He folded his hands. “Especially a kin who isn’t good enough. That’s the reason you never wanted me.” He shrugged indifferently and added, “I know. I was the kid who couldn’t run through the woods without hitting his head off a branch, couldn’t scale a tree without crying about the heights. Awkward as they come, clumsy as they make ’em. But look at me now.” He spread his arms proudly and began shouting. “Just look!”
The tavern quieted and its patrons regarded us hopefully, mugs and skins in hand, waiting for the outburst to flare into a brawl they could pick sides and join in on.
“Emotional outbursts,” I whispered to my brother, “are unbecoming of a Red Sentinel officer. Congratulations for the rank, and please, don’t mistake my praise for satire.”
He lowered his head and scooted closer to the table. Realizing that fists wouldn’t be hurling into jaws anytime soon, the drunks went back to drinking, laughing and adding aitches to esses.
“How’d you know?” Anton asked.
I stretched across the table and flicked the pin fastened to his cloak. “Grunts don’t wear these. Also, I know everywhere you’ve been and everything you’ve accomplished since you joined this army. And, if you don’t mind keeping this between you and me, it’s made me proud.”
He scratched his cleanly shaven face. “I appreciate the… the gesture. Even if it doesn’t sound much like you. But I know you didn’t risk coming here to tell me this.”
“Who the hell here knows my face? Braddock and maybe a couple lords and ladies of the court? I’m not much for meandering up to the third plateau and kissing rings or whatever it is they force you to do up there to show respect, so I feel pretty fucking safe. Invincible, you might say.”
Anton finally took a sip from his mug. “I’d say the drink has a lot to do with that.”
Speaking of which. I flagged a barmaid down and had her bring me another ale. I’d sleep well tonight. “But you aren’t entirely inaccurate. Stopped by to see an old friend.”
“And who might that be?”
“I’ll spell it out for you,” I said. “Eye tee apostrophe ess. Eh ess ee see are ee tee.”
Anton scribbled the letters onto the table. Then he chuckled. “You’re a bastard.”
Smiling, I winked. “Haven’t been here for a few years, but it’s changed. A lot more… force is present. Looks like you’ve got an army up there on the third plateau.”
“Sentinels were all ordered back. Same with the Red Guard. You oughta see some of the cities around here. They say red tents are gushing out of the walls like blood.”
The barmaid brought me my ale, and I quickly wetted my lips. “My brother’s one of the lucky ones, is he? Gets to sleep in the capital of the world, instead of one of its boroughs.”
He snorted. “Not terribly lucky. You should see the keep up above. Surrounded by tents and fire pits. Not enough room here, either.”
“Must be a reason for all this mobilization,” I suggested.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll spell it out for you. Eye tee apostrophe ess.”
I reached across and gave him a brotherly punch in the shoulder. “You don’t know shit anyway.”
He furrowed his brows. “Don’t be so sure.”
It wasn’t worth pressing him farther. There’s only one reason a king mobilizes his entire army, and it’s sure as shit not to play parade the troops through the streets and hand sweets to little boys and girls. Braddock had a history of clashes with minor families in nearby provinces, but he’d always send a few outfits of cavalry to deal with the problem, never the full weight of his impressive army.
He was readying himself for war. Or more accurately, Pristia was readying him for war.
“Pristia,” I said, “you know her well?”
“The queen? No, not at all. I’m an officer of the Red Sentinels, not a member of the court.”
“So you don’t have, oh… feelings of love or devotion or any of those sappy emotions for her?”
With squinted eyes and a cocked head, he asked, “What are you getting at?”
“She needs to die.”
He pushed his mug away, groaned and went to stand. “I can’t hear this. I can’t listen to this sort of—” He wanted to say treason. It lay at the tip of his tongue, but instead he swallowed it and replaced it with “this sort of talk.”
I grasped his wrist and yanked him back into the chair. “Your queen is a conjurer.”
He blinked, allowed the word to register in his mind, and then closed his eyes. “I knew you had an ulterior motive for being here.”
