I Know Not (The Story of Fox Crow) (9 page)

      Even then you must be prepared to leap to your feet, ignoring the protesting of muscles that have been crawling, you must leap forward, even as the ice weighted cloak pulls at your throat, you must bat his panicked hand away as he instinctively raises his spear. Even with all the darkness and sleet and pain and confusion you must bury your knife in his throat to cut his cry in half before it can gain more than a second’s worth of volume. You must do it, and do it quickly, but your job is not over.

      Knifing a man just below the throat apple is certainly fatal. It’s just not quick. Until he finally dies from suffocating on his own blood he’s going to be fighting unless he’s lost his mind from fear, and then he’ll still be thrashing uselessly. If you were a particularly cold hearted rogue, you might rip his cloak from him and knock off his helmet. A really nasty customer would lever him over the wall, perhaps killing him with the fall, but definitely muffling the sounds of his gurgling fits as he bled to death in the cold and dark outside. But you’d have to be a special kind of bastard to relieve him of his dagger as you did it.

      His body hit the hard packed ice as if it was stone, and the muffled crunch barely broke the silence. I flung the guard’s cloak over my own, popped the helmet on my head, and sniffed as I tested the edge of his dagger with a thumb.

      Then, heart pounding, I retraced the soldier’s four fatal steps back into the ring of light as if nothing at all had happened. I glanced back and forth, but it was too far to see faces, too far to do much more than read body language, and the if any of the other guards were interested in me, they hid it well. I moved the lantern to a hook closer to the outside of the wall and set the shutters to project the light fully outwards. Then I moved out into the darkness, ditched the helmet and cloak (minus a thick strip) out over the wall and began creeping to the next island of light.

      Fourteen more to go
.

      Out across the grounds there was a stable, and three barracks. One was where the carriage party now waited. One of the others contained the grunts. The last would doubtlessly have O’Conner and maybe a lieutenant or assistant.
Which was which
? That was a problem for later.

      Stupid soldiers brag that they can sleep standing up. They just borrow two or more cloaks, bury themselves deeply into the folds, lean on a spear, and doze. I bet it makes getting up for inspection much easier.
If you wake up
.

      Yes, I still crept up on my stomach. Yes, I moved like a star stuck in the heavens. Yes, I only took short breaths, through a muffler made from a torn strip of cloak to diffuse vapor from my lungs. From the Fog, chilly words whispered in my ear,
The moment you cut a corner, it will leave an edge sharp enough to slit your throat.
I shuddered. The unfamiliar voice was colder than all the winters throughout time.

      It was almost anticlimactic when I checked that the other two men on watch were faced away, then slapped my hand over his mouth and rammed the thick, dull blade of my stolen dagger deep into the base of his skull.

      The blade ground against bone as it went in, and then thumped home against the front of his head. I lowered the body and flipped the shutters on the lantern to cast him in shadow. I left the dagger where it was, since brains have a powerful stink, and replaced it with one from his belt. He also had a sword, which I left as too cumbersome for stealthy work, but I did undo his belt. It was heavy duty leather strap that could be looped though the metal ring at the end and it was made to hold a sword steady while the soldier was running. It had a thousand uses, so I wound it around my forearm.

      The next man turned his head at just the wrong moment, so instead of cold steel into the base of his brain, it skittered off his skull. He screamed once, before I shoved the dagger into his eye. It barely paused as it broke through the thin bone behind the gelatin orb and entered his brain, but he didn’t stop fighting until I twisted it once. I heard a cry, looked up, and saw the guard thirty paces away on the last wall running along the crude parapet.

      I took a chance, and left the dagger to plug the hole in the corpses’ skull and dumped him into the parade grounds. I faded back under cover of the white cloak, flat against the ivory ice as I unwrapped the belt from my forearm. The soldier’s boots thumped against the frozen carpet as he flew through the pool of light thrown by the lantern. He blinked, slightly dazzled as his eyes flew straight over me. He finally glanced over the edge of the parapet at the dark corpse of his comrade highlighted on the snow below.

      The quick look became long as he leaned out at the body spread eagle on the ice sheet. His lips quirked up in a smile for a heartbeat as his mind worked out the chances that the guard had gotten sleepy and simply slipped off of the edge. About the time his eyes adjusted so that he could see the halo of blood staining the snow and the dagger protruding from his eye, a thick leather belt looped over his head. He jerked back, dropping his spear and clutching at his sword when I went right past him over the edge.

      It was only two man–heights to the ground, hardly dangerous at all. I landed easily, absorbing the shock with my legs, fate and chance kindly bypassing the opportunity to twist my ankle or break my shin. My next victim, however was pulled by his neck, and he absorbed the shock of the fall with his face. There was a sound like the first bite of a crisp apple, and then his head flopped bonelessly.

      Eleven
. I had murdered well, and my reward was a little bit of time. I stripped off Gelia’s cloak, and took the cloak, mail, sword, shield and helmet from the broken–necked soldier.
Advantages of a bloodless kill
.

      Something inside the Fog sneered at the loud, snickering mail as I pulled it on, but older, wiser memories nodded sagely. The Fog parted for a moment, and a man built like a razor blade, with a face ravaged by pox leaned to me over a forgotten fire.
Not all stealth is quiet. The ears hear danger in the unfamiliar, boy. If an ear is used to a creaking mill, no creaking will disturb the sleeper. If a delicate lady is used to hearing boots tromp past her door every hour, boots are a sound of comfort. Stealth is about learning to blend in, to be the color of the world around you, about making the sounds of safety and you will…

      The memory faded into a shadow with no beginning and no end.

