Age of Assassins

by Rj Barker

  A castle guard, no red splash betraying his allegiance, spoke to the silversmith, putting out his hand as he did. The silversmith shook his head until the guard pointed at the scales and then he passed over a handful of coins. From the look on both men’s faces each thought he had got the better part of the deal.

  Across from the smith sat a woman selling grain and flour. Twice, when she thought no one looking, she opened a flour sack and poured in sand. When someone dressed in the triangular coverings of the Festival hierarchy bought flour from her I noticed she took it from a different bag, the unadulterated one.

  The guards in the courtyard would have been a disappointment to Adran if she expected them to be committed to their jobs. In fact, the more I watched the more clear it became that Rufra was right about a schism running through the castle. When backs were turned there were sneers, shakes of the head and weapons slightly drawn from scabbards in mock threat. I saw a confrontation happen in one of the rooms cut into the walls. One of the guards with a red rag around his wrist slipped into the room, which held a water butt, and was swiftly followed by two others who grabbed him and pushed his head under the water. They pulled him out, and had I been nearer I could have read lips and discovered what threats were being made, but instead I just watched as they repeatedly held him under the water, almost drowning him. When the guards left, their victim’s red rag remained on the floor of the room.

  The whole atmosphere of this castle was like a bowstring held taut, pregnant with violence.

  The gatehouse tower I watched from could be seen from the window of our room. We were on the third floor, and it was not hard to find us, right in a centre of the wall between two of the towers. It was pointless for me to try and guess where my master—or more likely I—would be climbing to, but from the top of one of the huge corner towers I would be able to check the walls and at least ensure my nails and rope would be up to the job. The tower on my left had an added attraction—it was the highest place for miles around and I fancied it would feel like being one of Xus’s birds to stand on top of it.

  Wind bit into me as I walked around the wall, and I was thankful for the small shelter provided by the tower’s inner stairs. It always amazed me that at ground level the world could be still, but at height the wind could be roaring. Sometimes I imagined the wind as a beast flying above the land looking for an opportunity to swoop down and cause havoc. I leaned over the tower’s battlements looking at the surface of the inner wall, which was ill kept and full of holes, perfect for climbing.

  Further round the tower I stared out between two crenellations and marvelled at how far I could see. The weak yearsage sun brushed the land with tentative fingers and the orchards below wore the variegated reds and browns of a coat of leaves about to fall. At the edges of the orchards trees were already bare, a reminder of all the land lost to the sourings. To the south, the Festival roads ran through squares of fields and past small houses oozing smoke, it rose in gauzy columns until it hit the wind and was whipped away. Streaks of flattened smoke were smudged across the landscape as the road vanished into copses of pines, which grew quickly and were our main building material—the stinging scent of pine sap infused almost all of our furniture. To the north were more fields and eventually the capital city of Ceadoc, where the high king sat and the Landsmen pretended they had an answer to the sourings in the blood of criminals, sorcerers, or those too poor or ill to feed themselves. Half a mile to the west of the castle the fields stopped abruptly in a line of yellow, marking the edge of the western souring which had been created by the final battle with the Black Sorcerer. I shivered at the sight of the sourlands where magic had sapped the land of all life, ripping open a crevasse thirty miles long and a mile wide.

  “There was a forest once.” A weak and almost inaudible voice spoke over the hollow whisper of the gusting wind. I turned and immediately fell to one knee.

  “Sire,” I said, “I did not see you there.”

  King Doran ap Mennix sat in a curious wooden chair, one that had wheels on it. He was wrapped in thick blankets and nothing but his head showed from within. His beard was still dark and thick, but scabrous pink patches marred the tanned skin under his hair, which had been treated with some sort of dark paint to make it appear thicker—if only from a distance. The skin around his watery eyes sagged and showed the wet red flesh beneath the yellowing mask of his face. He was far more wrinkled than was normal for a man of fifty-five and looked constantly pained, as though the effort of existing was an agony, and his rasping breath did nothing to dispel that impression. He took short, audible breaths, letting them out out in a wheezing sigh almost three times the length of the intake.

