Weapon of Blood (4 page)

“Did their blades touch you?”  He dropped
the katana and approached her, looking for signs of weakness or pain in her
stance.  “They were poisoned.”

“No.”  She looked at the daggers in her
hands as if surprised they were there.  Her eyes shone white, wide in the dim
light.  He could see her pulse pounding in her throat.  “No, they didn’t even
scratch me!  HA!”

“You’re sure?”  He looked her over, but
her clothes weren’t torn or cut.

“Sure.”  She took a deep breath and
grinned at him.  “They made such a racket coming off of the roof, I was ready,
and surprised them.”  She bent to clean her daggers on one of the fallen
assassins’ cloaks, then stood and indicated the three unconscious foes.  “We
should take one to question.”

“Please.  No, Mya.”  He gripped her
shoulder.  “We should go.”

“Let me have a look at them, then.”  She
rolled the swordsman over and snorted in disgust.  “I know this one.  Wu Jah; I
think that’s his name.  Journeyman Blade.  I should cut his head off and send
it to Horice in a box!”

“Two deaths are enough for one night, and
now you know who sent them.  Come.  Let’s be off.”

“If I send a message, maybe this bullshit
will stop!”

“Or Horice will want revenge for the
insult and try again.”  He turned her away from the prostrate forms.  “Come
on.”

“Fine.”  She sheathed her daggers and
followed him down the alley at an easy trot.

Four blocks later they slowed to a walk. 
Lad was on high alert, but his attentiveness was so intuitive, he managed to
replay the attack in his mind as they travelled.  Never before had they been
attacked by more than two or three assassins.  Mya had been lucky tonight; a
scratch from a poisoned weapon was as lethal as a dagger to the heart.  She was
more proficient than he had thought if she could kill two attackers with no
harm to herself.  Even though they had initiated the attack, he regretted the
deaths.  They had only been following orders.  He knew what it was like to have
to follow orders, and he knew that someone would mourn them.

Family, friends, lovers
…

The dead were beyond fear and pain; it
was the living who would suffer.

“This attack could have been prevented,
Mya.”

“You’re right.”  She cast him another vicious
grin.  “I should have killed Horice months ago.”

“That’s not what I meant!”  He bit back
his temper and forcibly calmed the tone of his voice.  A deep breath returned
his heart to a slow, easy cadence.  “You ignore the council.  They retaliate. 
If you paid them more heed…”

“They are old and irrelevant.  They don't
understand me, and I refuse to kowtow to their whims.”  She gave him an
impatient glare; they’d had this discussion before.  “I’ve tried to make the
guild a less-brutal organization at
your
request, and I’ve succeeded
with my own faction.  By opposing the other masters, I’m trying to force them
to change their ways.  If I cooperate, the guild stays as bloody and brutal as
always.  You can’t have it both ways, Lad.”

“I know, but the violence is only
worsening.”

“There’s no way to make lambs out of
lions.  Things change slowly or not at all, and change threatens the way
they’re used to doing business, which threatens their power.”

“They wield enough power, Mya.  If you
cooperated on some things, they might—”

“You mean submit!”  She gave him a short,
humorless laugh.  “No, Lad, if I give them a taste, they'll take the whole
larder."

“Very well.  You know these people better
than I do.”  That was true enough.  Lad understood human nature, and had even
managed to grasp the intricacies of bantering speech patterns, irony, and
humor, but the machinations of the Assassins Guild were beyond him.  He knew
one thing, however, and voiced it as plainly as he could.  “They’ll continue to
try to kill you if you continue to alienate and ignore them.”

"Ha!  Let them try.  That’s what
you’re
here for, my friend.”

She gripped his shoulder, and he forced
himself not to slap her hand away.  He knew it wasn’t an attack, but Mya’s touch
made him tense, which was odd, considering what they’d been through.  She’d
once cut a crossbow bolt out of his spleen, refusing his pleas to let him die. 
He’d never thanked her for that.  Maybe he should have.

“We have the perfect relationship, Lad. 
You protect me…and I protect you."

