Night of Knives (10 page)

Should she wait out the rest of the night in the brush next to the estate wall, or run to tell someone what she’d heard? But who? Mock’s Hold and the Claws? Hardly. According to Oleg they were one of the powers contending this night. One group among many in a field far more crowded than even they knew. And right now she wasn’t sure she wanted to just blindly approach them. Where then? Sub-Fist Pell? He’d handed over all authority to the Claws without even lifting his fat ass from his chair! No, there was only one person on the island who could possibly make any sense out of all this: her aunt Agayla. She’d know what to do. But still . . .

She studied the body. It looked obscenely flat, as if deflated
by the loss of blood and secrets. Maybe all that talk was just the last reflexive outpouring of a madman. A lunatic schemer to the end. Comforting, that thought. Yes, that was it, most likely. Anything else . . . well, it was all too outrageous.

She turned her sight towards the inland hills. Low patches of cloud hugged them. The storm appeared to promise nothing more than a series of flitting shadows and numbing rain. Shivering and worn out, Kiska pulled at her wet clothes and pushed her flattened hair back behind her ears. It was just the sort of dreary night that always depressed her. She wondered how much time had passed and whether she might catch a glimpse of her quarry – the man Oleg had demanded she approach – between here and Agayla’s. It might yet be possible. And what if she did manage to find him again? What should she do? Walk up to him and tell him she had a message from a ghost?

She turned away and grunted at what she saw behind her. There stood the fellow in the dull grey cloak, his head cocked, studying her. He stepped forward. Up close he was rather shorter than she’d thought. She slipped her right hand into her cloak, onto the crossbow’s grip. He raised his closed hands before him, a shoulder’s width apart. She saw nothing between them, but recognized a garrotist’s stance.

‘Who are you?’ she called softly. She resisted the urge to raise a hand to her throat. He advanced, silent. She stepped backwards, considered her options: how far to the wall? What cover was there? Just how fast could this fellow be?

The marble bench and Oleg’s corpse passed on her left as she retreated. ‘Who are you!’ she shouted, damning any pretence to secrecy now. He smiled a tight predatory grin and kept advancing. What made the assassin so cocky?

Raising his arms up higher than his head, as if he could just walk up and throttle her, he stepped over Oleg’s corpse. Or rather, stepped through it. His foot disappeared. She snapped
up the crossbow and fired, but the bolt shot right through what was just an image evaporating into shadows.

A self-damning ‘Shit’ was all she managed before wire closed around her neck from behind. Ice-cold pain knifed though her flesh. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to scream, plead, cry, anything. But nothing could escape her throat.

The assassin leaned close, his chin on her shoulder. ‘I was going to pass you by,’ he breathed into her ear. ‘But you persisted. None of this concerns you. You were mere clutter. Now I send you to my master.’

She felt the fists to either side of her neck tense for a final yank. She arched her back, flailed her arms, kicked, but nothing shook him.

Then something swam into view before her like a fish rising from lightless depths. A body and face took form – Oleg. The shade pointed past her shoulder and its lips moved. The wind sighed words in a guttural language. A cry and an eruption burst beside her. She spun in darkness, limbs flying wildly. From close by screaming filled the air, and Kiska felt herself slammed into the wet loamy ground.

She opened her eyes slowly. Her clothes felt hot and damp. She was sick with dizziness; her ears rang and throbbed. Had she passed out? No, the roaring echo of thunder still reverberated while steam rose from her cloak. She lay in the north planting bed of the E’Karial estate, alive, unhurt even, or so it appeared. Raising herself onto all fours, she hoisted herself upright, wobbled, groggy, then pushed her way through the brittle stalks and grasses onto the patio.

The marble bench lay on its side. Beside it a hole in the tiles steamed in the misty rain. A true lightning stroke? Or magery? The corpse lay where it had. Of the assassin nothing could be seen.

She cursed, or tried to. A cross between a cough and a croak was all she could manage. She slapped at the heated fabric of
her cloak. How could she have survived that? Pushing back her hair, she staggered to the overturned bench. It was too heavy for her to lift so she simply slumped onto one carved marble leg. Her fingers traced the gash across her throat. Hissing a breath, she yanked her hand away and studied the glove. Blood showed dark, wet and glistening in the moonlight. Maybe she hadn’t survived.

