The Telastrian Song (2 page)

The stranger continued to dictate the fight for the next few exchanges. Soren’s fencing prowess was clearly coming back, and the stranger was trying to finish things quickly. If he tarried for too long things would go against him, and he was obviously no fool. He kept coming forward, daring Soren out with feint after feint before firing in lethally accurate thrusts that tested Soren’s unpractised swordplay. Soren struggled to identify the true attacks, to choose which ones to parry or ignore.

Soren began to perspire; defending himself was taking all of his concentration and effort, leaving him with no opportunity to put together a counterattack. When on the receiving end of a constant stream of attacks, it was only a matter of time before one of them found their way through. Soren knew he would have needed more practice to match the stranger’s skill, but without the Fount being strong enough where they were, there were few options left open if he hoped to survive.

He made to parry, but there was nothing there for his blade to meet. The stranger had feinted and quickly disengaged, then followed with a thrust that Soren twisted to try and avoid. The sword cut across his upper arm, a stinging, burning feeling that hammered home just how dangerous the situation was. He had been lucky to avoid being skewered.

The stranger pushed forward, his blade dancing through a mesmerising web of feints and thrusts. Soren needed to time his plan perfectly. There was little acting skill required to feign the pressure that he was under, but the rest would need a measure of the theatrical.

Soren allowed his rapier to be guided to the right, leaving his body open to attack. As he hoped, the stranger lunged for the hole in Soren’s defence. If Soren had not been expecting it, the lunge would have struck true. His blade was too far off to parry, so he dodged backward as soon as he was confident the stranger was lunging. Soren stumbled, scuffing his toe on the ground just enough to lend the mistake credence.

He sank onto one knee and grabbed a handful of dirt with his free hand. He closed his eyes and flung it straight up into the air. The stranger was moving to capitalise on Soren’s feigned mistake, and the dirt hit him in the face. He spluttered and squeezed his eyes shut as Soren rolled to his left, out of the way of the blade. Soren twisted as he rolled and thrust at the stranger, sending a full length of steel through his would-be assassin’s chest.

The man gasped and sank to his knees, still trying to blink the grit from his eyes. Soren stood and pulled his sword free. The man collapsed to the ground and twitched twice before remaining still. Soren looked at the body, disappointed by the way he had won a fight that he had not the skill to win conventionally. He had neglected his swordplay for far too long, something he needed to address. Nevertheless, the stranger had come to kill Soren despite the genial way he had conducted himself, and he had travelled a long way to do it. How he had killed him was not important, only that he had managed to do it.

He thought of Alessandra, and the sick feeling returned to his gut. Had the man been genuine when he said he was not interested in her? The threat of harm to a loved one could drive a man to greater feats than he was capable of, so perhaps the stranger’s guarantee had been nothing more than a ploy.

He jumped back on his cart and urged the horses on. He felt a pervading sense of despair as well as his concern for Alessandra. They had run far, away from everything they knew, and still it seemed that they were not beyond Amero’s reach. He had hoped they were hidden, deep enough into obscurity that the people they had been would never be heard of again. But Amero had managed to get someone to the place Soren hoped they might be safe, and all those hopes were for naught.

T
he journey home was short
, but it was long enough for Soren to ruminate on the fact that he didn’t know his assailant’s name and probably never would. His body wouldn’t last long with all the wild animals prowling the countryside, and Soren wondered if there was anyone wondering when he would be home. It was a sad end, but one that could just as easily have been his.

His horses were lathered in sweat when he reined them to a halt outside his small farmhouse. They snorted at him resentfully as he ran toward the house.

‘Alessandra,’ he called, walking into the house and looking around frantically. There was no sign of her. He called out again.

‘Out here,’ came the reply.

He sighed with relief and went back outside, circling around the veranda of their rough-cut stone home. Alessandra was sitting on the porch looking out over the river valley. They had both fallen in love with the place when they first arrived, and the view still caught Soren’s attention every time he saw it. To the west were snow-capped mountains; far to the east was the sea, but that was well beyond sight. She looked up as he approached and broke into a wide smile. Her face was framed in dark curls, but the expression of joy on it faded when her eyes settled on the rent in his shirt that was now thoroughly stained with blood.

‘What happened?’ she said, her voice raised in alarm. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Soren said. ‘You. Are you all right?’

‘Of course,’ she said, sounding confused. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ She rushed forward and began to pick at the shreds of cloth around his wound. ‘How did this happen?’

There was no point in dressing it up as something that it was not. ‘An assassin.’

Her eyes widened and she took a step back, the colour draining from her face. ‘He’s found us then.’

‘I can’t think of any other explanation.’

‘I’d thought that he’d have given up,’ she said.

