Krondor the Assassins (32 page)

The man picked up the pace and William fought off a moment of resignation. Whatever James’s plan was, it was clear the squire didn’t want the assassins to know of a way into the fortress through the plateau.

William bore down, ignoring the burning in his legs and a heart that seemed ready to burst from his chest. This assassin must be tired as well, William thought. And then he thought of why he must not fail. The Prince needed to know of this place, how to get in, and the demon. He thought of his duty and those he was protecting: the royal family, the common people of the city, the servants in the palace; and then he thought of Talia. He remembered the demon that had appeared at the bloody rites, and he vowed he would die before allowing such a horror to be visited upon her.

Slowly he closed the gap with the assassin. The realization that he was gaining filled him with an elation that soon caused the fatigue to fade. It was clear the assassin was tiring and would soon have to face him.

The wadi broadened and now William could see the trail 287

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where they had bidden farewell to the two soldiers who had left with the goats and cart.

Reaching the trail, the assassin hesitated on which way to turn, and in that moment he had sealed his own fate. He had to turn to fight.

The man did so, pulling out a scimitar, and readied himself.

He obviously expected William to slow and draw his own weapon, but rather than do as expected, William pulled his bastard-sword on the run and managed to let lose with a war-cry as he lifted the long blade over his head.

The assassin leapt aside, startled by the rush, but not losing his wits. He parried William’s blow, spinning to face him as William slid to a stop in the dirt and also turned.

The two men crouched, facing one another. The assassin drew a dagger from his belt with his left hand and held it as if using it to parry, which William knew would be foolish against his long blade. He stayed wary, for the assassin would surely not hesitate to throw the blade if he saw an opportunity.

He had no doubt the man could fight with either hand.

The assassin was shorter than William, presenting a compact target as he stood with knees bent, waiting to see what William would do next.

William circled to his left, looking for an opening. When rested, William was as fast with his long blade as many other men were with a broadsword, but he was far from rested. He knew he had only two or three blows left before he would be at the other man’s mercy.

William leapt forward, turning his blade as he moved, so that he could level a backhand slash at the man’s right-hand side. He hoped to force the assassin to parry with the scimitar.

William prayed the scimitar would snap when he struck it.

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Apparently sensing the risk to his blade, the assassin jumped back, rather than parrying, and William seized the moment to press forward. He jerked his blade up short rather than let it carry around, leaving the point just to the right of the assassin’s dagger hand.

The assassin let fly with the dagger, the blade aimed straight for William’s throat, or where it would have been had he followed through with his blow.

Instead of striking him in the throat, the blade glanced off William’s shoulder at its juncture with the neck, slicing the muscle just above the chain mail he wore over his tunic.

‘‘Damn!’’ William said as his eyes teared from the pain.

He didn’t have time to consider the ill-luck of it not having struck one inch to the right, where it would probably have bounced off his chain, for the assassin followed his throw with a headlong rush.

William barely managed to get his sword up to block the man’s scimitar. His breath burst from his lungs as the assassin drove his shoulder into William’s chest, taking them both to the ground in a heap.

William ignored the fiery pain in his shoulder, rolled away from the assassin, and tried to come to his feet. Pain exploded in his face as the assassin kicked him, causing him to fall backward, his vision swimming as the sky turned yellow and red.

Fighting to remain conscious, William was abruptly aware of having lost his grip on his sword. As he tried to sit up, another blow struck him, and his head rang from the pain. Half-conscious, he was barely aware of the weight which landed on his chest.

Blinking hard, trying to force his senses to obey him, William looked up to see death upon him. The assassin was stand-289

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ing over him, one boot firm on William’s chest, his scimitar poised to deliver the killing blow.

In the split second between the recognition of his plight and the thought that he must somehow act—grab the assassin’s boot and knock him off balance—and the knowledge that he would be too slow to do it, William saw the assassin freeze for an instant, then fall away.

A figure in chain mail not unlike his own stood above William. It took a few moments for him to recognize Captain Treggar.

The captain put his sword away and knelt over William.

‘‘Can you hear me?’’

William blinked and then managed to croak, ‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Can you stand?’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ whispered William. ‘‘Help me to my feet and we’ll find out.’’

Treggar got a hand under William’s arm and helped him to stand. ‘‘Let me see that,’’ said the captain, looking at William’s wound. After a moment, he said, ‘‘You’ll live.’’

William’s head still rang and his legs were rubbery, but he said, ‘‘That’s good news.’’

‘‘But that cut’s going to burn like hell for a while until we can dress it.’’

The captain tore off a piece of his tunic and jammed it hard against the wound. William’s knees threatened to buckle and Treggar held him up. ‘‘We don’t have time for you to faint, lieutenant.’’

‘‘No, sir,’’ said William weakly.

‘‘We’re going to find the Prince, and if I have to leave you behind, I will.’’

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‘‘Understood, sir,’’ said William, forcing himself to take deep breaths. ‘‘I’ll do my best.’’

‘‘I know, Will,’’ said Treggar. ‘‘Come on, and let’s hope we find the Prince before those assassins find us.’’

William looked around. ‘‘Where’s James?’’

‘‘He went back inside. Said he was going to make them spend time looking for him rather than us.’’

William said nothing, but inside he was wondering if he possessed that sort of courage. James would be lucky to survive the time it would take to find the Prince and return with him.

They set off toward the east, moving slowly at first, then picking up the pace as William regained his senses.

James glanced around. He had taken a few minutes to move the rocks that had fallen when he and William had moved the flagstone above the crack in the ceiling. There was little he could do about the dust but he still tried to move some of it around with his feet.

Unsatisfied, but resigned to that being his best effort, he hurried toward the route he judged most likely to get him to where he wanted to be without being set upon by an army of angry men in black with large arsenals of weapons at their disposal.

