Royal Assassin (UK) Read online

  I broke the one’s grip, and leaped back, try­ing to get as clear of them as I could. I had a belt knife. It was not a long blade, but it was all I had. I had thought I would not need any weapon today; I had thought there were no more Forged ones any­where near Buck­keep. They circled wide of me, keep­ing me in the centre of their ring. They let me get my knife clear. It didn’t seem to worry them.

  ‘What do you want? My cloak?’ I un­did the catch and let it fall. One’s eyes fol­lowed it down, but none of them leaped for it as I had hoped. I shif­ted, turn­ing, try­ing to watch all three at once, try­ing to have none of them com­pletely be­hind me. It wasn’t easy. ‘Mit­tens?’ I stripped them from my hands, tossed them as a pair to­ward the one who ap­peared young­est. He let them fall at his feet. They grunted as they shuffled, rock­ing on their feet, watch­ing me. No one wanted to be the first to at­tack. They knew I had a knife; who­ever went first would meet the blade. I took a step or two to­ward an open­ing in the ring. They shif­ted to block my es­cape.

  ‘What do you want?’ I roared at them. I spun around, try­ing to look at each of them, and for a mo­ment locked eyes with one. There was less in his eyes than there had been in Cub’s. No clean wild­ness, only the misery of phys­ical dis­com­fort and want. I stared at him and he blinked.

  ‘Meat.’ He grunted as if I had wrung the word from him.

  ‘I have no meat, no food at all. You’ll get noth­ing from me but a fight!’

  ‘You,’ huffed an­other, in a par­ody of laughter. Mirth­less, heart­less. ‘Meat!’

  I had paused a mo­ment too long, looked too long at one, for an­other sprang sud­denly to my back. He flung his arms around me, pin­ning one of my arms, and then sud­denly, hor­ribly, his teeth sank into my flesh where my neck met my shoulder. Meat. Me.

  A hor­ror bey­ond thought en­gulfed me and I fought. I fought just as I had the first time I had battled Forged ones, with a mind­less bru­tal­ity that ri­valled their own. The ele­ments were my only ally, for they were rav­aged by cold and priva­tion. Their hands were clumsy with cold, and if we were all powered by the frenzy for sur­vival, at least mine was new and strong within me while theirs had been worn down by the bru­tal­ity of their cur­rent ex­ist­ence. I left flesh in the mouth of that first at­tacker, but tear my­self free I did. That I re­call. The rest is not so clear. I can­not put it in or­der. I broke off my knife in the young one’s ribs. I re­call a thumb gou­ging into my eye, and the snap when I dis­lo­cated it from its socket. Locked in a struggle with one, an­other poun­ded me across the shoulders with his stick, un­til I man­aged to turn his mate to meet the blow. I don’t re­call that I felt the pain of that pound­ing, and the torn flesh at my neck seemed but a warm spot where blood flowed. I had no sense of dam­age to my­self, no daunt­ing of my de­sire to kill them all. I could not win. There were too many. The young one was down in the snow, cough­ing blood, but one was throt­tling me while the other tried to jerk the sword free from its en­tan­gle­ment in my flesh and sleeve. I was kick­ing and flail­ing, try­ing use­lessly to in­flict any sort of dam­age on my at­tack­ers while the edges of the world grew black and the sky began to spin.

  Brother!

  He came, slash­ing teeth and weight hit­ting our tangled struggle like a bat­ter­ing ram. We all went down in the snow then, and the im­pact loosened the Forged one’s grip enough that I caught a whistle of air into my lungs. My head cleared, and sud­denly I had heart to fight again, to ig­nore pain and dam­age, to fight! I swear I saw my­self, face purpled from strangling, the rich blood stream­ing and soak­ing and the smell so mad­den­ing. I bared my teeth. Then Cub bore the one down and away from me. He at­tacked him with a speed no man could match, slash­ing and snap­ping and leap­ing clear be­fore the grasp­ing hands could seize his coat. He dar­ted back in sud­denly.

  I know that I knew when Cub’s jaws closed in his throat. I felt that death rattle in my own jaws and the swift, spurt­ing blood that drenched my muzzle and flowed out over my jowls. I shook my head, my teeth tear­ing flesh, set­ting all the life loose to run free down his stink­ing gar­ments.

  Then was a time of noth­ing.

  Then I was sit­ting in the snow, back against a tree. Cub was ly­ing in the snow not far from me. His fore­paws were dappled with blood. He was lick­ing his legs clean, a care­ful, slow, thor­ough lick­ing.

