Assassin's Quest

by Jon Kiln

  Harwin rode behind him in silence, head bowed against the stinging wind. At intervals, Rothar could hear broken pieces of a pleading prayer, muttered by the blacksmith.

  “Harwin,” Rothar called back to his friend. “I do not know what awaits us at the top of the cliff. And I do not wish to see any harm come to you before we can find your daughter. If you were to return to the King’s City, I would not think less of you.”

  Harwin looked up at Rothar with a look that surprised him. There almost seemed to be laughter in the big man’s eyes, and white teeth shone in his tangled beard. Whether it was humor or madness, Rothar decided that it was the most fearsome he had ever seen any man look.

  “Rothar!” Harwin shouted. “This is no time for jokes! Now hurry up that old beast of yours before I am forced to pass you on thin air!”

  Fearing Harwin may be somewhat serious, Rothar spurred Stormbringer forward and the two continued to ascend the passage.

  Rothar had not seen Peregrin’s falcon since the beach, and knew the huntsman must have traveled away from the cliff in pursuit of the carriage. He was certain now that the Duchess Miranda was inside that carriage, and that she was at the core of all of the evil doings that had transpired of late. The question still remained: Why? What reason could this mysterious Duchess have for hiring the demented Sleeth’s to abduct innocent children in the kingdom? Why did she employ the dreadful Southlander’s and the ogres? And there was something that Feril had said in the conversation that Harwin overheard, something about needing more, about having to kill the children they had taken. Miranda had been stockpiling the abductees, and now wanted a new batch, but for what?

  Rothar shook his head to clear the fog of fatigue. He felt that if he were not so exhausted, he could solve the puzzle.

  At long last, the men reached the top of the cliff. Baelzpass was a distance off yet, beyond the village of Twistle, and there was not a soul in sight. Peregrin’s falcon was also nowhere to be seen. They rode ahead on a path lined by brambles and thorny trees. The winds here were as fierce as they were on the passage, and the constant whistling of the wind through the thin branches gave the whole landscape a haunted feeling.

  After a short time, they reached a fork on the road. No signs marked the pathways branching off, but Rothar spotted something not far down the left path. A twig had been snapped on an overhanging branch, but was left hanging, rather than broken off. Peregrin.

  The huntsmen often marked their trails in the Banewood in just such a way. Whenever a change of direction was made, a hunter would break a twig on a branch pointing in the direction of travel. This made it easier to find one’s way back out of the forest, but in it’s subtlety was a nearly impossible trail to track for anyone else - unless they knew what to look for.

  “This way,” said Rothar. Harwin did not question his friend’s judgement. He had seen him be right far too many times, so he merely followed along without comment.

  At one low lying point, where the trail was soft with mud, Rothar could make out the deep imprints of the carriage wheels. He was glad to see that they were indeed on the right path, however, the other tracks in the soft earth made him more uneasy. The carriage tracks were nearly completely obscured by the hoof prints of at least a dozen horses. Rothar hoped that Peregrin was behind the troop of horsemen, rather than between them and the carriage. He had little doubt that the riders were Southlanders. At this point, anything else would come as a surprise. The pair quickened their pace.

  Having left all of his arrows within the ogres back in the King’s City, Rothar knew he would be obliged to stick to close-quarters combat for whatever lay ahead. Spotting the spiraling tendrils of a Quietus vine along the trail, he paused to baptize the dagger given to him by Esme in the deadly tears of the plant.

  He opened his hand and looked down at the elegantly carved pommel in his palm. The open rose blossom at the pommel bore so much more meaning to him now than it had when Esme had given him the weapon, just a few very long days ago. The beauty of life was so intertwined with the necessity of death and those who brought it to the evil and unjust. He saw the vines she had carved into the handle, intertwined with human bones, and wondered if she had meant for them to resemble Quietus the way that they did. Deadly at just a touch. Instant mortality.