That struck her as hilarious. She laughed, then gasped at the pain. Hood’s breath! It hurt just to swallow. Perhaps that was a good sign. After all, did shades feel pain?

She took a long slow breath, felt the air scrape like a wire brush down the raw flesh of her throat. This was definitely news to take to Agayla. The cover of the Shadow Moon was being used to settle old scores. She’d have to get going. Someone was bound to investigate. This was an aristocratic district, after all.

Slowly, her hearing returned. She thought she caught distant sounds: the baying of a hound. Yes, fierce bellowing. And, from far away, shrill cries that could have been screams. Her own hurts faded as it occurred to her: perhaps this night everyone might be too busy to care.

After Faro spoke Sergeant Ash glanced to Temper’s booth. His gaze, hooded, merely flicked to one of his men, then returned to the parchment he was studying with Corinn and a few others. That man, another Bridgeburner veteran Temper figured, pushed himself up from his table and strode across the common room, his tread loud in the silence.

‘Shut the old man up.’

He wore a hauberk of iron lozenges riveted into boiled leather, and a bare pot helm of blackened steel. The tip of his nose had long ago been sheared off. A thin moustache hung down past his chin. He appeared bored, as if he didn’t care much either way, and in this case Temper could tell that
appearances weren’t deceiving. He would slit Faro’s throat if he spoke again. Beside him, Coop gaped up, mute with shock. Trenech stared blankly. The man’s hand closed on the horn grip of a dagger shoved into his belt.

‘We’ll keep him quiet,’ Temper said, quickly.

The man hesitated, looked them over, then grunted and sauntered away. Coop stared. ‘My God! You don’t think he’d have—’

‘Shut up, Coop.’

Coop flinched, hurt. Temper squinted sidelong at Ash and the others gathered around the far table. They were studying something – a map?

The howling rose again, further away this time. The men looked about, at the walls, each other. To Temper the tension in the room seemed as thick as the hanging curtains of smoke. Faro stirred again, as if dreaming uneasily. Gently, Trenech clenched the old man’s shoulder and Faro murmured something: garbled nonsense, or another language. Trenech seemed to understand. He squeezed again, nodded.

Temper’s attention was pulled away by benches scraping and boots stamping the stone floor. The men were readying to leave. Ash stood by the door giving orders to five men. Sergeants, Temper decided. With twelve veterans and another thirty or so hired swords, they had a force of some forty men. Plus Corinn; a true cadre mage would be invaluable. Yet what could they hope to achieve? A limited tactical goal? But what could that be on this island? All he could come up with was the Hold, but that made no sense. Nothing worth anyone’s life would be found
there.
Unless it wasn’t something they were after, but someone . . . the visiting official. Assassination? But no one took forty armed men on an assassination attempt. That left. . . kidnapping? Temper shook his head. Ludicrous!

Ash, followed by Corinn, approached their booth. Standing close, the man concentrated on adjusting his armoured leather
gauntlets. ‘You have my word you’ll see the dawn if you sit here and make no trouble.’ He glanced up. ‘Understand?’

Only Temper nodded. Coop squeezed his cloth in both hands and Trenech stared past Ash at Corinn. He looked as if he were about to ask her a question.

‘Very well,’ and he stalked away. Corinn lingered, sent Temper a hard do-as-he-says look. He simply eyed her, uncertain how to respond. She gave a last quizzical glance at Faro as if she were studying him for the first time.

Temper watched as the squads filed out. The brazier flames jumped in the gusts of damp air blowing from the door. Corinn hung back until nearly all had exited. Their eyes met across the smoky room. She gave a small apologetic shrug then left. Four men remained. All looked to be mere hired swords, street refuse as far as Temper could discern. Two more guards were likely outside and would be spelled as the night progressed. The four sat at a table roughly halfway between the front door and the rear booth. Out came a set of bones. For a time all that could be heard was the wind outside, the snap and crackle of flames, the tossed knuckle bones clicking, and the guards’ low talk. Temper studied the men. What were his chances? Could he count on Coop? On Trenech?

