Three Quarters

by Tanya Huff

  "Yeah? And that's another thing, since when does the Emperor get directly involved in this sort of shit?"

  "When it involves family," she said with pointed emphasis on the last word.

  "An assassin has no family but the army," Bannon reminded her poking her hard in the ribs.

  The carter glanced back at the wrestling match, shaking her head. Easy to believe these two had trained together all their lives – they fit together like moving puzzle pieces. Less easy to believe they were brother and sister, in spite of an obvious physical resemblance. There was a sexuality in the way he moved that teased and provoked at the same time and a tension in her responses indicated she was well aware of it.

  None of my business, the carter reminded herself. All assassins were a little bit crazy and rumors in the Sixth Army said these two were crazier than most.

  Just before noon, they passed the ruin of Saburo. The buildings and most of the surrounding olive groves had been burned. In the months since, very little had been rebuilt.

  "After Commander Jolan pulled back, Marshal Arnon turned the Seventh Army loose on it," the carter explained when Bannon asked why.

  Which was all the explanation necessary.

  If Marshal Arnon turned the army loose, there wasn't anything to rebuild with.

  "The people of Saburo probably thought that sort of thing never happened to Imperial citizens," Vree observed dryly.

  "That'll teach them to harbor traitors," her brother agreed in the same almost sarcastic tone.

  The carter heard double, even triple meanings, and decided not to ask.

  They stopped in the heat of the day, feeding, watering and resting the oxen, then continued in the relative cool of the evening. Just before dark, the carter looped the reins and swiveled around on the seat. They were getting close, an army encampment left a distinct signature on the breeze, and she wanted to let her passengers know they should start thinking about slipping away unseen.

  They'd already slipped.

  Both assassins and their kit had vanished. They'd even shuffled the indentations of their bodies out of the bags of grain.

  Impressed, in spite of her pique, for the only sounds they'd had to cover their departure had been made by the wagon itself, she'd barely turned back to her oxen when she heard a horse approaching and a moment after that an Imperial Courier appeared out of the dusk, the single golden starburst on his banner catching the last light of the setting sun.

  "You've got to admire their sense of timing," she muttered but whether she was speaking of the assassins or the courier she wasn't entirely sure.

  ***

  "The Emperor has taken care of it."

  "Sir?"

  Marshal Arnon waved the message with its broken imperial seal under the commander's nose. "First, he keeps me here, and if that isn't enough, he has sent his own assassin into the fortress. I am to have my people in position so that when the gates are opened they can take advantage of the opportunity his Imperial Majesty has provided."

  Commander Zayit frowned. "There are no assassins in the First Army."

  "You think the Emperor can't get assassins if he needs them?"

  "No, sir."

  "No, sir indeed," the marshal mocked, throwing the message down onto his map table with enough force that its passage caused the lamp hanging from the center pole to swing violently back and forth, painting dark shadows on the inside walls of the tent.

  "When will the gates be opened, sir?" Zayit asked, trying not to think of how much the shadows looked like raven's wings. The longer the army spent looking at the dried and desiccated bundle Orban had become, the longer they spent speculating about the birds – three of them now – that came every morning to perch between the camp and the fortress, the longer they had to mutter about rites denied, the less like an army they were and the more like a mob. So far discipline had held, but it was becoming harder and harder for the officers to keep things together. If something didn't happen soon...

  "The gate opens tomorrow morning. My Imperial cousin tells me to ready the division without warning the sentries on the wall. Does he think I'm a complete idiot? This is my army!"

  Actually, it was the Emperor's army, but that was another thing the marshal didn't like to be reminded of.

  "Well don't just stand there, Commander! Ready a company!" Lip curled, the marshal turned on her, arms spread sarcastically wide. "Didn't you hear: The Emperor has taken care of it."

  ***

  The easiest way to avoid being given orders by Marshal Arnon, was to avoid Marshal Arnon – their orders had been quite clear about that. They'd been less clear about other aspects of the job.

  The original courier had known little about how the three dead assassins had gotten into the city. He knew there was a stream. It wasn't much, but since Orban, called from Third Division after the deaths of the first two assassins, had found it with the same information, Vree and Bannon weren't concerned. They'd all survived the same training and any target one of their peers could find, they could find faster.

  The stream was an obvious landmark. As dusk turned to true darkness and the sky over the hills turned from sapphire to onyx, they reached the place where it poured out of the earth. Knee deep in the icy water, Bannon ran a hand under the rock lip as far as he could. "It's doable," he said at last, stepping out. "But only just. If you had anything in the way of tits, sister-mine, you'd never make it."

  Vree snorted and began stripping off her uniform. "Then you'd better keep your sling on, I'd hate for you to scrape anything dangling off against a rock."

  His smile flashed white in the darkness. "That water's so cold, it won't much matter."

  They kept their voices low, the essess softened, although they were too far from either camp or fortress to be heard. Caution had kept them alive for the last two years – unlike most seventeen and eighteen year olds, they had a clear knowledge of their own mortality.

