Age of Assassins

by Rj Barker

  “I cannot do those things.”

  “Not yet, but you can do other things and …”

  “Magic.”

  “It is not what you think.”

  “I am a sorcerer?” It was as if my life stretched before me along a path of desiccated yellow lined with the corpses of the innocent, at its end was a swinging blood gibbet, door open, waiting for me—and it was as if I had always known this. Now she had said it I could not deny it.

  “Yes, We are sorcerers, Girton, if you must use that word.” She sounded so reasonable, as if she had not pronounced a death sentence on me. “And it is not the curse others would have you believe.”

  I took a step back, meeting the wall and sliding down it until I sat on the floor.

  “Have I ruined you?” said my master. “Leaving this so late? You must try and understand, Girton.” She slid from the bed and went to her knees, taking my hands in hers. “This does not change you. You are no more a monster than I am.”

  “Why doesn’t the land die beneath my feet?” My voice was as brittle as a tree in the sourlands. “When I whisper why doesn’t it affect anyone?”

  “Because it is a very small magic—” she sat back on the bed “—and we pay the land back with our blades. We follow an older way.”

  “You have trained me to be a …” my voice rising.

  “No,” she said softly. “There is no training. You were born with a gift. Your mother had it and you inherited it.”

  “You knew what sort of creature I am.” I breathed. “You knew all this time and you didn’t say.”

  “Yes, Girton,” she said gently. I took my hand from hers. “I knew. We are the same. Why do you think slavers raised you in the sourlands? It was because they feared you. They knew so little about magic they thought little boys could tap into the life of the land.”

  “We were all sorcerers there? All of us?” The information like body blows.

  “No, not all. Only you had the gift in any strength that day, Girton, but you were all the children of magic users or relatives of those with the gift.”

  “But how?” I felt like I was shouting but was unable to raise my voice above a hoarse whisper. “How can that be? The children and family of sorcerers all join the desolate. They all die, they all bleed into the land.”

  “No, Girton. The Landsmen are as corrupt as any other power in the Tired Lands. They find some harmless wise woman eking out her power to heal wounds or ease childbirth and lock her in a blood gibbet.” There was a quiet but forceful anger in my master’s voice. “Then they take all the adult relatives to join the desolate, but they sell the children off to slavers and line their own pockets. They send them far away and think that is enough to stop it ever coming back to haunt them.”

  “I thought you chose me for who I am—” I could feel my words turning into a sneer “—but you chose me for what I am.”

  “No!” She sounded desperate. Tried to grab my hand again but I pulled it free. “I was not there to recruit.” I stared into her face looking for a lie but found only pain and fear. “I chose you, Girton. I chose you. I saw a life about to be wasted and I could not bear it. I chose you.”

  I lifted my hands and stared at them. I half-expected them to burst into flames or leak poisonous black liquid. “I don’t want to suck the life out of the land, Master. I don’t want to be like the Black Sorcerer.”

  “Girton,” she said, holding my head in her hands and making me meet her gaze, “every day we are lied to. Magic is part of nature and it is no more evil than an angry mount or a hailstorm. It is a tool to use and those who misuse it do so because they lack discipline. You have discipline, you have been trained and trained well. You are no danger to yourself or the land. Nothing has changed, Girton.” She let a heartbeat pass. “You have not changed.”

  I could see how desperate she was for me to understand, but all I felt was betrayal. Everything I knew had been turned on its head. I was something terrible, and she had always known. She could have told me at any time but she had not. If not for Kyril’s death, would she ever have told me? Or would she have waited until I ripped a new souring into the land?

  “I’m tired,” I said. The words came out parched of emotion. My master nodded.

  “I understand.” She stood away from me, glanced back and then blew out the candle. In the darkness I curled up into a ball and, wrapping myself around a centre of anger and betrayal, tried to ignore the sound of my master quietly sobbing until she fell asleep. Far beneath, the world carried on. In the townyard the fires of Festival sparkled like a mirror of the cold stars in the night sky above. All indifferent to me, Girton Club-Foot.

