by Tanya Huff
Commander Jolan's small room had been set up like a command tent, her bed shoved up against one wall, less important than the map table and the strategies planned on it. She slept with one hand thrown up over her head, the paler skin on the underside of her arm defining her place in the dark.
She wasn't alone.
A silent crossing from door to bed side. The edge of Vree's dagger slid through the soft tissue of the throat too quickly for pain, found the spine, slipped between two ridges of bone, and ended it.
The commander's companion was considerably younger, probably Bannon's age. He opened sleep blurred eyes at exactly the wrong time.
Vree tossed a small square of leather stamped with a black starburst onto the bed. The Emperor's first order had been carried out and his point had been made. Treason could not hide from the blades of Jiir.
Now, they had to get to the barbican over the gate with only the soft shadows between moonset and dawn to hide them.
Bannon glanced out the window and grinned. "We take the high road," he said softly.
Measuring the distance between the window and broad top of the fortress' encircling wall, Vree nodded. The only guards were in the barbican. No point in wasting soldiers on a patrol when there was only one possible point of attack.
There was no room on the ledge to stand and jump. There was no room on the ledge for three ravens either, but Vree didn't have time to worry about that now. She slid out, feet first, then gripping the ridge of stone, braced her feet against the wall, knees up beside her ears.
One breath, two...
Push off.
Turn in the air.
It had been a long night. She landed hard and too close to the edge. Training threw her weight back before her brain acknowledged the danger and sucking air between her teeth as her elbow slammed into stone, she rolled into the vee of shadow between wall and parapet.
Bannon's landing was messier still but she grabbed his waistband and yanked him down beside her. He pillowed his head between her breasts, mouthed, "Quick nap?" then grinned at her expression.
They'd taken out a target and that always left Bannon a little giddy.
Vree jerked her head toward the gate. The night was nearly over.
There were four soldiers on guard.
They weren't expecting an attack from inside the fortress. Vree wondered what they thought when Bannon walked in through the arched door overlooking the courtyard, although she supposed the first two died too quickly to think anything at all. The third had her mouth open to cry warning and the fourth actually got a hand around his sword hilt.
***
Commander Zayit watched a burning rag drop from the barbican and extinguish itself on the road. "Move them up," she said quietly to the Squad Leader beside her.
The order repeated itself and the company crept forward. She could hear it creaking and rustling like a huge beast rolling over in its sleep.
When the second flame dropped, she stepped out where she could be seen in the pale dawn light and pulled her sword. "Now!"
***
"They're moving." Bannon announce wiping oil off his fingers.
"Good."
As Vree raised the inner gate, Bannon picked up a discarded crossbow.
A rooster crowed.
***
Marshal Arnon rode into the fort when it was all over.
The traitor's bodies were stacked on one side of the courtyard, the dead of the Seventh Army on the other. A bloody rag tied around one arm, and a smear of blood not her own over the front of her armor, Commander Zayit walked forward to meet him.
***
Vree braced the stiffening body of the guard against her shoulder and shuffled it forward. Still hidden behind the edge of the arched doorway, she paused and her fingers tightened on unresisting flesh.
The sun had laid the shadow of the barbican across the courtyard crowned by the impossibly darker shadows of three ravens.
She met Bannon's gaze across the arch and together they looked up.
The marshal's horse stopped at the edge of the ravens' shadow. Shied sideways when he spurred it but wouldn't go further.
In the moment between one heartbeat and the next, the ravens screamed.
Marshal Arnon turned, one hand raised to block the sun from his eyes.
Bannon pulled the trigger on the crossbow.
The marshal jerked in the saddle, and began to fall, a crossbow quarrel buried deep in his left armpit.
Someone yelled, "There!"
An arrow hit the body Vree held.
She shoved it forward.
It hit the stones of the courtyard at the time same as the marshal.
The Emperor's orders had been explicit.
Throats slit in the night. Black starbursts left behind.
So many people never bothered thinking past the obvious.
***
Commander Zayit barely heard the beating of ravens wings over the pounding of her heart. Then they landed, one, two, three by the marshal's body.
"Commander?"
Without knowing why, she looked up. Past the traitor's body broken on the ground, up to where black shadows moved back out of the light. And she remembered another broken body that had lain like a shadow on the road.
"Commander?"
Some urgency in the question now. The fortress was so quiet, she could hear impact of a heavy beak through flesh.
Marshal Arnon had been right.
The Emperor had taken care of it.
"Let them feed."
This story is also a Vree and Bannon prequel to Fifth Quarter. I honestly can't remember if the contributors were asked by the editors of Places to Go, People to Kill to write about the lighter side of assassination, but, given the title, it's possible.
This isn't so much dark humour as bright-green-fish-printed-on-orange-fabric humour.
And, for what it's worth, I've never had a full body rub while on vacation.
Exactly
"Assassins," Commander Neegan declared in the rough whisper that was all an enemy arrow had left of his voice, "do not take leave."
"But it won't be exactly leave," Marshal Chela reminded him.
"They will be away from the army, but not on target." A dark brow rose. "I fail to see the difference, Marshal."