  Prepared for the stream and the sort of swim it had likely meant, they separated the necessities out of their kit and wrapped them in waxed linen, careful to keep the bundles compact.

  "Who goes first?"

  "It'd better be me," Bannon sighed, stepping back into the water wearing his sling and a throwing knife strapped to his left forearm. "I'm bigger and if get stuck I want you behind me where you can shove."

  "Makes sense." Wearing only an identical throwing knife, Vree followed him, sucking air through her teeth at the first icy caress against her thighs. At the rock, she tied a silk rope around Bannon's waist. There was a small danger it could get hung up, but taking out this particular target without their kit was more of a challenge than she'd accept – although during their journey, Bannon had expressed interest in trying. She watched her brother fill his lungs – once, twice, three times – and tried not to grin at his expression as he submerged. It'd be her turn soon enough.

  The dark water was shallow and the moon nearly full. Vree watched the glimmer of Bannon's shoulders disappear, his back, his legs, his feet. The rope played out smoothly through her fingers. She'd counted slowly to a hundred and fifteen when the rope stilled. Four feet, maybe five followed Bannon into the hill all at once, then three short tugs. He'd reached the other side.

  Moving quickly, working her fingers to keep them from going numb in the cold, she tied off both kits, one behind each other. One breath. Two. A sound from the shore. Drawing in the third breath, she turned.

  The unmistakable silhouette of three ravens watched her from the dead branches of a skeletal tree.

  One hand rose to touch the onyx amulet of Jiir she wore on a leather thong around her neck, the other pulled twice at the rope. Releasing the third breath, she dropped her gaze to the water, but even as she followed the two packets in under the rock, she could feel the ravens watching.

  The cold made it hard to think about anything but the cold. There wasn't room enough to swim against the current, nor was it smooth enough to allow Bannon to drag her along with their supplies. Arms
outstretched, she pulled herself forward, counting slowly once again.

  At 71, her reaching hand felt waxed linen. It wasn't moving. Pulling herself up as close as she could, she stretched out an arm beneath it, along the bottom. The stream bed narrowed suddenly, went from a horizontal slice through the hill to a vertical one and the first kit had jammed.

  ...72...

  ...73...

  ...74...

  ...75...

  The rear kit pressed hard against her shoulder, she punched the bottom of the first as hard as she could.

  ...76...

  ...77...

  All at once it jerked free and through. She guided the second as well as she was able and followed, turning sideways and up, the rock scraping almost gently against her belly and the front of her thighs. A six count delay would have meant nothing in warmer water, but her lungs were already aching and she had a thirty-eight count to go.

  The current weakened as the passage widened and by a hundred she had the rope wrapped around one hand while the other kept her head clear of protrusions on the tunnel roof.

  At 117 she surged out into open water. At 119 she surfaced and sucked in a lungful of air that had so much water in it, it was barely breathable. The noise told her she'd surfaced in the spray of a waterfall. Then her feet touched sand, a questing hand touched rock and she pulled herself up onto a ledge.

  "Remind me to thank his Imperial Majesty for that experience," Bannon muttered in the darkness. "My balls climbed up so high, they're sitting on my shoulders."

  "Teach them to ask for crackers and I'd pay to see it." His voice told her he was standing so she stood as well.

  They spent the next few moments warming up. Fingers stuffed into her armpits, she ran on the spot and heard Bannon doing the same. Had they not just come out of the water, the air underground would have been a cool relief after the scorching heat outside. As it was, it was almost warm and without a layer of wet cloth against skin, exercise was enough to chase the cold. When her feet no longer felt like blocks of wood and dexterity had returned, Vree reached out and lightly touched her brother's shoulder. "I vote we risk a light," she said when he stilled.

  The waxed linen had done it's job. A moment later, they were studying the dimensions of the cave.

  "Looks like we climb up beside the waterfall." Bannon's sigh blew out the candle.

  They didn't bother dressing, the climb would leave them almost as wet as the swim although considerably warmer. Vree climbed with her eyes closed – it kept her from straining to see through impenetrable darkness. At the top, they walked against the stream through another passage just high enough to keep their heads and hands out of the water. When the passage opened up, a rising shelf of sand lead them to a beach and the silence told them they could safely light the candle again.

  The beach lead them to a cleft.

  A climb.

  Another passage.

  Another pool.

  Flood waters had carved only a single path. They couldn't have gotten lost. The three assassins who'd taken this way before them had died in the fortress so there had to be a way in.

  "Your turn to go first, sister-mine."

  It took three dives before Vree felt the opening in the rock and then one more to fill her lungs and go through it. She'd counted to 70 and had almost decided to go back, when the rock opened up above her. Another thirty count and she surfaced. Her fingers brushed dressed stone.

  "About time," Bannon muttered when she returned. "Too much slaughtering water down here for us not to end up in a well."

  "Commander Jolan has to know that's how the others came into the fortress, but she can't cut off her water supply." Running on the spot, Vree was thinking out loud as she warmed. "She's known from the moment Ganit missed his target. He died the same night he went in and it had to have been pretty obvious he came out of water. Visolela had to know she was climbing into a trap. Orban too."