  “Rise, boy,” he said. “My time left is too short to waste on formalities. You were looking to the west, eh?” I nodded. “Wheel me over,” he said. I stood and went to his chair, pushing it to where I had stood. “It was forest once. I hunted there with Heamus and my other friends. Dead now. Mostly …” His words faded away as memory overwhelmed him. “Do you know how we made it? That souring?”

  “No, sire.” I did of course. But it is a fool who tells a king not to speak, even if that king is dying.

  “The Black Sorcerer they called him, boy. They like such names, and it was apt in its way. See the hill?” He raised a hand from within his nest of blankets. His fingers were swollen and bent, incapable of holding a blade but use enough to point out a rise in the yellow of the western sourlands. “From the crest of that hill running south all the way to the pine copses lay my forest, she was thick with boar and wild mounts. The Black Sorcerer set himself up at the forest edge; him, four hundred pikemen and thirty Riders, all marked with shields that had his signs of safety on them.” His hand moved slightly northwards. “Fields and grasslands it was there, all of it. In yearsbirth it would be mottled red and blue with flowers, and in yearslife it would turn golden with ripening corn.” He turned his head to me. It seemed to be a tremendous effort. “Even in that year, when the Birthstorm had not come and we were stricken with drought, the land was gold, boy. It was a golden land, not the bile-yellow it is now.” Breath wheezed in and out of him. “My army stood looking up at the sorcerer from the valley. Five thousand they were. The largest army the Tired Lands had seen since the gods died. Eight kings and one hundred and fifty free knights. Two hundred Landsmen stood with us and four hundred men-at-arms, all mounted and armoured. With them were two thousand soldiers with pike, blade and shield. The rest were free men and women—the living, the thankful come of their own will and with whatever they had at hand as a weapon. And we even armed the slaves—can you imagine? We were that desperate. People left their families and travelled from all over the Tired Lands, so strong was the horror at another sorcerer having risen.”

  I tried to imagine so many people in one place. They must have filled the valley, and yet it had almost not been enough. What must it have been like to know you faced the old horror again? I fought down a shudder.

  “They say, boy, I led the charge.” King Doran ap Mennix coughed. A racking cough that twisted him in his chair. His breath smelled of mint. “It is a lie, boy. So many lies. If I had led the charge I would be dead.” Breath wheezing in and out of his lungs. “Have you ever been in a battle, boy?”

  “No, sire.”

  “It is frightening. If you meet a man who says it is not he is a liar or a fool. It is exhilarating too, I will not lie—” his voice, which had risen, fell again “—but mostly it is frightening. The men and women waiting down there were brave beyond imagining. They should be celebrated, not me.” He let out another long breath. “I realised that too late.” Doran ap Mennix went quiet and I thought he had fallen asleep, but the king was only gathering strength to speak again. “I was in the forest behind the Black Sorcerer with my fifty best. The Landsmen had copied the sorcerer’s filthy protections onto as many shields as they could, it was hurried work and we did not know if it would be successful in protecting us. I watched my army charge. I watched my a
rmy die. The first thousand came at him accompanied by a hundred Riders. The Black Sorcerer turned to the man by him, a Rider named Dyrun. I had known him, trained with him. I heard Dyrun say, ‘Not yet.’ I was near enough to see that the sorcerer was shaking. I put it down to his power but maybe he was as frightened as we all were. Then our second thousand committed and the valley was full of dust thrown up by feet and claws. It was a hot day and a beautiful day. Until he cast.”

  “You saw it?” I was so intrigued by his story I forgot to say “sire.”

