The King's assassin ta-3

by Stephen Deas

  ‘But that doesn’t look like it’s been used for years!’ Berren squinted at the gate as he passed through. The rust was ancient. The lock should have welded itself solid by now. His head snapped up, peering into the darkness of the tunnel ahead. ‘If they still use it, why isn’t it guarded?’

  ‘They don’t,’ hissed Syannis. ‘They don’t know it’s there.’

  ‘Well someone must-’

  ‘Me, you dolt! Me and Hain! What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two months? While you and Talon were living the lives of princes in Kalda, I was here, squatting in flophouses, camping in the woods, digging holes for my own shit and eating bark! Turning those lancers so they were taking my coin instead of Meridian’s. And while I was at that, Hain was here, hours and hours, night after night, picking at that lock, working it loose again for the day we’d need it. And no, Meridian really doesn’t know it’s here. You’ll see why in a moment.’

  They rounded a corner and the tunnel opened into another cave, larger than the first. The light from Hain’s lantern gleamed off a wide pool of water.

  ‘It’s a sump,’ said Syannis. He pointed across the pool. ‘Swim down under the water there, you’ll find a tunnel. It’s narrow. Like the way in. It’s not long though. Just a yard and then you’ll come up into another pool. That’s where the Pit is. We used to drain the tunnels every few months to keep the water down. It was our secret way out. By the time Meridian took the castle, it must have flooded again.’

  ‘What’s the Pit?’

  ‘There are many more caves in these cliffs. When you get out of the pool, there’s another tunnel. Wide enough that you can put your sword on before you go through it, and I suggest you do. It’s steep and goes up about twice the height of a man. The Pit? People get thrown in it. People Meridian doesn’t like. If he’s got anyone in there, there’s a chance he’ll have a guard standing watch as well. I’ll go first and wait for you on the other side. Take your time. Take this and follow it when you’re ready. I’ll give a tug when I’m through.’

  Syannis handed the end of a rope to Hain and waded out into the pool, carrying his sword and his armour. As the water got deeper, he splashed and spluttered and then took a deep breath and vanished, simply sinking beneath the surface.

  ‘You next, dark-skin,’ growled Hain.

  He pushed the rope into Berren’s hand. Berren took it, but stopped for a moment. A tunnel under the water? ‘Why me? Why not you?’

  ‘Because I don’t trust you not to run.’

  The rope jerked. Berren took a deep breath and stepped into the pool. Cursed water was freezing, but at least it would wash the last of the shit off him. With one hand on the rope and the other clutching his sword and his leathers, he dived in.

  21

  DANCING IN THE DARK WITH KNIVES

  The underwater tunnel wasn’t as narrow as he’d feared, and before he was halfway though, Berren felt a hand on his shirt, pulling him on. Hain came quickly after. It took them a minute to light the lantern again, even though it had been wrapped in oilskin; when he did, Syannis shone it at a cleft in the cave.

  ‘Up there.’ He shuttered the lantern and squinted, then put it down. ‘See,’ he whispered. ‘See how you can still see the cleft? Barely, but it’s there. That means there’s a torch lit beside the Pit.’ He crept closer. ‘Berren, you behind me. Hain take the rear. Keep back.’

  The crack in the cave wall was wide enough, as Syannis had said, but the slope and the darkness and the thought that there might be an armed man standing not more than a dozen yards away made the climb agonisingly slow. At the top Syannis put a finger to his lips and gestured to Berren to ease closer. The cleft opened into a third cave. The walls were smooth, worn over time by water; the floor was flat, but most of it was a hole ringed by a low wall. The Pit. From where he stood, Berren couldn’t see how deep it was. There was a pulley and some ropes, presumably for winching people out once they’d starved to death or whatever happened to them in there.

  On the other side of the cave was an arch. Two torches burned in sconces, one on either side. Beyond it, Berren could see two men with their backs to him.

  Syannis began to ease his way around one side of the pit. He glanced at Berren, gestured to him to go the other way and then drew a finger across his throat. Berren looked down inside as he crept around the wall. The Pit was at least as deep as it was wide, but there wasn’t anyone in it — at least, there wasn’t anyone moving. The smell was terrible.

