She broke my concentration, “We must flee.”
I glanced back and forth and saw no trace of the oak and iron chest from the top of the carriage.
“Your moneys are still hidden on the cart, are they not?” She nodded stiffly, and so I shook my head, “We will never make it out of the castra with that cart.”
Aelia stared at me with all the self importance she could muster, “We must have it.”
“You may be safe, good Lady, but such an action may provoke them to kill one or more of us in retribution.”
She thought for only a second before setting her jaw and thrusting it out, “Death is not the worst of evils.”
I almost said something biting and snide about her risking death before making that determination, but the look in her eyes stopped me. There was so much life inside them, so much strength, that I was stunned into silence. She was beautiful beyond any words. I glanced at Gelia, but she was looking at her Lady, face as awed as mine. Rage beyond measure welled up inside me, focused inward as a pillar of fire, yet I still gathered myself to my feet and stretched out muscles still tight by the day’s exertions. I brusquely walked to her dinner plate and liberated the small knife from the remains of some cold roast. Even now she couldn’t trust me to work unmolested, “Crow, what are you doing?”
I crossed to the wall and set the knife blade between the rough logs. With a few sharp taps, I had a chink in the mud, and then in the snow beyond, too, showing a world of black night and white ice.
I am letting you win. I thought, anger from my own personal forge licking at my face in punishment.
“I am getting ready.” I said.
“Getting ready for what?”
“I’m going to kill them all.” I turned from the wall and glanced at her luggage, “Do you have a white cloak?”
But the answer was as I feared, “No, but Gelia does.”
The old woman looked horrified, but still she stood and took off her cloak and thrust it at me in one, swift motion. A quick examination saw that the back was decorated with the holy symbol of her order, but the lining was untouched, though slightly dirty, white. It was perfect. I took a deep breath, reversed it, and slung it over my shoulders. My skin crawled to be so near anything having to do with her, but it was wholly necessary to have any chance whatsoever.
Still, it was time to go.
I turned to stare meaningfully at the fire as my plan coalesced in my head. Then I looked upward to the hole in the ceiling where the smoke escaped. Of course there was a hole in the ceiling. Where else would the smoke escape? At the same time the Lady was the important member of the party, and she was dwindlingly unlikely to climb out of a hole and then race across a frozen landscape without supplies. Still, there would likely be a guard nearby. I closed my eyes and ran the odds again, and again, liking the answer I got less and less each time.
The worst thing was how hard O’Conner’s bastards were trying to make this. If some syphilitic bard were telling you about this, I could have pled sickness to the guard, or screamed of fire, or needing to make water. Unfortunately the doors were nailed shut and there were no guards to beguile. I guess, as a hero, I could have crashed through the barracks rough-hewn door with a sword in one hand, an axe in another, screaming a challenge for all to hear. Unfortunately, no sword, no axe, and no way my shoulder would make it through a door that was at least four fingers thick. I could have climbed out of the flue with a rope and grapnel. Of course O’Conner had not left me such heroic implements.
Instead I kicked the sleepers awake, we stacked Aelia’s trunks end on end, then I had the boys hold them steady. Without pause I clambered onto the top of one, then managed onto the top of the second. The chests jostled unsteadily as I straightened, extending desperate fingers that fell short of the hole in the logs above.
I jumped.
In stories the hero does not miss the edge of the opening fall to the side, barely miss the coals of the fire, and slam shoulder first into the hard packed floor. I on the other hand bit back a cry, shoved the tears into the deepest part of my soul, shook off helping hands, and gave it another try. The sensation of my palms clapping onto the edge of the rough hewn frame of the crassly primitive chimney would have been more satisfying if it wasn’t accompanied by a wrenching pain that traveled down my left side. The pain only intensified as I pulled myself up until my eyes were able to scan left and right. There was no crackling of ice beneath boots, no challenge, no axe cleft my skull, and that meant so far my plan was working (shoulder tackle of the dirt below notwithstanding).
