The orb she carried shed very little light, almost as sparing as the sea drake was in shedding its scales. He found two more that had been rubbed off on the cave walls, both of them slick and glistening with colors that chased themselves around the surface before disappearing, a wondrous sight.
At the edge of the illumination, he saw an arch of sea dragon color, an entire skin of scales, shed and lying limply upon the cave’s bottom, where light could barely reach it.
It could be worth a guildhall’s season. Perhaps even a king’s ransom. Enough that, if he were careful, he might pinch a scale or two to buy Maude’s freedom. He did not think of his own. The colors of this world spoke to him and, if he learned all that Lady Sea could teach him, he would have all the freedom he needed.
Cristane leaned into the crevice and reached for the skin.
A hiss cut across the cave. The arch heaved and slid about to meet him. Two golden eyes, pupils slit from bottom to top in onyx, opened upon him. He froze.
Far behind him, he could hear Lady Sea.
“Don’t move.”
That she’d heard, the sharp and whistling warning. “What do I do?”
“Nothing. Be still. Quiet. If it comes closer, put the fish out and try to back away and go still again.”
He thought it might attack anyway. The hissing went higher in pitch. The golden eyes fastened on him, then gave a long and slow blink. He could see two of the drakes. No. One. Its scales hung about it oddly. Cristane stared at it before realizing it had begun to move forward, slowly, pulling its new body out of its old. They had caught it in the midst of a shedding. Cristane had been raised in the slums, but he knew about the skins. He had seen them hanging from merchant stalls in the great market, trophies from immense serpents in faraway lands, though not dragons. They might adorn ladies’ hats or the belts of fine gentlemen or any other uses. But these … these he knew held a magic he could not imagine or calculate.
Hand shaking, he reached back and liberated a fish from his net, shaking it loose from the four scales he’d already found. He hesitated, wanting to throw it, but thinking that unwise. Instead, he took two steps forward, a long pause between them, and put his fish down, stepping back just as cautiously.
The beast whistled at him. He tilted his head, wishing he had a talent, like Maude, to whistle back, because it sounded like a question, one he wanted to answer. The drake shuffled after him, with grunts and low mutters, attempting to pull the old skin off itself, a birth as difficult as any he’d ever heard. He retreated again, to give it ground.
“Careful, lad.”
“It’s shedding, Lady Sea.”
“Poor timing on our part then. It will do whatever it must to protect itself. It is more vulnerable now than at any time in its long span. Come away, for your life’s sake.”
“I gave it a fish.”
“Which will do little good if it decides it is in peril. Return to me, slowly, and we’ll leave.”
“No.” Cristane swallowed tightly. “There’s a whole skin here. Or will be.”
“No good to us if we’re dead, as useless as it will be to the drake. Do what you are told if you wish to keep that new sash of yours.”
Cristane looked at the fortune upon the sea cave floor. Would it be there if he came back or would the tide suck it out and swallow it down forever? He could have all he wanted or could ever think he wanted. Everything in one night’s work. His fingers twitched, reminding him that they were empty. He’d left his spear embedded in the sand and pebbles, with Lady Sea.
The sea drake nodded its head downward and he could see the glint of many pointed teeth as it opened its jaws to take up the fish. He could also see that his lady had been lucky to receive only a jagged scar, instead of losing an arm to another such beast. He wondered what such a wise woman had done to gain such an injury. It surely had been nothing as foolish as what he was about to do.
Like a cat with great glistening scales and long dark whiskers, the drake settled down and bent its head over the fish, picking its flesh off bones delicately and swallowing it down, golden eyes intent upon the prize. Even as Cristane watched, the light thrown by Lady Sea’s orb faded considerably and the beast blended into the night dark of its cave. With that, he could feel his hope being torn away.
Cristane pulled the last fish from his net and plunged forward, startling the drake. Its hiss boiled like a kettle in his ears. He could hear the smack of its jaws opening and smell its breath as it jerked toward him. He reached for where he thought its lose flap of skin hung and stabbed the fish forward into the teeth raking the air in front of him.