"They won't be exactly on target. There's the difference, Commander. Governor Delat is convinced she's got an Ilagian sorcerer pretending to be a carpet seller. She thinks he's the vanguard of an Astoblite invasion since Prince Aveon, the Astoblite regent, welcomes both Ilagians and sorcerors to his court."
"Why would Prince Aveon want to invade the South Reaches?"
"I don't know; maybe he's looking for vacation property. The point is, Governor Delat has demanded we do something about her problem – which may or may not be an overactive imagination. Vree and Bannon will go to the South Reaches as if they were common soldiers on leave and they'll use their unique skills to determine whether or not this Ilagian carpet seller is a sorcerer working for Prince Aveon. If he turns out to be what Delat fears," the marshal continued, "they'll send a message back with one of her couriers, and I'll send them new orders. If not, they can come back to barracks having spent a pleasant few days in a nice little resort town on the Emperor's coin. You have to admit, they deserve a bit of break."
Neegan expression suggested he had to admit nothing of the sort.
***
"You know Shonna took leave in the South Reaches when she won all that money betting on that fight Oneball had with Keenin last year."
"I know, Bannon."
"She said it was the best five days of her life. Full body rubs with scent oils. All the food she could eat. All the wine she could drink. And the sex! She said South Reaches whores were more flexible than even you, sister-mine."
Vree rolled her eyes and shot her younger brother a look it was just as well he didn't see. "We're on target."
"Not exactly." He threw an arm across her shoulders. "And that mean
They were standing on the Shore Road, on top of a hill looking down at the town.
"Pretty?" Vree repeated wondering if Bannon had gotten a little too much sun.
He grinned. "In a hey look at all the colors sort of way."
All the colors was no exaggeration. Even the expensive packed earth houses of the wealthy that fronted the white sand beaches stretching out on both sides of the small harbor were an astounding variety of pastel shades. The town itself had moved past astounding to unbelievable. Red, blue, yellow, orange, turquoise, and every shade of pink imaginable covered the wooden walls, the colors crammed close together and jostling for attention.
"There's a pair of Astobolian ships in the harbor. Maybe they've already invaded."
Vree frowned at the two vessels tied side by side at the north pier. "In those? They're probably small traders delivering exotic wines and…" Her frown deepened. Born in barracks and having spent her entire twenty years in the army, she was ill equipped to come up with another exotic example.
"Perfumed oils," Bannon offered when it became obvious she wasn't going to fill in the blank.
"You're fixating on those full body rubs, aren't you?"
"I hear they're very good for working knots out of stiff muscles," he said cheerfully as they started walking again. "We can't do our job if we're all knotted up."
"You can't do your job if you're lying naked on a slab."
"You'd be amazed at what I can do lying naked on a slab."
"I'm not that easily amazed," she snorted, hip checked him, and snickered when he had to dance to miss a pile of horse shit on the road.
The South Reaches had no walls and no gates, but at the edge of town the Shore Road passed between two pairs of heavily muscled young men in black uniform kilts and tunics. "The governor's guard," Vree murmured as they approached.
"Think they can use any of that hardware?" Bannon asked at the same volume.
All four carried short swords in black and silver sheathes and two daggers, one on their belts and one sheathed at the edge of their black greaves. Their collective size was impressive and drew many admiring glances from other, less discerning, travelers. They made Bannon, who was taller than Vree by almost a head, look scrawny.
Everyone else on the road had passed unchallenged, but a massive hand beckoned the siblings over to the east-side guard post. According to their uniforms, they were low level infantry so either the guards were more perceptive than seemed possible and had seen the hidden threat or hey were about to indulge in a little soldier baiting. Vree was betting on the later and figured it was pretty much a sucker bet.
"So, what have we here?" The guard who spoke had the smug, self-satisfied air of a bully who'd aged easily into a brute. He waited until the other two guards crossed the road to join the huddle before continuing. "It seems we've stopped a couple of the Empire's brave soldiers. Looks like they're scraping the bottom of the barrel, don't it?"
His crew laughed.
"You two do a little looting and then decide to grace the South Reaches with your ill gotten gold?"
"Actually, we spent all our ill gotten gold on a couple of magic beans that turned out to be total crap." Bannon grinned at the glowering faces. "We're just here on leave."
"This is an expensive place. Let's see your coin." The leader poked a sausage-sized finger at Bannon's shoulder and missed by a hair's breadth. Which was exactly how far Bannon had moved.
"No coin," he said, still grinning. "Just a letter of credit from our marshal."
At Bannon's gesture, Vree pulled the letter from her belt pouch and handed it over. She wasn't worried about it being destroyed, since she had every confidence in being able to take it from the big man's hand if he made the attempt. Of course, he wouldn't survive the attempt so she hoped he was smarter than he looked.
He scowled at the piece of vellum, lips moving as he puzzled out the larger words. "Why would you two skinny grunts rate a letter of credit?" he demanded when he finished.
"Services rendered. At the battle of Bonkeep the two of us were personally responsible for the deaths of the enemy commander and his entire staff."
Yeah. Right." But his gaze kept dropping to the letter. "Reeno, search their bags."
