A Game of Tsatsun (The Binders Game Book 1)

by Holmberg, D. K.

  A Game of Tsatsun

  D.K. Holmberg

  ASH Publishing

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  About the Author

  Also by D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2016 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover by Rebecca Frank

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Chapter 1

  Mist swelled around the low rooftops where I crouched, tucked up against the solid brick of the surrounding buildings. I stared through the fog, trying to use my Sight, but I couldn’t penetrate it enough to see what else might be on the rooftop with me. My one advantage had been neutralized by the heavy rain and the cool night in Eban.

  Though I’m no Listener, I could hear movement. Shallow breaths gave away the position of the person across from me, but not enough for me to take a chance wasting a dart. Already, I’d wasted too many tonight.

  Sliding my feet carefully, I made a point of moving across the slate roof as quietly as I could. The mist would help mute any sounds, but the rain left the tiles slick and dangerous, even for me. I could die from a fall just like another man.

  I rolled a long, wooden dart between my fingers, focusing on what I could see.

  My Sight augmented everything. Even in the darkness, I saw colors and shadows that others without my gift would not. The thick swirls of grey obscured what I could see, enough that I didn’t dare risk exposing myself out here. If I could reach the inside of the building, my advantage would return. At least then I could find out who’d been chasing me.

  The night had not gone as it should. A simple scouting trip, nothing more. Orly had hired me again, and his coin was usually good, but this time he offered more than typical for such a seemingly straightforward job. Had I not needed the money, and had it not been months since the last job I was willing to take, I might not have been here tonight. He wanted the slaver Carth brought to him—not dead, at least not this time—and knew my feelings about the slavers.

  Considering what I’d seen in my time in Eban—how the slavers brought women to the city to serve as courtesans—I had no qualms bringing one of the slavers to the most ruthless thief-master in the city. And since Carth was new to the city, anything I could do to rid Eban of another slaver I would happily do, especially given the rumors circulating in the city of someone assaulting the courtesans. Forced prostitution was bad enough, but beating them as well… that was a reason for my services.

  But before fully taking on Orly’s job, I first had to gauge what I would be going against.

  I worked my hand across the brick behind me, hoping for silence. I didn’t offer a prayer; the Great Watcher had long ago abandoned me, so prayers would be worse than useless. My hand found a lip of a ledge and I tipped my head back but couldn’t see anything. Even my hand disappeared into the thick fog.

  A scuffing across the tile told me that I needed to move. If I waited any longer, I risked losing all the advantages I had.

  Grabbing the ledge, I pulled myself up, letting the brick scratch at my back. The sound practically screamed in my ears, but I hoped the fog would suppress most of it.

  There came the rapid thump of feet across the slate roof. Whoever chased me recognized my position.

  With a grunt, I threw myself up to the ledge. Like all from Elaeavn, I had enhanced strength and agility, but balancing on the finger of brick was almost beyond me. Beneath me, the attacker crashed into the brick where I’d been standing, ramming it with more force than I expected.

  I paused and stared into the mist but couldn’t see anything. Since realizing that my scouting had gone awry, that had been the challenge. Between the fog and the fact that they’d caught me by surprise, I hadn’t the chance to determine who—or what—might be after me.

  Could they have another like me? I wasn’t the only Forgotten, banished by the council of Elaeavn, who found alternative employment. Many preferred more typical lines of work, but the nature of the Forgotten, those of us exiled for crimes committed in Elaeavn, made it more likely that we’d end up on the seedier side of things. My crime had been one of anger and impulsivity, emotions of youth that I had mostly moved past, but I’d found work as an assassin just the same.

  I pulled on the window, which opened with a soft creak. It was the kind of sound that stood out in the night, and the man beneath me reached up and grasped the ledge.

  He grabbed my ankle and pulled. If I didn’t do anything, he’d pull me down to the roof. I liked my chances—one of the first things my mentor Isander had taught was close quarter fighting—but doing so was messier than I preferred.

  I flicked my dart at him with a practiced motion. I’d dipped this in coxberry paste—more than enough to immobilize but not quite enough to kill. Until I knew what Orly wanted of the slaver, I made a point not to kill.

  The hand holding my ankle should have relaxed, but didn’t.

  I swore under my breath and reached toward the pouch holding other darts, but not fast enough. My leg was jerked out and away from the ledge.

  I flailed, reaching toward the now-open window, grabbing it for stability. With my other hand, I pulled a terad-tipped dart out of my pouch and flicked it, kicking with my leg to try to free myself.

  The movement sent me falling.

  I went backward, through the window. Now, if the man held onto my ankle as I fell, he’d snap my leg.

  Twisting as I fell, I kicked at his hand with my free foot, jarring him just enough for me to pull my legs back toward me.

  I rolled as I landed on the hard floor, reaching for a dart as I did.

