Age of Assassins

by Rj Barker

  “I would, Girton,” she said and she kept repeating it, “I would.”

  Interlude

  This is a dream of what was.

  He is ten. He knows what his master does but he has never seen her kill. He is not sure he wants to, but there is foreknowing in the dark clouds of the horizon, in the brown crisp leaves whipped up by the wind biting through his woollen clothes, in the whispering bare tops of the stunted trees.

  Today he will witness death.

  “Master, are they people or hedgescares?” he says as he trots along behind Xus. His master raises her hand to cover her eyes and stares into the distance. The long golden grasses with heavy seed heads hiss in the wind.

  “People,” she says. “Come.” She puts down a hand and lifts him up onto Xus’s saddle. “Shade your eyes, Girton. Tell me what you see.”

  He does as he is told. It is hard to tell the difference between rag-wrapped people and the rag-wrapped statues believed to scare away the hedge spirits of field, forest, pool and souring.

  “Mounts, Master. Three mounts and a blood gibbet.”

  “Yes,” she says. Her words are no more than breath on the wind. “Down, Xus,” she says, and the mount hunkers down into the grasses. She does not want to be seen by the people. He does not need to ask why so he stays quiet and counts as he has been taught. “One my master. Two my master.” He loses count at two hundred and twelve and, eventually, the people leave and Xus rises.

  They make their way to the blood gibbet. It has been erected on the line where the grasses abruptly stop and the yellow land of the souring begins. Below the gibbet is a black mark where blood has been spilled on the ground. Green shoots are pushing their tips through it.

  In the gibbet is an old woman and she terrifies him. She is a sorcerer and people like her caused the sourings. Maybe she will curse him or suck his blood to replace what she has lost.

  She doesn’t look evil, not when he looks closely. She looks old and pained. With a squeak the breeze spins the windvane which lifts the brake on the slow-weight with a click that makes him jump. The old woman grunts as dirty blades are spun to reopen half-healed wounds on her arm and let out a slow trickle of blood.

  “Barbaric,” he hears his master hiss.

  “But the magic has to be reclaimed by the land,” he says. He heard a Landsman, looking fine in bright green armour, say as much in a village a year ago.

  “Maybe, but there’s no reason it should be strung out so. Blood is blood, life is life.”

  “But why do they do it this way then, Master?”

  “Girton, when I buy you a bag of crispy pigskin, do you eat it all at once or do you save it and make it last?”

  “Make it last.” He doesn’t understand what crispy pigskin has to do with anything. He would like some crispy pigskin though, it is his favourite.

  “Does that change the taste?”

  “No, but it lasts longer. I want to savour it.”

  “Well, that is why those green Riders do this.” She points at the old woman across the road from them and then slides down from Xus. “Keep watch, Girton,” she says. Then he is climbing into Xus’ saddle and she is climbing the blood gibbet.

  “Don’t hurt me.” The woman’s voice is little more than a croak as his master hangs by her on the metal frame. When his master puts her hand through the cage the old woman flinches.

  “I won’t hurt you.” She caresses the old woman’s cheek.

  “I’m not a sorcerer,” says the old woman.

  “There’s no need to lie, wise mother,” says his master in the Whisper All Should Hear. He does not know why his master uses it, but the old woman’s eyes become wide.

  “Free me, daughter,” she says.

  “I will, but I cannot let you out. You understand wise mother?”

  The old woman stares at his master and a tear tracks down her face, flowing along the banks of her many wrinkles. Then she nods her head slightly. “You are right, daughter. Where could I run to? I am old and will only endanger those I love.”

  “I am sorry, wise mother.”

  “Thank you for your kindness, daughter,” says the old woman, and then her eyes become wide as his master applies the Touch of Sleep. Once the woman’s eyes close his master climbs further down the blood gibbet, stopping to slash the woman’s wrists so her blood spatters into the dirt.

  He has been so transfixed by the horror of what is happening that he has quite forgotten to keep watch.