He’d seen the hulking fellow break up fights for Coop. He’d just tuck a drunk under each arm and toss them out. But hired swords? He glanced over at Trenech and nearly swore aloud; the fool was dozing! Mouth open and wet, eyes closed, he breathed long and deep; his broad chest rose and fell like a blacksmith’s bellows. Temper glared irritation. Everyone seemed mad this night.

The guards laughed, leaned back. One, the youngest, rose from the table and swaggered to the booth. The skinny lad wore a long leather hauberk, slit at its sides, that his legs kicked as he walked. His thick curly black hair stuck out from an undersized helm. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and
sneered down at them. Just a youth, Temper reflected sourly, the faintest blond down pale on his upper lip. But his kind were dangerous, with too much to prove to themselves.

‘Where’s the good stuff, innkeeper?’ Coop stared, eyes wide. The youth scowled, shifted a hand to the knife at his belt. ‘Don’t fool with me or I’ll use this.’

Temper nudged Coop who started as if jerked from a dream. ‘The pantry,’ he gasped, ‘through that door. Glass bottles.’

The youth went to the door, opened it, and returned carrying a brown bottle. He paused at their booth. ‘You storing ice in the kitchen, old man?’

His brow furrowed with puzzlement, Coop shook his head.

Scowling, the guard returned to his table.

‘What is it?’ Temper whispered to Coop.

‘Moranth distilled spirits.’

Temper stared back at the innkeeper. ‘Gods, man. That’s pure alcohol. How long have you been hiding that?’

Coop lowered his eyes. ‘Sorry, Temp. I use it to fortify the liqueurs.’

‘They’ll be blind in a few hours, but I can’t wait that long.’

Coop opened his mouth but one of the guards shouted, ‘Quiet back there, damn your eyes! No whisperin’.’ Coop snapped his mouth shut. Temper half sat up, but decided against blindly charging in and eased himself back down. He’d wait and watch a few minutes more.

While they played their game of bones the guards tossed back shots of the spirits, gasping as it seared their throats. Temper silently cursed them for amateur fools, the most useless hands out of a bad lot. Of course there was no way Ash would’ve spared good men for this duty; he needed everyone he could muster for whatever lay ahead. Fists clenched on the table, Temper could stand the inaction no longer and called out to them across the room: ‘You don’t really expect Ash to come back, do you?’

Coop gaped at him.

All four guards turned, their eyes glistening through the brazier’s hanging smoke.

‘Shut your Hood-cursed mouth.’

‘Been paid already have you?’

The youngest jerked up from the table. Another pulled him down, growled, ‘Shut that mouth or I’ll pin your tongue to your jaw.’

Temper grimaced into the haze. He was almost disappointed he hadn’t goaded them into action. At least then it would all be over, one way or another. Waiting was not his strength. Fifty more heartbeats and he’d charge them. That bottle would do well as a weapon. He had to get moving; he wasn’t even sure where Ash and his gang were headed.

Coop’s boot nudged his. Temper glanced over. The innkeeper, pale-faced and goggle-eyed, stared down at the floor. Temper followed his gaze. Fog, like the advancing lip of a tide, covered the stone floor in a layer no thicker than a thumb’s width. It was welling up from behind the small pantry door.
That dark stairwell down into cold cellars no one ever enters.
Solid’s Mercy! Never mind the storm outside: what was gathering right here around them now?

Faro suddenly jerked upright, making Coop yelp. His eyes, clear and aware, made Temper glance away; they opened onto depths far greater than those of any cellar. Faro murmured to Trenech,
’Shtol eg’nab lemal.’

It was a language Temper had never heard before, though it reminded him somewhat of Old Talian. But Trenech understood. His eyes snapped to the front of the room.

The young guard jumped to his feet. ‘Shut that old—’

A hound’s roar tore through the air of the common room, exploding from just outside the door. The guards froze, glanced to the door then each other. Their eyes gleamed wide in the firelight. A scream sounded then, a man’s cry of utter
horror and hopelessness, ending in sobs even as the guards erupted from their chairs. Weapons scraped from sheaths and the guards whispered among themselves, then the oldest of them edged to the door. His free hand hovered at the latch.