King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three

by Jenna Rhodes

  She stirred, smoothing the napkin over her lap distractedly. “What of the books?”

  “We unwrapped the book Azel had marked as most advanced and found it in deplorable condition, as he warned we would. My brother secured it even more thoroughly than our good scholar had. It should last until Verdayne reaches Calcort although it may be in nothing but crumbles and ash if it does not. He carries a second, one barely touched, or at least that was its condition when Verdayne secured it. It’s virulent, whatever it is. If it is caused by pests, they are so tiny they can’t be sighted easily.”

  “What if we are carrying the curse to Calcort? I don’t want to see the contamination spread. All those libraries, all those books.”

  “Azel says his ordinary books and scrolls have not been infected. So far.”

  Lara tilted her head to one side, a fall of silver-and-blonde hair cascading down her shoulder as she did. “The Books of All Truth are a Way. Is it coming undone?”

  Tranta shifted uneasily in the threshold, and Bistane scratched the side of his jaw as her words fell ominously between them. Farlen made a deep noise of distress like a groan stifled in his vast Drebukar frame. Bistane gathered himself and leaned forward. “Pray it isn’t so, lady queen.”

  CEYLA LAY IN THE FALLEN TRUNK of the great tree, an aryn tree no less, and shivered despite the fact she no longer had feeling in her hands or feet, the decomposing matter inside as damp as it was outside, rain drizzling inside to find her no matter how deep she tried to burrow. She was now into her second day of running. The foul weather had given her two strokes of luck . . . the first being that the hounds had lost her scent (and the water washed her clean of the awful slime) and the second being that one of the hunters had gotten near her without knowing it before his horse slipped on the wet needles and leaves on the forest bed, throwing him and running off. She’d been the one to catch the horse and it stood now, half-dozing, as she tried to catch a small stretch of sleep. The rider had died of his injuries. Ceyla had rolled his body under a thicket of silver finger and led the horse away until she could find a tall enough stump or fallen tree to mount from, and ridden away as far as she could. They wouldn’t find the body for days, until the corpse stench could draw the hounds, and by then she should be south and east toward her destination. Should be. Would be. Could be. For a dizzying moment, the threads of many futures dazzled her thought and sight, and then one twanged true and her vision cleared again to the here and now.

  Ceyla put the heel of her hand to her brow. Never had she been so struck and staggered by the futures ranging before her, all vaguely different and vaguely familiar at the same time, with a driving goal to reach that she could not forget or let go. That one thread, that tight and thrumming singleton that drove her and seemingly bound her fate, now told her to sleep. Sleep a while and then ride, ride to the one she must meet. The feeling in her limbs would return with a burning vengeance and she would stay alive and whole until she met the man of her destiny upon the road.

  And then she knew little of what might happen beyond that.

  She pressed the heel of her palm tightly against her temple as if it could wipe away the painful throbbing of her mind. It worked for the briefest of moments and then her thoughts broke through in a lightning-strike surge so strong that it flung her back against the rough trunk of the tree with a smack that sent a different sort of pain through her skull.

  She needed sleep! Her body begged her for it and her mind perversely held it just out of her reach, spinning thought after thought instead. None and all could be true, and Ceyla no longer cared. She’d started on one path and would remain dogged to it no matter what frayed and scattered pathways seemed determined to sprout before her inner vision. She could not choose them all!

  The Andredia surged around Sevryn and the horse, frothing snow white like an incoming wave onto a beach, but it carried them. Pavan struggled to keep his head up, nostrils flared huge in terror, hooves striking as he attempted to paddle to no avail, but it was all unnecessary. Through the icy sting of its spray and chill white fog of its rush, Sevryn could feel the intent of the river embodied in the way it rose under them, pushing them forward. Nearly knocked from the saddle as Pavan flailed, Sevryn kicked his feet free and held on to the horse’s mane, letting his body ride the river wave. The moment he was immersed in the river, the shock of it hit him. He rode cradled in the essence of a wild, untamed thing that resented and defied his nature even as it answered the will that Grace had laid upon it. They sped downriver, surging at a pace that took his breath away, and he had no doubt that when the Andredia felt it had delivered them, they would come ashore hard enough to break bones. To that end, he tried to talk to the water’s essence, using his Voice to reach the sentience buried deep in its elemental being, to find the thread of its existence that Gilgarran had taught him all things in creation were woven of, each different and yet the same. The hope that his Talent could even reach the thing Rivergrace had made out of her desperation thinned as the water crested mindlessly, sweeping him and Pavan downstream. His sense of time swept away with the river. He could have been caught in the flood for moments or for days, timed only by the fact he felt thirst and hunger, and he heard Pavan’s equine stomach rumble loudly.

