A Crown for Assassins

by Morgan Rice

  “And what will you be doing, sir?” a man called out.

  Hans smiled grimly. “I’ll be providing the first distraction.”

  His men spread out as he’d ordered. They had to know what a desperate move this was, and how poor their odds of surviving were, yet every moment they delayed the enemy here was another moment Sebastian and the others had to get to safety. Hans saw a crow in the trees and shot it, producing a shower of feathers.

  He ordered his men to spread out, and then sat down in the middle of the road. The Master of Crows’ ability to see through the creatures’ eyes was a big advantage, but it wasn’t without its limits. The man’s attention would dictate what he saw, so the key was to direct that attention exactly where it was least useful.

  “Directly at me,” Hans said, as he waited.

  The enemy came forward, and they must have found horses from somewhere, because the Master of Crows was riding at their head. He looked less like anything normal that way, his greatcoat billowing behind him as he rode, his birds following him in a flock that seemed more like a storm cloud.

  Hans lifted his weapon and shot at him.

  The shot went wide, taking one of the men next to the general, but at least it got him charging in. At least it meant that when the ambush hit them, the Master of Crows’ attention was completely on Hans.

  A dozen or more men went down in the first volley of shots, and then Hans’s men were out of their hiding places, charging forward at the enemy and dragging more from the saddle.

  “Back!” Hans yelled. “Retreat!”

  He and the others sprinted back from the encounter, heading for the next ambush. They ran past another group of his men, settled into place further down the track, and started to load their weapons even as the enemy charged on.

  The new group hit them just as hard as the first, blades and shot slamming into flesh.

  “Back!” Hans ordered again, and the second ambush ran, moving past him and his group, while they leveled their muskets and sent out a second volley. Then it was time to run again, moving back to the next ambush, and the next.

  “Enough of this!” the Master of Crows roared, and the words carried through the forest, croaked by a thousand crows, ten thousand. They clustered in the trees, staring down at Hans in numbers too great to shoot down, and he knew that they would be staring down at every one of his men too.

  Then they attacked.

  They plunged down at him, swarming him with wings buffeting, beaks and claws ripping. They were everywhere, pecking at his hands, his face, his body. Around him, Hans heard men crying out in pain, and he knew that the same thing must be happening to them, the crows feasting on them as much as attacking, giving their master power even as they defeated his enemies for him.

  If Hans did nothing, they were all going to die.

  He swung his sword blindly at the birds, feeling it connect with some of them, but it made no difference. They kept coming, black feathers seeming to fill the world around him. How much power was it costing the Master of Crows to do this? How much attention?

  Attention; that was the key.

  Brushing the birds away from his face, Hans glimpsed the Master of Crows ahead, dismounted from his horse and with his arms spread wide as he worked whatever this magic was. Fighting through the pain, gripping his sword tightly, Hans charged.

  “For Ishjemme!” he yelled as he ran forward. The birds fell away from him as he did it, and he could only hope that they were doing the same for the rest of his men, giving them some brief moment in which to pull back, regroup, or just run.

  Hans charged at the Master of Crows, and his opponent’s blade was there to meet him, the two weapons meeting with a ring of steel on steel.

  “Another obstacle,” the Master of Crows said. “Ready to die like your brother and sister?”

  Hans cut at him, then cut again. He was one of the finest swordsmen in Ishjemme. Probably only Jan was better, and yet the Master of Crows parried every attack with ease. Blood flowed from Hans’s claw wounds, dripping into his eyes, making it hard to see. Hans blinked, and the Master of Crows struck.

  He parried the first few blows on instinct, giving ground. Defense was his only option. He’d told Will the truth when he’d said there was no way either of them could win against a man like this.

  “You’ll die soon,” the Master of Crows assured him.

  Hans smiled back. “Everyone dies, but every moment I live, my men and the people of Ashton are getting further from you.”

  “Then die!” the Master of Crows snapped. He redoubled his attack, his blade seeming to be everywhere at once. It slipped past Hans’s defenses, catching him in the arm, the leg, the shoulder.

  Hans ignored the pain. Every step was another moment the others had to run in. Every breath was a kind of victory in itself. By now, his men would already be fleeing the forest. That was—

  Pain shot through him, and Hans looked down at the length of steel sticking out of his chest. He thought of Ulf and Freya, wondering if they’d found a good spot to hunt in whatever came next. He thought of his father, and hoped that he’d done enough…

  “What are you smiling at?” the Master of Crows demanded.

  “Victory,” Hans managed, as the darkness came up to claim him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Rika walked at the head of a procession of her people, leading the way up toward Ishjemme’s castle. It was her home, and the place where she felt safest, but even so, she felt a little afraid. There was nothing to stop those loyal to Endi from shooting down from the walls at them; nothing to stop them from adding more killing to all that had gone before.

  “Stand firm, little sister,” Jan said. “People are watching you.”

  Rika nodded, forcing herself to be brave. She stood at the head of the crowd who had come with her, waiting before the doors to the castle, looking up to see if anyone was watching.

