Free the Darkness (King's Dark Tidings Book 1) (50 page)

           
The young warrior wrestled a tiny potential ward into existence, pressing it
against the connection to the synchronic alarm. He wrapped the imaginary
microward around the connection and then solidified it into place. Now, he
could maneuver the locking mechanism without fear of setting off the alarm. The
Grandmaster was clever to have employed such a device. Without Rezkin’s intense
focus
, he would have missed the warning signals and alerted the assassin
to his presence.

           
Once inside the room, Rezkin stepped over, around, and through various traps.
The young warrior was pressed to the extent of his
Skill
to keep from
waking the man or stumbling into the camouflaged traps in the dark. The room
was organized chaos. Likely, the Grandmaster knew where every item belonged,
but anyone else would think the place had been ransacked. Items were placed in
illogical and incongruous places, a method sometimes employed for disrupting
intruders. While fumbling in the dark, one would not expect a coatrack adorned
with pewter eating utensils hung from bale wire to be standing in the center of
the room, fishing hooks strung at various heights from the rafters, or a
teetering waste basin to be mounted on a pedestal like a prized sculpture
directly in front of an open toilet, which was oddly placed at the head of the
bed.

The young intruder detected several poisons on valuable or
desirable items – the kind of items that would draw a thief’s attention.
It seemed superfluous to the warrior since no one would be insane enough to
simply
rob
the Grandmaster of the Assassin’s Guild. Well, anyone but
Rezkin. The Grandmaster’s sleep was shallow and alert, as one would expect from
a man in his position. The young warrior finally decided on the item he
desired, and despite his careful retrieval, he found himself poisoned. At
least, he
would
have been poisoned if he had not been immune that that
particular toxin. The Grandmaster had
earned
his place in truth, and
would be a worthy adversary, at least for a time, if the only
Skills
Rezkin had to rely on were those of an assassin.

The young warrior slipped from the Grandmaster’s chamber,
relocking the door and releasing his imaginary ward, allowing it to dissolve
back into the
potential
. Rezkin passed a couple of Slips in the corridor
with a confident, casual gait, the gait of a man simply going about his
business. The two were deep in hushed conversation and nodded without breaking
stride.

Back on the main floor, Rezkin immediately made his way to
the upper levels, slipping into the shadows as he did so. At one point he had
to duck behind a weapons rack to avoid a stray dart that missed its intended
target. The trainee quietly scolded himself for the failure and collected the
dart that had landed only inches from Rezkin’s hiding spot. The young man
failed to detect the intruder and went back to practicing. His other shots were
much more accurate, although not nearly sufficient.

The upper level was unoccupied, and beyond that was nothing
but a dark recess and empty rafters. The heavy slate roof tiles permitted no
access from the roof, which is why Rezkin intended to use it as his escape.
Eventually, the assassins would figure out how he had entered the Hall, but
since he would not pass by the sentries at the entrance, they would not be able
to figure out how he left. If they realized they had been infiltrated anytime
before his intended meeting the following day, they would believe him still in
their sanctuary.

The center of the roof was held up by a central shaft as
large as a tree trunk, which Rezkin would have to scale. He wrapped his arms
and legs around the beam and proceeded to shimmy his way to the top. Once
there, he held onto the shaft with his legs while he worked a heavy dagger
between slate tiles at the top. The blade abruptly snapped but not before he
had pried the tiles far enough apart to get a firm grip. He frowned at the
useless dagger hilt as he shoved it in a pouch at his waist. It was a cheap
dagger he had acquired from one of the bandits during his trek to Kaibain.

The warrior shoved the tile up and snatched the dagger blade
before it could fall the hundred or so feet below where it would alert the
assassins to his presence. Rezkin’s entire body strained as he gripped the
central shaft with his legs and hefted the heavy slate tile up and to the side.
He had to maintain a firm grip on the tile that had been resting beneath the
top shingle. It was poorly balanced and became loose during his machinations.
If the heavy shingle fell, it could start an avalanche of sliding shingles,
perhaps even collapsing a large section of the roof. The warrior had to remove
the sword and scabbard from his back and place it on the roof or he would not have
been able to squeeze through the hole. The Sword Bearer did not carry his own
blades, begrudgingly hiding them in the forest. Instead, he carried the
assassin’s blade just as the man had, along with the rest of his attire. The
young warrior gripped the loose tile in one hand as he used his other to lift
himself through the small opening.

