Assassin's Quest Page 3

  “I saw he was out, and I came in to rob him! I was only taking what I need to live!” the man’s back was now against the table and he leaned backwards, palms out.

  “Take what you want, stranger, I will forget that I ever saw you! We can both get what we came for!” the thin man pleaded.

  At that moment there was a pounding at the door. A hoarse voice called out, “Sleeth! You need to hurry! The master said we hadn't much time!”

  The man let out an exasperated breath as he reached behind himself and pulled a falchion sword from beneath the table. With a scream he flung the blade up and chopped down at Rothar’s shoulder. But before the blade was halfway there, Rothar was not. Sleeth’s blow hissed through the air, and his blade tip struck the floor just as Rothar’s elbow struck his ear.

  Sleeth careened sideways, losing the falchion and most of his consciousness.

  The pounding at the door continued.

  “Sleeth? What are you fumbling about in there? Let’s get on with it!” the voice shouted.

  Rothar took Sleeth by the neck of his tunic and stood him up. Sleeth blinked hard and focused on his face, then attempted to scream. Rothar chocked off his cry with a twist of his shirt collar and began to run the man headlong towards the still open secret door. With a mighty heave he threw the doomed fellow into the stairwell. The first thing Sleeth hit was the wall, where it began to curl around, then he crumbled onto the stairs and flopped out of sight like a bag of potatoes.

  Closing the bookcase door behind him, Rothar followed the sound of groaning and crying into the darkness of the hidden cellar.

  Chapter 5

  There are ways to wake a man out of even the deepest sleep, even the sleep caused by a stout beating. Rothar’s preferred method was to hold a flame to a man’s foot.

  Sleeth came to with a howl of pain. He grasped at his smoking foot and looked about in confusion. When his eyes fell upon Rothar, his face orange and menacing in the torchlight, a sense of realization seemed to wash over his countenance as he remembered how he ended up in his own dungeon.

  “What now?” Sleet asked, breathing heavily.

  Rothar stared at him for a long moment, a look on his face as though he were examining a rotting carcass. He kicked the shackle that was attached to the cell wall.

  “Put it on,” he said.

  Sleeth let go of his burned foot and picked up the tiny shackle.

  “It’s too small…”

  Rothar’s expression didn’t change.

  “Put it on.”

  Sleeth’s expression turned indignant in the face of imminent death.

  “IT WON’T FIT!” he screamed.

  Rothar said nothing, he simply withdrew his dagger, the one given to him just a day before by the pure and innocent Esme, and he made the shackle fit.

  ***

  Sleeth lay whimpering, shuddering in a pool of his own blood.

  Rothar leaned over him, shuddering in his own right, but with rage.

  “I am going to kill you now. So there is no reason for you to withhold any information from me,” he whispered to the dying man. “Tell me, what is behind the iron door?”

  Sleeth stopped shaking and slowly turned his head towards Rothar. Oddly, a slow smile spread across his face, and he began to laugh. The laughter seemed to hurt him, but it continued.

  “My,” he choked out, “what hell would break loose if you opened that door.”

  Rothar’s eyes narrowed. There was enough life left in this man that he could torture the answer out of him, or he could go about trying to break the door open himself. At that moment, he heard the sound of heavy footsteps echoing down from the shop above.

  Growling in frustration that time was so short, Rothar turned the still laughing face of Sleeth towards the heavens that he would never see, and removed his head.

  It is no small task, beheading a man with a dagger, but Rothar would have it no other way. If killing in self defense, he was as efficient and swift as any soldier ever known, but when it came to his unrighteous targets, one big swing of his broadsword seemed too impersonal.

  No. A kill, even the most justifiable kill, had to be difficult, had to require much energy. Perhaps he was sick or insane. A kill had to take something physical from him, because it did so little to affect him emotionally. Only executioners slew doomed men with efficiency. If he had wanted to become an executioner, he would never have run away as a boy.