  The river quivered underneath them, like a ferry lurching away from shore. He called to it, reaching down into his Voice, coaxing it to beach them, assuring it that it was time their journey come to an end. He could feel it absorbing his words, sucking them down into the white-frothy maelstrom of its inner being, digesting them, as it were. Whether it thought or reasoned well enough that he could control it, he had no idea. When he looked at it, he could not see the threads Grace had woven together, the woof and warp of what she’d created to spirit him away.

  He put his hand on Pavan’s neck. The horse’s skin quickened under his touch, and he swung his head about to nervously chew on Sevryn’s sleeve. He answered by rubbing the horse’s nose a bit, then scratching him under his chin to soothe him. As he did so, the river began to give way, freeing both of them. Their feet and hooves sank suddenly into watery foam and then their conveyance fell apart.

  They washed ashore violently, both of them going over and rolling in the tide of water, the horse squealing in fear. Sevryn kicked free of the animal, afraid of the damage Pavan’s flailing hooves could do, and as soon as he landed, he tackled the animal’s neck, keeping him down, as the water drained away from their bodies with a powerful suction that threatened to drag them back into the river again. The Andredia curled back with nothing left but foam before Sevryn got off Pavan’s neck and urged the gelding to his feet. The horse got up and stood, head hanging, legs braced, breathing as heavily as if he’d run across the meadows to get here. Sevryn knuckled him between the ears.

  “I know how you feel.”

  “Now you talk horses,” a heavy voice grumbled at him.

  Sevryn swung his head about so quickly that water sprayed from him, as he squinted his eyes to look up the banks of the river. A bowed figure in browned leathers grunted back at him, his heavy scent drifting down to Sevryn on the wind. More animal than man, his leathery face grizzled and tusks at the corners of his mouth yellow with age, the Bolger straightened up with another grunt, as if his bones might ache, which they certainly might, for the male was old enough to be the grandfather of his entire tribe.

  “And what are you doing here?” Sevryn asked in astonishment.

  “Told to go fishing. Not told what fish.”

  “You were told to be here?” Who could have known they’d meet? How could anyone know the river would carry him thus far and no farther?

  Rufus shrugged. The Bolger lumbered across the grassy bank to meet him, taking up the reins of the tashya who seemed beaten by the ordeal. He bent to run his thickly scarred hands over the horse’s legs. Years as a foundry worker had remade his hands into clumsy looking, heavy instruments but that would be untrue. T
hey held as much gentleness as any man’s, and were as capable of wielding almost any weapon. Bolgers were beasts with human intelligence, and a shrewd, savvy outlook on life. He and Rufus had history forged in the slavery of Quendius, and years before that, the Bolger had known Rivergrace as a small child while she was held captive in the mines Quendius ran. Rufus still called her “Little Flower” for the pretties the child had shared with him. He had, in the decades Sevryn knew him, transcended what the man thought of Bolgers. Rufus patted the horse when he was finished examining him. “Legs good. Cut. I fix. But good.”

  “Who told you to go fishing?”

  “Tribe shaman. Dreamed it. Said future would float down this river.” Rufus grinned around his yellowed tusks.

  “Here.”

  Rufus shrugged and waved his arm to indicate the banks. “Half a day walk. Here, there, looking, waiting.” He stopped and eyed Sevryn with his round, dark eye in a brow that now bristled with silver-and-gray hairs. “Ugly fish.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Sevryn grinned. “You look pretty good to me. Anything to eat back at your camp?”

