The Misbegotten (An Assassin's Blade Book 1)

by Justin DePaoli

  Suddenly, a voice blared from behind me. “Back from the dead!”

  The hairs on my neck sprung to their feet. I spun around and shook my head in disbelief. “Never felt better,” I said.

  Wagging a skin of wine and swaying happily, Vayle approached me with the smile only a drunk woman can offer. She slapped my cheeks. “Look at you. Alive! Did you convince those flaming birds to bring you back?”

  A harrowing pang needled my head. Pressing on my temples and grimacing, I said, “Something like that.”

  Vayle put her hand on my shoulder. “Astul? Are you all right?”

  Something’s wrong with me, I thought. But that wasn’t what I said. What I said, with the conviction of a priest declaring his god is just and true, was, “I feel fine.”

  And the pain vanished.

  But the faint perception I was suffering from emotional malaise did not.

  The Black Rot’s second-in-command stood before me — my best friend stood before me — and I was forced to feign a smile. Relief and joy should have washed over me, but there was nothing. Just a cold, unmistakable emptiness.

  Vayle eyed me suspiciously. She seemed to sober up instantly. “What did they do to you?”

  “They imprisoned me. But I escaped. The Rots”—I paused, feeling compelled to do so for effect—“they weren’t so lucky.”

  “They understood the risks,” Vayle said. “And we’re still fifty strong. Those… things, they didn’t take everyone.” She took a swig of wine. “Would you like to see them? I have them patrolling the wilderness, searching for conjurer spies.”

  The world around me spun sickeningly, tossing me into crushing consternation. Sundry worries proliferated in my mind — worries I couldn’t quite grasp or understand. It was as if a parasite was in there, rooting around, and suddenly came across something he found to be quite alarming.

  “That’s good that they’re alive,” I said.

  Vayle regarded me coolly. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

  I slapped her leather jerkin. “I just need a bath and to lie down for a while.”

  She tongued her cheek. “Right.”

  A woman in a stained dress walked past. Vayle grabbed her by the elbow.

  “Miss, please get this man a hot bath. He’s in desperate need.” Reaching into her pocket, Vayle produced a coin and offered it to the woman.

  She put her hands up and shook her head. “No, ma’am. That’s not necessary, promise.”

  “Take it,” Vayle said. “I don’t care how the Glannondils treat their servants; the Black Rot is a respectful bunch.”

  Unfamiliar generosity scooped the corner of the servant’s mouth up into an uneasy smile. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Vayle scrutinized me with narrow eyes, and then she turned and went off. I watched her until I couldn’t see her wobbly footwork any longer, which was the exact moment she slipped inside Braddock Glannondil’s tent.

  * * *

  Inside a vaulted tent, the servant helped me out of my clothes. She brought in cauldrons from outside and poured scalding water into a round copper tub sitting on casters.

  After filling it halfway, she guided me over like I was a wounded soldier incapable of finding my way. Steam undulated from the frothy water. I lifted my foot and cautiously dipped a toe inside. A scorching warmth shot up my leg and enveloped me in what was possibly the most relaxing sensation I’d ever felt.

  I settled into the copper tub, stretching out as much as the limited space allowed. The servant took a hard bar of soap mottled with bits of flowers and herbs and dabbed it into the water. Then she gently rubbed it up and down the front of my body. Dirt and grime and other unsightly filth washed away into the tub, muddying the water.

  She held my wrist in her soft fingers and rubbed the soap up my arm.

  “Smells divine,” I said, closing my eyes and inhaling the swirling steam into my lungs.

  She said nothing, although I imagined she was smiling and nodding along.

  When she finally did speak, her voice was soft and apologetic. “Sir, can you please lean forward? I must bathe your back.”

  I was going to explain that I was not at all a sir, but I figured what the hell? I’d roll with it and enjoy the pampering.

  So I leaned forward, and waited for her to smooth the tension from my shoulders.

  And I waited.

  And I waited.

  And I waited.

  Finally, she spoke. “Um. I am sorry. I… must get more soap.”

