“You know this murderer?”
“No, but I can point you in the right direction, Master-sergeant, and that’s more than you’ve got now by a long shot.” She drank deeply, draining the tankard, then pushed the empty vessel back across the table to him. “Fill that with gold instead of ale and I’ll tell you where you can find someone who knows him.”
“Three gold crowns,” he offered, producing the coins and placing them on the table for her to see.
“Ten.”
“Five.”
“Seven.”
“Six, and that’s more than you earn on your back in a fortnight, so let’s have it!” He pushed the coins across the table.
“And just how do you know my prices haven’t gone up, Master-sergeant?” She looked at the money, then at his glowering features. “You ain’t paid for my services in a long time.”
“Take it or leave it. I could care less which.”
“Okay then.” She scooped the coins up and stuffed them into her corset. “The Tap and Kettle. It’s an inn up in Eastmarket. The innkeeper’s the one you want to talk to. His name’s Forbish or somethin’.”
She got up and left, letting herself smile at the irony of being paid twice by two different people for the same task. “And I didn’t even have to hitch up me skirts,” she mumbled to herself with a quiet chuckle.
Lad squirmed over the wall of the Grandfather’s estate and dropped to the ground in a graceless heap. He lay there for a moment, struggling to breathe, concentrating on remaining conscious. He coughed and tasted blood. The magic prevented pain, but the weakness was overwhelming. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep.
But the magic wouldn’t let him rest.
He struggled to his feet; it was difficult with his left arm not working and his consciousness waning with every ragged breath. The lucky shot from a guard atop a buttressed wall would have killed any man, and had nearly killed Lad despite the healing magic that prevented him from bleeding to death. But if he couldn’t breathe he would eventually die, which was his only desire. Unfortunately, the magic drove him on.
He entered the secret door at the base of the north tower and descended the stairs to the sparring room. After passing through there at a shambling half-run and down the short hall, he opened the door to the stair that led down to his chamber. He had never counted the stairs, but there seemed too many, and at the bottom he bumped into the door before he saw it in the gloom. His hand fumbled with the latch and he felt the door swing away from him as it opened. He could not catch himself, and fell heavily onto the landing. He had fulfilled Mya’s instructions; he had returned to the interrogation chamber. Now he could rest. Now he could die.
“Lad!”
He felt cool hands on his face, a strong grasp checking the pulse at his wrist.
“Gods, Lad. What the hell happened?”
Mya’s voice sounded strange, but the weakness was taking him down a spiral of darkness where everything seemed strange. She turned him over and gasped when she found the arrow and her fingers came away bloody.
“I... almost... escaped you.” His voice was a croaked whisper. He fumbled for her with one hand, trying to stop her from tending to his wound. If he put her off long enough... maybe.... The image of a scared young boy cowering in a corner amid the bodies of the guards who had just given their lives trying to save him visited his mind. The memory hit him like a wave of nausea. He could not stand to remember what had followed.
“You what? Hold still!”
“Please...” he said, forced to hold still by the unrelenting magic. “Let me go.”
“Shut up and don’t fight me. I’ve got to get you to the table. Can you walk?”
He carefully gauged his strength, or the lack of it, before answering.
“No.” It would not be long now.
“Then just don’t fight me.”
He felt one hand under his knees and another under his back, and heard her strain with his weight. She was stronger than most women her size, and lifted him with some minor cursing. There were a few bumps as she descended the steps, then a solid thump as she virtually dropped him onto the stone slab that was his bed.
“Now, let’s see about that arrow.” A knife parted his shirt from neck to cuff, and he heard a sharply indrawn breath. He opened his eyes and looked curiously up at the expression on her face. It was as if the arrow had found her flesh instead of his, so twisted with pain was her visage. “Gods, Lad. This is in to the fletching!”
Her fingers probed where the wood met flesh just in the hollow of his collarbone. The shot had been from directly overhead, and he’d moved just enough to keep it from piercing his skull. The shaft had entered him in the soft tissue between the collarbone and his shoulder blade, and had passed straight down through lung and diaphragm and into his viscera, severing the nerves that controlled his arm. He had tried to pull the arrow out, but the barbed head dragged at his insides, causing the weakness to spread.
“Yes,” he said, though she hadn’t told him to answer. It wouldn’t be long now; he could feel the weakness slowly enveloping him. There was no point to sparring with her.
“What do I do?”
He looked up at her, remembering the boy’s sobbing pleas, and said, “Let me die.”
“No.” There was something in her face that Lad couldn’t read. It was familiar, but the weakness was playing with his consciousness and he couldn’t remember. “No, I won’t let you die. Tell me, was the arrow’s head barbed or straight?”
“Barbed.”
“Damn.” She bit her lip and cast a glance around the room. “Hold still.”
She left him for a moment and he heard the clatter of metal instruments. There were many tools in the room - tools of torture. He could discern the sounds of knives, pliers and pincers, and knew what she was going to do. He could only hope that she was not as adept at surgery as with her quick wit.
“Now hold still, Lad. This will hurt, but --”
“No, it will not hurt. I feel no pain.”
