City of Light & Shadow (22 page)

  He was in a small room – an ante room, rest room, preparation room, kitchen; he neither knew nor cared. Two voices reached him through the open door leading to the larger room beyond – presumably the shop proper: Seffy's and that of a man.

  Dewar moved with calm efficiency, crouching and slipping off the rucksack. When it came to distance killing his weapon of choice would always be the kairuken – such an elegant instrument, its razor sharp discs equally as deadly as a crossbow bolt and far quicker to reload. However, he was nothing if not adaptable. He removed the two elements from his bag, deftly fitting and securing the bow-section to the stock, careful to make no noise. He was operating in near darkness, but that was no hindrance. He had practiced this manoeuvre many times blindfolded, so the dim light filtering in from the shop was a bonus. Ideally, he would have liked to have completed the assembly before setting out, but that would have made the weapon awkward to carry and too obvious.

  He finished in under a minute, the resultant bow by no means the largest or most powerful he'd ever used but it would still pack a punch within the confines of a room and was unerringly accurate. A good weapon.

  He cocked the bow but didn't load it yet, though he did take out three bolts before stashing the bag against the wall beside the door. Only then did he continue forward, crouching low as he entered the main area of the shop. During the short time it had taken him to assemble the bow he'd continued to listen with half an ear to the two voices, which had grown ever more strident: the man's aggressively so, the woman's defensive. There was something naggingly familiar about the man's. Dewar was certain he'd heard it before, further justifying his caution in not approaching the herbalist directly. The name Kraisch was unfamiliar to him, but, as he well knew, names were malleable things and easily changed.

  His view of the shop's interior was blocked by a solid counter, which made sense – his entry point being via what was clearly a back room, not accessible to the public. This was both a blessing and a hindrance. It hid his approach even more effectively than the darkness would have done, but at the same time prevented him from getting a sense of the room's layout and assessing with any certainty how many people were present.

  The quickest way to remedy that was to raise his head carefully and peer over the top of the counter, but he resisted the temptation. Movement at that sort of height was too likely to be spotted, being close to the natural eye line of anyone standing in the room's interior. So instead he moved to the end of the counter and peered around its edge. Slow movement this close to the ground was far less likely to be spotted.

  From his slightly skewed vantage point Dewar could see three people. A single lamp illuminated the scene, its low position on a shelf casting long shadows, creating a surreal form of shadow play enacted against the wall behind the principles in exaggerated gestures and movements.

  The assassin's gaze was drawn first to Seffy. She was being held by a much larger man, both of her arms gripped in his ham-sized fists. In front of her was another, shorter man, his back to the assassin.

  "I told you, I don't know!" Seffy was whining now. Either she really was a consummate actress or this wasn't acting. Dewar suspected the latter and couldn't blame her. For all she knew at this point he'd sent her in here to die.

  "Come, come," the shorter man said. "The story of your poor sick mum, all very touching, I'm sure, but a complete fabrication, no?"

  Dewar froze. He'd been right. He did know that voice. He'd been unable to place it earlier but, hearing it more clearly and now that he was able to match voice with phraseology and to the stance and build of the speaker, he recognised who this was all too well. He didn't need to see the man's face, he could picture it still: heavily lidded eyes, slightly sagging jowl that invariably leant the man a hangdog expression, receding hairline, and ears that jutted out… Prosman the Poisoner. So this was what had become of him. Not a member of the Twelve as such, but Prosman had been very much a part of the organisation, supplying tailored poisons for the assassins' every need. His downfall had been unexpected and swift. He'd perpetrated some indiscretion or other – Dewar never had been privy to the details – and had disappeared overnight. This was about a year before Dewar's own misfortune. No one spoke of his fate and it was assumed he'd been quietly killed, but evidently not; he'd merely relocated to Deliia and reinvented himself as Kraisch the herbalist. Hardly the most opaque of disguises, but effective enough it seemed, because he was still here and evidently thriving.

  No wonder Kraisch had such an uncertain reputation in the town. Dewar never had trusted the poisoner and doubted the herbalist was much of an improvement.

  "Perhaps I've been too gentle with you," Kraisch was saying. "Perhaps you think a few sharp words and a slap or two are the only rewards that await your silence. Is that it? Well permit me to enlighten you."

  Dewar couldn't see the whole room from his current position so didn't know if there was anyone else close to the counter, out of his line of sight. He decided to risk a quick look. The guard holding Seffy might be facing this way but his vision would be limited beyond the range of the lantern. Lying flat to the ground, the assassin pushed himself out beyond the counter, seeing a single pair of feet before he drew back. One man, three targets in total.

  "On the shelves around you sit a wealth of subtle potions and elixirs," the herbalist continued.

  Dewar slid two throwing knives from their sheaths, placing them carefully on the floor beside him.

  "With them, I can escort you through the most exquisite levels of pain. Each time you think it can't possibly get any worse, it will."

  Two of the three crossbow bolts were placed carefully next to the two knives.

  "I shall pluck each and every nerve in your body, individually and in concert, composing a symphony of torment especially for you, an opus that will build gradually, by the gentlest of degrees, taking days to reach the ultimate, poignant crescendo of death. Of course, you will have been driven quite mad by this point."

  The third bolt he loaded into the still-cocked crossbow.

  "Trust me, long before the end you'll have told me everything you know about anything I might ask and will be begging for the blissful release of eternal rest."

  Dewar stretched out on his stomach, crossbow held before him.

  "And we'll start with a drop of this, your precious zyvan berry juice." The herbalist held out a small bottle, waving it in front of the terrified girl's face.

  Seffy jerked her head away. "All right, all right, I'll tell you everything," she blurted. Not that Dewar could blame her. This wasn't exactly what she'd signed up for.