  I lif­ted my sleeve to my mouth and chin. I wiped away blood. It was not mine. I knelt for­ward sud­denly in the snow, to spit out beard hairs, and then to vomit, but not even the acid taste of my bile could cleanse the dead man’s flesh and blood from my mouth. I glanced at his body, looked away. His throat was torn out. For a ter­rible in­stant I could re­call how I had chewed down, the ten­dons of his throat taut against my teeth. I shut my eyes tight. I sat very still.

  Cold nose against my cheek. I opened my eyes. He sat be­side me, re­gard­ing me. Cub.

  Nighteyes, he cor­rec­ted me. My mother named me Nighteyes. I was the last of my lit­ter to get my eyes open. He snuffed, then sneezed sud­denly. He looked around at the fallen men. I fol­lowed his gaze un­will­ingly. My knife had taken the young one, but he had not died quickly. The other two …

  I killed faster, Nighteyes ob­served quietly. But I have not the teeth of a cow. You did well, for your kind. He stood up and shook him­self. Blood, both cold and warm, spattered my face. I gasped and wiped it away, then real­ized the sig­ni­fic­ance.

  You’re bleed­ing.

  So are you. He pulled the blade out of you to put it in me.

  Let me look at it.

  Why?

  The ques­tion hung between us in the cold air. Night was about to find us. Over­head the tree branches had gone black against the even­ing sky. I did not need the light to see him. I did not even need to see him. Do you need to see your ear to know it is part of you? As use­less to deny that part of my flesh was mine as to deny Nighteyes.

  We are broth­ers. We are pack, I con­ceded.

  Are we?

  I felt a reach­ing, a grop­ing, a tug­ging for my at­ten­tion. I let my­self re­call that I had felt this be­fore and denied it. Now I did not. I gave him my fo­cus, my un­di­vided at­ten­tion. Nighteyes was there, hide and tooth, muscle and claw, and I did not avoid him. I knew the sword thrust in his shoulder and felt how it had gone between two big muscles there. He held his paw curled to his chest. I hes­it­ated, and then felt his hurt that I would hes­it­ate. So I paused no longer, but reached out to him as he had to me. Trust is not trust un­til it is com­plete. So close were we, I do not know which of us offered this thought. For an in­stant I had a double aware­ness of the world as Nighteye’s per­cep­tions over­lay my own, his scent­ing of the bod­ies, his hear­ing telling me of scav­enger foxes already creep­ing closer, his eyes mak­ing no dif­fi­culty of the fad­ing light. Then the du­al­ity was gone, and his senses were mine, and mine his. We were bon­ded.

  Cold was set­tling, on the land and into my bones. We found my cloak, clot­ted with frost, but I shook it out and put it on. I did not try to fasten it, but kept it wide away from where I had been bit­ten. I man­aged to drag my mit­tens on des­pite my in­jured fore­arm. ‘We’d bet­ter go,’ I told him softly. ‘When we get home, I’ll see to clean­ing and bandaging us. But first, we’d bet­ter get there and get warm.’

  I felt his as­sent. He walked be­side me as we went, not be­hind me. He lif­ted his nose once, to snuff deeply of the fresh air. A cold wind had come up. Snow began to fall. That was all. His nose brought me the know­ledge that I need fear no more Forged ones. The air was clean save for the stench of those be­hind us, and even that was fad­ing, turn­ing into car­rion smell, ming­ling with the scav­enger foxes come to find them.

  You were wrong, he ob­served. Neither of us hunts very well alone. Sly amuse­ment. Un­less you thought you were do­ing well be­fore I came along?

  ‘A wolf is not meant to hunt alone,’
I told him. I tried for dig­nity.

  He lolled his tongue at me. Don’t fear, little brother. I’ll be here.

  We con­tin­ued walk­ing through the crisp white snow and the stark black trees. Not much farther to home, he com­for­ted me. I felt his strength ming­ling with mine as we limped on.

  It was nearly noon when I presen­ted my­self at Ver­ity’s map-room door. My fore­arm was snugly band­aged and in­vis­ible in­side a vo­lu­min­ous sleeve. The wound it­self was not that severe, but it was pain­ful. The bite between my shoulder and neck was not so eas­ily con­cealed. I had lost flesh there, and it had bled pro­fusely. When I had seen it with a look­ing glass the night be­fore, I was nearly sick. Clean­ing it had made it bleed even more pro­fusely: there was a chunk of me gone. Well, and if Nighteyes had not in­ter­vened, more of me would have fol­lowed that mouth­ful. I can­not ex­plain how sick­en­ing I found that thought. I had man­aged to get a dress­ing on it, but not a very good one. I had pulled my shirt high and fastened it in place to con­ceal the bandaging. It chafed pain­fully against the wound, but it con­cealed it. Ap­pre­hens­ively, I tapped on the door, and was clear­ing my throat as it opened.