  The pathway rose as the riders climbed a lofty hill through the brambly wood. Soon, wooden statues of fierce looking wolves appeared at intervals along the road, and the lights of the town of Twistle appeared far below the hillside. Beyond Twistle was nothingness, just the thin air above the King’s City, through which the Lupine Rain had fallen so long ago. The wolves erected along the pathway were placed there as a reminder of the great deed that the huntsmen had done for the village, and as a warning to any who would enter the city and wish to do harm.

  Continuing past Twistle, Rothar and Harwin entered a thicker and darker wood. The brambles and thorny trees gave way to massive black oaks and jagged pines. The road narrowed to a width scarcely wide enough for a carriage, and the canopy overhead wove together and created a darkness not unlike that of the Banewood. Birds of prey called out in the overarching branches and perched on drooping vines, watching the riders with curiosity.

  A lone bird streaked through the shadows high above and dove downwards, spiraling towards Rothar and Harwin. Rothar raised his forearm and Peregrin’s falcon landed gracefully upon it, digging it’s talons firmly into his cloak and beating it’s wings twice more, before settling.

  “This must be your friend’s bird,” Harwin said. “What news does he bring us?”

  Rothar removed a small piece of parchment tied around the falcon’s leg. Unfolding it, he read: “200 devils. Manor at Baelzpass. Meet me 200 yards west of house. Be careful.”

  “Two hundred Southlanders?” said Harwin in disbelief. “Why such an army?”

  Rothar folded up the note and put it in his pocket. “Because she knew we would be coming.”

  Chapter 25

  Proceeding cautiously through the ancient woods, the pair of riders moved off the trail and guided their horses carefully though the trees. The hoof prints on the road had increased in number and looked more fresh, and the forest noises were eerily absent. Rothar had decided that it would be more prudent to leave the pathway as they came nearer to the manor.

  Shortly, the towers of Miranda’s Manor came into view through breaks in the treeline ahead. Harwin and Rothar angled to the west and moved in silence, following the flight of the falcon high above them. Eventually, Rothar heard a twittering bird call coming from a grove of trees ahead. They made their way over to the grove to find Peregrin crouching in the foliage, nearly invisible.

  “I see my message found you well,” he whispered.

  “Indeed. What have you been able to see?” Rothar asked.

  “See for yourself,” Peregrin answered, and gestured towards a berm at the edge of the grove. Rothar and Harwin crept up and peered over the edge. From this vantage point, they had a fantastic, elevated view of Miranda’s Manor and it’s grounds. The property was beautiful, sprawling, and absolutely crawling with Southlanders.

  Mercenaries stood in formation at every corner of the grounds and drilled in the courtyard. Sentries were posted everywhere along the wall and in every tower. In the middle of the massive courtyard, a roaring bonfire was burning in the center of a large ring of stones. A Southlander arena.

  The arena was empty at the moment, but even from a distance, Rothar could see that the space had been heavily used. Set in the middle of a grassy lawn, all greenery had been worn away within the circle, leaving only hard-packed, black earth.

  “Any sign of the children?” Harwin asked Peregrin.

  “Not yet. But it certainly seems like the bastards are guarding something. I have never seen so many men at the Duke’s Manor. He certainly is cautious.”

  “Not cautious enough,” said Rothar. “Harwin here snuffed him out in Castle Staghorn.”

  Peregrin raised his eyebrows and look
ed at the big blacksmith. “You killed a duke in the King’s Castle, and yet here you stand?” He nodded towards Rothar. “You must be very well connected.”

  At that moment, a horn sounded from the grounds of Miranda’s Manor. The three men looked back over the berm.

  A double row of soldiers formed a corridor leading from the gaping mouth that was the front gate of the main house, to another part of the mansion. A thin tendril of small figures, cloaked in white, began to emerge. It was the children.

  They were timid, trembling, and prodded along by a pair of Southlanders with staffs. When the children were all out of the great house, Rothar estimated that they numbered a dozen in all.