“She’s got your king by the balls, or by the mind, really. And I think she’s responsible for Vileoux Verdan’s disappearance.”
“You’re whacked,” he said. “Straight out of your mind, brother. Completely whacked.”
I ignored him and continued on. “I don’t know why, and I don’t know what the endgame is. Won’t have a bloody chance to figure that out, either, if we don’t free the most powerful king in the world from her grasp.”
He threw up his hands and stood. “I’m done.”
“Anton! I need your help.”
“Done. Goodbye, Astul.”
“I’ll prove it you,” I said.
He licked his chops and chuckled. “I’ve gotta hear this. How do you prove that the queen of Erior is a”—he chuckled again and rubbed his temples—“a conjurer?”
Just before I could explain the details of this glorious plan, a bizarre hush fell over the tavern. Silence among drunks is about as common as singing among mutes: it takes no small miracle for it to occur. Well, a miracle, or, as I discovered, the appearance of a king.
Braddock Glannondil waddled into the tavern, flanked by a contingent of the Red Sentinels. Been a while since I’d seen that puffy face, those blubbery arms and fingers full of heavy rings.
The floor planks cried under his weighty frame. His crimson cloak dragged behind him as he hobbled through the red-faced drunks who fanned out in respect, or fear.
I hid my eyes behind my mug and swore silently. The jackal himself staggered toward me, a hunter sniffing out the scent of his prey effortlessly.
Anton stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. His jaw shivered as the lumbering footsteps behind him thudded closer.
“A brotherly chat?” Braddock asked, his weathered voice stabbing inside my skull like a harrowing headache. He slapped his hand on my brother’s shoulder.
“Lord Braddock,” my brother said. “I was…”
“Going to bind his hands and bring him to me?”
Anton swallowed. His brows twitched. “Yes, my Lord. Of course.”
I rose from the table. “Leave him alone, you fat fuck. You wanted my head, and now here I am. My brother doesn’t have a part in this.”
A wicked grin split Braddock’s lips. “The truth is much more interesting, Shepherd. Every morning the roosters crow, and on this morning, one of them told me I might find you two here. Brother and brother, planning a coup. I’m afraid your old friend, Rivon, swears allegiance to me now.”
Betrayal needled itself into my flesh, numbing the tips of my fingers, sucking the feeling from my toes, wringing the air from my lungs.
“Are you afraid?” Braddock asked. “Afraid to die? Don’t be. I’m not going to make good on my promise to string my banner up through your guts. Rivon suggested a much better idea for punishment.”
“Are you going to torture me?”
Braddock pointed to himself innocently. “Me? No. But those I send you to… I cannot speak for them.”
Chapter 6
There’s nothing quite like riding in the back of a wooden cart with your hands roped together behind your back. Every bump sent my ass into the air, only to come crashing back down on the splintery seat. Turns were great fun. Without a hand to brace myself, my head would careen into the side posts. Hopefully I wouldn’t be dribbling and answering questions with grunts by the end of this journey.
The despair my brother and I dis
played didn’t go unnoticed by nature. The sun had gone into hiding and took the warmth with it. The clouds shifted from a milky white to a gloomy gray, spewing out fat drops of rain. This was the kind of rain you feel exploding on the back of your neck, ice oozing out and shivering across your shoulders.
We’d left Erior first thing in the morning, loaded into a cart like fish plucked from the ocean and on the way to cutting boards. Braddock wasn’t even kind enough to make an appearance and wish us well. Neither was the enigma, Rivon Eyrie. So many questions for that man. The easy way out was to call him treasonous, hold a grudge till I died — which very well could happen sooner than later — and be done with it. But the danger at looking at the world through a black-and-white lens is that you miss the grays, and it’s there, in that bleak prism, you find the twists and turns that give reason to the unreasonable, imagination to the unimaginable, and logic to the illogical.