  “This is the home of my family,” she called out, “and a place of welcome for the people of Ishjemme. Open the gate.”

  She waited, and waited, putting her hands on her hips and tapping her foot like a mother waiting for a toddler to do as they were told. Finally, slowly, the gates started to swing open.

  The people around Rika poured in and she went with them, leading the way to the great hall. She saw guards along the way stepping back cautiously or throwing down their weapons, but Rika mostly ignored them. When she reached the great hall, people were already thronging in it, obviously waiting to see what would happen next. The whole place had the feeling of expectation to it, but there was also a sense that too much remained unsettled.

  Rika went to stand by the duke’s seat, turning to Jan.

  “You’re older than I am, Jan, and you were the one who beat Endi. You should be duke.”

  To her surprise, Jan shook his head.

  “Sophia will decide, because she’s our queen. Until she does, I think the people would rather have you rule.”

  “But—” Rika began.

  “I would rather have you rule too,” Jan said. “I might have beaten Endi in a fight, but you stood up to him even when you couldn’t fight him. You were prepared to give yourself for the people. No one could ask more of a ruler.”

  Rika looked around at the people there. None of them seemed to be contradicting Jan, or pointing out any of the ways in which she felt she would make a terrible ruler. Not knowing what else to do, she settled herself into the chair that had been her father’s.

  The cheer as she did echoed through the hall.

  Rika waited until it died down before she spoke. “There are a lot of things to do here,” she said, “and a lot of wounds to heal. I don’t know if I know how to do all of it, but I know what I want first. My brother Oli was going to confront Endi. I want him back, now, please.”

  It was probably too polite a way for a ruler to put it, but Rika couldn’t bring herself to shout or demand the way Endi might have done. If Oli was hurt, though… she wasn’t sure wha
t she would do then.

  Guards ran off to find him, and Rika thought about all the other things that would need to be done there.

  “Too many people have been killed,” she said. “It needs to stop. If people have been put in the cells for standing up to Endi, they need to be released. If they’ve been hurt, I want physikers found to help them. If they’ve been killed…” Rika felt the anguish of that thought pushing through her. Maybe it wasn’t what leaders should do, but she couldn’t help it, and she hoped it would make her a better leader in some ways, because a ruler should have compassion for her people, shouldn’t she? “If they’ve been killed, we’ll do what we can to help their families.”

  “What about the people who killed them?” a woman called out. “They killed my husband! They should die for that!”

  Voices rose up in support, the anger palpable.

  “She’s right! My brother was in the crowd when they charged! Someone should hang for that!”

  “My cousin was butchered in the night!”

  Rika stood up, trying to stay calm. “My father was killed,” she said, not shouting, but still loud enough that people could hear us. “Does anyone know of a spell or a charm that can bring him back? Is there some ritual where all this blood will raise him from the dead?”

  She looked around, taking in the people still muttering in their anger.

  “I know you’re angry,” Rika said. “I’m angry too, and sad. Too many people have died and been hurt. My own brother locked me up, and tried to have me executed. Can you imagine how much that hurts?”

  “And what are you going to do about it?” a man at the back yelled.

  Rika had been hoping to put this moment off until she’d had more time to think about it. She’d hoped that, if she left it long enough, an answer would come to her that would make this better. Maybe Sophia would even come back and take the decision out of her hands. Looking around at the crowd, Rika could see that wouldn’t work. The people there wanted to see justice done, or they wanted vengeance; Rika wasn’t sure which.

  “Bring Endi here,” she said with a sigh.

  They dragged her brother forward, the bruises on his face from Jan’s fists already rising. It made Rika’s heart ache to see him like that, but it made it hurt even more to think about all the things that he’d done, and about what he’d been about to do to her.

  It hurt to think about what she might have to do to him in return.

  “So, Rika,” he said as he came to stand before the throne. “What are you going to do now? Are you going to kill me?”

  He made a joke out of it, as if they all knew that Rika was too soft and too gentle to ever contemplate having her own brother killed. As if he knew, in spite of all that he’d done, that he would get away with this.

  “I should, Endi,” she said. “After everything you did, I should.”

  “It would make your little coup complete,” Endi said. “It would—”

  “Be quiet,” Rika snapped back, raising her already hoarse voice so that her throat hurt. Her brother fell silent, a look of shock on his face. “Since you got back, everyone’s had to listen to what you say. I tried to tell you that what you were doing was wrong, and you didn’t listen. Oli tried to persuade you, and you ignored him. People tried to stand against you, and you had them killed, Endi. So now you’ll stand there and you’ll listen to me, and you can talk when I’m done.”

  Rika wasn’t sure where she found the strength to do all this, but she found it. She kept going before she lost her nerve.

  “I don’t know if you ordered Father’s death, if you knew, or if you just gave away so many secrets to the woman who had him killed that it was almost the same thing. I don’t care which it was. Just as I don’t care about your nonsense about making Ishjemme strong, and having to murder people to keep it that way. You don’t make a land strong by attacking the people who live there.”