  Forcibly marched to a smaller squat structure, Rothar saw them lined up in a neat row. Exiting the structure was the Duchess Miranda. She was dressed in a long black cloak, with strange symbols on the sleeves and around the collar. She carried a short, curved blade that also had the strange symbols engraved on the steel. Rothar felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he watched her.

  She inspected each of the children, peering into their hoods to look at their faces. She seemed to pause in front of a young blonde girl, and another with raven hair. After a moment, she grabbed the blonde girl by the wrist and dragged her into the building. Shortly after, a high pitched child-like scream of terror was heard by all three men. Even the Southlanders turned their heads away.

  When the remaining children were marched back towards the main house, a gust of wind blew down the hood of the raven haired girl, and Rothar saw it was Esme.

  Chapter 26

  It took all the might of both Rothar and Peregrin to prevent Harwin from charging headlong down the hillside. As soon as the big blacksmith saw his daughter, he leapt up onto the berm and would have bounded all the way down onto the manor grounds had Rothar not caught him by an ankle and dragged him back under cover. He had nearly bitten Peregrin’s finger off when the huntsman tried to cover his mouth to stifle his calls of “Esme!”

  Once they had calmed Harwin, the trio began to hastily discuss ways to enter the manor and extract the children. Harwin was newly energized with hope, now knowing for certain that his daughter was still alive, although the conditions in which she was living were a cause of great alarm to him.

  “What did that bitch do to that girl?!” Harwin exclaimed.

  “Nothing good,” said Peregrin.

  “There's no time to waste,” said Rothar. He didn't want to voice his suspicions, but he suspected they had just witnessed some sort of blood rite or sacrifice.

  Rothar didn't know how much time they had, but gravely apparent to them all was the fact that there were two hundred Southland killers guarding the children, and there were only three of them.

  “But what of the words of Feril?” asked Harwin. “He said to have the devils kill the children they had here.”

  Rothar looked down again upon the green grounds of Miranda’s Manor. The dirty brown arena was now nearly empty, the last of the warriors were filing back into the unknown depths of the massive house.

  “He may have wanted the children killed to save them from whatever monstrous act Miranda is performing,” he said. “We don't know who he was talking to back at the Castle. In his own twisted way, he may have been trying to protect them.” Rothar thought that Harwin, in his rage and haste, might not have even heard the Duke correctly. He left unspoken the fact that they would never know what Feril intended. Rothar looked at the forest around them. “We should find a higher vantage point, in case there is a roving patrol. We will make our plot once we know we are undetected.”

  The trio remounted their horses and began to ride higher into the hills to the west of the manor. Suddenly, Stormbringer pulled up so abruptly that the other two horses nearly ran into him.

  “What is it, boy?” Rothar whispered. He could see nothing in the woods around them. The only sounds were birds and the wind still rushing through the trees.

  Stormbringer stomped and scraped at the dead leaves that covered the ground in front of him. Rothar noticed a long mound in the foliage and dropped to the ground to investigate. Moving the leaves aside, he found a boot. The boot was attached to a leg, and the leg was attached to the rest of a very dead man. The man had been dead for a few days, probably less than a week. The cause of his demise was clear. Two arrows with red flights stuck out of his back.

  By the markings on the arrows, Peregrin could ascertain that they belonged to a high ranking member of the Southland guard employed below. This man must have happened too close to the manor and been shot down, then fled. The Southlanders either were not able to find his body, or they had not tried.

  Rothar took a length of rope from Stormbringer’s saddlebag and tied it around the dead man’s ankles.

  “Whatever are you doing that for?” inquired Harwin. “Why are we wasting our time burying a dead man when my daughter is down there, with who knows how many other children, being held by the devil’s own spawn?!”

  Rothar looked up at his friend. “We are not having a funeral, Harwin, not for this man or anyone else. This poor chap is coming with us because of what I am hoping he may be able to tell us.”

  Neither Harwin nor Peregrin said a word, but shared a look with one another that conveyed a concern that their deadly friend may have exhausted himself to the point of madness.

