Master Assassins

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Now Kandri smells it too. Woodsmoke. Faint but unmistakable. He licks a finger and holds it high. “The wind’s from straight ahead,” he says.

  “Gods of death, there’s more of them,” says Mektu.

  At once, the specter is very real: more killers from Eternity Camp, close by, waiting to pounce. Where to flee, where to hide? How will they keep from being spotted in the moonlight once they light out across the flats?

  “Maybe it’s not the army,” says Eshett.

  “I’ll bet it’s not,” says Chindilan. “Why would they light a fire? The Rasanga aren’t that stupid. They want to surprise us, not warn us away.”

  “Then who’s out there?” says Mektu, looking for some reason at Eshett. “Merchants? A salt caravan?”

  Eshett shakes her head. “Salters have no reason to come here. Even if they’re selling to the Prophet, they’d be a day’s ride further south, where the cliffs are lower. They could be miners: some say there’s gold under the Stolen Sea. Or looters, poking through the dead towns on the islands, taking whatever they can sell. Or just Tirmassil.”

  She speaks the final word with obvious loathing. Kandri glances at her, startled. “Tirmassil?” he asks.

  “Bandits of the desert. Filth.”

  He waits, hoping she will elaborate. Mektu, oblivious, rakes a hand through his hair.

  “The fuckers!” he blurts suddenly. “What are we supposed to do now? Turn back?”

  “Like hell we will,” says Chindilan. “We don’t know one thing about them. But there’s all kinds of death behind us—that’s a fact. Let’s have a peek at them. If they’re dangerous, we’ll double back around the island to the south. If not, we’ll tip our hats and press on.”

  No one likes the plan. Or has another to suggest. They creep closer. As they move among the rocks, the smell of woodsmoke grows, along with a stronger smell. It is roasting meat, Kandri realizes—but some gamey, even slightly revolting meat. Dog, horse, camel? He cannot place the scent. But even as he wonders, they round a wide boulder, and firelight stabs their eyes.

  They fall back instantly, then look again with great caution. In a large natural clearing in the crumbled reef, six men are standing beside a fire, drinking from tin cups, warming their hands. They are all armed—knives, clubs, a few battered scimitars—but they do not look like soldiers. They are lean and pale and obviously poor. Hollow eyes, short untidy beards. Their desert kanuts little more than rags. One man, slightly taller than the rest, wears twenty or more silver rings on each ear. The fire burns in a wide circle of stones. Above the flames, some animal, a bird it seems, is roasting on a spit.

  “Scrawny fellows, aren’t they?” whispers Chindilan. “That’s a relief.”

  “They don’t have bows,” said Kandri. “How the hell did they shoot down a bird?”

  “And what a bird,” says Mektu. “It’s the size of a goose. But it smells all wrong. But I want some!”

  “Be quiet,” hisses Kandri. “Fuck. They heard you.”

  But it is a false alarm. Something else has caught the men’s attention: they have all turned suddenly to stare at a point somewhere off to the left. The man with the earrings makes an amused gesture with one hand, and the other men laugh aloud.

  He’s in charge, Kandri thinks. With great care, he leans out a bit farther. And silently curses.

  Thirty feet from the campfire stand another four men. Three are very much like the first six, but one is a pale giant with enormous hands and an expression of casual menace. Their bearing, although slovenly, has something about it that reminds him of army constables.

  He hazards one more inch. There, he thinks. I knew it. Beyond the four men burns a smaller fire, guttering and quailing in the wind. This fire burns in the lee of an overhanging boulder, but it is failing nonetheless. Beside the dying flames lies a man wrapped in a dark cloak, utterly still. And above him, gazing with fury at her guards, stands a girl.

  She cannot be more than eighteen. She is short and broad-shouldered and quite obviously strong. She wears a man’s tattered trousers and even more tattered coat: the right sleeve is missing entirely, revealing a powerful dark arm. Her face is wide, her eyes bright and slightly bulging. Her large mouth is curled in a sneer.

  “Spakad! Ku hali spakad?” she bellows.

  “Taya,” replies the man with the earrings, pointing at himself.

  The girl makes a sound of contempt. “Oh, you’re the doctor now? You lying pig. You can’t treat your own fucking sores.”