  So, with unparalleled efficiency, Rothar secured the King’s bounty and dropped the head of Sleeth into his satchel. Once again extinguishing his torch, he felt his way to the top of the stairway and peered out into the shop. The lone man wandering about the store paid no mind to the trick shelf, so Rothar remained hidden and waited until the man departed, probably resigning that Sleeth had ducked out the back to flee on his own.

  When all was quiet, Rothar slipped out of the back door and walked casually to where he had left Stormbringer. Lashing his satchel to Stormbringer’s saddle, he suddenly remembered his promise to Brath.

  Rothar returned to the shop and took as much barley and carrot seed as he could carry. He figured it should be enough to pay his toll.

  After riding up a parallel alley for a spell, Rothar crossed back over to Durrow Row and rode back towards Market Street. He wanted to pass by Sleeth’s shop once more to see if his companion was still awaiting out front.

  There was no man outside the store, but an impressive and heavily built carriage sat in the street across the way. It looked like the type of carriage Rothar had seen royals use when they visited battlefields, with walls of steel and narrow windows like arrow slits. It took a team of at least four draft horses to pull one of these armored transports, and the one on Darrow Row sat behind a team of six snorting black beasts, still lathered from the ride there.

  The coachman sat slouched, face hung towards his knees, unlike a royal driver, who sat straight backed at attention. As Rothar passed the carriage nonchalantly, he peered out of the corner of his eye and thought he saw a face peeping back at him from one of the narrow windows. As soon as he saw it, it was gone. No sound emitted from the black carriage as Rothar and Stormbringer passed by. The driver sat hunched and motionless. He may have passed for a dead man had it not been for the gradual rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed.

  Curious, but with no time to dally about and investigate, Rothar rode out of Durrow Row and down Market Street in the direction from which he had come. As he passed the baker, Rothar nodded from beneath his hood.

  Chapter 6

  Rothar entered the Banewood at an easy trot. As much as he wanted to hurry, he knew it would be imprudent. At any rate, he would arrive in the King’s City in the middle of the night, and would not be permitted entry to see the King until morning. Another reason to slow his pace was the obvious dangers of the Banewood. A rapid ride could become a last ride for travelers in the wood.

  He would make the best of it, as he had to take Brath his due anyway. He would spend half the night at Brath’s camp and see if the two of them could figure out anything more about the mystery of the Southlanders marching in the Banewood. He knew if he left when the moon was high in the sky, he would arrive back in the King’s City at first light, and from there he would confer with the King about the matter.

  Here and there throughout the wood, Rothar noticed downed trees wrapped in Quietus. Hindsight being clear as day, he could now notice how the traps were man-made. The ivy coiled about the trunks a little too perfectly, and the trees blocked the paths at points a little too inconvenient.

  Skirting each blockade, Rothar half expected to be waylaid by Brath or a part of his gang, but the forest remained quiet. There was probably still too much light in the sky, Rothar thought.

  At one point near dusk, the sound of hoofbeats approaching from the south prompted Rothar to dismount and lead Stormbringer into a dry stream bed. At a word, the horse lay down on it’s belly and lowered his head, completely concealing itself within the ditch.
>
  The approaching riders could be a part of Brath’s group, but they could just as easily not be, so Rothar and Stormbringer lay silently and waited. The riders that crested the hill carried torches and rode noisily through the brush, unlike any gang of Banewood thieves, who rode cloaked in the darkness and relied on stealth.

  As they neared, Rothar could see there were about ten horsemen, each wearing a tarnished bronze breastplate that reflected the torchlight dully. Scarlet hoods hid their faces from sight, and short, curved swords with wide blades swung at their sides.

  Southlanders.

  The vipers bore down on Rothar and Stormbringer’s hiding place, and Rothar began to think they would have to move or be trampled, when at the last moment the riders bore a hard left and began tearing eastward down the same path that Rothar had been riding.

  Remaining hidden until the torches were a safe distance away, Rothar threw his leg over the still prone Stormbringer and clicked. The steed leapt to it’s feet and out of the stream bed, stretching out into a full gallop down the trail after the Southlanders.

