Imperial Assassin (34 page)

‘Where are you bound, friend?’ he called up to the driver.

‘To the Imperial Palace. I’ve a cargo of foodstuffs for His Majesty’s kitchen,’ the man answered.

‘Any chance of a lift?’

‘Well, it’s hardly far, but if you really want a lift, I see no reason why not.’ He halted the wagon. ‘Climb on up.’

‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

Reynik threw back his hood and climbed up onto the driver’s bench next to him. The driver immediately flicked the reins to get them moving. The horse sighed heavily, but leaned into the
traces and they lurched forwards, rumbling and bumping across the cobbles.

As he looked across at the driver, Reynik saw a dark figure emerge from the side street out of the corner of his eye. The figure paused and looked around, scanning the people on the street for
signs of his target. Reynik turned his head back to look straight ahead and laughed aloud.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘I was just thinking your horse is about as enthusiastic about her work as I am about mine,’ he replied, keeping his voice normal, but low enough that it would not carry back to the
assassin. All the killer would see would be two friendly wagoneers chatting to pass the time.

The driver chuckled too. ‘If you think the horse’s bad, you should meet the wife!’ he said. ‘Meera’ll tell you that keeping our eight children amused and fed should
be considered work. Honestly! I don’t know what’s wrong with the woman.’

Reynik raised an eyebrow at the wagon driver, who chuckled harder at his quizzical expression.

‘Gaetan’s the name. And you?’

‘Reynik.’

‘Good to meet you, Reynik. You chose a good night to ask for a lift, my friend. Normally I’d have told you where you could go, but tonight I’m in a fine and generous
mood.’

‘I’m not sure whether I should ask why, but I’m going to anyway.’

Gaetan glanced across at Reynik again with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I’m going home tonight for the first time in several weeks,’ he said happily. ‘Meera’s always
pleased to see me when I’ve been away for a while, if you take my meaning.’

‘Ah, yes!’ Reynik mumbled, colour rising to his cheeks. ‘Then I’m sure you’re in for a fine evening, Gaetan. Tell me, have you made plans for where you’ll
keep more children?’

The wagoneer laughed again. ‘No need, young Reynik, no need. Meera’s already expecting our ninth, so I hardly need think beyond that one now, do I?’

They rode on into the centre of Shandrim. Gaetan babbled on about his wife and his brood of children with excitement and pride. Reynik lent a polite ear to his chatter, but all the while
monitored the progress of the shadowy figure following on behind. He felt sure he had not been seen, but it looked as if the follower had a sixth sense. Despite his giving no indication that he had
spotted Reynik, he followed along the main road behind them as if dragged by instinct.

They were not far from the Palace when Reynik decided that enough was enough.

‘This will be fine for me. Thanks for the lift, Gaetan. I would ask you to pass my regards to your wife, but I suspect that you will be somewhat distracted. I hope I’ll be able to
return your kind favour some day. Take care.’

‘Goodnight, Reynik. Good fortune.’

Reynik leaped down from the driver’s bench and, while the body of the wagon hid him from the eyes of the man following behind, he retrieved his staff from where he had wedged it through
the strapping. It was only a few paces to the dark shadow of a side street. Reynik stepped smartly across the short distance and slipped into the deepest shade of the corner building. There he
turned and waited to see what his tail would do.

To Reynik’s relief, the hooded man showed no signs of noticing him. There was little doubt in Reynik’s mind that this was another Guild member. From the way he was walking, Reynik
suspected it might be Cougar. Cougar had accompanied Reynik on his early sorties out from the Guild complex in order to ensure Reynik was not incapacitated by the disorientation caused during
transfer. The man had been cold as ice the entire time they had been together.

Reynik watched as the assassin passed abeam his position and continued up the main street towards the Palace. The further along the street the man dressed in black went, the more relaxed Reynik
felt. Content that he was safe to go his own way without fear of further pursuit, he was about to turn when a second figure, also dressed in a black, hooded garb stepped out of a dark shadow and
greeted his original tail.

Heart in throat, Reynik watched as the second figure engaged the first in quiet dialogue. It would have been impossible to hear even a normal conversation at his range, but when the second
figure pointed towards his current position, he knew his troubles were far from over.

‘Shand alive! Where did he come from? Have I got a big sign on my back saying, “Kill me. I’m the infiltrator”?’ he muttered angrily.

The two figures dressed in black set out towards Reynik’s position, both striding forwards with deadly purpose. He wanted to run, but he knew that fleeing now would do little good. He
would have to confront them at some point. He was unlikely to shake them easily. They were too practised at trailing a target to be thrown off the scent by his repertoire of tricks. Taking on two
assassins simultaneously seemed tantamount to suicide, but he was out of options. The first assassin he had faced had clearly been unfamiliar with the techniques needed to fight someone armed with
a staff. Could this be a weakness he could exploit again? There was only one way to find out.

Reynik stepped away from the wall to ensure he had enough room to manoeuvre freely. He was still standing in dark shadow, but he had no doubt that the two assassins could see him. They were
closing fast, so he settled into a defensive stance. When they reached a distance of about ten paces, Reynik whirled the staff in an experimental sequence to see if either of the men would show any
signs of caution. They did not. There was no hesitation in their approach.

As Reynik finished his sequence of twirls, he ended it with the staff upright and gave an explosive ‘Ha!’ sound in an effort to show confidence. By freak chance, as he barked out his
defiance a knife that Reynik had not even seen thrown, impacted the staff right in front of his face. The point erupted through the wood just above his handhold. For a split second his eyes crossed
as they tried to focus on the point no more than a hand span in front of his nose. It was a miraculous chance of luck, but to the approaching assassins, it appeared deliberate. He would not have
been inducted into the Guild if he had not been an efficient killer. For the slightest instant, their confidence waned.