  She scampered out of the tent, arms flapping. Almost as if in a panic.

  That was mildly concerning, but hot baths have a way of making you forget about your worries and allowing you to enjoy the moment. And it was a fabulous moment.

  Until the servant returned with Braddock Glannondil and Vayle in tow.

  “Have your mothers taught you anything about privacy?” I asked.

  Braddock’s sword clangored against his armor. He knelt down beside the tub and threw a heavy hand into my shoulders, lurching me forward.

  “What the piss are you—”

  He stabbed a fat finger into my back, and I yowled as a searing pain burned my flesh.

  “Taken,” Braddock said, as if he was reading a page from a book. “Find L. Rabthorn.”

  Once again the world around me churned. Candles flipped upside down and waves rippled across the surface of the tub. Voices became muddled, as if their hosts were underwater.

  “Smarter than he looks,” Braddock said. “Get him up. Bind his hands and ankles, and bring him to my quarters. I’ll fetch Lysa.”

  Any control I might have had over my body was mysteriously wrested away. My body thrashed about as someone grabbed my arms and hoisted me out of the tub. My body snarled and kicked and cursed as they pinned me to the floor. My body spat and swore and swung my legs at them as they tied a rope around my wrists.

  My body did all of this, without conscious input from my mind. Something impelled me. Something controlled me.

  It is a terrifying feeling trying to scream, only to discover that whatever has invaded your mind has managed to mute your conscious voice. You do what it tells you to do. You show the emotions it tells you to show. You say what it tells you to say.

  A blurriness sealed over my eyes. When it dissipated, I found myself lying on a table, arms and ankles bound. A leather strap stretched tightly across my stomach, preventing me from rolling off.

  “You don’t have to do this!” a woman cried.

  “She damn well does,” Braddock said.

  “He’s right,” another woman said stoutly. “I would save everyone if I could. I know the terrors of it all.”

  She appeared before me, a familiar face.

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  I spat in her face, which elicited a solid fist punching itself squarely into my stomach.

  “Don’t do that!” she said. “It’s not his fault.” She leaned down and soothed a hand across my forehead.

  My body suddenly entered a calm and tranquil state.

  My eyes were closed, but still I saw her face. It came and went, returning for brief moments.

  A sense of weightlessness claimed me. Slowly, my mind drifted away. Far, far away, where neither dreams nor nightmares, neither worries nor pleasures could seize it.

  I fell into a deep, calm stupor, but I was strangely aware time was passing by. An awful lot of time seemed to pass me by when finally I could feel the warmth of my body once again.

  I awoke a different man. That is to say I awoke with the absolute impression I was Astul, Shepherd of the Black Rot, and not some imposter.

  But there was a problem. A woman was crying hysterically, bent over on the floor. She cradled a girl in her arms.

  Not just any girl, but Lysa Rabthorn.

  She looked dead.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Resting my weary bones in a Glannondil tent within a Glannondil war camp — now that was a scenario I’d quicker believe to be a
n inhumane method of inflicting the greatest pain possible than a reality that I gladly accepted.

  Globules of morning dew clung to the tips of brown grass I trudged through. The rays of the mango-colored sun sledded down from the barbed peaks of the Twin Mountains, flattening across the expanse of a pitted landscape that stretched for fifty miles or so, where the crushed rocks, dirty clay and choppy hills eventually mellowed into something less virulent in appearance. Although the brown grass that resulted wasn’t particularly eye-pleasing.

  I ducked into a small tent and nodded to Nilly Rabthorn. She did not look at me. She was sitting at her daughter’s bedside, wrinkled hand tightly grasping the young girl’s. Her eyes were withdrawn into dark, swollen sockets.

  What can you possibly say to a woman whose daughter saved your life and in the process almost killed herself? What can you say to a woman who wasn’t quite all there anymore? Probably the best course of action was to say nothing and wait to be spoken to.

