as their entire world is reduced to ash around them. Every garden and field are destroyed. Every horse is taken by a Cirisian soldier and every flock of livestock is slaughtered, the corpses picked clean of meat and left to rot under the hot sun.
Each night, they make camp in a thick copse of trees or along a secluded riverbank. The scouts have reported Beltharan troops moving east along the king’s highway, but they’ve managed to stay well away from the road. The Cirisians are so used to life in the wilderness that it takes them less than an hour to set up the half-dozen tents and build a low-burning fire for roasting meat. It takes them even less time to pack up in the mornings. Through it all, the Strykers don’t say more than a dozen words to Drake. They have resigned themselves to their roles, working silently and sullenly late into the night, and have made it clear that there is no place among them for the man they believe Calum has become. Calum knows Hewlin hasn’t dared to tell them about Firesse’s power over the plague—he values their safety far too much to risk Firesse’s wrath—but Nerran and the others haven’t missed the distrustful looks Hewlin has been shooting him since that terrifying night in Firesse’s house.
The days begin to blur together, a seemingly endless blend of walking, stealing, burning, killing. When he’d traveled with the Strykers, Calum had loved seeing his county in such an intimate way—getting to know the people of the small towns, walking along the twisting, twining rivers, riding through the long-grass prairies and plains. Now, he spends every second fighting his father’s presence. He rages against the shackles holding him hostage in his own mind, the ice-water tentacles peering into his memories, until he’s exhausted. He doesn’t know where he goes when the last of his energy fades and that blackness once again sweeps over him. He simply . . . disappears. One minute he’s there, screaming as he watches his father and the elves murder a merchant family who stumbles too close to their camp, and the next he’s staring at the glowing embers of a fire with no memory of what had happened in between. Even so, he doesn’t stop fighting. Once, he thinks he feels a flicker—the kiss of the sun on his skin, the weight of the dagger in his palm—but the sensation fades so quickly he isn’t certain he hadn’t imagined it.
They arrive at the outskirts of Graystone in the dead of night. Unlike Sapphira, there are no ancient fortress walls to be seen as they follow the swell of the Bluejet toward the town; instead, its people rely on the two rivers surrounding the narrow strip of land on which the village sits for protection. Nestled on the island are several dozen houses, shipping compounds, shops, and taverns, the gray-black buildings packed so tightly together Calum begins to feel claustrophobic just looking at them. One strong gust, and the entire town might tip over like a row of dominoes.
Firesse lifts a hand, and they halt, their horses letting out soft snorts of relief at the reprieve from their breakneck pace. They’ve been riding almost nonstop since leaving Fishers’ Cross, resting for a few hours at a time before packing up camp and continuing westward. “Dismount here,” she calls. “Hewlin, have your men watch over the horses while we’re gone. The rest of you, come with me.”
Drake ignores the frowns of disapproval on the Strykers’ faces and moves to the First’s side. The rest of the elves follow suit, crouching behind them in the long grasses lining the riverbank. Two guards are walking along the water’s edge on the opposite side. Two arrows send them crumpling to their knees, dead before they can so much as shout.
“Where do we strike first?” she asks.
“The docks, the warehouses, the citizens—take your pick,” Drake responds, studying the ships docked on the opposite bank. A hundred years ago, Tamriel’s great-grandfather had overseen the construction of this town, yet another checkpoint for the trade ships on their way from Sandori to Fishers’ Cross and Feyndara. There are a dozen villages just like it all across the fishing sector, turning the web of rivers and waterways into a lucrative form of transportation for travelers, traders, and merchants. Taking down one would be a minor inconvenience for Ghyslain and the shipping companies whose taxes fill the royal coffers, but decimating Graystone and the seven other shipping villages along their route to Sandori will be crippling. That’s exactly what Firesse and her commanders are going to do.
Tonight, Graystone and three of its sister villages will fall. Drake and Firesse had planned each of the Cirisian troops’ routes meticulously, ensuring that their coordinated attacks will strike a blow from which the country won’t recover for a long time. Calum knows, as they crouch there in the cover of the swaying grass, that Myris and her elves are gathering on the northern end of the town, preparing their own assault. Kaius and Ivani are doing the same outside Harkness; Lysander and Aoife outside Briar Glen; Tanni and Faye outside Fairwater. Mother Illynor and the rest of the Daughters are riding west, where they’ll soon fell the remaining four villages.
So many dead. So many—because I was too damn stupid to see who Firesse really was the first time I laid eyes on her, Calum thinks miserably.
His father’s voice slides over him: You’re not the first to make the lethal mistake of underestimating her, my son, and you will not be the last.
“People first,” Firesse finally decides, turning toward the soldiers waiting behind them. “Archers, remain on this side of the river and shoot anyone who tries to flee.”
The soldiers murmur their assent, and then they’re off, moving as silently as shadows as they wade into the Bluejet. Drake follows Firesse, and Calum can tell by his sharp intake of breath that the water is cold, and moving faster than they’d expected. The river has swollen from the summer rains. The current is strong, bits of leaves and broken branches swirling around them. They have to fight for every step.
