by Anthony Ryan
The sound that saved him was faint at first, a plaintive note on the wind seeping through his window, almost missed by his preoccupation with Sister Henna’s lips, but something in it, something familiar, made him pause, pull away.
“Brother?” Sister Henna asked, the whisper of her breath caressing his lips.
“Can you hear that?”
A slight frown creased her brow. “I hear nothing.” She giggled and pressed close again. “But my heart beating, and yours…”
The sound grew, an unmistakable siren call.
“Wolf’s howl,” he said.
“A wolf in the city?” Sister Henna giggled again. “It’s just the wind, or a dog…”
“Dog’s don’t howl like that. And it’s not the wind. It’s a wolf. I saw a wolf once, in the forest.” Just before an assassin tried to kill me.
It would have been easily missed had he not spent years studying his opponents’ faces on the practice ground, searching for the ticks and subtle changes in expression that warned of an attack. And he saw it in hers, a brief flicker of decision in her eyes.
“You shouldn’t worry over such things,” she said, her left hand coming up to caress his face. “Forget your worries, brother. Let me help you for—”
The knife in her right hand came free of her robes in a blur, the steel shining bright as it arced towards his neck. It was a practised move, executed with the speed and precision of an expert.
Vaelin twisted, the knife leaving a scratch on his shoulder, his right arm thrusting openhanded into her chest, propelling her back to collide with the far wall. She rebounded quickly, a look of feline hatred on her face, leaping, spinning a kick at his head and bringing the knife round to slash at his belly. He dodged the kick and caught her wrist, twisting, hearing the crack, forcing down a spasm of revulsion. She’s not a girl, she’s not a sister, she’s an enemy.
Her free hand came round in a punch, palm flat and fore-knuckles extended, aimed at the base of his nose, a blow he recognised from Master Intris’s lessons, a killing blow. He moved his head, taking the punch on his brow, shaking off the sting of it and gripping her hard on the neck, forcing her against the wall. She thrashed, hissing, nails scraping at his face. He forced her head back, the bones of her neck straining, lifting her off her feet, tightening his grip to subdue her struggles.
“You are very skilled, sister,” he observed.
A grunt of pained fury escaped her throat. Her skin felt hot against his hand.
“Perhaps you could tell me where you learned such skills, and why you felt the need to practise them on me.”
Her eyes, shining bright amidst the flushed, red mask of her face, flicked to the rip in his shirt and the shallow scar beneath. A smile, ugly and full of malice, twisted her lips. “Feeling…well, brother?” she grated through spittle. “You don’t…have time…to save her now.”
He felt it then, the heat rising in his chest, the fresh slick of sweat washing over him, a faint greyness creeping into the corners of his eyes. Poison! Poison on the blade.
He leaned close, his face inches from hers, meeting the hatred in her eyes. “Save who?”
Her horrible smile widened into a grotesque laugh. “Once…there were…seven!” she told him, the hatred in her eyes shining like a lantern in the dark.
Suddenly she jerked her head back, forcing her mouth open, then clamping it shut with a loud clack of colliding teeth. She began to writhe in his grasp, shuddering uncontrollably, froth spouting from her mouth. He released his grip, letting her fall to the floor where she thrashed, feet slapping the tiles, before lying still, eyes wide and unblinking, lifeless.
Vaelin stared at her, sweat beading his forehead, the heat in his chest building to a fire.
Poison on the blade…You don’t have time to save her now…Once there were seven…You don’t have time to save her…Save her…SAVE HER!
The Aspect!
He went to where his sword was propped against the wall, tearing it free of the scabbard, dragging the door open, sprinting along the corridor to the stairwell.
Poison on the blade… How long did he have? He chased the thought from his mind. Long enough! he decided fiercely, leaping up the steps three at a time. I have long enough.
