Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01] - D'Shai (3 page)

 

H
E JUMPED ME
two blocks short of the Widow Rupon’s house.

I hadn’t been paying attention—or rather, I had been paying attention, but not to the right things.

What I had been doing was walking home alone, after. Something I was not unfamiliar with; it comes with the lack of territory, so to speak. I’ve walked home alone, after, many times.

Above me, the night was full of winking stars, a silver crescent of moon high in the sky,- below, the street seemed a bit softer, easier beneath my feet than it had been before.

It was late, well past the hour of the bear and into the hour of the lion, and the streets were quiet and empty, save for the whistling of the wind through the jimsum trees, the clicking of fidgetbugs in the eaves and gutters, and the far-off taroo of a hairy owl. I had passed a cloaked nightwatcher in Ironway, and had returned his. raised hand of greeting, but I hadn’t seen any of the other watchers, which wasn’t surprising. I doubt that there were more than a dozen in the whole town, and they would tend to patrol on the eastern side of the town, downwind, where smells of smoke would be blown toward their nostrils, rather than away.

It was time for all D’Shai, good and bad, to be tucked safely in their beds asleep, and while troupers sleep late—very late, by peasant standards; peasants are up before the hour of the cock—I’d long ago learned that the hour of the hare does not wait for Kami Khuzud to finish with his dreams.

Something whistled through the air behind me.

I turned just in time to catch a glimpse of a stick or maybe a truncheon moving toward me, and ducked aside. He missed with the stick, but the back of his fist caught me high on the cheekbone, shattering the night into light and pain, and then the ground came up and slammed me in the back. The streets in Den Oroshtai are of cobbled stones—one of the larger ones caught me just over the kidney.

He kicked me hard in the ribs a few times, and then in the pit of the stomach. My hands flailing uselessly, vainly, I folded over like a damp towel, so much in pain that I couldn’t even try to move out of the way of the foot that snapped my head back, exposing my neck for a final, fatal blow.

It didn’t fall. I guess he couldn’t just do it; he had to work himself up to it.

I knew that it was Refle who stood over me in the dark, a bulk I could more sense than see. It was him, I knew it was him, but he was dressed in the black hood and cape of an assassin; I couldn’t have even sworn that it was a man, much less Refle.

I tried to gasp out something, but it was all I could do to groan.

He kicked me here and there—I don’t remember the exact order; I was too busy to take extended notes.

I do remember his finale, though: his eyes hidden in the folds of his hood and cape, he didn’t say anything; cleanly, neatly, balanced on one foot with an equilibrium I would have admired in other circumstances, he toed me in the testicles.

I gagged, hunched over on my side, my stomach purging itself, although of what only the Powers knew.

He lifted his foot again, then stopped, his head cocked to one side. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my own quiet groans and the red rush of pain in my head and ears, but I guess he heard something, because he raised a long gloved finger, as though in warning; then, balanced like an acrobat, he neatly spun and stalked off into the night, turning a corner and disappearing.

Footsteps pounded on the stones behind me as I lay there, the taste of sour vomit filling my mouth, cupping myself, trying not to inhale as I retched again.

“Who are you?â€

 

D
UN
L
IDJUN LET
the morning sun wash over his tired bones as he made his way out to the courtyard, Lord Arefai, seventh son of Lord Toshtai, at his side, the four warriors of his immediate guard at his heels, a physician and apothecary—both warriors in theory—tagging along behind them.

The morning sun hit the sides of the granaries just right, the stone shattering the light into rainbow flickers. The stones of the path clicked beneath Dun Lidjun’s sandals, while a crow, its feathers glossy as fine oiled leather, mocked them from the branch of a mute, gnarled oak.

“You should let me do the testing, Dun Lidjun,â€

 

I
WASN’T USED
to being a substitute Eresthai, and it didn’t sit well with me, not even in practice.

I busied myself in the small room on the third floor of the donjon, the one we were using as an entrance and exit for the highwire act, checking the gear inside, and perhaps making an occasional mild comment about how I wasn’t completely happy with the situation.

Father, on the other hand, was supervising, and being every bit as flexible as usual.

“—you
will
be of help, and since you can
not
go on, you
will
be of help setting up, and work backstage along with the Eresthais. We will
not
announce that you are not playing tonight; we shall treat it as though that were part of the act.â€

 

I
T WOULD HAVE
been convenient if the world had gone away for a while, while I lay there, breathless, in pain.