The world was obfuscated by gauze curtains of blue and white. Water and ice, tumbling through the air in a lovers embrace until they shattered on the hard ground, freezing together into a singular sheet. It would be beautiful if it weren’t so cold, and trust me I would complain about it a lot more if it weren’t so necessary to my survival.
As would be expected, the army of three hundred built this place to house three hundred soldiers. O’Conner’s bastards had a unique problem: Leave the fortress and have no secure place to keep Aelia, or stay inside the fortress and be unable to man the walls fully. Luckily, the barbarian horde that had made it necessary to build the castra largely resided beneath two full strides of earth, or swung from trees encased in coffins of ice. So looking outward was not as much a problem. Add to that his brilliant idea of nailing the doors shut and leaving us no guard to bribe, fool, or coax and he had neatly turned the castra into our jail.
Still, though chances of an organized force attacking were small, O’Conner was a military man: Walls were to be manned. It was a sure bet that somewhere it was written soldiers on walls need light sources, and so it was. The chances were so small, however, that rather than lethal pairs, or difficult roving groups, they stood as exposed singles. So I marked four, miserable men, meandering on the walls near shuttered lanterns that did nothing to illuminate the world beyond and made them easy to spot. The closest was a mere twenty paces away. The path from the top of the barracks to the adjoining wall was clear. That was the end of the good news.
I stifled a groan and heaved myself up onto the sheet of ice that entombed the barracks. It didn’t crack, or crackle or creak. All heat was instantly sucked from my hands and the cloak became links of lead that almost toppled me back into the officers’ barracks. I got a foothold and climbed out onto the quickly building glacier, making sure the hood was up and staying flat. In seconds my whole front was soaked through with freezing water. Spreading the cloak out like the skirts of a warhorse, I began to more forward fingerlengths at a time.
Whether you are striking a man down in the heat of combat, shooting him from a distance, spicing his favorite wine with belladonna, or knifing him in the spleen: It is all the same. Murder is a matter of being prepared. That is all. You must be prepared to use every bit of equipment with no thought to its cost. You must be prepared to seize an opportunity with no warning. You must be prepared to strike with no mercy. When given no equipment, or opportunities, you have to be willing to make do with a white cloak, a sharp knife, five boys, and two pieces of luggage.
Normally it takes hours, sometimes days, to commit murder. Many times it only feels like it. But finally, finally when you get into position… Even when the target turns at just the wrong time… Even when he squints into the gloom, trying to figure out what he saw, or smelled, or heard… Even as he steps out of the protective circle of light and stands within arm’s reach and waits and waits and waits… Especially when he looks too long and the breath you’ve been holding begins to poison your blood, and bright stars flash before your eyes… Even when he starts to look away and you exhale, making a cloud perfectly illuminated by the dregs of the lantern pointed away from you…
Even then you must be prepared to leap to your feet, ignoring the protesting of muscles that have been crawling, you must leap forward, even as the ice weighted cloak pulls at your throat, you must bat his panicked hand away as he instinctively raises his spear. Even wi
th all the darkness and sleet and pain and confusion you must bury your knife in his throat to cut his cry in half before it can gain more than a second’s worth of volume. You must do it, and do it quickly, but your job is not over.
Knifing a man just below the throat apple is certainly fatal. It’s just not quick. Until he finally dies from suffocating on his own blood he’s going to be fighting unless he’s lost his mind from fear, and then he’ll still be thrashing uselessly. If you were a particularly cold hearted rogue, you might rip his cloak from him and knock off his helmet. A really nasty customer would lever him over the wall, perhaps killing him with the fall, but definitely muffling the sounds of his gurgling fits as he bled to death in the cold and dark outside. But you’d have to be a special kind of bastard to relieve him of his dagger as you did it.
His body hit the hard packed ice as if it was stone, and the muffled crunch barely broke the silence. I flung the guard’s cloak over my own, popped the helmet on my head, and sniffed as I tested the edge of his dagger with a thumb.