  They reached the archway together. The thief-taker raised three fingers. On the count of three. Berren looked behind him. Hain had stayed back, lurking at the top of the cleft.

  One finger. One. The thief-taker’s eyes shifted from the guard to Berren. Buried in the gloom of the past was a man Berren had known as Jeklar the Throat, a friend of Master Hatchet. Jeklar had been called Jeklar the Throat for a reason, and he’d been happy to show anyone who’d listen exactly how you killed a man like this. Berren hadn’t thought about Jeklar for at least a decade, but now the throat-cutter came back.

  Two. He didn’t have a knife though. He had a sword. Clumsy weapon for this sort of work. Too long. Syannis had a proper throat-cutter’s knife, of course.

  Three. He’d never done it before. Didn’t know how. Didn’t know if he even could. Kill a stranger, just like that? From behind? Without any warning?

  He must have made a noise. The guard started at the last moment and stepped back straight into him. Without thinking too much about it, Berren clamped his free hand around the man’s face and mouth. He dropped his sword, pulled the soldier’s own dagger out of its scabbard and held it to the man’s throat.

  ‘Be quiet!’ he whispered.

  ‘What are you doing?’ hissed Syannis. His own man was slumping back. A wild fountain of blood sprayed across the roof of the arch and begin dripping to the floor. Syannis caught the body as it fell to muffle any sound. What was he doing? He didn’t know. He was sweating and shaking and this was suddenly a lot harder than he’d thought it would be. Killing someone like this. . He couldn’t just. . Sun and Moon, but it just wasn’t that easy!

  The guard flailed, pushing himself into Berren. He cried out, the sound muffled by Berren’s hand, and pushed them both back further. They fell together. Berren closed his eyes and tried to twist his body. The two of them hit the ground at once, knocking the breath out of Berren’s lungs. Then Syannis was there, driving his own knife into the back of the man’s neck. The guard gurgled, reached out a hand and then lay still. Berren felt blood, still warm, running over his arms and his face like a river. He pushed the body away.

  ‘Holy sun!’ Syannis stared at him with eyes like saucers. ‘What was that? What were you thinking?’

  ‘That I’ve never cut a man’s throat before!’ hissed Berren savagely. ‘And that maybe I didn’t have to. Couldn’t you have found a way to let them live?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd!’

  Berren picked up the guard’s helmet and jammed it on his head. ‘I’ll stay here on guard then.’ He crouched down inside the arch out of sight, shaking. For a second he thought he was going to be sick.

  One after the other, Syannis hoisted the dead men onto his shoulder and heaved them into the pit. Then he beckoned Hain closer and gave him the guard’s helmet off Berren’s head. ‘Stay here for an hour,’ he said. ‘Make sure there’s no alarm. Keep the exit clear. After that, we’re either caught or we’ve escaped another way. At the top of the gorge by the river there are six horses. Wait for us there. If we get there first, we’ll not wait for you but we’ll leave one horse behind. Follow us. We’ll be heading north for Forgenver, and at speed.’

  Hain looked aghast. Berren just nodded. This was the way it had always been, back in the old days. The two of them. It felt natural and his head wasn’t thinking straight just now; it was still too full of the man whose blood was all over him, wondering who he was. Just another soldier like Tarn or any of the others.

  Hain was beside himsel
f. ‘Sire!’

  Syannis growled. ‘He does this much better than you, Hain. He’s a dark-skin thief, but that’s what this needs.’ He pulled Berren to his feet and slipped through the arch into a stone passage which turned and led up some steps and stopped at a door. They tiptoed in, feeling their way between barrels and crates and sacks filled with apples and other things — in the dark, Berren couldn’t tell what.

  ‘It’s here somewhere,’ muttered the thief-taker. They reached a wall and Syannis stopped. ‘Door.’ A line of golden torchlight lit up the floor. Syannis lifted a latch. ‘You will have to kill, Berren. I hope you realise that.’

  ‘If it comes to fighting then I will. But I can’t just murder a man. That’s not what I am.’

  ‘Bugger,’ said a voice from the other side. Wood scraped on stone, the sound of a chair being pushed back. ‘That’s three in a row.’

  Syannis opened the door a crack. ‘Then wait here!’ he hissed. Torchlight filled the space beyond. The air was thick with smoke.