By the time Drake and the Cirisians emerge, soaked and shivering, on the opposite bank, Firesse has already wrung out her hair and slipped two daggers from their sheaths. The blades in her hands gleam under the warm light of the oil lanterns hanging from the posts lining the docks. “Just like Sapphira,” she whispers. None of them need ask the meaning of her command: small groups, in and out of each house before the people of this village know what hit them—only this time, they’re not leaving any humans alive.
She slips into an alley, two elves flanking her, and disappears.
Drake surveys the remaining elves and jerks his chin toward two sisters he’d helped train back in the Islands. They’re twins—long and lean, a few years older than Calum, and fearsome with weapons. “You two. What are your names?”
“Kenna,” one says.
“Farren,” says the other.
“Want to help me make some humans bleed?”
Kenna’s lips spread into a cruel, delighted grin. “More than anything.”
Farren growls as she shoves her dagger through the gut of her first victim. The man groans as she yanks the blade out, dark blood immediately oozing out of the gaping hole in his stomach, and falls back against the wall, his eyes glazed with pain. He lets out a low moan and collapses on
the floor of his bedchamber. “That was for my mother, you despicable piece of shit,” she snarls, wiping the blood on her dagger on the back of the man’s shirt.
“Mother was worth a hundred of his kind,” Kenna says from the hall.
“Luckily for you, there’s a whole town out there for you to massacre,” Drake drawls as he crosses to the bathing chamber and dunks his hands into the bucket of water beside the bath, scrubbing the blood on his sleeves and under his nails. It’s a useless act—they’ll be drowning in blood and gore by dawn—but Calum can sense his father’s disgust underneath his hunger for revenge. As horrible as he is, Drake was a nobleman’s son, perfumed and pampered all his life. He’d probably never gone a day without bathing. He’d been many terrible things in his life, but he hadn’t become a killer until Liselle.
Drake exits the bathing chamber and leans against the doorway, crossing his arms as he casts a lazy glance from the slowly dying man on the floor to the woman’s body sprawled across the mattress. He’d driven a dagger into her heart mere minutes ago. She hadn’t even had time to cry out.
He gestures to the door. “Shall we?”
The house is eerily quiet as they creep down the staircase and out the front door. They’d done as Firesse had asked and freed the two household slaves before they’d gone upstairs to kill the masters. They will continue like this, freeing and killing, freeing and killing, alongside Firesse and her soldiers until they meet Myris and the others in the town square. They haven’t seen any guards aside from the two by the docks, but in a town so small and so isolated from foot traffic, whatever forces they’ll face will be easy enough to defeat. Until now, the largest threats to Graystone have been smugglers and rowdy sailors.
Across the street, another group of elves emerges from a house, weapons in hand and fighting leathers coated in dark, sticky blood. They shoot Drake and the sisters smug grins and continue down the street.
“Come on,” Kenna whispers, waving them toward the next building. With a flick of her wrist, her lockpicks slip out of her sleeve and dance between her slender fingers as she works the lock. A heartbeat later, the door opens with a soft click. She doesn’t say a word as she saunters down the hall in search of slaves to liberate.
This time, their victim awakens before Drake has a chance to end his life, thanks to Farren stumbling over an ottoman and muttering a curse. The man jerks upright in bed, his mouth opening to let out a scream. All that comes out is a wet gurgle when Drake shoves his dagger through his throat. The man thrashes in the tangle of bedsheets as he clutches his neck, then falls still.
Drake glares at Farren over his shoulder. “I thought you people can see well in the dark. Isn’t that the point of a midnight attack?”
Her gray eyes, glimmering like a cat’s, narrow. “I’m doing my best, asshole. I’ve lived most of my life in a tent. I’m not used to maneuvering around all these pointless furnishings.”
“Your best isn’t good enough if our targets hear you coming down the hall. Let’s go.”
They find Kenna and a young slave waiting for them in the foyer. The girl fingers her white slave sash nervously, her eyes red-rimmed and full of terror as she takes in the myriad daggers tucked into the sheaths on Kenna’s arms, legs, and waist.
“An elf by the name of Quirin is waiting for you at the docks,” Kenna is saying when they arrive. “Keep your sash on until you’ve crossed the river and found our people, otherwise our archers might mistake you for a fleeing human and shoot. Make it to the opposite bank, and you’re a free woman.”
The slave’s head bobs up and down, and she runs out of the house without a word.
“You’re welcome,” Farren hisses as the girl disappears around the corner. Her sister jabs her with an elbow and hisses something in Cirisian, but Farren cuts her off. “I don’t care if she’s scared. She should be grateful.”
“Tell her that after we’ve won the war and returned back home. Don’t forget that if she fights with us, she’ll be turning her back on her country and signing her own death warrant. Either way, she won’t be safe until she gets to the Islands.”
“As long as that broken fool sits on the throne, she’s not safe anywhere.”
“Can we table this discussion for a later time?” Drake snaps, picking at the blood drying on the cuff of his sleeve. Farren snarls something in Cirisian, but she doesn’t argue as Drake leads them onto the street and down the block, hitting each house along the way. Calum tries in vain to disappear to wherever he had gone when the blackness had come to him, to force himself not to pay attention to the yelps and gasps of pain the villagers let out as Drake and the sisters slaughter them in their beds.