His hands burned like fire, ragged edges of the scales catching him. Cristane clamped his mouth shut on the pain, reeling up the object and tugging it free, hearing the drake roar in pain and loss, choke a little on the fish in its maw, and then give a bellow as he tore the skin from its body.
It gave way and he fell backward, tumbling over rock and shell as the drake struck, but Lady Sea stood there, spear in hand. She bellowed back at the beast as teeth clashed against the spearhead.
The sea drake reared back, readying to strike, fresh, raw scales glittering in the faint light of her orb.
“You know me,” she said lowly.
The sea drake gave a faint whine.
Cristane started to crawl away, hauling the skin with him, as his hands blazed with agony and his face grew wet with tears. His prize made a slithery noise and the drake’s head whipped around to track him.
He got to his feet between Lady Sea and the beast. She lunged with her spear to repel it, and advanced, pushing it back and back, her breath wheezing as loudly as its hissing. She would fall there, he thought, covering for him.
His mistake, his price to pay. He gathered the old scales to his chest, the skin covering him from chin to toe. Harsh, razor-edged … and tough.
The drake bit at him. He lashed back with an arm covered in scale, and it slashed an edge across the creature’s new covering. It thrashed away from him and towards Lady Sea. Cristane leapt, wrapping an arm about its sinuous neck, his weight bearing it away from her.
“Run.”
“Let it go.”
He tightened his arm about it, feeling the squish of the newly revealed skin against the hardness of its old armor, his face pressed against the sea dragon, and thought it would burn through his skull. It snaked its head about and their gazes met.
The ability to move fled him. Locked into place, he fell into the sea dragon’s regard. He could see … he could see a man sit at a table, pick up pen, and a book, and prepare to write. The paper held the likeness of the dragon blood pennant in the Guild hall … ivory fabric with hues running across it that were anything but light … colors that fled as soon as the writer put nib to the surface. The man began to scribe words that turned Cristane’s blood cold, and as he watched, the writer turned his head enough that Cristane could see who it might be, what the dragon blood pages could hold to the world’s joy and sorrow. Although the man’s cheek had been heavily scarred once, it had paled and could not disguise the identity. Cristane looked at himself. Beyond it, as if mirrored, another book being written, and then a third. None of them held a bright aspect. All of them sent a chill through him.
How could a thing that held the rainbow in its essence become so dark?
He saw the sea drake emerging from its cave, hesitant, perched on ocean rocks, flinging its wings out. It must fly, he realized, to live. It must go skyward, to free the rainbows of its existence.
Deeds, he thought, intent. The only thing that could free and lighten his own colors. He loosened his hold on the sea drake, its breath piping heavily through its throat, and yet bore it away from Lady Sea. He shook his dragon skin. “Your life,” he whispered to it, “for mine.”
The dragon closed his eyes, shutting away the vision of future Cristanes writing away. It lowered its head and he realized he had been dangling above the sea floor. His soles touched.
Lady Sea whispered,
“Come away.”
“When it knows me.” Cristane rubbed the back of the beast’s head gently, as he would soothe Maude whenever she cried. “Eat your fish,” he coaxed, “and let what you shed go, for you have no need of it, and I do.”
The beast groaned faintly and put its head down to the fishes, one spat out and one half-devoured, and snuffled at them. As it lipped at the carcasses, Cristane let go entirely and left it, trailing the skin behind him. His face felt as if a hot iron from the blacksmith’s forge had been laid upon him, and his hands wept blood sluggishly.
Numbly, his mind filled with what he had seen in the dragon’s eye, he followed after Lady Sea.
On the cliff’s edge, high above the tide once more, she took his skin and net from him and used her spear to dig a hole. Most of the skin went down in it, after she took another few scales.
“What …”
“A bounty, for later. Sowing a harvest we will reap more than once, while you learn.” She touched gentle fingers to his face. “And heal.”
