“Give me a fair duel, at the very least,” I said. “An honorable one.”
Wilhelm laughed. “I know of the sword you swing. Don’t take for me an imbecile.”
I tossed my blade on the ground. It skittered along the wooden planks and banked off the wall. “Then give me a steel edge that your blacksmith has crafted, and remove all that silly armor and the shield.”
Wilhelm lowered his guard suspiciously. “You don’t care about honor.”
“People always say that. But I do have standards, you know? See, I don’t care about the manner in which I kill the arrogant son of some rapacious lord. But a man who I’ve known for fourteen years — or thirteen, however the hell long — that deserves a modicum of honor if a duel must decide who will continue to piss around on this world.”
Wilhelm nodded his iron head at Vayle. “And her?”
“Oh, my!” I said sardonically. “The vicious Commander Vayle, renowned for the countless corpses her blade has strewn across the lands without mercy and certainly without honor.” I rolled my eyes. “Do you think you can possibly help yourself, Commander? Or do you think your hunger for blood will overwhelm you and cause you to charge into this duel with your teeth gnashing and tongue hanging out?”
“I will sit here idly,” Vayle said. “Nary a clap nor a jeer.”
“And if I kill him?” Wilhelm said.
Vayle smirked. “Then you face me.”
That didn’t seem to worry Wilhelm as much as it should have. My commander was nearly as adept at plunging steel into soft flesh as I was. Some would even say more so, but those people are known for exaggerating things.
Wilhelm went about systematically removing his oversized and overpolished plate armor, stopping after unstringing or unclasping each piece to take a long, hard look at me, as if I might have the audacity to renege on our battle of honor. Smart man.
After dressing himself down to mail and leather, he retreated back to the wall that held various armaments and laid his shield on the table. He picked up a silver greatsword, the hilt shaped in ninety-degree downward curves that thinned to fangs.
He grabbed a matching blade and flung it at me. It fell at my feet, and I picked it up.
The shaft was weighty and much too long. Greatswords are nice when you want reach and impact behind your blows, but I preferred the blinding speed of shorter blades, the swords you can work with in close quarters. Still, I couldn’t complain too much. After all, I wouldn’t be swinging it.
Er, hopefully.
Wilhelm descended from the raised platform that supported his decorated table. He held his sword out like a chalice at an important dinner with the lords and ladies of the court.
“Think of it as a toast,” Wilhelm said.
“Ah, a toast before death? I like it.”
I tapped his blade with mine, and we pulled our weapons back. I heaved the sword into a guard position with both hands and shuffled toward the far wall to my left. Wilhelm matched my pace and my strides, a ceaseless focus bending his brows.
It sounded like we were dancing in there, our feet tip-tapping the marble floor as I retreated and he pursued — the eternal dance of predator and prey. The space between us was of cyclical light and darkness. The blackness trounced the flickers of torches, only to be burned into oblivion moments later.
When Wilhelm closed that space — when his mesh coat jangled a bit louder and his sword glimmered a touch sharper — I lunged and feigned an attack, pushing him back. And then I retreated farther along the wall, scraping the rough stone with my backside.
I leaped onto the platform and hunkered down into a defensive position near Wilhelm’s table.
“An assassin with strategy,” he remarked coolly as I had taken the high ground.
Of course I was an assassin with strategy. You don’t live long as a reaper of life unless you have some wit floating about inside your fucked-up head. But the taking of the high ground in this duel was merely coincidence and not part of my strategy.
As Wilhelm contemplated his next move, I allowed myself a cursory glance at his table, and I inched closer to two objects that would seize me victory. One swayed in all directions, lurching and lunging. The other sat lazily inside the rim of what used to be living bone.
I lowered my sword, offering Wilhelm the opening he’d been looking for.
He took it.
His greatsword dipped to the floor as he lunged, back leg fully extended, front foot rising up onto the platform. The blade rose in an arc, sweeping furiously through the air. A burst of air climbed up my leg and broke against my knee.