“Oh, yeah. Handy, that.”
“No pain,” he said, his voice fading to a whisper. “No remorse. The child… was someone’s son, someone’s best friend. More sons… best friends… wives… husbands… will die if you do not let me go. I do not want to kill anymore. Please...”
“Shut up, Lad. You’re delirious.”
He could see in her face that she knew he was not delirious, but the magic made him remain quiet.
“Now, show me where the tip of this arrow is.”
He indicated a spot just below the lowest rib on his left side.
“Great. Now hold very still.”
He felt the knife part his flesh, and heard her astonished gasp.
“Gods! It closed right back up!” She muttered and grabbed another instrument from the tray. “You’re going to have to help me here, Lad. I’ll part the flesh and put this in,” she held up a flat-bladed hook made for pulling bones from living flesh. “You’ll have to hold the wound open. Nod if you understand me.”
He nodded.
“Fine. Now.”
The blade parted his flesh again and he felt the cold metal of the hook as it went in.
“Hold this.”
He grasped the handle and pulled, feeling his ribs lift with the tension. Dimness crept into the edges of his vision.
“Good! I can see it. There’s a lot of blood.”
Lad heard a spattering sound, like rain overflowing a clogged gutter. Something touched the arrow sending a tremor through his flesh. He heard the snip of heavy shears severing the head from the shaft, then felt Mya grasp the arrow by the fletching and pull the entire length out in one smooth motion. His grip slackened on the hook.
“No! Don’t let go! I’ve got to get the arrowhead out. Stay still.”
His breath was coming in rattles and he felt the need to cough, but she had ordered him to stay still. Dimness advanced across his vision as she probed with the pliers. His eyes sagged shut.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a gurgling whisper, not knowing who he was apologizing to this time. There were so many—so many faces of wives, and sons, and friends he’d murdered. He saw them all in the darkness of his mind. “I’m sorry for everything.”
“Got it.”
He felt a wrenching pull, and the handle of the hook slipped from his limp grasp.
“There, now. You can let it go.” Her voice was faint in his ears. “Lad?”
He tried to answer, but couldn’t.
“Lad, concentrate! Breathe!”
He forced himself to take a breath, but he was too weak. It was barely a rattle.
“Breathe! Now!”
He felt something press against his lips and fingers pinching his nose, and then air flooded into his collapsed lung. He coughed spasmodically and heard cursing, but breathing was easier. His eyes fluttered and he saw Mya wiping blood from her face. His left arm tingled as his nerves knit together. He reached for her. He didn’t know why, but she was there, and she was solid.
“No, Lad. You rest. Sleep.” She took his hand and folded it across his chest.
Whether from the compulsion of the magic or the overwhelming exhaustion of the trauma, he found her suggestion irresistible.
“We got something, Captain!”
Norwood was out of his chair before the man was even through his office door. Truth be told, he’d been half-asleep, exhausted from hours of writing letters to wives of guardsmen who would never see their husbands again. But he was up now, and the bright-eyed sergeant’s enthusiasm was better than a cup of fresh blackbrew.
“Where, Sergeant?”
“An inn in Eastmarket by the name of Tap and Kettle. My source said the innkeeper, a man named Forbish, knows who the assassin is.”
“Good!” He started to grab his uniform jacket, then stopped as he noticed that it was still pitch black outside his window. “What’s the hour, Sergeant?”
“Oh, about two glasses before first light.”
“So early? Hmph.” He put his coat down. He’d started drafting the letters just after midnight, and had finished most of them before exhaustion and sorrow had taken him. “Well, put on a pot of blackbrew and get a squad together. I’m going to finish these tonight even if it’s the death of me.”
“Yessir.” The sergeant noticed the letters on the captain’s desk and his broad shoulders slumped. “How many, if you don’t mind me askin’, Sir?”
“Besides the two targets? Ten.” He sat down and straightened the papers. “Ten good men, Sergeant. And we’re going to find the murdering bastard who killed them and string him up by his innards!”
“Yessir!”
The sergeant turned and left his office, and Captain Norwood returned to his letters. He had his doubts about this informant. What would an innkeeper know of the murders, let alone who was committing them? But the maneuver might serve to flush the quarry into the open. Even more important, it might bring whoever was ordering these murders out of the slimy hole he lived in long enough for Captain Norwood to put a sword through his liver.
He sharpened his quill and tried to think of a kind way to tell a wife that her husband was never coming home.
Chapter XXII
Black cloaks and steel whirled in blurring entropy.
Dagger met sword, turning the stroke that would have taken his life, then darted in like a striking snake. His target twisted away, sword arcing through an intricate series of feints before it struck again. Steel met steel once more in three sharp blows before both adversaries broke off, circling, watching for weakness.
He let his foot land on a patch of blood-dampened stone and slipped minutely.
The sword slashed without pause, but the slip had been a feint, and he flipped over the sweeping stroke, both daggers stabbing. One was deflected. The other was not, and the tip pierced flesh before the target twisted away.
“Three to one!” said the thin figure standing well to the side, ignored by both combatants.
