“I didn’t steal! Didn’t take nothin’ that wasn’t rightfully mine. Now I’m sittin’ here. I’ve been forced to kill to survive because those bastards up there left us here.”
“Your song wasn’t much of an exaggeration, was it?” I asked.
“What was I supposed to do? A man’s gotta eat to survive. No difference in eating the leg of a goat or the leg of a man. Just… you know, you feel sick after eating a man’s leg. It’s cold, squishy, and chewy. Tough. Not good meat at all.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Two weeks,” he answered.
Well, well. That meant Patrick Verdan and his people had not vanished before then.
“Let’s talk about Patrick Verdan,” I said. “I assume that he didn’t suddenly get a sensible notion to move to lower ground. He seemed to have liked having visitors hike up a bloody mountain to reach him.”
I heard chains being thrown around, as if the man shrugged. “Let’s talk about me gettin’ outta here.”
“Fine,” I said, automatically and without thought. Anything he wanted, I’d give him… in the full confidence of my word. “I’ll set you free after you divulge all information you have.”
“You know where the key is?”
“No. But I have an ebon blade. Works all the same.”
“Fancy man, are we? All right, all right. I’ll sing you a song.”
“No songs, please.”
Gorf sighed. “It’s a saying, a way of spillin’ information. Where I come from, any sort of talking we do is singin’ a song. It’s kind of like — ah, you know what, forget it. A day or two after I got locked up here, there’s this big noise up above. Sounds like an earthquake. Lots of vibrations. Rocks shaking, things like that. So I look at Erath and I say it sounds like feathers flapping. Big fuckin’ feathers, yeah? And he says, hey, Gorf, I think you’re right.
“Then all of a sudden, my wigglin’ toes are getting warmed up, and my hands are thawing out. Hells, it feels warm down here, I tell Erath. Then we see this water dripping from above — lucky for me too, or I would have been dead way long ago. Snow’s melting, I figure. Snow never melts around here, sticks around like a bad disease. Like a case of those fuckin’ pimply scratchy things you get on your balls, yeah?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I choose my whores carefully.”
“Well, anyway, that’s it. All the story I got. Soon after, whole fucking kingdom just up and left, or so we figured. Couldn’t hear no one anymore, and the guards went missing. Vanished, like…”
“Like you wish those pimply scratchy things would vanish?” I suggested.
Gorf snapped his fingers and laughed. “Like that, yeah!”
“Thanks, Gorf. It’s appreciated.” I turned and walked back up the steps.
“Hey! Where you goin’? What about setting me free here?”
I continued trekking up the crooked stairs. “We’ll see about that when my commander comes and takes me off this abandoned mountain.”
“Hey! You fuckin’ lied to me. Don’t leave me…”
His voice trailed off as I came out of the dungeon and walked across the crispy island, back toward the mainland of Icerun.
Gorf seemed like a nice enough lad, but I was alone and I had prized possessions, like food and an ebon blade. I couldn’t trust him, not enough to shut my eyes and sleep, which was something I would do as much as I could until Vayle arrived.
I went into the keep and rummaged around for some timber, which I found stacked in a room, along with tinder. I made a small fire in one of the many sunken pits throughout the keep. I placed my burlap sack on the floor and unwrapped the sieve cloth from a loaf of honey bread. I sawed off a piece with my teeth. It was stale, tasteless and dry, but better than a human leg.
I washed the bread down with some cold wine, had a look around at my surroundings and laughed. What kind of insane idiot do you have to be to build a kingdom that requires the keep to be festooned with fire pits so your blood doesn’t freeze and your bones don’t shatter?
I laughed again, and I laughed some more, each subsequent chuckle quieter than the last, until the only sound in the keep was the burbling fire. I hoped to find more distractions, something else with which to occupy my mind, but my eyes insisted on returning to the flames.
Fire itself is supposed to be the epitome of distraction. It’s a mystical thing, tails and sprites tinged orange and splashed with yellows and dashed with reds, flickering sideways, licking the air as if they’re tasting its quality. You can find yourself lost in the flames as they rise and fall like tranquil ocean waves that soothe even the most battered minds.