After their sixth house, the bells of the Church in the center of the village begin to clang.
Their peals shatter the nighttime calm, ricocheting off the stone façades of the buildings and echoing down the narrow streets. Drake crosses the bedchamber and shoves the shutters open. All down the road, the sleepy, curious faces of the people they have yet to kill peer out at the commotion.
“Myris made it to the bell tower.” Drake says to Farren, who has come to look out over his shoulder. “The guards will be coming soon, so be careful.”
When they descend the stairs, Kenna is already waiting for them. “Altaïr, Kassian, and Vanya are across the street, ready to join us.”
“Then let’s not keep Firesse waiting.” They fall into step behind him as he strides out of the house. Overhead, confused whispers flutter from house to house as the villagers catch sight of the strangers below. The three elves Drake had seen before are already waiting for them in the shadow of a home they’d invaded. Altaïr waves them along, leading them toward the center of town where they’re to meet Firesse and the others. Distantly, Calum can hear the shouts of the guards as they scramble to organize, but their voices are almost completely drowned out by the ringing of the bells.
They wend their way through the narrow alleys and along the winding streets, sometimes catching glimpses of other groups of elves as they answer the call of the bells, until the clusters of buildings give way to the square. Considering Graystone’s size, it’s not much to see: a few stores and artisans’ workshops line each side, and the Church—nothing more than a two-story building with a spire and a bell tower—sitting in its center. Firesse stands before the Church’s open doors, flanked by Myris and a dozen other armed Cirisians. Every one of them is splattered with blood.
So many innocent lives lost.
Drake and the others join Firesse outside the Church. Within moments, two dozen guards in leather armor pour into the square. The First smirks at the sight. “It appears your information was correct, Calum.” The guards in the smaller villages have no need for steel or plate armor. It’s heavy, expensive, and hard to maintain. Leather armor is more than enough protection against any thieves or smugglers they might encounter in their small town. They’d never expected to be caught in the middle of a war.
The commander steps forward and shouts, “Lay down your weapons!”
“Only if you do it first,” Firesse calls.
He stiffens at her Cirisian accent, the tales of the elves’ legendary brutality no doubt running through his head. “Lay down your weapons and surrender,” he shouts again, his voice a little less confident. “We have you surrounded.”
A handful of guards have begun approaching from every side of the square, cutting off any chance of escape.
“You’re holding the priestesses hostage, aren’t you? That’s why they set off the alarm? Release them, unharmed, and we’ll give you whatever you desire. Food, money, clothing—whatever supplies your people need—and you can be on your way.”
A sliver of moonlight breaks through the heavy clouds, and Firesse takes the opportunity to step into the light. One of the guards sucks in a breath when he sees the blood soaking Firesse’s armor and the daggers in her hands. “Food, money, and clothing won’t bring my people back from the dead, now, will it?”
Behin
d the commander, the guards unsheathe their swords, but none of them makes a move. They won’t attack until he orders it. Calum can see in the rigidity of his shoulders and in the way the guards keep shifting their grips on their weapons that they’re nervous. All those superstitions about the Cirisian savages could be true, they must be thinking as they stare at the Cirisians’ strange, glimmering eyes.
“I offer you one last chance,” he says through gritted teeth. “Surrender.”
“Never.”
He unsheathes his sword and opens his mouth to shout the order when a spearhead punches through the leather covering his chest. The guards watch in shock as he slumps to the ground, dark blood forming a puddle on the stone.
Firesse cocks her head. “What was that he was saying about being surrounded?”
In groups of twos and threes, the remainder of Firesse’s and Myris’s troops—over five dozen elves—melt from the shadows and fill the square, trapping the guards between them and Firesse. The humans’ swords begin to droop.
“Stand your ground, men,” one of the guards shouts. He raises his sword. “You’ll pay for your crimes, knife-eared bitch. Attack!”
They launch themselves at the Cirisians, blades clashing, roars of rage filling the square. Even in the dead of night, Calum can see the humans don’t stand a chance. They’re fighting back-to-back, covering each other’s weak points, but they’re vastly outnumbered. When one breaks away from the main group and charges at Firesse, Drake leaps in front of her and parries the slash of the man’s sword, ducking and driving his dagger into the back of the guard’s leg. The man topples, howling, and Firesse buries one of her wicked little knives in the man’s eye, all the way to the hilt.
Screams spill out from somewhere in the town, ringing out over the clanging of the Church bells and the sounds of men fighting and dying throughout the square. The guards pause, their grips on their swords going slack when they see the bright flames licking the night sky. Half of the shipping warehouses are ablaze, and the inferno is quickly spreading to the houses the Cirisians had yet to invade. The columns of black smoke nearly blot out the stars. Drake grins. The signal had worked. Myris’s men had been scattered across the village, standing by with torches, oil lanterns, and barrels of pitch until they heard the Church bells.
Born Assassin Saga Box Set Page 96