Then, heart pounding, I retraced the soldier’s four fatal steps back into the ring of light as if nothing at all had happened. I glanced back and forth, but it was too far to see faces, too far to do much more than read body language, and if any of the other guards were interested in me, they hid it well. I moved the lantern to a hook closer to the outside of the wall and set the shutters to project the light fully outwards. Then I moved out into the darkness, ditched the helmet and cloak (minus a thick strip) out over the wall and began creeping to the next island of light.
Fourteen more to go.
Out across the grounds there was a stable, and three barracks. One was where the carriage party now waited. One of the others contained the grunts. The last would doubtlessly have O’Conner and maybe a lieutenant or assistant. Which was which? That was a problem for later.
Stupid soldiers brag that they can sleep standing up. They just borrow two or more cloaks, bury themselves deeply into the folds, lean on a spear, and doze. I bet it makes getting up for inspection much easier. If you wake up.
Yes, I still crept up on my stomach. Yes, I moved like a star stuck in the heavens. Yes, I only took short breaths, through a muffler made from a torn strip of cloak to diffuse vapor from my lungs. From the Fog, chilly words whispered in my ear, The moment you cut a corner, it will leave an edge sharp enough to slit your throat. I shuddered. The unfamiliar voice was colder than all the winters throughout time.
It was almost anticlimactic when I checked that the other two men on watch were faced away, then slapped my hand over his mouth and rammed the thick, dull blade of my stolen dagger deep into the base of his skull.
The blade ground against bone as it went in, and then thumped home against the front of his head. I lowered the body and flipped the shutters on the lantern to cast him in shadow. I left the dagger where it was, since brains have a powerful stink, and replaced it with one from his belt. He also had a sword, which I left as too cumbersome for stealthy work, but I did undo his belt. It was heavy duty leather strap that could be looped though the metal ring at the end and it was made to hold a sword steady while the soldier was running. It had a thousand uses, so I wound it around my forearm.
The next man turned his head at just the wrong moment, so instead of cold steel into the base of his brain, it skittered off his skull. He screamed once, before I shoved the dagger into his eye. It barely paused as it broke through the thin bone behind the gelatin orb and entered his brain, but he didn’t stop fighting until I twisted it once. I heard a cry, looked up, and saw the guard thirty paces away on the last wall running along the crude parapet.
I took a chance, and left the dagger to plug the hole in the corpse’s skull and dumped him into the parade grounds. I faded back under cover of the white cloak, flat against the ivory ice as I unwrapped the belt from my forearm. The soldier’s boots thumped against the frozen carpet as he flew through the pool of light thrown by the lantern. He blinked, slightly dazzled as his eyes flew straight over me. He finally glanced over the edge of the parapet at the dark corpse of his comrade highlighted on the snow below.
The quick look became long as he leaned out to look at the body spread eagle on the ice sheet. His lips quirked up in a smile for a heartbeat as his mind worked out the chances that the guard had gotten sleepy and simply slipped off of the edge. About the time his eyes adjusted so that he could see the halo of blood staining the snow and the dagger protruding from his eye, a thick leather belt looped over his head. He jerked back, dropping his spear and clutching at his sword when I went right past him over the edge.
It was only two man-heights to the ground, hardly dangerous at all. I landed easily, absorbing the shock with my legs, fate and chance kindly bypassing the opportunity to twist my ankle or break my shin. My next victim, however was pulled by his neck, and he absorbed the shock of the fall with his face. There was a sound like the first bite of a crisp apple, and then his head flopped bonelessly.
Eleven. I had murdered well, and my reward was a little bit of time. I stripped off Gelia’s cloak, and took the cloak, mail, sword, shield and helmet from the broken-necked soldier. Advantages of a bloodless kill.