  “What are you doing?” A man’s voice. When he turns he freezes. A Landsman, huge on his hissing warmount and surrounded by the stink of rancid fat and rust coming off his grass-green armour.

  A mount is far more dangerous than a man, Girton. Never face one if you don’t have to.

  Beneath him he feels Xus, desperate to act, to rear, to bite and scratch and fight, waiting for the command he is too frozen with fear to give.

  “A kindness, Blessed,” says his master, but she does not sound like herself. She sounds meek and scared.

  “It’s not a kindness to interfere with a blood gibbet, woman. It is treason. What are you, a sorcerer yourself?”

  “No, Blessed. Only I knew the old lady from my village and she was kind. I—”

  “No excuse,” he barks as his mount saunters past Xus and the two animals bare their tusks at each other.

  “Please, Blessed, please do not hurt us or me boy. My mount, you can have him.” His master sounds panicked, and it freezes him to the saddle of Xus. He has never thought his master could be scared of anything. “Please don’t hurt me. Please.”

  But the Landsman keeps on coming.

  “I’ll have the mount anyway.”

  “Blessed, I am not unattractive.” She starts to unbutton the top of her jerkin but she does not take her eyes from the ground.

  “I’ll not touch a sorcerer—” he draws a club “—but you’ll live long enough to water the land in the old woman’s place.”

  When the Landsman nears her it looks like his master falls, as if she faints with terror, but the fall turns into a roll and she comes to her feet below the Landsman’s mount with her twinned stabswords in her hands. She cuts the girth of the Landsman’s saddle and disembowels his beast in one slash. The creature falls, letting out a jumble of wet and red intestines and the most hideous scream he has ever heard. The Landsman falls with the beast, but he has been trained well and jumps from his dying mount, clearing the creature, which rolls onto its back kicking its spurred feet in the air and screaming until the Landsman silences it with a slash of his longsword.

  “You’ll pay for that, woman,” he growls. “I loved that animal.” He comes forward with his longsword held loosely in one hand and his stabsword in the other. His master stands drenched in blood and with a stabsword in each hand. Her hair is black ropes, sluggish in the lazy wind. Mount blood moulds her kilt to her body and drips down from its hem to define the muscles of her calves in gore. She is black and red and so still she could be a hedgescare statue standing against the hissing wheat. The Landsman towers over her, his breath comes in gasps like the snorts of an angry mount. He brings his longsword round in an arcing horizontal sweep sure to cut his master in half. The boy is so scared he cannot even scream a warning.

  She moves.

  She dances.

  What is she doing?

  He wants to scream at her, “Defend yourself! Don’t die!” but instead he is silent as she goes through the iterations. He wants to shout, “The iterations are not for fighting!” They are dances for entertaining drunks outside village drink holes and gathering a few pennies. They are not for facing huge armoured men!

  She laughs as she teaches him. “Oh, Girton, won’t you impress the fine ladies!”

  If he could move he would cover his face.

  The Landsman is dangerous, intent on death. Fury is in his eye and he grunts with effort. His blades move smooth as water. They trail streamers of light. His master goes into the fifth iteration, the Boatgirl’s Dip,
something he knows so well—She holds his hand and twirls him under her arm—she takes his part. The Landsman lifts his longsword and his master goes under the Landsman’s arm. She spins around him, deflecting a thrust from his stabsword as she twirls, and then she is standing behind him at the iteration’s end point. She is still, legs slightly apart, hands at her side, and she is holding only one blade. The Landsman, that huge creature of green and metal, slowly falls forward, as much a corpse as any felled tree. His master’s left stabsword hilt protrudes from the unarmoured place beneath the Landsman’s arm. She takes the blade out of the man.

  Schluup-skish.

  Then his master is running. She vaults up into Xus’s saddle behind him. She stinks of blood as she shouts, “Ha! Xus, Ha!” And the mount runs, it runs like he has never known the animal could. It runs so fast it seems impossible he can breathe and the tears running from his eyes flow horizontally into his hair and the world becomes lines of colour and streaks of speed and, eventually? A blur.