  “Some.” Through the heavy tusks at the corner of his jaws, Rufus made a chirping noise at Pavan; the horse perked up a little and followed after him as he led the way back up into the forests far below Larandaril.

  “Tell me about this shaman.”

  Rufus strolled along in his bow-legged gait for long moments, his brow lowered, thinking. “Shaman is shaman.” He squinted sideways at Sevryn. “Gods awakening. Trouble soon.”

  “He foresaw it?”

  Rufus gave a gesture that was more shrug than nod. A practical man, the Bolger had never struck Sevryn as particularly superstitious, yet here he camped at his shaman’s directive.

  “Where’s Rivergrace? Did you fish her out, too?”

  Rufus stopped dead in his tracks. He half-swung about on Sevryn, his lip curled. “You lost Little Flower?”

  Sevryn gathered himself. “She sent me downriver. I was hoping she’d followed.”

  The Bolger looked flatly at him for long moments before saying, “Not see,” and turning away. Sevryn let his breath out very slowly.

  Rufus built up a campfire, fed him, rubbed Pavan down with great handfuls of dried grass until the horse’s coat shone. Then he made poultices for three cuts he’d found on the horse’s slender legs, before setting the animal out to graze the rest of the day away. With the same kind of quiet care, he saw to Sevryn as well, content to wait on the story that brought the two of them together on the riverbanks of the lower Andredia. Rufus pitched his mule close to the horse, and the two mounts ate in companionship, their tails busy against whatever flying pests might bother them as they grazed. Rufus readied a meal for the two of them.

  Drier, and a lot less hungry, and listening to his horse crop away eagerly at the grasses behind them, Sevryn filled the Bolger in on the happenings as he knew them. Rufus absorbed his words in near silence, a habit of his that Sevryn knew did not reflect on his comprehension. The Bolger had always been a male of few words.

  “Little one with big mouth very big with baby, then.”

  “Very.”

  Rufus nodded. “I should go.”

  “She could use you, but I need you with me, first.”

  “What?”

  “I intend to find Bregan Oxfort.”

  Rufus nodded. “Payback.”

  “Of a sort. I need to know why he betrayed us, and didn’t expect that I wouldn’t come after him when he did. I imagine he’s gone back to his holdings near Hawthorne.”

  Rufus scratched his nearly bald pate. “Aye.” His jaw worked as if he chewed on something. “Fancy boot.” The Bolger named him for the intricate metalwork and geared brace of Vaelinar make on his weakened leg. Yet Rufus seemed a little disgruntled.

  “What is it?”

  “Not find Little Flower?”

  Sevryn looked at his boots, drying in the heat of the banked campfire. “I want to,” he answered directly. “Everything in me tells me to go back and get her, but she set me free on purpose. This is something I have to do.”

  “Bregan.”

  “Yes, and the ild Fallyns. Bregan owes me, and I’ll take it out of his hide, and he’ll take me through the ild Fallyn gates if it kills him.”

  “Ahhh,” Rufus rumbled. “Plan.”

  “Yes. I have a plan.” Not, at the moment, a well-formulated one, but definitely in the preparation stages. “You with me?”

  Rufus gave a lopsided grin. “Against trader? Fallyn? Gods know yes.” He folded his arms across his barrel chest, protected only by a boiled leather vest, an old one that had seen almost as many years as the Bolger. “Show me Kobrir.”

  Sevryn hesitated a moment, before reaching inside his shirt to his inner holster and bringing out the dagger. With another hitch, he found the cuffs and dropped them to the ground beside the dagger. Rufus sidled over to look at them, to examine them minutely with his coal-dark eyes. He stabbed a finger at the weapon.

  Sevryn picked it up and turned the dagger over in his hands. “Gilgarran’s,” he told the Bolger squatting next to him. “Different than the one he used when he trained me, although not by much.” He slipped a dagger out of his boot. “He added a channel, here, like this. This is mine, but I patterned it on his. Good balance, good for . . .” he paused. “Wet work.”

  Rufus made a rumble at the back of his throat. He stabbed a big-knuckled finger at the first dagger. “Not old master forge.”

