An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy Page 15

  The smell. Damn near knocked me right back to the floor. I reeled around and covered my nose, but it was no use. I knew this feeling. It greeted me when I awoke from drinking a smidgen more than the perfect amount of wine — the perfect amount of wine being whatever amount doesn’t make you dry-heave and want to kill yourself when you open your eyes in the morning.

  I hurled nothing but a few globs of spit into the air and, unfortunately, onto my toes. Better than chunks of food, which was impossible given I hadn’t eaten in two fucking days.

  Wiping the slobber from my lips, I turned back around, this time prepared to face whatever rank scent of death wafted through this place.

  And make no mistake. It was the scent of death. Worse than that. It smelled like a beast had been gutted, strung out in the hot sun and left to rot while a murder of crows had shat upon its corpse. It choked the breath from my lungs. But I pressed on with a demented curiosity.

  My feet sunk into a cool bed of sand. As if I’d ventured out from a concealed room, more of my surroundings revealed themselves in the form of two more walls that curled around to form a half circle, meeting with the first wall.

  As I stepped forward and spun around, the circle suddenly completed itself. That was the moment my heart tried to plunge through my stomach.

  Rows upon rows of empty stone blocks serving as seats were staggered upon one another. I’d seen this place before, from afar. I had no interest in ever seeing it again. I wished I was back in the dungeon, chained to a pillar.

  A gentle voice droned from behind me. “Rested up, I hope?”

  I turned slowly and instinctively reached for my sword. Instead, I found my hip without a sheathed blade attached to it — one of an assassin’s worst feelings.

  A fiery gold hue streaked across the sand. A thin man walked along the outer edge, a torch in his hand. He stopped before ornate wooden posts that were spaced every ten feet or so. He touched the fire to them, and whoosh. They became alive with flame.

  With each one he lit, a ghastly glow of orange brightened the arena, revealing more of its features. Revealing the source of the acrid stench that sunk into my lungs like an unwelcome parasite.

  Scattered around the blood-stained pillars that reached into the heavens were the empty husks of men and women I’d recruited, trained and fought with. Assassins with whom I shared grandiose stories over skins of wine and barrels of ale. Friends who had, against all odds, managed to thread themselves into my heart. Friends who didn’t deserve this fate. Friends whose death I was responsible for.

  Most of them lay facedown, and that was good. But some… they gazed into my soul with their lifeless eyes. I shook my head, desperate to erase their smiling faces that turned to horror and terror as the spikes from the arena surged into the soles of their feet and through their calves, tearing through their ribs and arms and necks and heads and…

  “Is this how your queen thinks she can break me?” I asked of the man who finished lighting the torches. “You may as well save yourself the trouble and drag yourself back to her quarters fit for a princess and deliver her this message: I cannot be broken. I will not be broken.”

  The dull flames from the man’s torch illuminated his oval face. His sunken eyes sagged into unsightly bags. The skin on his chubby face looked as if it was slowly succumbing to the invisible force that yanked everything downward.

  “Queen Amielle tasks you with cleaning the aftermath of the arena spectacle.” He nodded at a wheelbarrow. “You may wheel the bodies to the front of the arena, where you will stack them in preparation for burning.”

  “Tell her she’s got a better chance at convincing a fish to drown itself.”

  The man folded his hands together. “The queen has made it clear that you cannot leave here until you complete this task. You do not want to stay here. The stench is not something you grow accustomed to. I have tried.”

  The man placed his torch in a bronze lion-carved brazier affixed to the wall. He slipped into the shadows and returned with a cloth and small bucket. He knelt before a pillar, dipped the cloth into the bucket and began washing off the dried blood.

  “You’re not a conjurer, are you?” I asked.

  He rubbed the cloth in a slow circle, over and over again. “I am the arena custodian.”

  I laughed at the absurdity. “What’s the catch here?”

  Without interrupting his studious cleaning, he said, “Pardon?”

  “Your queen can’t possibly expect me to stay put like a good little boy because a custodian tells me to.”