‘I’d hoped so too.’

‘Why? Why is he still chasing us?’

‘Me,’ Soren said. ‘He’s just chasing me. The man said he had no interest in you. I don’t know why, but he said there was no money on your head.’

‘Let’s move then. Somewhere else, somewhere farther away. He’ll stop eventually. If he’s given up on me, he’ll give up on you too. There has to be somewhere that he won’t find us until he does.’

Soren shook his head. ‘We said that when we came here. If his assassins can find us here, they’ll follow us anywhere. Amero has all the resources he could ever need. Sending people after me is little more than a game for him now. The more times I get away and the harder I make it, the more interesting it gets for him. I know him—he won’t let me get one over on him. When I escaped from Ostia I did that. As long as I’m alive, he’s going to keep sending assassins. That puts you in danger too. I won’t have that. I can’t have that.’

‘We can be packed and ready to go in an hour. There’s more than enough money left to start over again somewhere else,’ Alessandra said. ‘One more time. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not going to run again. I’m not going to drag you around the world for the rest of our lives.’

‘What do you mean?’ Alessandra’s voice faltered.

‘I’m going to go after him. Finish this. I should have done it a long time ago. Would have. But I hoped that maybe… I don’t know, that maybe he’d just forget about me.’

‘I don’t want you to. I won’t let you,’ she said. ‘We can keep moving. It won’t be so bad.’

Soren shook his head. ‘I’m going to give you a proper home. Somewhere we can be safe and grow old together.’

She smiled, but it was forced. ‘If you go after him, you might not get to grow old.’

‘If he had me tracked all the way here, he’ll do it again, and again. This is the only way.’

She shook her head and Soren could see tears well in her eyes.

‘I’ll be careful, but I have to go. There’s no other way to end it. I’m not going to sit around wondering if he’s gotten bored and given up, or if there’s an assassin waiting for me around the next corner for the rest of my life.’

‘I’m not going to let you go on your own.’

‘Alessandra, it’s me that he wants if what the man said was true. You never did anything that Amero could take insult at and for now it seems he’s forgotten about you. That might not be the case forever, but right now it’s just me.’

‘We’re in all of this together. That doesn’t count some of the time, it counts all of the time,’ Alessandra said.

‘I can move faster on my own, Alessandra. I can’t be looking over my shoulder. I need to know that you’re safe.’

‘You know that I can look after myself.’

Soren nodded. ‘That’s why I’m happy leaving you here on your own. I’ll only be gone a few weeks, a month or two at the most.’

‘I’m not happy about this, Soren.’

‘Me neither,’ Soren said, ‘but I can’t see any other way.’

She clenched her jaw, as she always did when accepting something she didn’t like. ‘When will you leave?’

‘Tomorrow.’

S
oren didn’t sleep well
. With all that had happened he couldn’t relax. He got up to get a glass of water, doing his best not to disturb Alessandra though he knew she was also awake.

Soren filled a glass from the pitcher of water in the kitchen. He could see the first hint of dawn on the horizon as he stared out the window and realised there was no sense in trying to sleep again. He didn’t like the idea of starting out on a long journey without a decent night’s rest but there was nothing for it. There’d be plenty of opportunity to sleep before he arrived in Ostenheim.

He stared at the increasing band of light on the horizon. He wondered if he would have been better off if Amero had never raised him out of the gutter. Would he even be alive if Amero hadn’t? He heard something outside, pulling him from his thoughts. He cocked his head. He would have dismissed it as being the animals in the stable outside, but it came from the wrong direction. He put down his glass as quietly as he could and strained to listen for another sound.

There was nothing, and he chastised himself for being too jumpy. He was so agitated when he got home after his meeting with the assassin that he even put his sword within easy reach under the bed before trying to go to sleep. His mood was understandable, but after everything that he and Alessandra had been through, he ought to be made of sterner stuff. Nonetheless, when they set up home in Sejura it had been with the hope of finally escaping Amero’s reach and at last being able to try to live an ordinary life. Until that day he thought they might have achieved it, and he had allowed himself to grow soft.

There was another noise from outside. Soren heard a sound that could only be a whisper, and was satisfied that his worries were justified. As quietly as he could, he stepped backward toward his bedroom door, his eyes still locked on the window in front of him.

A crash came from his bedroom and Soren spun on his heel to face the sound. There was a dark shape clambering through the bedroom window, having just broken it. Alessandra had not called out, but there was no way she could still be asleep after all the noise. Asleep or not, it wouldn’t take whoever had come in through the window long to notice her unless Soren did something to attract his attention.

‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Who in hells are you?’

The figure stood straight, certainly a man judging by his silhouette. As Soren intended, the man started to walk toward him, hopefully oblivious to Alessandra.