  Another voice muttered something, then Syannis threw open the door and leaped out of the gloom, sword flashing. Three soldiers sat around a table. Over the reek of torch smoke, Berren could smell wine. There were dice, coins. .

  And blood. The thief-taker’s short sword sliced through the first man’s neck and stabbed the second straight through his gaping mouth. By the time Berren reached the table, Syannis had done for the third too, opening his throat from ear to ear in a single slash. ‘I told you to stay where you were!’

  ‘And I didn’t.’

  Syannis nodded at Berren’s sword. ‘I hear you’ve finally learned how to use that.’

  ‘You call me a dark-skin thief again, you’ll learn a lot more.’

  ‘That was for Hain, not for you.’ Syannis dragged the bodies back into the cellar, then ran to a heavy locked door and took out his keys again.

  ‘Now what?’

  Syannis opened the door and stepped inside. Dozens of crossbows lined the walls and boxes full of bolts were stacked on the floor. An armoury. ‘Not the sort of weapon you want people running around with most of the time.’ He bared his teeth. ‘Did Talon teach you to use one of these at last?’

  ‘I taught myself.’

  ‘Good.’ The thief-taker closed the door and locked them inside. ‘Take one and sabotage the rest.’ While Berren cut nicks into the crossbow strings, Syannis set about clearing the back wall of the armoury. When he was done, he pressed his ear against it and began tapping the panelling. Then he stopped, pulled a hand axe from his belt and swung at it. Berren cringed. In the confined space of the armoury, the blow sounded like a clap of thunder.

  A thought came to him: he was alone with the man who’d killed Tasahre. Alone where no one would see. He finished with the crossbows and took the last one for himself, cocking it softly while Syannis hacked at the wall. Then he held a bolt in his other hand and looked at it. Looked at it, and at the thief-taker.

  No. Couldn’t do that. Even though a part of him wanted to.

  ‘My grandfather’s grandfather built this armoury,’ Syannis said as he tore at the thin veneer of wood, pulling it away. ‘No one alive knows this door exists except me and Talon. And now you.’ He finished and held up a candle so that Berren could see. Behind the wood was another wall, made of stone, and in the wall a door. Everything was covered in ancient cobwebs. The door had no lock, but it was heavy and the hinges were rusted almost solid. It took the two of them together to pull it ajar. Beyond was yet more wood.

  ‘We put a panel over it,’ muttered Syannis. ‘It’s a single piece of wood. A good hard. .’ He rammed it with his shoulder. There was a loud crack, but the panel held. ‘Damn! Stuck!’

  ‘Stop!’ hissed Berren.

  ‘I felt it move! Another. .’ Syannis made to charge the wall again. This time Berren held him back.

  ‘Wait!’ He took the bolt he was still holding and fitted it to the crossbow. For a moment, as it pointed at Syannis, he caught a flash of what it would feel like if he pulled the trigger right there and then. Exaltation, for a moment, and then sadness. Emptiness.

  He fired the crossbow into the panel Syannis had been trying to knock down. ‘You left Hain and brought me because I’m the thief, didn’t you? When we’re done here, you give me what you promised and then I want nothing more to do with any of you.’ He held the crossbow bolt and nudged at the panel. As soon as he felt it give, he stopped and, using the bolt as a handle, moved it slowly aside. Silently, until there was gap large enough for him to squeeze through.

  ‘See,’ he whispered. ‘That’s how a cut-purse thief from Shipwrights’ does it. He does it quietly.’

  22

  EXIT WOUNDS

  Berren stepped cautiously through the space where the panel had been into a long wide passage that ran along the back of the castle. Here and there glimmers of light crept through narrow slits of windows.

  ‘We used to call this the Long Gallery,’ whispered Syannis. ‘Go left. That way leads to the royal apartments. Meridian should be there. And Aimes.’

  ‘You’re never going to get him out. Not quietly enough. Not through all those doors and passages.’

  ‘What if he wants to come?’