* * *
He took a length of dragon blood cloth to the ladies’ House and asked for Maude. She refused to come. The scullery maid looked at him in sympathy.
“She has a patron,” the skinny young woman told him. “Already. He treats her as a cherished daughter. Would that I had that luck.” Her gaze flicked over his wound, raw as it still could be, but out from under bandages to let the air heal it. His look frightened a few people. Surely it had not frightened Maude.
A shutter clattered overhead and Cristane shot a look upward. He caught a glimpse of bright tresses withdrawing, but before the shutter locked tight, he heard her soft laugh. “Love and life to you, brother.”
He tucked his cloth under his elbow. As Lady Sea had warned him, she seemed to be seeking her own destiny. Cristane left her be. He had a trade to learn.
The Three Assassins
of Lord Slaughter
Anita Ensal
“I wonder what it would be like to run the city,” Lord Slaughter said thoughtfully during a House dinner. He wasn’t speaking to the entire room, just those sitting closest to him, so Lady Slaughter, who was at the other end of the long table, didn’t hear him.
His eldest son, Marco, shrugged. “Probably difficult, time-consuming, and boring, father.”
Marco’s best friend and Lord Slaughter’s First Lieutenant, Dean Hodos, nodded. “Marco’s surely right, my lord. But if anyone could run the city well, it would be you.”
Lord Slaughter smiled fondly. “You are too kind.”
The House of Slaughter’s newest assassin, Melissa Katano, shook her head. “No disrespect meant, my lord, but, despite assumptions, assassins tend to make terrible leaders. We don’t like compromise and we really don’t care for the idea of dealing with issues in daylight, particularly before midday. It’s why I left my home city and came here, after all.”
Lord Slaughter sighed. “You are most likely right, my dear. And I would not contradict your experience or impressions.”
Melissa looked thoughtful. “Yet … you, my lord, not only rose to the top of our Guild, but you did it at a remarkably young age. You have ruled us for many years successfully with no successors even wishing to attempt to usurp your seat. That was not true of any Guild in my home city and is not true of any Guilds other than ours here in Jannpar.”
Lord Slaughter chuckled. “That is more likely due to my good lady wife, Marco, Dean, and, these last ten years, yourself, Melissa.” He sighed. “The city is in disarray and our politicians do nothing. Guild houses are far better run, regardless of changing leadership. I wish …”
They waited, but Lord Slaughter didn’t continue. “You wish for what, father?” Marco asked gently.
Lord Slaughter shook himself. “Melissa is no doubt correct, as she so often is.”
Marco noted a tinge of regret and longing in his father’s voice. He looked down the table at his mother, who was laughing at something said to her. However, Marco felt the laughter was forced. His mother looked and sounded bored, though it was well hidden—just not from her eldest son, even at a distance. He turned back to Lord Slaughter. “Mother might enjoy the prestige, though.”
“And she might laugh at the mere idea,” Lord Slaughter countered. “No, it’s a passing fancy, nothing more. Nothing to even think about as you go out on your assignments tonight.”
They returned to casual conversation and their meals, but Marco didn’t listen to his father’s suggestion and instead pondered the idea of his father becoming the City Leader. He was sure that Dean and Melissa were pondering as well, and not just because the three of them outranked all others in the House other than Lord and Lady Slaughter.
That Marco was one of the top three assassins in the House wasn’t a surprise—his father and mother were both Master Assassins and they’d trained their children in the family business from birth. Marco’s younger brothers and sisters were all accomplished and, currently, all on assignment in other cities in the land. Marco, as eldest, remained in Jannpar in order to ensure that their parents were protected.
Protection of Lord and Lady Slaughter also fell to Dean, who was as enthusiastic about the charge as Marco. The House of Slaughter had taken Dean in when he was just a small, orphaned child living on the streets of Jannpar. They met when he tried to pick Lady Slaughter’s pocket. He didn’t succeed, but she was impressed with his attempt, seeing as the only reason she knew he’d gotten her purse was that Marco had spotted the lift and had, therefore, tackled Dean in the middle of the Night Market.
