The Misbegotten (An Assassin's Blade Book 1) (16 page)

R
esting
my weary bones in a Glannondil tent within a Glannondil war camp — now that was a scenario I’d quicker believe to be an inhumane method of inflicting the greatest pain possible than a reality that I gladly accepted.

Globules of morning dew clung to the tips of brown grass I trudged through. The rays of the mango-colored sun sledded down from the barbed peaks of the Twin Mountains, flattening across the expanse of a pitted landscape that stretched for fifty miles or so, where the crushed rocks, dirty clay and choppy hills eventually mellowed into something less virulent in appearance. Although the brown grass that resulted wasn’t particularly eye-pleasing.

I ducked into a small tent and nodded to Nilly Rabthorn. She did not look at me. She was sitting at her daughter’s bedside, wrinkled hand tightly grasping the young girl’s. Her eyes were withdrawn into dark, swollen sockets.

What can you possibly say to a woman whose daughter saved your life and in the process almost killed herself? What can you say to a woman who wasn’t quite all there anymore? Probably the best course of action was to say nothing and wait to be spoken to.

Nilly never looked up, but she eventually spoke. “The savant says she’ll make it. But… I wonder if she’ll have her mind. Or if she’ll be a husk. Like me.” She brushed a mollifying hand over her daughter’s head. “If Braddock had not found her… I’m sorry, but I can’t help to think that your mind was not worth saving. Not for this.”

“If I were in your position,” I said, “I would probably agree with you. Tell Lysa when she wakes up that I am thankful.”

Nilly fell silent again, and figuring our talk had been exhausted, I left her to mourn.

Outside, Glannondil soldiers prepped for the long trek to… where exactly were they going? I headed to Braddock’s tent. Before popping my head inside, I announced my arrival, eager to avoid a scandalous situation in which the fat king was changing out of his trousers. I was not eager to wreck my mind so soon after regaining control over it.

“Yeah?” Braddock hollered in response. “Well, get your ass in here, then.”

Inside the tent, the king of Erior had his elbows on a table and his face sitting on his fists. He was looking at a map covered in rocks. A man who looked like he had a sword shoved up his ass flanked him.

Vayle sat comfortably in a chair off to the side.

“What are you planning to do?” I asked. “Attack them with rocks?”

“He lost his
war-planning pieces,” Vayle said. “So now we plan with rocks. Fascinating.”

The man behind Braddock lifted his chin smugly. An outrageous mustache curled thinly beneath his nose, curved around his tiny mouth and shot straight out to his jaw. Sometimes you know precisely how a man will talk and act based on what’s growing from his face.

“This is a war council,” he said. “Respect the proceedings.”

“We’re not in Erior, Rommel,” Braddock reminded him. “Drop the act.”

I went over to the table. “If you keep this charm up,” I told Braddock, “I might start to like you. Please don’t make me do that. By the way, thanks for, er — you know. That whole getting-my-mind-back business.”

Braddock side-eyed me, gave a curt nod and then went back to his map. He tapped a rock with a nail that desperately needed trimming. “The gray ones are the Glannondils. The black ones — well, the darker ones — are the conjurers. These rocks with the white chalk are the Verdans. The vertical rocks are the Taths, and the pebbles here are the Danisers.”

“This looks ridiculous,” I said. “And I’m not talking about your collection of rocks. Why are your people hugging the west coast?”

Vayle rose from her chair. I hadn’t noticed how hungover she looked until she held her stomach and dry-heaved. Regathering herself, she said, “It’s the seventh alternate strategy. There are more to come.”

Braddock backed away from the table in disgust, flinging his hands behind his head and sighing deeply. “We’re goddamned blind. Blind fucking soldiers marching to war in a headlong fog.” He picked something off the small table beside his bed and tossed it at my feet. “I assume this map you gave me is false.”

I picked it up and gave it a look over. “I’d guess so. I remember very little about my mind being wrested from my control, other than it was an unpleasant experience. It’s unlikely the queen of the conjurers gives me her actual plans for war. What if they were to fall into the wrong hands?”

“The queen of the conjurers?” Braddock asked, sounding concerned. “You met the bitch behind this movement?”

I shrugged. “Met her? We’re practically best friends.”