Anton sat across from me, head slumped like a knight unseated during a joust. Dull-eyed and droopy-faced. It was eerily similar to the way he looked when our father and mother were at our feet, bloodied and lifeless. The only thing missing was tears.
I was always stronger than my brother. It seemed like nothing could undo me. An assassin doesn’t live for thirty years without finding himself in a few… unfortunate situations. Retaining control is vital.
Even when it seems like everything has been stolen from you and your well of luck has gone dry, there’s always a way out. I usually knew of those ways, although sometimes they snuck up on me, like Sybil freeing me from Edenvaile’s prison.
But Writmire Fields — my destination — made my situation grim. Slavers controlled the fields, populating them with rapists, murderers, thieves and other societal misfits that get shipped to them for free. In exchange for the humanitarian aid, the donors get reduced rates on goods bought from the slavers. It’s the game at its finest.
“My face itches,” Anton said.
“Why are you telling me? I can try to kick you to relieve the itch, if that’s what you want.”
“You’ve done quite enough.”
“Thought I could trust an old Rot.”
Bump went the wagon, and smack went our heads. Anton grumbled. “An old Rot?”
“Rivon,” I explained.
“He’s a bloody rooster keeper.”
“Look out!” I hollered, sliding across the seat and into my brother. A long patch of dimpled mud lay up ahead. The wagon plodded over it, rickety wheels tumbling into the deep dimples and rocking the cedar frame like an angry gale spurning a baby bird’s first flight. Sitting close to my brother allowed us to hook our legs together, centering us on the seat so we wouldn’t end up with cracked skulls and be dead behind the eyes before we arrived at the slavers’ camp.
The barren field leveled out again. “Anyway,” I said, “he was a Rot before he was Erior’s lead fowl attendant. He’d never do this to me willingly… Pristia likely had her grubby hand in it.”
My brother sighed disgustingly. “Oh, would you stop with the nonsense? Pristia’s not a conjurer, you dolt.”
I offered up my best admonishing grin. “Just like you, Anton. Pretend the world’s a perfect little haven. Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s well and good.”
“Better than living my life in raging suspicion, you unstable, paranoid fuck.”
Oh, if I had my hands free. “Paranoid? Paranoid? If you heard the mess I was told about Vileoux’s death—”
“Hear, hear, hear,” my brother said. “Did you actually see anything?”
I spun around so hard and fast, my knee slammed into the side of the cart. “Did I see anything? Did I see anything?”
“Shut your bloody mouths,” one of the transport guards said. “Fuckin’ road’s hell as it is, I don’t need a splitting skull to go along with it.”
Anton laughed quietly at me. “You didn’t. Tell me otherwise. Go ahead. Tell me you saw evidence that Edenvaile’s king was murdered. Don’t even go into all the things you heard. Just tell me you at least saw him lying in a sarcophagus, dead.”
“Something big is coming, Anton. I’m sorry you don’t have the wherewithal to perceive that.”
“I’m sure,” he said in a patronizing tone. “War is pretty big, after all. If you want my theory, it’s that the Verdans are playing a game of keep-away with Vileoux, pretending he’s dead. They don’t like that the Glannondils are so powerful, so they’re going to play the assassination card, blaming it on Lord Braddock. A few agreements later, alliances are made, war breaks out, and the world is restructured. No conjurers, no silly magic. Just old-fashioned bloodlust.”
The horses at the head of the cart snorted, and an inquisitive rabbit hopped out of the way. “Just one problem,” I said. “Rivon Eyrie.”
“Would you let it go? He played you, brother. He’s not a Rot anymore. He’s trying to climb the ranks, swindle himself into the court. He did himself a big favor by turning you in. I respect it, actually.”
Poor Anton, one eye black and the other white, forever and for always, it seemed. “I saw the hopelessness in his eyes, heard the loss of life in his voice. I felt the dread, the primal terror in his words. This wasn’t an act. Something — someone — disturbed him, deeply.”
“Acting is a skill,” Anton said. “Like a blade, one can sharpen it till it sings.”
“Even if that were true, he would never forget the Black Rot.”