Thing is, fire had scarred me. It drew me away from any and all distractions. Fire had become a harbinger of the conjurers, what with their flaming monstrosities that landed in Vereumene, that brought my twisted, subservient self back to Mizridahl, that altered a fleeing raven into an obedient tool.
And what of the bird that landed here? Had to be another phoenix, but whose? If the conjurers knew that Patrick Verdan was the missing piece to unite the North — something Vileoux very well could have told them during his stay in Lith — then sending one of their finest here to take Patrick’s mind made sense. But surely Sybil would have heard. She wouldn’t have wanted to send Chachant here otherwise, unless she wanted him out of the picture. Maybe she figured he’d die or suffer grievous injury on the mountain. But her little boy toy was more a blossoming flower to her than a pricking thorn.
Even if I went with the theory that the conjurers had clawed their way into Patrick’s mind, it didn’t explain why the whole kingdom was abandoned. The logistics of moving a thousand-plus women, children, the old and the sick, down its slopes… it was unthinkable.
It didn’t add up. What was I missing? What piece eluded my grasp?
I gazed deep into the fire and rested my chin on steepled fingers. “Where did you go, Patrick?”
The fire spat and hissed, the only answers it ever gave.
Three days. Three very long days and longer nights in which I slept for an hour and woke for two, drenched in sweat. Then I’d shiver myself to sleep and inevitably wake again. It was a few hours past noon when ribbons of fire seared the cloudy sky, rising over the Widowed Path and ascending to Icerun.
The phoenix landed in the city center, and Vayle climbed down into a puddle of slush.
“I wondered if I had come to the right place,” she said, alluding to the emptiness around her.
I tossed my burlap sack around my shoulder and approached her. “Back to the Hole. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
Vayle had no more theories than I about why Icerun had been abandoned. But like an owl flying back to its babies with a mouse in tow, she did bring good news. Dercy had rounded up twenty thousand soldiers between all his bannermen, including five thousand cavalry. He would be ready to march in three days, after receiving enough food and supplies for the long road.
Vayle and I reached the Hole by late afternoon. I jumped off the phoenix, knelt on the dirty ground and kissed the mud.
“Thank fuck for dirt,” I said. I spread my arms out and spun around maddeningly. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? No snow. No cold… well, maybe a chill in the air, but you can feel your toes and your fingers!”
Vayle remained seated on the bird, peering at me queerly. I was surprised she wasn’t shivering, given she’d spent the past few days in the balmy Watchmen’s Bay, where they say the sun drowns out all your worries, until a crab pinches your nipple or a gale wind pushes the sea into your living room.
“Tell Dercy to march when he’s ready,” I said.
“How should I explain our fearless leader’s disappearance?”
I chuckled. “Fearless leader? Right. Tell him I’m strengthening the war effort.”
“Is this the day I see Astul beg a lord for help?”
“This is the day you see me buy a lord and everything he has to offer. Well, truthfully, less lords, more sellswords, bu
t you get the point. I’ll reconvene before you reach Edenvaile.”
The phoenix cocked its head at a hundred-legged bug skittering across the ground.
“He’s named you lord commander,” Vayle said. “Don’t get the wrong idea, though. He’s the highlord commander, apparently. One step above you.”
“I suppose you’ll have to act in my stead, then. And even if I were there, we both know who the true commander is, Vayle. I get our Rots to do the shit I need them to do, but you’re always the voice of reason. The true fearless leader. I know you’ve wanted this for a very long time.”
Vayle lifted her brow. “I have never wanted a war.”
“Deep down you have. You were born in this world for one reason, and that is to lead. You led your northern girls out of slavery. Led yourself down here and found me. Led us across Mizridahl to find new recruits. You led those recruits and taught them to become the most fearsome assassins this world knows. But you’ve always wanted something more. I could sense it smoldering inside you, a fire that only death could extinguish. You want to lead the world, to leave your mark on this pitted place.
