A Crown for Assassins

by Morgan Rice

“There are more people with our sister than you think,” Oli said. “She’ll be coming for you, and I think you’ll find her more ferocious than you remember. Locking her up will do that.”

  “I’ll be dealing with little Rika shortly,” Endi promised. For now, he waved to his guards. “Take him and get him out of my sight, before I do what I ought to do with traitors.”

  ***

  Rika stood in the middle of Ishjemme’s main square, feeling both delighted and surprised as a crowd of people swelled around her. She’d hoped that people would come out to join her, of course, because she would have felt pretty silly rising up against Endi by herself, but she hadn’t expected this many.

  It felt as though at least half the people of the dukedom were there, from shopkeepers to farmers, weavers to fisher-folk. There weren’t many soldiers, but all of the soldiers were away fighting in Ashton, and anyway, it gave their uprising a surprisingly peaceful feel. Women walked with small children on their hips, men sang songs as they gathered. Someone had erected a small stage, and Rika stood on it, looking out over the masses. Rika wished it could be as simple as just gathering here. She wished they could just stay here then go home, without having to risk fighting.

  They had to advance on the castle, though, or Endi wouldn’t believe that they were serious, and they had to take weapons, because Rika had seen how implacable some of the guards with him were.

  “My friends,” Rika said, standing up in front of them. She stopped herself. “Everyone says things like that, don’t they? They like to sound sincere, I suppose. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at speaking to lots of people. I could probably sing you a song.”

  That got a laugh from some of the people closest to her.

  “The truth is I don’t know nearly as many of you as I should. The best I can do is hope that we would be friends if we met. The fact that you’re here is a good sign. It shows that you care about Ishjemme, and the terrible things that my brother is doing. We have to stop those things.”

  She paused to let that sink in. Rika steeled herself for the next part.

  “It won’t be easy. I’m told that Oli is trying to confront Endi now, but he might not listen, and there are still plenty of his men around. Our best hope is to march on the castle, and show them all just how many of us want things to change. Will you come with me?”

  The cheer that greeted Rika took her a little aback, and she couldn’t speak for a moment or two. Another voice rang in that gap.

  “Then you are traitors who deserve death!”

  Rika recognized her brother’s voice even as Endi stepped into the edge of the square. Dozens of soldiers appeared from doorways, from behind the trees that peppered every space in Ishjemme, from every corner that Rika could see. A group of them dragged a cannon out from under a tarpaulin amongst some fishing boats, while a few on horseback rode into sight, looking ready to ride down anyone who got in their way.

  In an instant, Rika felt the mood of things change, the fear and uncertainty of the crowd mixed in with a sudden readiness for violence. Those who had come simply to march and to be there huddled together closer to the center of the crowd, while those men who had brought hammers or short axes, chisels or whittling knives moved closer to the edges. Against the muskets and swords of the guards, it looked like far too little.

  “Wait…” Rika began, but there was no time.

  “Fire!” Endi ordered, and the world before Rika turned into something hellish.

  People screamed as the cannon and the muskets boomed, falling in too great a number to count. Men charged at the soldiers, and the soldiers charged back, blades clashing against farming implements, cutting through flesh, sending blood scattering into the air. The horses that had been on the sidelines charged, their bulk trampling the people nearest to them.

  In the chaos of it all, people started to panic, pushing and shoving to get clear. Rika saw a man trip in the middle of the crowd, trampled to death by everyone around him. She saw a little boy pushed away from his mother, and heard him screaming for her.

  Without thinking, Rika pushed into the crowd, running for the child. Hands pushed at her, limbs struck her, bruising as they connected. She felt herself stumble, but managed to keep standing. In a press like this, it wouldn’t matter who she was: a duke’s daughter could be trampled as surely as anyone else. Rika saw the little boy ahead, standing in a brief clear space, crying and confused. She forced her way through to him and snatched him up, holding him to her as she forced her way to the edge of the crowd. She saw his mother there and pushed the boy into her arms.