  Rothar reined his horse in a little. He was not interested in overtaking the riders, but he did want to see where they were going. For miles he stayed back, following the distant glow of the torches. The mercenaries continued eastward. The direction of travel was concerning, but Rothar’s worries were quelled by the fact that there were only ten riders, and he saw no sign of the King upon them. The jackals of the Banewood could cut down any ten men before they ever reached the King’s City. Rothar only hoped he got the chance to see them do it.

  Suddenly, the torchlight in the distance went black. Rothar brought Stormbringer to a halt and listened, but there was no sound save for the chirping of crickets and the night songs of nightingales. After a long while he nudged the stallion forward cautiously. There was no moonlight in this part of the forest, as the overarching trees created an impenetrable roof. Even Stormbringer seemed unsure of his course, and eventually Rothar dismounted and led the way with the tip of his sword, feeling about like a blind man.

  Why would the Southlanders douse their torches in such a blackness?

  Rothar inched ahead at a maddeningly slow pace, ears pricked, making up for his lack of vision with his other senses. A faint burning smell wafted to him through the darkness, but he could see the light of no campfire.

  Shortly, he felt with his sword end the trunk of another fallen tree. Dragging the tip of his blade across the bark, he could feel the tendrils of vines ripping away, and he could practically taste the poison in the air. They would be forced to feel their way around. Under other circumstances, Rothar would simply set up camp for the night and proceed in the morning under safety of sunlight, but he felt that time was too valuable a commodity tonight, not knowing where the Southlanders were heading - or what had become of them.

  Rothar led the horse to the right, holding out the sword in his left and poking at the trunk with each step. He hoped he had guessed correctly and was heading toward the root end of the massive tree, and would not have to make his way around the crown. He was relieved when he felt the splintered stump against his blade, and the pair came around the end of the trap.

  Now, in the darkness, Rothar saw a soft orange glow and the smell of burning became stronger. Crouching, he approached with caution, never removing his eyes from the incandescence before him. Reaching it, he found that the glow came from the end of a snubbed torch, a small pillar of smoke still rose from the smoldering wood.

  Rothar raised his eyes and looked about. Nearby, he saw another small, smoldering glow, and another, a little farther off.

  Perhaps the Southlanders had not put out their torches. Perhaps someone had done it for them.

  Rothar slowly crept in a circle around the first torch. Finding nothing, he moved on to the next, nothing again. Finally, while surveying the area around the third glow, his sword tapped against something metallic. Kneeling down close to the ground, Rothar could make out the shape of a Southlanders bronze breastplate. Irritatingly, the armor no longer contained a man. Rothar decided to take a chance and picked up the smoldering torch, holding it low to the ground to pick up a trail.

  Shortly, he found the bootprints he was looking for - and many other sets that he had not been looking for. It seemed there had been a great skirmish here just moments ago.

  In an instant, the darkness behind Rothar was shattered by a furious shout. Rothar spun with his sword readied, dim torch extended in front of him. For a split second, the torch shone the broad face of a bare chested Southlander, hurtling down upon him. Rothar sidestepped and heard a blade whistle past his head. Working with only the light of the dying torch, he saw the warrior land and recover, twisting to deal a fierce backhand slash.

  Ducking the attack, Rothar took quick stock of where the man was standing and then hid the torch behind his own back and slashed upwards and diagonally. He felt the blade make shallow contact, and the man cried out. Rothar knew he had been too far back to deliver a deadly blow, and he thrust the torch back out in front of him to relocate his combatant.

  To Rothar’s surprise, the Southlander was standing still with his arms hanging at his sides. His sword slipped from his hand as his eyes rolled back in his head. Only a thin trickle of blood seeped from the man’s chest as he felt dead on the ground.

  Rothar looked down at the man, and then at his sword, thinking.

  Quietus.