“Here’s your opportunity to march on and dismantle the conjurers, to sap them of morale, to still their wicked hearts, to end their hopes and crush their dreams. Here’s your opportunity to play a very large role in saving the world, to show that a lanky slave girl from the North can conquer, to instill hope and courage in those who face a dreadful life like you faced. Here’s your chance. Take it, Lord Commander. And run with it.”
Her jaw shifted like tumultuous mountains. Then she smiled and said, “See you on the other side, Shepherd.”
And she lifted the phoenix high into the air. It flapped its fiery wings and aimed its beak toward the sea.
I turned to the hole in the ground.
Time to empty out the old vault and see what the world had to offer.
Chapter 24
There were dusty inns, stuffy hovels and dimly lit taverns; there was the taste of sour beer, fruity wine and black smoke; the sounds of harsh voices like heels scraping against unpolished stone, drunken laughs and angry snarls; the feel of smooth gold slipping from my fingers; a weathered hand gripping my own, and depleted eyes flashing to life as the old soul awakens once more.
I bought a horse from a village elder near the Hole, and I rode that mare south to the edge of Nane, stopping in every dusty inn, stuffy hovel and dimly lit tavern I came across. We rode around the border, gold coins clanging in my pouch. I’d reach back and exchange a hundred or two hundred, sometimes even more, for good men, for bad men, for old men, but most importantly for men who had met Death before and knew how to satisfy the bastard Reaper by promising him northern corpses.
I eventually went back to the Hole, stuffed some more coins in my pouch and rode off again, to recruit the blades of more lads and lasses.
The sobering fact was, sellswords weren’t going to position Mizridahl for victory. Victory was lost the moment I arrived at Icerun. Without Patrick Verdan at our side, the Verdans would have the might of the North at their disposal. At least forty thousand. Add in another fifteen thousand or so from Edmund’s bannermen, and you’ve got a war in which one side outnumbers the other fifty-five thousand to twenty-some thousand, and that’s without the involvement of the conjurers.
Maybe Braddock and Kane Calbid would obliterate the South, but then what? They would have to march on an army that had probably consumed tens of thousands more by that time.
Mizridahl was lost, unless one held on to the hope that Patrick Verdan would appear from the netherworld. I suppose it was that hope, however faint, and the pride of taking down as many of those bastard northernmen, as many as those bloody bannermen who swore allegiance to Edmund… as many as those fucking conjurers as I could that pushed me onward.
After ten days of traipsing around Nane and its nearby provinces, I’d gathered sixty-two mercenaries, fifty-five horses for the mercenaries without them, heaps of wool coats and pants, because apparently sellswords rarely venture North, and four wagons for carrying goods. In all, I had nearly emptied the Black Rot vault. Sellswords aren’t exorbitant in Nane, but sixty-two of them will run you a pretty coin, and fifty horses will cost you a pretty chestful of coins. And paying off three messenger camps, now that’s expensive.
That payment was not for my previous debt, but rather for yet another favor. Three messenger camps stretched between where Nane meets Rime. I offered fifteen thousand coins to be split between the camps in exchange for any information of caravans leaving Rime on a course for the North.
Vileoux Verdan had a history of silent alliances with minor families in the province. Several years ago, when the Ollesean family waged war against the quickly expanding Wendals, Vileoux supplied the Ollesean army with weapons, armor, food and horses. The Olleseans promptly crushed the Wendals, whose strongholds near Edenvaile gave Vileoux grief. He had a history of similar proxy wars in the past.
There are only two good reasons to dole out favors in this world: to protect your interests, and to stockpile yourself a handsome supply of debts you can call in just in case uncertainty arises in the future. And uncertainty had certainly arisen.
My sellswords and I were at the Hole, readying ourselves for our northern excursion, when under a blistering sun, a horse trotted carefully up the winding ridge of my plump little hill. The messenger’s white coat hung over the saddle.
