An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy

by Justin DePaoli

  Then I’d be fucked. Unlike Occrum, I couldn’t conjure another phoenix. And I couldn’t run away. He was faster. I couldn’t hide. He’d see me.

  My only hope lay beneath the ground, where it’d been this entire time — since I’d departed Occrum’s island in the sky.

  Maybe my plan would work after all. It’d have to.

  Lightning spat from the sky like rain, a torrential downpour of serrated bolts glowing hot with white fire. My phoenix navigated them as a captain navigates the gale winds of a seaborne storm, gliding between their jagged points effortlessly.

  Thunder snapped like a whip. I could feel it seeping into my bones, each crackle that seemed to shake the earth.

  The blue sky ahead cowered away, allowing tufts of slate-gray clouds to fill in like morose brushstrokes from the hands of a despondent artist.

  Rain stung my face, and the wind burned my nose and my cheeks and my hands and every exposed part of my body. Occrum seemed unaffected, a grin on his face as he pursued me over flat prairies and shallow forests and rolling hills.

  He knew my girl was slowing. He knew she wasn’t flying as high anymore, or diving down through a headlong wind quite as fast.

  Exhaustion had its claws softly around her. And with each whoosh of her wings, it gripped firmer.

  The chase had gone on for hours. As my phoenix fell and rose — each drop deeper than the last, and each rise shorter — I sensed it was about to conclude.

  Occrum sensed the same. He came up beside me, his phoenix gliding calmly. “Give me the book,” he said, “and this debt will be forgiven.”

  I turned every pocket inside out, concealing my secret vial within a fist. “You’re not understanding this,” I said. “I — Astul, Shepherd of the Black Rot, bastard assassin, and whatever other name you want to call me — don’t have your fucking, cocksucking, shitty, magical, mysterious enigma of a goddamned book.” I peered ahead. “But I do have your death on my mind.”

  With a flick of my mind, my phoenix dove sharply toward the ground. Toward a spiral of rock that plateaued into a fat stretch of land. If this would be her last hurrah, I’d take her for everything she was worth.

  For the first time in a while, I had a good look at the Hole. The entrance to my homely tunnel looked… off. For starters, it glowed with a golden aura. Secondly, there was a book larger than life propped up against it. Larger than life is quite literal in this sense. It was about five times the size of the man standing next to it.

  Before I could ask myself what was happening, everything went to hell.

  Wings tucked tight, my phoenix landed hard, talons ripping into the soil, launching me head over heels. I skidded across dirt and rock, skin flayed right off my arms.

  I got up, felt wobbly and fell to my knees. Stars dashed across my vision, but I fought ’em off and crawled to my feet. Just in time to see a vaguely familiar shape emerge from the Hole, the stock of a crossbow braced against her shoulder.

  I also saw the crossbow bolt. Aimed right at my head. I hit the ground so fast and hard, my chin bounced off the dirt.

  A loud thwack made me flinch. Thankfully, the fired bolt sailed high above my head. In fact, it would’ve sailed high above my head even if I’d remained standing. This is because of one simple fact: its target was in the air.

  Was being the key word. Occrum’s phoenix screeched, a cry of agony that culminated with it falling topsy-turvy to the ground.

  It did not bounce, but Occrum did. The slight movement of his hand told me he wasn’t dead. The quick rise to his knees told me he was very much alive.

  In a blink, he was on his feet. Another blink and somehow, impossibly, he was twenty strides behind me.

  I ran, legs lighter than they’d ever been. Excitement pumped through me like the finest aged wine. Felt like I could lift this hill up and chuck it at Occrum, burying him in an immense debris of rock and dirt.

  “I’ve got him!” Vayle shouted, rushing past me, ebon high in front of her face.

  I didn’t have time to disagree. I barely had time to ask why in the fuck Rovid had the book here at the Hole.

  “I stole it,” he said. “I stole it! It was a lot smaller before.”

  “Fucking make it small again!” I said.

  “I don’t know how!”