  Rothar saw the look, but cared not. He did not want to share his plan for this man at this point. In fact, he did not relish the thought of carrying it out. If his plan worked, it would not only be a harrowing experience for all three men, but it would also serve as salt in a wound for one of them.

  Chapter 27

  The three riders found a spot high in the hills that was thick with elderberry bushes and fallen tree limbs. There was a small clearing in the middle of the thicket where deer had been bedding down. From the clearing, the men could stand and see the manor grounds far below, but still be completely concealed when crouching. The hiding place was far enough from the enemy to be well out of earshot.

  Rothar propped the dead man up against a tree trunk. The poor fellow was dressed in rags, and his knobby elbows and knees protruded from holes in his garments. There were festering spots where animals had gnawed at his rotting flesh, and one of his ears was gone. The smell was abominable. Harwin and Peregrin protested Rothar’s bringing him along once again.

  Rothar gently opened the man’s eyes with his hand. The dull gray pupils stared blankly off into the wood.

  “He must have seen something,” Rothar said, “or he would not be in such a state.”

  “Perhaps he did,” argued Harwin, covering his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. “But he isn’t much good now, is he?”

  Rothar said nothing, only withdrew the dagger that Esme had made him and looked apologetically at Peregrin. The huntsman stared back at him, uncomprehendingly at first, but then a look of realization crossed over his face as he stared at the blade. He turned away.

  Rothar turned back to the corpse and, kneeling, carefully slid the blade in between the man’s ribs, near his heart.

  Instantly, the dead man drew a great, ragged breath and something resembling life lit his gray eyes. His arms, stiffened by rigor mortis, lifted from his sides and his bony fingers grasped at the air in front of Rothar’s face.

  Harwin shouted and stepped back. “Dear god! He’s not dead!”

  Rothar turned to his friend. “He was.”

  The look in the man’s eyes was one of absolute horror. After a few long, rattling breaths, he found his voice again and let loose a bone chilling scream that sounded like it came from the very depths of hell.

  Harwin and Rothar clamored to cover the reeking man’s mouth while Peregrin remained at a distance, his back turned to the whole scene with apparent indifference.

  “It is alright, no one is going to hurt you!” Rothar repeated over and over, until the man calmed enough for them to release him.

  It seemed at first as though the man wis
hed to rise and run away, but his legs did not cooperate. The poor fellow looked down at his wasted limbs and moaned and wept.

  “What new hell is this?” he cried out. His wracking sobs were dry and no tears came from his eyes. A beetle crawled out of his mouth and scurried down his chin. He did not seem to notice.

  “This is not hell. You are alive,” Rothar replied.

  The man’s eyes darted about and he took in the faces of Harwin and Rothar, examining them suspiciously. He saw Peregrin with his back to him and asked, “Why won’t he show his face? Is he a demon?”

  Harwin looked at Rothar in confusion, but answered, “Nay, no demons here. You are safe.”

  For a moment, the man seemed relieved, but then suddenly aware of his pain. He looked at the places where creatures had chewed through his flesh, leaving exposed bone. Living blood, pushed along by his revived heart, began to ooze out of the wounds. The weeping resumed.

  Rothar realized that the man would bleed to death shortly if they did not treat him. He felt stupid for not binding the wounds before reviving him, but he of course had no experience in resurrecting the dead and dismembered.

  “Harwin, help me stop the bleeding.”

  The two men set to work, tearing off strips of the man’s threadbare clothing in some areas to bind gaping wounds in others. The undead soul groaned and cursed but did not protest, and even managed to thank them at intervals when the pain was not too great.

  Rothar was toiling at binding the spot where the man’s left ear had been, much to the discomfort of the former corpse, when suddenly Peregrin smeared a handful of chewed leaves onto the bleeding wound. No one had noticed that he had moved.

  “This will ease your pain,” Peregrin said to the man, with no small amount of pain in his own voice. “Now we must ask you to remember some things from before you went into the awful darkness.”