Reynik seized the initiative and leaped forward. One man had drawn his sword while another throwing knife was in the hand of the other. There was too much ground to cover for Reynik to engage
the knife thrower before he threw again. He was too fast. The second blade launched towards Reynik, this time directly at the centre of his body. Reynik managed to turn slightly, though he could
not avoid the blade altogether. It impacted his chest at an angle and was turned aside by the chain mail armour under his cloak.

The assassin did not get a chance to throw another. Reynik deflected the sword of his partner, and hit the knife thrower hard in the chest with a stabbing jab of the staff. He fell back,
clutching the impact point.

The swordsman assassin was fast. Worse, he clearly had experience in facing men skilled with the staff. Although Reynik had deflected the man’s initial swing, defending against his blade
during his subsequent sustained attack proved increasingly difficult. The knife stuck through the staff did not help. The extra weight on one end made the staff feel unbalanced and unwieldy.
Compensating was difficult, but for the next few seconds, Reynik’s mastery of the double-handed weapon enabled him to cope.

The second assassin was recovering. Reynik knew that if he allowed them both to mount a simultaneous attack again, then he would die. In a daring manoeuvre that cost him his staff, he launched
himself at the swordsman. The assassin’s blade impacted the centre of the staff, breaking it in the middle but not cutting clean through. Even as his momentum carried him forward, Reynik
twisted the tangled mess hard, wrenching the swordsman’s wrist. The twist completed the break, the staff becoming two sword length pieces of wood with splintered ends outward.

The swordsman had been staggered by the wrenching of his wrist. Before he could move to defend himself, Reynik jammed the splintered end of one piece of staff into his face. He screamed and fell
to the ground, his hands clutching at the wound.

Reynik sensed movement behind him. He spun, in-stinctively clubbing aside the blade of the second assassin with one piece of wood and smashing him across the side of the head with the second.
The killer did not go down, but he was stunned. The follow-up spinning kick finished the job. Both assassins were at his mercy.

Breathing hard, Reynik paused. Now he was faced with a worse choice than before. He had already left one enemy alive. Here were two more. Could he really afford to leave them here in the full
knowledge that they would come after him again as soon as they were able? He drew his sword and walked over to where the first assassin was writhing on the ground clutching his face. Killing him
would be easy. It was the safe option, but no matter how sensible it was, Reynik could not bring himself to do it.

‘Get up!’ he ordered harshly, kicking the man hard on the thigh. ‘Get up, or by Shand I’ll run you through and be done with it!’

Without taking his hands from his face, the man contorted his body until he first got to his knees, then to his feet.

‘Who are you? Which icon do you carry?’

‘Cougar. I’m Cougar,’ he moaned.

‘I thought so. And your friend?’

‘Viper.’

‘Ah, perfect!’ Reynik said. But he was not talking about the identity of the second assassin. A patrol of Legionnaires had rounded the corner a little way up the street and was
marching towards them. Assuming he could convince the lead soldier to do as he asked, Reynik now had a third, more palatable option.

Femke was boiling with fury, the like of which she had never known. Lord Ferdand, her mentor, was Guildmaster of the Guild of Assassins. How could he do it? After all his
lectures to her about only killing as a last resort, here he was, the next best thing to death incarnate!

So intense was her anger that for a moment she lost track of the conversation on the far side of the door. Had her concentration held firm, it would have been obvious that once Ferdand had
confirmed he was ready for his meal, the servant would be quick to go and get it. It was a shock for both Femke and the servant when the door suddenly opened. For a moment they simply stared face
to face.

Femke was quicker to overcome her surprise. A quick, stiff-fingered blow to the throat sent the servant reeling back into the room. For just an instant, she locked eyes with her old mentor who
was relaxing in an armchair on the far side of a plush chamber. Like a fat, old spider holed up in his lair, she thought bitterly.

‘Liar!’ she spat. Then she turned on her heels and ran.

Ferdand recognised her immediately. ‘Femke, wait! I can explain everything.’

Femke was not about to stop and listen. He was the enemy. Ferdand had violated her trust in a way she could never forgive, no matter how good the explanation. Her mentor had always been
eloquent. His lessons during her education as a spy had always left her in awe of his intelligence and logic. Now, however, she did not want to listen. How could he leave her to think he was dead
these past years? If he had cared one iota for her, he would have let her know he was alive, she thought bitterly.

It was easy to see why he did not want her to know what he was doing. For all his fine words and noble gestures, he was nothing more than a hired killer – something he had always protested
he disliked about Shalidar. Femke’s entire sense of order crumbled as she ran. Her eyes welled with tears that were part sorrow, part pain and part pure, unadulterated rage.

She reached the stairwell and raced up the pitch-black spiral staircase on all fours like a monkey. It was not elegant, but there was no one to see her in the darkness and it was most
effective.

Femke reached the central chamber of the Guild very quickly. As she peered out of the hole into the chamber, she felt dizzy from her rapid, spiralling climb. No one appeared to be around, so she
scrambled up the last few stairs and sprinted silently across to the booth with the wolf spider logo on the front gate.

Vaulting the gate, Femke landed lightly inside. She dropped to a crouch. A slight twinge of pain in her ribs caused her to wince. It seemed that every time she thought her ribs fully healed, the
pain came back to haunt her. She drew a knife from her boot. Somewhere ahead was the assassin who had been sent to Reynik’s chamber to guard against his return. Pain or no pain, he would have
to be dealt with if she was to get out of here alive.