  Girton the mage-bent.

  Interlude

  This is a dream.

  They are running. In the distance he sees Rufra. Following Rufra is his master. Following his master is Drusl.

  They run through the loose dirt of the sourlands and for every ten steps run they only make one step forward. They run hard but the land is against them. The stink of it is thick in their nostrils. On the horizon the sky is gold as if a huge fire burns beyond it.

  There are dogs behind them. Big dogs, small dogs, medium dogs, black dogs, white dogs, tan dogs and brindle dogs. All snarling. All barking. A roiling wave of sharp teeth and dripping saliva, eager to catch them.

  They are running. Not speaking, not able to speak. Only able to run. Only able to lift their legs and pump their arms but the ground gives way beneath their feet and the golden sky never comes any closer.

  He’s scared. Even though he knows this is a dream, knows it completely.

  Wake me.

  This. Is. A. Dream.

  Wake me, Master.

  He wakes. The room is pitch-black and his master is not there. He gets out of bed. Drusl is there but she doesn’t talk to him. She turns away. In front of her the corridor of whitewashed stone elongates and he feels like he’s falling. Rufra appears further up the corridor and from behind Rufra comes his master.

  The barking starts.

  This is a dream.

  Rufra runs, then his master and then Drusl. They don’t speak to him and he doesn’t speak to them. He wants to shout and tell them to run harder but the words are held in his mind the way the dry, dead earth of the sourlands holds his feet. For every ten steps he runs he only makes one step forward.

  Wake me.

  Teeth shine in golden light.

  Wake. Me.

  Snapping mouths splash saliva against his legs.

  Please, Master, wake me.

  He wakes. He is in the warm absolute black of the rafters of the castle. He reaches out but there is no one there. A torch bursts into life, golden light that shows Drusl, Rufra and his master. He is naked but he feels no shame. He looks over his shoulder and sees the dogs, a wall of dogs coming on impossibly quickly. He runs. The loose, warm, dead earth of the sourlands is trying to hold on to his feet. For every ten steps he runs he only takes one step forward.

  He realises he cannot escape.

  They’re not real! Wake! Wake!

  He stops. Turns. Spreads his arms as if to embrace another.

  Wake. Me.

  The dogs.

  A snapping, stinking, yapping, barking wave of furious animals. But there is no pain. There are no bites, no ripping or tearing or crushing. Instead he is lifted by them, buoyed up on a tide of heavily muscled canine flesh. The wave rises and breaks. He becomes dogs, and dogs become him. His arms end in sharp mouths. He sees through hundreds of glowing eyes. His body is a hunched, muscled mass of brindle fur. His legs are powerful and clawed. He is fast and dangerous and out of control.

  He shouts, but his voice is a hideous un-symphony of barks.

  Drusl is first.

  Jaw-hands rip into her under the golden light of the sourlands sun. She doesn’t scream, but he sees the agony in her eyes as he tears her apart. The sourlands sop up her blood. His master next. For all her arts and training she can no more avoid the dog beast than Drusl
—the sourlands soak her up as if she had never been. Then Rufra, who turns and stares as he bears down on him. In his hands he holds a flaming silver sword.

  Wake me.

  He is unstoppable.

  Wake me.

  This is a dream.

  Chapter 13

  I woke alone and scared. The idea I could somehow harness magic was ludicrous, I was Girton, born a slave boy. Had I dreamed the whole thing?

  It felt like it.

  A note written in scratch was pinned to the door.

  A souring, that was what she meant, but she was not foolish enough to put it in writing in case anyone found it.

  Thoughts of magic drifted into my mind like the bad smell that came when the winds blew from the sourlands. I pushed them aside but no thought can ever be truly banished. Like mice they always find some hole through which to creep back into your mind. I was glad when the bell of the waterclock tolled out time for training. I needed something to occupy me and hoped training would be the cat to chase away mice-thoughts of magic, but it was a morose affair that morning. News of Kyril’s death had left even those squires who disliked him subdued. When Aydor turned up, proudly showing off his scar, there was such a rush to hear his story that Nywulf called the session to an end early.

