In Legend Born (11 page)

When the square was empty of everyone but Tansen, the door of the village chief's house opened, and a man stepped out into the brilliant Silerian sunshine. He was well-fed and strong, like all of the waterlords' assassins, and dressed in red and black, the colors of the Honored Society. His black tunic was cut in the style some assassins favored, wrapping across his chest without laces; a
jashar
, dyed red, held it closed. A
shir
was tucked into the
jashar
. Tan's gaze flicked down to the man's boots where he saw, as expected, a
yahr
protruding from the left one. Most assassins had a
yahr
made of petrified wood, imported from Kinto, which was as hard as stone.

The assassin came forward, walking with the arrogant swagger of one who had frightened the whole town into submission with his very presence. Three boys, undoubtedly disobeying their parents' rules, crept into the square to watch the proceedings. They gazed at the assassin with wide-eyed awe which sent Tan's mind briefly down the path of memory again. How could he blame them for worshipping this man? Hadn't he himself revered the Society in his boyhood? It had taken shocking events and continual prodding to make him see that they weren't heroes, rebels, or outlaw kings. So, no, he couldn't blame the three boys for the naked worship in their eyes as they gazed at the assassin—though it made him long to slap their backsides with the flat of his swords.

Tansen studied the assassin as he came closer. He was young, definitely younger than Tan himself. When he spoke, his voice revealed his excitement.

"Are you Tansen shah Gamalani?"

"I am."

"Then I've come to fulfill the bloodvow sworn against you by a waterlord of the Society."

Tan's eyes narrowed. "It's been nine years. A bloodvow may last no longer than that, even if the offender still lives. No matter what the offense."

"Even when the offender runs away?" the assassin spat with contempt.

Tansen wouldn't be baited. He was working now; the
shatai
focused on the task at hand, ruthlessly suppressing the pride and shame of the
shallah
boy within him. "Even then. The Society has stayed strong by observing this tradition. Otherwise they'd still be slaying each other like
shallaheen
, killing and being killed in bloodfeuds without even remembering what started them."

"Kiloran hasn't rescinded the bloodvow," the assassin informed him, circling off to Tansen's right.

"Then perhaps I should speak to him," Tan suggested reasonably, still facing forward, watching the assassin from the corner of his eye.

The assassin laughed. "And how do you intend to find him?"

"You could help me find him."

"Now why should I do that?"

"For your honor."

"Who are
you
to talk to me about honor?"

"I have survived the nine years of the bloodvow," Tansen said. "You will dishonor yourself if you challenge me now."

The assassin tugged at his
jashar
and called to someone in the chief's house. A skinny, elderly woman came running out into the square to help him take off his tunic; she scurried into the shadows with it, heeding his warning to keep it clean while he fought. Tansen watched impassively as his opponent, now stripped to the waist, faced him with
shir
in hand.

"Dishonor myself?" the assassin snarled. "I will kill you for that insult,
sriliah
!"

Tansen almost sighed. This would only makes things worse, but he had known all along that it was likely to be this way. The Society's much-lauded sense of honor was largely a myth. The young assassin was tired of talking and wanted to fight. As Tansen watched the man reach for his
yahr
, he recited the ritual phrase which had begun and defined his training as a
shatai
, the words which this situation clearly called for: "I am prepared to die today. Are you?"

The assassin grinned and said, "That's good to hear,
sriliah
." Then he lunged for Tansen.

The assassin looked a little surprised to find his attack blocked by two swords which hadn't even been drawn when he'd begun his lunge. Twisting one blade to throw him back, Tansen resisted an easy kill with his left sword. His
shatai-kaj 
had taught him always to find a way to use adversity to his advantage, and so he would. He was now in a fight he hadn't wanted and had tried to avoid. Since this assassin was so insistent, Tansen decided he might as well use the death of this young—and, he quickly saw, inexperienced—fighter to achieve his own aims. He and the assassin circled each other, attacking, parrying, and counter-attacking. After a few minutes, Tansen figured that unless this was the most cunningly deceptive man in all of Sileria, he had already seen all the moves the eager young fighter knew. And so he began killing him slowly.

He started by taking a few openings here and there, openings which could easily mean the man's death, but which he instead used to slice and draw blood. He had never fought against a
yahr
before, and this was a good opportunity to experiment, so he did, testing the weapon's strengths and weaknesses against his blades. The assassin wasn't skilled enough to teach him much about this new challenge, but Tansen managed to make it look like he was finding it hard, for the benefit of the spectators. He even let the assassin nick him a couple of times with the
shir
, knowing the scratches would hurt bone-deep and bitterly for a long time, since a
shir
was no ordinary blade.

The villagers would remember how bloody and horrible the battle had been, how the stranger and the assassin had struggled, endured, and persisted. But Josarian's most recent exploits—which included tying a Valdani priest to a honey tree and stealing all his tribute goats—had convinced Tansen that he was a shrewd enough strategist to see past what the villagers had seen when he finally heard the story. Josarian would hear that it had taken the stranger half the morning to kill one young, over-confident, inexperienced opponent. He'd know he was good enough to beat such a fighter, especially if he used some of the surprise tactics he'd been practicing on the increasingly frantic Valdani. Unless he was as placid as a Sister, he'd be tempted to confront the warrior who was fast becoming as famous as he was in these mountain villages.

And the trap would be sprung.