  The world becomes a blur.

  This is a dream of what was.

  Chapter 15

  I ached the next morning.

  I ached in body from my beating and in my head from the drink.

  My master had laid out clean clothes, and between the jerkin and the trousers was a note in scratch.

  The room stank of pig shit.

  Once I was dressed I put on my harlequin armour. In my spare moments I had been scouring it with sand and fat and although it didn’t, and would never, shine it was at least useable and would not shame me.

  By the time I arrived at the squireyard I was aware of every kick that had been gifted to me the night before.

  Rufra’s eyes widened when he saw my bruises as we lined up to choose wooden practice swords. I glanced around the yard, busily plotting how I could accidentally manage to give Tomas or one of the twins a bruise or two in return for mine without giving myself away.

  “Girton,” whispered Rufra, “your bruises, are they my fault?”

  “How could they be your fault?”

  “I was not there to meet you. I was called up to the castle by Neander.”

  “Neander?”

  “Well, his letter called me away, but Borniya and Hallin were waiting for me.”

  “They hurt you?”

  “Hallin threatened me with his knife but they didn’t manage to catch me.” A shudder ran through him. “He scares me, you know.”

  “Borniya or Hallin?”

  “Hallin. Borniya I could beat in a fair fight, but Hallin …” He was rubbing his leg where Hallin had scarred him. “He’s as sneaky as a hedging, the sort likely to stab you in the back.”

  “But you would beat him in a fair fight too, Rufra.”

  “Hallin can be fast, if he wants to be. He has some of the quickest reactions in the squireyard.”

  “You are quicker. Don’t let him get in your head.”

  He looked down to where he was rubbing his scarred leg and jerked his hand away.

  “Nywulf says that’s where a fight is won or lost—in your head.” He transferred his concentration to the wooden swords, picking one up, studying it until he noticed a crack and letting it drop back in the rack. When he spoke he did not look at me. “Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see Hallin’s knife opening my skin.” A shudder ran through me at the thought of knives. “I sent a message with a guard—” he looked up from the rack “—telling you not to come as I had been called away.”

  “It never arrived,” I said, and he looked dismayed. “I was delayed and thought I had missed you but I should have heeded your warning about not going alone at night. They jumped me in an alleyway.”

  “Who?”

  “Thugs, thieves probably.”

  He shoved the next wooden sword back into the rack with more force than was needed.

  “They hurt you, and it is my fault.”

  “No, and besides it is only bruises.” Again a shudder ran through me, and this time Rufra noticed.

  “Girton?”

  “I am fine.”

  “No, you are not. And that you think it was thieves only shows how little you know of this castle.” He leaned in close, his face a mask. “What did they do?”

  “One of them, he threatened to take my eye.”

  Rufra cursed to the dead gods and grabbed the next wooden sword without paying any attention to its quality.

  “It is time I stopped being so meek and taught some of those here manners.”

  I grabbed him before he could walk away.

  “No!”

  The whole yard turned at my shout. Tomas smirked at Rufra and I felt the muscles of his arm tense under his jerkin. “Rufra, you are not even wearing armour, and besides, I do not think that was part of the orders given. I think one of the thugs overstepped his mark and he has paid the price for it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nywulf stopped them.” I leaned in and used the Whisper-that-Flies-to-the-Ear: “He broke the neck of the man who would have blinded me and threw his body to the pigs.” With a sudden mix of revulsion and fear I realised I was using magic and glanced down at my feet, expecting to see a circle of dead grass—but there was nothing.

  “Well,” said Rufra, “that at least is good to know, but it doesn’t change my mind. Lessons need to be taught, for me and you. I shall start by tutoring Tomas.”

  “It will do me no favours if they think I cannot fight my own battles.”

  “It is not just for you, Girton, and besides, if you face one of them you’ll only get more bruises. It is perfectly acceptable for a Rider to fight on behalf of a weaker friend.” He saw the sting of his words on my face. “I did not mean that how it sounded. Only that I have trained longer—” he kicked a stone along the ground “—and I am sick of holding back so I don’t offend Tomas or Aydor’s egos.” He removed my hand and stormed across the squireyard. Tomas stood waiting with a half-smile on his handsome face and his wooden sword held loosely in his hand.