Lad tensed again. 
You protect me…and
I protect you
.  From Mya, it sounded more like a threat than a promise.  He
protected her from harm.  In exchange, she kept guild Enforcers away from the
Tap
and Kettle
, and kept his head out of a noose.  Lad had blood on his hands,
and as unwilling as his actions might have been, the Royal Guard would still hang
him if they ever discovered he had killed more than a dozen nobles five years
ago.

Their agreement was simple, but as with
any agreement with Mya, it worked to her advantage.  To Lad, it was a trap he
couldn’t escape without breaking his word twice over—his promise to Mya to protect
her, as well as his promise to himself not to kill—for he knew she would never
let him go until one of them lay dead in some back alley.  He was too valuable
to her, and she would never give up an advantage.

Finally, they approached the
Golden
Cockerel
.  Warm light glowed from the two large windows in the front of the
bar’s ground floor.  Two men lounged on the porch, and one of them opened the
door as Mya and Lad approached.

“Evening, Miss.  Hell of a night for a
stroll.”

The two men were Hunters, and they were
on duty.  They didn’t look like assassins, of course, but that didn’t change
what they were.

“Evening, Vic.”  Mya nodded in passing.

Warmth and light, laughter and the
clatter of dice, the clink and clatter of cups and glasses, all met his senses
at once.  Lad’s tension eased as he followed Mya into the pub’s boisterous
common room.  Many of those present—barmaids and prostitutes, gamblers and
drinkers—were Mya’s Hunters.  Here, if nowhere else in the city of Twailin, she
was safe enough without his protection.

“Join me for some mulled wine, Lad?”  Mya
handed her cloak to the elderly woman at the door and accepted a towel for her
dripping hair.

He nodded to the cloak-check woman, who
gave him a motherly smile and a wink.  As she hung up Mya’s cloak, he noted the
row of straight scars that crossed the underside of her forearm.  She, too, was
one of Mya’s people, and each scar, he knew, denoted a kill.

Fathers, brothers, daughters, friends…

“No, thank you.  I should go.”

“Well, be careful.  I don’t want you to
catch your death in this weather.”

“Catch my…”  He automatically gave her a naïve
look.  “You mean catch a chill and become sick, right?”

“Very good, Lad.”  She smiled and clapped
him on the shoulder.  He forced himself to not flinch.  “But there’s more than
one way to catch your death in garrote weather.”

“Oh, right.  Yes.  I’ll be careful.”

“Do that.  And thank you, Lad.”  She
squeezed his shoulder, and her sincere tone told him what she meant.  He’d
saved her life again tonight.

“You’re welcome, Mya.”  He nodded, then
turned and walked out into the rain and toward his other life.

Chapter
III

M
ya shivered,
but not from any chill brought on by her damp hair or dripping clothes. 
Watching Lad’s departure always felt like a warm blanket being pulled away,
baring her to the cold night air.  Mya knew she was safe here.  Surrounded by
her most reliable Hunters, she had nothing to fear.  Besides, her performance
tonight proved that physical dangers were less of a threat than they had once
been.  Still, after five years of having Lad at her side, Mya found herself comforted
by his presence, and felt strangely exposed without him.

She shook off the feeling, dismissing it
as post-fight tension.  Her nerves still sang with adrenalin after their brush
with Horice’s assassins.  She finished toweling her hair and returned the damp
cloth.  “Thanks, Jules.”

“No problem, dear.  Night like this isn’t
fit for a walk without a warm towel and a mug of wine to greet you home.”

“Too true.”  She surveyed the boisterous
common room. 
Home
.  Yes, it felt good to be home.

Mya breathed deep, savoring the scents,
sights and sounds of her only refuge in the city.  Paxal, her long-time
landlord and self-appointed mother hen, stood behind the long teak-wood bar. 
Over his shoulder, the ridiculous portrait of a crowing golden rooster—the
pub’s namesake—glowed in the lamplight.  As if sensing her gaze, Paxal looked
up, gave her a nod and a gap-toothed smile.  Mya smiled back.  Aside from Lad,
the barkeep was the person in the world she trusted most.  More than a decade
ago, he had taken in a frightened runaway, allowing her to sleep in the
storeroom for the work she could do.  After her sudden appointment to
journeyman, then master, five years ago, he suggested she use the bar as her
base of operations and had never asked for payment.  She paid him, of course,
but he had never once asked.  She could never pay for his loyalty, she knew. 
That was something he had given her free of charge, that and one simple piece
of advice one night years ago.