The assassin was all emotion now. All rage, seething frustration, and sweating desperation. It made him clumsy and predictable. While Tansen didn't regret the death of a Society assassin, especially one who was clearly only alive because he'd never before fought anyone who could fight back, he didn't relish the slow, messy death he was bringing upon this one. He decided it was time to end it. He caught the wooden
yahr
with his left blade and flipped it away, then drove his right sword through his opponent's belly.

The assassin dropped his blood-stained
shir
and fell to his knees, his eyes wide with surprise in his sweat-soaked face, his mouth gaping in a scream that had no sound. He looked terribly young suddenly, and the thought came sharply to Tansen that he would never get any older.

Searching to fill the lad's last moment in this world, Tan said, "You fought with courage. I honor you for that." Then he slit the assassin's throat with his free sword.

The body keeled sideways, blood flowing out of the severed neck to form a fast-spreading crimson pool in the dust. Tansen stared at nothing in particular for a moment, resisting the flood of memories. Kiloran would hear about this. He glanced briefly at the staring, lifeless eyes of the Society assassin. Yes, Kiloran would hear.

Knowing that all gazes were fixed on him, Tansen flipped the blood off his blades, then told the old woman in the shadows to bring him the assassin's tunic. It was soft, made of imported Kintish silk, finer material than most
shallaheen
would ever wear. Tansen wiped his swords on it, then sheathed them and dropped the soiled tunic on the ground. His swords, he realized absently, would actually
need
the cleaning he'd give them in the next village he came across. He walked over to where he'd left his satchel, picked it up, and turned to leave the village without a backward glance.

"
Siran!
" a young voice cried. "Wait,
siran!
"

He glanced over his shoulder. The three boys who had idolized the dead assassin were now gathered around the body. One of them used a stick to poke the
shir
that lay on the ground. "
Siran
, you must take the
shir!
"

"Fires of Dar," Tansen muttered in a flash of irritation. "I don't need a
collection
of the damned things." He called to the boy, "Leave it there."

"But,
siran
, don't you—"

"No," he said firmly. "If the waterlord who made it wants it back, let him come and get it."

Koroll stood on the parapeted rampart of the old Moorlander fortress in Cavasar that night, looking out to sea. Somewhere across that wine-dark expanse of water lay Valda, the greatest city in the world, mother of the most powerful empire that had ever existed. The Emperor's rule extended far to the north, west into the Moorlands, and east to encompass dozens of principalities, chieftaincies, lesser kingdoms, and chaotic provinces that had once formed part of the Kintish Kingdoms. The sprawling empire of the Kints had long ago crumbled under the onslaught of the Valdani. The various exotic and admittedly vast lands which still comprised the Kintish Kingdoms were now little more than a loose association of petty states which would turn on each other with only a little encouragement. The tribes in the free Moorlands were mere barbarians who sold each other into slavery for the promise of a little more land.

Koroll knew, as surely as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow, that someday the Emperor of Valdania would rule the entire world. The Valdani would establish law and order everywhere, build roads through the forbidding, misty hills of the southern Moorlands, regulate the bizarre customs and strange rites of the scattered Kintish allies, and teach people to live as they should. With their power consolidated in the lands of their enemies, the Valdani would then push north into the unexplored lands beyond the Great Northern Desert. With the Moorlanders and Kints subdued at last, Valdani explorers would journey down the north-flowing Sirinakara River to discover the secret of its source and conquer the little-known peoples who lived beyond the edges of the civilized world.

It was a great destiny, and Koroll fully intended to be part of it. Having already been stranded in this backwater province of the Empire for four years, he was certainly not going to let one bloodthirsty mountain peasant destroy what little reputation he'd found the opportunity to build here. He wasn't going to let his name finally be brought to the Emperor's notice only because he couldn't prevent an uprising among a people who, although violent and hard to govern, hadn't presented a serious threat to the Valdani in well over a century.

Koroll gazed up at the sky, where the first moon, Abayara, was waning to a crescent. Half of Ejara, the second moon, still glowed in the night sky. As the days passed, there would be two crescent moons up there, then one, then none—dark-moon, when the night sky was lit only by the stars. Would the
shatai
return with Josarian's head by then? Would it take him longer? Would he even succeed?

Koroll quickly made the Sign of the Three, touching his left shoulder, his forehead, and his right shoulder, to ward off any ill fortune that last unbidden thought might have summoned. He had seen the
shatai
's performance in the courtyard that final morning before they released him. Feeling the return of his strength, the swordmaster had revealed skills, speed, and agility which had left Koroll's men gaping like stunned children and Koroll himself filled with the certainty that this man could kill anyone he chose.

Koroll still didn't know who Tansen was, other than some
shallah
or part-
shallah
who'd convinced a Kintish swordmaster to train him and then worked for a time in the Moorlands. Nonetheless, Koroll thought he understood him. Whether the man had come home to visit his family or to finish some business connected to the
shir
he carried, he was a mercenary and could be counted on to act like one. If he succeeded on this first assignment, he could become a useful ally, a very valuable tool. That possibility, added to the buoyant belief that his problems with Josarian were about to end, had inspired Koroll to offer to pay Tansen out of his own coffers when he returned, in addition to returning the
shatai
's gold. Such men were bought with money, after all, not with loyalty, promises, or threats.

"Twice the amount of gold you took from me—I have your word on that?"

Oh, yes, Koroll had caught the swordmaster's attention with that offer; he had seen the look of greed in the warrior's eyes. Yes, the
shatai
would return to Cavasar for his gold, or die trying.