Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 (17 page)

The girl blushed furiously, looking away. She reached over and ran a hand down the chest of a tasselled eagle, one far from its home on the south savannahs. A bird big enough to consider her a meal. ‘I take care of all my orphans.’

‘Well, my thanks.’

‘What isn’t going the way you expected?’

‘Everything. These small-minded locals! No one seems to want my talents. There’s no room for me. Everything’s taken or spoken for.’

She shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘Of course all the good roosts are taken – that’s why they’re taken. No one’s going to give one away.’

A half-smile pulled at his lips from this bird-logic. But he supposed it was true. He took a mouthful of bread. ‘Well . . . I tried to take one and it went poorly. Now this town’s ruined for me. I’ll have to move on. I think I’ll try Unta. They say the pickings are rich there. At least the wine is better.’

‘What makes you think it’ll be any different there?’

He slowed in his chewing, swallowed hard. ‘I suppose I’ll have to go and find out.’

She said nothing but he saw how tightly her thin pale lips were clenched. He motioned to a nearby brown falcon, its right wing obviously broken. ‘What happens to your orphans after they are healed?’

At first she would not look up, but her lips quirked and she rolled her eyes. ‘They fly away.’

‘Yes, they do.’

‘But not all!’ and she buried her face in the eagle’s chest, wrapping her arms round it. Over her head, it seemed to glare down its beak at him. He was amazed to see her lack of concern for the murderous scimitar-like weapon poised directly above her.

‘I have one last job to do tonight. Money for the journey.’

‘Then you will come to say goodbye?’ she asked from within the downy white chest feathers.

‘Yes.’

‘You swear?’

‘Yes. I swear I will say goodbye before I go.’

She pulled away from the eagle’s breast, wiped her nose on her arm, sniffing. ‘All right, then. Tonight.’

He stood, finished his tea. ‘Thank you.’

‘You could sleep here – I mean, if you wished.’

‘Thank you, but I need to prepare. I will see you later.’ He crossed to the gable.

‘You promise?’ she called, and he nodded as he let himself down.

Alone, Ullara turned to the eagle. She set her hands on her slim hips. The fierceness of her gaze matched the bird’s. She pointed to another, larger, gable opening. ‘Gather them all,’ she told it.

The great eagle raised its beak and let go its shrill hunting call, then spread its wings and swooped through the aperture, disappearing.

*

Dorin washed in a public bath on the river shore, then rested in one of the small rooms he’d rented around the city – rents he could no longer afford to maintain. He drew out his gear and dressed very slowly and deliberately. First went on his lightweight armoured vest, which now bore loops for more than twenty weapons, then a dark padded undershirt and thin dark trousers. He selected twelve matched daggers of various weights and dimensions, and coils of graded weights of wire and cotton rope. Some of these he wrapped round his arms, others round his waist. He pulled on lightweight leather shoes, soled in hemp cord, then wrapped his legs in cloth swathings and leather strapping. Through the leather went half the daggers; the rest he sheathed in his two baldrics. Into tiny pockets hidden about his shirt and trousers and vest went small vials and packets of various chemicals and unguents. Pitch for his fingertips; charcoal for his face; dust that could be blown into a pursuer’s path to sting their eyes, and another that caused uncontrollable coughing.

Throughout, his old master’s scornful impatient voice battered him:
Should’ve stretched first, boy! When’s the last time you practised with those knuckle-blades? You’re right leg’s stiff – took a hit last night, did you? Remember to compensate. Why not the climbing hooks? Too good for them, are we?

He could almost feel the beating of the bamboo switch across his shoulders and back. Of course the strikes had hardly hurt at all, the ancient fellow had been so infirm. It was his pride that was wounded.

Yes, I should’ve stretched, and yes, I shouldn’t go out on two consecutive nights. And yes, I haven’t been practising enough lately
. . .

Resting on his knees, he tested the edge and ease of draw of each weapon. Satisfied, he threw on a loose shapeless overshirt and a hooded cloak, then went to the open window and swung himself up on to the roof. The sun was just setting. Its amber beams still struck the city’s single tall tower, above the central palace. Crouched, Dorin padded off for the section of the Inner Round known as the Street of the Gods.