Once on the roof, Rezkin carefully adjusted the two shingles
until they once again fit snuggly in their intended positions. He collected the
sword and then began making his way down the vertical face of the tower. The
tower was old, and the handholds and footholds were numerous where the grout
had weathered away. Unfortunately, the same natural weathering applied to the
stones, some of which were loose. Rezkin reached for a handhold and found the
stone to be too loose to hold his weight at the same time that the stone
beneath his foot crumbled away. Despite all his
Skills
, Rezkin was
pitched into the air, falling freely into the darkness below. He twisted in
midair so that he would strike the ground properly for such a fall. Upon
impact, he pitched forward into several summersaults intended to absorb his
momentum.

The ground at the base of the tower was uneven and on a
slight hill. Rezkin wrenched his leg and heard an audible snap just before he
struck a tree. The impact with the towering fir dislocated his shoulder and
caused a searing pain in his chest. The warrior mentally chided himself for his
folly as he went about checking his injuries, although he would never give voice
to his pain or self-recrimination. Rezkin braced himself and then slammed his
shoulder into the trunk of the tree, shoving the appendage back into its proper
socket. He prodded at his ribs to find at least one was probably broken
although not dislocated. Finally, he pulled up his pant leg and checked the
damage to his shin. The bone must have been fractured because he had heard the
snap
,
but he could find no dislocation of that bone, either. He was lucky to have
such minimal damage, even if it was all on the same side.

Holding his arm close to his body helped to keep both the
arm and the ribs in place. Rezkin limped as he searched for a few strong,
straight sticks. He had to use his damaged arm to strap the sticks around his
leg. Finally, he traversed the track of his fall covering up any evidence of
his passing. It was dark, but the pain helped the warrior to focus. He had
endured much pain in his life, and it was often used as an instructional method
in maintaining focus and resisting torture.

The warrior slowly made his way back through the woods until
he found the assassin he had left behind. The man was gagged and tied, but he
did not appear to have regained consciousness in Rezkin’s absence. Rezkin
removed the man’s clothes and redressed him before lugging the assassin to the
bank of the river, not an easy feat with a broken leg and injured shoulder and
ribs. He dumped the man in a shallow pool, making sure his head and shoulders
were above water. Hopefully, the water would erase any evidence that Rezkin had
donned the man’s clothes or that they had been removed at all.

The young warrior made his way quite a ways upstream before
attempting to cross. No bridge crossed the massive Tremadel. The river was too
vast, and deep, and the way needed be clear for ships. If one wanted to cross,
he had to purchase passage on a ferry or other vessel. Rezkin had ridden the
ferry across with a group of day workers returning to their camp on the other
side of the river, but it was much later now, and any crossing would be
notable. Due to the swift current, it was impossible to swim the monstrous
river. Rezkin did so anyway. Any boat passage would eventually be tracked by
the assassins, and Rezkin wanted to appear as a wraith, untraceable,
unstoppable. Rezkin swam the Tremadel in full gear with numerous injuries and
still managed to reach the other shore not far from where he had left Pride.

The mounted warrior circled the city to enter through the
Eastern Gate. He slept for a few hours amongst some brush as he waited to reenter
the city. An hour before dawn, the guards opened the gate to grant entry to the
numerous merchants, farmers and traders who were lined up outside the gate with
their carts and wagons. The warrior steered Pride between two of the larger
wagons and huddled beneath a worn brown cloak. The guards were tired and paid
little attention as they passed around steaming cups of coffee. Rezkin was
already a bit feverish, and he knew he would have to appear whole and hale when
he implemented his plan later that day. He needed a
Healer
.

