‘Unta, of course. It’s where the money is, you know.’
‘So much for Unta,’ Dorin muttered.
‘What? You said something?’
‘I said, you came for nothing. I frankly don’t give a shit about you.’ He slid a foot back to the edge of the trapdoor.
‘Leave and you die!’ the assassin warned. He opened his arms once more, apologetic. ‘It’s just the way it is. Turn away and I will cut you down from behind.’ He shrugged. ‘Makes no difference to me.’
Dorin understood. He had known the moment he saw the man. But he had to give it a try. He nodded and eased into a ready stance, one blade low and forward, the other high over his head, but held point downward.
The assassin smiled hungrily and eased into an identical stance. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.
‘Dorin.’
The smile broadened. He shifted, circling to the right. Dorin responded, circling to his right. ‘My name is Stephan,’ the assassin said. ‘Did the old man mention my name?’
Dorin knew this for a trap – names had meant nothing to the old man – but he’d already sized up his opponent and had reached the conclusion that the fellow was damned vain. And so he said, ‘He said he once tried to teach a cretin named Stephan how to throw a knife.’
The smile was whipped away. ‘Don’t make me mad, little boy. This could be quick – or it could be very slow. Agonizingly slow.’
Dorin relaxed completely into that loose awareness that was his state of mind for any duel. Nothing else mattered any longer – only the moment. There was no past or future. No plans or hopes or expectations.
Just this moment: the chill night air in his lungs; his breath pluming ever so lightly; the soft leather of his shoes gripping the bricks laid in a herringbone design across the roof; and the cool hard familiarity of the knives in his hands. He shifted into a new stance, warming up – and his partner responded, answering his rhythm. And with that he knew this Stephan had truly been a student of his mentor.
For the old man had taught knife-fighting as a dance.
It is a duet, he heard the old bastard say once more. A duet, in which your goal is to kill your partner.
Dorin allowed the ghost image of that old man, his sparring partner for years and years, to superimpose itself over the figure opposite. An entire childhood spent in a dusty cold barn shuffling in endless circles while this iron-faced skinny ancient struck him with his wooden knives on his arms, his legs, his head.
And lectured him interminably while doing so.
You must come to know your partner better than they know themselves, he’d snarl, and strike him across the bridge of the nose.
And he, his skinny bare arms a mass of purple-black bruises, struggling to organize a counter-attack.
Do not think of what you will do! A shocking blow to his temple that raised stars in his vision. Watch what they are doing and think what they will do!
And as the years passed his other training – his breaking and entering, his pickpocketing and rope-escaping – all became mere decoration next to his knife training. The bruises on his arms and legs became fewer and fewer. His duets with the old man lasted longer and longer there in the clouds of dust raised from the hard-packed floor of the barn.
You must come to know them as intimately as a lover. A thrust to his neck turned aside. A sweep evaded. Three false slashes with the blade hidden behind the wrist, high and low, followed by a spinning overhead slash that he intuited as show to cover a thrust to his side that he sidestepped, counter-attacking with what in sword-fencing would be considered a stop-thrust.
For when you know them so well you understand them – that is when you slip the knife in.
Stephan staggered back, yielding ground, a hand pressed to his side that came away wet and gleaming in the moonlight. He studied his fingers, then raised one blade to his forehead, acknowledging it. ‘Touché.’
Dorin eased into a more aggressive stance, both blades held out before him.
Stephan circled anew, weaving his knives. Dorin ignored the flash of the moonlight from the blades to watch the man’s centre of weight instead. He is leading – where are we going?
The man refused to commit, dodging and circling, and Dorin understood: his partner wouldn’t be giving any more. He would have to be pressed. Dorin edged forward to begin the long chase that was cornering a partner. The man circled, again and again. But Dorin kept the pressure on, always working him towards a corner of the rooftop.
In the periphery of his attention, Dorin noted the moon sinking. This was his longest dance in years. A droplet from his brow struck his eyelid and he realized this was the first time he’d worked up a sweat in any fight since leaving Tali. Most bouts lasted a mere few heartbeats; a few traded slashes and parries. Yet he and Stephan already knew one another so well. Their stances echoed each other’s precisely. He saw his own moves reflected perfectly in his partner’s.