When he neared the precinct, he took to the narrow back streets. These proved mostly residential, peppered with the occasional temple or shrine to some foreign or lesser known god or spirit. Shops catered to the worship and upkeep of the temples: candle-makers, funerary houses, dealers in rare aromatic woods and spices for incense and embalmment.

After some searching, he found a vantage point on the decorated roof of a temple to the hoary old beast gods. He knelt between the tall stone boar of Fener, god of war and ferocity, and a rough likeness of Togg, the wolf god of winter. Across the way and up a few decrepit buildings lay the plain run-down abandoned mausoleum that everyone in Heng knew held a newly consecrated temple to Hood, the ancient god of death himself.

Its door was open, its threshold dark and empty. Even the street before it lay empty of all traffic. This surprised Dorin, as dusk was a traditional time of worship for acolytes of Hood. Then he had his answer as he spotted a gang of thugs turning away anyone heading in that direction.

Intrigued, he went to the back of the roof, let himself down, and circled round to approach the main street from an alleyway. Here he waited until one such person passed by, when he called from the shadows: ‘Friend! I am come to bow before the Great Hooded One, yet I find myself turned away. What is the meaning of this?’

This fellow halted, gestured back up the way. ‘Hunh. The fools. Criminals feuding with the true servant within. Imagine! Picking a feud with Hood! He will visit them for their irreverence, I tell you.’

Criminals? This is Pung’s territory
. . . ‘Thank you, friend.’ Dorin circled back to his vantage point and settled in for the night to deepen.

Shortly before the mid-night bell, the gang, carrying torches, came up the street and faced the mausoleum. Swords out, four tentatively edged their way forward into the dark opening. A moment later came the sound of blows taken and four bodies rolled out, one after the other, on to the street.

‘Come out, y’damned coward!’ shouted the leader of the gang.

Not bloody likely. Not when you have to go in to get him
.

‘Fine!’ The gang leader gestured curtly and his crew threw objects that crashed on the threshold. After this came torches, and flames flickered to life in the open doorway.

What good is that, Dorin wondered? It’s made of stone. Maybe they mean to smoke him out.

The leader then browbeat more of his gang into charging the doorway. They leaped the dying flames and in the light the defender met them. His blows were clean and efficient. All went down. Two fell in the flames and caught fire, screaming before unconsciousness took them.

All this Dorin watched with care, especially the man’s astonishing speed. But what truly surprised him was the fact that he knew him. The firelight had revealed a slim dark lad with black hair. It was that caravan guard who claimed to have fought Ryllandaras out upon the Seti Plains. Dorin now wondered if perhaps he truly had. In which case, he supposed he’d have to be damned wary of him.

The thugs pulled their fallen fellows out of the remains of the fire and beat out the flames. Their leader cursed and stamped about. More flammables were thrown at the mausoleum, to similar non-effect. Dorin eased himself down to sit them out. They yelled insults, threatened the fellow, cursed him up and down, threw rocks, fired arrows, and finally resorted to heaving garbage into the dark opening.

Silence answered them.
The silence of the grave
, Dorin mouthed to himself, smirking.

Pung’s siege appeared to be proceeding as successfully as that of the Kanese.

Finally, tired and frustrated, the useless street muscle wandered off. Dorin gave it a few minutes longer, then rose up to study the stone door, now soot-blackened. Nothing moved that he could see. Considering that, he drew out a slim packet of greased paper, opened it, and touched a fingertip to the balm within. He dabbed the fingertip to his eyes, blinking at the sting of it. Slowly, the night brightened about him. The effect would linger for about two hours. He moved to the rear and let himself down.

The problem with mausoleums, he reflected, was that they had only one entrance. The dead, it seemed, had no use for windows or back doors. Because of this, he was forced to come sidling up one wall and edge along the front to approach the opening. At least his enhanced night vision showed the threshold empty of any lurking swordsman. Still, the fellow could be waiting just inside, sword raised. Unhappy with the necessity of it, Dorin drew his two heaviest fighting knives. Holding one to parry high and the other low, he slipped round one jamb to hug the wall just inside.