  "Oh, I know you will," Kraisch assured her.

  In some ways, the man holding Seffy posed the least threat, because he already had his hands full and would take precious seconds to react in any meaningful way. At the same time, he was standing completely still directly in front of the assassin, and might try to use the girl as a shield later. While Dewar had no compunction about killing the girl, why complicate matters?

  The man stood head and shoulders above Seffy, which meant a narrow target, but the possibility of missing never even entered the assassin's mind. There is an art to using a crossbow, or rather a technique that, once learned, prevents you from using the weapon poorly. The knack lies in the ability to combine aiming and shooting in a single smooth process. Were a bowman to concentrate on taking aim first and then think about shooting as separate stages, the minute pause in switching focus from one to the other would invite a jerk of the trigger finger and increase the likelihood of slight tensing of the muscles in anticipation of the shot. Either could mean the difference between success and a near miss. A well-made crossbow was invariably accurate. Its wielder often wasn't.

  Dewar had learnt all this while still an apprentice. He took aim and fired in one seamless flow of thought and action. The bolt punched into the target's forehead between the eyes. The man was thrown backwards, taking Seffy with him. She screamed but Dewar wasn't paying attention. As soon as the bow fired he discarded the weapon and snatched up one of the throwing knives. Half rolling and half pushing himself beyond the counter, he flung the knife. Its blade sank into the throat of the man standing by the counter even as he began to react. Dewar was on his feet in an instant, snatching up the other throwing knife and charging at the startled herbalist.

  He could see Posman's podgy features now, a face that was instantly recognisable for all that it was older and even saggier.

  Dewar saw Posman's eyes widen in recognition. "King…"

  The assassin's knife buried itself to the hilt in the poisoner's chest, and the rest of the hated phrase died with the man.

  Suddenly all was still. A sparse handful of seconds had passed and three men lay dead. Not bad, if he did say so himself.

  "Wow," Seffy said, coming forward. "That was… amazing!" Her face was flushed and she was breathing deeply, the pronounced rise and fall of her chest granting her the suggestion of shape where none had been apparent before. He realised abruptly that the danger, the violence, the close brush with death, perhaps even the threat of torture, had excited and aroused her.

  "He called you 'King'," she said. "Are you some kind of royalty, an exiled prince or something?" Her voice was soft, seductive.

  Dewar said nothing, knowing there was still a job to complete. He bent down to prise the innocent-looking and oh so costly bottle of zyvan berry juice from the dead man's fingers.

  Seffy continued her slow advance towards him, her eyes gazing into his as he straightened up. "You don't really have a medical condition, do you?"

  "No, I don't." He moved away, deliberately turning his back on her as he quickly reclaim his bow and the unused bolts, and finally the rucksack from the other side of the doorway, but she was still there when he turned around. His throat seemed tight and he felt his manhood stir in response to her suddenly very sexual presence. He tried to remember when he'd last been intimate with a woman. Before he'd set out from Thaiburley, certainly.

  "Presumably you've got a place in town where you're staying?"

  "I do."

  "Far from here?"

  "Not in the least."

  "Good, only all this violence has unnerved me." She was no more than a step away now. "I really don't want to spend the night alone."

  "Well, after putting you through such a traumatic experience, it would be rude of me not to make certain you slept well…"

  "Thank you." Her head tilted towards him and they kissed, her lips soft and warm, the tip of her tongue briefly teasing his.

  Dewar broke the embrace and frowned. "But what about this ailing mum of yours?"

  "Oh, I'm sure she'll cope."

  "In that case, if you're certain…" With a mock bow and a flourish of the arm, he ushered her towards the door. As he'd noted when he first saw her, Seffy was far from ugly, and it would be pleasant to scratch this particular itch.

  He could always kill her in the morning.

 
 

 
 
 

Tom knew they were getting closer to the city's core. That sensitivity which the Prime Master had either instilled or brought out in him had become an almost constant throb in his mind, impossible to ignore. If he was aware of the core, he reasoned that the core was probably aware of him, which meant they should expect attack of one kind or another at any minute.

  Not that he felt any satisfaction when his assumption proved to be right; far from it, this was one instance when he'd have been happy to be wrong all the way.

  When it did come, as their company turned a right angled corner, it proved that the stakes had just been raised dramatically.

  Confronting them stood a trio of figures united in their magnificence: Demons. All were male, all were bare-chested – displaying muscular, toned physiques – all had handsome features crowned with blond or light brown hair. They stood before the party with their wings partially opened, looking haughty, regal and glorious. An enigmatic, winning smile graced their lips and their clear eyes held warmth, compassion and grace. It was hard to believe that the Soul Thief was descended from the same stock. These looked far more like gods than Thaiss ever had.

  "Goddess!" Kat murmured. "So
that's
what a real Demon looks like."

  "Yeah," Tom replied. Seeing the Soul Thief was no preparation, no preparation at all. This was the first time even Tom been able to get a good look at a proper Demon. Before, when the Prime Master had taken him up to the city's roof, he'd caught fleeting glimpses in the corner of his eye as the Upper Heights' denizens teased him, but seeing them in their full glory like this was something else entirely. It was all he could do not to abase himself at their feet and pay homage.

  And they glowed.

  A halo of light appeared around each of their heads, a rippling nimbus that swiftly spread to encompass their whole bodies, apparently emanating from somewhere inside them.

  The Blade closed ranks, as if anticipating something dire. They blocked Tom's view of the glowing trio, but they couldn't shut out the light, which must have built rapidly in intensity, so that the Blade were suddenly limned by searing brilliance – a dazzling luminance which punctured every crevice and gap between the black bodies and limbs of the Blade's imperfect barrier. Tom shielded his eyes, but despite himself he continued to watch through the cracks between his fingers, unable to entirely look away.