  On either side pictures hung on the walls; in alcoves busts stood on pedestals. There was too little light to make out the faces staring down out of the shadows, but their presence made Berren’s skin tingle. He felt himself being watched. Something didn’t feel right. He stopped. In the gloom Syannis almost walked into him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen!’ Berren stood absolutely still and held his breath. Faint noises came from outside: the wind, the idle chatter of a pair of bored guards by the wall, even a distant hiss that might have been the sea. Within, everything was quiet.

  ‘I hear nothing. Come on!’ Syannis pushed passed him.

  ‘Yeh. Nothing.’ And that wasn’t right, was it? Anxiously, Berren followed. At the end of the gallery an archway led into darkness.

  ‘The king’s apartments. Aimes’ rooms will be here somewhere.’

  Berren stopped again. The feeling in the pit of his stomach was getting worse. If these were the king’s apartments, then where were the king’s guard?

  ‘The sun-chapel is to the left. Through the arch.’ Syannis’s voice was barely audible now. ‘That’s how we get out. There’s another passage down to the caves. The rooms on the right will be the king’s. Go straight on.’

  ‘Where are the guards?’

  ‘Guards?’ Syannis snorted. ‘I never used to sleep with men at my door and neither does Meridian. We’re past the guards. They’re outside.’

  The darkness was so complete that Berren had to hold his hands out in front of him not to walk into a wall. He took one careful step after another, dreading the moment he’d put a foot down and tread on a creaking board or a sleeping cat. But this was a castle, he told himself. The floors were made of stone; there wouldn’t be any animals roaming free at night, nor would there be plates, mugs, bowls or any of the other things his feet had found while creeping through people’s bedrooms.

  I was younger then, he reminded himself. Smaller and lighter and with agile feet. And I didn’t have anyone with me.

  He fumbled his way through the darkness and into another long hallway. There were more narrow windows here, letting in just enough starlight to see by.

  ‘The king will be at the far end,’ whispered Syannis. ‘The other rooms will be Meridian’s and the princess’s.’

  ‘Gelisya?’ The uncomfortable feeling turned sharp. He found himself thinking of Saffran Kuy. Saffran Kuy, who had his fingers all over Meridian’s little princess, whether Meridian knew it or not. ‘I’m telling you, this doesn’t feel right. It shouldn’t be so dark. If not guards then there should be pot boys. Maids. Night servants. Someone. And whoever comes this way at night would need some light.’

  Syannis hissed between his teeth, ‘What do you suggest? We can hardly come back again another day, not
now. No, they’re here. They have to be.’ He put his hand to the nearest door. ‘This one. These rooms were the finest. My father’s. Meridian will be here.’ He growled like a threatened wolf. ‘Then we take Aimes.’

  Time slowed. Berren lunged for Syannis, trying to pull him away, but his legs felt as though they were made of treacle. Syannis lifted the latch and pushed and then everything Berren had been afraid of began to happen.

  ‘He’s here!’ shouted a voice behind the door. ‘He’s here! To arms!’

  Old memories filled Berren’s head of all the times he’d nearly been caught as a boy. When all you could do was run and dodge, dart down the narrowest, darkest, least used alleys. Some place narrow where big men would be slow, some place high where they couldn’t reach, then some place dark where they wouldn’t see you. You hid, and you prayed.

  He’s here? They knew Syannis was coming! They’d known all along!

  ‘The sun-chapel!’ snapped Syannis. He lunged with his sword into the darkness and roared. There was a grunt and a crash. Berren fled back to the chapel, but the archway was filled with men coming the other way now. Real terror gripped him — more soldiers, and they’d been lying in wait! He must have walked right past them without knowing!

  ‘Master Sy!’

  In the darkness he couldn’t see how many there were. He had no idea even where Syannis was. He staggered. A hand clutched at his arm. He wrenched himself away.

  ‘Run, boy!’ The thief-taker’s voice. He was already ahead. Berren bolted, bouncing off the walls as he ran. He caught a glimpse of the thief-taker in the shadows of the Long Gallery. Other dark shapes were running through the far end of the hall. More soldiers!

  Syannis skidded through the hidden doorway into the armoury. Berren skittered after him. There were guards only seconds behind him, coming from both ends of the gallery, but they were all behind him now, that was what mattered. After the armoury it was a quick sprint across the guardroom and then a long straight run all the way to the Pit and the sump and out with no one standing in their way. His eyes gleamed. They would get away!