An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy

by Justin DePaoli

  He scratched his wrinkly forehead. “This is going to sound insane, I imagine. She told me that she’d taken the mind of… she says a god. I don’t know if that’s an exaggeration or a hyperbole, but that’s what she said. I don’t know any more than that, except someone is apparently exceptionally angry with her. Let’s just say we barely got out of the Prim alive.”

  Ripheneal, I thought. Had to be. But how had Lysa taken his mind? Unless by take she meant glimpsed.

  Rovid didn’t seem to have a great deal of information about what’d transpired except for the basics. Knowing Lysa, she’d likely refused to tell him much.

  “Push your little ladies hard,” I said. “I want to get to Crokdaw before sundown.”

  Approximately thirty seconds later, I was slumped over my horse, cupping my mouth as blood poured from my lip.

  “Would you prefer riding harder, Astul?” Vayle asked. “Perhaps the next thorn bush you encounter will jump out of the way in fright.”

  I dumped a cupful of blood onto the forest floor and felt gingerly around my mouth. A woody string of thorns lay in my lap, hanging down from my holey lip.

  My commander sighed, brought herself close and helped dislodge nature’s saw from my mouth. Blood filtered into and through the wiry hairs of my beard, dripping onto my jerkin and into my horse’s mane.

  “We ride respectfully through the forest,” Vayle announced. “Lest we not arrive at all. Come.”

  Falling behind both Vayle and Rovid as humility greeted me like it always had — with a slap to the face — I wondered how my commander remembered the path to Crokdaw so well. She’d only been there once.

  After a while, I ventured she had a better memory thanks to the lack of wine flowing through her veins, or she was simply following the hoofprints that, so far, were leading directly toward the village.

  The tracks continued well into the day. They were fresher as we neared Crokdaw, the edges of the imprinted hooves crisp and precise, unlike those farther back, which had collapsed into themselves. And the piles of shit we came upon were wet and smelly, not baked and dried like the ones prior.

  Thankfully, the trees were thinning. Fewer places for bandits, thugs, reapers — whatever and whoever was after Lysa — to conceal themselves. But with the retreat of the forest came an evening sky flush with acrimonious reds and ghastly oranges. Wouldn’t be long before the hints of midnight would pass through, dusting this land in darkness. Crokdaw wasn’t far, though.

  No, not far now. Only… why, I’d say half a mile. Maybe less. Half a mile, you can cover that in eight minutes, even if your horse moseys along. Would only take us about four to encounter Red Eye and his faithful band of archers.

  Four minutes came and went, then five, then six. No Red Eye. No bows. Not a shadowy figure staked out behind a tree a hundred paces away, nor the glint of an arrow tip greeting us from between two branches.

  We rode into the outskirts of Crokdaw Village unimpeded. In fact, we could’ve gone into the village itself, and we probably would’ve, had a shrill cry not rent the air.

  Vayle and I both withdrew our blades, and Rovid unsheathed his. He still had the ebon sword I’d gifted him months ago.

  The three of us pushed our mares carefully forward, walking into the village. Shadows draped the buildings, tiptoed along the circular dirt paths. Probably the silhouettes of trees or flags. Certainly not people, ’cause the place was empty. Except for the big building in the center, which I’d sneaked into and sabotaged the rope intended to hang Rovid.

  Through the building’s miniature panes of glass burned the amber globes of torches. Things moved inside. Long, flailing limbs.

  “Where’d you put her?” I asked.

  “Silma said she’d keep her safe. I told her to climb that tree” — he pointed to the knotted beast of bark that he’d fallen out of, the same one he had been meant to hang from — “if bad stuff went down.”

  “I think it’s safe to say bad stuff has gone down.”

  “Is going down,” Vayle corrected me. “Look, over there. Horses.”

  My commander had spotted six steeds tied to the railing of the occupied building. Looked like we had been right in our assumption that the hoofprints in the forest had added up to six or seven of the beasts.

  Vayle, Rovid and I quickly dropped our mares off at the stables, looping them to shared tie stalls. Having our only means of transport running in separate directions if this village exploded in a dissonance of clashing ebon and steel wasn’t a very pleasing thought.