The serrated steel continued onward. Had I been a fool, I would have put the tip of my blade at my shoulder and the hilt at my hip, guarding the soft flesh I left unprotected.
But upward strikes are so often feints, and so it was with Wilhelm’s. His wrists rotated over one another as he moved the sword past my thigh. It was now charging ahead, straight as an arrow toward my gut.
I caught the underside of his blade with the top side of mine, lifting it away from the precious cargo inside my belly. With a powerful thrust, I pushed him back.
He stumbled unevenly as he awkwardly fell from the platform.
Now it was time to bring color to this room.
I dropped the greatsword. Before it hit the floor, I already had the hot wax candle from Wilhelm’s desk in one hand. And then, as the sound of steel crashing against marble echoed throughout the room, I had the sheep’s horn in my other. Cool wine sloshed against the rim, spilling out between my fingers.
Wilhelm saw what would unfold. Terror stampeded across his face. He charged onto the platform wildly.
I stepped back. Just far enough to avoid his reaching arm, the rushing summit of his silver blade.
It all seemed to happen so slowly, like a ballad of human frailties that erupts from the hauntingly laggard beat of snapping fingers and knuckles tapping against wood.
Imagine:
Snap. Tap. And the candle’s raised.
Snap. Tap. And the flames burble.
Snap. Tap. And the fire draws jaggedly around Wilhelm’s rugged face.
Snap. Tap. And the horn is hoisted back. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Snap. Tap. And my hand flings forward.
Snap. Tap. The melody ends. Silence.
Unavoidable, all-consuming silence as the fire intersected the wine and spewed forth a stream of flames into Wilhelm’s beard. The orange warmth ate the thick hair like acid eats flesh. The flames spilled onto his neck, dripping off of his chin and nose like droplets of stagnant river water permanently infused by the color of the sun.
A shrill shriek brought me out of whatever stasis I’d been trapped in. Time moved normally. Maybe even too fast.
I grabbed a cloth sitting at Wilhelm’s desk, jumped off the platform and tackled the burning man. Wrapping the cloth around his face and his hair, punching it into his throat and cheeks, I suffocated the flames. More importantly, I stuffed the cloth into his mouth, silencing his cries. The vibration of his wails trembled up my arms.
“Accepting an honorable duel with a dishonorable man doesn’t make you honorable,” I said. “It makes you stupid. Now, then, if you will stop crying, I’ll let you up.”
Wilhelm continued to moan.
I motioned Vayle over with my head.
“Sit on his legs when I flip him,” I told her.
I turned Wilhelm over. Vayle sat on his legs, and I pinned his arms to the ground with my feet, keeping my hands free to ensure the homemade gag of burnt cloth didn’t slip out of his mouth.
I flicked his singed beard and the hairs scattered like the petals of a dandelion in the wind. “Could have been worse. Your flesh could be melting off. As it is, it’s just red. Turning white, maybe — blisters, you think? Probably.”
Wilhelm grimaced. He tried hollering at me, but I stabbed the cloth deeper into his mouth.
“Let’s set some rules, shall we? No yelling. No kicking. No punching. Be a good boy and
it’ll get you far, yes?”
Beneath the pain — beneath the hot, grotty blisters that were beginning to bubble on his cheeks and chin and neck and forehead and nose — Wilhelm regarded me with revulsion. Scowling, frowning and all other expressions of hatred were impossible for his disfigured face to form, but I could nevertheless sense it.
“I’m going to remove this cloth from your mouth. If you scream, I will rake my fingers across your face until your burnt skin piles high beneath the beds of my nails. Do you understand?”
Wilhelm said nothing. He expressed nothing, except perpetual pain and imperceptible hatred.
I plucked the cloth from his mouth and laid it on his chest. He was breathing heavily, lightly groaning with each rasp.
“Do you have rope in these barracks?” I asked.
No answer.
I splayed my fingers and lightly touched my nails to his cheeks.
“In the armory,” he said hastily.
“Commander Vayle,” I said. “Would you mind?”