“There are two kinds of people in this
world, Mya.  People with power and people who live in fear.  You have to decide
which you are going to be.”

“Which are you?” she’d asked, and he’d
given her one of his rare smiles.

“Well, I’m the third type.  The type that
just doesn’t give a shit anymore.  But you’re too young to be like that.”

That axiom had been the single directing
precept of her life from that point forward.  She would be one of those with
power, not one of those who lived in fear.  The next day, she had sought out
the Assassins Guild, submitted to their tests, and signed the blood contract.

Conversations rose from the bar and
gaming tables.  About half the people here were hers, and they had strict
orders to maintain a festive air.  The non-guild clientele remained blissfully
unaware that the winsome young man on the next bar stool, or the buxom barmaid,
might have just returned from casing a potential target, collecting a finder’s
fee for hunting down a fleeing debtor, or even slitting a throat.

A hearty laugh from one of the gaming
tables told her someone had won a hand of cards or a roll of the dice.  She
encouraged her people to game; their contrived wins drew others to the tables. 
Guild member winnings were figured in as part of their pay, with Mya footing
the expense.  Everyone was happy, and the pub was always bustling.

Mya had once offered Paxal a formal
appointment to the guild, complete with salary, but he’d just smiled his
fatherly smile and shook his shaggy head.  “Too old for that crap, Miss Mya. 
Barkeep’s good enough for me.  I’m my own boss and I drink for free.”  She’d
let it drop without another word, but made sure his business thrived.

As Mya crossed the room, her nerves still
jangling, she nodded to her people, one of the familiar barmaids, and a couple
of regulars who knew her…or thought they knew her.  Her pretense of being
Paxal’s rich niece allowed her to come and go at will.  She strode down the
short hall at the back of the common room, past the washrooms and storage
chambers, to the thick oak door at the end.  A heavy-set bouncer stood before
the door, his huge arms crossed over a chest as broad and sturdy as an ale keg.

“Evening, Miss.”  One plate-sized hand
closed on the door’s latch and opened it for her.

“Thank you, Mika.”  She entered her
office.

The tidy little room had been used to
host private card games before Mya took it over.  It was still set up as such
in the unlikely chance that the pub was raided by the City Guard.  But now no
one entered except at Mya’s express invitation, and she extended that to few. 
A fire crackling in the small hearth rendered the room warm and cozy.  She
pulled a chair nearer to the blaze, sat and worked at the wet laces of her soft
black boots.  Her fingers shook with pent-up energy, and she couldn’t pick
apart the knots.  Laughing quietly to herself, she closed her eyes, took a deep
breath and flexed her hands.

Memories of the attack flooded her mind.

Assassins falling out of the
rain-soaked sky.  Her heart beating like a hammer, her veins surging with heat,
she could count the raindrops beading on their waxed cloaks.  Plucking daggers
from her sheaths, she was moving even before their feet touched the ground.

Duck-roll-parry-slash-flip-stab…and it
was done.  Two corpses lay at her feet.

Thank you, Lad…

The thought calmed her shaking hands
enough that she could untie her boots.  As she placed them on the hearth to
dry, she heard a familiar clomp of boots, then the door opened and Paxal came
in with a heavy platter.  He was the only person who had an open invitation;
anyone else would have knocked, or she would have heard Mika reducing them to a
bloody pulp.  The platter bore three items: a tankard of mulled wine, a plate
of steaming stewed mutton with vegetables, and a cloth napkin rolled around
polished silver eating utensils.  Mya’s mouth started watering even as he
arranged the meal on the card table and laid out the silverware with precise
motions.

“Thank you, Pax.”  She smiled at the
nightly ritual and dragged her chair back to the table, facing the room and the
door with the fire warm on her back.

“Bit damp out tonight, Miss, so I
fortified the wine with some plum brandy.”