My brother shifted in the seat. “Climbing the ranks is more important to him than old friendships.”
“That’s not what I mean. Have you wondered why, if your dear Lord Braddock seethed with so much hatred for me, he never sent a small excursion to the Hole? Why, if anyone else had the mind to off his uncle, he’d bring the wrath of the Glannondils down upon them. But he gift-wrapped me nothing more than a thinly veiled threat.”
“You always told me the Hole is impregnable.”
“It is,” I agreed. “But what’s stopping a small platoon of cavalry from waiting nearby, till I clamber on down from my hill.” I leaned close. “Fear, that’s what. Do you know why spiders instill such fear in so many?”
Anton looked annoyed.
“They’re the true embodiment of darkness,” I said. “They lurk in the emptiness, the dank, the shadows, the places your eyes can’t see and your mind doesn’t like to go. They’re silent as a wisp, despite skittering across your floors, spinning their webs, spawning their alien young. And they’re everywhere, in every nook of the world. Worst of all, they’re unpredictable. You never know in which direction they’ll scurry, where they’ll move to next. But they’re always there, aren’t they? And so it is with the Black Rot, with one tiny difference.”
“Your assassins don’t have eight legs?” Anton said.
I smiled. “If you hunt us, the entire colony will swarm you. Kill me in action? Fair enough, but don’t you dare make an example out of me. Don’t you dare hunt me down. Kingdoms have rotted away from the inside out because some pompous lord wanted to make an example of the darkness. But you cannot control what your eyes cannot see. Rivon knows this. He was a part of it. He wouldn’t risk his life to climb another step up the royal ladder. Something bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than the five families is brewing right now. I just hope we live long enough to see what it is.”
“Living isn’t in our future,” Anton said. “I would have taken the beheading if I could. I’ve heard of these slavers before. You won’t get out of here alive, Astul. No one does. Not even the Shepherd of the Black Rot.”
I nodded, and not sarcastically. I had my faith, but sometimes that’s just a nice thing to have. It doesn’t really do anything.
During the night, we continued on into the Dead Marshes, where the seaside mountains vanished, replaced by thick curtains of trees, some stretching so far into the air it looked as though they wanted to give a reach-around to the moon.
By morning, the road we traveled turned from overgrown grass and weeds to a still swamp. The car
t would stop every fifty feet it seemed, and our Glannondil escorts would get out, clean the caked-on mud from the wheels and swear at the gods when they stopped again minutes later.
Small stretches of vomit-colored clay eventually lead us through the marshes, surrounded by submerged blades of grass, circular gatherings of lilies and more water than mud. The horizon suffered a mangled death as we drew closer, with a massacre of splintered and limbless charred trees smudging the blue from the sky. Vines and thorned creepers hung from them, some so big and knotted you’d swear they were eldritch serpents lying in wait. The whole land had a subtle green tint to it, whether from the bile of bogs or something more perverse.
The marshes soon ended, and our royal caravan came to a stop, in front of a gate. Even if you were born in a piss-poor village and hadn’t ever ventured outside until now, you would have a word to describe this gate, and that word, undoubtedly, would be lame. It was nothing but a bunch of wooden stakes crookedly pounded into the ground, topped off with spikes for good measure.
“Smell that?” I asked my brother.
“I’d rather not,” he said, shielding his nostrils with a shoulder.
“I’ll give you a guess as to what kind of shit it is you’re smelling. Here’s a hint: it ain’t coming from no cow.”
Boy, was it rotten. Like a heap of city garbage warmed by the sun, drizzled with a few cupfuls of infected pus and garnished with chopped-up, liquefied necrotic flesh.
A man clad in leather armor and with goat horns for shoulder spikes opened the gate. “Two? That’s it? Lost six this week and I get two to replace ’em?”
His voice sounded as though he was digging into the pit of his stomach for the deepest tone he could muster.
“All Lord Braddock could send,” answered the driver. “He needs his own slaves.”
An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy Page 6