  Charim told me Ver­ity was not there. There was a worry deep in his eyes. I tried not to share it. ‘He can’t leave the boat-build­ers to that work, can he?’

  Charim shook his head to my banter. ‘No. Up in his tower,’ the old ser­vant said shortly. I turned aside as he shut the door slowly.

  Well, Kettricken had told me as much. I had tried to for­get that part of our con­ver­sa­tion. Dread crept through me as I sought the tower stairs. Ver­ity had no reason to be in this tower. This tower was where he Skilled from in sum­mers, when the weather was fine and the Raid­ers har­ried our shores. There was no reason to be up there in winter, es­pe­cially with the wind howl­ing and the snow drop­ping as it was today. No reason save the ter­rible at­trac­tion of the Skill it­self.

  I had felt that lure, I re­minded my­self as I grit­ted my teeth and began the long climb to the top. I had known, for a time, the heady ex­uber­ance of the Skill. Like the clot­ted memory of long-ago pain, Ga­len the Skill­mas­ter’s words came back to me. ‘If you are weak,’ he had threatened us, ‘if you lack fo­cus and dis­cip­line, if you are in­dul­gent and in­clined to pleas­ure, you will not mas­ter the Skill. Rather, the Skill will mas­ter you. Prac­tise the denial of all pleas­ures to your­self, deny all weak­nesses that tempt you. Then, when you are as steel, per­haps you will be ready to en­counter the lure of the Skill and turn aside from it. If you give into it, you will be­come as a great babe, mind­less and drool­ing.’ Then he had schooled us, with priva­tions and pun­ish­ments that went far past any sane level. Yet when I had en­countered the Skill joy, I had not found it the taw­dry pleas­ure Ga­len had im­plied. Rather, it had been the same rush of blood and thun­der of heart that some­times mu­sic brought to me, or a sud­den flight of bright pheas­ant in an au­tumn wood, or even the pleas­ure of tak­ing a horse per­fectly over a dif­fi­cult jump, that in­stant when all things come into bal­ance, and for a mo­ment turn to­gether as per­fectly as birds wheel­ing in flight. The Skill gave that to one, but not for just a mo­ment. Rather it las­ted for as long as a man could sus­tain it, and be­came stronger and purer as one’s abil­ity with the Skill re­fined; or so I be­lieved. My own abil­it­ies with the Skill had been per­man­ently dam­aged in a battle of wills with Ga­len. The de­fens­ive men­tal walls I had erec­ted were such that not even someone as strongly Skilled as Ver­ity could al­ways reach me. My own abil­ity to reach out of my­self had be­come an in­ter­mit­tent thing, skit­tish and flighty as a frightened horse.

  I paused out­side Ver­ity’s door. I took a very deep breath, then breathed it out slowly, re­fus­ing to let the black­ness of spirit settle on me. Those things were over, that time was gone. No sense rail­ing to my­self about it. As was my old habit, I entered without knock­ing, lest the noise break Ver­ity’s con­cen­tra­tion.

  He should not have been Skilling. He was. The shut­ters of the win­dow were open and he leaned out on the sill. Wind and snow swirled through­out the room, speck­ling his dark hair and dark blue shirt and jer­kin. He was breath­ing in deep, long steady breaths, a ca­dence some­where between a very deep sleep and that of a run­ner at rest and catch­ing his wind. He seemed ob­li­vi­ous of me. ‘Prince Ver­ity?’ I said softly.

  He turned to me, and his gaze was like heat, like light, like wind in my face. He Skilled into me with such force that I felt driven out of my­self, his mind pos­sess­ing mine so com­pletely that there was no room left to be my­self in it. For a mo­ment I was drown­ing in Ver­ity, and then he was gone, with­draw­ing so rap­idly that I was left stum­bling and gasp­ing like a fish deser­ted by a high wave. In a step he was be­side me, catch­ing my el­bow and steady­ing me on my feet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he apo­lo­gized. ‘I was not ex­pect­ing you. You startled me.’

  ‘I should have knocked, my prince,’ I replied, and then gave a quick nod to him that I could stand. ‘What’s out there, that you watch so in­tently?’