“You’re a godsend.”  Mya didn’t know how
he managed it, since the
Golden Cockerel
didn’t have a kitchen, but
every night he had her dinner ready and piping hot when she arrived, despite
her irregular schedule.  This was better than home had ever been, and Paxal was
better family than she had ever had.  Rumor had it that he’d lost a daughter long
ago, and spent years inside a whiskey bottle, but he had never offered an
explanation, and she had never demanded one.  This was Pax, loyal without
indebtedness or fear, exactly what she needed.

Mya raised the tankard to him, then took
a swallow of wine.  The hot spicy concoction set a tingling warmth in her
stomach that radiated outward to infuse her limbs, and she sighed in
contentment.  “When I die, I’m leaving my entire fortune to you.”

“Best not.”  He smiled and turned to go. 
“I’d just piss it all way on wine, women and song.”

As the innkeeper left, her assistant,
Dee, came in with a ledger, a stack of letters and a box of writing tools.

“Evening, Miss Mya.”  He placed the
letters to the left of her plate, then sat across from her.

“Evening, Dee.”

Dee was tall and lanky, and about her
age.  Though they apprenticed near the same time, she hadn’t known him well,
except as the butt of jokes about his rumored aversion to blood.  His true
talents, she had discovered, were an aptitude for numbers and organization, and
his fine, elegant penmanship.  Not one to try to fit a dagger into a sword’s
sheath, Mya made him her administrative assistant and lodged him in one of the
rooms upstairs.

Mya took a bite of tender mutton, and
tried not to let the meal distract her from business.  This was another nightly
ritual, and it calmed her nerves like the hot, spiced wine she sipped between
bites.  Her hands stopped shaking as she shuffled through the letters, dictated
responses, and reported her activities of the day.  She didn’t mention the
assassination attempt to Dee; it wasn’t something he needed to know.  She’d see
to that bit of business herself.

Dee logged dates, amounts, and names in
his ledger as she spoke, nodding with each notation, asking pertinent questions
when they arose.  By the time she was halfway through the letters, she had
nearly forgotten that she’d killed two skilled assassins only an hour ago.

“Our meeting with Jayse went well, but I
think he’s hedging for a better deal than I offered.  Send him a note thanking
him for his hospitality, and quote him two gold crowns per day for our
services, four if he requires personal protection away from his place of
business.”

“Got it.”  Dee looked up from his
ledger.  “Cordial or firm?”

This was a common question.  Dee had a
good grasp of language and could alter his prose and his penmanship to make a
letter anything from friendly to downright threatening, an invaluable skill.

“Cordial, but no hints of personal
friendship.  He’s a little too smooth for my taste.”

“Right.”  The corners of Dee’s mouth
twitched in amusement, and she felt a twinge of irritation.

Forget it!  Just nerves.

Mya went back to her letters; mostly
reports from her Hunters on progress, or lack thereof, on their assignments.  She
fired off replies for Dee to jot down, later to be copied fair for her
signature in the morning.

Only one more
…  Mya picked up an envelope of fine parchment sealed
with black wax.  Strangely, there was no imprint, just a blank oval impression
in the wax.

“Personal correspondence.”  Dee nodded
toward the envelope as he gathered up the rest of the letters.  “I didn’t want
to get turned into something small and slimy.”

Mya crooked a smile at Dee’s exaggeration
as she pressed the obsidian ring that encircled the third finger of her left
hand—the ring that identified her as a master in the Assassins Guild—to the
seal.  A tingle ran up her arm, as if someone played their fingers gently over
her skin.  The tingle meant that if anyone besides the intended recipient
opened the letter, the note inside would be destroyed.  This simple magic
ensured that private correspondence stayed private.  Her own ring would impress
the same enchantment upon a wax seal.  A jolt of mild pain from her ring would
have meant the presence of dangerous magic.  Though a spell trap might not turn
her into a slug, as Dee’s little joke suggested, deadly magical traps were not
impossible.  Though he opened her guild correspondence, Dee left any personal
or sealed letters for her.

She cracked the seal, removed the letter
and unfolded it.  The embossed crest in the corner caught her eye like a glint
of moonlight on the blade of a dagger.  She knew that crest like she knew her
own name.  Every member of the guild knew it…and feared it.  All the tension
and pent-up energy from the assassination attempt, quelled by her comforting
routine, returned like a kick in the stomach.