‘‘Ruthia,’’ he said quietly, invoking the name of the Goddess of Luck. ‘‘I know I’ve abused our relationship at times, and I’m far overdue in visiting your shrine, but if you could see your way clear to granting me just a little more of your favor, this time, I swear I will be far more rigorous in my devotions.’’

He turned the corner and stepped into a large room, and an instant too late realized that there were men who had been standing motionless upon each side of the door. He spun to 291

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be confronted by two swords pointing at him, just as another half-dozen assassins suddenly burst into the room from three other doors.

Glancing around, he saw it was hopeless to fight, so he held up his hands and let his sword drop from limp fingers.

Under his breath, he muttered, ‘‘Ruthia, you didn’t have to be so emphatic in saying no!’’

One of the assassins stepped forward and struck James across the face with the back of his hand. James fell hard to the flagstones and the man kicked him brutally in the ribs.

Vomiting the scant contents of his stomach, James coughed and said, ‘‘Ruthia, you can be such a bitch.’’ Then the man kicked him in the head and James lost consciousness.

292

FIFTEEN

DESPERATION

m

J

AMES awoke slowly.

The cell was dark, the only light a torch in the antechamber which filtered through the tiny window. He recognized it as the same cell Edwin had occupied.

He was lying on a pallet of stale straw. The air was fouler than he remembered from his last visit, but then, he thought, he hadn’t been inside the cell.

He sat up and his whole body ached. His head still rang from the beating he had taken and he doubted he had more than a few square inches of skin that weren’t bruised.

James took a deep breath and looked around. No food or water, and he doubted his captors had given a second’s thought to his comfort. He expected the general thesis was that he wouldn’t be around long enough for comfort to be an issue.

The fact that he was alive led him to believe one of two things was about to happen. Either he would be questioned, to determine how many people knew of this hideout and how soon enemy forces could be expected to attack, or he was to be the guest of honor at the next demon summoning.

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If the former, he thought, he might stall for time. He could pretend the beating had befuddled his senses and that he needed some rest before it would all come back to him. If the latter, he had only until midnight for Arutha and his army to arrive and get him out alive. Jimmy shook his head again, trying to force himself into alertness. He stood up slowly, quietly, and wobbled to the opening in the door.

Looking through the tiny window, he saw they had placed guards in the room, against the chance of another of James’s companions being loose within the fortress. James stepped back quickly, lest a guard notice he was awake. If they are going to question me, he thought, the longer they wait to begin, the better the chances of the Prince getting here.

He sat down quietly and tried to rest. The stones were not cold, but this deep below the surface they were hardly warm.

The straw was as much an irritant as a comfort, yet he dozed off after a few minutes.

Some time later, he came awake with the sound of the door opening. Without a word, two guards strode through the door and grabbed him under the arms. He was dragged through the door and frog-marched through the fortress.

They took him to the one portion of the underground labyrinth he had failed to explore, which he assumed was the quarters of the leaders, the priests of the demon worshipers. He was soon to discover, with no satisfaction at all, that his surmise was correct.

Cast to the stone floor at the feet of a man in black robes, he waited.

‘‘Stand up, so I may look at you,’’ said the man standing above him. His voice was dry, like the rustling of aged parchment.

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James looked up and saw a man with an ancient face looking down at him. Slowly, on unsteady feet, James rose until he looked into the old man’s eyes. There was power there, a dark, dangerous power. The face looked impossibly old, barely more than blotched and discolored skin stretched taut across a skull.

What little hair remained as a fringe around the sides and back hung like white spider-silk. The old man looked closely at James, and suddenly James realized the creature before him wasn’t breathing, save when he needed to speak. Hair rose up on the back of James’s neck when he realized he was looking into the eyes of a dead man, somehow still animated.

‘‘Who are you?’’ the old man asked.

Seeing no benefit from an outright lie, James said, ‘‘My name is James.’’

‘‘You come to spy, from the Kingdom?’’

James said, ‘‘More or less.’’

‘‘Those with you, they are but the tip of the wedge, yes?’’

‘‘I believe more of my countrymen will be arriving shortly, yes.’’

‘‘It does not matter.’’ With a grin exposing crooked yellow teeth, the creature took another breath and said, ‘‘We here serve to the death and beyond. We fear not the lances of your Kingdom soldiers. We know what is to come, and by the grace given to us by our master, we do not fear it. Tonight is our final conjuration, and our master will send us a tool, a demon to destroy your Kingdom!’’

He gazed into James’s eyes a moment, then said to the assassins standing nearby, ‘‘Take him to the chamber. The hour is nearly upon us.’’

James was speechless. He had expected a dozen questions, possibly a beating or two, and the opportunity to delay and 296

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equivocate. Instead he was being dragged off to have his throat cut at a demonic rite.

They took him to a room next to the former armory and roughly stripped his tunic, boots and trousers from him, leaving him only his small-clothes. Two men grabbed him firmly by his arms and held him motionless.

Another black-robed priest entered the room and started an incantation. He carried a small bowl fashioned from a human skull, from which he pulled a bone covered in a dark, viscous liquid. He waved the bone in the air and James’s skin grew cold. Bumps appeared on his arms and the hair on the back of his neck rose. When he touched James on the forehead, his skin felt burned.

A third priest appeared, with another bowl holding a viscous white fluid. He held the bowl up to James’s face and said,

‘‘Drink.’’

James clamped his jaws shut. He didn’t know specifically what was being offered to him, but he suspected it was to make him more tractable.

A black-clad assassin came from behind the man on James’s right. He gripped James’s jaws with powerful hands, attempting to pry them apart. He got his hand bitten. James clamped down hard enough to draw blood, and received a staggering blow for his troubles.