  “That,” Vayle whispered as we crept upon the side of the building, “is not a cheerful voice.”

  I braced my shoulder against the wood plank siding and put my ear to the wall. Plenty of noise, but mostly the muffled kind. I discerned two distinct voices, possibly a third. Their words were deep and reverberating, as if they were being dragged through a tight tunnel of abrasive rock.

  I pulled back and nodded my chin at the horses posted near the railing. “Cut them free, send ’em running. I’ll go see if Lysa’s in the tree. If they start swinging their swords or axes or whatever the fuck they’re wielding in there, holler, and we’ll bust in.”

  “Six horses,” Rovid reminded me. “Means we’re outnumbered two-to-one. I don’t favor those odds.”

  “Vayle and I have two swords each. That’s like four people there, right?”

  Rovid blinked, mouth gaping.

  I winked, patted him on the shoulder and told him he needed to lighten up — all the worries were making his hair turn gray.

  He muttered something, likely a complaint, but his words were lost in the stirring wind. I trekked down the mildly sloping hil, to the knotted tree with blossoms of bloody orange tubes and petals. The flowers had mostly wilted and died since my last visit to Crokdaw, and several branches were stripped entirely of leaves. The amalgamation of thick, twisted bark looked like a mutant brier bush against the darkening sky. It may have once been a hell of a place to conceal yourself, assuming you weren’t scheduled to hang the next day, but a cursory glance at its empty boughs now would have you spotted in seconds.

  “Hello, up there,” I said, looking up through the center. A small curled-up mass of mostly shadows was perched upon a sturdy branch.

  A limb was peeled back by a small hand. “I… I did something really dumb, Astul.”

  “I’ve heard. What kind of trouble are you in? Who’s after you? Also, a dress is one of the least suitable clothing choices if you’re intending on climbing trees.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Lysa said, the sarcasm so sharp I could imagine her eyes rolling. “I’m not really sure who they are. There are a group of them, though. They took the villagers hostage, in Wollen Hall.”

  Huh. Apparently the building had a name after all. “Sit tight. Vayle and Rovid are here. We’re going to find a way to free Silma and her people.” Hopefully, I thought.

  “Wait,” Lysa said. “One of the men in there… he’s not right. He’s not normal.”

  “A god, maybe?”

  A twig snapped off and fell into my hair.

  “I don’t think so. Remember the strange presence before Ripheneal? The thing with black wisps all around him? Sort of like that, except… different. Not as scary, but still terrifying. I can’t explain it, I’m sorry. But he dismantled the entire army here, Red Eye included.”

  The hoot of a very dimwitted owl came from somewhere behind me. It went, HooOOoo… HooOOoo, rising in pitch midway through its hoots.

  I turned back and saw moonlight settling on Rovid, the reaper’s hands cupped around his mouth. The HooOOoo… HooOOoo sound returned.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I muttered. “Lysa, be ready to drop down from there. If this all goes to shit, we’re scampering right on out of here.”

  As I jogged back up the hill, the wind carried a soft be careful from the tree.

  “Nasty sounds from in there,” the pinheaded owl impersonator said. “Think they killed one of ’em.”

  “You nee
d to work on your bloody hoots,” I said, pushing past him and crouching beside Vayle under the cover of the railing. “Lysa’s in the tree. She’s not well hidden. From what she told me, these aren’t your average kidnappers.”

  “Killers,” Vayle said. “Not kidnappers. A child screamed. There was blood in his throat.”

  “Point remains. I’ve half a mind to mount up, get Lysa and put as much distance as possible between us and Crokdaw.”

  Rovid wagged his finger between Vayle and me. “That’s a good idea. I say we do it. In fact, I’ll go ready the horses.”

  The reaper managed one step toward the stables before a gloved hand reached out and grasped him by the sagginess of his pants.

  “Sit,” Vayle ordered.

  “Vayle,” I said, “honor won’t do us any good if we’re dead.”

  She had a small stick in her mouth, grinding it between her molars. “Uncovering the identity of Lysa’s pursuants is paramount to keeping her safe. We have an opportunity to ambush them; we may not get another.”