Soren back-tracked to the kitchen counter and scrabbled about behind him, trying to find something that could be used as a weapon, preferably one of the carving knives. As luck would have it, the first thing his hand happened upon was a large, cast iron frying pan. Not ideal, but it would have to do.

As the man stepped through the door arch between the bedroom and the living area, the front door crashed open and another man entered. They both carried short swords. Soren’s frying pan felt very inadequate.

‘What do you want?’ Soren said. He wanted to buy time to allow Alessandra to get away from the house. He only hoped that she would have the sense to flee now that the way was clear to the window.

Neither man answered, and after a nod to each other they both began to move slowly and cautiously toward Soren. The security provided by the counter and wall behind Soren suddenly felt more like a prison, preventing him from moving back to keep distance from his attackers. A faint blue glow appeared around both men, dancing along the outlines of their bodies. Soren bent his knees to get into a balanced position to receive their attack when there was a chink of breaking glass behind him. He felt a sharp stab of pain high in the back of his right shoulder. He stumbled forward one pace from the impact, and the men took this as their opportunity. They both rushed forward, swords raised.

Soren was too disoriented to do anything beyond try to duck out of the way and fend off the men’s attacks with his frying pan, each strike clanging off its blackened metal surface.

The pain in Soren’s shoulder was extraordinary and knocked the wind from his lungs. It hurt even worse when he tried to breathe. His entire arm throbbed. He could feel something sticking there, a crossbow bolt most likely. He forced himself to focus on the Fount, knowing that it would bring relief from the pain if he could push himself further into the Gift. There was a barn full of animals not far away. At that distance it was a difficult source to draw on at the best of times, but the pain was already such that it was difficult to concentrate on anything. He lashed out with the frying pan in an effort to clear the way for him to move so as to put both of the men to the same side of him. It also put him a little closer to the barn.

The first man dodged out of the way and Soren rushed through the gap, grimacing as his muscles and bones moved against the object lodged in his shoulder. Soren immediately turned and launched himself at the other man, smashing the frying pan into his hand and knocking the short sword from it. The man swore and Soren slammed the pan into his head as hard as he could. The man crumpled into a heap on the floor.

The other man charged at Soren, his sword extended. Soren screamed, partly in the hopes of intimidating him and partly from the pain in his shoulder. The entire right side of his body was starting to go numb, save the patch of searing hot pain where he was hit. It was an uncomfortable reminder of the wound he’d received in Shandahar from which he took months to recover.

Despite the greater skill and speed advantage that the Gift—even weak as it now was—gave him, a frying pan was no match for a sword in the hand of a moderately competent opponent. The pan was always where he needed it to be a moment too late. It was too heavy and unwieldy. Just as Soren was beginning to wonder how he could improve his situation, a third man came into the house, reloading his crossbow; struggling to prime the string and watch what was happening at the same time. With only one useful arm, Soren’s options were limited. The bowman was unlikely to miss at this range, and trying to win a sword fight with a frying pan was inviting disaster.

Soren hurled the heavy pan at the swordsman, and by a stroke of luck it struck him square in the face. He staggered backwards and wobbled. With him momentarily stunned, Soren turned his attention to the bowman. He froze when he saw the man raise the bow. There was too much distance between them for Soren to hope to cover it—or was there? He was caught between diving for cover and rushing the bowman, but it was no time for indecision.

He decided to take a chance and lunged forward, his right arm trailing behind him as he moved. He had only taken a single step when he realised it was too far. All he could hope for was that the man would miss, or hit him somewhere that was not vital. He waited for the click of the trigger and the thrum of the bowstring, but all he heard was a gasp.

The bowman’s hand drifted out to his right and he fired the bolt harmlessly into the wall. A length of steel protruded through his chest. It disappeared back in and he dropped to the ground. Alessandra stood there holding Soren’s sword, its blade glistening with the bowman’s blood.

Soren reached forward and took it from her. He turned to the swordsman who was squinting tears and blood from his eyes and ran him through. That done he turned back to Alessandra.

‘Are you all right?’ she said.

Soren didn’t know how to answer, but nodded nonetheless.

She looked at the man he had just killed. ‘Shouldn’t we have questioned them first?’

‘What could they tell us that we don’t already know? That Amero is still trying to kill me and that people know where I am?’

‘You’re wounded,’ she said, when she spotted the bolt sticking out of his shoulder.

He ignored her and went to the destroyed front door and looked out, listening carefully. There was no sound, but he could see three horses tied to a fence a short distance from the house, far enough to be out of earshot. Only then did he relax enough to let the pain of his wound affect him, and he collapsed into Alessandra’s arms.