  The inside of the building was sparse, but at least the fog didn’t roll through here. My Sight showed me a nearly empty room, only a simple trunk along the wall. An ornate silvery lantern sat atop it. The dusty floor was now smeared with my damp footprints. The air had a musty quality to it, as if the room hadn’t been opened in weeks. Lingering below the must was a hint of foul rot.

  Where had I gotten myself trapped this time?

  My attacker had reached the ledge. I thought about running, but curiosity held me in place. Now that I had the advantage of my Sight, I wasn’t afraid, and I was as prepared as I could be, given the circumstances.

  So I backed up to the wall and pulled me cloak around me, palming a pair of terad-tipped darts. I had a short sword sheathed at my waist, but if it came to using that, I would be in a different kind of trouble. I could use the sword, the same way that I could use the knives I carried strapped to my calves, which was to say not as well as I’d like. Darts were a different matter.

  With a flash of gray, my attacker flipped into the window and came rolling across the floor in a single, smooth motion.

  Maybe I should have considered running.

  I readied a dart, crouching low as I did.

  A woman came to stand about five paces from me. She was dressed in black leather that clung to her body, accenting the curves and forcing me to draw my eyes back up t
o her face. A light cloak covered her shoulders. Dark eyes stared at me, a mixture of gray-green, and hard. I’d seen eyes like that before, but only on those who’d lived a life that earned them. The shallow scar on her jawline, barely hiding in the shadows, made me wonder if she hadn’t earned hers.

  A pair of long knives appeared in her hands. She took a step toward me, ignoring the slender darts I held. The way she moved told me that she was accustomed to close quarters fighting and comfortable with her knives.

  I didn’t dare wait. If she was the same person who had grabbed my ankle, she had some sort of unnatural strength. I’d seen enough things in my time outside of Elaeavn to know that my people weren’t the only ones gifted by the Great Watcher. If she reached me—and if she really was that strong—then I wouldn’t have much of a chance.

  I flicked one of the darts at her.

  With a casual movement, barely the smallest snaps of her wrist, she knocked it out of the air.

  Damn.

  “Who are you?” she asked, stopping just out of reach.

  Her voice was heavily accented and airy, almost as if her throat had once been crushed and then healed. I’d seen men nearly hanged who sounded like that, but never a woman—at least, never one who lived.

  I forced a smile, trying to distract her so I could reach another of my darts. My pouch held seven more, but only three were already dipped. I would need time to ready any more than that, though if it came to needing that much time, I suspected she would do everything she could to stop me. “I could ask the same question of you,” I said.

  “You come to us. Who sent you?” she asked.

  At least I had something she wanted. “You work for the slaver?” I asked.

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, the corners pulling tight. “No slaver,” she answered.

  “No? Then who brought the courtesans to Eban?” I asked.

  I held my remaining dart at the ready, not wanting to waste it. As soon as I tossed it at her, I would need to reach for another pair of darts, especially if she was as quick with her knives the second time. Had I been smarter, I would have pulled more than just the two darts from the pouch in the beginning. But had I been smarter, maybe I wouldn’t have gone scouting on a night like this. Without the fog, there wouldn’t have been a chance for her to sneak up on me.

  Fog rolled through the open window and I wondered if there was anything I could do to use it to my advantage. Could I somehow disorient her long enough if I couldn’t get a dart past her? The strength she’d shown worried me. If I wasn’t fast enough, or if I said the wrong thing here, she might be able to overpower me. Wouldn’t that be a fitting way for me to go down?

  “There were no courtesans brought to Eban,” she answered.

  I studied her face as she spoke, watching her with my Sight. There was no sign of fear, nothing in the way her eyes stared at me to indicate unease, no tension in the easy way she held her blades or the casual way she twirled one of the knives, and nothing in her stance that indicated concern.

  I was in more trouble than I realized. I might be a skilled assassin, gifted by the Great Watcher with Sight, but I recognized talent when I saw it. This woman had it.

  Lowering my hands, I made a point of meeting her eyes. “I’m going to put this away,” I said, pointing to the dart. With a quick movement, I slipped it into my pouch, careful to leave it open in case I needed to reach back in again. Even if I did, there wasn’t much chance that I would succeed.

  “Who are you?” she asked again. The knives in her hands stopped spinning and she appeared to relax even more. Here I hadn’t thought her tense. If that was tension, then I was smarter than I realized by trying a different approach with her.

  I kept myself ready for anything. Without my darts, I might not be as capable, but I could still move quickly, and I could still try to run if needed. The window was about eight steps from where I stood, maybe six if I ran. I could be out the window and rolling across the rooftop in a heartbeat. Only, I had the sense that it would take her half that time to slice me with one of her knives.

  “I am Galen,” I answered.

  Her brow tightened, the only sign of movement I saw. She recognized my name.