Suspecting everyone in the tent was now eating out of my hand, I channeled the power of an old storytelling grandfather and divulged everything I knew about the conjurers and the blighted land on which they lived. About their oh-feel-so-sorry-for-me story of how their lands were empty of game and how the rivers were drying.

“Fuck up your world and go take someone else’s,” Braddock said. “Is that how it is? Why did they send you back? To lead me on a wild chase so they could conquer the other four families without my involvement?”

“To kill you,” I said bluntly. “That much I remember.”

Braddock crossed his arms.

“Don’t be so offended,” I said. “It wasn’t my idea. Now, back to this war. We still have Lysa’s word that the conjurers intended to come through Vereumene and Edenvaile. Or would at least ignite the war from those two kingdoms. That’s what we should plan for.”

“That plan’s as old as my grandad’s piss,” Braddock said. “I’ve talked to Lysa. That was the conjurers’ intention when they were set on her being the catalyst for this bloody war. They moved on from that a long time ago, when they tried fucking with me.”

I grabbed a rock from the map, tossed it mindlessly into the air and caught it. “Then let’s force them back to that plan of action. Look, their entire scheme is predicated on a massive war between the great families. If we can pacify Chachant’s bloodthirst for you, we pacify the entire North and the East. That won’t stop the conjurers from attacking Mizridahl — they depend on our world for their survival — but it forces their hand. They’ll try to take both the North and South. The North because it’s always a hair’s width away from shattering into chaos, and the South because it’s already in ruin. Take your men south, and—”

Rommel spoke up. “Vereumene is deserted. There are scores of factions appearing across the South with every report our scouts send, and Kane Calbid’s claim for the throne isn’t helping matters. It would be an impossible land to defend.”

“Kane Calbid,” Vayle said. “Recruit him.”

“The only way he helps,” I said, “is if Braddock promises not to interfere with his claim.”

Braddock made the pouty face of a child who was just refused his third cake of the day. “I’m not enthused with the idea. Kane Calbid is a reactive man. It would be better to back the claim of someone who is calm. Level-headed.”

“Someone whose strings you can pull?” I asserted.

He glared me.

“We don’t have the luxury to choose,” Vayle said, diffusing the situation. “If Kane provides his men, he and Braddock can hold the South.”

“And the North?” Rommel inquired.

Vayle walked around to the front of the map. “The North,” she said, picking up several rocks and placing them on Edenvaile, “is held by Dercy, Edmund and Chachant.”

“Big assumption,” Braddock said, “that the three can rally their bannermen to fight a war against things most believe don’t exist anymore. We have little evidence to prove they do.”

“Then let us do the job for them,” Vayle said. “Perhaps their bannermen won’t risk a war for something they cannot see. But they will for greater power. They will for a promise of a new title. They will for a promise of greater wealth. If that means removing the head on which a crown sits and shifting the seats of power around, then so be it. That’s what we do.”

Braddock paced. “Assassinating Dercy, Edmund and Chachant would be—”

“Brilliant,” I put in. “If you can put aside your petty morals.”

“It would be madness!” Rommel said, beside himself. “You could have five, ten… twenty claims for the throne all at once! It would be utter madness.”

“Easier to clean up that mess,” I said, “than it would be to clean up our corpses after the conjurers sweep through. And in case you’re not aware, it’s quite impossible to clean up your own corpse.”

“What of the West and East?” Braddock said. “I’ll be damned if they take Erior from me.”

“They won’t want to,” I said. “They need bodies. The East doesn’t have many families who don’t swear allegiance to you and who haven’t already provided you with their battlements. The West is a little sketchier, but if they move in from Watchmen’s Bay or Eaglesclaw, they’d run headlong into either you and Kane or Chachant, Dercy and Edmund. Or whoever we replace them with.”

Braddock poured a pail of water into a hollowed-out gourd. “It’s better than any damn plan I’ve come up with so far.”

Rommel’s lips moved, but there were no words. A good boy knows when his advice is no longer wanted.

“I’ll deal with Kane Calbid,” Braddock said, sipping his water. “I only have a contingent of the Red Sentinels here. The rest of them, along with my bannermen, are awaiting orders. I’ll send for them right away.”

“Send Lysa Rabthorn back to Erior too,” I said, “where she’ll be safe. She shouldn’t be out here.”

“Already had it in mind,” Braddock said.