      I walked calmly, slowly, like a man almost rendered witless by monotony. I made it to the stables, and opened the gates. It was abandoned except for Aelia’s chargers, her carriage, a pair of unremarkable workhorses, a wagon piled with military supplies, and O’Conner’s horse. I quickly found two wood axes, three large jugs of lamp oil, and the pegs from Aelia’s pavilion. I exited the stables, walked the walls to collect the lanterns, and made for the barracks.

      Of the three buildings, Aelia’s let out only a trickle of smoke out of the top. The second on the opposite wall vented a great deal of smoke, but the one in the center looked like a volcano. I was willing to bet that the center, the most protected, the seat of power, was where O’Conner was staying. It had probably been inhabited quite recently by a general, and that most of all would appeal to him. So, I headed to the western barracks building, carefully set down my burdens outside, and took out twelve wooden pegs.

      Then I walked in like I owned the place.

      Inside, everything was as expected. My thick boots and jingling mail blended in with the sound of men snoring loudly on too-thin military palates and under too-few military blankets, snide voice inside quoting sagely,
The reason the military want you to be able to sleep under the worst conditions is they expect you to
. In the center the fire pit burned low. My eyes swept over the men, marking half the beds filled; ten men total. I walked right through the center of them, right to the door on the other side. I stopped by a small wooden box in the corner and flipped open the lid. As expected, there were handfuls of twigs, shaved wood: tinder of all types.

      A voice came from the blankets to my left, “Whatyoudoin’?”

      I coughed twice and pitched my voice low and gravelly like a man with a cold, “Lamp’s out.”

      But the blankets were already snoring again.

      I made a basket of the stolen cloak and filled it with all the tinder. Hands sweaty, heart racing, I exited the barracks quickly, to hold in the heat, keep them comfortable. Outside, I began sticking the wooden stakes into the cracks at the edge of the door. I could not risk hammering them in, so instead I gripped the edges and pushed as hard as I could. Desperate men have desperate strength, so I used many more than were probably necessary. Then I went to the bundle and carried most of it, with the lanterns and shield, to the roof, leaving only the two wood axes and four stakes behind. Once I was back to the ground. I picked up the first axe, set a stake in the door jam, turned the axe around, then quickly and gently hammered the stake home. I got the second one done. At the start of the third, an irritated voice whipped through the wood. “What the hell is that banging!”

      With one stoke I drove the third one home, then followed with the fourth.

      “Thomorgon take you and Amsar judge you himself! If you don’t stop that I’m going to come out there an’ arrange it personally!” I reversed the axe again, drew back, and planted it with both hands, clefting the lintel and door and wedging them together. A body slammed against the door. It held. “What the hell?”

      I ran to the other side. I drove the pegs on that side, the very first just as a body slammed into the door. As they pounded on the door, I finished the others off and planted the second axe.

      An argument started inside the barracks as I ran to the roof. Bodies began shouldering into the spiked door as I carefully edged out onto the ice and threw the bundle of tinder down onto the fire. It flared menacingly and shouts turned into yells and less manly sounds. Next, I ripped the tops off of three of the lanterns. I dumped them unceremoniously down the hole onto the fire, which flared higher. I heard someone trying to beat the fires out with a blanket, so I began dumping the jugs in next, eliciting screams from everyone inside. Bodies threw themselves even harder against the doors. The light and noises from inside the building brought to mind a pit of hell even before I slammed a dead soldier’s shield down over the flue and staked it in place with a dagger.

      Remember this; while all people talk about is the bright murder of the fire, it is the creeping black smoke that is the real assassin.

      I grabbed the last lantern and carefully slid from the roof. One of the doors of the center barracks slammed open, exposing a half dressed O’Conner to the wicked winter’s teeth. He spun in a circle, confused as he hefted the Phantom Angel as a shield against his fears of attack.

      “What is this? Barbarians?” Behind me the blackness of death coughed and seeped from holes in the building, but no ruddy glow yet, so when I threw open the lantern shutters facing O’Conner, he squinted in pain.

      When in doubt, soldiers shout, so I did, “The barracks are on fire, sir!”

      Galvanized into action, O’Conner brushed past me shouting orders, “Assemble the men! Start a bucket line! Use your helmets if you have… to…?”

      The blade had not been especially sharp. Pity, because it seemed to have torn as much as it cut. Still, the overall effect was the same as O’Conner’s intestines spilled onto the ice. He staggered and reached for me. I put out my hand, but only snatched the Angel from his grasp as he tumbled, half dressed, to the funeral slab the sky had provided him.

      I discarded the dead soldier’s sword and marveled at the perfect edge, the excellent balance, and wondrous grace of the Angel.
How many have owned it? How many have been killed to possess it? One more, to be certain
. I flipped it high into the air, watching it spin as it tumbled end over end. The handle smacked into my hand as if placed there by a God. Then the smell of bowel hit me again and ruined the moment.

      O’Conner was shaking violently, though from cold, pain, or blood loss I did not know and guessed it didn’t matter. I settled onto my haunches next to him, grabbed his chin cruelly in my hand, and forced him to face me. I tipped the helmet off of my head and saw recognition flitter behind his eyes. His mouth worked uselessly but I saved him the trouble, “Captain O’Conner, I have come to tell you that you were right: I am once more sullying the memory of your noble lineage by speaking to you, and now one of us is going to die.”