  I was about to go after Rufra when I was grabbed from behind and spun round.

  Borniya’s bent face staring into mine. He spun me again, holding me by looping his hands behind my elbows and pulling me against him so I could not move. I heard Rufra and Tomas shouting. More of Aydor’s squires moved in, shielding me from the rest of the squireyard with a wall of rainbow armour and I could not see what happened between Rufra and Tomas.

  “Where is he?” Aydor’s foul breath around me in a cloud. His scabbed face staring out from under a white-enamelled helm etched with blue curlicues and flying lizards.

  “Where is who?”

  “Dollis, captain of my dayguard. Where is he?”

  In a gap between two boys I saw Rufra pointing his practice sword at Tomas, who, with a lazy smile on his face, ignored the challenge as if Rufra was beneath him.

  Something cold against my waist. Hallin stood at my side, grinning at me. He had the tip of his small dagger pushed through one of the gaps in my armour. He made an exaggerated sad face and applied pressure so that his blade nicked the skin of my stomach, drawing blood.

  “What do you mean, Aydor?”

  “Heir!” he hissed. “You give me my title when you speak to me, country boy, and when I ask where my man is you tell me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I saw Rufra take a step towards Tomas.

  Borniya pulled my arms tighter, pushing my stomach against Hallin’s blade. Aydor glared at me, and I wondered if behind his blue eyes his mind was frantically trying to work out how much he could say without betraying me. Or maybe he was considering betraying me and whether it was worth his mother’s wrath. That he called me “country boy” made me hopeful he wasn’t about to denounce me as an assassin.

  “I did not arrange any beating, cripple,” he hissed, “but my man lets me know what extra work he takes on, and I asked him to give you a reminder of me. Just a kiss, mind.” So, all this hate was simply because I had ma
de fun of him when I had been in the dungeon. What a poor king he would make. Aydor leaned in very close and it was all I could do not to recoil from his breath. He spoke so quietly I had to strain to hear, though his lips were practically touching my ear. “I warned him you were more dangerous than you seemed. That’s two I owe you, assassin, Dollis and Kyril. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  I moved my head so I could whisper into his ear. “You will never know,” I said. Then I let my lips brush against his ear and he jumped back like a scalded lizard, knocking Hallin away. If we had not been interrupted at that moment I am sure Aydor would have attacked me with a naked blade. Instead Nywulf distracted us, his voice loud enough to make my ears ring.

  “Do as I say, boy!”

  Borniya let go of me and the squires around me scattered, all sure Nywulf had been speaking to them.

  But he was not.

  Rufra lay on the ground in front of the squiremaster, his wooden swords in Nywulf’s hands and the trainer’s ball of a head was red with fury. Behind him Tomas watched, a wide grin on his face. “All of you,” Nywulf shouted, “stop standing around like thankful at a giving. Form line. Do it now! You too!” He pointed at Rufra. “Now!” His voice filled the squireyard, and we reacted like animals to his anger, scurrying into our lines. Rufra stood next to me and stared at the ground, his anger showing in every taut muscle of his body.

  “Rufra,” I hissed, but he would not look at me. His chest rose and fell as he took deep breaths. A tear fell from the end of his nose.

  “Last night,” said Nywulf, his voice had returned to a conversational level, “Girton ap Gwynr was attacked when leaving First of Festival.” He paced up and down the line of squires, pausing at the blond twins, Barin and Boros, whose faces were shiny with sweat though they had done nothing to earn it. “I would like to remind you, all of you, that Festival can be dangerous and brigands always follow it.” He took another step so he was in front of Tomas. He had to look up at the boy. “I do not want any more of my squires getting hurt,” he growled. Tomas met Nywulf’s stare as if the boy was equal with the warrior. “Do you understand me?” he said to Tomas and then added, louder, “All of you?”