  “Come on,” said Rufra. “My desire to hear about the fight isn’t as strong as my desire to get away from Aydor. Let’s go to the stables.” Following Rufra, I glanced behind and saw Aydor talking to Borniya and Hallin and pointing in our direction.

  We had to detour around Festival. The tent city was now surrounded by miles of zigzag fences making enclosures for the livestock which would start flowing in from the surrounding countryside, not only the ubiquitous pigs but also sheep, goats and rare and expensive animals like cows. At its centre was a walled city of brightly coloured tents and caravans, and in the middle of that the two-storey Festival Lords’ caravans. Around them, like skeletons of dead mounts rising above a colourful grassland, were the frames for rides which would swing you up and out and round in terrifying circles.

  “Are you all right, Girton?” asked Rufra as we jumped over fences.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you seem out of sorts.”

  “Sorry,” I said, and tried to force a smile onto my face.

  “Is it Kyril’s death?”

  “I didn’t like him,” I said quickly.

  “Who did?” He shrugged and we walked in silence for a while. “Is it the first time you have been close to death?”

  “Yes,” I lied to my friend, and he put an arm around my shoulder.

  “The first person I knew who died was a servant called Danyl. He was a beast of a man—all the hall’s children were terrified of him. One day he fell over a loose cobble and broke his neck. I was nine and it unsettled me for days but not because I liked him—I didn’t—it was because it made me realise I could die. But you cannot change the way life is, Girton. You must carry on and do the best you can.”

  We jumped the last fence, finding ourselves on a well worn path thick with those about their daily business.

  “I suppose,” I said, and although it was magic not death that was my problem I realised he spoke the truth. Not that it helped much; I still felt like a sewer ran through me.

  “You should come to First of Festival with me tonight, Girton. That would take your mind off death.”

  “I am sleeping in the castle, Rufra, and the gates are kept shut to anyone who doesn’t have a pass.”

  “Do you have any money?”

  “Money?”

  “Yes. Look out for guards who wear something red. Most of them would rather Tomas was the heir. Aydor has not made himself popular. The captains hide it well—troublemakers are put into more loyal units or moved to a later shift where they are not seen—but they are there, and their numbers grow. So if you see a guard with a splash of red somewhere on them they will probably take a bribe.”

  The more I learned about Maniyadoc the more it seemed like a castle on the edge of tearing itself apart.

  “I do not know if I can afford a bribe, Rufra. I have money doled out to me and little of it.”

  He stopped and took hold of my arm, steering me into the shadow of the townwall and away from the steady stream of servants, slaves and Festival staff.

  “Here.” He put some coins in my hand. “That should be enough.”

  “Rufra, this is four bits, I cannot—”

  “You are my friend and the money is my uncle’s. It is a pleasure to give it away as he hates charity.” Rufra grinned at me, slipping into almost-handsome. “I will be to the right of the keepyard gate at nine. If you cannot get out you cannot. I will wait for half an hour.”

  “Thank you, Rufra.”

  “You need not thank me, but it would be nice if you could attempt a smile.”

  I tried but my mood would not lift. My mind could find a thousand worries but, curiously, not one was magic. Either it had some power of its own that would not let me examine how I felt or it was simply too enormous and frightening for me to confront.

  When we arrived at the stables Drusl was sitting on the ground outside, soaking up what little of the cold yearsage sun remained. She smiled as we approached and my mood lifted a little.

  “Is it true?” she said.

  “Is what true?” I asked.

  “Oh come on. The whole castle is talking about it. Kyril and Aydor were set upon by a hundred bandits and both have been hacked into pieces.” She was very grave, as if the whole idea left her puzzled and sad.

  “If only that were true,” said Rufra.