Reflected . . .
That thought saved Dorin’s life.
Just as he assumed he had Stephan where he wanted him he realized that the opposite was true – that all along he’d been fed exactly what he’d expected to see. His reflexive rage at himself was a physical flinch that pulled him away the thumb’s breadth necessary to save his life. The point that penetrated his shirt and the armoured plastron beneath passed between his ribs but didn’t touch his heart.
Stephan’s smile of victory froze as Dorin’s blade slammed home in his neck.
Dorin clutched his chest, staggering backwards.
Stephan fell to his knees, both hands at his throat. Blood welled thickly between his fingers. One-handed, Dorin started tearing at his shirt and the lacing of the plastron beneath.
‘Congratulations . . .’ Stephan whispered, a ghastly smile on his lips.
Dorin fell to his own knees. He heaved the half-unlaced plastron over his head and threw it aside to thump to the roof. Blood smeared his hand at his chest.
‘. . . you’re the last . . .’ Stephan fell to lie on his side with his eyes staring fixedly at nothing ‘. . . the last . . . student of Faruj . . .’
Dorin wavered, dizzy. There was a roaring in his ears. He blinked, thinking No – this isn’t what I came here for. This isn’t what I want. I wanted . . . I wanted . . .
He blinked more and more slowly, his sight darkening with each fall of the eyelids. Movement roused him: the crackling of footsteps in the grit of the roof. A murky wavering shape halted next to him, a stick set down to the bricks, tapping.
Dorin swallowed to wet his throat, croaked, ‘You gonna . . . watch me . . . bleed out?’
‘Not at all. The urchins are on their way.’
The thought of those kids poking at him almost got Dorin to his feet. Wu pressed him back down. ‘Do not worry, I have everything in hand.’
That’s what fucking worries me . . .
The youths arrived, eased him on to his back. Small hands pulled at his torn shirt. The pain was swept aside like a receding wave, and Dorin recognized the effects of the healing Warren, Denul.
‘You have a healer?’ he murmured to Wu, amazed.
‘Almost every one of these youths is a talent of one sort or another. That’s why I picked them from all the hundreds of kids.’ The mage studied his walking stick, sniffed. ‘Really, Dorin, give me some credit.’
And Dorin let himself relax, yielding to the probing fingers, thinking Oponn’s jest! An army of damned talents?
Chapter 17
A LIGHT DRIFT of windblown ice granules covered the body in the alley. Silk crouched next to it, reached a bare hand down the man’s chest, stone cold. More than a day, at the least. And not just another starving victim of the siege, either. Shot through by crossbow bolts – and these subsequently torn from the body as supplies were short everywhere.
‘Starved?’ Smokey called from down the alley.
‘No.’ Silk rested his elbows on his knees, rubbed his hands to warm them. ‘Looks like a gang war. This is one
of Pung’s or Urquart’s.’
Smokey cocked his head. ‘Could be a murder made to look like such. We got informers, saboteurs and spies crawling all over us like godsdamned lice.’
Silk studied the cobbled alleyway. Small footprints in the dusting of sleet. Very small. Sandals and shoes, worn, some with holes in the soles. No proper boots. He raised his head to call, ‘It’s that new gang. Expanding their territory.’ He stood, brushed his trouser legs, then went to where Smokey, in a long woollen coat, leaned up against a wall. ‘I hear Pung’s in hiding.’
Smokey rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t give a shit. What I want to know is whether it’s the work of any blasted insurgent or traitor.’
‘In my opinion? No.’
Smokey grunted his satisfaction, pushed from the wall. ‘Okay, leave it be. At least in this cold it won’t rot.’ They started up the street.
‘It’s going to be a messy spring this year.’
Smokey hunched further, shuddering. He tucked his hands deep within the coat. ‘Don’t care.’ He added, muttering, ‘So long as we live to see it.’
‘Have faith, my dour friend. Burn’s Turning has come and gone – we are in the season of rising light. Kan’s thrown its best against us and been repulsed. They’ll crawl away with the melt.’