  “Not Quendius?” Sevryn returned his weapon to its sheath as he turned Gilgarran’s over in his hand again. “I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t sure. Who, then, is the question. Possibly the ones who made the daggers the Kobrir use. They, too, are similar. The metal is high quality, good ores, good tempering, good pounding.” And he fetched out a dagger he’d taken off an assassin’s body. The workmanship could be seen to be strong in resemblance, although the quality of the blade for the Kobrir was superior and the stylized K buried deep in the butt end of the haft. There was either a flaw or a mark on the lettering for each dagger. Sevryn peered at it and could not read it. He lifted his chin. “We need a jeweler. He’ll have a lens that could read this.” He scratched his nail over it lightly. “Both daggers with a flaw on the owner’s initial? Unlikely. I’m betting it’s a maker’s mark. Or a forge stamp.”

  “Likely.” Rufus agreed. He shifted his weight on his haunches. He glared down at the cuffs. “Little Flower.”

  “I’ll kill anyone who tries to put her in them.”

  Rufus put his big hand down, balancing on his knuckles. “Many questions.”

  “And I intend to get answers, starting with Bregan.” He continued to check himself over, a deft touch here and there, reassuring himself of his armory, a ritual he did almost unconsciously. “Three days to get to Hawthorne, if we ruin good horses. Longer still, to ild Fallyn Stronghold.”

  “Mule not keep up.”

  “This isn’t your journey, Rufus. You don’t have to keep up with me. You’ve fulfilled your shaman’s wishes, and I owe you for it.”

  The Bolger squinted at him. “Little Flower safe. Little Flower’s man keep safe.”

  Sevryn understood the being’s affinity for Rivergrace. She had befriended him when both suffered imprisonment under Quendius. She had shown him a child’s simple love and hope, and he’d never forgotten it. “I could use your help,” he admitted. “You’re a good man to have at my back.”

  Rufus grunted. “Why run horse?”

  “Not enough time.”

  Rufus shifted a little, as if to ease aching knees in his squat, and said nothing. They both knew that Sevryn wanted to know why the trader had set him up, if his story that a God had instructed him to do so was truth, and if it was . . . how a God might have spoken to Bregan . . . and what the assassins of the cult Kobrir wanted by manipulating those events. Wha
t did a king of assassins truly want from Sevryn? He doubted it would be as simple as distracting him from the return of the Raymy and the queen’s service. With the Kobrir, as with the ild Fallyn, there would be gears within wheels within circles. He had no choice but to go where the obvious led him, for now.

  “I guide.”

  Sevryn raised an eyebrow. “I know where I am going.”

  Rufus flared his nostrils in a restrained snort. “Fast.” He dragged a thick finger through the stable dirt, leaving a wriggling path. “Worm’s way.”

  “Pathways of the Mageborn.” He’d been taken that way before. He had no doubt Rufus knew them. What he did doubt was that the tunneling of the ancient magicians would carry him from this backwater smuggler’s cove to Hawthorne.

  The Bolger shook his head. “Worm’s way.” He jabbed a thumb at the rugged cliffs of the coastline in the distance. “Many worms. Many wriggles.”

  He had never run across one of the great worms who had eaten through stone like a hot dagger through butter, and he hoped he never would. The beasts were so long gone from the memory of men that there were not even stories of them, or bones in the rock, or old paintings upon cavern walls. It was as though they had existed in a time beyond mind. But the Bolgers knew them. They might carry the folklore. The men of Kerith, the Kernans, the Dwellers, the Galdarkans, and the Vaelinars, all of them discounted the Bolgers in their humanity. Perhaps it was an even graver mistake than many were coming to believe. “How do you know of these serpents?”

  Rufus met his gaze for a long time, unblinking, as if weighing him down to his soul. Then he wiped his tusked mouth with the back of his hand, preparing to talk with difficulty the languages of true men that his tusks warped and distorted, for his own language was virtually unknown by any outside his race. Sevryn felt a pang as he recognized the gesture. Rufus adjusted his position, hiked up his apron, and then jerked a thumb in the vague direction of south. “We not from here. Like you.”