Vayle got up and hurried out of Wilhelm’s quarters and into the hallway, toward the armory we’d passed on the way here.
“Torture?” Wilhelm said, his teeth clenched. His lips were raw and crimson. “Is that when you intend to do to me?”
I chuckled. “Torture you? What would that gain me?”
“Enjoyment,” he said.
“I take no enjoyment in this.”
Vayle returned with a bundle of rope. We got Wilhelm to his feet and escorted him over to his table, sitting him in his chair. I stripped him of his golden cloak, then looped rope around his chest, his arms and his legs, binding him to the chair. I balled up the blackened cloth, stuffed it in his mouth, and secured about two feet of rope around it, tying it in an unbreakable knot around his head.
“This'll work well,” I said, holding up his golden cloak. I looked at Vayle. “Go find yourself a fancy suit of armor from the armory. It’s time to play dress up and free Dercy Daniser.”
Chapter 21
Deception. Deception. Deception. What a lovely lady she is. An easy one too, if you’re using your tongue. I, however, was using my entire body. Or to be more accurate, passing the living sculpture that was Astul off as the old, weathered man the good folks of Edenvaile knew as Commander Wilhelm Arch.
This sort of deception isn’t for the goat-brained and the scrambled-eyed. It would take ice in my veins and a steely resolve to even attempt. It also required a knife, a full suit of plate armor, a steel helmet with a straight nose piece and the ability to contort my voice into something more grizzled and raw, all of which — save the voice — were easily procurable within the barracks.
The knife chopped off half my beard that’d run rampant the past few weeks. Vayle helped me trim it down so the peppery spokes matched the length of Wilhelm’s prior to his fiery accident.
Then it was on to the suit of armor, which was heavy and cold. The helmet squeezed my ears and amplified all sounds.
Vayle was dressed in a coat of mail and steel greaves she had obtained from the armory, along with a square shield streaked with oil and grease. A skullcap rested atop her head, her chocolate hair flowing out the back and down her shoulders. Looked like the quintessential guardswoman.
I approached Wilhelm, who was tied mercilessly to his chair and table. “Do I walk like a commander?” I asked, standing tall and absolutely straight as I paced. “Do I look like a commander? Do I talk like a commander?”
His eyes fell away, to the floor. Small blisters were stitched across his puffy, rosy face. His cheeks had a sort of shine to them, the kind your finger gets after a close encounter with fire.
“Where’s Dercy being held?” I asked. He swallowed. “I know he’s not in your lovely dungeon. Didn’t see him being escorted into it, and if he was there, your entire city guard wouldn’t be posted up by the keep. So where in the keep is he being held?”
He swallowed again, then clenched his jaw.
I shrugged. “All right. Have it your way, Wilhelm.”
I stepped onto the raised platform, grabbed his skin of wine and poured a small amount into the sheep’s horn. I lifted it indolently over Wilhelm’s head and tilted it with a lethargic roll of my wrist. It spilled over the rim, a small stream of liquefied grapes, red as blood. Wilhelm gasped as the wine trickled onto his head, wetting his hair and drenching his face.
“Always a shame,” I remarked, setting the horn on the table and reaching for a candle. “Seeing friends take this kind of path, I mean.”
I crouched in front of the commander, held the candle up to his eyes and swept my finger leisurely through the flame. He twitched.
“I am a purveyor of information, Wilhelm. I will never rest until I get the information I desire. I will hurt for that information. I will kill for that information.” I pushed the flicking flame closer to his face. “I will burn for that information.”
Sweat dribbled into his eyes. Or was it the wine?
Vayle joined me on the platform. She put a hand on Wilhelm’s damp shoulder. “Tell us where is. Pride isn’t worth the pain.”
Wilhelm’s chest swelled. His arms trembled against the rope binding them.
“Fine,” I said, sighing. “Trial by fire it is.” I shoved the candle to where his face should have been. But he threw himself back against the chair, scooting inches away from a very painful ending.