‘It’s not Kan that worries me – it’s malcontents here. Like at the Inner Gate.’
‘Mara caught them before they took control and now their heads adorn it as warning to others. Everyone will think twice now.’
Smokey grunted sourly. ‘We were lucky. We might not be next time.’ He cocked an eye to Silk. ‘What’s got you in such a grand mood?’
Silk thought about that. He was in an inexplicably good mood this day and he wondered on its cause. He decided that it was as he’d said: Kan really did seem exhausted. It looked to him as though they truly had repulsed Chulalorn’s overreach. And time was on their side. With every day that passed, the status quo solidified and opinion grudgingly shifted in their favour. In a siege, the mere survival of the defending party was itself success. It was up to Kan to prove otherwise.
‘I do believe we’ve turned a corner, my friend.’
Smokey laughed his scepticism. ‘Hunh! That’ll be the day I offer good coin to Oponn.’
* * *
Dorin sat up in his narrow underground room, more of a cell, just wide enough for his cot. He rubbed his chest beneath his thin shirtings, and remembered the chill touch of the knifepoint when it slid past his ribs. Must have punctured a lung at the least.
The cloth hanging across the doorway was edged aside and a youth entered: one of Wu’s lads. The boy’s dirty face registered surprise and he sketched a quick half-bow. ‘Wu wants to see you.’
Dorin sat up, blinked in dizziness. ‘He does, does he?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Sir?’
‘Yes sir, Dorin sir.’
‘I meant – you don’t have to use “sir”.’
‘We decided to use it.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s all right, then.’
The lad was relieved. ‘Thanks. You sit – I’ll go and get Wu. Oh, is there anything you want?’
Dorin tried to swallow, failed. ‘Food and drink. And not from any tomb!’
‘Right.’ The lad left, the cloth fell.
Shortly afterwards a girl arrived carrying a wooden tray supporting a small loaf and a steaming earthenware bowl. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘Broth of onions and mushrooms. All we got left.’
Dorin picked up the fist-sized loaf – it was rock hard. ‘How am I supposed to . . .’
‘You dip it in the broth. Softens it.’
‘Ah.’ He ate. The girl crouched, watching him. From the edge of his vision he observed her. Finally, he asked, ‘What is it?’
‘Four of us watched your fight. They say it was the most amazing thing they ever saw. So fast it was. Like magic. Will you teach us?’
Dorin thought about that while he dipped the bread and gnawed it. The dissemination of specialized knowledge outside any guild was, of course, punishable by death. Assassins didn’t really possess an organized guild, though – too much the loners. However, they tended to follow rules similar to those of the secretive brotherhood of architects, or the closed guild of the goldsmiths, or the mystical gem-cutter guild. His teacher had guarded his hard-won knowledge and skills jealously. They were, after all, his only bread and butter. He had to sell them as dearly as possible. He’d taken only one student at a time – not that Dorin had had any coin. He’d been a charity case, taken on only because of his demonstrated ability. Teaching these lads and lasses would be seen as a gross break with tradition; a potential cheapening of all that he’d struggled so hard to possess. A betrayal of trade secrets that carried the death penalty.
He considered this while he stirred the broth with the knot of bread. ‘I’ll teach anyone who wants to learn.’
The girl shot to her feet, her eyes huge, ‘Thank you!’ She ran from the room, presumably to spread the word.
The cloth was edged aside once more and Rheena entered. She leaned up against the wall next to the doorway. She rubbed her hands down her thighs, her gaze on the floor. ‘I’m glad you’re okay.’
‘Thanks to these kids. Can you believe that?’
Rheena laughed, crossed her arms. ‘Kids? I was no older when I ran away. And that one who just left? She’s a talent of Rashan. Walks in the night like a ghost.’ She shook her head, amazed. ‘Seems your friend has an eye for talent.’
Dorin thought about that. ‘Yeah. I suppose he does.’
The half-smile fled her face and she brushed back her loose curls of red hair. ‘So, how is she?’
‘Blinded.’
‘Blinded? Gods – I’m sorry.’