The Aspect’s rooms were on the top floor. He got there in seconds, running along the corridor, seeing her door ahead, finding no sign of a threat…
The blade was a sliver of light in the shadows, a half crescent of steel, wielded with speed and skill, it should have taken his head off at the shoulders. He ducked it, going into a roll, feeling the wind rush as the sword bit the air above him, coming to his feet, forming the parry stance in the same movement, the sword blade clashing with his own. He whirled, going down on one knee, sword arm fully extended, his arm jarring as his blade met flesh, drawing a stifled shout of pain and brief rainfall spatter of blood on floor tiles. His attacker wore cotton garments of black, a mask over his face, soot smeared on the brows and eyelids. His eyes glared up at Vaelin from the floor as he clutched at the deep gash in his thigh, not in anger but in shocked surprise.
Vaelin killed him with a slash to the neck, left him writhing in a welter of arterial blood as he ran on, the fire in his chest now an inferno of pain, his vision blurring, losing focus, fixing on the Aspect’s door, no more than a few feet away now. He stumbled, colliding with the wall, pushing himself onwards with an angry grunt of self reproach.
SAVE HER!
Two more blades shimmered out of the darkness, another black-clad figure, a short sword in each hand, attacking in a frenzy of slashing blades. Vaelin parried the first two slashes, moved back to let the others whistle within an inch of his face, stepped inside the reach of the man’s kick and killed him with a thrust to the sternum, guiding his sword blade up under the ribs, finding the heart. The black-clad man went into a brief spasm, blood gouting from his mouth, then sagged, doll-like, devoid of life, hanging on Vaelin’s blade like a rag. The weight of it dragged him down, sword buried in the body up to the hilt, blood covering his arm in a thick red slick, bathing the floor. The smell would have made him gag but for the toxin raging in his blood.
Tired… He slumped against the corpse, a weight of exhaustion greater than any he had known pressing down on him. The pain in his chest receding, displaced by this overwhelming need for sleep. So tired…
“You don’t look well, brother.”
The voice was anonymous, without source or owner, lost amidst the shadows. A dream? he wondered. A dream before death.
“She found you, I see,” the voice went on. There was the faintest scrape of a blade tip on stone.
No dream. Vaelin gritted his teeth, grip tightening on his sword hilt. “She’s dead!” he shouted into the dark.
“I’m sure.” The voice was mild, devoid of accent or recognition. Neither cultured nor coarse. “Pity. I always liked her in that guise. She was so wonderfully cruel. Did you bed her first? I think she would have liked that.”
It was only a slight note of tension in the tone, but Vaelin sensed the owner of the unseen voice was about to make his move.
Shaking with the effort, he got off his knees, standing, pulling his sword free of the corpse. Waited too long, he realised. Should’ve killed me when I was vulnerable. Is he waiting for the poison to complete the task for him?
“You’re afraid,” Vaelin grunted into the darkness. “You know you can’t beat me.”
Silence. Silence and shadows, broken only by the drip of blood from his sword ticking on the floor. No time, he thought, his vision swimming, a dreadful, icy numbness creeping into this limbs. No time to wait.
“Once,” he said, his voice a dry rasp, making him cry it out. “Once there were seven!”
There was a clatter of locks and latches followed by the creak of hinges as the Aspect’s door opened behind him and her comely, faintly annoyed face appeared shrouded by candlelight.
“What is all this noise…”
The knife came spinning out
of the dark, end over end, a precise throw, its tip certain to take the Aspect in the eye.
Vaelin’s sword arm felt like lead as he brought his blade round in an arc, the blade meeting the knife, sending it spinning into the shadows. He never saw the assassin follow up his attack, he felt it, knew it, but he never saw it. His counter was automatic, unconscious, immediate. He spun, both hands on his sword hilt, the last vestiges of his strength in the blow, he never felt it meet the man’s neck, heard rather than saw the geyser of blood painting the ceiling and walls as the headless corpse continued for a few steps before collapsing. All he knew was the inescapable, dominating need to sleep.
The floor tiles were cool against his cheek, his chest moving in a sedate rhythm. He wondered if he would dream of wolves…
“Vaelin!” Strong hands gripped him, shook him, many feet thundered on the floor, a babble of voices like a raging river. He groaned in annoyance.