  “Ah,” he said, dipping the cloth back into the bucket. “You want to leave. You may try, but the queen has posted guards outside the parameter. Standard response when I am given prisoners to help clean up after a rather… dramatic day here at the arena. Although she does not usually assign specific tasks as she has with you.”

  “These are my friends,” I said. “My friends! Dead because of her.”

  The man sniffed and waddled on his knees to another dollop of blood. “I am sorry to hear that. But it would seem to me that you would find it considerably easier to burn their bodies rather than stare at them and smell their remains.”

  Taking stock of my situation put me in regretful agreement. I might have been the most stubborn man alive, but I wasn’t getting out of here anytime soon. And I was probably playing right into Amielle’s plan. If I remained here long enough, the madness would overtake me. And she’d win.

  I took the wheelbarrow and placed it in the middle of the fallen Rots, and then I pulled my shirt up over my nose. One by one, I turned over the men and women who weren’t yet lying facedown. When I finished, water clouded my eyes and an overwhelming sadness squeezed my heart.

  I was never on friendly terms with sadness. That terrible tightness in my chest and the sandiness of my throat reminded me of being a wee little boy and watching my father pound his fist into my mother’s face. I hated sadness.

  Anger — yeah, that was what I indulged in. Anger drove me like air drives a fire. Anger put my feet on the ground in the morning and slashed my blade across the throats of my targets. Anger threw back the wine into my belly and coursed the adrenaline through my veins. Anger is what created the Black Rot. Anger for my father. Anger for the rigid world that expected me to put on a happy face and do as some bloody lord demanded.

  Anger impelled me through the most difficult times in my life. With my fists clenched and knuckles white, I decided there in the arena anger would impel me once more.

  With the fury known only to those who suffer through gross injustice, I heaved the bodies of the Black Rot into the wheelbarrow. Only two fit inside at a time. I dumped the first load off and came back for another. Dumped them off on top of the first two and came back for another, refusing to pause. Refusing to feel sad. Refusing to feel anything except hatred and anger toward the conjurers.

  I thought of nothing but how to reap my justice. And somewhere in those obsessive thoughts — perhaps after dumping eight or ten Rots in the pile — I heard a voice unlike any I’d ever heard before.

  It hissed and clawed at the fabric of my mind. Kill yourself, it said. A whisper, then a shout. KILL YOURSELF, ASTUL. It’s the only way. If you kill yourself, she can’t use you.

  I ignored the thought and pressed on.

  It returned with a vengeance. I cupped the sides of my head and rocked back and forth as the voice felt like a hot knife threading into my skull.

  This was a waste, it said. Why did you even do this? WHY DID YOU EVEN DO THIS?

  It felt like an eternity before the agony in my head retreated. When I opened my eyes, a blazing sun blinded me. I brushed a hand through my hair, raining sweat down upon my arms. I picked myself up from where I had apparently collapsed into the sand and had a look around.

  The deceased Rots were all piled up now, although I had no recollection of doing the deed.

  A jolly whistle carried throughout the arena, followed by a gruff voice unfit for singing.


  It’s a good life.

  Yes, it’s a good life.

  A good life for me.

  It’s not a bad life.

  No, not a bad life.

  Not a bad life for me.

  Two mules dragged a cart into the arena. A goblin of a man directed them to the stacked bodies. He clambered down from his driver’s seat and tugged on the reins, guiding the mules closer. An enormous wooden wagon was attached to the back of the cart.

  The man poked a long fingernail into the mass of limbs. Seemingly satisfied, he nodded and went around the other side. He hauled off and threw his shoulder into the bodies, toppling them over. Some fell into the cart, their elbows and arms and ankles and knees cracking off the edge as they toppled inside. Others slid right off and collapsed into the sand, kicking a thin film of dust into the air.

  “Get the fuck off them,” I cried.

  The man jumped in surprise. “Whoa! Hey. Who are you?”

  “What are you doing with them? They’re supposed to be burned.”

  The goblin scraped a long yellow fingernail across his doughy jaw. “Er. Don’t think so. I wouldn’t be here if they were ta be burned. What’s wrong with ’em that the poor bastards need set on fire, anyhow? Bugs? Bit o’ disease?”