He shrugged aside the apology. ‘It’s my fault. You were right. I shouldn’t have involved her.’
She hugged herself, nodding. ‘It’s the innocents who get it in the neck, isn’t it?’
Dorin eyed her anew. ‘Where’s Loor?’
She raised her gaze to the ceiling. ‘Must you . . .’
‘Where is he?’
‘Promise not to kill him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Or blind him?’
He scowled, truly offended. ‘I’d never maim anyone.’
‘Just saying!’ She raised a hand. ‘All right. So long as you don’t harm him. He was just mad at you, that’s all.’
‘Mad at me?’
‘He thought we were a team. He thought he was finally going somewhere . . .’ She let her shoulders fall. ‘Never mind.’ She took a steadying breath. ‘The Wayside Inn.’
He knew it; one of the worst dives in the city. ‘Thank you.’
Her answering nod was miserable. ‘And me?’
‘You?’
She rolled her eyes once more. ‘Yes, me. What of me?’
He gestured to the hall. ‘These kids need a firm hand. Wu and I are busy.’
She dropped her gaze, drew a circle in the dust with the toe of her shoe. ‘I see . . . I suppose I should thank you.’
‘Just don’t prove me wrong.’
She jumped as if stung. ‘I’ll not disappoint you.’
‘See that you don’t.’ He gestured once more to the hall.
Rheena inclined her chin and left. Dorin finished his thin soup. When he looked up Wu was standing in the doorway studying him with the air of a pleased parent. It occurred to him that the Dal Hon mage was the only one apart from Ullara who could sneak up on him. ‘What do you want?’ he growled, irritated by that fact.
‘All hale and whole, yes? Thanks to me.’
‘Thanks to your healers.’
A flutter of one hand from the mage seemed to say A minor distinction.
‘So? What do you want?’
‘I? Why, nothing. Only your well-being, of course. It gratifies me no end to see you quite recovered. You should have seen yourself. Hood’s doorstep, as they say. Why, if it weren’t for
me—’
‘No.’
The Dal Hon mage, as ever in his false façade of grey hair and wrinkled visage, faltered, blinking. ‘I’m sorry? No? What do you mean, no?’
‘No to whatever it is you want.’
‘I? Why, nothing. Nothing at all. But,’ and he raised a finger, ‘now that you mention it, there is one small favour . . .’
‘No. We’re done. You have that damned box thing, don’t you?’
Wu drew himself up looking smugly satisfied, like the cat that ate the mouse. ‘Absolutely. I, that is we, have acquired the, ah, object.’
‘Good. Then you will help me move on Chulalorn.’
The mage lowered his finger. He set to tapping the stick to the dirt, his gaze lowered. ‘Ah. Well. About that. I was thinking . . .’
‘You’re not reneging on me, are you?’
Wu now fluttered the air with his fingers, the stick waving. ‘Not a bit of it, my friend. I was just thinking that now may not be the best time, that is all.’
‘What do you mean, not the best time?’
‘Well. It’s quite convenient having him out there, after all. Suits our purposes, yes?’
Dorin crossed his arms and winced at a twinge from his chest. ‘What are you talking about?’
The mage waggled his brows as if trying to appear knowing. Dorin raised a forestalling hand. ‘Don’t do that – not to me, anyway.’
Wu’s lips drew down in a pout but he seemed to recover quickly as he now stroked the scraggy hairs at his chin. ‘Let Chulalorn and the Protectress exhaust their resources battling one another. Who knows, perhaps the king’s forces will even account for a city mage or two . . . We will then have a much easier hand, will we not?’
‘An easier hand? What are you—’ Dorin stared at the smirking hunched gnome of a mage for a moment then pulled a hand down his face, sighing. ‘You’re completely insane.’ He straightened from the cot, waved the fellow aside. ‘If you won’t help with Chulalorn, we’re done. I’ll go it alone from here on. Thank you for the healing.’
Wu was frowning his confusion. ‘But we nearly have the streets tied up. Soon we’ll be able to move on the palace itself.’
Dorin paused in the doorway. ‘I hate this damned city.’
Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 Page 36