  Nilly never looked up, but she eventually spoke. “The savant says she’ll make it. But… I wonder if she’ll have her mind. Or if she’ll be a husk. Like me.” She brushed a mollifying hand over her daughter’s head. “If Braddock had not found her… I’m sorry, but I can’t help to think that your mind was not worth saving. Not for this.”

  “If I were in your position,” I said, “I would probably agree with you. Tell Lysa when she wakes up that I am thankful.”

  Nilly fell silent again, and figuring our talk had been exhausted, I left her to mourn.

  Outside, Glannondil soldiers prepped for the long trek to… where exactly were they going? I headed to Braddock’s tent. Before popping my head inside, I announced my arrival, eager to avoid a scandalous situation in which the fat king was changing out of his trousers. I was not eager to wreck my mind so soon after regaining control over it.

  “Yeah?” Braddock hollered in response. “Well, get your ass in here, then.”

  Inside the tent, the king of Erior had his elbows on a table and his face sitting on his fists. He was looking at a map covered in rocks. A man who looked like he had a sword shoved up his ass flanked him.

  Vayle sat comfortably in a chair off to the side.

  “What are you planning to do?” I asked. “Attack them with rocks?”

  “He lost his war-planning pieces,” Vayle said. “So now we plan with rocks. Fascinating.”

  The man behind Braddock lifted his chin smugly. An outrageous mustache curled thinly beneath his nose, curved around his tiny mouth and shot straight out to his jaw. Sometimes you know precisely how a man will talk and act based on what’s growing from his face.

  “This is a war council,” he said. “Respect the proceedings.”

  “We’re not in Erior, Rommel,” Braddock reminded him. “Drop the act.”

  I went over to the table. “If you keep this charm up,” I told Braddock, “I might start to like you. Please don’t make me do that. By the way, thanks for, er — you know. That whole getting-my-mind-back business.”

  Braddock side-eyed me, gave a curt nod and then went back to his map. He tapped a rock with a nail that desperately needed trimming. “The gray ones are the Glannondils. The black ones — well, the darker ones — are the conjurers. These rocks with the white chalk are the Verdans. The vertical rocks are the Taths, and the pebbles here are the Danisers.”

  “This looks ridiculous,” I said. “And I’m not talking about your collection of rocks. Why are your people hugging the west coast?”

  Vayle rose from her chair. I hadn’t noticed how hungover she looked until she held her stomach and dry-heaved. Regathering herself, she said, “It’s the seventh alternate strategy. There are more to come.”

  Braddock backed away from the table in disgust, flinging his hands behind his head and sighing deeply. “We’re goddamned blind. Blind fucking soldiers marching to war in a headlong fog.” He picked something off the small table beside his bed and tossed it at my feet. “I assume this map you gave me is false.”

  I picked it up and gave it a look over. “I’d guess so. I remember very little about my mind being wrested from my control, other than it was an unpleasant experience. It’s unlikely the queen of the conjurers gives me her actual plans for war. What if they were to fall into the wrong hands?”

  “The queen of the conjurers?” Braddock asked, sounding concerned. “You met the bitch behind this movement?”

  I shrugged. “Met her? We’re practically best friends.”

  Suspecting everyone in the tent was now eating out of my hand, I channeled the power of an old storytelling grandfather and divulged everything I knew about the conjurers and the blighted land on which they lived. About their oh-feel-so-sorry-for-me story of how their lands were empty of game and how the rivers were drying.

  “Fuck up your world and go take someone else’s,” Braddock said. “Is that how it is? Why did they send you back? To lead me on a wild chase so they could conquer the other four families without my involvement?”

  “To kill you,” I said bluntly. “That much I remember.”

  Braddock crossed his arms.

  “Don’t be so offended,” I said. “It wasn’t my idea. Now, back to this war. We still have Lysa’s word that the conjurers intended to come through Vereumene and Edenvaile. Or would at least ignite the war from those two kingdoms. That’s what we should plan for.”

  “That plan’s as old as my grandad’s piss,” Braddock said. “I’ve talked to Lysa. That was the conjurers’ intention when they were set on her being the catalyst for this bloody war. They moved on from that a long time ago, when they tried fucking with me.”