  “Kyril is dead,” I said. “The heir was hurt but not badly, and it was not a hundred bandits, merely a handful.” I tried to look past her into the stable. “Is Leiss here?”

  “No,” said Drusl and tried to smile. “He will not be back for an hour or so yet. He has gone to collect more fodder for the mounts before the stockers bring in their animals and the prices shoot up.”

  Rufra made an elaborate show of looking into the sky at the sun.

  “Oh, it is later than I thought. Nywulf will have more interminable lessons on tactics for me. I should be gone.”

  “You need not,” I said. I did not want him to feel unwelcome, though I wished, more than anything, to be alone with Drusl.

  “Oh, I think I need to,” said Rufra with a grin. “Nywulf has been in a strange mood recently and I don’t want to upset him any more by being late. You two have fun.”

  I sat on the ground by Drusl, leaving enough room between us so that another could have sat. The ground and the wall of the stables were acting as a sun trap, and though the air had a cold nip the ground was warm to the touch. We did not speak straight away, and for the first time that day my mind seemed to settle rather than constantly slipping and sliding around the idea of magic.

  “Did you know him well?” she said. “The boy that died, Kyril?”

  “Yes, well enough,” I said. I noticed she sat with her hands by her thighs, palms up in a slightly unnatural posture. I moved so my hands were by my side, palms on the warm ground.

  “He was fond of the whip,” she said. There was only four palm-widths between my hand and hers. “I often treated his mount for cuts, though it was a gentle animal and did not deserve them.”

  “He was that type.” I moved my hand, only a fraction, making it look like an accidental move, but it left me nearer to touching her hand. “He and his friends liked to throw their weight around. He once pushed me over in the castle just because he could.” My hand crept a little closer to hers, inching across the ground.

  “Be glad you’re not what he saw as attractive; his type often try more than a push.” My hand froze.

  “You?”

  “He tried, but Leiss intervened and said he would tell Nywulf.” My hand relaxed. “Kyril and his awful friends Borniya and Hallin came back. I hid in the loft while they gave Leiss a beating, which he seems to think should be the key to my kilts.” We sat quietly un
til she spoke again. “He threatened to find me alone one day.”

  “Leiss?”

  “No, Kyril. That does not mean I wanted him dead,” she added quickly. Drusl looked so miserable that I wanted to sweep her up in my arms and hold her close, but I was too cowardly. “Leiss is not as bad as he seems, you know,” she said. “He can be kind and I think he presumes that he and I will one day …”

  “But you and he will not?”

  I let my hand inch a little closer.

  “No. He thinks I will come round to him but …”

  My hand a little closer.

  “But?”

  “I’m different to him,” she said. “He says I can be content with him, but I want to be happy, Girton, not content.” She looked right at me. “However impossible that seems.”

  “Drusl …”

  “Why aren’t you working?” Leiss towered over us and the sun at his back turned him into a looming dark figure—it was as if Xus the unseen had suddenly appeared.

  “I was taking a rest, Leiss,” said Drusl, getting up.

  “With him?” He pointed at me.

  “He has a mount here, Leiss,” said Drusl. “He is allowed to be here.”

  “Aye, but that doesn’t mean he can stop you working. Those mounts need cleaning out.” He turned to me. “You might be blessed, but it don’t mean you can stop us doing our jobs just ’cos you ’as nothing to do. Now get off with you or I’ll ‘ave Nywulf find you some real work.”

  I stood with my fists balled. I wanted to beat Leiss down in front of Drusl, but that was Girton the assassin’s wish. Girton ap Gwynr would never have done that, so I walked away listening to snippets of Drusl and Leiss arguing: “Boy’s a yellower, he’ll only make you unhappy … Gods don’t allow our sort to rise … Spoilt blessed’s get … I’d be far better for you, Drusl.” Her replying: “Never. You can be my friend but nothing else … You’re not like me, Leiss … I need someone like me …” I wondered what she meant. With a sinking heart I realised it was unlikely she spoke of me; what did a stable girl and a crippled blessed have in common?