  Pinching my eyes shut, I drew in a deep breath. Clearly this was all an illusion. It was make-believe, all part of Amielle’s grand plan to break me.

  “You’re not even real, are you?” I suggested. “You’re just a vision in my head.”

  One of the man’s unruly eyebrows inclined. He bent down slowly, keeping his focus on me as if I was an unhinged and unpredictable specimen.

  “All right,” he said. “All right. Just calm down, huh? Nice and easy here. My name is Yurkie, and I collect the bodies from the arena once a week. Now, if there’s lots of maimin’ going on and they pile up quicker than that, I sometimes make an appearance twice a week, but no more.” He grabbed the wrist of one of my Rots and then his ankle. With a grunt, he picked the dead assassin up and threw him into the cart like he was a maimed deer.

  “Ain’t doing nothing to you,” he said. “You have my promise.”

  “Those are my Rots!” I shouted.

  I ran toward him, unsure of what I was going to do, but it was going to be something, dammit. Something mean. Something violent. Something born in anger.

  But like a boomerang thrown through the air, the voice that had crawled through and pricked my mind once again returned.

  ASTUL, SHE DIDN’T TAKE ALL OF THE ROTS. You can save them. You can save the ones that are left. YOU CAN SAVE THEM!

  The ground beneath me had vanished. It must’ve. A chasm swallowed the arena, digesting the sand into a black mist that clung to my eyes as I tumbled down, down, down into the dark, ominous abyss.

  Think of it, the voice said. Its tone had changed from aggressively hopeless to sweet and charming not unlike the melody of a songbird. Conjurers need assassins too. When they take Mizridahl, pockets of rebels will fight them. The Black Rot would be the hand of the conjurers.

  I said a word. I swore I said it. I opened my mouth and I pushed my lips out and I screamed it. I cried it. But it didn’t come out.

  No! That was the word, the rejection for the heresy the voice in my mind proposed. But all I could do was think it.

  A cold, bitter wind rushed past me as I plummeted into the darkness, my body somersaulting into what seemed like a bottomless crater where it became colder and colder the farther down I went.

  It would be no different than now, the voice said. Simply a different head wearing the crown. You don’t truly care about Mizridahl’s fate. Do you? You’re not a hero, are you? You’re a hired sword. Nothing more.

  The thoughts the voice induced bred in my mind like mosquitoes in a dank river. Slowly and methodically they spread, blanketing and suffocating everything that I believed. That I valued.

  Or perhaps this was part of the game. A trick to make me think these thoughts weren’t my own when they truly were.

  Reality slipped from my grasp.

  There was turmoil within my soul. I could feel it. What did it mean?

  I was standing now. No, leaning against a wall made of glass. A warm resplendent glow chased away the darkness and thawed the glacier air.

  The voice pricked my mind. It’d changed again. It seemed nearer, a physical manifestation. It sounded familiar.

  “I’m happy you came to your senses.”

  I wiped a hand over my face and blinked away the sweat from my eyes. I was suddenly in a glass chamber, and at the forefront of the chamber stood the queen of the conjurers.

  “It pleases me that you came to your senses,” Amielle said.

  She was wearing a long, flowing dress cut from the finest silk and embellished with rubies and glittering gems. Her beauty weakened my knees, and I knelt before her as she placed herself in front of me.

  She offered her hand, and I took it willingly. Eagerly.

  Holding her fingers gingerly, I kissed the top of her hand and bowed to my queen.

  “I’ve always had a thing for sensible action,” I said.

  Amielle smiled a charming smile and stuck her nail beneath my chin, lifting me to my feet. She placed a parchment in my hand and fitted me with two daggers. She threaded whispers into my mind. She armed me with a brilliant scheme.

  She kissed my forehead. “The Black Rot will forever have a place in my world. I promise you. Now, off. You’ve a king to kill and a world to change.”

  Chapter 14

  I rode upon a fire that raged over a churning sea and under roiling gray clouds. Not even a downpour of rain could extinguish the flames that wrapped around the bird’s body and colored its wings in a magnificent orange glow.