  She had a good point, but I didn’t for a moment believe it was made in total sincerity. She wanted Silma and her people out of that building, alive.

  A violent crack sounded from within Wollen Hall, followed by the thunder of a very angry man. The thudding of footsteps paced by the door.

  “Fine,” I said. “Here’s the plan. Rovid, you knock that fucking door off its hinges. Yank it back, snap it against the frame of the building, do whatever it takes to make certain it can’t close anymore. Vayle and I will storm inside, order everyone out. A few of ’em might get cut down, but Daddy always said it’s better to lose a couple cows than the entire herd.”

  My father wasn’t a farmer, nor had he coined that phrase, but “Drunken Uncle Edward always said” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

  “What if they don’t go?” Rovid asked. “Fear can freeze you.”

  “They’ll run,” I said. “So long as we give them a way out. Once most of them have evacuated, the three of us will retreat into the open. I don’t like our chances in closed quarters, not when we’re outnumbered. Ideally we keep one alive, to interrogate him. If it all goes to shit, we gather the horses, get Lysa and hopefully get out of here with our heads intact.” I traded glances with Rovid and Vayle. “Sound good?”

  “Not really,” Rovid said. “But I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

  “You’re stuck with us,” Vayle said with a grin.

  “Come on,” I said, ushering them up the steps. “On the count of five. One… two… three…”

  Rovid is not a dope without a flicker of light in his brain, but he does suffer from a common ailment I’ve termed holy-fuck-this-is-a-lot-of-pressure when he’s counted on to do something. He went at three, not five. But he did yank the door open successfully.

  Vayle and I stormed into Wollen Hall, greeted by pews stuffed to capacity, woman and child and man sitting elbow to elbow, their chins resting on the back of the pew in front of them, like prisoners awaiting mass execution by guillotine.

  A sleek trail of blood wound its way down the aisles between the pews, its source hidden.

  Vayle and I positioned ourselves a few feet apart, each behind one row of pews. None of the villagers dared move. For all they knew, extra muscle had just arrived.

  For a while — which probably could have only been measured in seconds, but certainly felt like minutes — a tense silence clawed at us. Sure, the door creaked and cracked and snapped as Rovid had his way with it, but the six brutes up front had nothing to say. They sized us up, confusion narrowing their eyes and cocking their heads.

  One of ’em was bigger than the rest. One of the tallest bastards I’d ever seen, and equally abominable. He was a consolidation of muscular mass that filled out his frame in huge lumps and malformed nodules.

  “You,” he said, lifting his flail of silver chains which attached to three separate striking heads. Each head was a miniature skull pulverized by spikes. “You’re different. You don’t look right. Who sent you?”

  “An executioner,” I said.

  The man laughed. Not a normal ho-ho-ho, either. Nor a steady ha-ha-ha. This was a laugh you might expect to hear from someone who’d spent a lifetime in the darkest parts of the world, where you kill to stay alive and torture for entertainment. It was a raucous laugh that you could feel in the soles of your feet. A laugh so deep and full and ragged, it filled the entire room, seemed to want to hole up in your head and echo endlessly in your skull.

  “Tell me this executioner’s name.”

  “Astul, Shepherd of the Black Rot.” I lifted my blade as a toast. “Nice to meet you. I hear you’re after a girl. I’m afraid I’m after her too, and, well… you know, I always get what I want. It’s just a thing with me.”

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Vayle slink around the nearest pew and whisper into a villager’s ear. The eight or nine seated villagers got up hesitantly, then quickly sprung for the door.

  One of the armed men up front near the podium made a move. But flail-man stopped him, and when he did, the remaining pews emptied and all the villagers scurried out of Wollen Hall.

  “One of her bodyguards, are you? Ever kill a Warden before?”

  Before I could ask myself if I’d even heard of a Warden before, he swung his flail into and through an empty pew, splintering the wood into thousands of fragments.

  “I know she’s here!” he roared. He squeezed his hand into an impressive fist and said, “I can feel her.” He made a single step toward the door, and the floor trembled. “Tell me where. Show me. Do this, and I’ll go gently into the night.” The corner of his mouth lifted up into a grave smile.