  “Figure it out.” I looked back. Vayle’s feet were upside down. She narrowly avoided landing on her neck. Occrum sprinted past her. “Now would be a real good fucking time, Rovid!”

  “I don’t know… oh. There we go.” The golden book bigger than a castle gate had shrunk to the size of a small tome. “Just thought about it, and—”

  “Great,” I said. I snatched the book from the ground. “Thanks and bye.”

  Occrum was fifteen feet behind me.

  Ten now.

  I drove my feet into the dirt, pushing off hard, into the Hole.

  “Go, go, go, go, go,” I rasped to myself. I felt him on me. At my heels, pulling at the frayed strings of my undershirt.

  I unclasped my belt, let it fall to the ground with my swords. Less weight to hold me back.

  I couldn’t swallow. Mouth was too dry. Heart felt like it was going to blow right out of my chest.

  Fifteen more strides. That’s all I needed. Fifteen more.

  Eleven now, but he was so close. His fingers scraped down my back as he swung for me.

  Six. Six bloody strides.

  “Fuck you!” I cried. And I jumped.

  Occrum realized what lay in front of him, but he had too much momentum. He couldn’t stop fast enough.

  A fraction of an inch. That’s all I had before his chest would smash my face right into the wall at the very end of the Hole.

  But the wall opened into a forest, and I rolled across leaves and sticks and mud. And toes. Lots and lots of toes.

  Huffing and puffing, I scrambled to my feet. I was a man amongst ten thousand.

  Occrum’s eyes grew big. He didn’t bother trying to stand. He attempted to crawl back to the tear, desperately raking his fingers through the mud. He got approximately half an inch before they swarmed him. Yanked him back.

  They took to him like hungry pigs to a corpse. I saw flesh being flung that day. I saw scalp torn right off, hair still intact. They used their teeth. They used their nails. They used their fists. One wallop after another, beating and riving and squeezing the life right out of him.

  They took their revenge and justice, delivering to themselves a peace they thought they’d never have again.

  When it was all over, Occrum existed as particles of bone to be absorbed into the forest.

  I stuffed the book in my pocket. Its gold had faded, and it had turned to the color of dust and dirt.

  I looked into the dispersing crowd. Lysa acknowledged me with understanding. Not a smile, nor a frown, but the knowledge that this was the only way.

  I turned around and went back through the tear.

  Into and through the Hole I went, hurrying to Vayle’s side. Rovid knelt before her. It had begun to rain for the first time in… well, a very long time.

  A ghostly paleness rinsed the cherry color from Vayle’s cheeks. She punched out a few ragged breaths through clenched teeth.

  “Think she’ll be all right,” Rovid said. “Got the wind knocked out of her pretty good, though.”

  “Your eyes,” I told Rovid. “They’re blue.”

  He smiled, took a hard swallow and said, “This world… it’s colorful again. It’s quite beautiful.”

  Vayle tried to speak, but instead coughed violently and grasped at her chest. Alarmed, I touched her arm. She waved away my concerns, and told me in a grave voice she was “okay.”

  Then she added, “We didn’t find them.”

  I smoothed out her knotted hair. “They weren’t there. Lysa… she did it to trick Occrum. If I’d known…”

  “You found them?”

  “I wanted to find you. To warn you, but…”

  Vayle smiled. “Then I guess you’re learning p
roper strategy, after all.”

  I laughed. “How’d you get the book?”

  “By turning Occrum’s creation against him,” Rovid said. “We knew something was up when we got to Lith and the whole place looked like a dump. Like someone had just ransacked it. Then in the library, woo boy. Books everywhere, shelves overturned. Dark as night in there, too. Vayle here waited outside, while I had a look around with those black sooty eyes of mine. Saw our man breaking through a door. Had his back turned to me. His book was at his feet, behind him. Never felt so scared in my life as I tiptoed over. Soon as I had it in my hands, I wanted to run. But I knew I’d make too much noise. So I got halfway across the library, then I ran. Blew right past Vayle, who didn’t know what the hell was going on. We jumped onto the phoenix Lysa had conjured us, and, as you’d say, hauled ass out of there.”