Winding his way through the streets was not difficult atop
the massive battle charger. People naturally shied away from such a beast and
cleared the way. Moving through the city without drawing attention was
impossible. He stayed to the smaller side streets as much as possible. When he
was within two blocks of his destination, Rezkin dismounted and left Pride in a
vacant alley. The horse stood patiently, not moving from his spot as Rezkin
turned the corner and limped the short distance. Despite his best efforts to
conceal his injuries, the ever-so slight limp was unavoidable. The average
person might not notice, but to anyone with a trained eye, he was obviously
lame.

Using his one good arm and leg, Rezkin leveraged himself up
onto a short wall. From there, he gritted his teeth as he used much of his
remaining strength to pull himself onto a second floor balcony. The young
warrior studied the balcony above him. Normally, he would have no problem
accessing the simple structure, but his fever had worsened, and he was nearly
at a loss for energy. The icy cold Tremadel had done its best to claim his
life, sucking him under and choking him over and again. In the end, he had
prevailed, but he had not yet shaken the river’s grip.

Rezkin let himself into the apartment before him and quickly
made his way to the front door. He could hear a man and a woman arguing in the
adjacent room. The woman wanted to know where her husband had been all night,
and the man was insistent he had simply passed out at the tavern and slept in
the common room…
alone
.

Once out of the apartment, Rezkin dragged himself to the
next floor. It was absurd that scaling one flight of stairs could be so
demanding. He had endured far worse injuries in the past, but he conceded to
himself that he had not previously spent an hour drowning and fighting an
impassable monster river afterward. Rezkin allowed himself into the third floor
apartment above, which to his surprise was not warded.

He crossed the room and eased himself into a chair beside a
large desk strewn with papers. His eyes begged to close as his body yearned for
sleep, but he forced himself to sit up and appear menacing, which at the moment
was anything
but
how he felt. The young warrior nearly lost the battle
over the next half mark that he waited. He roused himself as he heard the first
signs of movement from the adjacent room.

A young man in skewed grey robes nearly stumbled from the
bedroom. His hair was mussed, and he wearily rubbed sleep from his eyes. He
dragged his slippered feet over to the small wood burning stove and brought it
to light. He filled an iron kettle with water from a barrel that looked to
refill itself from a small pipe that ran though the ceiling to the roof. The
young man turned with a massive yawn and when his tired eyes reopened, they
landed on Rezkin. He blinked several times as if to clear away the inharmonious
image of a strange, dark warrior sitting in his abode. The young man scratched
his head and furrowed his brow before finally asking, “Who are you?”

Rezkin lifted one brow. He had to give the man credit for
not panicking, but his total lack of concern was disconcerting. Anyone finding
Rezkin
in his home should surely be terrified. The warrior knew he was not himself,
though. He should have checked the other room to make sure of its occupant.
This young man was not the one he was here to see. He also realized that since
the unexpected resident had appeared, he had been focused on
not
causing
a panic. Rezkin had been
willing
the young man to feel comfortable and
perhaps curious but not frightened. It seemed his
will
had been
appeased.

“I am looking for Master Healer Dronidus,” Rezkin replied,
his voice slightly hoarse.

The young man shrugged and then shuffled over to a counter
that held a small canister. He scooped tea from the canister as he spoke.
“Dronidus is dead. He died two weeks ago. Got run over by a spooked carthorse.
Nasty business, but nothing could be done.”

“And you are?” inquired the stranger.

“The name’s Yerwey Dulse. I am…
was
…Dronidus’s
apprentice-journeyman, but when he died, the guild went ahead and raised me to
full Healer,” Yerwey explained.

“Apprentice-journeyman?” Rezkin asked. He did not know if it
was his fever, but the term made no sense. Either one was an apprentice or a
journeyman, not both.

Yerwey grumbled in irritation as he waited for his water to
heat. “
Master
Dronidus,” he said with scorn, “said I would learn more by
staying under his tutelage than by finding a position as journeyman. I suppose
I did, but only because he never lifted a damned finger to do anything himself.
I got stuck with all the work and almost none of the pay.”