  The phoenix sped across the wide expanse of ocean at speeds unimaginable to my mind.

  The jagged coast of Mizridahl appeared before nightfall. The mystical bird carried me over the Twin Mountains that spanned the southern stretch for hundreds of miles and beyond the Hush Forest, where the trees gather so densely, your voice is muffled into a whisper no matter how loudly you speak.

  Soon after twilight streaked across the sky, the phoenix made its controlled descent. What did it look like from the ground? A meteor? Death and destruction sent from the gods?

  The bird of fire swooped downward at a speed so fast, the uneven earth seemed to vault itself upwards at us. Small campfires burned between what must’ve been hundreds of pitched tents. Bodies moved between them; they looked like tiny dots at first, and then ants, and then a mass of waving limbs pointing weapons to the sky.

  Arrows whistled past me. The phoenix twirled effortlessly between the barbed tips, spiraling downward, quickly approaching the enormous camp bristling with banners featuring a grinning jackal placed against a crimson sky.

  Men poured from their tents like bees from a hive, bunching into uncoordinated groups.

  The phoenix slowed and made itself perpendicular to the ground. It landed softly on the outskirts of the camp.

  The arrows stopped flying.

  I patted the bird’s head, its flames retreating as my hand neared, and clambered down.

  Steel armor clangored as Glannondil soldiers rushed toward me, their swords drawn.

  An uncomfortable sensation jabbed at my mind. I felt like something was very wrong. Fortunately, the discomfort was quieted when a fat man pushed through the oncoming drove of soldiers with the confidence of a king.

  He came to an abrupt stop. “Astul? You’re fucking me.”

  “I’ve returned,” I said. I’ve returned? I thought. That doesn’t sound like me. Where’s the moxie? Where’s the zest?

  “Gods,” Braddock said, waddling my way. He slapped his thick hands on my shoulders. He inspected me closely. “You’re alive, are you? Brain still in your skull, legs attached, hands aren’t cut off — I’ll be bloody damned.” Grinning, he added, “Don’t ever tell anyone I was happy to see you.”

  “I escaped with one of their bir
ds,” I said. Reaching into my pocket, I produced a tightly folded parchment. “And their plans for war.”

  Braddock’s eyes widened. He urged me to follow him with a waving hand. “Come.”

  We walked past orderly rows of Glannondil soldiers. Some stared at me in amazement as if I’d returned from the dead, while others clenched their swords and kept a close eye on the phoenix, who pruned wild flames from her feathers. They extinguished into chalky smoke as they fell to the ground.

  Braddock led us into a large tent. Inside, candles burned and massive maps were flattened across tables. He took the parchment from me and unfolded it across one of the tables.

  “What is this?” he asked, pointing to the various diagrams written in red ink on the map.

  “If I were a guessing man,” I said, “probably their route to war. Or perhaps they simply enjoy drawing red lines with arrows pointing to the kingdoms of the major families. What do you think?”

  There it is, I thought, now you sound like yourself. Problem was, I still didn’t feel like myself. Anytime I’d ever seen the pale, chubby face of Braddock Glannondil, a dash of annoyance and a hulking scoop of hatred had embedded themselves within me. I faintly remembered how it felt, but it seemed now, as I sat across from the king of Erior, apathy overtook me.

  Why?

  “They can’t possibly have the numbers for this kind of attack,” Braddock said, leaning over the map studiously.

  “Numbers are something we don’t have. Let’s see what we do have: a boy king skipping across Mizridahl to dole out justice for perceived wrongdoings. An idiot in Edmund Tath, who’ll follow him. And Dercy Daniser, a king who refused to march on a lord for acting out on a claim to the throne. Oh, and the Gate of the South is wide fuckin’ open now that Serith is… well, wherever I put his body. The conjurers don’t need numbers when we are as fit for a grand war as you are for a skimpy dress.”

  Braddock’s eyes narrowed on the map. “Dercy will help us,” he said confidently. “He prefers to avoid trouble, but there’s no avoiding this. Chachant and Edmund, on the other hand—”