“Wait,” he pleaded. “Please. I don’t want to burn.” He licked his lips. Heaving, he whispered in a voice drenched in desperation, “I don’t want to burn. He’s upstairs. In the royal quarters.”
I placed the candle back on the table and patted his knee. “Good. I’m going to stuff a rag in your mouth, keep you quiet. If you try to bite me…”
“No… no,” he rasped. “Have the decency, Shepherd… have the kindness, I beg you. Cut me. Make me bleed out. If I’m found like this, I… I don’t want to be tortured for my failures.”
I stepped back and crossed my arms in quiet contemplation. Vayle nudged my elbow and gave me an affirming nod.
Seconds lapsed. But time regrettably did not pass silently. No matter your blade, it’s never sharp enough to cut without making a sound.
We walked out of the commander’s room without a word spoken between us. Vayle gulped down the skin of wine she’d snatched from his table and tossed it in one of the supply rooms. She seemed better. Good for her, I suppose.
She stopped me before we reached the door that led back into the city. She grabbed my hand and wiped off dollops of Wilhelm’s blood from my fingers.
“You missed a few spots,” she said.
“Thanks,” I muttered, pulling away to leave. She yanked my arm, rooting me in place.
“You were going to burn him. Why are you upset at giving him a proper ending?”
“You’ve known me for fifteen years. You really think I was going to burn him? I knew he’d turn away. I could’ve punched the candle farther if I wanted.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I have known you for fifteen years, and I know that this isn’t like you.”
I put on a fake smile and said, “It’s this fuckin’ North. No sleep, always cold. Does things to you. I’ll be all right.”
Vayle remained unconvinced, but said nothing more. She’d prod me later, and maybe I’d tell her the truth then, but not now. No need to alarm her. Plus, I didn’t know how to articulate it. All I knew was that seeing my brother die in my arms was not good. Watching my Rots butchered in an arena was worse.
Things were being taken from me. I knew what happened to people when everything they knew, everything they had, slipped from their grasp, leaving them alone and cold. That’s how monsters form, how the dead look behind the eyes comes about, how madness takes over. It’s how an assassin can go from killing for business to killing for pleasure. That terrified me.
I touched the hilt of my ebon blade as we paraded into the openness of Edenvaile. I sucked in a breath of frozen black air, held it deep in my lungs and let it slowly esc
ape through drawn lips. There’s something about the suddenness of the cold slamming into you like an unrelenting tidal wave as you exit the warmth of a building. It gets everything going. Sharpens your senses. Makes your heart thump a tad faster, beat a little harder. Makes you forget things, or at least allows you to stow them away in a deep, secluded compartment for a while. A compartment with a good lock that takes a while for demons to break.
Vayle and I climbed the steps to the keep, my golden commander’s cloak — Wilhelm’s golden commander’s cloak — blowing in the wind. Every soldier straightened himself and herself as I walked past the ranks.
Don’t make eye contact, I reminded myself. Don’t look at them. Don’t give them the opportunity to question you.
Of course, nothing I would do, save removing my helmet and showing them my true face, would make them question me. They were taught from a very young age to never question authority. The instructions were clear: tap your foot to the beat, nod your head and follow along. It makes for a mighty army and an enviable society that is highly organized. Question not, learn not, worry not. But there’s one great susceptibility, and that’s when the authority fails. Sometimes it’s corruption that makes it fail, and sometimes, as in this case, it’s deception.
Vayle and I moved effortlessly past the guardsmen and guardswomen, beyond the keep doors and to the kitchen attached to the side of the keep. Four guards moved aside, each saluting me with a nod. I returned the gesture as I stepped out of the naked cold and into a kind of cold that was mysteriously deeper and broader than that of the outside.
The stone walls of the kitchen seemed to snag the iciness throughout the day and suffuse it like pollen from blooming amaranths at the end of a southern summer. The door shut behind Vayle and I, and we drifted through the dark kitchen, avoiding the blunt silhouettes of cutting tables and mantels. Some of the embers in the hearths still smoldered, but most were blackened ash.
An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy Page 24