  A general argument erupts, partly in Kasraji Common, partly in something Kandri cannot understand. The girl is clearly demanding aid for the man at her feet—and, by her gestures, more fuel for the fire. The men look both sly and uncomfortable. They show her their empty hands, or laugh, or point to the man with the earrings, who appears to speak for them.

  Ten armed men, a crazed girl, another man dying at her feet. Kandri slips back behind the rock. “At least it’s no ambush,” says Mektu.

  “I saw camel dung at the clearing’s edge,” says Eshett. “Fresh dung. It was steaming.”

  So there are more of them, somewhere, and camels as well. Mektu slides over, making room for Chindilan—and then it happens. Two metal somethings in their gear smack together, with an almost laughably audible clink. A shout goes up from the men in the clearing. Blades clash on blades, a challenge.

  “Salt rats!” shouts one of them. “We have thirty men here! You want to try your luck?”

  Kandri steps out from behind the rock, hands raised high. It is their leader who has shouted, but all ten have weapons drawn. The girl too is staring at him, rage and confusion in her eyes. She is not one of these ruffians, he decides. Her accent, her face and color all belong to some other clan.

  “The Gods keep you,” shouts Kandri. “We’re not salt rats. Not a danger to you, either. We didn’t know you were here.”

  “Atau, who the hell is that?” shouts the girl. She turns to Kandri. “Are you a doctor? Idi spakad?”

  “All of you, come out into the clearing,” shouts the man with the earrings again. “But keep it slow, or by the Buried Saints, we’ll cut you down! There’s thirty of us.”

  You’re repeating yourself, thinks Kandri. What are you scared of?

  The travelers step out into the clearing. Eshett raises her hands like Kandri; Mektu looks at the bird on the fire and grins. But Chindilan hefts his axe, staring ferociously at their leader.

  “You want to think very carefully before you fuck with us,” he says.

  “Uncle!” cry both brothers, whirling. Eshett jumps in front of the smith. “Gods’ peace!” she cries to the strangers. “My husband is very protective, but he means no harm! We bless you as trail-brothers. Tam idi tam.”

  Kandri looks at Eshett, impressed. Husband. Quick thinking.

  Her words, especially the final three, have an immediate effect. The men look at her with great surprise, and a few of them even smile. The man with the earrings turns uneasily to Chindilan. “Why didn’t you say you were Parthan?” he asks.

  Kandri looks the men over. Parthans? These wretches? He has never met a member of the deep desert clan, but those who have use words like proud and formal: neither quality is much visible in these men. Kandri turns to Eshett. Is that what you’re speaking, the Parthan tongue? Is that what you are?

  “My husband is not Parthan,” says Eshett. “But ey vrama, brothers, peace! We have no quarrel with you.”

  “Nor we with you, unless you’ve come here to steal,” says their leader. He gestures again with his scimitar, and several men ease reluctantly around the travelers to slip among the rocks. After a moment, they return, shaking their heads. “No one’s back there, Atau,” says one of the men.

  “Just the four of you, lighting out across the Yskralem?” says the man with the earrings. “Are you mad? Where are your camels? Where the hell do you hope to get?”

  Once again, he addresses his remarks to Chindilan, as though his status as “husband” leaves
no doubt that he leads this band.

  “Ah, well, just away,” mutters Chindilan. “Away east. To the Lutaral, if we’re so fortunate.”

  “But why cross the Yskralem? There’s a fair path on this side as far as the Aricoro, and a road from there to Mab Makkutin. It’s much longer, to be sure, but there are wells to drink from, and villages, and food.”

  “We’re in a hurry,” says Kandri.

  “A hurry to die, maybe. This is a terrible place.”

  The strange girl gives a cry; the men jump and raise their blades. The girl is on her knees, talking to the motionless figure beside her, touching his face. One of her guards—the pale giant—crosses quickly to the group’s leader and whispers in his ear. The giant is smiling. The man with the earrings listens, his face impassive.

  At last he appears to reach a decision. Sheathing his blade, he turns and waves his men back from the fire. “Come here, then, warm your bones,” he says to the travelers. “You’re right, woman, we’ve nothing to fear from each other. Tam idi tam.”