  Bannon shrugged. "When you know there's a trap, you avoid it."

  "True. It's been..." She counted back. "...fifteen days since Orban. Commander Jolan had to know how many blades Marshal Arnon had with him and that he won't ask one of the other armies for help – he wouldn't want look weak. She knows the only thing he can do is settle in for a siege so she won't be expecting us. But she won't have totally let down her guard. She won't have someone staring down the well, but she's not the type to leave an access unguarded."

  Marshal Chela had seen they were as well briefed on their target as time allowed.

  "So we can get to the lip of the well without trouble, but after that we'll have to be careful?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why didn't you just slaughtering say so?"

  Vree sighed. "I was thinking out loud."

  "You think too much, sister-mine."

  Unwrapping their kit, they ate the dried meat and honeyed date bars while strapping on their weapons. They'd kept leather and steel dry as long as possible but climbing into a trap, they'd need them at hand. Their clothing they re-rolled in the waxed linen and strapped it to their backs -- wet clothing would leave a trail, they'd dress once they were safely inside.

  Three quarters of the way up the well, Vree stretched out an arm and touched Bannon's cheek. When he stilled, she signed inside against his skin. He nodded. The well was not only within the fortress wall, but within the fortress itself.

  Just below the rim, they stopped. Listened.

  Nothing.

  Vree straightened her knees until her eyes cleared the edge. The well room was so dark, they might as well have still been in the caves under the hill. No guards hid in the darkness. Soundlessly, she slipped up and over the side, felt Bannon standing beside her, and moved off to the right. A moment later, each having determined half the dimensions of the room, they met again.

  Commander Jolan had secured the well room by simply filling in most of an open arch and putting a door where there'd never been a door. The inconvenience for anyone drawing water had clearly been out-weighed by the alternative – throats slit.

  "Guard outside?" Bannon breathed against her ear.

  Vree nodded, pointing to the tiny line of light.

  The only reason to have light was so that someone could see.

  "One or two?"

  Vree pressed her head to the crack and waited. Two soldiers – and all Jolan's traitors were ex-Seven Armies – guarding a locked cellar leading nowhere fifteen days after anything had happened, would be talking.

  After a while, she laid one finger against Bannon's cheek.

  They'd have to convince the guard to open the door without calling for help.

  ***

  It had been fifteen days.

  Fifteen slaughtering days.

  And yet here he was taking his turn in the bowels of the fortress -- the shitty bowels of the fortress, he amended – waiting for Marshal Moronic-Cousin-to-the-Emperor Arnon to try something stupid. Arnon would if anyone would but still...

  It had been fifteen days.

  Legs crossed, back against the rough wood of the door, he picked at his teeth with the point of his dagger. He'd never been so tempted to fall asleep on duty.

  Bored, bored, slaughtering bored...

  The sudden scrape of stone against stone inside the well room jerked him erect. A muffled curse spun him around. The distant splash brought both brows in under the rim of his helm.

  Something had fallen into the well.

  Something big.

  There were more distant splashes. Smaller ones. As if someone had fallen and was struggling in the water.

  Marshal Arnon was scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as assassins were concerned. According to Commander Jolan, there were two fifteen year olds left in the entire Seventh Army.

  Sword drawn, he opened the door.

  The lantern light spilled into the room and over the well. One of the capstones was missing and the one next to pulled out of line, the elongated print of wet fingers showing where the assassin had lost a pr
ecarious grip. Grinning, he lifted the lantern and moved in for a closer look, but the well was too deep for his light to reach the water and the splashing had stopped.

  So much for that.

  ***

  A pair of shadows dropped silently down from the ledge of the old arch, slipped behind the back of the guard peering down into the well, and disappeared into the fortress.

  The Emperor wanted the situation resolved and his orders had been explicit.

  But they had to find the commander before they could kill her.

  The bureaucracy in the Capital had spit forth a plan of the fortress. It hadn't included the well-room but by the time Vree and Bannon reached the kitchens, they'd filled in the blanks. Skirting a pair of snoring bodies, they made their way to a patch of deep shadow at one edge of the open wall and stared across the courtyard. The commander would be somewhere in the central tower.

  While they'd been moving through the hill, the nearly full moon had dropped low in the sky, creating bars of light and dark between the buildings. Assassins paths.

  Useful. But they'd still have to waste time searching the tower. The search had likely killed Ganit. The longer it took to reach a target, the greater the odds of discovery. Together? Bannon signed, looking annoyed.

  Vree nodded. They'd lose most of the advantage they had over the previous three assassins if they separated.

  They were about to move from kitchen to tower when a shadow separated from the top of the gatehouse. Then a second. Then a third. The three huge birds landed side by side, with no sound from feathers or claws, on a window ledge almost exactly halfway up the tower wall.

  Vree felt Bannon clutch her arm, fingers digging into flesh. Ravens didn't fly at night.

  *

  The ravens had gone from the window when Vree and Bannon reached the commander's room. They'd left two bodies behind them, silently and efficiently dispatched when there'd been no other way to move on. Hiding the bodies had taken more time than the killing.