  “Take him and run,” she said.

  “Thank you,” the woman replied, snatching up her son and fleeing.

  Rika hadn’t wanted this. The carnage was too much, too great. Endi was up there on the stage, smiling down at the chaos as if he were enjoying it, and that only made it worse. The pain of it all rose up inside Rika: knowing that her brother had done all of this, had almost killed her with his assassin, had turned into a kind of monster…

  She screamed out her frustration, screaming until her voice was hoarse, screaming with all the power of a voice trained to singing. Screaming, Rika suspected, with a trace of the magic that only normally touched her in visions, and that she could never access while waking. It reverberated around the square with all the hurt she felt, all the anguish, all the injustice.

  When she stopped, she found that the square was quieter than it should have been. People were staring at her, and Rika had to resist the urge to blush at the attention. Even her brother was staring at her, looking down from the stage with an expression Rika couldn’t fathom.

  As she watched, Endi started to clap.

  “Well done, Rika. Having to be the center of attention as always. Very dramatic.”

  Rika marched up to the stage. “Stop this, Endi. Stop it. These people aren’t the ones that you want. What kind of duke hurts his own people?”

  “The kind who has been betrayed by them,” Endi replied. “The kind who tries to do his best for them, only to have it thrown back in his face!”

  “Well, you’d know a lot about faces,” Rika said, touching the white line of the scar that still ran down hers. “You gave me this, after all.”

  “I didn’t,” Endi shot back. “I saved you!”

  “From your assassin!” Rika replied. She gestured to the crowd. “You’re hurting innocent people.”

  Endi shook his head. “They aren’t innocent. None of you are innocent.”

  Rika looked him in the eye. “Then take this out on me,” she said. “I’m the one leading this. I’m the one they’re gathering behind. Don’t punish them for that.”

  Endi was quiet for several seconds. “Why should I?”

  Rika had an answer for that part, at least. “Because I’m your sister. Because somewhere in there, I think there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to go around doing this to people. Because you owe me for everything else you’ve done, Endi.”

  Again, Endi was silent for what seemed like forever. Rika felt the moments stretch out, and the worst part was that if he decided to just order his men to fire again, there was nothing that she could do.

  “Very well,” Endi said. “The people here will not be harmed. You will publicly pay fealty to me here as your duke, and I will allow you to return to your imprisonment until—”

  “No,” Rika said.

  Endi stared at her. “No?”

  “No,” Rika continued. “I won’t bow down to you. You’ve won. It doesn’t mean that you’re right.”

  She saw Endi’s hands close into fists. “Rika, you have to bow down to me. Don’t you understand? There are all these people here who are willing to support you as duchess. I can’t allow that. Either I kill all of them…”

  “Which you just promised not to do,” Rika said.

  “Or you acknowledge me as your duke…”

  “Which I won’t do,” Rika said.

  “Or…”

  “Or you kill m
e,” Rika said. “I know. I’m not stupid, Endi.”

  “This is stupid though,” Endi said. “Rika, bow down to me. Tell them all that I’m the rightful duke.”

  Rika thought she could see the beginnings of tears in his eyes. Good, that meant that they matched her own.

  “No,” Rika said.

  “Rika—”

  “No, I won’t do it.”

  Endi was silent. “Then Rika Skyddar, I proclaim you a traitor to Ishjemme, and I sentence you to death for it.”

  A part of Rika had thought that her brother might not do it, but more of her knew better. She knew that this had to happen, if it was going to save her people. When Endi drew his sword, that slim bladed, stabbing thing he favored, she even knelt, baring her throat for the blow to come.

  Would it hurt? The cut that Bjornen had given her had hurt more than anything she’d known, but really only once she’d had time to think about it. In the instant that he’d hit her, she’d been too shocked to really feel it. Maybe this would be like that. Maybe she would be dead before she even realized.

  Endi drew back his arm.