No figure lunged, swinging. He slid along until he reached the inner corner of the main hall. He felt the openings of funerary sconces against his back, each sporting a grinning ancestor. The balm allowed him to see more lining each wall. Of the lad, he detected no hint. At the far end of the hall he could just make out some sort of shrine. Distant pillars there looked to provide the only interior cover. A figure sat slumped up against the shrine – not the swordsman, though: too old and skinny. The priest no doubt. His target.

A quick in and out, then. Dash in, strike, dash out. He silently exchanged one of the knives for his longest and thinnest stabbing dagger. Crouched, he edged forward one careful step at a time, silently cursing the tiny shards of ceramic his foot accidentally brushed, and the tossed debris he had to take such care to step round.

He reached the figure without hearing any betraying noise of movement elsewhere in the mausoleum. The old man’s head hung in sleep. He knelt to thrust the blade straight in through the chest, then paused. His breath left him in a long exhalation of wonder and he let his hand fall.

From behind, a longsword’s blade kissed the side of his neck. ‘You do not strike,’ the lad said.

‘I see there is no need.’

‘You see truly.’

With great care, Dorin sheathed his blades then extended his arms, hands empty. ‘I am done, then.’

The blade held firm, cold, and so sharp Dorin felt it cut his neck with every slight move he made. ‘You are not here for me?’ the lad asked.

‘The priest was my target.’

‘So you claim now.’

‘Were I after you, I would have edged round the sides to flush you out.’

The weapon held for three more heartbeats, then withdrew. ‘True. That is what I would have done.’

Hands still straight out, Dorin very slowly turned to face the lad who held his blade readied between them.

The youth scowled, recognizing him in turn. ‘You. The one who cares nothing for the dead.’

‘The dead care nothing for me.’

‘How would you know?’

‘How would you?’

The blade’s keen point lurched forward a touch, but stilled. ‘You are lucky, little back-stabber, that I have a use for you.’

‘I’ve stabbed no one in the back.’

‘Yet that is what assassins do.’

‘Back-stabbings, betrayals, ambushes and poisonings are many. Some call these assassinations – we do not.’

‘Hunh. A discriminating murderer. You also deal in trivial hairsplitting, I see.’

Dorin looked to the ceiling. ‘Kill me or let me go. But please do not torture me with your chatter.’

The blade was once more at Dorin’s neck, and he blinked.
No one is that fast
.

‘You will return to your pathetic masters and give your report. Perhaps then they will leave us alone.’

Dorin realized that the fellow assumed he worked for Pung. Disgusted, he drew a sharp breath to deny the charge but then clamped his lips against saying anything. Naturally, he was not allowed to betray any confidence regarding his employers. So he merely tipped his head in a stiff nod of agreement.

The fellow smoothly slipped aside to allow him out.

Dorin circled round, keeping his face to the swordsman, and keeping his arms out. He backed towards the entrance. As he retreated he glimpsed a dark bundle of ragged blankets up against one wall, and, from within, the face of a small girl, her dark eyes watching. The child from the caravan.

Surprising, and damned macabre, but what else might this fellow do with . . . what, his sister? Daughter? He returned his attention to the swordsman. ‘You have quite the rich scam here, friend. Good luck with it.’

‘Scam? There are no scams, lies, or deceits when one stands before Hood.’

Dorin slipped outside. Jogging off, he raised his eyes to the night sky once more.
Gods, the fellow actually seems to believe the patter. But then, maybe that’s what really sells it
.

In the darkness of the mausoleum the swordsman eased out of his ready stance, released a hissed calming breath. Too good by half, that one. Hard to let him go.

The rubbish and flakes of ash scattered about the flags stirred then, a wind hissing among the lingering embers, raising a glow. A noise that might have been no more than that wind murmured,
I saw your temptation. Your forbearance is noted, servant
.
That one knows it not, but he serves as well
.

The lad fell to one knee before the slumped figure. ‘As you say, master.’

‘Who are you talking to?’ the child asked.

‘No one. Try to sleep. It is safe now. I promise you.’

*

Dorin reached the appointed rooftop after the mid-night bell but paced there anyway, hoping his employers would not care too much for punctuality. After waiting two bells his patience was rewarded by the brushing of cloth from one side of the flat expanse, and the fop straightened up. The fellow adjusted his shirt and trousers.