  “Yes. It was not like they say. He made no grand gestures; there was no feeling of building power. He raised his hands and then threw them forward with a great shout. A battle cry, I suppose. It had no words. It was as though the world took a breath, and then … and then the colour of the land was gone. There was no gradual leeching away of life, no wave of death spreading around him. The grass simply died.” His voice, already quiet, was barely audible, and his eyes no longer looked into the world I shared with him. “In the Landsmen’s hurry to draw the sigils, mistakes were made. Not all were properly protected. Ten of the men around me died without a sound. The trees around us melted. They sucked in their leaves and stalks and branches, leaving only bare trunks pointing at a yellow sky that stretched away as far as I could see. The Black Sorcerer took all the life he had stolen and he threw it at my army. He ripped the land apart, ended five thousand lives and created a souring thirty miles long. When the land stopped shaking we were all stunned by it—the suddenness, the death. Even the sorcerer stood there with his hands still raised as if unable to believe what he’d done. My men and I were no longer hidden—the trees were gone. If any one of the Black Sorcerer’s group had turned we would have been seen, but they were all mesmerised by the crevasse in the land where there had been an army only moments before. We hit them then. From behind, and they never had a chance. Didn’t notice us until we were among them. I cut down the Black Sorcerer myself. He was young, terrified. Not only of the death I was bringing but of what he had done. Three years before he’d been a blacksmith forced into the desolate because the Landsmen believed there was magic in his grandmother. Now here he was, the destroyer of lands, about to die at the hand of a king.”

  “What of his Riders?”

  “Most dropped their blades and gave up, horrified by what they had been a part of. They were idealists, you see. They thought that sorcerers were persecuted.”

  “The same way murderers are persecuted,” I said and I tried not to shake, tried not to let him see that he could be talking about me.

  The king shook his head.

  “I am old now. I have become softer, mellowed maybe. Do you know what I have realised?”

  “No, sire.”

  “They were right. In a way we created the Black Sorcerer, but my pity changes nothing. If the sorcerers were welcome among us they would still sour the land. If they did not believe joining the desolate an easier way of dying than the blood gibbets and we let them be free then one would come, one who saw the opportunity for power.” He looked me in the eye. “I mourn for those afflicted with magic, boy, and I am saddened by what must be done.” I saw the ghost of what the king must once have been under his worn-out flesh. Something hard and unforgiving. “But it must still be done,” he whispered, sounding scourged. Then he screwed up his face and beckoned me closer. “You are one of my squires?” he said. I nodded, and he reached out bent fingers to take gentle hold of my jerkin and pull me closer “I do not recognise you. You must be new. What is your name?”

  “Girton, sire.”

  “Girton what?”

  “Girton ap Gwynr, sire.”

  “Girton ap Gwynr,” he said to himself. “Girton ap Gwynr.” A focusing of his eyes. A hardening of his mouth. “I know the ap Gwynr, Girton ap Gwynr,” he said, “and they have only daughters.” The wind suddenly bit far more deeply into my skin as he continued to stare at me. “So you must be my assassin,” he said quietly and pulled me even closer. “Girton ap Gwynr—” he raised his head to expose his throat “—make it quick. Do that one thing for me.”

  I was about to tell him that I was not here for him when my name was called.

  “Girton.” The king let go of my jerkin, and I turned to find Rufra standing in the door that led to the spiral staircase. “I saw you from below and— sire!” He fell to one knee.

  The king waved us away.

  “Go, boys, go. And Girton—” he gave me a sad smile “—until later.”

  Chapter 17

  “You are not going to be popular with the squires,” said Rufra as he made his way down the tightly twisting staircase. His voice echoed oddly around me and in the flickering torchlight I had the oddest feeling we were the only people in the castle.

  “That’s why you tracked me down, Rufra? To tell me something I already know?”

  “No, I tracked you down because you were not at the meeting we have just had.”

  “Meeting?”

  “Yes, to make up for the guards having to work on First of Festival the queen is having a feast for them tonight. The squires are to stand guard in their place.”

  “And that’s my fault?”