Something inside the Fog sneered at the loud, snickering mail as I pulled it on, but older, wiser memories nodded sagely. The Fog parted for a moment, and a man built like a razor blade, with a face ravaged by pox leaned to me over a forgotten fire. Not all stealth is quiet. The ears hear danger in the unfamiliar, boy. If an ear is used to a creaking mill, no creaking will disturb the sleeper. If a delicate lady is used to hearing boots tromp past her door every hour, boots are a sound of comfort. Stealth is about learning to blend in, to be the color of the world around you, about making the sounds of safety and you will…
The memory faded into a shadow with no beginning and no end.
I walked calmly, slowly, like a man almost rendered witless by monotony. I made it to the stables, and opened the gates. It was abandoned except for Aelia’s chargers, her carriage, a pair of unremarkable workhorses, a wagon piled with military supplies, and O’Conner’s horse. I quickly found two wood axes, three large jugs of lamp oil, and the pegs from Aelia’s pavilion. I exited the stables, walked the walls to collect the lanterns, and made for the barracks.
Of the three buildings, Aelia’s let out only a trickle of smoke out of the top. The second on the opposite wall vented a great deal of smoke, but the one in the center looked like a volcano. I was willing to bet that the center, the most protected, the seat of power, was where O’Conner was staying. It had probably been inhabited quite recently by a general, and that most of all would appeal to him. So, I headed to the western barracks building, carefully set down my burdens outside, and took out twelve wooden pegs.
Then I walked in like I owned the place.
Inside, everything was as expected. My thick boots and jingling mail blended in with the sound of men snoring loudly on too-thin military pallets and under too-few military blankets, snide voice inside quoting sagely, The reason the military want you to be able to sleep under the worst conditions is they expect you to. In the center the fire pit burned low. My eyes swept over the men, marking half the beds filled; Ten men total. I walked right through the center of them, right to the door on the other side. I stopped by a small wooden box in the corner and flipped open the lid. As expected, there were handfuls of twigs, shaved wood: Tinder of all types.
A voice came from the blankets to my left, “Whatyoudoin’?”
I coughed twice and pitched my voice low and gravelly like a man with a cold, “Lamp’s out.”
But the blankets were already snoring again.
I made a basket of the stolen cloak and filled it with all the tinder. Hands sweaty, heart racing, I exited the barracks quickly, to hold in the heat, keep them comfortable. Outside, I began sticking the wooden stakes into the cracks at the edge of the door. I could not risk hammering them in, so instead I gripped the edges and pushed as hard as I could. Desperate men
have desperate strength, so I used many more than were probably necessary. Then I went to the bundle and carried most of it, with the lanterns and shield, to the roof, leaving only the two wood axes and four stakes behind. Once I was back to the ground. I picked up the first axe, set a stake in the door jam, turned the axe around, then quickly and gently hammered the stake home. I got the second one done. At the start of the third, an irritated voice whipped through the wood. “What the hell is that banging!”
With one stroke I drove the third one home, then followed with the fourth.
“Thomorgon take you and Amsar judge you himself! If you don’t stop that I’m going to come out there an’ arrange it personally!” I reversed the axe again, drew back, and planted it with both hands, clefting the lintel and door and wedging them together. A body slammed against the door. It held. “What the hell?”
I ran to the other side. I drove the pegs on that side, the very first just as a body slammed into the door. As they pounded on the door, I finished the others off and planted the second axe.
An argument started inside the barracks as I ran to the roof. Bodies began shouldering into the spiked door as I carefully edged out onto the ice and threw the bundle of tinder down onto the fire. It flared menacingly and shouts turned into yells and less manly sounds. Next, I ripped the tops off of three of the lanterns. I dumped them unceremoniously down the hole onto the fire, which flared higher. I heard someone trying to beat the fires out with a blanket, so I began dumping the jugs in next, eliciting screams from everyone inside. Bodies threw themselves even harder against the doors. The light and noises from inside the building brought to mind a pit of hell even before I slammed a dead soldier’s shield down over the flue and staked it in place with a dagger.
Remember this; While all people talk about is the bright murder of the fire, it is the creeping black smoke that is the real assassin.
I Know Not: The Legacy of Fox Crow Page 9