Normally, someone picking an assassin’s pocket would end up dead—either from touching an object prepared with poison or because assassins had rules, and one of them was to kill anyone trying to rob them. But, at age five, Dean had charmed Lady Slaughter—after she had separated the two boys, retrieved her purse, and determined Dean’s history—and he was brought into the House, where he and Marco quickly bonded and then went about beating up anyone older than them who was doing things they disapproved of.
Melissa’s rise in the house had been unprecedented. No one other than Lord Slaughter himself had risen in rank so quickly. The House was extremely picky about who was allowed to join, and most new recruits failed the tests of entry—most by dying, some by running away—even those who had been raised in the House as children. Melissa, however, had passed with highest honors. She’d even outdone Marco and Dean and, considering those two held the highest entry scores for House Acceptance, Melissa was impressive indeed. Lady Slaughter always said it was because Melissa was a woman and so was naturally more dangerous than any man could ever hope to be. Considering Lady Slaughter’s vast and successful record, no one argued this point.
After the meal was over, Dean parceled out the night’s assignments. Some of these would be long-term—where the assassin would have to stalk his or her prey to determine the best method of achieving the death requested—and were paid for fifty percent in advance. Some were faster jobs, where death was required but subtlety was not. Naturally, some assassinations were required to take place in the daylight hours, but most were done in the dark of night. Marco, Dean, and Melissa worked daylight as well as night, though not all in the House of Slaughter were allowed that rank.
But there were no daylight assignments, and Dean had determined that the few long-term assignments were dull, the quicker ones even duller, so had spared himself and his two closest friends the boredom. Meaning, ultimately, the three top assassins had nothing to do.
“Shall we wander the Night Market?” Marco asked once all the others had left for their night’s work.
“I can always get more jewelry,” Melissa said. She didn’t actually wear a great deal of ornamentation, unless a job called for it, but she liked the getting and having more than the wearing.
“One can never have enough knives,” Dean agreed. So, they headed out.
Assassins have excellent night vision, are trained in how to improve it, and there were spells that cost a gr
eat deal of money that enhanced it as well. The House of Slaughter was well-funded—every working assassin had the enhancement spell cast on them every fortnight. So the three assassins took no torches with them, meaning they could travel along as if they weren’t there, since assassins trained to walk in shadow as hard, if not harder, than they trained to see perfectly at night.
They walked along unseen for about a block before Marco spoke again. “Do you think Father meant it?”
“About ruling?” Melissa asked. Marco nodded. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “But he might just have been wondering aloud.”
“Couldn’t have a better ruler,” Dean said loyally.
“Can’t with the way things are,” Marco pointed out. “Father would have to offer himself up for the candidacy and you know he never will.”
“We could do it. Nominate him,” Melissa suggested. “It’s allowed.”
Marco grabbed their arms and pulled them into an alleyway. They did a quick perusal to ensure they were alone, then he spoke. “We could, but Father won’t do what’s needed. He’s afraid that Mother wouldn’t like the limelight.”
Dean snorted. “And I thought your parents knew each other well.”
Melissa looked thoughtful. “Lady Slaughter would never admit to wanting that much attention, but, after the career she’s had, she might enjoy it. She and Lord Slaughter never go out on assignment anymore.”
Dean nodded. “They tell me to ensure that the younger assassins get the experience. Though they both do keep their hands in.”
Marco shrugged. “They’ll never be better than the best, but even so, the best sometimes like a rest. And Father’s run the Guild well. I’ve looked into the records.”
“Not as closely as I have,” Melissa said. “I wasn’t saying it to gain favor—Lord Slaughter has run this Guild better than any other Guild in the land. And I don’t mean just assassins. I mean any Guild. He’s a natural leader and a wise one, too, and that combination is very rare.”
Guilds & Glaives Page 9