  Rika shook her head, blinking back tears.

  “Do you know the worst part?” she said. “The worst part is that I think that you actually believed that you were doing the right thing. That you thought turning into a tyrant was what Father would have done. Well, what would Father have done with you? Do you regret any of it, Endi? Do you regret a single thing?”

  Endi stood there for several seconds, and then murmured something.

  “Say it so people can hear, Endi,” Rika said. “You owe them that. You owe them honesty.”

  “I regret trying to hurt you,” Endi said, the sadness coming through in every word. “And Oli, and even Jan. I never wanted to hurt family. I never wanted Father to die, and I didn’t know, but you’re right, it doesn’t make a difference. I betrayed Ishjemme. I did it to try to save it, but I betrayed it.”

  Rika shook her head. “It’s not enough, Endi. You should be sorry for all the other people who died because of you. I’ll ask again: what would Father do with you?”

  Endi stood tall. “He had murderers executed. Traitors too. Do that, if you want.”

  Rika’s hands closed on the arms of the duke’s seat… the duchess’s seat now. This was the moment when she found out if she had what it took to rule. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure if she did. Could she really order her brother killed, as he’d commanded her death?

  Rika already knew the answer to that.

  “I’m not Father,” Rika said, “and I’m not you, so I’m not going to have you executed, Endi.”

  She could hear the murmurs of discontent running through the crowd.

  “No!” she said. “I’m not going to have him killed, and I’m not going to have the ones who followed him killed either. That’s the easy option, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the right one.”

  She stood up, touching the scar on her face. “I’ve suffered as much as anyone thanks to my brother,” Rika said. “But if we soak Ishjemme in blood, what then? It makes us no better than them.”

  “So you’re going to let him get away with it?” a man at the back demanded.

  Rika shook her head. “No. I’m going to take away the thing he loves most.” Rika gestured to the hall. “Ishjemme, Endi. You say you acted for it? Well, now, you don’t get to see it again. You have one week in which to gather what you can and leave Ishjemme. All the men who killed on your behalf are to leave as well. You will be given supplies, and may take what’s yours, but if you are found here after that, your life will be forfeit.”

  She moved forward, wrapping him in the tightest hug she could manage.

  “As a sister, I love you,” Rika said. “But as a ruler… my brother is dead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Endi walked to the docks in stunned silence, still unable to believe what his sister had done to him. She could have, should have, sentenced him to death. That would have been a kinder end to things in a lot of ways. More than that, it would have told Endi that he was right, would have shown everyone who saw her hand the sentence down that Rika was doing nothing more than stealing power for herself.

  Instead, Endi had this slow walk to the docks, and the exile that waited beyond them.

  He had a pack of possessions upon his back, although not enough to weigh very much. A few clothes, enough money to keep him for a while or let him buy into a business in some foreign land, his sword, and very little else. Perhaps he could have taken the week Rika had offered him, but that felt somehow more painful than this quick farewell, swift and final, with no turning back.

  “I did it for Ishjemme,” he whispered to himself, but it felt like a half-truth at best now. He’d done as much of it for himself as for the land where he’d grown up; had taken the power because it was there to take.

  There would be men who had served him at the docks, but for now, Endi walked alone. He did so in spite of the crowds of people who lined the streets, there to watch his punishment.

  They didn’t jeer. He’d expected jeering. Frankly, he’d expected to have things thrown at him as he passed. Instead, Endi’s walk through the tree-lined spaces of
Ishjemme felt like a funeral, with him the one traveling to his rest.

  “Say something,” he said to the watching crowd. “Curse me! Threaten me! You know I deserve it!”

  It would make this easier if they did. It would remind him that he’d done his best in the face of a hate-filled people. Instead, they stood there as silent as statues, the only sound the click of Endi’s steps as he made his way down to the docks.

  There were people he knew in the crowd, of course. In a place the size of Ishjemme, it was impossible for there not to be. He recognized the faces of people he’d laughed and spent time with, given commands to, received reports from. Not one of them reacted to his passage, as if they had all decided that it was the only way to keep the wounds he’d caused from getting worse.

  He had caused wounds in Ishjemme. Endi hadn’t meant to, but he had; he could see that now. He’d thought that he could make things better, and instead, he’d only created a weight of pain that could only be held back through this silence. Men and women turned their faces from him as he passed now, as if even looking on him was too much to bear.

  He reached the docks, where a ship stood waiting with black sails, and a flag devoid of devices. No crest of the Skyddar clan was there, no colors of Ishjemme. It proclaimed his exile as clearly as Rika had in the castle’s great hall.

  She stood there with Jan and Oli by the docks, watching the proceedings, as silent and as still as any of the rest of them. Despite that, Endi walked over to them. He even bowed his head to Rika as his duchess.

  “You don’t need to do that, Endi,” she said.

  “I do,” he assured her.

  Rika shook her head. “You aren’t a subject of Ishjemme anymore. You shouldn’t bow to me.”

  Those words hurt the way a knife through the chest might have. Endi swallowed back the hurt, determined not to let it show.