  “The laws of Ishjemme demand a trial!” a voice from the crowd called out. A familiar voice. A voice that filled Rika with hope. “And on behalf of my sister, I demand a trial by combat.”

  Rika looked around to see the figure approaching, and smiled. She rose up and ran to him, wrapping her arms around him.

  “Jan! You’re here!”

  “Sorry I’m late, little sister,” he said. “Although it seems that you were doing pretty well on your own.”

  ***

  Jan disentangled himself from his sister’s hug, drawing his sword and holding it two-handed as he stared across at his brother. Anger filled him at the thought of everything Endi had done, and at what he’d been about to do.

  “Jan,” Endi said, “I see you’ve come running back from the arms of the false queen to join in this little rebellion. Are you a traitor like our sister?”

  “The only traitor I see here is you,” Jan said. “You left the battle for Ashton with our father’s body, claiming it was so that you could see him buried properly. Instead, you came here to take the duke’s seat? And those ships that pulled out of the battle, that was your doing too?”

  “Everything I have done, I did for the good of Ashton,” Endi said.

  “Including killing people?” Rika demanded beside Jan.

  “Be quiet, traitor!” Endi snapped.

  “You haven’t proven yet that our sister is a traitor,” Jan pointed out. “The law gives Rika a right to a trial, and trials by combat appear in all the old laws.”

  “Like when Maeve Skyddar proved her innocence by fighting her husband the duke with a skillet,” Rika called out. Jan looked across to her. “What? They wrote a song about it.”

  “Songs aren’t the same thing as law!” Endi shot back.

  Jan shrugged. “Then fetch Oli. Everyone knows that he knows all the old laws. Of course, he’d have some very interesting things to say about the things you’ve been doing, and how many laws those break.”

  “I’m the duke,” Endi said. “I decide the law.”

  Jan shook his head. “Some laws even a duke can’t break. Besides, you aren’t the duke.”

  “Are you a traitor too?” Endi demanded.

  “No, little brother. I’m a challenger.” Jan stepped forward. “I challenge you to combat, here and now, for the safety of our sister and your position as duke.”

  “And why should I do that rather than having my men take you?” Endi demanded.

  Jan smiled grimly. “Because then no one would ever accept you were the true ruler. Ishjemme doesn’t have cowards for rulers. Defeat me, though, and probably even the men who are coming back from Ashton will accept you. You’ll have become duke an even older way than being given it by the queen. You’ll have done it by blood.”

  Endi stood there, and Jan had the sense he was trying to calculate the odds, work out what was best for him. Jan hopped up onto the stage with him, waiting.

  “If I win,” Endi said, “Rika will bow down to me as Duke. No making me execute her to be a martyr for people. No refusing. If she agrees to that, then this is worth it.”

  Jan looked over to his sister for confirmation, and that was when Endi struck. His sword lanced through Jan’s side, but Jan was already twisting away, and the wound wasn’t deep. Endi struck again, sending him staggering, then forcing him to roll from the stage as Endi stabbed down. People gave way, forming a wide circle, giving them room to fight.

  “Poor Jan, always so concerned with being the hero,” Endi said, following him. “Always so concerned with fighting fair.”

  He kicked dirt up into Jan’s face and Jan parried blindly, managing to deflect Endi’s sword before it could lance through his heart. It sliced into Jan’s arm instead, and Jan had to swing his sword one-handed, doing his best to wipe away the dirt with the other.

  “A strong man does what is necessary,” Endi said, cutting and thrusting, then kicking low to catch Jan’s foot. Jan tumbled again, coming up just in time to stop a downward blow aimed at his skull. “He knows that if he hesitates, the people around him suffer for it.”

  “You’re running out of people around you,” Jan pointed out, trying to get his breath back. He circled Endi, and when his brother nodded to someone behind him, Jan spun to block the blow, only to find that there was no one there. Pain lanced into the back of his leg as Endi struck him there.