  He glanced aside from me. ‘Not much. Some boys on the cliffs, watch­ing a pod of whales sport­ing. Two of our own boats, fish­ing halibut. Even in this weather, though not en­joy­ing it much.’

  ‘Then you are not Skilling for Outis­landers …’

  ‘There are not any out there, this time of year. But I keep a watch.’ He glanced down at my fore­arm, the one he had just re­leased, and changed the sub­ject. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘That’s what I came to see you about. Forged ones at­tacked me. Out on the face of the ridge, the one where the spruce hen hunt­ing is good. Near the goat­herd’s shed.’

  He nod­ded quickly, his dark brows knit­ting. ‘I know the area. How many? De­scribe them.’

  I sketched my at­tack­ers for him quickly and he nod­ded briefly, un­sur­prised. ‘I had a re­port of them, four days ago. They should not be this close to Buck­keep this soon; not un­less they are con­sist­ently mov­ing in this dir­ec­tion, every day. Are they fin­ished?’

  ‘Yes. You ex­pec­ted this?’ I was aghast. ‘I thought we had wiped them out.’

  ‘We wiped out the ones who were here then. There are oth­ers, mov­ing in this dir­ec­tion. I have been keep­ing track of them by the re­ports, but I had not ex­pec­ted them to be so close so soon.’

  I struggled briefly, got my voice un­der con­trol. ‘My prince, why do we simply keep track of them? Why do not we … take care of this prob­lem?’

  Ver­ity made a small noise in his throat and turned back to his win­dow. ‘Some­times one has to wait, and let the en­emy com­plete a move, in or­der to dis­cover what the full strategy is. Do you un­der­stand me?’

  ‘The Forged ones have a strategy? I think not, my prince. They were …’

  ‘Re­port to me in full,’ Ver­ity dir­ec­ted, without look­ing at me. I hes­it­ated briefly, then launched into a com­plete re­tell­ing. To­wards the end of the struggle, my ac­count be­came a bit in­co­her­ent. I let the words die on my lips. ‘But I did man­age to break his grip on me. And all three of them died there.’

  He did not take his eyes from the sea. ‘You should avoid phys­ical struggles, FitzChiv­alry. You al­ways seem to get hurt in them.’

  ‘I know, my prince,’ I ad­mit­ted humbly. ‘Hod did her best with me …’

  ‘But you were not really trained to be a fighter. You have other tal­ents. And those are the ones you should be put­ting to use to pre­serve your­self. Oh, you’re a com­pet­ent swords­man, but you’ve not the brawn and weight to be a brawler. At least, not yet. And that is what you al­ways seem to re­vert to in a fight.’

  ‘I was not offered the se­lec­tion of weapons,’ I said, a bit testily, and then ad­ded, ‘my prince.’

  ‘No. You won’t be.’ He seemed to speak from afar. A slight
ten­sion in the air told me that he Skilled out even as we spoke. ‘Yet I’m afraid I must send you out again. I think you are per­haps right. I have watched what is hap­pen­ing long enough. The Forged ones are con­ver­ging on Buck­keep. I can­not fathom why, and yet per­haps know­ing that is not as im­port­ant as pre­vent­ing them from at­tain­ing their goal. You will again un­der­take the re­moval of this prob­lem, Fitz. Per­haps this time I can keep my own lady from be­com­ing in­volved in it. I un­der­stand that if she wishes to go rid­ing, she now has a guard of her own?’

  ‘As you have been told, sir,’ I told him, curs­ing my­self for not com­ing to speak to him sooner of the Queen’s Guard.

  He turned to re­gard me lev­elly. ‘The ru­mour I heard was that you had au­thor­ized the cre­ation of such a guard. Not to steal your glory, but when such ru­mour reached me, I let it be sup­posed that I had re­ques­ted it of you. As, I sup­pose, I did. Very in­dir­ectly.’

  ‘My prince,’ I said, and had the good sense to keep quiet.

  ‘Well. If she must ride, at least she is guarded now. Though I would greatly prefer she had no more en­coun­ters with Forged ones. Would I could think of some­thing to busy her,’ he ad­ded wear­ily.

  ‘The Queen’s Garden,’ I sug­ges­ted, re­call­ing Pa­tience’s ac­count of them.

  Ver­ity cocked his eye at me.

  ‘The old ones, on top of the tower,’ I ex­plained. ‘They have been un­used for years. I saw what was left of them, be­fore Ga­len ordered us to dis­mantle them to clear space for our Skill les­sons. It must have been a charm­ing place at one time. Tubs of earth and green­ery, statu­ary, climb­ing vines.’