  They shuffle uneasily forward. When they are quite close, the man bows to them stiffly.

  “My name is Atau. Forgive us this welcome; we have been dealing with madness and death.”

  “You’re . . . Parthans?” says Chindilan dubiously.

  Atau laughs with sudden force. “Come now, old man! You married a Parthan but cannot tell them from a mongrel like me? No, I am not of the desert blood. My roots run to six different clans, and not one of those people sees enough of themselves in my face to claim me as their own. Do not pity me. There is always a family for those without family, if you care to embrace it. That is where I choose to belong.

  “For my boys, the tale is different. Many are the Parthans, whether settled in village or still drifting with the beasts and seasons, who have been slaughtered by the mighty of Urrath for the sin of taking no side in their wars. Half my men were so orphaned. They are loyal to me now as they would be to a mother or father. But they refuse to learn Kasraji, or any cultured tongue. So I have had to learn theirs.”

  “She spoke Parthan,” says Eshett, nodding at the girl.

  “Did she? Ah, yes, the doctor business.” Atau looks bleakly at the girl. “That girl is no follower of mine. She is ill, and very dangerous. The man beside her is dead. She’s been carrying his corpse for three days.”

  “Why would she do that?” says Mektu.

  “I just told you, she’s gone around the bend. Screams blasphemies, threatens to kill us. She nearly did kill my nephew here.”

  He throws a glance at the giant. Only then does Kandri notice the resemblance: the youth is like a crude, enormous copy of Atau. The giant smiles and shakes his head.

  “She never rattled me. She pulled a knife, is all. From a place no knife belongs.”

  Atau looks at him sternly. “Watch your mouth, boy. Go on, get back to your post.”

  The giant shrugs. When he is gone, Atau turns to the travelers and grimaces. “My nephew is a bit of a fool. The girl fancied him, and he ignored my warnings that she was ill. I do not know what passed between them, but it ended with the girl very nearly slitting his throat. Make no mistake: she is deadly, and that knife is still on her person.” He sighs. “We’re all her enemies now. She thinks we’re hiding a doctor from her.”

  “One of those thirty men of yours?” says Kandri.

  Atau’s dry face cracks into a smile. “We’re not thirty, but there are more of us about than you’ve seen. I won’t apologize for the lie, however. There are some fiends in the Yskralem. Tirmassil, they’re called. Flesh traders, hawkers of women and girls—and small boys too; they fetch a good price with the militias.”

  “Tirmassil,” says Eshett. “Very special people. With special rules just for themselves.”

  Kandri looks at her sharply. There it is again: pure hate.

  “You know about the Tirmassil?” says Atau. “Have you been in the Yskralem before?”

  “They are everywhere,” says Eshett. “But yes, I was here once. I swore I’d never come near this place again.”

  “But a cruel husband’s dragged you back all the same.”

  Chindilan looks at him coolly. “What brings you to this garden spot, friend?”

  Atau considers him a moment. As if there are more decisions to be made.

  “A gleaning,” he says at last. “We heard rumors of an untouched island. A place no one had managed to climb since the sea was drained.” He shrugged. “Well, someone has. The whole town has been looted. Nothing left up there but empty homes.”

  “You scaled those cliffs?” says Kandri, glancing up at the sheer wall.

  “I did. Sometimes, the Gods love a fool. You need real climbers, professionals, for a wall like that. She”—he points at the girl—“is such a climber. Her friend there as well. They’re human spiders; it’s a sight to behold. And so we hired them at great expense. But then the man was felled by snakebite, and the girl lost her mind.” He rubs wearily at his cheeks. “I managed to scramble up there myself. Devil’s spit, what a waste of a journey! But that’s a gleaner’s life. If you hear ten stories of riches to be had, six will be bald-faced lies—spread by the competition, usually—three will be gross exaggerations, and the last”—he grins again—“will be an honest mistake. The wisdom of the desert, my dears.”

  Kandri and Mektu exchange an awkward glance.

  “You haven’t started begging,” says Atau. “I like that. Not that begging would take you far. We can’t spare any water, but you’d be welcome to a sip of wine. Just a sip, mind you—for friendship’s sake. And I’ll let you have a bite of that bird.”