  “Such a fool,” Endi said, as Jan tried to hop away. “But then, you always were growing up, as well. Working so hard to please Father, getting all of the attention. Jan the fair, Jan the good. I was the one who actually did things.”

  Endi went on the attack then, and with his injuries, Jan couldn’t block everything. More wounds got through, in small nicks and cuts that started to add up onto a wash of blood on his arms.

  “Might as well give up, Jan,” Endi said. “I’ll kill you quick, then Rika can have her choice again, and then… well, I might have ‘Queen’ Sophia killed, just to be safe.”

  Anger bubbled up in Jan at the thought of Rika being hurt in spite of all Endi had said, but more than that, at the thought of Sophia being hurt. Endi wasn’t going to lay a finger on the woman he loved.

  The next time Endi thrust, Jan lifted his left hand and let the blade pierce into it. He screamed with the pain, but also in anger, closing his hand and catching the blade just long enough to hammer Endi with the hilt of his own weapon. Jan struck again, and Endi went down, his thin, stabbing sword pulling out of Jan’s hand and tumbling to the ground.

  Jan threw his own sword aside, getting on top of his brother and punching with his one good hand. He struck again and again, his fist pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer, not caring that it came away bloody. He kept going until Endi went limp, and beyond, his hand lifting up to strike again.

  Gentle hands caught his arm, and Jan looked round to see Rika, her grip firmly clamped on his wrist.

  “That’s enough, Jan,” she said. “We’ve won. We’ve won.”

  Jan stood unsteadily, taking up his sword and looking around at Endi’s soldiers. “Will any of the rest of you face me? Do any of you want to threaten my family?”

  No one stepped forward. Given the amount of blood on him, Jan was hardly surprised. Even so, the men looked uncertain, as if they might remember at any moment that they were the heavily armed ones, and that they were meant to be slaughtering these people.

  To Jan’s surprise, Rika spoke.

  “Many evil things have happened today,” she said to the crowd, and to the soldiers. “I don’t know about you, but I just want to go home. Endi fought a duel for the dukedom and a trial by combat over who was the traitor here. He lost both. You followed him because you thought he was the rightful duke, but now you can see that he isn’t. Anything you do now isn’t his fault; it’s yours. So go home. Look at your families. Think about the kind of person you want to be for them, and what they
’d think about the things you’re doing. Go home.”

  They actually started to drift away. They did it in ones and twos, the people of the crowd watching them suspiciously as they did, as if they might just be regrouping for a charge. More and more of them started to leave, and finally, Rika looked at Jan with a smile.

  “Now, we’ve won.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Emeline shepherded Cora through Ashton’s streets, running with the others, forcing her to keep up while she held Princess Violet in her arms.

  “You have to keep going,” Emeline told her. “We have to get the baby to safety.”

  Cora nodded, but Emeline could feel the waves of grief coming off her friend, and reaching into her mind, Emeline could see the desire to stop, to just lie down in front of the onrushing soldiers and wait for them to kill her. Only Violet’s presence on her shoulder kept Cora running, and Emeline would use anything she had to in order to keep her friend alive.

  “If you stop, Violet will die, just like Aidan,” Emeline said. “We have to save her.”

  It was a cruel thing to say, but right then, Emeline didn’t care if her friend hated her, so long as she was alive to do it. Sebastian was running alongside them as they sprinted through the streets and Emeline found herself hoping that he wouldn’t reach out to take his daughter, because that would be as good as sentencing Cora to death. Maybe he sensed that, or maybe he needed to keep his sword arm free to fight, because he let Cora continue to carry Violet.

  Figures ran in from a side street, and Emeline braced herself to stun them as best she could so they could run again, but then she spotted Will among their number.

  “A few of us managed to get out of the palace,” he said to Sebastian. “But we’ve lost a lot of men, and there’s no sign of Lord Cranston now that the wall has fallen. Do we have any plan for getting out of the city?”

  “The gates should be fairly easy to get through,” Emeline supplied. “With them all pouring in through one breach, they’re not surrounding the city anymore.”