  “No, but you are invited to the feast because the queen heard about the beating you got. Wasn’t that what the king meant when he said he would see you later?”

  “It must have been,” I said, but I sensed the hand of my master at work. From the way Rufra turned and lifted a quizzical eyebrow he knew there was something off about this arrangement. “Is it true we will ride out tomorrow, Rufra?”

  “Oh yes!” His eyes lit up with excitement. “We ride to protect the cows. I did it last year with a Rider named Stenna. The stink and dust are unbelievable, but it is still exciting.” He grinned at me. “Try not to drink too much tonight.”

  “I do not think I will ever drink again.”

  “Everyone says that, Girton, but we always do. Just don’t do it tonight as Nywulf takes a perverse joy in punishing the hungover.”

  “Is it safe, Rufra?”

  “There are likely to be bandits. The cows are valuable, and if they know only squires are guarding them this year they may think they stand a better chance of making off with a beast. But they will not stand against mounted cavalry, even if we are only squires.”

  “I don’t mean that,” I said. “I mean we will be out alone with real weapons and a bunch of boys who hate us.”

  He stopped and turned to me. His face furrowed in concern, and the poor lighting on the staircase took him past ugly and into something almost bestial. “Nywulf will be with us, and besides, it would be too suspicious if you died from a sword in the back so soon after your beating. Tomas has been humiliated enough. I would be more worried about being late for the queen’s feast. It is due at the striking of the eighth bell and you have not even put on your kilt.”

  “Oh dead gods, my kilt.”

  “Well, if you would rather stand in the cold all night then I can affect a limp and rub mount dung on myself. I am sure I could pass for you … .”

  “I do not smell of mount dung.” I punched him on the arm and he feigned a look of hurt.

  “I meant it as a compliment to your farmyard heritage. If you feel insulted must we duel?”

  He looked so serious I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I will survive the insult, Rufra.”

  “Should I get myself some dung?”

  “I would not want to rob you of a night in the cold, Rufra. It would feel cruel.”

  He gave me a smile.

  “Try and smuggle out some pork for me. I am sick of porridge and scraps.”

  “I did not know it was possible to become sick of porridge,” I replied with a laugh, and we parted—him to get ready for guard duty and me to prepare for the feast and the struggle with my kilt.

  My master waited in our room. She sat cross-legged and so still she could have been one of the gruesome statues outside the empty temples of the capital city. Her skull face had
been reapplied and it glistened in the candlelight. In her lap was the rope I had brought. She was rubbing soot into it and had laid out a black nightsuit on my bed.

  “Girton, how has your day been?”

  “Good.” A memory of Drusl’s kiss returned and a thrill ran through me. “I checked the stables for anything odd but could find nothing.” She nodded slowly. “And I met the king. He told me of the battle with the Black Sorcerer.”

  “It haunts him, I think. Battle often haunts those who survive.” She shifted the rope from her lap. “Do not be fooled by the weakness of his body, Girton. His mind is alert even though he is infirm. I think Adran still fears him.”

  “He thought I was an assassin come for him.”

  “So would you if your wife was poisoning you.”

  “Will he send guards for us?”

  “No, Adran will not allow it. She controls his troops now. All Doran ap Mennix has left to order about is the jester.”

  “What is going on in this castle, Master?”

  “The king is dying, Girton, and not everyone thinks Aydor is the best choice to take the throne.”

  “Me included.”

  “I know.” She smiled. “But you for more personal reasons. Some support Aydor because a young and inexperienced king is traditionally an easy way to advance; the blessed who do not favour Aydor believe he will always be controlled by his mother. Their upset is passed on to the guards, all of whom have familial allegiances.”

  “So who would these blessed prefer?

  “Tomas ap Dhyrrin, I suspect. Though few are foolish enough to voice it. His great-grandfather would rule him, at first, but Daana is very old and they see opportunity there.”

  “So any blessed who favours Tomas is a suspect?”