“Vaelin! Wake up!” Something hard smacked across his face making him wince. “Wake up! Don’t sleep! Do you hear me?!”
More voices, tumbling together in a barely decipherable clamour. “Fetch Sister Sherin, now!…Get him to the teaching room…Forget them, they’re dead…What was he infected with?…Looks like a knife wound, where’s the blade?”
“She wanted to apologise,” Vaelin said, deciding he should be helpful. “Came to my room…Would’ve got me but for the wolf…”
“Check his room!” Sherin’s voice, more shrill and panicked than he knew it could be. “Look for a knife, make sure you don’t touch the blade.”
There were more voices, a vague sensation of being carried, the coolness of the floor replaced by the hard smoothness of a treatment table. Vaelin groaned, his befuddled mind perceiving the pain to come.
“Dead?” the Aspect’s voice. “What do you mean dead?”
“Looks like poison,” Master Harin’s deep rumble responded. “A pellet hidden in one of her teeth. Haven’t seen the like for a long time…”
Vaelin decided to open his eyes, seeing only a murky collage of shadows. He blinked, his vision clearing long enough to make out Sister Sherin, nostrils flared as she sniffed Sister Henna’s knife. “Hunter’s Arrow,” she said. “We need Joffril root.”
“That could kill him.” Vaelin knew he should have been shocked by the alarm in the Aspect’s voice but found his mind filled with a question he had to ask.
“He’ll die if we don’t!” Sherin snapped, her face stricken, fearful, but determined. “He’s young and strong. He can stand it.”
A pause, a sigh of deep frustration. “Fetch the root, and plenty of redflower…”
“No!” Sherin cut in. “No, it diminishes the effect. No redflower.”
“Faith, sister.” Master Harin’s hulking form moved into Vaelin’s view for the first time. “Do you know what that stuff does to a man?”
“She’s right,” the Aspect said, her voice tight.
“Aspect?” Vaelin said.
She moved to him, her hand clasping his, fingers smoothing his brow. “Vaelin, please lie still, we have to give you a physic to make you well. This will hurt…You must be strong.”
“Aspect,” he fought to keep his vision stable, locked on her eyes. “Please, what was my mother’s name?”
Vardrian.
It sang in his mind through a tumult of pain. Vardrian. Her name. Her family name. Sweat bathed him, his chest was a furnace, darkness clouded his eyes, but her name held him, an anchor in the world.
Sister Sherin had tied a leather strap around his arm and injected the tincture of Joffril root directly into his vein with a long needle. The agony was almost instantaneous. The room fractured and disappeared, the Aspect’s soothing words fading away, Sherin’s stricken face a pale smudge in the descending shadow.
Vardrian.
It was a curious effect of pain that time became infinite, every instant of agony prolonged to the ultimate. He knew that his back was arched, his spine tensed like a bow, strong hands holding him to the table as he raved and raged incoherently. He knew it, but he didn’t feel it. It was far away, somewhere beyond the pain.
Ildera Vardrian. His mother. A plain name, a name without nobility or notoriety, a name that came from the fields or the streets. She was like his father, elevated by her talent. She was special. Suddenly he could see her face so clearly, the darkness fleeing before the brightness of her smile, the compassion in her eyes. She was a beacon in the pain, a focus for his will, his will to live.
He never knew how long it lasted, how long it took him to exhaust himself. They told him later he injured several of the Fifth Order’s stronger brothers, that he even tried to bite the Aspect, that he screamed the most foul and terrible things, but he had no knowledge of it. All he knew was the name. Ildera Vardrian.
It saved him.
CHAPTER FIVE
In his dream there was no pain. In his dream soft golden light streamed through the window and Sister Sherin’s smile was radiant as she gazed down at him.
“You lived,” she said. “I knew you would.”
A dream…a dream allows you to speak your heart. “You’re beautiful,” he told her.
Her smile became a laugh. “You’re delirious, brother. Try to sleep, you need to rest. There are a number of dangerous-looking young men outside who will be very angry with me if you don’t recover.”