I met him at the jagged edge of the plateau, out of earshot of the mercenaries, who were mostly lying in the grass — who knew sellswords required sunbathing?
The messenger clambered down from his steed. I’d seen him before, at the border camp. He had a dimpled face, broad forehead and stringy hair. He relaxed his hand on the spherical hilt of his sheathed sword and leaned to one side. His name was Alear.
“Your discretion is appreciated,” he said. “The messengers are, above all else, honorable and free of corruption. I would not want anyone to think otherwise.”
I smiled. “Of course they are. And in my mind, they always will be.”
“Your gold was not spent in vain,” he said. “Two caravans have left the Ollesean stronghold of Ikkyl. They’re aimed toward the North.” He shifted uncomfortably on his greaves. “Messages have been infrequent lately. There’s been talk of the five families using their own couriers for fear of being spotted in a messenger camp and having their messages intercepted. It might be heresy to come to blows with a messenger, but in war everything is heresy. I’ve heard rumors that war is coming.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said, patting him appreciatively on the shoulder. “Thank you for the information.”
Informing him that his world would end — or could end — in twenty days wouldn’t be beneficial. Better to let him live out his days in ignorance than consumed by fear.
He nodded, tapped his hilt and said, “Well, good day to you, Shepherd.”
The messenger mounted up and guided his horse back toward the precarious slope, navigating the equally precarious descent with perfection.
I gathered the sellswords up. Sun-kissed faces stared at me, above crisply burnt arms and shoulders. Bastards probably hadn’t seen the outside of an inn in over a year. Most sellswords took their gold, drank it away, and then went on off in search of another payment, another drink, till the day their bodies revolted and they dropped dead.
“I have it on good authority,” I said, “that a couple Ollesean caravans have left Rime and are en route for Edenvaile. I want ownership of those caravans transferred over to my name. The transfer will be done in blood. You have one hour to collect yourselves. Then we ride.”
I didn’t care what kind of weapons and armor and supplies the caravans carried. Disrupting a few caravans wouldn’t spoil the northern war effort, but their wagons could very well be used to gain entry into the frozen city of Edenvaile.
From within the city walls, Amielle and Sybil and countless others would probably rive the sky, churn the earth, ren
t the wind. The good soldiers of Watchmen’s Bay would suffocate beneath the dirt or have their skulls caved in by falling volcanic rock. And the battle would end, repeated again soon as Braddock lugged his fat ass up to our graves.
We needed to besiege them, to crumble their walls, to disrupt their peace and eradicate all sense of safety within the city. Send them scrambling… conjure up a little bit of chaos. And the best way in which to lay siege isn’t with fancy ladders, thick ropes, sharp hooks, massive rams or powerful trebuchets.
No, it’s to become a parasite: infiltrate the city’s innards and then annihilate it from the inside out. Explode through its walls like worms through the belly of a pig. Anyone can see a fist coming for their face. But few ever expect to find themselves on their knees while their liver is being eaten alive and their kidneys are being torn asunder, and oh my — what is that wiggling out of my belly button and swelling my stomach?
The sellswords and I marched northeast, across miles of flat grassland with twisted green stalks visited frequently by bees and dragonflies. I’d taken two wagons with us, leaving the other behind at the Hole. They’d be used for greater purposes later.
As we passed into Rime, the sun winked a long goodbye as it rolled behind the Black Mountains. The air got colder and the ground firmer. Soon our horses were trampling on snow, and we dug out the heavy wools from the wagons.
It was day three — more importantly, day thirteen since Dercy’s armies would have departed Watchmen’s Bay — when we sniffed out a path the messengers cleared, one I assumed the caravan would be taking so as to avoid feet of snow slowing their trek. We followed it North until night fell. In the morning, we were tracking fresh indents of wheels, hooves and boots. Hours later, sometime after we crossed into Edenvaile under a blustery but thankfully dry sky, the stark outline of a gray horse was drawn tightly against a sea of powdery snow.
An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy Page 28