  Rothar had sliced the vines from the tree and had never cleaned his blade. The shallow cut he had given the man had killed him instantly.

  The sound of footsteps put Rothar back in the defensive.

  “Sir!” called a hoarse voice from the shadows. “I am not an enemy!”

  “Show yourself!” Rothar demanded.

  There was the sound of flints clicking and suddenly a torch roared to life blindingly. A rough looking fellow who Rothar recognized from Brath’s troupe was standing before him. The man held one arm limply, as though his shoulder was out of socket, and it appeared he had just lost an ear. Blood caked the hair on one side of his head and left a dark trail down the shoulder of his cloak.

  “You are one of Brath’s men, aren't you?” Rothar asked.

  The man simply nodded, still trying to catch his breath.

  “You look a fright. What happened here?”

  “We heard them coming,” he began. “We laid in wait…”

  The bloodied vagabond was half in shock. His eyes were glazed and he rocked back and forth as he continued.

  “It’s like they knew we was there. As soon as we took upon them they had swords drawn. We knocked a few out of their saddles. One of them you got there,” the man looked down at the dead Southlander.

  “Where is Brath?” Rothar demanded. “I need to see him right away.”

  The man just stared up at the starless canopy and shook his head, wide eyed and delirious from blood loss.

  “Brath is dead,” he said weakly. “They took his head.”

  Chapter 7

  With much difficulty, Rothar managed to get the dazed reprobate onto Stormbringer. Torch in hand, he led them to the giant willow grove where Brath and his men had long made their camp.

  Along the way, the wounded man sporadically moaned nonsense about hell and damnation, about Southland demons, and about vengeance for Brath.

  Upon approaching the camp, Rothar convinced the man, whose name was Tuck, to call out to his kinsmen so that they would not rain arrows upon him at first sight. Rothar was certain the men were quite ill at ease after the altercation they had had earlier in the night.

  Entering camp, situated in a large clearing in the middle of the grove, Rothar was pleased to see that the thieves had two captured Southlanders hung from a towering willow. One of the captives would be no good to him, as the clan had clearly taken out some of their frustrations, and if he ever had a soul, it had departed. The other brute, however, still cursed and spat and fought against his restraints.

  Rothar would need to inter
rogate him, and it appeared that he would have to hurry. Brath’s wake had apparently already begun, and an increasingly drunk crowd of vagrants was growing round the hanging mercenary, every last man mourning and hungry to avenge their fallen leader.

  “Who was Brath’s right hand?” Rothar asked Tuck. “Point to him.”

  Tuck gazed about and pointed to a stocky, bald man standing just outside of the circle of angry dogs. “Kenner.”

  Rothar approached the surly looking Kenner, who barely turned to regard him.

  “I am Rothar. I had known Brath for a long time… I understand your loss.”

  “I know who you are. I remember you from yesterday,” Kenner said, still not taking his eyes off of the dangling Southlander. “What do you want here?”

  “I need to speak with your prisoner, while he still has a voice,” Rothar answered.

  “He’s not going to say anything you can use. He only speaks their southern nonsense,” said Kenner. “But have at him quick if you must. These boys are getting antsy.”

  Rothar pushed his way through the throng of cursing men. When he reached the Southlander, he said in Caltanian: “Do you wish to survive the night?”

  Upside down, the man looked at him with surprise, and answered back in his own tongue.

  “I only wish they would get on with it.”

  “They don’t have to. You could go home,” Rothar replied.

  “You know nothing of the Southlands,” the warrior raised his voice. “When they kill me, I do go home.”

  Rothar could feel the crowd pressing in on him. More than a few of the louts were eyeing him suspiciously for speaking Caltanian to a Southland devil.

  “Where were you headed?” he asked.

  The Southlander smiled a wicked smile. “You ask the wrong questions, assassin.”

  The bastard knew who he was.

  After a tense pause, Rothar asked loudly, “Who sent you?”

  The broad faced man stared intently at him with wide set eyes and leveled back, “Who sent you?”