  In Eban, I made a point of keeping my name to myself when on assignments. Only in times like this did I reveal myself. There was value in the uncertainty, in few knowing anything about me other than my name. The most any knew was that I was an assassin who sees as well in the dark as in the daylight, something that struck fear into most who lived among the undersurface of the city. Then, when they learned I was once of Elaeavn, they feared me even more. Few left Elaeavn, and those who did left for a reason. There were other assassins in Eban—a city this size and there were bound to be others—but few with my reputation, and none with my skill.

  “Why were you hired, Galen?” she asked.

  She took a single step back, enough that made me think she feared what would happen if she pressed her attack even more. At least my reputation worked for me here.

  “I already told you why I was hired. There’s a new slaver in Eban, but of course you know that,” I said, not bothering to hide the contempt in my voice when I said it. I’d nearly lost a friend to a slaver once. It was one of the few times I felt no remorse when finishing the job. “Why don’t you tell me who you are? Why did you chase me through the city?”

  I wanted to know if she knew about my limitation with nights like tonight. In Elaeavn, where many were Sighted, such limitations weren’t all that mysterious, but in Eban, I was able to use an air of mystery to my advantage. If I lost that, or if there were others like her who didn’t worry about me, then the advantage I had—and the reason I could charge so much for my services—would disappear.

  “You don’t know?” she asked.

  She posed the question as if I should know. Considering that I was hired to capture the slaver Carth and bring him to Orly, maybe I should have asked a few more questions, but I’d made a point of not trusting Orly when it came to details like that. He had no qualms about using me, especially when he thought he might get me to do what he wanted without paying.

  “I know that you work for him. Otherwise you wouldn’t have followed me. From what I’ve seen of the way you move and your talent with knives, you’re not local.” That could mean anything, but I left it vague, especially as I had no idea how she had managed to hold me with such strength. “So tell me, who are you?”

  With a flourish, she slipped the knives into sheaths strapped to her waist. She stood away from me, but the ready posture and the casual way she stood told me that she was ready to pounce if I made any movement that made her uncomfortable. I made a point of standing as carefully and non-threateningly as I could.

  “I am Carth,” she said.

  Well, damn. Of course she would be.

  Orly had found another way to surprise me.

  Chapter 2

  I crouched along the wall of a room in the lower level of a small building on the edge of Eban. We’d been left here alone. The woman who’d closed the door after we arrived offered me a wide smirk, as if expecting me not to survive. It was possible that I would not.

  My heels rested against the wall, a dart that I rolled back and forth pinched between my thumb and forefinger, the motion soothing me as I tried to figure out what Orly might have planned. Knowing him, this was likely all part of something greater. I couldn’t figure out what it might be. Not yet.

  Carth was the slaver Orly had hired me to find and bring to him, but I’d never known a woman slaver, and certainly not one trafficking courtesans. That she had particular talents should not have surprised me. Why else would he have hired me, and at such a rate?

  I watched Carth as she leaned near the small hearth now crackling with a steady flame, resting her arm on the mantle. She stood in a way that jutted her hip toward me. On another woman, it might have been an attempt at flirtation, but on Carth—especially after seeing how smoothly she moved—I saw nothing but death from h
er. It was probably the way most people saw me. Realizing that nearly unnerved me.

  “You haven’t said who hired you,” Carth said.

  I glanced over. I’d agreed to follow her back to this place, the same place where our dangerous pursuit had started earlier in the night. A part of me warned that I should not come with her, that I should abandon Orly’s assignment, but another part—that which simply had to know—required that I come with her.

  “Does it matter?” I asked.

  She looked over and her dark eyes narrowed slightly. It was the barest movement. Probably someone without the gift of Sight would not see it, but I recognized the irritation she showed in such a subtle movement. “None were to know we were here,” she said.

  I grunted. “None?”

  I looked around the room. A thick carpet spread across the floor, stained in places but still a luxury few could afford. A framed painting of a something like a massive cat standing atop a ridgeline hung on the far wall. In Elaeavn, cats were either lucky or unlucky, depending on the number. A single cat usually meant bad luck. A long wooden bench rested against the far wall, pushed out of the way. A pile of folded clothing stacked atop the bench. A bookshelf cluttered with texts and stacks of papers nestled into a corner.

  “None,” Carth repeated. “So tell me, Galen of Elaeavn, how did you know of our presence?”

  “Not of Elaeavn,” I said, tucking my hands into hidden pockets of my cloak, dropping the dart into the deep cloak pockets. Now that I was with Carth, committed to learning why she’d come to Eban, I’d shifted a couple of darts to these pockets. They were easier to reach quickly than my pouch, but wouldn’t be nearly as protected if I had to run. My concern here wasn’t that I’d need to run; it was getting the chance to run if something took an unexpected turn.

  There was something about Carth that I wasn’t completely catching. Orly had tasked me with capturing, but not killing, her. That should have been my first concern. With Orly, I’d already learned that he tended to have a more roundabout way of getting what he wanted. He was willing to use anyone—me included—to obtain whatever he set his sights on. That was how he’d become the most feared thief-master in Eban.