  “Why’d you come here?” I asked.

  “We’d only just got here a few hours before you showed up. Planned on taking it through the tear, meet up with Lysa. Didn’t know how to get around Crokdaw Village, though. What, uh… what’re you going to do with it?”

  I looked at my pocket. The book seemed to glow with menacing ferocity now, as if it was reaching out for its owner. “I’m going to make sure this will never happen again.”

  Chapter 32

  Thirteen days gone, and now into the fourteenth night. I’d set out on this voyage in search of a particular location described to me by Taryl during the festival.

  And here I was, at last. Inside a crater, the surrounding mountain a series of staggering peaks. It was cold here. Angry winds thrashed the bluffs, spewing snow into a fine white dust that vanished amongst a starry night sky.

  I shuffled through the snow. They said winter had staked its claim in these parts for eternity. That nothing lived here. Not even beasts who bathed in the icy waters near the Capped Sea.

  I raked my arm through the snow, till I had about a six-foot hole. Would’ve dug further, but I lost feeling in my arm and hand and fingers.

  The book felt old and impossibly heavy, its cover a blank canvas of clouded leather. Every thought that had ever existed had been compressed to fit into the palm of a hand. The pages that once could shower a room in a heavenly glow of gold were wrinkled and tattered and gray.

  Curiosity almost got the better of me, but in the end I pushed that bastard thing into the hole. And I covered it up, and I rode away from the place where winter never leaves. I wondered if my brother was out here, somewhere… but it’s better to not think about things like that.

  Thirteen days more and now into another fourteenth night. Felt like shit, smelled like shit and most probably looked like shit. Took my last sip of water more than a day ago, and it’d been longer since I’d taken a bite of food. Turns out packing enough nourishment for twenty days doesn’t bode well when you’re gone for twenty-eight.

  But I’d arrived at the Prim intact, if barely. Didn’t much look like the Prim I’d come to know, however.

  This was a city whose streets had been cluttered with splintered carts and shattered glass and covered with dust from abandonment. A city so silent the whistle of a tender breeze would linger in your skull for hours.

  And now it’d been turned into a bloody festival.

  Festive decorations were strung from building to building, stretching across roads. There were banners made of dyed silk, from sunset pinks to ocean blues to lime greens. Color hadn’t just infiltrated this drowsy city, it blossomed like a budding meadow in the cusp of spring. And just as bees buzz about the new bloom, men and women had flocked to the Prim. Children, too. The little brats terrorized a couple geese who were investigating a new potential bathing spot in a large fountain featuring a one-eyed bear with water spouting out his mouth. No idea where the fountain came from, nor the water.

  “Thank goodness!” a woman carried on, hands to her mouth. Some barrel-chested lad pushed a wheelbarrow to her feet, then set it down satisfyingly.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Woman named Lysa Rabthorn. Know where I can find her?”

  “Miss Lysa?” the man said, nose wrinkled thoughtfully. “Last I’d seen her she was in the Bougat.”

  “Er. What’s the Bougat?”

  The woman feathered my hand with her soft fingers. “There, dearie. Do you see that great big building? That’s the Bougat. Have you only just arrived?”

  I offered her thanks, told her I’d been around, and then went off in the direction of Big-Ass Building Number One, which apparently had been termed the Bougat.

  Beneath an awning, several people were arranging tables, and kids were tasked with placing a vase with a single stemmed flower in the middle.

  It seemed every ten strides a team of mules forced me to the side as they dragged squat carts covered with thin linen tarps. When I’d finally made it to the Bougat, it took me another twenty minutes to find Lysa. No one seemed to know where she was, but they did know who she was.

  At the very tip-top of the monolithic building, last floor, I found her. Along with someone who I could have gone well without seeing. Barely stuck my head into view, and already his eyes flashed toward me with the prominence of stars in a night sky.

  “There’s the man of the hour,” he said. His mouth did not, in fact, move.