I turned to Vayle. “How many Rots do we have?”

“Fifty-some.”

“Let’s split them. Half go to Golden Coast, half to Hoarvous. They get to the highlords and promise them whatever they have to. You and me, we’re taking the North.”

Braddock pinched a sputtering candle. “By yourselves? This isn’t a job where you assassinate some goatherd. You need to pull the entirety of the North together.”

“I know just the man for that job,” I said. Letting Braddock hunger for the answer for moment, I then added, “Patrick Verdan.”

T
he armor wasn’t
my own, but it was satisfactory. One can’t hope for more than that when dealing with Glannondils.

I put on a mail shirt, a leather jerkin, leather chaps and, as one might guess, leather boots. I was a man of variety if nothing else.

I stuffed some heavy wools into a burlap sack in preparation for the abuse the northern weather would dole out, double-checked my hips for swords and my ankles for daggers. Thankfully the weapons were of ebon. On a less blissful note, they had belonged to my Rots, who had been taken from Vereumene and murdered in Amielle’s arena.

I strolled out into the camp, where tents were now coming down and horses and mules were being fitted for the short journey to Kane Calbid.

One steed in particular looked at me with hopelessness in its chestnut eyes. I patted its head and leaned in for a whisper. “Don’t worry, old boy. I hear they’re more fans of sheep than horses. But by the gods, if one sneaks up behind you and drops his trousers, you kick him hard and true.”

The horse snorted, which I took for a hearty laugh.

Near the edge of the camp was a wide circle of tents that appeared removed from the rest, as if they had been ostracized for perceived faults.

“Look there!” said Wevel Pilfast, a Rot who I personally trained eleven years ago. “A man so foul not even Death wanted him!”

The small mob of darkly dressed and oily-haired Rots bellowed with laughter.

I smiled. “I hear you delicate little flowers were so scared when those flaming birds came through, you pissed yourselves while running away.”

“Too fucking busy running to worry about pissing,” Elima said.

I kicked some ash that had escaped a fire pit. “I hear that,” I said, looking at my feet. “Commander Vayle catch all of you up on the plan?”

“Aye,” Wevel said, “I’m leadin’ the crawl through the Golden Coast, and Evandra’s taking the others through Hoarvous.”

I nodded at my feet. “Good. That’s… that’s good.” I rubbed my hands together and tried get the courage to look at their faces while I spoke. But I guess I was too much of a coward. “Look, what happened in Vereumene… the Rots there who were taken. They, uh—” I began talking wildly with my hands, as if the words spiraled around me and I had to snag them from the air.

“We figured they were dead,” Elima said. “Figured you were too. It’s what we signed up for, Shepherd. We know the risks.”

My tongue stabbed my cheek in frustration. I lifted my head and shook it silently. Then, I said, “You’re wrong. You signed up for freedom. You all joined the Black Rot to experience life in its purest form: free and unrestricted. Maybe some of you have personal reasons as well, like Commander Vayle and her pursuit of justice. But above all, you wanted freedom. Freedom that you cannot find inside walls. Freedom that kings and lords withhold from you.”

I licked my lips and continued on. “The most I’ve asked of any of you was that you do not kill kings and you do not kill children, and on occasion I’d request your company to cut down some lord who thought it wise to threaten our family. And perhaps a small amount of your coin went into the vault as tax. But otherwise you were free. Free to take whatever job came your way. Free to spend your gold as you liked, drink to your fill, fuck till you couldn’t stand anymore. I’m sorry I have stolen that freedom from you here today. I’m sorry I stole that freedom from your fellow Rots who died in another land, far away from here.”

“Oi, fuuuuck that,” bellowed a Rot. “You didn’t steal nothin’ from us, Shepherd. We followed you willingly. Still do. We’ll follow you till that bastard Death tells us we can’t follow you no more.”

“We trust you, Astul,” another put in. “We were all gettin’ too used to petty assassinations anyways. Now we’re on the world stage.”

“That’s right! We fucked villages and even little kingdoms before, but never did fuck the world.”

“Hear, hear. We get to fuck the world, boys.”

“Right up the arse!”

Evandra cocked her head. “Why’s it always the ass with you, Baurel?”

“Bet you it’s protectionism,” Wevel said.

“Protectionism?”