  I grabbed a rock from the map, tossed it mindlessly into the air and caught it. “Then let’s force them back to that plan of action. Look, their entire scheme is predicated on a massive war between the great families. If we can pacify Chachant’s bloodthirst for you, we pacify the entire North and the East. That won’t stop the conjurers from attacking Mizridahl — they depend on our world for their survival — but it forces their hand. They’ll try to take both the North and South. The North because it’s always a hair’s width away from shattering into chaos, and the South because it’s already in ruin. Take your men south, and—”

  Rommel spoke up. “Vereumene is deserted. There are scores of factions appearing across the South with every report our scouts send, and Kane Calbid’s claim for the throne isn’t helping matters. It would be an impossible land to defend.”

  “Kane Calbid,” Vayle said. “Recruit him.”

  “The only way he helps,” I said, “is if Braddock promises not to interfere with his claim.”

  Braddock made the pouty face of a child who was just refused his third cake of the day. “I’m not enthused with the idea. Kane Calbid is a reactive man. It would be better to back the claim of someone who is calm. Level-headed.”

  “Someone whose strings you can pull?” I asserted.

  He glared me.

  “We don’t have the luxury to choose,” Vayle said, diffusing the situation. “If Kane provides his men, he and Braddock can hold the South.”

  “And the North?” Rommel inquired.

  Vayle walked around to the front of the map. “The North,” she said, picking up several rocks and placing them on Edenvaile, “is held by Dercy, Edmund and Chachant.”

  “Big assumption,” Braddock said, “that the three can rally their bannermen to fight a war against things most believe don’t exist anymore. We have little evidence to prove they do.”

  “Then let us do the job for them,” Vayle said. “Perhaps their bannermen won’t risk a war for something they cannot see. But they will for greater power. They will for a promise of a new title. They will for a promise of greater wealth. If that means removing the head on which a crown sits and shifting the seats of power around, then so be it. That’s what we do.”

  Braddock paced. “Assassinating Dercy, Edmund and Chachant would be—”

  “Brilliant,” I put in. “If y
ou can put aside your petty morals.”

  “It would be madness!” Rommel said, beside himself. “You could have five, ten… twenty claims for the throne all at once! It would be utter madness.”

  “Easier to clean up that mess,” I said, “than it would be to clean up our corpses after the conjurers sweep through. And in case you’re not aware, it’s quite impossible to clean up your own corpse.”

  “What of the West and East?” Braddock said. “I’ll be damned if they take Erior from me.”

  “They won’t want to,” I said. “They need bodies. The East doesn’t have many families who don’t swear allegiance to you and who haven’t already provided you with their battlements. The West is a little sketchier, but if they move in from Watchmen’s Bay or Eaglesclaw, they’d run headlong into either you and Kane or Chachant, Dercy and Edmund. Or whoever we replace them with.”

  Braddock poured a pail of water into a hollowed-out gourd. “It’s better than any damn plan I’ve come up with so far.”

  Rommel’s lips moved, but there were no words. A good boy knows when his advice is no longer wanted.

  “I’ll deal with Kane Calbid,” Braddock said, sipping his water. “I only have a contingent of the Red Sentinels here. The rest of them, along with my bannermen, are awaiting orders. I’ll send for them right away.”

  “Send Lysa Rabthorn back to Erior too,” I said, “where she’ll be safe. She shouldn’t be out here.”

  “Already had it in mind,” Braddock said.

  I turned to Vayle. “How many Rots do we have?”

  “Fifty-some.”

  “Let’s split them. Half go to Golden Coast, half to Hoarvous. They get to the highlords and promise them whatever they have to. You and me, we’re taking the North.”

  Braddock pinched a sputtering candle. “By yourselves? This isn’t a job where you assassinate some goatherd. You need to pull the entirety of the North together.”

  “I know just the man for that job,” I said. Letting Braddock hunger for the answer for moment, I then added, “Patrick Verdan.”