  “It smells horrible,” says Mektu.

  Atau frowns at him. “Don’t eat it, then,” he says.

  “Not horrible!” says Mektu, alarmed. “I don’t mean horrible, exactly. Just different, putrid. And I’ll eat anything. I could chew the ass off a cat.”

  Kandri turns from his brother in despair. The girl by the smaller fire is watching them again.

  “You!” she cries suddenly. “Don’t listen to that fucking Atau! He won’t give us water, he won’t share the firewood, he’s just waiting for my sergeant to die!”

  Is that sobbing Kandri hears? The fire is now too dim to light her face. “If you’re not the doctor, who the hell are you?” she cries.

  “Who’s asking?” Kandri shouts.

  “It’s no good reasoning with her,” says Atau. “Believe me, we’ve tried. Every word provokes her further.”

  “My sergeant is bleeding to death!”

  Chindilan’s brow furrows. “Bleeding to death? Thought he had a snakebite.”

  Atau gives a twitch of impatience. “You want to hear it again? She’s mad. The bite of the acuna viper can kill a man in three minutes. He howled for twenty; he was that strong, but he’s dead and rotting now, and she won’t face the truth. I’m guessing his howls broke her mind.”

  “Why does she call him sergeant?”

  “Because she’s insane.”

  “A bandage!” shouts the girl. “Just one bandage! I’ll pay you for it. Damn me to hell if I lie!”

  Now Kandri is certain: the girl is struggling with tears. He looks at his brother. “Give me the medical kit,” he says. Mektu squats down, fumbling in his backpack.

  “What are you doing?” says Atau.

  Kandri doesn’t answer. He does not know himself.

  “Ang’s tits, man, you can’t treat a carcass.”

  “Maybe she needs help,” says Mektu.

  “She sure as Pitfire does. The Gods’ help, or a priest’s. And your friend will need a priest as well—to sing him the Last Prayer, if she pulls that knife.”

  Mektu hands over the kit. Atau moves in front of Kandri, uncomfortably close.

  “Don’t do it, boy.”

  Kandri steps around him. The four men guarding the girl seem confused by his sudden advance but do not hinder him. Atau’s huge nephew mutters something that makes the others laugh.

 
The girl herself beckons wildly to Kandri. When he nears her, she makes a grab for the medical kit. Kandri smacks her hand.

  “You try that again and I’ll just walk away.”

  “You’re no doctor,” she says. “You’ll just fuck him up.”

  “I’m a soldier.”

  “The fuck you’re a soldier. Which battalion are you with?”

  “Is he alive or dead, girl?”

  “Which battalion? Whose command?”

  They lock eyes, one belligerent staring down another, and perhaps she sees something she recognizes. For when he asks her to show him the wound, she does not curse or argue, only bends and rolls the big man carefully onto his back.

  He is a few years older than Kandri. His skin pale in the flickering light. The girl parts the cloak and the tattered remains of his shirt.

  Kandri winces. A jagged lesion, caked with dry blood, runs from his shoulder to the middle of his chest. The wound still bleeds slowly near the collarbone.

  Snakebite?

  His mind erupts. He turns and shouts in Chiloto: “They’re lying! Get away from them now!”

  Snarls and curses. Atau calls his men to his side. Kandri’s companions fall back; Chindilan pushes Eshett behind him. Mektu, looking deadly, whirls his machete and screams.

  The man’s wound is not three days old, or even one. His flesh is dry and cold to the touch. Kandri looks again at the girl. She is really quite young.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  She brings her face near his own and screams like a wildcat: “Help him, motherfucker!”

  Kandri catches her wrist. Without breaking eye contact, he presses her hand down against the man’s chest. The stillness there, the cold. The girl’s face contorts. She breathes in deep shuddering gasps, choking on snot and tears.

  “I’m sorry,” Kandri says again.

  She stares with disbelief, then hatred. Then perhaps no longer sees him at all. From her throat comes a sound that frightens him. She rises, turns to face Atau.

  His men have formed a line some twenty feet away. Atau’s voice when he calls to them is utterly cold.

  “You were right, of course. The Tirmassil are everywhere. And we do have special rules, just for ourselves.”