  The lump in my throat was swelling like a thumb that’d just been hammered, so I swallowed it back into my stomach. “No tricks?”

  “I don’t know any tricks,” he said.

  I tried swallowing again, but it’s rather difficult without any spit. “Fine. You’ve got yourself a deal. Follow us.”

  I turned, motioned for Vayle to go in front of me, and walked out of the building. Rovid joined us, just in time to hear me whisper the word stables.

  A slow roll of thunder chased us from within Wollen Hall, the footsteps of the man who called himself a Warden.

  Dust had been kicked up along the streets of Crokdaw, but no one was loitering about. They’d all shut themselves in, preparing for the storm.

  By my estimation, the Warden was standing on the deck of Wollen Hall now.

  “Run,” I urged Vayle and Rovid.

  Run. Three letters that you can spit out in half a second. I’d only gotten the r on my tongue when the deck of Wollen Hall shattered. The u came out at the same time the earth seemed to fissure from behind me, rippling to my heels and the forest beyond. The n… well, I coughed that sound out, because a fist slammed into my back and sent me to the ground, skipping across dirt and rock like they were ocean weaves.

  I pushed the pain down, strangled it till it went to sleep, and rolled myself onto my side. Still had my ebon blade in hand; thankfully it hadn’t accidentally plunged through my ribs.

  A stiff palm into the dirt propelled me up and forward, onto my feet. Chimes of clattering steel and the crackles of ebon had me looking from left to right and back again. I was disoriented, unaware of my positioning.

  “Astul!” There was a grunt then, and a guttural “Fuck you!”

  Another bar of clanging swords, then the chorus of shuffling feet, heavy breaths — a run and chase between attackers and those trying to survive.

  “Astul, behind you,” said Vayle, her voice calm and soothing.

  I spun around, sword dangling lazily and amateurishly at my leg. One surprise shot at my chest and I’d be dead.

  But the Warden, he wasn’t close enough to strike. Not yet, anyhow. I knew how fast he could move, though. I dropped my blade, withdrew a dagger, and took off toward the stables. I knew he’d never let me reach my horse. He’d not let me escape this place alive
.

  I don’t always enjoy being right. This was one of those times.

  His fingers latched onto the neck of my jerkin and vaulted me through the air, a controlled, vertical glide that blurred the darkness of the night and… was that a wall? Oh, right, I thought, stables have those.

  Fortunately for my nose, my teeth and the general bone structure of my face, I didn’t greet the stables by head-butting through its planks. My brief flight stopped abruptly. The flail-wielding bastard spun me around and shoved my back up against the wall.

  He had his hulking hand at the center of my chest, clutching my jerkin, dangling me four feet above the ground. Slowly, he lifted his hand up to my throat, widened his gnarled fingers and squeezed.

  My eyes were trying to burst out of their sockets as he tightened his grip. I guessed, in a morbid way, it gave me a better view of my soon-to-be murderer’s features. This was no man. Maybe once he could’ve called himself that, but not anymore.

  A midnight blue pooled where the whites of his eyes should’ve been, and sharp, jagged stars glittered about in it, as if the night sky above had settled within.

  Things started to fade from there. A heaviness weighed on my lids, and a bizarre peacefulness was lulling me to sleep.

  “Not yet,” came a voice, and the breath of life returned to me again.

  I squeezed my hand, felt the leather hilt of my dagger. Thank fuck.

  “Tell me where she is,” the Warden said. “This can still work in your favor.”

  I tried turning my head away, toward the hangman’s tree, but a hand around your neck makes such movements impractical. So I had to settle for straining my eyes to get a better glimpse. I had no intention of revealing Lysa’s little hiding spot in the tree. Something had simply caught my eye in that direction. I soon realized Lysa was no longer in the tree. What, exactly, was she was hoping to accomplish by running up the hill, toward a man who wielded a three-headed flail?

  A grotesque, fanatical smile turned up the Warden’s lips when he saw her.

  I transferred the dagger to my left hand while the Warden looked right. Lysa broke into a full-out sprint, arms pumping, her hair blowing in the wind.