They squared off, his opponent breathing heavily and protecting his left side where the dagger had struck for the third and most telling stroke. Blood, dark and sweet, dripped steadily from the man’s elbow.
The scuff of a boot from the open hallway behind him snapped his attention away from the sword he faced.
“Hold!”
The sword’s tip dropped, and the blademaster quickly clamped a hand upon his bleeding arm.
“Forgive me, Grandfather.” Mya bowed as he turned and advanced upon her. “I did not mean to interrupt your bout.”
“Of course you did, Mya.” He put his daggers away and took one cleansing breath that returned his heart to its steady slow beat. “I know very well that you are quite capable of moving silently. The discrete noise you made with your foot was intentional, well timed and politely executed. Next time just clear your throat and stop putting on pretences.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“What’s that you’ve got?” he asked, nodding to the bundle of black silk she cradled in her arms. “The boy’s clothing?”
“I, uh...” She peered past him at the tall blademaster who was lashing a quick bandage around his left arm. She ignored the Grandfather’s valet, since the man knew more of the guild’s private affairs than Mya ever would.
“You may speak freely, Mya. He is a Kossnhir apprentice.” She swallowed visibly, a common response to meeting a blademaster of Koss Godslayer; they had their tongues cut out at the age of eight to prevent them from divulging the training secrets of their cult.
“It was the boy’s clothing.” She held out the sodden shirt in one bloody hand, and he noticed that there was also blood on her neck and shoulder. “It’s little more than a rag now. That’s why I need to talk to you. Your weapon was injured last night.”
“How badly?” He felt a chill of worry. Injured, she said, not killed. Not so soon. Not yet!
“Would have killed him if he wasn’t held together with more magic than muscle.”
There was something in her tone that the Grandfather didn’t like. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but there were feelings beneath that sharp wit and hard exterior. How troublesome.
“He took two arrows. I didn’t know about the first until he told me this morning. He’d taken it out himself. The second he couldn’t remove without killing himself, so he just came back here. How he made it over the wall is beyond me.”
“You removed it?”
“I cut it out of him.” She fetched the broad head of a crossbow bolt from her pocket and held it out for him. “I had to dig this out of his spleen before he would stop bleeding.”
“Interesting.” He took the arrowhead, turning it over in his hand. There was still blood and tissue stuck to the barbed wedge of iron. “And he is recovered?”
“Aside from some weakness from losing about half of his blood, yes.” She smiled crookedly, something he found oddly irritating. “He’s doing his exercises and eating like a starved cloud cat. He’ll probably be fine by tonight.”
“Good.” He started to turn back to his own morning exercises then noticed the impatient shuffle in her stance. “Was there something else, Mya?”
“There is, Master, but I’m not sure how to say it.” She bit her lip and shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s important, or if it will anger you.”
“Telling me something is amiss, then not telling me what it is, will surely anger me.” His hand itched for his dagger, but killing Mya was not a good idea right now. Her reconnaissance of the added security measures of the Royal Guard had been flawless and invaluable. If not for her efforts, it was very likely that his weapon would have died. “I will not hold you responsible for the bad news you bear, Mya. Your skills are far too valuable for me to waste in a fit of temper.”
“Yes, Grandfather.” She steadied herself visibly and continued. “Your weapon is very near the breaking point, Master.”
“Near the breaking point? What do you mean? You said he was healed.”
“His mind? That’s impossible, Mya. The magic prevents him from feeling anything. I made sure of that.”
“I don’t doubt it, Grandfather, but there is something moving within him. I think it’s because he was exposed to others. He’s learned what others feel, and his curiosity has caused him to expect it in himself. He’s been told that killing is bad, so he does not want to kill, but he’s forced to follow our orders. He doesn’t feel, but he knows he should, and that is causing a conflict that’s inflicting a kind of pain that the magic doesn’t prevent.”
“Do you think this pain is effecting his efficiency?” If the weapon was showing weakness, the longevity of the Grandfather’s project could be severely curtailed. Many plans had been put into motion that hinged upon the pressure being put to bear with his new weapon. If the pressure eased, the plans would crumble like a house of cards.
“It’s not his efficiency that worries me, Grandfather, but his sanity. He does not wish to live, but he’s compelled to continue. He begged me last night to let him die.” She looked at the bloody shreds of silk in her hand and shrugged. “He can’t even hate me for saving his life. The magic won’t let him.”
“I worry more for you than my weapon, Mya.” Her eyes snapped up to his, wary of some taunt or mocking jab. “The weapon is just that. Remember, he is a made thing, like this dagger.” He produced the blade from the folds of his cloak and raised it for her to see. “Would this blade feel differently if it were used to kill a man or a dog? I think not.” The blade vanished in the blink of an eye, and he smiled at the effect the sudden motion had on her. She still feared him, which was as it should be. The moment she no longer feared him, she would have to die.
“The boy is not a dagger, Master,” she said evenly, bowing and backing away a step. “Perhaps only in that he has a mind and the dagger does not, but that is the crux of the problem.” She paused, obviously choosing her next words with the utmost care. “Is there no way the schedule could be postponed a day, simply to allow him to recover?”
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