“We should go away together,” he went on blithely, rejoicing in the freedom of the dream. “We should escape. Find a quiet part of the world where you can heal and I can learn to be something other than a killer…”
“Shhh!” Her fingers were on his lips, her smile gone now. “Please, Vaelin…”
“I felt nothing when I killed those men. Nothing. That isn’t right…”
“You saved the Aspect. You had no choice.”
The man in black clutched at the wound in his leg; when Vaelin’s sword cut into his neck a faint, childlike whimper escaped his throat… “I have shamed my mother. Compared to her, I’m nothing…”
“No.” Her hand caressed his brow, her face came close to his and a soft kiss played on his lips. “You’re a guardian, a warrior who fights in defence of the helpless. You are strong and you are just. Always remember that. And always remember that I will be here whenever you need me, whenever you call for me, my skills are yours.”
The dream began to fade, exhaustion dragging him to oblivion. “I’d rather we just went away together…”
He woke to pain, not the agony of the Joffril root but the mingled ache of strained muscles and dehydration. Oddly shaped red-brown stains discoloured his bedsheets and the cut on his arm retained the sting of poison. His eyelids had begun to droop, the welcoming arms of his dream beckoning…when he noticed he was not alone.
Master Sollis sat in the corner of the room, arms folded, his sword resting on his knees. The redness of his eyes told of a sleepless night. “Took you long enough to wake up,” he said.
“Sorry, Master,” Vaelin croaked.
Master Sollis rose and went to the table beside the bed to pour a cup of water from a large clay jug. “Here.” He held the cup to Vaelin’s lips. “Small sips, don’t gulp it.”
The water tasted better than water had ever tasted, flooding his mouth, banishing the dryness of his throat. “Thank you, Master.”
“Sister Sherin said you should drink at least a cup every hour. She gave very strict instructions for your care.”
Sherin…We should go away together… A new pain tugged at his chest and he found himself wishing he had never had the dream, waking to find it hadn’t been real was almost more than he could bear.
He looked down at the stains on his sheets. “Did they have to cut me open?” He had a vividly unpleasant image of the rib spreader being plunged into his chest.
“Apparently Joffril root causes a man to sweat blood. Part of its useful purgative effect, so I’m told.” Sollis pulled his chair from the corner of the room and sat down next to the bed. “I need to know w
hat happened here.”
So Vaelin told him, omitting nothing. Sollis listened in silence, barely raising an eyebrow at Sister Henna’s visit to his room and remaining impassive when Vaelin mentioned the wolf’s howl that had saved him. His only reaction came at the mention of her words: Once there were seven. It was only a slight shift in the eyes, but it said much. He knows, Vaelin decided. He knows what it means and I’d bet a sack of gold he isn’t going to tell me. Sollis showed no reaction to the rest of it, asking only a few questions. “And how would you assess their skills, these assassins?”
“They could swing a blade but seemed to know nothing of tactics. I was poisoned, weak, they should’ve killed me, taken me in a rush. Instead they came at me in turn, each time from ambush.”
Master Sollis sat in silence, pondering the information. Vaelin felt a desperate need to sleep but forced himself to remain alert. Novice brothers did not sleep in a master’s presence.
“Is Sister Sherin coming back?” Vaelin asked, hoping a break in the silence would keep him awake. “I…I’d like to know how long I’ll be laid up in this bed.”
“She’s tending the wounded. She’s likely to be busy for a while. The last two days have seen much trouble in the city.”
Two days. He had been dreaming and sweating blood for two days. “Trouble, Master?”
“There have been riots. When word spread of the attacks rumours started about a Denier plot. Soon it was common knowledge a hidden army of Cumbraelins was waiting in the sewers to murder us all in our beds.” He shook his head in disgust. “Ignorant people will believe anything if they’re scared enough.”
Vaelin was puzzled. “Attacks?”
“Elera Al Mendah was not the only Aspect to be attacked. The Aspects of the Fourth and Second Orders are dead. The others were lucky to survive. Aspect Hendrahl was sorely wounded, seems the knife wasn’t long enough to reach his heart through the blubber.”