They were carrying the bare essentials, the sorts of things any soldier on leave would carry. When Reeno got a little rough with her kit, Vree murmured, "Gently." at him and, when he looked up, she smiled.
She caught her bag before it hit the road and didn't bother correcting him when he pretended he'd thrown it there on purpose. After all, from a distance "thrown there on purpose" looked very much like "dropped from nerveless fingers".
"There's nothing, Orin." Reeno barely looked in Bannon's bag before giving it back. "Just, you know, clothes and stuff."
"No weapons?"
"Their daggers…"
"I can see that!" Orin glared at Reeno and then at them. "Letter of credit, eh? Maybe someone who deserves this ought to use it."
"You'll have to kill us to keep it," Bannon pointed out.
"Orin!" Reeno nodded toward the traffic still passing by on the road. Toward witnesses.
Orin pretended to crumple the letter up but when neither Vree nor Bannon reacted thrust it back at Bannon. Vree hid a grin at his expression when he crushed air instead of Bannon's hand. "I'll be watching you."
"Not a problem."
"Not a problem?" Vree repeated as they moved out of eavesdropping range.
"Hey, at least I didn't threaten young Reeno's manhood."
"All I did was smile at him."
"Yeah, that's what I said."
"You told them that we were here as a reward for taking out an entire command staff."
"We did."
"But that's not why we’re here."
He patted her fondly on the arm. "You really suck at this lying thing, don't you?"
*
"Forget it, Bannon." Vree wrapped her hand around her brother's arm and dragged him to a stop as he started up the broad front steps of the Cyprus Garden Inn. "We are not staying here."
"Too small?" He frowned up at the pale pink walls and wide louvered windows thrown open to catch the late afternoon breeze. "I was hoping for cozy, but elegant's fine if that's what you want."
"Don't be such a slaughtering smart-ass. This…" She jerked her head toward the two story building, conscious that they were under scrutiny from the inn's atrium. "…is too expensive."
Bannon touched his belt pouch where the letter of credit had ended up. "We're on the Emperor's coin, sister-mine. And besides," he added before she could respond, "this place is used to soldiers who've had a run of luck. It's where Shonna stayed."
"You asked her?"
"I did. Now if you really want to stay in some bug infested dive with sweet piss all in the way of…"
"Here's fine." Releasing his arm, she started up the steps. If it was good enough for Shonna, it was nothing more than they deserved.
"Still angry about her trying to gamble away your coin?" Bannon asked as he caught up.
"Sod off." Of course she was. And he knew it. And that was why he'd brought them to this inn. She'd be upset about how easily he could read her except there wasn't much point, a lifetime of training had all but taught them to think with one mind.
They had a pair of adjoining rooms at the back of the building, small but clean. Included was unlimited access to the hotel's bathhouse and one meal each day of their stay.
"I like the sound of the bathhouse," Vree admitted going into her brother's room. She'd already tested the strength of the balcony railing and noted all lines of sight to her window. "It's hard to stay unnoticed when you stink of the road."
Stripped down to his sling, Bannon stared up at her from his sprawl on the bed. "I stink of the road?"
"We stink of the road."
"I just got comfortable."
"There'll be bath attendants."
"And it'll be easy enough to get comfortable again." He grinned as he stood and scooped up his kilt. "Lead the way, sister-mine. A bath, a meal, and visit to a carpet shop," he continued as she led the way down the backstairs. "What more could a man want – except maybe a full body massage with scented oils."
"We're working."
"Not exactly. Not yet."
Her bath attendant was as taken with Bannon as his was.
"Your man is quite the flirt," she sighed, absently passing Vree a soapy sponge.
"He's not my be man. He's my brother and be my guest."
She preferred to wash herself anyway. The possibility of being temporarily blinded by a distracted attendant flinging soap into her eyes was too dangerous to risk in her line of work. Their line of work. Not that Bannon seemed to be worried. But then again why should he be worried when she was?
Well, slaughter that. This was not-exactly her leave too.
She had the kid for supper and roasted peppers and a sherbet made with ice brought down for the mountains at – if the price was any indication – great expense. Bannon grinned and saluted her with a raw oyster.
*
According to Governor Delat, the Ilagian had opened his carpet shop in the jumble of tiny streets close to the harbour. Painted a pale green, it was fifth in from the corner Fat Alley shared with the Street of Knives. Washed and fed, Vree and Bannon wandered toward it, past market stalls and shops crammed full of items designed to separate tourists from their money. Everything that could have a variation of 'I bought this in the South Reaches' stamped on it, did.
"Bannon, look at this."
This was a knife-seller's stall. This specifically was a dagger with a broad curved brass blade etched with a rough map of the South Reaches and the legend Don't cut me out of your life.
"What's that mean?" Bannon muttered as they stared at the blade.
Vree shrugged. "No idea."
The tang and the pommel were also brass suggesting that the dagger had been made from one piece of metal while the weight suggested otherwise. The grip had been wrapped in leather strips died a virulent orange-red, small shells danging from the half dozen tassels. The sheathe was a slightly darker shade and a double row of the same shells had been glued along its length.
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