  The creature who stood before him curled a wisp of black soot from his finger and stuck it to Ripheneal’s chest. “I do not tarry in your domain, and you will not tarry in mine. Leave. Now.”

  “As soon as I have what is mine,” Ripheneal said, an amicable air in his voice, “then I will be gone.”

  Mist that looked born from the void seethed from the creature’s finger. It formed a single horizontal line. Kind of reminded me of something a rather intimidating officer might do if he wished to silently explain that you had one minute to haul your ass out of his quarters. If he had fingers that could conjure up black smoke, that is.

  The creature fizzled after that, just as a nightmare bleeds back into its terrible realm as the mind awakens.

  “A brief congratulations is in order,” Ripheneal said. I had blinked and there he was, standing in front of me. “If only I could have been the one. To see the look on Occrum’s face as his second in command took him down…”

  “I know what you are,” I said.

  Lysa opened her mouth, but Ripheneal shushed her.

  “Did he tell you? Hmm. Curious.”

  “Rav told me, not Occrum. So, what’s the deal? You’re a god, you can’t intervene, but yet you give me ten thousand dead people to play general with? How’s that work, exactly?”

  A blur distorted Ripheneal’s figure for a moment. Maybe it was my eyes bugging out on me after an exhaustive twenty-eight days. “Eradication of intelligent life would have been problematic. My direct involvement more so. It would have brought unwanted attention. Now, the book. Give it to me.”

  I crossed my arms. “Why’s a god need a book like this, anyways? You created a fucking world. What’s a book of history to you?”

  Another blur, another distortion. This one more violent than the other. Angrier. “Proof,” Ripheneal said, his voice burying into the depths of my mind now, “that my creations are the greatest. The universe is a game, Astul. And we’re all playing it, I’m afraid. I would like my book back now.”

  “It’s gone,” I said. “Buried it way out there. Maybe east of here, or north. Maybe west or south. Who knows? It’ll never be found again, that much I can promise you.”

  A momentous blur resonated through the air with the crackle of fire. And for a long while, everything and everyone was silent. Finally, Ripheneal spoke. And he said this.

  “You have made a very poor choice.”

  And he was gone.

  Lysa and I held eyes like two siblings whose parents had just announced the punishment of a lifetime would come tomorrow.

  “What was that thing,” I asked, “talking to Ripheneal?”

  Lysa shrugged. “Other than scary, you mean? I’m not sure. Ripheneal wanted to
talk with me up here, and then… that monster or whatever it was appeared. Did you really hide it? The book, I mean.”

  “It won’t be found. Let’s put it that way.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “It was as if it died here in Amortis. Lost all its… whatever it had. Power, magic, godly pull.” I reached into my pocket, took out a crumpled-up piece of paper. “Nice poem, by the way,” I said, smirking. “Why not just tell me?”

  “I wanted to,” Lysa said. “But Ripheneal, he told me his perception of the book, over the course of several days, had faded and returned. He thought Occrum might have come here, into Amortis, to protect against an unseen attack. I couldn’t risk letting him know where Nilly and Serith truly were.”

  “Boon and Ava,” I said. “Those were their actual names.”

  Lysa smiled at that.

  “So it appears,” I said, “that Ripheneal can’t sense the book in this realm, but the bloody thing still works. I guess you were right after all, that it records the thoughts of the realm it’s in. I was hoping it’d be rather useless here.” There was a flutter in my chest. “Oh, well. I’m not worried. Like I said, it’s buried. And it’ll stay that way.”

  Lysa licked her lips. “I’m sure you hid it far away.”

  “Far, far away,” I said.

  The Misjudgment

  An Assassin’s Blade, Book Three

  Copyright © 2016 by Justin DePaoli

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To my brother, whose love for writing is infectious, and who never shies away from telling me what he truly thinks about the drafts I send him.

  Chapter 1

  Hooves sloshed in cold mud as we rounded the bend of a hillside topped with crusty formations of ancient rock. With the last vestiges of safety behind us, we pushed into the darkness, into the wind and rain, into a narrow channel gouged between two cliffs.